{"id":1847,"date":"2013-08-04T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T12:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/08\/when-movie-reviews-are-wrong.html"},"modified":"2013-08-04T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T12:14:00","slug":"when-movie-reviews-are-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/08\/when-movie-reviews-are-wrong.html","title":{"rendered":"When movie reviews are wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
<\/a><\/div>\n

For some reason, in the age of Information highways, I see more and more things that are factually wrong. \u00a0So the other day, my boys asked to watch The Devil and Daniel Webster<\/i>. \u00a0We love that movie, packed with traditional celebrations of America and its finer qualities, while not being blind to its darker sides, as most Americans appeared to realize. \u00a0I discuss that here<\/a> in an early blog post.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we watched it as a family. \u00a0Walter Huston alone makes it more than worth while, and there are far more wonderful elements than Old Scratch. \u00a0The film making is quality, and director and producer William Dieterle goes above and beyond to make it at times eerie, at times comical, and always thought provoking. \u00a0Only in this last viewing did my boys point out that when Jabez first sells his soul, his first action is to lie about where he found the gold. \u00a0Out of the gate, his first big accomplishment is being dishonest. Some good theology there.<\/div>\n
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Anyway, as is our wont, we decided to look up more information about the movie. \u00a0On Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, we noticed a particularly high rating. \u00a0It typically gets high ratings, and for more than Huston\u2019s Oscar nominated performance. \u00a0But then I noticed this:<\/div>\n

Scratch offers Stone seven years of wealth and good fortune in exchange for his soul; Stone, assuming it\u2019s some sort of joke, agrees. Soon Stone\u2019s fields\u00a0<\/span>are plentiful and money is rolling in, but his financial success comes with a price<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unless I\u2019m missing something after repeated viewings, Jabez doesn\u2019t see it as a joke. \u00a0He is convinced by Old Scratch that souls don\u2019t exist. \u00a0You can\u2019t seem them, touch them, feel them. \u00a0And so in desperation and willing to believe anything to get himself out of his problems, he signs in blood on the dotted line. \u00a0I wondered about that review. \u00a0Did whoever write it miss this fact? \u00a0Was there some mental block that couldn\u2019t accept that Jabez has accepted the modern materialist explanation for things? \u00a0It was never presented as a joke. \u00a0Jabez protests that he has been tricked. \u00a0He sees later that the Devil had given him money and all it could buy, but never promised happiness. \u00a0But when he picked up pen to sign, he did it to get out of trouble, having already seen the Hetian gold. \u00a0I just thought about that when I read the review. \u00a0Is it wrong on purpose, or did the viewer simply wish to avoid the obvious? \u00a0Just kicking around a thought or two.\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some reason, in the age of Information highways, I see more and more things that are factually wrong. \u00a0So the other day, my boys asked to watch The Devil and Daniel Webster. \u00a0We love that movie, packed with traditional celebrations of America and its finer qualities, while not being blind to its darker sides, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen movie reviews are wrong<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For some reason, in the age of Information highways, I see more and more things that are factually wrong.  So the other day, my boys asked to watch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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