Well I’ve now watched the entire season 4 of the Chosen at the theatre several thoughts.
Maybe it’s because I live in Massachusetts but there were less people at most of the shows I went to. The best attended was a Saturday Matinee. The worst was a Cold Sat Evening. Yesterday’s Friday Matinee was meh.
The local theatre has switched to all recliners and table service. Got to maximize the revenue and with so much streaming you need to give folks an excuse to leave.
I suspect that the bad economy hurt attendance since everyone knows the shows will be streaming in a month.
Lot’s of faith based movies pushed in previews the biggest being Cabrini which looks like it will be great. The irony is that the whole “strong woman in a world of men” theme that the left loves is cancelled by the fact that because of her deep catholic faith she would not be given charge of orphans in NY or any blue state these days.
Ok spoilers follow so if you don’t want to see them don’t
German Woman talk show host:Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not much comedy in Germany?
Robin Williams:Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?
Today at Don Surber’s site he celebrates the contributions of various ethnic groups, starting with Blacks as it’s black history month and ending with the WASPS who founded this country making all those other contributions to America possible. He notes many people who might have been forgotten a few I had never heard of and in going through the list he has this section about Jewish Americans:
As for Jews, I can go on all day about them. They gave the country physicists, Irving Berlin and a host of comedians. Jews invented Hollywood by founding Columbia, Fox, Paramount, Universal and MGM. Even the Warner Brothers were Jewish. Could we kindly stop the anti-Semitism already?
Emphasis mine
That reminded me of this Dave Chappelle bit on Kanye & Jews:
Now the hesitancy to talk about Jews in Hollywood/Entertainment or bring it up is something I’ve never understood. When various ethnic groups come to a country and start a business you will see family coming over and joining in. There is a reason why so many pizza places were run by Italians.
If people start a business, especially people outside the dominant culture they tend to hire family and people from their same ethnic group, additionally people who come to a country looking for work tend to check first within their ethnic group, same culture, same language and once they assimilate they and/or their children & grandchildren branch out.
So see a lot of XXX and sons, but you very rarely see XXX and grandsons because by the time you reach that generation the kids are Americanized and go their own way.
So Thomas Edison not withstanding if Jews went all in on entertainment, if Jews founded Columbia, Fox, Paramount, Universal MGM and Warner Brothers why should anyone be surprised if.
They tended to hire a lot of Jews when they started.
A lot of Jews tended to gravitate to the entertainment business
And a ton of Jews are still in the business today.
This makes sense particularly if you consider that Jews historically have not been particularly loved or treated well through history. Why wouldn’t you get involved in an industry that is:
Profitable
Secure (meaning that it won’t disappear)
Has influence
And gives you the change to put the Jewish point of view out there
Alas because some were far leftists you had a leftist point of view pushed too but I digress.
Bottom line I’m not about to get my knickers in a twist because ethnic Jews took the risk to get into the ground floor of the entertainment business which provides comfort and joy to people all over the world and still reaping the rewards of that risk. If you have a problem with that then that’s your problem.
But neither am I going to deny that’s the case because people might feel upset about it being said openly. Frankly I think the reaction of of a Jewish person to the “Jews run Hollywood” business should be: ”Yeah Jews are big in Hollywood and I’m damn proud of it!”
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just the way things went naturally.
I’ll leave you with the Robin Williams joke I started with, he delivers it better than I write it.
Yesterday I talked about the mini-series Jonathan and Jesus today I watched it. Several takeaways from Part 1.
I mentioned in yesterday’s piece that Roumie has credits dating back with 2003. He commented that Harold Ramis told him it takes 20 years to be an overnight sensation and at the time he said that wasn’t going to be him. Reality just is.
I was not familiar with Dallas Jenkins previous short from 2013 Once we were slaves (retitled the two thieves) about St. Dismas on the Cross. Jonathan played Jesus in that short and Jenkins thought it be best film portrayal of Christ in film.
And this was five years before the Chosen.
That’s mysterious ways all over.
One of the things that happens in the 1st episode is that Roumie gets to meet the head of one of his favorite bands: “The Killers’ who are apparently one of the biggest rock bands of the 21st century and have been around for 20 years.
I had never heard of them until that moment.
Boy I’m old.
While in Italy they walk along actual Roman Roads dating back to the time of Christ and before.
Those Roman Roads were the internet of their times. They connected people throughout the empire in a way that was not possible previously because it made travel, trade and communication easier.
