First World

Your God will be my God.

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You know what the most important question anyone can ask you is? What do you believe?

I think we undervalue this question now. Everyone has an opinion, but no one has to be affected by it anymore. Our opinions are just floating around on the breeze.

Funnily enough, that used to be how we’d define not having any beliefs.

I feel like if one of the heroes of even two centuries ago (or even one) was to come back alive and see how we think now, they wold be incredulous.

They would be disgusted with out lack of backbone.

Now that is not everyone, I understand; but here’s the thing, this pluralism has become like the flu, it sneaks up on you and breaks in new ways that aren’t always recognizable as what it is.

I would venture to say that a lot of young people and plenty of older ones are believing in pluralism without even being aware of it.

Here’s why I think this:

I’ve complained before of how young people will just shrug when it comes to moral issues. You know the drill, if it gets too difficult for them, they just say “Well everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” They say it automatically without thinking about it. And they will defend that position up until they or you are too frustrated to keep talking, but they will never stop to think they might be defending something that has no basis in reality.

I don’t blame them for the nonsense that they are taught, I blame them for being unwilling to question it. Not that that’s anything new. People have always been that way and it is just more obvious now than it used to be.

The thing is, I hear this from christian youth as often as non-christian. I am always surprised that they can shrug off the problems with certain movies and music and lifestyles as being “that person’s choice” or “what they believe.”

Then it hit me: The thing I have never considered is that the youth of today think that Christianity is their religion because they personally believe it. Not because it is superior to any other in of itself.

I really think this is it, and with other religions than Christianity too.

Nowadays it is almost nationally accepted that people believe what works for them, because it works for them, and not because it is fact.

Now you can disagree about facts all day long, and someone is sure to be nearer the truth than the other, but neither may have it totally correct. That is a legitimate debate and one that can be given more or less credit based on observation.

But if observation itself is reduced to a matter of personal taste, then what are we left with? Nothing but flimsy opinions that have no real foundation.

It is actually inconceivable to many youth that there could be One Right Belief. And if you say you think there is, they will get frustrated at you from being so stubbornly opinionated.

If it’s true that people believe what suits them best, why do we have martyrs? Why do we have zealots and radicals?

Do you think radical Islam is the religion that best suits the needs of most of the people who believe it? Or is it just what their taught and never allowed to question? They may very well fervently believe it. But that doesn’t make it true.

Pluralism is destroying a lot of people’s souls, they believe it, does it follow that it’s good for them?

Has it been good for the country overall? Or any country that’s fallen into it?

The answer, if you look at statistics and not at the Media, is no. A resounding no.

I would venture to say this country has never been worse off than it is now.

The people in this country have no respect for it anymore. People on both the left and right end of the spectrum.

I can’t say I exactly blame all of them. Our country has been divided so long it’s no longer debatable. (It’s about the only thing both sides agree upon.) The truth is, when there are no absolute values, then there can be no healthy country. There is no way to keep people in order who can’t tell right from wrong. even criminals used to know they were criminals. Now they will defend thier actions as not wrong but just freedom of expression. OR just them not bieng able to control themselves becuase of how messed up they are.

And sadly, even in the Church, many people don’t actually believe in Christianity in full.

The very basis of Christianity is that there is one God. He decides what’s right and wrong. Either we are for him, or we are against him. There is no gray area. There is no middle ground. There is no thin line between Him and the Evil One. No, the line is a huge chasm. The difference is whether you fall into it or not.

People can reject this view. But if they say they believe it, they better realize that means the cannot believe anything else. If something contradicts the Bible, it’s out.

I say this because it is something millennials really don’t understand about faith. Faith involves loyalty to one person or one group of people. It means their enemy is your enemy, their friend is your friend.

Ruth understood this. She knew that if she went with Naomi it meant she could no longer worship a pagan god. “Your people will be my people, your God will be my God, where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” She told her.

One last thing: I do not say that every young christian who has pluralism mixed up with their faith is damned. I think many of them are sincere and godly in other ways and don’t realize the contradiction in their theology. I would even say their own souls may not be in danger.

But the problem is, other peoples’ are. Everyone’s soul is in danger when it has no rock to hold onto.

So here’s to the faithful ones who still are holding on to absolute truth. You’re not alone.

–Natasha.

 

 

 

 

Mary Poppins

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If I may wax nostalgic without ripping off some popular you-tubers, I’d like to look back on this classic.

I just watched it today, and it seems, like all classics, to have more in it than I realized as a child.

