Posts Tagged ‘Movies’

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Review: The Great Gatsby’s Social Commentary

05/19/2013

I have been looking forward to seeing the modern film adaptation of one of my favorite books from high school. I saw “The Great Gatsby” last night and it was good but not great.

In case you don’t know, this is the story of a man so desperately in love with a socialite that he becomes wealthy beyond imagination to lure her back after a five-year separation. It was a five-year period wherein she married a fabulously wealthy man–who is a philanderer–and has a little girl who is ignored while her mother lives the decadent life of the idle rich in the early 1920s in New York.

She is not unlike the celebrities who live in fantasy worlds today. My question is, why would Gatsby want her? He has gone from rags to riches–not in the most honest way–and could have any woman he wanted. But he wants a classy woman whom every man would want. She legitimizes that he is now a gentleman, one of them.

Except he isn’t. He may be a gentleman but not from old money. He tries to pretend but real old money sees right through him.

The wealthy and foolish husband of socialite Daisy is Tom Buchanan who is from money but likes to party with the trashy wife of a local mechanic. With his own wife, he is the polo player who thinks he is better than others; with his mistress he can be what he accuses Gatsby of being. Gatsby, however, tries to be elegant all the time but is plagued by insecurities because he knows he really doesn’t belong. Money cannot buy class but, despite his ill-gotten riches, he actually has both.

The only one who recognizes this–and who cares–is Daisy’s well-educated but poor cousin, Nick, who is the narrator and Gatsby’s new friend.

He has the ability to fit in with the rich and the beautiful although he is neither. And maybe that is why he can relate to Gatsby, who pretends to be something he is not and strives for what is supposed to be beyond his reach.

Nick facilitates the reunion of Gatsby and Daisy, who loves Gatsby but not as much as he loves her. When the moment of truth comes, the disparity in their loves makes all the difference. Ultimately, it may be that Daisy doesn’t know how to love since what she cares about is her position and her lifestyle. She wants a fun, glamorous life and she does not want to make tough decisions.

She is not who Gatsby thinks she is and all his efforts–over-the-top parties, a grand mansion, his proximity to her across the water–are for naught.

The movie does a good job conveying Gatsby’s love, even obsession, with this unworthy woman, but it takes too long to get there. Too much time is spent showing the glittering parties and demonstrating the impact of Gatsby’s dilemma on Nick, who becomes rather obsessed with the hero of the story. Except there are no real heroes in this situation.

What makes this story captivating is not only the love affair but its relevance to today. We live in a world where people, especially the so-called beautiful people, embrace shallow decadence and don’t know what true love is. We are so used to it that we don’t see it for what it is, but, in seeing this movie, we can be critical of these purposeless, selfish people just like Nick is.

The movie, like the book, shows that the glitzy lifestyle that so many admire is not what it seems and is really not the path to happiness. In that regard, it is a film worth seeing.

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Posted in Culture | Leave a Comment »

Tragedy Should Not Be Exploited by Gun Grabbers

12/15/2012

When I first heard about the school shooting, I thought it was horrific. We must pray for the victims and the survivors. We must look into the causes as we always do when these things happen. This is twice in one week.

The easy–and wrong–response is to blame guns. Just recently a man in China attacked almost two dozen kids with a knife. There is less crime in states with right to carry laws. An armed citizenry can stop the occasional nut who starts shooting at innocent people.

If banning guns is not the answer, then we need to figure out what is. I previously had written about the culture, specifically violence as entertainment, as at least one cause of this kind of violence. We see movie after movie where violence is glamorized and is unrealistically portrayed. Human life is presented as highly disposable.

Young men–the usual suspects in any society for meaningless and angry violence–are raised on this visual violence and may be increasingly unable to separate fact from fiction. Between the movies and the video games that are so life-like, my thought is that these young teens and adults want to act out what they experience in the video games they have played maniacally for years.

It is like pornography. If you recall serial killer Ted Bundy, who repented before he was executed, he said he started looking at porn as a young man and it awakened something in him wherein he had to escalate. Unlike most people who view porn who are damaged by it but who do not become homicidal, he could not control his urges and murdered many innocent women.

I wonder if that is happening with these mass shootings. Instead of one by one killing like a serial killer does, the mass shooter is in effect living out the violent video games. Just like the rare person, perhaps a sex addict, who becomes a serial killer, it is the rare person, perhaps a gamer, who becomes a mass murderer.

We do not know what the case is here. This young man possibly had mental health issues which are generally not adequately treated in this country although the population is highly medicated. But blindly banning guns is not the answer. We could just as easily advocate banning violent video games. While that is a First Amendment issue, banning guns is a Second Amendment issue.

