So I just went and saw a high school performance of Les Miserables and it really reminded me how much I love this play's story! And of course there was a big budget movie of it made in 2012 so that means I can write about it! There is so much good stuff I can write about it so I'll be making this in to a three part series, looking at three different characters, but before we get into today's blog I have a few things to get off my chest about the 2012 film. CUT RUSSELL CROWE SOME SLACK!!!!! Look we all know he's not the greatest singer but he did all his own singing, live on stage, no auto-tune, AND THE DUDE CAN ACT!!!! He didn't even sound that bad singing either, everyone just wants to pick on the movie because it's not a Broadway production, and I get that it was made for the stage, but Russell Crowe doesn't need your hate, he did his best and it was probably better than any of us could do! Alright, I'm sorry if I made you mad, but I needed to rant, let's move on. Eponine Okay so I want to start with a character who is more of a side character but we can learn so much from her, and that's Eponine. She grew up with her (practically) slave sister Cosette, raised by two sleaze bag parents. She was clearly the favorite growing up, and when she got older she fell in love with Marius. Marius friend-zoned her pretty hard. RIP Eponine. Cosette somehow makes it back into Eponine's social circle and Marius instantly fell in love with her. RIP Eponine. Marius is all like "Yo Eponine, go find her for me so we can be married one day!" Then she sings a heart breaking song and connects Marius with Cosette. Then she dies in the revolution! Happy Ending! I'm sure many of us can relate to this on some level (maybe not the dying part but you get what I'm saying). Eponine just wanted to be seen, noticed, and loved. Her parents, despite all the attention she had as a kid, were too busy being sleaze bags and conning people, really just too busy caring about themselves, to really give her any attention as she got older. So Eponine was looking for love and attention form Marius. This was her fatal flaw, as well as the actual bullet that killed her (#savage). She was looking for happiness from Marius, but he loved someone else. This is literally me pretty much my whole life and I'm sure many of you. We often look for happiness in earthly relationships. Not even just romantic ones! We want to feel accepted, liked, and like we are important. Well, unfortunately we live in a world full of humans, and humans can let us down so much! We aren't always going to get what we want from each other. Eponine didn't get the love that she wanted from Marius and she just couldn't be happy because of that. We often look for our happiness in the wrong places. I'm learning that if I want true happiness, I can only find it from the source of life, The Lord Almighty. This is so much easier said than done. But The Lord is the author of all things, He has this world in the palm of His hand. He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, so we can know Him. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide us and direct us so we can know The Lord. I can KNOW Him. I can know and talk to the One who created me! That brings me more happiness than any human on this earth can. PLUS! He knows me as well, He see's me, He hears me when I call to Him, He has a plan for me! Isn't this what we are looking for? Someone to know us and love us? Praise the Lord for His amazing grace, that we can be drawn to Him and know Him and be loved by Him!!! Of course it's easy to forget this, but if we can focus on this and not look to others for our complete happiness, then maybe we can really show love and joy to this world. Please subscribe to the Finding Hope in Cinema Email list if you would like to get updated on future blogs! Stay tuned for Part 2!
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So Avengers! (Cue applause and pandemonium). Yes Infinity War is right around the corner, a momentous occasion in film. This means one thing, I feel obligated to share my ten favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe films, because yes you all care. A few house keeping things, these are just MCU movies and I have not seen any Iron Man films or Thor films (or that Hulk movie). So they won't be on this list so Let's go! 10. Captain America: The First Avenger It's fine. Next. 9. Doctor Strange Doctor Strange is a fun movie to watch. The story is interesting, the world is interesting, the "magic" is interesting, and the climax is pretty fun. The fatal flaw of this film is that it's pretty forgettable. I don't remember the names of any of the characters, where they are, or much else. I remember shaky hands, a cocky doctor, and bargaining. 8. The Avengers One thing I don't like about the avengers movies is the crazy CGI fest that's going on screen. Like yes, it's a spectacle, but to me it's kinda boring, I want to see the characters grow and interact, it's just a personal thing I guess. But I can't deny how big this film is to cinema. All these characters together on screen WHAT!?!?! Infinity War will be pretty crazy! 7. Ant-Man This film tries to break the Marvel Formula a bit, but doesn't escape it completely. That being said It's a solid film. It's funny and exciting, and I'm pretty excited for Ant-Man and the Wasp so it must've been pretty good right? 6. Black Panther I enjoyed this film quite a bit. Wakanda is freaking cool, and the characters are fantastic. I believe this is the best villain in any marvel movie ever. The only thing holding this movie back for me is the Marvel Formula. Everything that isn't classic marvel I love, everything else I'm kinda like eh.. It's close to reaching Dark Knight levels for me, but the CGI isn't great, and it's trying to be a little too funny at times. It's still good though, just not one of the greats. 5. Spider-Man: Homecoming Just about everything I said about Black Panther, is true about this film as well. Although the humor works much better in this film, it has a pretty solid villain, and Tom Holland kills it as Spider-Man. The CGI fest in the third act is whatever, but I think what sells me on this film is the scaled-back feeling of this film. It's just a cool high-school movie and it feels small and I really appreciated it for that. 4. Captain America: Civil War I like it for the same reason you do. Go Team Cap. 3. Guardians of the Galaxy When this came out, it was so fresh and needed in the MCU. It was so much fun, really funny, exciting to watch, and just a great time at the movies. And guess what? It holds up!! 2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier This is such a good film!!!! Characters are so good, you're on the ride the whole time, the action is never overly flashy and fun to watch, and really stands out as one of best movies in the MCU. It pushes Caps character to who he is now, the fall of shield is such a good thing to put in this film, and ugh I just really like this one a lot. We need more of them like this. 1. Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2 I'm learning that I'm a bit more in the minority in this opinion, but I think this is the best MCU movie out there. It takes the great characters established in the first film and pushes them further. The CGI is gorgeous in this movie, I liked the villain and the story told in this one, and IT'S SO FUNNY!! It's out there and weird, but also so personal and hits home to me today. The whole Guardians series does for me. We're misfits, but we can still work together for good.
