Recommended with caution. This is a great moral tale about guilt and consequences of sin. It does have a dark “arthouse” edge but it has an ultimately redeeming moral to it. My mantra is that thrillers like this are among the strongest lights of morality in a postmodern world that denies absolute morality and guilt. Christian Bale wins the award for the most extreme commitment to acting because he let his body shrink to a concentration camp victim skeleton of malnutrition in depicting a man whose guilt over his past consumes him and breaks his life apart. Not only does it break apart his own life, but hurts others as well. He can’t eat, hasn’t slept in a year, and can only buy sex from a prostitute because he cannot achieve true intimacy with anyone. He becomes paranoid that people are out to get him and has confusing perceptions of reality. He is haunted by his conscience in the form of a guy who no one else sees, and the machinist tries to kill – He’s trying to kill his conscience. His crime lies in not accepting responsibility or consequences of his own mistake in an accident that led to a death. It could be argued that this is a bit weak because the hero’s ghost is not a deliberate evil on his part, but an accident. But on the other hand, it can be more universal because he is still avoiding his responsibility for hurting others, he is running not from a crime, but his responsibility in an accident – which becomes a crime. That makes him more of an Everyman that we can all relate to. He’s not a deliberate criminal, but a normal guy with a criminal spirit. Hmmmm. Sounds to me like Total Depravity. Brad Anderson also wrote and directed Session 9, which is another EXCELLENT SCARY thriller about self-deception and suppression of evil in the soul. The Machinist is a great moral fable on par with Se7en, The Addiction, Phone Booth and Collateral. I find it not coincidental that the movie poster has the artistic shadow of a crucifix over the main character. I only pray it comes from the writer’s own worldview reflecting the origin of this notion of conscience and guilt.
National Treasure
Not Recommended. This is a boring predictable action movie. Yeah, it has a good moral: Great riches are not for one man to hoard but for sharing with the world. The hero seeks treasure but ends up giving it to the world. That’s cool. But everything else is pretty boring. I’m all for a good popcorn movie, but I like to have a secondary level that is deeper to it all. This one tries to be in that it is linked to the founding of our country, but it doesn’t work for me. One complaint: They pitch a pragmatic morality and try to link it to the founding fathers. The hero says that the founders were guilty of treason, so their founding of the country was doing wrong in order to bring about right, thus justifying his own stealing of the Declaration of Independence in order to save it. Well, sorry, but the founders were not traitors. It was a war for independence of lesser magistrates against unjust higher magistrates, it was not a revolution in the strict sense of the word. They had every moral right to withdraw from Britain, because they did it through lower magistrates, NOT through a mere populist uprising, in other words, a mob, like the French Revolution. THAT was illegal, immoral, and criminal. But the American War of Independence was both moral and legal. And these pragmatism arguments always sound good until you examine it more closely. Oh, so it’s okay to do wrong in order to accomplish right? So the ends justify the mans? Okay, then killing all poor people to get rid of poverty is justifiable on this ethic. And none of us would accept that option. Well, that’s what ends justifying the means DOES lead to. Justification of crime in the name of ultimate goodness. Pragmatic morality is criminal ethics. To be fair, the hero was in other ways, a good guy who didn’t seek to win through violence, but through his wits, and that’s good.
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Not recommended. I loved the first one because it was a modern version of Pride and Prejudice. This one was uninspiring. It had gratuitous language that was off-putting. It has a good moral couched in an immoral lifestyle. Bridget learns about loyalty and trust in love, but unfortunately, she is so neurotically distrusting of Darcy that she became stupid and unsympathetic to me. How stupid is someone who mistrusts their lover without reason over and over and over again? And then, they don’t get married at the end. Very unsatisfying. Too modernist.
