The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader coming this Christmas!

Come What May - Movie

The Advent Film Group, a fully Christian based film group is releasing a new movie, "Come What May," in Spring 2008. That will be Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. This movie handles the issue of abortion.

Watch the trailer below to see what it is all about!

Do you support blasphemy in movies?

The guys from WayOfTheMaster has put a very interesting video on YouTube.

Check it out!

Recommended Movies

Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship has a list of recommended films in different themes. There are some great movies on this list, but a whole lot that I do not know at all. Maybe you have some ideas of movies in the different categories on this list. What would you recommend?

Just thinking...

Oscar speech

Maybe one day, an actor with guts and a real conscience based on real family and patriotic values instructed by the Bible, will make an Oscar acceptance speech like this.

Just thinking...

Sulu is gay

For all those Star Trek fans, Sulu (George Takei) has revealed that he is gay.

 

This is quite a shock, but I suppose that amongst "stars" gay is in!

 

With me, it is definitely out!

 

Just thinking...

The Island

The scene is set. The world has been almost completely destroyed through all kinds of contaminants and you are one of several thousand survivors. Every now and again more survivors are found and brought to this facility where you are. Where do they keep on finding these new survivors? Why are they not contaminated?

 

The movie The Island gives us a glimpse of the future if we indeed do allow the cloning of human beings to continue.

 

Michael Bay, the director of the movie has this to say:

 

"Lots of sci-fi movies are much ado about nothing. What I liked about [The Island] is that it's a universal thing: we all want to live longer. But how selfish would you be to achieve that? You could get a liver, a heart, kidneys, essential things. But I wanted to show people going for things that were just so crass, like fresh skin for a face-lift. For some woman who doesn't want to go through the pain of childbirth and have stretch marks, why not have your clone birth for you? How disgusting is that?" (http://www.darkhorizons.com/news05/island2.php)

 

In this facility where all these survivors live, a lottery is run and the winner gets to leave this place to go to The Island, the last inhabitable place on the planet that is not contaminated. What is great for the survivors is that everyone will at some stage win the lottery. That means everyone gets to leave this clinical type facility to go to The Island.

 

This facility is run in a very tyranical way where survivors are constantly monitored by electronic means in order to determine what they should eat, how much exercise is needed and even how close men and women may stand to each other. Questioning the system is not allowed and this can only mean that you need psychological help.

 

One of the people in this facility, Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor), stumbles upon a secret that he was not supposed to uncover. The Island is no physical place that lottery winners retire to: it is death! To Lincoln's great dismay, his close friend, Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), is the next winner of the lottery. It is here that the action in the movie starts. Lincoln and Jordan needs to escape, which is exactly what they do. After escaping they find out that they are not real people! They are simply clones. Clones of real people! They are no more than insurance policies for the rich and famous. They have been created to provide replacement parts (new skin, livers, hearts, etc) for real people when the original person needs these parts to survive longer. These clones simply live to be harvested. They are simply products!

 

The Island certainly is not just another sci-fi movie! It has a point to make! It points to the sanctity of human life. This is a very positive point for Christians and certainly can become a talking point around the watering hole at our various places of employment. Surely cloning of human life will end up becoming the oppression of human life! This is clearly shown in The Island. Human beings are not products, no matter how we think they come to existence. A brilliant scientist cannot give life, only God can. So, clone or not, humans need to be treated with great respect.

 

If not pro-Christian, this movie is at least sympathetic to the Christian stance of the sanctity of life. In a scene where the creators of the clones are trying their utmost to destroy these two clones that have escaped, Lincoln and Jordan fall from a very high building, just to be caught by a net close to the ground. The net was right next to a black worker who, after seeing what happened pulls them out and says, "Jesus must love you!"

 

Since cloning is the big rage in the world, this movie is indeed a timely movie to show what the results of this type of science would be.

 

I have read two other Christian reviews of The Island. One at Crosswalk and the other at Christian Answers. I must say, I find the one at Crosswalk a bit superficial whereas Christian Answers really dug into the different nuances of the film to find almost hidden meanings to explain the film. However, it would be good to read both.

 

As for me, it was an enjoyable movie that also makes a point. Too many movies that come out of Hollywood these days preach the usual liberal drivel that we see too often in the political and academic domains. It is good that there is now at least one other movie that has a more conservative perspective of a subject that should be dear to our hearts in these advanced scientific days.

 

Just thinking...

Hotel Rwanda

Genocide! Murder! Mayhem! more than 500 000 dead!

 

This is what happened in 1994 in the African country of Rwanda when the Hutu tribe, according to typical genocidal fashion, systematically attempted to bring the Tutsi tribe to extinction.

