Blazing Saddles

I just need to get this one done because this was last week's. I'm currently watching Blues Brothers for this week, and still trying to come up with something for Blazing Saddles. I think my first idea that somewhat resembled a spiritual connection is to never count anyone out. Bart made a fantastic sheriff, despite what everyone thought would happen, and Jim, the town drunk, turned out to be the best help Bart would ever hope to have. Never assume God's done with someone.

Billy Madison

You've seen it, you love it, but try connecting it to spirituality. That's what I thought. So, you'll forgive me when it's a bit of a stretch? This movie made me think of potential, seeing the potential in others and in yourself. And whenever I think of potential I always think about Moses in the desert at the burning bush. After making a whole bunch of excuses why he can't go to Pharaoh, God asks Moses "What do you have in your hand?" and Moses replies, "A staff." Later God uses that very staff as a sign of His power through Moses. God uses us where we are with what we "have." Billy had the potential to make it all the way across the stage and get his diploma, but he needed Veronica's, Max's, and all the third graders' help pushing him along to accomplish his goal. Also, when he finally got the company from his dad in the end, Billy recognizes that he does NOT have the potential to be an executive. Recognizing when you don't have the potential to do something is almost as important as recognizing when you do. He gives the company to Carl because he knows he would do a much better job. Sorry this one's late, but I'm about to watch Blazing Saddles and blog that shortly.

A BIG POST! Big, Big Daddy and Big Fish

Since this post is covering Big, Big Daddy and Big Fish, I will choose to post in all bold caps. IRONICALLY ENOUGH, THESE MOVIES WHICH ALL HAVE SIMILAR TITLES ALSO HAVE SIMILAR THEMES. BE YOURSELF. YOU DON'T NEED TO PRETEND TO BE SOMEONE YOU'RE NOT. DON'T FORGET WHO YOU ARE: YOU ARE A LOVED CREATION OF THE ONE TRUE GOD AND HE HAS A PERFECT PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Behind the Times (Catching Up): Beethoven, Beethoven's 2nd and Bella

I didn't intend to let myself get 4 weeks behind, but it sort of worked out. Beethoven, Beethoven's 2nd and Bella all sort of revolved around the idea of social responsibility. Taking care of the orphans and widows is what Christ called us to do, but not only that but to do our best to help anyone in any way we can.

The Dark Knight

Alrighty! Great movie. I'll pick one thing to draw out of this movie. We can learn much from Harvey Dent/Two Face. This movie shows us how easily we or anyone can turn from what they are into something completely different just from circumstances. Harvey wasn't even listening to reason when Rachel dies, (spoiler) Bruce tried to save her, but he couldn't, and then the Joker didn't force him to do anything. Harvey chose to do the things he did. That's another thing I like about this movie. The Joker rarely forces anyone to do anything. He just talks them into doing his bidding by themselves. This is much like what Satan does. He has no power, but the power to twist reality. Be on your guard and protect your mind.

Batman Begins

Finally, a good movie. It seems like a long time since I watched Batman Begins. So good. I love the line delivered by Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father, and later by Alfred, the butler, "Why do we fall, (Master) Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up." This reminds me of when Jesus is walking on the water and Peter asks to walk out with him. He says come, Peter walks on the water, but then, looking around at the wind and the waves, begins to sink. Jesus grabs his hand and pulls him up, "Oh, ye, of little faith. Why did you doubt?" I've heard this passage preached noting that Jesus said, why did you doubt, not why did you doubt me. Jesus let Peter walk on the water, because he knew he could. Jesus won't put us in a situation you can't handle. Sometimes we wish God wouldn't trust us as much as he does. Next Week: The Dark Knight (to finish off my Batman movies)

Batman Returns

Alright, this movie was made by the same people as the waste of film called Batman, but it's quite a bit better. Not great, just better. Better than awful. In this one The Penguin surfaces, saying that he wants to find out about his parents... yeah, the plot sucks. However, at one point in the movie the Penguin is trying to make himself look like a hero, by framing Batman. This made me think of how we can act sometimes, when we act in such a way to give God a bad name. We're representing Him 24/7, so we need to make Him look like the caring, loving savior He is. Next Week: Batman Begins

Batman

1989. A terrible mistake was made. It was the movie Batman starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. This is a poorly made movie with a thrown together plot, two things I have little patience for, so I'm scrounging up this lesson from it:

No matter how many stupid things you do, God will still love you.

Wow.

Another one next week, Batman Returns... same Batman, same Director, same bottle of Aspirin.

Aladdin

So, I just got Aladdin, and since that's already been passed in the alphabet, I'm gonna blog about it now.

