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A
Beautiful Mind. Universal:
Director, Ron Goldsmith; starring, Russel Crow. For teens and
adultss. story:Nobel Prize winning mathmatician, John Nash, puts
forward an original thesis that turns upside down Adam Smith's
economic theory that the group is best served if everyone seeks their
own best interest. Nash's Governing Dynamics study of group dynamics
proves that the best result comes when every person seeks their own
best interest and the best interest of the group.
Meanwhile,
he suffers from schizophrenia and discovers that truth is in the
"mysterious equations of love."
Leviticus
19:18; Luke 10:27;1 Corinthians 13.
the
Corporation. A film by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel
Bakan. Documentary style (film-sermon) CALL TO ACTION, setting out
the nature of corporations as legal persons and the damage they are
presently doing to the earth and all its creatures, including us and
the way people are working to change this situation.
Little
Voice. Miramax: directed by Mark Herman, starring Michael Caine
and Brenda Blethyn. Young woman is methaphorically like a song bird
in a cage, others seek to bring her out. Theological theme as I saw
it: Born Anew,
or
Resurrection. Romans
6; Colossians 3. Season> Easter
The
Sea Inside. This is a Spanish film that has won numerous
awards, including an Oscar. It is about a man who is quadriplegic,
after diving into the Ocean. He has been bed ridden for about
30 years. During most of that time he has been fighting with
the Spanish government to be allowed to end his life.
He
is surrounded by family and friends. He lives in his
brother’s house in Galicia. His brother’s wife cares
him for. They have a teenage son whom with his grandfather,
develop gadgets that enable him to work his computer, answer his
phone, and other things that he can manipulate with his mouth.
A
lawyer volunteers to represent Ramon in his court case to give him
the right to die. There is a woman from the town where Ramon is
who sees and interview done with Ramon on TV. She comes to
visit him. They all, these two women, his brother, his
brother’s wife, his nephew, and his father struggle with their
own feelings and their love for Ramon.
While
the subject of the film is serious, it does no wallow in
despair. It is filled with humour, passion, and genuine human
feelings, feelings of love, frustration, anger, and real human
emotions. In one scene Ramon asks the woman lawyer to share her
cigarette. She questions whether it is good for him. He
inquires if she thinks it will kill him. It is a disaster when
the local woman brings her two young sons for a visit. The
older boy pinches Ramón and later claims he thinks he is faking.
This
entertaining movie and deals with real people facing real issues,
and while it touched my heart, as it has touched the hearts of many,
it does not become moralistic. One of the funniest scenes is a
dialogue between Ramon and a quadriplegic priest. MaryAnn
Johanson of the Washington Post writes, “an unexpectedly funny
and passionate film, full of love of life.
Second
Hand Lions, Haley Joel Osment, Robert Duvall, Michael Caine,
Kyra Sedgwick. For me the high point of this movie centered on the
relationship of a boy with his great uncles come at the point where
one uncle instructs the boy in values: Believe in these things evenit
they cannot be proved to be true - True love never ends and Good
always wins over evil. Genesis 45, Jn. 15:11-17, 1 Cor 13, 1Jn 4:7-21.
Radio,
Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris, Riley Smith, Sarah Drew
Directed
By: Michael Tollin
Written
By: Mike Rich.
Based
an actual life event, this film shows how grace may enrich a whole
community as it learns to embrace one who is "the least." A
developmentally handicaped man becomes a focus for change in heart
and practise in a community through its football team. Deut.
7"7-11; Mt. 25:31-40; Rom. 3:21-31. 13:8-10
Shrek (with extended ending). Dreamworkspictures. (animated) Directors: Andrew Adamson, Vicky Senson; Producers: Aron Warner, John W. Williams, Jeffrey Katzenberg; Visual effects: Ken Bielenberg; voices: Mike Meyers, Eddied Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgo.
A protrayal of the classical tale of the rescue of a maiden from fiery gragon and evil king. Presented with humor, intelligence, and some irreverence and what some may see as rudeness.
Theological perspective: The major themes of this movie could have been taken dirctly from the Bible:The value of those who have been deemed to be outcastes, the Realm of God, the joy of salvation. Biblical refernces:Deuterronomy 26:1-11; Matthew5:1-12;9:10-13;18:10-14; Luke 16:19-31.
Divides evil forces into three catagories: innocent soldiers of the ruler; the dragon who has swallowed many knights yet is transformed by love; king who cannot be touched by love and who therefore is swallowed by transformed dragon.
Big Fish -director Tim Burton. Edward Bloom played as young man by Ewan McGregor and as a dying father by Albert Finney. featuring Willy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham Carter, Danny DeVito, and Steve Buscemi.
Review by John McFarlane - Upon seeking this film for the second time at my son's place, I began to wonder if it was because I like to consider myself a story teller. My father was a story teller. Those closest to the story teller often realise that the story one is hearing is one that they have heard many times. I used to listen to my father as he preached and when he would come to a story, I'd say to myself, 'O that's that one'.
In the movie, The Big Fish, the story teller, Edward Bloom, or Big Ed as some of his friends and colleagues called him told stories because that's the way he projected himself. It was like the work of an artist. In all his stories there was an element of actual happening, but they were not diminished by a recital of so called facts.
The young boy Billy, wanted to believe every word of his father's tales. It is a terrible disillusionment when he comes to the realization that his father's stories are not factual. It is the disillusionment of the child who becomes an adult and realises that his or her parent is a fellow adult like themselves; sometimes more like themselves than they wish it to be.
This experience led to a rift in the relationship of a son and his father. Shakespeare said something to the effect that "it's a good son that knows his own father." This is the struggle of the story in the movie. This is the struggle that many of us face in our encounter with what is 'true' and what is 'untrue'.
Mark's gospel says that Jesus did not speak to the crowds, except in parables. Later in private, he would explain the meaning of the story to his disciples. Stories can be treated as mere illustrations, examples of how things should happen in the factual word. But there is much more in the story than "just the facts". Marcus Borg tells of being in a gathering where a First Nation's elder told the creation story of his people. After he had finished he said, ' this may have been the way it happened or it may not. But this is the way my people understand it to have happened.'
When we Christians celebrate communion, we tell the story of when and what happened as we remember it. ( "On the night Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples------------"). In the telling of the story, we are reminded of why we do this. We are taken into the room and to the table with the disciples and Jesus. We taste the bread, we drink from the cup, and in the telling of the story and the enactment of the ceremony we are healed and made one.
WIT. HBO:Film By Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. A scholar of Dunn's poetry ("Death by not Proud") faces her own death. Theological theme as I saw it: Law and Grace portrayed inthis film as intellectual toughness and loving kindness. Romans ch. 2-5
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