Twist of Faith (2013)

Here it is my fellow Christian brothers and sisters! 6  time Grammy Award winning R&B vocalist Toni Braxton in her very first starring role as Nina on Twist of Faith TV movie drama that was aired on February 9 on Lifetime channel in the US. I had a fortune to see this movie online so here is the review that I promised to you if I would. The movie tells a touching love story of a white Orthodox Jewish Cantor, teacher and aspiring songwriter Jacob Fisher (David Hirsh) from Brooklyn, New York, and an African American Christian Nina Jones (Braxton) who's rooted to her church singing in a gospel choir in Alabama, being a single mom and a school teacher. It feels like this role was especially written for Braxton as I heard her telling in interviews how she could relate to her character as a daughter of a preacher, being a single mom in real life and having being pursued education of a teacher in college before her big breakthrough into music industry. Braxton's autistic son Diesel has a supporting role in this movie as her son. I wouldn't believe he's autistic as to me he seemed like a normal, healthy kid and did his minor part very well.

Jacob took off to Alabama after he had witnessed his wife and children being senselessly murdered by a stranger and then he ended up in the backyard of Nina's family hungry and exhausted. Nina first has her doubts on him but the rest of her family takes him with open arms. Little by little they become closer sharing each other their life's wounds and their common love for music. Jacob also saves Nina from the hands of intruders that come to damage the church in the middle of the night. It's a beautiful, vulnerable story about hope, faith and love and crossing the borders of race and religion. This movie seems to be carrying similar message of humanity, peace, faith, love and tolerance as my blog is. The story has depth but at the same time it's really fast paced and predictable. Telling about ordinary life there's little glamour or excitement.

I can't help but compare Toni Braxton's role as Nina to that of Beyoncé's as Lilly in The Fighting Temptations because both Beyoncé and Braxton could relate to their characters in their gospel movies in real life and both of their characters entered a gospel choir competition in the script. I could say that Braxton had her Beyoncé moments in this movie. Neither Beyoncé nor Braxton managed to stun us in these movies by their acting skills both making it better in the singing scenes. Top moments of Twist of Faith are Braxton singing with the gospel choir, especially the songs "I Surrender All" and "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" preparing for Gospel Sunday Choir Competition final. Some of her fans including myself would be pleased if she'd release a gospel album one day but I don't think that's going to happen as she's not interested in recording any new material.  

Grade: 7,5/10. There's no denying that the story had depth but the most of the acting performances were mediocre except David Hirsh's himself who had the deepest role. To my taste the story proceeded too quickly and I was bored in the middle of the film. Add to that the cliché ending I have reason to doubt that Toni Braxton would have needed a better, bigger debut on the big screen instead of a low budget TV film. Braxton's performance came up mediocre but still better than in Kingdom Come. She has a long way to go to reach the same level as an actress that likes of Whitney Houston, Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson have reached. As Braxton is done with recording in my opinion she would have suited better than well as a new American Idol judge. Toni Braxton fans will make the most of this movie but for others it may be too boring.

Kingdom Come (2001)

I just finished watching this Christian drama comedy with remarkable cast. Directed by Doug McHenry and music by Tyler Bates and original songs by renowned Gospel R&B singer Rev. Kirk Franklin this movie will offer a delicious and absorbing watching experience for both Christians and atheists. At first I felt the story line started opening slowly but now I actually feel like it ended too quickly. The movie tells about a family that has lots of issues! When mean and surly Bud Slocumb keels over at breakfast, his family gathers for the wake and funeral; long-suffering widow Raynelle (Whoopi Goldberg), unemployed son Junior whose business went belly-up and who's cheating on his wife Charisse (Jada Pinkett Smith), son Ray Bud (LL Cool J) who holds a job and has a loving wife Lucille (Vivica A. Fox) but struggles with alcoholism and their difficulty having children. There's younger daughter Delightful who constantly eats; religious Aunt Marguerite (Loretta Devine) and her wayward son Royce; and, there's Juanita (Toni Braxton), their wealthy cousin's wife. They all descend on the town of Lula, struggle to say something nice about Bud, and face the challenge of sorting out their relationships with the living.   

