Can Film Critics Make Christian Films Better? - with Joseph Holmes

Matt: 00:00:00

You know, guys, when I was a kid, I'm old enough to remember Saturday

Matt: 00:00:03

mornings turning on the television as a little young film buff, um,

Matt: 00:00:07

watching Siskel and Ebert, the most famous film critics in the world.

Matt: 00:00:10

You know, sometimes you loved what they had to say.

Matt: 00:00:13

You really loved when they disagreed and got all mad at

Matt: 00:00:16

each other about a, about a film.

Matt: 00:00:17

You really loved when a film that everybody else

Matt: 00:00:20

appreciated, they kinda missed.

Matt: 00:00:23

Uh, so film critics, they've got, I, I think, a role even though it

Matt: 00:00:26

may be sometimes a little bit of a, uh, of a fight, some hard feelings

Matt: 00:00:29

between filmmakers and critics.

Matt: 00:00:31

The film critics certainly have a role in the film industry, and we are,

Matt: 00:00:35

uh, blessed today to be joined on the

Matt: 00:00:36

Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast, by Joseph Holmes.

Matt: 00:00:40

Uh, Joseph, thank you so much for joining us today.

Joseph: 00:00:42

Thank you.

Joseph: 00:00:43

Yeah, I'm, I'm just old enough, getting old enough where saying I'm old enough

Joseph: 00:00:47

to remember isn't funny anymore.

Joseph: 00:00:49

It's just true.

Joseph: 00:00:50

It can be true of some things.

Joseph: 00:00:52

So yes.

Joseph: 00:00:52

Um- Yeah, well, wait till you

Matt: 00:00:53

get as much gray in your beard as I got.

Matt: 00:00:55

That's, uh, that's when you'll really

Joseph: 00:00:57

feel it.

Joseph: 00:00:57

But no, I'm really happy.

Joseph: 00:00:58

I, I really appreciate you having me on.

Joseph: 00:00:59

It's, uh, you know, I, I really appreciate what you do keeping the

Joseph: 00:01:01

conversation about faith and film going.

Joseph: 00:01:03

It's an important one.

Matt: 00:01:05

Just a bunch of film nerds having conversations about film things, exactly.

Matt: 00:01:08

I wanna, to kinda t- give everybody a little bit of your background so

Matt: 00:01:11

they can kinda understand who you are.

Matt: 00:01:13

You're an award-winning New York City-based film critic.

Matt: 00:01:16

You're a culture critic and a screenwriter.

Matt: 00:01:18

You've spent over 10 years making and writing about film and culture in both

Matt: 00:01:23

Christian and non-Christian spaces.

Matt: 00:01:25

You've written for, uh, publications like Forbes, Christianity Today,

Matt: 00:01:28

World Magazine, Relevant Magazine, First Things, Religion Unplugged,

Matt: 00:01:32

and you've been the co-host of the award-winning podcast Overthinkers,

Matt: 00:01:37

which has been out for, like, six years.

Matt: 00:01:39

So you, you've, you've done the grind.

Matt: 00:01:40

You understand the grind.

Matt: 00:01:42

Uh, you've, you've also, and let's just keep the pitchforks away a little bit so

Matt: 00:01:46

he understands where we're coming from, Joseph did, uh, w- was the, the writer

Matt: 00:01:50

and director of the feature film Jim vs.

Matt: 00:01:52

the Future, and it's available on DVD and streaming on Amazon,

Matt: 00:01:55

Tubi, YouTube, and more.

Matt: 00:01:57

So I'm gonna start off, you know, I'm embarrassed to do this to a fellow

Matt: 00:02:00

podcaster 'cause it's probably the most boring and lazy question, but

Matt: 00:02:03

necessary because the answer is more interesting than the question usually.

Matt: 00:02:06

Uh, tell us about your background and how you became a film critic.

Joseph: 00:02:09

Totally, yeah.

Joseph: 00:02:10

I feel like I, I, I talk enough about my background in, in these things that

Joseph: 00:02:15

I realize it's kind of, I didn't have a choice in the matter to become a film

Joseph: 00:02:19

critic in the, the Christian religious space because my dad was a pastor

Joseph: 00:02:24

and one of our favorite ways to…

Joseph: 00:02:27

He was, you know, very busy being a pastor.

Joseph: 00:02:29

It's a full-time job and, and sometimes if you have a rectory you, it's even

Joseph: 00:02:32

off hours, there's no off hours.

Joseph: 00:02:34

You get knocks at the door.

Joseph: 00:02:35

But when we did have family time, one of the things we loved to do was watch

Joseph: 00:02:39

movies together and then talk about them and discuss the theology of them.

Joseph: 00:02:43

My, mom and dad were both theology nerds.

Joseph: 00:02:45

And so whatever it was, if we were watching, again, I'm old enough

Joseph: 00:02:48

to remember watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which is an old Disney film

Joseph: 00:02:53

and it's about witches versus Nazis.

Joseph: 00:02:55

And, you know, we would, talk about the whole idea of, well, you know, this is

Joseph: 00:03:00

something that, you know, Disney didn't quite get right based on, you know,

Joseph: 00:03:04

correct theology or stuff like that, but this is something that kind of, that

Joseph: 00:03:06

does work and this is what we appreciate, this is what we like, this is what…

Joseph: 00:03:09

So, like, this whole idea of appreciating movies but then also picking them apart

Joseph: 00:03:16

into their component parts and saying, "This was good, this was not good.

Joseph: 00:03:19

This is something that aligns with what we believe to be true and this is what

Joseph: 00:03:22

doesn't align Was something that was just fun, normal family time for me growing up.

Joseph: 00:03:28

And so it makes a lot of sense that I grew up in a, you know, I got, you

Joseph: 00:03:32

know, into college and I started, you know, trying to make my, you know,

Joseph: 00:03:36

way kind of in what do I want to do.

Joseph: 00:03:38

And I, I wanted to make movies, but I started, you know, a YouTube channel and

Joseph: 00:03:42

then a blog that got, you know, where I could talk about movies and sort of break

Joseph: 00:03:46

them down in an analytical way because that cost significantly less money than,

Joseph: 00:03:50

you know, making a whole, whole movie.

Joseph: 00:03:52

So I was doing the, the short films and things, but I was

Joseph: 00:03:55

also doing this other thing.

Joseph: 00:03:56

And then I went to the King's College in New York City and my, my professors

Joseph: 00:04:01

and, and, and classmates started, you know, together partly a, a online

Joseph: 00:04:06

magazine called Religion Unplugged, and then they said to me a- after a

Joseph: 00:04:10

conversation we had, they're like, "You know, Joseph, the stuff you're doing right

Joseph: 00:04:12

now for free, we will pay you to do."

Joseph: 00:04:15

And so I was like, "Dude, you know, sign me up." And so, and from there it's

Joseph: 00:04:19

like, oh, I know friends at, you know, other places might like this stuff too.

Joseph: 00:04:23

And so I was like… It's just sort of snowballed from there.

Joseph: 00:04:27

People really appreciated, you know, my breakdowns of films that

Joseph: 00:04:32

fell into the religious space.

Joseph: 00:04:34

But also, you know, of Hollywood films that I had dealt with faith

Joseph: 00:04:36

or not, you know, just more broadly.

Joseph: 00:04:38

And people appreciate them or got mad at them, uh, with, with, uh, uh,

Joseph: 00:04:42

somewhat, and usually both at the same time, uh, with some frequency.

Joseph: 00:04:46

And so yeah, it just became something that people… that it really could parlay

Joseph: 00:04:51

into… I tell people I feel like I'm running the, the best con in the world.

Joseph: 00:04:57

I've somehow tricked people into paying me to do what I was doing for free,

Joseph: 00:05:02

which is watching movies and giving my educated and uneducated opinions on them.

Matt: 00:05:07

I mean, that's the dream job, right?

Matt: 00:05:08

Yes.

Matt: 00:05:08

Anybody who says, "I'm doing what I would do for free, but somehow they're

Matt: 00:05:12

paying me, and I can afford a, a place in New York City out of it," that

Matt: 00:05:16

sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Joseph: 00:05:18

Yeah, absolutely.

Joseph: 00:05:19

And so I still, again, throughout that, you know, was able to, you know, meet

Joseph: 00:05:22

other, you know, Christian filmmakers.

