Category: Movies/Reviews

The sheer joy of seeing John Wayne and Glen Campbell (who sings the lovely opening melody of the movie) on the screen makes the entire endeavor an apriori classic. The Western “True Grit” jumps at you with simplicity and profundity all at once interweaving humorous dialogues with deep discourses on the human condition.

This 1969 classic (there is a 2010 adaptation with Jeff Bridges that I have not yet seen) tells the story of Frank Ross, an honorable man, who is murdered and whose possessions are taken by his hireling, Tom Chaney. His daughter, Mattie Ross, played by the spunky Kim Darby, is eager to bring Ross to justice, preferably to be hung in Fort Smith. She hires the U.S. Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, played by the magnificent John Wayne. Mattie’s persuasiveness and persistence allow her to raise funds to hire Rooster.

Nevertheless, Rooster’s drunken lifestyle conflicts with his reputation as a man with “true grit.” The conflict plays throughout the movie and by the end is gladly solved. Still, Maddie sees in this self-aggrandizing lawman the hope to bring her father’s murder to justice. In the process of procuring a way to bring her father’s murder to justice, a Texas Ranger, La Boeuf, enters the scene as one looking for the same Tom Chaney. The character played by Glen Campbell is a charming and yet equally persistent figure who will stop at nothing to bring back Chaney into custody.

When La Boeuf and Rooster discover that there is much more money involved in the Chaney pursuit than what the young Mattie is willing to offer, they decide to team up and go in search of Tom Chaney. However, Mattie is not easily beaten and follows them. La Boeuf and Rooster do everything to ditch Mattie, but give in to her sweet perseverance.

From that moment, the three begin a mission to find Tom Chaney. They encounter a host of iconic outlaws. The entire dangerous narrative binds the three together in different ways. Most striking is Rooster’s fatherly care for Mattie that culminates in the closing scenes of the movie. The additional humorous exchanges between the two form an unmatched father/daughter relationship.

La Boeuf becomes a much more central figure in the movie than I expected. He embraces a protector role that secures this intriguing combination of characters into an inseparable body of justice seekers.

There are several redemptive factors at play: Rooster Cogburn often seeking his own welfare is redeemed through the love of a young lady whose quest for justice brings his own affairs into proper order. La Boeuf is redeemed not through the bounty reserved for his conquest, but through a life of sacrifice for the least of these. Mattie finds redemption as she gains two father figures to replace her murdered father. God restores her house in double portion.

Perhaps most striking is the ability the movie has to bring characters from completely different backgrounds to join a mission. The Gospel narrative is the original copy of such a mission. In Christ, the Church unites strange characters from every tribe, tongue, and nation to participate in a sacred mission to bring justice to the nations by the power of the One who sacrificed everything that we might be one. In the paternal affection of our Father in heaven, redeemed humans restore the homeless and fatherless to their true purpose in life.

I thought I’d begin the year with a brief movie review and then make a couple of applications for 2021. I can’t fathom watching something without the purpose of taking apart one scene or twenty and fleshing out its significance. In this case, my wife, daughter, and I watched “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” last night as we bid adieu together to 2020 at around 9ish like old folks that we are. This may be my third and the Brito women’s fifth time watching it. Every time we embark on this 1954 classic, we find ourselves enamored by colors and symbols, and dances. In my estimation, the movie is a classic paradigm of Hebraic culture; the kind that leads feminists to insanity and makes progressive evangelicals tweet a picture about their chai lattes due to patriarchal overtones. But alas, this work is what we need in 2021.

For those unhappy folks who have never seen this great work of art, the story is set in 1850 Oregon. Before Oregon became the land of sissified ethics and cultural iconoclasts, there were some men and some women who treasured marriage and courtship and their respective roles. The movie portrays a time when women were strong outside the house and inside and men aggressively sought the good.

When Adam Pontipee–the country bearded baritone–comes to town, he comes to find himself a wife. He is looking for a woman to cook and clean and serve him in his large land estate. He finds himself the assertive and beloved Milly, who is eager to start a new life. They are properly married on the same day and make their way back to the backwoods where Milly intends to cook and clean for one man–her new husband.

When she arrives, she discovers that Adam has six additional brothers. Without spoiling too much, all six brothers carry biblical names. Adam is the oldest–as the first man–and Gideon is the last–who plays a decisively charming, but yet prophetic role. The entire scene is entertaining and full of remarkable pieces of subtleties. And of universal acclaim, the choreography is unmatched in talent and beauty.

Milly (Jane Powell who is magnificent!) plays the role of Lady Wisdom seeking to instruct her new tribe. Those around her–her new husband and brothers-in-law–drink from the well of wisdom and find meaning and purpose, which includes fighting for their brides. The kidnapping of the women is a form of fighting for what rightly belongs to them, and the entire story mirrors in some way the Judges (19-21) narratives when the Benjamites are creatively allowed to abduct the maidens dancing at Shiloh. Again, this part will gladly give post-moderns woke strokes.

The ladies are fully aware of where they belong and refuse to go back to their old ways once they see and know what manhood truly is to look like. Adam, the first-born, struggles to listen to Lady Wisdom in various cases and suffers, and the consequence is to leave the house. In the Bible, Wisdom preserves order and seeks the good of Eden. But for the Edenic home to endure, Adam and his band of brothers must seek the good by protecting and placing their women under the benediction of the priesthood, Reverend Elcott (played by Ian Wolfe).

The entire picture is replete with symbolic overtones as priestly colors adorn the screen and Adamic figures seek to reform their ways to the ways of Wisdom. Adam must reconcile with his bride and restore the house.