Finding Neverland
Hard to Recommend. This is a complex one. This film is really quite brilliant, and Oscar-worthy on all accounts of the craft. It even has some very beautiful truths in it. The problem I have with it is that it is pure Romanticism, humanistic religion. Let me explain. It’s the story of the man who created Peter Pan, Sir James Matthew Barrie. He meets a widow with three boys and befriends them all in his visits to the park. One of the boys, Peter, has lost his innocence to cyncism because of his father’s death. He doesn’t see the fun in life. He cannot play imaginatively with his brothers because it’s all just foolishness. He has a keen awareness of death. Barrie is more the child and tries to get little Peter to explore his imagination and write, because he is a good little writer. So we have a man-child teaching a child-man how to rediscover imagination, to regain his innocence lost too soon. The boy can’t have fun imagining his dog is a dancing bear because “he’s just a dog.” But Barrie explains to him that a diamond is “just a rock” without a bit of imagination. Barrie bases his character’s name, Peter Pan, on this little boy. But by the end of the story, we see little Peter explain to the stunned, Barrie and audience, “I’m not Peter Pan, HE’S Peter Pan.” So the whole theme of this story is the redemption of imagination. How realism can kill our spirits if we do not believe in the transcendence of reality. The “realists” are those whose skepticism is self destructive. Or, as Barrie puts it, “just when I find a glimmer of happiness in this world, there’s always someone who wants to destroy it.” There is a moment when Barrie’s patron laments about the theater’s loss of innocence, “They changed it. The critics. They made it important.” Some great writing throughout this work of art. Another beautiful coming of age moment occurs when the eldest brother tells Barrie not to visit his mother because even though he likes Barrie, he just doesn’t want his mother to be hurt again. Barrie responds, “Ah, there it is. In thirty seconds, you just became a man. The boy has left.” Very profound understanding of what becoming an adult is, a recognition of mortality and the concern for others. It’s a great coming of age story. It’s a wonderful romp into the world of beauty and creativity, the necessity of imagination in our lives as human beings. My problem is that the Romanticism of the worldview is a God substitute. Barrie is the artist as prophet. Imagination is salvation, a faith substitute. Art as religion, literally. And in true Romantic passion, Barrie misplaces his love onto the fun-loving widow (played by Kate Winslet) who becomes his muse, rather than on his own wife. While they do not commit physical adultery, the story is essentially emotional adultery. Another Bridges of Madison County. Argh! The Romantic, rather than fix his marriage and face his own immature selfishness, seeks elsewhere for passion. The only sin to the Romantic is to restrain the heart. “Follow your heart” is his mantra. Doing the right thing becomes oppressive to these selfish infantile narcisists. Neverland becomes the symbol for imagination, indeed salvation, and Barrie’s wife wants him to take her there (in his heart), but instead he takes the widow. In fact, his devotion to the widow and his art drives his wife to adultery and divorce, but quite frankly, he is the one to blame, making him rather unsympathetic, a jerk of a protagonist if you ask me. Anyway, this idea of art as religion is climaxed when the widow dies and we see a imaginative representation of her entering Neverland (read: heaven substitute). Barrie tells her mourning sons, “Mom is still here on every page of your imagination. She’ll be with you always.” Well, Romanticism wants to ignore God but maintain the transcendence that only God can provide. A transcendence that gives meaning to this life because this is not all there is. There is an afterlife, there is eternal life. Romanticism negates God and hijacks the language and concepts of religious faith and substitutes creativity and imagination for the deity. It worships creation in place of the Creator. This is all very unsatisfying and dishonest for a worldview that conceives of this world as all there is to create a false hope in the living by appealing to imagination. Imagination, when properly rooted in the ultimate Creator has true value and meaning in reflecting God’s image. Without this transcendence, imagination becomes self deception and creativity, mere diversion. Imagination as imago populi is idolatry and spiritual death. Imagination as imago dei is truth and redemption.
