Change Your Image
guy-372
Reviews
Sisu (2022)
A Spaghetti Western Rambo set in Nazified Finland
Sisu is a Finnish Western of the cowboy western genre, although it takes place during the Nazi era. It is just like the Spaghetti Westerns, in which Clint Eastwood became famous. Of course, transported in time to good ol' 2023, it has more over the top exploits then you can "shake a stick at". Although originally, I was turned off by the apparent foolishness of the hero in not avoiding the enemy, when clearly avoidance would easy and hugely beneficial, once the action started, I eventually realized that this was supposed to be an over-the-top exploits movie, without the "super-hero", but leaning toward the form of a normal hero. After a logical reasonable person can get past the obvious irrationality of the hero, and realize that this is a Finnish Western, dressed up as a World War II over-the-top exploits hero, the movie is fun to watch and well done. It does have routine graphic violence portrayals, so this is really not for children or for those opposed to gratuitous violence. The storyline is that the Nazis seek "destroy everything" departure from Finland, and the hero seeks to get his gold back from the Nazis, with little or no fear for his life or pain. I find it akin to the Rambo movies. If there is no better movie to watch, or if you are fine with irrationality, as is so popular today, I recommend this movie to you. Me personally, I would like the writer and director to make movies which are at least plausible, given the circumstances and equipment. The Indiana Jones movies did the plausible quite well.
Jesus Revolution (2023)
This movie Hints at Only Two of the Things which made the Jesus Movement
After watching the movie, and knowing the character of Chuck Smith, Greg Laurie, Lonnie Frizbee, the three leading characters of the events and facts around these events, I've come to the conclusion that the story was presented half-well and half-poorly. I felt casting and directing sometimes did a good job and other times did a poor job of bringing out the actual characters of the characters portrayed. Kelsey Grammer, a long-time actor, having stared many times, looked reasonably like Chuck Smith, but did a poor job of studying Chuck Smith's personality and portraying his personality, a personality which the director should have known, and a portrayal the director should not have known tolerated, as it is so easy to portray by anyone who spent any time studying Chuck Smith's personality. Chuck Smith is a person who was widely videoed and widely recorded and from the very recent past. Grammer, acting out Grammer, portrayed Chuck as man with the personality of solid corners, outspokenly judgmental-condemning, and a bit combative; rather than a personality with very much rounded and padded protrusions, always jovial, and not condemning, but seemingly always accepting and loving of everyone, but willing to gently make his opinion known of a group, such as saying in passing, and without repeating, that he thought that Hippies should get a bath. I felt that the actual Greg Laurie today would be a better portrayal of Chuck Smith than was Grammer, who barely had a skin of jovial and always had personality hard-corners protruding.
Although Jonathan Roumie, at his older age than Lonnie Frizbee, looks more like the Jesus' we've come to know, than did Lonnie Frizbee, Jonathan Roumie also is a more stable character type than Lonnie at a much younger age. Thus, when Jonathan was acting out Lonnie's pride, insecurities, and desire for attention and spectacle, when Lonnie imploded, Jonathan wasn't believable as Lonnie.
As for the Greg Laurie portrayal by Joel Courtney, although not perfect, was close enough. Although Greg Laurie was really always a tertiary character to the true main characters of the Jesus revolution, it gave a handle for the portrayal of the personal character and goal change of a participant, and a love story, I didn't feel it did a good enough job invoking empathy as a boy changed from indirection to character and direction. For that matter, the movie also did a poor job invoking empathy for Chuck Smith, who thousands of people were attracted to, loved, trained by, and felt safe and comfortable under to spread Calvary Chapels, not just Christianity, to a thousand cities across the globe.
Although the movie told the story, I felt it failed, except in Roumie's portrayal of Frizbee at the beginning, to actually show why the Jesus revolution and Calvary Chapel movement happened. It failed to portray the other characters, who like Jesus' disciples, spread the movement by starting Bible studies which grew to become churches; and the style of teaching and worship which was adopted by existing and new churches.
This movie is definitely not where a researcher should stop in researching the 1970's Jesus movement, but rather should delve into Chuck Smith's teachings and style, which were adopted by his followers. And one should also deeply study the worship style shift of the worship songs which came out of the Jesus movement. I've said that there are things which compose a great and growing church movement, which is composed of the leaders having a great and highly committed hearts for Jesus, worship which reflects that heart, teaching which reflects that heart, freedom which reflects that heart, and adaptability which reflects that heart.
Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist (2023)
Love the Actors, But That Isn't Enough.
Touted as "Based on a true story that hasn't happened yet", this additional adaptation to Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of books should be understood as a "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" as it again fleeces the sheep on behalf of poor Bible understanding. A main principle of Bible understanding or any understanding is that what is most strongly known must guide and inform what is less strongly known and that must guide what is then speculated.
The idea that "millions of living people will be raptured" a thousand years before the end of the world, before the end of the Millennium (Thousand Year Reign over Earth by Jesus), and before the Tribulation contradicts the clear and most strongly known and understood Revelation 20 passage, which indicates that only those who have been executed for Jesus' sake will rule with Christ for the Millennium.
I can understand how appealing, attractive, and comforting a "Rapture" before the Great Tribulation would be; and how motivating it might be for evangelism, as I was also taught it while spiritually young and immature. Unfortunately, this relatively young doctrinal teaching solidly contradicts foretelling-scripture, which can be very confusing for the spiritually immature. The idea of such "rapture" was not even known in Christianity until invented in 1909 by Cyrus I. Scofield.
Bible scripture has no teaching of "rapture", even at 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. The mistranslation to "rapture" of these advocates is of the word meaning "snatched-out", which was previously used in scripture to refer to the one who was "back-slidden", being corrected and therefore rescued, similar to being "snatched-out" of the flames of Hell. Earth and humanity's final destruction in Hell, as we clearly see in Revelation 20-24 doesn't occur until after the Millennium. Along with poor scriptural understanding of End-Times with the faulty idea of the "rapture", this movie suppresses correct understanding of scripture, and fails to recognize the standard technique of foretelling scripture's use of conjunctions, such as 1 Thessalonians 4:17's "then", which in foretelling prophesies indicate "a significant gap in time", "change of scene", or usually both of these.
Although I was encouraged to be reminded to watch out for the Antichrist, this movie seems to do more to placate Believers to not study foretelling scripture more deeply. A good story isn't what is primarily necessary when truth is needed.
Church People (2021)
Honestly, It's a Fun, Sweet, Under-rated Christian Movie
It's a well written comedy Satire of Over-the-Top hype trying to compete with the carnival antics of the modern entertainment industry, which also is invading churches. It''s a story of sweet caring good people taken toward the extreme, but only barely over it. You may have even seen slightly smaller versions of these people in your own churches. I can't give it a 10, but the solid script, acting, and support really make this an enjoyable movie ... and it even has several well known actors in it, who each do a great job. This is a family or group movie that you don't have to be embarrassed about because of its quality story and entertainment value, which draws the audience in. It's a light-hearted comedy with reasonable straight-men performances. And it doesn't truly get serious and meaningful until the script-flip end, but brings us back to a reasonable light-hearted end. Don't miss this simply because others under-rate it.
The Murders at Starved Rock: Part 1: The Boogeyman (2021)
I was completely railroaded by the writers.
David Raccuglia's research got the evidence for himself, after growing up in fear of Chester Weger, since Raccuglia's father was lead prosecutor of Weger for The Murders at Starved Rock case.
Sadly, this crime documentary intentionally deceives the viewer. Since we know that we are receiving the information third and fourth hand, we expect the second-hand producers to be honest, forthright, and organized with us as we watch the documentary. We expect them to give us the pros and the cons, the exculpatory evidence and the damning evidence, and weighted the evidence at least closely to how it should be logically weighted.
But they are not forthright or honest with us! Instead, they give us select unfiltered damning evidence, then they give us select unfiltered and unweighted exculpatory evidence and theories, then they haphazardly give us filtering and weighting of both the pros and the cons. Then they shoot a big hole in the whole multi-decade documentary by ending it at the point which they tell us that potentially crucial physical evidence will have DNA analyzed results in just weeks, rather than ending the documentary after that analysis had been completed.
I thoroughly felt that I had been taken on a deceptive ride the whole time by the writers. I felt that I had wasted three hours of my life, which I will never get back, which could have been used for something far better. The case itself is interesting, but the writing, editing, organizing and sharing the evidence with the viewer caused this viewer to feel that he was completely railroaded by the producers of this documentary, in a similar manner as they had portrayed may have happened to Weger.
