Audio Visual Update

I ordered Robin of Sherwood on MelCat. It's a BBC TV series from the 80s. I liked the characters and setting, even though the battles were very staged, and I even liked Robin's hair (80s shag, almost mullet. :-) However, I do not recommend the series and I could not watch it myself because it was so New Age and "spiritual." One character was overtly demonic (he was the bad guy). I wanted to keep watching, hoping it would get better, but I was starting to crawl in my skin, so I stopped and returned it today. I'm waiting for some other series through MelCat, and I know they'll be better, as I've seen them before and know what I'm getting into. :-)


Over the 4th of July holiday, I watched Gran Torino, which is an amazing movie. It is less violent than I thought it would be, and it has a redeeming message. It is very gritty, but it is also good. I have been impressed with the idea this year that everything in this world is mixed and nothing is pure. Nothing is perfectly good, and nothing is so bad that it cannot be redeemed. I am not rationalizing filth, but merely stating what I find to be true. Every good moment will have a bit of negative, and every negative will have some good, even if we do not realize the good on this earth. Thus, some good messages and some good things in life will be tinged with bad. So, we should weigh our choices and make our own personal decisions in regards to this balance.

I also watched Defiance over the weekend with my family. I had seen it once before, by myself, as my mom gave it to me for my birthday. It also is an excellent movie about Jews resisting and surviving in the forests of Belarus in World War II. It raises the question of humanity and the response to evil and injustice. Retribution? Fighting? Surviving? It is very realistic, and I like that. It is a resistance movie, and even though they are the "good" side, the "right" side, they still had to do "bad" things. Steal. Murder. How do you endure injustice? How do you react? How do you keep your humanity in the face of inhumanity? War is both extremely human and inhuman, and it will always be a part of this life until Jesus defeats Satan for good in the final battle. I am glad that they made a movie that shows the struggles and survival of Jews who resisted, both physically and merely by surviving, and what they endured, both physically and emotionally. Also, it is nice to see a movie that does not idealize living in the forest.

Also, I really like the new series on USA called Royal Pains, and I do not generally like medical TV series. Mark Feuerstein plays the main character, Hank Lawson, and he is also in Defiance as the socialist intellectual. It made me happy, but I didn't notice until the credits rolled the first time I watched Defiance.

The End. (For now.)