This is a place for streaming recommendations. But there’s no reason why it cannot also be a place for DVD recs. Today we have a movie that satisfies both: the delightful little 2020 indie Faith Based debuted on streaming in the early days of the Covid pandemic (which is, I hasten to add, NOT OVER), and is still on streaming, and has now, almost four years later, finally just gotten a DVD release, at least in Region 1, aka the US and Canada.
Faith Based is about a couple of affable Los Angeles best-friend doofuses who concoct a scheme to make a killing by producing a movie that will appeal to Christian fundies — because so-called faith-based movies “don’t have to be bad, they just don’t have to be good” — and end up befriending a small church community full of genuinely nice people. While also making their deeply terrible, very silly, green-screen-heavy movie. Religion isn’t entirely off the cards for ridicule — “Christian rock” gets a bit of a skewering, as do bad sci-fi flicks and schlocky action movies — but Faith Based punches up, not down. And under the surface goofiness is charming comedy about friendship and finding your own purpose in life. (Read my 2020 review.)
US: stream on Prime and free (ad-supported) on Tubi; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream free (ad-supported) on wedotv; rent/buy on Sky; buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Faith Based at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