Those Roman Roads are one of the greatest single inventions in the history of mankind and it was across those roads that Christianity marched through the empire, at a time of general peace which made it possible.
Just a coincidence I’m sure.
If I had to choose the best moment of part one it was the visit with Alice Cooper who while I heard had converted to Christianity didn’t know that his family had been very Christian and that he came back to the faith late in life. He also talked about how he was told that putting his Christianity into his work would end his career, but of course it did not.
His description of what the price of incredible fame is the single best I’ve ever heard:
Fame is really dangerous, I mean, look what it did to Elvis. Here is a good example. If you take anybody and put him in the biggest mansion on the planet and say: ”You can have anything you want, you can have all the woman, you can have all the drugs, you can have food, you can have anything you want, but you can’t leave the mansion.” that person will find a way to kill themselves because they’ve lost the basic freedom be just to live. Elvis couldn’t go to the movies. Elvis couldn’t play pool, Elvis couldn’t go out for a drive. He was a prisoner of his own fame. He was that big. Michael Jackson. Everybody that achieved that type of fame died early, because it’s so unnatural.
Of course the most important and true thing he said was: ”It’s your relationship with Christ that is the most important thing no matter what situation you’re in.”
Abraham Lincoln: [speaking to a old freed slave who dropped to his knees before him] Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.
This trailer dropped from the folks at the Chosen:
In one respect this isn’t odd, you might recall from your movie history Cecil B DeMille’s silent movie King of Kings, the first movie adaption of the Gospels. It’s available at Youtube:
At the Turner Classic movies the lengths that DeMille took to keep things on the “right” path:
Cecil B. DeMille did not want to take any chances with the film. His two stars, ‘H. B. Warner’ and ‘Dorothy Cummings’ , were required to sign agreements which prohibited them from appearing in film roles that might compromise their “holy” screen images for a five-year period. DeMille also ordered them not to be seen doing any “un-biblical” activities during the film’s shooting. These activities included attending ball games, playing cards, frequenting night clubs, swimming, and riding in convertibles.
and Turner also reports that DeMille had some serious damage control to do:
Lead actor H.B. Warner, who played Jesus, was involved in an off-camera scandal with anonymous woman who was determined to blackmail Cecil B. DeMille by ruining the production. It is believed that DeMille paid the woman on the condition that she leave the U.S.
IMDB.com claims the woman was made to back off after being threatened with arrest. It also states that the pressure that Warner felt playing Christ was so intense that it brought back his drinking problem.
Now consider, this was one movie released in 1927 at a time when movies were not universal. Warner was already an established actor with a ton of credits behind him and decades of credits ahead of him (you might best remember him as Mr. Gower the druggist in It’s a Wonderful Life)
The Chosen has now been around for over four years. It has been seen by hundreds of millions all over the world. It is a global phenomena. Furthermore if you look at IMDB you will find that while Jonathan Roumie has credits dating back to 2001 you will see nothing in a significant staring role that might cause him to be memorable before the Chosen. His entire fames comes from playing Jesus and there are, I suspect, many particularly in a post Christian culture that have not known the Gospel before and are rediscovering faith for the first time, for whom he is the only Jesus they have ever known in their lives.
Imagine the pressure of playing the son of God under those conditions and add to that the aditional pressure when you consider Jonathan Roumie is a devout Catholic who is very conscious of the dangers of the sin of Pride and that his performance and how he carries himself in public could have a huge oversized effect on people trying to find God. An actor might worry about the effects of his words and actions hurting a production, a devout Christian would worry about his actions and their effect on souls.
And we haven’t even touched on those who despise this message and the messengers who deliver it, both natural and supernatural. I’ve written and spoken about how the clergy and particularly the higher ups are targets for the devil, that comes with the job. Jonathan Roumie is an actor. I suspect that Satan has painted a target on his back bigger than the one on any Bishop.
That he is able to function at all, let alone as a man of faith and devotion speaks volumes and by the time the final season of the Chosen has wrapped, if he didn’t have a complete understanding of redemptive suffering he’ll know it first hand.
I admire him for this task which I would not want for all the gold in the world.
I haven’t watched this documentary yet, but you can bet I’m going to.
Update: Apparently it’s in four parts and available on Amazon. Watching now
Speaking of Gold in the world this is the final day of Christmas and thus the final day of our fundraiser: We remain stuck $2345 away from our goal. I suspect we won’t manage that today but I’d be really delighted if we could get that number below $2000 before I get home. If you would like to help please hit DaTipJar below or to the left:
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