Must-See Movie

James and I watched the movie Children of Heaven and then had our children watch it in segments. If you would like a refreshing break from typical, emotionally-manipulative Hollywood fare but yet would enjoy watching an uplifting story, simply told, please watch this movie! The movie is Iranian with subtitles, telling the tale of a boy who loses his little sister's shoes and the trials that follow. The movie tells a story of love and self-sacrifice while realistically portraying the pangs of childhood struggle. Please tell me if you watch it!

Defacing the Giants

I learned from the movie Chariots of Fire not to prejudge a "sports movie." When I was eleven, I reluctantly went to the movie theater with my family to see Chariots of Fire but came away inspired. I deeply admired Eric Liddel for seeking God's glory in all that he did, including running, and for standing on principle in the face of opposition.

Recently on a homeschool discussion board, some people were recommending the movie Facing the Giants as inspiring and family friendly. I gathered that the movie was a football story, and while I'm no football fan, I allowed that the movie could possibly be worthwhile.

James and I rented the movie this weekend, and we quickly realized that it was a "Christian" movie.

*Possible Spoiler Following*
In my opinion, the word that best describes the movie is "fake." Setting aside the poor acting, it was a sermon-driven story, leaving me feel very manipulated. (I don't mean that sermons are usually manipulative!) A good story should be able to communicate important truths without preaching. This particular movie has a good message: Praise God if you win and praise God if you lose. Live life for his glory. What bothered me about this film is that the only losing that occurred (apart from one little token loss! that got reversed!) happened when the characters were not trusting Jesus. As soon as they started living for him, they were showered with victory upon victory in all areas of life. The manipulation part of the movie is that if one raises a skeptical eyebrow, the message is "With God all things are possible." I believe that. Really, I do. But I also know that the kind of "advancing still from strength to strength" that occurs in the lives of heroes of the faith in the scriptures and in all Christians' lives today involves a good bit of suffering and failure from a human perspective. The glory goes to God when we trust in His strength through our weaknesses. That's the kind of faith that people take notice of and that God uses to change lives.

Facing the Giants is not based on a true story. It is not that I am opposed to Christian fiction. However, it seems to me in this case that the purpose of the movie-makers would have been better served by telling a true story of God's work in peoples' lives. Testimonies abound. This movie, in my opinion, actually misrepresents God.

Family Reading

Yesterday morning, Sophie told me that she did not have a book to read, because she had finished both books that I had checked out for her recently at the library. I perused our shelves and picked out King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry, thinking that it would satisfy my little horse freak.

She finished the book by 4 p.m.

Yes, she did her schoolwork, and I insisted that she put the book down to eat lunch and to practice piano. Apart from that, she could not put the book down. (At least she didn't cry when she finished it...this time.)

I recently watched the BBC film version of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. I enjoyed the movie much more than the BBC version of North and South by the same author. This weekend I purchased Wives and Daughters to read. The kids are calling it my "big pink book." It is 644 pages long and Mrs. Gaskell died before she finished it. (I hope writing such a long book didn't kill her.) The kids compared the book's size to the paperback LOTR trilogy on our shelf. They remarked that it would probably take me a long time to read the pink one. Actually, I re-read the LOTR trilogy in two days after the first movie came out. I'll restrain myself this time, though.

This week, I downloaded the Mozilla Firefox add-on called "Scrapbook" in hopes that it might help me to save and print out a hard copy of my blog. I really, really don't want to read the online manual. I hope I can persuade James to read it for me and then just show me the key features. He he. James doesn't read novels, but he has read the riveting story Build Your Own Pentium II PC.

Friday Night Movie

Last night, James and I watched the movie Sophie Scholl, about the arrest and trial of a young anti-Nazi activist. The movie caused me to ponder the fine line between foolhardiness and bravery. While the story, based on real-life events, is heart-breaking, it is always beautiful to witness a person of integrity taking a self-sacrificing stand for life and truth in the face of the wicked who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. I highly recommend the film!

The Winslow Boy

Last night, James and I watched The Winslow Boy,one of our favorite movies. Since it had been years since we hadlast watched it, we had forgotten enough details to make it a very enjoyable watch all over again. It was only the second time that we've viewed it.

