So my second all-time favorite movie is From Here To Eternity. It’s from a James Jones novel. It’s a World War II movie, or that’s the setting, really the vehicle by which the movie operates. It encompasses Pearl Harbor, set in Hawaii. It’s about justice, right and wrong, and so much more. The book is even better. Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Donna Reed and Deborah Kerr are the stars.
Oh! And how could I forget — no I didn’t forget — Frank Sinatra. If you’ve ever seen The Godfather, this is the movie Johnnie Fontane wants the Godfather to get him in, you know, where the Hollywood producer finds the horse’s head in bed with him…
Most memorable line: just because you love something doesn’t mean it has to love you back.
Ain’t that the truth!
Okay. So I’m a softy. Yes. I cry in the movies. I cry at home watching movies. I cry in my real life, not weeping-crying but choked-up crying. My wife, who never cries at movies, laughs at me.
Movies used to, and some still do, teach us things. Nowadays, more often than not, maybe, they teach us by presenting negative lessons. Hollywood surely is leading us in some directions we could do without, we would be better off not going in.
A few other key movies should be mentioned, movies that mean something whether they are good movies or not. Make no mistake, From Here To Eternity and Here Comes Mr. Jordan are great movies.
One movie that should be mentioned is Passenger 57. It’s one of those pass-the-time, get-lost-in-the-movies, movies. It stars Wesley Snipes, whom I kind of like as an actor for what he does, but that doesn’t matter at all. The movie matters because something happens in it that breaks with convention and starts us down a new path, not one of good things or good directions.
Passenger 57 is your standard movie in which a ruthless killer/terrorist and his terrorist gang hijack an airplane and onboard, low and behold, is your lone good-guy, save-the-day bad-ass who happens to have just been hired as the airline’s new head of security.
There’s one scene where to prove his point of being serious, the ruthless terrorist-killer confronts the lone save-the-world good guy. He asks a passenger his name, asks him if he has any kids. The passenger says yes, two children. The terrorist tells the good guy that because of him those kids won’t be seeing their father anymore and shoots the passenger in the head.
This was a new low in our sense of morality. It was meant purely for shock value, and it did just that. But now, many years later, seeing something like this is ho-hum. If you see that movie a second time and you know what’s going to happen, you’re not shocked. Well, that’s how we are now. Another shooting after 9/11, another terrorist act, ho-hum, another day.
Hollywood! Its people would have us believe that they have a real sense of what our morality should be. They tell us this all the time in their political statements, which are mostly, if not always, leftist viewpoints. They tell us we should be doing this or that, then like the big politicians (like Al Gore), they are the old-school parents who say do as I say, not as I do.
In fact, that is very much the key motto of our politicians. They want, at least the leftists do, to dictate morality and direction to us. But they have no sense of what we, the people, want or need or care about. And they don’t practice what they preach and don’t even pretend to.
Anyway… Why mention this? Well, just in general we should take a cold, hard look at what people are trying to sell us, at where we’ve been and where we seem to be going and if we should be going that way.
Another movie next time!