 

Our story kicks off when one of the neighbours of Paul Rusesabagina (our main character) is brutally beaten and interrogated. That night in bed his wife wants to know why he did nothing to help their neighbour. Paul's answer was that he was not family. Family is more important than anything!

 

However, soon (in fact on 6 April 1994) after this, the Rwandan president's jet is shot down (by his own army) and so the Hutu onslaught is started under the false notion that the Tutsis shot the president's jet down. The secret pass phrase for the start of this massacre was "cut the tall trees down!"

 

In this situation Paul soon sees the injustice and evil of the genocide and starts opening the hotel (the posh Hotel des Mille Collines), where he is assistant manager, for the housing of refugees.

 

In the past, Paul used to keep his top visitors and other important political figures happy by giving them extra special treatment at their visits to the hotel. In this way he had built an important list of contacts.

 

During this period of genocidal massacre, he makes use of his contacts and the resources of the hotel at his disposal to keep the Tutsi refugees at his hotel safe from this atrocity. Paul constantly has to keep the Rwandan army happy through bribes to ensure the safety of the people at his hotel. In this way he ensures the safety of more than 1200 people, mostly Tutsis.

 

Paul keeps on putting his trust in the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda, believing that the UN would send more reinforcements to stop the genocide. However, Paul soon has to realize that the UN and the western world does not think intervention into a black country warranted their time, money or troops. They are now on their own with no help from the outside world.

 

Even though Hotel Rwanda is a movie about one of the most gruesome genocides of modern history, violence is never sensationalized. The movie is crafted well enough for the viewer to feel and understand the reality of the violence and murder.

 

Apart from the ineffectiveness of the UN in this situation, Hotel Rwanda also shows how the world in the West, especially the USA, rather spent time using words of no effect to express what they saw happening in Rwanda. No one could come to express the truth of what was happening in Rwanda: GENOCIDE! With the evidence at their disposal, the West could not (or would not) see the truth and rather used words such as "internal struggle" and "civil war." While the West was quibbling over the correct words to use, people were being slaughtered by their thousands.

 

Hotel Rwanda is a movie about a real-life person who made a difference in the world. It is a movie that once again dispels the notion that humans are basically good. It shows us how horrifying human nature can be. It also shows us how one imperfect man can make such a huge difference in the midst of the cruelty and evil of human nature. What it also clearly portrays is that the West does not care much for what happens in Africa!

 

Paul is asked by one of his employees, Dube, "Why are people so cruel?" Unfortunately, I have to use that dreaded 3-letter word: SIN! Sin has been with man since the beginning. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?" (Jer 17:9 ASV) "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psa 51:5 ASV) The sooner we realize that sin is part of man's innermost, the sooner people will realize there is only one solution to this problem of sin! The atoning sacrifice of Christ!

 

This is a must-see-movie! Don Cheadle (Ocean's Twelve, Traffic and Picket Fences), who plays Paul in the movie, was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina.

 

For a good review of this movie read HOTEL RWANDA. For more on what really happened in Rwanda, read THE HOLOCAUST IN RWANDA - 10 YEARS ON. I have recently read the book Holocaust in Rwanda - The roles of Gun Control, Media Manipulation, Liberal Church Leaders and the United Nations. What an eye opener! You have to read this book to see what really happened and how the world stood by and watched the genocide. You will see how useless the UN is, and how Kofi Annan, the current Secretary-General of the UN did nothing to stop the genocide! This book can be ordered through Christian Liberty Books.

 

Just thinking...

 

Kingdom of Heaven Correction

In my last blog about the movie Kingdom of Heaven I commented that Balian did not exist. Well, that was a bit of poor scholarship on my part. I simply did not do my homework! Unfortunately, the church history sources I have at home do not mention Balian at all. Wikipedia mentions Balian as Balian of Ibelin (also as Balian the Younger) who died in 1193. His father Balian the Elder died in 1150.

 

Balian is also mentioned in the article In Search of the Real Balian. Here is a quote from that article:

"Balian did in fact play a crucial role as a Crusader noble in the events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 to the Muslim sultan Saladin. But Balian never had to travel to the Holy Land—as he does in the movie—because he was already part of the nobility there. His father Balian the Old (not Godfrey) fathered three sons, Hugh, Baldwin, and Balian, all of whom were legitimate and recognized as such. Long before Saladin made his masterful invasion of the Holy Land, Balian and his elder brother Baldwin had established their reputations as competent members of Palestine's feudal nobility. Indeed, Balian was married to royalty even before the events Scott portrays—and he wasn't at all romantically involved with the princess Sybilla, sister to the king of Jerusalem. (Actually Balian's brother Baldwin was the one who had a love interest in Sybilla.)"