The main theme I took away from Aladdin was to be true to who you are. When Jasmine met Aladdin in the city streets she fell for him because he was being himself. Then, when he tried to impress her as Ali Ababua, she was put off, because he was putting on someone he wasn't. This reminds us that we cannot live double lives. The Bible says we cannot serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other, or he will hate the one and love the other. Either way, our loyalties are going to naturally be pulled toward one or the other. God doesn't want to share us. He's incredibly jealous. He doesn't want us on Weekends, or on Weekdays, or on Sundays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, days that have an N in them. He wants us all the time, every day, every hour, regardless of where we are, what we're doing, or who we're with. This is a lesson I forgot time and time again.

Hoping you had a Good Friday, wishing you all a good Easter

Back to the Future, Parts 1, 2 and 3

my childhood. That's what these movies remind me of. Watching them in marathons on tv all the time when I was a kid with my dad. The main point of these movies is best summed up in the final film when Doc Brown responds to what Jennifer asks him. While in the 2015, Jennifer took a fax that Marty got from work saying "YOU'RE FIRED!" with her, but then, when Marty refused to race against Needles, the words on the fax disappeared. She asked the Doc what that means, and he says, "It means your future hasn't been written yet! None of ours have! Our futures are what we make of them, so make yours a good one!" This line would've been much more moving if it were whispered in a close proximity get together instead of being yelled down from a locomotive, but whatever. This movie series reminds us that the choices we make affect the people around us and our very lives. We need to remember that we're not the only people who will feel the ripples of what we do. Live intentionally better than you should.

Next Week: Batman, the first Michael Keaton one

Baby Mama

Sorry, this is late, and I'm sorta not in the posting mood, but i need to do it quick... twss...

Corporate Woman Kate wants to have a baby, but she wants to be in control of when and how. Being highly unlikely to conceive herself, she goes to the office of Chaffey Bicknell to employee Angie to be her surrogate mother, a woman who will carry one of Kate's fertilized eggs until the baby is born.

This movie teaches us not to judge people before we get to know them. and other things too, but not right now

Alrighty... Next time, not for two weeks, is Back to the Future

Austin Powers in Goldmember

In the third and final film in the Austin Powers saga, we learn a shocking revelation: Dr. Evil's name is Doug! Also, he's Austin's brother. After this is revealed, Dr. Evil becomes an entirely new person. This reminded me of how our lives can change when we realize our identity in Christ.

We are all children of God, and he made us all for specific purposes. With the knowledge that God created you for His holy purposes ought to fill us with such joy and faith that we can't hold it in.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

In the second installment of this spy comedy, the film opens with Austin and his new wife Vanessa enjoying their honeymoon. Turns out however that Vanessa was a fembot, a cyborg assassin, sent from Dr. Evil to kill Austin. When the attempt is unsuccessful, Dr. Evil devises another plan. Armed with a clone 1/8th his size who he dubs Mini-Me, Dr. Evil goes back in time to 1969 while Austin is still cryogenically frozen in an attempt to steal his "Mojo," defined as "The life force, the libido. Something the French call a certain... I don't know what." Dr. Evil's henchman, who we will call Big Jerk, infiltrates and is successful in stealing Austin's mojo.

Meanwhile, in 1999, Austin loses his mojo right when it would've come in handy. Now he is on a mission to stop Dr. Evil from destroying the world with a giant "Laser" as well as getting his mojo back. He is joined by Felicity Shagwell. The two become an item, because it's a traditional spy movie, but Austin can't go as far as he would like, because he's lost his mojo. He can't bring himself to tell Felicity, but she finds out eventually.

In the final showdown between Dr. Evil, Austin Powers, and Austin Powers from 10 minutes from now, the vial of Austin's mojo is destroyed. Both Austins are devastated, but Felicity reassures them both, "You don't need it! You've had your mojo all along!"

Armed with this knowledge, Austin thwarts Dr. Evil's plans again. Roll credits.

The idea of Austin's mojo always being there even when he didn't know, is much like how one can view God.

At times God might seem distant, or even impossible to see. I like to explain it to the Jr. Highers I work with like this: You're on a hike with God. God has a backpack with everything you need in it. You can do 1 of 2 things. 1. Start hiking, stopping every now and then, "God, can I use the rope? God, let's pitch the tent." or 2. You can let God lead the way. He has the best intentions for you, so might as well let Him lead your life.

When God seems distant in my life, I like to think of the footprints poem. Quick summary, someone is walking on the beach with God, seeing their entire life, and seeing 2 sets of footprints in the sand during their life. During the hardest times in their life there is only one set of footprints. Thinking that God had left them during that time, the narrator turns to God and asks, "Why when I needed you most is there only 1 set of footprints?" God replies, "It was in those moments when I carried you."

