Watching Disney Movies as an Adult Part 2
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
A long while back (I don't remember which blog it was) I wrote about watching Roger Rabbit as an adult and getting a lot of jokes I didn't get before as a five year old. Cinderella just came out on DVD and I bought it for my wife since she collects Disney movies. While watching it last night, I realized something which didn't mean anything to me when I last saw Cinderella - the name of the cat.

If you remember from the last time you saw the movie, the cat was evil. Not only did it try and keep the mice from acquiring the parts for Cinderella's dress, but, when the Duke was about to leave, it wouldn't let Cinderella get the key to her room. The cat even purposely got the dog in trouble early on in the movie. The cat's name: Lucifer. Shocked you didn't remember that?

What better name for an evil character than the embodiment of evil Himself. Obviously to call him Satan would have been to obvious, but I don't think that Lucifer went over the heads of the adult audiences. Additionally, we must remember that at the time period when Cinderella was first release, many adults went to the movies to watch cartoons. The Disney cartoon was a family event, but it didn't preclude the adults from having fun.

If you look at the songs, plots, and characters, you can see that Disney was for older audiences. I guess that's when the tradition started and, even today, Disney movies always have some references for adults.

2001: A Genius Movie
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
I watched 2001: A Space Odessy today because I hadn't seen it since I was in middle school and wanted to see if a second viewing would help me understand the last quarter of the movie. It didn't help; I was just as clueless as the first time I'd seen it. I was really ticked at having spent two hours and twenty minutes on something that made no sense. But then I came across this site which does an amazing job of explaining the movie.

Here are some other pretty good references. While the previously listed is a VERY good one for the general themes of the movie, this site does a really good job of explaining some of the deeper meanings.

One shorter explanation of yet another set of themes can be found here.

Enjoy! But, see the movie before checking these sites out!

How Yoda May Change My Life
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
I was watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back the other day with Danielle. I'm not a huge fanatic, but I appreciate the movies for the groundbreaking fantasy/sci-fi masterpieces that they are. They fundamentally changed sci-fi from a cheesy B movie category into a legitimate movie thus paving the way for everything that came after from Speilburg's career launching Close Encounters to Men In Black. In my ignorance I may have ignored some other important sci-fi movie, but for the most part all of the older ones I've been exposed to were quite cheesy with the exception of the original, not-dubbed-and-nuclear-weapon-desensitized-for-the-US, verion of Godzilla.

So I'm not one of those people who stood in line forever to see the new movies or the re-releases, but I appreciate them as an artform. I found out that Danielle had never seen any of them and, with all of the contemporary references, I knew that she had to see them. So we rented the trilogy and saw the movies over our free moments during the week - dinners and weekend study breaks.

So as I started off this post saying, we were watching ESB. Skywalker lands on Dantooine (SW fans, don't crucify me if I get it wrong or commit the worse error of spelling it wrong) in search of Yoda. While he's in the home of the last Jedi, Yoda begins a dialogue/monologue addressed to Ben Kenobi's ghost where he says, in description of Luke, something like, "Always looking towards the future - never his mine on where he was - on what he was doing." In fact, such an offense was this attribute that he says it with a stern voice.

That was Saturday night/Sunday morning around 2 am. But I haven't been able to get the quote, or it's gist, out of my head since then. I feel that it kind of applies to me as well. When I was a kid I couldn't wait to turn 16 so that I could drive. Quite a few waking moments were spent with me unable to wait until 16. Once I turned 16 did my longing for the future end? No, then I couldn't wait to turn 18 so that I could vote, be an adult, and go to clubs. Then I couldn't wait for HS to end. Now I can't wait for Cornell to end. What's next? Can't wait to have kids? To own a house?

Sometimes I am concerned that I spend so much time thinking about and planning the future that I am missing out on the present. Sometimes I can't wait until I get to a certain favorite class. Once I'm there I can't wait for it to end. I don't think this is right....

This isn't the first time that I've thought of this, but I haven't taken any steps towards remedying this because I don't know what the right balance is. Living solely in the present isn't good either - if I only lived in the present I would buy everything, recklessly have sex, and not study. Because today none of those things have consequences. So obviously, like everything else in life, there is a needed balance.

