I really enjoy reading the columns of nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. Cal spent a few days with us at Emmanuel and my wife and I had the privilege of visiting with him around the dinner table and really appreciated his humble, genuine faith in Jesus Christ. It was refreshing to hear someone so well known be unashamed about his personal relationship with Christ, and his very real desire to lead others to know Him as well.My family and church know that I am a big screen buff. If I weren't a preacher I would probably be a movie critic in the order of the late late Gene Siskel and his friend Roger Ebert. Good moving making is an art, and the best directors are some of our best modern and creative artists. I am also very interested in the evaluations and critiques of newly released movies from people I respect.
Cal Thomas, on occasions, weighs in on Hollywood. A recent Cal Thomas column entitled World Trade Center Is A World Class Movie, caught my interest. This Oliver Stone directed movie, aptly named World Trade Center, is due to be released next week (August 10th), and in Thomas' review of the movie he says, "It is one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, 'God Bless America' films you will ever see."
He further states that the movie is about five Port Authority Police officers who helped clear the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, where "three of them died and two, Will Jimeno (played persuasively by Michael Pena) and Sergeant John McLoughlin (played magnificently by Nicolas Cage), were buried in the rubble. These are real men who love their wives and children and are not afraid to say so. They are religious men who pray without shame or reserve. In fact, Jesus makes an appearance in Jimeno's hallucination, carrying a bottle of water to quench his thirst). Treating faith as genuine and with respect has only recently made a comeback among filmmakers."\
I predict three things about you and this movie if you choose to see it. (1). You will be moved to literal tears when watching the movie, (2). You will realize that true heroism comes from people with character, and (3). You will be reminded why the war against terrorism is necessary.
Watch the World Trade Center trailor here and enjoy the movie next week.
In His Grace,
wade
15 comments:
Thanks for the notice, Wade. I got a tear just watching the trailer! I hope it will be shown here in Malaysia. Religion and Politics being what they are, I'm not sure it will. I haven't seen any ads.
Todd
Kuala Lumpur
Thanks for the info. I had wondered about the movie because of the director. Now I will plan on seeing it.
And you're right about Cal Thomas.
Wade:
Fair enough. I plan to see the movie in a few days as well, and caught bits and pieces of the chat on PBS Charlie Rose with Stone and some of the cast. Keep an eye out for All the King's Men later in the fall, and something in the Hopper I have a personal interest in, the film adaptation of the great novel One Foot in Eden, by Baptist Shaped novelist Ron Rash. If One Foot is too steamy in parts for some of you, try his latest, World Made Straigh, before you write him off.
To modify some of the nuances of your endorsement of Stone's movie, I challenge all of you to give a serious reading to my friend Charles Kimball's 2002 When Religion Becomes Evil. I was in the Sanctuary of the FBC Greenville, SC in 2002 with the brother of the State GOP Chair, Baxter Wynn, as well as President Clinton's Sec Ed. former SC Gov Dick Riley when Kimball made one of his first presentations of the book.
That book in tandem with many of the reports at www.ethicsdaily.com lately challenging Ergun Caner, and reporting the concerns of Baptist Seminary in Beirut proff Martin Accad, will give some balance to the patriotic enthusiams elicited by this film.
My Old friend and your new, David Flick; our mutual friend at www.mainstreambaptists.org Bruce Prescott leavens the loaf as well.
Thank you for your new policy on comments and it is in that oxygen I am swimming now and I appreciate it.
Hope to do lunch with you and Webb and Flick, maybe even David Montoya, sometime myself.
God Bless the USA
Stephen Fox
and I God Bless and I commend to you all my friend Randall Balmer's new book with the glorious chapter Where Have all the Baptists Gone. See my Blog for extensive comments on that and links. Thanks
Wade,
A friend took my wife and I to dinner last night and we wathced the pre-release at the Harkins in OKC. You will enjoy the movie. I will look forward to your review. If I have time today, I may just write one up myself.
Enjoy.
Wade,
It should be a great movie. Of course being from Alabama I will be seeing Talladega Nights soon!
Also, please be praying for me and a group from the church were I serve. We are flying to Mexico to work with some IMB missionaries tomorrow. May God’s name be made great among the nations.
Johnny Grimes
Wade,
I had not planned on seeing the movie. Mainly because I wonder what conspiracy theory Stone was going to throw out there this time.
I guess now I need to see it. Thanks for the heads up
ARB, i think Wade's an OSU guy...
tears for me too just on trailer.
will... i've been told i favor him. egads (on the look like him part). should be a hilarious movie.
Batgirl and Arkansas Razorbaptist and all other movie lovers,
I hate to be the bearer of bad news.
DON'T WASTE your money on Ricky Bobby Ballad.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a negative 4.
Funniest scenes are in the trailor and they left a couple of those out of the movie.
Weak attempts at giving a moral message drowned out in the nasty, grotesque, often sacriligious dialogue.
It is not funny.
BEWITCHED, another Will Ferrell movie had the same weakness (looked good on the previews and tanked in the theater).
Sorry.
Two thumbs down.
Way, way, way down.
It's the new haircut...Wade's that is. I was hoping for a mullet.
I can't believe you people are going to see moving picture shows! What's next?!?!? Dancing? Drinking? It's all a slippery slope if you ask me. I'm gonna curl up with my "Left Behind" books and listen to Christian radio tonight.
Marty "How You Do In"
Cal and I bear no resemblance!
I had the pleasure to get into a sneak preview of Mr. Stone's movie, and Cal Thomas got it dead right .. Mr. Stone just checked his politics at the door and made a surprisingly restrained movie about true American heroism
I appreciate the heads up on the movie. I will probably check it out soon as well.
I remember the week immediately following 9/11 when I was sitting in a doctoral class at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon with Professor Eddie Gibbs and about 14 other students. I pointed out to the class that 9/11 was a defining moment in USAmerican culture, one that will have far-reaching ramifications which would fundamentally change our social landscape. To me this was a no brainer and I certainly was not the only person, secular or religious, saying that.
Another student, a Sr Pastor of a large church, shot me down quite harshly saying that we would forget all about it within weeks and that it was being blown out of proportion. I respectfully but unapologetically disagreed with his assessment, much to his frustration.
And now here we are, watching the events of that horrible day being played out in the cinema. Plus its consequences are being felt profoundly in our daily lives and the continuing war on terrorism is being engaged in foreign theaters of war five years later and counting. Don't get me wrong, I claim no special dispensation of knowledge. I am just a warehouseman in a local floorcovering store and a volunteer children's minister.
My point is I could not understand how someone with so much responsibility in the community and credentials to back it up simply did not get it. I wonder if he does now.
Blessings,
Glen Woods
Stephen Fox! Friend, I try so hard to read your comments, but with all the names you throw around I get so lost!
Wade- I watched the trailer for the movie this morning. It's going to be a tear-jerker I'm sure.
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