The Apostle Paul calls Satan “the god of this world” (some translations render II Corinthians 4:4 “the god of this age” which has interesting implications).  Truly, wherever there is power in an Earthly sense, our Adversary wields it.  Nowhere is this more true than Hollywood.

But in order to be effective, lies and propaganda must be sown with Truth.

What’s more, there are unhappy servants in Hollywood…people who know what’s going on, who have sold themselves to be a part of it, but long for freedom from it (even if it hurts or costs them in the end).

Is that what this movie was really all about?

In my days before taking the “Red Pill” that showed me who really controls world affairs and who our real enemies are, I saw and reviewed Kingdom of Heaven, a movie by Ridley Scott.

In my Rush Limbaugh era, I was furious with Scott for painting all “Christians” as brutish animals and all muslims as civilized and chivalrous.

But was that really what he was saying?

Today, I know that Islam in general and Wahabist jihad in specific are controlled and guided by Rome—the same “Christian” force that gave us both the Crusades and the Inquisition.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving Scott a free pass.  Kingdom of Heaven was still obnoxious in a politically correct sense and I’ll be in desperate need of entertainment before I see it again, despite my awakening having given me new perspective.

Yet, we need to examine this movie objectively, and not with the eyes of a knee-jerk, immature Christian faith.

It was that same knee-jerk reaction that threw the baby out with the bathwater on Darren Aronofsky’s gnostic Noah.

On the one hand, I think Christian leaders or pastors who endorsed the movie were in dereliction of their responsibility to their flocks.

On the other hand, there were parts of the movie I liked strongly.  I liked the idea that Noah was a “hard bastard” chosen because he could finish a seemingly insurmountable task (although I wouldn’t quite call him cold for watching the world drown).

I liked the idea that Noah was a conservationist in contrast and conflict with all the rest of humanity (and I am anything but an “environmentalist”).

Lastly, I liked that, despite his inaccuracy and “artistic license”, Aronofsky still had loyalty to the idea that the event actually happened.

For my complete review of Noah, go here.

The same can be said of Ridely Scott’s rendition of the Exodus though I dare say he was even more “loose” with the Biblical narrative.

The idea for the movie came from the top man at 20^th Century Fox, Peter Chernin, former operations officer at Rupert Knight of Malta, Order of St. Gregory, “I Like ‘Em Blonde” Murdoch’s News Corp.  He also loves Barack Obama so much he’s given him several fundraisers.

It was an offer Ridley couldn’t refuse.

Right off the bat is the issue of casting.

I do think it’s quite humorous that Scott and Fox were immediately embroiled in “controversy” because all of the lead roles were given to caucasians while soldiers and slaves were played by non-whites.  The Leftists were all up in arms and vociferously pushed for a boycott that went ignored by the general public.

In reality, the cast wasn’t quite so monochrome in its breakdown.  Scott told Yahoo;

Yahoo: What was in your mind when you set about creating this international cast?

Scott: Egypt was – as it is now – a confluence of cultures, as a result of being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.  We cast major actors from different ethnicities to reflect this diversity of culture, from Iranians to Spaniards to Arabs.  There are many different theories about the ethnicity of the Egyptian people, and we had a lot of discussions about how to best represent the culture.

María Valverde, who played Moses’ wife Zipporah is from Spain.

Ben Kingsley, although having been born and raised in England, is of Gujarati Indian descent on his father’s side.

Hiam Abbass, who played Moses’ adoptive Egyptian mother Bithia is an Israeli.

Indira Varma, who played the Egyptian pagan High Priestess, has an East Indian father just as Kingsley does (but, like Kingsley, she’s English…do they really count as “international”?).

Golshifteh Farahani, who played Nefertari—the wife of Ramses II—is Iranian.

Kevork Malikyan, who played Moses’ father-in-law Jethro, is of Armenian descent.

Of course none of this matters, apparently, given that the two starring roles were given to white guys.

In spite of this, Joel Edgerton was excellent as Ramesses II—petulant, arrogant, aggressive; you really did feel that he was a man who’s whims were to be instantly obeyed (which is actually creepy and makes you wonder if Joel is really that good an actor or was he channeling his inner @ssh*le).

Perhaps the most enigmatic choice in casting was Christian Bale as Moses (“Moshe”).

