Movies I will watch this Holy Week

To get in touch with their Lord or inner spirituality during Holy Week, some people go church-hopping, others get themselves literally nailed to a cross, and a few more go on a public or private retreat.

Me, if I can't do the last activity (and it's been years), I re-watch a few beloved movies:

Jesus of Nazareth - IMO, the best movie of Jesus Christ of all time.  It's been more than 30 years and the six-hour mini-series still holds up to today and stands scrutiny.  It takes a few dramatic liberties (e.g. Peter the fisherman wants to brawl with Matthew the tax-collector) and skips out on Herod's encounter with the Lord, but under Franco Zeffirelli's masterful hand, the Gospel is brought to life dramatically and powerfully.  The characters in them are humanized and made to act like flesh-and-blood human beings with their own motives and doubts, causing them to act as cowards one moment, and heroes the next.  Each shot carries a sense of grandeur and there are some scenes that, when freeze-frozen, looks like a painting (e.g. when Jesus calls Peter a rock and that He must build His church); to date, the only movie I've seen that comes close is Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers (think of Gandalf's last-minute rescue at Helms Deep).

Of course, Jesus of Nazareth can't be mentioned without acknowledging the contribution of Robert Powell, who is the only actor who portryed that role as humanity and divinity personified.  As Zeffirelli acknowledged when he cast Powell, it was the eyes that sold the actor on him.  Eyes that saw everything, were infinitely compassionate, and at the same time seemed to beckon with the promise of eternity.  Nowin his late 60s, Powell says that he portrayed Jesus (he was then in his mid-30s) as millions believed him to be.  Good job, Robert - your act remains untopped,  the challenges of Mel Gibson and the most recent BBC passion play notwithstanding.

Les Miserables - the Tenth Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert:  Sure, it's set in revolutionary France and the entire three-hour performance is sung in costume, but Cameron Mackintosh's award-winning musical theatrical rendition of Victor Hugo's novel makes very real the power of faith and forgiveness in a society wracked by rebellion, anger, discontent, and institutional injustice.  I've seen other more cinematic versions of Les Mis (e.g. the Liam Neeson version), but  nobody can replace Colm Wilkinson and Philip Quast as Valjean and Javert in my mind.

Beyond the Gates:  Based on real-life accounts of the Rwandan massacre.  What would you do if you were this British priest (played by John Hurt) who, after serving the mission field and educating the Rwandans for more than 30 years, finally find yourself in the middle of a tribal genocide - your only option is to either get away and go back to England (supported by a UN more than willing to help you) or stand with the Africans whom you loved and get hacked to them into pieces by their machete-wielding enemies?  It's a dilemma that leaves no easy answers and defies anyone to cast judgment.  John Hurt's Fr. Christopher was all-too human and yet showed remarkable grace under pressure.

Chariots of Fire:  The lifestory of Eric Liddell  (played by the late Ian Charleson), who before consecrating himself as a Scottish missionary in China (and dying in a prison camp there in the 1950s) ran for the U.K in the Olympics in the 1920s.  He ran for his country and his God - and when there was a conflict, God won out.  His last race at the end was simply inspirational.  So were his quiet sharings to a crowd of followers and his preaching at the pulpit.

Green movies

Nope, I don't mean the prurient or the lurid. 'Green' in these global-warming days, when doomsayers would have you believe that the end of the world will come crashing down on us in 2012, means theme or a message that promotes environmental awareness and ecological responsibility.

Undoubtedly, James Cameron's Avatar is the first movie to come in mind when it comes to this subject. It's provocative enough to make you re-examine your commitment to preserving the ozone layer, but if you really want a shock to the system and something closer to him, brace yourself for the aptly titled An Inconvenient Truth. Then there was an episode of History Channel's Mega Disasters which showed in horrific detail what would happen say our present sea levels were to rise 1-3 inches in a couple of years' time: my mind still reels at the images of a London half-submerged in a flood that makes Ondoy look like a stream and a blazing heat that leaves the once sunny California a withered desert.

And if all that still does not disturb you, watch Soylent Green,, a apocalyptic yarn that names the ultimate price that neglectful man must pay for abusing his environment. The extinction of animals and the devastation of the forests process corpses into packaged food, turning mankind into unwitting cannibals.

No greater indictment and punishment is there of man's irresponsibility than the hero, detective Charlton Heston's, anguished cry, "Soylent green [the processed food that is delivered to the masses]....is people."

Movie inspiration

I know that most of us watch the movies occasionally to de-stress or escape from the doldrums of life, but a long time ago, in college when Betamax rewinds were too screechy and a very good memory came in handy, I did so to find some kind of inspiration. Seriously. I needed a lift, an encouragement that came in the form of a line, a visage, or a thematic idea. Those images were boosters that sparked something in my soul and triggered my creativity. I didn't come up with anything earthshaking but the images were enough to chase away any self-pity and prompted me to reach for something higher by thinking hard, exploring the untrod road, and digging in deep to work even harder.