So, you can read about who Balian really was at the links given above. My comments in the original article still stand that "the creators of Kingdom of Heaven played fast and loose with the facts of the crusades," that if "you are interested in an accurate historical movie, this is also not for you, especially if you are a history buff" and finally "like most other historic epics produced by Hollywood... Hollywood gets it wrong once again!"

 

Just thinking...

Kingdom of Heaven

In the world of Hollywood, fact and fiction are no different, as long as you tell a story; even if that story is supposedly based on history, which is supposed to be factual. This is true of movies such as Hard Ball and Pocahontas.

In the recently released movie Kingdom of Heaven, the movie makers take the facts of history, throw them into a hat and then pull them out in random order to make up this historical movie, and then sell it off as fact!

You see, I have always believed that the facts do not necessarily correlate to truth! Fact do not equal truth! Without context and perspective fact is merely raw data. Apply the context and perspective to fact and truth appears. In Kingdom of Heaven we can see this so clearly.

Background

Kingdom of Heaven mixes different facts of a century apart to make its story. In the movie Godfrey, protector of the king of Jerusalem and baron of Ibelin, returns to France to look for his illegitimate son, Balian, to lure him to Jerusalem to join Godfrey in the new world. On the way back to Jerusalem Godfrey dies and leaves Balian to be the new protector of the king of Jerusalem and to be the new baron of Ibelin. Back in Jerusalem Balian discovers that the king is a leper who has been king since his teenage years and who just may not see his 30th year alive. Balian falls in love with Sybilla, the king's sister, but later denies his love for her when he realises that this love could cause great evil in the empire. After the king dies Sybilla becomes queen and her husband Guy of Lusignan becomes her king. Guy, who is a bloodthirsty man decides that it is time for war against the Saracens (Muslims). He leads his army, without the warrior knights of Balian and Tiberias who felt that Guy's actions were uncalled for, against the army of Saladin who ruled an army of 200,000. Saladin obliterates the army of the new king of Jerusalem and decides that Jerusalem must be taken. When Balian hears of this he decides that it is worth defending Jerusalem against Saladin. However, Saladin takes Jerusalem and gives the people of Jerusalem safe passage out of Jerusalem.

Much of the story is based on fact. Godfrey existed and so did Saladin, Sybilla, the leper king of Jerusalem and Guy the bloodthirsty new king. However, Balian did not exist, and there were at least 87 years and two crusades that separated the lives of these people.

True context for the fall of Jerusalem

Godfrey (a descendant of Charlemagne in the female line), accompanied by his two brothers, Baldwin and Eustace, was the moral hero of the First Crusade. He is described as having prodigious physical strength. He was as pious as he was brave, and his single purpose was rescuing Jerusalem from the hands of the Saracens. Contemporary historians call him a holy monk in military armor and ornaments of a duke. Even his rivals acknowledged his purity. In a word, a very different person than pictured in Kingdom of Heaven. Being one of the stalwarts of the first crusade, he helped in securing Jerusalem on July 15, 1099. However, just eight days after the capture of Jerusalem Godfrey was elected king of Jerusalem but declined the title of king, since he was unwilling to wear a crown of gold in the same city where the Saviour had worn a crown of thorns. He rather adopted the title of Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. Having extended his own realm, and survived the capture of Jerusalem, Godfrey died a year later on July 18, 1100. He was recognised as the most devout among the chieftains of the first crusade and as a result his body was laid to rest in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Godfrey, after his death, was succeeded by his brother Baldwin as king of Jerusalem (1100-1118). Next came Baldwin II, the nephew of Baldwin I (1118-1131). The next ruler was Fulke of Anjou (1131-1143), the husband of Millicent, Baldwin II's daughter. After this followed Baldwin III (1143-1162). He saw the progress of the second crusade. Baldwin III was succeeded by Amalric of Amaury (1162-1173). The next king was Baldwin IV (1173-1184), a thirteen old boy who was a leper. Sybilla was his sister, who married Montferrat, one of the regents during the reign of Baldwin IV. It was during the reign of Baldwin IV that Saladin became the caliph over the whole realm of Damascus to the Nile. Baldwin V (1184-1186), the five year old nephew of Baldwin IV, was succeeded by Sybilla's second husband, Guy of Lusignan. Kingdom of Heaven depicts the battle between Guy and Saladin.

