Words - Catching Fire in Sandy Hook.

Remember who the enemy is.

This line, delivered by Haymitch to Katniss before she is sent into the arena for the second, and probably last, time is one of the turning points of the story “Catching Fire,” written by Suzanne Collins.  In the book, Katniss remembers this and turns away from killing one of the career tributes to fire the final arrow which destroys the arena and launches the revolution.  In the movie, fellow tribute, Finnick, says the line, reminding her, and she turns away from killing him.

Remember who the enemy is.

But this is not the only good line given to Haymitch’s character.  In the movie, but not in the book, he also says to Katniss, “Nobody ever wins the Games. Period.  There are only survivors.  Not winners.”  And this is a truth we should each have engraved on our soul.  No one ever wins the war against cancer.  There are only survivors.  No one ever wins in the arena of life.  There are no survivors.  Everyone dies.  Every. Last. One. Of. Us.

But beyond this life, there are survivors, because death is not the end.  And how we treat each other, how we help each other is of primary importance.  As Jesus said, “I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; sick, and you visited Me; in prison, and you came to Me.' (Matt 25:35-36)

Remember who the enemy is.

Paul reminds us, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but . . . against the spiritual forces of evil in high places.”  Eph 6:12

This is the story of one battle, won.

Remember who the enemy is.

The enemy is not those agents of spite, people of meanness and hate, who may go so far as to take our physical lives, or the lives of those we love.

Remember, instead, the real enemy, the first evil, the father of lies; the one who continually tries to convince us that there is no hope, no peace, no joy; No satisfaction to be had in this world, and no hope for the next.  The one who whispers these lies into our heart:  You are worthless; The world would be better off without you; No one loves you; No one cares.  And what he would have us believe, to our utter misery, is a complete lie.

Remember why Jesus came.  God loved each one of us so much that He finally poured out His heart to be born into the world as His own son.  He sacrificed Himself, giving up His own life in death on the cross to pay the price for our sins.  But He rose from the dead and returned to heaven, so that every one of us who believes in Him, and follows Him, shall not be destroyed by death, but will be given eternal life with God.

Remember who your friend is.  Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do what I command you. ... This I command you, that you love one another.” (Jn 15:14,17)

Remember who has your back.  “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,  My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Ps 18:2)

Remember the truth.  “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)

Movies --- Catching Fire

The movie, "Catching Fire," part two of the "Hunger Games" trilogy, is a close adaptation of the book by Suzanne Collins.

I liked this movie a lot better than the first one, mostly for its superior quality.  The original "Hunger Games" movie was plagued by a lot of distracting, shaky, hand-held camera work. 

For those of you who have neither read the books, nor seen the first movie, the setting is that of a post-modern city called Panem, which taxes its 12 districts into starvation while drafting two teenagers from each district every year, to fight each other to the death in the Hunger Games arena.  The purpose of this televised blood-bath is for the pleasure of the rich citizens of the capital city, and to punish the districts for a 75 year old rebellion, in order to keep them in complete subjection.  The trilogy is a story of survival and revolution.

Yes, its depressing.  Don't look for a happy ending, or any comfortable ending at all, other than a forced separation which will lead directly into book three.

Still, the acting and camera work is good. The costumes are good.  The story is true to the book.  The make-up and special effects are good.  And, unlike the first movie, I will actually see this again.

Whether you read these books or watch the movies, you should remember the excesses of Imperial Rome.  Some of these were repeated in the book, "Killing Jesus."  The parallels between Rome and the fictional city of Panem are not accidental, and a few incidents are direct copies from Roman history.

Would I recommend that you see this movie?  Only if you are a fan of the Hunger Games, Dystopian fiction, or you really want to see a strong character, scared out of her mind, survive extreme odds in a realistic Horror plot.  If you are a fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," you will probably love it.

Books --- Killing Jesus

"Killing Jesus, A History," by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, is one of those rare pieces of non-fiction that is very readable.  Compared to this book, the Western Civ textbooks you were forced to read in High School are like dust and ashes.

This book goes back 50 years before Jesus was born to give the reader a clear understanding of the social and political times during Jesus?s lifetime.  It shows us the extremely immoral and violent culture of Imperial Rome.  And it leads us to think we may even understand the pressures and motivations of the people in charge --- The Roman Emporer, Herod, Pilate, and Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest.

I believe the authors would agree that the crucifixion of Jesus, given His popularity and propensity for antagonizing the establishment, was almost inevitable. Yes, the book does go into some graphic detail of the process of crucifixion and flogging, so it could be rated "R" for violence.

In the end, the authors do raise the question of how Jesus ended up becoming the most influential man in history.  Given His relative anonymity to the world at large, this would not have happened; unless, of course, He is who He said He was.

Books --- The Raft

Like the movie, “Gravity,” the book, “The Raft,” by S.A. Bodeen, is also a survival story.  But compared to the movie, I found “The Raft” to be a more satisfying story for several reasons.

One, being a book rather than a movie, we can feel the feelings and hear the thoughts of the main character, fifteen year-old Robie Mitchell. With a movie, we can only see how those thoughts and feelings appear from the outside.  In this case, Bodeen did such a good job of showing Robie’s fear as the plane crashes, I was literally shaking.  Okay, it was slightly chilly, but I still couldn’t tell that my shakes weren’t nervous energy from the story; it was that scary.

Two, the main character, Robie, is always engaged in reacting to the disastrous events occurring around her.  Eventually, she is ground down to the point where there is no hope for survival, yet with Max’s encouragement, she continues to crawl on.  If the writer had not sent in a ship to rescue her, she would have died.  In this story, she does not save herself by her own wit and ingenuity, but is rescued by other people.

Three, in the end, the main character has something to live for. She has a family waiting for her.  And she has a mission --- to tell Max’s family the story of how he saved her life.  And, by leaving it to our imagination just how she does that, and what she might say, the author has created a story which is unforgettable.

Comparing this book to the movie, “Gravity,” is simple:  The movie, while worth seeing for its point of view, is still fantasy.  This book is built on reality, and it shows.

Movies – Gravity (3D) (Spoiler Alert)

 The movie, Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, is a survival story.  Technically well executed, the special effects showing the destruction of the shuttle and, eventually, the space stations as they circle the earth, allow the viewer to experience the hair-raising terror and claustrophobia that accompany a disaster in space.

In the end, however, the movie was not as emotionally satisfying as it could have been.  This was due to shallow plotting on the part of the writers.  The protagonist, Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock), is shown to be a broken person who doesn’t much care whether she lives or dies; her young daughter died a year or so before this, and she has no family left.  As a result, when she finally decides to care enough to try and survive, and then does survive, when she rises from the mud in a sort of “I am woman, and I survived” ending; it leaves the viewer flat.  Why should we care for a character who doesn’t really care for herself, and doesn’t have anything to live for, or anything to come back to?  The character just does not have a stake in the game.

In my opinion, it would have been much more satisfying for her to have had a once-strong and loving relationship with her daughter, which was seriously strained by her long absences for the previous six months of mission training --- to the point where her daughter loses it, and angrily says (just before launch) that she never wants to see her again.  And as Stone grows through the disaster, she realizes that she is the adult in the relationship, and her daughter’s outburst was only an expression of extreme fear that her mother might not be there for her as she grows up.

And after this realization, nothing can stop her from getting back and being there for her daughter.  So, the first thing she does --- even before they find her alive and pick her up --- is to call her daughter to tell her that, yes, no matter what they told her, she is still alive, the mission ended early, and she will be home to bring cupcakes to class for her birthday next week.