Movies Like Click

[Dannie Heinzen]

Inthe 2006 time-travel film "Click," a magical remote control lets Adam Sandler fast-forward and rewind his life. The movie tugs on the heartstrings, but it's not very good. Pretty terrible, actually. Metacritic gave the movie a lowly score of 45.

In the future year of 2004, a crooked US Senator (Ron Silver) time-travels to change the past and further his career. Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as the time-traveling government agent tasked with stopping him.

Critics responded slightly better to "Back to the Future II," knocking its "hopelessly complicated premises" and "brand-name advertising." But aren't time-travel movies supposed to be really complicated?

A future ecological disaster has altered the genetics of the human race. To fix the problem, a stuffed robot is sent into the past to collect the uncorrupted DNA from children...by drinking their tears.

To capture a domestic terrorist, Special Agent Douglas Carlin (Denzel Washington) is given access to technology that allows him to view roughly four days into the past. When it's revealed the tech can also send inanimate objects back in time, Carlin makes the controversial decision to meddle with the past and stop the bombing.

A twice-thwarted Skynet once again sends a Terminator (Kristanna Loken) into the past -- this time to the year 2003 -- to kill members of the Human Resistance that the machines are at war with. John Connor (Nick Stahl) survives death with the help of Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, but there's no happy ending at the end of this one.

Earth is in chaos in the year 2286, when a probe that makes humpback whale noises enters the planet's orbit and disables the power grid. To save the day, the USS Enterprise travels to the year 1986 to capture a whale, bring it to the future, and answer the probe's call.

This film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, delves into the moral and philosophical dilemmas of time travel without dumbing down the concept. And indeed, things get incredibly complicated when a pair of young engineers, armed with the accidental discovery of time travel, change history.

After being doused in alien blood during a fierce battle in the year 2020, Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) gains the "Groundhog Day"-like ability to resurrect after death and relive the day he dies over and over again while retaining his memories.

In this 2001 cult classic, troubled teen Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is tormented by a costumed man who warns the world will end in 28 days. Darko is pushed into committing crimes and researching time travel at the bunny's urging, even as those around Darko fret over his apparent descent into paranoid schizophrenia.

"Parks and Rec" star Aubrey Plaza appears in this romantic comedy based on a real-life classified ad seeking well-armed time travelers. She initially believes the ad to be a joke, but Plaza's character quickly bonds with the ad's writer over a shared desire to save loved ones from death.

In this Bill Murray classic, an egotistical meteorologist tasked with covering Punxsutawney Phil finds himself trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive Groundhog Day over and over again. Murray eventually uses his unlimited do-overs to benefit others and, ultimately, finds true love.

In the year 2023, mutants face extinction at the hands of super-powered forces. Kitty Pryde sends Wolverine's consciousness 50 years into the past to change history and stop the Sentinel program from initiating.

After a terrorist's plague wipes out most of humanity, a handful of survivors from the year 2035 send James Cole (Bruce Willis) back to 1996 to stop it. Instead, Cole lands in the year 1990, where he is hospitalized in a mental institution alongside the supposed founder of the terrorist group (Brad Pitt).

After playing the bad guy in "The Terminator," Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as hero, of sorts: a T-800 reprogrammed to protect future Human Resistance leader John Connor (Edward Furlong) from a time-traveling robot assassin (Robert Patrick).

This is it: "Back to the Future" is the granddaddy of modern time-travel movies, and the best-rated film in the genre. It's the story of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his accidental trip 30 years into the past, where a romantic entanglement with his own mother begins to erase the existence of his entire family.

