First World

X-Men: Apocalypse

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I never intended to watch this one, but my curiosity was aroused by the reviews.

And it was not so terrible. It seems to have gotten a lot of hate from the fans, but it had its good points.

I’ll list the negative things first: This movie had inconsistencies, it was unrealistic in many ways, notably when some idiot shot Magneto’s wife and daughter with the same arrow when he wasn’t even trying to. I’ve taken archery folks, unless it’s a loaded crossbow, if you aren’t trying to fire, there’s no way you’ll be pulling back on a regular bow hard enough to shoot clear through a child. It would be hard for most people to do that on purpose. Let alone enough to kill someone else at the same time. Give me a break.

Yeah, so I had a problem with that, and I’m so over Magneto changing sides (sort of) and then changing back. I love redemption, but the man has blown every chance he’s had in all previous films, he is consistently bad, and worse, he’s a mass murderer, I think they need to cut their losses, sorry.

Aside from that, the biggest flaw to me was Apocalypse’s whole back story. There’s no way he was the first thing to evolve, that makes no sense in terms of mutant context. (He had to be lying, I figure,) and being reborn all the time…really? Even if I allowed for that, he seemed kind of dull. He was more of a mind controller then an active villain.

And are you seriously telling me that Storm, Angel, and whoever the other girl was, would not bat an eyelash at destroying the whole world? Really? Their lives were so terrible?

However, I do get how it played into the movies central theme, which was also its best theme. After decades of movies convincing us that mutations are only dangerous when they are not controlled, and that powers need to be accepted, we finally get a reality check about the other side of having power. Power corrupts.

We always saw the difference between the older Professor X and Magneto, The Professor is humble and kind with is powers, while Magneto is cruel and sadistic. Then we went back and saw what made them that way.

yet we know that Charles will suffer a lot of the same things Erik suffered later in life, and he will remain the same. Why is Magneto so different?

There’s a myriad of reasons Erik became the way he did. But one of the best moments he had in this movie was when he yelled at God asking “Is this what you want from me?”

We know Magneto later called himself a god among ants (though I suppose that was erased in the previous film) but no one ever gets tot heat point without firs coming to hate and reject God Himself, either as an idea or as a reality. (Both usually.)

This time Erik has given normal life a try, and still found it taken away, this time by accident on the human’s part, though he still hates them, we see now that he really hates God for letting them do this to him.

Since Erik is Jewish, it makes sense that he would find it baffling that God would let any of what happened happen. It’s a question that’s hard for us to answer.

And later Magneto asks Apocalypse “Where were you when my family died?” This question is one of the many points in the movie where Apocalypse seems to be equated with God. Yet the movie gives several instances where it’s clear that Apocalypse is not God as we would define Him. He is not omnipresent. He is not all powerful. he is at best a cheap imitation. Most of us would think him more like the devil then like God. What with him being evil and power mad and all.

Especially since Apocalypses goal is to acquire ultimate power, notice he doe snot already have it. God would already have all power.

It’s almost as old as time that people want to acquire ultimate power to become gods. And that’s why this theme is important in the movie. Magneto and the other evil mutants don’t just hat humans, they desire to shed their humanity, which is still part of them, and become god-like.

Though any real examination of their powers reveals that they are all limited, and I thought Apocalypse magnification of Magneto’s power bordered on the ridiculous.

God is not limited, (except by choice,) is what I’m saying, or He is not God. It’s as simple as that.

A limited god is not worth much to any of us.

Charles gets it, his message that power corrupts and that great power is given to the strong so that they can protect the weaker is profound though it is glossed over. Mystique sort of echoes it when she tells Erik he has the power to save his remaining family for once.

I am a firm believer that we are given gifts sot hat we can use them for others. They benefit us, it is true, and it’s not wrong that they do, but that should never be the only reason we use them. Magneto’s consistent flaw was his selfishness. He refused to deal with it, to try to be different.

Charles greatest strength was his selflessness.

Though this movie still continues the theme about embracing your power, it makes a point of saying you should embrace it for the sake of other people. Disregarding humanity is not that answer.

The reason I like X-men is because it actually faces the prevalent issue of superhero movies head on: that supers could come to despise humanity for its stubbornness and weakness.

