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Posted

Ok, movies I loved not in any particular order:

 

Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban (the only good movie of the group, imo)

October Sky (not as good as the book at all)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

ET

Flight of the Navigator

Peter pan (the original with Mary Martin)

Cider House Rules (just about anything with Toby McGuire, except Spiderman, like Seabisquit, sigh :-))

To Live (Chinese)

Chocolate or was it la Chocolate

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Little Buddha (except the parts that Keanu Reeves was in)

Star Trek IV (the one with the whales). Ok the acting is terrible, etc.

Contact

Little Man Tate

Searching for Bobby Fisher

 

 

Most hated movie of all time: Eraserhead (not Eraser) some cult movie of the 60s or 70s.

 

 

--des

Posted (edited)

OK, guess I should contribute to my own thread. :P

 

My favorite movies:

 

Contact

Forest Gump

Finding Nemo

Monsters Inc

Lord of the Rings 1,2,3

Star Wars 4,5,6

French Kiss

You've Got Mail

City of Angels

Matrix (part 1)

The Princess Bride

ET

Close Encounters

Liar Liar

Blast from the Past

Starman

Pleasantville

Emma

Pride and Predjudice

The Abyss

Edited by AletheiaRivers
Posted

i rented i heart huckabees over the weekend - i thought it was great, story and acting was great - it had a message

 

very few comedies are trying to prove a philosophical point - well at least so blatantly

 

i liked eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

i also liked sideways

Posted

My favorites:

 

1. the first original 3 Star Wars

 

2. Indiana Jones 1 and 3 but NOT 2.

 

3. LadyHawk

 

4. Pirates of the Carribean

 

5. Brides of Christ

 

6. Brother Moon, Sister Sun

Posted

Ahhhhh . . .

 

Beach, Brother Sun, Sister Moon is probably my favorite flick of all time! :P

 

And admittedly, all you Star Wars fans out there, when the first of these movies came out in 1977, my high school buddy and I went to see it every week for a year!!

 

I also loved Contact -- it's one of the movies that makes me stop what I'm doing and watch it when it comes on TV . . .

 

And nothing can beat that director's cut of The Abyss

 

Other favorites:

 

Wings of Desire (was later made into an English-language version -- City of Angels? -- but I prefer the original German Wem Wenders version).

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

 

Dirty Dancing (kind of embarrassed to admit it, though!)

 

Jesus Christ Superstar

 

Mystery Train

 

The Yes Men

 

Fantasia

 

A Room with a View

 

There are others, but that's what's off the top of my head!

 

Cheers,

curlytop

Posted
Brother Sun, Sister Moon

 

See, this is why I started this thread! I've never seen this movie and now, with two recommends, am going to rectify that. :D

 

Make that three recommends. Beautiful movie!

 

I'm a big fan of Robert Duval and so three of his movies would feature on my favorites list:

 

"The Apostle"

"The Stars Fell on Henrietta"

"Tender Mercies"

 

I love the lastest "King Arthur" movie (I'm a big fan of the music of Hans Zimmer who did this soundtrack and the soundtrack for Gladiator)

 

"Legends" w/ Tom Cruise and Mia Sara

"Sophies Choice"

"Dangerous Liasons"

"Dangerous Beauty"

"The Muppet Movie"

"The Cisco Kid"

"Blazing Saddles"

"Edward Scissorshands"

 

...just some

 

 

lily

Posted

Oh yes! Brother moon, sister Sun is a MUST :D I mean this IS Progressive Christianity. It's about Saint Francis doing a Progressive alternative to the morbid rigid religion of his day! St.Francis starts a church where women CAN be priests and people are encouarged even to bring their pets to church with them! He is also is against war! It rocks!

 

BTW, are you excited to see the next star Wars movie? I am! :D

Posted

I am looking forward to seeing the Wookie planet though! And bunches of Wookies!

