The Constant Gardener

Not Recommended. Story of a political lobbyist of some kind (Ralph Fiennes) who seeks to discover why his wife was killed in an accident only to discover a cover up by drug companies who are using the poor in third world countries as guinea pigs for drug experimentation. The film is visually creative and acted well, but was boring as a story. They revealed the twist about the drug companies experimenting on the poor at about the half way point or less and then failed to reveal anything beyond this for the rest of the picture, unless I missed something when I dozed off, but I don’t think I did.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Highly Recommended. This is a story based on an allegedly true story that occurred in Germany in the 1970s. It’s been updated to today and place in America. It’s the story of a trial of a priest charged with negligent homicide in the death of a young girl, Emily Rose, in the midst of her exorcism. In our modernist world of naturalism that presupposes the negation of the categories of the supernatural, this movie is a welcome counterbalance to Enlightenment pseudoscientific bigotry. I enjoyed the unpredictable mixing of genres, horror and courtroom drama. A legal and logical examination of the issues punctuated with the terrors of supernatural experience. Which makes this movie very postmodern. A story that counters reason with experience, and experience is forced upon the rationalism of modernity as something that CANNOT be ignored any longer. Our precious naturalistic assumptions about reality and proud rationalism are just not adequate to address all of reality. This is of course, the good side of postmodernism in challenging modernity. The dark side of the pomo worldview, well, I’ll talk about that in a moment. I know the director and he has said he is a postmodern Christian. So this is a conscious attempt to break through the ignorance and prejudice of modernity. The heroine, played by Laura Linney, is the attorney who defends the priest and she is an agnostic who decides to use demon possession as a defense in a court of law, not because she believes it to be real, but because her client does, and that this is, in an HONEST court of law, a legitimate consideration, the sincerity of the believers. To assume that the girl’s death (by self-inflicted and other bodily injury) MUST be negligence because “as we all know” demons are simply religious fairy tales, is itself an ignorance of prejudice. And this is exactly what the prosecutor embodies when he claims that a witness’s testimony of demonic possession should be struck down on the basis of “silliness.” And of course, most audience members at that point would agree with the prosecutor. How can we allow this kind of “faith” testimony in to our system that is supposed to be based on fact? And that very assumption is perhaps the most revelatory ignorance of the modernity we are current victims of: The assumption that EVERYTHING has a natural cause in physical chemicals. As the defense lawyer proves, even science itself is based on faith. The very claims of Emily’s demonic symptoms being reducible to psychotic fits of epilepsy are shown to be NOT FACTS, but beliefs or guesses of so-called medical scientists. Because the fact is, science and medicine are not only based on faith commitments, but they are merely observational interactions with symptoms. Much of the time, they have no clue how or why a drug is working, they are merely creating explanations that they BELIEVE is the reason. Thomas Szaz has written extensively on the fraudulance of the medical drug culture as well as psychotherapy in The Myth of Mental Illness and Pharmocracy. So the doctors notice a certain drug results in suppression of symptoms, so they theorize that the problem is therefore reducible to physical origins or causes. But the defense gives an entirely legitimate counterfactual that the drugs suppressed Emily’s mental and physical capacity to withstand the demons, thus contributing to her death. What Derrickson does extremely well here is to fairly portray both sides in the courtroom. In fact, he does this so well, that when each side presents its case, you find yourself changing sides in what you think the answer is. This makes for truly good drama. What I liked about the demon possession was how “realistic” it was. That is, it was not driven by gory special effects but more accurately the kind of effects that have historically been connected with real possessions. And that could be explained through medical physiological explanations as well. Even though there are the usual multiple voices, strange contortions, etc. Scott does the opposite of typical demon possession movies. Rather than the white eyes with a tiny pupil, he