And sure, they could, some have. some brilliant people in real life do. But X-Men is always trying to remind us that even the gifted people are human too, and they need to keep their compassion if they would keep themselves intact.

So, despite its faults, this latest X-men movie is worth checking out.

Until next time–Natasha.

Language Barriers.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Sometimes courage is not slowing down long enough for fear to catch you.

And sometime courage is staying still long enough for peace to catch up with you.

But I’d say the first one is my motto today. I woke up feeling achy, but upon getting up I felt better, and I’ve learned that my stress symptoms increase when I’m inactive. Inactivity can be just as hard o your body as hyperactivity.

So with that in mind, I want to switch subjects.

Some of you who’ve been reading my college posts know that I’m studying Language. Specifically English and ASL. (Guess which is harder.)

A few of my older followers probably remember that I went on a mission trip two years ago (almost three) to Cambodia, and there I learned a bit of Khmer.

Khmer (pronounced Ka-mai) is not an easy language to learn by rote. You have to hear it, and in my opinion you have to hear it spoken in real settings. My attempts to learn more of it since haven’t panned out well. I need a tutor I bet.

My ASL teacher wanted us to journal on a movie we watched in class about. Audism is a new term, probably not i most dictionaries, that refers to discrimination based on one’s ability to hear.

It’s a real thing. But it seems to bother people the most when their own families won’t include them in conversation by interpreting for them.

Welcome to my world, I would say. I’ve been frustrated many times over the years by being left out of conversations. I wish I could blame it on being deaf but all I can attribute it to is being young and not having common ground.

I guess being deaf makes it hard to have common ground and that’s the sting. Even if they did, they can’t talk about it.

But the problem between people of different languages isn’t really lack of knowledge. It’s a lack of heart.

Very profound things can be communicated between people who speak different languages. We’ve heard that love doesn’t need a language. It’s true. In Cambodia, the people were very welcoming and nice to us even though we couldn’t understand more than a few things they said. We didn’t need to to understand good will.

I’d venture to say the trouble between different groups of people isn’t about language or skin color, it’s about suspicion.

Remember when I talked about strangers? How we wish we could connect with them?

Oftentimes we build walls around ourselves so that we won’t have to deal with strangers as people. The don’t challenge us, we don’t feel guilty.

And that’s the real reason behind slavery I think. Slavery has happened many times between people of the same race by the way, just different divisions. Sometimes it’s not even between tribes, it can be between classes. They don’t talk about that when they teach kids that America is evil for having slaves.

Yes it was evil a lot of the time, but America is not the exception in any way except that it fought a war over it. You look far back enough into almost nay country and you’ll fine slavery. Often not between different races.

We don’t have to look different to make strangers of each other.

We don’t have to look the same to believe we’re kindred.

To be open to new and different ways is to be open to life. Life is constantly changing. People who recognize this are more likely to accept each other, I think. There is n o point in trying to live in a certain time while the rest of the world moves on.

And coming from a home-schooler raised to believe that the old ways are better, that’s a big concession.

I believe they are better. They were healthier, more in line with natural law. But I don’t believe you change the world by staying in the past. The world won’t stay with you. Solutions always lie ahead of us.

True brotherhood between nations always begins, and always will, with the laying aside of suspicions. The willingness to see each other as part of the same family. Just different looking and different sounding. (Heck some of us have that in our immediate family. I’m not exactly like anyone else in mine, my sister even observed that it’s hard to place who I look like.)

Suspicion is the killer of phileo love (friendship/brotherly love.)  You remember that part of Pocahontas? “They’re different form us, therefore they an’t be trusted.” But what led to that? Immediate suspicion.

You know, both the Native Americans and the White men were already determined to think that their ways were the only way and that they had nothing to learn from anyone else. Both of them. Is it any wonder that they were immediately suspicious of each other? While Pocahontas both in the true history and in the movie represented those of us who think we have something to learn from each other.

I will never be convinced that my religion is not the correct one, but what I like about mine is that it allows me to recognize wisdom in other cultures. There is no culture without it’s own revelation of God that it understand better then others.