If you close your eyes and think of Moses, Christian Bale is probably on the other side of Tahiti (which his livelihood can easily afford).  What could possibly have gone into choosing him for the title role?

Although Bale has a long filmography that includes starring roles in American Psycho, and The Machinist (my personal favorite was his rendition of survivor POW Dieter Dengler in Rescue Dawn) the roles that, to date, define Bale’s work are as Christopher Nolan’s semi-psychotic super hero, Batman.

Was that the vein we were to accept Bale’s Moses in?  The other peculiarities of this movie make that abundantly clear.

The movie opens with the customary Ridley Scott prose but a pro-Jew, anti-Christian slant is betrayed with the use of the ridiculous dating white-wash convention of renaming “AD” Ano Domini (In the Year of our Lord) “Common Era” and “BC” (Before Christ) “Before Common Era”.  We’re told the date is “1300 BCE”.

The movie begins in the court of Pharaoh Seti.  Seti is played by John Turturro, which was an interesting choice.  It worked but I still wanted to snicker, especially after Turturro’s tongue-in-cheek performances in the Transformers movies.

The High Priestess of Sekhmet the war goddess is examining the entrails of a slaughtered goose to predict the victor of a coming battle against the Hittites.  Although she states that she is unable to discern who will triumph (always a safe way to go), she gave a prophecy of a separate event that would occur during the fighting; “one leader will be saved, and his savior will one day lead.”

This was an interesting way to build the idea that General Moses, raised next to future Pharaoh Ramses, would soon lead an insurgency on behalf of the Hebrews.

Such a view comes far more from Josephus than from Scripture.  According to the Roman historian, the Egyptians had been plagued by an invasion from Ethiopia.  Every city through to Memphis was over-run.  In desperation, they turned to Moses (whom they knew from the beginning was a Hebrew) and made him general of the counter-attacking army.

It’s quite a fascinating narrative—

So Moses, at the persuasion both of Thermuthis and the king himself, cheerfully undertook the business: and the sacred scribes of both nations were glad; those of the Egyptians, that they should at once overcome their enemies by his valor, and that by the same piece of management Moses would be slain; but those of the Hebrews, that they should escape from the Egyptians, because Moses was to be their general.  But Moses prevented the enemies, and took and led his army before those enemies were apprized of his attacking them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity; for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, (which it produces in vast numbers, and, indeed, is singular in some of those productions, which other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend out of the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mischief,) Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe, and without hurt; for he made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibes, and carried them along with them; which animal is the greatest enemy to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when they come near them; and as they fly they are caught and devoured by them, as if it were done by the harts; but the ibes are tame creatures, and only enemies to the serpentine kind…

Scripture implies what Josephus says openly—that the Egyptians knew from the beginning Moses was a Hebrew, and a dangerous one at that.  But the two sources part ways when it comes to why Moses was forced to leave Egypt.

According to Josephus, envy and fear amongst the Egyptians prompted an attempt to kill Moses.  As the returning general, fresh from his victory against the Ethiopians, he could easily lead a rebellion and overturn the ruling establishment.

Although the Bible agrees Moses had a desire to free his people, it gives a different account of his first attempt to do so—

Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens.  And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.  So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?”  Then he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”

So Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known!”  When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he sought to kill Moses.  But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Midian… ~ Exodus 2:11-15

But in the movies, it’s much more suspenseful to raise Moses as an Egyptian and then have him suddenly find out he’s a Hebrew.  Hey, it worked for Cecil B. DeMille.

DeMille also chose Ramses II as the Pharaoh who stood opposite Moses in this battle of wills, probably because he is considered the greatest of Egyptian monarchs.  In fact, there are several others who have done the same for the sake of good story-telling but there is a better candidate; Thutmose II.

Work by archeologist Dr. Joel Klenck states that Thutmose and many around him suffered from unusual lesions, that there was an uprising which caused chaos in Egypt and, despite his 18-year reign, little of his period is recorded—often a sign of bad events swept under the historical carpet.

But even DeMille didn’t stray so far from Scripture as the Chernin/Scott production when it came to the age and personality of Moses.

Acts 7:23 tells us that Moses was 40 years old when he left the lofty comforts of the king’s court to look upon the suffering of his brethren which resulted in murder and exile.