has an enlarged pupil which was totally scary in a new way. Surprisingly, there are no foul cuss words that I remember coming from the demons, as is the usual fare with horror movies of demons. Thus proving you can be scary without the foul language. Scott’s scare tactics were all based on simple old techniques of suspense, the shadow we barely see, the noise in the hall, whispering voices. But he does it so well that once again it proves we don’t need more gore and pushing the envelope of impropriety to be scary. The whole moral of this story is simply spoken through the agnostic lawyer’s summary that this is a story about “possibilities.” A story that makes us consider the reality of the supernatural to widen our understanding of reality. It is not the “believers” who are blind to reality, it is the proud anti-supernaturalist, who assumes so much by faith that he doesn’t even realize it. That he doesn’t see the demon right in front of his face. Of course, this isn’t presented with a propaganda approach because in fact, most every demonic encounter is presented in flashback, testimonial form, complete with some variation, thus reminding us that even this is not absolutely certain. Although I would argue that experience gets a stronger edge here. Which is of course the weakness of postmodernism. The strength of the modernist prioritization of rationality does prove the fact that experience can be interpreted differently depending on one’s worldview, AND ALL PRESUPPOSITIONS ARE NOT EQUAL. Some are provably wrong. And that people can be deceived because of their presuppositions. Let’s face it, the history of medicine does show that certain religious beliefs DID blind some people to the truth of infectious diseases etc. So the good that anti-supernaturalism brought was the unveiling of much superstitious ignorance and even charlatanry. But of course, two wrong extremes don’t make a right. The sword cuts both ways in blindness, and Christianity is the only true balance that started modern science and medicine by acknowledging the lawlikeness of God’s ordered universe without ignoring the spiritual side. But I digress. I like the idea of via negativa, “way of the negative,” that is, proving God’s existence by proving the existence of evil supernatural. If there is an antichrist evil spirit, then there is the ultimate Good Spirit of God. One Roman Catholic nun reviewing the movie said that this fear orientation is a medieval means of getting people saved. But of course, this is more autobiographical of that nun and her postmodernity than it is the Bible. So Jesus was medieval when he used fear to scare people into the kingdom? (Matt 10:28; 5:22; 5:29; Luke 12:5) In fact Jesus used fear so much as a motivation in his parables about wailing and gnashing of teeth and eternal darkness etc. that I would wonder if this nun, and those like her, even read their Bibles (assuming she even has one.) And was God himself an irrelevant medieval peasant when he commands us to FEAR him over 200 times in both Old and New Testaments – more than he commands us to love him? Well, I would certainly NOT say that fear is the only draw to salvation, but it is certainly a part of the BIBLICAL GOSPEL, though it is not a part of the modern or postmodern gospel. We SHOULD fear hell and love God. Both fear and love are equally ultimate truths in the Bible (sometimes described in the same paragraph or sentence – Matthew 10:26-31). But at the end of the day, one simple movie CANNOT CONTAIN the entire Bible in it’s theology. There are plenty of movies available that do express love as a motivation to salvation (Bruce Almighty). We need some that deal with fear too. So there. What I didn’t like about the movie: Well, there are some serious theological issues I have with it. I do not argue that these are reasons NOT to see it or reasons to reject the movie, but simply reasons for discernment and disagreement. You don’t have to agree with everything in a movie to see the value of it. And it doesn’t have to be theologically perfect to accept the good that it does bring in context with the culture. First, a very minor thing (not theological) was that I thought the appearance of a cloaked figure in the distance was not at all consistent with the heart of this story. It was out of place and a bit too melodramatic and literal. Secondly, the heroine starts as an agnostic and ends as an agnostic very clearly, which makes this an unsatisfying story in terms of character. It is an elementary necessity of good storytelling to take the hero from one pole to another, the character arc. If a hero starts out an unbeliever, they need to in some way at least, end with a seed of belief. If they start a believer in something, they must end up skeptical of it. If they