Well, we'll see what is the ultimate effect of Yoda's words, after all, it's not the first time that I've heard them. Perhaps this will pass and I'll stay the way I've been - afterall when we begin to worry about things, the negatives seem amplified. So it's always hard to tell if I'm being overly negative or if this is one of those moments that Tony Robbins, preachers, and other thinkers refer to as the moment of choice or the proverbial fork in the road. Is this a chance to radically change my life for the better or just everyday brooding?

We'll see what direction God guides me in. I know for sure that if this thought doesn't dissapear by next week that it's something that I need to act on.

Star Wars III
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: movies
Check out this trailer for SW III: Revenge of the Sith. It is an awesome trailer especially since I was just recently watching SW IV and heard all of this - now I can picture it in my head.

Help Superman, Lois has been taken Captive by Lex Luthor!
Mood:  sad
Now Playing: Superman Theatrical Release I Theme Song
Topic: movies
It is a sad month for Hollywood. Last week Rodney Dangerfield died and, in my opinion, the SNL tribute was great. Now, Superman is dead: Christopher Reeves died yesterday. He was a Cornell Alum and, during his Senior year here, he was able to convince the dean to let him spend his Senior year at Julliard and still receive a Cornell Diploma. His roommate at Julliard was none other than the up and coming Robin Williams. According to all of the news reports, they were the best of friends. He graduated from both schools and became an actor. He was in some 1970s Soap Opera where he got picked up for the 1978 Superman movie. He starred in many more movies, some of then great and some flops. In 1995 he was thrown from his horse and was paralyzed. Once he established that he would survive, he began acting again. He was in a 1998 ABC remake of Rear Window which he directed. I saw it, and I thought he did a really awesome job. Most recently he was, appropriately, the advisor to young Superman in Smallville on the WB in the US.

He was 52.

"The one true superman has been taken from us but your red cape will fly again"
Steve Harley

Here is a link to the BBC news story on his death.

Benefit of Re-viewing Movies
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
I was watching Pulp Fiction again after watching Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2 and it seems to be that Bruce Willis uses a Hatori Hanzou sword when he fights Zed and the shop owner. If Quentin is setting up a Tarantino-verse, (and after all Vincent Vega is the brother of the crazy Vega in Resevoir Dogs and he was even going to make a movie call the Vega Bros that was a prequel to both) then how does this make sense? I mean, Hanzou swords aren't a dime-a-dozen.
*****SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't seen Kill Bill you may not want to read on ************
Well, here's my theory: when Bill goes to warn his brother about The Bride coming to kill him, he angers Bill by saying that he pawned his sword. At first I thought he was just saying that to hurt Bill because it seems that sometime in the past they had a fight. On his sword it says, "To my brother, the only other man I ever loved" so I thought he was saying this to spite Bill. Afterall, when the girls are fighting the sword is there for The Bride to use. Here's my revised timeline. The movie makes it seem as though The Bride shows up that night. Whether she shows up that night or later on, we still don't see what he does in the meanwhile. I content that his character had indeed pawned the sword to the owner of the store in Pulp Fiction. Afterall, PF takes place in LA and KB must be near there because Bill flees to Mexico. So after Bill warns him, he goes back to the shop. The owner is dead and his sword is lying there since Wallace's men would have had no need for the sword and wouldn't know what it was worth. He picks it up and then dips out.

I hope you finally get some respect...
Mood:  sad
Topic: movies
Rodney Dangerfield, actor and commedian best known for his tie and the line "I don't get no respect...", died today. He had become such an icon by the time of his death that he was even parodied on The Simpsons. We'll miss you tons! My prayers and thoughts go out to his family.

NEWSFLASH
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
According to something I just saw in an interview with Will Farell (unless I heard wrong) his next movie will be a remake of Bewitched. I loved that Tv show which I watched religiously in the reruns on Nick@Nite. I wonder if he'd play Darren. I think he'd make a good Darren. I also heard that in his current new movie, Anchorman, there are a whole bunch of cameos. I love cameos and the inside jokes they usually come with. I can't wait to see that movie now whereas before I was a bit lukewarm about it.

