MOVIES: "COURAGEOUS" (SHORT REVIEW)

You can search for my longer review AND review of the screening on my blog!


“Courageous” is the much-anticipated movie on fatherhood by the same people who gave us “Fireproof.” (“Fireproof” is the story of a fireman whose marriage is on the rocks, in part due to his internet porn use, and what happens from there. It was the #1 independent film of 2008. With its tie-in printed resource components like “The Love Dare Book,” the film impacted thousands of real life marriages.) “Courageous” was well worth the wait, and will doubtless do the same to strengthen fathers in their oh-so-vital vocation.

“Sherwood Pictures” (a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia) is behind these two great films. They are two of the most “Theology of the Body” films out there, and I’m sure Blessed John Paul II the Great is smiling on them from glory.
“Courageous” is about four policemen, their families, and what being a father means.

“Honor begins at home” is the film’s short, sweet and apt tagline. Cops are about serving, protecting, honoring, right? Guys are about serving, protecting, honoring, right? And there’s lots of wonderful and needed ways they do that outside the home, often for the sake of home, but there’s no place like home to do it. So many things pull men away from home: work, demanding work, overtime work, wars, travel, hobbies, volunteer/charitable work, even church work. So many men are tempted to measure their worth and success by the external benchmarks, accolades, promotions and achievements outside the home, but, really? A man’s home is his castle. Everyone’s first vocation is to love their families. Our greatest bragging rights should always be about our particular vocation to love, our particular way of loving (married, single, priesthood, religious life). When people ask us what we “do,” we should talk about our vocations, our families first, what we “are,” before what we “do.”

The stories, struggles, tragedies and joys in “Courageous” ring true, and the acting is superb. Sherwood Pictures also has a way with tense action scenes. There’s just enough about and for women in “Courageous” as well. Young single men leaving screenings of “Courageous” have written on their surveys that they never really thought seriously about fatherhood before, but now they are looking forward to being good fathers! Sherwood Pictures doesn’t call their films “message” films (a Hollywood no-no) but “take action” films. Hear, hear!

“Courageous” asks the question: “How do we do fatherhood? Who are our role models for it?” Here’s another possible tagline for “Courageous”: “Think fathers are important? So does ‘Courageous.’”

CHICAGO! WE'VE GOT FREE SCREENING PASSES!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 7PM, LOEWS THEATER 600 N. MICHIGAN AVE. PICK-UP PASSES (WHILE THEY LAST) AT PAULINE BOOKS & MEDIA 172 N. MICHIGAN AVE. CHICAGO 312-346-4228

http://www.theway-themovie.com/

THE WAY is a powerful and inspirational story about family, friends, and the challenges we face while navigating this ever changing and complicated world. Martin Sheen plays Tom, an irascible American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son (played by Emilio Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Rather than return home, Tom decides embark on the historical pilgrimage to honor his son's desire to finish the journey. What Tom doesn't plan on, is the profound impact the journey will have on him and his "California Bubble Life".

Inexperienced as a trekker, Tom soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey. On "The Way," Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world, each with their own "issues" and looking for greater meaning in their lives: a Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) a Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) and an Irish writer (James Nesbitt) who is suffering from a bout of "writer's block."

From the unexpected and oftentimes, amusing experiences along "The Way," this unlikely quartet of misfits create an everlasting bond and Tom begins to learn what it means to be a citizen of the world again. Through Tom's unresolved relationship with his son, he discovers the difference between "the life we live and the life we choose.”

Distributor: Producers Distribution Agency & Arc Entertainment

Written & Directed by: Emilio Estevez

Produced by: Emilio Estevez & David Alexanian

Cast: Martin Sheen, Yorick can Wageningen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt

"MACHINE GUN PREACHER" IS UNDER FIRE

Article in "Christianity Today":

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/septemberweb-only/machinegunpreacher.html

(My previous review--which I still stand behind as regards the movie itself and sometimes using violence to protect the defenseless: http://hellburns.blogspot.com/2011/09/movies-machine-gun-preacher.html ) Should the unsavory allegations prove to be true, and the movie prove to be more fictitious than true, well, then, it's just a shame all around. A well-done fictional tale, a tragedy in real life.