start selfish, they should end selfless, and on and on. This is the stuff of great storytelling. By the hero’s journey, the truth of the story is incarnated. So the audience can journey with the hero. So to have a hero that does not change is not only anathema in storytelling, it is unsatisfying. But not only that, I would argue it is counterproductive to Derrickson’s own worldview of Christianity. It is fine to have some characters not change, but NOT the hero. They must change or the audience is left hanging. This is perhaps where Scott’s postmodernism gets the best of him. His story INCARNATES the suggestion through the heroine’s lack of change, that religious beliefs are not important, what IS important is her professional ethics. Because this is where she does change, in her ethics. But Agnosticism is not a viable or even good worldview. So if the heroine would have at least made an indication that she saw the world differently now, that would have been enough. I’m not saying she should “accept Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior,” but merely that her life is truly changed because of her journey. But alas, the only thing she changes in is in her professional ethics, and this is no doubt good. Yes, she quits a bad legal firm and shows character, but the real issue of the movie was NOT the politics of the legal system (that was a subplot), but the reality of the supernatural. In simple terms, she starts ignorant and ends ignorant. Not a satisfying story. One theological difference I have is that the very heart of the Roman Rites of exorcism do not have biblical foundations. Now, I’ve talked to Scott about demon possession and he claimed that there is so little in the Bible that we cannot make dogmatic claims either way. While I acknowledge there is certainly freedom in this area to service the story (I do so in my upcoming supernatural thriller), I nonetheless am persuaded that what the Bible DOES say about it, little as it may be, is still truthful and relevant. And in the only place where exorcism occurs in the Bible is Acts 19, where the sons of Sceva were exorcists and they had no power over demons who ended up beating them up. It seems that everywhere in the New Testament, demons are simply cast out in the name of Jesus Christ by faithful believers (sometimes requiring prayer, but not ritual). I suppose you could make the argument that this movie supports that because they never did exorcise her. She died after all! On the other hand, I certainly admit that ritual is more cinematic and dramatic. In fact, one executive reacted to my movie, that has demons cast out of people, by saying that they cast the demons out too easily. Well, that was because we have been so conditioned by the Roman Ritual view that we don’t realize it is more real (Biblical) for believers to simply cast them out! Anyway, I do acknowledge that the priest does eventually call on the name of Jesus Christ in his attempts and am surprised that the studios let Scott do this. Another major concern is with the entire purpose of the demon possession. It is portrayed as God’s intent to show the world the reality of the supernatural through having one of his believers (supposedly) possessed by a demon. But it is one thing to have demons taunting believers, that’s true. It is quite another to completely disregard the reality of the Holy Spirit that is supposed to be within the believer themselves! Believers in Jesus Christ possessed by a demon is simply and seriously unbiblical (1 Cor 6:19). A contradiction in terms and reality (1 John 4:4). As are visions of the Virgin Mary which is supposedly how she received this purpose. Talking to the dead is strictly forbidden by God (Deut 18:11; Isaiah 8:19), so it strikes me as odd that this is portrayed positively in the movie, as if God does communicate through this means. It could be argued that there was no indication that Emily was a true Christian, but this doesn’t square with the context of the movie. It is certainly strongly implied that she is. And another important element is the arbitrariness of the possession. There is no indication of how the demons were able to get into Emily. The history of demon possession indicates that demons do not willy nilly enter people. There has to be some occultic or pagan involvement or opening up to the dark side. The Exorcist did this extremely well by having the child play with a Ouiji Board. But in Emily, they just take her without provocation or invitation. Too arbitrary storywise to be satisfying. You know, it’s interesting, I wouldn’t be as picky if this was fictional, because fiction is intended to be metaphors or parables of something else. The reason I would be so picky is because this is claimed to be based on a true story.