Joseph: 00:05:24

And so I got my, my, um- Um, one of my short films, All God's Children,

Joseph: 00:05:29

got into the International Film Festival, and then I met there Nathan

Joseph: 00:05:32

Clarkson, who was starring in another faithatbased film, and then we started

Joseph: 00:05:36

a podcast together, The Overthinkers.

Joseph: 00:05:37

And we've then worked together, I've worked together on some of his

Joseph: 00:05:40

films, and he's worked, was producer and actor in my Jim Vs The Future

Joseph: 00:05:43

feature and some of my short films.

Joseph: 00:05:45

So I've been able to kind of have both sides of it, and you'll make…

Joseph: 00:05:49

And I, I think this is important.

Joseph: 00:05:51

I'm not saying every film critic has to make movies, but I do think that it is

Joseph: 00:05:55

really easy to just comment on culture and not try to actually make culture.

Joseph: 00:06:00

And say like, "You know, this is how people should make movies,"

Joseph: 00:06:03

and then not try to say, "Well, here's a vision for how it can be

Joseph: 00:06:05

done as well to move that forward."

Matt: 00:06:09

Yeah, I can see how it would give you some empathy for the process and

Matt: 00:06:12

make you a better film critic, honestly.

Matt: 00:06:15

Right?

Joseph: 00:06:15

Absolutely.

Matt: 00:06:16

Well, let's talk about this tension you kind of alluded to a little

Matt: 00:06:19

bit, people love you or they hate you.

Matt: 00:06:20

I mean, I will admit it, as a filmmaker myself, if you say nice

Matt: 00:06:25

things about my film, I love you, but if you don't, I'm a fight you.

Matt: 00:06:29

We're gonna fight in the parking lot, right?

Matt: 00:06:30

You're telling me my baby's ugly, and that's, that's probably not

Matt: 00:06:34

the perspective I should have.

Matt: 00:06:35

But, you know, filmmakers, uh, filmmakers accuse critics of overthinking at

Matt: 00:06:39

times, if you see what I did there.

Matt: 00:06:41

So just talk a little bit about that tension and kind of your

Matt: 00:06:44

unique perspective having done both.

Joseph: 00:06:46

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:06:47

I think the thing about both film critics and filmmakers that we both

Joseph: 00:06:52

have in common is the fact that we love movies and we love storytelling,

Joseph: 00:06:56

and we love the way that storytelling can, and beauty is expressed in film.

Joseph: 00:07:04

I mean, one of the things that… You know, we could be doing something else.

Joseph: 00:07:07

It's much cheaper to just write a book.

Joseph: 00:07:09

You know, and I could make a lot more money.

Joseph: 00:07:10

I live in New York, I could make a lot more money doing a lot of

Joseph: 00:07:12

things than writing about movies.

Joseph: 00:07:14

Um- Go, go work on Wall Street.

Joseph: 00:07:16

Yeah, exactly.

Joseph: 00:07:17

You know, so I think that, you know, we share that love of movies, and we

Joseph: 00:07:21

share the love of, of that storytelling.

Joseph: 00:07:24

But it is two sides of the different coin, which is like you said, when you're making

Joseph: 00:07:31

something, you are creating something that you're putting out in the world.

Joseph: 00:07:34

It is your, your, your baby, and you see, when your child is going

Joseph: 00:07:39

out in the world, you see all of the stuff that you put into it, and

Joseph: 00:07:42

you see everything it means to you.

Joseph: 00:07:43

But you do have to put your… bring your child out in the world

Joseph: 00:07:45

to be socialized by other people who don't have that same affection.

Joseph: 00:07:49

And if you don't, you know, one of the things that they're finding in

Joseph: 00:07:52

so much research right now is one of the reasons that people have

Joseph: 00:07:55

such anxiety and depression, uh, is because of the trend of safetyism

Joseph: 00:08:00

in parenting, where they didn't…

Joseph: 00:08:01

They kind of kept their children too close and didn't let them socialize

Joseph: 00:08:05

out in the world and make mistakes when it was safe to do so as a kid.

Joseph: 00:08:09

And I think that there's, there is that tension as a, as a f- a creator, as

Joseph: 00:08:13

a, and a parent of this product to not actually let other people see the truth

Joseph: 00:08:18

of it or say the truth of it because we have this, bring all this context to it.

Joseph: 00:08:22

And I did this myself.

Joseph: 00:08:23

Again, I had put my movie out in the world, and people just, you know,

Joseph: 00:08:29

people ripped it apart, you know?

Joseph: 00:08:31

And I, I put it, you know, I mean, again, the f- the first time I, you

Joseph: 00:08:33

know, hit refresh on a film critic, I was just like, "Oh, is it, where

Joseph: 00:08:37

is it?" You know, I, the, the amount of cringe I felt was, was very harsh.

Joseph: 00:08:43

But that definitely gives me empathy, having done that so long, you know,

Joseph: 00:08:47

gives me a lot of empathy for that.

Joseph: 00:08:49

But the thing is, every time I listened to somebody about what was wrong with it, it

Joseph: 00:08:56

made me better And it made the film better

Matt: 00:09:00

Amen.

Joseph: 00:09:00

And I think that a lot of times I, tell people, like, "You know, you

Joseph: 00:09:03

should talk to film critics earlier in the process because then you have that benefit

Joseph: 00:09:07

of like, oh, the film's not already made.

Joseph: 00:09:09

You have time to fix some things." But I think that that's the issue is that film

Joseph: 00:09:14

criticism is the part where we actually say, "Hey, let's actually take a look at

Joseph: 00:09:21

what's not actually reflecting the truth and beauty of God in this so that we have

Joseph: 00:09:28

more things that exist in the world that reflect the truth and beauty of God."

Joseph: 00:09:32

Because that's what, es- particularly as Christians, we believe… I think even

Joseph: 00:09:36

secular people, they wouldn't put it that way, but that's what they wa- the truth

Joseph: 00:09:39

and beauty of, of the world and reality of human experience they would say.

Joseph: 00:09:42

Of the

Matt: 00:09:42

universe,

Joseph: 00:09:43

man.

Joseph: 00:09:43

Of the universe.

Joseph: 00:09:44

Yes, exactly.

Joseph: 00:09:44

Whatever, whatever you wanna…

Joseph: 00:09:45

But because of our sin and because of just of our biases, we can't always see

Joseph: 00:09:50

the truth of the things we make, and that's why God gave us the church is so

Joseph: 00:09:56

that we, you know, w- we aren't just on our own figuring this out on our own.

Joseph: 00:10:00

Other people can point out our blind spots.

Joseph: 00:10:03

And so being a film critic is just a way to kind of build that into the

Joseph: 00:10:07

professional side of the world so that somebody can be dedicated that this

Joseph: 00:10:11

is their job to be able to notice the things that are wrong and notice the

Joseph: 00:10:15

things that are good, and they can dedicate the time to it, and it can

Joseph: 00:10:17

become an expertise so that, you know, somebody out there can say, "This is…"

Joseph: 00:10:23

For, for audiences, you know, "This is a way… that this is not

Joseph: 00:10:28

worth your time. This is not gonna actually benefit you," because you

Joseph: 00:10:31

have, again, you're, you have lives.

Joseph: 00:10:33

You know, this is, you know, you actually deserve to have someone

Joseph: 00:10:37

tell you, "This is worth your time.

Joseph: 00:10:39

This is not worth your time." And then also to filmmakers,

Joseph: 00:10:41

we'll say, "You know what?

Joseph: 00:10:43

This is not representing truth and beauty in the world, and

Joseph: 00:10:47

maybe you should get another job.

Joseph: 00:10:48

Or if you wanna keep doing this, maybe this is a way that you can grow and be

Joseph: 00:10:53

better." And I'll say this again, I don't have proof of this, but one of the things

Joseph: 00:10:57

that's been amazingly wonderful for me to watch is since I've been a, a kid, I've

Joseph: 00:11:03

watched Christian filmmakers actually implement the criticisms that have

Joseph: 00:11:08

been made of Christian filmmaking- Yeah

Joseph: 00:11:10

and the films have gotten objectively better even by the standards of

Joseph: 00:11:15

the Christian film audience that enjoyed those movies previously.