The Star of Bethlehem (2007)
Excellent Documentary! Very Convincing and Amazingly Powerful.
Excellent Documentary! This really is a must see documentary, but is only a piece of a much bigger puzzle. This is not a movie in the sense of a story about people's interactions with each other and life events. It is an astrological revelation of the stars and planets at the time of Jesus birth and death. Frederick "Rick" Larson tells about his obsession with trying to discover what the original Star of Bethlehem was. He doesn't go into hardly any detail as to who helped him move along in getting the information he presents, and some people claim he got some from predecessors. But the documentary is really only an opportunity to expose what he found while using a modern astronomy computer program, and an explanation of it. It is his conjecture that this is what the Magi saw, which convinced them, and his presentation convinces me, yet the astronomy itself is so compelling as to be mind-blowing on the omnipotent power and knowledge of God. Larson goes into some conjectures as to what the star and Planet alignments mean and it is not always simple for the casual observer to discern clearly some of the minutiae of his points. Moreover, he is not an expert in other areas of which he conjectures, but the big points, namely the astronomical observations, are overwhelmingly powerful. This one-hour documentary could have been contained in a much shorter documentary of 15 to 30 minutes, but it doesn't feel overly cocooned. Moreover, my own research on the seven acts of the Messiah and the end times is highly excited by the prospect that God also foretold all these events in the stars.
San Giovanni: L'Apocalisse (2002)
OK Movie but Weak Biblically
I feel that I was bait and switched. I feel that the characters and the actors we're all good and even the drama was good. But I don't feel like the Patmos setting realistically and historically fit the actual exile which Saint John experienced at the time of the writing of the Book of Revelations. Although we know that all the revelations we're written into the first book and the other six or more copies would have all been copied from the first, before sending them out, the movie portrays the visions being sent out as an incomplete work, in fragments. Moreover, the visions are portrayed in the movie, but don't attempt to do an accurate enough portrayal of the words written in the Book of revelation, of the revelations. My expectation is that biblical visions would be is exact to the words as are written down in the Bible. Although I didn't mind the weapons of war being shown as modern weapons of war, as this war is still into our future, I didn't like that Jesus first portrayal didn't look exactly as was described in revelation. He should have been portrayed as a Divine version of the Hebrew high priest in all his costume. Moreover, simply viewing the vision as we did, without a narration of what John saw aborted our ability to enjoy the Grandeur of the spectacle for what was represented. I feel that a biblical movie should as exactly as possible represent the historical situation, or at minimum to not distort the historical situation. I wanted to give the movie a 7 for the action, historical settings, actors and characters, but I had to give it a 6, because it strayed from logic, and history, and the biblical account, making me feel bait and switched.
An Interview with God (2018)
Terrific Concept, Over-Used Poor Delivery
As a very knowledgeable Theologian, with more than Doctorate education, I was reluctant to watch poor theological drivel. But the storyline initially drew me in to it, with a few interesting features. Brenton Thwaites originally was convincing as the journalist for a paper's religious section, who claimed to have always had "faith"; and David Strathairn, with his warm, calm, likable, intelligent and noble demeanor was an excellent choice for the God character. Even the questions, which were mentioned for God to answer, had serious potential. Unfortunately, once at the first of three interviews with God, God's answers quickly went from "I'm here to help" and giving serious answers to cagey non-answers; while the believability of the journalist's character broke-down, dropping out of serious investigative questioning into shockingly uncontrolled anger for no believable reason. I didn't believe that a serious, studied, Christian, praying, faith-filled journalist could have so little faith, depth, un-provoked anger, and little interest to the answers of a person who claimed to be God, either to invalidate or validate the person. And no such investigative journalist would have passed on God's repeated offer to prove himself with a dramatic miracle of the journalist's choice. But with the inadequate script and storyline, the director filled the hole with the drama of the journalist's anger, and the trite over-used side-plots of a marriage infidelity and soldier's PTSD. Once again, the writer & director of a religious movie failed to fully develop the script, and poorly used over-used story-lines. Better had they introduced little known controversial truths and a less cagey script. I wanted to give it 6, but gave it 5/10.
Raised by Wolves (2020)
1st Five Great, but Ep 6-10 Eat Donkey!
