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When the air fills with the the smell of cinnamon and eggnog lattes and the sounds of “Jingle Bells”, I have this ever-increasing desire to curl up in my favorite chair by the fireplace to watch my favorite Christmas movies.
I love the classics — Irving Berlin’s A White Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Meet Me In Saint Louis. They remind me of a time when Christmas was not about getting the perfect gift but making memories with the people who matter the most. For me that’s what Christmas is about, a time to show your family and friends how thankful you are for their presence in your life.
Do you have a favorite Christmas movie?
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I’m not a big history buff, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this engaging and powerful film. Recently released on DVD, Amazing Grace is based on the true story of 18th century British politician William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd, The Fantastic Four) and his relentless pursuit to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. The film, set during the turbulent times of the American and French Revolutions, follows Wilberforce as he wrestles with what he should do with his life - become clergy or pursue politics. He gets advice from his mentor and pastor John Newton (played by Albert Finney), who convinces Wilberforce he can — and needs to do — both. Newton, a slave ship captain turned clergyman, later wrote the well-known hymn “Amazing Grace"? Though this is just a small part of the movie, his story (and Finney’s performance) is a moving and interesting one. Wilberforce continually lobbies the Parliament to end the slave trade, facing incredible opposition amidst accusations of sedition. His determination and passion for his cause is to be admired, as he doggedly pursues it despite failing health. I was moved by his perseverance and the single-mindedness with which he strove for his goal. Faced with a similar situation, I’m not sure I would have the strength or determination to overcome the odds. Is there a cause you would put everything on the line to fight for? Have you ever given up on something you believed in when faced with opposition or pressure?
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Christmas is on its way and the first of the holiday movies are already on the big screen. This year, it’s not just Santa getting the silver screen treatment, his brother Fred is getting in on the action too. Full of slap-stick comedy and gags, tiny elves, and sibling rivalry, there is something in Fred Claus for everyone.
Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is the black sheep of the family, and is tired of living in his younger brother’s very large shadow. Fred is quite resentful towards his saintly brother Nicholas, who is best known as Santa Claus (Paul Giamaitti). Nicholas grew up as a model son, always giving to the poor and helping others. His brother Fred, on the other hand was the polar opposite. Now all grown up, Fred is a repo-man who tends to steal the items that he repossesses. His behavior gets the best of him and Fred finds himself in jail. His only option is to call his brother.
Against Mrs. Claus’ (Miranda Richardson) strong protests, Nicholas agrees to help his brother- he is a saint, after all. There is, however, one condition — Fred must go to the North Pole and work in the toy shop with all of the elves to earn the money he needs. Fred is not exactly your typical elf. Besides the obvious size difference, Fred also has a very different attitude than the elves around him. Christmas is getting closer and closer, and if something does not change between the two bickering brothers, the happy holiday could be ruined for everyone.
The movie focuses on the theme of sibling rivalry and jealousy. Rivalries can build and build until they hit a breaking point. In the case of the movie, the brothers’ resentment could wind up affecting the entire world. Not everyone’s rivalry is that detrimental, but it sure can feel like it. In my own family, there is tension on my father’s side. No one ever talks about it, but it is there. There are certain aunts and uncles that I see yearly, and others I have not seen in years.
Have sibling rivalries ever gotten in the way of your family Christmas festivities? How did you resolve the problem?
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Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) is an 81 minute German movie by director Tom Tykwer revolving around time and fate.
The theme of time runs all throughout the movie. It opens with a pendulum swinging slowly back and forth. The camera pans up the shaft of the pendulum to reveal a clock. The hands on this clock are moving quickly forward in time as the camera gets closer eventually leading the camera inside a hole in the clock.
Lola is a unique woman with flame red hair and tattoos. Her boyfriend Manni has lost 100,000 Deutschmarks, and is meeting the man who was supposed to get the money in only 20 minutes. It is up to Lola to come up with the money and get it to him before he goes across the street and robs the supermarket.
Lola gets three chance to help Manni. Each scene starts off the same way; however, it is always thrown off by one minor event that changes the outcome of that attempt. Once that attempt has reached its conclusion the movie starts over with the same beginning and shows the next attempt. Each alternative is off from the others by mere seconds. I won’t spoil the ending (because I hope you’ll watch this movie) but I will say, a couple seconds make a huge difference in Lola and Manni’s life.
Every time I watch this movie I think about choices and what control we have over the path we travel. I wonder how timing affects the outcome of my life. It is full of “what if” moments that can change the results of my future. As the trailer for this movies puts it, “every second of every day you make a choice that can change your life. Keep up… or pay the price.”
What choice you’ve made would you change if you had a second chance?
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Ok, I admit it I watch Grey’s and I have fallen in love with McDreamy but just lately I have been looking at the show in black and white and not shades of gray. How come each season has to be about a marriage in turmoil over infidelity?
The first season was about how the Chief had an affair with Meredith’s mother which lead to why Meredith was so messed up. The second season brings us to the Addison/Mcdreamy/Meredith escapade which was carried into the third season. This season’s love triangle is without a doubt about George, Callie and Izzy as we are reminded that “George loves Izzy too.”
When did fidelity go out of style and cheating become so popular? Are the lines between black and white being blurred just to get more ratings? I guess we should have known, it does say “Grey’s Anatomy” and not “Black and White Anatomy” in the title. What do you think, is martial breakdown being used as a ratings grab?
