Love Me [2020] (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

Reggie and his friend Sam live in a tent and run a soap-making business. Sam makes the products while Reggie tries to sell them door-to-door. One day, Reggie happens to visit Charlotte, who loves butterflies and won’t go outside without her headphones due to sensory overload. Without Charlotte’s brother knowing, she and Reggie fall in love and begin to date. Will the two social outcasts be allowed to have a life together?

Production Quality (1 point)

In usual Faith House (Inspiriter) style, camera work is shaky in Love Me, sometimes zooming in during shots. Audio quality is all over the map, include a very loud and shocking soundtrack, cheesy sounds effects, and annoying background sounds. Video quality is acceptable, but lighting is sometimes poor. Sets, locations, and props are cheap, and editing is fairly choppy. The only saving grace here is that the production quality tends to improve with time, but it’s not enough to keep this section from being subpar.

Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)

Of all the ridiculous films previously put out by this team, Love Me actually centers around an interesting idea: how special needs adults are treated in our society. It’s actually Inspiriter’s best idea ever and has the most potential of anything they’ve ever come up with. However, like many intriguing concepts in Christian entertainment, some of the good possibilities are wasted on frivolous scenes, like pointless musical montages. Dialogue is passable, though, which helps the characters become more accessible and less over-the-top. This narrative unfortunately lacks central focus and purpose, and it would have been good to see more backstory from the characters. Also, the conclusion is very abrupt and lacks logic as it depicts on character changing their mind for no particular reason. This alteration is only invented to unnaturally fix the story’s conflicts. Therefore, due to slight potential but inadequate presentation, this section only receives a meager rating.

Acting Quality (2.5 points)

Although not perfect, the perennial FaithHouse cast members that once again appear in this movie actually found their acting niches in Love Me. Their performances are mostly authentic, despite some mumbled lines, and demonstrate realistic emotions. As such, this is the screenplay’s strongest area and makes us wonder if Inspiriter has finally hit their stride this late in the game.

Conclusion

Imagine if FaithHouse/Inspiriter had saved all the money from their previous absurd offerings and put it toward this film, which is the one interesting idea they’ve put forth. What if they took a quality over quantity approach, beginning with a raw character-based drama with subtle Christian messaging? Unfortunately, we may never know, but this is definitely a lesson for future creators: don’t settle for less because one good movie is always better than ten bad ones.

Final Rating: 4 out of 10 points

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October 13, 2020 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie Reviews, RomanceTags: 2020, 4 points, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, Drama, Faith House Pictures, Gary Herkimer, Inspirational, Inspiriter Films, Julie Van Lith, Romance, Savanah D. McMahon, Shari K. Green, Stacie Stocker, Tim Helmstadter 1 Comment

Sweet Sunshine (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

TJ Millhouse was a poor farmhand with a fleeting dream of being a recording artist. However, this dreams seemed to die along with his sister in a tragic car accident, but a local talent scout accidentally discovers TJ’s songs and brings him in to record some more. Before TJ knows it, he’s super famous, but this fame comes crashing down when he’s suddenly afflicted by an unknown medical condition that prevents him from singing. Will he ever be able to recover?

Production Quality (1 point)

In keeping with most Faith House/Inspiriter productions, Sweet Sunshine leaves something to be desired in this category. Though video quality and lighting are fine, there are too many background echoes and sounds. Camera work is acceptable, and the soundtrack is back and forth. Sets, locations, and props are passable but could be better. The worst element of all that drags down this section is the extremely choppy editing. Some scenes drag on for no reason while others are abruptly cut off. Thus, with little dynamic and too much negative, a low score is all that can be offered here.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Despite some slight attempts to establish character motive in this plot, most of the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired. While one personal tragedy after another strikes in this narrative, some characters seem unaffected by these circumstances, which makes them feel like cardboard cutouts. Silly coincidences fuel the story’s progression as things unnaturally happen because the writers what them to. This shows just how weak the premise is. What’s more, incredibly disconnected subplots and wild time jumps leave the viewer very confused. Stupid and pointless scenes waste tons of time, and the screenplay can’t decide what it’s actually about. The Christian message is extremely vague, and there’s some bizarre edgy content that’s very unnecessary. It all concludes with a ridiculous ending that magically fixes the invented medical problems with no explanation. Basically, Sweet Sunshine is just another lame Faith House offering.

Acting Quality (1.5 points)

For the most part, the acting of this film is stock. Line delivery is acceptable although some lines are mumbled. Emotions are a bit blank, but it’s overall enough to produce an average score for this section. This rounds out an unacceptably low quality effort for 2020.