The movie is very slow-moving and cerebral. The interest is in the dialogue and the portrayed "fight for right", not in action or in high drama. Though the movie was rated G, I re-read a review in WORLD magazine which panned the movie, saying the characters were cold and distant. I say to that: Duh! The characters are British, living in the early 20th century! This family ran on principle, not on emotion, and that is the point. I actually find the movie to be very romantic, granted in a very restrained fashion, in the way that the father fights for his son's good name and in the budding romance between a man and a woman. I laughed out loud at the dialogue which ended the movie (an unusual way to end a movie, but strangely satisfying to me), said with a sparkle in the eye, a raised eyebrow, and a curling lip.

Jeremy Northam plays one of the main characters and I love his character in this movie, as well as in the movie Emma (with Gwyneth Paltrow).

This may seem silly, but I also enjoyed looking at the color-scheme in the Winslow home! I loved the egg-shell blue or orange-hued paint colors on the walls and in the paintings hanging on the walls. But watch what happens to those paintings as the movie progresses...

Short Review of Narnia

This morning I decided to take full advantage of the flexibility of schedule allowed by homeschooling and the kids and I went on a fieldtrip to Narnia, the movie that is. After spending a looong time coveringour ears and averting our eyes during all the commercials and many previews leading up to the feature presentation, we settled in for two plus hours of delight (Turkish or otherwise).

This movie seems to have been made just at the right time. The computer technology employed made talking animals very believable. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver were especially a joy to watch.

The young actress who played Lucy was charming and natural and I loved watching her walk into Narnia for the first time. Several people have claimed that the actress bears a resemblance to my niece, Josi, and after seeing the movie, I'd have to concur. What do you think?

It never struck me this way reading the book, but it really creeped me out watching the movie to see Lucy persuaded to go away alone with a strange male, namely Mr. Tumnus. I guess the mother in me rebelled at that.

I do have to say that the movie is NOT on par with the book. I'm glad that I saw the movie, but the story was somewhat weakened. My first big moment of disappointment came when Father Christmas attributed the thaw of spring to the hope brought by the coming of the children, rather than the movement of Aslan.

Aslan himself, while visually well-done, was smaller than my imagination. He needed to be LARGER!! The book described him as larger, grander, and more majestic than a regular lion. And why oh why were the children not AFRAID of him? I guess the script-writer didn't think that a good being should elicit fear and trembling. The witch wasn't even fearful... very poorly done on
that score.

To sum it up, the movie was merely very good when it could have been great. This review says it better than I can.

Movie Night (Links and Trivia)

I am not a fan of war movies, or so I thought until I read World magazine's review of To End All Wars and watched that particular movie. To End All Wars was deeply moving and thought-provoking. It portrayed the contrast between the Japanese code of bushido and a Christian world view. The film conveyed the life-changing power of self -sacrifice. Though it realistically showed the brutality of the POW camp, I felt uplifted and inspired at the end of the movie, rather than empty and depressed. I loved how it illustrated the eloquence of Shakespeare speaking of the human condition and giving voice to even the prisoner's experience. But even more, I deeply appreciated how it displayed the power of God's Word and the Lord Jesus to transform the lives of prisoners and captors alike.

Tonight, my husband and I watched The Bridge over the River Kwai. While the movie, was well-done and worth watching, I still prefer To End All Wars.

I must say, we were surprised at the similarities between the two movies, especially at the beginning (and not just because they were both set in a Japanese POW camp). The Bridge was an excellent character study of an individualistic American soldier, a British officer devoted to principle, and the ruthless Japanese officer driven by the code of bushido, each changing
profoundly during the course of the film. However, I think that the final words uttered in the movie summed up the main theme: "Madness! Madness!"

The Bridge contained one of the most familiar marching tunes, called Colonel Bogey's March. Sadly, I recognized the tune, because it is featured in a commercial. It advertised...it is on the tip of
my tongue...I can't remember. If you can remember the commercial, please let me know what it is in the comment section!