Joseph: 00:11:18

They're like, "Wow, The Chosen is just so much better than Flywheel." You

Joseph: 00:11:22

know, the, the- … it's, you know, you can… And, and that's funny,

Joseph: 00:11:26

but, like, you just could watch the trajectory is like these- Oh, 100%.

Joseph: 00:11:30

And I think it's partly, you know, I talked to Andy Erwin about this, um, at

Joseph: 00:11:35

Religion Unplugged, and he said- Look, you know, we were not coming through Hollywood

Joseph: 00:11:39

or being trained by Hollywood people.

Joseph: 00:11:41

We started out on our own figuring out.

Joseph: 00:11:42

We didn't know what we didn't know.

Joseph: 00:11:44

And so part of it is just practice and doing it, but part of this

Joseph: 00:11:47

is inevitably getting feedback.

Joseph: 00:11:49

And, you know, I feel privileged to be able to have s- have given the,

Joseph: 00:11:53

this kind of feedback for a long time that I, you know… And again, I've

Joseph: 00:11:58

only been doing this for 10 years.

Joseph: 00:11:59

There are many people who've been at this longer than I have.

Joseph: 00:12:01

To be able to help along the way, give the feedback that makes the art better.

Joseph: 00:12:07

Now it's, again, like Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver, saying I-

Joseph: 00:12:11

The Chosen is a beautiful work of filmmaking that, you know, that gives

Joseph: 00:12:16

him, feels like an encounter with Jesus.

Joseph: 00:12:17

And that's an incredible thing.

Joseph: 00:12:18

That's always been a big part of the goal of any kind of, you know,

Joseph: 00:12:23

Christians within the art world.

Joseph: 00:12:24

So that's kind of how I balance.

Joseph: 00:12:26

I see it as there's making culture, and then there's holding culture

Joseph: 00:12:29

accountable so that it can be the best version of itself that does

Joseph: 00:12:33

the best version of the world.

Joseph: 00:12:35

So I don't see us as adversaries.

Joseph: 00:12:38

I see us as on the same team, just in different roles.

Matt: 00:12:42

I agree.

Matt: 00:12:43

And, and your motivation and then the reason you do what you do makes all

Matt: 00:12:47

the sense in the world, totally fair.

Matt: 00:12:50

Uh, w- one point you made that I think needs to be underlined is that y- y-

Matt: 00:12:54

you wouldn't call the same, someone doing the same job at a different part

Matt: 00:12:58

in the process a, a film critic, right?

Matt: 00:13:00

So if I've, I've written a script, y- you've got to have that tr- development

Matt: 00:13:05

producer, and that could be a, a, a critic like you who comes in and

Matt: 00:13:09

rips your script apart in order not to, not to hurt you, not, not to kill

Matt: 00:13:15

your baby, but to help you find every way that you can make it better.

Matt: 00:13:20

And if you do that intensely at the beginning, at the scriptwr- the

Matt: 00:13:24

screenwriting process, and with the right development producer, and I argue with one

Matt: 00:13:29

development producer, not, don't send this out to 17 different people because you're

Matt: 00:13:33

gonna get 17 different perspectives.

Matt: 00:13:35

17 different responses.

Matt: 00:13:35

But if you have the right development producer who's able

Matt: 00:13:38

to walk you through this, the…

Matt: 00:13:39

I've, I once wrote a script in a month and a half, and then it took 18 months

Matt: 00:13:43

of development before it was ready, the draft nine was actually ready to go

Matt: 00:13:47

raise a million bucks to make the movie.

Matt: 00:13:49

That's the secret.

Matt: 00:13:50

Now, you do that, and then the critics are going to reflect that later rather

Matt: 00:13:55

than re- reflecting what the development producer reflected on your first draft.

Joseph: 00:13:59

Yeah, exactly.

Matt: 00:14:01

now Geoffrey saw, this is an interesting point too for me, Geoffrey saw

Matt: 00:14:03

your talk, How to Critic-Proof Your Film.

Matt: 00:14:05

I wanna get into that a little bit.

Matt: 00:14:07

You know, he said it was absolutely riveting.

Matt: 00:14:09

As, and now as a filmmaker, I'm a little torn and hesitant.

Matt: 00:14:12

I, I don't know whether great filmmakers should make their

Matt: 00:14:16

films, you know, for critics or really even honestly for audiences.

Matt: 00:14:20

You know, you listen to Tarantino talk about his films, that he

Matt: 00:14:23

makes them for an audience of one.

Matt: 00:14:25

He makes them for himself, right?

Matt: 00:14:27

But he also happens to have amazing taste in film.

Matt: 00:14:30

Um, so a lot of us like what he likes and, and that's what makes

Matt: 00:14:34

him, I think, such a unique auteur.

Matt: 00:14:36

But, you know, is it possible that, you know, that's just

Matt: 00:14:39

one way to make a great film?

Matt: 00:14:40

Maybe there are filmmakers who are blessed with the gift of storytelling

Matt: 00:14:42

whom maybe they're not blessed with Tarantino's level of taste, or

Matt: 00:14:46

Nolan, and, and they should at least understand what critics are looking for.

Matt: 00:14:50

So how, you know, how do we square that kind of artistic individualism

Matt: 00:14:53

with the reality that we actually have to make good movies if we

Matt: 00:14:56

want people to enjoy them and, and understanding a critic's standards

Matt: 00:14:59

might actually be a useful tool in that?

Joseph: 00:15:02

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:15:03

It depends on what question you're trying to answer.

Joseph: 00:15:06

Because I think there's a lot of Christians who they see their movies

Joseph: 00:15:11

that they enjoy, and filmmakers who are Christian who make movies, and they get

Joseph: 00:15:16

these, you know, bad, critical reviews.

Joseph: 00:15:20

And one of the things they ask, "Well, is why is this?

Joseph: 00:15:23

Is it because they're biased against Christians?

Joseph: 00:15:25

Is it because it's just not for them?

Joseph: 00:15:27

Is it…" And so part of my talk is to just say, "Here is where critics

Joseph: 00:15:32

are coming from with this." And you can understand where critics are

Joseph: 00:15:37

coming from and then decide, "Well, I don't care about that." And that's

Joseph: 00:15:40

fine, but it's good to understand, well, this is maybe a good reason

Joseph: 00:15:45

why a critic might not like your film because of the perspective he's coming

Joseph: 00:15:48

from, and this is maybe a bad reason.

Joseph: 00:15:51

And the question then becomes, what do you do with that information?

Joseph: 00:15:55

But I still think that that information is helpful.

Skip: 00:15:58

Agree.

Joseph: 00:15:58

For example, one of the things that I, you know… Because I, and I

Joseph: 00:16:01

say this, I understand the whole making it for yourself thing, and there's

Joseph: 00:16:04

a very big part of, like, Jim vs.

Joseph: 00:16:06

the Future, I made it for myself, This is the kind of thing that I wish

Joseph: 00:16:09

existed in the world in many respects, given, you know, the limitations I had.

Joseph: 00:16:13

And I think that that's really good and valuable, and I think you should

Joseph: 00:16:16

at least make it for yourself as well.

Joseph: 00:16:19

But I also think people are not, we don't live in an island.

Joseph: 00:16:23

You are making this to be shown somewhere.

Matt: 00:16:26

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:16:26

You're not making this to lock it away.

Joseph: 00:16:28

You are making it for people to see.

Joseph: 00:16:29

There's this great, in this, uh, book by, uh, I think it's Sherman Alexie,

Joseph: 00:16:33

the short story, um, uh, what was it?

Joseph: 00:16:35

What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona.

Joseph: 00:16:37

He actually gives this image of this storyteller who nobody listens to his

Joseph: 00:16:41

stories, and it's one of those tragic images because he's just telling

Joseph: 00:16:46

stories and everyone's ignoring him.

Joseph: 00:16:47

And I think that speaks to the fact that there's, you know, uh, in the telos of

Joseph: 00:16:52

art, there is this need for an audience.

Joseph: 00:16:55

There's somebody to tell and somebody to listen.

Joseph: 00:16:57

And so I think that, y- I think that we're never going to not make it for

Joseph: 00:17:01

other people to some degree, and I think that given that there is a relationship

Joseph: 00:17:05

between the artist and the audience, relate-- God tells us we need to love

Joseph: 00:17:10

the people we have a relationship with.

Joseph: 00:17:12

And so I think that by definition, you should try to build some love and

Joseph: 00:17:16

empathy for your audience, and one of your audiences is the film critic.

