Drew Carey, Andy Dufresne, and Finding My Light in the Dark

I’ve really strive to be happier and less negative; you know, content and carefree and easy going -- kind of like Drew Carey on The Drew Carey Show.  I know that seems crazy, to emmulate Drew Carey (of all people!) but he is nothing if not some big, laid-back, "smiley guy" – a hip geek perhaps?  (Check out this video linked here).  At least his character on this show is portrayed that way, even if he is a little rough around the edges and has that unappealing, adversarial relationship with that unfunny and detestable Mimi.  I used to be more like that; more relaxed and content with life.  A co-worker, Brigitte, said I’ve actually been reminding her of Drew Carey lately, and at first, I was offended, because I don’t particularly like the real Drew Carey as a person – he’s kind of crude and unthoughtful at times, like an overgrown frat boy.  But then I took it as a compliment, simply because he’s usually so even-tempered and trouble-free (this world could often choke itself on seriousness), and I like that style of his that projects an overall joy and cheerfulness just to be alive, so that, despite his coarseness at times, he actually comes across as being rather cool.  He’s a buzzed-cut, chubby, middle-aged geek in glasses, and not a stud by any sense of the word, and yet he doesn’t care.  He’s not ripped or particularly successful or brainy, and so has none of the arrogance that goes along with being any of those things, and yet he’s still happy with his life, or seems to exude that contentment, so that even though he is not this society’s definition of what constitutes a desirable man, he’s okay with who he is.  And that suits someone like me just fine.

     Perhaps a better example would be Tim Robbin’s character Andy Dufresne in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, who Morgan Freeman’s character said “strolled without a care in the world.”  (See the trailer for this brilliant, inspirational movie linked here)  I loved that movie.  Here’s a character incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit, and yet he is still in high spirits and joyous, and still has hope while enduring the harshest qualities of life.  I can see myself in Andy Dufresne and Drew Carey, in their underdog existence, because they both still find the pleasure in life to keep them carrying on, and being happy, and continuing to have hope.  I admire the character of Andy Dufresne; like the Elephant Man, here’s a guy who has been crapped on his whole life, and he still smiles, and finds the real wonder of this place, and I like how he still manages to rise above the squalor of this world.

     I need that!  Don’t we all?  We all have our crosses to bear!  The trick is to not let it break us and drag us down to the level of the common scum of society, but to keep a ray of faith within, a measure of bliss and peace and calm, even when we are persecuted and beaten down.  Like Andy, I want to find that peace that allows me to stroll thankfully with a smile on my face, even if it happens to be a figurative prison yard I stroll through, to compare with the literal one Andy’s in… to just RISE ABOVE it all!

     Lately, it seems more as if I was in some depressing, gloomy novel, and life used to be more like a sitcom.  I want that again!  I want my life to have its own laugh-track, and not that weepy, melancholy music that always seems to be playing softly in the background these days.  I want the positive things of life, meaning that I don’t want life to be positive, for it is never that all the time, but I want my reaction to all things to be positive and carefree.  I don’t want life to drag me down, but like these fictional characters, I want to rise above it, and still have a sense of awe.  

     I read somewhere that it actually helps to just smile, so I've tried it.  I’ve been actively smiling and feigning true delight and euphoria, even during times where I feel sad or am not truly exultant, and you know what?  It works!  It really does work!  Would you believe that?  The lyrics to that song “Smile” by Nat King Cole have true merit! (Hear the song linked here.)  I'm finding that, even when I'm not all that happy, when I force myself to smile, I’m not as depressed; there’s something in the chemistry of it all, and I get over my misery quicker when I actively try to live life in the sunshine – and I’ll tell you something else:  Having this kind of outlook, smiling even when you don't feel like it, actually starts to make even the rainy days tolerable, or even enjoyable, and then I know what Gene Kelly was so happy about to be Singing in the Rain (See this classic movie scene linked here).  I don’t want to spend my life dreading the rain, or the bleak, grey days of my life, because even bleak, grey days have beauty if you look with better eyes, and even the coldest and drabbest days can be enjoyed if you’re happy and have a song in your heart… and if you have the heart of a happy child.