The Incredibles
Highly Recommended. I won’t say it. I won’t say it was “incredible.” No. It was FANTASTIC. Pixar is the greatest animation studio since Disney started. In fact, they have become what Disney has failed to maintain, the animated family film studio. I absolutely loved the pro-family nature of this film. A family that bickers and is not being themselves, who have to draw together and use their special abilities to not only save the world, but save each other as well. Some tight-lipped prissies will say that the family was discordant and always bickering which did not support harmony in family. And these people do not know what they are talking about. Just cause a family bickers does not mean they are not harmonious on a deeper level. Anyone who claims that they do have a happy family that doesn’t bicker at all is not fooling anyone but themself. I have to admit this, that the scenes of the family drawing together to save each other, along with their friend, the freezer superhero, actually made me tear up because every act of drawing together and helping each other was an ACT of harmony and familial love that supported the ultimate bond that a family should have. I loved the kids. I loved how each of their super powers reflected their own character type or personality. The girl who can turn invisible and create force fields around herself is a shy girl who hides and protects herself from hurt. The speedy boy is an ADD kid. The stretch mom is a mom who stretches herself for everyone in her family, and the super dad is a testosterone fiend looking for excitement. I loved it. The theme of “the hero in all of us” or the “special value of each person” was very beautiful. And even the sociocultural picture of our society was profound. In the story, people start sueing super heros for saving them when they didn’t want to be saved or the collateral damage that occurs in the midst of the saving. Sound familiar? This gets to the point that all superheros can no longer afford the legal cost of saving people so they stop it and become “normal.” Well, how real is this? THIS IS AMERICA. We have a society where criminals sue their victims and win, where single selfish individuals win outrageous lawsuits that hurt medical or scientific industries. Law suits have become a new form of legitimized crime. We are a litigious society that blames everyone else for our own sins and wants everyone else to pay for it. We have a society of mediocrity where employees who seek excellence are castigated by the rest of the employees because excellence makes their mediocrity look bad. I know, I’ve seen this myself. Consequently good people who would help society are hindered in doing so because of the selfish mediocrity and jealousy of others. This entitlement mentality and blameshifting culture is destroying goodness and righteousness in our country. The Incredibles makes all good fun of this fault, but it leaves you with a profound revelation as well. This entitlement and blameshifting is squelching the “super heros” around us. The Incredibles brings back goodness and excellence and roots it in the family like no movie I’ve seen I a long time.
Alexander
Not Recommended at all. BORING. A movie about Alexander the Great done by Oliver the Amateur. I don’t get it. I don’t understand how studio execs just keep giving away tons of money to this guy who makes terrible movies that don’t make money. I am personally offended by Stone’s arrogant selfishness that actually thinks he deserves three hours for all his movies when they barely deserve one hour fifty minutes. He reminds me of Scorsese. These guys are the kings of terrible epics and colossal wastes of money. Everything is too long from the very start of the boringly drawn out title sequence in the beginning, followed by a long boring droning and redundant monologue by Anthony Hopkins as Ptolemy, Then followed by long boring battle sequences that are attempted to be salvaged by giving it a Lord of the Rings rip off soundtrack. We see a long boring inspirational speech by Alexander to his troops when facing King Darius. This is so boring, even to Stone himself, that he fades out of it and onto a flying eagle, and then fades back into the boring speech being boringly concluded. Well, I’ve got to say, Stone didn’t have a conspiracy here, so that’s new, I guess. Not only is it way too long and boring, but you just don’t care for any of the characters, including Alexander himself. Look, let’s face it, all these lines about undying eternal love and devotion just don’t ring with truth at all in the mouths of Mr. multisexual Alex and his sex buddy. Try as hard as he may, it’s inherently fallacious. Most people just won’t buy it. (There is a reference to Achilles and Patroclus 6 times). And besides, what’s so heroic about this genocidal murdering bloody warrior, who invaded other countries, not even for gold or wealth, (which is supposed to be some kind of virtue to the Stone) but simply to conquer and be king of all. Yeah, that’s a real hero. What a great guy for trying to unify the whole world — UNDER HIS THUMB. So Communist Stone complains and criticizes George Bush, but then makes a movie glorifying the very kind of conquering and subduing that he claims Bush is engaged in. Go figure. Of course, Stone tries to smooth it over by making Alexander a P.C. modernist. He’s for the gay marriage laws, (“there are other ways of loving”), and he is Mr. Multiculturalist. In a world of racist nationalists, he believes in interracial dating and even interracial marriage. Okay, his multiculturalism lies in believing all the peoples and nations HE IS CONQUERING are equal in worth and value. “None of these poor suckers we are killing and subjugating and enslaving are inferior to us Greeks (like all those snobbish Macedonian advisors of his believe).” He actually says he is “freeing all peoples” to be under his rule. Wait a minute. Does anybody