Movie Reviews
In the last little while, I've watched a few movies, so I thought I'd share my assessment of them with you.

Hidalgo - I absolutely loved this movie. It had action, intrigue, and fun look at the American wild west. While I was left wondering about the previous adventures in the life of Hidalgo the infamous horse, the new story was really cool too.

Saved! - This movie caused quite a stir in the American Bible belt, and is quite unpopular in many church circles. Knowing that it was a critique of American pop-culture Christianity, I had to see it. The movie raised some very good questions, and pointing some well-placed critical fingers at the church, and at it's most vocal members. We see in pastor Skip, a man dealing with his own personal issues, and hiding his problems as best he can, and putting on a brave Christian face. Hillary-Faye is the unspoken leader of the Christian school social network, and I'm sure most people who saw this could see someone else in this role. I wonder how many of my friends from back home would have seen me in this role? I doubt too many would, as I was never very loud and outspoken, but many people would have seen me as such regardless. Depending on how attached you were to this character, she's quite ridiculous and easy to laugh at, and let me say, I've never been so unattracted to Mandy Moore. I had reservations about showing this movie to my youth group, but I think that if I include a very intentional discussion around very many of the key issues, it will serve the group well. My greatest critique of the movie, is that it asks a lot of questions, and forces the viewer to come up with their own answers, which is good, but after watching the movie, those answers would very often be made with some very strong anti-church messages in mind.

The Count of Monte Cristo - This too was a great movie, with awesome storylines, good action sequences, and a great assortment of characters and weird senses of humour. Just after the jail break (I'm not ruining the movie, it talks about the jail break on the back of the box), and a few other things, I looked at the screen and thought, "What is Jesus doing in this movie?" The main character is played by James Caviezel, who also played Jesus in Mel Gibson's passion. Thankfully after a shave and a haircut, he no longer looked like Jesus, otherwise I would have had to watch my Saviour dispense violent justice like nothing I've expected from him before.

   [ posted by William @ 11:19 AM ]