I finally watched this movie last night but I cannot give a complete review on it because I fell asleep about 30 minutes in, but woke up just in time for the grand finale in the slaughter house. I fell asleep because it was not too good of a movie. It was not a documentary like Super Size Me but a drama which centered on a particular fast food restaurant and how damaging their business practices are to society. From the gathering of slave labor in Mexico to the eventual slaughter of thousands of animals, and everything in between; it was disturbing.

Here is where I am a hypocrite (everybody has one thing, right?) I hate the slaughtering of animals but yet I am addicted to meat. I love to barbeque over the open fire; steak is my favorite meal. I have seen what happens in a slaughter house and it truly disturbs me yet I cannot end my addiction to meat. Every once in a while I will eat only a salad if I’m not too hungry or have an upset stomach, but I am not truly satisfied until I eat meat. I have tried many times to change this behavior but I cannot do it.

First of all, you cannot humanely kill anything unless it is willing to die or suffering with little hope for survival. The two words ”humane” and “kill” are opposites and cannot be used together. Like "wet" and "dry" or "cold" and "hot"; you can’t be wet and dry at the same time. The only time “humane” and “kill” could ever belong together is, like I stated above, if the killing is being done to prevent suffering. I'm not a hypocrite about this either; if I was suffering with little or no hope of survival I would welcome death.

Unlike most people, I am not scared of death, just the pain and suffering which would come before it. Death to me is like the big sleep. Now, finally, I can get some much needed rest.

I do not understand how somebody can work in a slaughter house. I could not work in an environment in which I am surrounded with death and suffering. It would take a toll on me. I guess the horrifying thing would be if you just accepted it, or even worse, if you pulled the trigger but it didn’t bother you. Like a serial killer. I guess we need people like this in our world after all.

The West is the only society in the world which hunts on a full stomach. If I was starving then maybe I could kill an animal and eat it. I am lucky I have never been so hungry as to have thoughts of killing for food.

Maybe it is just that in my mind, life is so precious, such a beautiful thing that every creature should have the right to live without the fear of being murdered. The only time you should lose this right is if you are a predator who kills innocent people/creatures for pleasure. Then I have no mercy for you at all.

On a positive note, we are planning our vacation for the spring. It will be Virginia this year. We will be flying into Norfolk on 4/13 for another adventure. Nightly photos will be posted if I am lucky enough to stay in a hotel with Internet access. From relaxing on the beach to visiting historic locations, Virginia seems to have a variety of things to do. Also, I am trying to find some haunted locations for us to explore.

I have been a Netflix customer for almost two years now. For the most part I am very happy with them but every once in a while I notice it takes them longer than usual to deliver the next movie to me. I am one of those people who turn movies over very fast. Well one of my friends found an article about Netflix explaining how they intentionally hold back the next movie for people like me.

It’s obvious they hold movies back because it shouldn’t take 5 days to get a movie from the city I live in. Also they will intentionally send a movie from a distant city when the movie is in stock locally. I know this because it took me 5 days to receive a movie from Seattle. When it arrived damaged I reported it the same day and received another copy the next day from a St. Louis location. Well why didn’t they just send the movie from St. Louis in the first place?

If you haven’t noticed, I have a personality disorder in which I hunger for efficiency. So I decided to find another movie service to compare with Netflix to find the best one available.

Well I couldn’t resist the temptation to join Blockbuster and compare the two services. The first advantage for Blockbuster is you can take your finished movies to the nearest Blockbuster outlet and exchange them for movies within the store (even new releases) so you are never without a movie. I did this last night and it is a very sweet deal. I got three new releases for the movies I sent back.

Movie selection is important to me but both seem to have movies the other does not have but they all have the newest movie releases, so this area is a tie. Availability is another key issue; do they have enough copies of new releases so there are no long waits? So far Netflix is winning this battle as every movie in my Netflix queue is in stock but several within the Blockbuster queue are in a “very long wait” status. But I will not count a movie as “late” until its time is up and I am waiting. Right now the “very long wait” movies are far down the queue. The final test will be speed. Both queues have 50 movies in them, so the first to delivery all of them will be the winner.

I’ll keep you posted on the results but if you are looking for a good movie service, both are very good. The upper hand right now goes to Blockbuster because I can get movies in the local stores while I am waiting for the next movie to be delivered. Also I doubt many of you want to see that Coney Island documentary, so the selection and the availability of harder to find titles will be something only a few will even consider.

I don’t know how many of you watched this documentary on the Discovery Channel last Sunday but I would advise you to see it. The filmmakers think they have found the bones of Jesus and his entire family including his wife Mary Magdalene and one of their children.