A Sound of Thunder

Not Recommended. This is a movie based on the famous short story about time travel by Ray Bradbury about time travelers who go back into the prehistoric era and step on a butterfly, which changes the entire course of history. I love this premise of the “butterfly effect” and I love time travel movies which are all about changing bad choices in the past to avoid the bad consequences in the present. A worthy premise. But this movie, even though it had a budget of 80 million looked very B-movie with terrible cheesy blue screening and a B-plot rip off of Jurrasic Park but with evolved Baboon-reptile creatures instead of Raptors. There are a lot of deus ex machina moments like the subway collapsing on the sea monster just as it is about to eat Ed Burns, the hero. Oh, it’s not all that bad, it’s just a B-style execution. But worse than that, it is an atheistic evolutionary fairy tale that is deeply dissatisfying. The idea is that when they disrupt something in the past, they don’t affect the future right away, but rather time waves occur bringing instantaneous change every day or so, that climbs up the evolutionary ladder. So, the time travelers kill a butterfly, but when they get back, everything is the same, until a time wave occurs and the vegetation sprouts around the city, taking it over, then some animals start appearing that evolved because they never went extinct supposedly. And of course, it becomes a game of survival until the hero can get back in time to stop the moment where the butterfly was killed. It all just felt like gimmicks and scare tricks rather than an actual intense story. Oh, and the humans turn into fish like amphibian creatures, what a hilarious laugh. But here’s the real goofy kicker: The angry female scientist who rants and raves about scientific responsibility to the greedy capitalist business man who is using the time machine to make money. She is all morally indignant and yells that “If you mess with this time travel, you mess with the whole of evolution,” and she tells the hero, “You have to set things right.” As if there is a right and wrong in evolution?!!? Hello?! There is no right or wrong in evolution, people! There is just change. To make a moral judgment on people meddling with evolution is ludicrous within the evolutionary story. A gazelle thinks it unfair that a crocodile kills and eats it. So, the crocodile thinks Gazelles have no rights. So humans kill off species and devastate rainforests. So do fires and parasites. So what? These atheist evolution stories make all these moral judgments of human behavior as if there is some kind of moral system they are supposed to be following other than their natural drive to destroy, exploit, and eat. Meddling with time travel cannot be wrong upon atheistic evolutionary presuppositions. Evolution is simply the universal fact that everything changes, sometimes slowly, often times through cataclysmic destruction. So a volcano destroys an entire ecosystem. Do these self-righteous self-appointed guardians of evolutionary morality yell and complain to volcanos about their moral responsibility or how about the plague carrying insects that wipe out whole populations or all the animals that make each other go extinct? Then why in HELL are they griping at man when he disrupts the ecosystem? He’s just another animal in the chain of being who adds cataclysmic effects into the equation. How is that wrong or immoral in a universe of matter in motion without morality or right and wrong? There is only survivors and change. So, man kills off a species and then another survives in its stead. So what if man kills everything? The bacteria and viruses will survive and evolve into new organisms cause that‘s just the way it is. So man eats up everything like sharks, I don’t see anyone protesting shark behavior. So humans trample over the environment like a herd of elephants. I don’t see anyone protesting Elephants. If man is no more special than any other animal in the great chain of evolutionary being, then you made your bed of genocidal atrocities, now sleep in it.

