The Lake House

Some would say the Lakehouse is unrealistic, because of the time dimension. Keanu Reeves is in 2004, Sandra Bullock is in 2006. They write letter to each other and fall in love.

To me the time gap thing is not the most unrealistic part of the film. The fact that there could be some wormhole allowing letters to go from 2004 to 2006 is entirely plausible compared to the other element of the plot.

If I received anonymous love letters from some guy I had never met or seen, I would feel utterly confident that he would be some weirdy I would want to have nothing to do with. The chances of him being a Keanu Reeves would be so small as to be impossible. I could imagine the time lapse thing might be possible though….

Books I have read recently…(5)

Because of my holiday I read the Groovy Greeks by Terry Deary. It was very good. I also read a “Very short guide to the Classics” by Mary Beard and John Henderson. That book irritated me because it kept on and on about Bassae, a place I would not visit.

I have just finished “Round Ireland with a Fridge” by Tony Hawks. Really enjoyed it- very funny. The fridge steals the show! A couple of lines does not do justice to the time I spent with this book.

Was disappointed by “The Courage to be Chaste” by Benedict Groeshel. I had hoped it would deal with what chastity means for unmarried couples. This was one area it said it would omit. Should have done more research before buying. Two things caught my interest though. One was the one temptation Groeshel described as diabolic- “Get it over with, what difference will one more episode make and then you will feel more at peace with God or at least ask for repentance (p 90). more a paraphras than a quote.

The other thought I liked was that when prayer becomes “the pearl of great price”, then people will want to give up having a heart like a sewer to gain that pearl. Of one girl it says she had no desire to threaten her newly found happiness by returning to a debauched lifestyle.

The key reflection I took from Groeshel was that personal devotion to Jesus helps people grow in virtue particularly when that devotion is focussed on the Eucharist. Groeshel suggested devotion to the Eucharist is necessary for the chaste life. He sited the example of a Protestant Clergyman in the grip of adultery (and i suppose the adulteress!) who found Eucharistic adoration gave him the strength he needed to quit. It all goes to show, you can’t confuse the roots and the fruits. No chaste life style (fruit) without Jesus (the root, the source, the alpha, the omega, the beginning the end the well spring of eternal life:)))

Read Christian Brotherhood by Joseph Ratzinger. Forgotten a lot of it now, but was intrigued by the questions surround who is a real brother and who is a false brother.

Read some of Meister Eckhart, found it hard going. Then discovered Groeshel quoted him in his book and took this as some small reward for my pains.

Films I have watched recently…

Hello my neglected blog. I do not have time to write a detailed article about the films and books I have read recently, so I am just going to write a couple of lines on the films and books I have watched recently…. as a way of reminding myself what I have seen.

 

District 9. This was a truly excellent film. The start was hilarious. It was a take on the Fly (which I have yet to see). Sharlto Copley as Wikus van de Merwe, had been picked out of obscurity and played his part brilliantly.

 

Surrogates. A good film, but not in the same league as District 9. Part of my problem with it was that the humans stay all day attached to a machine while their surrogate goes walk abouts. The humans should look awful and be incredibly stiff (when you get out of bed you need a bit of a stretch) when they get up. This problem was not addressed. It had some very clever twists and turns towards the end.

 

Sex and the City. This film was best for those who followed the original show. I never did, so I missed the references back to the original thing and it was praised for being faithful. It also contained porn, which at other periods which would be classed as obscene. However, it is almost impossible for anything to be shocking now. Other than that it was a fairly watchable sitcom. It perpetuated the same as usual myths about glamourised casual sex. It also contained a bit of common sense. Miranda nearly lets go of her husband for cheating “just once” as it keeps saying in the reviews. Just once is once too many and can let you catch AIDS or get someone pregnant. The point that was that she expected her husband to be the  greatest example of faithfulness, while she was only sleeping with him once every six months. The major underemphasised point was not that “it was just once”, but that it was at least half her fault that the “just once” occurred.

	Sarah Jessica Parker	…	Carrie Bradshaw
	Kim Cattrall	…	Samantha Jones
	Kristin Davis	…	Charlotte York
	Cynthia Nixon	…	Miranda Hobbes

 

 

UP was great, heartwarming clever and beautiful. PIXAR stuff is really good quality (apart from Monsters vs Aliens!)

Final Destination – the original. Enjoyed it. It was a bit gory in places, but was worried it was going to be a lot worse from what I had heard. Clever little sick twists.

 

Frost Vs Nixon. My friend is a fan of Michael Sheen and now I understand why. Sheen made a better Frost than Frost himself.