The evidence, although it will never be 100%, is very compelling and the dramatizations were very good at illustrating how Jesus’ life might have looked. I really don’t want to speak for the film or try to summarize it but I would really advise you to see it.

Is this evidence the Bible was written by man and NOT God? It is very evident if you read the Bible, many of the stories just don’t make sense. If you logically think about the decisions made by the key characters or the archaic laws they followed and then apply those same ideas to people and situations today, you will realize just how ridiculous they sound.

So Jesus had to be killed to pay for OUR sins. Why? Why again must there be bloodshed to please God? If He is a loving God as people suggest, then why can't He just forgive us? Why is death always required to please Him? Imagine if my father wanted me killed because he did not like our neighbor’s lifestyle. This is the same reasoning the God in the Bible uses to sacrifice His son. Does that make sense to anybody else because I’m not seeing it?

What if Jesus never called himself a God like the Bible suggests? What if man put those words into his mouth and changed the Gospels to adhere to those ideas? I believe Jesus was a rebel trying to change the government and trying to show how ridiculous the pagan religions where. He was probably also preaching how the Jewish God in the Old Testament (then an unknown term “Old Testament God”) was just as bad as the pagan Gods. This angered the rabbi’s in the synagogues. A logical person can now conclude that Jesus was probably killed because of negative speeches about the Jewish rabbi’s (who were very powerful) God and the corrupt leadership in government.

Now let’s fast forward 400 years later. When the Council of Nicaea put the Bible together under the demands of the Emperor Constantine, they decided to only to include Gospels which detailed Jesus as a divine being and not as a man. Is it possible they created a God when one did not exist? By putting words in Jesus’ mouth they can also validate the Old Testament God and please everybody.

Constantine’s motives where to save his kingdom which was splintering because of a religious revolution. He did not care which religion reigned supreme or which God was idolized just as long as he remained the emperor and was able to control the people again. The majority of the empire was Christian so he commissioned the Council of Nicaea to end the conflicts within the Christian faith. So this Council of Nicaea dubbed Jesus a God and included only the few Gospels which supported this. They did not include the majority of Gospels which wrote about Jesus as an ordinary man with a wife and child.

No group has been more discriminated against by organized religion than women. The pre-Christ pagans believed the way to heaven was by having sex with women. So, in essence, the women held the power for gaining entry in heaven. Well the men during this time wanted to change this, so the Council did not include anything which would give women power again over men. This is probably one of the reasons why Mary Magdalene was written as a whore instead of the wife of Christ, to eliminate any power she might have brought into Christianity. It also provided a perfect cover up to eliminate her relationship with Jesus. To ensure the pagan religions were forever destroyed and woman’s power along with it, thousands of women were slaughtered, labeled as witches, when their only crime was to believe in a different God (a non Christian God). Now the pagan religion was forever dead and man can now control entry into the afterlife.

When the Council of Nicaea ended, Christianity was now the official religion of Rome. The Roman armies enforced these new Gospels with an iron fist by killing all opposition and by burning any of the opposing Gospels. Now, finally, Constantine’s country was whole again.

Recently, I began reading the New King James Version of the Bible. I am surprised at how many times evil exists but has been twisted to be good. There are also many situations which don’t make any sense to a logical, intelligent human being. I am only as far as Numbers but I have already encountered several situations of outright evil. I’m talking Saddam Hussein evil. How can you justify cutting babies out of pregnant mothers and bashing them against rocks or throwing them off cliffs? How can you justify killing people for cursing their parents or not going to church on Sunday? Why did they have to kill animals or even people to please God? Already I’m three chapters into this book and it sounds like I’m reading a book about a devil.

I challenge all Christians to read the Bible from cover to cover with an open mind. Put yourself in the shoes of the people making the decisions and try to justify them as “good” decisions. Try to bring the situations into your world and see if they still make sense. Try to find other people in the news which made similar choices and see if they are remembered as tyrants or as saviors. These revelations will change you.

Most people who claim to be staunch conservative Christians probably have never read the Bible from cover to cover. They just listen to what others tell them and accept it as ultimate truth. That’s what happened to me when I was younger. I only read the Bible through the selected passages my priest selected for me or in a Catechism class. I never knew the horrors which existed until I started reading it unedited from cover to cover.

Is it possible one day we will soon have evidence proving how the religions of today are false and how we have not even begun to find God? If we have overwhelming evidence then what will happen? Will the religions try to save themselves by killing people again? I am still hoping to find God before I die but the outlook is grim with people believing in ancient traditions without questioning anything no matter how ridiculous. Traditions built on the motives of one man trying to protect his dictatorship.