Joseph: 00:17:21

Maybe it's not your most important audience.

Joseph: 00:17:22

It probably shouldn't be your most important audience, but it is an audience.

Joseph: 00:17:25

And so if it is being made to some degree for them, then understanding

Joseph: 00:17:31

them and where they're coming from, I think, is important.

Joseph: 00:17:33

So- The first thing, for example, this is something I

Joseph: 00:17:36

gave as an example in the talk.

Joseph: 00:17:38

One of the reasons that critics oftentimes will, give a different rating

Joseph: 00:17:44

or review than an audience member or someone else is because we just see

Joseph: 00:17:48

a lot more movies, and that's just a perspective of film critics that other

Joseph: 00:17:53

people, it's useful to understand.

Joseph: 00:17:55

So sometimes we will give a film a lower rating because it's like

Joseph: 00:17:59

I've seen this a bunch of times before, and I might be bored of it.

Joseph: 00:18:04

But even more importantly, I've seen this done 10 times better in

Joseph: 00:18:08

five or seven other places, and so I'm comparing it to those things.

Joseph: 00:18:12

It's hard for me to be as impressed with Michael when I have seen Walk the Line.

Joseph: 00:18:17

Now, I didn't think that Michael was terribly bad, but I've seen Walk the

Joseph: 00:18:21

Line, and it does what Michael's doing so much better that I'm always gonna

Joseph: 00:18:25

have a lower grade for that movie.

Joseph: 00:18:28

Again, that doesn't make me and my opinion better, but it does

Joseph: 00:18:32

give some perspective to it.

Joseph: 00:18:35

One of the things that I will often tell filmmakers is, "Do you

Joseph: 00:18:40

want to critic-proof your film?

Joseph: 00:18:42

One of the things you can do is just watch a lot of movies that are doing the things

Joseph: 00:18:48

that you're trying to do in your movie." So for example, one of my… I actually

Joseph: 00:18:52

made this my top, uh, faithatbased film of 2025, was not a Christian film.

Joseph: 00:18:59

It was a Jewish action film called Guns and Moses.

Joseph: 00:19:03

And one of the… No, seriously.

Joseph: 00:19:05

it's a really good film, it's about a, a rabbi who, you know,

Joseph: 00:19:10

solves a mystery in his synagogue.

Joseph: 00:19:13

I agree.

Joseph: 00:19:13

And it's a great movie.

Joseph: 00:19:14

And what… I interviewed the director, writer, and one of the things he said

Joseph: 00:19:18

is that he was trying to do this kind of action thriller, o- old Hitchcockian type.

Joseph: 00:19:23

And so he spent an entire year with his wife watching those kind of movies.

Joseph: 00:19:28

And so I'm not saying you have to spend a whole year watching a movie a day in

Joseph: 00:19:32

that genre, but one of the reasons that he understood the genre so well and could

Joseph: 00:19:36

also, you know, do his own version of it that's, that doesn't embarrass that genre

Joseph: 00:19:42

is 'cause he knew it so incredibly well, and he knew what to compare his work to.

Joseph: 00:19:49

And, and that, I think, is, like, that's not an unfair thing that a

Joseph: 00:19:55

filmmaker can say, "Oh, yeah, that is something I can learn from film critics.

Joseph: 00:19:59

Maybe if a film critic is judging my work because he's s- seen a bunch of other work

Joseph: 00:20:03

that's better, that is a sign I can learn from film critics in this way." Now- On

Joseph: 00:20:10

the other hand, sometimes film critics are going to, you know, rate your movie

Joseph: 00:20:18

not as well because of demographic issues.

Joseph: 00:20:22

Now, it is true you have the, you know, they're not, tend not to be

Joseph: 00:20:25

Christian, so they don't resonate with certain things as much.

Joseph: 00:20:28

But also, there's the reality of, you know, most Christians tend to be more

Joseph: 00:20:33

family-oriented, whereas a lot of critics live in New York City and are single.

Joseph: 00:20:38

And so, you know, actually it was funny 'cause I remember I used to be the, one of

Joseph: 00:20:42

those people who just pooh-poohed all of the Disney live action remake things all

Joseph: 00:20:46

the time and say like, "They're this, you know, soulless, this suck-" It's always…

Joseph: 00:20:50

But then I was working at a movie theater and seeing all these families come in

Joseph: 00:20:55

to watch these movies, and I looked at it, I said, "You know, I actually

Joseph: 00:21:01

get now why they're going to them.

Joseph: 00:21:04

the movies are pre-screened ways of having family entertainment with their kids."

Joseph: 00:21:11

And so even though I thought, "This is a soulless cash grab," everything like that,

Joseph: 00:21:15

I saw what they were looking for from it, so I could actually write for those people

Joseph: 00:21:20

and say, "This will give you what you're looking for in this way or not that way.

Joseph: 00:21:26

I maybe wish that they would do it in a better way, but-

Matt: 00:21:29

It's still a soulless cash grab-

Joseph: 00:21:30

It's… But- … but I think you'll enjoy it.

Joseph: 00:21:31

I, but I know the purpose that it's serving.

Joseph: 00:21:34

And so I think that there are places where… Also, film critics really like

Joseph: 00:21:40

movies that are complex enough that they require film critics to explain

Joseph: 00:21:46

it to the audience because that makes them feel like they give, gives their

Joseph: 00:21:49

life some purpose, um, that they're not an insignificant part of the process.

Joseph: 00:21:54

So all I'll say is understanding where the film critic is coming from and why

Joseph: 00:22:01

their perspective might differ from yours does help if you're a filmmaker for you to

Joseph: 00:22:06

say, "I, you know… Oh, this can actually help me of my work, and this cannot,"

Joseph: 00:22:12

and as audiences can help you understand if this film critic is actually gonna

Joseph: 00:22:17

be helpful for you in discerning if this is a movie, you know, for you or not.

Joseph: 00:22:23

for example, one of the things I said in the talk is that- Film critics and

Joseph: 00:22:27

film audiences actually see the job of the film critic very differently.

Joseph: 00:22:31

And this is the secret, which is that film audiences think a film critic's

Joseph: 00:22:35

job is to tell them what movies they will like, and film critics think

Joseph: 00:22:40

the job of film critic is to tell people what films they should like.

Joseph: 00:22:45

Because film critics think of movies not just as yummy food, but as healthy food.

Joseph: 00:22:52

There's the kinds of foods that actually make you a better person by watching it.

Joseph: 00:22:56

And Christians can kind of understand that, 'cause like, yeah,

Joseph: 00:22:57

good messages make you better, bad messages make you worse.

Joseph: 00:23:01

But in that sense, a film critic will be like, "No, this is

Joseph: 00:23:04

going to be healthy for you.

Joseph: 00:23:07

It's gonna make you a better person.

Joseph: 00:23:08

It's gonna make you a, help you see the world and love things better."

Joseph: 00:23:12

And so they kinda want to tell you, even if you don't like this… I

Joseph: 00:23:15

was like, you know, the film critics will say, "Minions is a bad movie.

Joseph: 00:23:19

You might like it, but it's a bad movie and I, you shouldn't like

Joseph: 00:23:22

it and you shouldn't go see it."

Joseph: 00:23:23

Whereas they will, you know, see something like Fjord, which actually just came out

Joseph: 00:23:27

and I think is actually really excellent, and it's actually… Does one of the

Joseph: 00:23:31

best jobs I've ever seen of showing what happens when sort of religious

Joseph: 00:23:34

conservatives become the minority and the secular liberal society is like,

Joseph: 00:23:39

"Well, we believe in all peoples and all viewpoints, but wait, no, not that one."

Joseph: 00:23:43

And it, it, I mean, conservatives, Christians have been trying to

Joseph: 00:23:46

make that movie ever since God's Not Dead, and they've all sucked.

Joseph: 00:23:49

And this movie finally actually does that story well, pointing out

Joseph: 00:23:53

all the hypocrisy that Christians have been trying to point out.

Joseph: 00:23:56

And I try to do both of those things in my writing.

Joseph: 00:23:59

I try to say, "Here is what it is.

Joseph: 00:24:02

Here's why I think it's good or not good, and y- here's why." But also give

Joseph: 00:24:06

people enough information on it that they can say, "Well, I know enough about it

Joseph: 00:24:12

that I can disagree with you and still think it's the right movie for me."

