Postmodern Renaissance Culture Revolutionary

In my previous post, I talked about how great it is to be a comic book fan right now. Part of the reasons was that comic book characters and stories have gone mainstream in media. That means we don't have to read 4 color, paper copy anymore (that is just frosting!). Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice is one example of how mainstream comic characters have become. And it is a testimony to what culture has done to comics. For those uninterested in my long analysis of the movie, allow me to summarize my feelings about it. Dislikes - 1. It is too dark. I am not talking about tone. I am talking about cinematography.  2. I don't care how much Zack Snyder defends the "manslaughter over murder" deaths in the movie, I didn't care for it 3. This is not like a Marvel movie. 4. This is not a DC movie. 5. Not another Batman origin. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!! 6. Perry White. Likes - 1. This movie did not hold my hand as a comic book fan. This was not a, "Hey, lets make...

Day three on the ark. All is dark. It sounds like rain. These critters stink. Spoiler Alert I've been wandering around the internet and found many complaints by Christians leveled against the movie Noah. The chief complaint is that it is not biblical. I can't understand this complaint. Why isn't it biblical? Is it because it includes elements that aren't written into the story? Is ti because it is too fantastic (as in loaded with fantasy images)? Is it because the characters don't do what is wanted or expected? I have already touched on some of these issues in the previous posts. But I want to focus on the biblical nature of this movie in detail. I felt that it is perhaps more biblical than most movies based on biblical narratives. And that is saying a lot considering the number of Bible themed movies that have come out recently. I feel that this movie is more biblical because it not only takes the Noah story seriously, but it also puts the Noah story into t...

The last blog post respected anyone who had not seen the movie. I didn't share anything about the content. ***TO BE WARNED - THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD*** As much as I loved Noah , I did have a few complaints. My first complaint is that this was way more of an action movie than I expected. There were some dramatic fight scenes included and they were, to some, graphically violent. I know that violence is somewhat necessary. Conflict is a critical tool in story telling. And violence seems to be the most visceral way to express conflict. Given the characterizations of "men" in the movie, violence is possibly a necessary way to portray that conflict between "men" and Noah. Don't get me wrong, I like action movies. Die Hard is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies. And I wasn't complaining about the violence in the movie. I just felt that at times, the action movie genre that was employed was a little over the top. It wasn't used just a part o...

Lisa and I decided on a last minute date Friday night. I wasn't sure if I would get to see Noah this weekend. So when the opportunity opened up, I jumped. I also knew that people would want my opinion. I've already posted a few comments on the movie. If you have seen any of those, you know I have a very positive opinion of Noah. I've gone so far to say that it is more of a Christian movie than other films released by Christian distributors. I'll get into the why of that as I go along. One of the reasons I was very interested in seeing this film was the amount of anti-Christian rhetoric that was being leveled against it before it was released. I started hearing the Ultra-conservative opinions being formed against the movie before the media screenings. That means these opinions were being formed before even seeing any of the content in context. But I have to confess, I also had my pre-conceived ideas about the movie. Months ago I saw some early blurbs on some things...

I love comic books. I've been reading them as long as….well as long as I've been reading. I remember some of my earliest comic books were when I was in the second or third grade. And superhero comics are a big part of my collection. Yes, I collect comic books also. Spider-man has always been one of my heroes. And the Avengers were my favorite superhero team. But there is only one comic book series that I have collected almost every copy of and the accompanying toys (yes, I collect dolls….erm, action figures). When G.I. Joe hit the shelves in the early '80's, I grabbed the first copy. I still have it. Nope, it's not worth anything, so don't come looking for it. It is ripped and stained and frayed on the edges. It has no monetary value. But its condition should tell you where its value lies. I read and read that book over and over. This was not the story of G.I. Joe, the soldiers of World War 2. This was not the story of G.I. Joe, the toy soldier and adventurer ...

Our household is filled with Disney fandom. So when a new movie comes out, especially an animated film, we are pretty quick to go see it. Wall-E came out this last week. And if you haven't been touched by the Disney propaganda machine, then I will provide a brief plot summary. Wall-E is apparently the last working robot left on Earth to clean up the mess that consumerist Earthlings (Stuff-ans) have made while the Stuff-ans have launched themselves into space aboard a trans-galactic luxury liner. Wall-E scrounges around the urban landscape compacting the leftovers of human civilzation. He encounters the humans when he hitchhikes aboard a probe ship and causes havok among the "civilized" robots and humans. There were a lot of themes followed in this movie. Environmentalism and consumerism were the most obvious with their most catastrophic ends being protrayed. But for me, the real movement of the movie came through in the idea of becoming more than what your "directi...