How can we ever find the truth when religion is woven into our culture so tightly that even an atheist believes (without realizing) many religious traditions? We are baptized at birth and taught, even before we can think for ourselves, that Jesus is God. We are not given a chance to debate anything. What can you debate if everyone within your family circle is a devout Christian? They will surely threaten you for challenging the authority of the church. You are raised to conform, even though no one knows exactly what they are conforming with.

When a devout Christian actually reads the Bible they are usually so convinced it is the ultimate truth that their powers of observation and critical thinking are forever gone. So they convince themselves that killing non believers in the Old Testament days was a good thing. They will use ridiculous phrases like “God works in mysterious ways” or some other gibberish to justify the slaughtering and torturing of entire towns and villages. Who does the Old Testament God think he is anyway…….George Bush?

I usually don’t watch the Oscars because I can’t stand political correctness (PC) and this is PC at its finest. I do enjoy debating about the winners the next day; even though the choices by the Academy piss me off most of the time. The worst I can remember was in 1983 when Chariots of Fire won Best Picture over Raiders of The Lost Ark.

In 1983 the Academy was being criticized for not acknowledging foreign filmmakers, so Chariots of Fire wins. Another year they were criticized because not enough black people won awards, hence black people swept the Oscars. I am still surprised they did not succumb to peer-pressure last year and give the Best Picture to Brokeback Mountain. It was a good film but it was not a great film. Anyway, getting back to 1983, does anybody even remember Chariots of Fire? I doubt it but Raiders of The Lost Ark is still cherished as one of the greatest films ever made and will stand the test of time for years to come.

Two of the best years I can remember (the best years being when the proper people got the awards) was when Titanic and Return of the King swept all the categories. Those two films will be watched generations from now and the competition will probably be forgotten.

This year in my opinion the Best Picture by far is The Departed. The story was solid and the performances were outstanding. This movie had some of the best acting I have ever seen in a film. With Jack Nicholson, Leo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg headlining and with a host of other solid supporting performances, this film is one the best ever. Two other great films of note were Blood Diamond and Apocalypto.

Let’s look at the categories and I will give my opinions:

Actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio had the best year of any actor in 2006. With two incredible performances (The Departed and Blood Diamond), he should easily get this as he was head and shoulders above the other performances.

Actor in a supporting role:
Although Mark Wahlberg was outstanding, Djimon Hounsou deservers this award. His performance was powerful in Blood Diamond.

Actress in a leading role: (the word ACTRESS does still exist)
I’ll have to pass on this because I have not seen any of these performances. None of these five films interested me at all to pay $8 bucks to see them. Even when The Devil Wears Prada came to video I still didn’t want to see it for only a buck. I don’t care at all for the fashion industry and I care even less for the assholes who run it.

Actress in a supporting role:
Again the only performance I saw was Adriana Barraza in Babel. The film was very dry, very slow and too long.

Best Picture:
I have to admit, of these films I did not see The Queen, but my choice is definitely The Departed. Only Letters From Iwo Jima was even close to being the caliber of The Departed, but, still the Departed was in a different league. Martin Scorsese should also reel in the Best Director award.

My predictions are rarely ever right. For some reason the Academy usually picks the most boring piece of shit to win Best Picture and rarely grades actors and actresses on their performances. As I said earlier, sometimes the Academy wants to make some half-assed political statement, so instead of grading performances they will give awards based upon race or they will throw foreign films an occasional "bone" (right-wing fundamentalists at their finest).

The Oscars is just another tool in the movie marketing machine. Since the Academy consists of workers within the movie making industry, most of the time you only have to see which film had the most people working on it; the more people, the more votes. Sometimes they will select a film which was not too popular to increase profits. Why else would people rush out to see Chariots of Fire?

Since we are getting close to Oscar season I decided to post my all time favorite films. I do take into account the aging of the film, so if the film does not age well, it drops down on the list. If you would like to post your favorite movie list I would be interested in seeing what films you rate as the greatest of all time.