DVDS: "CATHOLICISM PROJECT"

MOVIE TRAILER: "THE WAY"

GREAT trailer for a GREAT movie! Go. See. It. (But not alone.)

MOVIE SCREENING: "THE WAY"

Got to meet Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez tonight at screening of their new movie: "The Way"! GO. SEE. IT. (About four people on the "Camino," in Spain, the ancient pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela.) This is their tour bus.

Opens October 7 in Chicago. I'm allowed to post my review October 1.

MOVIES: "MACHINE GUN PREACHER"

FOLKS, THE MOVIE IS WAAAAAY BETTER THAN THIS TRAILER.

THIS JUST IN (SEPTEMBER 27, 2011): VERACITY OF MGP QUESTIONED
IN "CHRISTIANITY TODAY" ARTICLE:
http://hellburns.blogspot.com/2011/09/machine-gun-preacher-is-under-fire.html

(I still stand by my review below as regards the movie as a movie. My question now is: what "methods" exactly did Childers employ--beyond what is depicted in the movie? Methods DO matter! The ends don't justify the means. And what do the South Sudanese have to say about his tactics? Although I'm sure they are divided on that and it will depend on whom you talk to. There is also the question of what is happening at his orphanage now.)

Sounds like a badass film, doesn’t it? Only the irresistible (and accurate) title is badass. Otherwise, this is a story about a badass guy (NOT portrayed as attractive or without consequences) who becomes a goodass and begins saving children in Sudan from becoming child-soldiers in the vicious LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army)—and worse.

Sam Childers (a thoroughly winning and Sam-Childers-approved Gerard Butler) was a violent drug dealer and biker in hillbilly Pennsylvania in his younger life. He got saved, became a Reverend and went to the Sudan to do volunteer construction work. But in Africa, he saw way more than he bargained for and wound up taking up arms to save children and innocent villagers from kidnapping, maiming, atrocities and slaughter.

As Sam gets more and more caught up in saving families in the Sudan, he starts to neglect his own family. His ever-supportive wife (Michelle Monaghan)—supportive in a tough Christian woman o’ God way; sometimes even more supportive of Sam’s mission than he is--reminds him that although he is “all those kids over there got,” he’s also “all we’ve got here.” Childers’ must deal with his outrage and anger that is consuming him both at home and in Sudan.

We are shown just enough of the grisly and cruel nature of the civil war in the Sudan to be incensed and horrified. “Machine Gun Preacher” is definitely not for the little ones. This action-packed, somewhat shoot-em-up (but NEVER gratuitous) film, all based on true incidents in Childers’ life, is a must-see of 2011. Will it garner any Oscar noms? It deserves to—but even if it doesn’t, audiences will certainly recognize its worth.

What really makes the movie is the way the depth of Sam Childers’ character is fleshed out. There’s a wonderful, slow transformation of Childer from an unconscionable, selfish brute, who then brings his gung-ho spirit to everything else he does for the Kingdom of God and others. His renewed relationship with his wife and daughter is beautifully dramatized by a tornado scene (Childers uses his ever-present gun to create a safe haven for them in the crawl space beneath their mobile home while he covers the opening with his body).

Childers’ role in the Sudan is not just some American DIY cowboy or do-gooder. He is a man with the call of a warrior on his spirit who feels deeply obligated to do something, to not let evil have its way, to rescue the helpless. It doesn’t hurt that he loves guns and is proficient with them, either. The Sudanese are also fully-developed characters, not just passive recipients of Childers’ gallant assistance. The children will steal your heart.

My question is: Why aren’t there more Sam Childers?

Sam’s organization: http://www.angelsofeastafrica.org/


OTHER STUFF:

--2011 is “The Year of the God Film.” The best films this year—IMHO—have been the God films: “Of Gods and Men,” “Soul Surfer,” “Tree of Life,” “Courageous,” “Machine Gun Preacher.”