The previous three Christian movies that I've reviewed in here were purely music movies but Kingdom Come is a seriously taken acted movie because apart from Kirk Franklin's soundtrack on the background, a short scene with the gospel choir of the church and Jada Pinkett Smith's short singing solo in the closing scene music doesn't play any part in this. In fact the characters don't even come up deeply religious to me and that's why I think that even an atheist would enjoy watching this without the fear of awkwardness of mentioning 'JC' too many times.

Whoopi Goldberg comes up with a dignified performance as a widow but in this movie her character Raynelle is one of her most boring ones she has done on screen. I love Whoopi Goldberg but she doesn't shine her light in this movie as bright as she usually does. But actually Jada Pinkett Smith does my favourite performance in this movie with so much passion, misery and attitude that it's bittersweet; she's Charisse, a mother of three whose husband is cheating on her. I even love the way Charisse and Junior ended up dealing with the cheating but I won't tell how they did it, you have to watch the conclusion they made yourself. Also Loretta Devine does a brilliant performance as energetic and amusing Aunt Marguerite who to me seems to be the only character that comes up as deeply religious. She is one of the best characters in the film. LL Cool J does it charismatically as always only with a little better than mediocre performance but he does beat Toni Braxton as an experienced rapper-turned-actor. Also Vivica A. Fox comes up with a mediocre performance as a charming housewife fulfilling her only task in the movie which is being pretty as a doll. All in all all leading actors and actresses do a great job but entertaining supporting roles such as Juanita and Royce are sugar in the bottom.  

l was also curious to watch this because one of my long time favourite R&B vocalists Toni Braxton (below) has a minor role in this movie coming up once in a while during the last 35 minutes of the movie. She comes up snotty, sassy and attractive with her few lines as Juanita. Braxton of course is eloquent but at this point I can't give her yet too much props as an actress. It seemed easy and effortless but there's nothing challenging about making faces. This might be changing though as she has her first major role in a brand new gospel or Christian movie called Twist of Faith (2013) which seems to have been released only last month. If I'm lucky enough I'll provide a review of it sooner or later in here. In Twist of Faith, the fictional, cross-cultural, music infused love story tells the tale of Jacob Fisher (David Julian Hirsh), an Orthodox Jewish Cantor and amateur songwriter from Brooklyn, New York, who witnesses the senseless murder of his wife and three children.

Grade: 8/10. This is probably the best grade that I've given for a Christian movie yet and for reason. This isn't a music movie at all and so we could expect some seriously taken acting which this movie offered a whole lot thanks to some of its biggest names including Whoopi Goldberg, Loretta Devine and Vivica A. Fox. Even Jada Pinkett Smith shined in this. Everybody's acting performances came up as excellent, entertaining, extremely skillful, charismatic and charming. I enjoyed Kirk Franklin's mellow soundtrack. The jokes weren't the best of the best compared to some other movies that I've seen but after all this movie managed to make me laugh (it was hard but it did). The movie wasn't in any way boring, just opposite thanks to the eloquent and absorbing acting performances.    

The Preacher's Wife (1996)

A romantic gospel drama with twists of humour and fantasy. I already reviewed the gospel soundtrack so now it's time for the movie itself. I watched this movie only for the first time a couple of days ago and I grew to love it for more than I expected. This movie also seems to represent the genre of Christmas movies which is just fine because when I'm writing this Christmas is already knocking on the door. The angel Dudley potrayed by Denzel Washington is bringing some magic into this movie by his miraculous touch and this is just peculiar for the Christmas movies. You could crystallize the story line into one sentence because it's so simple: Angel Dudley dropped out of heaven to save the family life of the pastor Biggs family. No matter the season, I think you could watch this any time of the year especially if you're a gospel or R&B listener or simply a Whitney Houston fan. I personally find that this movie might appeal stronger to women than men but I also think that this is ideal to watch with the whole family.

