The Preacher's Wife

Premiered December 13, 1996.

The Preacher's Wife is a remake of The Bishop's Wife, which we reviewed yesterday.  Let's look at this movie's connection to the Academy Awards:

Denzel Washington won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Glory (1990) and later won Best Actor for Training Day (2001).  

Denzel Washington wins his first Oscar on March 26, 1990.

The Preacher's Wife features music by Hans Zimmer, who won an Oscar for his Best Original Score for The Lion King (1995).

It’s also worth noting that Zimmer's music for The Preacher’s Wife received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Music.  

Here's our review:

Reverend Henry Biggs (Courtney B. Vance) is pastor of St. Matthew’s Church, which is located in a neighborhood that has fallen on hard times.  The church itself is also in a state of disrepair and dire financial straits.  

Local predatory real estate mogul Joe Hamilton (Gregory Hines) wants to buy the church so he can replace it with expensive condominiums.  The church’s boiler explodes a week before Christmas and a parishioner is jailed for a crime he didn’t commit.  Henry is being pulled in all directions while trying to save his church and the community. 

Since he’s busy and distracted all the time, Rev. Biggs’ wife Julia (Whitney Houston) feels like Henry has been taking her for granted.  Julia serves as St. Matthew’s choral director and is busy producing its annual Christmas pageant.  

Their son Jeremiah (Justin Pierre Edmund) is upset because his best friend has moved away to live with a foster family.  With so many problems to face, Henry prays to God for help.  

Help arrives in the form of an angel named Dudley (Denzel Washington).  He tells Rev. Biggs he’s the answer to his prayer and that’s he’ll help him manage the church.  

Henry is VERY skeptical when Dudley tells him he’s an angel.  Rev. Biggs comes around when Dudley demonstrates some supernatural abilities, like magically starting Henry’s stalled car.  

Julia is charmed by Dudley and the feeling is mutual.  They spend lots of time together since Henry is always busy, which creates more tension in their marriage.

Joe Hamilton continues to pressure Henry into selling his church to make way for condos.  He says he’ll build a new mega-church for Biggs in exchange for the old church.  Julia believes Joe wants to build the mega-church to be a monument to his own ego.  Hamilton sweetens the deal by promising to pay for a new boiler so that St. Matthew's will be warm during its Christmas services.  

Will Henry sell out to Hamilton?  Can Julia and Henry’s marriage be saved?  Can Dudley’s angelic powers save the day for everyone? 

J.A. Morris says:
This is a good “modern” remake of The Bishop’s Wife (I put “modern” in quotation marks because this movie is now 23 years in the past!).  The stakes are upped a little bit from the original.  In this version, Henry Biggs could lose his church to a wrecking ball, whereas Henry Brougham’s problem was funding construction for his new cathedral (his old church was never in danger).  

While I like both versions, The Preacher’s Wife gives Julia Biggs a little more agency than Julia Brougham.  Whitney Houston’s Julia argues rather forcefully with her husband, something Loretta Young’s character didn’t get to do.  

I mentioned in yesterday’s review that David Niven’s performance as Bishop Brougham was my favorite part of The Bishop’s Wife.  I feel the same way about Courtney B. Vance in the remake.  

While Vance has had a great career, he was not intended to be the “main attraction” in a film that featured Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington.  Vance has to do the heavy lifting here, and (like Niven) he makes Rev. Biggs’ growth and change feel real.  There’s a great scene where, after a long day of work and difficulties at home,  Henry’s car won’t start on a cold December night.  Vance does a great job conveying Henry’s sense of “what now” despair.  

Like Cary Grant before him, Denzel Washington brings a lot of his usual charm and charisma to Dudley.  

Whitney Houston wasn’t a classically trained actor like Vance and Washington, but she holds her own in every scene with them.  

The supporting cast is also strong.  Jenifer Lewis gets some of the funniest lines as Julia’s mother Margueritte.  Loretta Divine is solid aas Henry’s secretary Beverly.  

