Hayden's Belated Birthday...Meat Cake.

Evilenko

Rating:	★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

There are a few actors that I like to follow. Not particularly close, but I like their style. Malcolm McDowell is one of those for me. I’ve been going through his library of films via Netflix for the past several years. I’ve been mostly happy with his portrayals. He plays someone that is always slightly off. He plays it well. I like him in Generations, where he played a man willing to kill millions, if not billions, of people so he could live under the delusion of having his wife and family with him. He was in the remake of Fantasy Island where strange powers were employed to fulfill fantasies. More recently, I’ve watched him in The Mentalist (a rip off of USA’s Psyched) as a cult leader. I actually started watching The Mentalist just for his appearances.

In this movie, he definitely moved out of his comfort zone. Pretty far out of mine too. He plays a Russian serial killer, who preys upon women and children. Not only does he sexually abuse them, but he mutilates them with a flourish of cannibalism. A totally sick and depraved individual. Really, this movie is disturbing, and it is just a bunch of actors. I can’t imagine what the reality was like. The detective played by Marton Csokas ( of Aeon Flux fame) had a difficult time tracking him down and didn’t until over 50 victims were totaled.

I guess what was most disturbing to me, as I am a fan of detective and forensic shows, was how they convinced Mr. McDowell to play this part. I mean, it was completely off the rails for him. I also have to burn his naked form, as well as Mr. Csokas’, from my memory in some strange, homo-erotic psychoanalysis session in order to obtain a confession. Good night, you can’t unsee that.

I don’t expect anyone to rush out and see this movie, or put it in your queue, unless you are as twisted as I am, and this pushed my limits. It is unrated, and with appropriate reasons. Lots of blood, some nudity and a heaping helping of “OMG! Turn your eyes!”

Another movie was made about the same individual. It is named “Citizen X” and it has received some awards so perhaps that is more accurate or more tastefully done. I still like Malcolm McDowell, but what the heck was he thinking.

On snow

I would look out of the window and watch the snow fall down to virgin ground. I would watch the flakes swirl and sway in the eddies that would etch their path up and down the ridges, set like steps across the yard. The snow would sparkle and shine, glimmer in the bright sun. The narrow expanse of the yard would beckon for my gaze, to see the bright sculpture that nature had set before me.

 I would look out the window at the simple beauty, a foreign landscape from the green that occupied my vision but a few short months before. A vision of blades and weeds are now taken by white and drifts that rise and fall with the ever present wind.

I look out the window at chaos. My white dunes now crushed, pulverized. Piles of hard packed crystals, paths beaten into the depths, lumps of uneven size scattered across the small vista that I call my own. Not a space untouched, undisturbed. All is scattered. Banks once rigid are flattened, as if a herd of caribou had made a visit, scattering my calm with their passing.

Kids.

(500) Days of Summer

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romantic Comedy

I just finished watching a wonderful film. Absolutely enjoyed it. “(500) Days of Summer” It is not a love story. You are told that by the author very quickly in the film. It isn’t chronological, which absolutely makes the film. You are seeing a relationship through the eyes of Tom (Joseph-Gorden Levitt) and his love Summer (Zooey Deschanel). These are two of my favorite actors (See Zooey in Tin Man). What is great about it is that Tom is constantly trying to figure out where he stands in the relationship, hence the non-chronological sequence, and trying to figure out where he went wrong. Any man does this, constantly trying to read the woman, wondering where he stands.

No, it isn’t a love story, but an darn good film. There isn’t any nudity that I recall, but the language is a little harsh, but considering the topic and the people, not out of place. I used worse in high school. I highly recommend this film. I haven’t had a lot of enjoyable movies lately, and this was worth the time.

http://www.amazon.com/500-Days-Summer-Zooey-Deschanel/dp/B001UV4XUG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291860186&sr=8-1

A great review here. http://www.amazon.com/review/R1A326IY2PMMU6/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001UV4XUG&nodeID=130&tag=&linkCode=

Insomnia and the Atonement

I’ve been suffering from insomnia recently. It has affected my work and my relationships, so I feel the need to apologize for my somewhat erratic behavior as of late. It isn’t something that I like to admit but I know it has happened as I’ve put some things in retrospective.

Some of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently are my relationships with people. I’ve spent much more time with this after reading some books by Blake Ostler. They have significantly changed my view of the Gospel, the Atonement, and my interaction with the divine. Wow, you say, that’s quite a list. Yes, it is quite a list.

In my amateur apologetic experience, I’ve defended the church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS Church) in many of its practices and doctrines. That really hasn’t changed. I still think that Joseph Smith, its founder, is one of the great thinkers of all time. His views have been glorious, and I don’t make any apologies for liking his world so much. Still, I have some fundamental issues, not necessarily with his teachings, but with the underlying structure of Christianity in general. I am constantly taken back by how corrupt all the agencies of man have been and have become. I’m more and more disillusioned with the direction of my government and the direction the world is going. In general, I’m trying to make sense of things.