Exodus 7:7 tells us that Moses was 80 when he stood before Pharaoh and his brother, Aaron 83.  Aaron was included because, according to the Bible, rather than the young, tempestuous rebel/general image the movie portrays, Moses was a broken old man—the most humble man on the Earth (Numbers 12:3).  He actually argued with YHWH not to go because he wasn’t quick of speech and out of exasperation, the Lord told Moses to speak through his brother Aaron.

The movie, however, shows a young Christian Bale killing a couple Egyptian guards because they mistook him for a slave and it being of little consequence.  It was the revelation that he was Hebrew that was “treason” and cause for exile!

Only 9 years later, we’re told, Moses returned to lead an insurrection that got help from God along the way.  At least DeMille put a white wig and beard on Charlton Heston.  It wasn’t remotely believable but special effects had their limitations in 1956.

The interaction with “God” in the movie was perhaps the most ridiculous and annoying.

Although Moses being hammered and rendered immobile by a mud slide (a broken, captive audience—as often the Lord will require!) wasn’t bad “artistic license”, the role of “God” sure was—a prepubescent boy who speaks in front of the burning bush.

I don’t know if it’s more funny or offensive when the child says the words “I AM”.  I thought I’d seen the last of children saviors after George Lucas’ little Anakin Skywalker won the intergalactic NASCAR race on Tatooine.  This was just as annoying and completely unfounded as well!

In the beginning of the movie, Moses is an atheistic skeptic who relies only upon himself.  There is friction with his wife Zipporah over this in conflict with her faith in God.  Their battle over how their son should be raised is a very real and tragic one for countless families since then and through to today.

We’re never really sure about the boy/God because after he proclaims to a buried-in-mud Moses “I AM” Moses later shouts in exasperation that he’s tired of dealing with a messenger.  Which is it?

There’s no confusion about what the boy wants, however.  He tells Moses he needs a general to fight.

The treatment of the miracles in Egypt is interesting.  They are simultaneously mundane and miraculous (and that’s not without precedent in how YHWH has worked with a great many other faithful).  But we don’t see the repeated meetings between Moses and Pharaoh, where Moses works miracles with his staff and leprous hand mentioned in Scripture.  In fact, rather than Moses pouring blood-red water onto the ground before Pharaoh, crocodiles start a feeding frenzy on some poor fishermen which turns the Nile red (or is it that their thrashing pulled up the red clay, as one Egyptian adviser suggested?).  They disturbed the frogs whose living and dying brought the gnats who brought the flies who brought the sores.

Not that far-fetched as an explanation of the miraculous, really.  I’m actually OK with that because the Lord uses mundane events with miraculous timing far more than blatant, obvious miracles.

But it’s the depiction of Moses as the insurrectionist general being rescued in his slow war of attrition by miracles, that doesn’t match well with the Biblical narrative.  This seems less an accurate account of the Exodus and more a cry for insurrection against the Luciferian world order…but the Luciferians make the movies so what’s going on here?!

One place both DeMille and Scott depart from Scripture is, oddly enough, to protect our sensibilities from the harshness of the Word—the problem is that, intertwined in that harshness is the Gospel.

In both movies, it is the arrogance and barbarism of Ramses that suggests the killing of the firstborn to the Lord but only after Ramses has already threatened to do that to the Hebrews.

The reality is that it was the plan from the beginning.

All the firstborn of Egypt were to die unless they were protected by the blood of a lamb upon their doorposts and lintels.

Moses recounting the requirements to the elders was actually a stirring moment.  “Why should we do this?” they asked.  “Pity the lambs if I’m wrong,” Moses replied.  “If I’m right, we will bless them for eternity.”

Ramses later presents his dead son to Moses and asks him with angry anguish how the Hebrews could worship such a God.  Moses’ response was the catalyst for their release—another great moment (I won’t ruin it for you).

There were actually several other great scenes, some were quite subtle.

In arguing with Viceroy Hegep, the abuser of the Hebrews at Pithom, Moses corrects him about the precise meaning of “Israelite”.

