So, this movie looks good enough to support with my dollars - and yes, I am saying that I want to support it specifically for its content and, like I said, because it looks artful enough to support.

http://www.thenativitystory.com/

[Update: I provide my response to this film after going to see it, following these comments.  Also, the film critic Eric D. Snider responded to these comments which I posted in a forum, and I think his comments are correct, and I also quote them after my own additional comments.] 

To offer my own responses just to the trailer, at first I thought: "Oh, a prophecy of a child born to overthrow a king - this sounds like maybe a cool fantasy film."  Then I did a double-take: Wait!  This is the birth of Jesus they are talking about!  Then I thought: oh yeah, fantasy stories borrow from religion and mythology - and J.R.R. Tolkien convinced C.S. Lewis to become a Christian by making a case that Christianity is "The true mythology".  I love that!

I’m especially inclined to see it to thumb my nose at the myriad critics who are, as I will show, criticizing this film not over its artistic quality so much as, specifically, its religious theme.  Well-established critics at rottentomatoes.com - here is their review collection page for the film - collectively are giving the film 41% approval (at this writing), while also at this writing, google’s unsystematic - i.e. they’ll take any prominent web review and not only an "approved" (likely highly educated, too much brains and too little heart, trained to think of religion as illogical and useless) reviewer, and googel’s average of the reviews gives 3.3 out of 5 stars much higher (is that 70 percent?).

And as I said, most of the critics gathered at rottentomatoes.com who sneer at it do so specifically over the religious theme; let’s gather up and number the specifically anti-religious comments from reviewers there:

  1. "Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back.." Okay, you’re telling me you hated sunday school.  And that has what to do with the artistic quality of this film?
  2. "The pacing is so slow and the religious undertones so heavy that only Jesus himself could rise above the draining weight." Okay, check.  Gotcha.  Religious undertones = badly heavy, burdensome to you.
  3. "Devout Christians are invited to ignore the reviews and enjoy the film. Non-Christians and skeptics ought to be looking elsewhere." Check.  If you ain’t religious, it ain’t for you.  Sorry Senor, but if you would appear objective, you would not recommend against the film for any cynic.  Yes, cynics, you should stay cynical - you should specifically avoid this film because it might promote faith - that is what this reviewer is saying!  So what about the supposedly objective comments on the acting quality elsewhere in that review?  Shouldn’t that be the reason not to see it?  What would many reviewers say if anyone recommended against any film or art because of nudity or sexual content?  Would they call them closed-minded zealots or "spiritually apopleptic"?  I have heard those insults bandied about for precisely that reason.  Uh-huh.  Christians can’t recommend against films for "sinful" content, while it’s perfectly appropriate for critics to recommend against films for religious content.  No sin is sin unless it’s religion, not that there is any such thing as sin.
  4. "An effective pitch for Christianity as the dullest religion ever."  Check, low blow.  How conveneint it would be if a supposedly dull film could form the subsistence of a person’s impression of religion - that is, if one wished to avoid religion.  No, if this were an objective statement, it would oppose the quality of the film - and the qaulity of the film only.  This is an opportunistic slam on Christianity.
  5. "Slavishly reverent, it is accidentally hilarious in its earnestness — and in its sincere attempts at a touch of humor; it will please believers who don’t want their faith tested in the least…" Um, reverence is slavish?  I thought melodramatic acting was slavish.  Religious earnestness is "hilarious"?  In the same way that naive little children who still believe in Santa Claus are so endearingly amusing?  Except that there is clearly no endearment meant here.  And I suppose she means a believer’s faith wouldn’t be tested because there are no "humorous" cut-aways of people saying "This whole religious yarn is really quite astonishingly unbelievable and stupid, isn’t it?" - ?  Check, three low-blows against Christianity.
  6. "..an elaborate high school production, one that looks authentic but has no soul." Yes, those foolish High-Schoolers!  Believing in miracles and such - wait until their bachelors’ exam tells them the answer is "C: There is no God."  That’ll teach ‘em!  If they even make it that far, and don’t end up in Iraq.  Yes, but the only thing to miss from back in the day is the raw hormone drive.. Check, low-blow.
  7. "For those who are not pulled to this movie for its religious slant, there’s no reason to go." See number 3.
  8. "The Nativity Story does only so much to enliven a drama that has been playing out in Sunday schools and on suburban lawns for centuries." Which quite presumably must mean that a) The story has only always been anything but dull and b) May always be, which c) Goes back to 4.
  9. "The proceedings come across as quite a bit less than the greatest story every told." See number 4.  Hmm.. will the next one also go back to 4?
  10. "an opportunity, for those who want it, to encounter this story exactly the way it’s almost always been told." Yeah, where I have I heard that?  9, 8, 4.