Since I grew up right as Disney was transitioning more and more to 3D and coming to the end of it’s Renaissance phase (that’s all the 2D princesses and princes after Sleeping Beauty,) I never found the really old films quite as interesting to re-watch, but I felt their charm and I think it’s shame a lot of kids now haven’t even watched these classics.

Mary Poppins is at least a perennial favorite movie of mine. I always wanted to ride those merry-go-round horses (it used to really frustrate me that I knew they weren’t real) hop into pictures, laugh on the ceiling and dance on rooftops.

I also have seen Saving Mr. Banks, so that lent the movie even more meaning. I remember asking my mom once during Mary Poppins, while Bert was talking/singing to Mr. Banks, why he was doing so. She told me he was trying to help him learn the lesson Mary Poppins was trying to teach him. I wasn’t entirely clear on what that lesson was. I’d often ask my mom questions about stuff I had already figured out just to hear what she would say, and often she’d say something I hadn’t thought of though basically agreeing with me.

So, that said. What do I think about the movie now that I’m older?

I think that in the end there are two basic messages of the film, and they are expressed in different ways through the whimsical things that happen.

The secondary message is that life needs a little wonder in it and a little fun in everything, or it isn’t worthwhile. I know that this movie influenced my attitude about chores and other tasks. I play music and sing when I clean just because it’s more fun  hat way and I’m more likely to finish the task. Oh the tedious hours of cleaning before I clued in to this trick. Ugh.

Now my mom might just listen to a radio talk show, or nothing at all, not everyone needs to use this method; but the point is, especially if you’re young, you don’t like grueling work.

And who doesn’t want a merry-go-round horse that can go off the carousal? I wish.

The funny thing is, though I didn’t like Mr. Banks, I knew he was right that those things weren’t real. Even Mary Poppins never admits that they were and seems affronted at even doing them half the time. I was that kid who grows up knowing Santa Claus isn’t real, and frankly the Easter Bunny was never appealing to me. And fairies aren’t real, and so on.

Yet I never ceased to enjoy stories aobut those things, or to wish in a way that they were real. And now I believe in them in a different sort of way.

I don’t believe that Santa Claus is real, but I believe in the possibility of things like Santa Claus. I don’t believe Mary Poppins is real, but I do believe that there are people just as wondrous as her who don’ get have the recognition. Remember that real life is stranger than fiction and their are weirder things than tea parties on the ceiling.

Heck, in the very same movie Mr. Banks references the Boston Tea Party, and that story is almost as odd as an actual tea part defying gravity.  I mean, colonists dressed as Native Americans? Seriously? Why would the Natives have thrown tea overboard? It was almost comical…funny. Like the tea party on the ceiling…hmm.

Anyway, the Primary message of Mary Poppins hits even closer to home. It’s about how adults can get to where they miss the little things that are so important.

You see, fixing the children’s kite, the tuppence, the feeding the birds, they are all of a piece. They are all little things. Things that seem to a busy man like a waste of time. He is focused on railroads, bridges, tea plantation, etc. All noble things perhaps (it’s debatable) but are they necessarily more important?

It’s an age old dilemma that adults have been trying to answer forever. Is it more important to be contributing the world in general and helping humanity or is it more important to be at home with your family making real memories. And people have answered it different ways. There’s a big movement now, especially among feminists and Hollywood, that we can have both.

But the fact is, that is almost impossible. Some few people can make it work, but most can’t prioritize family and work equally.

Which is more important? Mr. Banks comes to think that it is his family. Time goes by so fast, and kids will grow up, perhaps not hating their parents who neglected them, but never having that kind of bond with them that kids who felt valued did.

I can personally attestify to this. Once childhood is gone, it’s gone. Adult children can become close to their parents even after years of estrangement, but it’s a different kind o close. It can be just as good but never just as innocent as the first.

That’s why we need to treasure childhood instead of trying to rid ourselves of it, as Mr. Banks does at first.

The spoon full of sugar metaphor is pretty clear, a little sweetness is not hard to give, and it pays dividends in relationships.

The fixing of the kite ties all three metaphors together. The tuppence for paper and string, the kite, and the sweetness even after the medicine of being fired and disgraced.

Little things are important.

As an author and a reader I notice how often in stories little events end up being what the whole ending is hinged on. Often our Salvation turns on the smallest thing.

Big things are important of course, but the secret may actually be that big things are composed of many small things suddenly coming together. That’s my experience.

Those are my thoughts, until next time–Natasha.