else see the obvious absurdity here, or am I just crazy? Freeing people by conquering and killing them? Let’s call him Alexander the Marauding Multiculturalist. Well, they got one thing right, multiculturalism’s kinship with Fascism. So Alexander is this “great” leader who is basically a man of action. This is another existential movie that scorns “those who think too much” and trumpets at the very beginning a quote from Virgil: “Fortune favors the bold.” Alexander spouts platitudes, half of which I couldn’t even hear in the midst of a noisey audio mix. “Fear of death is the cause of all our misfortunes.” “Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.” “We’ve all suffered. In the end, all that matters is what you’ve done.” So we are the sum total of our choices or actions. Action is elevated in this amoral universe, that again, Stone would attack if it was a person on the opposite side of his political beliefs doing all the “bold action.” You get it? These kind of filmmakers think they are being profound by exalting “action” without morality, and then cry like clubbed baby seals when a man of action does WHAT THEY DON’T LIKE. That’s called hypocrisy, self-deception. I mean, just apply this existential amoral “bold action” to Stone’s boogeyman, Bush again. Hey, Bush is bold and a man of action in invading Iraq. So I guess Oliver Stone must have voted for Bush. Not that I agree with Bush, but I know Stone has expressed his hate speech against him. Send out the word: Oliver Stone supports Bush’s bold invasion of Iraq. An odd moment that totally said, “Editing nightmare” occurred after we see this big battle with Babylon and then we see King Darius flee the battle. And then we cut to Alexander weeping over a soldier who died, looking very regretful and like a loser. Then we hear Ptolemy’s narration telling us Darius was defeated and Alexander won. What? What kind of a non-sequitur was that? And an anti-climactic one at that. This movie was so boring, that you would not miss a thing by not seeing it. The court intrigue was boring, just a bunch of people trying to speak with subtext that you don’t even care about, and the long boring war councils talking about stuff that simply wasn’t interesting, and of course, Ptolemy’s long boring narration throughout and over the transition periods. Who cares. I’ll take the pagan Gladiator any day over this broing drivel.
Saw
Not recommended. It was a very creative approach with a story that takes place mostly in a single room, with lots of good twists and very good visuals. But it fails on a moral level. It’s the story of two guys who have been chained into a room and can only get out by killing the other guy or dying in the process, as the place is boobytrapped. And then we discover that the people who this is done to, have dark secrets. It’s in a genre of killer movies where the killer makes a moral point to the audience. Now, I like that as a genre. Movies like Seven and Collateral (morality without God leads to evil) and Phone Booth (the true nature of sins and repentance) are great moral fables, but this movie falls short in that it fails to portray the victims as truly worthy of their suffering. Oh, it tries to make them worthy, but it doesn’t work. First of all, the hero is supposed to be a doctor who is too busy for his family and addresses sick people as objects with diseases. Well, okay, this is a slight character flaw, but certainly not deserving of being tortured so, as the killer says, he should stop taking life for granted. What kind of a stupid motive is that for a killer? I want you to appreciate life more in the face of death. Well, that is a good artistic motive, but it doesn’t work for a killer. Okay, then the photographer who follows the doctor is supposed to be bad cause he is snooping on the doctor. So that’s supposed to be worthy of death? And then, the other people who were killed, one was a drug addict, and another, a couch potato. Se7en did this theme right because the people killed were extremes of the seven deadly sins, which DID make the point that sin is serious. And Phone Booth worked because the revelation of the hero was that he really was a lying conniving cheater and manipulator that successfully hid his true personality from others and the audience. So the revelation of his character may not have deserved death (like a twisted serial killer believes), but it illustrated the true seriousness of his sins. That effect simply does not occur in Saw because the victims seem too average and their sins are not explored to show the true negative effects on other’s people’s lives. This is true especially of the hero, who is tempted to engage in adultery, but when he gets to the hotel room, he doesn’t do it! That moral triumph makes the hero look good, not bad, and therefore unworthy of the “punishment” that the killer puts him through. Fatal Attraction did it right because it had the hero follow through on his adultery from a character flaw, but then he rises over that flaw through love and a wife who is a good shot with a gun. The power of the movies like Fatal Attraction, Phone Booth, and Se7en is that they reveal true guilt in the hero that requires redemption, and that’s what makes the morality of those movies so good, true and beautiful. When the killer “wins” at the end of Se7en, we think that we should fight evil in the world, and that we should not ignore the religious idea of sin and guilt or society will become more evil. When the killer gets away at the end of Phone Booth, we conclude that Satan is always out there prowling like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, so we had better get our lives together and stop deceiving ourselves about our own goodness and repent from our sin. When the killer gets away in the end of Saw it is not to make a moral point, but rather to show that evil wins and average people die without purpose. Like I said, nihilistic trash.