So yeah, Marvel. I make fun of them a lot, but they make some enjoyable films and I'll be going to see the new Avengers movie so they have to be doing something right. This movie is a cry-fest. If you are like me and cry easily during movies then get your tissues out because this film's sole purpose in life is to make you cry. And if you don't cry while watching movies, then you will still cry. Good luck. All that being said, once you're done crying you'll be all like "That was a cute movie! We really need to crack down on bullying and be kind to each other! This is a great film for our kids to see!" And then you will go to bed all worm and fuzzy, all the while going to work the next day just to get ticked off at your co-workers for not doing their job, or getting upset at that extremely political person for expressing a different view than you on social media. The thing that this film made me think about the most is the fact that you don't know the struggles that everyone is going through. This film takes on multiple perspectives (some better than others) of how people's lives are affected by this kid who has Treacher Collins syndrome (look it up). We all have bad days, and everyone in this film has some tough goings for sure, but at the core of this film is the message of kindness. We've all heard this preached before (or at least I hope), but it hit me today that sometimes I don't know what people are going through and a little bit of kindness can go a long way. Or maybe even a lot a bit of kindness could go even farther. There's a lot of moments in this film where characters go out of their way and put themselves aside just to be kind to others. Jesus preached this like, all the time! Yet, I know I've been struggling with this lately, if a little thing doesn't go my way, then I get upset. I also don't bother to be kind to those around me because it can be inconvenient. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Let's go back to grade school this week. I want to challenge you, and myself, to go out of our ways to be kind. Go sit with someone who's alone, give an encouraging note to someone who's going through a tough time, tell all your friends how much you love them, just go out of your way to be kind. We are never too old for this message. Let's go make someone's week. The Present One of the big themes of Arrival is the importance of language and communication. I mean the whole goal of the film is to figure out why these heptopods have even come to earth in the first place, and the only way to do that is to talk to them. Yet, in typical sci-fi fashion, the biggest lesson to learn is from our communication with each other. Multiple space ships landed around the globe leaving different governments to work together to solve this enormous issue. Of course, we can't. It takes a leap of faith and a major plot spoiler to get the whole thing resolved! The only way for the world to see the whole picture, was for them to work together and just talk! We all come from different walks of life. My experience is extremely different than yours and I'll never see the full picture unless we communicate with each other, unless we just talk. We can't come to any conclusions, any compromises, any resolutions without knowing the full story. Of course, we will never see the full picture but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. I have been particularly bad at this as of late. In order to come to any resolution, we need to talk, not shout, not shut each other out, but talk. Of course communication isn't just talking, it's also about listening. We need listen when the other person is talking. I really hope that this is common sense. Unfortunately it seems us humans can't do one of these things. I've learned that I struggle with the talking, I try to do things myself. I stay quiet when I should be speaking out against the evils of this world, I don't speak the truth to people as much as I should, I don't speak my feelings the way I should, and I don't talk to God as much as I should. Some people can't listen. They can't hear the people suffering around the world above their own voices, they can't hear their crying friend because they are speaking about their own problems, and they can't hear God and His plans for them because they are too busy. I don't know who you are, the bad talker or the bad listener, but I want to challenge you to find your strength and work on your weakness. I pray that God makes us good communicators, so that we can work together to further His Kingdom and make this world a better place. And maybe even just grow stronger relationships with each other. Praise the Lord that He isn't finished with us yet!! This film means a lot to me on many levels. Also it's an emotionally draining film for me as well, so there's a good chance that I won't watch it again for a while, but after this viewing, I would consider it one of my favorite films of all time and it's because of the personal connections I have with it. Yes personal connections with a movie about aliens coming to earth, but it's so much more than that. It's about communication, it's about togetherness, and it's about time and our perception of it. Now I'm going to get into some heavy spoilers, so if you haven't seen the film, PLEASE watch it. It's incredible. I feel like I ask you guys to watch films all the time but if there was one I needed you to watch, it would be this one. If you've seen it, or don't care, then read on. You've been warned. The Future The whole film is centered around why these creatures came to Earth. Why are the heptopods here? Well after trying to communicate with them and learning how to speak with them, we find out that they came to give us something. That something was their language. Cool? Well it has the power to understand time in a non-linear fashion. In other words you can see the future! COOL!!! Well not cool for our lead character Louise. This kinda wrecks her. She learns that she's going to have a daughter and that she's going to die young because of a rare disease. Louise also learns who her husband is, but finds out that she leaves her after