#20 All Time – Speed Racer

So for the next 20 days I am going to review my top 20 films and why they are significant to me.  Never tried this before so it should be interesting.  So let the fun begin.  The first movie is Speed Racer.

Now, I realize that most people believe this may not be the best movie ever, but for me it was a childhood dream come true.  I grew up with Speed Racer a child and it was one of my all time favorite cartoons.  And it is true to all the core characteristics I remember from the original.  Lots of fast paced action, family values, good moral lessons and a decent story line.  There is a great lesson to be learned in always sticking together as a family.  And of course seeing the mach 5 done up as a real car (even for Hollywood) is still very cool.

Discussion of Iron Man the Movie

Today I went and watched Iron Man the movie.  The special effects were very impressive and the performance of Robert Downey Jr. brought to life all the memories I had of one of my favorite childhood comic characters.  I don’t want to give anything away but it is well worth the money and there is a teaser after the credits, so hang out and watch all the names of the people who helped make the movie.  It will be worth it.

One of the scenes that struck me (and there were quite a few) involves Tony Stark (A.K.A. Iron man) and his assistant, Pepper Pots.  He wants her to sneak in to Stark industries and steal some information from the computer so that he can use it to stop the sale of weapons to terrorist groups.  She does not want to do this because she is afraid he will get killed trying to stop the terrorists.  I won’t tell you how it ends, but Tony replies to her concern with a short speech about discovering his purpose and how he feels in his heart that he is doing the right thing.

This jumps out at me for two reasons.  The obvious is the sense of purpose and I think this has faith implications that are pretty straightforward.  Far too often we are looking for the answer to faith in a book or by waiting for a bolt of lightning to hit us with the right answer.  Instead we should be aligning our heart with God’s and then listening to what is there and going after that purpose.  I also believe that God can speak this purpose to us whether we believe in him or not, it just might be harder to hear and understand.

The other interesting suggestion in this scene is the reaction, which happens all to frequently when we set out to follow our purpose.  Those around us (friends and family) feel they will lose us to it or they are afraid we will change our view of them and try to talk us out of it or worse, make us feel that we are making the wrong decision.  In the scene, Pepper is willing to quit her job in order to stop Tony, even though she has been with him the whole time he was a carousing wild bachelor. 

In The Jesus of Suberbia by Mike Erre, he talks about having faith in faith rather than faith in God, seeing that there is a purpose to our lives and that things may not run smoothly as we pursue our purpose.  He uses the example of the story of Job.  In much the same way, Tony Stark has hit some big bumps in his road of life, but rather then turning and hiding in his old behaviors, he decides to believe in his purpose even if it means losing his most trusted employee.

All in all it was well worth it and will probably be one of the top selling movies of the year.

 

World Trade Center – Movie Reaction – Part 2

I went to see this movie with 2 of my children, Chris and Taylor.  I was curious what there reaction would be.  Taylor was 7 and Chris was 10 when the original events occurred.  Both agreed on several key points of the movie.

1.  It gave them a better understanding of what the families went through on Sept 11, 2001.  “… Made it more personal rather then being something that happened far away.” said Chris when asked his reaction.  They both felt it brought it much closer to home.

2. They both also agree that as tragic, sad and horrifying as the events of that day are, it also showed the good that we as a race are capable of.  It showed the strength that holds us together.

But most importantly, they noticed how there relationship with Christ/God had helped them through these difficult times.  Taylor noted, “It is sometimes is hard to realize but you have to know that every thing happens for a reason and sometimes you don’t want them to happen but they do, and i have many reasons to believe that is true.”

I for one can definitely relate to their feelings.

World Trade Center – Movie Reaction – Part 1

Like so many people, I remember were I was.  Walking through the hospital to visit my father who had quintuple by-pass surgery the day before.  As I walked through the hospital I just felt that something was wrong.  I passed by the waiting room and noticed everyone gathered around the TV set, but I didn’t think twice about it. 

When I got to the floor my dad was on and as I wallked the hall to his room, I noticed in every room I passed people were watching those little hospital tvs.  Now that was weird.  When I got to the room my mom told me about the first tower being hit by the plane, and moments after she said it, tower two was hit, right there on tv.

Stunned, overwhelmed, sickened and scared, don’t begin to do justice to how I felt.  During the day I began to hear stories from friends and family.  My Cousin was suppose to meet some customers of his at the WTC.  He was just getting off the subway when people fleeing the building came pouring down and he decided to turn around and ride the subway out of there.  Or one of my friends whose company was based out of the WTC and was suppose to be there for a meeting.

World Trade Center the movie brought back many of those feelings.  The movie plays out in such a way that you feel like you are participating in the movie rather then watching it.  One young man at the theatre mentioned he had to “keep looking to the left and right just to remember that he was in a theatre.”

At several points in the movie I jumped or was startled by a creak or the sound of a rock slipping, just waiting for something to happe.  The tower collapse scenes put you right in the middle of it and makes the movie a shared experience that you will never forget.

More tomorrow…..

Second Chances on DVD

This movie was great. It deals with two men from different worlds, yet from similar roots. It deals with how people impact each others lives. It deals with how people can easily become disconnected from the things in life that are most important.  It deals with how we can come back to those things through God. 

 

United 93

Bob mentioned this past Saturday that he went to see this movie and it was really worth seeing.  I found this review on leftbehind.com that was reviewing the movie and it was very interesting.  Might be worth doing a discussion on if everyone wanted to see it?