When the plagues begin, Moses is distraught before God that they have effected everyone, “Who are you trying to punish?”  Scripture is clear that the first three plagues effected both Hebrew and Egyptian alike—

And the Lord said to Moses, “Rise early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh as he comes out to the water.  Then say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.  Or else, if you will not let My people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants, on your people and into your houses.  The houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground on which they stand.  And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the Lord in the midst of the land.  I will make a difference between My people and your people.  Tomorrow this sign shall be.”’”  And the Lord did so.  Thick swarms of flies came into the house of Pharaoh, into his servants’ houses, and into all the land of Egypt.  The land was corrupted because of the swarms of flies. ~ Exodus 8:20-24 (NKJV)

With the of the death of the firstborn, however, those who obeyed the Word were spared, regardless of their nationality—I’ll wager many a shell-shocked Egyptian eagerly mimicked the Hebrew precautions and perhaps more than a few scoffing Hebrews paid dearly for their lack of faith.

I like how the movie reinforces the idea that the beginning of the plagues effecting the Israelites made them more likely to obey Moses, but you have to read between the lines to get there.

Ramses then becomes bent on killing Moses and begins systematically executing random whole Jewish families until the whereabouts of Moses and his family are divulged.  Again, this is nowhere in Scripture but it does lead to a humorous moment when Ramses also hangs his adviser and even the High Priestess when they don’t produce solutions for him.

Another grievous departure from Scripture was what happened after the Hebrews were released.  Moses then attempted to lead them back through the desert wilderness trying to recall his trek from his family to Memphis.  He thinks he can remember but he’s deeply distraught.  He wants to bring them to a safe and tactically-secure location as soon as possible but not only does God ignore his pleas for help, Moses ineptly leads them to the Red Sea and a dead end as Pharaoh’s army comes crashing down on them—but not before losing many chariots through a dangerous mountain pass.

Not only is this not in Scripture, it actually contradicts the Word!

Moses never had to rack his brain for a route through the wilderness, wondering desperately how to stand in leadership for his people—the Lord made it powerfully clear with a massive plume of smoke by day and a terrifying column of fire by night guiding them the entire way.  When they reached the Red Sea, the column of fire switched positions and kept the Egyptians from bearing down on them before they were through crossing.

Again, what we are seeing is that it was much more important to the film-makers to encourage the rise of a future Moses than to honor the original story.

Be careful what you wish for.

_______________________

There have been a spate of people’s revenge movies coming out over the last few years—

Assault on Wall Street (2013)…the original title was Bailout: The Age of Greed

After the Fall (2014) is a sort of Wall Street meets Falling Down; again, about bail-outs and the little guy getting crushed

More recently there is The Big Short

And even a remake of Point Break

But, of course, they’re all seeking revenge against the bankers.  This is being allowed in theaters because “the bankers” are only at the mid-level.  Above them is the literal Whore of Babylon: Rome (read my book).

So again I ask, “What’s going on here?”

The fact that the impetus for the movie came from 20^th Century Fox’s top Luciferian, Peter Chernin, doesn’t convince me that the Elite secretly want a Moses to rise up against their order.  It certainly would suit them all if incompetents or puppets attempted to channel the discontent of the world right where the satanists wanted them to be; towards disaster and enslaved unification under an (or the) anti-Christ.

But the God of the Exodus has a sense of humor along with a clock ticking towards His Judgment.  If the Luciferians are looking for an uprising, they may get what they seek…but not quite the way they intended.

But Christopher Nolan’s reincarnation of Batman has forced me to write my opinion regarding his last two caped crusader movies.

My rudimentary knowledge of Nolan was that he is a Brit but, according to Wikipedia (which I like for the amount of money I have to spend on the information—nothing) states that Nolan’s mother is a Yankee. Interesting. Is that the connection of interest or are Batman comics big in the U.K.?

Found a great interview that had Nolan answering questions like “Why another Batman?”

Conventional wisdom is that Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) was just “it” but Jack Nicholson “stole” the movie as the Joker, creating the problem of who would be heavy enough to outdo him as Bruce Wayne/Batman.

Um, certainly not George Clooney. Liberal putz.

But I wouldn’t even go to the extreme of calling that 1989 Batman “it” in the first place. OK, it was good entertainment but, compared to Batman Begins, it is ludicrously superficial and buffoonish.

I’m curious about Nolan’s motivations because he has done such a stellar job with both of his movies. My experience has been that, to do such a good job, requires passion. Does Nolan have a passion for the character of Batman and, if so, why?

