I’m a huge fan of documentaries. So far, my favorites have been about Scrabble, spelling bees, professional bowlers, and Donkey Kong. But this one? I don’t know what to do with it. It’s like a train wreck – I can’t look away.

I love Pixar films. In my opinion (and in pretty much everyone else’s), they haven’t missed yet. Finding Nemo was incredible. Toy Story 2 was even better than Toy Story 1, and that’s really saying something. And that kid in Monster’s Inc. is so cute I want to punch myself in the face.

So I had high expectations for Up.

And it was good. Really good. I mean, the animation alone was incredible (the scene where the house actually lifts off the ground is particularly amazing). But the story is captivating, heart-felt, and moving.

Here’s the interesting thing about the movie though – some animated movies try to sort of sit in the middle of between kiddie cartoon and adult humor in an ambiguous center ground. I would say lots of other animated films do this. Think about The Lion King for example. It’s clearly a kids movie, but it’s not really “kiddie.” I mean Mufassa gets trampled for crying out loud. But it’s not really adult either. The movie treats adult themes in kid-like ways.

But Up does it differently. It seems like to me that there’s a wide gap in the film.

For example, for the kids, there is the very kiddie idea of dogs with collars that enable them to speak. There’s lots of gags with dogs flying planes, tripping on themselves, and chasing rubber balls.

But then there’s the first 15 minutes of the film, which is very, very adult. It’s about growing older, having to make sacrifices out of dreams, and eventually, great loss. And it’s done well enough to where I was fully, totally invested in Carl, the old man, inside of 20 minutes.

Carl and his wife dreamed of being adventurers and eventually living in South America near a waterfall. But life happens. Over and over again. And Carl turns around one day to find that his wife is gone and they never really did anything. So he decides to float his house (he’s sold balloons for his career) all the way to South America.

The amazing part about Up is the commentary it makes about the nature of dreams. Carl, along with another character, are contrasted in their approach to dreams and adventure. Both are obsessed men of a sort, but Carl has the choice about whether he’ll allow his failed dreams to consume him or whether he’ll embrace what is life is. And what is his life?

His life is good. Sure, it’s not what he originally thought it might be, but it was, and can still be full. It’s just a different adventure than he had in mind all along.

And there is the very adult portion of the film. Anybody with kids, family responsibilities, and an electric bill knows that along the line, certain sacrifices have to be made. Rarely do our lives turn out just as we thought they might, and when they don’t, we have the choice about whether we wallow in the “what might have been,” or whether we accept from the hand of God what has been given to us. And, as most everything in life is, the decision is about faith.

Do you really believe God has a plan?

Do you really believe God is ordering your steps?

Do you really believe that He is wise?

Do you really believe that He has charted out the way you should go?

If the answer is yes, then come what may in life. We can still choose joy and hope in the midst of it. At least that’s what I walked away from Up thinking about.

Loved this video from History in the Making. Ben Arment writes:

Some of the most unforgettable speeches come from movies. The right words move people to action. They stick in people’s hearts and unleash them to new possibilities. The phrases themselves become iconic. Here are 40 inspirational speeches from the movies in two minutes:

I am what you would call a slightly-more-than-casual fan of Star Trek. That is to say, I know the names and traits of the original cast of characters, can tell you the plot lines of the first six movies or so, and know who Khan is, but I can’t write this blog in Klingon.

I was really excited to sit down and enjoy J.J. Abrams’ take on this classic series, and I wasn’t disappointed. I loved every second of it.

The special effects were amazing, and I loved the look of the Enterprise. In the old TV series especially, everything looked kind of like it was made out of cardboard (and it probably was, given that it was the 60’s). And even into the later movies, every time the ship would get hit with a torpedo it looked like the crew was just jumping into stuff at random. But with everything in the known universe at his fingertips, Abrams made it look great. But he didn’t overdo it, the way George Lucas did with the aliens and the man-eating spiders in the new Indiana Jones movie (my review here).

Instead, Abrams held the right balance between developing the characters and exploding and creating black holes. The characters were what made the film – everybody was great. Kirk was the younger version of the arrogant captain. Bones was the developing nasty old man. And Spock was the ever-logical and yet emotional green-blooded Vulcan.

Spock, especially, must have been a challenge, since you are a member of a race that prizes itself on having only logic – no emotion. So when Spock (the child of a Vulcan father and a human mother) was younger and less mature, you would have to play him as an actor as both more logical and more emotional. And Sylar (that’s his name in Heroes) does it great, showing both extremes.