 

I think that is it for the films I have seen recently.

 

Alien Autopsy

When I heard this was on TV, I thought it was another of the Alien series of films.

It was with some surprise I found out it starred Ant and Dec, as well as including the likes of Jimmy Carr and Omid Djalili.

It was amusing and enjoyable for someone who had stumbled on it by accident before midnight. I did not know these guys had been in a film so I was watching to see how they did.

My favourite scene in the movie is the one where they are faking the alien autopsy in the living room, using haggis for a brain, then in the middle of the videoing, at the least appropriate moment, a little old lady comes along with a tray saying “do you want a biscuit”.

I wish they had done a few more movies, but I think I liked it better because I watched it with so little expectation.

Yes Man- Jim Carrey

This was an enjoyable light film. Ideal if you don’t want to think too much and just want to have a bit of entertainment. Jim Carrey as Carl Allen is invited to a new way of life in which he says yes to absolutely everything. Although it is very predictable this will cause trouble, the film does not have that feel. Every yes seems to bring him in a new and unexpected direction.

He meets Zooey Darschanel who plays Allison (without even a surname) and a little romance ensues. His yes falters when she starts talking about living together…because this suggests committment (!?!?) like living together is a committment.

Apart from almost obligatory bad taste scene, I’d give the whole film a thumbs up.

Bonfire of Vanities

Saw the Bonfire of Vanities, with Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bonfire_of_the_Vanities_(film)

It was an interested adaptation of the film made in 1990 and still had a very eighties feel. No one I know had heard of it tho’ so it does not seem to have stood the test of time.

They changed the book in two aspects. Firstly, they made Reverend Bacon into a crook, which was a shame as in the book he was rather a champion for his community. Secondly, they changed the very end. I don’t want to spoil it…. so skip now if you think you might watch the film.

 

In the film Maria, the “other woman” gets her just desserts. It is nice to watch this, having felt such disappointment over her just getting away with it all in the audiobook. However, they skip something quite beautiful- in the audio book, the marriage is salvaged. They manage to find something of their original romance and as he goes down for the crime (does not happen in the movie) he says a phrase that means nothing to the journalists, judge, or anyone else, apart from his wife. It is a beautiful touch, but in the movie they just ignore it and leave the marriage broken.

Biggles

I bought this as a souvenir or Woolworths, from their DVD “Worthit” range. I am afraid it really was not worth it, except for two things.

It is such a eighties movies in every respect. Made me realise what a good job Ashes to Ashes does of making a really “eighties” feel program.

A business man ends up finding himself going back in time to the first world war where he saves his time twin Biggles from death. He swaps back and forth several times. Even for an unbelievable plot it is pretty unbelievable.

 

The second redeeming feature is Peter Cushing, who plays the mysterious stranger Colonal William Raymond, who knows that Alex Raymond is being swapped back in time. He seems to be the only 3D character in the film. He skillfully plays this scary unnerving almost seemingly sinister character.

 

I found the ending quite funny, as they put something in to allow a sequel. This made me smile… they actually thought people would want to see ANOTHER film like that!?!

Jesus of Nazereth

I’ve now finished reading this. Review to follow.

Terminator Salvation

I have just seen the new Terminator movie. Basically it came across to me as one massive shoot em up. Best seen on big screen as the special effects are impressive there. Without the big screen it might be unidentifiable from so many massive scifi shoot-em up movies.

I missed out as I did not remember all the details from the other Terminator movies; they had done their research and made references to these.

In a way the movie did what it had to do. It is a worthy prequel/ sequel. However, it lacked a decent script. Everything was on emotion, tension, mood. When Marcus and Blair get close, they have barely exchanged a few words. It seems that Blair just tries to hit on him because she likes the look of him, and then succeeds. This was a symptom of the whole movie, no build up, no dialogue.

So while the movie was adequate, it did not stand out as anything great.

The Enchiridion by Saint Augustine- Some disordered Thoughts, Questions and Observations

I’m listening to The Enchiridion, by St Augustine.

Here is a place to write down my thoughts as I go along.

 Chapters 01-017

It is interesting that St Augustine places a high importance on understanding faith, hope and love as Pope Benedict has started his pontificate with encyclicals on this. Unlike St A, BXVi seems to regard hope and faith as interconnected.

 Interesting questions- wanting to know about Telos- man’s end (would people today think it makes sense to ask this question or just think that man’s end is what he makes it, subjective rather than objective). Also the question about the goal of religion. Talking about things having objective goals is not in vogue today.

