Luhrmann, an actor-director famous for his undaunting crusades against the flow of Hollywood tide and insanely crazy love for eye candy, obtained merits to his name by directing equally energetic films like William Shakespeare's Romeo+Juliet and Strictly Ballroom. Fond of exuberant dances and kinetic cinematography, Luhrmann's trademark is the originality and romanticism of his film's themes. In Moulin Rouge, he has cast every ounce of the magic he had acquired from directing his previous films and had successfully taken the audience's breath away as he always does.

As the courtesan Satine, Nicole Kidman, famous for her work on Eyes Wide Shut, Practical Magic, and Days of Thunder, has made her character and her audience deal with a wide range of emotions, from naïvete to melancholy. Satine's coldness and fake warmth toward men has pivoted our hearts into pity for her standing in the social ladder. Indeed, almost every man and woman who watches as she sadly sings "One Day I'll Fly Away" can relate to her feelings of ambition and longing.

Ewan McGregor, though not as celebrated as Kidman, has made his mark in roles as a heroin addict in Trainspotting and Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episodes 1 and 2. As the brilliant poet Christian, McGregor has cultivated his resume by adding "beautiful singing" in his skills. His Christian complements Kidman's Satine with his warm enthusiasm and undoubted feelings of love. His rendition of Elton John's "My Song" was agreed to be one of the most memorable songs of the film. Once he belted out "My Gift is My Song," it is for certain no woman could have ever resisted a man with that unfaltering voice and with that colossal feeling.

Other satisfyingly romantic acts were Kylie Minogue's "Sound of Music," Nicole Kidman's "Diamonds are a Girl's Bestfriend," Jim Broadbent and Richard Roxburgh's "Like A Virgin," and the Can Can Dancers' "Lady Marmalade." With the input of seductively colorful costumes and glittery opulent sets, each scene in Moulin Rouge was deemed to be memorable and continental.

Musicals have certainly taken a backstage in Hollywood these recent years. But, trust Luhrmann to answer to the demands of smooth talkies with singers dancing to "Rhythm of the Night" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Indeed, the film dances and our hearts sing with glee. Moulin Rouge is indeed a rare film, the Sparkling Diamond of Hollywood movies.

August Rush is a drama film released in the year 2007. The main character is a boy named Evan Taylor, a musically gifted orphan who believes that all music he hears around him is his parent's way of communicating with him. He refused to be adopted because he felt that what he needed was to follow the music trail which will eventually lead him back to his parents. This film is about hope, love and inspiration. The movie soundtrack is awesome too.

Shine

Geoffrey Rush won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this 1996 Australian film. The story is based on the life of pianist David Helfgott, who suffered from mental and emotional problems, and spent many years in psychiatric institutions. Despite the challenges that befaced his tragic life, Helfgott was lucky enough to make a comeback and a brand new start as a piano performer. "There's a light at the end of the tunnel". This seems to be the main theme of the film.

Drumline

This film is a treat for all professional drummer and percussionists. Nick Cannon plays the role of Devon Miles, a young talented drummer. He was actually the best drummer in his university and would have led their band's "drumline" if it wasn't for some attitude, character and disciplinary problems. As the film progresses and reaches its climax, Devon eventually realizes that drumming and playing music is not just about skill and who's the best out there. It's about understanding the bigger picture and your role as part of a group and not just as an isolated individual.

8-Mile

Marshall Mathers, also known to the pop-rap world as "Eminem", plays the lead role in this film. The film starts with a "freestlye rap battle", an event where two rappers face off (on-the-spot rapping). The guy who has the best lyrics and crowd response wins the battle. Eminem, a white rapper and consequently does not have the support of the black community, was humiliated on stage when he froze and couldn't get to say anything during his turn. 8 Mile is about his road to success, both in personal issues and in his musical career as well.

Mr. Holland's Opus

Richard Drefuss plays the role of Glenn Holland, a musician and composer who decided to take a teaching job in order to pay his financial dues. At the same time, he was on a constant quest to compose that one music piece which will make him famous. Mr. Holland's teaching career extended well over thirty years. He did not become wealthy nor extremely famous at that time, but he worked for the love and fulfillment of his art. He was later able to mentor highly gifted musicians who are deaf. The film is about inspiration, passion, determination and the beauty of music and life itself.

Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge is a 2001 musical film which featured Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman as main actor and actress. It is based on the opera entitled La Traviata. The setting was in the Montmartre quarter of 1900's Paris, France. It is the story of a British writer, named Christian, who fell in love with Satine, a courtesan and cabaret singer of the Moulin Rouge. The film was nominated for 9 Oscars and won 2 major awards.

One scene in the movie which caught my interest is the part where it was explained how countries go to war because they misunderstood what both parties say. It is the job of the interpreter to translate every word correctly. I noticed how fast they speak while the one they try to interpret is still talking. Their life is always at stake because they understand almost any language and they can hear what they should not be hearing, like what happened to Nicole Kidman's character, Silvia Broome.

The story of the movie not only managed to get an inside scoop of how the UN works, but also gave an example of problems that they usually encounter. This one focused on the prosecution of Matobo's President Zuwanie in the International Criminal Court. His international crimes include corruption, tyranny, and mass killing or ethnic cleansing.

The movie also revealed how investigations and surveillance of suspected people are done. A situation of a terrorist bombing was also shown. The most sensitive part of the movie was how President Zuwanie himself planned his so-called assassination plot against him just to avoid the prosecution. This can happen to any country at any time. A leader, as high as the president, can do things like this.

Of course, when I first heard about the film adaptation I was both excited and apprehensive. How could such a powerful and complex trilogy be adapted for a mass market cinema audience, and how could it sidestep the controversy of its anti religious themes? The answer: it didn't.

As a generic fantasy adventure, “The Golden Compass” is mildly diverting. Well cast, pretty to look at with interesting designs for costumes and artifacts and gorgeous sweeping shots of Norwegian landscapes, it ought to be a very good film, but it falls flat through mediocre, even boring, direction, a pedestrian script, wasting its stellar cast with a sparse selection of dull lines, and thanks to a trite musical score, the film starts to feel like a poor facsimile of Disney. For those unfamiliar with the plot, it must have been daunting, as the story flits uncertainly around, moving desperately fast, but for those familiar with it a growing sense of anger was palpable in the cinema!

Elements of plot are changed inexplicably, the ending is cut infuriatingly short, crucial and excellently evoked set pieces are mangled beyond belief. The CGI creatures look, for the most part, vaguely acceptable, the daemons (souls of humans in the form of animals which walk by their human side) are effective enough, but are made unnecessarily cute, Lyra's daemon Pantalaimon, a cautious voice of reason in the books, becomes little more than comic relief, whilst the armored bears simply look ridiculous, particularly in making the lead bears look like the actors voicing them (a polar bear version of Sir Ian McKellen, good grief!) and the fight between them is depressingly bloodless.

The overall impression is that New Line Cinema have become complacent following the success of “the Lord of the Rings” and have decided that “The Golden Compass” should mimic it, thus we must have the mysterious explanatory prologue, the grand orchestral score, the scene with the collapsing bridge, the sweeping shots of landscape, Christopher Lee on the bad side and Ian McKellen on the good side. A deep disappointment. I dread to think what will happen to the next two installments of the trilogy, especially with this film's instance to “play down” the religious aspect of the piece; the ideological heart of the story.

Why would a Christian Reviewer See this Movie?

The short answer is that I like to think for myself. I don't believe in “a secular” and “a sacred.” Everything is sacred for those who are in Christ. This is a fallen world. Nothing here is entirely good, but it was created to be good and if we look sometimes we can see the good hidden in it. I'm not afraid that some satanic movie is going to rub off on me, rather where light is darkness flees. That doesn't mean I shouldn't use discernment about what I soak my brain in. Still, I'd rather view a movie that turns out to be “filthy” with my feelers up than passively absorb a couple hours of TV complacent in the knowledge that network censors protected my innocence.

So Was the Movie as Evil as “They” Said it Was?

Well, Mr. Pullman is a well-documented, self-avowed atheist who set out to write his answer to the “Chronicles of Narnia.” The film reveals a clear repulsion for organized religion which would rather kill someone than let people question authority. “Here, here,” I say to that sentiment. If only it stopped there.

