This was a great movie!

It was fun getting to see Harrison Ford back at the top of his game hanging with Daniel Craig and having adventures. Defiantly NOTHING like Indiana 4!!! This film actually had a plausible plot line (well, assuming aliens exist) that drew you into it.

Jon Favreau sure knows how to make a film.

Trailer:

Shortly before War World II in 1938 a small band of Trappist monks started a monastery in the Algerian desert near Tibhirine. The next five, almost six, decades were fairly uneventful for these monks despite being located in the middle of an Islamic country.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Armed men entered the monastery during the night of March 26-27, 1996 and kidnapped seven of the nine monks currently stationed there. Over the next two months these men were made a pawn in the Algerian Civil War till finally they were killed and decapitated.

The 2010 French independent film “Of Gods and Men” seeks to tell the story of why these monks stayed at the monastery even when they had multiple chances to flee.

And to that end, the film does it a good job.

Moving at a slow pace (almost too slow in places) the director shows the simple life lived by these monks. They were the confidants of the villages – providing medical help to poor, sharing in the heartache of farming the desert land, celebrating the coming of age of the children, mentoring both young and old – in short they were part of the community despite the religious difference between them and their fellow villagers.

As the movie progressed, we see the confused villagers wrestling with their peaceful view of Islam and the radical extremists who killed anyone who did not follow their interpretation. This I believe is one of the most powerful parts of the film as it shows that not every Muslim is an extremist – in fact, as the movie shows, the extremists are killing their own people in an effort to cause fear and to force people to obey their view of Islam.

Christians and Muslims can and do live peacefully side by side. People are people no matter where they live or what their religion may be. We, the followers of Jesus, have been called to love and bless everyone – our neighbors and our enemies.

In a world of fear and propaganda, I would suggest prayerfully watching this film as it shows another side to the news – the real, on the ground, everyday side of life.

Released in mid-Dec, Avatar rocked the box-office – becoming the second highest-grossing film of all time worldwide as well as the top 2009 movie. All within a few short weeks.

Yet, is it all that? Or is it just a bunch of hype and fluff?

Knowing that you, the reader, would be asking those questions (hmm…assuming that you haven’t seen it….which is probably a mistake seeing how almost everyone in the country as seen it…well, at least all those with funds) – I decided to check out Avatar and see what deal was.

Hmm….ok….the little brightly colored avatar on my shoulder is tell me to confuse the true reason I went to the movies… I WANTED to – and it was a chance to hang out with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend. There! You happy?  Now I just eliminated my last two readers! Sigh. 😕

I will now write my review to all the ones and zeros still out there…way out there….way out there, like me…..way out there…. Continue reading Avatar →

I finally got the chance to watch the newest Star Trek movie – and it is sweet!
The way they introduced the characters while keeping the basic personality of each one was awesome. By the end of the movie, I was jumping up and down in my seat trying to maintain a Vulcan-like appearance (which didn’t happen…) I was unsure whether I would actually enjoy the new Star Trek movie but it was incredible. It was full of action and aliens – just what I like in a movie!


There was one sad part about the film: my mental lack of Star Trek trivia…..

Sigh…there used to be a day when I could of rattled off all the captains of the Enterprise in order along with what ship they served on…but sadly, that day has long past. As you can probably tell, I’ve been a Star Trek fan for a long wile now!

This lose of memory meant that I had to look up the finer points of the Star Trek cannon in order to figure out if this movie created a new timeline or if it maintained the old one. The short answer is that Star Trek: 11 re-creates the entire franchise.

The writers are no longer tried to the timeline of the TV shows or the pervious movies. This can be good as they are now free to make more movies within the Star Trek universe (which would be cool!). However, this new timeline also marks a change in the franchise as previous time travel episodes did not change history (at least this dramatically).

Oh well, the fact still remains that the newest Star Trek movie rocked!  If you haven’t seen it yet, do so ‘cause you will not be disappointed.

Continuing with my recent 007 kick – we recently watched the 2006 film Casino Royale.

It was a great movie. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to find some Netent casinos not blocked and pretend to be James Bond while playing for stakes not quite as large as 007 is in the film.

Granted, we kind of messed up in that we watched sequel – Quantum of Solace – first… but even though we knew the ending, it was still a fun film to watch.

In fact, I think Daniel Craig is the best James Bond on film yet – beating Sean Connery in that Craig’s Bond is more gritty and real then Connery’s 007….

Of course, part of that is the shift in culture where people, myself in included, tend to like our film heroes a little more “real” – meaning that they have to deal with internal struggles just as much as external.  [@more@]

Hmm……I guess it would be the differentness between John Wayne and Jason Bourne. One is solid as a rock while the other is…well…anything but solid.

But, back to Bond. In watching the extras there was several comments about the depth and complex character created by Ian Fleming in the book Casino Royale (which was the first Bond book). This took me by surprise as the Bond of Diamonds Are Forever was fairly flat.

It makes me wonder if Fleming didn’t tone down the character of James Bond in his later books as the fame of series was able to carry the book sales…. I guess I will have to read Casino Royale.

The 2003 movie “Ned Kelly” starting Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom tells the story of the Australian outlaw and folk hero Ned Kelly (hence the movie name…)

Ned Kelly was a young man born to Irish immigrants – well, actually his father was sent to Australian by the British for various crimes committed in Ireland (which was ruled by Britain at the time – who ends up fighting the entire British army in Australian along with a few friends.

He also was a “Robin Hood” figure who robed banks and gave the funs to the poor Irish workers of the area.

While I am not sure about what happened in real life, the movie version shows a man who broke under the harsh culture injustices of the age. What injustices? Mainly the stark hierarchy between the wealthy British settlers and the Irish workers. [@more@]

In that vain, the movie does do a great job at exploring the mental shift that one takes as they run from the law. For example, at the beginning of the film, Ned Kelly and this “gang” were hesitant to kill anyone. Near the end – after being chased by the army for a while and robbing several banks – one of the members shoots an old friend who informed on the actions of the group.  As the character of Ned Kelly said at one time (my paraphrase), “Let us start acting like the outlaws they call us.”

In ending, I really enjoyed the film. It did a great job at looking at the motivations behind some of the world’s folk heroes and freedom fighters. The injustices are real and need to be looked at even if we don’t agree with the way they choose to fight back.

I guess that is why it is important for Church to stand up against injustices of all kinds….

I have been hearing about the film Australia for a while now – but I was unable to watch it until this week.

In a nutshell, it is a great flick.

It is a little long – so be ready to pause it for bathroom breaks. But it is well worth the time commitment.

For those who have not heard of the movie, Australia is about an upper-class British lady who goes to Australia to try to liquate some land holdings. Similar to life, things did not go as planned as her husband is murdered and War World 2 starts.

I will warn you that the film is really not an "epic romance film" – it is commonly billed. Yeah – there is a love story plot line in the movie…but it is secondary.

The REAL point of the movie is the little Aborigine boy who is telling the story. The movie is about him and the screwed-up culture ethnocentric idiots who tried to train the "black" out of the Aboriginal children. [@more@]

This dumb idea lead to the real life Australian Stolen Generation in which thousands of Aboriginal children where taken from their families and raised "white". The good old folks in the USA tried the same thing, only to fail crash and burn as well. Real genius.

The film Australia does a great job showing the value of race equality, family, love, loyalty, faith and knowing one's culture. On the negative side, the film did spend a lot of time highlighting the Aboriginal folk religion (which the movie refers to as "magic").

All and all, I really enjoyed the movie as it is not often I get to see a romantic culture enhancing and eye open movie at the same time.