It's cheesy but charming. When comparing this to those previous gospel/R&B movies that I've seen I have to say that I was positively surprised on how absorbing The Preacher's Wife could be. I was completely enchanted by the first hour but by the second hour of the movie I felt a bit bored because it started seeming like a flavorless romantic pap. Well, actually, I was surprised also by the second hour because this humour worked on me and I laughed which happens quite rarely to me when watching a film which is a plus. I predict though that this could as well come out as the magic of the first view which means that when watching this for the second time these may have become old cliché jokes that won't work on me twice.
Was it a predictable watching experience? Not as much as I thought it would be. I actually think that I laughed because I was surprised. Actually, I couldn't even predict the choices made by pastor Biggs portrayed by Bobby Brown or if I could I didn't give much thought for it because I just concentrated on enjoying the film. Also, it wasn't predictable what was to happen to the pastor's son in the end. Actually, by the end of the film I found myself thinking, They just don't film movies like this anymore. There's something so nostalgic and heartfelt about this warm movie. It makes me miss the 90s.

It's time to analyze the performances and this is when I especially want to compare this to Sister Act 2 and The Fighting Temptations. Whitney clearly does her acting job better than Beyoncé and Lauryn Hill in their gospel movies. All in all, music is an important part of The Preacher's Wife but from my point of view the script includes more acting than music.
Both Whitney and Bobby Brown managed to impress me with their skillful, charming, successful acting performances. You see, in the previous gospel movies that I saw actual singers failed their acting more or less so this definitely is a plus as well. Whitney's mother Cissy Houston had just one line but she was eloquent. Loretta Devine does one of the most amusing performances in the movie as Beverly, the assistant of pastor Biggs. And of course, Denzel Washington does a charismatic and amusing performance as angel Dudley. I've got nothing negative to say on acting and the music performances were of course flawless and uplifting. I can't choose just one top moment because all music performances were so splendid.

Grade: 8/10. I could imagine starting a new Christmas tradition by watching The Preacher's Wife every Christmas. This movie is clearly more sophisticated and more thoughtfully made than Sister Act 2 and The Fighting Temptations. The music performances were of course flawless, captivating and uplifting. It's probably the best gospel that I've heard so far. It's musically on the same stunning level with The Fighting Temptations and so better than Sister Act 2. But when it comes to the acting performances it's on the same level with Sister Act 2 or even tops it due to that Whitney managed to prove that she truly could act! Even Bobby Brown proved that he could act beside singing and I actually think that he did it a bit better than Whitney. So, it seems that I actually should take my words back from the previous post and declare The Preacher's Wife the best gospel movie that I've seen due to successful acting and music performances. But I'm in a tough decision whether I should grand 9 out of 10 or just 8,5 just like for Sister Act 2? After all, this genre has become a cliché.

The Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit (1993)

One of the first original gospel musical comedies ever made and if you ask me - the best. This movie was filmed way before The Preacher's Wife (1997) and The Fighting Temptations (2003) and unfortunately existence of these movies have made gospel comedies like the original Sister Act 2 a cliché for copying the idea of casting flawlessly singing R&B divas that will be "hired" to sing in a gospel choir in the manuscript. I don't know whether Sister Act 2 was the first gospel choir movie ever filmed with this idea but I surely will take note in my evaluation of this movie that later similar movies have been following which means that I'm seeing Sister Act 2 as The Original One at least until proved differently. I'll compare Sister Act 2 also to the first Sister Act.  