--Well-written, well-acted, well-shot, well-edited!!!

--I remember at World Youth Day—Rome 2000, some Sudanese youth got up at the mic at our English-speaking catechetical site and told us they may get killed when they return home.

--The actress who played Childers’ daughter should have been younger or else the part was mis-written for a much younger child. (The going-to-bed games felt age-inappropriate.)

--I absolutely love the old, toupéed, whiter-than-white Protestant pastors on fire with the Word of God, and the starched old prim church ladies who can still love and reach out to the outlaws. And the outlaws respond. And there’s this weird understanding between them: polyester meets leather. The real deal meets the real deal.

--Unfortunately (or fortunately) I think it takes a good ole boy from the U. S. of A. inserted into a story for some of us to grasp what is going on in countries like the Sudan…to understand that they are people just like us. It brings it home. It makes it personal, comprehensible. Anyhoo, it’s very effective.

--GREAT LINE: “Jesus doesn’t want asleep sheep! He wants wolves with teeth who will rip out the heart of evil! It’s in our ACTIONS that we serve Our Lord. He wants your blood and sweat. ” –Gerard Butler as Sam Childers

--“Machine Gun Preacher” is a great THEOLOGY OF THE BODY movie for men.

--We really feel Sam’s pain and powerlessness when he is not able to help each and every child. He doesn’t want to lose even one.

--I love that Childers doesn’t try to move these children out of the Sudan to safety. He is protecting them right there in the midst of their own country.

--Sam said the hardest part of the movie for him to watch is the beginning, which shows what a not-nice person he used to be.

--Sam calls himself a “freedom fighter.” He says that he chooses to follow Christ and he would love for you too, also, but if you don’t, he’ll fight for your right to worship however you choose.

--Sam: “The Bible says to count the cost, but that’s only when we’re first setting out, deciding to serve Christ. After that, we can’t because then we’ll never do anything.” “Never start with a budget. Just do it.” “Some people say I’m not doing much, but at least I’m doing something.” “I never give up hope because there are always problems in life, and all we have to do it TRY to do something.”

--I met Sam Childers at the screening (Gerard Butler and Jason Keller, the screenwriter were also present for the Q & A)! You’d think Sam would be frustrated with all us basically lethargic and apathetic fatcats back in the USA. He’s not. He loves everyone.

Here’s the email I sent him:

“Dear Sam,

Great to meet you last night, and what an awesome film! 5 stars.

But above all, thank you for saving all those children.

All my life I've been about non-violent action, but for the first time, you've really helped me see that sometimes defensive, protective, retaliatory violence is one of the only ways to go. I mean, how else could those children (and innocent villagers) be protected? How else could that kind of evil be pushed back? Kony is worse than Hitler in some ways. Hitler didn't think of having little Jewish children kill their parents.

We all say: "Why doesn't someone do something?" (OK, what?) And then when someone does something we complain. From our armchairs. Like the Sudanese gentleman said at the screening--when you live in a war zone, it's about survival.

You asked at the end of your film: "Does it matter how I bring home your kidnapped family members?" Yes, I think it does. BUT perhaps what you're doing is the only thing that CAN be done, and is therefore ethical. And, if you subscribe to the "just war theory," what could be more just than this cause???

You are standing up and saying: "No." You are doing what Adam did not do in the Garden: protecting the garden and Eve (and his future children) from Satan and evil. Sometimes spiritual warfare has to manifest itself in physical warfare (especially when enemies have determined that’s the arena). "Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle." Psalm 144:1

I'm beginning to believe (as my macho priest friend says ) that there is a vocation/call to be a warrior (for just causes). I LOVE Joan of Arc, but I don't understand her or her calling. I think you've helped me to. And I love your "Ishmael" spirit, and you DO look like a pastor. But what you really have is a "father" spirit. We have to help men (starting young) acknowledge and unleash their "father" spirit.

