yeah right who am i kidding. i watched it with jeremy. i mean, it's not that he's not hot(just get a fever!) it's just that he doesn't qualify as a date.
the movie was quite a short story stretched out to fill a 2 hour time slot. and fill it did. with garnish, icing, spices and whatever. fantastic movie. to cut the long(after being stretched out) story short, it's based on the murder of James Bulger, a 3 year old boy, very cute, although no where near as cute as I was when i was 3, all the way till now. 2 10 year old boys murdered him really brutally, including splashing blue paint on his face, to kicking and hitting him with BRICKS, stones and a 22lb iron bar(can you imagine 2 boys holding either side of the bar and smashing it into his fragile body).
and i guess the most shocking thing about the 2 boys is that during the trial, they were LAUGHING as they recounted their murder and mutilation.
yeap, they were laughing. that's cold, man. it's the stuff that brings goosebumps.
but the show showed none of the laughing part. it showed one of the kids as a poor oppressed boy who befriended the other murderer, who protected him from bullies(kicking one of their faces in) and then revealed how he was raped by his elder brother, and mutilates an eel he caught before throwing it back into the river it came from. i mean, i thought he'd smack the eel to eat it or something.
the two boys, with their family, have been given new identities and released from their detention.
in the movie, phillip, portrayed as the instigator and basically, the more evil one, was murdered by older boys in the detention centre, and the whole scene was set up to look like a suicide.
but the movie focused on how Jack(previously known as Eric, the more innocent one) faces life, with an immense phobia of having his identity found out, as well as a lack of communication skills with the people he works with. with a guardian who is a lot more effective playing the paternal role in his life than his biological father, as well as a rather, well, large girlfriend(to be honest i was quite disappointed to see the girlfriend wasn't one of those hot hollywood mamas) and a couple of friends, he DOES eventually have his identity found out and-AHA! I WILL NOT TELL YOU THE STORYLINE! oh wait i already have. ok well i won't tell you how it ends.
the movie was basically fantastic. the guy acting as jack is really incredible, in fact the whole crew acted incredibly well. and i did leave the movie feeling arty and farty. well, arty cos i was already in artillery, and as for the latter... i'll let you know after i finish this basket of onions.(sorry jem, it's an old joke for you) and there were like, only 10 people in the cinema(from such a small number, i can easily say i was the BEST LOOKING GUY in the theatre, although this bears no significance to the movie whatsoever)
ok now it's time for the serious stuff(why so serious)
i went to the movie with an impression that i could see this as an avenue for me to exercise my new found opinion of showing grace and mercy to everyone who deserved and did not deserve it. not that i was anyone high up, mind you, but we who have normal lives, even good lives, ought to bear in mind those who do not, and can not have the mundane schedules that we take for granted and at times curse.
it was so easy to say that Jack did not deserve to be persecuted by a public who cannot let go of the past. simply because jack seemed like a decent chap. innocent, even.
and so, i'm thinking past the issue of Jack, and wondering about Phillip, had he survived.
what kind of person would he have been? and what kind of person would we become when we meet him? i could just imagine, in the movie, normal people having normal lives, suddenly becoming extremely hateful when they hear a murderer was released. without seeing, talking the murderer, who, by the way, saved a girl from a car wreck too.
how many masks do we have? and are we aware of when we change our faces? of how gradual, or how abrupt the change is?
i wonder if we Christians would be scared to forgive someone like Phillip. someone who seems like, basically, 95% evil when he was already just 5% the size of Shaq.
I wonder whether Jesus would have forgiven him, and somewhere deep inside me, i think Jesus wants to, but whether Phillip would let himself be forgiven is a different thing.
I think we're stingy with our love, maybe because we're afraid we'd lose it if we give it to the 'wrong' person, or because we'd be seen as idiots who are flamboyant and extravagant with affections.
and i know we're quite a bunch of proud buggers who think we're immensely much better than the poor fools who've made a mistake in life that happens to be specified in a penal code from a miscellaneous country. and so we set up our own unwritten and unspoken code of ethics, and whoever does not fit in is given a good hard sharp kick in the butt, and left for dead after that. You would make a wide berth around a corpse wouldn't you? i think most companies make a wider berth around ex-cons too.
and then i wonder if phillip could have changed while in detention, and came out a person very much as apparently innocent as jack.
I think one of the hardest parts about being a Christian is the way God wants us to treat others. in a way opposite from that unwritten and unspoken code of ethics. we show love to whoever. that's basically how i see it. that we don't withhold our love from anyone. but this 'anyone' just mentioned did not contain people like phillip.
well, Jesus did love Judas. He did wash Judas' feet. He loved, knowing that it would not be reciprocated did he not? us, we're already afraid if there's a mere CHANCE that the love would not have any results whatsoever. it seems like we're treating love like an investment. but what about when our love is GUARANTEED not to have any results? i wonder if we could be like Jesus, and love Judas just like that. I wonder if Jesus enjoys giving love, and not seeing its rewards.
well the movie didn't give me any answers. it left me asking the same questions, perhaps with a bit more insight and a lot less naivety, thanks to excellent acting.
these murderers are the very ones Jesus died for.
imagine that.
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