Aden Young | Through the Shattered Lens

In the late 19th Century, a leper colony was established on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Officially, the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement was said to be for the care of people with leprosy, which was then raging across Asia. Unofficially, it was a prison where lepers were isolated from the rest of society and left to die. Any leper who tried to leave the colony would be shot on sight. Father Damien, a Belgian priest, was one of the few people willing to walk amongst the lepers. When he was first sent to the colony, he was ordered to only administer last rites to the dying and to not allow himself to be touched. Instead, Damien stayed and ministered to the lepers, knowing that he would probably never be allowed to leave. For 16 years, Damien ministered to the colony. Even after he himself grew sick, he continued his ministry and continued to be an advocate for his fellow lepers until he died.

Molokai: The Story of Father Damien is a wonderful film about the life and ministry of Father Damien. The movie features a lot of familiar actors in small roles, like Sam Neill, Kris Kristofferson, Peter O’Toole, Tom Wilkinson, and Alice Krige. But the star of the film is David Wenham, who portrays the kindness and dedication of Father Damien without ever making him seem idealized or boring. Father Damien is guided by both his faith and his belief that no one should be abandoned. It’s not always easy to watch. The horrors of leprosy are unflinchingly portrayed. But, by the end of the movie, it doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic or not. You’re just thankful for men like Father Damien.

Saint Damien of Molokai was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.

For the tonight’s final entry in For Your Consideration, I’m going to suggest that everyone take the time to consider a film that came out way back in January — I, Frankenstein.

“WHAT!?” someone out there is saying. “It was bad enough when you tried to convince us that The Purge: Anarchy deserved an Oscar nomination…”

Okay, okay — hold on a minute. You get upset so easily, it can’t be good for your blood pressure. Anyway, have you calmed down now? Good.

Here’s the thing — I said that I was going to suggest some films that I thought were worthy of award consideration. The Oscars aren’t the only awards around. There’s also the Razzie Awards. The Razzies claim that their mission is to honor the worst movies and performers of each year. To be honest, looking over some of their past nominations, it looks like they’re more interested in picking on easy targets like Lindsay Lohan and … well, I was going to say Adam Sandler but there’s a reason why most of his films are such easy targets.

Now, as far as this year is concerned, I’m sure that the people behind the Razzie awards are already busy coming up with snarky things to say about that Kirk Cameron Christmas movie. And good for them! However, I’m simply suggesting that instead of just settling for nominated Kirk Cameron a gazillion times, the Razzies might want to give some consideration to another potentially deserving film that came out this year.

Personally, I really wanted to like I, Frankenstein. It was produced by the people behind the Underworld films, all of which are definitely guilty pleasures of mine. And it starred Aaron Eckhart, who is such a good actor even if he rarely seems to get the lead roles that he deserves. That said, even before I saw the film, I had my doubts about whether an actor with the almost satirically all-American facial features of Aaron Eckhart would be believable as a reanimated corpse and sad to say, he was not. You could definitely imagine Eckhart playing a legendary big game hunter who has decided that he’s going to add Frankenstein’s monster to his wall of trophies. But as the monster — well, not so much.

In I, Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s Monster survives through the centuries and eventually ends up fighting a bunch of demons for some reason. Or something like that. I have to admit that I was never quite sure what was going on in I, Frankenstein. Some of that was because I was bored with the movie and a lot of it was because the movie felt less like an actual film and more like a collection of highlights. This is one of those films where off-screen narration was necessary to describe a huge chunk of the movie’s plot.

And, finally, I just couldn’t buy Aaron Eckhart as a monster. He’s too handsome in his own clean-cut, middle American way. There’s a reason why Aaron Eckhart was convincing as the symbol of good government decency in The Dark Knight and that’s the same reason why he’s not very convincing playing a creature who has been built out of random body parts.

So, to the people behind the Razzies, I would encourage them to continue to try to come up with the perfect Kirk Cameron joke. But don’t forget about I, Frankenstein.

It’s worthy of your consideration.

And speaking of consideration, For Your Consideration will continue tomorrow with 6 more films that are worthy of your awards consideration!