Big news: The film version of Gerald Lund‘s The Work and the Glory, a nine-volume series of (ahem) romance novels that chronicle the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Why is this news? Well, for one, this kind of film usually doesn’t make it outside the intermountain West– it’s been playing in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and Nevada for a month, but the distributors cleverly arranged weekend screenings in lots of other markets. Here in Toledo, the film’s showing at the Cinemathèque, otherwise known as half of the Super Cinemas Toledo complex over by Sam’s off Airport Road. (It didn’t help that the film web site had it written as “Cinema Tech”, nor that the theater doesn’t post Friday/Saturday showtimes until Thursday, but Arlene was able to ferret out the correct location.) Cinemathèque shows lots of art or small-distribution films that might not otherwise make it town, like Napoleon Dynamite and (hopefully) Gunner Palace.
Should you bother going to see this if you’re not Mormon? Heck yes (but then you’d expect me to say that, wouldn’t you?) Why? First of all, there are very few indie or non-mainstream movies shown in this area. National Amusements pretty much has the market sewn up, so we get lots of crap. Supporting indie films is good for the community, especially when the film in question is solidly family-friendly. If you’re not Mormon, you’ll probably learn some things you didn’t know about Joseph Smith and the early history of the church. The persecutions and mob violence directed at the early Saints is pretty incredible by our standards today, but it happened.
Showtimes are this Friday and Saturday (11 and 12 March) at 2:10p, 4:40p, 7:10p, and 9:40p. If you go, post your thoughts on the movie here. (I’ll post a review once I’ve seen it).
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