Very intriguing & compelling first episodes, until the "jump the shark" beginning of the unraveling of a great story with great potential, with the introduction of hearing voices and seeing ghosts, then yet another sci-fi story tries too hard by all the stories star characters personalities flipping to their opposite. It was clearly the end when the soldier captain leader and other soldiers stopped from eradicating siren android mass murderer, after discussing how ridiculous it was that someone had tried to reprogram the android in the first place.
And in same episode, the only protective care-taking nurturing 2nd android, who had recognized the 1st android's malfunction and wanted to unify their human child ward with the other humans, so that it might live, then started shooting and killing 3 of the human rescuers, like the domestic-nurturing android was now suddenly a war machine.
The "shark-jumping" just continued with the ridiculous loss of the 1st android's liquids with no consequence to the loss, then the android suddenly with no reason, becoming pregnant, and hungering, not for android plasma, but for blood. Sorry folks, the story just continues down its try too hard death-spiral to the end of the season.
Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy (2019)
Good Education, But First Watch the prequel "Patterns of Evidence: Exodus"
Fascinating documentary specifically on whether there was even an alphabet for Moses to have written the first five books of the Bible. Or whether the Bible had to be written, as some contend, many hundreds of years later, taking imaginary campfire stories and making them into a religion to hold the people together.
This is the 2nd of the Patterns of Evidence Series, which today has 4 movies. In my august opinion, they should be viewed in order, as they build on the previous documentaries, and are incomplete explanations, when taken out of order.
I didn't know there was a proto-sinaic alphabet. It does a great job with archaeology and history to show that there was an alphabet, at the time of Moses, in which he could have written his parts of the first five books of the Bible. It goes into the development and changes of the letters and the common bias in modern archaeology against the biblical record. It even includes one archaeologist who believes what she believes because her teacher told her it was so; yikes! And then she puts forth her quaint unreasonable theory that a no account person, who had no need for letters, invented the letters, and the people, who also had no need for letters, just naturally loved them and adopted them. It shows that the quality of archaeologists range from the IQ of your smartest classmates to your dumbest classmates. It's a good documentary for the person who really does care about everything about the Bible.
Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle (2020)
Great documentary, but first see the previous 2 of the series.
Great documentary on the opinions and supporting facts of the Red Sea miracle as recorded in the Bible in the book of Exodus and specifically, where it took place. This is movie documentary number three in the "Patterns of Evidence" series, and the previous two movies should be watched before this one. I highly recommend the previous two movies in order.
This is not a movie for atheists to consider whether or not God exist, or to hear arguments, called apologetics, on the existence of God. If that's what you're looking for then go find an apologetics book or movie, because this is a recorded history / archaeology documentary.
This movie basically begins with the assumption that the narrative of the Bible Exodus from Egypt and Red Sea Crossing has some basis in fact, although the fact may have been exaggerated. Then it considers the text to try to find the actual location of such a water crossing. In doing so, The Host considers as many pertinent facts as possible and as many pertinent opinions as reasonable and hears from experts on their opinions.
The host looks at the possible population of the Israelites leaving Egypt, as well as the route possibilities, speed of travel, days of travel, speed of sheep, robustness of sheep, water depths, meanings of words, and such to narrow down the possible site of the water crossing. It does a good job of allowing The Watcher to know the options and their pros and cons. Then the host chooses what seems most reasonable to himself and also to myself.
However, I felt that it could have done a better job of stating that the "migdol"/fort could have equally been on the far side of the desert, as the near side, and that Egypt controlled the whole Sinai Peninsula, and was never controlled by another nation, even though the Sinai Peninsula was not considered Egypt proper, but rather a buffer area of desert. I was also disappointed that no mention was made that the head of the Persian Gulf really was a vast area or "sea of reeds", but the Persian Gulf was not even considered, not that I consider it the correct answer.
This is a part 1 of 2, so expect to need to watch the second part, or feel very disappointed.
