Philip Saville’s The Gospel of John (2003) believes in what Jesus is doing, in His mission.  Heretical it ain’t.  It’s reverent–and, for the most part, sensibly done.

Why, it even obeys all but one of critic Dwight MacDonald’s rules of success for biblical films, propounded in 1965.  One of these rules is Use the original script.  Another is The story of Jesus should be told with reverence for the text in the New Testament . . . but with irreverence for the sensibilities of contemporary religious groups–Buddhist, Moslem, Taoist, Catholic or Jewish.”  Hear, hear!  That’s The Gospel of John all over!

Henry Ian Cusick enacts Jesus Christ with necessary charisma and aplomb.  He’s very good, just as he was on the TV series “Lost.”  There is much in Saville’s directing that is very good too, as witness the Cana wedding scene.  There, much to a servant’s quiet amazement, water becomes wine and a happy feast remains happy.  Jesus stands apart from the celebrants, whereas before he was sitting with them, and wears a serious look on his face, as though thinking of future events, such as the Atonement, more important than this one.  Also worthy is the shot-series where Mary, the sister of Martha, washes the Lord’s feet in ointment and dries them with her hair–a scene of intimacy not even interrupted by Jesus’ mild rebuke of Judas Iscariot.  I love the ending of the film, too, with Christ walking ahead of His disciples on the seashore, reminding the perplexed Peter to “Follow Me,” before the final shot of John occurs in a freeze frame.  Lovely.

Gospel moves with a proper rhythm, but, as in John’s account, there is a great deal of sermonizing by Jesus.  The movie is for those who understand or at least suspect there is genuine value in the evangel, or for those with an interest in the life of Jesus, or for those disciples of His who seek to be edified.  Many of them have been, I’m sure.

In Ed Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs (2010), a roguish pharmaceuticals rep (Jake Gyllenhaal) starts sleeping with, and falls for, a young woman with Parkinson’s disease (Anne Hathaway). 

As a romantic comedy the film is mostly unfunny.  As a sex comedy it’s let’s-do-it-like-rabbits stuff, and it’s generally vulgar.  (At one point, the Pfizer rep’s slimy brother makes an obscene joke at the dinner table.  The chap’s mother reprimands him, then giggles.  Wouldn’t want the audience to think Mom is a prude, would we?)   As a lover-with-a-disease drama, it’s maudlin.  Hathaway is often nude, but with nudity usually unsensual.  Her acting, I must say, is very good–it has bite and sophistication–whereas Gyllenhaal merely hams it up.  Trust me.

Hathaway was allowed to plug this no-account flick on Saturday Night Live.  No wonder my respect for that program is currently non-existent.

Like to read Westerns?  Elmer Kelton’s The Way of the Coyote (2000) is a dandy one.

A post-Civil War chronicle with former Unionists and Confederates, it also eminently concerns white youngsters kidnapped and raised by Comanche Indians.  This is what happened to Andy, no longer a youngster, who is rescued by Rusty Shannon after the former kills a vicious Comanche with an animus toward him.  Later in the book, Andy goes off to retrieve another lad whom the Comanches have kidnapped.  Meanwhile, good Rusty has problems with the scurvy Oldham brothers, who steal his farm.  Enemies come from all sides in Coyote.

Kelton’s novel is flawed in that, like numerous other Westerns, it has too many two-dimensional characters and in that Andy should be a little more callow and naive than he is after living so long with the Indians.  The plot, however, is expert, and the novel never gets boring.  The Comanches are not sanitized and carpetbaggers are unsympathetic.  What’s more, the author accords great respect to a Christian minister–Preacher Webb.  The Way of the Coyote is a fun, wholesome read.