Conclusion

What’s with Faith House’s (now Inspiriter) weird obsessed with off-the-wall medical tragedies and concepts in their movies? Before All Others, Desert Redemption, A Calling of Courage, So Help Us God, and A Time for Heaven are examples of this. Now, Sweet Sunshine joins these ranks with a nondescript voice condition that can be magically healed for no reason. Inspiriter is wasting their good platform as a direct-to-Amazon-Prime independent creator. People are watching their offerings, but the films are only further contributing to the bad reputation that Christian entertainment has. Audiences want easy-to-access movies, but quality definitely matters.

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 10 points

October 8, 2020October 10, 2020 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Movie Reviews, MusicalTags: 2.5 points, 2020, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, Debra Ann Byrd, Drama, Faith House Pictures, Fit Via Vi Film Productions, Inspiriter Films, John Way, Julie Van Lith, Mackenzie Coffman, Musical, Rob Edwards, Savanah D. McMahon, Savannah Wix Leave a comment

Desert Redemption (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

A family that no longer spends very much time together decides to go on a long-planned desert hike to try to mend what is broken.  The father doesn’t take things seriously at first, but as things begin to go from bad to worse, he sees the cost of his actions.  His wife falls unconscious after falling off of a cliff face, his daughter sustains a leg injury, and he sustains multiple life-threatening injuries.  As they limp around the desert in search of food, water, and help, will they ever be saved?

 

Production Quality (.5 point)

In an attempt to shoot and outdoor adventure, some elements of the production of Desert Redemption are not half bad, such as the video quality and the realistic sets.  Lighting is improved outside, but there are still a myriad of issues that detract from these small positives.  Camera work is very shaky and audio quality is often so bad that the characters cannot be understood.  While the soundtrack is interesting, it is often too loud and out of place.  There are also a lot of loud outdoor noises.  The runtime is dominated by scenery footage, and thus, no editing is present.  Essentially, this is more of an effort than usual for Faith House, but still not good enough.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Once again, there is barely any plot to speak of in this film.  Three characters go into the desert and start getting tons of injuries.  From there, it’s just one manufactured drama after another with a dose of juvenile Christianity.  Everything bad happens at once and in a laughable fashion.  It really just boils down to a predictable survival plot, just done very poorly.  Though there are only three main characters in this film, they do not develop into realistic people but instead remain wooden due to lack of substantial dialogue.  Instead, there are too many sequences of characters laying around grunting and breathing hard.  Then, when the time runs out, everything gets fixed through narration.  As if it couldn’t get any worse, this is probably Faith House’s thinnest plot to date.  So why are they still writing plots?

Acting Quality (0 points)

In perhaps the smallest cast ever, the three main cast members are very juvenile and amateurish.  They have no clear direction in their acting as they awkwardly force emotions and lines.  They also demonstrate some of the most laughable injury acting we have ever witnessed.  If they mean well, which we are sure they do, it’s unfortunate that they are portrayed in this fashion.

Conclusion

We ask ourselves time and again: how can a studio this juvenile and unprofessional continually fund feature-length films?  How were A Calling of Courage, A Box of Faith, and this one not forced to be short films?  They barely have enough plot content to be thirty minutes long without all the wasted footage and activities of daily living.  What has happened in the world of Christian film to allow films such as these to exist?  Somebody has some serious soul searching to do.

 

Final Rating: .5 out of 10 point

 

March 21, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1/2 point, 2015, Auturo Gavino, constant injuries, Craig McMahon, Faith House Pictures, Gloria Jean Roberts, Inspirational, Savanah D. McMahon, terrible injury acting, wandering in the wilderness, William G. Way 2 Comments

A Box of Faith (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

When Dior’s father is framed and arrested for something he did not do, she has no choice but to abandon the motel room they were living in so that she can hide from the social worker who wants to help her.  Because otherwise, this movie wouldn’t have a plot.  As Dior walks from one park bench to another and one street to another, her social worker does crossword puzzles and randomly drives around hoping to find her.  Dior must live in a storage unit during all of this and wait for the plot to come to an end so everything can be fixed.  The question is not will things for resolved, but will you stick around for them to be resolved?