Grizzly Man

Highly Recommended. A brillianté documentary by Werner Herzog about a loser LA actor turned grizzly bear activist, Timothy Treadwell, who would go up to Alaska every year to spend time with the Grizzly bears of the National Park. This is the most sublime, compassionate, profound and ironic revelation of the complete moronic stupidity of animal rights activists, and by extension other environmental extremists. It is the portrait of a man descending into the depths of self-delusion as he becomes less capable of integrating himself into human social culture, and takes on the self-righteous mantle of “protector” friend and lover of the grizzly bear—all the way up until a Grizzly bear kills and eats him and his girlfriend. It is touching at times, as we see this sad and lonely man wax eloquent about his lack of a love life and inability to relate to women, wishing he were a homosexual to make it easier without any emotional entanglements. Or when we see his ex-girlfriend, a sorry case herself, pine on about how they started Grizzly People together and how much she misses him. Or when Timothy is able to befriend the local foxes, who do in fact become amenable to petting and following him around. It is at times, amusing, as when we see Timothy rant and rave about how he is the only one to protect these bears, and then we find out they are protected on National Park Grounds. Or when we hear local Park Rangers, scientists and mammal and bear experts talk lovingly yet pitying of Timothy’s delusion. Or when we hear Timothy talk about how lonely it is to be the lone man in the wilderness, and then we see him tell his girlfriend to stay out of the camera shot because he is supposed to be alone in the wilderness. Or when we see him do little cutaway segments of him running in the woods with different clothes on so he will have some action footage to cut into. And it is at times, deadly dark, as we see Timothy cuss and rant at the evil Park Services and the government and people, only to realize that this is indeed how hateful animal rights activists are toward their own species, HUMAN BEINGS, in the name of love of animals. Or when we see Timothy’s dangerous ignorance of the nature and the ecosystem by hanging out closely to the bears and getting them used to his presense. By breaking through the distance that the bears have had with humans for thousands of years, Timothy actually endangers both humans and bears because it makes the bears more aggressive toward humans. At times, it is pathetic, as Timothy weeps over the death and destruction of animal life because of his naïve belief in the harmony of all things with the earth. What he completely disregards is what Herzog explains is the “murder, death and chaos” that is the very essence of nature. This kind of idealistic youthful zeal amounts to pure stupidity. And at times it is downright absurd, as animal rights activists are, when Timothy claims some kind of special connection and relationship to the bears while we see close ups of the bears dull expressionless eyes, showing complete disregard and maybe even annoyed tolerance of the pathetic little human annoyance. And through it all, Herzog is subversive in showing the irony and ignorance of Timothy, but mostly through letting Timothy just speak for himself. The ignorance and irony is self-evident. Yet, Herzog is not mean-spirited. Through it all there is a sense of loving concern, respect for good intentions and sincerity. And that’s what makes this so penetrating and honest, and the finest cinematic debunking of the lunacy of animal rights activism ever. These people are sincere, sincerely deluded in thinking themselves saviors of animals with relationships akin to human relationships. The truth is, nature is red in tooth and bear claw. And that gets me to my big gripe about all environmentalism and animal rights activism. They all, usually believe in atheistic evolution. They believe man is not transcendent or special in being created in the image of God, but merely another animal on the evolutionary chain of being. MAN IS JUST ANOTHER ANIMAL. There is no such thing as moral absolutes in an ever-changing universe. Morals are mere social constructions, but they are not actually true in any sense of actual obligation beyond force or power. So if there are no transcendent moral absolutes, and man is just a mere animal, then WHY OH WHY PLEASE TELL ME, DO ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ALL SCREECH WITH MORAL ANGER AT MAN’S ACTIONS AS IF MAN IS DOING SOMETHING WRONG IN HOW HE TREATS ANIMALS? There is no moral absolute wrong in this worldview! Where does it say in the DNA of the universe that man is supposed to do something other than by his nature? There is no such thing as moral right and wrong absolutes, according to evolution, so you cannot say man is doing WRONG when he treats animals in anyway at all. The Great white shark eats cute little seals, the black widow cannibalizes her mate, the male lion and Grizzly bears, (as illustrated in this movie) kill their own young to be able maintain their power or fornicate more with the females, AND HUMANS MAKE OTHER ANIMALS GO EXTINCT. So what? That’s all part of nature. The second you place some kind of moral obligation on man to behave a certain way towards animals, you have just denied evolution and said that man is higher than other animals because he is obligated to some absolute moral standard that all other animals are not obligated unto. If evolution is true and man is just another animal, then man does by nature what he does, JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER ANIMAL does by nature what they do. You cannot criticize man’s behavior, you can only observe, just as scientists observe the behavior of grizzly bears and great white sharks. Moral judgments and criticisms of human behavior have no place in the evolutionary metanarrative. Now, it just so happens that God has revealed in his Word moral obligations, one of which is to not abuse animals and to be responsible stewards of creation. So with every breath that an animal rights activist or environmental activist spews hatred at God, but then proclaims some sort of moral obligation about proper treatment of animals, he is denying evolution and stealing from Christianity, while at the same moment outwardly denying Christianity. We have a word for this: Hypocrisy. Oh, and another one: Depravity. (Romans 1:17-24)

The Cave

Not really Recommended. Alien under the earth. The movie is half decent as a survival genre story goes. I was rather surprised. It was an tale of atheistic evolution. The explorers go deep into the mountain caves of some Slavic country only to be hunted by predators that have evolved from humans previously trapped in there 30 years prior. And the source of the rapid evolution is a parasite that infects the hero, so we see him turning into one of the creatures as he helps them try to escape. Earlier, we see Byzantine murals of demons that fought the knights, only to discover that of course, in good naturalistic faith, the demons are merely the superstitious interpretation of the unknown scientific evolutionary process of this parasite. As far as the action goes, though, the story is well paced and scary, a decent survival movie.