Gregory Hines is great as the sleazy Joe Hamilton.  Margueritte says that Hamilton is “so oily you could fry chicken” on his smile and Hines makes you believe her!

If there’s anything wrong with The Preacher’s Wife, it’s that I felt it had a few too many musical performances by Whitney Houston.  While I wasn’t a fan of all of her music, she had an amazing voice.  I’m guessing that her singing (and the soundtrack album that accompanied this movie) was a major factor in this film being greenlit.  On a positive note about Houston's songs, I enjoyed the uptempo gospel arrangement of “Joy To The World."

The only other problem I had was that Jenifer Lewis played Whitney Houston’s mother.  While I enjoyed Lewis’ performance in The Preacher’s Wife, she was born only six years before Houston.  This didn’t ruin the movie, but it strained credulity a bit.

The Preacher’s Wife is a good updated remake of a classic Christmas movie and is recommended.  If you’re a huge Whitney Houston fan, you may like it more than I did.

J.A. Morris’ rating:

3 candy canes.  


RigbyMel says: 

I’d never gotten around to watching this version of this story until I started blogging about holiday movies and it was very interesting watching The Preacher’s Wife in proximity to The Bishop’s Wife for this review.    There were differences in emphasis evident from the change in time period to the focus on people of color.  

Some of these differences worked well  -- there were higher stakes in terms of Henry’s church being in disrepair and the subplot involving the teenaged parishioner in danger of being sent to jail for something he didn’t do.   

I also liked the subplot involving the small children -- Jeremiah, who is Henry & Julia’s son in this version, is dealing with his best friend Hakim moving away due to needing foster care.   The resolution here was perhaps a bit obvious,  but it’s a Christmas movie, and it’s sweet so I can’t really complain. 

The choice to make the Hamilton character a predatory real estate developer who holds out the prospect of a shiny new church in a gated community as a temptation to Henry was also a choice that resonated in terms of a more modern sensibility.   Gregory Hines was appropriately unctuous as the developer and I thought it was fascinating that Dudley chose to go for a much more direct A Christmas Carol-style spirit intervention in this version than did the Dudley in the 1940s iteration.  (Which ALSO has the Christmas Carol aspect evident, not quite as blatant.)   

Both the 1940s and 1990s films make music an important aspect of the story development, but due to the inclusion of Whitney Houston, it’s rather more prominent in the later version.   The gospel rendition of “Joy To The World” is truly joyous and is my favorite musical number from The Preacher’s Wife. 

However, some other choices like the decision to use the (admittedly adorable) Jeremiah as the narrator for the proceedings, do not work quite as well as I think the director and/or screenwriter would have hoped.   The narration comes off as ever so slightly cloying at times and feels unnecessary.  

That being said, this remake is an enjoyable take on the classic and worth a look should you have the time or inclination!

RigbyMel’s rating: 

3 candy canes

Hocus Pocus

Premiered July 16, 1993.

In Salem Massachussetts, All Hallows Eve, 1693, Winifred "Winnie" Sanderson (Bette Midler) and her two witch sisters Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) cast a spell on a girl named Emily Binx (Amanda Shepherd) that sucks out her life force, making the witches younger and killing Emily.

Her older brother Thackery (Sean Murray) witnesses this and the witches transform him into a black cat, condemned to forever ruminate over his guilt at failing to save his sister.

The Sanderson sisters are subsequently captured and hanged.  Prior to their execution, Winnie casts a spell that will resurrect them on an All Hallows Eve in the future when a virgin lights their black flame candle.

Three hundred years later in Salem, another All Hallows Eve (aka Halloween) has arrived.  Teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz) is having a tough time adjusting to life in a new place.  He and his family have just moved from Los Angeles and he's having a tough time fitting in.

Moreover, he has no use for Salem's witchy Halloween traditions, viewing the holiday as something made up by candy companies to sell more candy.  Despite this, Max is interested in his classmate Allison (Vinessa Shaw), who is very enthusiastic about Halloween and witches and isn't impressed by Max's cynical take on the holiday.

