Redeeming Love

Redeeming love is a Christian romance novel. It retells the story of Hosea and Gomer but in 1850, California. 

So it's a modernised story but not so modern anymore because times have changed.

I like the irony she uses. One of the opening scenes is in a city where men pick numbers to have sex with a particular prostitute. Whoever gets lucky, gets to sleep with her. Or come back tomorrow and pay to pick another number till he is lucky enough to sleep with her.

The city is called "Pair-a-Dice'' like Paradise.

The brothel for prostitutes is called a Palace.

The main prostitute is called "Angel".

Funny thing is, when Michael Hosea realizes that Angel is the one God wants him to marry, he laughs and says "God sure does have a sense of humor". More like "Oluwa, you dey whine me?"

Okay, just in case you don't know Hosea, let me give you a background story.

Hosea is that guy (one of the minor prophets in the Bible) that God asked to marry a whore. It sounds ridiculous, right? Yes, I know.

So God wanted to use the life of Hosea as a pictorial representation of how much he loved the Israelites and how they kept on following other gods. Hence, they were committing adultery and running away from their true love.

So Hosea married a prostitute. And she kept running away.

The casting, the acting, the story telling. It was amazing. But, it's Francine Rivers. It's expected.

If you're wondering why you should watch this movie (what's my business with Hosea and Gomer? Who cares about God and the Israelites?), well you can just watch it for love (the romance in it.)

But just in case you're confused in your Christian journey, this is the spark of hope you've been waiting for.

God's love is unconditional. His love is redeeming. He's ever ready. His arms are ever open. He's saying "Come to daddy."

It's left to you.

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Do Revenge

This Vengeful Mean Girl Teen Movie Is a Delicious Delight

The best praise for Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's savagely delicious "Do Revenge" is that it belongs with the numerous classic teen films that it both honors and borrows from. in first glance, the plot—which centers on two adolescent girls who decide to get revenge on one other's rivals—sounds like "Strangers on a Train" in an upscale private school. However, that viewpoint is overly basic. Ultimately, Robinson's endeavor owes more to films like "Heathers," "Mean Girls," and "Cruel Intentions" than it does to Hitchock's notorious classic—influences that the movie freely displays on its chic and suitably retro Y2K-era sleeves.

That would be Drea. At the start of the film, she’s on top of the world. She may be a scholarship kid but she doesn’t let on that she wasn’t born into the wealth and privilege she navigates so well. Not only is she a role model, she’s a much-dreaded Alpha. She’s got stellar grades. A killer wardrobe. A hunk of a boyfriend (Max, played by “Euphoria”’s Austin Abrams). A popular posse. And, most importantly, a surefire path to her dream future at Yale. Yet no sooner has Mendes’ voice over let us know just how carefully curated Drea’s life truly is (and how swiftly she’s willing to wield her status against those who’d cross her) than we see her fall from grace. A leaked sex tape turns her into a pariah just in time for summer vacation. And so, while her erstwhile friends gallivant to Europe, she’s stuck working at a tennis camp. At least it gives her time to lick her wounds and plan her comeback.

Let Eleanor in. Eleanor is dowdy and reserved, while Drea is impeccably put together (kudos to costume designer Alana Morshead, who was obviously having a blast dressing these disparate adolescent girls as if they were staging a late-'90s indie editorial spread). Eleanor, who is once again burdened with awkward voiceover to help the story flow, and Drea click when she introduces herself and, it seems, unintentionally establishes the main idea of the movie: Why wouldn't they assist each other in making amends with people who have wronged them? 

Couldn’t Eleanor worm her way into Max’s inner circle and make him pay for leaking her sex tape, an accusation the “accidental feminist” adamantly denies? And couldn’t Drea stage a hit on that “crunchy lesbian” who, as Eleanor tells is, outed and humiliated a young Eleanor while at summer camp several years prior?

The film’s tongue may be planted squarely in its cheek but it still recognizes the lurid pleasures to be had in a well-deployed pop-culture reference. Add in the requisite makeover-to-get-the-popular-girls-to-like-you montage, a titillating closeup of a croquet mallet during a pivotal scene, a Fat Boy Slim needle-drop that’ll have you wondering whether “Bittersweet Symphony” will also make the cut — not to mention the presence of Sarah Michelle Gellar herself — and you’ve got the makings of an instantly quotable classic.

