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I love the opening scene from the movie: Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson. As the movie opens a dying father leaves his inheritance to his son after making the son promise that he will be very generous to his sisters. On the way home from his father’s deathbed the son’s hard-hearted wife gradually convinces her newly rich husband to keep the vast majority of his inheritance for himself and give his sisters only a token. We watch dumbfounded as good intentions are overwhelmed by greed.
"They Shoot Horses Don’t They". The movie is about an actress who has a fallen career on the big screen during the 20’s. She enters a dance marathon hoping to win the jackpot and use the money to launch a new movie career. As the marathon draws closer to the end, she realizes that she and her partner have a good chance of winning. During one of the rest breaks, the promoter calls them into the office, and explains to them that the winner has to pay for the expenses of the dance out of the $750.00 prize money.
She sees life is not worth fighting any longer, because when she thought she was winning, she was losing. She gives up on life. The final scene of the movie shows her going round and round as if on a merry-go-round. She steps off and goes outside with her boy friend, hands him a gun and asks him to shoot her. As the viewer, you can feel her helplessness, but as a Christian you want her to live, to be redeemed. But the gun goes off. She falls to the ground. The police come and ask the boy friend why he shot her. He replies,"They shoot horses don’t they!!"
On a scale of 1 to 10, how optimistic are you about your future? In that great mid-life crisis movie, City Slickers, Billy Crystal’s character Mitch attends career day at his son’s grade school. Mitch is anything but optimistic. His son had told everyone that his dad was a submarine captain, but he really sells advertising. The kids aren’t interested at all in what he does—and neither is he. In classic Baby Boomer angst, Mitch gives the kids something to think about. He tells the kids to
“Value this time in your life, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Your forties, you grow a little potbelly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery. Your sixties you have a major surgery, the music is still loud but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale; you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering, "how come the kids don’t call?" By your eighties, you’ve had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand but who you call mama. Any questions? (From City Slickers)
On a scale of 1 to 10, he was a 1—he was a man without hope!
In the movie, A Knight’s Tale, the main character William Thatcher and his friends are starving. William is a gifted jouster, and has potential to make enough money jousting to feed everyone, but he is not of noble blood. Only nobility is allowed to joust competitively. The team of friends creates fake papers for him, and he begins to joust successfully. After some time though, his fake papers are exposed, and William is put in the stocks for impersonating nobility. The scene shows his four loyal companions warding off an angry mob in the streets to protect him. Suddenly and from no where the prince reveals himself by throwing off the cloak he had been using to disguise himself, and the crowd goes silent as he approaches William. What the prince says to William shows deep insight into the philosophy of tru...
Comedian Billy Crystal plays the part of a bored baby boomer who sells radio advertising time. One the day he visits his son’s school to tell about his work along with other fathers, he suddenly lets loose a deadpan monologue to the bewildered youngsters in the class:
Value this time in your life, kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices. It goes by fast.
When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything and you do. Your twenties are a blur.
Thirties you raise your family, you make a little money, and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?"
Forties, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud, one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.
Fifties, you have a minor surgery-you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery.
Sixties, you’ll have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway.
Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon, you have lunch around 10:00, breakfast the night before, spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, "How come the kids don’t call? How come the kids don’t call?"
The eighties, you’ll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling with some Jamaican nurse who your wife can’t stand, but who you call mama.
Any questions?
The Body, Charles W. Colson, 1992, Word Publishing, pp. 168-169
Richard Scoggins
Several Years ago there was a movie that starred Nicolas Cage. It was about a New York City Cop who didn’t have enough money for a tip. He felt bad about it so he gave her a choice. She could wait until tomorrow and he would come back and bring her a few dollars or she could have half of anything he might win on a lottery ticket he had purchased earlier in the day. I really identified with this movie because as you know I too am a waiter. What you may not know is that I am also a delivered compulsive gambler. Well the waitress did exactly what I would have done in the same situation. She took a chance. If you haven’t seen the movie or didn’t here about the true story that inspired it let me tell you what happened. They won. The movie goes on to tell of all the good and bad things that happened to them after winning this large amount of money. The title was
It Could Happen to You.
