Better Late Then Never

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Frankly, when the "Previews" began prior to this movie running on DVD they seem to set the tone that what was to follow was going to be one of those "Christian" movies, the kind that are selling a particular religious point of view. My finger was on the "Off" button from the beginning and just about 80% through....but little by little I found myself relaxing about that "issue" and at the end was sold on this: this is a fine movie, well written, acted and directed and if the only message anyone takes away from this is one about compassion and empathy for fellow human beings, then that's all that has to be said. I guess at 78 I'm older than most of the people who come to this page, I don't even know what "IMDb" stands for....and it doesn't matter to me, but my age means that I go back quite a ways when considering the numbers of movies watched. With that in mind I'll use my time-in-grade to claim high ground for this one, it is one of the best....ever. I'd watch it again, and I do that very, very rarely.

I had never read the book, however it is on my ever growing list. I had heard people discuss the book, seen it in the book stores etc but for some reason never read it. I was on a business trip in Westminster CO. and happen to be staying across the road from a Theater playing this movie. While my wife was in meetings I went to the movie.There is a wide amount of reasons why the movie was not more successful on paper. One being it was on a very limited number of screens. I am from the Tampa area, and do not think it was on any screen in this area that I could find. I think the reason many Christian people may not have embraced the movie is they possibly are confronted with pieces of themselves through the characters in the movie. When we are confronted with some of the idiot things we have done in the name of ministry, it is easy to see that some of them are on the same level as hitting a cross piñata, and having the prize be communion cuts. We could be confronted with the many times we failed in our walk and maybe hurt someone to the point that we caused them to Lose their faith. We are confronted with living in single parent households and the disappointment we felt when our parents our heroes fall to their demons and we realize they are not our saviors after all. Yet the movie takes us on a very hard, harsh journey and ask the question, where is, who is, when is, and what is God. And if we really seek Him as we walk this dangerous journey we call life, God will reveal Himself to us and ultimately restore us. I would recommend watching the movie not just as you would something like the Dark Knight or the Avengers, but as if you were looking into a foggy mirror looking for glimpse of yourself and what that means to you and your relationship with God. This is now my favorite movie!

Whether we like it or not, college is an existential odyssey landing us in more uncertain territory than we began. I attended liberal Georgetown University as an already well-trained Catholic boy. I left an agnostic happy in his dilemmas, uncertain as hell about God but ready to spend a life searching for truth and beauty, both of which I found thanks to that Jesuit education.Ratchet up that liberalism to arguably the most liberal college in the US, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, set the movie Blue Like Jazz square in the middle of that progressive world, and you have fertile ground for a young Baptist, Don (Marshall Allman), from conservative East Texas learn about ambiguity and find God in strange places. It's a gentle, counter culture film about secular extremism that actually leads Don to an understanding of religion transcending Christian moms and hypocritical pastors.Blue Like Jazz is successful showing the liberating nature of a college where the average student IQ is 138, classroom discussions pit cultures against each other to find common ground, and one is free to express to the delight and challenge of others. The film fails, however, to provide a coherent point of view because of its passion for discursive episodes not always linked by motif or theme. Just too many eccentrics and not enough time.The defining event of the search for godlessness leading to God is Renn Fayre, the annual selection of a "Pope," meant to be a mockery of exalted Catholicism that turns out to be a growth point in the intellectual journey of freshman Don. He turns out to be not unlike the Graduate's Benjamin, naïve but on his glacial way to enlightenment.Blue Like Jazz is a charming, incoherent coming-of-age film that made me nostalgic for the low-key anarchy of Georgetown, where I may have grown away from the orthodoxy of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in favor of the secular humanism of the Jesuits, but where even I have to admit uncertainty about the existence of God is a pleasant antidote to the uncompromising certainty of the Baltimore Catechism.

This is honestly one of my favorite movies. It is controversial however for its blunt honesty, and how realistic it is to our world, which is why I love it. It does include some adult themes such as sexual innuendos, and cursing, but it only adds to the overall effect.It is one of those movies that make you think, and challenge yourself. It calls you out on a lot of things that we as Christians do, which it why it is so controversial. You have to watch this movie several times to truly grasp its genius.Please show some support for this movie, there are many people who would benefit from seeing this movie.