     I loved Frances McDormand’s speech at the end of the movie Fargo (linked here).  After finding all those dead bodies and subduing the last remaining killer, she drives him to the station in her squad car over cold, icy roads on a colorless, dingy day, and says, “So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there, and I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper.  And those three people in Brainerd.  And for what?  For a little bit of money.  There’s more to life than a little money, ya know.  Don’tcha know that?  And here ya are.  And it’s a beautiful day.  Well, I just don’t understand it.”  I don’t either, Marge Gunderson, I surely don’t either!

- From my Journal, March 2000

12 Disappointing Movies, Part 1: Films I Saw in 2012

Over the last two weeks, I listed some movies I saw in 2012, or that I watched again, and that I loved.  Being a movie lover, it was easy to do.

But that's not to say that I love all movies, or that I'm never disappointed.  I may not have hated these twelve movies I saw last year, but I was disappointed, at least a little bit.  I imagine some of the movies on this list other people probably loved (I can hear it all now:  "Why did you put a James Bond picture on this list?"  "What's wrong with Big Miracle?"  "Hey, Zookeeper was a cute family film!"  "Why did you include a film about the life of Jesus?")  And the thing is, there are things I liked about each one of these:  A performance here (The Iron Lady), some action there (Quantum of Solace), or some okay FX (The Blob), some good characters (Super 8) or comedy (Airheads) or a good message (King of Kings).  But in the end, these were just simply a bit of a let down.  Read on to find I why I thought so (and the titles all link to trailers or videos!):

The Blob

I actually liked this film, once upon a time, and as old 80’s monster movies go, it’s far from the worst.  Unfortunately, it also hasn’t aged all that well.  There are still a few good shocks, and the monster is pretty good, but watching it again all these years later makes me realize just how dumb the characters and the script are.  This is strictly B-movie territory with some pretty good effects for a film of this type.  Aliens it is NOT!

Quantum of Solace

Okay, for the record, let me just say that I like James Bond.  I really do.  I even liked some of the lesser Bond films starring some of the lesser Bonds, like Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.  They are enjoyable.  However, after all those novels and films, 25 in all (I’m including David Niven’s appearance in the parody Casino Royale from 1967, Daniel Craig’s brand new 3^rd Bond film Skyfall, and Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again, which is not considered “cannon” and is a loose remake of Thunderball), they all start to meld together and are somewhat interchangeable.  At this point, with such a franchise, it’s hard for a single movie to stand on its own.  It’s not a stretch of the imagination to say that if you’ve seen 20 Bond films, you’re really not going to see anything new in the latest chapter.  There’s Bond, the cool Bond vehicles and contraptions, the gorgeous Bond women, the evil Bond villains, the exotic locations and international espionage, all brought to you by the letters M & Q and the number 007.  That basically describes every Bond movie ever made.  The plot is coincidental.

Airheads

I’d heard of this movie before, about Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Sandler as three metal heads who take a radio station hostage to have their demo tape played.  It had a certain dumb allure about it, especially at a time when all three of these actors were on the way up, but was ultimately forgettable, and the music, not my taste, of course, sucked.

Super 8

This movie should have been better than it was, and maybe it’s because when we watched it, the picture was set too dark.  I couldn’t see anything.  The movie had a certain nostalgic appeal that brought to mind other films such as Explorers, The Monster Squad, Matinee, and The Goonies.  Some kids growing up in the 70’s are making a very cheap 8mm zombie film and in the middle of filming, they capture the destruction of a derailed train.  When the military starts to take over the town, the kids discover it has something to do with a very dangerous alien creature.  For me, I actually preferred all these other films that mixed artistic, youthful nostalgia with a bit of sci-fi creepiness.  When they showed the monster in all its gory glory, which was still very hard to see, the main kid has some sort of tlelepathic connection with it, and it lets them go, but this is after it has killed a whole bunch of people, some of them perfectly innocent victims, and I just couldn’t feel sympathy for it.  And I hated that ending!  [SPOILER ALERT]  The creature makes a new spaceship to leave earth, but to complete it, it needs the locket with the picture of the protagonist’s dead mother.  Say what?  What was sweet to some was, to me, overly cheesy and bizarre.