About a month ago, we watched yet another prison camp movie: The Great Escape. I liked that movie even more than The Bridge. I won't say much about it, except that Chicken Run became even more funny after watching The Great Escape!

Another bit of trivia: While watching Chicken Run, I had a nagging feeling that I recognized the voice of Ginger the Hen. I kept thinking, Pride and Prejudice...Nah! But, I did discover that the actress who voiced the character of Ginger indeed played in the A&E Pride and Prejudice.

Her name is... Do you know? (Don't post it in the comment section if I already mentioned it to you!) And of course, the rooster character was voiced by...

An Injury, a Wild Trip, and a Must-See Movie

Well, Evan is our second child to get stitches. Last night another child threw a Rubbermaid lid which hit Evan in the eyebrow. Evan came crying up the stairs with blood streaming down his face. We took him to an after hours clinic where he got four stitches. He was very brave about it and didn't cry, even though it hurt.

This year we have been doing some homeschool co-oping with some friends from church. The mom teaches the kids science on Tues. and Thurs. and I teach English for the middle school daughter. On Saturday, we did a field trip to the zoo together. Since it was a free day, it was very crowded. At one point, we went inside a feline exhibit. I looked through the glass wall at the lions. The male lion caught sight of a group of kids beside me and got hot and bothered. He fixed his eyes on them, charged them and slammed into the glass, shaking it, in his attempt to attack. After a few moments, it apparently realized that its efforts were thwarted and headed back towards its resting place, turning its head and snarling in our direction on the way. I tried to get my kids' attention to see all this, but they had left the building right before the incident occurred and did not see it. I Peter 5:8 certainly came to my mind in light of the experience.

Last weeked, we saw the movie "To End All Wars" on DVD. The movie potently portrayed the power of God's word to give hope and transform lives in the midst of a bleak situation caused by sinful man. Don't watch this movie if you can't stomach violence or some harsh language (but no taking of God's name in vain), but if you can, realize that it is a true storyand it is not glorifying evil. You can read more about this film at "R" for "Redemptive" or at To End All Culture Wars BUT the latter article really might reveal too many details if you intend to see the movie. I'm glad that I didn't read that article right before seeing the movie. If you do see this movie, let me know what you think!

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

For the past two days, I've been reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis aloud to the kids. I remember that this was the first of the Narnian Tales that I read as a kid. I started reading it while visiting at a woman's house (I don't remember the details). The story captured my imagination immediately ("surprised by joy"!) I had to get ahold of the whole series when returning home...The kids protest everytime I take a break from reading it. They thought it was hysterical when Reepicheep spanked Eustace with the flat of his sword for swinging him around by his tail (Reep is a 2 ft. tall, chivalrous talking mouse.)

This week, I let the kids watch the movie The Man From Snowy River, a little each day. (I fast-forwarded through the mushy kissing ; ) They had just finished listening to The Black Stallion on tape and so watched a horse movie. Yesterday, I washed dishes and watched them while they watched the movie. When Evan saw the horses plunging through the snow, he looked at me and grinned and looked up at a new print of a painting titled "Horses in the Snow" by David Stoecklein that is hanging in our family room. Exactly. (I'll take pictures of our family room once we have the walls painted so that you can see our new additions.)

This morning, I had them play "War" with dominoes. The boys each drew a domino, multiplied the two numbers on their own domino and the kid with the highest number kept both dominoes. The one with the most dominoes at the end won the game. I just realized that if you multiply the numbers up to 10 by 9, the two numbers in the answer will add up to 9! Ex: 9x2=18 (1+8=9) or 9x7=63 (6+3=9) Maybe everybody knows that but me. Blush.

Yesterday, Sophie decided to write a letter to Ana, her cousin. She told me what she wanted to say. I wrote it down. She copied it. Later, I called Loey, Ana's mom, who said that when she and Ana had gone to the mailbox earlier, Ana had wailed, "My friends never write to me anymore!" They opened the box and there was the letter that Sophie had written to her earlier this week! Ana said that Sophie is her best friend EVER.

...This morning, Sophie insisted on writing another letter to Ana even though the one that she wrote yesterday is out in the mailbox. : )