Americans understand freedom, for example. Jews understand holiness. I think many Asian cultures understand the flow of the spiritual into art and lifestyle better then we do. I think the Native Americans understood a lot about the way God speaks through nature.

The list goes on.

And that’s not exclusive of course. It’s just a sample.

Language is a gap between people, but in God’s mysterious ways, He was made it one of the most powerful ways to bridge the gap between people, if we approach it humbly and with love and patience.

Zombies and Redemption.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

So, I have a confession, I actually dared to watch a movie featuring zombies. I doubt any of you are really shocked, what do you know about my tastes, that’s pretty normal now.

Well it’s not for me, but I gave this one a pass because the zombies in it aren’t brain-eating monsters…except for ten seconds.

This movie was a Disney Channel Original, this movie was their average, not terrible, but not good.

Zombies, which is the full title, is about a post-post apocalyptic world, where in a very Divergent fashion, humans are split into two groups, those who are normal, and those who are infected with some virus that made them into zombies…because someone spilled lime soda on some electric device.

Yeah, WordGirl Levels of sense.

But this movie is for kids and younger teens, so I’ll let the silliness slide. The last thing I need is for horror movies to be a DCOM thing.

The story is about a boy zombie, named Zed, and a normal girl, who of course fall in love and unite to overturn cultural expectations. Since zombies are stigmatized and ostracized.

The whole thing is an obvious metaphor for privileged whites keeping down blacks and Hispanics. The zombies get all the worse jobs, they go to separate schools until the integration act that kicks off this movie.

The movie has one interesting turn. Zed uses his zombie powers to become good at football, but he is endangering himself and everyone else in the process because the only thing keeping him stable is a special watch that sends calming signals to their brain. So there’s that.

When Zed convinces his friend Eliza to help him override his watch slightly so he can win the games, people start to accept the zombies, but unfortunately the anti-zombie kids hijack the signal and send Zed, Eliza, and their other friend into full on zombie death mode. Though Zed seems to resist it briefly.

For awhile things start to go terribly wrong, but then the girl Zed likes fixes everything by having he zombies and cheerleaders unite to win the cheer champions ship…which they don’t, but they do end up bring humans into zombie territory and end with a happy song and dance number.

It was stupid; but the elements of the movie do call for some closer examination, not because the movie is brilliant but because the way it was made reflects a lot about what the writers think teens are into and what they think we should be concerned about.

The biggest problem with this movie is that is mishandled the zombie thing entirely. It made it a metaphor for race, but the zombie virus is a way closer metaphor for mental or social disabilities.

Comparing it to Autism would have been smarter. Like the zombies, autistic people can have triggers that make them go ballistic, they could hurt people. So can other special needs kids. And they can’t help it, necessarily.

It’s a pertinent question to ask how much special needs kids should be allowed to mingle with “normal” ones. There are real dangers to both us and them if they lose it, or get bullied, but is there a greater danger if we don’t learn to understand each other? I think there is.

That’s a worthwhile conversation to have, but this movie doesn’t have it. The cheerleaders who mess up the special watches just to get the zombies to go nuts are never caught, the zombies never even bring it up to them, at the end of the movie they are all cool. Even though the brats could easily have gotten someone killed. They almost did, in fact. There’s no lasting impact from that very serious problem.

All we get is Eliza whining about how they took all the blame.

In all fairness if Eliza hadn’t been screwing with the watches to begin with, the cheerleaders couldn’t have done it. Eliza shows no remorse or horror for what she did, Zed admits it was wrong, but he lingers no longer on it. The girl he likes doesn’t chew him out. Nothing.

It’s no use, in a story like this, to pretend that Zombies aren’t different. The age old problem “Should we blame them for what happened before they were born?” presents itself. Should we punish people for something that is not their fault?

And yet whether we like it or not, in real life kids do get punished for what isn’t their fault. They bear the brunt of other people’s mistakes.

We all have to choose what we will do about the problems we face, but it doesn’t follow that we’ll all make good choices.

This movie slightly touches on that when Eliza wants to sabotage the cheer championship, but it deflates almost instantly. She’s talked out of it in twenty seconds. Zed brings up the point that if they behave that way then they are the monsters everyone thinks they are.

