Another movie challenging traditional hell – Hellbound?
With endorsements from Frank Schaeffer and Brian McClaren, you would rightly suspect that Hellbound? is questioning the traditional view of hell, and perhaps supporting Christian Universalism, as promoted in Rob Bell’s bestseller Love Wins.
This documentary covers both the critics and supporters of the traditional view, and pushes lots of buttons (in fact, the tagline for the movie on the website is ‘prepare to have your buttons pushed’). Â Here’s the trailer.
Hellbound? Official Theatrical Trailer HD from Kevin Miller on Vimeo.
Hell and Mr. Fudge challenges the traditional view of hell
I am still in the midst of considering and perhaps adopting the Conditionalist view of hell, which is that those who reject Christ are punished according to their deeds, then annihilated – that is, they cease existing rather than entering into eternal life.
I am coming to this conclusion based on scriptural exegesis, not personal preference, and I am not alone – just visit rethinkinghell.com and see the growing Conditionalist movement within evangelicalism.
One of the classic books supporting this theological position is Eward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment, Third Edition.
The story of how Fudge came to write this book has been made into a movie called Hell and Mr. Fudge. Check out the trailer below.
HMF PROMO VS 13 VIMEO from Jim Wood on Vimeo.
Batman: Reaching The Limits of the Comic Book Epic
Batman and Bane
I’ll admit it – I am NOT a fan of comic book movies. I don’t hate them, they are just uninteresting to me. Recently, for The Dark Knight Rises, I wasted 3 hours of my evening, and $45, and I wish I could get them both back.
Let me rant, er, explain.
List: 50 Spiritually Significant Films
- All Quiet on the Western Front - facing the horrors of war
- * American History X – racism and redemption for a racist
- Angels in America – heartbreaking and creative look at the struggles and tragedies of gay life, including losing a loved-one to AIDS, and suppressing your sexuality for religious reasons. Even though this is in some ways a “gay apologetic,” it is much more.
- Big Fish – a son comes to terms with his salesman father’s absences during his childhood, and the stories his father spun to make his life seem exciting to himself and his son
- Bonhoeffer - a true Christian hero and martyr of the Nazi era
- * Braveheart – a classic about fighting for your freedom – if you fail to fight, but would rather be enslaved, is it worth it?
- * Chocolat – Nice morality play about the stigma of being a single woman in a town run by a religious legalist, and his fall from legalism to being human – same theme as Babett’s Feast, but more entertaining
What is Christian Music?
As a musician who likes both secular, sacred, and crossover bands, I have often engaged in conversations around what makes christian music “christian.”  Last week, I discovered a metal band I really like, Killswitch Engage. As I was listening, I started noticing some Christian codewords – language that was distinctly biblical. So I looked them up, and as it turns out, one of the band members is a Christian, but they don’t really do Christian music – but some of the xian viewpoints show through.
Then, I came across the band Evanescence, whose music I instantly liked, and so I decided to search the web to find out if they were Christian. As it turns out, they have been asked this question so many times, they purchased www.notachristianband.com to explain themselves, since the content of their songs sounds Christianesque. Here’s what they say:
Evanescence is Not a Christian Band, although in their personal lives they are all Christians.
Avatar merely a modern Pocahontas story? You bet!
Got this from twitpic – awesome! And for the record, I really liked Avatar.
Movie predicted the underwear bomber
One of my favorite movies, panned by the easily offended leftist critics, was An American Carol, a mocumentary making fun of Michael Moore (played hilariously by Kevin Farley, Chris Farley’s brother). Watching it again, I re-enjoyed the mini-mocumentary buried in the Bill O’Reilly interview, in which people are subject to long lines at airport security due to the Christian fundamentalists.
As people have to strip down to their skivvies, and other’s have cavity searches, two passengers complain about the reason – the Christian “underwear bomber.” Who knew that some crazy Muslim (redundant?) would actually do exactly that. Enjoy the predictions of Islamic idiocy, couched in liberal anti-Christian idiocy.
How long before Disney creates a cross-dressing prince or animated gay romance?
Now that Disney has elevated gay activist Rich Ross to studio chief,it won't be long now until we have a new more 'diverse' princess. I can only imagine the titles.