So if you want to grow in your knowledge of the Bible and specifically of The Exodus account, this is a good movie for you, with great graphics and videos and experts.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Video Game Story Line From Street Fighter II and Some Fantasy
I admit that I enjoyed the first one, and the second one wasn't too bad. The first two movies of this series had pretty solid story lines based on possible reality and loads of violent fighting. This is not like the first two. Yes, there is violent fighting ... actually, this movie bumps up the duration of violent fighting to the point that the watcher realizes that this movie is was only written to have a platform for lots of violent fighting ... or call it fantasy video game fighting ... where none get tired, especially not the hero, and the attackers just keep on coming, as if it was a zombie apocalypse or Captain America taking out the whole kung-fu nation, one person at a time. One fight simply moves on to the next fight as the hero must move down the fixed path, conquering each new level group of bad guys in hand to hand combat or modern video game shooting gallery. The only things missing from the video game were pauses for re-arming, tokens given to get help journeying along the way, a guru-mastermind running everything who must be spoken to, and more fights to get back ... oh, maybe those weren't missing. I admit that the fights were so long and utterly predictable that I Fast-Forwarded through them. Then there was the fantasy aspect, where the enemy knew everything, all of the time, the characters refusing to re-write the monotonous script by "taking-out" the oft repeated messenger of doom who would have been powerless if dealt with. And where was even one grenade or set of bombs to save the hero from individual "take-downs". I gave it a 6 only because the choreographer had to work so hard with so much fighting, but the story line is really a 2 or 3. If you have a brain, you will save it for a movie that requires a brain.
No Escape (2015)
I Shut It Off At 40 Minutes, but sadly watched the remainder later.
I shut this movie off at 40 minutes into it, because of the stupidity of the decisions being made by the characters. Maybe, a man might make those decisions, but he would deserve a "Darwin Award" for thankfully removing himself from our gene-pool. I shut it off at the point that after only the first hours of the murderous rampage, the family had found a safe place to hide for the next couple of days, until the craziness would have subsided, at least in their city, and movement would have been much safer, but the father decided that he immediately needed to move the young family across town, alone on the open streets, while the rampage was still in its earliest hours. Although some stupid things had already taken place, that was just far too stupid for me, and made it clear to me that the author and director had NO COMMON SENSE.
Prior to this, the Hero had already failed to show common sense, when he ran back and forth between a large police force and a large street gang force that were both marching together for a violent confrontation. He clearly should have ducked into one of the small stores, which were closing their heavy metal garage doors. He saw shooting in the streets and an American executed.
Next, the hero made it excitedly back to his family in their 8th floor room, and he whispered excitedly to his wife about what he saw. Unbelievable, what fool would whisper those facts that are immediately life saving!?! Of course, the two daughters saw the hero's agitated and excited behavior, both before and after he entered the room. And what girl would not be more interested in her loving gentle father at such time, than in her immediate desire to swim in the pool!?! Ugh ... NONE! A girl would even be asking her father to join them! But this 10 year old girl immediately goes by herself in a strange hotel down 4 floors and goes swimming alone!?! IN WHOSE WORLD ??? It never would have happened.
So, the family makes it to the roof, along with a couple dozen others, a helicopter comes, flown by rebels??? Of course not!!! How many average people know how to fly a helicopter? Zero percent. Of course this one has a rebel with a machine gun in it killing everyone on the roof! Unbelievable! Even more unbelievable is that the hero had previously thought that he should gather his family in the open and take them toward a flying helicopter, which could have only rescued 6 of the 2 or 3 dozen on the roof, and only after it had landed, if it could have.
So with escapees being shot by the killers who had made it to the roof, the hero decides that his family must jump to the next building's roof nearby. As the hero is working out how to do this and as the family then do this, another escapee man just stands around watching them for the longest time, not helping and not doing the jump for himself and not trying to escape! Unbelievable! Of course, after the family makes the jump, the man gets shot trying to make the jump.
So, the family is now safe on wide walkway ledge behind a large vinyl sign, unseen by anyone, but a tank comes down the street and clearly and specifically targets them on the 7th floor! Unbelievable!
The break into the building and get inside, just in time for the tank shell to explode into the building, creating destruction and a hiding place, a large hole among the ruble to which the family escapes to hide, pulling a dead body over the opening to the hole. The killers come in the room, kill a few people, look around the room and leave. Clearly, their hiding place worked and the killers wouldn't find them there, if the killers came back. Obviously, a normal person would keep his family safe in this hole until the street killings have stopped. So, this is the point that the hero decides that they must leave their safe hiding place to travel across town in the open to get to the safety of the embassy, while the killing gangs are still at the beginning of their marauding! I couldn't stand any more stupidity so I shut it off to watch the remainder the next day while doing desk work!!!
NO! The movie didn't get any better! It all continued in these unbelievable character choices and freak occurrences ... just like it was a nightmare dream! There is really no other way to really describe it than exactly like the unbelievable occurrences and decisions one makes in a nightmare.