So, the creators of Kingdom of Heaven played fast and loose with the facts of the crusades by inserting Godfrey into a historic future in which he is simply the friend of the leprous king Baldwin IV, who reigned 73 years after Godfrey's own reign. Godfrey is also never depicted as the king of Jerusalem during this movie. The movie is also a depiction of the second crusade whereas Godfrey fought in the first crusade. Sybilla and her husband Guy also never succeeded Sybilla's brother directly, but rather followed Sybilla's five year old son, Baldwin V. This then also shows that there never could have been any antagonism between Guy and Godfrey, since they never could have known each other!

Hollywood's bias

Hollywood again shows its bias against Christianity in Kingdom of Heaven. The reasons for the crusades are not clearly shown and the Christians (under the leadership of Guy) are shown to simply want to go to war without any provocation. In fact, the Christians are shown to have provoked Saladin to come to war. On the other hand, the Muslims are shown to be the honourable ones and never to be the aggressors apart from when they are provoked. This clearly overlooks one of the main reasons for the start of the crusades.

Since the inception of Islam by the false prophet Mohammed, he and his followers have been involved in wars of great destruction against anyone who did not believe in Mohammed's message. This included Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and pagans. In the first century of Islamic jihad from Mohammed on, 3200 churches have been destroyed or converted into mosques. Thousands of Christians were massacred in this period alone. And it has not stopped. Men were forced to hand over their women and children to be sold as slaves. City upon city was invaded by hordes of Muslims who continued to slaughter the inhabitants of these cities. As recently as in "1860 over 12,000 Christians were slaughtered in Lebanon."[1] Later, in "1876 14,700 Bulgarians were murdered by the Turks."[2] Continuing in this trend, "200,000 Armenian Christians were slaughtered by the Turks in Bayazid in 1877. And in 1915 the Turks massacred over 1.5 million Armenian Christians. As recently as September 1922 the Turkish army destroyed the ancient city of Smyrna with its 300,000 Christian population."[3]

This had been "Mohammed's" rule since Islam's inception for close on 500 years when the crusades started. It simply came to a point where the Muslims could no longer be ignored. The fact that "Mohammed" tried to convert the world by the sword never even made it to this piece of celluloid.

Do not get me wrong, many atrocities were committed by many of the so-called "Christians" on these crusades. This we do not deny. Yet, many of these same atrocities were committed by the armies of Islam for almost 500 years but we are never informed of them in this movie.

Because this is a historic epic, many unsuspecting viewers will leave the theatre believing that what they saw to be truth. Yet, this movie simply produces the "truth" of the warped worldview of its makers. It passes the many mixed up facts as truth. However, it never brings us truth, but rather stores in the minds of the viewers a rewritten historic concoction of half truths and innuendo.

To learn more about the crusades and what led to them, read The Real History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden.

Not all is bad

Even though Kingdom of Heaven is historically inaccurate there is some good we can take from this movie. It is a movie of honour, bravery and consequences. Balian's brave stand against the Saracens is shown to be a stand of honour, since he and his men promised the king to protect those that cannot be protected. Even Saladin is shown to be honourable in his dealings with the king. A deal was struck between the king and Saladin as to who rules where. Saladin never seems to have gone against this deal. The consequences of wrong actions are also shown when we see the end of Guy, who succeeded the leper king. He was not an honourable man. He was also a man of bloodlust. He ended losing his kingdom and had nowhere to go.

Conclusion

This movie is not for someone who is sensitive. Whenever a battle is on the go, blood is splattered across the screen and onto those in battle. However, the violence and blood cannot be compared to that of garbage like Kill Bill. If you are interested in an accurate historical movie, this is also not for you, especially if you are a history buff.

All in all the movie is good in terms of the story and the special effects. But, like most other historic epics produced by Hollywood such as Troy, King Arthur and Alexander, Hollywood gets it wrong once again!

---

1. Peter Hammond, The End of Islam, http://www.frontline.org.za/news/end_of_islam.htm
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Bibliography

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume 5, The Middle Ages, From Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, 1049-1294, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, First Printing, July 1996.

Update:
30 November 2009 - After I received a correction from Anonymous, on Sat, 28 November 2009, concerning Balian, I thought it best to put a link to my correction concerning Balian that I wrote back on 18 May 2005 called Kingdom of Heaven Correction.

Just thinking about movies

SAVED!

A movie with an axe to grind

 

SAVED! is a movie with a certain portrayal of Christianity in general, and although its portrayal is very one-sided, it nonetheless carries a small grain of truth of a small segment of misguided Christians.

 

Is SAVED! without any truth at all? Certainly not! It has been shown many times over that there are many that call themselves Christians that turn out to be just as nasty and manipulative as those who do not claim to be Christians. It simply shows human nature!

