After seeing Cats I thought that I had seen all of the musicals that I wanted to see (with maybe the exception of Jesus Christ Superstar, though I don’t really have any huge desire to see Phantom on the Opera, though some Gilbert and Sullivan might be a goer). However, one day last year I discovered that they were advertising The Book of Mormon on the trams, and a part of me suspected that it was coming to Melbourne. Well, it was, but ironically they had started advertising the musical a year in advance, which quite surprised me because I didn’t expect that it would need such a long period of advertising, that is until I asked a friend who pointed out that the show is incredibly popular, and you simply can’t walk into the theatre and buy your tickets because the shows end up being booked months in advance. As it turned out this was the case here in Australia – well, not quite, but the show that I saw had sold out.
Category: Christianity
Saint Joan – Europe’s Turning Point
It seems as if there is a resurgence of interest in the plays of George Bernard Shaw, though when I say resurgence I am referring to having seen three plays of his over the past three years, which is significant because I pretty much haven’t seen any of his plays previously. That probably has a lot to do with not actually knowing about him, or having any appreciation of his work prior to purchasing a copy of Pygmalion and proceeding to read it. The other problem is that the lack of options when it comes to theatre in Australia, but then again it does teach me to keep my eyes open. However, the stage on screen series that are now being played at various cinemas around Australia helps a lot as well. So, when I discovered that Saint Joan was going to be one of the films shown I took the day off work, made my way down to the Palace Brighton Bay, and began to treat myself to another play that I am not expecting to see again any time soon.
Leaving the Past Behind – The Butterfly Effect
Well, my original plan was to simply sit down on my couch on Saturday night and watch a film that I have already watch with the intention of not actually writing anything about something. Well, I guess The Butterfly Effect is not the type of film that one can simply walk away from and not think too heavily about what just occurred. Well, okay, you probably can, but as people suggest I have this annoying habit of thinking too much – not that that is a bad thing, but some people do feel somewhat threatened by people who do have this annoying habit of thinking about and analysing things and want to put a stop to it. However, this isn’t a post about anti-intellectualism, so I will leave it at that.
Spirituality behind Jupiter Ascending
It is funny that after the second time I saw this film I have the urge to write another blog post. The previous post was a more general look at how the concept of deity is being secularised and that the wealthy elite of our world are being turned into gods, however after seeing this film a second time I suddenly realised that not only are there a lot of references to the UFO phenomena of the 1980s, but also a lot of references to Christianity. The movie in effect turns it into a cult religion that worships aliens.
Jupiter Ascending – The evolution of the secular gods
Years ago, when I was in university, I had this desire to not so much review movies, but to critically analyse concepts that I picked up while watching them. I guess it had a lot to do with me studying English Literature and the realisation that I could take the same ideas and apply them to Hollywood movies. Okay, you may be wandering what one could possibly get out of Terminator II, but I have actually written a review and posted it on IMDB. However, that was back in the days before IMDB ever existed, so using my SMUG (Student Machine Users Group) account I created a basic webpage to catalogue my thoughts. Mind you, I doubt that website still exists, and even if it does it is floating somewhere deep in the web, cut off from the rest of the internet. A few years later a friend at church directed me to the website Hollywood Jesus which tries to get Christian meaning from Hollywood movies (while in many cases is not all that hard to do, it does depend on the movie: I doubt you are going to get any Christian meaning out of Debbie Does Dallas).
Exodus: Gods & Kings – A critique of the latest Biblical epic
Normally I probably wouldn’t waste my time writing a post about this movie, namely because it was so boring, however I have felt inclined to make some comments on Hollywood’s latest venture into the Biblical realm. Before I had even walked into the cinema I suspected that there were going to be some historical inaccuracies – that is always the case when it comes to Hollywood’s journey into history – and I was also expecting them to use some creative license when it came to interpreting the source material, but in then end, what I got was this.
Proverbs – Wisdom for the Ages
As we were coming to the end of the year in our Bible study group, we were discussing whether we would stick to the standard curriculum, or whether we would branch out on our own for a couple of weeks. I suggested that we might consider having a look at one of my favourite books of the Bible, that being the book of Proverbs.
Art & Literature with the Sarkologist 