Stranger than fiction.

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Stranger than fiction.

It’s the title of a movie, I’ll bet there’s probably a book called that too. It’s also an old saying “Real life is stranger than fiction.”

You know what’s funny to me? How demanding we are now about our entertainment. There are still folks who aren’t picky. But especially among millennials and younger, we’ve got a lot of critics who want to find their fiction believable.

I’m guilty of this too, and hey, it’s not exactly wrong. I’m all for having standards. It’s not that that bothers me.

It’s that these standards are often ridiculous.

Fiction creators are held up to almost impossible standards. Everything that happens in their imaginary world needs to line up with everything else. They get criticized if there’s a detour into a subject unrelated to the main plot, even though if all of a story is just about one main plot, it can be flat and lacking in depth. If their characters aren’t funny or really emotional, than they’re flat. (It couldn’t just be that not everyone has to be either really funny or really volatile. Or stoic.)

They get accused of making characters stereotypical or cliche, but are also expected to play into certain stereotypes like “strong female character” or “doubtful hero,” or “compelling villain.”

We put a lot on these poor folks who just want to tell us an interesting story. Some of the most beloved stories of all time don’t make sense, that’s part of their charm.

And we’d be wise to take a look at why that is, and learn from it.

Take “Alice in Wonderland” for example. If you are western European, you have heard of this story. It used to be the number one required children’s book in England. It may still be. (Google it someone.) This story is famously nonsensical. But I like how Jim Weiss described such nonsense. “It makes sense, but in it’s own whimsical way.”

Alice runs into a lot of silliness, but mixed in with all that are some important lessons in humor error and in logic and the value of certain things. IT also turns a lot of the phrase we use on our own heads, and so teaches us that words ae important. In fact books like the Alice books, and the Phantom Tollbooth, and Mary Poppins, all foster a love of words in the reader. I sound like the prolouge to a classic by an editor, but it’s true nonetheless.

But what I find most important of all about these books is that they challenge the persepctive on life that even children may take too seriously. Alice i a know-it-all, Milo
(Tollbooth) is bored and finds nothing around him to be worthwhile, and Jane and Michael tend to be close minded about new things. The whimsical things that happen to all of those children teach them to enjoy life more and see wonder in things that they never paid attention to. The Narnia books do the same thing in a more gentle and subtle way.

And it’s good for all of us to have to stretch our minds to see things a different way. To understand that there may be different rules than the ones we know, or that we may just only know part of the story.

Okay, so what do my two subjects have to do with each other? I’m getting to that.

We have two choices in life, ladies in gentlemen, and all our important decisions will fall into one of these categories. Good and Bad.

But good doesn’t just mean moral, it means good for you.

And our attitude toward fiction is way more important to our well being than we give it credit for.

We can either demand that we understand every little thing, in every single part, after just one time with a story. Or, we can let it sink in a little deeper, and move us; or puzzle us and thereby cause us to think and hopefully to grow.

See, all this criticism and nitpicking, it’s our way of trying to protect ourselves. Not even from bad ideas, but just from liking things that it would somehow reflect badly on us to like. We don’t want to be fooled again.

There is some wisdom in that, but we have carried it way too far as a culture. It’s really just used to keep us from ever being challenged in the way we look at things. Because as long as we can pick something to pieces, we don’t have to admit it has a point. And as long as we can assign whatever meaning we want to it (whether it be less or more than the creator intended) then we don’t have to ask ourselves what the actual meaning was.

If we can explain it, then it can’t hurt us.

That’s what we think.

But if everything must be explained, then I’ll be the first to say fiction is fiction indeed.

Nothing in fiction is more unreal than when it all makes sense. Because if you haven’t noticed, real life does not make sense.

In real life, things happen for a reason, but it’s not always a reason we know. Or like. In real life phenomenons take place that we can’t understand or explain. In real life, outcomes are not always predictable. Most of all, in real life things cannot be dismissed just because we disagree with them or find fault with them. We actually have to work out problems in real life.

That’s why I take fiction seriously. Because it ought to be helping us deal with real life, since fiction is actually far simpler.

So demanding it be perfect is demanding something you are never going to see in this life. And demanding it be compelling is pointless. Because most fiction can’t force you to be compelled, you have to choose whether to care or not. And it’s no big surprise that those who don’t care about fictional events on the basis that it’s boring will not care about real events in a deep way.

Life is most definitely stranger than fiction, and the best fiction reminds us of that fact so we can become more flexible.

