Brian C. Russell

In my weekend long movie-fest (as it turned out to be), I came across a very interesting movie called Across the Universe.  Me and my wife had wanted to see this for a while as we both like musicals, and I like movie ones best for some reason.  Probably has something to do with the difference in price… but I digress.

Across the Universe is not for everyone, and I’m not even sure it was for me.  It’s based during the Vietnam War and tells the story of a bunch of hippies in different situations, but namely a British guy and a preppy blond who meet up, fall in love, do some drugs, have some sex, get in fights, fall apart, miss each other, and get back together at the end.

It’s a classic love story based in that era.  The problem is that it’s based in that era, and I think it gets lost in the situations.  For the most part, I couldn’t tell you most of the characters’ names until halfway through, and even then, if they hadn’t been based on names from Beatles songs, I still wouldn’t know.

The characters get lost in midst of a story that is much bigger than them and their drug trips and awkward Beatles covers.  And I think that’s where the movie lost me.  I couldn’t connect with the characters.  I didn’t know who they were or why in the world they were on a bus to visit puppet and clown make-up land to sing about drugs, except for the fact that they were trying to adapt a story to Beatles music.

Which leads me to a point that I feel may negate most of my review:  I’ve never been a big fan of Beatles music.  I’m not sure if that played into my feelings about the movie, but most of the songs just seemed like they were a stretch… except the ones that were specifically about characters (Jude, Prudence, Lucy).  It just seemed like a stretch.

Well, that’s my review of Across the Universe.  Feel free to disagree with me below, or agree with me.  Whatever you want to do.  That’s how I feel about it.

I had a different post written out for this.  It was full of jokes about thinking Bill Maher was Dennis Miller and sarcasm about the people that Bill Maher found not being the “right” people to talk to.  I’ve taken all that out and written this because I think my original post was making light of the questions he asks and the points that he makes.

I’m going to try my best not to make assumptions about Bill Maher.  I’m analyzing his method of interviewing and what that infers about him and his beliefs.

There are a few times in the movie, that he says that he’s “preaching ‘I don’t know’” and then goes on to know exactly what he thinks is wrong with everything.

I’m not saying that it’s a wrong stance to take.  Sure, many people out there “don’t know”, but he does know.  He knows what he believes and what he doesn’t.  He isn’t “preaching ‘I don’t know’”, he’s preaching anti-religion.  He believes that religion is the cause of just about every war, and that if there wasn’t any religion, we could live in, at least, a semblance of peace.  He even says, in his last line that people need to “grow up” and stop believing.  This is not a stance of “I don’t know”, but a stance of “I know it’s wrong”.  And those are very different.

I think some of his questions are valid questions that even I’ve had at times, and quite a few friends have had too.  The way he asks his questions is always with an air of arrogance.  “You don’t really believe there was a talking snake, do you?”

Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.  I’m honestly not sure.  In Velvet Elvis Rob Bell says that “the most important part about the story of Adam and Eve isn’t that it happened but that it happens” (emphasis by me).

The problem is that when you’re being questioned like that by anyone not just a fairly famous comedian with a camera crew, you’re bound to sound like an idiot, because that’s the way he’s asking.  He wants their ideas to sound stupid.  That’s his point.

HOWEVER! I say all of the above with a caveat that some of the people he interviewed, like Jeremiah Cummings who claimed that Jesus wore “fine linens” and refuted Maher’s (rightful, and accurate) claims that Jesus spoke out against being wealthy, and this other guy named Jesus that claimed he was the second coming of Christ whose bloodline went to Puerto Rico somehow and ended up in Miami and stated, “even if I was Satan, I would do my job well”, are not preaching the faith that Jesus taught.

In the very beginning, he goes to this little (literally) church and those men actually do a fairly good job, doing the best they can.  Even Maher remarks, “Thank you for being Christ-like, not just Christians.”

They don’t answer all his questions to his satisfaction (and most likely, no one ever will), but they are good to him.  And hopefully, someone can say that to all of us someday because that’s what it’s supposed to be about.  Not religion.

Christianity has a problem succeeding in documentaries.  It’s hard to find a documentary out there that really seems to put Christianity into a good light.  Whether it’s what’s being said, or inability to answer questions, reliance on only the Bible, just being a whack-a-do, or whatever the issue, in the fight Christianity vs Documentaries, I think Christianity gets knocked out in the first round.  Quite often.

It honestly, and sadly, doesn’t take long to find a whack-job with a notion about Jesus who wants to be on TV.  There’s even some that get paid to be on television, parading their twisted view of the scriptures in a multitude of ways. Whether it’s about God just making you wealthy, burning Bibles, white-supremacy, God telling people to murder… there’s a ton of people riding on a facade of Christianity.

Borat was one of the first movies to “expose” some of Christianity’s “best and brightest”…  Yes, I saw the movie.  No, I don’t condone it.

At one point in this mockumentary, Borat goes to a revival and gets saved.  He’s more than willing to run in there, pick up on whatever emotions and craziness going on and multiplying it with his character’s ridiculousness.

I can’t blame documentaries for finding the weirdos and featuring them, or taking sections of an interview out of context because it wouldn’t be the first time that anyone did that.  In the elections, speeches are scrutinized, looking for those few words or phrases to piece together to tie Obama to a hate-mongering-Commy-witch doctor.

Frankly, that’s how persuasive arguments are taught.  You find something that someone said that agrees with your point, no matter how small, quote it with ellipses and move on.