The Canterville Ghost

This Hallmark Channel production also wasn’t too bad, yet in point of fact, I have seen both Neve Campbell and Patrick Stewart do better work; Neve in the superior Scream franchise and Stewart as Captain Picard and, later, Professor Xavier.  Still, this was a fun, little movie, but given the source material, from Oscar Wilde, it should have been more.  As it was, it reminded me of inferior ghost stories such as High Spirits (1988) starring Steve Guttenberg and Daryl Hannah, and The Haunted Mansion (2003) starring Eddie Murphy.  I’m afraid any ghost story that happens to be easily compared to films like that doesn’t have a high credibility factor.  In the end, this is just another forgettable little family film for a weekend afternoon on basic cable rather than a must-see, great rendition of a literary masterpiece.

Limitless

Based on the previews, I was expecting something a bit different.  Bradley Cooper, looking the worse for wear (if you can imagine that!) plays a junkie who takes a pill that will give him full use of his entire brain, changing him into a genius extraordinaire!  The trouble is, the effects don’t last, and he has to keep taking it, or it will kill him!  The story severely derails when you start to realize the focus of this movie is on the junkie aspect of the characters and not really on the possibilities of what a person could do with full access to all of their brain, as the previews teased.  In other words, the plot forsakes the more fantastical elements to instead focus on the story of a bunch of junkies hooked on a drug.  It revels in the base elements that accompany drug abusers, such as the scene towards the end [SPOILER ALERT] when the main character infects his girlfriend to help him, and, when he’s dry and in need of instant IQ points, he sucks blood off the floor belonging to a murder victim who was himself taking the drug.  See what I mean?

Easy A

I like Emma Stone.  I really do.  And going in, I was kind of intrigued by the concept of a high school student using some themes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlett Letter, yet actually wearing that red “A” with pride, even though she had not actually been adulterous.  As with such characters as Ferris Bueller (1986), Charlie Bartlett (2007), and Juno (2007), she tries to rise above the normal riff-raff of her fellow students and clueless teachers, but it all comes crashing down before the end, and she really winds up no smarter than anyone else in this movie.  She tries to wield her magic “A” like a superpower, to help her geeky classmates out of the social pariah pool or to aid her gay friends into remaining in the closet, safe from the heckles and suspicions of their classmates.  It even works for a while, but in the meantime, she skates on the edge of morality, even if she isn’t doing the deed.  In the end, I’d say it’s probably as bad to pretend to do it for money, and it puts her only one step above a hooker.  I think the makers of this film would like to think their as socially conscious as those who make Heathers (1988) or Mean Girls (2004), but it falls way short.

Zookeeper

I like Kevin James, and there were a few funny sequences, and to be fair, some of my favorite films over the years have had talking animals, such as Babe, Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and Alice in Wonderland.  But having talking animals doesn't guarantee that it's going to be irresistibly cute.  Case in point:  Sylvester Stallone and Cher as the voice of the lions.  They add absolutely nothing to the picture, other than to add two more famous people as voices.  We were just starting to enjoy the movie when Kevin James manages to get away from the zoo and starts to have a good time with costar Rosario Dawson.  Then he made the mistake of, as my brother joked, "calling the gorilla for dating advice!”  For every halfway successful talking animal flick like Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) or Good Boy (2003), there are tons of other films like the Cats & Dogs and the Air/Snow Buddies franchises.  A film like Zookeeper comes dangerously close to that kid pandering type of film.  Try getting through the entire scene I included linked to the title.