Voices of Iraq
Highly Recommended. A beautiful film. It seems all we see in our news reporting on Iraq is the negative biased coverage of the press. Pick your prejudice, right or left, American or European, it’s all coming from an outsider’s view of the war. What do the Iraqi people actually think? What do they say, now that they actually can say anything without fear of being tortured for their opinion. Here is the premise of the film listed on imdb.com: “Filmed and directed by the Iraqis themselves — thousands of them, from all walks of life, all over their country. The producers, who distributed more than 150 digital video cameras across the country, condensed more than 400 hours of footage into an unprecedented, and startling, look at life in a war zone.” And what they found is incredible, inspiring and full of hope. The producers show the goofy warped US newspaper headlines during various key times over the last year or two, while showing the true Iraqi conditions. Here are some of my favorite moments: A newspaper headline about the “scandal of naked prisoners at Abu Grahaib” then we see a torture victim of Sadaam Hussein tell us, “I wish I was a prisoner being tortured by the Americans. I would love to have my clothes taken off by a woman who then plays with my penis.” A bit profane, but powerful in revealing how ludicrous they see our “scandal” to be. Yeah, Arabs and Baathists chop off fingers, rape, mutilate, put living people through plastic shredders, drag bodies through the streets and light them on fire. But those Americans, now they are REALLY EVIL, they humiliate and mock their captives. Oooookay. And then another Iraqi is shocked. He says with admiration, “I have never seen a powerful country apologize” like the US did about Abu Grahaib. Another headline from the ludicrous NY Times: “Iraq is alive, but the dream is dead.” Meanwhile we see a graduation at Baghdad University that occurred at this same time and we see the students partying and expressing their hopes for the country now that Sadaam is gone, and how they want to become doctors, lawyers and engineers to rebuild their country. We see the agenda driven headline “Quagmire in Iraq” obviously trying to make this look like another Vietnam (What, do they think we are that stupid?). And we see pictures of the people at that time expressing their hope for a new Iraq because of the American liberation. We see people expressing their contempt for the insurgent terrorists and many of them explain that the insurgents are NOT Iraqis, but Arabs and others who are terrorizing because they do not want democracy, while the Iraqis do want it. Another Iraqi tells us “That’s why these countries are sending terrorists into Iraq, because democracy will make it a better place. We will question our leaders and have a voice.” A startling revelation not reported on in the Media. Another startling revelation that is shown in a casual matter-of-fact way by an Iraqi citizen that Sadaam helped provide houses for Al Qaeda terrorists. We see the horrifying photographs and physical remains being dug up of the murder of 182,000 Kurds in Anfal in 1988 by Sadaam’s chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction. Yeah, you heard me, I said “WMD,” you know, those WMDs that aren’t supposed to exist anywhere. EVEN THOUGH HE USED THEM ON HIS OWN PEOPLE for the whole world to see! Recent estimates from different human rights organizations put the murder toll by Sadaam to be as high as 6 MILLION. And I was listening to a Hollywood actor the other day claiming that an alleged 100,000 civilian casualties in Iraq may be more than Sadaam killed. Yeah, real close to that paltry 6 million. And of course, they don’t tell you that most of the civilian casualties are from the insurgent terrorists. A line that made me cry: “It was the Americans that freed us.” A poetic line that made me cry: “Sadaam stole our lives. He stole love and beauty.” Another tortured Iraqi tells us, “There are animal rights organizations in France that protest animal rights. How come they don’t protest for our rights?” We hear about the Iraq soccer team being tortured by the vile demonic Uday if they lost a game. We see only snippets of terrorist recruiting films and Sadaam’s torture films. In fact, that is my one complaint about the film. They should have shown FAR MORE of Sadaam’s torture films. The world needs to see this stuff. Covering it up just hides the truth, all because we have weak stomachs and don’t want to be grossed out by such “violent imagery.” Yeah, well, what do you think etched the evil of the Holocaust into our minds, but the myriads of films showing the concentration camp casualties and tortures. Another preposterous A.P. News headline: “Muslims fear Christian War against Islam” while we see the people themselves actually expressing connection with and gratitude for Christians. I was at a screening where the producers answered questions and they claimed that the movie is a representative sampling of their footage that accurately reflects the hopes and dreams of the Iraqi people themselves. I respect these guys. When accused of being biased and not telling the “whole story” which should include conspiracy theories about Bush and oil, they responded by explaining, “Look, we know