I'm a sucker for Father/Son movies.
Maybe it's because I'm a son and had a somewhat complicated relationship with my father. Or perhaps because I'm a Father with a complex relationship with my son. It's a never-ending cycle.
Couple a complex father/son dynamic with a sports movie, and it's the perfect storm, even if the film involves golf.
That's the Greatest Game Ever Played with Shia LaBoeuf. Now, I was already familiar with Shia from the Transformer movies. And since I was already a fan of the Transformer, having grown up with the cartoon. But I loved Shia as Sam Witwicky. He was the perfect side of an earnest and reluctant hero.
But it was his role as Francis Ouimet that I became a fan.
I knew a little about his troubles, but I figured it was par for being a young actor in Hollywood. I'd figure he'd got the route of Robert Downey Jr. Shia would self-destruct for a while and then pull off a stellar comeback.
Then we elected Trump and Shia got a severe case of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).
After the 2016 election, Shia and some friends set up a camera on a flag with "He Will Not Divide Us" and promised to broadcast twenty-four hours a day until Trump was removed from office.
As far as art projects go, I thought it was dumb. Still, freedom of speech and all that.
Shia's project met resistance, and Shia moved his art project to an undisclosed local.
Thus ensued the large game of capture the flag.
4Chan users, using context clues from the feed, tracked down the flag and replaced it with a Trump flag. I couldn't help but laugh.
Shia dropped off my radar until I saw him in the Peanut Butter Falcon film, and I remembered why I liked him as an actor again.
Then, a couple of days ago, I read an article about Olvia Wilde dropping him from a movie she was directing. And that same day, I also read that not only was Shia LaBoeuf playing Padre Pio, but he had converted to Catholicism.
Boy, I didn't see this one coming.
After listening to this interview with Bishop Barron (a sentence I never thought I'd write), I am reminded the Lord works in mysterious ways.