Joseph: 00:24:15

You know?

Joseph: 00:24:15

And then, so that's- No, that makes sense … So I try to do both of those things.

Joseph: 00:24:18

But it is hard.

Matt: 00:24:20

Well, I will say that there was a movie made about 10 years

Matt: 00:24:22

ago called Small Group, the movie.

Matt: 00:24:23

did a pretty decent job of that.

Matt: 00:24:25

Good.

Matt: 00:24:25

Not that you have to give a review of that right now if you

Matt: 00:24:27

haven't seen it or not, but- I

Joseph: 00:24:28

have not seen it, so I will definitely look it up.

Matt: 00:24:30

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:24:31

I'm always on the lookout for those hidden gems.

Matt: 00:24:32

Yeah.

Matt: 00:24:33

Well, it's totally self-serving here.

Matt: 00:24:35

I made it.

Matt: 00:24:35

but y- you bring up a good point here.

Matt: 00:24:38

that it sounds like to me what you're saying is that the real goal of a good

Matt: 00:24:42

film critic is to share movies that they love with the audience, not the…

Matt: 00:24:49

I think the perception is that, the bad film critic is, really enjoys

Matt: 00:24:53

telling you what to hate because it makes them feel more pretentious.

Matt: 00:24:56

But that's maybe not the case.

Matt: 00:24:58

It certainly doesn't sound like the case from you.

Matt: 00:25:00

It's more like that friend who's always telling you, "Oh my gosh, have you

Matt: 00:25:02

seen the new Christopher Nolan movie?"

Joseph: 00:25:04

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:25:05

No, absolutely.

Joseph: 00:25:05

I mean, I think that, I mean, it's really funny.

Joseph: 00:25:08

One of the best portrayals of a film critic I've ever seen

Joseph: 00:25:10

was in the movie Ratatouille.

Joseph: 00:25:12

Oh, yeah.

Joseph: 00:25:12

Which was the food critic- Yeah … who was really a f-

Joseph: 00:25:15

w- was really a film critic.

Joseph: 00:25:17

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:25:18

and, and I think that because it shows both the good and the bad sides of it.

Joseph: 00:25:23

Right.

Joseph: 00:25:23

Because there is an aspect of being a film critic.

Joseph: 00:25:26

And again, like I said, you do not choose to make your, your job writing

Joseph: 00:25:33

about movies unless you love movies.

Joseph: 00:25:37

But there is a way it can turn sour, like with everything.

Skip: 00:25:41

Mm-hmm.

Joseph: 00:25:41

I mean, again, we all know the person who, you know, has invested their

Joseph: 00:25:46

whole lives into their families, but all they do is complain about their family.

Matt: 00:25:51

I'm guilty of that sometimes, honestly.

Joseph: 00:25:52

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:25:53

We all know the fact that when you know something intimately and you've invested

Joseph: 00:25:58

so much into it, oftentimes you can spend most of your time complaining about it.

Joseph: 00:26:02

And C.S. Lewis talks about this in The- Great Divorce.

Joseph: 00:26:05

He talks about people who get in the habit of grumbling-

Joseph: 00:26:09

Mm-hmm … and then become a grumble.

Matt: 00:26:11

Mm-hmm.

Joseph: 00:26:12

And I don't think that film critics are more likely to become

Joseph: 00:26:16

the worst version of themselves, uh, than any other profession.

Joseph: 00:26:22

I do think that- For a lot of, I think for a lot of filmmakers,

Joseph: 00:26:28

that it's the, the negative reviews hurt because it's their kid.

Joseph: 00:26:31

I mean, you know, Seth Rogen did this whole thing where he was like,

Joseph: 00:26:33

you know, where he, he said, "P- if film critics, you know, thought that,

Joseph: 00:26:37

you know, knew how much it hurt, they would stop doing it." Yeah.

Joseph: 00:26:39

You know, he, he cries into his tears in his, you know, third

Joseph: 00:26:43

mansion and, you know- Oh, yeah.

Joseph: 00:26:44

And, and again, it's one of those things where like I get that, and again, I

Joseph: 00:26:47

try not to be a jerk in my reviews.

Joseph: 00:26:50

Sometimes I will do kind of what I consider to be kind of male playful

Joseph: 00:26:55

teasing, you know, where I, I, I'm, I'm, I g- I roast you just

Joseph: 00:26:59

enough that I think that you will, you know, change for the better.

Joseph: 00:27:03

But it is always, again, wanting people to be better, you know?

Joseph: 00:27:07

But I also looked at, at Seth and he's like, he says in there, "I've

Joseph: 00:27:10

worked my whole life to get to a place where people can't do that to me."

Joseph: 00:27:13

And it's like, you've worked your whole life to get to a place

Joseph: 00:27:15

where people can't challenge you?

Joseph: 00:27:16

You, one of the 1%?

Joseph: 00:27:18

That's a really bad thing, I think.

Joseph: 00:27:20

I don't know, you know?

Joseph: 00:27:21

So the goal, I think, is, you know, we love movies and

Joseph: 00:27:26

we love talking about them.

Joseph: 00:27:27

We love talking about what's good in it, what's bad in it, and I think that

Joseph: 00:27:31

because of our high standards, we can sometimes talk more about the negative

Joseph: 00:27:37

than the positive, particularly because in the social media age, negative

Joseph: 00:27:41

travels faster and we get, you know, more, uh, uh, we get- More clicks

Joseph: 00:27:45

more attention- More engagement … from it.

Joseph: 00:27:46

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:27:47

Yeah, we get more engagement, more attention.

Joseph: 00:27:48

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:27:48

That is a real thing.

Joseph: 00:27:49

It's not more so than your favorite political commentator or, you know,

Joseph: 00:27:53

anyone else, but that is a danger that we have to- To worry about.

Joseph: 00:27:58

But I do think also because Christians have been this sort of slowly marginalized

Joseph: 00:28:04

subculture for a long time, And because the film critics have been

Joseph: 00:28:09

mostly not Christians, we have gotten kinda used to having a reflexive, you

Joseph: 00:28:15

know, "Oh, they just hate us," kinda thing, and, "They're just haters."

Joseph: 00:28:18

Because it often has been the case.

Joseph: 00:28:19

I mean, the fact that Passion of the Christ got 35% of Rotten Tomatoes, you

Joseph: 00:28:23

know, or something like that when it came out is embarrassing- That's ridiculous

Joseph: 00:28:27

For my industry, you know?

Joseph: 00:28:28

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:28:28

I mean, again, and that's not even, like, you know, if you… I could

Joseph: 00:28:31

excuse it if Mel Gibson had already said his antisemitic comments and

Joseph: 00:28:35

they were almost tainted by that.

Joseph: 00:28:36

But it's like, no, this was all before that, that everybody

Joseph: 00:28:38

was like, you know, trash.

Joseph: 00:28:39

I was like, "This is, no, this is inexcusable.

Joseph: 00:28:41

You can't be taken seriously." So it's not like there's no truth to

Joseph: 00:28:45

it, but oftentimes, you know, as anybody who's been mistreated for a

Joseph: 00:28:50

long time, everything becomes a nail.

Joseph: 00:28:52

You know?

Joseph: 00:28:52

It's like- That's right … you start to see everything that way instead of

Joseph: 00:28:55

being able to discern the, "No, this is a case where someone's treating

Joseph: 00:28:59

you unfairly, and this is something where someone's trying to help you."

Joseph: 00:29:02

People who've been in, like, bad relationships oftentimes are like, they

Joseph: 00:29:05

see even healthy accountability as, you know, as another sign of abuse.

Joseph: 00:29:10

And it takes healing from that.

Joseph: 00:29:12

And it takes people… And one of the things I have tried to do is be a faithful

Joseph: 00:29:16

person in this space for a long time who has called out the good as well as the bad

Joseph: 00:29:21

so people don't see me as just somebody who is trying to do this for hate.

Joseph: 00:29:26

And I think that I've earned a lot of that credibility over

Joseph: 00:29:29

time, at least I like to think so.

Matt: 00:29:31

Oh, it sounds like you have, 100%.

Matt: 00:29:34

And let's be honest, you know, you said earlier that the, the quality of the c-

Matt: 00:29:39

of the faithatbased movie has improved.

