by Dean | Apr 13, 2014 | General, Movies
Standing Proud |Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review (Photo credit: BagoGames)
The noise made over drones and the NSA may well be fatuous,* but Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) projects these things into the future to do its scrutinizing, if that’s what it is, of What Could Come About (beware). In light of this and the powerful action, the pic is a no-b.s. concoction (though not without humor). Highlights include a slick, smashingly fine auto chase and a tense bait-and-switch followed by gunfire within a government building.
Robert Redford is in the film, playing an intelligence director, a glorifier of security over freedom. Subtly commanding, he is still a remarkable actor—unlike Chris Evans, who is just okay as Capt. America. Scarlett Johansson, on the other hand, is inspired enough to make Natasha/Black Widow (who?) more or less interesting. Winter Soldier has two film editors and two directors, which was perhaps requisite for its technical perfection.
*Or maybe it isn’t.
by Dean | Apr 6, 2014 | General, Movies
Presumably the makers of the 2013 crime thriller Bullet to the Head hoped to fashion something as entertaining as 24—a TV series which is flawed, exciting, good. Unfortunately, the movie they cranked out is flawed, exciting, bad, without any of the elements that immediately save 24.
Sylvester Stallone is an arrogant actor here and is miscast as a hired killer. He and his fellow hit man do their snuffing out, but are set up by the villains who hired them; and the reason for the set up is as dumb as everything else in the film. Why does the double crosser try to kill Stallone and his partner with a knife instead of a gun? Later on, Stallone grudgingly teams up with an Asian-American cop (Sung Kang) to root out Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaje’s international thug (Stallone’s betrayer). But the film has the chutzpah to make Akinnoye-Agbaje a complete idiot—not much of a match for the hit man and the cop. Why, for example, does the thug allow a muscular baddie played by Jason Momoa to become a loose cannon?
Bullet is based on a graphic novel, which is often asking for trouble. Yes, it is exciting . . . and raw . . . but it ain’t TV. NOT EVEN THAT!
by Dean | Apr 4, 2014 | General, Movies
Cropped screenshot of Charles Laughton from the trailer for the film Mutiny on the Bounty. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’ve never read Mutiny on the Bounty, but the ’35 film version, for all the sappy-silly Tahiti material, seems a well-made and even felt adaptation.
Captain Bligh is an expert seaman but also a mean fool, wanting only to impose his ruthless will. Charles Laughton plays him with astonishing aplomb, frighteningly. . . Second in command Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) simply refuses to have men at Bligh’s mercy any longer, uncondonable though some of the Bounty’s sailors find the mutiny. Incontestable here is an urgent need for the liberalization of the English navy, with the navy itself seen as utterly honorable and necessary by the filmmakers. It becomes almost palpable that the film is liberal—though certifiably separate from today’s liberalism—because it is conservative. It wants what is best for a timeless institution.
A great deal goes on in Mutiny on the Bounty, which is two hours and ten minutes long. Frank Lloyd directed with a fine sense of seafaring adventure and of grandeur. It is, I think, a masterpiece.
- Mutiny on the Bounty (calmaritimelibrary.wordpress.com)
- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) (movierob.wordpress.com)
by DaveStuff | Apr 1, 2014 | Apologetics
English: A picture of a modern day hipster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I saw a blogger post a Hipster Christianity quiz on Facebook. What did I do?
Well, you KNOW I had to go ahead and take the quiz. — Do I qualify?
NO….
What? Thats right folks….It told me I was only moderately hip or something. Can you believe those freakin guys? They said no….. Oh my…
As I was reading the questions I was tempted to take it again. I think I know now what the right answers would be to qualify me as a hipster, uh. religious dude. Yeah…Thats me 🙂 Well…. Maybe..
That blog is really nice over there. I tried to subscribe but it doesn’t seem to work. I know he’s at the top of Google for his term. I’m guessing the blog is to promote his book.
Hey man, if you stumble by this post you should get your feed working. I’d follow it. But then maybe a hipster is not so much into the “social networking” kinda thing.
Wait? He’s on Facebook too! (more…)
by Dean | Apr 1, 2014 | General
Cover of Monsieur Vincent
The year is 1617, and a new priest, Vincent de Paul, arrives in a French town which has had no priest for a long time.
It shows. One of the themes of the 1947 biopic, Monsieur Vincent, is the demanding struggle of the clergyman to tame the unchurched, the brutish, the shallow. Father Vincent’s first stop in the little town is the filthy, abandoned local church, an enormous hovel with cobwebs. Many, not all, of the townspeople are dirt poor, and Vincent, formerly a priest in Paris, wishes to live with and help them. At first they are also sorely afraid of a nonexistent plague. The sequence in which Vincent holds a funeral service for a woman thought to have had the plague, while a crowd of reluctant people walks up and starts crossing themselves, points up a European Catholicism still perfectly imperishable, of course, in the seventeenth century. Director Maurice Cloche handles this scene, and all the other scenes, as he ought to have.
The best handling is by the playwright Jean Anouilh, who wrote the script, purveying such other themes as the question of what to devote one’s life to and the rich’s responsibility, if any, to the poor. With flair Pierre Fresnay enacts Vincent, and the good costumes make us wish the film was in color. All in all, a worthy motion picture.
by admin | Mar 28, 2014 | Money
Money cash (Photo credit: @Doug88888)
Is money they root of all evil? People have been saying that for years… So why do so many people want it? Why is money the root of what drives most people. There is never enough of what we thought we wanted.
Money…. MONEY….. MONEY
Yes folks…. People are obsessed.. How do I know this? –
- Check out the TV (advertisements)
- Check out your neighbors (keeping up with the Jones’s)
- Check out the stores (sale, SALE, bargains)
- Check out who you work for (we got to cut costs)
- Check out politics (need I say more?)
