It is hard to describe how good I felt after napping yesterday. I was refreshed and ready to go again. I even had a chance to stay up a little later to watch a movie called ‘Wicked Little Letters.’ If you get a chance, watch it. It is based on a true story that happened in 1920’s.
The story shows us how ridiculous we are with our prejudices, stupid laws, and obstinate managers who know better than anyone and lead by “do as I say.” It has funny moments, and one can see the outcome after a few minutes, but they keep it a secret until the end. I give this film five stars * * * * *.
That question has been on my mind during the whole season of Lent. Not that it matters what God looks like because I’ll get to meet him sooner than later. If one believes the movies, he looks like many different actors. In the “Passion of Christ,” He looks like Mel Gibson; in “Chosen,” he looks like Jonathan Roumie. In both cases, the actors convincingly portray Jesus Christ and the viewer comes away believing they watched Christ die on the cross.
Yesterday, I finished watching the third season of Chosen and looked for Season Four. Sadly, it will only be available in movie houses during the next few weeks. I’ll wait for it to be released to streaming services and watch it in the comfort of my home. Chosen began as a crowd-sourced movie. That means it is financed by people who have seen it and want to see more. When I first started to view the episodes, I fell in love with the story. Why not? I am Christian, and the story is about our hero, the founder of Christianity. I bought into financing seasons two and three.
The Producer, writer, and director is Dallas Jenkins, the son of Jerry Jenkins, who authored “Left Behind” in 1995 and, more recently, “The Rapture.” Dallas does a credible job of making the Bible stories come to life with accurate depictions of life in or about the year zero. I recall my wife reading “Left Behind.” She tried her damndest to get me hooked on the series, just as she was. She read each volume non-stop and couldn’t wait for the next volume to appear. As I write this, it occurs to me that I should read the story myself and learn why she was so hooked.
What surprises me is that the son of a successful author should also become a successful author. How many father-son duo authors can you name? I am also enamored by the name Dallas for a son. Even though I would never have called my son Dallas, perhaps I will in another lifetime. I wonder what his nickname was? Dal, or Ass, or Dally?
I give the series “Chosen” five stars. If you are Christian you will love it. If you are not, you will still love it because it is a good story and well-produced.
The latest book I am reading is called The Future. I’m only 50 pages into it, but something inside me says don’t waste more time. I have detected two themes emerging: Lesbianism and a Techno world of modern jargon that means nothing. There is a hint of a murder mystery as well. Now, I must decide if I should read further to determine if the story has any value or ignore my inner rule to not waste time on things that bore me and stop. I need this book to reach my goal of reading one book every week. Luckily, I always take out three books at a time, and I have two others on my desk that may appease my appetite more than The Future.
I violated my decision to pick only fiction books, and the two on my desk are real-life stories. The real reason I read is to entertain myself with something that keeps me away from the TV. I spend too many hours each night binging on series that amuse me. One of the current series is called “Shameless,” and it is shameless in every way it can be. The main character is an alcoholic who lives for booze. He has seven kids, six of whom live in the same small house. His wife, who is also an alcoholic and druggie who will party at a moment’s notice, has left him. His number one rule is to not work for a living and to drink from the time he wakes up until the time he collapses into a stupor at the end of the day. His relationship with Aunt Agnes tells how he gets money to drink. She was living on Social Security in a nursing home. Frank checked her out to save her money by caring for her at home. She dies while in his care, but he never reports it, and instead, he buries her in the backyard and continues to collect her pension for the past eleven years.
All his kids are characters in the story, and they all hate the father they call Frank. The oldest daughter, Fiona, is eighteen and takes care of the household and all her siblings, feeding them, clothing them, and advising them on life. This series has run for eleven years, and the kids are growing up. There are four brothers, and two girls. The oldest brother, whom they call Lip (short for Phillip), is genius smart. The next oldest brother is Ian, who is gay; the next in line is Carl, who is slightly demented and looking for trouble every chance he gets. Debbie is a twelve-year-old sister whose only goal in life is to become a woman and to have sex. Liam is the youngest child born black and proved by DNA tests to be Frank’s progeny. An older sister, Sammi, shows up later in the story, whom Frank fathered while very young, and none of his family is aware of her connection.
There are over fifty characters in this story, and they are all layered in their stories. Shameless was filmed in a Southside Chicago neighborhood with which I am familiar. It is just six miles from my old haunt of Burnside.
The complexity of this family and the plots involving their lives make it fascinating to watch. I limit my viewing to one episode daily but often stretch it into two episodes.
Do you ever wonder how a writer gets to be famous? I do. When I read a so called best seller I wonder why it became popular? Most times it is obvious even to me that it is popular because it was a damned good, and well told story. Today, I completed a reading of James Patterson’s first book The Thomas Berryman Number. The library has several shelves of Patterson stories, and most I agree are good. The Thomas Berryman Number is not one of them, it is average at best.
To test an author’s credibility I will read his first work. Years ago, I was hooked on author James Michener. The first of his works I read was Poland. It was a great history of the country dating back to the time God created planet Earth. I learned, by reading thirteen of his works, that all of his novels began the same way, the first three chapters deal with creation, and evolution. The history and detail in his historical tomes take an average of a thousand pages of regular print. They are not books you can read in a weekend. I still remember reading Poland. It was a Memorial Day weekend, and once I got into the story I couldn’t put it down. After three days of non-stop reading I was half way finished at 500 pages. I put the book down down on an end table, and there is stayed for twelve months. After a year had passed without touching the book, I decided it was time to return it to the owner, but I had to finish it first. After another marathon reading session I finally finished
Then one day, I looked at Michener’s book list to see what I was missing. I never read his first stories. I ordered his very first one from the library and immediately immersed myself into Tales of the South Pacific published in 1947. Surprise, surprise, I knew the story from beginning to end. Rogers and Hammerstein used this book to produce the musical play titled South Pacific. The play followed the original exactly, and played on Broadway for 1,954 performances, and then was followed up with a movie.. The only exception was the book went into far more detail about the war in the South Pacific. I still rate this book at five stars, and it was a lot shorter than a thousand pages.
I used this same principal to decide if Patterson’s first work would turn me on as much as Michener’s did. Patterson’s first work disappointed me, yet he has written dozens of mystery stories which are all hits. I guess I’ll have to revise my system.
Most every night I have to watch a movie. Last night I got into a film from India titled Laal SIngh Chaddha. It is a remake of Forrest Gump, and it is very well done. No one will ever duplicate the role played so well by Tom Hanks, but actor Aamir Khan did an amazing job playing the part of Forrest.
The film makers made no secret that this was a remake of a famous movie. The man who wrote the original screenplay actually contributed to this remake. Of course they didn’t duplicate Bubba Gump’s Shrimp boat, but they substituted with an under wear factory that did just as well. They didn’t have Lieutenant Dan either, but his character was substituted by an enemy soldier who Laal saved along with his compadres who fought with him.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film because it was a good story with new characters along with old familiar scenes like the feather floating through the air at the beginning and end. This story is just familiar enough to be like the original, but also different enough to give it it”s own character. The film is over 2.5 hours long, but I found myself wanting to see more of the story just like I did with the original.