The director did make his anti-something statement by having a benevolent rescuing character make a crazy speech about how this blood and carnage was all his and the West's fault for selling infrastructure improvements to undeveloped nations.
I wasn't brain-dead enough to enjoy this movie, although the thriller aspect of it was quite thrilling. Except for the poorly contrived story-line and stupid political statement attempt (they never work), it could have been a good movie.
John Adams (2008)
Sad Distortion of John Adams !
Now, after reading multiple biographies of the founding fathers and previously becoming an expert on human behavior, I'm sad at the distortions of history, biography, and human behavior perpetrated by this mini-series. This mini-series portrays John Adams as a melancholic, principled, angry man, which is entirely wrong on melancholic and angry, and only partially right on his principles, as these were distorted. It failed to show John Adams as the devoted follower of Samuel Adams and committed to the same cause as Samuel Adams from where the mini-series begins and places John Adams at the edge of all the action, instead of among Samuel Adams' fomenting puppet masters, who never appeared at the riots. This highly fictionalized portrayal highly ignores history's record of who John Adams was and the very deep religiously pious nature of both Samuel Adams and John Adams; portraying Samuel Adams as ostentatious, nobly garbed and an accumulator of wealth, when the opposite was true. John Adams was much more likely to be decked out in fine clothes than Samuel Adams, who despised pretension and ostentatious spending. Moreover, John Adams had by the beginning of this mini-series already been among Samuel Adams' secretive inner circle. Samuel Adams was known to hold unprovoked violence toward persons as reprehensible and unacceptable to his God, thus in Samuel Adams' piety, it was likely Samuel Adams who asked John Adams (the only lawyer among them) to represent the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. Moreover, the alternating angry and melancholy natures of this portrayal is not only historically in accurate, as John's actual character was more like an enthusiastic irrepressible happy little dog, rather than the universally unlikable character of this angry melancholic portrayal, which never gets a person chosen or elected for anything. From that huge error and others on this mini-series, it this portrayal is doomed to be a highly inaccurate, highly fictionalized portrayal of John Adams, which only historians will recognize, because of the broad ignorance of the masses.
The Interview (2014)
Farcically Hilarious, bit Over-The-Top!
Do we really have to see the reviews of North Korean Propagandists whose only review is this Movie, because they aren't allowed to see non-dictator sanctioned movies!?! You should disregard all movie reviewers with this movie as their only review! I was not expecting much from this movie. I automatically disregarded all movie reviews which were 1s, 2s or 9s or 10s, knowing that it wouldn't be scheduled for released to theaters if it were not popularly rated above a 5 and wouldn't reach the lofty 9 by a free public, who don't all share the same tastes. I gave it 8 because it was a hilarious farce and over-the-top, but just a bit. The acting, story, sets, dialog and special effects were all within the high quality we expect from Hollywood. This movie hit the goal of being right at the edge of ridiculous without fully making it into that ridiculous realm of "slapstick" in which people don't behave as people do behave, and where none of the characters are injured. Yes, it is over-the-top, but I was impressed with the comic, but not farcical or slapstick acting. For what it was supposed to be, it was perfect. I was actually impressed with the acting throughout, and the storyline took plenty of unpredictable turns to keep it fresh and original. I definitely can see why North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il doesn't want the world to see this movie, as it brings attention to his abuses and it does so in a popular fun manner while making fun of him. I don't recommend this to Puritans or kids, but the crowd it was made for should love it.
Gimme Shelter (2013)
Inspirational True Story Well Worth Watching
Last night, I saw a screening of the movie "Gimme Shelter" which releases on the 24th. I highly recommend it. It is a very good inspirational movie of which only immature males wouldn't appreciate it. None the less, it is valuable training for them, even though it is not all action. The subject matter may sound less than interesting, but it was done excellently, morally inspiring and has a happy ending to this true story about a girl who was (or wasn't raised) by a druggie mother and "Clinton's village" of government subsidized foster homes. The acting was superb. The story starts out with the cynical tough-girl jaded pregnant 16 year old runaway finding her biological father and eventually leads to a happy ending, inspiring the audience to be morally upright. Women in the audience cried. Go yourself and take your loved ones. And as a pastor, I do recommend this to children 6 years old and up as a great teaching opportunity for parents. I also recommend "Gimme Shelter" for churches, political groups and action groups.