- The Dragon and the Two Princes – A manly prince saves the swishy one from the awful Dragon and his hateful, narrow, conservative, white, hetero master.
- Queen for a Day - The widowed King is sad, and the only person that can make him happy is the 'dramatic' court jester, who secretly is romantically in love with the King. With the help of a butch Fairy Godmother, the jester is transformed into a beautiful princess for 24 hours, in which time, if she can get a kiss of true love from the King, 'she' can stay as a woman and live with the man of 'her' dreams, the lonely King.
- Escape to Brokeback Mountain - two human-like aliens crash their ship in the desert, and are helped by a gay cowboy to escape the pursuit of the evil hetero government agents. In the movie's climax (no pun intended), the two androgenous aliens and the gay cowboy have an intimate threesome encounter, showing the beauty of cross-species love and multiple partners. In the end, the aliens take the cowboy with them to live in sexual bliss in the more enlightened alien world.
- Fabulous! - The prince lives in the gray world of a fashionless kingdom ruled by his hetero father. Through the love and genious of a local taylor, they turn everyone on to colorful fashions. The father finally admits that he should have appreciated the Prince for his own 'fabulous' values.
- The Legend of the Fairy Prince - the heartwarming story of a Prince who always wanted to be a princess, and through the magic of a fairy God mother, becomes an androgenous fairy who no longer has to worry about gender.
- Cinderfella (my apologies to Jerry Lewis) – classic retelling of Cinderella, except that the Prince secretly likes men, and rejoices when the cross-dressing handmaiden shows up at the ball in drag, and they dance the night away. After a valiant search, the size 13 glass slipper turns out to fit the young, handsome, muscular, shirtless, hairless handyman slaving in the barn, and they live happily ever after.
- Beautician and the Beast – the young male beautician is trapped in the home of the Beast, who is cursed by God with facial hair, chest hair, and a penis. While the beautician can do nothing about the bulge in the Beast's pants (which he kind of likes), he *can* help the beast get laser hair removal, and show him how to stop hating himself and use facial base to cover his hair follicles.
- The Emperor's New Groove 3 – The Prince gets sex-reassignment surgery. (Get it? New 'groove'?)
We'll see if all of this diversity really comes to pass, but as ONN remarks, we all like to use our influence to push our values:
The sad reality is that whenever you see a homosexual activist at the top, nine times out of ten they end up pushing that gay agenda using their influence to push it wherever they can.
British film ‘Creation’ can’t find a U.S. distributor?
Atheist, Darwinist, and Christian websites are abuzz about the British bio pic of Charles Darwin, because it seems that the British producer is having trouble finding an American distributor to pick it up.
What amuses me is the amazement of Darwinists who can’t wrap their minds around the fact that only 39% of Americans believe in evolution as an explanation of origins. While they chock it up to religious American fervor and their superior intellect, they overlook the fact that there may be good reasons to BE skeptical of evolution – but they can not be truly skeptical because it is part of their metaphysical world view, which even they are too scared to seriously examine. I mean, if evolution is NOT true, they are left with either God or some other undiscovered process. We couldn’t have that.
I think this movie looks interesting. I would go see it. Here are some downloadable clips from the movie.
Tron is coming, but the MCP is here
So, I watched the trailer for Tron Legacy, and am really excited about it. However, in watching the original (watching it now, actually), I saw the main villain, the Master Control Program (MCP), and I said to myself, "I've seen that picture before." Then I figured it out. Thanks to a handy morph program, I've created my revelation for you to enjoy.
John Wayne Bible Studies
What can you do to bring 'real men' into the fold? Well Pilgrim, how about John Wayne Bible studies. The studies use the movie Angel and the Badman to study various topics, such as
- Vice (Badman)
- Virtue (Angel)
- Decision (The Law or the Lawless)
- Redemption (The Pilgrim's Progress)
The Entertainment Ministry also has Bible studies based on:
- Andy Griffith Show
- Beverly Hillbillies
- Lucy Show
- Van Dyke Show
- Gilligan's Island
- Bonanza
- Super Man
- A Christmas Carol
I am so there for a Gilligan Bible study!
