Movie Reviews

It's movie month at my house! We signed up for Blockbuster's movie pass for one month. We can check out two movies at a time, as many times as we want, all for the low, low price of about $30. Here's a partial review...hopefully, more to come.

10,000 B.C.

I watched this movie with the family, and we all liked it. It was a good escape, including elements such as adventure, tension, romance, etc. I especially liked its ancient setting. I felt like I was watching an episode of "Age of Empires." In the West, we forget that for most of human existence, life has been very fragile and violent, might making right, ubiquitous evil and cruelty. Although that exists in much of the world, we generally don't fear a clan of mauraders sweeping down from, say, Canada, or up from Mexico, killing, burning, raping and pillaging anything in their way. In this movie, that is exactly what the characters face. I liked it.

Vantage Point

Again, a hit. I love the intrigue of an assassination, international violence, conspiracy, plots, etc. We were all on the edge of our seats for most of the movie. I liked how the various perspectives of the movie were gradually assembled to create the full story. Well done.

Rails and Ties

A nice, warm fuzzy, feel good movie starring Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden. A train engineer's wife has terminal cancer and after some tragic events, the engineer and his wife have to care for a little boy who starts to live with them. Again, I liked it, though it was a bit syrup-y at points. It showed how people deal with pain and death and tragedy. In one particular scene, a social worker has to choose between doing what is technically legal and what is morally right. She chooses the right (which I think is unusual for social workers). Sometimes rules have to be broken to achieve a greater good.

There Will Be Blood

This movie got a lot of hype from the industry and the media, probably because it demonizes capitalism, oil companies, and Christianity. Putting all that bias aside, I still did not care for the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis is good, but the story itself did not grip me. I was repulsed by the religious hypocrisy and I was disgusted at the callous heart of Daniel Plainview, the oilman. There were points I got bored. I couldn't keep my daughter interested either. It tries to be an epic, but I don't think it succeeds.

Jumper

Yeah, not much to say here. Nice premise, but the movie did not deliver.

The Death of Protestant America

Please read this essay: "The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline." It is available at _First Things_: Here's the link. I especially hope you young people read it. The author, Joseph Bottum, offers a great survey of religion (Christianity) and its influence in American, and in doing so, describes an American that few of you young people have ever seen, let alone remember.

His conclusion is worth thinking about: the only voices left in America that can provide a "national conscience" are Catholicism and Evangelicalism, both of which, in his opinion, have too many problems. Please read the essay.

Obama's Narcissism Knows No Ends

Another devestaing critique of Barak Hussein Obama by the ever sharp Charles Krauthammer. When Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, Krauthammer observes:

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Ronal Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President John F. Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.
Who is Obama representing? And what exactly has he done in his lifetime to merit appropriating the Brandenburg Gate as a campaign prop? What was his role in the fight against communism, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the creation of what George Bush the elder -- who presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall but modestly declined to go there for a victory lap -- called "a Europe whole and free"?

Read the rest here.

IMHO, self-absorption is a serious disqualification for the highest office in the land.

ATTN: Obama Freaks!

Here's a nice post by Hugh Hewitt on contrasting BO with John McCain. Read it here.

The Fourth of July celebrations will get underway for many Americans with an early getaway today. At picnics and backyard barbecues across the country the conversation will turn to politics, and particularly to Barack Obama. ...