All in all, it’s 2 hours of “worth your time.” It’s a great time, especially if you know a little something about the movies and characters when you go in.

Alright, enough of that love fest – I’ve got Klingon to study. Long long and prosper, nerds…

I’ll admit – I’m not a huge fan of debates, mainly because I get sweaty armpits for the people involved. But this film looks so well done I was immediately captured by it. By clicking below, you can watch:

Preview of the first 13 minutes of the forthcoming documentary “Collision”. The film follows renowned author and anti-theist Christopher Hitchens and
Pastor Douglas Wilson as they debate the topic: “Is Christianity Good For The World?”.

Click here to watch.

(HT: Z)

I’ll be honest – I could listen to Clint Eastwood growl for 2 hours. And that’s at least part of what I got in Gran Torino. He literally, audibly, growls. And he’s great at it.

If you watch the preview above you get the synopsis of the movie. Clint Eastwood is Walt, an old man bitter about everything in life – the racial dynamic of his community, his ungrateful kids, his dead wife – everything. And then, out of nowhere, he finds himself accidentally becoming a mentor and quasi-hero of his neighborhood.

Gran Torino is rough. It’s full of so many racial slurs that I only knew about 3/4 of what they meant. I almost googled some of them, but I didn’t want to get fired, so I left the rest of them a mystery.

Eastwood is fantastic. I’ve loved all of his later stuff, starting with Unforgiven, moving to Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. It’s pretty remarkable that this 80 year old guy actually seems to be getting better with age. He’s a great director, a powerful actor, and, come to find out, a pretty incredible composer. He sings himself the closing song of the movie as the credits roll.

The rest of the cast – not so much. They’re not great, and that in my opinion, holds the movie back some. It could have been an amazing movie if Eastwood had better support. But he doesn’t, and so the movie is just really good.

It does, however, raise some really interesting questions about the nature of life, death, and faith. Take Walt’s response to the parish priest who keeps coming around his house, stalking him because he promised Walt’s dying wife that he would get Walt to confession before he died. Walt blows up at him, calling him “a 27-year-old virgin who likes to hold the hands of old ladies and promise them eternity.” That’s pretty rough.

The 2 characters are contrasted in the movie. Here’s Walt, a guy who has seen it all, sinned it all, and lived it all, next to the priest, a kid who claims to know the secrets of life and death but has not much real life experience to go along with it. And I had to wonder if that’s not how much of the world does indeed view Christians – as people claiming to know some grand secret and yet living remarkably boring and seemingly pointless lives. It makes me wonder if our promises of heaven and eternity would not be better received if we spent a little more time weeping with people instead of just assuring them that everything’s going to be okay in the end.

It is interesting, however, that when the true crisis of Walt’s life comes around, the one person he turns to as a confidant is the same person he has ridiculed throughout the movie. I guess there are no atheists in foxholes after all – not even Dirty Harry.

But it seems like the main point of Gran Torino is that as crass, mean, and bitter as Walt is, we have something to learn from him. And that simple truth revolves around the nature of real love – that real love is painful, and is sacrificial. That love is really not love at all unless it costs something. Seems like Walt’s not the first dude who realized things like that.

…and I loved it.

And if you’re one of the 3 people that hasn’t seen it yet, this post will be spoiler-free. To start off with, everybody in this movie is great. Christian Bale is great. Michal Cain is always great. Morgan Freeman – great. And Aaron Eakhart is very great.

Heath Ledger is a step beyond great. He’s chilling. Amazing. At no point did I ever consider the fact that it was actually Heath behind the makeup because he was so completely involved in the character. His total involvement does, at least for me, make the circumstances of his death even more sad though. His performance is one of those things that makes you wonder if you’re supposed to laugh, or hide behind your chair.

Some people have said that this movie isn’t just a superhero movie – it goes well beyond that. For my part I agree. The Dark Knight is about the nature of heroism, about the eternal question of “Does the end justify the means?” And “If you really want justice, what are you prepared to do?”

So you’ve got a villain in the Joker who plays by no rules. He doesn’t do crime for money or power; he does it for the sheer love of chaos and evil. Then you have his counterpart, Batman, who though not many, still plays by a certain set of rules. Then you have DA Harvey Dent who plays by most of the rules, so he is in a way the counterpart for the Joker as well as Batman.

And you are left asking that same question, “What is right to do for the sake of what’s right?”

Add all that up, throw in a Batpod, some other righteous gadgets, explosions, and a compelling story about the mob and the legal system, and you’ve got yourself a heck of a movie.