God love you--I know He already does. A lot!

Sr. Helena Burns, fsp”

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY STUDY GROUP

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY – FR. THOMAS LOYA – SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

“LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY” by Karol Wojtyla

[intrusive comments by Sr. Helena in brackets]

p. 174—“The Metaphysics of Shame”—We want to grasp at things we love, at things that promise us satisfaction, etc. We want them immediately. It’s only natural because we are made in the image of God and we tend toward God. The highest understanding of the concept of “eros” is our striving for God Himself.

Although masculinity and femininity are found outside of human persons, it is not in any way as highly “developed” as it is in human persons.

Q: Can we even SAY that animals have “masculinity and femininity” or only maleness and femaleness?

There is one fundamental reality of all reality: the spousal mystery—God going out of Himself to all Creation.

So many faithful Catholics can’t bear to think/speak of God or divine things in terms of SPOUSALITY. [We are DEEPLY, DEEPLY CONVINCED THAT SEX IS DIRTY, UNHOLY AND WE’RE SO USED TO THE TWO THINGS BEING SEPARATED IN OUR CULTURE. Satan divides. Satan has convinced us that sex is HIS. Why wouldn’t he confuse us about the MOST important thing of all? Why wouldn’t he appropriate to himself the MOST vital thing of all?]

Abstract art, rock music, etc., is minimalizing/reducing everything down to its raw materials and treating those raw materials as though they were the thing itself, the end/goal/ultimate. [There’s nothing more.]

A “contraceptive mentality” is actually a “contraceptive worldview” about EVERYTHING.

p. 88 BJP2G explains “sympathy”—“experiencing together,” mutuality

“friendship”—sharing life together

“goodwill”—(we should do this to everyone and for everyone) couples need to always treat each other this way—it’s a basic level. IF WE DO WHAT’S BEST FOR THE OTHER, IT’S ALWAYS THE BEST FOR ME, TOO. Is this one-sided? What if the other person isn’t doing what’s best for me? It doesn’t mean that you’re a victim, because letting someone abuse you IS NOT GOOD FOR THE OTHER PERSON! Enabling others in their bad habits, evil behavior, etc., is never a good thing. [So, it’s kind of foolproof: If you are truly doing what’s good for the other person, you are helping them become a better person, which MEANS FOR THEM TO PRACTICE GOODWILL TOWARD YOU ALSO.]

THE SEVEN STAGES OF TRUE LOVE

1. Attraction
2. Desire
3. Sympathy
4. Friendship
5. Goodwill
6. True Love
7. Betrothed Love

“Betrothed love”—is totally integrated love (body and soul). It is the highest form of love. It is the highest virtue, lived according to the primary elements of the human spirit: freedom and truth.

[Cohabitating couples STILL NEED to CONSUMMATE their MARRIAGE once they get married!! (No matter how much sex they’ve already had.) It IS new for them. It is ontologically different. This is a way to put it in a positive light!]

Living together is NOT a total gift. [I think those living together would be the first to admit this, also.] Living together is often out of fear of wanting to forecast the future. There is no way to “try” marriage. [No test drive! You “buy the car” sight unseen.] Young people actually think they are being responsible by “trying” marriage, because we have given them nothing else, no religious instruction on this issue at all.

[There are now “stayovers”—just living together 3 or 4 days a week because the “couple” still wants their solitude, their own apartments, bank accounts, “separate life,” and are not necessarily heading toward living together or marriage at all.]

In the media, the steamiest, most enjoyable sex scenes are almost always between non-married people. We have to make MARRIAGE attractive and desirable (as it is)—it’s just not easy!!!

Women accept all this stuff more than men because they know they will benefit the most!!! Unless they have bought the lie that to benefit the most they must be like a man. OR take care of themselves without any reference to any man. But both men and women are interdependent.

Why did Satan go for woman? Our receptivity, our centrality to love and life. [And our lust for male power. “Eve saw that the fruit was beautiful and good for knowledge.”]