There you have it.  Ten of the twenty-four "splat" reviews at rottentomatoes.com pan the film specifically because it is religious.  That’s almost half of the splats.  Hello, anti-religious bias!  If you counted you might have gotten twenty-five splats - one of them is a repeat under "cream of the crop."  And this is only reading the blurbs gleamed out of longer reviews.  I have little doubt if you read all the reviews that aren’t anti-religious in the selected blurb, you’d find other blatant or subtle slams to religion - I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio grew a lot higher with further looks.

But you can only give sneering, condescending anti-religionists so much of the time of day. 

This positive review made me laugh, and I think it counters 10, 9, 8, and 4 - and perhaps explains the seemingly inexplicable phenomenon of "unapproved" reviewers nabbed by google countering folks whose education is thier religion:

"Seeking uplift without going for guilt, this chronicle of Jesus’ birth is told as a story of enduring faith without the filmmaker getting in the way. There’s nothing flashy about "The Nativity Story," and that’s part of the reason the film is so moving."

To me that and the remainder sounds like, and conjures -

"he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no dbeauty that we should desire him. He is adespised and rejected of men; a man of bsorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we cesteemed him not."

-Isaiah 53:2-3

As I first said, the movie to me looks just good enough to support.  From the trailer my impression is that it teeters between melodrama and great.  But just that anybody is putting forward serious effort and money into this, and that this is an improvement over many other Christian (I do not refer to THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST - that was superb, and I will say that knowing that I both alienate myself to and draw the stern consternation of some readers) - this means I’ll go see it.  My personal approach is to support anything in the spiritual cinema movement that looks 3 stars or above, and that’s what this looks.  But do note also the positive blurbs at rottentomatoes.com and google.

[Okay, I went and saw the film, and these are my responses to the film.]

Oh boy.  So, I ran out and saw this.  And that was a big mistake.  I think the acting was actually usually good, but it was extremely hard to separate that from a sense that it was overacting for the UNENDING, BOMBASTIC, SUPER-FEELY-GOOD _DRECK_ MUSIC - which injected way way way way too much into the film.  Although the music was often good.  It’s just that it almost never stopped (as if no one in the audience would be capable of feeling anything for themselves), and when it was at odds with the emotion in a scene, it was so at odds with it that it was impossible to concentrate on the film.  The music shouted FEEL _THIS_! NOW FEEL THIS!  AND THIS!  Severe emotional dissonance.  AAAAGH.  And usually it was at odds by being far too over the top.  Maybe that won’t bother you.  My wife says I remember melodies and music from films that most others forget.  But the problem is that I wouldn’t remember most of this music at all - except that - oh yeah - the film took great strains to be authentic and Middle-Eastern, and then half the music was medleys of post-Renaissance Western hymns ON STEROIDS.  Are you getting that I didn’t like the music, and that it ruined the film?  There are several Mormon films and LDS Church films that have an entire star removed from my rating for them just for the music.  This film has two stars removed for the music.  TURKEY.  It’s even worse than your typical Mormon movie.

There was one scene that was a breath of fresh air because it was genuinely acted, with interesting, human dialogue, and no music.  It was actually moving.  If I got my hands on the final edit of this film I would cut out 85 percent of the music.  It might make it the three star film (out of five) that I saw in the trailer.

My comments against the critics slamming this for it’s religious theme still stand - but I won’t disagree with stabs against the artistry of the film.

And I never in my most violently pious moments imagined the Star of Bethlehem doing THAT.  Come on.  I think understatement was not this film’s stock in trade, contrary to what one supporting critic said.

All the same, I cried when the Babe of Bethlehem was born.  .. But  then the moment was summarily ruined by one of the wise men saying something so unbelievably.. I don’t know what.. just so.. no adjectives.

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m too cynical.

Screed done.

[Now here is what Eric D. Snider wrote in a forum in response to my comments, and I think he is correct.]

I don’t dispute that there are many people in this country who seem to be anti-Christian and anti-religion. The evidence you cite in your blog, however, is grasping at straws and finding controversy where there is none.
I’ll point out a few obvious examples:
YOU CITE: "Memories of dreary Sunday school classes come flooding back.."
YOU SAY: Okay, you’re telling me you hated sunday school.  And that has what to do with the artistic quality of this film?
REALITY: All that reviewer says is that he doesn’t like DREARY Sunday school classes, not Sunday school in general. He’s saying the movie is reminiscent of dull Sunday school classes. He does NOT say that ALL Sunday school is dull. You have injected that with your own they’re-out-to-get-us paranoia.