Most atheists strike as a bit too passionate about there not being a God. I can't really hazard a guess what Mr. Pullman's motives were but I know you have to believe in God to be angry with him. Star Dust the books are of course different than the film. I'm speaking only of the film so I'll try to leave Mr. Pullman out of it from now on.

The Plot

The film touts a land where everyone has an external soul in the form of an animal which they innocently happen to call a demon. The children's souls morph into several animals while the adults are stuck with one animal. If you hurt either the soul or the person the other feels it equally. Kill one and the other dies too. Our heroin must recover a pair of boys she likes, find her Uncle and figure out what Dust is. To aid her she is given the last Golden Compass which will tell her the truth about anything she asks it. She also has a loyal band of Gypsies. Along the way she picks up her own armored bear, a balloon pilot, and a pack of witches.

I figured the witches and demons were enough to stir up the fundamentalists, and that's what all the hype was about. There is more though…read on.

The boys are abducted by “GOBlers” who work for the Magisterium trying to separate the youths from their souls. While most of the film sticks to adventure there are two scenes which explain some of the mystery. Those two scenes are likely the objectionable part of the film to most Christians. The first scene is a video of a dust leaving another realm, passing through a man's soul/pet and entering him. This upsets the magisterium because they don't want other realms to challenge their authority. The second scene is when the character Marisa Coulter explains why she saved the heroin from the other children's fate. Coulter explains that (I'm paraphrasing) long ago their ancestors made a mistake that allowed dust into the world and that's why the souls of adults couldn't change form. The magisterium wanted to raise a generation of kids that didn't have a soul so that they would remain unaffected by the dust, rendering them easy to control.

I know what you're thinking. That's it? That's the plot? Pretty week, uh?

Larger Story: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

If the dust represents the knowledge of good and evil then our antagonists are trying to separate children from their souls so they'll be pliable. They are trying to create a false state of innocence. The protagonists are only guilty of wanting to explore other realms of possibilities. This is an old refrain we've heard before. A connection is being drawn between innocence and ignorance, between obedience and slavery. Satin's line is, “God is holding out on you. If you don't open Pandora's box you don't know what you're missing.” God's line is, “You know who I am. I had to put Pandora's box in reach, because without the option to open it you'd be a slave.”

The message of this film is that demons connect us to the spirit realm, and to the power and knowledge we need to make up our own minds. The truth is that the option to know good and evil made not choosing it an act of obedience. It is evil that would seek to rob us of choice and free will. Every Christian believes that Christ died to restore choice to us. It was once a choice of fall or not, now it's a choice of accept salvation or not.

Avoid “Golden Compass” but Not For the Reason you Think

The bottom line here is that, controversy aside; this isn't a great film. The scenery was beautiful, and the steam punk costuming and setting is imaginative but the acting was a little clunky and the plot was full of holes. Sam Elliot was good in his roll but he was pretty much playing himself. Daniel Craig was still 007. Nicole Kidman was beautifully costumed, but a slightly more sophisticated version of her psycho, news-reporter roll Suzanne Maretto in “To Die For.”

As far as the plot holes go, here's an example, why did the “GOBlers” have to transport the children they stole to the remote arctic lands in order to experiment on them. They couldn't find an empty barn in the countryside I guess. What about the Armored Bear who becomes king of his people. Why can't he bring his army of ninja bears along to the fight?

In general the film just fell short of spectacular. It's not awful just not worthy of the buzz.

God Bless and Happy Viewing.

Then, the Red Army invades, and your stepfather and stepbrother are killed by the Russians. Two years later and the Russians have been replaced by the Germans. Simon Wiesenthal and his wife Cyla are transported to a forced labour camp while Simon's mother is sent to the concentration camp of Belzec where she later dies. Simon eventually ends up at the infamous concentration camp in Mauthausen, Austria while Cyla manages to escape and go into hiding in Warsaw. Now fast forward to the end of World War II, and while watching former SS guards being interrogated by the allies, Simon Wiesenthal realizes that he would like to help the investigators gather information on the war crimes carried out.

What follows is a lifetime given up to the pursuit of those Nazi war criminals who had evaded the allied clutches immediately following the war - and it isn't easy. Based in Vienna, a city closely associated with Hitler, Wiesenthal's home is firebombed by neo-Nazis and his wife held hostage. However nothing would deter the man from his work which has only just finished with his death at 96, two years ago.