Satan inseminated Eve with bad seed.

SHAME can actually be a positive thing because is protects what is most precious.

p. 175—BJP2G talks about cultures that go about almost naked (but have no shame about it). But they would have shame in other contexts regarding their bodies. European cultures have come in to these cultures and told them they were bad to show their bodies, to put on more clothes, which caused a whole new set of problems.

Our culture today could never go around naked because we are so lustful (not because our BODIES THEMSELVES are actually bad)! We do not encounter sexual shame in children because their minds have not grasped sexual values yet. They develop (healthy) sexual shame as part of their developing personality. They realize these body parts are special, they watch how people react, they are taught to protect themselves.

p. 176 Women need to realize that men are hard-wired to visual sensuality. Women are more hard-wired to emotionality.

HOW DOES BJP2G know MORE about sexuality than those who are sexually active? Because sex is of God and he was a man of God. AND a mystic. AND he counseled young married couples (his students/friends)! AND he had a body. AND an imagination. AND he was an actor, a poet, a writer. He was immersed in life, in the human drama. [There’s a great saying: “I am human, and nothing human is truly foreign to me.” Humans have the great ability of vicariousness.]

p. 177 “THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY IN A WOMAN REQUIRES SOME INSIGHT INTO MALE PSYCHOLOGY.” --BJP2G We’re different.

Fr. David Knight—for women to dress provocatively is like a reverse rape. You entered into his psyche uninvited and now he has to deal with it.

[Men could tell women: “help us (help you).” OR women could insist on dressing any way they want (and be unfair to men and tempt men to abuse them or worse). A man can NEVER excuse himself that he was provoked if he abuses a woman, but women are playing a dangerous game, putting themselves in danger if they DO provoke.]

[ “SURE, YOU CAN DRESS ANY WAY YOU WANT, BUT YOU SHOULDN’T.” –This was said by a French man to a sweatsuited American woman on the streets of Paris. The French ALWAYS dress up when they go out. The men for the women and the women for the men. It’s like a courtesy.]

“The future of civilization depends on what he will be for her, and what she will be for him.”
--BJP2G

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MOVIES: "THE DEBT"

“The Debt” is a Nazi-hunter caper. It isn’t getting consistently rave reviews, but I thought it was a quite engaging and worthy vehicle. Just when you think you know what the ending will be, you really, really don’t. Trust me. And the ending takes many twists and turns. You will simply never guess the end, or even really know when you’re at the end. A definite “keep you guessing” movie.

The acting is beyond superb: Rachel (Helen Mirren/Jessica Chastain), Stephan (Tom Wilkinson/Marton Csokas) and David (Ciaran Hinds/Sam Worthington) are Mossad (Israeli) operatives who, in 1965, are on a mission to capture infamous Nazi experimental doctor-butcher, Dr. Vogel, “the surgeon of Birkenau,” (Jesper Christensen) who is a practicing OB/GYN in East Germany. Guess which one of the three gets to pose as a patient? Yeah, it’s that tense. Their plan is to take him back to Israel to stand trial and expose his crimes to the world.

We flash back and forth between the now-aged heroes in 1997 (Rachel’s daughter has written a book about her mother’s exploits) and what actually happened. It’s not all as simple as it first appears. Great storytelling! There are secrets seeded all along the way. Plans don’t go as planned.

We were taught at UCLA that a love story in war trumps all other stories (and did WWII ever really end for the Jews?), and that one woman between two men is the best love story. “The Debt” has all this.

The character of the Nazi monster is truly chilling in his calm, (ir)rational, clinical, evil hubris and hatred of the Jews. The ever-lingering questions are brought up: “What, were we all insane, then?” asks Dr. Vogel.

It’s a truly great and needed service to all of humanity that the Jews continue to tell many and varied stories of their Holocaust experience, horrific as they may be. The attempted extermination of the Jews is not “their” story, it’s “our” story. We must never forget. Each new generation must understand the cruelty that human beings are capable of, in order to do everything in our power to ward it off and stand guard against it.