Matt: 00:29:42

I don't think that would've happened had filmmakers not

Matt: 00:29:45

taken seriously the criticisms.

Matt: 00:29:48

They, some- if the criticism is true, it's true, and it has been.

Matt: 00:29:51

So you've kind of touched on a few of these reasons, but why do you think

Matt: 00:29:55

it is that Christians do seem to have a hard time making films that, good

Matt: 00:30:00

critics like yourself can appreciate?

Matt: 00:30:03

You know, film critics who aren't judging the film based on its mission,

Matt: 00:30:05

but rather its storytelling quality.

Matt: 00:30:07

And I'm gonna make it harder too.

Matt: 00:30:08

let's narrow this down to the non-biblical stories.

Matt: 00:30:11

Leave out, you know, The Chosen, Passion of the Christ,

Matt: 00:30:13

Daniel and the Fiery Furnace.

Matt: 00:30:14

I mean, I mean- … stories about whether it be modern life or just,

Matt: 00:30:18

just stories outside of the Bible i- in which, uh, God exists and people

Matt: 00:30:24

are, are pursuing Christ, you know?

Matt: 00:30:26

why, why do we do a bad job of that so often?

Matt: 00:30:28

And, and do we do a bad job of that so often?

Joseph: 00:30:31

I mean, I think we do do a bad job of that so often.

Joseph: 00:30:34

I think that, again, it's another thing that's getting better.

Joseph: 00:30:36

Again, I've highlighted the fact that I think two of the best, um, movies in

Joseph: 00:30:41

that, excuse me, space that have come out in like the past, like couple years.

Joseph: 00:30:45

Uh, Last Rodeo, by Angel Studios and, um, I Can Only Imagine 2, I think are really

Joseph: 00:30:51

good examples of… I think Tyler Smith called it the, you know, um, Christian

Joseph: 00:30:56

social drama, which is this whole, you know, this whole space of, "Hey, I'm just

Joseph: 00:31:01

an ordinary person trying to live life.

Joseph: 00:31:04

I believe in God, but I'm still suffering, bad things are happening.

Joseph: 00:31:07

How do I wrestle with all this?" And I think that there's a lot of reasons.

Joseph: 00:31:13

There's, there's stuff that, you know, if you, you, if I, if I have a couple of

Joseph: 00:31:16

drinks and I'm really kinda like cranky, I can, you know, give that that like

Joseph: 00:31:20

the snarky kind of, kind of reasons.

Joseph: 00:31:22

But I think- Let's have that conversation.

Joseph: 00:31:23

Exactly, yes.

Joseph: 00:31:24

Sounds fun.

Joseph: 00:31:24

I think that there's, I think that there is an aspect that people figured

Joseph: 00:31:30

out a thing that worked in a space where a lot of things weren't working,

Joseph: 00:31:37

and they just kept doing that thing.

Matt: 00:31:38

Mm, I

Joseph: 00:31:39

agree with that.

Joseph: 00:31:39

And it was because one of the things, if you look at the history of kinda

Joseph: 00:31:43

like movies that are meant to appeal to Christians and represent Christians

Joseph: 00:31:46

throughout, you know, the hundred, you know, plus years of, of Hollywood, one

Joseph: 00:31:51

of the things that- is consistent is that oftentimes both Christians and

Joseph: 00:31:57

Hollywood people have tried to make movies that Christian audiences will

Joseph: 00:32:00

watch, and it's always hit and miss.

Joseph: 00:32:02

You can never quite figure it out.

Joseph: 00:32:03

It's like, is the biblical blockbuster gonna be a hit with them or is it not?

Joseph: 00:32:06

So when they figure it out , okay, the, you know, The Flywheel, the

Joseph: 00:32:11

Facing the Giants, the Fireproof, those, you know, things, those

Joseph: 00:32:16

worked as- The kendrick Brothers.

Joseph: 00:32:17

Kendrick Brothers.

Joseph: 00:32:17

Those worked as a genre and people would pay money to see them.

Joseph: 00:32:21

There is an incentive within Hollywood to like, "Let's just make another

Joseph: 00:32:24

Spider-Man movie. Like let's just make another thing that works." And so that

Joseph: 00:32:28

kind of marketing limitation does hit against critical, you know, i- instincts.

Joseph: 00:32:38

And so I think that there's that aspect going on there.

Joseph: 00:32:41

And So I think it's like they figured out a formula that worked, and it was

Joseph: 00:32:44

a formula that worked without really being punished for lack of quality.

Joseph: 00:32:51

And that's the other thing.

Joseph: 00:32:51

Again, when War Room is number one at the box office for a week, how

Joseph: 00:32:58

much incentive is there for studios funding, uh, Christian products to

Joseph: 00:33:04

say, "Well, we have to make this good or people are not gonna see it"?

Joseph: 00:33:08

I think that there's that aspect of it, and I think that the audience

Joseph: 00:33:13

that was primarily going to see Christian movies was more forgiving

Joseph: 00:33:17

of quality if the message was good.

Joseph: 00:33:20

And so I think that there was that kind of counter-incentive

Joseph: 00:33:24

going on that made it difficult.

Joseph: 00:33:26

The other thing is, just what I talked about earlier, Andy Erwin said, "Look,

Joseph: 00:33:29

we were trying to do this outside of the Hollywood- Yeah … system

Joseph: 00:33:32

without the training." And so…

Matt: 00:33:34

Yeah.

Matt: 00:33:34

It took us a couple decades to get there

Joseph: 00:33:35

it took us a couple decades to get there.

Joseph: 00:33:37

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:33:37

And so, and, and there's a lot of reasons for that.

Joseph: 00:33:40

I think that, you know, to some degree there's been, you know, it, in

Joseph: 00:33:43

order to work in Hollywood it's one of those, it's a very cliquey place.

Joseph: 00:33:48

And so you have to be someone that they kinda like, "Yeah, we vibe with you."

Joseph: 00:33:52

You know?

Joseph: 00:33:53

And, and there are both, you know, fairly and unfairly just kinda cultural

Joseph: 00:33:58

differences between the, the, the kind of red state evangelical Christians.

Joseph: 00:34:03

Even if you get politics out of it, if you never discuss politics at all- Just

Matt: 00:34:08

culture in

Joseph: 00:34:09

general … it's just kinda like, "Ah, I just don't vibe with them."

Matt: 00:34:11

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:34:11

You know, kind of thing that happens.

Joseph: 00:34:13

And so a lot of people, you know, who do go into the Hollywood system

Joseph: 00:34:18

end up kinda like just very much downplaying their Christian identity.

Joseph: 00:34:22

Yep.

Joseph: 00:34:22

It be, and, and kind of feeling absorbed in a way that Christians don't

Joseph: 00:34:25

relate to them because that's kinda what they had to do i- in order to be

Joseph: 00:34:29

successful there, even unintentionally.

Joseph: 00:34:32

And then so the people who kind of did represent the kind of evangelical

Joseph: 00:34:37

Christian, you know, majority culture who were wanting to see movies that

Joseph: 00:34:42

represented them, um, just didn't do it within the Hollywood system.

Joseph: 00:34:46

That's how it happened, and so they took 20 years for

Joseph: 00:34:48

them to kind of figure it out.

Matt: 00:34:50

Yeah.

Matt: 00:34:50

So I think- The Hollywood system would've taught them how to make, how

Matt: 00:34:52

to be good filmmakers, but the culture of the Hollywood system kept them out.

Matt: 00:34:56

I mean, that's where I am.

Joseph: 00:34:57

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:34:57

I think that that's not an insignificant part of it.

Joseph: 00:35:00

It's huge.

Joseph: 00:35:00

And again, it doesn't mean that you didn't have- It didn't…

Joseph: 00:35:04

Like, there were people who did it.

Joseph: 00:35:05

Like Mel Gibson is somebody who was able to ride that line.

Matt: 00:35:09

Right.

Joseph: 00:35:09

But I think that the cultural forces were stacked against

Joseph: 00:35:12

the majority of people doing that.

Matt: 00:35:15

Totally agree.

Matt: 00:35:15

And, and I'm gonna go back to something else you, you, you

Matt: 00:35:17

brushed on a little bit too.

Matt: 00:35:18

As a filmmaker myself, I partially blame the audience- Yeah

Matt: 00:35:22

because the audience, like you said, got trained on the dramatized sermon.