Those are my thoughts for now, until next time–Natasha.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol #2

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I held off saying anything about this move until I’d actually seen it, and now I finally have! (celebratory noises.)

I do think it had way more inappropriate humor than necessary and earns that PG-13 rating in full. And it had a lot of gross stuff, more than the first one.

That’s only superficial elements. What was this movie about?

I agree with the other people who reviewed it, it’s about family, parenthood, forgiveness, and how pride gets in the way of really bonding with people.

This film is about how friends can be better than family because it’s not blood that makes loyalty but the choice of the person. There’s actually a verse in Proverbs about it “there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs was written by Solomon, who had brothers who wanted to kill him, so his point of view makes sense.

I found Nebula a little disconcerting, something about her is always kind of sadist and psyco and even though you know she’s had a horrible life I don’t think trying to kill your sister is okay, even if they were bad. I also have to say Gomorrah “joking” about killing Nebula didn’t seem in character after the first film in which she made it a point to try to get her on their side.

Am I nitpicking? Maybe.

But by far the biggest concern to me personally is the character of Ego. I’m aware that some people out there probably think he’s supposed to represent God. Or Jesus. Because I’ve seen hints of theories like that, though I have yet to watch or read any.

But now that I’ve seen the film, I do see some similarities (on the surface) between Christ and Ego. Actually, it’s my theory that the movie was parodying the whole trinity. But Christ especially, because Ego is all like “Oh I walked among them and took their form and then I decided I wanted to fill the universe with copies of me.”

A person could make the argument, and I wouldn’t blame them, that this is a lot like what the Bible says Jesus did. He became flesh, dwelt among us, and he wants to make us like him. (Like him, not into him.)

That doesn’t sound at all creepy to me, I was raised hearing it, but the way the movie portrayed it, I suddenly saw how it could seem creepy to someone else. And it should.

Because if that was all there was to the story, I’d be freaked out too.

Ego is all about himself, he doesn’t even really seem to care about being worshipped, except by Peter, though he enjoys the admiration he gets. He just wants everything to be made of the same matter as himself.

He also has killed off all of his children as soon as they let him down, and some would see a parallel to God in this also. (A false one, but still.)

And no, I’m not afraid to bring all this up, and I admit that on the surface, it might look right.

But here’s a Christian’s perspective on this:

You could believe that God is like Ego, but God is way more powerful, and also just. Which Ego is not.

Actually you know who Ego really resembles? Satan.

I’m not kidding. There’s this part of the movie where Ego is going on about how “We will do all this…” and he lists several things. Is sounds eerily like a passage in the Bible where Lucifer is saying “I will be like The Most High.” a.k.a. “I will be like God.”

And you remember when Ego said that he was a small “g” god, at least on days he was feeling as humble as Drax?

The defining characteristic of God is Love. You know what Ego is another word for? Pride. Which is the defining characteristic of Lucifer.

Yep.

And actually, everything Ego did, Christians believe Satan either did or will do. Right down to making biological life forms. It may seem bizarre, but our own scientists are already able to do that, so…

In fact, the similarities to Christ can all be attributed to the fact that The devil will become the antichrist. Which you don’t have to believe is true to acknowledge that it is still biblical.

And in my mind, Ego is that. For he does not love, he rejects love as weak (like the devil;) he wants to remove free will (like the devil) and he wants to destroy all other life save what he can use (like the devil.)

I understand that this is all my own perspective, and some people out there might think I’m conveniently transferring all the clues into a picture I actually like. And maybe I am.

I won’t deny, I do wonder if the director of the movie is trying to mock God, or show contempt for our ideals. But the fact of the matter is, no one can successfully mock God.

The only way people can do that is by inventing things about him to mock. People do this to other people anyway. much more to beings they can’t understand.

Whether James Gunn meant to mock God; meant to show how pride twists all attributes; or just meant to tell an interesting story with a  metaphor; I can’t say. But that he does not know how true that metaphor actually is, I have no doubt.

One thing I do appreciate is how all the characters seemed to sense something was wrong about Ego and his planet, and I certainly got that impression watching it. There was something uncanny about it.

One more point: Ego made matter from himself, but even he was obviously created, because when he came to consciousness there were other life forms in existence. There was other matter. This again fits in with him being like the devil, but it also raise the question, where did all that other matter come from?

I don’t expect Marvel to ever actually admit there’s a God in their films. But I still think the existence of superheroes only makes sense in that context. That could just be me.

Anyway, I hope some of this made sense. Until next time–Natasha.