1. Gladiator
2. Lord of the Rings-Return of the King
3. Batman Begins
4. Lord of the Rings-Two Towers
5. Lord of the Rings-Fellowship of the Ring
6. V For Vendetta
7. The Departed
8. War of The Worlds – 2005
9. Shawshank Redemption
10. Man in The Iron Mask
11. Bladerunner
12. King Kong-2005
13. Patton
14. Les Miserables
15. Star Wars V – Empire Strikes Back
16. Chronicles of Riddick
17. Legends of The Fall
18. Unbreakable
19. Underworld
20. Star Wars VI – Return of The Jedi
21. Devil’s Advocate
22. 12 Angry Men
23. Exorcist, The
24. Star Wars III – Revenge of The Sith
25. Star Wars IV – A New Hope
26. Aliens
27. The Prestige
28. Goodfellas
29. Shindler’s List
30. Titanic
31. Matrix
32. Matrix 3
33. The Illusionist
34. Spiderman
35. Raiders of the Lost Ark
36. Gangs of New York
37. The Pianist
38. Dawn of The Dead - 2003
39. Godfather 2
40. We Were Soldiers
41. Scent of A Woman
42. Godfather
43. Terminator 2-Judgement Day
44. Matrix 2
45. Jurassic Park
46. Silence of The Lambs
47. Spiderman 2
48. The Thirteenth Warrior
49. Shaun of The Dead
50. Ghost and The Darkness
51. First Blood
52. Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan
53. Last Samurai
54. Silverado
55. Prophecy
56. Jaws
57. Total Recall
58. Top Gun
59. The Rock
60. Unforgiven
61. Outbreak
62. Sixth Sense
63. Terminator
64. Casino
65. Star Wars II – Attack of The Clones
66. American History X
67. Razor's Edge
68. Bridge on The River Kwai
69. Avalon
70. Bourne Identity
71. Forrest Gump
72. Rob Roy
73. Signs
74. Primal Fear
75. Platoon
76. Master And Commander
77. Conan The Barbarian
78. Cool Hand Luke
79. Dirty Harry
80. Black Hawk Down
81. Rocky
82. No Way Out
83. Eight Men Out
84. Vision Quest
85. Elephant Man
86. Falling Down
87. Fatal Attraction
88. Highlander
89. Con Air
90. Casualties of War
91. Judgment At Nuremberg
92. Kelley's Heroes
93. Lonely Are The Brave
94. Road Warrior
95. Marathon Man
96. Uncommon Valor
97. Miller's Crossing
98. Monte Walsh
99. Good Bad Ugly
100. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
101. Natural
102. Omen
103. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
104. Pale Rider
105. Poltergeist
106. Predator
107. Presumed Innocent
108. Regarding Henry
109. The River’s Edge
110. Rocky 3
111. Roger & Me
112. The Corporation
113. Bowling For Columbine
114. A Christmas Story
115. Shoot To Kill
116. Ed Wood
117. Stand By Me
118. Taxi Driver
119. A Time To Kill
120. To Kill A Mockingbird
121. Tron
122. The Untouchables
123. The Vanishing
124. Walk In The Clouds
125. The Wild Bunch
126. Sting, The
127. Treasure of Sierra Madre
128. Star Wars I – Phantom Menace

What do you think? How would your rankings look?

When I first saw previews of the new movie, The Black Dahlia, I couldn’t wait to see it. Plus, I am a big fan of Brian DePalma so I figured this was a “can’t miss” feature. Was I wrong. At one hour into the movie I was ready to leave and at the end of the night I was reminded why I don’t go to many movies any more.

First of all, what is with all the commercials? When they started putting commercials in the theatres it was only one or two. Now you get five minutes or more of commercials. I’m fed up with this shit. Those commercials were supposed to keep the price of movies affordable but at $8.50 per ticket, I don’t see any savings.

The last three movies I’ve seen at the theatres were horrible; a complete waste of money. So I figure $30 was wasted per movie as if I took the money and threw it into the wind. There are many cool things I can do with $30; the least of which is spending it on a crappy movie. So I’m finished with movies for a while. I will wait for either the DVD or view it at the dollar show. Hollywood has ripped me off for the last time.

Note to Brian DePalma: If you are going to title your movie “The Black Dahlia, then try to focus the movie about the Black Dahlia. This movie was about two idiot cops that happened to be investigating the Black Dahlia case but that case was not the focal point of the movie. Hence, the movie entitled “The Black Dahlia only contained about 15 minutes of information about the Black Dahlia.

There should be a way to get your money back from shitty movies like this. As long as your grievance is legitimate such as, you led me to believe your movie was about “X” when it was NOT about “X” or this movie was a complete waste of my life. I could have checked both of these boxes about this tripe.

Even if this movie would have been titled something else, it was still a complete waste of film. I have a hard time believing an accomplished actress like Hilary Swank had anything to do with this. She was smoking hot but her incredible looks and performance were still not enough to save this sinking ship.

