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re: TulaneLSU's 2024 movie review thread: A Real Pain
Posted on 10/12/24 at 10:07 am to TulaneLSU
Posted on 10/12/24 at 10:07 am to TulaneLSU
Saturday Night
Grandmother enjoys puzzles, and even though this film is about a puzzle, I do not think she would like it. We start with a big pile of bricks. The bricks are nice and orderly, but then an accident befalls them, and they become scattered and disorganized, a mess on the floor. It is the job of one man to put them back together.
If you have ever done any brickwork using real bricks, old and weather bricks like the ones you might find on the sidewalks of New Orleans, from the brickyards of Alexius, Demourelle, Kent, and St Joe, you know it is not always easy making a unified whole. Edges are worn, depths are varied, and the result is a puzzle, furrowed and cragged, yet beautiful.
Ultimately, the goal of Saturday Night’s director is to paint Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL, as the ideal stonemason. Only he, in the director’s eye, has the vision and passion, the hutzpah, to bring an unusual and disparate troupe of comedians together. He is the potter and his clay is dirty and messy. But he forms a beautiful piece that reflects what New York is – a vibrant and kinetic symphony of unexpecteds.
The trouble with this hagiography of Lorne Michaels is that it largely ignores the sin on the set. When not ignoring it, the sin is glorified as comical and even, at times, noble. The tragedy is the bricks were not just scuffed – they were cracked and in need of a visit to the Potter’s House.
Saturday Night, a film about a comedy show, is not funny nor particularly well made. Throughout this plod, the audience laughed just once, at a crude sex joke that would make the old OT proud. It almost feels like a swan song to network television – a cinematic attempt to tell future generations, “We used to be a big deal!” Nightly news, late night television and SNL are in rapid decline. I know zero people under the age of 40 who watch SNL today. The burned out 60 and 70 year olds who enjoyed being rebellious and surrendering their morals to the sex-drug-profanity laced early days of SNL may indeed enjoy this. But it is doubtful anyone still in the first half of their lives will. For them, it is a puzzle anyone ever bothered to watch this litter. 3/10
Grandmother enjoys puzzles, and even though this film is about a puzzle, I do not think she would like it. We start with a big pile of bricks. The bricks are nice and orderly, but then an accident befalls them, and they become scattered and disorganized, a mess on the floor. It is the job of one man to put them back together.
If you have ever done any brickwork using real bricks, old and weather bricks like the ones you might find on the sidewalks of New Orleans, from the brickyards of Alexius, Demourelle, Kent, and St Joe, you know it is not always easy making a unified whole. Edges are worn, depths are varied, and the result is a puzzle, furrowed and cragged, yet beautiful.
Ultimately, the goal of Saturday Night’s director is to paint Lorne Michaels, the creator of SNL, as the ideal stonemason. Only he, in the director’s eye, has the vision and passion, the hutzpah, to bring an unusual and disparate troupe of comedians together. He is the potter and his clay is dirty and messy. But he forms a beautiful piece that reflects what New York is – a vibrant and kinetic symphony of unexpecteds.
The trouble with this hagiography of Lorne Michaels is that it largely ignores the sin on the set. When not ignoring it, the sin is glorified as comical and even, at times, noble. The tragedy is the bricks were not just scuffed – they were cracked and in need of a visit to the Potter’s House.
Saturday Night, a film about a comedy show, is not funny nor particularly well made. Throughout this plod, the audience laughed just once, at a crude sex joke that would make the old OT proud. It almost feels like a swan song to network television – a cinematic attempt to tell future generations, “We used to be a big deal!” Nightly news, late night television and SNL are in rapid decline. I know zero people under the age of 40 who watch SNL today. The burned out 60 and 70 year olds who enjoyed being rebellious and surrendering their morals to the sex-drug-profanity laced early days of SNL may indeed enjoy this. But it is doubtful anyone still in the first half of their lives will. For them, it is a puzzle anyone ever bothered to watch this litter. 3/10
This post was edited on 10/12/24 at 10:09 am
3
Posted on 10/13/24 at 12:45 am to TulaneLSU
Thank you for your review. I find it difficult to cast for such a charismatic group of people from a bygone era.
Posted on 10/15/24 at 3:33 pm to TulaneLSU
The Apprentice
In the 500s AD legend has it that Theophilus of Adana signed a contract with the Devil. Theo bartered his own body and soul while the Devil made him a bishop. The story is the first of its kind in Western literature in which a deal with the Devil is made. The Apprentice fits in this Faustian mold.