King of Kings

I was disappointed in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and hoped this old retelling of the Jesus story would be better.  It seems, however, that whenever Hollywood tackled the story of Jesus, they tried to give Jesus and the material the somber reverence it deserves, and it just doesn’t work.   The trailer, linked to the title, shows everything that is ultimately wrong with Hollywood Jesus stories.  In their attempt to make Jesus so worshipful and perfect, it always left Jesus, and the material, feeling overly detached instead.  Besides being the Son of God, of course, Jesus was a great teacher and philosopher, but he was also quite human, and was never that detached.  Never do we feel while watching these old movies that he has real feelings for the humans he walks with and teaches. Instead, it is some isolated connection to the Father.  I didn’t get that feeling with Robert Powell’s performance in Jesus of Nazareth.  In that movie, even though he carried the look of grace and wisdom, when he looked at other people, or taught them, he really connected with them.  You could tell he loved them.  These other movie Jesus’ are always looking upward.  They don’t have the loving connection with people they do with the Father, and that’s just not right.  THEY are the REASON HE CAME!  While watching King of Kings with Mom, I finally shut it off after the scene where Jesus collects Peter and tells him he will make him a “fisher of men.”  As shot for this film, it simply felt like actors on a movie set repeating lines of dialogue.  None of it was real.  None of it felt real.  I then showed her the same scene in Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazarath, and there simply was no comparison.  The Zeffirelli film seemed infinitely more “real”!  Not only did Jesus seem more real, but so did Peter and all the others, and even the sets were more real.  The best version of the Jesus story is Jesus of Nazareth.  All the others just don’t measure up! 

The Iron Lady

I was expecting great things from The Iron Lady.  There was no reason in the world this film shouldn’t have been as entertaining as The King’s Speech, especially with Meryl Streep winning yet another Oscar for her portrayal of Ronald Reagan’s British colleague, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who, like Winston Churchill before her, was highly thought of in conservative republican circles.  Yet despite all of this, this film was NO King’s Speech!  Yes, Streep gave a great performance, but that performance sort of just sat there in a bubble.  In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite that great of a chameleon-like performance in the middle of such a mediocre, historical film, especially about somebody I actually liked and respected!  One of the problems was the way the film was edited together.  Ever since Pulp Fiction dazzled critics by turning narrative film structure on its head, we’ve gotten countless movies that tend to jump all over the place.  This was confusing, and there didn’t seem to be any rhyme of reason for it, and the audience winds up asking the same thing the actor does when a film is shot out of sequence:  “Where is the character at during this point in their life?”  It makes it so hard to follow!  So disappointing!

Big Miracle

Okay, for as much as the right, and I included, might want to complain about movies with a pro-environmentalist message, such as Avatar or the otherwise superb animated film The Lorax, none of them are as blatant as this supposedly warm-hearted family film.  Barrymore here plays a character I found to be thoroughly detestable!  She’s one of those crazy, rabid, domineering, self-righteous, leftist environmentalists, able to spout a bunch of facts and figures at the slightest provocation!  The whole movie was based on a true story about a group of three whales (dubbed Fred, Wilma, and Bam Bam) that got stuck behind in Alaska when the calf was injured (in some sort of net – another crack against the right), and the adults stayed with it and are now trapped, with the media jumping on the let’s-all-save-these-three-poor-whales bandwagon, and so does the head of a big oil company (his wife covertly directing him to that decision for good PR) and eventually, even the Russians get involved.   And in the middle of it all is Drew Barrymore, getting self-righteous and hot and bothered with her annoying little lisp.  I liked the John Krasinski and Kristen Bell characters, and it does have a nice message about looking out for the planet (that is, when the Barrymore character isn’t going completely off the deep end).  So it’s not a total loss.  I just think it would have been better without such a heavy-handed, liberal assault!

