10 Inch Hero

Behold, truly one more American fairy-tale, but alas, one of hope and peace, justice and free sex for all...

And that even during a time when you would have thought hippies had all been wiped out by the "war on terror."

But there is a God and He loves us, even those of us who are hippies at heart, and even if there don't seem to be many other confirmations of that fact around than these concocted fantasy tales by dreamers like us, it's enough to keep us dreaming, or hoping that some day - against all odds - there are really going to be people like that walking on this planet, actually getting along wonderfully, and making love, not war.

The Go Getter

While this road movie probably wouldn't rank among my favorite, potential life changers (I like my life changed regularly, if not frequently, so I allow what some would call fate -and I prefer to call God- greater access to that possibility, even via something as trivial as movies), I liked it because of its positive twist, compared to, for example, Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" with its sobering, if not depressing ending.

But I still wouldn't have bothered featuring it on this blog, hadn't it occurred to me sort of retrospectively that it has one of those metaphor factors in it, that I've discovered a few other times, as in "Serenity" or, of course, "The Miracle Worker," which triggered a torrent of reactions in my mind that still hasn't come to an end...

Some people see ghosts, others see the Devil everywhere; well, I prefer to see God everywhere or in everything, and holy ghosts, for that matter. And I happen to be able to see His fingerprints on this movie, too, although I doubt that the makers of the film intended it any more than Paul McCartney intended writing a song about an Endtime prophetess when he penned "Let It Be."

Inspiration's a funny thing.

Okay, the plot in my mind is this: The kid in the film is a lot like many of us on the road of life, who sort of break free from the System (he quits school), not really feeling much at home in that place to begin with. So, first he runs into the kind of stuff the world has to offer: a fist in the face, false love and counterfeit thrills in drugs, all the while, though, communicating with a voice that he feels "at home with," even though it belongs to someone he's wronged (since he stole her car, and hey, who of us gives God the credit for lending us the vehicle with cruise through life with?), met only with forgiveness on the condition of regular communication with her (sounds to me like the way we can obtain forgiveness via prayer...)

When things look pretty dark & bleak, all of a sudden that embodiment of unconditional love stands right in front of him, ready for more than just comforting words, and while that relationship is not without its ups and downs either (as I'm sure all of our relationships with God aren't, either), there is, lo and behold, a happy ending in sight - and that in spite of disappointments galore from anywhere else, which again confirms my personal experience: only God cuts the cake.

Some folks have great difficulties with any insinuations or attempts to ascribe female attributes to God or the Holy Spirit, but in my opinion they're trapped in some chauvinistic mindset that shaped their ideas of God more on the John Wayne movies they saw in their childhood than Genesis 1:27 and the rest of the Bible, thinking they're doing God a service by going to other countries & shooting off Hottentots, because that's just a real macho thing to do.

Well, you can keep doing that, and keep watching your John Wayne movies, if you wish, I prefer neat little love stories with happy endings. After all, the Good Book doesn't picture our Maker with a gun strapped around his hip, stepping out into the glistening midday sun to bring a swift end to his evil opponent, but in childlike and what some I'm sure might call naive fashion simply states that God is Love.

Love in the Time of Cholera

Love is forever, and if this movie doesn't prove it - since it's based on a novel - then at least it proves that there are other dreamers beside myself who believe it.

Set against the backdrop of one of the most gloriously beautiful countries on God's earth, "Love In the Time of Cholera" tells a slightly different love story, one perhaps too good to be true, and yet in some ways more true to life than the evening news, and definitely truer than the outgrowths of Hollywood's pop culture with its never ending hails to youth, and labeling anything past a certain age as unfit for life.

That's probably what I love most about this movie: it tells the truth about who really are the dead ones and who are the alive, or at least rings home the fact that love - as well as life (truly lived) does not have anything to do with age.