 

By the way -- on Bro Sun Sis Moon -- St. Francis remains Catholic so he can't have a church with women priests -- however his platonic love, St. Clare, joins his group's female counterpart, a Franciscan order for sisters. But yes, the film is certainly intended to appeal to those who want women priests! Definitely warms a progressive's heart! :)

  • 5 weeks later...
Posted

Peace & Justice & Progressive theology related Movies:

 

Romero – starring Raul Julia

The City of Joy -sPatrick Swayze

Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story

Hotel Rwanda – Don Cheadle

The Mission – Robert DeNiro/Jeremy Irons

To End All Wars – Kiefer Sutherland

Gandhi – Ben Kingsley

Erin Brokovich – Julia Roberts

The Thin Blue Line – doc. re: death penalty

Chattahoochee – Gary Oldman/Dennis Hopper

The Fog of War – doc. featuring Robert McNamara

Bonhoeffer – Ulrich Tukur

Born on the 4th of July - Tom Cruise

Amistad –Morgan Freeman/Matt.McCon.

Dances With Wolves – Kevin Costner

Dead Man Walking – Susan Sarandon/Sean Penn

Schindler’s List – Liam Neeson

The Killing Fields – Sam Waterston

Eyes on the Prize – PBS doc. re: civil rights mvmt.

The Corporation – documentary

Amandala – doc. re: ending aparthied in S. Africa

The War – Kevin Costner

The Control Room – doc.re:media coverage of Iraq war

Silver City– Chris Cooper

The Saint of Fort Washington - Matt Dillon/Danny Glover

Philedelphia - Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington

A River Runs Through It -Brad Pitt

Road To Freedom, The Vernon Johns Story -James Earl Jones

The Milagro Beanfield War -Ruben Blades

Red Corner -Richard Gere

To Kill a Mockingbird

12 Angry Men -Henry Fonda

The Grapes of Wrath - Henry Fonda

Angus - George C. Scott

All's Quiet on the Western Front

Spring, Summer, Winter, and Spring (a beautiful Korean Buddhist journey)

The Gods Must be Crazy

Luther

The Nuremburg Trials

  • 9 months later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Oh gee, I loved some of those (didn't see others). Have to add a few. In no particular order.

Not necessarily peace and justice but hey we are off topic over here.

 

October Sky

Flight of the Navigator (ok I know not so heavy, as are some of the others here)

ET

Searching for Bobby Fisher

Contact

To Live (Chinese)

Little Man Tate

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 

 

--des

Posted

NORTH COUNTRY is really good. It deals with women being harrassed at a northern Minnesota mine and it deals with family reconciliation. 2 tissue boxes!

Posted

Fred & Maryann Brussat who do such an incredible job of reviewing spiritually oriented movies and books etc. have moved their very comprehensive web pages from S&H >

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/it...e/item_216.html

to S&P >

http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/

 

They have listed and reviewed all the great spiritual movies for many years.

 

I consider their website the peak of the WWW! Even better than mine!

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I'm a movie nut. I cannot resist this topic. These are movies that never fail to make me laugh, cry, think, bite nails, get freaked out, smile, or just get plain geeky. It's not exhaustive, but it's good enough.

 

It's a Wonderful Life

To Kill a Mockingbird

Jesus Christ Superstar

Raising Arizona

Rear Window

North by Northwest

Vertigo

Halloween 1 and 2

Stand by Me

Mary Poppins

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder)

Young Frankenstein

Kung Fu Hustle

Sound of Music

On Golden Pond

Any Harry Potter (especially Azkaban)

Any Star Wars

Any Lord of the Rings

Monsieur Abrahim

The Grapes of Wrath

West Side Story

E.T.

Napoleon Dynamite

Dumb and Dumber

  • 7 months later...
Posted

+ Don't miss this movie! Spirituality & Practice offers a film review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Joyeux Noel which is available on DVD. Review Excerpt: "This story is inspired by the Christmas truce of 1914, a miraculous occurrence of peace for two days when men laid down their arms, came out of their trenches, and celebrated the holiday together. The aftermath depicted in the film is also part of history. The German, French, and Scottish commanders were severely reprimanded for 'fraternization with the enemy.' New troops were brought in to replace those who had been tainted by the experience. After all, war depends upon seeing the other side as subhuman."

 

+++

 

this is the latest post at the abundancetrek blog.

