come anticipate Kevin Sarbo as an evil atheist philosophy professor in the new film from Pure Flix Entertainment, GOD'S NOT DEAD

The pop culture bits aren't what I meant; I meant the tribal aspects. Think politics as college football; routing for teams and gang colors and battle standards(which is why I mentioned "Roman"). Trying to approach these people thru religion is the wrong way about it;

The perceived persecution thing is close to it; remember the War on Christmas and the fact that current republican/evangelical leaders are authoritarian social dominators(to use Bob Altemeyers term). The flocks are people are told time and time again by all their trusted sources and leaders(i.e. "Epistemical closure")that Those People are evil and worldly and atheistic and hate them and, at the very least, are not Real True Christians. In other words, anybody else not wearing the right colored jersey or supporting the right team are the enemy and not to be trusted.

So know you got a population deliberately carved out of and separated from mainstream American culture, who can only partake of culture approved by their tribal gatekeepers. Some of you are my age, and can remember when Amy Grant first showed up on te pop charts. I can remember other teenagers talk about how she got branded apostate because she was no longer making records just for te evangelical/CCM crowd. I'm vetting Jars of Clay or Creed got shit for crossing over the following decade.

So you have a not-insignificant amount of Americans surrounded mass American pop culture, but not really allowed to participate in it(e.g. Harry Potter is a mass phenomenon but evil). Now some shit comes along like the Left Behind series or Passion of the Christ or Son of God or Gods Not Dead or whatever, and finally, you have consumable culture aimed at you and directly, precisely marketed to you. You have a mass audience "Thing" that you can be a part of, since the tribal gatekeepers have deemed it kosher. And you consume that shit with a vengeance. Remember those stories about church groups renting out theater for "Passion of the Christ" or how many millions the Left Behind books sold? That kinda thing. The pent-up blue-balled desperation of wanting a pop cultural thing you can enjoy too, free of worry that it's treyf and you're sinning and worldly by embracing it.

Goddamn do iPhones suck for large posts.

Oh yeah, another example: how many of your youth groups went to go see Stryper?

i'm always amazed that these movies are so pointedly hateful (e.g. islam-bashing above) when they could just easily be "jesus loves me yes he does, I am going to go volunteer to help the homeless now."

but do you want to see groundhog's day starring stephen baldwin?

Josh questions Radisson, asking why he hates God. After Radisson gives his response, confirming he hates God for his mother's death that left him alone despite his prayers, Josh asks Radisson how he can hate someone that doesn't exist. In the end, every member of Josh's class, including Martin, stand up and say "God's Not Dead", causing Radisson to leave the room in defeat.

This is even dumber than I expected.

man that makes the infamous Dead Poet's Society scene give me a fuckin' boner by comparison

Josh questions Radisson, asking why he hates God. After Radisson gives his response, confirming he hates God for his mother's death that left him alone despite his prayers, Josh asks Radisson how he can hate someone that doesn't exist. In the end, every member of Josh's class, including Martin, stand up and say sing the title tune, "God's Not Dead", causing Radisson to leave the room in defeat.

fixed

no wait

Josh questions Radisson, asking why he hates God. After Radisson gives his response, confirming he hates God for his mother's death that left him alone despite his prayers, Josh asks Radisson how he can hate someone that doesn't exist. In the end, every member of Josh's class, including Martin, stand up and say sing the title tune, "God's Not Dead", causing Radisson to leave the room in defeat horror.

now fixed

Now I'm wondering… why do I hate unicorns?

God's Not Fat

So in conclusion believing something doesn't exist is the same as denying it?

I like to imagine the movie ending with someone in an adjoining class room coming in and screaming "WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP? WE'RE TAKING FINALS IN HERE!"

Sorbo believes Hollywood has limited his career because of his conservative political and Christian views.[19]

He's a really good actor, then, possibly on the level of the guy in the Twisted Sister videos.

I bet he's DISAPPOINTED

struttin' around like the 5th grader who got an extra piece of cheese in his Lunchable

Took me a while to realize but one of my students was wearing this shirt today:
http://www.familychristian.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/300x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/2/5/259218.jpg

And I, as a raging liberal agnostic soon-to-be-college-professor...helped him with some questions he had about HTML and CSS.

"sure, I can help you fix that line of code... IF YOU ADMIT THAT GOD IS DEAD!"

He'll just come back with his DVD copy of pi.

Why do you hate JAVA?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bux3vnJIYAEC_Js.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0OJqNp6aJU

What a banner year this is turning out to be.

Lotsa scare-quotes in that advert

Not to mention multiple record-scratch sound effects

I predict a sudden rash of conversions among 30-something female marketing executives with killer wardrobes, dream apartments and great friends as a result of this movie. Jesus will be proud.

plz tell me they got Trent Reznor to do the soundtrack for this

Hwyneth Gayden

hey, that's my thing

sorry, switching letters guy

Freestyle Releasing

My heart weeps for Stephen Tobolowsky.

http://m.imdb.com/title/tt3398066/

Not only is he co-starring in it, Corbin Burnsen is writing, directing, _and_ producing! Just like Orson Welles!

My heart weeps for Stephen Tobolowsky.

eh, I prefer to look at it as great fodder for one of his podcasts down the road. people joke about Samuel L Jackson, but Tobolowsky really is the actor that won't say "no"

Just like Orson Welles!

Ha!

Is Burnsen a crispie, or just an opportunist?

Here's the guy doing the music:

http://m.imdb.com/name/nm4209833/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H9A9zTorrw

Perusing the list of us domestic gross. Pretty good year for religious films!

21 Noah $101,200,044
24 Heaven is for Real $91,443,253
32 God's Not Dead $60,755,732
33 Son of God $59,700,064

...

but not so good for:

88 Magic in the Moonlight $7,189,545
91 The Wind Rises $5,209,580
93 Snowpiercer $4,428,209

There's a light at the end of the tunnel, Armond!

you're kind of comparing apples and oranges there - the bottom three were all limited releases that played in far fewer theaters

the wind rises played on 500 screens nationwide, magic in the moonlight under 1,000, snowpiercer at under 400

noah, son of god and heaven is for real all played at over 3,000 screens

also if you compare global gross

Noah - $359m
The Wind Rises - $118m
Heaven Is For Real - $100m
Snowpiercer - $86m
Son of God - $67m

and Magic In The Moonlight hasn't even opened in most woody-favoring countries

I'm comparing movies I thought were bigger with movies I thought were smaller (apart from Noah I mean).

Apples, oranges. What about the bananas?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ogyWXNsKt3I/SwTfnhLupOI/AAAAAAAABLw/sYdTGbyXPq4/s400/kirkbanana.jpg

so basically, yes, movies about biblical characters with wide openings did far better than foreign-oriented and upper east side-oriented movies in limited release

i bet snowpiercer could have done better if the weinsteins put any promotional weight behind it, but they hedged their bets

Also I was talking about domestic and I still am.

it's not like all these films were released with the same amount of accessibility and promotion and america just ran to the jesus shit