My Life In Ruins: Coping with Co-travelers on the bus of life

One of the deceptive factors about the theory of evolution is that people in this day and age think that no matter what they do, how many of their brain cells they drown in alcohol or drugs, thanks to the process of evolution, they're automatically bound to get smarter all the time.
When nothing - I mean, absolutely n.o.t.h.i.n.g. - could be further from the truth.

As a result we have a bunch of wise guys sitting along with us on the bus of life that aren't always exactly easy to love.

While this movie won't exactly knock your socks off, it does give a few clues, or even if nothing but some glimpse of hope, that it's not entirely impossible.

So, if you have a hard time coping with the devastating gap between what the world (and folks in it) ought to be like (according to your personal standards and ideas) and the way it actually is, this story might cheer you up a little.

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner

A story of honor and courage from a culture as alien and foreign to most of us as the two aforementioned virtues in our society, in which the only virtue required is to be an obedient cog in the machine, and battles are fought with sophisticated weaponry that allow you to murder your enemy without even having to face him...

As foreign as a tale from another world, except for such stories as these, brought to us by some story teller who happens to have found enough listening ears to make himself heard.

A story of a world that once was, and what has become of it, leaving us with the only hope that God will fulfill His Promises to us that someday it will even be a better world than it ever was...

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven

Although perhaps not your average multi-million dollar production of cinematographic exuberance and extravaganza, since it's a TV production, and probably produced with a fraction of some piece of trash like "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," or many similar recent Hollywood outgrowths, this film has probably more to say than perhaps the last dozen of "big" movies I've seen, put together.

It gives you a tiny glimpse of the fact that seems to totally elude most of us super smart, "evolved" and developed 21st century people, namely how little it is we really know, even about our own lives and the people who have touched it, and, thus, perhaps a little preview of the Eternity of surprises waiting for each of us at the end of our road.

May your surprises be as pleasant as those of "Eddie Maintenance."

"...And the world is full of stories.

But all the stories are one."

He's Just Not That Into You

I wasn't sure at first, if I was going to include this movie on this list, because in some way it resembles the experience I had when I watched "Signs" for the first time in the theater, shaking my head at the apparent nonsense I had paid to watch, until everything finally started making sense during the last 10 minutes or so of the film.

The first and major part of "He's Just Not That Into You" is pretty much sheer, painful agony. Partly, because it's so true. Human beings are really that rotten, that motivated by cliches and Hollywood indoctrinations, and for the larger part of all that agony, you simply have to agree and understand why Jesus compared this mating game to the way things were before the days of Noah, and you come to the conclusion that our just punishment would be another flood to wipe us off the face of the earth.

But then that's where grace comes along, and plays the sweetest trick on us and gives us just what we don't deserve in spite of ourselves; and contrary to all natural expectations and calculations, love will come to you, pretty much like that wind that bloweth where it listeth, and canst not tell from whence it cometh or whither it goeth.

All in all, suffice it to say that there is a lesson to be learned from this movie, even if in a little bit of a painful way... that way it hurts when we discover a bunch of awful truth about ourselves, and it makes you feel like the only thing we'd deserve is hell, while all along Salvation and Heaven are just waiting around the corner.

The Duchess

This one was definitely the pleasant surprise of the month. While it may not appeal to followers of the current Hollywood type of Christianity where extra-marital sex will wind you up in hell, but killing Muslims will land you in Heaven with the (former) President's personal blessing, those who have learned that the ways of God, love and life itself can sometimes indeed be mysterious and lead us beyond the confines of convention and artificial correctness, may find it quite enjoyable.

I never get into any of that stuff of how brilliant the actors were. If they hadn't done their jobs well, I wouldn't waste my time recommending this movie.
What I care mostly about in movies is the message (since I consider myself a messenger howbeit using a slightly different medium), and in this case we've got another beautiful testimony (since it's based on actual events) of how forgiveness is an integral part of love, and something we both need and need to learn to give, even if the circumstances may be less than fair and just, as well as of a time in which not everybody had the same freedoms, privileges and rights they may enjoy today, but still managed to be much happier and more fulfilled anyhow.

If you want to get a taste of how different life has been (and perhaps still is and can be in other cultures than our plastic Coca Cola culture), this movie is certainly an opportunity.