Man of Steel

[General Zod an alien like Superman turned demanded that Superman, Kal-el, (Henry Cavill) be turned over to him.  This is the conversation before he is turned over.]

This clip is extremely Christian.  This is the very nature of what Christ did for us.  There was a tyrant, General Zod demanding the life of us for his purposes.  It was Christ, or Superman, who gave himself over for the good of the many.  

Superman states that he is surrendering to mankind not to Zod, just as Christ surrendered Himself, took on humanity, taking the form of a slave, so that He might save the many. Lois Lane asks about the S on his chest, and he responds that it is not an S, but rather a symbol for hope.  It is kind of cool how Christ himself transformed a symbol of ours as well.  Imagine that Christ came to change what the cross should mean.  This was an equivalent to an electric chair.  The cross was not a simple of hope, but rather despair.  It is something you stayed away from, yet Christ came and changed its meaning.  Why is it a symbol of hope?  Because it is through this action that HE saved us. 

Another thing to point out from the clip is that Superman gets up, and easily breaks the handcuffs and "puts his cards on the table."  The room filled with the general, and doctor are worried that they cannot control Superman.  We freak out when we recognize we have to surrender power.  They recognize that they need Superman, and he is a liability.  How often do we see Christ the same way?  We look at Him and are afraid of Him because we cannot control Him. We have to trust in the good will of who He is, and what He says.  Superman states it well..."but that doesn't mean I am your enemy."  We will never be able to control Christ, to bend Him to our will, but that doesn't mean He is our enemy.  

Lastly, Superman states "do what you have to do general."  It reminds me of how Christ willingly accepted being led to the crucifixion.  Notice that he never blamed Judas, or said how dare you.  He stated "What you are going to do, do quickly." (Jn. 13:27)

The Proposal

[Originally the couple (Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock) had done this to trick the system (laws and governments) otherwise Margaret Tate(Sandra Bullock) would be deported.]

So it is time for another sappy romance up here.  Even thought it has some of the classic blunders that I dislike in romantic comedies, it does highlight some really great things.

Notice that Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) has something he needs to say for the good of them both.  He is uncompromising in his statement of the truth.  She is free to reject him at any point along his speech.  Andrew realized that love is not something that you plan, it happens.  Yet it requires choice.  This is a big point to this clip.  Love is a sacrifice, a chose to be made.  It does not mean that everything is going to be fine, or that the fairy tales happen.  It is a choice made for the good of the other.  Andrew is talking about the love that he has for Margaret, that it is worth struggling for, and embarrassing himself if she says no, worth being scared.

Notice that Margaret said she enjoyed being alone, it was more comfortable.  We were not made to be comfortable..."our hearts our restless until they rest in you, O Lord." -St. Augustine.  Love is a risky business though as C. S. Lewis states, "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."  It is this fact that makes the act of Andrew, and the acceptance of Margaret so powerful.  Love moves us, it changes us, it is scares, we have to make the leap of faith.  

Patch Adams

[Patch Adams (Robin Williams) is on trial for unlawfully practicing medicine at a ranch (hospital). He has the knowledge.]

Patch Adams brings a wonderful observation that so often we forget in world.  Patch talks about the point of medicine, or being doctors, which is to help people.  Throughout the whole movie actually you can see this is his point, they are people not a condition, or a disease.  It is all well and good to treat the disease, and I believe doctors should do that, but not at the cost of the person.  Think about it for a second, what if you put the person through so many tests, procedures, and drugs only to find out that the person wanted to die in the first place, or at least that they were ready to die.  

So often in our jobs we start working on the task at hand, what we think the real problem is, and all the while we forget why we are doing it in the first place.  Step back and think for a second, why is it that a person works at a restaurant?  Is it simply to serve, or cook food well.  Yes, but only if there are people to serve or cook it for.  If we forget that the end task is people we always lose in the big picture.  

This happens in our faith too.  We start practicing the Faith well, going to Mass, or a Church service, Temple, or any place of worship.  We help out at the parish, we do volunteer work, we are a good citizen, I give money every Sunday.  But I ask you to what avail?  All those actions lose there clout if it is not borne from our relationship with God.  So often we get caught up in external aspects of our faith, and it makes sense, we can control those.  If we have done this at the cost of the relationship with God, then what have we lost?  So often we are Christian, but have forgotten Christ.  

So I encourage you, today take the time to pray!  Prayer, in its true form, is always about remembering, and living that relationship with God.  It reminds me that without Him, all the tasks in the world won't mean anything. 

Kindergarten Cop

[John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an undercover cop posing as a teacher.  He has just hit a father of a student when he recognized that the kid had bruises, given by the father.]

I bet you never expected to get a movie like this up here on the blog.  I wanted to take the time to show you that you can learn things from all sorts of places, which is actually part of my point about this clip.

So often we think we know exactly what it is to do a job, or to be good at it.  This is especially true of the older generation.  "I have been doing this since before you were born."  This is true, there is a point to doing what has already been done, "if it ain't broke don't fix it."  But we also need to be open to what comes up in life, since life is rarely predictable.  As the principal lectures on she points out something that we all need to be aware of, that good things can come from all sorts of unlikely places.