I didn't like the first Sister Act very much because I considered the music much worse than in this one and I even found the story line boring. As we remember, in the first Sister Act secular singer Deloris portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg had to be placed to hide in the monastery camouflaged as a nun because her gangster boyfriend wanted to kill her. Deloris ended up improving the sound of the nun choir as Sister Mary Clarence and bringing life to the community surrounding the monastery.
In Sister Act 2 they persuade Deloris to return as Sister Mary Clarence to become a music teacher who should "tame" a group of rebellious music students and save the school from closing down by attending with them a gospel choir competition in Hollywood. Unfortunately I found the jokes in both Sister Act and Sister Act 2 lame: they didn't make me laugh or smile at all. Both movies are of course entertaining but I consider Sister Act 2 livelier and more interesting and appealing to me than its predecessor because of the young blood and better music. Well, it isn't wonder that I'm seeing it this way because the gospel music sung in Sister Act 2 is soul and R&B oriented while Sister Act could only offer us more traditional gospel that we can hear at church any Sunday. The sparkle, the passion was missing in the music performances of the first movie but Sister Act 2 set it on whole another level: Top performances of the movie are of course young Lauryn Hill's performances; her freestyle solo on the school yard with the students (which I read from her biography having being completely improvised), "His Eye On The Sparrow" featuring Tanya Blount and of course  the closing performance of the movie "Joyful, Joyful" in which she performs as a soloist supported by the rest of the youth gospel group in the gospel choir competition in Hollywood. Also, the first actual gospel performance of the monastery's music class students at church, "Oh Happy Day" is candy to my ear.

In both Sister Act and Sister Act 2 the acting performances are of course generally great, extremely skilled, charismatic and eloquent - especially Whoopi Goldberg shines her light as an Academy Award winner and Maggie Smith comes up with elegant performances in both of the movies. When it comes to evaluating Lauryn Hill's actual acting performances they seemed effortless but not as groundbreaking as her music performances. Miss Hill's biography lets me understand that she used to be quite similar as a student herself as her character Rita Louise Watson but only more dedicated to her studies. Her biography stated that just like Rita she was a very popular student and a true group leader but less rebellious. In the movie Rita Watson is the most rebellious of the students and carries the biggest burden: Her deepest wish is to sing but her mother at first won't let her. When it comes to Lauryn's actual acting performances, just like Beyoncé in the Fighting Temptations, she only must come out either sad, cool or attractive which is pretty basic level of acting. We also should remember that this was Lauryn's first major role in big screen and it later helped her to rise to fame with The Fugees. Other students in the class need even less effort in acting while they have few lines here and there and they must come up with different facial expressions.         

Grade: 8,5/10, because I consider this movie way better than The Fighting Temptations at least. The Fighting Temptations was clearly more of a music movie but Sister Act 2 is a seriously taken comedy as well with seriously taken, true actors such as Whoopi Goldberg herself and Maggie Smith. This movie was splendid because of the great acting performances and wonderful music performances. I have seen this movie now for a few times and I consider buying it whenever possible because this is doubtlessly one of my favourites. No matter how much I love Lauryn Hill's music I have to say that the Fighting Temptations is the winner of this comparison by its music performances but when it comes to acting performances, Sister Act 2 is much better and therefore I must grand a better grade to it in comparison. I consider Sister Act 2 as uplifting as The Fighting Temptations if I need something to cheer me up in the bad days.   

The Fighting Temptations (2003)

This gospel comedy starring Oscar winning Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles in the leading roles begins with traditional black gospel choir singing accompanied by Rev. Shirley Caesar. The story is located in Montecarlo, Georgia and it begins when Darrin Hill (Gooding Jr.) and Lilly (Knowles) are still children and obviously friends. Darrin's mother (Faith Evans) gets fired from the Beulah Baptist Church choir because of her secular R&B recording contract though Darrin's aunt Sally (Ann Nesby) tries to speak for her. Darrin and her mother move out from Montecarlo.

The key of the story and message of this movie lies in aunt Sally and her ideaology, her interpretation of Christianity. The main character Darrin has to face many reasons of sorrow at once and one of them is the death of aunt Sally which is also the turning-point of the story as Darrin has to travel from New York to Montecarlo to hear her will. According to the will Darrin has to lead the Beulah Baptist Church choir into the annual Gospel Explosion competition. Darrin will soon come to realize though that Montecarlo is full of colourful personalities but lacks suitable singers for the gospel choir that he's now got to gather. That's when now grown Lilly (Beyoncé), a sensual jazz singer comes up and makes the day.