Which  is a good point, but it wasn’t fleshed out to really mean much.

And is it problematic to use zombies at all? They are monsters, they do bad things, and we’d be justified in killing them if they were real. They aren’t human, strictly speaking. Though the movie uses it differently, still it leaves the brain-eating nastiness in there (I thought that was a mistake) then we do have to wonder, why should the humans want them around?

I have a problem with making monsters “relatable” the only reason I might have gone with it for this movie is because monster can be a metaphor, and a powerful one. Just not this time.

That’s an okay way to illustrate, I’ve used the example of zombies myself to teach kids in Sunday school what being spiritually dead might look like. It can work.

Comparing zombies to a certain race isn’t going to work because having a different skin color doesn’t make you a monster prone to eating people.

Making that cool isn’t good. It misses the point. When you admit that there’s something wrong with you, you can be helped. There can be redemption. Forgiveness.

But the more we try to justify our issues, the more ridiculous the situation becomes. The most grotesque things become acceptable.

The idea is to be removed from all that, set apart, cleansed. That’s the idea of holiness the bible talks about.

We’re all, you might say, infected with the virus of sin. We all try to control it, much like with the watches, some of us try to harness it, ultimately we end up hurting people because sin hurts. The wage of sin is death.

It’s not our fault we’re born into it, but we constantly make choices that make us weaker to it, and that is our fault. (See the parallels?)

I think the movie reflects our attitude toward perfection. We think that if we as a species can work together we might overcome our differences and dangers.

Wonder Woman is wiser, she knows that each of us has our own darkness we have to face, and love is what will make us able to do it.

So, that was a lot of thought for such a dumb movie, but sometimes figuring out what went wrong can be more work.

Until next time–Natasha.

Easy A

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Review time again! Yay!

I wish I had picked a better movie to watch today, but Is til have chances to make it up. There’s always Titanic in a pinch, right?

In all honesty the description of this movie sounded better than it was.

In case you’ve never heard of it, Easy A is about a girl who’s friend thinks she’s slept with a college guy, and Olive lies and says she has because her friend is digging for it so much. then a christian girl overhears and spreads the word. Eventually everyone thinks Olive is a slut and a prostitute, and she starts getting paid to say she’s slept with a bunch of different losers. Then one loser actually want her to do it for real, and she is horrified.

In the end she makes a webcast telling the truth about the whole mess, and finds a guy who actually likes her for her. The end.

Ugh….picture me rolling my eyes right now.

The story is supposed to be a retelling of The Scarlet Letter. Which is about a woman who actually had committed adultery, but without realizing it till it was too late, and who ends up pregnant. She gets ostracized, and she ends up embroidering the scarlet letter A, which she is forced to wear, on all her clothes, and when she has her baby she beautifully embroiders her clothes.

She ends up being more sympathetic character.

unlike Olive, who you get frustrated with for continuously lying and giving in to peer pressure over her sexuality. I’m not sure why movies like this continuously portray doing stupid things as somehow daring and indicative of a unique personality. Pretending to have sex with some guy at a party falls under the stupid category in my book…but hey, she did it all the way so…she’s spunky?

Even though Emma stone is hard not to like, in her own sardonic way, she was wasted in this role. By the end of the movie she’s learned nothing. Except that lying about sex is a bad idea.

No one else in the movie has an aha! moment where they change their perspective. And not once is the idea that sex outside of marriage might actually be a bad idea seriously considered.

even though by my count, two people’s reputations and 1 marriage were all ruined over the idea; as well as many others faking their way to popularity.

I don’t want to be petty, but Christians were stereotyped within an inch of our lives, which is what I would expect, because Holly wood forbid that they make us look like rational, compassionate creatures.

Not that all of us are, sadly, but I find it hard to believe any christian teen in public highschool would act the way these ones did. They have more gall then me.

And that parents i this movie were sick. They had no problem with their daughter dressing like a whore, and being labeled as having an STD, and getting detention. (actually on the last one I had to sympathize.) They encouraged her to be promiscuous.

No parent worth their marriage license would react that way. It was so stupid.

In the end Olive concludes that her sex life is none of anyone’s —-business (imagine that!) but she still thinks she might lose her virginity to her new boyfriend. Because clearly that doesn’t lead to any problems.