Black Dahlia final review:
0 out of 5 stars

With much trepidation, last night I watched United 93 on DVD. I really did not want to see this movie for a couple of reasons but the primary one was I hate how our Country responded to the 9/11 tragedy. We are basically lining up to trade our liberties and freedom for safety and comfort; this angers me.

Every time I see a movie trailer for one of these 9/11 movies or watch a documentary, I am reminded how easy it is for a fascist regime to take control of our society by wielding fear as a weapon. I don’t know why I was so surprised because I have known for quite some time that we are a nation devoid of leadership; a nation of people waiting for somebody to tell them what to do, how to think and how to act.

This is because our schools do not teach leadership skills. They teach students to “go along with the plan” and to “be submissive”. We do not teach dissension, which is the primary tool used to keep people honest. Challenging rules is necessary to ensure the rules are just. Students should be encouraged to think out of the box and to ask probing questions. They should be taught the Bill of Rights is the only set of rules which should be etched in stone and is not available for compromise or trade, regardless of the reasons.

My family instilled me with a “no bullshit” policy so I will continue to ask questions until I am satisfied there is nothing missing. But if I think things do not add up, I will not go along with the program. I am not a lemming nor will I line up to be slaughtered. If I was a death row inmate and they came to put me in the electric chair I would fight with every ounce of strength in my body. I would kick, gouge, punch, spit, claw, bite; and when they finished with me they would really feel like they were in a fight. They would have to kill me before they could kill me; and afterward they would need a personal holiday to recuperate. I do not understand how people can cooperate to be killed; to be a martyr is to be stupid.

During the movie I kept thinking about how our society differs from the Middle Eastern society and it made me think about how difficult it will be to win a war with these people. I could never send one of my loved ones off to die for any reason. No way, period! I cannot fathom how these people can send their sons, fathers, mothers, daughters, husbands and wives off to die in a suicide mission. How can they condone this? As Patton so eloquently stated, “The object of war is to make the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

(Begin sarcasm)
Then I gazed up at my Kate Beckinsale Underworld poster and I suddenly understood how they could do this. Their society is a sexless society. They put their women in bee keeper suits and never let them out of the house without a male escort. The men can never get sex unless they are wealthy and can buy a wife or they have an arranged marriage. In our society sex is everywhere. It’s on TV, radio, magazines, billboards, DVDs, Internet; we are surrounded. If we want sex with real people, all we have to do is hit the corner bar and we score. These Middle Eastern men are in a hurry to die to get their 72 virgins so they can finally get laid. Hell, if I was a thirty year old virgin living with my parents I might not want to live anymore either. Instead of sending more troops to Iraq, we should send scantly clad women.
(end sarcasm)

But seriously, getting back to United 93, it was an awesome movie. At the end I was in tears. Those people should not have died. When people love their God more than their children, they are dangerous and should be extinguished.

Now that the summer is winding down and all of the supposed blockbuster movies have been released, this should go down as the most disappointing movie season ever. As a movie goer I look forward to the summer for the movies but this year I was disgustingly disappointed.

Before the reviews of the bad, let’s look talk about one of the best films ever that was just released to DVD...........................

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.”

V for Vendetta is in my personal top three films of all time. The writing is incredible; at times this film is pure poetry. The acting is also just as strong; all the characters were played perfectly.

The real strength of this film is the message it conveys that people should not be afraid of government, government should be afraid of people. I try to convey similar messages and ideas with this blog. The events of the film are very realistic as many of them are happening today (some of which I have written about).

Maybe I just like the film because I can really identify with the character V. I felt this strange connection with him. I could almost speak his words before he spoke them and I definitely could give you a detailed list of his thoughts and why he thought the way he did. Scary!!

The best line of all (and there were many best lines) was at the end when the big bad guy was shooting him while screaming “Why Won’t you die!!” and V says, “Under this mask is more than just flesh and bone. It’s an idea................ and ideas are bulletproof!” It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

Save your money and wait to rent all of the summer films from this year’s pathetic crop. Below are a few of the films I was looking forward to seeing this summer but all were either retreads or just not that good:

Lady In The Water: M. Night Shyamalan has made some of my favorite films so I was eagerly awaiting this new film. It started off very promising but then it spiraled into a convoluted piece or crap. It felt like I was watching an Adam Sandler movie which always makes me feel like things are being made up as they go. Paul Giamatti was excellent but even his strong performance could not save this sinking ship.

Superman: With the Batman Begins one of last year’s best films, I was hoping the super hero genre would return again to its proper place as number one. Especially with Superman, the king of all super heroes and a Christopher Reeves look alike at the helm. Wrong!! The writers of this film attached Superman with the odious label of a babies daddy. The child support enforcement agencies were probably glad to see Superman return from his journey to Krypton but I wish he would have stayed.