She tells him that she has no clue what type of cop he is, but the things he is doing as a teacher are working.  She can recognize when things are working, even though they do not fall in the conventional approach.  These are the types of bosses we need to have out there.  Ones that are open to something new, that things don't always have to go as they have always been.

Overall it is a fun movie, and references what I am sure many a teacher has thought about.  But what we should take from the clip, above all is to be open to things that are different from us, you never know it might work.

Shaun of the Dead

[the zombie apocalypse has happened Shaun goes to get some goodies from the store just down the block from him.]

So this comedy speaks to the younger generations for us out there.  So the apocalypse has happened, or at least massive amounts of people have turned into Zombies.  Shaun wakes up and walks to the store oblivious to the world around him.  Think about it for a second, he walked about countless signs of destruction: the car window broken in, things turned over in the street, trash strewn about, blood prints on the door, even slipping on the blood on the floor.  He didn't ever look up to see people were out and about on the street.  Shaun was tuned in only to his world.  Even the guy towards the end of the scene who Shaun thought was asking for spare change.

It was not until he got home and turned on the television that he was beginning to open his eyes to the world around him.  Even then he was flipping through channels not really paying attention.  The next part in the movie is he realizes that something has happened.

How many people spend there life like this staring into their phones oblivious to the world around them.  Even when they are looking at their phones, or iPads they are constantly bored it seems like.  I remember when I taught at a high school the kids just wanted to play games on their phones and iPads, but to what avail?  They were completely zoned out to the world around them.  The question that I leave to you is how aware of your surroundings are you?  Would you notice if the Apocalypse happened?  Would you notice the quite, or the noise?  Would you be like Shaun and walk 2ish blocks and not recognize anything was amiss?  Are we so comfortable with our life that we cannot see beyond our meanings, and purposes?

Put down the phone, the iPad, computer and look at the world around you.  Notice something beautiful, amazing, something unusual, anything.  Spend some time in the real world, I promise you it is far more exciting than the world of your phone.  The phone is a tool, only that, it is not meant to be more than that.

The Holiday

[Iris (Kate Winslet) had traded places with a person on home exchange to get away from her guy problems aka Jasper (Rufus Sewell)]

So Iris responds wonderfully to Jasper.  It is a good thing that she finally gets rid of a person that is not good for her life.  She takes a stand and reminds herself that she should be happy not wallowing in misery over a guy that claims that he loves her.

Besides that point, the one to think about is how this is an analogy of our love for sin.  We often times fall in love with sin just as Iris fell in love with Jasper.  We want to be with sin, we think our particular sin loves us back, yet it is committed to something else.  The only thing that sin has ever truly brought us is pain.  I know pleasure in the beginning and even the promise of pleasure later, but ultimately pain.  We often punish ourselves thinking that because we did not do sin the right way that it is the reason we are in pain, and that reality is not the way we want.  We forget that the wages of sin is death, death to who we are.  We end up being a shriveled shell of our former selves, who we were made to be.

Instead of being hopelessly lost and caught up in the trappings of our sins, we need to recognize our relationship for what it is.  We need to take the gumption to be able to cease our relationship with sin, to proclaim as Iris did " ITS OVER."  We need to say that sin has no place in our life, we need to eradicate it completely and not listen to any of its tempting messages.  Iris says "shhh" when Jasper tries to speak to interrupt her declaration.  We cannot give any ground for sin to stay rooted in our life.  We need to respond with the gumption Iris did.

If we do chose to eliminate sin from our life as Iris does in this case, then we will respond with the euphoria that she does at the end of this clip.  There is so much more to life then this stupid relationship with sin that we continue to have.  If  only we accept that we are the "lead" in our own story.  Christ gave you a light not to be hid under a bushel basket.

Les Miserables

[a bishop has just spare the life of Jean Valjean.  Valjean had stolen from the bishop when he gave him shelter, and yet the bishop showed love instead of the law.]

There is really not a whole to add to this scene.  This movie as a whole is beautiful.  It is the showing of mercy by the bishop that has rescued the soul of Valjean.  Valjean had been a criminal for stealing a "mouthful of bread."  He was sent to prison 2o years ago.  He was lost in this world in which so much injustice happened.  He was content to be in the old testament, a tooth for a tooth.  At the witness of the bishop though he learned that there is more to our life than simply revenge.  

Valjean recognizes how indebted he is to the bishop, and recognizes the evil of his actions, he is ashamed by his life.  Yet he believes in the words the bishop had told him, that he has a soul, and that he is somebody good.  How often do we need this in the world?  Somebody to take the time to look at us with love, and call us brother (or sister)?   I remember I had a teacher who used to talk about this similar experience.  He came to teach at a poor inner city school.  He had to leave the classroom for a little while on his first day and he put this kid in charge.  Later he found out that a lot of the teachers at the school thought this kid was trouble.  This kid for my teacher became a really good, and noble student.  The teacher eventually asked the kid about this experience, that for him he was a great kid, but all these other teachers thought so poorly about him.  The kid had said it is because you treated as if I was good.  You believed in me.  

If we start with not trusting people, what makes us any different from the average person.  We are called to something more.  This clip educates us in the line from Scripture..."This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Jn. 13:35