Although David, as a young Israeli agent, says there is “no answer” to Nazi evil, it simply must be brought to justice, I think we do well to study it. A “recipe for disaster” existed in 1) German national humiliation after WWI 2) Godless science 3) stirring up a fanatical, outsized patriotism 4) a potent philosophy of power 5) just enough madmen as leaders and foot soldiers 6) and never to be underestimated: the Hitler Youth. One generation of indoctrination was enough to clinch the deal—“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prv. 22:6 KJB).

My one beef with the movie is that the dialogue is a little too on-the-nose. Sometimes it’s just a matter of an extra sentence that could have been left out. Characters frequently commit one of the arch-sins of screenwriting by telling each other what they both already know. “Hey, audience! Here’s some INFORMATION for you, or rather, we just want to make sure you were paying attention the FIRST time we said it! And, did you get that THIS HERE PIECE OF INFORMATION is related to that OTHER SCENE WE JUST SHOWED YOU? Just checking! Just want to make it ABUNDANTLY OBVIOUS even though we don’t doubt your intelligence for a second!”

Most unfortunately, “The Debt” is another film that’s rated “R,” that could easily be PG-13, in order for young people to learn some history through film.

The question of “The Debt” is: the truth. Do we ALWAYS tell the truth? Will ALWAYS telling the truth do more damage than good? What is a true hero? Do heroes ALWAYS tell the truth? Can people still be proud of us when the truth isn’t as heroic as we’d like it to be? Is the truth a “luxury” sometimes? If we DON’T tell the truth, do we become like our enemies (if we’re “the good guys”)?

OTHER STUFF:

--Helen Mirren is sooooo beautiful.

--Weird seeing Helen Mirren in a SERIOUS spy flick after “Red.”

--Jessica Chastain’s acting abilities on display here. (Anyone could have played the mother in “Tree of Life.”)

--Sam Worthington says so much with his eyes.

--You will HATE actor Jesper Christensen (Dr. Vogel).

--Some excellent use of handheld filming!

--There are so many more cautionary and heroic tales to be told of the suffering under the Nazis and Soviets. By telling non-Jewish stories, I think it might actually validate the telling and re-telling of the Jewish experience for those, who, very shortsightedly are “tired” of hearing about the Holocaust. (See? They were not the only targets! See? Evil is never satisfied with just one victim. See? We’re all in this together. Or, to paraphrase Bonhoeffer, I think: “I didn’t speak out when they came for the Jews. I didn’t speak out when they came for the gypsies. I didn’t speak out when they came for the handicapped. I didn’t speak out when they came for the retarded, the homosexuals and the dissidents. And then they came for me.”)

--The fine movie about Cold War East Germany’s ubiquitous and paranoid surveillance, “The Lives of Others,” is excellent except for one point. A statement is made that a particular man can’t be a bad man because he liked a certain piece of classical music. Um, the Nazis had very refined tastes. The ability to appreciate beauty (and rape, plunder and pillage the art and other treasures of humanity for one’s own enjoyment) is indicative of nothing in one’s character, really.

--A must-see documentary is “The Eichmann Trial”—live footage of the Jerusalem trial of Hitler’s designer of the “Ultimate Solution” (strategy/logistics for how to exterminate the Jews). Eichmann was eventually hanged in Jerusalem.

--The Nazis created hell on earth.

--The three are not supposed to “listen or talk to” the Nazi “doctor” while he’s in captivity. Why? Because, like the devil, he is utterly cunning.

--Life is ALWAYS a spiritual (at least) battle. We are ALL God’s secret agents for the good.