Pirates of The Caribbean (POTC): The first film is still one of my all time favorites and based upon the previews, part 2 looked just as good. However I forgot to factor in the third movie. All this film did was leave you hanging for part 3. I don’t like cliffhangers that span different movies. I paid my $8 so rap it up. I didn’t pay you $3 this year with the promise of $5 next year but that is what you do to me when you span plots over multiple films.

Mission Impossible 3: Probably the best of the summer but I cannot remember much about the film other than I liked it.

DaVinci Code: I liked the film but Tom Hanks finally blew one. His performance was weak and the chemistry between him and the female lead was horrible. I also think this move should have been about twenty minutes shorter.

Everything else was complete tripe. Maybe there were a few cartoons worthy of mention but a man wants to eat meat. Cartoons are a good dinner salad but I need action, suspense, plot, and believable characters. I am not spending $8 to watch a bunch of cars or animals running around, talking and goofing off; that does not hold my attention for too long. I’ll wait for the DVD and rent those for two bucks.

I saw the DaVinci Code Friday night and I did like it; as it rated a 3.5 out of 5 stars. Tom Hanks did not play his character as perfectly as he played other characters and the chemistry with the female lead was not too good. The thriller was predictable and the supposedly shocking ending, I figured out within the first half hour of this extremely long movie.

What I did like about it was the history it presented about the First Council at Nicaea and the mention of the other Gospels excluded from the Bible. Even though this story is fictional certain aspects of the story have truths behind them. This Council did exist and they did exclude certain Gospels from the Bible because they did not glorify Christ’s divinity as well as the chosen Gospels.

No one will ever know if the Gospel of Phillip or the Gospel of Mary Magdalene was more accurate than the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. What you choose to believe is your Faith. It is possible that any or all of these Gospels are either fictional or factual.

The reason some Christians are angry about this story is because in their mind like the First Council at Nicaea discovered, these other Gospels do not portray Christ’s divinity within their scope of what constitutes a divine being. I guess the possibility of Christ being married and producing children takes away from His ability to be God.

Was the Council at Nicaea flawed in its approach? Well to begin with it was overseen the dictator Constantine who was more worried about Rome becoming split because of different flavors of Christianity than he was with uncovering the truth behind Christ. So it is possible factual data was purposely excluded from the Bible in order to compromise and please everybody. If we were to get a group of different Christian Faiths together today we would have similar difficulties discovering the true Christ.

It is also important to realize the Gospels were written many years after Christ’s death from stories handed down from generation to generation. I think we all know what happens to stories when they are retold. While it is evident Christ existed, it is difficult to discover what He actually said because His message was probably censored and changed by man to fit man’s narrow minded scope of reality. A reality that two thousand years ago, was even worse than it is today.

Yet today, many theologians focus on the exact wording of the Gospels as if those exact words actually flowed from the mouth of Christ. This exact wording could never be known. It is more important to realize that Christ actually existed than is it to try to imagine what he actually said. Do you realize how many people have been killed over the exact wording of sentences in the Bible? Probably millions.

The most disturbing aspect of the story is the negative treatment of women by Christian men; this condescending treatment is not fiction and still exists today. Christianity treats women as second class citizens by not allowing them to obtain power. In most Christian Churches only men are allowed to preach or to become an Elder. Why is this? Are women a threat to the Church? Why would Christ want women treated as inferiors?

The most important thing is to follow both your heart and your brain to make sure the stories you are told adhere to the ring of truth. The ring of truth is a logical meter we all have which alerts us to deception. Like a judge questions a suspect, you should also be able to ask questions and judge the responses you receive from religious leaders and judge the documents you read. Failure to question things which seem unbelievable is failure to use the brain that God gave us. If He did not expect us to question things, He would not have given us this gift of a sophisticated brain. So failing to use this gift would be sin itself.

Revision

After reading this post I wanted my readers to understand that I am NOT saying the DaVinci Code or the other unaccepted Gospels are true. I am only trying to raise questions about this issue for discussion purposes only.

After doing the research for the 9/11 post I have really wanted to take a break and have some fun. So now I have been compiling lists of my favorite films and talking about these with my co workers.

My criteria for this document was how the film looks today and not how it looked when it opened. So this is a living document and changes from month to month or year to year. An example is that in 1977 I am positive Star Wars would have been a number one, but today it does not look good compared with the newer films so it tumbled down the list. Some of my co workers built their list on how the movie opened and did not factor age into the equation. There is no right and wrong; your opinion is all that matters.

