Re: not sure if this is worth a sigh or not.

That's a shame, Peter. I really liked your perspective as one who is both
Christian and a film-lover. Lacking your presence at CT Movies, I no longer
go there. It's not the same.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*


On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Peter T. Chattaway <
petert-LOVM4QxV+tDq6eQxt3vRmLDks+cytr/[email protected]> wrote:

> Remember how the Christian newspaper I'd been writing for since the late
> '80s (though only consistently since the summer of '92) was shut down a few
> months ago?  And how, with that shutdown, I lost the one steady gig that
> I've been able to fit into my stay-at-home-parent schedule?
>
> At the time, a number of the people on that paper's staff were hired by one
> of that paper's former publishers to start a brand-new monthly paper -- but
> instead of focusing on news and current events, it's more like a glorified
> advertising supplement, with peppy columns by local pastors and the like.
>  (They're calling it a "lifestyle magazine", but it's still printed on
> newsprint, so I still think of it as a paper.)
>
> No one ever asked me about writing on film for the new paper, though, and I
> have to say it didn't bother me too much.  The new paper's website said (and
> still says; it hasn't been updated since they actually started putting
> issues out) that the paper would feature "current Christian book, music and
> movie releases", and if their focus was going to be on "Christian movies"
> rather than movies, period, I wasn't interested.
>
> (As it happens, the original newspaper had two music columnists -- one of
> whom, a guy who had some success as a local CCM performer 20 years ago,
> focused on CCM; the other of whom, a guy who has a *huge* music collection
> and has performed with lots of well-known secular musicians over the years,
> focused on "real" music.  And guess what?  The CCM guy writes for the new
> paper and the other guy does not.  Oh, and the CCM guy isn't a very good
> writer; I say this as one who had to edit some of his stories way back when.
>  But I was told they kept giving him reviews to write because he was
> available and the readers wanted coverage of CCM, so...)
>
> So.  Anyway.  Three issues of the new paper have been released now.  And
> each one has featured a very different kind of movie coverage.
>
> The first issue featured an interview with a documentary filmmaker -- an
> interview that just happened to be conducted by the *producer* of his latest
> film (not that the paper gave any hint of this).  I actually didn't realize
> at first that the writer of the article was also the film's producer;
> however, I *did* recognize her name because (a) she interviewed me for one
> of her own documentaries several years ago, and (b) she has written dozens
> of press releases for a local Christian university over the years, and, back
> when I used to edit the old paper's website, I kept telling my co-workers
> that, as good as her writing was, we really shouldn't be running press
> releases as if they were news stories.  So, when I saw *this* article, I did
> a quick Google to see if it had originally been written as one of that
> university's press releases ... and instead, I found an "alumni" page noting
> that she, an alumnus of this university, had actually *produced* this film.
>  So, there's that.
>
> The second issue was a bit more dispiriting, because this one featured
> something resembling an actual review -- but an amateurishly-written one, by
> a local pastor, of True Grit, a film that had come out nearly four months
> earlier.  (And when I say "amateurishly-written", I mean it's the kind of
> piece in which someone wastes words saying "I turned to my friend in the
> theatre and said, 'Hey, do you know what music they're playing?'" It
> reminded me of the stuff I used to edit in my student-paper days.)
>
> Even worse, the True Grit article was paired with another article, by the
> same pastor, on "why" Christians should see and/or review movies.  It seemed
> to imply that they were starting a regular feature with this guy -- but the
> kind of feature in which talk of films gives the pastor an excuse to quote
> whatever Bible verses the movie reminded him of.  I was never interested in
> writing *those* kinds of articles, so if that's what this new "lifestyles
> magazine" was looking for, then it's just as well that they never asked me
> to write for them.  But still.  Kinda irksome.
>
> And now, as of a week ago, the third issue is out.  And this time they're
> running a story off the wire (the Religion News Service wire, to be precise)
> about Soul Surfer, a movie that came out over a month ago and had already
> received a fair bit of pre-release buzz in other venues.
>
> So, make of that what you will.
>
> Certainly the focus of the reviews so far seems to be on films that the
> reader might find "affirmative".  I highly doubt they'll ever run anything
> like, say, the review of Inglourious Basterds that I wrote where I wrestled
> with the place of violence in the Judeo-Christian tradition. And it remains
> to be seen whether they will ever cover foreign or indie films that aren't
> produced by local press-release writers.
>
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