Most people can watch video games, even violent ones, and not commit crimes. Most people who own guns use them responsibly. Banning is not the answer.

Besides video games, this is a culture that puts no restraints on people. And, as Gov. Mike Huckabee correctly pointed out, it is a culture that has kicked God out of the classroom and the town square. And then some people have the nerve to blame God! God did not shoot anyone and we have told Him as a society we don’t want Him or His protection.

Besides not letting this crisis be used as an excuse to disarm the American people, we need to repent and turn to God and become a good society once again. These things did not happen when we were a moral culture.

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Posted in Culture, Politics, Religion | 1 Comment »

Review: “Won’t Back Down” Exposes Unions

09/30/2012

When I first saw the ads for “Won’t Back Down,” a new movie starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis about a mother and teacher who take over a failing school, I thought it would be a liberal, Lifetime-style movie. After all, Gyllenhaal is a lefty who tends to make dirty movies.

But I was wrong I am happy to say! I read a review that the movie is actually in favor of school choice, exposing the teachers unions for what they have become: protecting teachers, incompetent and otherwise, at the expense of children.

So I headed to Manhattan’s ultra-liberal Upper West Side to see the film yesterday and was delighted. Not only does the movie have a good message about children’s rights, it is actually very well done and entertaining.

(Source: rainbowcinemas.ca)

Gyllenhaal plays a trashy-dressed single mother with a dyslexic daughter. She tries to get her daughter out of a class with a teacher who does nothing but pass her kids along. Bound by union rules, she will not stay late to help tutor the child. Frustrated, Gyllenhaal tries unsuccessfully to transfer her child to Davis’ class. She is a teacher who still cares but is confronted by problems with her own child. Resistant at first, she joins forces with Gyllenhaal to take over the school and free it from the union.

The path is next to impossible as it is heavily in the union’s favor. The school board, like any good bureaucracy, does not want change to disrupt the status quo. The road to pro-child change is long, arduous and riddled with technicalities requiring a legal team.

The story, “inspired” by actual events, features no such dream team. Instead, an uneducated woman and a dedicated teacher take on the powerful teachers union and the government bureaucracy with hardly a chance of winning and at great personal cost. The ladies are maligned by the union, which admittedly lies to trick the parents into resisting the much-needed changes. Reminds me of the media’s coverage of the Romney campaign.

It is an emotionally satisfying film that shows what people can do if we put our minds to it. The forces against us to discourage us from trying to do what is right can be defeated. We need to remember that lesson as we support positive agents of change like the Tea Party and innovators like Gov. Scott Walker, who has been unafraid to take on unions.

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Don’t Blame Guns! Blame Hollywood!

07/21/2012

When I woke up Friday morning and saw the tragic and shocking news about the movie theater shooting, one of my first thoughts was that liberals would use this–as they do all such shootings–as a justification for renewed calls for gun control.

(Well, this is one way to bury the fast and the furious scandal–about guns and government. Not that it was getting much media coverage per my previous post.)

Anyway, one person allegedly re-enacted a violent scene inspired by Batman and similar movies.

I don’t see this as being about guns. In fact, it is about an overload of our senses with disturbing images.

While the vast majority will never become unhinged enough to shoot up a theater filled with innocent people, violent and sexual images with which we are constantly bombarded have an effect on us as individuals and as a society.

(Source: beyondhollywood.com)

The media give us wrong ideas about crime and violence. I have read that back in the day one could never get away with a crime on TV. I have watched enough Alfred Hitchcock re-runs from the 1950s to know that is true. The bad guy always got caught. Today many times the bad guy does not get caught and lives out the dreams we have been taught to want. In fact, good people doing bad things for supposedly good reasons is a common theme today. Getting away with it is a goal and it’s only wrong if one gets caught is a typical mindset.

And it is not just violence but sex. Somehow I don’t think aberrant sexual behavior such as threesomes was all that mainstream until glamorized by Hollywood. People see and they imitate. They think it is normal if everyone else is doing it.

But not everyone else is or was doing it. Media convinces us that the images are mainstream when it is simply not the case.

I just read about a study where girls as young as six years old see themselves as sexual objects. And teens are more likely to have sex based on what they see depicted in the movies according to another study.

In fact, the teens wanted to re-enact sexy scenes. No one wants to re-enact the results of reckless sex: taking penicillin for STDs, feeling crushed after one’s significant other uses then dumps them, facing an unexpected pregnancy.

Just as seeing sex on the screen can impact us, surely images of violence, with no repercussions, have the same effect. We see people get slaughtered in big budget films and cheer. But each person is a human being made in the image and likeness of God and should not be considered disposable.

