ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Danny McBride

3.21 Attacking ALIEN: COVENANT

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This week, Steve assembles his  Mikey Fissel (Reel World Theology) and Paul Muzzin (director, CHASING ATLANTIS) as they dig into ALIEN: COVENANT, Ridley Scott’s controversial sequel to PROMETHEUS. The film has proven itself divisive amongst fans and critics but has a lot more to say than people think (or does it?).

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

3.21 Alien Covenant

A special thanks to Mikey (Reel World Theology) and Paul (Chasing Atlantis)

Vice Principals: Educators with No Filters

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When the principal (Bill Murray) of North Jackson High retires to take care of his ailing wife, his two vice principals attempt to fill the power vacuum. But for the students of NJHS, this could be an absolute disaster because these two men are train wrecks.

On one side, the rule-oriented Neil Gamby (Danny McBride) dictates behavior with his loud, profane barking at students, faculty, and staff; on the other, Lee Russell (Walton Goggins) shallowly covers his ambitious scheming with schmoozing. These two foul-mouthed administrators each believe that they will be the next principal – until the School Board sends in college professor (and actual educator) Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Herbert Gregory) into the the school. Suddenly, rather than vying for different elements of the school to like them better than the other, they are united against this common threat.

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While the show has its funny moments, the overall trajectory is a downward spiral of self-destruction and brokenness. Vice Principals is like a school-based sitcom with Married with Children mixed in: we watch this kind of comedy to feel better about ourselves. Frankly, McBride and Goggins are spot-on as absolutely ridiculous and over-the-top creeps, even when they’re not burning down Brown’s house. Their inability to appropriately interact with other people is even worse.

 

One of the saddest (and sometimes funny) side stories is Gamby’s ‘family’ life. He has no friends at school and can’t seem to connect with Amanda Snodgrass (Georgia King), the new English teacher he has his eyes on. But he tries to stay involved in the life of his daughter, which draws him into the circle of his ex-wife, Gale (Busy Philippe), and her new husband, Ray (Shea Whigham). The thing is that Ray might be the most wholesome person on the show, and Gamby can’t see it because his whole vibe is so messed up!

HBO’s new comedy hits on dysfunction, and thrives on brokenness. I doubt it’ll be used in an educational snippets in schools, but some educators may find that the uncensored take on school is really what their inner monologue wants to say. Vice Principals proves that sometimes, what we don’t say could be as important as what we do say.

Angry Birds: Birds of a Feather

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Based on the most downloaded freemium app of all time, The Angry Birds Movie has grossed over $157 million dollars in its first week. With a worldwide following for the game, it was a no-brainer that the film would follow. Seriously, we’ve seen news of PONG and Centipede movies in the works, so could a hammed-up version of our favorite birds really be denied?

In the ‘plot’ of this animated 3D lark, Red (Jason Sudeikis) is already living on the fringes of the bird community on Bird Island, where birds have forgotten how to fly. When he blows up a young chick’s birthday party, he’s sentenced to anger management class with Chuck (a yellow bird played by Josh Gad) and Bomb (Danny McBride), who become his friends. In the meantime, the pig king Leonard (Bill Hader) lands on Bird Island, lulls the birds into believing his benevolent, and, you guessed it, steals all of the eggs.

Red seeks out Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage), the once-proud leader of the birds, and find that he’s grown overweight and lacks any sort of fighting discipline. Left to rally the birds himself, Red proves to be the only one with any emotional or mental capacity for ‘war,’ and proves to be valuable to the society in a way that they never believed possible.

Littered with some funny moments, the laugh out loud moments are mostly thanks to the sarcastic quotient that Sudeikis and Gad bring to the film, intent on keeping the adults from dozing off. From a plot perspective, it’s like watching Titanic: you know this is going to end with slingshots, TNT, and flying birds, right? (Sorry if I spoiled it for you.)

Written by Jon Vitti (The Simpsons, King of the Hill), it’s no wonder that this is where the humor goes – even while the onscreen hijinks are aimed at entertaining kids. And yes, I’ll critique the plot of a movie based on an app momentarily. First, there’s little discussion of Red being “angry” after the pigs arrive; he’s simply doing what he needs to do to liberate the eggs. Red’s behavior pre-invasion is clearly inappropriate, but we’re to understand he now channels it into helping people. Okay … it’s based on an app, right?

More troubling is this Mighty Eagle avenue, where the hero, or god, of Bird Island, is found to be slob and reasonably worthless. Is this Wizard of Oz material or is it downplaying how our heroes were once heroic, or even how society once put their trust in a god? I’m not sure. I know it was over my kids’ heads, but I found myself distracted by this misadventure in the film, long after the camera had moved past the vision of an eagle urinating into a pool where other birds bathed, and drank from.

Yes, Angry Birds will entertain you. Just remember it’s based on an app – there are in purchase options that will cost you something.

Don Verdean: A Spoof of Biblical Proportions

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“From the minds who brought you Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre…”

That should tell you enough as you watch a film about what happens when an archaeologist runs out of real Biblical artifacts to hunt for and starts making them up. Sam Rockwell stars as the digger-turned-gravedigger Don Verdean, while Flight of the Concords’ Jemaine Clement serves as his Israeli partner-in-crime Boaz. With a host of quirky characters, Don Verdean tries to shine a light on the way that we allow ourselves to be misguided and misused by false beliefs.

Verdean feels pressure when Danny McBride’s (Eastbound and Down) Tony Lazarus wants to pay big bucks for Verdean to find impossible artifacts; when Verdean and Boaz turn to the offered finances of Asian billionaire Poon-Yen (Steve Park), it takes their faith and works in a way they never intended to go when they started, highlighting the slippery slope of “pay for pray.” But Verdean’s secretary, Carol (Amy Ryan), provides some balance in this world of quirkiness – she believes Verdean is better than he really is.

Don Verdean isn’t great, but it does highlight a problem in the way that church and archaeology work together. How do we link ourselves to believing in certain pieces of dirt and clay to prove (or disprove) something about our faith? I’ll always remember being asked in seminary what it would do to my faith if they discovered the bones of Jesus. I ultimately decided my answer was “nothing,” for several reasons, but not everyone can answer the question in the same way.

The truth is that Don Verdean raises several questions without providing any answers, but that’s not its intent. It will still make you consider the possibilities. You just have to decide if this is closer to Saved or The Apostle…