Daily Archives: February 22, 2007

Reverend Ted Baehr, Film Critic

Ephemera, Irritations

So it seems little “Teddy” Baehr — reverend, cultural crusader and chairman of the Christian
Film & Television Commission, whose reviews on Movieguide.org are aimed
squarely at the Christian right — has taken aim at the foolish notion that war has a human toll on each side of the line. (To link to the original story from the Kansas City Star, click here.)

Baehr, who in the past has warned parents to protect their children from “the evil occult power of Harry Potter,” recently took to task Clint
Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated Letters from Iwo Jima — a look at the
World War II battle as experienced by Japanese soldiers — for ignoring “the
terrible horrors that Japanese soldiers inflicted in places like Manchuria,
Nanking, Korea
and the Philippines.”
He railed against Eastwood for promoting “some kind of politically correct,
misguided liberal notion of fairness and pacifism,” and then added, “No wonder the politically
correct Los Angeles Film Critics Association thinks Letters is the best movie
of the year.”

As a member of said called-out organization, I can say yes, it’s completely true — we are politically correct. Totally. Still, Baehr has hated us for years, dating back to at least the turn of the millennium, and our controversial decision to honor Michael Douglas’ performance in Wonder Boys over Kirk Cameron’s turn in Left Behind. Again, to link to the original story, click here.

Ghost Rider

Film Reviews

Ghost Rider is not very good seems like a
fool’s exercise, especially now. After all, it’s easy to decry the
messenger, especially when a movie’s Presidents’ Day weekend release
generates a record-setting gross of $51.5 million. Still, the subgenre
of comic book adaptations needn’t automatically lend itself to critical
derision, as the warm critical embrace of the Spider-Man films, Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot or even the more mixed but passionate critics’ defenses of graphic novel flicks like V For Vendetta and Sin City fittingly demonstrate.

Ghost Rider, though, is a glossy, big-budget affair that in almost every significant way behind
the camera — and in more than a few ways in front of it — feels like
both a fatally compromised and hopelessly amateurish production. This
is the type of film which the actors involved carefully describe in press junkets and interviews as “a lot of fun” rather than good. They talk about how much they enjoyed making it instead of how they’re proud of it. For the full review from FilmStew, including reactions of a paying general audience, click here.