The Brothers Grimm

Partially recommended. This Terry Gilliam creation has a fictional version of the brothers who created the famous somewhat gruesome fairytales, as charlatans who exploit the superstitions of medieval peasants to make money. So, they manufacture a fake witch with middle ages technology and then vanquish her, knowing that since witches don’t really exist, there won’t be any real trouble and it will appear that they stopped it all. UNTIL THEY MEET REAL SUPERNATURAL magic and witchcraft and haunted woods. One brother is a “true believer” whose belief in magic beans ruined his destitute family’s life, and the other brother is the consummate materialist who quotes the infamous Hobbesian dictum, “life is short, brutish struggle and then you die.” He is certain “there is a rational explanation for everything.” This is a great set up for the materialist brother by the end to humble his pride and acknowledge not merely the existence of the supernatural, but also the reality of the things that go with it, like love and honor and courage. And he learns it from his naïve brother who keeps seeking the magic and its origins. So their redemption lies in being forced to save a small community haunted by monsters. Their charlatanism is cured and they find true love as well as save a group of about 12 children. They have some great subtle lines that recall famous fairy tales but worked within the story, like “Who’s the fairest of them all” and “huff and puff”. The whole point of this story is the Romantic notion that the onset of rationalism and science stole the mystery out of life, and that has blinded the eyes of the modernist who cannot see the evan vitale, the magic, the supernatural of life. A rather noble sentiment, coming as it does, from one of the atheist Monty Python gang. But then again, his view is more likely to be that of Bruno Bettleheim and the Jungian belief in the archetypes of the collective unconscious. And fairy tales tap into that collective unconscious and unite us in humanity rather than in God and his image. But alas, I do not think that Jungian analysis is the last word in the interpretation of fairy tales. In the tale, the witch must have the blood of others to maintain her eternal life or she returns to her corpse self. Well, that is clearly a substitutionary atonement theme that also reinforces the belief that evil people will consume or kill others in order to benefit their own future and hopes. Kinda sounds like abortion, euthanasia, and stem cell research doesn’t it? Consume and kill the young, the old, the less fit and helpless in order to advance your own interests and survival. So the story, like a dark version of Shrek, begins as a deconstruction of fairy tales, but ends up a rather traditional fairy tale.

Four Brothers

Not Recommended. Four adopted brothers return to their home town to get revenge on their adopted mother’s killers. What appears to be a random robbery killing turns out to be an execution, and the four brothers, all troublemakers with criminal pasts, rise to the occasion without fear in order to accomplish some “street justice.” Well, this isn’t justice at all. It’s pure revenge to the last drop. I am disappointed with John Singleton. He started his career with a very responsible Boyz in the Hood that did not shrink from the realities of ghetto culture, but posited a responsibility of self-determination to rise above it, transcend one’s bad circumstances. Unfortunately, Four Brothers actually reinforces the ghetto hate culture of guns, violence and revenge. The mother is an older lady who says the only redeeming thing in the movie to a young lad caught stealing: “I believe you’re worth more. But you’ve got to believe you’re worth more.” (about the only link to Singleton’s responsible past) And then he proceeds to decimate the morality behind that little profundity with heros who are relentless cold blooded killers who mock and abuse women. Cinematically, it was just pure ludicrous action as these guys carry around guns openly like the old west (And this wasn’t South Central either. It was a SUBURB of Detroit), engage in car chases where there no cars on the streets, have shootouts in broad daylight where absolutely no one is around and no one calls the cops. All right, I can accept a certain amount of suspended disbelief, and even a certain amount of exaggeration for a movie, but this one went way too far. And then Mark Wahlberg waves a gun around, breaking up a basketball game to ask people if they know about their mother’s killer. And it is just ridiculous that there are no consequences for his criminal display. But the worst aspect of this story is that this is the kind of stuff that breeds a ghetto culture of violence in kids. It perpetuates the belief that you must take “justice” into our own hands in revenge. Sure, there is some self-defense in the movie, but the overwhelming spirit is definitely Vigilante violence and revenge that goes way beyond finding justice for a mother’s killer.