2016: Obama's America (2012)
Is Obama The Anti-Christ? 1 Or 10 Or somewhere in between
Is Obama THE Anti-Christ, or just A Anti-Christ? Well, this documentary doesn't discuss that. Rather, this documentary discusses what is known about Obama's life and family, which has been missing in the media, as Obama, himself and his supporters have kept his life under "lock and key", giving out just enough to satisfy the media that was "rooting" for him but not enough to actually know him. The movie uses very sound evidences and sound psychological discernment to interpret Obama's actions with historical evidences back to his likely motivations and future actions.
This type of documentary is subject to the same 51-49% split of public opinion that Obama recently regained office. Those who LOVE Obama will HATE this documentary, but those who HATE Obama will LOVE it. The documentary is more thorough than the other documentaries on Obama, and the Author does a better job explaining and substantiating Obama's motivations, actions and the actions we can most likely expect him to do, based entirely on Obama's words and actions, but supported by his parenting and his teachers.
I don't recommend this for documentary for those who have already committed themselves to the position that Obama is the Messiah. But for reasonable thinking persons who are fairly discerning and can see through Michael Moore's deceptions and lies, this documentary should prove to be something for you to mentally wrestle with and may give you the corrective lenses to understand Obama's actions and correctly predict his future actions.
For me, unintentionally, this documentary has given me enough additional information to plug Obama into the Bible's prophesies about THE Anti-Christ to realize that Obama may reasonably be him...from the Obama-nation/"abomination that causes desolation" predicted in the Bible, to "Babylon the Great being destroyed in one hour" as a realistic fulfillment of its prediction in Revelations by the fall of the World Trade Center on 9/11, to Iran's(Persia) goal to destroy Israel with Nuclear Weapons, to Russia's(Gog)and China's continual support of Israel's enemies and the destabilization of the Middle East, and on and on. Good luck to you.
The Avengers (2012)
7.6 For Non-Comic Book Fanatics
7.6 For Non-Comic Book Fanatics. Although there are plenty of fantastical elements in this movie, this movie is an enjoyment. Although everyone who enjoys this movie will need to be willing to accept the fantastical elements of the characters and main plot points, this movie is successful because it is logical and reasonable beyond those openly accepted fantastical characters. The action is exciting, imaginative and well shown. But the greatest strength of the movie was the development of the characters. We didn't need to know the comic book facts about the characters to understand what was happening. Moreover, the characters had personality: they were reasonably complex and interacted with enough pressure against each other to understand them as more than just "cardboard" comic book cut-outs. The highlight was the humoristic quips between the heroes. I recommend that you see this in the cinema in the 3-D version, as the 3-D is done well and not the over-the-top 3-D of yester-years. But see this with another person who enjoys fantastical stories.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
A Sherlock Holmes caper with blazing sexual simmer.
As a rewrite and remake of the 1968 Steve McQueen venue, this rewrite/remake modernizes the general theme with entirely different capers, bringing up the product by a whole 2 points of 10. The tongue-in-cheek humor, innuendo and subtle humor abound, making this a great movie for the reasonably well college educated person. However, the classiness of the humor will surely be lost on the uneducated. The caper is, however, well enough revealed for the average man. This is a great date flick for the less sexually squeamish with the flirtatiousness of sexual innuendo moving to a subtle slow burn, followed by a full blaze, causing this to be uncomfortable for couples not fully involved, but encouraging the couple to become fully involved. The chemistry between the leads is so strong that it cannot be missed by anyone. So, this is not a good flick for couples who don't want to go there. The capers involve Sherlockian imagination and intelligence with wonderful twists. The final caper is a wonderfully imaginative romp to music, reminding me a bit of a more classy type of Monty Python humor, and shouldn't be missed.
The Perfect Stranger (2005)
Theologically: I Give the Movie a 10!
But I do have a few theological critiques below. I agree that it was very good. I will recommend it to others, because it is well done and accurately answers typical questions that skeptics have about Jesus and true Christianity. Although I was looking for theologically wrong answers by the Jesus character, I found no theologically wrong answers. This is a great movie for open minded skeptics and new believers. Closed minded ignorant persons will not like this movie! So don't recommend it to them, until they are ready to be open minded and inquisitive! It is a very good refresher "course" for Christians, who are not fully mature. I plan to use this movie to teach people and thus I will be more effective at discipling, by freeing me from some of my repeated answering these questions, and allowing me to help people mature beyond these repeated but important answers.