I mean, duh. What the heck was the point of this movie?

If that’s how much power a rumor had, how much worse to actually do all those things.

even though Olive realizes how disgusting everyone’s obsession with sex is, and that’s a good point right there, she never seems to realize why it got to be that way. Why not having boundaries leads to so many problems. Why if people just honored sex by keeping it in marriage none of the things in the movie would have happened.

And forgive me for getting on my soapbox, but when the movie is making that point without even trying to make it, you know you have an issue.

Really, it missed the whole point of the “source material” which is that sexual promiscuity has consequences, and people can not see the forest for the trees when it comes to one woman’s mistake and their own hypocrisy, but in the end patience and virtue will win out if you practice them diligently.

That’s what the woman in the story did, it is not what Olive did. continuing to make the same dumb mistakes that got you into your problem, and embracing the reputation that ensues, is being stupid. It’s not being brave or noble about it.

Olive admits she had no notion of being either of those things, or being patient and meek. Even if that would have spoken volumes more about her innocence then what she did do.

So basically, this is a what not to do movie that never even really shows why the religious people it was critiquing were so wrong to think they way they did. Weren’t they right? Didn’t it all lead to a lot of bad stuff happening?

Anyway, I don’t recommend this flick, until next time–Natasha.

A lantern in our hands.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I just read another great book titled “A lantern in her hand.” This isn’t a review of it, but I want to credit the book with inspiring this post.

The book is, as it turned out, about love. And I am a sucker for any story where love is the focus and the savior as it were. I say sucker, but I don’t believe it’s really naive to think so.

Love gets a bad rap when it comes to making it the saving grace of a story, but I would wonder what else is better?

So I have a question to put to you, viewers, what makes life worth while? I mean, what makes anything we do important?

You see the main character of the book has dreams to be an artist, a singer, a painter, and an author. She wants to put something fine into the world. As a modern woman (or man) we can all empathize. Almost all of us aspire to greatness at one point in our lives, whatever we may settle for later, and movies and popular stories have certainly helped drive it into our heads that any life that doesn’t change the world is common and ordinary.

I personally relate. I think I tend to see life as wasted when you aren’t doing something big.

The point this book made is that being a mother and a wife is a big thing.

Now, to even suggest that motherhood might be enough of an aspiration is resented by most women.

I won’t say I haven’t seen it that way myself, but I know better.

It’s not that motherhood is all a woman is good for. That’s not it. The point is that what is done in love is done well.

If someone dreams big dreams, it’s a good thing, but they have no failed in life if at the end of it, they fulfilled different dreams.

Some women dream of doing big things, and also of being mothers. Is it a failure if they fulfilled the latter, and fall short of the former.

What if it’s not wrong when a parent’s dream of the finer things is fulfilled int heir children’s lives?

It seems hard on the parents. But if there’s one thing the age of pioneers and pilgrims should have taught us it’s that one generation has to light the lamp, or the lantern, and dare to dream, even if they will never see the completion of the dream. Because sometimes one lifetime isn’t long enough for us.

Back in the Bible when folks lived to be 900 years old, they could have all lived to see their dreams fulfilled, but maybe now that our lives are shorter, we have to learn to be more content with less.

That’s not bad, I think on the contrary a shorter life leaves less time to get too comfortable in this old world. Which isn’t where we all belong.

I guess I’m rethinking my goals. I still hope to make an impact on the world, but if I end up in some corner of the globe with a small circle of friends and family to take care of and help and inspire, my life won’t be wasted. If I only get tot ell my stories to my children they are still worth telling.

Some parents, like the father in “Little Britches” and Casper Ten Boom from the writings of Corrie Ten Boom (The Hiding place; and In my Father’s House.) shine out most in when they leave behind in their children.

The Bible knew that parents are reflected in their children, not always, not every time, but often. I think today we’ve lost that.

Actually, we’re ashamed of it. We hate being like our parents because we feel it makes us less ourselves.

But the truth is, humanity is interconnected. When I went to Cambodia, I felt a common bond with the people there who couldn’t even speak English, it had nothing to do with how similar our lives or personalities were, but in that we’re all human. WE all share certain things.