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

I couldn’t quite get through all of the first Madagascar movie, and had no desire to sit through another one.  While leaving the theater, my niece asked me what I thought.  I told her it was too over-the-top and bombastic.  She asked me what "bombastic" meant, and I did a lot of annoying mugging for her, shouting “Circus! Afro! Circus! Afro! Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Afro!” while dancing around her with my arms jutting all over the place.  She got the point.  If the film were a bit less, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” they might just have something there they could work with, but this was strictly for kids, and for teenagers who remember them fondly from their childhoods.  Old guys like me don’t apply.

Cruel Bullies Who Hide Behind "I Was Only Kidding"

Writing about my job in February of the year 2000, I kind of went off on this guy who had a very mean sense of humor:

I like all my pod-mates, except Brian, who is a little hard to take because he’s arrogant and his humor is both flat and cutting.  It’s the type of humor where he seems to make personal threats just to see how others respond to him, and it requires that I be either witty or equally cutting.  Of course, this requires no actual wit on his part.  All he has to do is make a threat to kick my butt or call me a weenie, and then it’s up to me to work some humor into it so an embarrassing silence won’t make everybody think my feelings have been hurt (which they’re not) or that I can’t stick up for myself.  I just don’t like this "sense of humor," if that's what you can call it, because it’s not funny.  He says he’s "only kidding" and "just having some fun," but it's at my expense, and a casual observer of this so-called humor wouldn’t be able to tell that he was actually trying to be funny or have some fun.  I personally do not like this “humor,” if that's what it really is, the kind that could easily be mistaken as a threat or a mean-spirited, condescending put down.  I mean, I can come up with some clever put downs sometimes, but unlike Brian’s type of humor, they’re actually comical.  They have a form of verbal wit, exaggerated expressions, or comic timing.  Brian is incapable of that kind of humor, however, and I find him distasteful, blunt and uncouth, and not funny in the least.  I think it’s actually just his pathetic excuse for being a malicious jerk!

- All these years later, and you know something?  I can't even remember this guy, and have no recollection of having written this.  I guess he really meant nothing!

12 More Favorite Movies I Saw, or Saw Again, in 2012

Just like last week's post, here are 12 more movies I saw in 2012 that I loved, whether they were new or old.  Each month, I've picked two movies I liked and wrote about them.  The list last week, linked here, were ones I watched in the first half of the year.  These are ones I watched in the last half of the year, along with shortened versions of my reviews:

The Amazing Spider-Man

Being such a fan of superhero movies, you’d know I’d have to pick the latest Spider-Man movie, and truthfully, it doesn’t disappoint.  The whole film does a similar, and yet a slightly different, take on the web thrower.  Andrew Garfield is simply a different actor taking over for Toby Maguire, and he’s perhaps no better, no worse.  The older Spider-Man movies are still fresh in our minds, so the effects, though dazzling, are predictable, since we’ve seen something similar in three previous films, though they added the wise-cracking persona for Spider-Man from the comic books that was previously missing. 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The film uses 9/11 as a backdrop for the tale of a slightly autistic boy who goes on a scavenger hunt of sorts to reconnect with his deceased father.  His character’s connection with Tom Hanks as his dead dad is undeniable, and Sandra Bullock has the more difficult role of the parent left behind to raise a most difficult child.  However, it is actually her character that provides the greastest sense of love and enchantment when the child discovers his mother is not who he thought she was.  Inspiration in movies is hard to pull off, but I think they managed it here quite well.

2016: Obama's America

In a few months, after the election, this film won’t mean much, being a political film during an election year, and being all about displaying the president’s flaws and real intentions, in his own words.  If Obama doesn’t win, it may have just helped to turn the tide, and can then be viewed as a “thank God we stopped him” historical piece.  If he does win again, and this country sinks further into the abyss, the film can then be viewed as an “I told you so, but it’s too late now” warning.  I relished the opportunity to see Dinesh D’Souza up on the big screen, tackling the same issues he covered in his books Roots of Obama’s Rage, which I read, and Obama’s America, which I haven’t.   There is no denying that D’Souza is one of my all-time favorite writers/thinkers/philosophers/theologians, and though I may not be able to officially include the moniker scientist for him, he has the tendency to be able to out-think most of them.  Even his top anti-God, atheist opponent Christopher Hitchens praised his brain on one of D’Souza’s recent book jacket covers.  This film follows suit. 

