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| From http://www.christianfilmdatabase.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Sunday-School-Musical-Christian-MovieFilm-DVD.jpg |
Dir. Rachel Lee Goldenberg
USA
Film #12 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
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| From http://www.elseptimoarte.net/imagenes/peliculas/6142.jpg |
I worried, looking out of
curiosity for reviews of this film online before planning one of my own, that
by covering it I fall in danger of taking on the same cheap targets that I
questioned professional critics of doing with the Jack and Jill (2011) review. Is anyone who reviews a film like
this, including myself, really going to write anything thoughtful, even
actually funny, or will this be like a bad video review where you see the whole
film dispersed with obvious and bad jokes? Am I just being a hypocrite for
reviewing this, and writing this entire introduction? I have broken a rule set
up for this season by reviewing a film made by The Asylum company. I was willing to break the rules here because
this movie seemed to be an exception from the material that made me put that
rule up in the first place. It’s not about an overgrown, CGI fish monster but a
low budget musical designed to take advantage of the High School Musical phenomenon and also be part of the company’s Faith Films subdivision, designed to
make Christian themed films. Getting hold of this film was for the promise of a
terrible movie, a concept that, as this season has gone on, is pretty
questionable now, but in hindsight a genre that is usually extravagantly made
turned into such a minuscule budgeted, Christian film was also a fascinating
proposition. This kind of melding of genres and concepts in unexpected ways is
like viewing abstract Non-Euclidean geometry within a HP Lovecraft story, trying to imagine all of its parts working
together without going insane. The film itself is, well, what I have sadly come
to expect from The Asylum company. As
much as I want to love them, it feels like I keep going back to them like an
idiot, as all of us who have reviewed their films, as they secretly praise us
for the reviews even if they are negative ones.
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| From http://www.cantstopthemovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/sunday3.png |
When he is transferred to a new
school, and away from his adored choir and friends, Zachery (Chris Chatman) finds it difficult to
connect to his environment. His grades are failing, the choir at his new school
are hopeless in terms of their musical abilities, and the church of his old
choir is in danger of closing because of finance issues. However it is possible
that, through joining together the choirs, and winning a competition, that every
problem can be solved, all the while he slowly connects to the leader of the
new choir Savannah (Candine Lakota)
who has to overcome losing her mother only a few months earlier. In the film’s
favour, the cast for the most part, especially Chatman, have musical talent; it is great that for such an ill
advised take on a musical that there are people in front of the camera who can
sing and have charisma, and there are moments where the music they are singing
too is trying to be good. Unfortunately, for most of the film, it is also music
at its most generic and sterilised rather than really good songs. This could be
only my personal taste, but when songs have the same tone and sound to each
other it is not a good sign. For the most part, it is merely bland and
innocuous, but as with the song set around a bench, it can become terrible.
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| From http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/1474/06194942_.jpg |
Sunday School Musical outside the music is completely worthless. Chatman had the potential to be someone
special, if he had made anymore films after this 2008 production, but the rest
of the film is cheap looking. It is sad that the practices of former
exploitative film companies have not been continued for the most part this era;
at least Roger Corman and Italian
film producers would hire talented directors and film making personal and let
them make whatever they want as long as it could be marketed for cinemas. Even Godfrey Ho had a sense of fun. In this
era – where blockbusters hog the cinemas, and digital film cameras and computer
effects are cheap – laziness has sadly been allowed to come into this sub
culture of cinema. Even straight-to-video films from the yesteryear could
attempt to be great works, and while there are still great films made today,
wading for them in the mass is even more difficult. Sunday School Musical is bland looking, unnecessarily frequent and
choppy in it’s editing, and just dull to sit through. I am more likely to sleep
through another viewing of this than feel pain. As a cash-grab for High School Musical, which I admit to
having not viewed alongside its sequels, it is a half-hearted attempt at a
musical that could have been special even if it was a failure. The Cannon Group, back in the 1980s, would
have tried something special even on a pittance. The Aslyum group, from Almighty
Thor (2011), which I reviewed for this blog, to this, are exceptionally lackadaisical
in their attitude. And what makes this even more disconcerting is that this is
supposed to be a Christian film. There is very little in this film that really
delves into faith or Christian values at all. It has choirs as it main plot and
Savannah’s father is a preacher, but this seems arbitrary. It could be argued
that these types of films don’t have to directly tackle issues of faith, but
this is pointless as there are films already made that Christians enjoy and
gain a lot from, and if there wasn’t, they could make their own films rather
than rely on someone like The Asylum.
A Christian film for me, as it stands now, should tackle the issues of faith in
ordinary life, which Sunday School
Musical fails to do at all and instead panders to a lame interpretation of
R&B and hip-hop music lacking the bite and meaning to it. Alongside 2012 Doomsday (2008), another of these
faith based films by the company I’ve seen, there is something exceptionally
wrong about The Asylum’s attitude to
these films that Corman or an Italian
producer, even Ho, is completely
innocent of. Not only are they making lazy rip-offs of blockbusters rather than
fun ones like the Italians could make, but it can be argued that they are
conning Christians, who would want movies for them, without any attempt at
making something interesting. As an agnostic, I can see how something like Sunday School Musical, in its
lifelessness, would be insulting to the Christian god, like offering a turd to
Him as some kind of sacrificial gift and excepting to be lavished with praise.
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| From http://i.ytimg.com/vi/No40Nfn3Vio/0.jpg |
And the worst part? I am dumb
enough to review another film from them after my bile for Almighty Thor. Admittedly, I had hope for this to be something
interesting from The Asylum, and I
still want to see Mega Piranha (2010)
and their take on the Halloween
films, but I have tricked myself again even if I spent only 50p for a second
hand disc. Are all of us who review these films, even mock them, just
encouraging this sort of filmmaking paradoxically? For all the criticisms I’ve
had with the film, I’ve just encouraged more people to watch this film when it
should be ignored and vanish from existence. I could have scrapped this review
to do this, but to both stroke my ego and out of need to write about this film,
I have to post it. If the phrase ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice,
shame on me’ ever applied to any context, this is the perfect time to use it. On
my part, I may go for three and please The
Asylum again, or actually have some common sense next time.
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| From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG2DIpQLDETFWKbl8qq23OeISt9R-HUjWLDIuYiI3X4vnXZTc4MB4grOvfsYEnHD6J04tG2Mw8u67xQAaobCxBnwNC6rWVqAJ_rnFkcq78m4uvkjeb51ke0Tw1SHyWctVg7bwe2adH_HE/s1600/images-2.jpeg |
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