JESUS' REVOLUTION begins tomorrow!

In my humble opinion, the worst thing you can be is predictable. Predictability, when it comes to a person or a personality, is a sign of a lack of openness. Listen to a stranger. Eating an exotic food. Read an unusual book. See an unpopular movie. Try everything at least once. Let yourself be surprised.

Monty Python said it well when they said "And now for something completely different."

So when JESUS' REVOLUTION hit my desk a month ago, I thought "Why not?" It's definitely not my typical fare, but I've never been one to limit myself to the typical. I love film, I love ideas, and I've developed a love for talking to people who present those ideas. Before August 2018, I had never interviewed anyone. Now I jump at the chance to talk to a filmmaker, actor, screenwriter or author about their work. Through mimesis and anti-mimesis, art imitates life, and life imitates art, so the best way to navigate the uncertainties of our own lives is through art.

Check out THE JESUS ​​REVOLUTION Trailer:

I'm embarrassed to tell you that I had dismissed most "Christian films" before seeing them. Stories like I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, AMERICAN UNDERDOG or THE SHACK seemed to me destined to be boring, unimaginative, limited and sterile. It is as unimaginative to ignore doubt as it is to ignore faith. When the worlds of the secular and the spiritual collide, the result is often an exaggeration of one over the other. The spiritual demonize the laity, and the reverse is often true. We are often quicker to make accusations than to give credit for understanding.

I was pleasantly surprised watching THE JESUS ​​REVOLUTION not only to find a film that stood alongside popular cinema in execution and performance, but also to see an uncritical view secular ideals alongside a celebration of the Christian faith. The film naturally moves through both worlds, and although it posits that it disagrees with Timothy Leary, it stops short of placing devil horns on his head and dressing him up. with a red cape. The story here is filled with humor, grace, understanding, and surprisingly human, flawed characters. I've seen secular movies that treat Faith with a capital F like armor that makes its wearer infallible, robbing them of their humanity and relativity, but that's a faux pas that this movie doesn't take.

THE JESUS ​​REVOLUTION is beautifully presented with plain language of the then prevailing vernacular alongside a beautiful backdrop of popular music and personalities of the time. It breathes comfortably inside the story, like the scene with the extended family gathered to watch the moon landing in 1969. The film follows several separate storylines of a few very different personalities and ties them all together in the story of an intelligent and touching way. I was moved by this film. I felt my heart tighten alongside the characters and take flight with them, in turn. It's a really great movie that I doubt I would have ever found on my own, but after seeing it, I'm really glad I did.

I got to talk to co-director/composer Brent McCorkle and co-director/co-writer Jon Erwin about the film, as well as star Joel Courtney (THE KISSING BOOTH 1-3 from Netflix).

Eric McClanahan - Hi everyone! How are you?

Brent McCorkle & Jon Erwin - How are you?

EM - Excellent! OK, I see Brent and I see Jon. Thanks a lot guys for being here. We are talking about THE REVOLUTION OF JESUS. I watched it last night. A good film. Truly brilliant juxtaposition between the multiple scenarios; you would show a distinct correlation or difference between, say, Lonnie and Timothy Leary, or Jeanette's path and Greg's path. So I guess this question is for Jon, from a screenwriting perspective, how did you approach telling a multi-layered story with such historical accuracy?

I - I'm glad you enjoyed the movie. I love history. It's an interesting take, I remember when I bought the magazine, Brent and I were working on another movie, WOODLAWN, before we worked on I CAN ONLY IMAGINE, which was sort of set in the same time frame, so while researching this period I found this psychedelic Jesus on the cover of TIME magazine with the words "Jesus Revolution" and I'm like "TIME magazine?? What is this? What happened?" It was an article that you couldn't read online, so I bought a copy of it on eBay, which I still have, and it was this ten-page spread. I remember reading it...