  • 4 years later...
Posted

Since we have the topic on favorite PC-themed songs, I thought it would also be interesting to post our favorite PC-themed movies. As with the PC-themed songs thread, it doesn't have to be a movie that's explicitly pro--PC but it can be any movie that you like that you think is also compatible with progressive Christian themes. Some of my favorites:

 

Contact-Though Carl Sagan was an agnostic and not a Christian, I think this movie version of his sci-fi novel can still have a lot of meaning to progressive Christians. Sagan takes a more realistic approach to the question of what would happen if we really did discover alien life and rather than focusing on sci-fi action, he focuses on what sort of impact this would have on society. He addresses the concerns of how would the discovery of intelligent alien life effect the conflicts between religion and science. Unlike other anti-religious movies and books, I think Sagan does a reasonable job of presenting both sides of the theist versus atheist conflict in a fair and balanced manner by having the main character, Ellie, be an atheist scientist who falls in love with a Christian philosopher. The movie addresses complex issues like whether or not God exists, the limits of both logic and faith at attaining the truth, and the role that religion plays in a modern scientific society. Though the movie is not an action film, the climax still has some very impressive special effects and visuals and if you're looking for something more than standard action alien flicks, I think Contact is still a very heart warming and touching story that can inspire people of all faith and no faith.

 

Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame- Yes, this is a kid's movie but it's surprisingly a pretty mature and smart movie and it's one of Disney's darker and under-appreciated movies. Rather than having magical beasts and witches as the villains, the villains in this movie are fundamentalist Christians. Judge Frollo is not an evil wizard but he's a hardcore Christian extremist who uses his religious authority to justify wiping out the Gypsies and torturing his enemies and the movie even opens up with Frollo murdering a gypsy and almost murdering Quasimodo as a baby because of his disease. Frollo is all too similar to real life fundamentalists in that he acts all holier than thou throughout the movie but in reality he has his own inner demons and sins of lust that he struggles with. The movie has a timeless message that you shouldn't judge by appearances. Everyone fears and loathes Quasimodo because of his disfigured appearance but reveres Frollo because of his devout piety but in reality it is Frollo who is the monster and Quasimodo who is the man. As opposed to many Christian kid's movies that just dumb the bible down to indoctrinate kids into fundamentalism with, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a powerful movie for all ages that reminds us that a truly living god would be big enough to love everyone regardless of their faith or social background.

 

The Da Vinci Code- Though Dan Brown's movie has a number of historical errors in it that annoy me as someone who enjoys reading about religious history, I still liked this movie and how it tried to promote the importance of feminist spirituality in Christianity and promote tolerance and acceptance of "heretical" Christians. And again, while the movie suffers from some historical inaccuracies, I think it does help raise awareness that the history of the church is more complex than many Christians like to think and that there are different ways of worshiping Jesus than "traditional" Trinitarinism out there.

Posted (edited)

"Contact" is one of my favorites also.

 

Brother Rog posted a good list earlier on this thread...I would add to those,

 

Life is Beautiful

Milk

Babette’s Feast

Antonia’s Line

Groundhog Day

Amazing Grace

Arranged

Edited by rivanna
Posted (edited)

Eat pray love I add this because its one woman's struggle to find some sort of meaning in her life beyond her work and the relationships that she seems to fall in and out of too easily. The whole idea of finding her balance within herself is wonderful.

 

(The reference to Gound Hog Day made me laugh, until I thougt about it for a minute. But I think you're absoutely right!)

Edited by Yvonne
Posted

I have seen many of those movies! Loved "Eat, Pray, Love"....and many more of the above.

 

How about Yentl?

 

Boy in the Stripped Pajamas (sad and shocking, but what a lesson it tries to teach)

 

Driving Miss Daisy

Posted

Lars and the real girl

The Ultimate gift

One of the Star Trek movies (help my Riv) The Final Frontier??? It is the one where they go looking for God. Some might call it an atheist movie but to met it shows the problems with the "Man Behind The Curtain" view of God.

 

 

Several Documentaries

 

" The Bible tells me so" talks about religious bigotry toward GLBT

the historic Jesus PBS and ABC specials

 

steve

Posted (edited)

“The Final Frontier” was one of the least inspiring Star Trek films, though it did carry out the theme that God isn’t “out there” but within us.

 

Here’s a movie index that reminded me of many spiritual films I’d seen but forgotten - organized by specific categories of social justice, personal healing, family issues, the search for meaning, models of courage, hope, etc.

 

http://www.cinematherapy.com/filmindex.html

 

One that should be on their list - “Something the Lord Made” (2004) --a dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

Edited by rivanna

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