But then again we are a society filled with narcissistic and selfish people who abort unplanned babies and hurry to off grandma when she is hanging on too long. We don’t value people the way we should.

And yet when one lone nut slaughters the innocent, we are shocked and scandalized. Perhaps we should examine what we tolerate and encourage as a society and we should be more mindful of the media we consume that impacts our very souls to our detriment.

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Posted in Culture, Politics | 4 Comments »

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

06/23/2012

I was pleasantly surprised in a depressed way coming out of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which is an uplifting end-of-times comedy. Sort of.

Starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley as an unlikely couple brought together by the Apocalypse, Seeking a Friend tells the story of what people–specifically New Yorkers–do as the end of the world approaches.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. But not Steve Carell’s Dodge. He is an insurance guy who regrets his life and his recently departed wife. She departed with her lover. Why stay in an unhappy marriage if there is only three weeks to live?

Doing the right thing goes out the window in the movie as people riot, have mindless sex and do whatever they feel like. No future, no accountability.

The sad thing is people probably would do this–for the most part–instead of doing what they should–repenting.

(Source: comingsoon.net)

While some characters talk about finding God, the behavior of most in the film belies the search. The main characters are not as debauched but they do some of the foolish things that the film depicts. Just one big orgy. Kind of like San Francisco anytime.

While the movie shows its heroes as struggling with the concept of facing death and finding love, it does not address spirituality. It is sad to think that people would despair–many commit suicide–when they should really be finding God, getting reacquainted with Him, and making amends for their sins.

I know if I were in that situation I would go to church and atone for my sins. I go to church anyway, but I would really make an extra effort. The last thing I would do would be to hook up with strangers and shoot up heroin. Yes, they do that in the movie.

So I give the movie credit for being somewhat realistic and maybe that is why it was depressing–people not seeing  the end as an opportunity to prepare to meet God. It was not so much depressing because it is a depressing topic but because of the faithlessness of mankind.

I think we all have to be mindful that life is a temporary gift from God and that the friend we should be seeking–all our lives as well as the end–is God Himself.

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“The Perfect Family” According to Hollywood

05/06/2012

If you want proof that Hollywood hates traditional families and values, look no further than “The Perfect Family.” This movie has an all-star cast led by has-been Kathleen Turner. She plays a Catholic super-mom who helps at her church and is up for Catholic Woman of the Year. As a joke, Richard Chamberlain, another has-been actor and open homosexual, plays her priest. You will recall he was the sexually active priest in “The Thorn Birds” a generation ago. Anti-Catholicism has indeed been a staple of the elites for a long time.

Mom is desperate to win the award which promises absolution for all her past sins. Hollywood really doesn’t understand Catholicism, which they see as hocus-pocus. They could not be further from the truth but they revel in their ignorance which they trumpet on movie screens from coast to coast.

While this movie is not in wide circulation, it is one that has been warmly received by critics and has a big name cast. If you replace the characters described below with homosexuals or Muslims behaving badly, there would be no critical acclaim or celebrity participation. Funny how that happens.

Image Detail

(Source: RottenTomatoes.com)

So I have kept you in suspense long enough. What makes this movie anti-Catholic and reprehensible?

  • Mom is old-fashioned in her thinking (practicing Catholic) and in fact admits to not thinking. How could a thinking person believe in Catholicism? That is what Hollywood believes. So imagine them making a movie that portrays Muslims negatively. They value their botoxed heads too much.
  • Her husband is an alcoholic.
  • Her daughter is  a pregnant lesbian who plans to get married to her partner.
  • Her son dumped his wife and family to commit adultery with a Protestant woman.

This resembles a typical Hollywood family minus the practicing Catholic mother. But to mock her, she needs to represent what the elites believe a traditional Catholic to be: ignorant and intolerant.

The movie is said to be about tolerance, but as the Catholic League points out, the tolerance is of deviancy, not of traditional Catholic values. Mom needs to get with the program and see that her family is right and she is wrong.

I ask again, would Hollywood leftists makes a movie that showed homosexuals in a bad light, as fools who need to change their ways? Or would a traditional Muslim mother be shown as stupid while her lesbian daughter, drunk husband and cheating son are shown as enlightened?

I am sure you can see that film being made and shown in theaters. Yes, very possible in our modern world.

So, it goes without saying that I will not see this movie. I read enough reviews to make me sick. Hollywood being Hollywood means we need to avoid rewarding them for insulting us. But this kind of film does shed light on what we who claim the culture is a cesspool have been saying. Normal people will recognize this for what it is and will hopefully open their eyes.

We have lost the culture and this is a reminder. We need to live good lives and do our part to get the culture back.

