1. PortalPortal is a fun puzzler based first person shooter where the only enemy is a giant robot named GLaDOS. In this game you solve puzzles using your portal gun to try and escape the never ending test chambers that lie before you. How is this not a movie? This can be a fun sci-fi movie that explores the ideas of A.I. and how out of control they can get. The visual effects would be off the chart and the games are cleverly written and funny that you have a lot to work with that could entertain a lot of people! We can even get J.K. Simmons back as Cave Johnson!! We don't want your lemons!!! 2. The Last of UsYes, Logan explored much of the same ideas as The Last of Us does, and I believe we don't need a new Joel and Ellie story because the games are looking to handle them quite nicely, but I would love to see a movie in this world. There's something about the world of The Last of Us that just fascinates me. The clickers are absolutely terrifying and I think there's lot of people in this world that could use a story. Plus you can make this movie look BEAUTIFUL!!! Get Roger Deakins behind the lens for this one! 3. MetroidStrong female character? Check. Haunting isolated atmosphere? Check. Another good location for a sci-fi horror movie? Check. There's a lot you can do with a Metroid movie. I think it would be cool to get a good look and the dark caves and really explore why Samus decides to go on these missions time after time. It could be the next Alien, and it even has the potential to be better! Plus Charlize Theron would make a great Samus! 4. Red Dead RedemptionI think this one comes out of more of a need for a good modern western classic. Red Dead already gives the framework for that! I love the idea of looking into the life of a man who wants to leave it all behind but has one last job to take care of. I think you have the option to make it over the top fun or dark and gritty. Either way I just want a good western made today and Red Dead is a good place to start. 5. A Stand Alone Waluigi MovieYes, we are getting a Mario movie, BUT WHERE IS MY WALUIGI MOVIE!!!!!!!!!! So much depth in one character. I mean come on people!!!! We are getting a movie about a talking Pikachu, can't I just have my Waluigi movie!! Directed by Martin Scorsese. Let's do it.
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Christopher Nolan is my favorite director. I have not seen a movie of his that I don't like. I think the thing that makes him so appealing to me is how he takes the visuals and spectacle of a blockbuster movie and fuses it with a more "indie sensitive" story. His films are huge scale and small scale at the same time and I absolutely love it! One of my all time favorites of his is Memento. This film is magnificent. Nolan crafts a Neo-Noir and turns it on it's head by presenting the narrative half in reverse chronological order and the other half in plain chronological order, and does so simultaneously. Like what?!?! You mad man! But it works wonderfully! This film also has a message that really gets you thinking and that's what I want to present today. Now in order to do so we need to go through the plot of this complex film, so if you've seen the film then skip ahead to my 'What Can We Learn' section or, if you haven't, GO WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!! But if you have a problem with R-Rated films with strong language then you can just read my plot synopsis below, but really watch this film.
Plot Synopsis So the film follows a man by the name of Leonard as he seeks revenge on the man who raped and murdered his wife. A good old revenge story. The only problem is Leonard doesn't know who it is, and oh yeah he also has short-term memory loss. So to jog his memory and to keep him on the right path, he tattoos his own body with the information he needs to remember. He also takes Polaroid pictures of places, people, and items that he needs to remember with small notes written on them. He remembers how to do everyday tasks and his past memory is in tact, but after a few minutes he's completely clueless as to what has happen, so he needs to put his trust into the pictures he's taken and the things he has written. Right at the beginning of the film we see Leonard kill the man he thinks murdered his wife. Film over! Oh wait it just started. As I mentioned before the film runs in reverse order so we continually see the moments leading up to this murder. We learn that the man that Leonard killed was named Teddy and throughout the whole film he's telling Leonard to leave town because it's not safe. We also meet Natalie, who is seen giving Leonard information on a licence plate that will lead him to knowing that Teddy is the guy he's after. As the film continues you find out that things are not as they seem. While yes, Natalie is helping Leonard to a degree, we learn that she is also using him to get rid of someone who is after her. Too bad Leonard doesn't remember that. Simultaneously, we are seeing a conversation that Leonard is having over the phone with someone explaining the story of Sammy, someone who also had short-term memory loss. Sammy's wife wasn't sure how to handle it so, hoping to jog Sammy's memory back, she continually tells him to give her insulin shots, which ends up killing her. We learn Leonard is talking to Teddy on the phone and we see the two timelines merge. Leonard goes with Teddy to kill a different man who could've killed his wife. After this incident Teddy tells Leonard that they had already found the guy who did it a year ago and gives him a photo to try and remind him. Leonard doesn't remember though. They continue to talk and Teddy says that Leonard is actually Sammy and that he killed his wife after he had lost his short-term memory