I like to view God as always surrounding me. He is leading my life the way it should go, and he is also behind me, ready to catch me whenever I fall.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Tired, so this one will be quick.

There's a part of the movie where Vanessa, Austin's lady, learns that he did horrible things with the Italian girl. Vanessa is a jealous person. God is jealous for us: God wants all of us, and he won't allow us to be half His and half someone else's or something else's. We can only serve onoe master.

Next week: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Armageddon

Another space movie, this one, however, much more fictional. A who's who of guy movie actors and chick flick actors at the same time. The movie depicts a situation where there is a massive asteroid headed for Earth. It's the size of Texas and would destroy all life on earth. There's only one solution, proposed by Jason Isaacs: Drill a hole into the asteroid and drop a warhead down in it, thus exploding it from the inside out.

2 Problems: 1. There's 18 days until the asteroid hits earth, and 2. There's only one crew able to do the job, and they're a bunch of loose cannon hill billies.

Harry (Bruce Willis), leader of the drillers, owns his own oil rig company. His daughter, Grace, (Liv Tyler) is in love with AJ (Ben Affleck) one of Harry's workers who has a problem with authority, thinking he knows best in basically every situation. Harry and AJ do not have a very strong relationship. Mainly because at the beginning of the movie Harry finds AJ and Grace in AJ's bed, which leads to a hide and go die game between Harry, AJ, and a shot gun... on an oil rig... man, I love guy movies!

The men are prepped, their requests taken into account, and they're ready to launch.

2 Rockets are sent up to the asteroid, each with an Armadillo, a drilling little dune buggy, and each with a crew of drillers and astronauts. The Independence, one of the rockets, gets blown off course upon landing, and all but 3 of the astronauts are killed. The Russian Cosmonaut, Bear, and AJ. They get together and get their Armadillo free and start the long drive over to where the other rocket landed.

Meanwhile, The Freedom, the other rocket, begins drilling. But, NASA set their landing point, unknowingly, on a mound of iron ore, so the drilling is going much slower than is allowable. They start drilling, break 2 drill heads, one transmission, but still keep going. At Mission Control, the President's right hand man, much to Billy Bob Thorton's dismay, calls the order to manually detonate the warhead, to be sure of detonation.

Commander Sharpe has to think quick as he and one of the other astronauts work inside the warhead in an attempt to stop the timer from ticking. They end up cutting the right cord and the timer stops at 2 seconds. They keep on drilling until their armadillo eventually breaks down completely. All hope seems lost until AJ and his crew drive over the ridge and drive their Armadillo down and finish the drilling. They get to the necessary depth and are getting ready to drop the warhead when Sharpe notices something: The remote detonator isn't working.

Somehow the remote detonator got disconnected when they were unhooking the timer. This leaves only one possibility: manual detonation. One of the astronauts has to stay behind and press a button to make sure the bomb goes off in time before zero impact (the time when it would be too late to blow it up).

They decide to draw straws. AJ draws the short straw, and it looks like it's up to him to detonate the bomb. Harry volunteers to take him down to the asteroid. They get to the surface, share a few moments, AJ asks Harry to tell Grace he loves her. Harry grabs AJ by the oxygen hose, rips it from his suit, and pushes AJ back in the airlock and seals it. From the surface of the asteroid, Harry looks at AJ through the glass, "Take care of my little girl now. That's your job. You've always been like a son to me." he says, and all the women watching cry a little bit, and all the men hide their sniffles. Harry uplinks a conversation with Grace as The Freedom takes off for Earth, Harry detonates the Warhead just before it crosses zero barrier, and he saves the world. And the credits roll.

This movie obviously shows a huge deal of sacrifice. Not only did Harry sacrifice his life to save mankind, but he also sacrifices his own feelings of AJ. Harry doesn't really like AJ, because they have differing views, but Harry knows Grace loves him. Harry wants what's best for Grace, and knows that she wouldn't be in love with AJ, if he wasn't good for her. He chooses to put away his emotions and trust in the wisdom of his daughter. We should all be like Harry in putting others' views in front of our own, and take off our blinders to the rest of the world.

Next Week: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Apollo 13

Based on the true story of Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise (also Ken Mattingly and Gene Kranz). This is definitely a piece of cinematic history. One of the best movies ever made. I LOVE true stories. Let me take a second to count the number of true story movies I have... counting... please wait... I have 19 movies that are true stories or are based on actual events.