As I thought about that movie I thought about all the possible out comes and what would I have done if that had happened to me.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a comedy set during America’s Depression era. The story revolves around three petty criminals who escape from a chain gang. One of them, the leader named Everett Ulysses McGill, tells his companions that he has buried money from a bank robbery near his property in order to persuade them to make a run for it. But near the end of the movie, the law catches up with them, and even though they have been pardoned by the governor, the lawman who has been pursuing them is intent on hanging them. As they are about to be hanged, Everett, Delmer, and Pete stand trembling in front of a large oak, deep in the woods and far away from anyone who can help them. They turn their eyes up to the three ropes that hang from the old tree. Everett, who never had much use for God before, drops to his knees and begins to pray for a miracle from God. “Lord, please look down and recognize us poor sinners. Please, Lord, I just want to see my daughters again. I’ve been separated from my family for so long. I know I’ve been guilty of pride and short dealing. I’m sorry I turned my back on you. Forgive me. We’re helpless, Lord. Help us, please.” As Everett ends his prayer, a small stream of water begins to run around his knees. His companions also notice the water and stare at it in confusion. As the wind blows, suddenly a great wall of water sweeps away everyone and everything in its path — including the lawmen who were about to hang them. The next scene shows Everett, Delmer, and Pete gasping for air as they break the surface of the water. Delmer raises his voice yelling, “It’s a miracle We prayed to God, and he pitied us ” Everett, who just a short time was crying out to God for just such a miracle, chastises his friends as “hayseeds” for believing that it was an act of God. He says, “Don’t be ignorant. There’s a perfectly scientific explanation for what just happened.” Pete says, “That ain’t the tune you were singin’ back there at the gallows ” Everett brushes it off and says, “Well, any human being will cast about in moment of stress.”
There are many people like Everett who use God in a time of crisis and then abandon him when life seems back under their control. But the only reason we can have the confidence to ask, seek and knock is because of an intimate relationship of trust and mutual love. It is a love that follows God and obeys him.
Families are wonderful. Families are challenging. I am reminded of this every time I see my favorite Cosby Show episode in which Cliff, the father played by Bill Cosby, and Theo, the son played by Malcolm Jamal-Warner, have a chat about Theo’s desire to live like a “regular” person rather than “special” person like his dad who is a doctor or his mom who is an attorney.
Cliff is concerned about Theo’s grades and his lack of motivation and progress. What does Theo want to be? He wants to be a “regular” person like a truck driver. But that’s not the issue for Cliff; it is Theo’s lack of commitment that is the problem.
So dad takes $1200 in play money, an agreed to amount for a truck driver’s monthly earnings, and begins to help Theo understand what it takes to live. First are the taxes, because as Cliff says, “the IRS comes for the regular people first.” Then the discussion begins over rent (“You’re not living here, I’ll live in New Jersey”), then transportation (“A car will cost you “X”, “I’ll drive a motorcycle,” “you’ll wear a helmet.”). Then it goes on to food, (“I’ll eat peanut butter and jelly”), and clothes (“I want...
In the movie John Q, Denzell Washington plays John Q and during the movie his son becomes develops a heart disease. Throughout the movie it is shown that because the family does not have enough money and there are not enough heart donors the child will not make it. Finally Denzell holds up the emergency room taking hostages and locking all of the doors. When he still cannot get someone to give his son a heart and where the illustration clip should come in Denzell says i will do anything for my son. I will die so he won’t it is an amazing scene and you can see the love on denzel face he will literally do anything so his son will live. I think it is a great representation of Christ’s love for us.
ILLUSTRATION... The Brothers Grimm (2005)
I rented a movie recently that spoke volumes when it came to dealing with falsehood. The movie is called Brothers Grimm and came out this past year. The fictional story centers around two brothers who are in the witch and ghost busting business. They ride into towns that have old folk tales of ghosts and goblins and offer to rid their town for a price. The price is of course way too high, until a villager comes and reports that the ghost or beast has returned. Sounds like a coincidence doesn’t it. The Brothers Grimm step in and save the day. The movie reveals that the Brothers Grimm also have two other partners that set up the false ghosts and witches and put on a production for some villagers to watch. The villagers see the evil foe vanquished and the brothers make their money. It is all a false production. It is a con-job. Early in the movie, these two Brothers are arrested by government leaders because of their treachery. It was all fake. They had to admit that their business was a false one. The truth was revealed.
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