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Christianity Under Attack During Lent–As Usual

03/26/2012

When I was a child, attacks on Christianity were uncommon. Now they are mainstream. And worse the attacks are intensified during Lent.

Just observing the media more than halfway through Lent, I have noticed a lot of anti-Christian sentiment.

For example, GCB on ABC is Desperate Housewives-style sex with an overlay of mockery of Christians. Recall GCB is short for Good Christian Bitches. I previously commented on this obnoxious television program that focuses on Christian hypocrites. We never see TV shows about Muslim hypocrites or gay hypocrites.

And I unfortunately saw 21 Jump Street, a beloved TV show turned into a movie. It was not that bad by Hollywood standards except there was unnecessary mockery of Christian symbols, most notably Jesus on the Cross. Like many movies today, it featured a central character who doesn’t seem to know anything about God and religion. He says a prayer to “Korean Jesus” which is an Asian-looking Jesus on a cross. He tells Jesus, while cursing in a church, that he does not know if God exists.

Meanwhile, the abandoned church is the movie’s headquarters and the police chief curses up a storm. There are also numerous vulgar and sexual statements that are disrespectful to say in a church (or anywhere, but especially in a church). Imagine a film showing such activity in a mosque?

Not to be outdone, I noted the preview for the filthy American Pie which was shown before this movie. While there was nothing that appeared to be a direct attack on Christianity, it is opening on Good Friday. How disrespectful indeed to have a movie that glorifies masturbation opening on such a sacred day.

And I saw a billboard for a new Lifetime TV show called The Client List in which the star Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays a hooker, is sitting in her black, breast-baring underwear. When is this gem debuting? You guessed it–Easter Sunday.

How appropriate!

(Source: HollywoodPhotoShop.com)

It is not just TV and films that are offensive. I was unable to bring myself to buy the New York Post a couple of times last week because of the irreverent headlines surrounding Tim Tebow, an out-of-the-closet Christian.

If he were gay or a gangbanger, he would not get so much attention!

He is a virgin who puts God first and so he is an oddity, leading to inappropriate and irreverent headlines in a newspaper that I normally like. Instead of “Got him?” the headline was “God Him” which is silly. And then Sunday featured a headline about the Passion of Tebow. He was shown with his arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross.

If you think I am being hypercritical, note that a lot of effort goes into the headlines and the cover.

And recall that Muslims riot over even innocuous portrayals of Mohammad. So mainstream publications don’t depict him. But Tebow is shown as Jesus which is of course irreligious.

I am a Catholic and I found this so offensive that I passed on buying the paper. And if I had known about 21 Jump Street, I would not have gone.

We need to be mindful of the elites’ disdain for our faith and fight back–don’t support that which attacks us and worse our God. Especially during the holiest time of the year.

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Posted in Culture, Religion | 3 Comments »

Sick Society: Daniel Radcliffe

01/16/2012

I am so sick of celebrities sharing their thoughts. Honestly, we all know they are idiots for the most part. The more stupid one is, the more likely one shares thoughts on politics or religion that are antithetical to what most Americans believe.

Think Brad Pitt and his history of inane comments about God and religion. While he was not given brains, he was given looks and he should be grateful for that and for an easy life. He turned his back on his parents’ Christian faith. And on God. Irresponsible considering he is helping Angelina Jolie raise six children, who have the right to know the truth.

There is also Cameron Diaz, who publicly disdains marriage and glorifies sex. Perhaps she could get the former if she were not so loose in providing the latter. She should return to her modeling roots and keep her mouth shut and look pretty. Or as pretty as she can be at her age. She’s not 20 anymore, but then again neither is Pitt.

Could it be aging that loosens the tongue to speak foolishly? Perhaps among the aging movie star set.

But being foolish is especially the province of the young and that includes young actors. Which brings me to Daniel Radcliffe.

(Source: deadline.com)

Yes, I was reading about Harry Potter in Parade last week and he made the following statement:

There was never [religious] faith in the house. I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish….My dad believes in God, I think. I’m not sure if my mom does. I don’t. I have a problem with religion….Religion leaves no room for human complexity.”

Spoken like a true 22-year-old know-it-all!

On the one hand, he is not entirely to blame. A big danger in mixed marriages–his dad is Protestant and his mother is Jewish–is that the children get no faith. That much he confirmed. Shame on them for not caring to share their faith.

On the other hand, he is a typical snotnose actor who wants to gain acceptance in Hollywood. Other than being a homosexual, the best way to be “in” in Hollywood is to be an atheist–or at least questioning. Since he is not gay, he has limited options.