Anyway, back to Apollo 13. The story is that of the aforementioned astronauts. The group of Lovell, Haise and Mattingly were scheduled to be on the Apollo 14 project, but they got bumped up and had the opportunity to go much sooner than they anticipated, on the Apollo 13 launch. They trained tirelessly to get everything perfectly right, and were crazy excited about going into space and getting to walk on the moon. Three days before launch, Mattingly is exposed to German Measles and the doctors advise Lovell to take him off the flight crew as to keep the other astronauts well while in space. He makes the difficult decision to leave Mattingly behind, and calls upon his replacement on the back up team, Jack Swigert. He has 2 days to get trained up to the level Lovell and Haise are at. He has been practicing, but not as hard as the Prime team.

The rocket launches, and under an hour after take off, the middle of 5 engines goes off 2 minutes earlier than it was supposed to. This problem is easily remedied by simply firing the other 4 engines for longer. Tom Hanks, playing Lovell, turns to his crew, and laughingly says, "Guess we just had our glitch of this mission."

The rocket has now joined the Landing Module or LM, and the crew has done a broadcast down to earth from inside the Module. Shortly after finishing the broadcast, flight control, led by Gene Kranz, has Swigert go over a few "housekeeping" items. They ask him to roll the rocket a little this way and that, to do this thing and that thing, and then they ask him to stir the O2 canisters to equalize the pressure. He does so, but when he does, the crew hears a loud bang, and debris flies off the rocket into the vacuum of space. Initially the astronauts think they've been struck by a meteor, but upon further examination, they find that one of their O2 tanks has exploded, and was now expelling half of their supply of oxygen into space.

Mission control decides to abort the mission and have them turn around and come back. Due to damage from the explosion they have limited power and, one would assume they had limited oxygen. This was not the case however. They had plenty of oxygen, but the more they breathed, the more Carbon Dioxide they exhaled into the rocket, slowly poisoning each other and themselves. Mission control commands the astronauts to go into the LM, since it's smaller, they can use their body heat to keep themselves a little warmer when they need to turn the heat off. However, they need to come up with a few plans to make filters so they're breathing oxygen, and they need to come up with some ways to conserve the remaining power to make the trip back home safely.

Mission control calls upon Mattingly, who, measle free, comes in and hops into the flight simulator and does all he can think of to do what needs to be done to get them home without exceeding the remaining power. He can't go over 20 amps, so it's a challenge. But he eventually comes up with a plan for the power saving and power using. People from NASA also come up with a way to convert they crew's square filter to fit into the round casing, thus allowing them to breathe oxygen again.

The crew makes it home safely, and the movie is over.

There were 2 big ideas that I took from this movie.

1. It reminded me once again how in control of everything God is. If Mattingly hadn't been exposed to measles, then he would've been up on the Odyssey, and would not have been able to experiment with the power plans. And had he actually come down with the measles, he would not have been in the right mind to come up with such ingenious plans. God knows what he's doing, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

2. At one point in the movie the news is showing some old footage of each member of the crew. During an interview of Lovell, he tells of how one night when he was in war, all the power in his plane's cockpit went out. He wasn't able to use his radio either, because enemy ships were using the same frequency and they would be able to pick it up. But because it was so dark outside and so dark in the cabin, Jim was able to look down at the water and see bio-luminescent algae, glowing green in the total darkness. Lovell knew that that kind of algae glowed when it was churned up by large ships. All he had to do was follow the trail of glowing green to the aircraft carrier. He said it was like lights pointing him home. Sometimes things in our lives make it seem like it's pitch black in the middle of enemy territory. We can't see anything or any way out of it. We begin to panic! What we need to do is remember where we're going, and to look to God, as he will always be there, shining through our darkest times, leading us home. And sometimes it takes the darkest night to see the brightest light.

Next week: Armageddon. Another space movie, much less true =P

Anchorman

This movie is hilarious. Hands down one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

Ron Burgundy is the Lead Anchor of the Channel 4 News Team in San Diego, CA. Joined by a rough group of chauvinistic co-anchors, Champ Kind, sports, Brick Tamland, weather, and Brian Fantana, reporter in the field, Channel 4 holds the number 1 spot on the News boards. However, the affiliates are complaining about a lack of diversity in the news room. And no, diversity is not an old, old wooden ship used during the civil war era. So Ed, the manager, brings in Veronica Corningstone to be a new reporter. Ron begins courting her shortly after she arrives. After Ron throws a burrito out of his window at an unsuspecting biker, and gets his dog, Baxter punted off a bridge, Ron is unable to do the news for that day, so Veronica steps in and does it for him. This ruins their relationship as Ron now sees Veronica as a threat and tries to do whatever he can to get her to leave the station. After Veronica sabotages him, Ron is fired. He hits rock bottom until, during the biggest story of the century, Veronica is pushed into a pit of bears and Ron is called upon to do the story. He rescues Veronica and does the story, and the two end up together being the first mixed gendered anchors on the World News Station.

