Hi, y’all! We’re gonna be firing off the Christian movie Second Glance soon, so I wanted to do our usual pre-game kickoff to set up parameters, talk about the movie itself and its setting, and all that fun stuff I won’t have time to talk about while watching it. And wow, what a lot of stuff to mention up front.
A Confession.
First, let me make a confession: I’ve never actually watched most of the TV shows that this movie is obviously trying to evoke here.
Really.
I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of Full House (1987-1995). Never seen even that much of Boy Meets World (1993-2000). Or even a glimpse of Growing Pains (1985-1992) or Saved By the Bell (1989-1992). I did catch a couple of episodes of My So-Called Life (1994-1995) and liked it somewhere along the way, but not enough to make time to see it all the time; by then I was an emotionally-bruised deconverted (and divorced) adult, so the show wasn’t really something that resonated with me. (Did she ever get with the angsty rockstar kid though?) I’ve learned enough about these shows to understand their cultural impact, but even if I’d seen that stuff during all of its respective run, I was Pentecostal–very much outside of popular culture.
I also know just enough about these sorts of TV shows that I can see that the movie’s cover is meant to evoke one of them. Compare it with the cover of Full House. It’s exactly the same: prominently placed character in foreground, supporting cast in a rectangular box in the background, show/movie title set to the right of the main character’s head.
Yesterday my doctor noticed that I was wearing an Elfquest shirt and asked what it was. I said it was a very neat comic book series that began in the 1970s or thereabouts. He laughed and said that’s probably why he’s never heard of it. He was in medical school around then and working 12 hours a day at the hospital.
I laughed with him and said I knew what he meant. I’d missed popular culture almost totally while I was a fundagelical. If it happened between 1986 and 1998, chances are very good that I didn’t encounter it while it was current. I was either Pentecostal or else in another country between those years. A lot of it I did pick up later, but only stuff that I was really interested in. And I wasn’t even remotely interested in any of those weird sitcoms about squeaky-clean tween heartthrobs.
So this movie we’re gonna see this evening might as well have come from a whole different country to me. I totally missed all those kinds of TV shows. Even the kind of Christianity favored by characters like Kirk Cameron and David A.R. White (the star of today’s pissburger of a movie) would have had me snorting in complete derision. (Never try to out-Christian a Pentecostal. Never.)
Expectations.
Second Glance, a 1992 short-ish movie by the Christiano Brothers, stars a shockingly young David A.R. White as a Christian guy who feels like he’s missing out on life because of his religiosity. So he goes through a high-school version of It’s a Wonderful Life and gets to see what life would be like if he had always been an atheist.
Already I can feel a whole host of criticisms springing to my lips, but I’ll wait for the movie to start to talk about it. I’ll just say for now that my expectations are extremely low. I had no idea that David A.R. White had any other expression besides “wisely-squinting Christian leader with fancy hair.” I didn’t even recognize him on the movie’s cover picture with his 80s hair and baggy T-shirt, much less in a sullen posture with his arms crossed in front of him like a petulant kid.
I have no idea who anybody else in the cast is. $50 says they’re all people who go to the same church as the Christiano Brothers. Some of them appear to have gone on to brief careers as bit-part actors and actresses but for most, this movie was all the taste they ever wanted of the lights-cameras-and-action of Hollywood. One part listing for “Tamara” indicates that this movie is all its actress has ever done–besides be a production assistant on this very same movie. (What happened? Did they need a Tamara that day and then they suddenly realized that the perfect one was right under their noses all that time? Did “In Your Eyes” play at the moment they had that realization?)
Our Hooch Selection.
When I think about this time period, I think of flavored fruity drinks in single-serve bottles: wine coolers, hard ciders, and that sort of thing. I had a lot of Mike’s Hard Lemonade left over from a previous review, and that seemed perfect anyway (also Mr. Captain was too busy playing stompy robot games to procure the second choice, which was bubble-gum-flavored vodka; joke’s on him though because I’ve got bubble-gum flavoring and vodka and I’m not afraid to play Mad Scientist with my hard liquor).
And because I forgot to chill them first, I’m having mine in a mug with ice because I am very classy this way. By the way, this thing’s like 45 minutes long, so we’re gonna hafta drink quickly to match it.
I’m firing the movie up in a minute here, and hope you’ll watch with me.
Feel free to comment below if you like with observations you might have!
the lights and excitement of hollywood beckon us all
0 Comments