In spending a few days in their lives, I expanded mine. For I became a part of theirs, and they a part of mine. I don’t mean that they influence what I do over here a whole lot, but there is a connection.

It’s hard to describe, some people have already hit upon the idea that humanity is all connected with each other, and I believe it’s true.

Even more so in families. We are a part of each other.

I believe strongly that we are all unique. But sharing our traits with others doesn’t take away from that. I resemble both my parents according to some people, but I don’t look exactly like either of them simply because I resemble both.

People are like those math problems where you have to figure out how many different way you can arrange the numbers. Only our numbers are limitless and we all have our own special part.

But what we share is, when you think about it, what enables us to love each other.

That’s why there’s so much hate now over he areas of racial tension both in America and all over the globe. It’s because the politicians are focusing on our differences. We should enjoy our differences, and I do, but inflaming them makes them more important than they really are.

Just like in any family where the parents or children puts too much emphasis on being alike or unlike each other. It’s just not important enough to fight over. (I mean of course, to ever begin to fight over. If one side is being unfair about it, I do think sometimes it has to be fought out.)

I might be white, privileged, young, and geeky, but it’s never bothered the people around me, no matter what their background is, and why should it?

To bring it back to the idea of accomplishment, I think the big things are kind of life the differences between people. Important, but not more important then things like love, wisdom, and nurturing and protecting and dreaming.

A wise man leaveth an inheritance for his children, the Bible says. And it’s no shame if in your whole life, what you accomplish benefits someone else more than you, some might even call that selfless living.

Until next time–Natasha.img_1549-4

Half the Sky.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

This is a break in style for me, because “Half the sky.” is a book, not a movie.

Though if they make a documentary of it, I wouldn’t  be surprised.

This book is about turning the oppression of women around the world into opportunity for them.

As you know if you’ve been following me for some time, I am no feminist. I am also no activist. Not in the cultural sense of either term. But I would not let my political positions keep me from recognizing important issues.

Though the writers of this book do take a more Post-modernist/socialist approach to aiding women then I do.

But I won’t be blinded by the fact that we disagree on stuff. It doesn’t take away from how amazing this book is.

I have to say for its type, the book is brilliant. Normally books about world issues are kind of a dull read, not many people find facts and ideas all that interesting in nonfiction.

But this book is different. All the issues, from sex trafficking, to maternal mortality, to honor killings and rape, are presented through stories of real women. Most of whom beat the odds and went on to lead amazing lives, Some did not; but on the whole the stories were very inspiring. They all pointed to education as the common catalyst for a women’s empowerment.

I don’t think empowerment is as big an issue in the USA as it is just about every where else except Europe and a few wiser countries in the other continents. We complain when we don’t get paid a certain wage, or when we don’t have a lot of representatives in a certain field, but in most places it’s rare for women to have any say in any field. Even in how they raise their children or run their household.

It is not all the men’s fault either. Women are for some reason a lot more apt to hold themselves down then men are. Men tend to push the envelope, maybe it’s part of their nature; women tend to work with what they have. But what they have can be just about nothing.

With that in mind, this book is important. It’s important to now what’s going on in the world. Not every dirt has to be dug up, granted, but I don’t think issues that take the lives and rights of millions and millions of girls each year are minor or ignorable.

The book said that these issues get labeled as “women’s issues” and so they are put low on the priority list. And there is some truth in that. At least, when was the last time you heard mass rape and honor killings covered on the news? I hear about terrorist attacks far more often.

And that’s not wrong by any means. But I do think if women spent less time talking about clothes and makeup and stupid life tips on the air, and more time focusing on real world issues, it might get out there.

While I am not for making the government fund aid programs (it’s impractical) I am so for aiding programs by private citizens. The fact is those programs do better anyway. People connect more with individuals then with the UN or any other agency.

The book backs up it’s individual stories with research that is put in simple and easy to follow ways, and also  concise. The book is 250 pages long.

It’s not a short read, not for me anyway, but it’s better digested. One or two chapters at a time is about all you would need to get the most out of it.

So if you want to better educate yourself, definitely read this book.

Until next time–Natasha.