I recently watched Expelled with Ben Stein about the exclusion of Intelligent Design from teaching, and I thought it was a great documentary.  Let me just say that it was NOT A CHRISTIAN MOVIE.  Granted, Christians are some of the biggest proponents for Intelligent Design, but it wasn’t all about how God made the world in six days. (More of that for another post)

I also watch Jesus Camp.  It was about a Christian summer kids camp.  It was very interesting, and I think it portrayed the event very well.  They do their best to remain unbiased, and I think they accomplish their goal.  They don’t have commentary over top of what’s happening on screen, so you’re left with your own thoughts of what transpires.  I thought this was interesting because it actually challenged me, and my memories of my youth group experiences.

I have three documentaries that I want to see:  Religulous, Jesus Save Us from Your Followers, and COLLISION. I hope they will challenge my faith and in doing so grow my walk deeper with God, and I’ll let you all know how that all goes.

But, what do you all think?  Am I being mean?  Are things taken out of context?  Have you seen a documentary where Christians didn’t come off looking like a bunch of crazies?  Let me know!

SPOILER ALERT (Deal with it, it’s an old movie now)

Anywho, Matrix Revolutions had a few problems, but I’m going to point out the one that I thought was what both ruins the movie, and holds it in my mind as one of the most interesting endings I’ve ever seen.  But, let’s start at why The Matrix was so awesome.  People like it because they can make it into whatever they want.  Christians, we turned it into the most BA version of Jesus, death and resurrection, to hit the silver screen.  Take that Jesus Christ Superstar.  Seriously though.  Neo was totally the messiah in that movie, and he rocked my world.

The imagery, the plot, the symbolism, the effects, the action.  What a good movie.  If you’re out there saying, “I didn’t like The Matrix because it doesn’t make sense.”  Yes it does.  Let’s move on.

Now, then, we move into Matrix Reloaded where we find our messiah in a much cooler spot, killing bad dudes by the truck load.  He’s just too cool for school.  Now, enter one of the coolest car chases ever, a bunch of babbling dialogue that means absolutely nothing… and wham, we’re struck with a cliff hanger.

In the third installment, Matrix Revolutions, Neo is on his way to finalize this whole machine war business.  Because, the machines are completely going to destroy humanity.  Apparently, they’d done it before, and another messiah had come and saved them for a time, but Neo was going to change it.  He was going straight into machine city (01, if you’re a nerd like me) to face off against the head machine. (Like the Borg, he just didn’t have Q)

Once he get’s there, he’s supposed to fight his archenemy and save everyone.  Once this guy is dead, humanity will be safe, for sure.

WRONG.

Neo gives up.

He let’s the bad guy get him.  The bad guy then dies too, but Neo is still dead.

He’s carried away into the center of machine city or something.  And the machines stop trying to kill humanity.

WHAT?  NO!  Neo is supposed to be BA!  He’s supposed to WIN.  Not lose. It pissed me off.  I can’t stand that.  I want the good guy to win.  Because he totally could have won.  He could have beat Agent Smith and gone home… but… he didn’t.

He died, and his sacrifice paid for the lives of all of humanity.

He changed the rules.

And it’s met with hatred, criticism, and disbelief.

Who would do such a thing?

I remember when this movie came out, everyone that I knew saw it.  My church brought groups of people to the theater to watch Jesus be whipped, ripped apart, and hung up to die in some of the most gruesome imagery from a non-horror movie.

I’m not sure how other people felt by this, but at the time, it didn’t move me, except to the point of feeling sick.  Not because this was “Jesus” being beaten, but because it was horrific in general, and I was disappointed in how “human” they made Jesus.  How they left out the parts of His life where His God-side broke out.  Like in John 18:6 when the people come to take Jesus to the courts. “So when He said to them, ‘I am He,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” Or, when He is resurrected, I thought they did it very minimal, and it could have been awesome.

What a witness this movie could have been, I thought to myself.  Another missed opportunity.

I’m leading my small group in a study of John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life and this past week was all about “boasting only in the cross”.  Galatians 6:14 says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

When I read that for the first time, the book was saying how “surprising” or “shocking” that sounds to most people, and I didn’t feel either of those things.  For me, I remembered The Passion.  Or, more accurately, how I felt about it.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus did not have to resurrect for Him to fulfill His purpose.  I realize that a lot of people think that is the focal point, but Jesus fulfilled His purpose by dying on the cross.  He was sent to be the fulfillment of the law for everyone. The part about Him being awesome on Earth is an extra.  Above and beyond.

Now, Jesus’ humanity in The Passion, whether intentional or not, now makes sense.  I shouldn’t have to see God’s awesome power in physical form all the time.  The AWESOMENESS of God’s sending Jesus was that He made Him human, so that He could be beaten, torn and hung on a cross for me, for you, for everyone.  EVEN IF THEY DON’T KNOW IT.

And that is awesome.

The other day, I finally watched The Happening.

If you don’t know, The Happening is the most recent movie from M. Night Shyamalan and it came out in 2008.  Shyamalan is responsible for such atrocities as The Village and Lady in the Water, but also the decent Sixth Sense. And, if you haven’t seen any of them, he likes to wrap up most of his movies with a “Oh, wow look where destiny brought us” kind of endings.  He’s a purveyor of the twist ending.

This movie was rated R because of his pervasive use of violence to show how “scary” his movie was.  Problem is, it still wasn’t scary.  AND, the big twist was…

WAIT.

SPOILER ALERT!

That the plants were emitting a toxin of some sort that makes you kill yourself in gruesome fashions… but it just stops.  There’s no conclusion.  It just… happens.

I’m sure he was trying to get across a tree-hugging message or something, but it just made me want to stock up on Round-Up and start killing ever plant in sight.  There are ways to get messages across, and that wasn’t a good one.