Today
I want to talk about somebody else with other ideas than my own. So may I
introduce you to one of my best friends, Steve Donahue. Steve and I first met
in high school when we were cast in a one-act play together. Steve has remained
a steady and good friend throughout the years and is one of the few people from
high school that I spend time with as often as possible. Even when I've been
out of town on some crazy adventure in the west or even after he became married
to his lovely wife Madalyn, Steve and I make an effort to catch up, eat food,
have a laugh, and continue to be in each other's lives. A fellow Christian as
well as movie fan, Steve has exercised his writing craftsmanship this past year
by creating a movie
review blog. Below
are some questions I had for Steve at our most recent get-together and his
responses.
Steve,
thank you very much for sitting down for this chit-chat on movies. Thank you,
Steve, for your friendship.
P.S.-I
have added links at the end to some of Steve's articles as well as some of my
own articles regarding movies for additional food for thought. There are
multiple references in this interview to reviews that Steve has written and are
worth checking out.
What
inspired you to review movies?
There was an extreme need that I had to start writing again; everyone told me that I need to keep practicing writing because I was good at it. But I never practiced it.
I've
been watching Youtube reviewers for over half a decade now, so I decided to
combine both of those things because I like writing about movies and writing in
general. I decided that was something I could focus on.
Where
does your love and enjoyment of movies come from?
Part
of it does come from actually watching movie reviews and enjoying analyzing the
movies. I'm very fond of the idea of seeing movies as an art form and a form of
storytelling.
I
think movies are more interesting than reading a book. I know that's not the
popular opinion.
It's
also less time consuming than reading or playing videogames… and watching TV
shows for that matter even though I do review some TV shows.
For
your reviews, you grade movies on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst, 5 being
average, and 10 being the best. Why do you use that scale instead of a letter
grading system or smaller number scale like 1-5?
In
regards to how I think about movies being rated, I think certain rating systems
are too generalized because they don't have enough ratings. Then there's ones
that are so diluted by so many ratings that it almost loses meaning. There's
some reviewers I respect that use 4 or 5 star ratings.
Everybody
that I know of that uses the letter grading system suffers from dilution. What
comes to mind is especially Chris Stuckmann [a Youtube movie reviewer]. He
reviewed three separate movies and it seemed like he had equally negative
things to say about all of them and he gave one a D+, one a C-, and one a B-,
and I was like "I don't know what your rating system means, man".
I
think the 1-10 system is a perfect mixture of generalization and specificness.
There's some people, my brother included, that uses the 1-10 system but adds
0.5s like 6.5 and I think that causes dilution...I wonder if dilution is the
right word…If you have too many ratings, things start getting confusing.
On
top of that, my favorite reviewer also uses 1-10.
Do
you know what your favorite movie of 2016 so far?
So
far it's Swiss Army Man. I think the movie is so well performed
that it successfully made me feel almost every single emotion. The emotional
connection for me came from just relating to the characters as well. I mean, I
didn't just rate it a 10/10 cause I could relate to the characters but because
the performances were great. The soundtrack was done in a very unique way.
There was a lot of stuff that was thought provoking about [the movie]. I
wouldn't even say I agree with all the messages that Swiss Army Man even
had, but I just enjoyed it so much and I thought the movie was satisfying
enough to merit that rating, and there hasn't been a rating that's come closer
to that yet. It's funny...I've talked to a few people who have tried Swiss
Army Man and they either really really love it or they turn it off
after 20 minutes because they totally didn't get it so I wouldn't call it a
perfect movie for everybody.
How
does your Christian faith influence the way you watch and review movies?
I
think the way that my faith affects it the most is that my faith affects my
worldview, and my worldview affects how I view truth, and so a lot of
times...really the biggest way it affects how I view movies is based on what
message is being sent because of the movie. Aside from that
though, I try not to make my beliefs color the way I see a movie. There's an
article I wrote and part of it I talk about how there's some moral beliefs in
every movie that I've disagreed with that fall on almost every single rating.
I've given a 1/10 to a movie I morally disagree with, and I think Swiss
Army Man is a movie that, in some ways, I morally disagree with. So
judging a movie for me means being as objective as I can and as fair to a movie
as I can. So if I don't like what a movie is saying I don't immediately discredit
it [unless there’s other things I have problems with].
A
lot of the Christian movies I review, I try to review on the quality of the
film-making and not just on the message. Otherwise, I’d probably give it a
higher rating. A
vast majority of Christian movies I've seen aren't good.
Are
there any Christian movies made in the past 10-20 years that you like or
recommend?
Typically
if it's a [recommendable] Christian movie, it has Christian undertones. I would
argue that Lord of the Rings is one of those kinds of movies
that has those distinct influences. It's not 10-20 years ago, but I did
enjoy Ben-Hur. Not the 2016 Ben-Hur, I thought that one
sucked, but the Charlton Heston one. I mean, it was a bit overly long and
some of the parts could've been cut out and it would've made a much more
tighter movie but the overall performances of the movie were good… I don't know
if it's because I'm used to seeing movies in the 2000s but it was a very unique
experience.
