asier_9 Reviews

Lone Survivor (2013)

Complete Garbage!

[4/10 · 28 January 2014]

I never imagined the movie would really be this bad. Even after the reviews starting coming out. This is Friday Night Lights meets Rambo III. Look Friday Night Lights was a great show, and Rambo III was entertaining enough in its 80's Hollywood action adventure way, but the two together is just a disaster. Really the guys of Operation Redwing deserved better. It is a shame that somebody like Che Guevara gets an epic two part film about his life, but these soldiers do not.

I suppose Soderbergh's film about Guevara comes to mind because my impression after reading Luttrell's book, was that it should have had a two volume structure. The first going much more deeply into the lives and background of Dietz, Axe and Murphy than Lutrell's book actually did, and concluding after the firefight. While the second volume would focused on Luttrell and his long efforts to survive. The thing is you can't blame Lutrell for failing to produce a work of true literary genius, even though the subject matter begged for it. However I can blame Hollywood for failing to make even a good film about the subject.

It is a sad commentary on our culture that 100 times more thought and effort was put into making a film about Che Guevara then these truly heroic men.

Martin Luther (2002 TV Movie)

A Documentary As Decietful as the Subject, Itself.

[2/10 · 28 September 2013]

The video comes across like a North Korean propaganda film: Our glorious leader was the best of all monks. He is nothing short than the cause of human freedom, itself. Our glorious leader was justified in founding his own religion because he was the most spiritual person of his age. You think I am exaggerating? At one point the narration actually calls Luther, "this monk who had been the Church's most devoted servant..." Really, where is the evidence that he was ever even simply a committed Catholic, much less a devoted servant, much less her most devoted servant?

Since Luther's 95 thesis are mostly fair questions concerning the abuses of indulgences that were going on at the time. The question of where Luther came in to conflict with the Church must lie elsewhere. I suspect that it was the combination of political intrigue combined with Luther's other writings that lead to this conflict. The Thesis' only role was in spreading the Luther's notoriety. However the program plays fast and loose with the truth. Sacraments are cunningly referred to as rituals giving a false impression about their true nature. If you don't already know you won't learn from this program that indulgences are only for the forgiveness of temporal punishments for already forgiven sins, which means that a sincere repentance would have already taken place. In fact this program does everything in its power to obscure what indulgences may or may not actually be. Considering this in light of the weight they put on Luther's thesis as the fulcrum of his career then it is absolutely diabolical that they would do this, and I mean that quit sincerely: if the devil were to defend his servant Martin Luther the results wouldn't likely be much different from this program.

Was Pope Leo X also a servant of Satan? Yes. Is this surprising? No, I don't believe it should surprise any Christian considering how far we saw evil enter even into the ranks of Christ's chosen apostles, themselves, at the beginning. However Christ has promised that His bride would be preserved despite the sins of men of like Judas Iscariot, Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici and Martin Luther. This being exactly the point in how the Father of Lies works in this world to visit fresh evils upon it. His minions gets into the heart of a man like Giovanni then through Martin Luther's indignation they get into his heart too only to play both sides against the middle. Who suffers? The world suffers as Christ's church is chipped away at the edges and reality, itself, becomes distorted. When you combine the so-called "reformation" with other philosophical movements like modernism, men lose all sense of moral direction and you have the type of carnage we call the the 20th century.

The image of people, like some medieval Cultural Revolution, storming into the churches to defile the images of the Saints, who are history's very instructional models for us on what piety looks like in actual practice, says everything one needs to know to understand who really was the true author of reformation. As we quickly approach 21st century's store of carnage the noise of more than 20,000 screaming and often hysterical voices of various Protestant "faiths" are drowning out John the Baptist's voice as his words can still be heard echoing through the ages.

Running (1979)

I was eight when this movie came out.

[22 July 2004]

My memory of this film is probably not congruent with the reality, but for an eight year old kid I was deeply impressed. The story is of about a talented but grandiose marathoner runner who's fear of failing keeps him form fully engaging in commitments. He is under-employed, separated/divorced and estranged from his children. He pins all his hopes and identity on becoming an Olympic champion but intentionally slacks off during the close finish of the Olympic trials coming in fourth. His self-esteem being incapable of surviving an honest defeat. But after an injury to one of the other runners he is selected for the team anyway. During the actual race it seems that he plans to make good on his talents and takes a commanding lead until he slips and falls on the wet pavement dislocating his arm. At this point my memory is a little vague but for some reason he finally gets it: his self worth can't be determined by the alloy of his medal but by the test of character that is the highest symbolism of all athletic competition, and so he decides to finish the race for himself. The man who couldn't bear to ever be second only shot, now, is last, and he is alone running against himself. In his defeat he wins the victory of redemption and walks away with a prize far more valuable then an Olympic Gold Medal. I would very much like to risk the disappointment of seeing this film again as it was probably, outside of Black Beauty, the biggest cinematic impact on me before I turning ten.