This engaging and well told story about Donald Trump is told in three chapters. The first and best is set, like Saturday Night, which I saw just last week, in the mid to late 1970s New York. The Trump here is the sympathetic figure: pure, abused, seeking, lonely. His lack of a loving father leads him in a search for acceptance, validation, and ultimately love. One wonders how true to history this person is and how he might have become so much more if a man of virtue, and not manipulative nihilism, were his mentor. Trump’s dream to build grandeur from decay, to make great again what was once great, is on full display in his obsession with The Commodore Hotel. His dreams are big and they seem to be good.
The second chapter reveals an apprentice with his master, Faustian deal done, working in tandem to wreck and conquer. The Commodore’s transformation into the Grand Hyatt, which I had the displeasure of visiting once when our cousins were out of town and The Plaza was booked, and the completion of Trump Tower, whose pizza in the basement is among the worst in New York, symbolize that which the two are capable through unsavory backdoor deals. The final chapter, symbolized by the Taj Majal, is that of the apprentice surpassing, and ultimately rejecting his master. His vanity, greed, lust, and narcissism make his mentor’s appear mild. Both of the final chapters are good and interesting, but less so than the first, largely because the final two chapters were already accessible to the public through the media.
Over the next half century, Trump will probably be the most analyzed person in American history. This film gives an interesting and insightful glimpse into his relationship with Roy Cohn and his start in both the inner circles of finance and politics of New York, which sprung him to national fame and either hatred or love. Those who despise Trump will probably find much to fault with this film. Those who love and deify Trump, likewise, will also probably hate this film. But those who love film will likely enjoy it. Be warned – you will need nudity glasses to wear for several scenes in this film. 7/10
In the 500s AD legend has it that Theophilus of Adana signed a contract with the Devil. Theo bartered his own body and soul while the Devil made him a bishop. The story is the first of its kind in Western literature in which a deal with the Devil is made. The Apprentice fits in this Faustian mold.
This engaging and well told story about Donald Trump is told in three chapters. The first and best is set, like Saturday Night, which I saw just last week, in the mid to late 1970s New York. The Trump here is the sympathetic figure: pure, abused, seeking, lonely. His lack of a loving father leads him in a search for acceptance, validation, and ultimately love. One wonders how true to history this person is and how he might have become so much more if a man of virtue, and not manipulative nihilism, were his mentor. Trump’s dream to build grandeur from decay, to make great again what was once great, is on full display in his obsession with The Commodore Hotel. His dreams are big and they seem to be good.
The second chapter reveals an apprentice with his master, Faustian deal done, working in tandem to wreck and conquer. The Commodore’s transformation into the Grand Hyatt, which I had the displeasure of visiting once when our cousins were out of town and The Plaza was booked, and the completion of Trump Tower, whose pizza in the basement is among the worst in New York, symbolize that which the two are capable through unsavory backdoor deals. The final chapter, symbolized by the Taj Majal, is that of the apprentice surpassing, and ultimately rejecting his master. His vanity, greed, lust, and narcissism make his mentor’s appear mild. Both of the final chapters are good and interesting, but less so than the first, largely because the final two chapters were already accessible to the public through the media.
Over the next half century, Trump will probably be the most analyzed person in American history. This film gives an interesting and insightful glimpse into his relationship with Roy Cohn and his start in both the inner circles of finance and politics of New York, which sprung him to national fame and either hatred or love. Those who despise Trump will probably find much to fault with this film. Those who love and deify Trump, likewise, will also probably hate this film. But those who love film will likely enjoy it. Be warned – you will need nudity glasses to wear for several scenes in this film. 7/10
This post was edited on 10/15/24 at 3:42 pm
Posted on 10/25/24 at 5:43 pm to TulaneLSU
Conclave
Each of us wears a mask to conceal who we really are. Some hide their poverty, even though Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor,” and spend money they do not have to impress others. Some hide sexual sins, be they looking at pornography, fornicating without abandon, or lusting after people outside marriage, perhaps by reading one of Larry Leo's posts about a girl inviting men to view her as an object. Others hide their feelings and imperfections in chemicals, be they alcohol, illicit drugs, or a buffet line. The most depraved of us is a seasoned marathon athlete in the race away from his true self.
