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Why haven’t more people turned out to watch The Cabrini Movie?
We live in the Bible Belt in a community filled with conservative Christian churches. One might expect that the opening day of a Christian movie would have a full house of moviegoers, especially one directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde, the man who brought the breakout conservative film, the Sound of Freedom Movie, to the screen. The Cabrini Movie opened Friday at B&B Theatres Waynesville Patriot 12 and also has nearby showings in Lebanon, and has been praised by Glenn Beck of The Blaze who said “the only Christian film made in my lifetime that is this good is probably Passion of the Christ.” There’s even a local connection: a former Waynesville High School student, Lukas Behnken, was a line producer on The Cabrini Movie.
Those attendance expectations would be wrong.
I’m not a film critic — I’m a fan of classical movies from Hollywood’s “Golden Age” and only rarely watch modern movies because so many of them are created to promote liberal garbage — so I’ll quote Glenn Beck who has credibility on this subject that I don’t. In his words: “So if you believe in changing the culture, if you believe that we deserve better than just one choice of Hollywood, then this is the kind of thing that you need to get involved with.”
So why wasn’t the theater filled? In my opinion, lack of marketing. Most of our local conservative Christian community doesn’t know about this movie. That’s one thing I can change. I run the highest-readership media operation in our county and what I write will reach more people than anyone else. I intend to promote this movie, and do it with something I almost never do — a movie review, and one with a strong encouragement to go, buy tickets, and do it this weekend. The way the movie industry works, the first weekend showing is critical because it tells theaters how much demand there is for the movie. If conservatives want movies that support our values, we need to support projects like this.
So why watch this movie?
If you’re expecting a James Dobson tutorial on family values, or something in the genre of “Left Behind” or “A Thief in the Night,” this isn’t what you’re expecting. The title heroine is Francesca Cabrini, an Italian woman who gathered together a small group of women who began orphanages…