On holiday movies

The Nativity Story opens today!! I hope it is good, I can’t wait to see it! I love rewarding Hollywood when they get it right, as I hope they have done with this movie. Another movie opening this month that we are interested in seeng is The Pursuit of Happyness, the new Will Smith movie based on a true story.

Apocalypto, Mel Gibson’s latest, we will pass on. I want to support Mel because of the courage and conviction it took to make The Passion, but I just can’t with this movie. It sounds like a violent gore fest from beginning to end, the point of which is ??? In The Passion, there was a point to the violence: redemption. In The End of the Spear, there was a point to the violence: redemption. It sounds like there is no point to Apocalypto’s violence, other than maybe proving that Mel Gibson won’t be pigeon-holded doing namby pamby Christian movies for the rest of his life? I don’t know, but please give me a good namby pamby movie, crafted with intelligence and beauty and strength. Please. It doesn’t even have to be labeled “Christian.” Hollywood used to do those, remember Hollywood? Remember Meet John Doe, with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck? With nary a Santa in sight, but a stirring reminder of the true meaning of Christmas right at the climax of the movie?

Thank goodness for DVD. We will be watching Meet John Doe, The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Muppets’ Christmas Carol at home, and skip the Christmas without Christ “holiday” movies in theaters, with the requisite bathroom humor and blood and gore, all together.