HollywoodIdiocy.com

Nauseating, pretentious, self-important, annoying, holier-than-thou. All these words, unfortunately, aptly describe the excremental proceedings awaiting viewers unfortunate enough to rent or, horrors, buy the DVD known as the Crave Film Series. A series of three short films, all under 10 minutes long, comprise the thankfully-brief collection that seems packaged to be marketed specifically to only the most obnoxiously self-righteous and smug of Christian churches.

OK, perhaps I’m being a bit unfair. The films themselves, for as long as they last, are not necessarily terrible, although their brief running time reduces them to little more than character sketches than anything significant. All three films are unrelated to each other, nor do they even comprise an overall story arc; only the loose theme of “crave,” as in “craving human and spiritual connections,” binds the package together.

Still, “Midnight Clear,” “Pop Star” and “Nameless Moment” are, in and of themselves and taken alone, mildly inoffensive. Of these, “Nameless Moment” has probably the best twist ending, while “Pop Star” is the most effective character study. Had they all been collected together without additional material, the collection might barely be tolerable.

Unfortunately, each film is bookended by commentary courtesy of Erwin Raphael McManus, lead pastor of the Mosaic Church and founder of Awaken, a group of Christian artists, poets and the like. That is where the pain begins. Pain the likes of which might drive you to want to hang yourself with a theater rope.

Now, although I’m not the same brand of believer as McManus, I am a person of faith and, that being said, I could not discern one lick of coherent thought in McManus’ self-important, pretentious ramblings that rob any enjoyment the short subjects might otherwise have rendered the viewers.

A blend of artistic pretentions, pop psychology and pseudo-spirituality all go into the mix of McManus’ pointless ramblings, but taken as a whole, he came off more effective than a politician at streaming off an endless supply of words without communicating one iota of meaning or real content in the process. His segments are simultaneously hyper-intellectual while at the same time coming off as insulting, demeaning and superior.

Perhaps the real miscalculation is in balance; by offering up both an introduction and an afterword to each film, McManus’ undesirable presence and contributions nearly rival the films themselves in running time, which is probably what makes matters so painful to endure.

The whole experience comes off like a bad concert performance by a drunken pop star who rambles on for 10 minutes about what each three-minute ditty means to her as a protest of the Bush presidency, the Iraq war, global warming or whatever other pop-culture obsession Hollywood is embracing at the moment. Eventually, you are just itching to scream at them, “Shut up and sing!”

The same urge applies to the Crave Film Series DVD… you’ll be best served by watching only the films themselves and skipping McManus’ pretentious prattle. Believe me, by doing so you may just be saving yourself years of therapy bills.

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