Just a few favorite cinematic lines/images from my college moviewatching that have lodged in my grey matter up to today and emerge once in a while when I need something to chase the shadows away:

Brother Sun Sister Moon (1972): St. Francis' (Graham Faulkner) dramatic declaration of his faith and renouncing all things worldly in the town square, in front of his family, their businessmen friends, and the powerful clergy.

Chariots of Fire (1981): Who could forget Eric Liddell's (Ian Charleson) triumphant race in the Olympics with a voice-over that could have been corny but wasn't ("God made me for a purpose. He also made it fast. When I run, I feel his pleasure.")

Fiddler on a Roof (1972): The classic songs of this musical about a Jewish family coming to terms with change in Russia of the 1900s were alternately fun, rollicking, solemn, moving, and always provocative ("Sunrise, Sunset," "If I Were a Rich Man," "Sabbath Prayer").

Jesus Christ Superstar (1972): Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's portrayal of a Messiah who battled against his doubts in the shadow of a looming crucifixion amidst breaking dawn and the darkness of Gethsemane.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): The riveting court scenes when a Supreme Court Judge, whose integrity has always been deemed impeccable, is tried with his more corrupt peers by the Allies in post-WW2 Germany as a guilt-ridden nation comes to terms with the Holocaust.

Spartacus (1960): An army of freed slaves rises up one by one, volunteering to take the place of their leader Spartacus (KIrk Douglas) about to be crucified by the Romans.

Looking at this list now, I am struck by the single irony that most of them, if not all, have religious themes. I may be a Christian now, but back then, when I was still creating my Betamax collection, I was a full-blown, Ayn-Rand-chomping, dedicated atheist. Go figure.

A journalist's crusade

Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney's directorial debut of how crusading journalist Edward R. Murrow went head-on and won against the witch hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, is a must-watch for any of us who have contemplated becoming a member of the press, print or broadcast. A bit of a background: The power-hungry (and some say crazy) McCarthy used Americans' fear of Communism to indict and cast aspersions (on a national level at that) on individuals and groups he suspected of loyalty to the Red cause. This happened in the post-WW2 era when the U.S., standing for democracy, and U.S.S.R, representing totalitarianism, were in race to become the leader of the world. Anyone that McCarthy ranted against - regardless of his innocence - was immediately branded a Red, and was immediately ostracized by the world around him; even if he were spared jail, he could lose his job, his social standing, his reputation, his circle of friends.

It was against this abuse that the tough-as-nails Murrow launched his campaign against. Murrow (played by David Straithairn) rightly deduced that it was this tyranny and the abuse of power that free, clear-thinking, courageous citizens must denounce. Though Murrow was at the peak of his popularity, his one TV show could not hope to stand against the arsenal of the government - and worse, the advertisers of his show who would pull out if Murrow becomes too outspoken.

Murrow's boss, the head of CBS (played by Frank Langella), struck a delicate but firm balance on the divide between the responsibilities of honest, dedicated journalism and the pragmatic concerns of the TV station which just might close under the onslaught.

Needless to say, Murrow won - and McCarthy fell from grace. But the price that the journalist - and his station - paid was steep. Yet in his last speech before an audience, Murrow cautions that the war was far from over. His last lines are unforgettable and serves as a warning to those who take their freedom - and the freedom of the press - for granted.

Tempted by the Temptations

Why I'd watch over and over this TV-movie whenever I'd catch it in Hallmak about a decade ago is still a mystery to me up to now. The Temptations was never my favorite group. Sure, I liked some of its songs but they were never in my personal Top 40. Given a stack of CDs or VCDs, I'd grab those of the Jacksons or the Bee Gees/Andy Gibb over this Motown musical group any time. I wasn't even familiar with any of their cast of characters and their stories, as I was with John, Paul, George, and Ringo, for example.

But still I watched. Didn't matter whether I caught the movie at the beginning, middle or the end. Maybe because it was just a well-made TV movie of the rise and fall of one of the most popular bands in its era (the 1960s) who revolutionized the music industry then by catapulting one hit after another into the charts from an African-American group, unheard of at that time. Maybe it was the writing that deftly captured the evolution and later devolution of eager young singers who reached for their dreams only to crash and burn. Maybe it was the strong bond of friendship of the two founders that layered the emotional stampede in the film, giving it heart and soul.

I'd never had that kind of experience again - wherein I'd drop everything at the broadcast of a TV movie about a cast of characters that were not exactly known to me. In that sense, this TV movie of The Temptations is a first for me and, still, a mystery.