When I started thinking about this movie a little more I realized that it's sort of like the story of Saul and David. Saul was an awesome king. He was doing everything right until he began to step a little to far. Saul began thinking of himself as a god, and God could see that. He told the prophet Samuel to go find David and anoint him to be the King after Saul dies. At first when David is anointed, he and Saul are pretty ok together, but once people begin to think more about David than they do about Saul, he gets very upset. Spear-throwingly upset. However, in the story of Saul and David, at the end of the story Saul doesn't get to come back from his slump, and ends up killing himself. He should've just grown a beard and roamed around drinking milk out of a carton, but whatever...

I think one of the points we can take away from the story of Saul and David is that sometimes God has different plans for us than what we think. Saul was a good King for a while, but after a while David was the man for the job. It's our job as Christians to trust God's plan for our lives and understand that sometimes our work somewhere will be done, and we can't or shouldn't try to do it all on our own.

Next week: Apollo 13

Analyze This

You... You my friend... You have a gift... for watching movies. Thanks. This movie stars Robert DiNiro as Paul Vitti, a mob boss and Billy Crystal as Dr. Ben Sobel, a psychiatrist. Paul starts to have panic attacks after his best friend and partner Dominic is assassinated in front of him. He seeks help from Dr. Sobel. After a while they come to the discovery that Paul's feeling guilty for his father's death. Paul and his father had been fighting, then one night at dinner at their favorite restaurant, Paul's father was gunned down by a rival gangster. He feels that it's his fault because he saw the gunmen coming, but couldn't react in time. Ben keeps trying to tell him there's nothing he could've done to prevent it.

This resonated with me for the spiritual point of the movie. Sort of.

God loves you, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. I'm a little distracted right now, cuz i'm just trying to catch up from over Christmas Break. I promise my posts will be better after this.

American Wedding

Jim and Michelle finally get married. Through many many many trials, mostly caused by Stifler, the ceremony goes of with on a few (dozen) hitches. This movie was pretty hard to think of spiritual connections for because it was so dirty and weird, but I was reminded of the Bible verse where it says to love your enemies and pray for the ones that persecute you. Stifler does cause the majority of the problems that happen during the wedding, but everyone is incredibly harsh on him. He then, feeling incredibly guilty, gets the flower lady and everyone to get everything back to the way Jim and Michelle wanted it to be.

I dunno, that's the only thing I could think of... Well, now that the wedding's over, we can put this trilogy to bed... I know.

Next time: Analyze This

American Pie 2

Well, after an extended leave of absence during Christmas and New Years break, and after moving into a new place, it's time to get The Nexus back up and running!

The old inappropriate gang is back again in American Pie 2. In this sequel, after their first year in college, Jim, Kevin, Oz, Finch and Stifler spend the summer at the lake in a cabin. Their plan is to make their cabin the place to be (*) if you know what I mean. Kevin and Vicky have broken up, Heather is taking a summer semester in Spain leaving Oz unattached, Stifler remains single and lovin' it, and Stifler's mom continues to evade Finch. Jim is itching with anticipation of seeing Nadia at the end of the summer. Over a conversation with the guys Jim starts questioning his "abilities" and seeks the only person who has experienced him. Jim heads over to Tall Oaks band camp to see Michelle for the first time since their night after prom. See informs him that his performance was less than desirable, but she offers to help him practice for Nadia when she comes. After a glue accident, which heals just in time, Nadia comes into town earlier than planned. To avoid having to explain his glue injury, Jim and Michelle pretend to be dating, then Michelle will "dump" him once he heals so he can get with Nadia.

The plan seems to work fine, until it comes to the big show. With Jim and Nadia holed away together, Jim begins to think about Michelle. Nadia can tell he doesn't have the same feelings he once had for her, and insists he go and "get your girl!" Jim drives to Tall Oaks and interrupts the concert with his famous Petey impression, they fall in love, and the credits roll.

What did I take from this movie? Well, I basically took 2 things away: this is not a movie to watch with... well, anyone... and this movie showed the significance a planted seed can have (not that kind of seed!) When Jim and Michelle were practicing, a seed of a relationship was planted in their minds. It took effect when it was planted deep enough, and it will blossom to it's full flower in the next movie, which I think I might watch tomorrow and blog about on Saturday, or tomorrow night... We'll see

Next: American Wedding