Conclave is seemingly and superficially about the conclave of cardinals that meets to elect the bishop of Rome. And in this facet, the film is fascinating. I do not know the details of how the writer and director were privy to the details of the Sacred College of Cardinals, or if they were, or if the details of the movie are imaginative. Regardless, the film masterfully presents what may or may not transpire behind the closed doors as the Sacred College sorts through the politic, personality, philosophy, and theology of flawed individuals to elect one who will become infallible. Ralph Fiennes gives the performance of a lifetime, one that catapults him to the front of the list for the 2024 TulaneLSU Award for Best Actor. Courageous, broken, unyielding, timid, gullible, and unflinching his work captures the enigma that is each person, impossible to capture with superlatives or a list of foibles.
Yes, it is a movie about the conventicle, the conclave, of bishops. But if we dig just a little deeper, if we actively participate and actively think about the movie more than just a few minutes after watching, as we should with any media we allow to enter our minds, we find the conclave is ourselves. Each of us is a lockbox, a safe, filled with secrets, horrible sins, that we spend so much energy hiding behind a lock. Our locks become vaults and continue to grow until they are armed fortresses. You are the conclave. I am the conclave. We are all conclaves.
The supremacy of the church in Rome, at least for Roman Catholics, is founded on that beautiful passage in St. Matthew, where Jesus says to Peter, the first bishop of Rome, “On this rock I will build my church…I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” That you behind the word give is the dative singular of the Koine. It is not a term said to all of the disciples, as some Protestants might interpret. It is a direct statement to Peter and Peter alone. And his descendants who take up the burden of that heavy seat are likewise given the temporal key.
We know that Jesus is the holder of the key to our true selves. The conclave is our heart, and Jesus can unlock it so that we need never again to feel shame, never again to hide. Jesus loves us and accepts us while we were still sinners, in the words of Paul. God did not wait until we became good for God to love us. God loved us first while we lived in the depths of our sin. God sent Jesus at the right time, before we repented, before we bowed at the throne, while we were still sinners. God unlocked the conclave.
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” 8/10
Each of us wears a mask to conceal who we really are. Some hide their poverty, even though Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor,” and spend money they do not have to impress others. Some hide sexual sins, be they looking at pornography, fornicating without abandon, or lusting after people outside marriage, perhaps by reading one of Larry Leo's posts about a girl inviting men to view her as an object. Others hide their feelings and imperfections in chemicals, be they alcohol, illicit drugs, or a buffet line. The most depraved of us is a seasoned marathon athlete in the race away from his true self.
Conclave is seemingly and superficially about the conclave of cardinals that meets to elect the bishop of Rome. And in this facet, the film is fascinating. I do not know the details of how the writer and director were privy to the details of the Sacred College of Cardinals, or if they were, or if the details of the movie are imaginative. Regardless, the film masterfully presents what may or may not transpire behind the closed doors as the Sacred College sorts through the politic, personality, philosophy, and theology of flawed individuals to elect one who will become infallible. Ralph Fiennes gives the performance of a lifetime, one that catapults him to the front of the list for the 2024 TulaneLSU Award for Best Actor. Courageous, broken, unyielding, timid, gullible, and unflinching his work captures the enigma that is each person, impossible to capture with superlatives or a list of foibles.
Yes, it is a movie about the conventicle, the conclave, of bishops. But if we dig just a little deeper, if we actively participate and actively think about the movie more than just a few minutes after watching, as we should with any media we allow to enter our minds, we find the conclave is ourselves. Each of us is a lockbox, a safe, filled with secrets, horrible sins, that we spend so much energy hiding behind a lock. Our locks become vaults and continue to grow until they are armed fortresses. You are the conclave. I am the conclave. We are all conclaves.
The supremacy of the church in Rome, at least for Roman Catholics, is founded on that beautiful passage in St. Matthew, where Jesus says to Peter, the first bishop of Rome, “On this rock I will build my church…I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” That you behind the word give is the dative singular of the Koine. It is not a term said to all of the disciples, as some Protestants might interpret. It is a direct statement to Peter and Peter alone. And his descendants who take up the burden of that heavy seat are likewise given the temporal key.
We know that Jesus is the holder of the key to our true selves. The conclave is our heart, and Jesus can unlock it so that we need never again to feel shame, never again to hide. Jesus loves us and accepts us while we were still sinners, in the words of Paul. God did not wait until we became good for God to love us. God loved us first while we lived in the depths of our sin. God sent Jesus at the right time, before we repented, before we bowed at the throne, while we were still sinners. God unlocked the conclave.
