Banality Fair Reviews the "Left Behind" Movies, Part 1

As a public service and for its own edification, Banality Fair will be watching and reviewing the movie "Left Behind" and its sequel "Left Behind: Tribulation Force." Banality Fair alum Cotton Mather and I will be consuming large quanties of beer tonight and taking the series in. We invited Spiral Stairs, but he's off on a fool's errand: having a life.

Cotton's job was to get the booze and food. My job was to get the movies. Frankly, I think his job was much, much easier. The difficulty was not in finding the movie -- it was at the local Blockbuster. In the drama section, which was weird because the on-line reviews described a movie with a lot of action.

No, the reticence came in actually taking the videos up to the check out. For a somewhat lapsed Christian like myself, renting religious themes movies is almost as awkward as renting porn. You kind of don't want anyone to know that you are turning to the likes of Hollywood or Kirk Cameron for spiritual guidance. Or think you are some sort of rabid evangelical type. To make matters worse, these movies aren't just films with Christian themes, they are films from the crazy end of the spectrum films with Christian themes.

At first, when I came to the "L" section, there was a cute girl in a grey pullover pondering whether to rent "Mystic Rover." She was too close for comfort. So, I went to the Martial Arts Section and picked up a copy of "Hard Boiled."

When I got back, the aisle was clear. I picked up both films, and went to the checkout. The cashier scanned my cards and the movies, then looked up at me. He balled his right hand and pounded the left side of his chest twice. "I'm down man."

"Yeah, I think this as good a movie as The Killer," I said pointing to my copy of "Hard Boiled."

"Nah, with God."

"Oh. Word."