50 First Dates

Many movies similar to this are actually kind of like Barrymore’s unfortunate character Lucy, and after a good night’s sleep, you can’t even remember having watched them.  This one, however, had many memorable moments, my favorites being the one at the beginning where Sandler’s overanxious, Russian assistant at the aquarium gets puked on by a walrus, and the one where Lucy beats the crap out of Rob Schneider’s Hawaiian Ula character; and Barrymore and Sandler had quite a lot of chemistry together, just as they did for The Wedding Singer.  I also thought Sean Astin was quite funny as Lucy’s lisping, steroid dependant, net-shirt wearing, yet weakling brother Doug, and actors such as Blake Clark as her dad and Amy Hill and Pomaika’i Brown as her Hawaiian friends Sue and Nick added quite a bit of likable charm as well.

Let Me In

I liked the interplay between the two main characters Owen and Abby, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloë Grace Moretz, and though there was plenty of disturbing, very dark imagery, it all served the characters and the plot well, particularly once you realized who the character of “The Father”, played by Richard Jenkins, really was, and his parallels with the character of the picked upon boy Owen whom the vampire girl Abby befriends and protects.  Amid the gore and the well-drawn characters, there is a satisfying conclusion, which horror movies these days seem to have a particularly hard time pulling off.  What I liked about it was its literate themes.  This isn’t From Dusk Till Dawn Part 5 or some equally cheesy vampire flick.  You have to have a strong stomach to watch this, but you also have to have a brain to fully appreciate the engaging story of young love that is much more than it seems.

Pan's Labyrinth

Critics said this was director Guillermo Del Toro's crowning glory, and I’ll have to admit going in that I was interested, seeing elements of not only dark fantasy films like Edward Scissorhands, Alice in Wonderland, The Dark Crystal, and Dark City in the preview, but also such dramas as Schindler’s List, Defiance, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I wasn’t wrong in this assessment, and this film manages to juggle both elements to superb effect.  This film was very powerful in both a visual and thematic vein as both vivid science fiction/fantasy and stark realism, and that’s a hard mix to pull off! 

Little Shop of Horrors

If you can get into the campiness of it all, which I could, you are in for a great time at the movies.  This is one of the funnest horror movies I’ve ever seen, and being also a musical in the Hairspray vein, it’s got some great tunes as well.  The fun, campy performances are pitch perfect, yet nothing quite matches the special effects, centering around that man eating plant Audrey II, voiced by Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops, that just won’t stop growing.  I’ve seen some behind the scenes about how they did it, and I’m still quite amazed.  This thing, in all its versions, never looks like a puppet.  Director Frank Oz insisted that it not be simply two “hamburger buns” flapping up and down, and it is not that.  It also has to do so much more than just eat people.  It’s a killer plant with "garden style" that knows how to sing and dance, and how many movie monsters take the time really knock a show tune out of the park like that?  As sci fi horror comedy musical romances go, this is by far the best!

Gorillas in the Mist: The Adventure of Dian Fossey

Ellen Ripley notwithstanding, this is probably Sigourney Weaver’s best performance to date. I think Sigourney and the filmmakers have made a film that I believe even the real, late Dian Fossey would have liked.  The passion they bring to the project was the passion Dian felt for those mountain gorillas of Rwanda, and in fact, some of the real gorillas featured in the film were her mountain gorillas.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 2

As with the other Harry Potter movies, this one had quite a few compelling twists and turns, and as the final Harry Potter movie, it wraps things up quite satisfyingly.  This is ultimately a quite enjoyable franchise with nary a misstep. And I like how the final message was one of love for others over the love of power.  Harry, armed with the first, bests the evil Valdemort by simply being the better man, and it is Valdemort’s own hatred that destroys him.  That’s a great message for kids actually, especially in a movie and book series that have been so maligned by Christians, and some of it from my own hand. 