I will say this, however – was anybody else surprised by the size of Gotham General Hospital? I thought it would have been a little bigger…

That’s right friends – The Dark Knight opens tonight. If you don’t know what it is, shame on you. But I’ll tell you – I’m seeing it tomorrow night, and I’m as excited as I’ve ever been about a movie. Here are some choice quotes from critics about the movie:

“The most brilliantly complex, perfectly paced, nerve-jangling, moral-wrangling film ever based on a graphically detailed literary work and, dare I say, one of the most important American films to be made in years.”

“With only three short words comprising the film’s enigmatic title, it also boasts three epic claims to fame: the role of a lifetime for the late Heath Ledger, one of the best films of 2008 and one of the greatest superhero films of all time.”

“A thought-provoking morality tale about the descent into darkness of a vigilante superhero, an anarchistic and sadistic villain, and an ardent idealist whose dreams are shattered.”

“Nihilistic, imaginative and emotionally gratifying, The Dark Knight is in many ways a groundbreaking triumph, and perhaps the best superhero film to date.”

“This is not merely a Batman movie. It is not merely a comic-book movie. It is not merely gripping summer entertainment. It is, with Wall-E, one of the two best mainstream films to be released all year and far and away the most hypnotic chiller.”

In other critics’ minds, it’s been said that this movie is not just a superhero movie; it’s a crime movie that stands up next to The Untouchables and Heat. I could not be more excited.

Yesterday I had a love fest with Rocky Balboa, writing alot about how the story was what drove the good movies in the series. Not the fights. It was originally about the character of Rocky, and that’s what made the newest movie good, too.

So now we come to Indiana Jones.

Another recreation. Another movie. Another return to a great character from my childhood. And let me be clear – I love Indiana Jones. I love him. The whip, the hat, the self-deprecating grin of Harrison Ford – love it all. And through the first three movies, the development of that character, particularly in The Last Crusade, was what made it so great to me. Here are a few of my favorite lines from the third movie from Indiana and his dad:

- I’ve lost him Marcus. And I never told him anything.
- That’s for blasphemy!
- It’s an obsession, dad – I never understood it. And neither did mom.

Okay, okay, I know – Indiana Jones is an action movie. But it’s lines like these thrown in there that also make me appreciate the character development inside it. But the latest movie? What did we get?

Aliens. Monkeys. Big ants. Refrigerators in nuclear blasts.

I guess I just wanted to see my friend again, and while I did enjoy the movie, I thought it fell really short of what it might have been. Where’s the character? Where’s the heart felt moments? Not many of them in this latest one. And that, to me, is the difference between Rocky and Indiana Jones.

When I watched Rocky Balboa, I got to see the inner conflict of a guy growing older trying to find his place in the world. When I watched the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I got to see Even Stevens swinging through trees with monkeys. Not too good.

This year, both of these films revived two of my all time favorite movie characters – Rocky Balboa and Henry Jones, Jr (aka “Indiana”). One did it right; the other one did not.

I loved the original Rocky. I loved it because despite what the movie posters might say, this movie isn’t about boxing at all. It’s about struggle, perseverance, and the underdog. I think the best example of this comes at the end of the movie. Rocky has just gone the distance with the great champion, Apollo Creed. The fight is a draw and both men are exhausted. And Rocky starts looking for Adrian.

In the craziness, he finally spots her, remarks “Where’s your hat?” and then they say they love each other. It’s only in the background noise that you hear the announcer for the fight say that Apollo has won the split decision fight. Rocky lost – but the whole point is that the outcome of the fight was irrelevant. It didn’t matter, because he finished it. He went the distance, and the fight is a metaphor for his whole life.

Ultimately the movie is about the character of Rocky. Forget the fight; it’s just something to keep the story moving. It’s about the character. And that’s why I liked the latest movie, Rocky Balboa. In a return to the original, this movie is about the same underdog trudging through life, trying to figure out who he is as an aging, widowed athlete with an alienated son.

It’s about him, the character, the story. The fight is just an afterthought (which is a good thing because I’m not sure about the plausibility of a 65 year old fighting a 23 year old brawler). The line of the movie, which to me pretty much sums up what the whole character is about, is this: “What matters is how hard you can get hit and keep on coming.” That’s Rocky’s life. It’s about persevering, lasting the entire fight, and never giving up. And I love him – you know you do, too.

Indiana Jones? Well, more about him in part 2. For now, let’s just leave the sweet image of the Italian Stallion in our heads.