Just a snippet of thought on Jerry Maguire

It's one of the few Tom Cruise movies I can bring myself to watch (I deplored his peacock-like posturing in Top Gun and hated his self-serving travesty of a remake that was the first Mission: Impossible film. And the one reason I watch Jerry Maguire is because of its story, not the star, and its play on redemption. In the fast-moving world of sports giants and their agents, you harden your heart and play hard or you lose your one shot at fame and fortune. The titular character, played by Cruise, is one such sports agent who found himself laughed at and ostracized when he tried to bring back ethics, integrity, and all those forgotten values back.

In a world where the real person and the brand get intermixed and become almost inseparable, Jerry Maguire tries to find his soul. And that, at least for me, is what makes it most appealing.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Pirates, raiders, thieves, robber barons...with no honest bone in their body.

Yikes! Warning to all admirers of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates - the 1999 movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, which freqently crops up in HBO, portrays these idols of millions of the Apple and Explorer generation in a totally unflattering light.

True, the movie depicts them both as driven, ambitious, eager to create their own new world - but that's just the problem that supposedly lies at the core of each man: everything else is secondary, and woe to everyone who gets in the way. Jobs' daughter is portrayed as a casualty (although the film acknowledges at the end that he eventually played loving father). Noah Wylie lets go of his aw-shucks charm to portray Jobs as a narcissistic genius who dismisses his men on a whim. Anthony Michael Hall's Bill Gates isn't an improvement, either - he's a whiny nerd who just wants to copy and "pirate" whatever it is that Jobs is doing.

So much for innovation. Granted that the movie can become a guilty pleasure of a tabloid TV movie that lets you in on the depraved weaknesses of today's gods...but still, there has to be more to these men. Wasn't there anything that the movie could have portrayed of the inner light in Bill Gates that decades later, would show him as an altruist donating his fortune to countless unfortunates? Or the strength of character that saw Jobs sustain - and triumph over - several bouts of cancer?

Nope, the definitive movie on these two tech giants still has to be made. I, for one, would like some meat on the plate in the new version, something that would show the heart, soul, and spirit that gave birth to the Internet era.

Gates and Jobs were probably the first software millionnaie entrepreneurs - they won't be the last. And if only for that, I'd really like to see an honest cinematic depiction of them (and not a homage, mind you).

This film just keeps knocking them down, and the tongue-in-cheek approach doesn't really help in getting the bile out of your mouth.

One supposedly revelatory scene SPOILER SPACE is that Jobs supposedly stole the concept of the mouse, one of the revolutionary tools introduced by Apple, from Xerox. Yup, it made me think...and wonder...and wonder a lot. But I'd also have to ask: how long can an empire last if its foundations and subsequent pillars were built on stolen loot? Not for long. It would have imploded as soon as it started. Last I heard, Gates was still giving away millions to charity as the #2 richest man in the world. And in one board meeting, Jobs announced that Apple had a SURPLUS of $40 billion just lying around.

TV, Cable, and all that jazz

In this age of laptops, YouTubes, and downloadable films, cable TV remains a favorite (if not constant) companion. It's the upper that sometimes gets me out of bed in the morning, the escape window that pulls me out of my funk, and the lullaby that soothes me to sleep at night. Maybe it's the images, the cacophony of sound and sight - whatever it is, it connects to the inside of my brain and snaps me back into life. (Whereas my favorite books would take some time to ferment, and I'd have to find a way to quiet down.)

All the charges of TV making you a passive couch potato still stand - however, I'd like to think that the shows, especially the ones in cable TV, compel you to interact, if not necessarily think. Why'd you think reality shows became a hit the past decade, since Survivor made its classic debut? All of a sudden, the audience is invited to participate, critique, yell, bet on their favorite idol - even if they are being drowned in entertainment.

Not all of it is mindless. Just check the channels of History and Discovery where you get a different interpretation of how the West was won, or how Asia's version of the Titanic took place tragically in our own shores and in one of our own vessels. Or you get a modern re-imagining of Superman that finally makes all those comic book stories make sense. Let's not forget how Jerry Bruckheimer brought the discipline and larger-than-life sense of cinema into his own TV shows, effectively making one-hour movies of series like CSI.

In the mood for nostalgia on a Sunday, that's what MGM is for - they have a lot of 1980s movies. Or the black-and-white Mission Impossible and Combat on MAXX.

And once in a great while, you stumble on an intellectual gem like Kings which re-enacts the Biblical story of David, Saul, and Samuel amidst the strife, political and religous intrigue and modern day machinery of the 21st century.

Sure, I don't get to watch all my favorite shows, but then again that's what DVDs are for.