What I really enjoyed in The Dark Knight was Nolan’s topical comparisons to Western civilization’s war against fundamentalist Islam. What I wasn’t able to pick up on, was that he apparently did the same with Batman Begins;

Wilson Morales of blackfilm.com: According to the press kit, Gotham City is described in a way that [a] terrorist would described New York. Were you thinking that?

Nolan: Well, in the comic books, Ra’s al Ghul is often described as a terrorist. I would put him down as an extremist. What was important to me in creating an incredible frightening villain is that everything he says is true and at some level reasonable that also makes sense. The extremes to which he is prepared to go; to achieve what he believes is very threatening and very frightening.

Why does Batman Begins introduce “Ra’s al Guhl” and “Scarecrow” as Batman’s enemies instead of the more well-known villains? Because they fit the intelligent, realistic script Nolan worked on with screenwriter David Goyer. I may have liked a little more flair and even outlandishness with how they were portrayed but they were very “real”. Very little “suspension of disbelief” was necessary.

This is in radical contrast to the excellent script writing Tim Burton did in, for instance, Batman Returns (1992), where Michelle Pfeiffer becomes Cat Woman because she fell 50 stories onto pavement but was brought back to life by cats all showing up and licking her blood.

Great stuff. Moron.

Nolan and his producer/wife (convenient, no?) Emma Thomas said that they wanted a score that would be “classy”, “sincere” and “epic”.[1] I think it’s fair to say that the final product, composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard was just that.

And then there’s casting.

In Batman Begins, Liam Neeson once again takes up the part of learned, bad-ass mentor, much as he did in the anti-Christian propaganda movie Kingdom of Heaven, and George Lucas’ puke-fest The Phantom Menace.[2]

He is an iconoclastic Ra’s al Guhl (the audience is surprised when it learns the truth of who he is). And a relatively believable martial arts bad-ass, even though I’m sure he hasn’t had any formal training.

And I have to say that I liked his work in Taken. A few rough spots but, overall, a very enjoyable revenge movie.

I follow most of Nolan’s attempt to make Ra’s al Guhl believable-yet-maniacal but when it came time to turn him into a “bad guy” by the simplistic proclamation that “Gotham city’s time has come”, and slaughter of the entire city was the best way to go, it was a little bit of a leap for me.

Certainly there is great merit to the idea that, when a city or country reaches “the pinnacle of its decadence”, something must fall. Even though it was a stretch, it wasn’t a long one.

There are several developmental moments for the Wayne character that are meant to take you through how he walks the balance between sickening goody-two-shoes and The Punisher.

Much to my disappointment, he leans heavily towards goody-two-shoes, refusing to execute a murderer that Ra’s places before him in his training. Good ole’ Frank Castle wouldn’t have thought twice!

And what was with the Himalayan ninjas?! Chris! Brother! Ninjas are Japanese.

Oh well. Had to stretch reality somewhere, I guess. Certainly, if you had to categorize the caped crusader’s ass-kicking ability you’d say it was at the “ninja” level and at least we have some believable route to how he got there.

Michael Caine as the endearing servant “Alfred” was a little odd for me at first. Obviously Nolan wanted to go heavy for that role, and not just make Alfred a quaint side-show. But my first thought was that he went a little too heavy. A cockney accent does not a butler make.

But Caine did grow on me and he actually owns my favorite scene in both movies and, for that matter, one of my all-time top 10 favorite scenes of all time.

As I noted before, the comparisons to today’s fight against Islamo-facism were much more clear to me in The Dark Knight.

Nowhere was this more poignant than in a mid-film discourse regarding who the new nemesis was (“the Joker”) and why he wasn’t fitting any known criminal patterns—

Wayne: “Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. We just need to figure out what he’s after.”

Alfred: “With respect, master Wayne, perhaps this is a man you don’t fully understand, either.

A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government and they were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in 6 months, we never met anyone who traded with him.

One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.”

Wayne: “So why steal them?”

Alfred: “Well because he thought it would be good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.”

*whispering close to Wayne*

“Some men, just want to watch the world burn.”

I’ve watched it at least 25 times, I’ve recorded the sound clip from it and listened to it a hundred times. And almost without fail, every time I watch or listen, the hair stands up on my arms and neck.