Though this movie is one of my current favourites the professional critics disagree with me which is understandable. The movie's events are very predictable and as this movie was one of Beyoncé's first ones her acting is pretty poor - she only has to look either adorable or grieving. She has of course later topped her acting with her best work yet, Cadillac Records, but that's whole another blog and another story. In my opinion from all her movie's until now and from all of her characters until now she might relate to Lilly the most in her personal life though others say the character is Deena Jones from Dreamgirls. Well, I think that after all her personality and experience might be something between Deena Jones and Lilly, because of Destiny's Child's break-up and because she's known to be a sweet, God-fearing lady.
In The Fighting Temptations she's a singer in her element and hardly an actress. Beyoncé has two or three star moments: her performances of "Fever", "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and her sweet duet "Everything I Do" featuring neo-soul singer Bilal. Otherwise she's unfortunately left in the shadow of the movie's starstruck cast of huge names in R&B and gospel music though of course on this day Beyoncé is the most remarkable singer of our generation and her phenomenon equals to that of Aretha Franklin's. Angie Stone, Mary Mary, The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Donnie McClurkin and Yolanda Adams are some of the most well-known and biggest artists showing up in the movie. Movie's musical repertoire is R&B and gospel flavoured with hiphop which of course continues in the movie sountrack.

I would actually prefer comparing Beyoncé to Whitney Houston because her voice and singing style and her career choices match more to those of Whitney's: Whitney starred a gospel movie The Preacher's Wife (1998) and she recorded a gospel album named the same but was involved also in other gospel projects during her career and we know that Beyoncé recorded few gospel songs also beside The Fighting Temptations soundtrack with Destiny's Child. In the soundtrack Beyoncé sings at least in "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", "He Still Loves Me" and in "Rain Down" I suppose. Destiny's Child's recorded gospel songs were "Amazing Grace" and "Gospel Medley" but also a loosely gospel inspired "Thank You". Destiny's Child also collaborated with Mary Mary in their album Thankful singing "So Good To Me". Whitney also did modelling in the beginnings of her career and Beyoncé does modelling beside music as well.

MY GRADE: I'm giving this movie 7, 5 out of 10, thanks to movie's great musical repertoire, starstruck cast and some striking humour and jokes that I loved. This movie truly makes me smile and even laugh a little and it makes my day when I need it. All in all, this movie is definitely worth seeing for the fans of gospel music and those of Beyoncé's as well. I'd have given a higher grade for better acting performances. Anyway, there's no denying that music is the heart of this movie and it should be received in that way.  

The Nativity Story (2006)

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written by Mike Rich this is one of the most convincing Bible movies of Hollywood. They have managed to produce this movie the way that it's loyal to the original Scripture of the Bible. Of course they have made up most of the dialogue to make the movie go smoothly but it's understandable, because the dialogue doesn't twist the Bible. The movie opens with gregorian chant and the way it's filmed reminds me of The Lord of The Rings trilogy with its epic spirit. The symbolic darkness they use when evil (the soldiers of Herode) is around is the thing creating epic spirit. The used sets and backgrounds, costumes and make-up clearly show this to be a movie of high budget. The movie is visually beautiful and breathtaking: the white city of Jerusalem is producer's masterpiece. Nazareth is fruitful and green. The circumstances are depicted realistically the way they were by the time of Antique. Orchestra is bombastic and string based, choir is used a lot.

A dove is used as the symbol of Holy Spirit in this movie as we have learned in the Scripture. They have chosen the cast perfectly fitting their roles. The young Keisha Castle-Hughes does a brilliant performance as Mary: she's the way I'd imagine true Mary to be; modest, more beautiful from the inside than outside, wearing blue headscarf. I have to praise how realistically they depict the characters everybody having dark, strong features like Arabic people usually have. Some of the cast actually are from Middle East or more or less of Arabic origin like Oscar Isaac as Joseph having some Israeli blood in his veins. Hiam Abbass as Mary's mother Anna is Palestinian and Shaun Toub as her father was born in Iran but raised in the UK. Also Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elizabeth is Persian, born in Iran. The cast is generally British or of Middle Eastern origin. The actors and actresses do passionate, emotional performances.