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” 8/10
This post was edited on 10/25/24 at 5:57 pm
Posted on 10/25/24 at 6:18 pm to TulaneLSU
I give your reviews 2 thumbs down
Posted on 10/26/24 at 12:15 pm to TulaneLSU
Who the frick are you that you get to reserve all these spots?
Posted on 10/28/24 at 6:51 am to Pandy Fackler
Friend,
I hope you will consider doing your own movies review thread next year. The content of what was once a proud Arts Board has over the last decade decayed into a pop forum for politicized teens whose insights into film are as deep as a layer of a Pancho’s Mexican Buffet sopaipilla.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
I hope you will consider doing your own movies review thread next year. The content of what was once a proud Arts Board has over the last decade decayed into a pop forum for politicized teens whose insights into film are as deep as a layer of a Pancho’s Mexican Buffet sopaipilla.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Posted on 10/28/24 at 10:26 am to TulaneLSU
We don’t deserve you. It’s that simple.
As for those who don’t celebrate your posts… they are riff-raff.
And I say this as someone who has no idea what Conclave is and I never will.
You’re a national treasure. Thank you.
As for those who don’t celebrate your posts… they are riff-raff.
And I say this as someone who has no idea what Conclave is and I never will.
You’re a national treasure. Thank you.
Posted on 10/28/24 at 10:30 am to TulaneLSU
quote:
Friend,
I hope you will consider doing your own movies review thread next year. The content of what was once a proud Arts Board has over the last decade decayed into a pop forum for politicized teens whose insights into film are as deep as a layer of a Pancho’s Mexican Buffet sopaipilla.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Posted on 10/28/24 at 4:37 pm to TulaneLSU
quote:
Friend,
I hope you will consider doing your own movies review thread next year. The content of what was once a proud Arts Board has over the last decade decayed into a pop forum for politicized teens whose insights into film are as deep as a layer of a Pancho’s Mexican Buffet sopaipilla.
Yours,
TulaneLSU
Posted on 10/28/24 at 5:19 pm to TulaneLSU
Doesn’t conclave have a tranny pope? No thanks
Posted on 10/30/24 at 4:46 am to Hooch Is Crazy
quote:
Doesn’t conclave have a tranny pope? No thanks
Radical Hollywood pushing a tranny agenda? No way! Can not be true!
Posted on 10/30/24 at 4:50 am to TulaneLSU
Daddio - isn't that the girl with the nice tits? I like her!
Posted on 10/30/24 at 5:05 am to TulaneLSU
I like The Money Pit.
Posted on 11/1/24 at 6:35 am to TulaneLSU
Here
Disney World’s Wheel of Progress is a fine attraction that gives visitors an air conditioned, seated reprieve in the middle of a hot day. At 15 minutes it is just long enough to get a power nap. But it does not make for a good movie.
Somewhere somehow the three people most responsible for Forrest Gump’s theatrical success decided to hold a one week reunion and make a bad movie in the process. I had high hopes for it when the trailer first released. Sadly, it is a disappointment, arguably the biggest disappointment of the year.
Lame, unmoving, uncaring, and silly, Here tries to be sappy, but does not even meet the threshold of sappy. It is just a boring and unintelligent story with less emotion than The Wheel of Progress. 2/10
Venom: Last Dance
The great Oxford historian, the greatest of the 20th century, Arnold Toynbee wrote in his A Study of History that a civilization’s decline begins the moment the civilization loses its religious inspiration.
The rise of the comic book film industry over the last 15 years coinciding with the rapid decrease in traditional church attendance makes me wonder if these comic book films are a symptom of the West’s decline.
Venom is an absurd tale that tries to be humorous, but I did not laugh once. The alien’s voice is so computer manipulated that I might have understood but one in three words it said. Gorilla sized traps Tom Hardy gives us the typical range of which he is capable, which is as wide as his chicken legs.
The one redeeming aspect of this movie is its closing that focuses indirectly on Jesus’s teaching “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” But even that beautiful thought does not save yet another failed comic book film. 3/10
Disney World’s Wheel of Progress is a fine attraction that gives visitors an air conditioned, seated reprieve in the middle of a hot day. At 15 minutes it is just long enough to get a power nap. But it does not make for a good movie.
