May 2006 Movies

Here is what Jill is interested in for the Summer Blockbuster season. I'll split the entries up by month. First up - MAY.

The DaVinci Code -– I know, I know. Everyone is all up in arms about this one. On one hand -- it's fiction people! For pete's sake, how can anyone assume that the truth about the divinity of Christ is going to be found in a novel by Dan Brown is beyond me. That said, there is something happening with this book. Why is it so engaging? Sure, it'’s a fun yarn. But so are many, many other stories and they haven'’t been cemented into the NY Times best sellers list. What questions is the book attempting to answer? I think the answer to that question might be a little more complicated than, "Who is Jesus?"” Why are people so drawn today to exploring the indentity of the real, human Jesus? Did this book touch on something that was already brewing in our culture? If so, what?

I'm a little appalled by Christian columnists who say that Christians should avoid talking about this book with non-believers because they are just looking for an excuse not to believe in Christ. What?? Why would they need an excuse? The world applauds people who reject Christianity. They don'’t need a novel to justify their unbelief. However, they might need a novel to start asking questions about the actual Jesus who lived, died, and then came back to life. I think that Jesus has become a very distant thought to most of America. He is a very vague and ghostly figure who "sort of lived sometime and did some miracles…maybe," but he certainly doesn'’t have an impact on their lives in any concrete way. The idea of Jesus as a man who lived, suffered many pains that we all suffer, had friends and family, etc. etc. – Jesus is fully man and fully divine. Do we know what this really means? No. We can't. We aren't divine. But we could talk about it. I think this Jesus might be a fairly new idea to a lot of marginal or cultural "Christians."” If nothing else, the Da Vinci Code has started an intriguing dialogue. I hope that I can enter into that dialogue with love and an eye on Jesus and not on proving myself right or winning.

This is a pretty strong statement, but I also think that most Christians who interact with unbelievers on a regular basis and refuse to read this book are somewhat foolish. If your own faith would be damaged by reading it, then by all means, stay away. But if you can handle the challenge to your belief system (and honestly, the argument set out by the novel is weaker than a house of cards) then read it. And talk about it those around you who are asking questions. There is truth and if they aren't hearing it from you -- then why shouldn't they believe the book? And why should they listen to you if you haven't read it? After all -- you haven't read it! There are several good resources out there with the historical truth. Josh McDowell might be a good place to start, if you need some facts about early church history and The DaVinci Code.

Mission Impossible III -– already saw it. It was good. Entertaining. Definitely better than the second one. I think what I liked about it was that the danger was personal. The world wasn'’t really in danger (just in a tangential way) the danger was to someone Ethan Hawke loves. It's personal and painful and makes for a much better story.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand - I've talked about this before. Can'’t wait, but I've got some real reservations about how it will turn out. I don'’t really trust the director and it was made far too fast. They pushed the release date up several months and rushed it through pre- and post-production. We'll see...

Poseidon - This is a maybe for me. I like Josh Lucas and I like disaster movies. I'’ll probably wait to hear some reviews.

June coming soon...