Seen this movie it inevitably makes me want to compare it to the Bible, historical and scientific facts but also to the novels of Bodie & Brock Thoene. Their A.D. Chronicles series describe life of Jesus from his birth to death being loyal to the Bible's scripture and historical facts. This movie tells only about the period of Mary and Joseph's life until Jesus is born and the holy family escapes Herode's persecution to Egypt. Bodie & Brock Thoene have written about these events three A.D. Chronicles being in order: Fourth Dawn, Fifth Seal and Sixth Covenant. Watching this movie makes me ask, has the producer, writer or director possibly read these books? Like Thoene they have managed to create their work loyal to the Bible also adding historical and scientific facts and made-up dialogue which makes the story more vivid, natural and interesting. The Three Wise Men are Persian and called Melchior, Balthasar and Gaspar in both Thoene's books and the movie - it must be lore or a historical fact. In both books and the movie Mary and Joseph doubt how can they raise such a special child and Joseph cries for joy when Jesus is born. Other similarities between the books and the movie are that Mary's mother is called Anna, her father is called Joaquim and Mary has little sisters. The differences are that in the books Mary is described beautiful and also she's in love with Joseph; in the movie she seems unwilling to marry Joseph. In the movie angel Gabriel appears to Mary in the lawn, not inside a house like the Bible tells. There might be also other similarities and differences between the works but these paid my attention.

Final grade of the movie: a well-earned 10, could become a classic

The Book of Ruth: Journey of Faith (2009)

I'll continue my "surprise series" once again by reviewing the newest Bible movie made in Hollywood. This movie is one of those adaptations wonderfully loyal to the original story told in the Bible. Directed by Stephen Patrick Walker he has managed to capture this story about tolerance, acceptance and being a refugee in a realistic way, being loyal to the circumstances of Antique. Themes of Ruth's story are always current today, because immigrants and refugees from Asia, Africa, Middle East and even Latin America have travelled to our countries with hope of having a new, better life... just like Ruth and Naomi wander from Moab's land back to Betlehem. They follow God's call to return home. There's a lot we can learn from Ruth's story and as I said many times before I've found anti-racism message from the Bible and the whole Book of Ruth is one of the best examples. The way Boas lets Ruth pick grain longer than his own workers, even to exceed her own need is maybe the most beautiful example of showing love and care for an immigrant.

The narrator of this movie of one and half hour is an old man (son of Ruth and Boas) who wants to tell a story of faith to a young boy and it makes the plot go easily. The movie is visually beautiful and like usually in the Bible movies the main characters are shown devoted and deep. The movie is emotional... there's time of tears, exorbitant sorrow and despair... even time of dishonesty and piety. But there's also time of encouragement, righteousness and bliss (and joking) and just like we've learned from the Bible: there's nothing stronger than love and it's deep and strong in this movie. I couldn't have chosen the actors and actresses better, because they're all brilliant and suit perfectly to their roles. They're depicted believably and they're modest and down-to-earth. The movie is so touching... I have experienced the same stages of faith in my journey of becoming Christian: first I had so much unbelief in my despair but after all my tears and losses God has promised to give me it all back as tenfold; the more we must suffer and have sorrow the more God has reserved bliss to our lives and it's one of the most important teachings of this movie. The way God answered to Naomi's devoted prayers after hard times, I've experienced the same hope in my life and realized that God is the best healer of broken heart. Touching piano composition of this movie has managed to capture the emotions of this movie in its soul. Orchestra is peaceful and restrained, not bombastic.

My final grade: A well-earned 10. One of my favourite Bible movies: this could become a classic.