Again, circumstances of being sick and staying at home instead of participating in other 'Christian' activities have allocated time and opportunity for me to watch this movie...
I initially heard about this movie from a Christian friend, but haven't actually seen it. The theme and meaning behind the title of the movie was that if someone did a good deed for you, you would in turn go and return a good deed to someone else. The idea came from a student and was inspired by a motto his teacher (played by Kevin Spacey) was trying to teach in class, with the intention of trying to inspire his students toward positive global scale change:
"Think of an idea to change the world and put it into ACTION!" [may not be 100% accurate quote, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223897/]
The quote on the movie cover as can be seen from imdb.com is:
"When someone does you a big favor, don't pay it back...PAY IT FORWARD..."
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223897/]
The student's idea was that if each person who received help would in turn help three other people, PAYING IT FORWARD eventually multiply and the entire world will eventually be helped.
Since I was watching this on one of the more conservative channels (CTS), any profanity in the original version of the film was again 'blanked out' which made it difficult to understand the explanation of the idea or theory in the jail scene. Suffice to say, the concept of 'Pay it Forward' was being transmitted 'word of mouth' similar to that of a 'broken telephone' and while the main point is still there, the wording may not have been original.
Although attempting to minimize 'spoilers', I kind of want to point out this movie has a 'sad' ending involving 'human sacrifice' (hehe) which reminds me of some other bible verses, but I am concerned I will completely 'spoil' the movie if I specify which verses, so I guess you're just going to have to watch the movie and find the passages for yourself afterwards. :P I am debating whether to add this next sentence, those of you who don't like 'spoilers' should skip to the next paragraph. Let's just say the ending was very 'Christian'.
Overall, the movie wasn't at all bad, so I think it deserves the 6.9 rating on imdb.com as of the day I checked the ratings. The moral of the movie is making a positive impact in the lives of others should be positive enough to be its own motivator for the individuals helped to in turn help others. Seeing that they made this into a movie, the concept should essentially be out in circulation but I have yet to receive that 'random act of kindness' from a stranger for me to believe that I have experienced 'Pay it Forward' first hand. As the main protaganist says in the movie, "it has to be something big". Not to discount small favors we do for people, but I guess I'll end the review by pointing out that perhaps the reason why the kid mentioned it this way is because 'small things' aren't necessarily 'sacrifices'.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Looks like the world has not ended just yet... :P
'Wippee doo....' so far we've been through over '40 days' of 2012 and we are still here. That being said, guess what guys (for those who are still reading this, I'm sorry if I've lost some of you readers because of lack of updates or perhaps through some of the other entries which were more jumbled bits and pieces that weren't something you could understand or relate to...) I'm also another year older...
So for those of you who recall what I said in a previous Birthday entry, it's still true because my # hasn't changed and I'm still with Telus, that if you wish to call me to wish me a happy birthday it is still free all day. In light of the fact that I am late in posting this entry and the fact I may need to make a few phone calls later anyhow, I am going to take advantage of Telus' 'pay-per-day unlimited early evenings and weekend calling' and likely will still have unlimited calling from around 3PM today to 3PM tomorrow/Sunday.
Since I haven't done one for a while, as a warm-up for my other writing projects, I have decided to write yet another one of my 'Christian-friendly' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYRZgOhYNAY] movie commentaries. Again, I warn you as I did in my other commentaries, there are going to be some spoilers, but as few as possible.
Overall, I was not impressed much with the movie itself. It seem quite low-budget and the storyline lacked enough complexity and originality. In following the tradition/pattern of my other movie commentaries, I will now switch to discussing the Christian values of this movie. The movie centres around 3 highschoolers who inherit a mysterious power from an unknown source that allows them to be telekinetic which in turn leads them to be able to do many things that other humans cannot do, such as resist weapons fire, fly, etc... The only thing I can think of in the Christian context that sort of compares to this is when the Apostles received the power of the holy spirit at Pentacost:
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them. [Acts 2:1-5, NIV 1984]
Granted, we need to keep in mind the empowering at Pentecost mentioned in Acts may not be exactly the same as what happens in the Chronicle movie. I think the primary difference here is that in Chronicle, they had control over their power while in the case of the Apostles, even though they still had their free will, I am not sure that the Apostles could invoke the power of the spirit on cue whenever they wanted for whatever they wanted; my theory is that God only granted them power when God wanted to work through them and only to do what God wanted to be done.
Similarly, something like this also kind of happened in the movie, because one of the guys decided to institute rules intended for governing the use of their power(s) when one of the other guys almost accidentally killed someone who was annoying them. Ok, here comes the biggest spoiler of my review, apparently these rules didn't work out so well and the main plot twist in the movie is that one of the three highschoolers endowed with this power decides to use it selfishly and recklessly.