and she was raped. Could this be true? Leonard doesn't believe it, so he go's into his truck and writes down not to trust Teddy and leaves off to find out who he thinks actually killed his wife. And this leads to him killing Teddy. What Can We Learn? Through this whole wild goose chase of forgetfulness and revenge, there is one thing that Leonard puts his faith in, himself. When he is confused to what is happening, he looks to his photos or his tattoos to tell him what to believe. He puts blind faith in himself, but as Leonard explains himself towards the beginning of the film, memories are distorted fragments of the past and you can't always trust them. Leonard is relying on his own memories and own messages to find who this killer is, and we find out at the end of the film that the things that he is writing may or may not even be true at all! Yet he takes them as truth and that leads him on the path of probably killing the wrong man. As humans we tend to do this. We tend to put blind faith in ourselves, and the things we tell ourselves could or could not be true at any given moment. We take something from our past, our memories, and we create our own ideologies from these experiences and these can dictate how we choose to live our whole entire lives, without ever being open to what the truth really is, just like Leonard didn't trust what Teddy was telling him. Lucky for most of us however, we don't have short-term memory loss, and we have the potential to look to other places than ourselves for truth. I can look to God and His Holy Word for what the truth is and if my experiences or my ideologies contradict what He says is truth, than I have the ability to change that and put my faith in Him. Praise the Lord that I don't have to put faith in myself, because I'm just going to fail, but I can put my faith into what I know is true and what won't ever fail. Join me in not living like Leonard. Our past experiences and memories can deceive us and lead us to thinking things that aren't true. Let's look to the thing that we know is true. Also watch this movie. It's great. Have you ever seen a Jesus movie before? You know movies depicting Jesus, Like The Passion of the Christ, The Last Temptation of Christ, and a new film coming out later this year, Mary Magdalene. I watched the trailer for this new film and it really seems to be focusing on the humanity of Jesus, His human characteristics. The trailer has Him talking about His feelings and really depicts His earthly relationships. I thought about it and most movies depicting Jesus do this. At least the three I mentioned here do. The Last Temptation of Christ is all about if Jesus never died and went to go on and live a “normal human life.” The Passion of the Christ depicts the brutality of His death on the cross. Death is such a human experience and this film tries to connect us with Jesus on this shared experience. But there’s more to Jesus than just His humanity. Yes He was 100% man, but He was also 100% God. In the Gospels we see Jesus preform amazing miracles that only He could do. In John 9, Jesus heals a man born blind. When the blind man was asked who the man that healed him was he said, “This Man must be from God.” Heck, after his brutal death, He rose from the dead! Only God can do that. So why do we only focus on the humanity of Jesus? Because we are 100% man. That’s all we know. That’s our experience. And it’s so hard to fathom someone being Man and God. So when we depict Jesus in our culture, in our films, we show Him as 100% Man, because that’s all we truly know. Yes the Bible gives us glimpses of how Holy and Awesome our God is, it shows us His Character and His nature, but we can only grasp so much before our mind goes down a rabbit trail and explodes out of sheer awe of how unfathomable God really is to us. Praise The Lord that He gives us His Holy Spirit so that we might actually understand anything about Him! So people take “artistic liberties” of how Jesus was as a man. Now I think we can do a much better job of making these type of narratives more biblical, but the Bible only gives us small glimpses into the life of Jesus. The Bible says at the end of the book of John that Jesus did so many more things than what we have recorded, so much in fact that the “whole world would not have room for the books that could be written.” We don’t have it all, so we fill in the blanks ourselves and we do it from our human experience. So how can we make an accurate Jesus movie? I don’t think we can. I think we can get closer than what we have right now but it’ll never be perfect. I think the life of Jesus is “unfilmable.” God is above our realm of understanding, so much so that our ways of showing His life here on earth will never be able to get the full picture. I guess I say all this for two reasons. One, don’t get overly upset when films get the life of Jesus wrong. These are thoughts of imperfect humans trying to depict a perfect God. They are just trying to understand Jesus the way that we understand each other and thus we create a human Jesus. Two, look to the Bible if you really want to understand how Jesus can be 100% man and 100% God. As I mentioned earlier, we have multiple accounts of Jesus’ life on record in the Bible, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, God can help us understand these accounts that He has given to us. It’s crazy to think God Himself was here on earth among us in a form we can understand. I pray that He continues to reveal Himself to us as we grow closer to Him in all we do. |
Austin VincentJust a guy with a passion for film and Jesus who's trying to show that He can be found in our creative endeavors. Archives
November 2018
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