I saw this movie last night, thanks to Blockbuster.com... which by the way is wholly sub par to Netflix. After my free trail, I will be going back to NetFlix, thankyouverymuch! Saved! was such a great movie. Although my roommate bitched about it the entire time until he was laughing at the end, I thought it was very well written, well-acted and completely voiced my views on religion. The speech that Jena Malone gives at the end to Pastor Skip had me sitting up and saying, "Damn, she put her finger right on the way I feel about religion!"
Has anyone else seen this?
For those who are either religious or nonreligious, or religious but not fundamentalist, but I will say this: I attended a Catholic summer camp, and pretty much everything in this film is shit I really witnessed. I was in a play where a guy kissed me on the cheek, to have his parents pull him out of camp the next day for immorality. I knew a bunch of "good" Catholic girls and boys who could have written veritable Kama Sutras on things they can do together without having sex. I have seen so many good things declared Satanic that one would imagine that there is no room left for God. As one with an pretty ambivalent religious background, I really didn't find anything too extreme. I even knew some devout Christians who were just as mean in their faith as Mandy Moore's character in this movie. I don't think it is anti-religious or anti-Christianity. But it is a critique of the narrowness of many Christians, a critique that I personally think Jesus would completely endorse. After all, in the Gospels, the two groups of people He had no patience with were the wealthy and the overly religious.
The point wasn't to provide a picture of what life in Christian high schools is like. If so, they would have included more of the really nice people that inhabit the schools. The point of the film is to highlight something that Jena Malone's character Mary (albeit, a not so virginal one) says to Pastor Skip near the end: "Why would God make us all so different, if he wanted us to all be the same?" I have witnessed first hand the way that many fundamentalist groups want to cut back on diversity, want to limit the number of legitimate lifestyle choices for people. I think the point of this film is that underneath the rather artificial veneer that many fundamentalist groups impose on people, they still are more diverse than they want to acknowledge, and the individuality eventually comes out, even if suppressed in the short run.
I have heard the film was slightly controversial upon its release, but this film doesn't make fun of Christians. It points out how some Christians use the Bible for their own justification. There are so many "Christians" that cloak themselves in their religion to cover their bigotry. I think religion is wonderful. I fully endorse belief in a higher being. But when you use it to persecute those you deem too different or not fitting into your perfect, idyllic mold... I think that is when it becomes dangerous.
How hot has Macauley Culkin become? I don't usually like blonds, but even bound to a wheelchair, I would not have minded tappin' dat ass. Those pouty lips! Those saucer-like baby blues! Oh my!
The boy is coming over tonight, and I am going to go Martha Stewart on his ass and cook for him. Then we will be viewing Shrek 2, which I hear is phenomenal and slightly better than the first one. I love these newly discovered domestic-bliss nights. Dare I say it... am I GROWING UP?!?!?