It is so obnoxious that he would share his idiotic thoughts in this cavalier way. It is one thing to be an atheist; it is another to offend the majority who constitute the audience. 

Religion leaves no room for human complexity? Really? What complexity do actors have? What does that sentence even mean? I suspect he does not know how stupid he sounds. Among his friends he is probably considered smart. Which should make us very careful when we watch their movies.

I am annoyed but I wish to be a good Christian. I encourage everyone to pray for these people. While they seem to have it all–fame, fortune, talent (theoretically talent)–they really can be empty inside. And maybe that is why they have issues with God. They are to be pitied for sure. And they need to be open to truth for their own sake.

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Posted in Culture, Politics, Religion | Leave a Comment »

Halloween Whores: Symptom of American Disease

10/29/2011

When I was a child, Halloween was just a fun holiday for kids who got to dress up and get candy. What more could a kid want? It has since evolved to the pathetic state it is in today where the adults and teens seem to have more fascination with it than even kids.

Why? They get to dress up as whores and no one can judge them, as Lindsay Lohan’s character said in Mean Girls several years back.

That is true but the reality is people, especially ladies, dress like sluts year-round so how is Halloween any different? Well, perhaps for the non-Jersey Shore aficionados among us it really is an opportunity to show how low we can go.

Middle class, working people (the two are no longer synonymous thanks to our outsourced economy) actually do have to appear somewhat respectable. But not on Halloween. And while parents claim it is for the children, it is only to some degree since Americans seem to want to be their kids and not grow up.

(Source: ThisNext.com)

No wonder our children are so screwed up!

I saw on Dr. Phil the other day a new problem called “Peter Pan Moms” –which I had heard about under a different name –who are women who dress like, imitate and try to be as cool as their teenage daughters. The woman being interviewed defended herself against her upset daughter by saying she married young and had to sacrifice. Now she was making up for lost time.

Therein lies the problem. When the moment has passed, it is over. People in our increasingly self-centered country don’t want to accept that life has certain obligations at certain times. To live well, and by well I mean morally, one must accept one’s station in life (as it used to be called). That means when one becomes a mother, one puts her youthful pursuits behind her. Her goal must be to put her child’s needs first.

That is how it always worked and unfortunately this disconnect between how people act and how they should behave is only one indicator as to why America is headed for decline.

And it is so widespread that people don’t seem to realize it. People think nowadays that they are good parents if their kids have sex in the home and don’t get pregnant before they graduate college.

Not good parenting. Not good living. One generation has to put the needs of the next ahead of its own or America cannot work. It is not working, is it? Literally and figuratively.

So Halloween cannot be an excuse for parents to go back in time and pretend they are not responsible adults. However, if they did it for just one day, it would be tolerable. Unfortunately, the Halloween mindset seems to be the new normal.

Time to grow up, Peter Pans of America–we are losing our country and culture and our children.

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Posted in Culture | 1 Comment »

Movie Review: “The Mighty Macs”

10/23/2011

I had heard through religious circles about an independent movie, “The Mighty Macs.” It is supposed to be a true story involving religion and sports.

I decided to go and see it and was touched and delighted. It is an uplifting story and what is so wonderful about it is that religious people are portrayed in a positive way.

After a generation of Hollywood portrayals of priests as predators and nuns as sadistic taskmasters, here is a movie which is set at a Catholic all-girls college that is on the verge of closing in 1971. The story concerns a former high school basketball player who takes the job as a college basketball coach–with no experience and no funding.

She is happily married but wants to coach while her husband is traveling the country as an NBA referee.

She gives her all–despite not having a proper place to practice or even modern uniforms–and transforms poor, struggling yet talented girls into a dominant team. They initially struggled but overcame as they learned teamwork and trust.

(Source: oneddl.com)

Once they start to work as a unit, nothing seems able to stop this ragtag group and their coach. Helping them is a novice who is struggling with her vocation and a Mother Superior who wants to assist but who has to worry about saving the school.

The nuns are showed as devout and human–in a good way. They clearly love God first. They also want to serve their fellow man and in particular the girls whom they educate and prepare for a changing world.

The world may change but God’s truth doesn’t.

Despite having heart and a belief in their abilities, it is not clear that the little team that could would in fact triumph over the better funded, more sophisticated teams against which they were competing in the national tournament.

Besides the excitement of the sports, what is moving about this movie is that religious people are positively portrayed. And accurately. One can just imagine the nuns praying the Rosary to support their girls in the David versus Goliath match-ups.

I recommend that you seek the film out and support moral films like this. Hollywood might get the message and produce something other than the sewage they have been making for years.

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Posted in Culture, Religion | 1 Comment »

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