YOU CITE: "Devout Christians are invited to ignore the reviews and enjoy the film. Non-Christians and skeptics ought to be looking elsewhere."
YOU SAY: you should specifically avoid this film because it might promote faith - that is what this reviewer is saying!  
REALITY: Um, no. That’s not what this reviewer is saying, at least not from this quote. All this quote says is that despite the film not being particularly good, devout Christians will probably enjoy it. People who are not Christians — i.e., people who do not already have an inherent interest in the subject matter — probably won’t enjoy it. How is that an anti-religion slam? To me, that just seems like a pretty matter-of-fact assessment of the film’s appeal. If you ain’t already interested, this won’t change your mind.

YOU CITE: "Slavishly reverent, it is accidentally hilarious in its earnestness"
YOU SAY: Um, reverence is slavish? 
REALITY: Again, a hilarious twist on what has actually been said. He didn’t say reverence is slavish. He said the film is slavishly reverent. If i said someone was "outrageously dressed," does that mean that being dressed is outrageous? No, it means THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE of being dressed is outrageous. Likewise, all the critic has said is that THIS PARTICULAR FILM is slavishly reverent (probably meaning "too" reverent, i.e., to the point of dullness).

YOU CITE: "For those who are not pulled to this movie for its religious slant, there’s no reason to go."
YOU SAY: See number 3 (referring to " you should specifically avoid this film because it might promote faith - that is what this reviewer is saying!")
REALITY: Again, I just don’t see how this can be construed as an anti-religion sentiment. All it’s saying is that if you’re not already interested in the subject matter, the movie probably won’t do much for you. How is that a slam on religion? It’s a slam on the MOVIE, but not on Christianity altogether! I just wrote a review of a documentary called "American Hardcore," about the U.S. punk rock movement of the early 1980s. I said pretty much what this critic said: "For those who are not pulled to this movie because they’re interested in early ’80s punk rock, there’s no reason to go." Is that a slam on punk rock? Not at all! It’s a slam on the movie for not doing a very good job of making punk rock seem interesting.

… and the craziest one:

YOU CITE: "..an elaborate high school production, one that looks authentic but has no soul."
YOU SAY: Yes, those foolish High-Schoolers!  Believing in miracles and such - wait until their bachelors’ exam tells them the answer is "C: There is no God."
REALITY: Here you have managed to construe a quote as anti-religion EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN’T EVEN MENTION RELIGION! The reviewer doesn’t say the movie is bad BECAUSE it’s religious. All he says is that it’s bad! 
 
Alex, nearly all of the "anti-religion" quotes you cite actually allow for the possibility that Christianity IS interesting, and that good movies CAN be made of it — and that this simply isn’t one of them. Honestly, you’re looking for an agenda here where there isn’t one. 

I had a professor who asked the class how many Spike Lee fans there were. Only a couple people raised their hands. I wasn’t one of them. The teacher shook her head and chuckled, "The product of living in a racist society." The fact that we didn’t like Spike Lee meant we were racist. You’ll probably agree that that’s a pretty extreme interpretation. Isn’t it possible we don’t like Spike Lee movies because we just don’t think they’re very good? Who said anything about race? The PROFESSOR did, because she was one of those crusaders who finds racism EVERYWHERE. Do you see how you’re being exactly the same way, looking for anti-religion messages everywhere, even where they don’t exist? 

Eric D. Snider
 
[My own further comment that this brought to mind:]
 
Yeah - and by the same token, I don’t believe Mormons necessarily are against their own religion or history or films that do great justice to either - they just aren’t interested in such things.

There is however one point that I believe I may stand by: that to say this film is an advertisement for Christianity being boring is an opportunistic slam. And there were four such comments among the critical blurbs collected at rottentomatoes.com. But the film cannot represent Christianity any more than Die Hard or Star Trek can represent Secular Humanism. These are works of art. They may convey principles and ideas - even facts (for example, one verity portrayed in Die Hard is that sometimes buildings blow up) - which are true, but cannnot be any basis for a gospel or absolute core of truth. This is a mistake that Mormons also make with their own films in the Mormon Cinema movement - expecting gospel reliability in art. Unfortunately it is a common perception that films may represent reality instead of conveying truth; frankly, that setup leads to the all-too-common victim stance where if something misrepresents, someone takes offense and begins taking license to victimize others in turn. No, it’s just a film, and if it’s a poor film, that’s too bad, but that can be no reflection on Christianity, and to say so is not realistic or fair.