 

 

 

Shallow Hal

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“Shallow Hal wants a gal,” that line sums up most of this movie.

Whether or not you’ve heard of this story specifically, I’m sure you’ve heard that Beauty is not only skin deep, and it’s about what’s inside.

That’s all well and good. But does this movie make that point well?

Here’s the good and bad of Shallow Hal.

Good: Hal is a loser, who’s trying to find a hottie to go out with, but he’s not that good looking, so most of the hotties he meets aren’t interested in him. Even his neighbor, Jill, who’s less shallow, is disgusted by his shallowness and not interested.

But after a self-help guru helps him broaden his horizons (sort of) Hal starts getting successful with the hotties he’s flirting with. They seem a bit surprised by his attentions, but they go along. Then he meets Rosemary, a blonde beauty with a great personality who’s also really nice. He’s scored big time!

Until he finds out that he’d be seeing everyone as they are on the inside.

Long story short, Hal gets over his shock, and his shallowness because he’s fallen in love with Rosemary for who she really is. They go off to live happily ever after (after a few hurdles he has to clear.)

Bad: This movie’s number one sin is how stereotypical it is. The whole plot almost revolves around stereotypes. Even though the guru says “We’re all brainwashed to see certain things as beautiful, by society.” (I paraphrase.)

But the movie implies that society is partly right. If a girl is nice, smart, and funny, then she’s obviously not pretty. Or she’s pretty but doesn’t realize it. And there is some evidence in Rosemary’s character to support this. She’s pretty, in her own way, but believes she’s ugly and fat. She is fat, but Hal still thinks she’s beautiful when he finally sees her at the end.

But what made me kind of annoyed is that anytime we, as the audience, see Rosemary in a good light is when she looks like Gweneth Paltrow, who plays her. Whenever we see her as fat, she’s always being insecure, upset, and otherwise less desirable. We don’t get to see her humor or smarts except when she looks pretty.

This might seem to defy the stereotype that pretty girls are stupid or mean, but it really doesn’t. We know the whole time what she really looks like, The effect is that at the end it’s hard to see why Hal is attracted to her, since we’ve never seen chemistry between him and her in her real form.

Say as much as you like about what her real form actually is, it still doesn’t work in the context of  movie where you need to be able to see it.

Also, I find it offensive that the movie doesn’t give one example of a pretty girl in real life who was also pretty on the inside. Other than Rosemary that is. I’m not sure she counts.

Possibly there were one or two, but we don’t see for sure, so it seems incomplete. Also there’s no example of an ugly person who was ugly on the inside.

The movie ignores the fact that inner beauty makes outer beauty and inner ugliness makes outer ugliness. Which is a tried and true fact. Lots of people have observed it and written of it.

It’s a valid point to make that Hal never was looking for either inner beauty or ugliness, so of course he missed both.

But does that help us as the audience? The movie lays down no real guidelines as to discerning inner beauty, other than that someone does things which are culturally perceived as nice.

But wouldn’t even a beauty want to help her Grandma?

Couldn’t people working at the Peace Corp have bad motives?

The nurse at the hospital does indeed look ugly, and act ugly. But we never see her in real life to know if she was pretty on the outside or if she was ugly there too.

We just don’t know.

Maybe I am asking more of this movie than it ever meant to give. I think Shallow Hal is what it intended to be. A slightly different take on a Romantic Comedy in which instead of a girl getting a makeover, a man has to learn to accept her how she is.

But I don’t think it’s true that society has brainwashed us all into perceiving beauty. Different cultures have different ideas of beauty, yes. (Sometimes that can work out in your favor.)

But it would be incredibly racist, as well as untrue, to say that our culture blinds us to the beauty of people in other cultures.

White people can find African American’s attractive; American’s can find Asians attractive; and in many cultures looking American is seen as an enviable thing because they associate wealth and strength with America. While in other cases, looking Jewish or African has made people uglier to countries that hated them.

Sometimes that hatred actually takes advantage of the beauty in those races.

But the point I’m making is, beauty is universally acknowledged. And most people wouldn’t argue about external features being beautiful. Even if they have a different taste.

Just because you like tall, dark, and handsome doesn’t mean you find short or blonde unattractive.

So this brainwashing line of reasoning doesn’t hold up.

The verdict:

In the end Shallow Hal is more about how love makes you desirable than it is about how our culture is wrong about its standards. It’s an okay movie, but there are better sources for the subject of superficiality.