--Watch Ben Stein’s “Expelled” to see how the Nazis used Godless Darwinian evolutionary theories (not all evolutionary theories are Godless). See also “Theology of the Body and Evolution,” DVD by Dr. Richard Sternberg www.ofwcmedia.com

DAUGHTERS CHRISTMAS BLOOPERS 2

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST! DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL CHOIR VIDEO SHOOT AT BOSTON MOTHERHOUSE

Christmas in August! Totally fake! Even the audience faked it with us! Air conditioner in the Motherhouse chapel in Boston was on 50F! The swinging jib camera arm thingy knocked over the decorative burning candle on the altar rail, and clocked the same lady in the head twice. Otherwise--no casualties.

The music doesn't match what we're singing because we could only use the Christmas music we already have on iTunes right now for this YouTube.

The REAL video that will be created from this filming session will air on Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn's NET TV channel this Christmas and DVD will be available!

Daughters of St. Paul Christmas Concert Tour locations to be announced. Will include: Boston, NYC, Virginia and Cleveland....

CHICAGO: ST. MIKE'S OUTDOOR FILM FESTIVAL, FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

http://www.st-mikes.org/film-fest.html
Director, Charles Kinnane, will be present!

CHICAGO--ST. MIKE'S OUTDOOR FILM FEST: FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

http://www.st-mikes.org/film-fest.html

MOVIES: "RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES"

For those of us decrepit enough to remember the original 1968* movie “Planet of the Apes” with Charlton Heston (human) and Roddy McDowell** (ape), (or the 1974 TV series with McDowell but not Heston), “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is a high-tech, far cry from the DISCOUNT HALLOWEEN COSTUME STORE RUBBER-MASKED primate sci-fi drama. It’s about Big Pharma and Big Research and Big Greed and Tortured Lab Animals and Wouldn’t It Be Nice If We Would Just Hand Earth Over to the Animals Because They’re Generally Better People Than We Are.

Will Rodman (a mediocre James Franco—sorry!) is a scientist who dreams of curing Alzheimer’s. It’s also personal because his Dad (John Lithgow) suffers from the disease. Will works for a lab that dreams of making lots of money off Will’s experiments on apes. There is great promise in a serum injected in the animals, but things go off track and the whole experiment is shut down and the apes put down. Will adopts the infant (whom his Dad names “Caesar”—played by Andy Serkis) of one of the euthanized chimps and raises him at home. It turns out Caesar was positively enhanced by the serum injected in his mother, so Will injects it into his Dad. When Caesar attacks someone in the neighborhood (defending Will’s Dad) he is court-ordered to a primate refuge, much to the chagrin of Will and Caesar.

Caroline (Freida Pinto, “Slumdog Millionaire,” good actress!) is a veterinarian who becomes Will’s love interest, but doesn’t influence the story much at all.

The end of “Rise” is a long chase/escape/battle of the apes breaking free from imprisonment and humans trying to stop them.


“Rise” is a bit cloying in its use of the ape’s facial expressions and human-like qualities. But, of course, we have to be invested in Caesar who is a non-human main character. However, even though these are fictional, enhanced, higher-intelligence apes, people today are a bit confused about the actual place in Creation of animals in relationship to humans. There are statements in the film like: “They’re not people, you know,” and you get the feeling that we, the audience, are supposed to be saying under our breath: “Oh, yes they are!”

There is not much of a take-away here. No memorable dialogue or lessons to be learned. Sheer entertainment.

I think the impulse and insight (of the nature/animal lover) that nature/animals are good and innocent should be affirmed. But too often, humans are seen as bad and corrupt, and therefore nature/animals are necessarily better/higher. (When you think about it, this is a Protestant view of humans!) I totally get this because that’s where I was at before I met God.

Those who LOVE nature/animals inordinately (or over-against humans) and those who ABUSE nature/animals are actually cut from the same cloth. NEITHER see humans as PART of nature, but standing outside it. For the nature/animal lovers, humans are aliens who do not belong here and have no right to the Earth which belongs rightly to nature/animals. For the nature/animals abusers, they see humans as above nature/animals which are simply things to be utilized with impunity.

Only God gives the proper context for and perspective on nature/animals. All Creation, including humans, belong to God. Humans/nature/animals are all God’s. God has entrusted humans to care for HIS Creation—the way that He Himself would/does. We should do so with love and gratitude and humility and reverence and awe and mercy and justice and kindness.