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When it is announced that “The Corny Collins Show”, Baltimore’s coolest dance party, will be holding auditions for a new dancer, Tracy Turnblad can’t wait to skip school and show the TV producers her amazing dance moves. Tracy and her friend Peggy are obsessed with “The Corny Collins Show”–and Tracy just knows that dancing is her destiny!
But Tracy’s mother, Edna is nervous about Tracy trying out for the show. She knows that her daughter has skills, but she also knows that Tracy is….well, bigger than the other girls. Edna herself hasn’t left the house in years because she is so ashamed of her size, and she fears that a mockery will be made of Tracy if she tries out for the show.
But Tracy tries out for the show anyways, and Corny Collins is amazed by her talent. She becomes the newest and coolest dancing star on the show. Despite the show producer’s attempts to get rid of her, Tracy sticks around and becomes part of a very valuable lesson–confidence and “coolness” is not about what others think, it’s about how you feel about yourself.
You may feel like you’ve heard this lesson many times before. I know I have. Since I was little I was told that I “could do anything I set my mind to” and that I need to “stay true to myself” and “not worry about the outside, it’s the inside that counts”. And yet there are still days that I feel ugly or stupid or like a geek. I’m not the only one. More and more people deal with eating disorders and suicide because they feel like they don’t fit in or will never make the cut. So what is it about the message we’re not getting?
What give us our confidence? Is it about the way we style our hair, what we wear, or what we can do? Is it about what others say or think about us? For Tracy, it was all about the hairspray. If she could hairspray her hair to be as high as the girls on “The Corny Collins Show” then she felt better about herself. What’s that one thing that you obsess over in order to feel like you fit in?
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I watched the new Transformers movie a few days after its release. I wasn’t a huge fan as a kid, but it was still a fun movie. It was never boring, and although the plot was naturally a bit thin it was, IMHO, the perfect summer blockbuster film.
A theme that came up several times in the movie involved human beings and freedom. Optimus Prime’s fellow Autobots and Megatron both questioned Prime’s desire to “save the humans”. The question was raised: Why bother? When Prime and Megatron battle, Megatron says that “humans don’t deserve to live,” and Prime replies “They deserve to choose for themselves!” Earlier, one of the Autobots wonders why they’re bothering to save the humans, since they are (he says) a primitive and violent race. Prime responds by speaking one of his most famous lines: “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”1
Freedom to choose seems to be the supreme value expounded in the movie. Free choice is, of course, important, and real. As a famous philosopher said, “most people -outside of asylums and graduate schools- would consider it not only true, but certainly and obviously true”. (He wasn’t talking about free will, but the quote still applies nonetheless!) With the freedom to choose, many people will tragically choose evil. In fact, we all choose evil (anything less than truly good) often … daily, even.
Discuss: What do you think the base human nature is? Good? Evil? Neutral? Why? Is freedom really the ‘ultimate’ value, or have we overemphasized individuality in our western society?
1 Pointless trivia: Apparently he never actually said this on the old cartoon show, but the saying was printed on the “tech spec” card that was included in the box with his toy.
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Captivity, a movie self-described by its film company as “A combination of SAW and HOSTEL meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS,” opened last weekend in theaters. Critics are unanimous about the movie: It’s not just bad, really bad, it’s morally reprehensible with no redeeming value:
“Rarely have I found myself so uncomfortable viewing anything over such an extended period of time. There’s nothing redeemable here. It’s not tense or scary; it’s just demented.” (James Berardinelli, ReelViews)
“both nastily unpleasant and laughably ludicrous” (Jason Anderson, Globe and Mail)
“The film itself is sordid, unpleasant viewing, as promised, yet more tedious than terrifying.” (Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Perhaps the most telling quote comes from Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press:
“One has to worry about a world where there is a constant appetite for films like this one.”
What is it about humanity that seems to revel in misery? Is this a byproduct of our comfortable western society? Although thankfully this particular movie has done very poorly in theaters, why are such movies so popular?
(See RottenTomatoes.com for full commentary on the movie.)
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“My prayers weren’t answered.???
Have you said this before? It is easy to believe it, especially when we pray for something that may seem very good, but we don’t see any result.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the result isn’t there.
Evan Almighty is a story based on the biblical account of Noah. The story begins when Evan Baxter, a newly elected congressman, throws out a prayer to God. He prays that God would help him to change the world. His wife, Joan, prays for their family to grow closer. But what results of these prayers are nothing like what the Baxters expect.
Instead of changing a policy, eliminating world hunger, creating a new law or defeating racism, God asks Noah to drop what he’s doing and go build an ark. What happens after that seems crazy—Noah sets out to build a huge boat and animals from all over the world start crowding around it.
This is probably not what Evan had in mind and it really got me to thinking. How many times do we rush to think of the end result in our prayers without giving any thought to what’s required to make those things happen? If God just instantly granted us patience, joy, love for our neighbor, or selflessness, would we really learn anything? Would those things be real? Do certain prayers need to be developed and not just granted?
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Whether it’s little pigs, musketeers, Powerpuff Girls, blind mice or Charlie’s Angels, it seems as though there is something irresistible about “three???.
The same can be said about our summer movie selection: Spiderman 3, Shrek the Third, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End are all the third sequel to prior box office hits. It seems that first and second aren’t enough anymore–there needs to be a third.
Are movie producers just becoming less creative or do people just really need to know more about what happens to these fictional characters? It seems society has grown attached to Shrek, Spiderman, Jack Sparrow, and other movie characters who are colorful, interesting, funny, or exciting. Is there danger in this?
Do we relate to these characters or are we looking for escape? Or do we just want more of what we already know we like?
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