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2021 is like a stubborn man wanting his way and refusing to listen to Lady Wisdom. This past year served as an Adamic marker in history. We refused to listen to the Word of God and kept getting kicked out of the house, sometimes willingly. But 2021 calls us to listen to Milly and enter into the Church’s rousing dance.

In an age when men give up their callings for the mundane and childish choosing to grow old in their aloneness, God calls them to seek out a wife and start a house. I think it was Jim Wilson who once said that when a man reaches a certain age as single, his duty is to ask her name; which is to say, find a woman and ask her hand in marriage. Perfectionism is the enemy of the duty-bound Gospel man.

We have behaved in 2020 as if dancing and feasting were biblical options. But they are not. If we cannot raise a barn and chop wood, we should raise raucous laughter around a fire and tell stories until next December 31st. Perhaps the lesson I most gleaned from “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” is that sitting around waiting for life to provide you with delicacies is our mode of operation. But the Gospel says, “Take up the cross.” Jesus did not sit around in heavenly peace. He came down to get himself a wife. Unlike the first Adam, he was Wisdom personified. We better use this year to listen attentively to his instructions.

One of my hobbies is to watch movie documentaries explaining the rationale for selecting actors and scenes and all sorts of fascinating details. The latest one I saw was from my beloved “Amadeus Mozart;” a movie that moves me in so many ways. I have probably seen it at least five times over the last twenty years. I have never forgotten Tom Hulce’s performance as Mozart with his contagious and maniacal laughter. F. Abraham Murray as Salieri brought out the sin of covetousness and anger in a more concrete way than I have ever seen performed.

I was reminded also recently of the art of story-telling by sages like Orson Welles who hypnotized me in an interview with Dick Cavett where Welles tells the story of his brief encounter with Adolf Hitler before the Nazi party became prominent. He said in that masterful voice filled with compelling mannerisms that Hitler “made so little an impression on me that I can’t remember a second of it. He had no personality. He was invisible…. I think there was nothing there.” Perhaps only a party of idiots led by a highly uninteresting person can seduce the masses to kill millions. Boredom is a gift of tyrants.

Perhaps the entire ethos of modern-day poetry, and film-making, and the story-telling motif is gone. I am a lover of all things old, not because “old” is somehow more holy or more glorious, but generally because old preserves some sense of decency; it seeks to keep the gift of language at the center without feeling compelled to entertain at every five second interval.

Go ahead. Watch 10 minutes of Jimmy Fallon and suddenly you realize that you learned nothing from a guest actor/actress, except what he ate at midnight on Christmas Eve of 1998 with his second wife. Then, anytime the guest begins to opine about something significant, a game ensues and more entertainment. Of course, the Jimmy fella is hilarious and I find him rather gifted musically, but overall, the audience and its demands create the talk-show host. Fallon is not who we should have, but it’s who we deserve.

Then, head over to YouTube and listen to Dick Cavett (my favorite of all time) and hear him talk to the celebrities of the time and before us, behold, a genuine conversation about life and its inherent hilarities. Cavett can have one of the most charming disagreements with Marlon Brando on the proper definition of acting; the whole thing is civil while Cavett let’s Brando opine on and on without one.single.interruption. Today, Brando would have said five words and been compelled to play a singing game with tarot cards. The long-form conversations are largely gone from mainstream, and have now been absorbed by the podcasting world where there you can hear actors and politicians and religious figures speak frankly without the need to perform but simply be themselves at their best or worst. Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein and others have convinced us that people still want to have long conversations about serious things in our day. Not all hope is lost.

I suspect “Babette’s Feast” directed Gabriel Axel in 1987 (on my best movies of all time) would flop today. Charlie Chaplin’s genius adapted to a 21st century audience would be too nebulous. His comedy would be considered too imaginative. Andy Griffith would be too naive. Opie would seem too concretely situated in a patriarchal paradigm. I suspect Postman was right. If we are not entertained too quickly, we’d lose ourselves, amuse ourselves to death, because, after all, we have trained ourselves for quick doses of entertainment. And we need our fill now. So, adieu to creativity and imagination. LOL…nay, ROTFL.

Dear Parents of Teens,

Do not be complacent in this season, especially as it pertains to what your young teens watch. A recent Parents Television Council (PTC) Report analyzed 255 NETFLIX titles that are deemed “appropriate for teens.” Over 120 of those titles included “harsh profanities” and other disturbing content. The “f-word” appeared in the vast majority of those titles which means one can count on it in most “appropriate for teens” shows/movies.

We can become overwhelmed and allow teens to watch shows assuming the best. But we need to remember that the movie industry–in general–has no interest in preserving ideals of purity. The goal is to provide a philosophy where profanity and sexiness are the new normal. In the long term, this slowly removes the powerful admonitions against homosexuality and other forms of impure and sinful relationships. We begin to see these things in society as normal because we have been catechized by a system that made the obscene an artistic expression.

My recommendations would be three-fold:

First, to look up every movie before giving the green light. Common Sense Media is a great option. Some parental review websites will tell you explicitly the appearance of “positive messages,” “language,” “sex,” and other essential components for parents to know.

Second, when possible watch with them. It is true that when a parent shares in any positive activity with teenagers, there is a psychological bonding that occurs, especially at an intellectual level.

Third, consider other options like VidAngel, Minno, or even Disney Plus for more wholesome alternatives.

Remember that the concern is not so much exposure to the bad. They will be eventually confronted with these realities whether language or sexuality. The concern is with the continual desensitizing to these realities. Too much of something often enough will form new habits and thinking. A steady diet of conversations with your teens about the role of purity and beauty in the Christian life is a matter of life and death.

Sincerely,
Pastor Uriesou Brito