The
Book of Eli would be on that list since it's technically sort of about
the Bible. Is there anything that's come out that was actually a Christian
movie? I can't think of anything.
[I
forgot Risen. That movie was pretty
good.]
There
are many movies that you have reviewed and given a 2 or a 3, something low. Do
you ever feel like you're torturing yourself watching some of these disasters?
Like a bad comedy is the schoolyard bully and it makes you punch yourself in
the head while it taunts 'Stop hitting yourself'?
[Laughs]
The most torturous movies are the 1 out of 10s. I can truly say that almost
every 1/10 was a torturous experience. 2 out of 10s...I think Turbo Kid was
extremely painful. I don't know if I'd say Batman v Superman was
a torturous experience, I was extraordinarily wowed by just how bad it
was. Like my mouth was ajar and I wondered "How in the world are they
doing so bad at this?". I guess I wouldn't say 3 out of 10s are normally
torturous, but I’d call them more obnoxious. They're not the schoolyard bully,
they're more like the kid that just won't leave you alone.
Do
you think there's any appeal in movies that are "so bad they're
good"?
Absolutely.
At the end of my review for Sleeping Beauty (2014), I said I
simultaneously loved and hated that movie because it was so bad but I was
laughing so hard because it was really funny. Another movie was Gods of
Egypt...the amount of boring parts in Gods of Egypt far surpass the
unintentional humor but I still thought it was fun to watch.
[What
makes moves that are "so bad they're good" fun to watch] is because
of the unintentional comedy. Usually when they say it's so bad it's good,
they're talking about how the movie's hilarious but it wasn't their intention
to be funny. Aside from that, the only other movies I can think of, I wouldn't
call them "so bad they're good", they were terrible despite being
entertaining are The Purge: Election Year, which was an awful,
unsubtle movie but it was a lot of fun, and Independence Day:
Resurgence had probably one of the cheesiest scripts I've seen in
awhile, but explosions are fun.
What
is your favorite thing about going to the movie theater?
This
is hard because I wouldn't say "Oh, there's a community" because I
usually go to movie theaters alone by myself. Honestly the best thing about
going to the movie theater is that it provides me material for something to
write about. The primary reason why I see so many movies is so I can write
about it because I think I'm good at it.
And
the inevitable follow-up question: What is your least favorite thing about
going to the movie theater?
Dealing
with the employees. You can tell they're being paid minimum wage because none
of them care. I think I did a tweet about how ticket rippers have the easiest
job in the world but they always manage to screw it up. I collect movie ticket
stubs and there's probably a bunch in there that aren't perfectly ripped. I
mean it's not so bad I wouldn’t go to Wehrenberg Chesterfield ever again but I
mean I've reviewed 90 movies in the theater so far. I don’t remember any of the
people there and none of them remember me, they always seem so disinterested.
Honestly if there was a movie theater that charged a little bit more but had a
more pleasant experience I would probably go, and I'm one who loves cheap movie
tickets. I dislike terrible employees more than I dislike terrible movies
because at least with terrible movies, I have something to write about.
Do
you have any movie favorites at the moment? Favorite director, favorite actor,
favorite genre, etc?
I
haven't really seen anybody that's been consistently awesome. One person that I
did want to search into more, because everyone says I should search into him
more, is Wes Anderson. I think Moonrise Kingdom is one of the
best movies that you could watch on Netflix right now. I've heard great things
about Fantastic Mr. Fox, I've heard great things about The
Grand Budapest Hotel, and I want to see all of them but I haven't given
myself time to find them out. Besides that...I mean, there's some actors that
give me a reason to think that the movie will be better. Bryan Cranston is one
of them, even though he's going to be in a comedy with James Franco and it
doesn't look good at all. To be quite honest, man, there hasn't been an actor
or a director or genre that has consistently been good with me. I think every
single one, except for those few classic directors, have the propensity to suck
at one point or another or at least not be very exceptional.
If
you had the power to stop Hollywood movies from using one terrible cliché,
which would it be?
Only
one?! Oh my goodness....Let me think...
One
of them I'm getting a little tired of is every single movie demanding some of
sort of strong-independent-female-character. It's almost becoming a meme
because I think the vast majority of movies I've seen you have at least one
female character whose sole defining trait is that she doesn't need any man's
help and she'll prove it at one point in the movie. It's not that I hate that
cliché [character]. In fact I think it's good, but they're using it so
much that it's almost becoming meaningless. I can think of so many movies that
have done this and some of them have become worse because they did it. Now
You See Me 2, Warcraft has a little bit of that in it, I
mean obviously Ghostbusters, Star Trek Beyond had
it, The Purge: Election Year, The Legend of Tarzan, Independence
Day: Resurgence had a little bit of it, Alice Through the
Looking Glass...do you want more?...It's super forced.
I
don't know how political I want to get, but you can tell there's a very strong
influence that modern third wave feminism is having on culture because that’s
the only reason I can think of why it almost seems like it has to appear in
every movie.
I
feel bad that I have this criticism because I don't want it to seem like this
character type is a bad thing to have in your movie. It's just becoming
overused to the point where it's not special anymore.
Must
See Relevant Blog Posts
Steve's
Blog
My
Blog
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