Billy Graham

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Paula Beer in UNDINE. Courtesy of MVFF.

This week, a mythical tragic romance, a preacher becomes an institution and the most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

IN THEATERS

Undine: Christian Petzold takes a mythical story and sets it in contemporary Germany. resulting in a romance that is operatic and supernatural and finally very tragic. But too slowly paced for me.

ON VIDEO

Billy Graham: This insightful biodoc explores how Billy Graham took evangelism out of backwoods revival tents and brought it to big city stadiums and television, becoming an institution in the process. And his fatal flaw – the need to pray with Presidents. Streaming at American Experience.

Drunk Bus: In this light and appealing coming of age comedy, a lovelorn slacker wallows in malaise until he meets a 300-pound Samoan security guy with facial tattoos. Laemmle.

My Memorial Day pick was We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company, the oral histories of regular men plunged into the most traumatic experiences of WW II and what they endured. Streaming on HBO Max.

Ed Harris and Annette Bening in THE FACE OF LOVE

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. In theaters and also streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play
  • Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play .
  • Hamlet/Horatio: More tragedy, less angst. Streaming widely.
  • Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
  • That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • The Times of Harvey Milk: my favorite political documentary. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, HBO Max and Criterion Channel..
  • Tab Hunter Confidential: heartthrob in the closet. Amazon.
  • Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street: the origin story of an institution. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
  • The Face of Love: Who is she really in love with? Amazon.
  • Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • The Brainwashing of My Dad: some insight into our national madness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

This is not a great week for Turner Classic Movies, so I have no television recommendations.

BILLY GRAHAM: the need to pray with Presidents

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Photo caption:BILLY GRAHAM. Photo courtesy of PBS American Experience.

The fine PBS documentary series American Experience brings us Billy Graham, an especially insightful look at back at the famed evangelist.

i hadn’t though much about Billy Graham lately. When I was growing up, Billy Graham was already a national institution and the most famous American religious leader – and the world’s most visible Protestant clergyman. Then, what happened?

Billy Graham traces Graham’s meteoric rise from Boy Wonder preacher to national stardom, taking evangelism from tent revivals in the rural Bible Belt to big city stadiums and television.

That story of Graham’s talent and ambition is interesting in itself, but Billy Graham examines both the strengths of his character and his vulnerability. Graham was rigorously disciplined in refusing to enrich himself and in his strict devotion to his marriage. Almost uniquely for TV preacher, Graham was never tainted by a financial or a sexual scandal and seemed impervious to hypocrisy.

But Billy Graham explores Graham’s yearning to become pastor to Presidents – both to promote his evangelism and as a manifestation of his own vanity. That paid off for Graham with his close relationship with Ike (and Ike and Billy’s impact on the nation’s public religiosity).

But then came Richard Nixon, who Graham was naive enough to think a soul mate. Being publicly anchored to Nixon made Graham’s position as an arbiter of national morality, well, untenable.

Graham’s career – through his consorting with politicians and his pioneering use of mass media – set the stage for the Moral Majority-type politicization of culturally conservative evangelicals. Notably, he intentionally took another path.

In his final act (which I had lost track of), Graham became an international peace campaigner. He mellowed into a more tolerant, less hell-fire theology and we glimpse him on a NYC stage at age 87. I was surprised to learn that Graham died in 2018 at age 99.

You can stream Billy Graham at American Experience.