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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 22, 2007 / 3 Shevat, 5767

What a friend we have in Hollywood

By Cal Thomas


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "Can Hollywood make friends with evangelicals?" asks Brian Lowry in a column for Variety, the show business magazine. A better question might be, "Can evangelicals make friends with Hollywood?"



After years of cursing the darkness about profanity, nudity and violence coming out of what collectively is called "Hollywood" — whether the films are produced there or elsewhere — evangelicals and others who like quality films are beginning to develop and produce their own. Two of the better ones will be released next month.


"Amazing Grace" is the account of William Wilberforce, a courageous member of the British Parliament in the latter part of the 19th century who, more than any person, was responsible for ending the English slave trade. Starring Ioan Gruffudd as Wilberforce and co-starring Albert Finney as the slave trader, John Newton, who converted to Christianity and subsequently wrote the hymn, "Amazing Grace," this is a film about political and moral heroism with implications for our time, offering all of the rationalizations for maintaining the slave trade, including allegations that it would wreck the British economy and the most outrageous of all, that the slaves, themselves, had allegedly not registered any opposition to the trade.


The producers resist the temptation to lecture. They simply present the historical facts and show what one person can do when he is completely dedicated to a cause that is true and right. When Parliament votes in 1807 to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire, even some of Wilberforce's fiercest opponents rise to applaud him. Wilberforce responds, "I thank God that I have lived to witness the day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the abolition of slavery." On July 26, 1833, Parliament voted to end slavery throughout the British Empire. Wilberforce died three days later.


It is especially fitting that this film is being released during Black History Month. It should resonate with the African-American community as much as with white evangelicals. There is literally something for everyone in this beautifully shot and beautifully performed film.


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The other film has the unlikely title, "The Last Sin Eater," and is based on a novel by Francine Rivers. It is co-produced and directed by Michael Landon Jr. and co-produced and co-written by Brian Bird (his writing credits include the hit CBS series "Touched by an Angel").


"The Last Sin Eater" tells the story of 10-year-old Cadi Forbes. While attending her grandmother's funeral in the Appalachian Mountains of the 1850s, she witnesses a mysterious man "absolve" her grandmother of her sins by eating bread and wine at her gravesite. Cadi decides she wants the same redemption from a deep and dark secret and she seeks out the man in order to be forgiven while she is still alive.


The film, from News Corp's Fox Faith Films, its home entertainment division, is the first of three films to be released this year by Fox Faith.


While all of the actors are perfectly cast, Cadi (Liana Liberato) is so cute and so good, you'll wish she were your daughter. "The Last Sin Eater" is based on a Welsh myth. The Welsh accents, the beautiful surroundings and the compelling story will convince you of theses villagers' faith in the myth, but what Cadi and her entire community discover as they pursue redemption, is no myth at all, but rather the truest of truth.


The key to getting more films like "Amazing Grace" and "The Last Sin Eater" produced is for people who have avoided movies to begin again to patronize movie theaters. Whatever one thinks of "Hollywood," profit can trump their mostly liberal politics, social agenda and bias against religion, except when mocking it.


Evangelicals don't have to "make friends" with Hollywood, but if they want more movies like these, they had better make tracks to the multiplex. I promise, it will be worth the journey.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Cal Thomas is the author of, among others, The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas Comment by clicking here.


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