After school, Max's parents order him to take his 8 year old sister Dani (Thora Birch) trick or treating.  They eventually wind up at Allison's house, where her parents are hosting a very fancy Halloween festivity.

Allison talks Max and Dani into visiting the old Sanderson house, which is now a shuttered museum.   Naturally, Max winds up lighting the witch's black flame candle, causing the curse to come to fruition and bringing the Sanderson sisters back from the dead to steal the life force of more children!

The kids escape and steal the Winnifred's spell book.  Max, Allison and Dani gain an unexpectedly ally against the witches in the form of Thackery Binx, who, in spite of being a cat, can speak.  Binx vowed to stop the Sandersons if they ever returned and wants to help the kids defeat the witches once and for all.  Dani is quite taken with the Binx and decides to adopt him.

The sisters are uncertain what to make of Halloween and the modern world.  They are mystified by roads made of asphalt rather than dirt.  They smell children, but don't recognize them because the kids are dressed up in costumes for trick or treating.

The drawback of the witches' return is that the Sanderson sisters need more children's life force to brew the  potion that will keep them alive and young forever.  If not, they will die at sunrise.

The Sandersons chase Binx and the kids all over Salem, determined to get their book of spells and gain immortality.  Will the witches succeed and suck the life out of Salem's children?  Or will the unlikely quartet of heroes save Halloween and Salem from the Sandersons?

J.A. Morris says:
I'll start my review by saying that I like this movie, but I didn't see it until years after its release (I was in college in 1993 and I wasn't exactly the target audience.  It's become part of our annual Halloween viewing.  The witches are delightfully over the top and the kids are likeable and sympathetic.  I've owned several black cats, so I appreciate the presence of a talking black cat.

Bette Midler's performance of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" (featuring backing musicians dressed as skeletons) is a high point of the movie.  Midler later dressed as Winnifred during live performances of this song.

Sarah Jessica Parker also gets a nice moment in the spotlight to sing "Sarah's Theme," Sarah Sanderson's song that's intended to hypnotize children.

Garry Marshall appears in an uncredited role wearing a devil costume.  The Sandersons believe him to be Satan himself!  Any movie that includes Garry Marshall dressed as the devil is worth watching at least once in my book!

In a bit of stunt-casting, the wife of "the devil" is portrayed by Penny Marshall, Garry's real-life sister.

However, it's not a perfect movie and I can understand why it wasn't well received by critics or audiences when it was first released.  Hocus Pocus is a film that doesn't seem to know what audience it's trying to reach.  During the first few minutes we see a little girl killed and three witches hanged.

There are jokes about how the Sandersons can only be resurrected if a virgin lights their candle.  Billy the zombie is beheaded onscreen.   These contrasting tones sometimes took me "out" of the movie.

Still, compared to Christmas, there aren't many Halloween movies (that aren't slasher films), and I'm glad it's around.  Recommended, but the criticisms above keep me from giving Hocus Pocus a higher rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

2 and a half jack-o-lanterns.

RigbyMel says: 

Like J.A. Morris, I am late to the Halloween party insofar as Hocus Pocus is concerned.   I was in high school and probably considered myself above live-action Disney movies at the time (animation was another story, but that's neither here nor there). 

That being said, I think I like the movie more than J.A. Morris does -- it's fun and funny and the dark touches are appropriate for Halloween.  It's not a movie for little kids, but I can understand how folks who were of the tween persuasion in 1993 or thereabouts would have latched onto this film.    As was customary with Disney releases, Hocus Pocus became a regular feature on cable TV and the film's following grew as a result of cable and home video.

Yes, the plot is a little bit silly at times, but the performances by Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker are comedy gold. The child actors do a fine job insofar as child actors go.  Young Thora Birch's performance as Dani is particularly strong. 

Moreover,  I have a weakness for black cats and am not at all surprised that many a millennial pet black cat has been named Binx.  I rather suspect that nostalgia plays an important role in the affection that people of a certain age have for the movie, but even 25 years later,  nostalgia is not necessary to enjoy this as a Halloween classic.

RigbyMel's rating:  

3 and a half jack-o-lanterns.