Film · Prime Video · 2017

God With Us

Judge it by whether it points past itself. A title is not yet a testimony.

Emmanuel is not a brand. If this picture is a straight telling of the claim that God drew near, it belongs with the feast and not with the franchise. If it is a mood with a scripture on the cover, the cover is doing work the hour did not earn. The desk will not invent testimony that is not in the frames.

A house does not need a documentary to keep Christmas. It needs the story, said in the room, by someone who will still be there in January. Use the film only as a door into that telling.

The eight

Industry
4/10
Unknown craft.
Household
5/10
The claim is about a household that received a child.
Piety
7/10
The title aims at worship. The film must not replace it.
Courage
4/10
Unproven on the tile.
Republic
4/10
A people, if it remembers it is one.
Temperance
5/10
Likely quiet.
Truth
5/10
The claim is either true or it is not. A poster cannot settle it.
Stewardship
6/10
The right use is to send you back to the text.

Live historicallyRead the nativity aloud this week, whether or not you press play.

Film · Prime Video · 1999

10 Things I Hate About You

The bet is the sin. The poem is the repair. Older teens, with the bet named.

Someone is paid to take the difficult sister out so the younger one can be dated. That is a use of a person, and the film knows it before it decides to be charming about it. Kat is not a problem to be solved. She is a girl with a standard, some of it pride and some of it sense. The poem works because it is specific and public and ashamed. A romance that ends on a confession is better than one that ends on a wink.

The Shakespeare underneath is a harsh play. This softens it into a high school, which is a mercy, and keeps the money, which is the part you have to say out loud so a teenager does not learn that being purchased is a meet-cute.

The eight

Industry
4/10
School, a bet, a band.
Household
5/10
Sisters under one roof, mismanaged by the plot and then restored.
Piety
3/10
No creed. A conscience in the last scene.
Courage
6/10
The poem is said in public.
Republic
4/10
A campus that treats a girl as a door prize.
Temperance
5/10
The scheme is rebuked, late.
Truth
7/10
The confession is actual.
Stewardship
6/10
The poem is the part to keep.

Live historicallyIf you started a friendship as a strategy, confess the strategy.