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Reviews
Sabina: Tortured for Christ - The Nazi Years (2021)
Transformation During Persecution
I was blessed to meet Richard and Sabina back in 1991. This film was acurate to their stroy of a Jewish couple who rescued many from the Nazi gas chambers. After the war when the Soviets took over Eastern Europe Richard was sent to a prison camp for sharing his faitn in Yeshua (Jeusus) with other people. This persecution still takes place in many countries. It is ironic that this film should come at as the Russians are starting to invade Ukraine and families of refugees are now pouring iinto countires that once housed concetration camps.
King of Jazz (1930)
One Can Only Imagine What Coud Have Been.
Obvioulsy a movie aobut jazz that includes no African American musicians makes this movie the history of Kenny G.
Social issues aside. What a disappointment. Can you image if they had actual filmed Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, Bix, Pops, Django, King Oliver,and other real jazz musicians from 1930?
What a missed opportunity. I found it very interesting that there was not one improvised solo in the whole movie. Jazz is improvised art. This was all written out dance music, waltzes, latin music, light operatic singing and of course Bing Crosby who tries but fails miserably to emulate Louis Armstrong's free flowing singing.
Nothing much in this entire movie of actual jazz. Ironically, there were some amazing white jazz musicians during this period but this movie intentionally leaves them out as well. Jazz is not playing impressive technical music that is written down. It is the spontaneous expression of the player's heart, struggles, skills, experiences and love of life intertwining with the sounds of the musicians around them. If jazz is truly the melting pot of American music then this movie offers nothing of that amazing art form.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
No Magic
We watched the original a couple of days before watching this 3rd sequel and I want my money back. Next Level is so lame.
Breakthrough (2019)
Very Moving
I loved this movie. I'm sure it will get many bad reviews simply because it is
"churchy". I loved this story. It reached many topics related to suffering loss such as how to cope, how to react and how to appreciate those around you who are at a loss for words.
Hindsight (2015)
Sci Fi or Soap Opera?
This show caught my attention as a time travel tome. Everyone has had the fantasy about what you would do if you could go back. I often think about the stock market or sports betting. Maybe warn the president about 9-11 or try to save people from other disasters. I think I would try to "invent" Facebook or "Amazon" of "Windows" and become a billionaire, but that would be stealing in a way. I have made it now to episode 5 of "Hindsight" and so far they have only written a soap opera about really dumb 20 somethings. The characters scream all of the time when the see their friends in bars or they get free tickets to the REM concert. The writers of this show clearly missed it. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to watch this show.
God's Not Dead (2014)
True Story
I teach in a university and have had to sit on review boards concerning this very same issue. We get complaints from students all the time concerning the atheist intolerance of certain professors. There is nothing more intolerant on a college campus than an ego-maniac prof. who thinks open minded means lock-step agreement with Marxism, atheism and Christian bashing. One prof we had to deal with actually failed a student because the student was going into the military and the prof. wanted to prevent the student from passing the prerequisite courses and thereby forfeiting his military tuition stipend. After the threat of lawsuits we were able to convince the guy to change the grade as the student's case was very strong and backed up by witnesses. You would be surprised that grading based on personal beliefs that have nothing to do with the course itself goes on all the time. I have never heard of one case where a student was failed by a Christian prof. because the student was not a Christian.
The Island (2005)
Never on TV
I can see why this movie gets so little airplay. It is extremely pro-life. Check it out. You have a struggle between "regular humans" and "clones". The evil "corporation" who want to play God thinks it is perfectly fine to abort the "fetuses" because they are not really people. The corporation also offers a Nazi-type "final solution" by pretending to send the clones to the "Island". This relocation center turns out to be an Auschwitz-like gas chamber. Now Hollywood can't be showing pro-abortionists as Nazis can they? Perhaps that is why this movie is not available on Netflix, Hulu, Redbox, etc. It is a very entertaining movie and asks many interesting sociological question. Unfortunately the answers are not the accepted "Hollywood" theology.