Due to all the violence that followed, in a way, you could say that if the rogue teen was able to continue his rampage and continued to get more powerful, it would probably lead to the end of the world. Considering the the book of Revelation in the bible was written to a first century audience, recently there has since been a lot more discussion as well as movies on the end of the world since then.
I now propose that the moral of this movie is that their power was a 'gift' and shouldn't be abused for our own selfish gain. In a sense, as Christians, we also need to value everything that God has given us [James 1:16-18], our time, our lives, the people around us. We too need to 'do the right thing' and perhaps some of you who've seen the movie may argue that like the empowered teens, we as Christian too follow a set of 'rules'. However, I want to remind you now that our Christian lives isn't simply 'following the rules', not that Jesus himself does not teach us to follow the rules [Matthew 5, 6], but it is also about following in the footsteps and lifestyle of Jesus [1 Peter 2:20-21]. When we reflect upon this a bit and the records of all the miracles Jesus and the Apostles performed, we realized that Jesus had 'all the power in the world' [Matthew 28:18], yet he "did not come to be served, but to serve" [Matthew 20:28, 10:45]. Jesus did 'good' with his life and we ought to follow in his example, even if we don't all have the same amount of supernatural power as the empowered teens in this movie or the early Apostles...
So for those of you who recall what I said in a previous Birthday entry, it's still true because my # hasn't changed and I'm still with Telus, that if you wish to call me to wish me a happy birthday it is still free all day. In light of the fact that I am late in posting this entry and the fact I may need to make a few phone calls later anyhow, I am going to take advantage of Telus' 'pay-per-day unlimited early evenings and weekend calling' and likely will still have unlimited calling from around 3PM today to 3PM tomorrow/Sunday.
Since I haven't done one for a while, as a warm-up for my other writing projects, I have decided to write yet another one of my 'Christian-friendly' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYRZgOhYNAY] movie commentaries. Again, I warn you as I did in my other commentaries, there are going to be some spoilers, but as few as possible.
Overall, I was not impressed much with the movie itself. It seem quite low-budget and the storyline lacked enough complexity and originality. In following the tradition/pattern of my other movie commentaries, I will now switch to discussing the Christian values of this movie. The movie centres around 3 highschoolers who inherit a mysterious power from an unknown source that allows them to be telekinetic which in turn leads them to be able to do many things that other humans cannot do, such as resist weapons fire, fly, etc... The only thing I can think of in the Christian context that sort of compares to this is when the Apostles received the power of the holy spirit at Pentacost:
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them. [Acts 2:1-5, NIV 1984]
Granted, we need to keep in mind the empowering at Pentecost mentioned in Acts may not be exactly the same as what happens in the Chronicle movie. I think the primary difference here is that in Chronicle, they had control over their power while in the case of the Apostles, even though they still had their free will, I am not sure that the Apostles could invoke the power of the spirit on cue whenever they wanted for whatever they wanted; my theory is that God only granted them power when God wanted to work through them and only to do what God wanted to be done.
Similarly, something like this also kind of happened in the movie, because one of the guys decided to institute rules intended for governing the use of their power(s) when one of the other guys almost accidentally killed someone who was annoying them. Ok, here comes the biggest spoiler of my review, apparently these rules didn't work out so well and the main plot twist in the movie is that one of the three highschoolers endowed with this power decides to use it selfishly and recklessly.
Due to all the violence that followed, in a way, you could say that if the rogue teen was able to continue his rampage and continued to get more powerful, it would probably lead to the end of the world. Considering the the book of Revelation in the bible was written to a first century audience, recently there has since been a lot more discussion as well as movies on the end of the world since then.
I now propose that the moral of this movie is that their power was a 'gift' and shouldn't be abused for our own selfish gain. In a sense, as Christians, we also need to value everything that God has given us [James 1:16-18], our time, our lives, the people around us. We too need to 'do the right thing' and perhaps some of you who've seen the movie may argue that like the empowered teens, we as Christian too follow a set of 'rules'. However, I want to remind you now that our Christian lives isn't simply 'following the rules', not that Jesus himself does not teach us to follow the rules [Matthew 5, 6], but it is also about following in the footsteps and lifestyle of Jesus [1 Peter 2:20-21]. When we reflect upon this a bit and the records of all the miracles Jesus and the Apostles performed, we realized that Jesus had 'all the power in the world' [Matthew 28:18], yet he "did not come to be served, but to serve" [Matthew 20:28, 10:45]. Jesus did 'good' with his life and we ought to follow in his example, even if we don't all have the same amount of supernatural power as the empowered teens in this movie or the early Apostles...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
...the next generation
Not sure who invented it, but presently, it has been a number of years ago now that I have heard someone express that "a generation is ...