In my opinion movies like Patton and 12 Angry Men still look good today. In fact, you could probably put Patton in the theatres today and people would not know it was made over thirty years ago unless you already knew it was made thirty years ago. On the other hand, some films I enjoy less as they aged; like Star Wars IV, Star Wars I. Anyway here are my favorite films:

1. Gladiator
2. Lord of the Rings-Return of the King
3. Batman Begins
4. Lord of the Rings-Two Towers
5. Lord of the Rings-Fellowship of the Ring
6. V For Vendetta
7. War of The Worlds – 2005
8. Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
9. Shawshank Redemption
10. Man in The Iron Mask
11. King Kong-2005
12. Patton
13. Les Miserables
14. Star Wars III
15. Legends of The Fall
16. Underworld
17. Star Wars VI
18. 12 Angry Men
19. Star Wars II
20. Star Wars V
21. Aliens
22. Goodfellas
23. Titanic
24. Matrix
25. Raiders of the Lost Ark
26. Gangs of New York
27. The Pianist
28. Dawn of The Dead - 2003
29. Godfather 2
30. We Were Soldiers
31. Scent of A Woman
32. Godfather
33. Terminator 2-Judgement Day
34. Jurassic Park
35. Silence of The Lambs
36. Matrix Revolutions
37. The Thirteenth Warrior
38. Ghost and The Darkness
39. First Blood
40. Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan
41. Last Samurai
42. Silverado
43. Prophecy
44. Jaws
45. Shindler’s List
46. Total Recall
47. Top Gun
48. The Rock
49. Unforgiven
50. Outbreak
51. Sixth Sense
52. Terminator
53. Casino
54. Star Wars IV
55. American History X
56. Razor's Edge
57. Bridge on The River Kwai
58. Avalon
59. Bourne Identity
60. Forrest Gump
61. Rob Roy
62. Signs
63. Primal Fear
64. Platoon
65. Master And Commander
66. Conan The Barbarian
67. Cool Hand Luke
68. Dirty Harry
69. Star Wars I
70. Black Hawk Down
71. Rocky
72. No Way Out
73. Ed Wood
74. Eight Men Out
75. Vision Quest
76. Elephant Man
77. Falling Down
78. Fatal Attraction
79. Highlander
80. Con Air
81. Casualties of War
82. Judgment At Nuremberg
83. Kelley's Heroes
84. Lonely Are The Brave
85. Road Warrior
86. Marathon Man
87. Uncommon Valor
88. Miller's Crossing
89. Monte Walsh
90. Good Bad Ugly
91. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
92. Natural
93. Omen
94. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
95. Pale Rider
96. Poltergeist
97. Predator
98. Presumed Innocent
99. Regarding Henry
100. The River’s Edge
101. Rocky 3
102. Roger & Me
103. The Corporation
104. Bowling For Columbine
105. A Christmas Story
106. Shoot To Kill
107. Exorcist
108. Unbreakable
109. Spiderman
110. Stand By Me
111. Taxi Driver
112. A Time To Kill
113. To Kill A Mockingbird
114. Tron
115. The Untouchables
116. The Vanishing
117. Walk In The Clouds
118. War of The Worlds
119. The Wild Bunch
120. Sting, The
121. Treasure of Sierra Madre

What are your favorites? Post them on your blog and let me know.

There has been a lot of great movie music. I own almost 3,000 scores so I know what I’m talking about when it comes to this topic. Here is my list of the best movies scores of all time:

1. Gladiator – Hans Zimmer
2. Batman Begins – Hans Zimmer
3. Star Wars IV – John Williams
4. Titanic – James Horner
5. Star Wars III – John Williams
6. First Blood – Jerry Goldsmith
7. Bladerunner - Vangelis
8. Lord of the Rings-Return of the King – Howard Shore
9. Edward Scissorhands - Danny Elfman
10. Interview With The Vampire - Elliot Goldenthal
11. Bram Stoker’s Dracula - Wojciech Kilar
12. Lion King – Hans Zimmer
13. Legends of The Fall - James Horner
14. Silence of The Lambs - Howard Shore
15. Lord of the Rings-Two Towers - Howard Shore
16. Lord of the Rings-Fellowship of the Ring - Howard Shore
17. Raiders of the Lost Ark – John Williams
18. Underworld - Paul Haslinger
19. Star Wars V – John Williams
20. Star Wars I - John Williams
21. Jaws – John Williams
22. Batman – Danny Elfman
23. Star Trek – Jerry Goldsmith
24. V For Vendetta – Dario Marinelli
25. Man in The Iron Mask - Nick Glennie Smith
26. Last of the Mohicans – Trevor Jones
27. Murder in The First – John Barry
28. Patton – Jerry Goldsmith
29. Les Miserables - Basil Poledouris
30. Shawshank Redemption - Thomas Newman
31. Tombstone - Bruce Broughton
32. Star Wars VI – John Williams
33. Star Wars II – John Williams
34. Conan The Barbarian - Basil Poledouris
35. Predator - Alan Silvestri
36. The Rock - Hans Zimmer
37. Con Air - Trevor Rabin
38. Gods and Generals – John Frizzel
39. Glory – James Horner
40. Hellbound Hellraiser 2 – Christopher Young
41. End of Days – John Debney
42. Natural – Randy Newman
43. Prince of Darkness – John Carpenter
44. Aliens – James Horner
45. Matrix – Don Davis
46. Silverado - Bruce Broughton
47. Exorcist - Jack Nitzsche
48. Gangs of New York – Howard Shore
49. Batman Returns – Danny Elfman
50. Scent of A Woman – Thomas Newman
51. Terminator 2-Judgement Day – Brad Fiedel
52. Jurassic Park – John Williams
53. Matrix Revolutions – Don Davis
54. Prince of Egypt – Hans Zimmer
55. The Thirteenth Warrior – Jerry Goldsmith
56. Ghost and The Darkness – Jerry Goldsmith
57. Total Recall - Jerry Goldsmith
58. First Knight – Jerry Goldsmith
59. Razor's Edge - Jack Nitzsche
60. Platoon – Jerry Goldsmith
61. Dragonheart – Randy Edelman
62. Forrest Gump - Alan Silvestri
63. Omen – Jerry Goldsmith
64. Rob Roy - Carter Burwell
65. King Kong-2005 – James Newton Howard
66. Signs - James Newton Howard
67. Legend – Tangerine Dream
68. Master And Commander - Klaus Badelt
69. Black Hawk Down - Hans Zimmer
70. Highlander - Michael Kamen
71. Miller's Crossing – Carter Burwell
72. Presumed Innocent - John Williams
73. Regarding Henry - Hans Zimmer
74. Unbreakable – James Newton Howard
75. Tron – Wendy Carlos
76. The Untouchables - Ennio Morricone
77. Walk In The Clouds - Maurice Jarre
78. Alexander – Vangelis
79. Godfather - Nino Rota

For you score collectors out there, how would your list be different? Any comments?

After 22 months the Sopranos finally returned last night with a thunderous episode. My entire family gathered around the big screen television and we were completely riveted to the program. I cannot remember us ever focusing our attention on a single show like this one; this is television the way it oughta be.

This show is the finest on television for several reasons:

• Every actor is superb and plays their character to perfection
• The writing is the best; only Deadwood and CSI come close
• The adult themes do not have to be downgraded to the eight grade level of commercial television because HBO is a premium channel
• No commercial breaks during the program to eliminate suspense or divert attention

My only complaint is that I have to wait an entire week to find out what happens next. This is one of the few occasions I actually wish away time. I can’t wait until Sunday!

I love zombie movies. In fact, the past two nights I watched Dawn of The Dead and Land of The Dead non stop. I finally squeezed in the Weather Man but the whole time I was thinking about watching Resident Evil. Why do I like these movies so much? I finally think I know why.

In a zombie film we are all equal; black, white, brown, red, yellow, male, and female. It’s us versus the zombies. Money has no value and your family and the friends around you matter the most. If they die then you will die. I think this is how humans are supposed to live. I don’t mean fighting the undead but living in REAL communities, caring about one another and keeping your neighbor safe from the “evil” people.

In a zombie movie the things you need to survive, other than the community are food, shelter and learning how to survive (education). You are not living in some upper class asshole-world with them telling you what to do, what you should know, who you should know, how much you must pay them for it, or what your values should be.

Land of the Dead is awesome because the dead actually attack the upper class high rise and eat them all. They think they are safe as they have the grunts living on the streets below but all the grunts run away when they are overrun by the zombies and leave the upper class to be eaten. That movie definitely has a moral to the story and it mirrors real life more than you think.

I don’t like to see anybody hurt but I have often thought about the French in the old days storming the castle and beheading the king and queen. When I was in high school, I never understood how they could do that, but as I have aged, I understand completely. The whole “let them eat cake” attitude the upper class has is disturbing to me. So when I watch them get eaten by zombies I laugh out loud.

Tonight it's Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. Am I sick?