There’s just 1 week until the LDS Film Festival. I love to go. Once again, there are too many films I would like to see, and not enough time off work. To see the full schedule with descriptions, click here. Here are the top 6 movies that sound interesting to me, in order of schedule. I won’t be able to see them all.
Friday, Jan 28:SATURDAY, JANUARY 29
#5 at 10:30 am | Alex Boye: Backstage Pass| the life story of British singer Alex Boye. Once a European pop star … his conversion to the LDS Church, the power of music, and the path that led him to being one of the most dynamic and influential members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
#6 – at 7:00 pm | Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates| I like Director Christian Vuissa and think this will be worth watching.
Wheat & Tares 
does this mean that nobody likes mormon movies? is mormon cinema dead like richard dutcher says?
It looks like there are a number of great movies in this, including the ones you highlighted. I’ve never been too into LDS movies per se. A few reasons:
1) Hollywood conditioning: Hollywood has conditioned us into the mega-budget blockbuster. Some of my favorite films are low budget, however, but there needs to be a really compelling story. Most LDS films tend to be lower budget. I would see one if it happened to be a great film by an LDS person, but not JUST because it is made by an LDS person.
2) Contemporary vs historical: If a story is about a struggle that someone overcomes, that can be appealing. In that case, the fact that they are LDS might be somewhat peripheral so is it really an “LDS” movie?
But for historical films, I like accuracy and letting me sort things out in my head. I like much of Oliver Stone, for example, but he comes at it with an agenda. Similarly, I would bet that the movie about Joseph Smith is going to gloss over some of the more “difficult” parts of his story, and just highlight the “faith-promoting” things. That just doesn’t appeal to me.
3) Suspension of disbelief: Movies, by definition, manipulate our emotions. Lighting, dialog, music, etc. are all used to create an emotion. When this is done for the sake of a story, it’s fine.
However, I really don’t like doing the same thing to manipulate people from a religious standpoint. The Church’s media arm, Bonneville Communications, does this in their productions. They even have a name for it: HeartSell, and offer to perform the same emotional manipulations for other companies.
Here is just a quote from that link:
When we tell people that the “emotions” they are feeling is confirmation from God of religious truths, yet specifically try to manipulate those emotions, I don’t like it.
Mike:
Understatement of the year? I had no idea (though I’m not that surprised) that there’s a specific brand and program aimed at “evoking first feeling, then thought and, finally, action.”
MH:
I think the last Mormon film I saw was Battlestar Galactica, and only a sy fy fan would understand why it’s Mormon. So, since I don’t know much about Mormon biographies, and know the BofM stuff pretty wekk, any recommendations?
FireTag, a few years ago, I saw Emma Smith:My Story at the LDS Film Festival. It was fantastic. I did a review. My only mild criticism from a historical point of view was the fact that they mildly touched on the polygamy issue. In the movie, Emma said she hated it, but that was the only real reference.
There was some cool other information about the “Curse of Eve”, which isn’t really talked about today. They did take a few dramatic liberties. For example, Emma asked Joseph for a blessing and he told her to write it down, and he would sign it. In the movie, it was portrayed as a face-to-face request. In reality, Joseph was in jail. As a general rule, it was quite historical, excepting for a few pieces of dramatic license.
An audience member asked why they didn’t touch on her affiliation with the RLDS church. The producer said that would take another 2 hours to document. If they got enough money from this movie, he said they would try to tell that story as well.
There have been other good films that I’ve seen in past years. One discussed the Trolley Square shootings (called “Shots Fired”). It was actually geared towards training police officers, but the film was good. Another film discussed the prescription drug problem in Utah (called “Happy Valley.”) Not all films deal with religious subject matter–they may have been made by Mormon filmmakers. But there are some good films. The writer of Napolean Dynamite wrote a pretty funny film about Bigfoot.
MH:
That’s the hard part about doing Mormon historical movies. Polygamy was obviously a huge part of Emma’s life. It defined her role with her husband. And if not for polygamy and JS’s attempts to destroy the press exposing it, he may not have been killed and might have lived a lot longer.