Hope you enjoyed, until next time–Natasha.

How to recognize a weasel–part two.

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This is not really a continuation of my Beauty and the Beast review, it’s more a commentary on films in general.

I said when I reviewed The Hunger Games that the movie was trying to make you think it was good, but it really had no strong message.

It turns out there’s a lot of that going around. I just saw La La Land and it was the same thing. It seemed good because it was trying to be like an old fashioned romance, but it totally lacked morals. I’m actually surprised that many good people thought it was great.

I get why, I wanted to like it. But I kept waiting for a moment where the characters did something I could really admire, but they didn’t.

I think my Grandmother thinks I’m just predisposed to dislike every movie that recently (in the last five years) came out.

But I liked “Hidden Figures” and “The Intern.” And heck, I like “Guardians of the Galaxy.” I liked the new Cinderella movie.

I’m not impossible to please.

I am hard to please. I missed the memo when pleasing the more difficult audience suddenly became not what movie writers were supposed to go for.

Which is not to say I should just get to say any movie is bad because I personally didn’t like it. I didn’t like Hacksaw Ridge over much, but it’s not a bad movie. Some things are just taste.

But some aren’t. Like caring what a movie is actually trying to say. And if it’s not trying to say anything, then it’s smoke and mirrors, because no one can come up with a decent creation if they don’t have a goal in mind.

My sister is a painter and drawer, she never paints a picture of nothing in particular. I know some artists do to express freedom, but even they are trying to express something. I write, I never write a story or  post about nothing. My other sibling crafts, she never makes nothing in particular.

Whether you’re a good or bad artist, you can’t be an artist without a goal or a point in mind.

And a film without a real point is just trimmings and trappings over a bare framework.

But we’ve gotten really good at those trimmings.

We have realistic looking CGI to the point where most of us have seen more vibrant landscapes on TV than we have in real life.

We have actors who can be airbrushed to perfection.

We have locations to die for, almost.

We have surroud sound. We have cool scores. We have promotional ads!

What we don’t seem to have is stories. Everyone is talking about how unoriginal Hollywood is getting. I guess the directors figure if you can’t make up a new idea, you have to dress up an old one.

But lest we be too copycat-ish, we’ll throw out all the old morals the plot used to entail. Let’s have more sex, shooting, explosions, and dumb throwaway lines that will become t-shirts and memes and be forgotten a few years hence. That’s what people want to see.

Well, unfortunately, I’m starting to wonder if that is what people want to see.

I can still remember the feeling I used to get when I finished watching a really good movie. I felt braver, better, and like life was more beautiful because of that film’s ideas. I felt like I had a glimpse into something I wouldn’t normally see or think about. Every now and then I get that feeling again.

But not form these big hits that have recently come out. They just don’t do it for me. I could look every recent superhero film I’ve seen in the eyes and tell it “The Incredibles was still better than you.” And forget the romantic comedies.

Well, I digress.

I read in one book that since the Fall we’ve gotten really good at covering up our shame with fig leaves Whether they be ordinary fig leaves or designer fig leaves.

Or as Shakespeare put it “All that glitters is not gold.”

Shakespeare tells us that if we are “young in limb, in judgement old,” we will not stake our happiness on things that are shiny and seem valuable on the surface, but inside contain dead men’s bones. (Merchant of Venice.)

The fig leaves represent the way we try to cover up our shame. And our current shame as a culture is how little we understand right and wrong. A lot of us feel confused about a lot of things, so we cover it up by making movies and other things that sound good, and sound profound, but if we were to really examine them they would be as fragile as leaves and one yank would destroy the facade.

The words of Shakespeare warn us not to value things that are dead inside just because they satisfy our senses.

I look for life in a movie. Some movies are just too foolish, others are deliberate garbage, others are the result of poor writing.

We need to be able to tell, because if we can’t, we’ll admire all the wrong things. And you can’t admire garbage on a screen, and then appreciate gold in real life.

Let’s just say that anyone who takes fool’s gold for the real thing will never recognize actual gold when they see it. They don’t look the same when you’ve seen both.

And can I just point out that the people who are telling us it doesn’t matter and to just enjoy the garbage are usually the ones making it… don’t you think they have a slight agenda?

I’m basically giving you all permission to dislike popular films for good reasons. And to like good films with all the enthusiasm the youth are showing for the bad ones. That’s where the “young in limb” part comes in.

Wisdom and Passion are the two great helpers of life, and they have to be forged the right way.

That’s all for now, until next time–Natasha.