With a late-in-the-film twist that’s best left unspoiled and a thematic throughline about why we’re so eager and so comfortable vilifying (and in turn glorifying) such villainy in teenage girls, “Do Revenge” is a frothy delight. It’s no accident its most affecting scene is set to Billie Eillish’s disarming and ironically-titled tune “Happier Than Ever.” Almost functioning like a distillation of Robinson’s film, Eillish’s song begins like a wounded confession and eventually roars itself into a rancorous cacophony, capturing the plights and slights of teenage heartbreak and despair. Song and film alike ask you to lose yourself in such raw emotion — to excuse, even, the intentionally playful grammar faux-pas in its title and to revel instead, in its ultimately winking moral of a tale.

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Damsel

You'd think Millie Bobby Brown would have had enough of dealing with scary creatures in her Netflix day job on Stranger Things. And yet here she is, back at it with an entirely different type of beast – she's facing off against a dragon…

Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) agrees to marry a handsome prince, but the nuptials don't go according to plan when she's betrayed in order to pay off an ancient blood debt. Thrown into a cave against a fire-breathing dragon, the new bride is forced to fend for herself as she fights to survive.

Anyone who has seen the trailer or has even a passing understanding of the plot will find that the opening thirty minutes leading up to the wedding "twist" feel particularly drawn out. Shock! When Elodie is Thrown into a cave rife with dragons, it's almost a relief. Director of 28 Weeks Later Juan Carlos Fresnadillo provides some powerful visual effects, and the dragon (voiced resentfully by Shohreh Aghdashloo) is portrayed so vividly that you truly feel Elodie is in danger all the time. However, it appears that other world-building components, including some dubious wigs and rather traditional production design, were cut from the budget in order to make room for that.

“Traditionally the princess is always the victim, all the way through,” Damsel director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo tells Empire in the 2024 Preview issue. “But here she has to save herself; no-one is coming to help her. I always had a strong connection with medieval fantasy stories, especially the ones with a fairy-tale aspect. But this one literally turns those upside-down. I love this dark take on these stories, and how it makes them into a contemporary adventure.” Upside-down, you say? No surprise that it’s Brown in the central role, then.

If Elodie is rewriting the traditional damsel in distress script, so too is the flame-breathing foe she’ll be facing off against. The plan is to create a dragon unlike any you’ve seen before. “The benchmark of dragons is so high,” admits Fresnadillo. “We worked hard on a new concept, a really great meeting point between fantasy creature [and] real. The dragon in this movie is a character, not only a beast but also something else.” Flame on.

Fresnadillo said that he loved Dan Mazeau’s script for Damsel, which embraced the idea of a fantasy adventure and a princess and dragon story, but turned it “into a place [where] it’s completely upside down.” The Spanish filmmaker told Tudum, “It was a very intense journey that I was so excited to design and to develop. At the core, this is such a beautiful story about a young woman becoming a strong, independent, and empowered adult. Elodie doesn’t have any kind of support. It’s a real survival experience.”

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After Everything

Even though After Everything is thought to be the last movie of the After franchise, there are multiple spinoffs planned. Todd's novella Before is from Hardin's point of view, and it shows the character before he met Tessa, how he feels about Tessa at certain points during After, and where the characters end up. Going forward, there are tentative plans to adapt Before to screen, but because the character will be aged down, Fiennes Tiffin will not return to play Hardin.

It is anticipated that Landon would create a follow-up centered on Hardin and Tessa's future offspring; however, Fiennes Tiffin and Langford are not contracted to play the parental roles of their adored characters. After Everything may serve as a link between the beloved series and the spinoffs' new approach, with the young actors departing to work on other projects while Landon continues to produce films in the After brand.

What is the plot of After Everything?

The fifth and final instalment of the After franchise finds Hardin struggling to move forward. Besieged by writer's block and the crushing breakup with Tessa, Hardin travels to Portugal in search of a woman he wronged in the past – and to find himself," the official synopsis from Prime Video reads. "Hoping to win back Tessa, he realises he needs to change his ways before he can make the ultimate commitment."

Hardin is going through a difficult period right now because he is having trouble writing and is being pressured by his agent, who has offered him a huge advance for his work. He quickly comes to the conclusion that making amends for all of his past transgressions is the only way for him to move on with his life, and he plans a journey to Lisbon to see Natalie, a former love interest whom he mistreated in the past. 