But, if don’t focus on it, you are in danger of “whitewashing” unsavory things. If you focus on it, you are in danger of “having an axe to grind”. It’s a very fine line to tread.
“Mildly” is quite an understatement. This movie is actually one of the movies our kids sit down and watch, on occasion, on Sundays and there’s simply very little dialogue about the whole polygamy issue.
Overall, I quite like the movie.
As to the rest, I’m in the camp that we need to stop promoting or producing movies like Life Lessons from Fathers of Faith. Not that the genre is inherently evil (though it might be), but because I think it’s this line of thinking that is creating divisions in the church. There are the uppercrust members (who were referred to as “Holy” and “Sacred” yesterday in our Ward conference) – those who serve in leadership positions, who are prominent and well known and those who are financially quite well off, and there are the commoners (referred to as the “Shetland” ponies in our Ward conference).
People might not intend for such distinctions, but the more we put out movies about these people, the more we create an atmosphere of holy, sacred individuals and then the common folk. It all contributes to the hero/leader worship meme which seems a bit too ubiquitous these days.
I understand the problems people have with the near exclusion of polygamy from the Emma movie. However, this idea that Emma could write her own blessing, or the talk of the Curse of Eve isn’t exactly orthodox material. They also go into pretty good detail about Emma eloping with Joseph, and how her father was pretty unhappy with her. I think there were quite a few interesting, un-whitewashed stories in this movie that many would find refreshing.
As for the LDS film festival, I suppose my interests are slanted toward historical, or overt Mormon movies. In past years, the prescription drug problem and Trolley Square shooting movie were excellent, without whitewashing. The Bigfoot movie was simply written by a Mormon, having nothing to do with Mormons (and it was pretty funny.) So there is a bit of variety at these festivals, despite my myopic interests.
I, too, loved the part of the Emma story about writing her own blessing. I don’t remember the part about the Curse of Eve – do you happen to remember what part of the movie it’s in?
It’s not that I don’t mind that polygamy was excluded in it, just that it was one of the seemingly seminal moments in Emma’s life. Overall, though, I still like watching it.
To be fair, I’m just not that aware of the LDS Film Festival or the movies that play there. Is there anywhere to see any of the older movies (either streaming, download, purchase, etc)?
You can purchase the “shorts” from previous years at the Festival, but the “real” movies generally have to be purchased through the distributor. I did find the following film festival movies at http://mormonmedia.com
1. Emma Smith
2. Happy Valley
3. Errand of Angels
4. Forever Strong
5. Life Lessons from Fathers of Faith
I’ve seen the first 4 and liked them all. There are lots of Mormon movies there (some bad, such as Mobsters and Mormons–but my dad liked it), and I could have missed some festival movies there.
Forever Strong is a semi-true story about the Highland Rugby team, that has won the high school national championship several times. The coach is a guy named Larry Gelwicks (who really did coach the Highland rugby team); most of the stories are composite stories of his work with young men over a few decades. The main character in the movie gets in a drunk driving accident, and the team helps him deal with it. There are no overt Mormon references in the movie–it’s a rugby movie first and foremost. I’d recommend that one quite highly.
Incidentally, Larry owns a travel agency and does the “Travel Show” on a few radio stations here in Salt Lake on the weekends, discussing how to travel on the cheap. He’s a pretty funny, entertaining radio host, and I had no idea he was associated with rugby until I saw the movie.
I decided to check Netflix too, and many of the ones I listed above are available. The Bigfoot movie is even there–it’s called “The Sasquatch Gang”. Be forewarned that it has Napolean Dynamite humor, so it you like that, you should like this movie too. It even has Carl Weathers in a cameo.
Forever Strong is a great movie about a great man and a great team. My brother (and many of my friends) played on the team over the years (including going to and winning national championships). Larry truly is an amazing man and has had a SIGNIFICANT influence on hundreds of people, many of whom I know still talk about him with the utmost of respect.
Great, great movie. I would recommend it to everyone.