Produced by the Wiesenthal Centre's documentary unit, this film was put together for a memorial dinner held in Wiesenthal's honour last year. Even though it was produced by his supporters, the documentary doesn't completely brush over some of the controversies that sprung up around the man during his career; however you would have to do some serious soul searching, if at the end of it all, you found yourself questioning the man's integrity.

You could forgive Simon Wiesenthal for being a man driven purely by revenge and a hatred for Nazis, but this was not the case and as Wiesenthal himself explains, he aimed to bring enlightenment not revenge, and the hope that the world would never forget the millions that had died in the concentration camps throughout Europe.

Dogville is a tiny town consisting of just seven households and 15 adults in total. Tom Edison (Paul Bettany) is the resident philosopher, who plans to write a book about morality but has not yet begun. He also serves as the town mayor, holding community meetings on moral rearmament in the local church. When a beautiful woman, Grace (Nicole Kidman), arrives in town claiming she is being chased by gangsters, Dogville welcomes her and agrees to grant her refuge but at a cost. Grace must prove herself to Dogville's residents, first through physical labor, then through friendship, then through utterly astonishing sacrifices that, in classic von Trier style, go way beyond anything viewers might imagine. It is a bizarre and disturbing film,

Grace is used by the townsfolk as servant then slave becoming more and more demanding of her and punishing her for running away by putting a iron dog collar round her neck and attaching a chain and fixing it to a heavy iron wheel. She can move round slowly from place to place dragging the wheel. All the while grace remains quiet placid and uncomplaining. She even submits to being used as the town prostitute by all the male residents. Eventually they want rid of her and call the gangsters. But the townsfolk do not know what they are doing - perhaps they think she is just some gangster's moll.

The gangsters return. The townsfolk hand her over and she is led to the biggest car and sits on the back seat with “the godfather”. Seated at the right hand of the father she talks to her daddy whom she had run away from (and you wonder was she a prodigal daughter fleeing his life of crime) They converse about revenge and taking up the power and the inheritance he offers her. An interesting almost philosophical discussion in which she eventually asks her father to give her the power now. He agrees. And she says memorably - “I want to use this power to make the world a better place. “

There is a pause and you think of mercy and all that Grace has suffered and then she says “The world will be a better place if Dogville ceases to exist - Shoot all the people here and then burn it down.”. She and her father sit in the limousine and watch as her orders are carried out.

This film deals with the religious ideas of forgiveness using the ironically named Grace. I think of this story with the bible tale of Joseph (he of the amazing Technicolor dreamcoat). In the middle of the story is this account of Joseph's forgiveness of his brothers following the death of their father Jacob. The heart of the passage Joseph says to his brothers: "Am I in the place of God?" In other words, is it I who should judge you? This rhetorical question clearly expects the answer, certainly not - God alone may judge. But more than a bare refraining from judgment, Joseph offers concrete forgiveness of his brothers, promising to provide for them and their dependants.

Sunday school musicals may have bred familiarity with Joseph's magnanimity, which causes us to miss its astonishing nature. Joseph was half-killed, then sold and written off for dead. His father was deceived into an appalling grief. Families today are often bitterly divided over far less than this dysfunctional group. But Joseph never took his chance to judge, preferring the good of many people than the fleeting pleasure of revenge. It is a good, if near impossible, example to follow.

Jesus repeatedly exhorts forgiveness. In the parable of the unforgiving servant the discrepancy between how the king's servant is treated by the king and how he treats another servant in turn is the main point. He is forgiven an unimaginably large sum. Yet he will not forgive a measly debt, infinitesimally smaller. The king, angrier at his servant's hard-heartedness than his original debt, revokes his earlier forgiveness.

The moral is clear. What we have to forgive is minute compared with what we need to be forgiven. Furthermore, in being forgiven so much by God, we have an example of mercy to follow. Without this example, our meanness might be understandable: with the example, it is inexcusable. Indeed, the parable clearly indicates that the unforgiving have no right to expect mercy.

Forgiveness or vengeance and wrath: Could people really worship a God who behaved like Grace in Dogville? This film certainly started me thinking.