 

Production Quality (.5 point)

The one thing we can say for this half-baked production is that it has clear video quality.  Otherwise, there are no positive aspects.  Camera work is very shaky and lighting is very inconsistent.  Audio quality is very poor, including loud outside sounds and an annoying soundtrack.  Sets and locations are very limited, as usual for Faith House.  Once again, there is no editing present as every possible amount of content is squeezed out of this non-film.  Essentially, A Box of Faith is another lame excuse for a production.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

With barely any plot content to work with whatsoever and a completely aimless story, what is anyone supposed to learn from this.  Due to the silly dialogue and a shallow and trumped-up premise, it’s very hard for the audience to connect with the struggles of the characters.  They just wander around the whole time and do absolutely nothing of note.  With so few characters, we should know a lot more about them as they stand around and talk, but we don’t.  The plot overall is too trite and unserious and there is thus no real justification for its creation.  The Faith House team needs to take a serious look at the content they are spitting out.  Constantly generating half-wit ideas just for the sake of creating more movies is a blight on Christian film.

Acting Quality (.5 point)

While there is some good here, A Box of Faith provides yet another empty and robotic cast.  We’re sure these people mean well, but they have absolutely no coaching.  Just stiffly sitting there or standing there saying lines doesn’t cut it.  There is no emotion exhibited at all.  But this is just another day at Faith House.

Conclusion

Complex story ideas are hard to come by, but extremely limited yet forced plots like this one should be a thing of the past.  There is very little potential and\or purpose to movies like A Box of Faith.  Faith House movies are a total embarrassment to Christian film, and we hope the day comes that movies like it are no longer so common place.

 

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

 

March 20, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1 point, 2015, Auturo Gavino, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, David Aaron Stone, Faith House Pictures, Inspirational, John Waldron, Julie Van Lith, Laura van Lith, Savanah D. McMahon, William G. Way 6 Comments

A Calling of Courage (Movie Review)

Fauston’s brain machine

Plot Summary

Sergeant Major Kurt Roberts is called home from his duty when his teenage daughter, Zoey, is in a car accident that leaves her in a coma.  Since her prognosis is unknown, Zoey is allowed to go back home to stay until she comes out of her coma.  Under the care of her parents and an in-home nurse, Zoey lays in a coma for months.  Then her nurse decides to bring in an old friend to experiment with his new brain machine that can communicate with people who are in comas.  What could go wrong?

 

Production Quality (0 points)

It’s unbelievable that so-called productions like this are even funded.  Even so, what did they spend the money on, because there is no quality whatsoever here.  Camera work is very shaky, video quality is underwhelming, and lighting is poor in most scenes.  The sets are limited to basically one house and some outside scenes.  Audio quality is also inconsistent and the soundtrack is generic.  There is no editing as pretty much all of their empty ideas are included.  Essentially, this is not a production that needed any funding, especially since they wasted it.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

What is happening here?  The story starts as a half-baked idea about a girl laying around in a coma and three other characters caring about what happens to her and then suddenly transforms into an off-the-wall sci-fi concept, complete with Fauston’s special brain machine that can communicate with someone who’s in a coma.  Before this point, hardly anything happens and there is a lot of off-screen content.  The medical premise is strange and has a lot of plot holes.  Despite the fact that there are basically five characters in this plot, they are extremely empty and wooden.  Dialogue does nothing to develop them, even though they sit around talking all the time.  Basically, besides being bizarre and childish in an attempt to be creative, A Calling of Courage was barely justified as a plot as there is really no content to speak of here.  Thus, there is no point in any of this.

Acting Quality (0 points)

With basically five to seven cast members, one of which lays in a bed a majority of the film, there is not much to work with here.  The cast members are robotic and empty in their line delivery and in their emotions.  We can’t relate to them as real people.  Also, there is an odd portrayal of military service members.  In short, like the rest of this horrific mess, the acting has nothing to offer.

Conclusion

As we will see this week, the theme of Faith House Pictures is having the bare minimum resources required to slap together a half-baked movie just for the sake of making it.  Their model seems to be to acquire the funds necessary to have basically one set, less than ten cast members, and the cheapest possible production equipment, and combine this with a tiny plot idea that includes some eccentric element(s).  There is no justification for Faith House Pictures to exist, and yet they do.

 

Final Rating: 0 out of 10 points

 

March 18, 2017January 10, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie Reviews, PsychologicalTags: 0 points, 2014, Auturo Gavino, Craig McMahon, Disease, Faith House Pictures, Fauston's brain machine, Inspirational, Julie Van Lith, Kimber Leigh, Klor M. Rowland Jr., Psychological, Savanah D. McMahon, Steve Marmon, zero points 6 Comments