Die Hard Catholic

I just watched Die Hard again; it was a great movie purchase. Like a good book read and re-read, I saw and learned more this time than any time before. Firstly, John McClane prays at least once explicitly and once implicitly, thanks to the sisters who taught him in elementary school no doubt. Secondly, as a recent issue of First Freedoms compared the guns used by John and Hans as a way to reveal their characters, I kept comparing the two of them. The scene which struck me most was the close-up of Hans polished shoe stepping on the cigarette that John gave him while John's filthy bare feet are walking away from him. John is the rough, tumble guy who is just trying to get by in this life while Hans has all the answers, all the goods, and all the power. This is a great Christian lesson, I believe. Humility will triumph, the meek will inherit the earth. And pride goeth before the fall from the 30th story of Nakatomi Plaza.

Samurais and Cowboys

I have needed a good movie list for a long time. While perusing the usual suspects, I came across a great archive of movies for boys at MommyLife. I'm off to Netflix to update my queue.

Rise of the Female Engineers

Tinkerbell is a female engineer heroine. So the first competent Disney engineer is a fairy. I'm glad that Disney has finally honored us engineers with a lead character considering that up until now, Disney engineers were abysmal. We had Belle's father, "crazy, old Maurice" whose wood-chopper nearly decapitates his daughter with flying logs. For civil engineers, there was the beaver in "Lady and the Tramp" who seems competent, since he nearly finishes a dam, but is vulnerable to charlatans who pass off a muzzle as a log-hauler and is so uncoordinated that he almost brains himself in his own backyard. Not a sterling selection.

Actually, I did forget one competent engineer though he has no lines and dies in the first ten minutes of the movie, Tarzan's dad is an engineer to admire. He builds a treehouse with pieces of a shipwrecked boat and keep his family alive for weeks in a hostile land, ultimately giving his life to save his son. We need more engineers like that.

A Regular DeVil

I have been a fan of Disney since birth, and it is with heavy heart that I have seen some of their choices as a business. However, I just recently "got" a character name and I felt like a total maroon. While reading 101 Dalmatians, I realized that Cruella DeVil's last name is actually devil. I can't believe it took me so long to notice. I also can't believe how much I enjoyed those moves as a kid and how far they have dropped in quality. It is quite sad to read, "This is where the path of hatred leads us" as the moral of Pocahontas. Even 101 Dalmatians with its simple plot has a deeper story or parental dedication to children. A formula which leads to tremendous value and success. Long live Pixar!

Curious Movie

As an involved parent, I preview movies and shows before the kids see them, though I don't do it nearly as often as I should. My most recent preview was Curious George and I approved the movie for viewing by my little ones even while dismayed at what a G rated movie says about modern society.

I vividly remember the reel-to-reel Curious George films from my grade school library days. I didn't spontaneously pray much as a little kid, but I came close during the walk to the library, hoping that we would watch a Curious George "book" in library class. Since I don't own a projector, my girls have received and inherited many Curious George books and they request frequent readings. The movie did an excellent job of capturing the art of H. A. and Margaret Rey while updating it with current technology and excellent voice talent. However, the movie missed the relationship between the Man in the Yellow Hat and George and came off as a buddy film instead of retaining the father-son relationship which the books portrayed. So I sadly approved the film which was acceptable but reflects the failings of modern society, adults who want to be buddies instead of parents.

There is a Brain in that Skull

Now that I am the proud father of little ones, I only get to the movies once or twice a year. As a Father's day treat from my father, this year's movie was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since my father is the one who gave me his love of movies, especially epic adventures like Indiana Jones and Star Wars, I was thrilled to see this installment with him and happy that it lived up to its predecessors.


The movie definitely beat Temple of Doom, keeping it out of the bottom spot in the Indiana Jones collection. Interestingly, the adventure took place in South America, an area of archaeological history which is often overlooked. Conveniently, child sacrifices were glossed over but I can agree to that conceit since contemplating the murder of children is too deep for an action/adventure film. The moral of the story was not as powerfully depicted as in The Last Crusade, but it was pertinent to modern life. Finally, Harrison Ford did pull off the action star role despite his age while the car chases and fight sequences were all of Raiders quality. Crystal Skull also made the required slights against Indy's age, as well as references to the previous movies. I don't think this movie will win over anyone who wasn't an Indy fan, but as a guy who owns a fedora, I'm thrilled the series ended well.

When Disney Was Right

While zombifying my children to Cinderella, I noticed that Disney used to transmit a philosophy of beauty. The first characteristic used as a comparison between Cinderella and the stepsister was their beauty. Cinderella was described as beautiful and charming while the stepsisters were described as awkward. We were taught as children that beauty was on the side of righteousness.

Contrast that to modern versions, where the antagonists are beautiful and the protagonists are awkward. Although beauty is often discovered by the protagonist, this just makes everyone beautiful, even her enemies. I think the lesson is better learned when beauty is aligned with obedience, charity, and humility from the beginning and evil is always ugly, no matter how hard it tries to be pretty.

Or, in other words, "Truth is beauty and beauty, truth."

Old Spice

One of the most bizarre movie experiences of my life, second only to Eyes Wide Shut with my most conservative friend, was catching a 6pm showing of SpiceWorld with a bunch of my college buddies. Yes, I voluntarily attended. Yes, we were all surly, single dudes. Fortunately, we were gentlemanly enough not to respond to the "come hither" looks being sent our way by teenie-boppers, also known as jailbait.

What a long way I've come. The Spice Girls are on a reunion tour and trying desperately to ignore their current stations in life as mothers and re-capture their original careers as living Bratz dolls. I have learned that womanhood has little to do with gyrating hips, in S&M gear, in front of thousands of immature girls and boys. True womanhood is present in sweatsuited cleaning binges and long nights of nocturnal nursing.