Quite a current question about the connection between faith and reason.

Mentions the principle that two contradictory things cannot both be true.

 

If someone is in error- hard to see how they could be damned for that…. rather to deliberately reject what you know to be true…but who would do that? It seems someone could be in error without their fault… how could this then damage their life?

 Chapters 018-033

I was also interested by St Augustine’s comment on how much worse it is to believe a lie related to faith that a lie relating to something else, eg a lie giving you a wrong direction on a journey is one thing, but a lie relating to faith, whether Jesus is who he is, is another far more dangerous lie. This is something we don’t think about now.

 

Is it because we think that anyone can become an “anonymous” Christian?  (see Rahner) Or have we stopped believing there is a great risk to those who don’t know about Christianity.

 However, I also find it hard to beleive that someone would deliberately spread errors, knowing them to be false, surely it is more common for someone to spread errors believing them to be true.

Some things in the book seem to be no brainers. St Augustine points out that intention is important. If someone tells you something false, while believing it to be true then they are not lying- that is not their intent. While that might have been earth shattering at the time, such comments  just seem blisteringly obvious now. This may well be because St A was the start of a process where this  thought became part of our culture. I studied a module on law which stated that a crime changes all depending on the intent. There are a few other places where it seems St A just states the obvious.

The theme (close to my dissertation) about God putting (certain) desires in our heart, which cannot be satisfied without him 

 

Chapters 034-053

Interesting: pride- man choosing to be under his own dominion, not Gods.

Old understanding of original sins in babies, not the deprivation of original holiness

 

Holy Spirit = the gift of God

Theme of our salvation being without any merit on our part. However, it also seems to me that inheriting original sin (the deprivation of original holiness) is also without fault on our part, so have trouble with this. Continues this in 93-110.  I see that God owed us nothing, he did not have to save us, but did so out of love. Find it hard to understand that we totally deserved hellfire otherwise, but it is easy to see how we do not deserve  heaven. Maybe I think this because of a loss of the sense of the seriousness of even small sins.

 

Chapters 054-072

Why should reconcilation of angels with man be of any real practical interest to us?

 

Not sure about comments relating to prefering things of earth to things of heaven. Punishment for St A seems to be the suffering of losing these things. Isn’t that just suffering tho’.
He talks about putting earthly things in the first place- seek first the Kingdom of God.

There is a comment here I don’t agree with. St A talks about the pain experiences when losing earthly things, as if that is somehow unspiritual. This seems closer to the Bhuddist idea of annilation of desire. Perhaps a truly spiritual person should rather have more pain than the unspiritual one, as they will love more. “A rock feels no pain”. However, some attachments to “earthly thing” can be like illusions or idolatry, where you put some earthly thing eg the big three money sex or power, before God. There can be some disordered attachments. Just heard that weeds have different names, bind weed binds itself around healthy plants. Maybe some unhealthy attachments are like that.

73-92

Loving enemies reminded me of Chesterton’s comment:

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”

 

Some of the discussion to do with the resurrected body are in part amusing (what will happen to all the nail clippings), in part questions I would never have thought to ask what happens to siamese twins).

 

93-110

 There seem to be some Calvinist strains here,  a hint that some are predestined for hell?

I think that for some, God’s will is that he will not break free will. He permits someone to reject him, rather than remove free will.  So free will is willed above forcing some against their will.  St A does say this also, but still think Calvin could have found a few quotes to support his cause here!

Not sure it is true that soul would not have left body without original sin- eg Scott Hahn suggested we would, but death would be different, we would die (physical death), but not “die die” (physical and spiritual death).

 

The existence of evil is good????

 

111-122

Picks up on the currently in vogue thought that hell is not a risk. It was a problem at St Augustine’s time too. So what is the truth, is the road to heaven narrow or not?

Two kingdoms, God’s and Satans- does St Ignatious echo this?

Different miseries in hell? Different levels of joy in heaven.

 

Why does hell last eternally. Why can’t they cease to exist, even if after a period of punishment? Does God sustain them in an existence of torment?

 

St A says that love needs to be the motive for good actions. Is it all in vain if the motive is obedience or duty? I think it is on the road and not totally in vain if the motives are good, even if not love. Or is that just leading to laziness and not aiming higher?

St A says love will be free-er in next life when unrestrained by lust to retrain and conquer? What is meant by this opposition? Seeing someone as object rather than a person?  Unclear. Later found something by on a web search ”Lust is the opposite of love. It is using”, although it is sometimes used to mean attraction/desire between two people, that is probably a misuse of the word and the source of my initial confusion here.