Heresies, Experiences, and Bad Acting

Today was good. I met up with Grace in Seoul where we went to Costco and bought the makings of a Thanksgiving Dinner. This was quite an experience since the foods are difficult to find here. What we ended up with was a small ham, corn on the cob, broccoli and cream soup (Grace wanted it, even though I told her soup isn't a Thanksgiving thing), salad, and homemade mashed cheesy potatoes. Pretty sad as a T-Day meal goes, but it was shared with Grace and her mother; it was one of the best meals I've had here.

After dinner we went to see 2012, which I had heard had awesome special effects but was pretty terrible in every other aspect. I am here to confirm that statement. The big special effects were great, but the small ones were terrible (they must've been saving money on them). There is a scene where a man throws his child onto a ship, and the momentum carries him over the edge. He fell down the same way the crazy Indian guy does off the ladder at the end of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, just terrible effects. However, as things explode and balls of fire chase the characters, you could swear you were there with them.

The plot was the end of the world, I think everyone knows that, but the way the world ends is just the most crazy, fantastic way you could imagine. I mean, everything that could happen, does, and it all has one root cause. It's a little far-fetched with the whole Mayan calendar ending and there's a lining up of planets, whatever, but I guess I don't know enough about the science of it to really say it could or could not happen.

The scenes in this movie were easily, hands down, the most unbelievable ever. There were at least 4 scenes where an average, everyday car makes an incredible jump over who knows how many feet, and lands perfectly with nary a scratch. There were at least 5 scenes where a character says something, and then the event he just mentioned happens as he finishes his final words. As usual, your average Joe (an author/limo driver) saves humanity. Of course the hero has an ex-wife, 2 kids, and the ex-wife has a boyfriend who (no surprise here) dies and allows the exes to be completely reconciled a mere 27 days after he dies.

The plot also skips like crazy, and resolutions are not to be found. It starts in 2009, then goes to 2010 within a few minutes, then I think it skips 2011 altogether and gets right into 2012, with zero explanation of all the things that got us from point A to point B. There are one or two hints at what sorta happened, but you know nothing of the planning, etc. Loved ones die and no one even bats an eye, characters are left in a precarious position and you never find out what happens (I guess they die, whatever). Deus ex machina after deus ex machina save the writer from having to have a decent story (or rather, the writer implements the story so poorly that it comes off as deus ex machinas).

And then, to top it all off, a 5-year-old kid sitting two seats away from me with his mother between us stands up in the middle of the theater while his mother holds a cup, and he pisses in it.

However, I would still recommend going to see 2012 if you simply want to be entertained, and you can engage your suspension of disbelief button in a serious way. It does have great special effects, and is quite intense throughout. I do not regret buying the ticket, but I do wish so many other things had gone into the movie besides cocaine and special effects.

I am a heretic. I understand that. But it's ok when orthodoxy is wrong. Someone made a comment about the rapture, and how if our soul is going to leave our body to be with God, must we feel the experience of dying right before we're raptured? If they could only read the gnostic texts, and then read what John wrote to combat that heresy, they would probably pass out from the contradictions being held in their head. I hesitate to get into discussions over this because I know that I come off as being overbearing, pushy, and rude in a conversation. Of course, my reasoning for this is I'm right and I have lots to back it up with (of coures:) ). Gently (I hope) and within 2 minutes I explained to them how all of what they believe about that is wrong. Their response was something akin to, "Ok, but you can't know because you're not God." The go-to defense when you're standing on nothing but can't admit it or you'd go crazy from your world being shaken upside down. I know, I was there a few years ago. But truth sets you free, and nothing else does, and a secure life in a prison is no life at all.

I just wish that those of you who read this and believe that the gnostic rapture will happen, will enter a discussion with me. I do not want to beat you into submission, I simply want to state my reasons, you state yours, then let us chew on that. If you don't want to for any reason, that's fine, but make sure that "reason" really isn't the resistance to having your beliefs and faith shaken up (after all, our faith is in Christ Jesus, and Him resurrected, not in some tangential thing Paul said to a church in Thessaloníki. I'm sure this comes off (as usual) in a way I don't mean it, in a challenging, I'm-better-than-you, way, but I just want to show and be shown truth, and if our beliefs differ, then at least one of us needs truth.