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

Kindness Matters (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

Hudson doesn’t want to do anything except hang around his house and go to work.  His nosy mother is worried about him, which is why she keeps trying to set him up with blind dates.  However, Hudson’s world changes one day when he finds a dog near his trash can and decides to take it in.  Moreover, his world changes again when the dog runs away from their camping trip and finds a new home with a single father and his son, who struggles with a speech impediment.  Perhaps this dog will bring them all together in a really sappy way.

Production Quality (1.5 points)

One thing you can say for Faith House Pictures (now re-branded as Inspiriter Pictures for no particular reason, even though they kept that same pixie-dust splash logo) is that they don’t give up.  Also, their production quality has slightly increased over the years, with the exception of Before All Others.  Still, they have figured out a way to mass produce sappy inspirational films that at least seem passable on the surface of production.  This is evidenced by good video quality and camera work.  They still use the same old sets, props, and locations we’ve seen before, such as the desert from Desert Redemption and the houses from So Help Us God and A Time For Heaven.  Also, they make themselves known with a typically cheesy and carefree stock soundtrack that was either cheap or free from some website.  At times, the audio is a bit too quiet, but the editing is basically face-value and fine.  Overall, Faith House is proving that if you stick with something long enough, you might get better at it.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Another defining quality of a Faith House film is a safe and predictable inspirational plot that is extremely sappy and is based on coincidences.  This time around, we get another rendition of the Black Beauty-style pass-the-narrating-animal-around plot.  This worn-out plot device is accompanied by the expected blank and vanilla characters that are written in Faith House scripts.  There is also a strawman ‘bad’ character, and each character has a special brand of quirky yet flat dialogue that makes things just interesting enough to keep watching, if only to see what they might say next.  However, the entire film basically boils down to being a collection of empty scenes that have just enough sappy inspirational themes (coupled with a totally pandering title) to make it a click-bait film that is ready to be added to your Amazon Prime suggested list if you frequent Christian films on this streaming service.  The Christian message is clearly fake,  but it is just enough to get you to watch, which makes this film’s only purpose to pander to a desperate inspirational audience.

Acting Quality (1 point)

Julie Van Lith, Suzanne McGown Brown, and Bill Wetherill are certainly committed to the Faith House cause.  Julie alone has appeared in every Faith House film.  Re-using cast members is another budget-conserving tactic of this company, but retaining good actors and actresses is the ideal.  Still, Faith House and company do just enough to make the acting seem realistic for their audience, even if a majority of the performances are extremely dry, flat, and boring.  Emotional and line delivery seem like they’re phoned in, and there are basically no extras in this film, but it’s not all bad.  Once again, Faith House does the bare minimum to stay relevant.

Conclusion

You can’t fault Faith House’s marketing model: they are running circles around other Christian film makers and their ‘lucrative’ distribution deals that run their ideas into the ground and conceal them in the closed world of Christian film festivals.  After watching every Faith House film to date, we are convinced that they are trolling Christian audiences, but they have proven their point: if you want to get your movie out there, put it directly to Amazon Prime Video.  No exclusive distribution deals, no film festivals, not even review screeners–put it straight to the audience you want to reach and spoon-feed them the message they want to hear.  Doing this is a marketing genius, and our analytics team has confirmed its success as Faith House reviews are among our most viewed posts.  This is not a coincidence, and this is an important message to aspiring film makers: for your first film, you won’t make much money, and it’s likely that Amazon won’t help you turn large profits, but it’s worth it to get your content out there at the beginning so that people know who you are.  Granted you have a good story to tell in the first place, you can grow from there.  Amazon may be Buy-N-Large, but they’re a platform that better Christian film makers can use to gain a voice in an increasingly crowded market.  Marketing matters.

 

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 10 points

 

July 2, 2018December 31, 2018 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 2.5 points, 2018, Aaron Ginn-Forsberg, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, Faith House Pictures, Greg Lutz, Inspirational, Inspiriter Films, Julie Van Lith, Kathleen Benner, Lacy McMahon, Post Reel Pictures, Raine Hartman Forsberg, Suzanne M. Brown, Tim Helmstadter 9 Comments

A Time for Heaven (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

Ronald Mitchell lays dying in his own bed as his organs are shutting down, so home healthcare nurse Julie is called upon to make him comfortable as he passes into the next life.  However, she doesn’t just want to make her patients comfortable—she wants to leave a lasting difference on their lives.  Ron is all alone, so Julie sets out to find his long-lost children, whom he gave up for adoption.  Little does she know that the search will lead her to surprising results.

 

Production Quality (1 point)

As usual for Faith House’s newer productions, there are a few good production elements, but not enough.  Video quality is fine, as is audio quality, yet there is some randomly shaky camera work, and the soundtrack is Faith House’s usual silliness.  Sets, locations, and props are okay, but they are very limited and cheap.  Lighting is also sometimes an issue.  Furthermore, the editing is poor, including lagging scenes and awkward fade-outs.  Basically, at the rate that Faith House puts out these dumb movies, there’s no way they can be quality.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

It never fails that the Faith House team can come with a childish, silly story that’s based on a flimsy premise and unrealistic occurrences.  Do they even research the situations they want to portray in film before making them?  Their stories are based too much on coincidences and leaps in logic, not to mention the fact that the characters therein are ridiculous.  Faith House also writes the strangest dialogue, and all of these goofy elements are present in A Time for Heaven.  There is no sense of reality in the pursuit of forcing a childish conclusion with a cheap Christian message.  Basically, much like Before All Others and their other wonders, A Time for Heaven is another pointless film that never needed to be made.

Acting Quality (0 points)

Constantly casting Mitch Etter and Julie Van Lith in your films is not a good idea if you want to have a good cast.  Not only is this cast very small, but it’s not really any good.  Every cast member just does their own thing with no much direction.  There are quite a few obvious line errors and emotions are laughable.  In the end, this is once again a newer film that had no reason to be released.

Conclusion

Though we know that outfits like The Asylum are purposely creating parody films, it’s very difficult to know if companies like Faith House, Stronger Foundation, Tender Shoot, etc., are actually serious.  Films like this one are funny for all the wrong reasons and only further serve to continually muddy the waters of the Christian film market.  Whoever is funding these nonsense films needs to seriously stop and demand some quality.

 

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

 

September 2, 2017January 6, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie ReviewsTags: 1 point, 2017, Attic Underground Cinema, Auturo Gavino, Barbara McBain, Bill Wetherill, Craig McMahon, Disease, Faith House Pictures, Gary Herkimer, Greg Lutz, Inspirational, John Paquette, Julie Van Lith, Lacy McMahon, Mitch Etter, Nadine Jackson, Shari K. Green, Tim Helmstadter 19 Comments