there are other perspectives out there, and other issues important to the whole picture. But we are filmmakers, not politicians and we were just trying to get the one viewpoint out that has NOT been shown, the Iraqi people themselves! We may not agree with everything these people say, or even be able to confirm it all, but it represents THEIR view, and that’s the point.” The producer told a great story that captures the truth of bias. He said that when they saw a news reporter out on the streets, they were all covered with body armor and flanked by an armed security team, sticking this microphone into the face of some quivering Iraqi. Well of course, the Iraqi is not going to be himself. But this movie places the camera in the hands of the people away from outside influences intruding in on them. It is their most natural responses. Of course, having a camera does add some unnaturalness to it, but the point is that it is more truly what THEY really think in their own environment. The film DOES show some negative footage of Iraqis who are not happy. But the dominant part of them expressed an understanding that seems to elude most Americans, namely that the problems that they have now ARE NOTHING compared to what they’ve had for years and years, and that they understand that it TAKES TIME to work their way into a democracy. They thank God America saved them from Sadaam. They plead for us not to leave until they can get their democracy in place. That we shouldn’t leave them to be overrun by terrorists like we did in after the first Gulf War. Amen.
Shall We Dance?
Recommended with discernment. A wonderful movie that affirms marriage while being honest with the dryness or unhappiness that can settle over a boring mundane life. This film, about a guy who works with people’s wills and lives a normal, average, everyday mundane existence. He’s got a good marriage with a loving wife and a good kid. But he doesn’t really his own unhappiness creeping in until he sees a haunting beauty peering out the window of a dancing school, as he rides home on the El train in Chicago. He finds himself drawn to the mysterious woman and signs up for class just to be near her. Gere is man, Susan Sarandon, wife, Jennifer Lopez, Mystery girl. So it sets up for a great mid-life crisis examination. When Lopez challenges him to leave if he is just another seeker after her love and not dancing, he finally wakes up from his little fantasy. But here is the great twist: He discovers he really does love to dance! It brings beauty, harmony and happiness he has not known in a long while. Lopez becomes a muse, but not an adulterer. Out of shame, he hides his love of dancing even from his wife, because in our modern world, men aren’t supposed to enjoy such things. Stanley Tucci does a primo job of the funny sidekick, the heterosexual man who wished he was gay because it would be easier to deal with the way the world would look at him for knowing he loves to dance so much. So he hides his secret love and pretends to love football and sports. In fact, everyone at the studio has something to hide. Everyone is being someone they are not, and must learn to accept who they are and embrace their uniqueness and free themselves from their self-imposed repression. The owner of the school is an alcoholic and lost the one true dance partner and husband she ever had. Lopez is one of the best pros who is hiding out at this cheapy no-name school because of her shame over losing the big dance competition the year before over a mishap. Big black student is pretending he is engaged, but he’s really learning to dance in order to impress his dancing girlfriend enough to ask her for marriage. And Bobby Canavale, coming from his excellent stint on The Station Agent, plays the hard edged Italian womanizer, who is actually homosexual. So dancing becomes the sacrament that frees people up to be themselves. Whether or not all these “selves” are in themselves morally legitimate is quite another question. But dancing is a powerful metaphor of redemption — finding the dance of life. The fact that Gere looks to a younger woman at first in the hopes of finding his happiness, is entirely fair and honest to the human condition. What makes it redemptive is that this close call with infidelity turns him back to his wife. At the key moment of the film, when we wonder if he is going to go to the big party to dance with Lopez, and his wife has let him make the choice for himself, he chooses to go to his wife and dance with her in the middle of a store. Why? Well, “because you see, I need a partner to dance. And you’re my partner.” I was crying when he came up the escalator in a tux with a red rose for his wife. It was all rather beautiful and affirming of marriage. An especially poignant and profound insight into marriage occurs when Susan Sarandon is asked by the Private Eye why people marry. She replies that it’s not for love, but rather “we get married to have a witness to our lives. Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice.” This is truly wisdom. Anyone happily married will understand the notion that our experiences apart from our spouse are not as “real” as those shared with them. Why? Because it’s not real until they know about it. I can’t explain that one, it’s just true and beautiful. I think it has to do with the fact that we are created by a God of diversity (Trinity) who creates us to exist in community with others as he does. So there is an aspect to our “reality” that can only be validated through interpersonal relationship. We exist in relationship, and marriage is the ultimate earthly expression of that unity within diversity. One gripe I have about the story that contradicts this otherwise strong moral is that the night before Gere is to dance in the big competition, Lopez dances with him to help him find the “life” in his dancing. To help him “come alive.” And well, the dance, while it does not lead to sex, is actually a sensuous sex alternative, shall we say. Erotic tension and artful cinematography and acting make it clearly a sensual encounter between the two of them that surely equals sex, or at least adultery of the heart. This is the kind of intimacy that should be reserved for one’s spouse. So, in a sense, I would argue he WAS unfaithful spiritually. But then at the end when Gere dances with his wife, it is a loving dance, but not sensual, thus encouraging the poor and immoral stereotype that love is for marriage, but passionate eroticism is only found outside matrimony. You know, love with the wife, (isn’t that sweet) but hot sex with the girlfriend. I call this a “Bridges of Madison County Moment.” He does the right thing, but he hides the real passion with someone else. Oh well, no movie’s perfect. It still drew me to my wife and made me want to take up dancing as a hobby. This movie was ballroom dancing, but I think I want SAAALLLSAAA!!! p.s. A couple of great moments in the movie, were when Gere has very poetic voiceovers describing what it is like to work with people’s wills which are their last attempts to control their lives – which they can’t. Another great integrated metaphor of losing control or letting go of our vain attempts to control our lives. Also, a moment when Lopez is trying to describe for Gere how to dance through a narrative of passionate feelings as she demonstrates on a fellow dancer. And it’s really a lucid parable of her own story of being emotionally ripped apart from dance. It’s all quite poetic. Loved it. Rang with truth and heart.
Around the Bend
Partially Recommended. This Indie movie about four generations of fathers and sons seeking redemption was pretty good. Good performances by the eldest Grandpappy, Michael Caine, Father Christopher Walken, (yes, he CAN act well as a protagonist), Josh Lucas as a great son, and some little kid as the great grandchild (son of Lucas). It’s a road trip movie where Grandpappy dies, but not before leaving a will that directs all the family members above, one big miserable family, to follow directions on a sort of scavenger hunt around the United States in order to receive the inheritance. He has them doing little rituals and scattering Grandpappy’s ashes at various locations important to him. Of course, it’s really just a ruse to force the alienated Walken and Lucas to try to reconnect before it’s too late. And the ultimate location is the home where Walken hurt his baby son many years before. He is in deep need of forgiveness and that is what this tale is about. Walken finding his redemption in the forgiveness of his son, whom he hurt. Well, on the surface, this is a powerful theme for a movie. But unfortunately, the characters were all so alienated from each other that I could never really enjoy them or like them as people. So I did not care too much for them as I watched their story. This lack of sympathy weakened my appreciation for the story. Interesting quirky characters are not enough. There must be something I like about them or I will not care for them. So the big forgiveness scene was not really all it could be. In fact, it really didn’t happen. The actual act of forgiveness is so underplayed and indirect as to be missed. And the worst part about this redemption was that the son suffered a physical injury all his life from this abuse of his father, BUT HE NEVER KNEW IT. He had been told, since he was a baby, that he fell down the stairs. So, the problem here is that the story starts with Lucas as the main character, but then ends up being Walken’s redemption because Lucas had nothing he had to deal with. How could he? He didn’t know. If he had only known somehow then his character would have a reason for his own angst. That was an unfortunate lack in the character arc of the story. But I did love the symbolic ending where Walken is dying and Lucas, his son, drives him to a rock in New Mexico where Walken had “made love to a woman” in his dark criminal past. It was his personal nostalgia. But when they get there, we discover that it was the place where the son Lucas was conceived, so it was his mother that dad was talking about. A very touching redemptive conclusion, better than the forgiveness scene, that also ends with the father dying of kidney failure before he could make it there. So Lucas and his son go to the location in his stead to continue on the father’s desire, as a powerful symbol of the next generation moving on and overcoming its past. Although I heard this writer/director was a Christian, there was no spiritual side to the story, which was rather disappointing.