—Because I don’t see or think of a fictional character when I listen to Caine’s flawless delivery.

I see something else…

_______________________________

Gary Oldman as “Jim Gordon” was another surprise but he, too, has grown on me through the 2 movies.

The first downer was Katie Holmes as “Rachel Dawes”. Holy crap was she annoying! Too young, and too pop-ish pretty, her frequent, righteously indignant diatribes made me contort in writhing knots of pop nausea.

You see, young, comely people don’t know the first thing about “justice”, “revenge” or “harmony”.

Ew! A little hippie mantra there, Chris? Have you been hanging around George Lucas? Well, I’ll forgive a minor slip-up.

Maggie Gyllenhaal was much more palatable as Dawes. I’m told by my pop culture advisor (my lovely wife) that Gyllenhaal is also a pop queen but I’ve neither heard of her nor seen her before and, to me, she looks much more like a regular woman than Holmes does and I like that for the role.

Morgan Freeman has got to be one of the most over-used actor in Hollywood. Good grief I think that guy is in every other movie. Hollyweird loves him.

However, as “Luscious Fox”—Wayne’s techno-godfather—Freeman is mostly enjoyable.

Unfortunately, he had an annoying moment, too.

During The Dark Knight, the Batman took an R&D gadget (a “sonar cell phone”) and brought it to the next level by making the cell phone of everyone in Gotham City a listening device for him. When he brought Freeman’s character “Fox” in to help him operate the command center, Fox told him the many displays were “beautiful…dangerous…unethical” and then he said that, as long as that device existed he would not work for Bruce Wayne.

The purpose of the command center was to find and stop the next Joker plot because his arch nemesis had taken his hijinks to the next level of mass slaughter and Batman couldn’t wait to be reactionary.

The parallels to the “War on Terror” are just short of hit-you-in-the-face.

And I must say, given the outrageous Left-wing slant of anything that comes out of Hollyweird, this was surprisingly gentle, perhaps even a little approving.

Of course we couldn’t go all the way. We had to have “Luscious” get righteously indignant and get immediately placated by Batman with how the faithful, trustworthy Fox would be the only one able to utilize the surveillance and, the moment the danger was passed, the righteous Luscious could 86 the whole thing.

Because, Heaven knows, Batman would only face this level of threat once in his lifetime.

Even in the dramatized parallel, we see the inconsistent illogic of this dilemma.

On the one hand, it is a bit disconcerting to think of any power, governmental or superhero, that can so easily look in on your most intimate moments, conversations, etc.

But, on the other hand, the vast majority of the whining about such Bush Islamo-facist fighting measures as “The Patriot Act” have overwhelmingly come from the Left. And, if you specify “the immoral Left”, that would include all of the “libertarians” who sit in the middle and agree with the Right on government abuse but tacitly agree with the Left on immorality by saying “What I do on my own is none of your concern.”

Such people, being moral reprobates, carry the quiet guilt of their secret (or not-so-secret) behaviors. And the thought of an outside source looking in on them bothers them very deeply.

But, if you have peace of mind and heart that your “sins” don’t include treason, or radical hedonism, then “Big Brother” doesn’t scare you all that much.

Ultimately, the common sense world view (the Judeo-Christian world view) that says, “man is basically evil”, makes it a mute point just as quickly as it destroys the idea that “gun control” will affect crime.

You see, technology is merely an extension of the human heart. And the human heart is mankind’s problem. Indulge me if you are neither Christian nor Jew whilst I prove my point;

Jeremiah 17:9
9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?”
New American Standard Update

Matthew 15:16-20
16 Jesus said, “Are you still lacking in understanding also?
17 Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?
18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”
NASU

You can’t stop technology any more than you can perfectly hold water in your cupped hands. It’s going to get out. As long as people are evil and self-centered, they will look for an advantage of power over their neighbors.

So those that disarm themselves or force others to get disarmed are only making easier victims of them.

But back to the movie.

I thought it was really cool how Nolan did a little homáge to the white eyes of the comic Batman by turning them into lenses for his “sonar”.

What a great lesson in how love for the original product and intelligent creativity can make the most outlandish believable and bring them to life!

_______________________________

And then we have Heath Ledger.