Joseph: 00:35:27

Yeah.

Matt: 00:35:27

And I don't like the dramatized sermon.

Matt: 00:35:30

It feels inauthentic to me.

Matt: 00:35:32

The mission is not, in this case, more important than the story.

Matt: 00:35:35

The story has to serve the mission, not just be a blanket for it.

Matt: 00:35:39

Um, but audiences, if you tried to step outside of that in little

Matt: 00:35:43

ways here or there and kind of show humanity as something more real, or

Matt: 00:35:48

even, you know, that uh, remember Pure Flix, where everything has-

Matt: 00:35:51

to be pure?

Matt: 00:35:53

I'm like, have you read the Old Testament?

Matt: 00:35:55

Yeah.

Matt: 00:35:55

Like, we tried to live up to non-biblical standards of purity, and I think

Matt: 00:36:01

that took away from the authenticity.

Matt: 00:36:03

So I don't think that that was as much the filmmakers as it

Matt: 00:36:06

was the filmmakers' response to what the audience was demanding.

Joseph: 00:36:09

Oh, absolutely.

Joseph: 00:36:10

The person in the, uh, '90s, 2000s, you know, and, and maybe since the

Joseph: 00:36:18

Industrial Revolution- … who's most likely to go to church was a mom of kids.

Matt: 00:36:25

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:36:26

And so they're the most dedicated churchgoers, and therefore

Joseph: 00:36:29

the most likely to go to see a movie that is made for a Christian audience,

Joseph: 00:36:33

and to drag their families to see it.

Joseph: 00:36:35

And I love my mom, but do you know what she loves to watch, is she

Joseph: 00:36:41

likes to watch Hallmark movies.

Joseph: 00:36:42

Hallmark.

Joseph: 00:36:42

I

Matt: 00:36:42

was gonna say Hallmark

Joseph: 00:36:43

movies.

Joseph: 00:36:43

Hallmark movies and, and murder mysteries.

Joseph: 00:36:45

Which- Yeah … some Christian needs to get a- get, get on the whole murder

Joseph: 00:36:48

mystery genre because- Yeah … that's a, I think, untapped potential.

Joseph: 00:36:52

But- Well, there's a

Matt: 00:36:52

show called Vindication, which you should watch.

Matt: 00:36:54

It's-

Joseph: 00:36:54

Yes.

Joseph: 00:36:55

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Joseph: 00:36:56

I'm, I'm hoping that that gets, more traction.

Joseph: 00:36:58

Of course Christians movies are representing those kind of movies.

Joseph: 00:37:02

And, uh, you know, and again, the Hallmark doesn't really, you know,

Joseph: 00:37:07

care about the quality that much as long as it hits the formula.

Joseph: 00:37:09

There's something- That's right … about that audience that forgives quality if it

Joseph: 00:37:14

does, uh, hit the beats of the formula.

Joseph: 00:37:17

And I've always said I don't mind those movies being made in the Christian space.

Joseph: 00:37:21

My problem is that that's the only kind of movie that's being

Joseph: 00:37:24

made in the Christian space.

Joseph: 00:37:26

And I think that it has taken a long time, plus some interesting demographic

Joseph: 00:37:32

changes, and I've talked about this in, in my work, where the demographics

Joseph: 00:37:36

of Christianity and, are changing.

Joseph: 00:37:38

And so it is a lot more kind of, you know, 30-year-old guys who end

Joseph: 00:37:43

up being film critics, you know, who are kind of starting to become

Joseph: 00:37:46

more attracted to Christianity.

Joseph: 00:37:49

And that is starting to change the makeup of the kind of movies that are being made.

Joseph: 00:37:52

I mean, the fact that, you know, it's, you know, bring back the

Joseph: 00:37:55

biblical thing here, but, like, House of David is an Amazon show.

Joseph: 00:37:59

The fact that, like, Young Washington is, like, a movie being promoted,

Joseph: 00:38:03

you know, in, in this space.

Joseph: 00:38:05

I think what we're seeing is a wider variety of these kinds of films as a part

Joseph: 00:38:10

of this conversation, which I think in, in- Because again, our goal with Christian

Joseph: 00:38:16

films is not to have a genre that's ours.

Matt: 00:38:20

Right.

Joseph: 00:38:21

Our goal is that the movies that our culture makes

Joseph: 00:38:26

should reflect truth and beauty.

Joseph: 00:38:28

Yes.

Joseph: 00:38:28

And one of the most central true and beautiful things is our

Joseph: 00:38:31

relationship with God as humans.

Joseph: 00:38:33

Mm-hmm.

Joseph: 00:38:33

And so we want all films to, to varying degrees, whether you're, you

Joseph: 00:38:39

know, whether you're on the Tolkien side or the Lewis side in, on the

Joseph: 00:38:43

spectrum of explicitness, all of them should be reflecting the truth of God.

Joseph: 00:38:48

And part of the truth of God is God actually, people wrestling

Joseph: 00:38:52

with their relationship with God.

Joseph: 00:38:53

And so we want whatever genre it is, whether it's, you know, the inspirational

Joseph: 00:38:58

drama, or whether it's the war movie, or it's the murder mystery, or it's the

Joseph: 00:39:02

horror, or, you know, it… We want all of those to be reflecting the truth and

Joseph: 00:39:07

beauty of God and the world He's made.

Joseph: 00:39:10

And so I love that there's an expansion of what can be done by

Joseph: 00:39:14

people who do actually believe in that.

Matt: 00:39:16

Yeah.

Matt: 00:39:17

And to filmmakers listening, just feel free to do all that,

Matt: 00:39:20

uh, with nuance, with, uh, with authenticity and in subtext.

Joseph: 00:39:26

Yes.

Matt: 00:39:28

Let's talk about how, uh… Yeah, subtext is important, right?

Joseph: 00:39:31

Yes.

Matt: 00:39:32

So, uh, I wanna get us both in trouble for our last question

Matt: 00:39:35

here, 'cause it's way more fun.

Matt: 00:39:37

Um, and, and, and not in order to, to degrade anything, but

Matt: 00:39:41

as a, just an exercise of how you look at different films.

Matt: 00:39:47

So let's talk a little bit about a, a popular Faith-based Christian

Matt: 00:39:51

film that you loved and why, and more importantly, I wanna know about

Matt: 00:39:54

a popular faithatbased Christian film that you didn't love and why.

Matt: 00:39:58

And let's just see what those standards are so that as filmmakers

Matt: 00:40:02

we can all kinda take that in.

Matt: 00:40:03

We don't have to necessarily agree or disagree with you, but we shouldn't… we

Matt: 00:40:07

have to be not reflexive to, discount your opinions because you dared said something

Matt: 00:40:11

about a story that had a good message.

Joseph: 00:40:13

I already mentioned like, you know, I Can Only Imagine 2 I

Joseph: 00:40:16

think is maybe the best of what the Christian inspirational drama

Joseph: 00:40:20

genre has been thus far capable of.

Joseph: 00:40:23

Because it really takes seriously the reality of most people's lives when you

Joseph: 00:40:28

talk about the issue of, of suffering.

Joseph: 00:40:32

Because, you know, for most people aren't suffering in our lives and

Joseph: 00:40:36

then God kind of rescues us out of it.

Joseph: 00:40:37

That does happen sometimes.

Joseph: 00:40:39

But oftentimes what happens is that God helps us to find ways

Joseph: 00:40:44

to find redemption and create redemption within that suffering.

Joseph: 00:40:49

And so I love the fact that they begin their story, it's the sequel to this,

Joseph: 00:40:54

movie where, you know, he's able to forgive his father and get all his

Joseph: 00:40:57

dreams, and then immediately he gets all his dreams and then his son, he

Joseph: 00:41:00

finds out, has a debilitating, you know, disease, a version of diabetes.

Joseph: 00:41:05

And it's like, oh, my son for the rest of his life I'm gonna have to

Joseph: 00:41:09

deal with him, could die any day if he doesn't do everything right.

Joseph: 00:41:14

And so that causes him to have to figure out, how do I have a good

Joseph: 00:41:17

relationship with my son while still protecting him from this?

Joseph: 00:41:19

And also having never had my father, um, taught me how to be a good dad, and

Joseph: 00:41:25

so this kind of inverse kind of thing.

Joseph: 00:41:28

And learning as an artist to express that in a healthy way and express, do

Joseph: 00:41:33

that with his family in a healthy way.