Hardliners

I promised myself that there would be some punishments that I never used on my children. I came very close to crossing that line this weekend when my adorable little one woke me up at 7am on a weekend where my eldest chose to sleep in until 7:30am. I could have really used those 30 minutes so punishment was in order. I subjected my little one to Julia Robert's acting (Mystic Pizza). My eldest awoke and spared my little one further punishment. As a demonstration of contrition, I put in a Dora video and let them be purified of foul influences.

Jen and I finished the movie later and I was surprised that I enjoyed most of the movie. Primarily due to a young Vincent D'Onofrio who delivers the best line in the movie, which is unfortunately soiled by a mild vulgarity. To paraphrase, he tells his fiancee how bad he feels because he wants to marry her and she only wants his body and won't commit. It sums up fornication quite nicely and pleasantly contains the role reversal of the man being more committed to love than the woman.

By the way, a free trial month of Netflix to the first person to get the reference in the title of this post.

Mmmmmm...movie review

Well, being a gigantic fan of The Simpsons, I was thrilled when the movie finally hit the screen. I passed into near apoplexy when my non-wife best friend (henceforth, NWBF) volunteered to treat me to the tickets and dinner. While she didn't directly get me hooked on The Simpsons, her and I have shared many hours quoting, discussing, and alluding to it.


Since this outing was occurring a few short weeks before my NWBF's upcoming wedding, we spent dinner time and cocktail hour waxing reminiscent over our long years of friendship and looking forward to the future. In many ways, our friendship has followed the same pattern of The Simpsons TV series. Tentative at first, we were still discovering ourselves during the Season 1 and 2 of our friendship, fifth and sixth grade. The next two years of our friendship were as spectacular as Seasons 3-5. Then came the dark period of Seasons 6-7 as we started high school. Emerging from this trial of friendship during junior and senior year of high school, Seasons 8 and 9 demonstrated the glory of things to come. College and life now conspire to make our friendship hit and miss due to the difficulties of distance and family, much like Season 10 and onward are hit and miss on quality and I must patiently await for DVD so that I can see them.

By this chronology The Simpsons Movie is an exact metaphor for my NWBF's recent wedding, aside from the numerous allusions to The Simpsons which they both contained. Joyous and happy, with a brand new shine over years of history, many of the older classic moments are celebrated again. Many of the characters act in predictable ways, providing comfort over the void of years since their introduction. Dramatic trials were experienced by the lead characters and the newly added characters ran around and made everyone love life just a bit more. L'chaim!

Transforming Choice

So the greatest brother in the world took me to see Transformers for my birthday. It was a spectacular movie, in the sense of a special effects spectacle. It was indeed a "summer blockbuster" but I think it avoided campiness (by a micrometer or two) and told a good story by itself, all while pleasing long-standing fans like myself.

Inside jokes and reference abounded if you were familiar with the cartoon show and the original movie and some divergence was taken from those sources, but none which was unsettling. One particular divergence which I enjoyed was the relation of Autobots to Decepticons. In the cartoon, the difference was one of substance. Autobots were good and useful machines like cars and trucks and Decepticon were evil and destructive machines like fighter planes and handguns. The movie diverged from this point and made all Transformers have a common creator, the "All Spark," and they were good or bad depending on their choices.

Autobots protected humanity while Decepticons wished to destroy it. The description of the word Autobot could have easily applied to all of the Transformers since it only described their substance, not their allegiance to Optimus Prime. Whereas, the word Decepticon wasn't directly used but it was explained that Megatron deceived the Autobots and seized power. Much like fallen human nature, the choice to protect the weak or to dominate them is the choice that determines which side we are on.

Cosleeping is Fatherhood

I just visited the dilbert site per my usual morning routine and was greeted with an Ad Council advertisement for the National Fatherhood Initiative. The remarkable part to me was that the ad showed a man sleeping on the couch with his daughter asleep on his chest. While I consider this a special dad ability, I'm surprised that a large non-profit agrees with me.

Since I have always been the one to get up with the girls on the weekends, even if they wake up too early, I have had the chance to pull this routine with both girls. I personally consider it a bit dangerous to actually fall asleep on the couch when they are sleeping on me, so I stay awake by putting in a DVD and then lying down. I just recently had Amelia take her first nap like this while I watched The Sixth Sense and I still remember Maria sleeping while I watched The Incredibles. They are moments that I cherish.

Coincidence of the week

Within a span of eight days, I watched Osmosis Jones, Brother from Another Series (an episode from Simpsons Season 8), and Hellboy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that David Hyde Pierce voices animated characters in all three of them!

As an interesting aside, Hellboy seems concerned with the same question I've been posing myself for a while. What is a man? It is neat to see pop culture asking these important questions. I was also surprised to see that Catholicism had a prominent place in the movie. It was portrayed as protection from nefarious evil. Not bad, now if only the protagonist was not half demon...

Superman - super Dad?

Random synapses fired today and pulled up a memory about which I wanted to blog. As I try to discover true manhood and true fatherhood, I tend to harness my strengths: reading and movies. I read an excellent review of "Superman Returns" which prompted me to netflix (can that be a verb?) the movie.

Possible Spoilers! Fair Warning!

There is a scene where a family-like unit (boyfriend, mother, and son) are in mortal peril and Superman comes to the rescue. However, instead of directly saving them all himself, Superman holds on to the boyfriend and allows the boyfriend to carry the mother and son. I think this is a potent image of true fatherhood. I am completely unable to save my family from much grave harm. But if I rely on the Lord, the little I can do is valuable and necessary, for the Lord has chosen me to do it.