The Passion of Christ
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
To any of my faithful readers who showed up last night to see no posts, I apologize for the lack of posts. However, the reason I didn't post is because I was watching The Passion, Mel Gibson's movie in case you've been living under a rock.

So, what did I think of the movie? I thought it was really accurate with regards to the Gospels. Ok, let's answer what everyone's been talking about for the past few days.

Antisemitism
I really didn't see any way that film could have been considered antisemetic. It's not a surprise that that the Pharisees wanted Jesus killed. Anyone that's gone to a few services or Sunday school knows this fact. Additionally, Jewish people had to be the ones that killed Jesus because Jesus himself was a jew. I think that people really tend to lose that fact somehow. His own people killed him and thus Jews killed him. But so what? If he had been Chinese then the Chinese would have killed Jesus. I have no idea how any rational person could claim that it's antisemetic.

Additionally, throughout the movie there were a few people who were screaming to let Jesus go for he was a holy being. Thus, some of the Jews didn't want Jesus dead, and this was reflected in the movie. Even in the Pharisee trial scene one of them says, "these witnesses are just contratdicting themselves, why are we listening to this drivel." So even some of the Pharisees were portrayed as being for Jesus, or at least against killing him.

Pilate's Role
Both the Bible and history tell us that Pilate really did have a hard case on his hands. As some of you may know, Hannukah is the celebration of the war led by the Maccabbees against the Greeks. Since the Jews saw the Romans as not too different from the Greeks, they had been starting up quite a few rebellions against the Romans. They were confusing the Roman policy of allowing the members of their territories for being soft. Thus there was a lot of pressure on Pilate to keep the majority of the Jews happy.

Also, the Bible does say that his wife was disturbed by dreams that Jesus was a holy being. The Romans had quite a few gods themselves and as a culture were quite supersticious about those things so Pilate really didn't want to kill Jesus, as portrayed in the movie.

Violence
To tell you the truth, there's nothing violent at all about this movie. Well, let me rephrase that - this movie doesn't have anything that's more violent than I've already seen in movies. In fact, it was pretty mild compared to what I've seen in other movies. Benny, an ECE friend of mine, has a pretty good theory about why everyone says that it's so violent - because a lot of people going to see the movie are churchgoers. In general they're not supposed to watch rated R movies so they aren't used to violence. That's all. Anyone who's seen a few shoot-em-ups will agree with me.

Creative license
Despite claiming that the entire movie is based on the Gospels, Gibson does take a little creative license with the movie. First of all, he has a devil - portrayed by an evil looking lady who's present throughtout the movie in the background. I guess she represents temptation he was going through in his head.

Also, Jesus' beard was supposed to be ripped out.

Probably removed because of antisemitism scares is the fact that the mob at Pilate's place is supposed to scream, "we take full responsibility on our children and all generations to follow." Something like that...

Catholic dogma
There were a few things that I'd never read about in my mostly protestant upbringing and I've read the Gospels 2-4 times each. For example, when Veronica wipes Jesus face just before the Crucifixion thus creating the Shroud of Turin - that's not in any of the Bibles I've ever read. It may either only be in Catholic Bibles or it may be Apocraphal.

Also when Mary and Mary wipe his blood from where he was flogged - that's not in there either. So maybe that explains some other Catholic relic.

Overall Rating
I give this movie a 10 out of 10. The acting was awesome and so was the cinematography. Go see this movie! Even if you're an athiest - almost everything in this world has been shaped by Christianity and Jesus. Whether you like it or not, this "Son of Man" changed all of history from then til now. So go see how his ministry ended and started what has been the most impactful religion in history.

I thought wizards could do magic.....
Mood:  chatty
Topic: movies
There's just one thing that ticks me off about Lord of the Rings. It may have to do with making it so that the plot wouldn't be over in just a few minutes, but why can't Gandolf do any magic? I mean, he was able to unposses a guy and he can kill the flying animals that Sauran commands, but he doesn't really do anything else.

For example, why can't he appear wherever he wants? Why does he have to ride a horse around? I thought that wizards were able to just flash to whereever they wanted to be and do magical tasks like create soldiers. Stuff like that.