When he realizes that Natalie is doing well and has moved on, he can finally forgive himself. When he eventually sees Tessa at Landon and Nora in the States, what will happen once he forgives himself for how he treated Natalie?

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Madame Web

Marvel’s junky spin-off is a tangled mess

Our Spidey senses are starting to tingle again!

Dakota Johnson lazily leads an incompetent attempt to set up a new character, made almost incoherent by last-minute changes

It was an inevitable collapse after a reign of such unwarranted length and unparalleled indulgence, superhero movies totalling eight a year during the 2010s, a lucrative yet tiresome stronghold. There were brief highlights within the flurry but such lazy overreliance left little room for other blockbuster genres to flourish and led studios to scrape barrels, giving us more and more of something we’d ultimately had enough of. Last year saw an overwhelming rejection (The Flash, Shazam 2, The Marvels, Ant-Man 3, Aquaman 2 all underperforming) and now the fallout, the first of the year doubling up as a Powerpoint presentation on what went wrong and how not to fix it.

Developed in 2019, approved in 2020, shot in 2022, and purportedly reshooted last year, Madame Web was intended to expand Marvel and Sony's Spider-Man universe. It was a commercially, if not artistically, sensible choice following the unexpected success of Venom and Into the Spider-Verse in 2018. In a film that desperately tries to pass for something it isn't, an elderly clairvoyant who helped Spider-Man in the comics is suddenly transformed into a teenage paramedic, played by Dakota Johnson, who isn't even aware that Spider-Man exists.

This kind of bewilderment was evident in the trailer released the previous year, which went viral right away due to its absurdly ambiguous tone, complicated storyline, and erotically attractive main actress. Aware of the sea change, Johnson has insisted during press that the film is a stand-alone picture in a stand-alone universe, and as a result, it is now referred to as a gritty suspense thriller in publicity materials.

Years from now, the knotted mess that all of this has created will undoubtedly make for an intriguing oral history, but for now, all we have is an unbelievably long 110-minute head scratcher, a bewildering series of unanswered questions, as everyone concerned fervently and contractually insists that the final product is exactly as intended. Our first warning signal is a sloppy opening set in 1970s Peru that is poorly written and produced, establishing our heroine's ridiculous backstory—which has something to do with both spiders and spider-people.

There is something sickly compelling about how jumbled and utterly incompetent Madame Web is, less as a so-bad-it's-fun Midnight Movie and more as studio film-making in the 2020s at its very worst case study. The script was written by four people, including the film's director, SJ Clarkson. The location is mostly Boston acting as New York, and the lead looks like she would really rather be anywhere else. 

The attempt to recast it as a "suspense thriller" ultimately backfires on the movie because, in addition to the fact that there isn't any suspense or thrills in this version, accepting it as something more grounded and unrelated to the heightened superheroics of the world it comes from would make it even more difficult for us to suspend our disbelief throughout.

Nothing about any of it is realistic or grittier. Even though the widely shared viral statement from the trailer is regretfully absent from the film, the movie is just as cheesy and schlocky as the worst of its genre, with shoddy network TV effects, uninteresting action, and awkward and unfunny dialogue. Additionally, I haven't seen some of the most heinous instances of product placement in a long time.

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One Life

"A powerful, superbly acted tale of bravery and unsung heroism"

British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.

The BBC magazine program That's Life! broadcast an episode that would go on to become one of its most well-known throughout its 21-year run. In the episode, former London stockbroker Nicholas Winton discussed how, on the brink of World War II, his participation in the so-called Kindertransport initiative allowed him to save 669 Jewish children from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia.

One of the most heartbreaking scenes you'll witness in a movie this year is One Life's portrayal of what transpired next on the show, but that's only a small portion of this captivating story of daring and unsung heroics.

Split across two timelines, James Hawes’ drama shows Winton (Johnny Flynn) as a young man, working with his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and others (Romola Garai, Alex Sharp), as he goes to Europe to organise visas, transport, and foster families, while Nazi forces amass. Humble and open-minded (“I consider myself a European, an agonistic, and a socialist,” he says), he’s also utterly selfless. But when we cut back to the late '80s, we find Winton (Anthony Hopkins) still haunted by those he didn’t save.