Joseph: 00:41:35

All of those things I thought were incredibly both complex, and it has this

Joseph: 00:41:41

issue be text but also subtext, and just showing the characters being humans.

Joseph: 00:41:47

Again, when they're showing them on the bus on tour.

Joseph: 00:41:50

Just these guys, kind of like how guys relate to each other when they're stuck

Joseph: 00:41:53

together for a whole bunch of time.

Joseph: 00:41:55

And how real Christians wrestle through how do I interpret what's going on

Joseph: 00:41:59

in my life, and how do I repair these relationships, or how do I move these

Joseph: 00:42:04

relations- so how are we as humans not necessarily always just waiting on God

Joseph: 00:42:10

to take us out of the circumstances, but how we are finding how are we being

Joseph: 00:42:14

salt and light, how are we building the kingdom, uh, and repairing the world as

Joseph: 00:42:19

part of His plan in these situations.

Joseph: 00:42:22

I just thought that that was a really beautiful, expression of that.

Matt: 00:42:25

And by the way, I'm gonna pause you before you go

Matt: 00:42:27

into the one you didn't like.

Matt: 00:42:28

Filmmakers, listen to what he just said.

Matt: 00:42:30

That is how you want a critic to talk about your story and your film.

Joseph: 00:42:35

yeah, if you were saying, "Okay, I'm a faithatbased person,

Joseph: 00:42:37

I want to see how is it that you can get an obnoxious film critic-

Joseph: 00:42:40

who has bashed all of my favorite Christian films to say something positive

Joseph: 00:42:44

about my film?" Watch that movie.

Joseph: 00:42:46

And- Yeah … compare it to movies that don't do it as well.

Joseph: 00:42:49

Um-

Matt: 00:42:50

Film literacy's important.

Joseph: 00:42:51

Yes, exactly.

Joseph: 00:42:53

I'm trying to think of, like, a good, like, exact comp of this.

Joseph: 00:42:57

Um, I think I would say Lifemark is one of the worst faithatbased

Joseph: 00:43:04

movies I've ever seen.

Joseph: 00:43:06

And one of the- I didn't see

Matt: 00:43:06

that one.

Matt: 00:43:07

I didn't-

Joseph: 00:43:07

It was another Kendrick Brothers one.

Joseph: 00:43:09

Oh.

Joseph: 00:43:09

And, uh, but it was one about… Well, they produced it.

Joseph: 00:43:12

They didn't direct it was about a guy who finds out that he was

Joseph: 00:43:16

adopted because, uh, his, you know, mother, who was encouraged to abort

Joseph: 00:43:21

him, didn't, and chose life instead.

Joseph: 00:43:23

And so then he kind of goes and has a visit with her.

Joseph: 00:43:26

And the thing is, it's one of those movies, tell you to watch it

Joseph: 00:43:29

and see if I'm wrong about this.

Joseph: 00:43:31

Every single time a moment of conflict could happen, they immediately resolve it.

Joseph: 00:43:37

You know, the, the son is- You can't hang on

Matt: 00:43:38

to conflict

Joseph: 00:43:39

in a Christian

Matt: 00:43:39

movie- You can't

Matt: 00:43:40

because Jesus.

Joseph: 00:43:41

Yeah, exactly.

Joseph: 00:43:41

And one of the things I wrote about it that I thought was so damaging,

Joseph: 00:43:45

and people actually got mad at me for this, and we discussed it in the

Joseph: 00:43:48

comments a little bit- is that I said this is incredibly harmful to show

Joseph: 00:43:52

a young man going through incredibly difficult circumstances and present the

Joseph: 00:43:58

ideal as he doesn't wrestle with it.

Skip: 00:44:01

Mm.

Joseph: 00:44:01

That he doesn't feel angry, that he doesn't get to feel betrayed,

Joseph: 00:44:05

that he doesn't get to feel, you know, that these normal human emotions,

Joseph: 00:44:09

and that's okay to walk through them.

Joseph: 00:44:11

Even of course, we know it's all gonna get repaired and happy and stuff like

Joseph: 00:44:14

that, but you don't let that process go through because that's really,

Joseph: 00:44:19

that's really, um, delegitimizing for people who are going through this- Yeah

Joseph: 00:44:24

and feeling like they can't express their negative feelings in their

Joseph: 00:44:30

Christian families because there's this expectation that if you're

Joseph: 00:44:32

healthy, you won't go through that.

Joseph: 00:44:35

Right.

Joseph: 00:44:35

And I have to say, and I love you guys, but I had these Christian moms

Joseph: 00:44:40

in my comments saying, you know, "Oh, that's not true. My family is exactly

Joseph: 00:44:45

like this family that's portrayed."

Joseph: 00:44:46

You want it to be.

Joseph: 00:44:47

And then I would have young men message me and say, "Thank you for saying that-

Joseph: 00:44:52

Yeah … because I don't feel like I can express this oftentimes in my

Joseph: 00:44:55

circumstances." And so that to me was just said everything about what the

Joseph: 00:45:01

Cr- what the audience was incentivizing Christians to do and be- Yeah

Joseph: 00:45:06

and what we need to do instead

Matt: 00:45:09

It's almost like a lot of these Christian movies that don't hit the mark

Matt: 00:45:14

are trying to basically be the movie version of how a lot of ladies portray

Matt: 00:45:19

their own family lives on Instagram.

Joseph: 00:45:22

Yes.

Joseph: 00:45:23

Oh, that's a good example.

Joseph: 00:45:25

I don't know if you ever… There's a, episode of the show Hey Arnold!

Joseph: 00:45:28

where a teacher, like, does a play about his family that's this idealized

Joseph: 00:45:32

version, and it sucks as a play.

Joseph: 00:45:34

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:45:34

But then you actually see his family in real life, and it's this

Joseph: 00:45:37

really unhealthy, toxic family.

Joseph: 00:45:40

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:45:40

And there's a certain part of you that's like, "Okay, I get what he's doing. He's

Joseph: 00:45:43

trying to do what he wish was true."

Joseph: 00:45:46

Right.

Joseph: 00:45:47

But-

Matt: 00:45:47

That's

Joseph: 00:45:47

not our job … it's not actually helping.

Joseph: 00:45:49

Yeah.

Matt: 00:45:49

Yeah, that's not our, job.

Matt: 00:45:50

I mean, it's not even theologically justified, if you ask me.

Matt: 00:45:53

You know what the word Israel means, right?

Joseph: 00:45:56

Wrestles with God.

Matt: 00:45:57

Yes.

Matt: 00:45:57

He who wrestles with God.

Joseph: 00:45:59

Like- And do you know what Islam is?

Joseph: 00:46:01

Submits to God.

Joseph: 00:46:02

But we'll leave that one aside.

Matt: 00:46:03

That's a different discussion- … for sure.

Matt: 00:46:06

Um, well man, listen, I don't wanna take any more of your time today, but

Matt: 00:46:09

this has been such an enlightening conversation, such a fun conversation.

Matt: 00:46:13

Um, I, I, I started watching some of your podcasts, Overthinking, and I

Matt: 00:46:18

encourage others to do so as well.

Matt: 00:46:20

Some really good conversations about culture in there, and

Matt: 00:46:23

some surprising conversations.

Matt: 00:46:24

So, uh, w- where can people find you?

Joseph: 00:46:26

Yeah.

Joseph: 00:46:26

They can find me certainly on my Linktree where that has lists to all my places,

Joseph: 00:46:31

like my website, josephholmesstudios.com, and all the places I write for.

Joseph: 00:46:33

I write regularly for World Magazine and Religion Unplugged, but I also

Joseph: 00:46:36

do things in other places as well.

Joseph: 00:46:39

Also, of course, you can find The Overthinkers on, you know, Apple Podcasts,

Joseph: 00:46:44

wherever podcasts are and, and sold.

Joseph: 00:46:46

We do clips of them on my, TikTok channel as well.

Joseph: 00:46:49

You can see various things we have there.

Joseph: 00:46:51

Yeah, thank you so much, Matt, for this conversation.

Joseph: 00:46:52

This was a lot of fun.

Matt: 00:46:53

This has been great.

Matt: 00:46:54

Thank you for joining us.

Matt: 00:46:55

Joseph Holmes on the Faith and Family Film Festival podcast.