 

But this is where SAVED! parts with what real Christianity is.

 

SAVED! in no way portrays the truth about real Christianity and in no uncertain terms takes what is sacred and beautiful to Christians making it out to be stupid, laughable and psychologically needy. It portrays Christianity from a very skewed point of view and shows how jaded the creator of this movie really is. This movie has an axe to grind and unfortunately the axe is at the neck of Christianity.

 

Once again Hollywood is true to form in making Christians out to be the bad guys. Sure some people who claim to be Christians turn out to be really bad, but that doesn't make all Christians really bad! If I claimed that all black people were really bad because some black people are really bad, I would be called a racist or racial bigot. Yet, when a movie like this is made, portraying Christians to be bad because some turn out to be bad, no one bothers to shout "religious bigots!" to the creators of this movie.The double standards are so obvious!

 

SAVED! portrays Christians as unforgiving, hateful, bigoted, intolerant, idiots, brainless, unthinking and revengeful. It portrays those who shout their commitment to Christ the loudest as the ones who are the worst.

 

SAVED! definitely is a movie with clashing world views. It shows an anti-Christian world view in which homosexuality and sex before marriage is acceptable. Christians know that these are unacceptable. In SAVED! Christians are thus portrayed as unforgiving and intolerant when these issues arise. In fact, this movie shows that it has no capability of differentiating between intolerance and having principles. It shows Christians who are principled and moral as bigoted to anyone who breaks the Christians "rules."

 

SAVED! portrays a misguided "Christian" girl (Mary) who wants to straighten out her gay boyfriend by having sex with him, because she thought Jesus told her to. She ends up being pregnant and finds help and understanding from the rebels in the school. She is a member of the Christian school's all-girl band, but as soon as the leader of the band (Hillary-Faye) finds out that she disagrees with their ideas about God, Hillary-Faye summarily kicks Mary out of the band and out of her life. It also shows Hillary-Faye, the most successful "Christian" in the school to paint graffiti all over the school and then trying to frame it on the rebels to get them expelled from the school.

 

What should we think of this film? It definitely is a hateful portrayal of Christians in a bigoted intolerant movie. In a movie where tolerance is expected, none is shown to Christians. In a film where bigotry is decried, nothing else can be found from the creators of the movie. The creators of this movie are guilty of exactly the same social tendencies that they want to warn us against.

 

If SAVED! was supposed to be satire, it definitely falls short of its mark. Charles Colson writes that "for a start, satire has to be grounded in reality, so that the intended audience recognizes what's being satirized and is able to laugh a little bit at itself -- and perhaps even learn something about itself in the process. Also, it's more effective if the satire takes a subtle approach to its subject rather than going overboard." SAVED! certainly goes overboard in that it tries to pin almost all kinds of evil behaviour on Christians.

 

I do not in any way deny that Christians can be like those depicted in the movie. Anyone who denies that simply does not understand the human condition. Yet, defacing school buildings to get fellow school pupils expelled are not common among Christians. Neither is kidnapping fellow pupils to perform exorcisms on them!

 

Even if, as writer Jeffrey Overstreet writes, it were the Pharisees who were given the short end of the stick, how will non-Christians be able to differentiate between the Pharisee and the genuine Christian if the only reference point is SAVED!?

 

Is the movie blasphemous? I suppose it all depends on your definition of the word. I don't think that anywhere God is blasphemed in His person. Sure, Mary, in her overwrought state after falling pregnant, she tells a prayer group that there is no one listening at the other end. This in itself is merely a cry for help. In her own zeal she messed up her own life. The problem with the teenagers in this movie is that they have a lot of Zeal, but no Biblical understanding. This can only bring disaster. Then, the one who is supposed to teach and help them right, pastor Skip, is becoming unfaithful to his wife starting to mess around with Mary's mother!

 

Unfortunately, this movie will be the only reference point for non-Christians, and will simply confirm to them what they thought they always knew about Christians. So, in that sense this movie is totally biased and borders on being a full-frontal attack on Christians.

 

On the other hand, watching it from a Christian point of view, we could take to heart the many lessons of this movie. From my point of view, every market driven church should watch this movie. When the preaching of the gospel becomes a marketing ploy, then the church has lost the plot.

 

Resources

http://promontoryartists.org/lookingcloser/movie%20reviews/Q-Z/saved.htm

http://www.pfmonline.net/transcripts.taf?_function=detail&ID=3039&Site=BPT&_UserReference=6A4B17D2F499BAEB418F2C60

http://www.criticalessays.org/subversivesaved.html

 

Just thinking...