This is a skillfully made movie with a wonderful cast (which also includes Jonathan Pryce as Winton's friend and Lena Olin as his wife). It builds to a climactic finale with great care. Dubbed "the British Schindler," Winton may not be well-known to many people, particularly outside of the UK, but One Life does a commendable job of bringing him to light. 

This is also a film, where if you have seen the trailer or have any familiarity with the story going in, you will not be offered anything unexpected. “One Life” chooses to convey its narrative in the most predictable and safest way possible, leaving it remarkably unmemorable in its strict adoption of tried and tested storytelling methods to achieve emotional resonance. Through the swelling of the score and Hopkin’s subtle, tearful performance, it delivers what it sets out to in terms of forcing an audience reaction. Still, it is difficult not to view the moment as fairly artificial and unearned, as it would have had the exact same effect watching the actual real-life moment. The distinct lack of ambition means it never really warrants its existence in the medium of film.

“One Life” is a tough film to actively dislike. Does it deliver on its premise of capturing this extraordinary story in a touching, heartfelt manner? Undoubtedly. Will its final moments be tear-jerking and emotionally impactful for many audience members? Most likely. But perhaps the most pressing question is whether it will actually leave spectators with anything to think about once the credits roll, and to this, I’m less certain. Whilst the film sheds light on a story worth telling, its narrative construction is messy, to say the least, and is too comfortable to hit on familiar beats and explore simple ideas that it is never able to break out and transform into something that will hold a lasting impact. It’s worthwhile but unremarkable.

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KUNG FU PANDA 4

‘Kung Fu Panda 4’: Jack Black Goes Through the Motions, but There’s Not Much Kick Left

Po is on the verge of retirement, which might not be a bad idea, given the lack of surprise and good jokes.

The Furious Five played important roles in the first three Kung Fu Panda movies, as the team of heroic master fighters have been regular allies to Po. 

The group has become fan favorites of the franchise, partly due to their A-list voice cast that includes Angelina Jolie's Tigress, Lucy Liu's Viper, Jackie Chan's Monkey, David Cross' Crane, and Seth Rogen's Mantis.

Are the Furious Five in Kung Fu Panda 4?

Asked whether the Furious Five appear in Kung Fu Panda 4 after sitting out the first trailer, Mitchell confirmed they "make an appearance," although Po will be leaving his usual surroundings for a "huge adventure" in this movie:

"They make an appearance, I'll tell you that much. But to be fair, Po is leaving the Valley of Peace and he's going on a huge adventure to this giant city…"

It was at this point that Huntley interjected to tease how Po will "encounter many, many new characters" on this journey, which will include one played by Shang-Chi's Katy actress Awkwafina. 

Mitchell went as far as to say, "All the old characters are back," including ones played by Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, and James Hong:

"Loads. And he has to work with this entire band of thieves to fight the villain. By the way, all the old characters are back – Mr Ping, Li, played by Bryan Cranston, Shifu, played by Dustin Hoffman, and then James Hong who plays Ping. Tons of characters. All the characters come back."

The filmmaker even cryptically teased the return of "a few villains" he doesn't "want to spoil" just yet. One villain already confirmed to return is Ian McShane's Tai Lung, who was featured in the teaser trailer:

"Every single character that you remember comes back, and a few villains that I don't want to spoil. But really, we wanted to introduce a whole slew of new characters which we did."

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FROGMAN

Folklore and found footage horror go hand in hand, and since the ground-breaking and game changing The Blair Witch Project scared us all half to death in 1999, filmmakers have been sending their subjects off into the wild, shaky cam in hand, all hoping to capture proof of the unprovable. Due to the elusiveness of their nature, cryptids or legendary creatures make for perfect found footage fodder, from Butterfly Kisses to Willow Creek. In Frogman, which premiered at Telluride Horror Show last fall, Director Anthony Cousins (the eclectic mind behind such classics as The Bloody Ballad of Squirt Reynolds, Fat Fleshy Fingers and Every Time We Meet For Ice Cream Your Whole F*cking Face Explodes) sends his characters on a hunt for a subject more elusive than them all: the Loveland Frogman.  

The film follows Dallas Kyle (Nathan Tymoshuk), a man suspended in arrested development – jobless, mooching off his sister and her husband, unable to move on from grainy, 3-second clip of ‘Frogman’ he captured as a youth. Determined to make something of his life (and stick it to the insufferable YouTubers making fun of his filmmaking attempts), Dallas and his friend Scotty (Benny Barrett) and his would-be love interest Amy (Chelsey Grant) set off into the woods of Loveland, Ohio, armed with nothing but a video camera and a dream of finding the eponymous clammy cryptid. 