Somewhere somehow the three people most responsible for Forrest Gump’s theatrical success decided to hold a one week reunion and make a bad movie in the process. I had high hopes for it when the trailer first released. Sadly, it is a disappointment, arguably the biggest disappointment of the year.
Lame, unmoving, uncaring, and silly, Here tries to be sappy, but does not even meet the threshold of sappy. It is just a boring and unintelligent story with less emotion than The Wheel of Progress. 2/10
Venom: Last Dance
The great Oxford historian, the greatest of the 20th century, Arnold Toynbee wrote in his A Study of History that a civilization’s decline begins the moment the civilization loses its religious inspiration.
The rise of the comic book film industry over the last 15 years coinciding with the rapid decrease in traditional church attendance makes me wonder if these comic book films are a symptom of the West’s decline.
Venom is an absurd tale that tries to be humorous, but I did not laugh once. The alien’s voice is so computer manipulated that I might have understood but one in three words it said. Gorilla sized traps Tom Hardy gives us the typical range of which he is capable, which is as wide as his chicken legs.
The one redeeming aspect of this movie is its closing that focuses indirectly on Jesus’s teaching “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” But even that beautiful thought does not save yet another failed comic book film. 3/10
This post was edited on 11/1/24 at 6:41 am
Posted on 11/5/24 at 5:38 pm to TulaneLSU
Piece by Piece
When you are just 50 years old and you decide that your life story is worthy of a full length film, it is wise to seek out investors. It is unwise, as we saw with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, to bankroll your dream only because no one else thought your dream was a good enough idea in which to invest. So it is with the trite and mopeish Piece by Piece.
While I may not have known who Pharrell Williams was before the film began, after watching it, I still do not know who he really is. Yes, we get the basic background story from his school days to his ascent within the corrupt and corrupting music industry. But, perhaps due to his being the executive producer, we never get a critical view into his person. Instead, we get conflicting platitudinous, prosaic vignettes. For example, when he is still in school, listing and wayward, confused, he approaches his uncle, a pastor and self-appointed “bishop.” His uncle tells him, “Trust God.” And it appears that is the turning point.
Later, after he has achieved success, but cannot maintain it, and turns to executives who he portrays as using him, he again finds himself lost. This time, his inspiration comes from the agnostic, nearly Pelagian words of Carl Sagan, summed as “only you can save yourself.” So from whom exactly does Pharrell seek inspiration, guidance, and ultimately salvation?
Williams fails to find himself while telling this story. He fails to be critical of himself. He fails to make his life interesting through story. The challenges he reveals, the only real hardships he faced amount to the death of his grandmother and writing a few songs that failed. Surely he has more to say than this.
Augustine was only in his early 40s when he wrote his autobiography, Confessions. His is the greatest autobiography ever written because he has something to say and he is honest. Williams has nothing to say and what he does give us is neatly packaged and formulaic. It would not make for a good 30 minute made-for-TV biography. It certainly flops as a 90 minute film. 3/10
The Wild Robot
It has been over a month since I saw this film. And while I enjoyed the film, I cannot remember too much about it. It touches on the themes of adoption, love, working with your enemy, and breaking the rules to do the good. But sadly, the film has no staying power. The seed it plants has no vigor, or maybe the soil was lacking. Either way, it is a good movie, but not a great one. 6/10
When you are just 50 years old and you decide that your life story is worthy of a full length film, it is wise to seek out investors. It is unwise, as we saw with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, to bankroll your dream only because no one else thought your dream was a good enough idea in which to invest. So it is with the trite and mopeish Piece by Piece.
While I may not have known who Pharrell Williams was before the film began, after watching it, I still do not know who he really is. Yes, we get the basic background story from his school days to his ascent within the corrupt and corrupting music industry. But, perhaps due to his being the executive producer, we never get a critical view into his person. Instead, we get conflicting platitudinous, prosaic vignettes. For example, when he is still in school, listing and wayward, confused, he approaches his uncle, a pastor and self-appointed “bishop.” His uncle tells him, “Trust God.” And it appears that is the turning point.
Later, after he has achieved success, but cannot maintain it, and turns to executives who he portrays as using him, he again finds himself lost. This time, his inspiration comes from the agnostic, nearly Pelagian words of Carl Sagan, summed as “only you can save yourself.” So from whom exactly does Pharrell seek inspiration, guidance, and ultimately salvation?
Williams fails to find himself while telling this story. He fails to be critical of himself. He fails to make his life interesting through story. The challenges he reveals, the only real hardships he faced amount to the death of his grandmother and writing a few songs that failed. Surely he has more to say than this.
