by Dean | Apr 27, 2014 | General
During surgery for a ruptured appendix, young Colton Burpo reportedly had a near-death experience. He maintains that he went to Heaven and, according to his preacher father Tod, there are things that strongly corroborate the report. And even confirm it: e.g., Colton’s claim that he met the sister his mother sadly miscarried years ago when the boy’s parents had never mentioned to him the miscarriage. What the Burpos encountered has been translated to the movie screen, though first it was a book, in Randall Wallace’s Heaven Is For Real (2014), and whether the story is true or not I have no idea. Neither do I much care.
What matters is that the film is a lively and very charitable achievement which is wholly on the side of Jesus Christ and yet resistant to various kinds of Christian teaching. For example, there is no bona fide “prosperity” message here. Tod Burpo (Greg Kinnear) and his wife Sonja (Kelly Reilly) are born-again believers, with two children, who continually suffer financial problems despite Tod’s job as a pastor and sundry other occupations. Additional difficulties come along as well.
Example #2 is that the film seems to prefer universalism to the traditional concept of the damnation of the majority. Hell is not quite for real in Heaven Is For Real, even though the real-life Colton has apparently said that only people who believe in Jesus are in Heaven. I agree with that, but also hold that ALL people will believe in Jesus in the distant future, which accounts for everything from Jeremiah 3:17 to John 12:32.
To me this is refreshing stuff and Wallace’s film is recommendable, but in its second half it disappoints. It becomes confused and confusing. Still . . . wonderfully honest and persuasive are the financial-struggle scenes. And the picture can be genuinely moving. In addition, it is willing to show Christian Sonja getting sexy-seductive with her husband. Reilly is sapid and energetic in her part, but even more convincing and natural is Kinnear.
by Dean | Apr 22, 2014 | General, Movies
Llewyn and Ulysses (Photo credit: vapour trail)
It is a little hard to see the girl played by Carey Mulligan in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) as a slut, as she presumably is, but easy to believe she herself has a point in considering Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) a “loser.” A merchant mariner struggling to become a professional folk singer in 1961, Llewyn has very little money, is possibly the father of Mulligan’s soon-to-be-aborted child, constantly lets other people down and is in turn let down by other people, and even receives an absurd beating by a mysterious stranger.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s film is a black comedy—too black. Undeniably amusing, it is also rather specious. As is well known by many, to deny the light is as much a lie as to deny the dark, and here the Coens deny the light. All they care to offer us is pessimism and (usually so-so) music, which makes for an undistinguished film—or would if it weren’t for the reasonably well-written script. For the Coens have penned an integrated story less contrived than that of their No Country for Old Men. Good going, guys, but . . .
it sure isn’t perfect.
Other assets are here, too, and in truth Inside Llewyn Davis is a modest success.
by Dean | Apr 17, 2014 | General
I suppose children over the years have enjoyed the animated Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) but I, an adult, grew tired of it.
The moral story is not that bad, but midway the disaster action gets too hokey, in my view, for grownups—something a big-screen animator really ought to avoid. Its unexpected raciness hardly matters; Cowboy Bebop: The Movie it ain’t.
It’s rather fun watching Sinbad, voiced by Brad Pitt, sparring with Miranda, voiced by Catherine Zeta-Jones, as though the two were in a 1930s screwball comedy. Mark Steyn of the British Spectator (formerly) is right, though: there are too many Wonder Women in today’s action movies. That’s what Miranda is. Why isn’t Sinbad the hero of this thing?
Cover via Amazon
by DaveStuff | Apr 15, 2014 | General, Internet Relationships
Well the Hipster (me yeah whatever) – I got married. Holy matrimony…. Marital bliss and all that! Hey I found a great girl that sees the best in me and takes me for what I am. – A knucklehead.
—Really tho…She’s awesome —!!
I just couldn’t do any better. I don’t know about destiny, predestination or God’s true plan for us humans according to the laws of the Great Universal Spirit…But I got a good feeling about this one. She is a jewel to be treasured…. That’s why I put a ring on her finger…Ya know?
Lucy and I….We got this! (more…)
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!