The Great Raid

Partially recommended. This is the true story of the greatest rescue of American POWs in history. An elite force of newbie Texas Rangers were sent in to rescue about 500 POWs in a Philippine POW camp held by the Japanese. These were men who survived the Bataan death march and were wasting away from starvation and beatings by the Japanese. Colonel Mucci and his men rescued all the POWs, with but one POW death and a couple of fatalities in the squad. A truly miraculous story. For that and for the fact that the story shows SOME of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese soldiers and police against the Americans, this movie should be seen. The problem is that because of the Nuremburg trials and the obsessive focus on Nazi war crimes, the Japanese war crimes were all but overshadowed and ignored by the public and the resultant consciousness of history in this country. So see it. But unfortunately, it is not a very good movie in storytelling and filmmaking terms. It reeks of television writing and the characters are not nearly as engaging as they should be. With terrible choices for leads like Benjamin Bratt and James Franco, it just cries out for good acting. And the Japanese are cardboard villains, and apart from the atrocities, you just don’t feel for these guys. They are flat characters and there are too many of them. The only good story is the doomed love story between a Major in the camp, played by Joseph Fiennes and an American woman in the Filipino underground, played by Connie Neilson. They are the only ones who have an interesting and dramatic past and connection in that she was married to his commanding officer who was killed and now they live to be together with each other. This is also the story that they brilliantly play as the tragic element in the otherwise victorious story. Not everything was happy results in this realistic story of human pathos and the triumph of the spirit. But I must admit, I am a bit biased in my observations for a couple reasons. One, this is the movie that I discovered Miramax was developing when my movie, To End All Wars came out. Turns out they tried to buy the distribution of our movie, and it is clear now, that they wanted to shelf our movie so they would be the first out with their POW movie. Thank God the producers didn’t go with them. The Great Raid lacked the epic transcendence and memorable characters, scenes and lines that a good epic should have. But also, I was rewriting the miniseries for this same exact story for Disney Touchstone when the Weinsteins discovered the production and literally strong-armed our production into the trash can because of their power (We were both under Disney distribution). Ours was based on the Hampton Sides bestselling novel and it was clearly superior. I was hired to bring in a stronger Japanese element like I did in TEAW. I was also rewriting other elements of it. And it was going to include a bit of the Bataan death march, which is a story that needs to be told as well as some amazing other historically true stuff. Oh well, water under the bridge. But all that said, still see the movie because these men died for your freedom. We owe it to them to know their story, regardless of the fact that oafish trolls may have ruined the movie.

March of the Penguins

Highly Recommended. This little documentary about the mating and child-rearing of Antarctic Emperor Penguins is the finest proof for the existence of God that I’ve seen on film in a long time. As Morgan Freeman, the narrator in the American version says, this is more than a story of survival, it’s a story of love. The organization and ecological integration of these weather beaten little fellows as they develop their families, their searching for mates, their audible recognition of loved ones, their curious little ways are so warm and entertaining and even lovable that the story goes by faster than a romantic comedy. And there is story, a whole lot of it. And you just sit back and chuckle and care for God’s little creatures at the same time that you are in awe and wonder of such a beautiful creation, so fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator.

The Upside of Anger

Not really recommended. This is a movie about a woman, Joan Allen, and her four daughters whose father walks out on them for a secretary, and the woman is left to deal with her anger, while she falls for a washed up Baseball star played by Kevin Costner as he courts her with beer can firmly in hand, as both are drunks. The characters are eminently interesting, (except for their drunkenness), good acting and dialogue and great human drama. But the problem I have is it’s modernism in relationships as well as it’s basic lack of story. It is a family drama without much plot, so it would lose my interest. Oh, there’s some story with a daughter getting an ulcer from worrying about her lack of acceptance by the mom, and Costner pursuing Allen a little, and a subplot of an older guy dating one of the younger daughters. In an illuminating moment, the mother scolds the guy for such age abuse of dating a young girl. BUT SHE DOES NOTHING TO STOP IT. And when she catches them in bed, she just gets all flustered, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP IT. And worse, off, the filmmaker never portrays this as a weakness that is overcome or even realized. It is just part of life. One good moment is when the older guy responds to the mom that older women his age are not worth it because they aren’t grateful, but are selfishly obsessed with themselves and their agendas. Some good insights, but mostly piece-meal. Another problem is that the Costner character provides no real redemption and is himself a loser whose only quality is to recognize that when he is “With her and her girls, he knows everything is great and how it’s supposed to be.” Whoopy do. Like that is a great insight into love? Almost, but not quite. Rather than the motivation to be better people, this story’s understanding of love is a feeling of happiness or comfort or “fittedness.” This is a story that has great potential for meaningful significance, but never quite achieves it, yet captures some good human drama and conflict. The problem with this is the problem I have with so-called “realism.” Realism, with it’s modern elevation of dysfunction without redemption is used as a disguise for nihilism or humanistic cynicism. When a discovery is made and Joan realizes that she was wrong about everything she thought about her husband, the pseudo-wise young daughter narrates that the upside of anger is how it brought out who her mother really was or some kind of psychobabble, when in fact, her mother was a complete failure who did not learn her lesson and really just hurt others and herself because of her bitterness and anger, AND IT WAS ALL NECESSARILY WRONG because it was founded on a fallacy. So, really it should show how worthless and negative anger is in destroying or hurting lives, especially, when it is often wrong in its assumptions anyway. An opportunity for a profound insight into the nature of anger and how to be redeemed from it, was in my opinion, profoundly missed. GREAT acting though, too bad.