she told him the future fate of their daughter. ALL THE FEELS! I couldn't imagine this information. What would I do with it? Would I deny it and just go on living? Would I try to change my future? But if I knew it wouldn't that mean that it's already set in stone? AAAHHHH! It makes me so grateful that I have a God who has already taken care of it all. He knows my future and where I'll be going. I don't need to carry that burden. And as much as it can be rough not knowing where my life is going, I take comfort in knowing that my God has it all figured out. My future is secure in His hands and it brings me more peace than you can imagine. These past couple of weeks have really been rough for me. Honestly, a lot has changed. things I thought were constant turned out not to be and as I look into the future, I honestly don't know where I'll end up. But God is my constant and with His Spirit guiding me I know that I have no reason to worry. And oh my gosh, if I knew what was going to happen I would probably go insane. So I urge you to take comfort in the unknown, as strange as that seems. Take comfort that God has it all planned out for you and for me. Look forward to later this week as I talk more about this wonderful film! Love you guys! Oh and subscribe below to get an email for when I come out with a new blog! Last night I watched Dunkirk for the first time since the summer. When I watched it over the summer the spectacle of the film making and the sheer ambition that went into it blew me away! Christopher Nolan is a mad man!!!! Last night however, I was more taken back by the amazing camaraderie of the whole country of England and it really moved me more than it did upon the first viewing. If you don't know the story of Dunkirk, it was the evacuation of the city of Dunkirk in WWII. 400,000 men evacuated the beach on civilian boats from England. All that mattered in that moment was getting home, not winning, just surviving. And the whole country of England came together, risked their lives and well being, just to get these troops home. This is what is known as the Dunkirk spirit.
This really reminds me of the fellowship we have together as believers. Some days we are the soldiers on the beaches of Dunkirk. We can't fight any more. The best we can do is just survive and move on. Sometimes we are the people in the boats, coming to be a helping hand to those in need, even when it will be out of our way and tough on us. This is the love of Christ manifesting itself through us. I was just listening to a podcast earlier about the importance of going to church. The big reason why we need church is for fellowship, it's for discipleship, it's a place we can gather and comfort the soldiers on the beach and seek out the help from the boats coming across the sea. Praise the Lord for fellowship. I don't even know really where to begin. I can't stop thinking about Blade Runner 2049. This past weekend I finally saw this beautiful film with my two eyes and I can't get it out of my head. Maybe it's because of the gorgeous visuals? Roger Deakins really killed it on this film and his Oscar last night was very well deserving. Maybe it's because of the wonderful performances? Ryan Gosling is easily becoming one of my favorite actors and he kills it in this film, Harrison Ford is so much more emotional in this film than he was in the original Blade Runner, and I want to give a shout-out to Jared Leto, Sylvia Hoeks, and Dave Bautista because they were amazing as well! Maybe I can't stop thinking about it because of how craftily directed the film is? Denis Villeneuve is one of the best directors working today and brings this world to life so masterfully, so authentically, you feel like it's real. It has to be hard to take someone else's world and make something fresh while staying true to the original. Well Denis, you did it! Maybe I can't stop thinking about it because of the score? Hans Zimmer kills it again with a haunting, sobering, yet hopeful score, that is so good that I'm listening to it now!
While all of the things I said above are true, I think the real reason I can't stop thinking about this film is because of the thought-provoking nature of it. (I do want to warn people of spoilers here, I won't go into plot details but I will discuss prominent themes in the film, so if that's not your cup of tea then go check the film out and come back, or not). The film looks at what makes us human. What are the characteristics that will always separate us from technology no matter how advanced it gets? What are the things that we experience as humans that no machine ever could? I'm not a philosophy major by any means, but these are some interesting things to think about, and the plot choices and the characters in this film really make you think of the human condition. God has blessed us with the abilities to think, philosophize, feel emotions, communicate, love, ect. And as humans we all share that together. And as believers we have an even closer connection together as believers in Christ. I urge you all to praise the Lord for these gifts, praise the Lord for the connections we have together as humans and believers, and in a time of great division, come together and love one another despite our differences because we are all humans living together. These are just some of the thoughts that have run through my head due to this incredible film! This film is NOT for everyone. It's slow, long, thinky, and honestly there's not a lot of action in it, and the action that is in it isn't glorious. But this film is one of the reasons why I love film, it gets you to think about things that you may have never thought of before. You get to experience other worlds and you can convey thoughts and feelings through story and visuals. I think this film is going to stick with me for a while. It's one of the best sequels ever made and in my opinion, is even better than the original. I don't know if anything I said does the movie justice but the film can speak for itself. Praise the Lord for film! |
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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