Previous to this, my only knowledge of who Ledger was, was through snippets of obnoxious pop culture blather. And that he was one of the two cowboy homosexuals in the wonderfully “senthetive” Brokeback Mountain. More than enough reason for me to keep clear of him.

And then, to my shock, I found him redefining Batman’s arch-enemy.

Between Nolan’s genius and Ledger’s acting, the Joker has forever been undone.

In fact, I can’t help but think that there were spiritual forces behind Ledger’s freak death in January of 2008. There can be no doubt that Ledger got the homicidal darkness of his character very right. It is satanic evil. The same evil that motivates Islamo-facists.

Nolan knows this. And he wanted his audience to know this—

It was with breathless relief that the morons in the news media told us, “Nope. You all thought he was another depraved coke addict, but it was just a prescription accident.”

Toxicology tests have now confirmed the cause of Heath Ledger’s death. He was killed by a deadly combination of FDA-approved medications prescribed to him by his doctors. The drugs found in Ledger’s system were OxyContin (a painkiller), Valium, Xanax (an antidepressant), Restoril, Unisom and Vicodin. This toxicology report ends any speculation that Ledger might have been killed by taking recreational drugs. The cause of death is now clearly FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. ~ Heath Ledger Cause of Death Confirmed: Prescription Drug Toxicity, Mike Adams, 06 February, 2008, NaturalNews.com

Why in hell was he combining multiple forms of “uppers”?

Why in hell, indeed.

My theory is that he got too close to the truth of what really motivates evil. He uncovered the reality of a hidden nemesis. And having no spiritual armor, he was easy prey for satanic entrapment.

A truly tragic story to the bitter end.

Endings

How you wrap a story up can be the difference between an audience walking out going “wow…” and saying to their friend or spouse, “They’ve got to do a sequel!” and “are you kidding me?!”

Both of Nolan’s Batman movies ended with “wow…”

In the case of Batman Begins, Gary Oldman’s “Lieutenant Gordon” takes a cue from how Batman tied a mob boss to a spotlight and brings the caped crusader to his rooftop with the archetypical Batman beacon. Gordon then tells the Dark Knight that he really shook up the crime world, but that there’s still much more to be done.

Gordon: “Take this guy. Armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for the theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card.” *shows the Batman a Joker from a deck of cards*

Batman: *solemnly* “I’ll look into it.”

Gordon’s smile becomes serious as he stops the Dark Knight from walking away completely: “I never said ‘thank you’.”

Batman turns back and pauses before saying: “And you’ll never have to.” Then jumps off the rooftop.

Great stuff!! Scenes like that make actors like Oldman well worth the acquisition.

But, in the Dark Knight, the Joker seems to be our hero’s match. To the point of killing off poor Rachel and turning Batman’s hopes of retirement through the hard work of prosecutor Harvey Dent into ashes.

In devastated depression, Wayne turns to his mentor Alfred and asks—

Wayne: “That bandit. In the forest in Burma.”

Alfred: “Yes.”

Wayne: “Did you catch him?”

Alfred: “Yes.”

Wayne: “How?”

Alfred: *pausing* “We burned the forest down.”

Awesome! Most definitely not something you’d hear from the current American president. Or, for that matter, anyone in his administration.

And if the metaphor isn’t clear enough, Nolan ends the movie by turning our hero into a hated and hunted enemy. The Dark Knight colludes with now Commissioner Gordon to keep alive the myth of Harvey Dent as a hero to the public, and not the psychotic murderer that the loss of Rachel—his love interest as well—had turned him into.

Much the same way that members of our intelligence community and, yes, despite all of his faults, even George W. Bush, were/are maligned falsely as they soldier on keeping us safe…trying to hold together the “myth” of what makes America the greatest country in the world. Perhaps it is a myth that we are a melting pot. Perhaps it is a myth that we are the most moral country to ever be a super-power. But they are “myths” that we must believe in if we are to survive as a nation.

And not be dashed into balkanized eddies of depraved self-interest.

[1] Director Christopher Nolan Talks About “Batman Begins”, Rebecca Murray, About.com

[2] “puke fest” because there was a lot of good material there that was pissed away with outrageous amounts of money and effort put into a race of floppy-eared Reggae things and automated dog robots. Oooo…ssscccaaarrreeeyyy. Arrogant ASS.