Blake Ostler made no bones about taking some of the assumptions of Christianity on, even how members of the church perceive the gospel and make reasons for doing what they do. Presently, I’m rereading his second book, “The Problems of Theism and the Love of God”. I am particularly interested in that volume because it addresses the Atonement. It starts by addressing our relationship with God. Or rather, the relationship that God wants us to be in with him. He wants to be our Father, in a loving peer relationship. Everything he has done is to build us into coming into that relationship. Indeed, that is the reason for the atonement, to get us back to him.

So we are at the atonement. How does that work? How can my sins ever be transferred to anyone else? Blake offers that they can’t. In the same respect that we cannot punish an innocent man for the guilt of another, it cannot work that way for the atonement either. Our sense of justice wouldn’t allow it. To say that God somehow works under different rules undercuts our own way we perceive justice. Is it right to punish an innocent man for the guilt of another, in any regards? That guilt cannot be transferred. It simply cannot. The LDS belief that we cannot assume the guilt or consequence of Adam’s sin in the garden applies here as well, other than the fact that Adam was forgiven of that act. If I steal a car, it makes no sense to throw my son in jail. Does God operate on a completely different sense of justice than we do? Can we trust a being that operates in a way that is contrary to our simple views of justice? So you see the dilemma.

I honestly can’t summarize Blake’s views completely, as I’ve molded them with my own to a great degree. His view of atonement is that it is the state that divinity resides in. He feels pain not because he has assumed our guilt, as guilt doesn’t transfer. He feels pain because forgiveness requires pain. To forgive is just as stressful and painful as the guilt. The prodigal son is the prime example of this, although we constantly put ourselves in the state of the son and not the father. What problems, pain and sorrow does the father feel in that story? Having the atonement as a state of being with divinity takes the time element out of the atonement. Both the Father and Son feel the pain of the atonement, all the time. It is part and parcel of being divine, of bringing souls to your level, them becoming more and more part of your world.  It is an interesting theory, and really the only one that I have come across that comes close to answering my difficulties with the atonement.

Something else that I have considered is our getting the cart before the horse. We have looked at Jesus as the fulfillment of OT prophesies but perhaps aren’t understanding the cause and effect. Christians look at the blood of Christ in a particular way, of somehow having healing properties for the soul. Well, perhaps it really isn’t that way. The system of animal sacrifice did have blood as an element. However, there is no salvation in the blood of animals. The entire reason for animal sacrifice was to help us identify the Savior once he came, not necessarily that there was some healing properties with the shedding of blood. Jesus came as the suffering servant, not as a political figure. He was to be sacrificed by the people and their priests, so animal sacrifice was descriptive. Jesus needed to learn pain, sacrifice, hopeless suffering, those things that couldn’t be learned in a disembodied state. Just as we need to learn them. Blood was part of the atonement, but not integral. It was to help us identify the Savior from a more political entity that some of the jews still look forward to.

Joseph learned of the temple ordinances, the sealing powers, after the Kirtland Temple was dedicated. I think he learned what the real purpose of the gospel was. It wasn’t the forgiveness of sins, that was but a step. The real gospel is the sealing of the human family, the covenant relationships with each other that bind us to one another. The highest sacrament of the gospel isn’t with God directly, it is with my wife and my children. Joseph had that sealing power extend to a more expanded view than what the church currently allows. Brigham Young or perhaps it was another president narrowed the sealing powers to particular relationships.  At one point, I thought it was Joseph living a principle that he might not have fully understood. I’m more inclined to think that Joseph had a more expansive view of the human family than we have or can really fathom. Before I start being accused of heresy or apostasy, I am not claiming that we should have not made those changes. I don’t pretend to that kind of knowledge. I fully accept that the president of the church is the only one with the sealing keys. I just think that we might learn more about the significance of this in the future than we do now.

Joseph highly treasured his friends. They were the reason he went through what he did. Some of his last words were that if his friends didn’t treasure his safety, than neither did he. Biting, to be sure, but that was his mind. As I get older, the more important those things are to me. Although I am a recluse, I want those intimate friendships, that bonding and time with others. My time on this earth is short. It has been filled with joys and sorrow, but though it all, friends are there. My wife is there. My family is there. They are the tangible parts of God that I can know and experience. It is to be with them forever that is my goal.

I highly recommend Blake’s books. They are not easy reads. He operates on a level that is logical and yet complex at times. Many in the church disagree with him. Luckily, there is room in the church for disagreement. We can learn of our own path before God with Him directly. I can’t say that my views have been verified in such a way, just that I find it easier to function with this view of the atonement and gospel. I’ll learn soon enough of the error of my ways as we all will.