Augustine was only in his early 40s when he wrote his autobiography, Confessions. His is the greatest autobiography ever written because he has something to say and he is honest. Williams has nothing to say and what he does give us is neatly packaged and formulaic. It would not make for a good 30 minute made-for-TV biography. It certainly flops as a 90 minute film. 3/10
The Wild Robot
It has been over a month since I saw this film. And while I enjoyed the film, I cannot remember too much about it. It touches on the themes of adoption, love, working with your enemy, and breaking the rules to do the good. But sadly, the film has no staying power. The seed it plants has no vigor, or maybe the soil was lacking. Either way, it is a good movie, but not a great one. 6/10
Posted on 11/8/24 at 7:46 pm to TulaneLSU
Heretic
For a short while after Hurricane Katrina, I lived in a town called Princeton, where I also attended school, where Grandfather attended long ago. It was there that I had a class taught by the philosopher Peter Singer. Singer has written many controversial things, and at the time, was a minor academic celebrity for his work on animal ethics. The fact that in class I successfully showed his ethic of vegetarianism rather than veganism stood on shaky soil rather than make him antagonistic against me led to an invitation to Prospect House, the faculty dining room on campus.
Dining over the Garden Room’s most delectable squash dish, rather than its famed crab cakes – Peter refuses to eat crabs or any other organism that has a central nervous system and I respected his belief by not ordering them – he asked me why I believed in the triune God of Christianity. I responded, “Because God is truth, light, love, and has guided us to this question.” We spoke on epistemology the rest of the meal and he could not for the life of him understand how any of us could believe in a God, much less a God who commands us to love the most wretched and wicked in society, to forgive those who hurt us, and ultimately to live a life of sacrifice. For Peter, the purpose of life is simply utilitarian – to utilize our gifts to lessen suffering and increase happiness for all creatures, although he would not agree that they are creatures and would call them beings.
Some have called Singer a heretic because he has put on the world a different way of looking at God’s creation. But his conclusions are not that distant from the ethical calls of Christ. For some reason, I was thinking about our conversations while watching Heretic tonight.
Heretic begins as a promising inspection of belief and unbelief. We are introduced to two perverted female Mormon missionaries who are fascinated by sex. Their faith in a god that is as close to the Christian God as a LV handbag sold by a Nigerian immigrant in Times Square as one found in the flagship store on Fifth Avenue. That reminds me – were just in NY this week and watched as the Christmas storefront decorations were being hoisted to the building’s sides. This year look for LV signature luggage in black, white and gray as the Christmas theme.
They are challenged by a man whose religious knowledge extends as deep as a religious studies major at a marginal university. With a rather pedantic and shallow technique, he grotesquely challenges them. Do they believe what they see? Is what they see real? What is the true religion in which he desires they place their face?
Ultimately,his answer is an unsatisfactory one and sloppily presented. He is a literalist who sees religion, as the Romans did – as a mechanism of control. He sees religio in its most literal meaning – that which binds us.
It is an addlepated presentation of doubt and skepticism. Whereas the naive faithful might feign offense, those who really should be offended are the disbelievers, for Hugh Grant’s character is a mockery of atheism and agnosticism. His illusory arguments lack the blade of truth. He may be able to stab through the carotid, but truth remains whole. The writers try to employ the Divine Comedy’s structure, but the moment the girls leave his satanic altar room, the movie falls to pieces as does the satanic man’s philosophy. 5/10
For a short while after Hurricane Katrina, I lived in a town called Princeton, where I also attended school, where Grandfather attended long ago. It was there that I had a class taught by the philosopher Peter Singer. Singer has written many controversial things, and at the time, was a minor academic celebrity for his work on animal ethics. The fact that in class I successfully showed his ethic of vegetarianism rather than veganism stood on shaky soil rather than make him antagonistic against me led to an invitation to Prospect House, the faculty dining room on campus.
Dining over the Garden Room’s most delectable squash dish, rather than its famed crab cakes – Peter refuses to eat crabs or any other organism that has a central nervous system and I respected his belief by not ordering them – he asked me why I believed in the triune God of Christianity. I responded, “Because God is truth, light, love, and has guided us to this question.” We spoke on epistemology the rest of the meal and he could not for the life of him understand how any of us could believe in a God, much less a God who commands us to love the most wretched and wicked in society, to forgive those who hurt us, and ultimately to live a life of sacrifice. For Peter, the purpose of life is simply utilitarian – to utilize our gifts to lessen suffering and increase happiness for all creatures, although he would not agree that they are creatures and would call them beings.