I have about 8 roku devices and never had a problem with any of them. The switch from HBO Max to Max was seemless and never had an issue either. At least, up until last week. The Max app allows me to log in, all profiles are there and i can search for shows and movies like normal. But now, out of nowhere, every time I click on watch, it pops up an error screen saying there is a playback issue. I've updated the devices, updated the apps, deleted and relogged in, pretty much tried everything and the error keeps popping up. Max works perfectly fine for me on all other devices, just not on any of my Roku devices, some of which are less than a year old. I called Max customer service and they said my account is perfect and the issue is with Roku and the technicians are aware of it and working on a fix. Am I the only one that cannot use the Max app on my roku devices? Do i need to ditch Roku and go to something different? Id rather not have to replace 5 Roku sticks and 3 TV's but I'm not sure what else to do. Any help would be appreciated.

We appreciate you for sharing this information with us. Since the persisted after performing the provided troubleshooting step, we recommend contacting the channel provider's support directly and inquiring further about this issue for a workaround that needs an update on their end to resolve this since most channels on the Roku platform are designed and maintained by the channel providers themselves.

I don't mean that these projects aren't carried about by people who know what they're doing with cameras, lighting, etc. The visual quality of Christian movies has definitely increased over the last decade. The caliber of talent on both sides of the camera has increased, as well. So when I say Christian movies aren't made by artists, I don't mean they aren't made by people who are good at their jobs. What I mean is that they are made by people who don't really know what the job ought to be.

Characters in Christian movies don't often sound like people in real life. They sound like Christians imagine (or desire) real life to be. This is why the Christian protagonists are always earnest, even when they "don't have all the answers," and why the non-Christian antagonists always sound like the one-dimensional memes Christians tilt against in their Facebook streams.

Dialogue between believers and unbelievers always trends upward toward the believers' win column, not because that's how real-life conversation usually goes, but because that's how Christians want it to go in their minds. You know the debates that you play out in your daydreams where you inspire the team with your spirituality, "own" the atheist with your apologetics, or warm the heart of your cranky neighbor with your kindhearted wisdom? All of that gets to come to life as if it really happens in a Christian movie. It doesn't have to sound real. It just has to sound like the real we imagine there to be.

Thankfully many Christian movies don't follow those rules any more, but they still prefer narrative tidiness over nuance. There is a kind of prosperity gospel that pervades contemporary Christian art. It's there in CCM radio, of course, and it's all over Christian movies, including the ones based on true stories. The team has to win. The sick person has to defy the odds. (If you can get a sick person and a sports team in the same story, you've hit Christian movie gold.) The atheist prof must get owned. The unbelieving spouse must be converted. On and on it goes. Why? Because "if you just believe," you can win.

Every prayer sounds scripted. Every dramatic moment sounds cliched. The pastors sound like the phrases on motivational posters. Christians speak to non-Christians in "gotcha" wisdom, delivering Jesusy fortune-cookie bon mots to souls apparently just a few well-turned phrases away from conversion. The theology of Christian movies can be scribbled on the back of a napkin. It's Christian bookstore coffee mug-level philosophy. It's Christian T-shirt-level aphorizing.

Christian movies are typically made by the same folks who produce weekend services full of applicational pick-me-ups and fog-and-laser inspirational easy-rock. There's not a lot depth in them because there's not a lot of depth behind them.

If you're still reading, you're either agreeing with me or just looking for more evidence of what a heartless curmudgeon I am. But here is something to consider that may surprise everybody: Suppose we actually had a Christian movie that was aesthetically excellent and artistically authentic. It was written with a writer's sensibility, theological depth, the nuance of reality, etc. And then suppose it had clear Christian content in it. Do you think it wouldn't strike so many of us as out of tune with what we expect good movies to be?

Or let's consider this: The gospel always sounds offensive to the world. Maybe Christian movies that articulate faith content clearly are destined to be laughed out of the theater, regardless of the excellence of their cinematic context, if only because the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

Jared C. Wilson is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Author in Residence at Midwestern Seminary, General Editor of For The Church (and co-host of the For The Church Podcast), Director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church, and author of numerous books, including The Imperfect Disciple, The Gospel According to Satan, Love Me Anyway, and Gospel-Driven Ministry. A frequent preacher and speaker at churches and conferences, you can visit him online at jaredcwilson.com or follow him on Twitter.

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