The "closed minded ignorant" person will be unable to suspend judgment on the Jesus character being blond and blue eyed, but the end of the movie throws in a twist to this that even challenges us to wrestle with this. As most of the movie is simply a table dialog between Jesus and Nikki, theatrical cut-aways are poorly used to give us a change and seem intended to give us a chance to think about the previous answer. My theological contentions are not with the substance of the answers which Jesus gives. But I do have contention with Jesus use of critical sarcasm at one point and a couple of uncharacteristic negative countenances. I would have liked to see him have a bit more humor, at those points.
Life as We Know It (2010)
Fills Hollywoods REQUIRED HOMOSEXUAL positive appearances
This is a completely predictable modern Hollywood romance movie, all the way down to the mandatory required homosexual appearances (here a male couple with baby). (It offends me that homosexuality is shoved down our throats as being ubiquitous and positive in every Hollywood romance today. Wow! Give it a rest! I'd like to see one conspiracy movie about this propagandizing conspiracy promoting homosexuality in the film industry and media.) The movie was sweet and enjoyable as a romantic comedy. The movie never convinced me that deceased couple had a truly close relationship to the singles to which they gave their baby and it seemed strange having an open homosexual male couple fully incorporated into the neighborhood in the "buckle of the Bible belt". But the movie was enjoyable for a date movie and I would recommend it as such.
Yogi Bear (2010)
The Yogi Bear cartoon made into movie nothing less or more.
The Yogi Bear movie is just like the cartoon
only longer
and bigger. Ranger Smith is given a love interest, and a few things like that have been added. It follows the traditional convert cartoon into movie formula. Add a love interest for Ranger Smith. Get him fired. Rescue the park from destruction by the mean politician. But Yogi and Booboo are exactly who they were in the cartoons. It is good fun for the kids, and you, too, if you like the old cartoon. There are plenty of Yogi antics. But nothing to make it reach a new novelty level. This is a live actor movie with plenty of modern CGI animation for Yogi and Booboo to make it work, and it works.
Black Swan (2010)
Drug induced script writing
If you are stoned or enjoy depraved hallucinations, this might be your kind of movie. This is a twisted script of which the story typically seems more induced by drug use than by unique imaginative writing. The script constantly strays from reality into hallucinations similar to "Mulholland Dr." and the end of "A Beautiful Mind". We follow the daily life of a ballerina being chosen for the lead ballerina part at the company's new rendition of Swan Lake. The movie includes titillating scenes of drug use, homosexuality, murder and self-mutilations, based on the main character's mental problems and drug use. We want to feel empathetic for the character's mental problems, but unlike the movie "A Beautiful Mind", this story never gives us a reason for the character's non-drugged hallucinations. It is presented so we naturally assume that what we are viewing is camera reality, only later to learn that it was tragic mental dysfunction-based hallucinations. We are tragically expected to believe that the character fatally stabbed herself and then twice perfectly danced ballet parts on stage before the blood showed and she collapsed with instant blood spread. The dancing artistry was enjoyable, aside from the hallucinations, the script was uncreative, but the acting was solid. But solid acting doesn't fix a sick script. Had this movie given us a reason for the woman's dysfunction and built it up, turning the movie into a tragedy, instead of an "acid trip", the movie might have had a society strengthening reason to exist.
Zombieland (2009)
Written Specifically for Junior High Boys
So, if you are not a Jr. High boy or have the shallow mentality of Jr. High boy, you won't think it rates the 7.8 that it has on the day of this writing. It seems to be the undeveloped plot version of an arcade shooting game about killing zombies. The plot doesn't make any sense from beginning to end and the characters have no depth or attachment to reality. The guest appearance of Bill Murry added nothing to the movie, but it did caused me to want to re-watch some of his hits. The zombies in the movie seemed to be anywhere and everywhere with no rhyme or reason and the very few remaining living people magically appeared to be living safely in the immediate vicinity and availability of the zombies. There was no sign of dead people, like they had magically been beamed up by space aliens, yet technology remained intact and working, even weeks after zombies were everywhere.
I strongly recommend you miss this movie, unless you are doing a party for Jr. High boys or have a sick one at home, like I do.