Some have called Singer a heretic because he has put on the world a different way of looking at God’s creation. But his conclusions are not that distant from the ethical calls of Christ. For some reason, I was thinking about our conversations while watching Heretic tonight.
Heretic begins as a promising inspection of belief and unbelief. We are introduced to two perverted female Mormon missionaries who are fascinated by sex. Their faith in a god that is as close to the Christian God as a LV handbag sold by a Nigerian immigrant in Times Square as one found in the flagship store on Fifth Avenue. That reminds me – were just in NY this week and watched as the Christmas storefront decorations were being hoisted to the building’s sides. This year look for LV signature luggage in black, white and gray as the Christmas theme.
They are challenged by a man whose religious knowledge extends as deep as a religious studies major at a marginal university. With a rather pedantic and shallow technique, he grotesquely challenges them. Do they believe what they see? Is what they see real? What is the true religion in which he desires they place their face?
Ultimately,his answer is an unsatisfactory one and sloppily presented. He is a literalist who sees religion, as the Romans did – as a mechanism of control. He sees religio in its most literal meaning – that which binds us.
It is an addlepated presentation of doubt and skepticism. Whereas the naive faithful might feign offense, those who really should be offended are the disbelievers, for Hugh Grant’s character is a mockery of atheism and agnosticism. His illusory arguments lack the blade of truth. He may be able to stab through the carotid, but truth remains whole. The writers try to employ the Divine Comedy’s structure, but the moment the girls leave his satanic altar room, the movie falls to pieces as does the satanic man’s philosophy. 5/10
Posted on 11/8/24 at 9:23 pm to TulaneLSU
When’s your Anora review dropping?
Posted on 11/10/24 at 10:18 pm to TulaneLSU
Red One
Some question if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It obviously is not because its theme is not Christmas related. And even though Red One has Santa, the North Pole, elves, and reindeer, it too is decidedly not a Christmas movie.
I had the misfortune this evening of sitting next to an obese family that was stuffing their mouths with dine-in chicken wings, fouling my air space with horrific odors. While the Dolby theater at Disney Springs is lovely, it only takes one Disney family smacking on chicken to ruin the experience.
Anyway, there really is nothing worthwhile to say about Red One. Like many movies that try to capitalize on Christmas it has nothing to offer other than for those who enjoy horror films. There really is not acting, no discernible plot, and no message. It was not as bad as the Wolverine movie this summer, but it comes close. The gratuitous violence and unnecessary profanity and multiple uses of God’s name in vain only further sully a bad time on the silver screen. Perhaps the Christmas pageant movie out right now will be our one redeeming Christmas movie this year. 2/10
Some question if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It obviously is not because its theme is not Christmas related. And even though Red One has Santa, the North Pole, elves, and reindeer, it too is decidedly not a Christmas movie.
I had the misfortune this evening of sitting next to an obese family that was stuffing their mouths with dine-in chicken wings, fouling my air space with horrific odors. While the Dolby theater at Disney Springs is lovely, it only takes one Disney family smacking on chicken to ruin the experience.
Anyway, there really is nothing worthwhile to say about Red One. Like many movies that try to capitalize on Christmas it has nothing to offer other than for those who enjoy horror films. There really is not acting, no discernible plot, and no message. It was not as bad as the Wolverine movie this summer, but it comes close. The gratuitous violence and unnecessary profanity and multiple uses of God’s name in vain only further sully a bad time on the silver screen. Perhaps the Christmas pageant movie out right now will be our one redeeming Christmas movie this year. 2/10
Posted on 11/11/24 at 4:12 pm to TulaneLSU
quote:
Anyway, there really is nothing worthwhile to say about Red One. Like many movies that try to capitalize on Christmas it has nothing to offer other than for those who enjoy horror films. There really is not acting, no discernible plot, and no message. It was not as bad as the Wolverine movie this summer, but it comes close. The gratuitous violence and unnecessary profanity and multiple uses of God’s name in vain only further sully a bad time on the silver screen. Perhaps the Christmas pageant movie out right now will be our one redeeming Christmas movie this year. 2/10
sounds like a fun time at the movies if you aren't a cuck soyboy
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