Underworld: Awakening

What started out as a delicious B-movie find about a war between vampires and werewolves (that’s “death dealers” and “lycans” to you) has turned into quite an interesting little franchise, each film steeped in gobs of dark style and cool visuals, and with refreshing takes on the ongoing story.  Fans should not be disappointed by this fourth installment since it brings the sexy Kate Beckinsale back, decked out once again in black leather and killer attitude and confidence.  This time, she wakes up in the future, discovering that the existence of vampires and werewolves were discovered by humans, and they are now hunted.  Looking for her lover Michael, she instead comes across a vampire/werewolf hybrid girl, possibly her own offspring, and spends the rest of the movie trying to protect her and uncover all the human, vampire, and werewolf conspiracies swirling around her.  As with the other movies, this one has similar devotion to sleek cinematography, well choreographed fight scenes, cool FX visuals, and gobs of style.  What’s not to like?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I saw, and loved, each one of the Lord of the Rings movies.  Watching each of the three of them was quite a memorable cinematic experience, and almost nothing was out of place.  They are quite possibly the best epic trilogy ever made.  So going in, The Hobbit had some pretty big shoes to fill, and they really tried.  There was much to like in this new Peter Jackson film.  There was lots of opportunity for grand storytelling, as well as some lighter, comedic moments, such as when the dwarves all show up at Bilbo’s house and he is completely flustered, or when the dwarves are served leafy greens in Rivendell and complain about the lack of meat, with one of them asking, “Are there any chips?”  There’s a new comedic wizard character and a very noble leader for the dwarves, and Gollum is a very welcome addition in his few scenes this time around.  And yet, all in all, it didn’t feel as monumental as the what was going on in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and that’s because it’s not.  Is there a story to still tell here?  Certainly.  But perhaps it’s just not so epic, try as they might.  The ultimate battle of good vs. evil was told in another tale, many years ago!  It was still nice to visit this land once again, and I did like it.  Just not as much as the other three.

Monumental

Like all documentaries, this one was made for a niche audience, but WHAT A NICHE!  These are people who are on fire for God, and when they look at this nation, and this world, they see something different from what the normal people see.  They see sin and depravity, and an embrace of sin and depravity, as people have, over time, given up on God and godly ways and moved on to other things.  They place their faith and trust in Obama, and Nancy Pelosi.  Instead of Jesus, they choose to believe in and follow the teachings of Bill Maher, Howard Stern, and Piers Morgan.  It’s a concept that Kirk Cameron confronts in this very movie, and nowhere is this clearer than by the fact that this movie, and its audience, has been so demonized, trivialized, and marginalized by the “powers that be”.  If they can do it with 2016: Obama’s America, which is one of the biggest documentary hits of all time, then they can certainly do it with a film like this, which drummed up much of its business through online word of mouth on conservative and Christian websites and appearances on conservative TV shows such as Glenn Beck’s.  But it’s a film I just had to include among the favorites because it’s lessons and teachings are something I wholeheartedly agree with and stand by in the way I choose to believe and live my own life.  Hollywood and this world may trivialize Kirk Cameron, as one would expect in a fallen society.  But I continue to hold him up as a role model we can all learn from.  What a great guy!  You won’t hear the common man agreeing with that, and if you ask me, that’s the whole point of this movie, and why this world is in the mess it is in!

Left Behind: Am I Bruce Barnes?

I could write more about the sin of this world, but before I complain about the sins of my fellow man (removing the speck from his eye) I need to deal with my own sins (the plank in my eye).

     I know I will always sin; I will never be perfect.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I should do more than just hear God’s word; I should live it.  I should be an active rather than a passive Christian.