_____________________
*OK—I just want to make it clear that I saw RERUNS of the 1968 movie on television in the 70’s. Hopefully this lessens my decrepitude quotient.

**We DID love Roddy, didn’t we? His warmth came right through his mask. There’s even a nod to him in “Rise.” We see the NICE ape cage attendant, “Rodney,” watching Roddy on TV.

OTHER STUFF:

--I wonder if “Rise” means sequels. The parting shot of the film is open to that….

--Some physics-defying CGI movement in the beginning when Caesar is little and swinging around Will’s house.

--A lot of movies today about wonder drugs. Drugs that make you really smart.

--The tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden was really about deciding for OURSELVES what is good and evil, right and wrong.

--It’s amazing what we can’t see when we can’t see.

--Can monkeys really use sign language to communicate with each other?

--Without God, we become control freaks. Of necessity. It's hard enough not to be one WITH God.

--Without a God-context, there’s really nothing to stop us from doing whatever we want for whatever personal reasons we want. We could choose to follow nature’s good plans, or we could choose reasonableness because we have good will and we’re nice people, but good may appear to us as evil and evil as good, and…I hate to say this but, without God, we can all be our own little Nazis (whether we realize it or not).

--Andy Serkis also played Gollum in LOTR!

--Brian Cox is a great actor. Would love to see more of him.

--Quite a few story unbelievability “REALLY??” moments.

PAULINE BOOKS & MEDIA--CHICAGO

MEDIA LITERACY EDUCATION & PHILOSOPHY

DVDs: "OUT OF THE DARKNESS"

"Out of the Darkness" is a new DVD on porn featuring an ex-porn actress and now Christian who helps others out of the porn industry: Shelley Lubben; the founder of www.thekingsmen.us : Mark Houck; an Alfred Kinsey expert: Dr. Judith Reisman; and a psychiatrist: Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons.

Filmed in an up-to-the-minute documentary style (heavy on interviews), "Out of the Darkness" is neither visually graphic nor verbally explicit. It's pretty much a must-see. Shelley's entire life story is very enlightening. Mark Houck, addicted to porn as a young man, sought help and founded an organization to help others of of porn, and to fight porn. Dr. Judith has spent her life trying to publicize a very important piece of the history of the sexual revolution in the USA (namely the architect of it all: Alfred Kinsey--who was undeniably a pedophile and sexual pervert). Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons diagnoses some of the ills of the generations growing up with "porn as normal," and speaks about the antitode to porn: Theology of the Body.

There is frequent use of "old time" stock film footage and home movies* (sometimes repeated) and a little bit of a re-enactment (also repeated). The repetition gets old fast. There's a large black border around some of the old footage, but I'm assuming that's more because of the quality/dimensions of the footage than a stylistic choice. It doesn't bother me, and is almost a welcome change up.

A pleasing, but sometimes uneven technique is to have the camera angled in several different ways to really capture the emotions, moods (mostly reflective, but sometimes smiling) and facial expressions of the four interviewees (these four were a great choice). The camera catches what the words WEREN'T saying or COULDN'T say.

I would have prefered everyone to have the same color background rather than at least three different colors. Dr. Judith's black is super dramatic, Shelley's bright orange matches her sunny personality, Dr. Fitzgibbons' white is kind of neutral-feeling, and I don't remember what Mark's was. It jarred me a bit going from one to the other. I wouldn't have minded the technique of the interviewee's voice over their video when they weren't actually speaking used more or as a lead-in to the interviews.

The message of "Out of the Darkness" is dire and urgent, but it's also very much "all hope is not lost." "There's ALWAYS a way out."

Winner for Best Director, John Paul II Film Festival, Miami, 2011
www.jp2filmfestival.com

Order from: www.anteroompictures.com , 80 min.
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*perhaps royalty free?

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Pauline Faithways: Partying with St. Paul