What Michael Jackson’s life really teaches us
Greg Stier over at the Christian Post has a nice article entitled Michael Jackson's Real Legacy. Here's the shortened list, modified by me:
- He taught us all how to dance
- He taught us all that money and creative success don't make you happy
- He taught us that cultish and outward religion doesn't make us happy (Jehovah's Witness)
- He taught us that cosmetic surgery can go really bad
- He taught us that abusive parenting can mess you up for a lifetime
But probably, if you know and live with Biblical values, you don't have to end up like MJ, who in my estimation, though an influential and creative genius, was not really successful by spiritual measure. King Solomon explored the many possible routes to happiness even more than MJ, and like a good scientist, recorded it all in the book of Ecclesiastes. His conclusion?
Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink,
and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the
few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot. (Ecclesiastes 5:18)Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 15:13-14)
For the Record: fun christian filmmaking
I just had dinner with some old friends (thank you facebook), and found out that one of the kids I used to babysit is now all grown up and making films. And he is funny! His character "Father Fearless" (after the jump) is great. Looks like he also has started his own film school called burnisgood.com. Enjoy.
Upcoming Faith-based movies
Like contemporary Christian music in the early days, Christian film is very immature, preachy, poorly written schlock. But I can always hope that the quality will eventually go from poor mimicry to industry leading, as CCM has done in some ways. I know that Walden Media keeps backing family friendly and Christian content. Here are some upcoming films which might break the barrier that Thr3e and Facing the Giants almost did. But the titles show that these are still ideological in nature. We’ll see.
- Come What May
- Fireproof (same Director as Facing the Giants)
- Me & You, Us, Forever (straight to DVD ;)
- No Greater Love
- Standing Firm
For even more, check out Christian Film News.
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The smartest movie in theaters
It’s not very often I leave a theater trying to figure out when the last time I saw a better movie in that genre. That happened this week. My wife and I went to see Get Smart. I found myself laughing uncontrollably on several occasions, even spontaneously clapping with several other audience members. It was that good and that funny. My wife and I both tried to think of the last time we saw a comedy that funny. I still can’t remember one.
Bill Maher ridicules faith in upcoming Religulous movie
For those who haven’t seen this interesting piece of sarcasm masquerading as a documentary coming, Bill Maher has created a documentary named Religulous that will have many religious people up in arms, and many anti-religionists cheering (though some atheists are already recoiling in shame and disgust). From the trailer:
"It worries me that people are running my country that believe in a talking snake."
"Santa Clause can hit every house in the world in one night…of course not…[but] one man hearing everyone murmur to Him at the same time, that I get."
Comics leave the pages for the screen
With Iron Man crushing other films at the box office, Marvel is set to make even more super hero films. Some of those have me excited. Some have me wondering.
Expelled – well done, thought provoking, too true for insecure evolutionists to see
My wife and I saw Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed this evening, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I had low expectations due to the raving disgust of most reviewers, but having seen it, I can now see that their reviews lacked any objective evaluation of the film’s artistry, style and content. Since the film is well made, I suspect that the real problem is that the movie conflicts with many reviewers’ world view, and they are offended and unable to properly evaluate or appreciate the movie for what it is – a fairly well made documentary of ideological hegemony and persecution in science and academia.
The movie spent most of it’s time merely documenting the systematic bias and draconian measures used to censure those who question Darwinian orthodoxy, and it also introduces us to the logical consequences of Darwinism in history, linking it to eugenics and Nazism. What it documents is both frightening and pathetic.
Songbird Extensions Guide – Updated
For those of you who love to use Firefox extensions, you’ll love Songbird, an iTunes-like music player, but open source, so you can add all kinds of extensions, using the exact same screen metaphors as Firefox – in fact, I think it’s somehow based on FF. I wonder if the extensions for both will interfere. Argh, a new software addiction! Here’s my list of extensions.
As with FF, they have an aggressive upgrade path, so extensions compatible with v. 0.5 are labeled with a * (note: v. 0.6 is on it’s way, and already in a stable beta if you want to try it).
Last Update: 04.18.08
Idols praise God?
How about idols sing praise songs? Those sentiments seem fairly strange – almost as strange as the actual fact. The eight finalist on American Idol sang the popular praise song “Shout to the Lord” to close out their charity show last night.