Frogman’s time dedicated to building character is admirable in a subgenre where personalisation of the people we’re supposed to root for is usually underdeveloped at best. But Frogman is a short movie – a merciful 77 minutes – and every second counts; every second spent developing the will-they-won’t-they romance between Dallas and Amy is a second spent not exploring the gooey underworld of Frogman. It’s not until the 40 minute mark that things actually start to get sticky, and undoubtedly, the first half does tend to drag as a result.

But if you’ve got the patience to wade through the filmic swamp, you’ll be rewarded, as Frogman slowly but surely escalates into gloriously gooey amphibian madness that’s all at once hilarious and pretty scary, without ever needing to overtly insist into horror-comedy territory. A shaky, suitably bonkers ending delivers shades of the best of the V/H/S franchise, some of the metatextual context of Adam Green’s Digging Up the Marrow and even hints of the surreal, subterranean terror found in As Above, So Below. All this to say, Frogman may not reinvent the found footage wheel, but it doesn’t particularly seem to want to. This is a movie that’s here for a good time, not a long time, with a ribbeting – sorry, riveting – final act that confirms in no uncertain terms that Frogman, as the kids say, fucks. 

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Before I Change My Mind

 Canada's Alberta is the setting and the year is 1987. As Robin (Vaughan Murrae) knows they will be asked "Are you a boy or a girl?," on their first day at a new school, she is filled with anxiety.Given that Robin breaks conventional gender norms, Carter (Dominic Lippa), a young man who spends most of his time getting into or causing problems, is immediately intrigued by their appearance. However, Robin is also intrigued by Carter and spends time developing a new, deep friendship with him, even though Carter's earlier desire may have been satirical. Meanwhile, the girls surrounding Robin find them impossible to pigeonhole, much to their frustration, but one, Izzy (Lacey Oake), sees an opportunity for experimentation. However, Izzy has also caught Carter’s eye, and an uneasy early teenage love triangle soon develops that is less about gender or sexuality and more about one simple question, “Who Am I?

Before I Change My Mind is hilarious and one of the most distinctive coming-of-age comedies of recent years, so anyone expecting a somber drama from Canadian filmmaker Trevor Anderson should immediately go. Here, we are treated to an abundance of 80s clichés, a deliciously bizarre school musical named "Mary Magdalene: Video Star," a drag queen who is enamored with Madonna, and grownups who are equally clueless about the world as the children under their care. A very skilled low-budget comedy, Before I Change My Mind finds its own distinct humorous voice while simultaneously honoring the works of John Hughes, Todd Solondz, Greta Gerwig, and Amy Heckerling. Beneath the humor, though, Anderson's movie gives us so much more.

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Historically the coming-of-age genre has been defined by gender, from male journeys in films ranging from Stand By Me to Catholic Boys to female stories in movies such as Now and Then and Booksmart. However, Anderson never mentions Robin’s pronouns or discusses how Robin wishes to identify. Robin is just Robin. Equally, there are no direct discussions on sexuality using pre-determined social labels. In Anderson’s world, we are offered a group of young people finding their likes, dislikes, emotions and desires without ever needing to label themselves. Here Anderson reflects on a brief moment during the coming-of-age process when kids are free from social labels and pressures. This short but joyous moment often comes at the start of adolescence, in the void between the child and the teen, when experimentation is usually free from guilt and adult interference. Anderson explores the slow erosion of that freedom through Robin, Carter and Izzy’s journey. However, it’s here where Before I Change My Mind occasionally stumbles.

The big question is, do these stumbles distract from Anderson’s hilarious and often artistically brave gender-free coming-of-age tale? While Anderson’s movie needed a bit more time to fully embrace the journey of Robin, Carter and Izzy, Before I Change My Mind is a Canadian coming-of-age gem. Here the outstanding lead performance of Vaughan Murrae and their fellow teen co-stars makes Before I Change My Mind a fascinating, hilarious and thoughtful exploration of early teenage experiences. As the credits roll, I guarantee you won’t want to leave 80s Alberta or the lovingly crafted characters Anderson creates. But you will be equally thankful for the joyous 1hr and 29 minutes spent in a teenage world where labels are for packaging, not people.

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