     The key word is “Genuine.”  Am I genuine?  Would I act differently, or should I act differently, if I were genuine?  And if I am not genuine, then I need to strive to be genuine!  I’m thinking of the character of Bruce Barnes from the Left Behind novels.  Here’s a guy who is a Christian, and believes in Christ, and yet is still left behind because he was not genuine.  He was lukewarm, like so many of us.  In the movie The Rapture, Mimi Rogers plays a character whose daughter has a dream that she’s in heaven.  She tells her mother, “I’m there, and Daddy’s there, too.”  When the mother asks her if she’s there, the daughter replies, “Yes, but only sort of.”

     I don’t want to be a “sort of.”  I don’t want to suffer the doubts of Roger’s character, or the come-uppance of the Bruce Barnes character, having the same kind of lukewarm existence they had that eventually separated them from God when Jesus returned.  When the rapture occurs, if it occurs in my lifetime, I don’t want to be the one left behind, saying “I should’ve been a better Christian.”

- From my journal, January 2000

12 Favorite Movies I Saw, or Saw Again, in 2012

These are movies I saw last year, or saw again last year, that I enjoyed enough to mention now.  I don't often get to see all the movies I'd like to see from any given year, but if I saw it during the year, no matter when it was released, I will log it in my journal if I really liked it (or thought is stunk, which is for another list).  Here's some of the winners I saw this year and a snippet of why I liked it so much:

The Help

The Help is reminiscent of The Blind Side and The King’s Speech as a thought-provoking film that seemed to come out of nowhere and spoke volumes about the world in which we live.  The performances are pitch-perfect.

Water For Elephants

I like period films like this, with its luscious cinematography telling a compelling and entertaining story about a time long ago.   I was completely caught up in the story.  This was, for me, a vibrant, nostalgic, and engaging cinematic treat.   

Terminator Salvation

There was a lot here that impressed me.  Some of the special effects were great, such as those unique terminator-motorcycles or those creepy, snake-like terminator machines called hydrobots.  I also really liked the addition of the character Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington as a convict given a new lease on life when he finds himself resurrected in this future world, only to later discover he is one of the machines.

Fright Night

Despite the cast mostly being better in the first film from 1985, this new film boasts a more realistic story, a darker atmosphere, and a scarier vampire.  Colin Farrell oozes a cool menace here.

Midnight in Paris

I loved everything about this film:  The music, the writing, the performances, the cinematography, the sweet nostalgic quality, the magical time travel angle, the characterizations of famous artists and writers of the past, their dialogue and pontificating, and the way the past mixed with the future to change his character in the end.  In a word:  Brilliant!

Invictus

What I really like here, other than the two centering performances of Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, was how director Clint Eastwood managed to make a political movie so invigorating by telling the simpler story of this particular leader’s attempt to use sports as a unifying factor in bringing his country back together. Director Clint Eastwood is quite a skilled and nuanced director, building a catalogue of movies in his later years that not only rivals his work in front of the camera from years ago, but triumphantly surpasses it!

The Forbidden Kingdom

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie at all, and was wholly surprised when I found myself really liking it before the end.  It really delivers in the action sequences, as one would hope, but beyond that, it also has a satisfying story and interesting characters, even if we’ve seen this kind of thing many times before. 

Young Guns

“I’ll make ya famous.”  This is the catchphrase Billy the Kid tells people right before he puts a bullet between their eyes, and I’ll have to admit Emilio Estevez is pretty darned good in this role.  Historical accuracy?  I guess there’s some, but who really needs taut historical accuracy when you’ve got a cast of such photogenic brat packers in a modern day western?

The Avengers

The Avengers really IS the best superhero movie they’ve ever made, and they managed to take the characters of Ironman, The Hulk, Thor, and Captain America, combine them into one movie, and make their characters more likeable and entertaining than they were in their individual movies! 

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

This is just about as perfect a Star Trek movie as they can make!  Not only is there a lot of action and great character moments, but the writing shines with a myriad of themes

Avatar

This film has all the elements it needs to be one of the classic sci fi pics of all time, and I’m not just talking about the effects, but the characters and the story, as liberal and tree-hugging as it may be!

The Grey

It’s basically a film not about surviving, but facing death when survival is no longer a possibility.