- Check out Dave (I need a raise)
Betcha could add to that list? (more…)
by Dean | Mar 25, 2014 | General
Fire and Blood (Game of Thrones) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Man—such an ill-fated creature.
His ill-fatedness is very much a theme in the HBO series, Game of Thrones, wherein one would expect quite a few of the major characters (not just Ned Stark and the primitive Big Boy married to Daenerys) to tragically die. It’s a terrible world they live in, a very arduous environment, sinful and pagan, natural and magical. There is a lot of surviving, though, and it must be said that the slender young queen, Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), really knows how to triumph as a warrior, as at the recherche end of the show’s first season.
Probably Season 3 is one of the finest “movies” of 2013. (Season 2, on the other hand, was often a lot of noise and meandering.) The drama has engrossing and colorful incidents, such as the dwarf Tyrion’s marriage to young Sansa and the mad battle with the bear, and heart and momentum. The acting is mostly solid: consider Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance (Daddy Lannister), Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark). The very pretty Natalie Dormer is also on hand, flavorful and capable of coyness.
I hope it’s not an ill-fated series.
(The photo is of Emilia Clarke.)
by admin | Mar 24, 2014 | God, Religion
Proposed new “unity and diversity” chaplain insignia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Islams, Jews, Christians. Do they all worship the same God? That’s what President Bush was saying. Of course you know this is America and we do have “freedom of religion”. Thank God for that!
I used to be rather dogmatic in my beliefs. Often trying to convert to my way of faith. Sometime I still do this. But is that necessarily a good thing to do?
Religious Observations
Here are some reason’s why I have reconsidered my religious thinking
Jesus never twisted arms
In fact he made it easy for people to walk away. He seemed to know who would accept him and who wouldn’t
Faith should not promote “fear”
A lot of religious leaders and evangelists tend to teach that if you don’t believe like we said…Then it means, well, eternal damnation. Uh… are you sure?
Words without Action
Many people are looking for something bigger. A certain faith can talk a good talk, but not walk the walk. The best evidence for a religious faith is change in the believers actions and behaviors.
Faith is Personal
Many aspects of life can sway the way a person may or may not believe. If a person is relatively happy in what they find “out there” who am I to say they are wrong… Eternally wrong? I do not know that persons entire story.
Image via Wikipedia
Religion Leads to sharp disagreement
Many people will not talk about politics or religion – period. Why? because the don’t want to go through the hassle of offending somebody or getting resentful themselves. Peace brother. God is love.
Do all Religions pray to the same God?
One of the fun things about believing is the “search” itself. Asking hard questions and “working out my own salvation”. I have found diversity in the faiths can be a strong motivator to learn more. And grow in my own faith.
Open mindedness does not have to be a bad thing. I believe God is infinite. He has a plan for ALL of it. Agape love is what the God of my understanding is all about.
That’s enough for me.
by Dean | Mar 23, 2014 | General, Movies
Cover of Top Hat
I’m no judge of choreography, but that involving Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in 1935’s Top Hat strikes me as palatable, not silly or clumsy or pretentious. More appealing are the Irving Berlin songs, all of which have decent melodies, one of which (“Cheek to Cheek”) has an outstanding one.
Directed by Mark Sandrich, Top Hat is a delicious musical comedy, as are other Astaire-and-Rogers musical comedies, and one which takes the comedy in its genre seriously, however trivial these nonstop jokes may be. No, they’re not Oscar Wilde but at least they’re funny. As for the actors, they form a rather remarkable comic ensemble, even the two dancing stars: beau-less Ginger, blurting out, “I HATE men!” holds her own. Always, of course, she held her own as a dancer, though with fewer sparks than Astaire, who has among other things the “damn-your-eyes violence of rhythm” (Otis Ferguson).
Top Hat was nominated for an Oscar for best interior decoration, but I’d rather see the damning-your-eyes. The interior decoration is dated now; Astaire’s dancing isn’t.
by Dean | Mar 17, 2014 | Money
The Blood of Jesus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Technically The Blood of Jesus (1941) is quite bad, and this includes the acting. An American indie film, it was directed by a black director-writer, Spencer Williams, and features an all-black cast in what is a sincerely, thoroughly Christian piece of work. Beyond the technical shortcomings, though, it offers not much more than theological fantasy, by which I mean its theology is usually dubious or even nonsensical. But not always.
A new convert, Martha Jackson (Cathryn Caviness), is accidentally shot by her feckless husband and undergoes what I take to be a near-death experience. Her spirit leaves her body and, in a transcendent world, she is persuaded by a henchman of the Devil to enjoy the pleasures of the juke-joint life she undoubtedly never knew when she was on earth. But the Devil has prostitution in mind for Martha, and of course she flees. She resists the temptation. Running to what is called the Crossroads in this supernatural sphere, she beholds an image of the crucifixion and is treated to the salvific blood of Jesus.
Okay, but why Martha would encounter such goings-on in the next world I have no idea. Being a Christian, she dies—or “dies”—in a state of grace, and yet the Devil is there to tempt her. Possibly we can see an implication here that the blood of Jesus Christ is to be applied to human beings for the whole of eternity, for the moral perfection of man can never, or will never, be dissociated from it. The movie’s appreciation for the salvific blood, in any case, is real and deep, and the scene where the blood starts dripping on the prostrate woman’s face has an impact. I sense that it’s one thing that does make the film worth watching.
There is also some enjoyable music and dancing in The Blood of Jesus. It’s a low-budget curio more interesting than good, and, yes, it is worth watching.
