Category: A Spiritual Look At All Forms Of Entertainment…

It’s rare that I end up liking any of the comedy movies being released into theaters these days. More often than not, I instead usually find myself rolling my eyes and groaning to all the “potty humor” that seems to be prevalent in most of them now. I can only handle jokes surrounding defecation, urination, flatulence, and sex so much. But occasionally a movie comes along that has a good, old-fashioned sense to it and still brings about those deep-down belly laughs for me. And thankfully, I have a few of those movies in my home collection that I continue to revisit again and again anytime I need to find some humor in life, and one of those is a wonderful Disney flick titled “Enchanted.”

Released in 2007, the film is a clever cross-blend of both animation and live-action that begins in the former with a beautiful singing woman named Giselle (Amy Adams) who’s living in the kingdom of Andalasia and wanting nothing more in life than to meet a beautiful prince to marry. When a series of accidental events introduces her to a prince named Edward (James Marsen), they immediately decide they’re meant for each other and choose to wed the very next day. This in turn draws the negative attention of Edward’s evil step-mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who’s intent upon being the only ruler in the kingdom and not wanting anyone else to have any happily-ever-after’s. To prevent that from ever happening, she disguises herself as an old woman and convinces Giselle that she needs to make a special wish at the large castle fountain before she gets married. Unfortunately for Giselle, it’s just a ploy to remove her from the realm completely by pushing her through a portal, which lands her directly in the center of real-life Times Square in New York City in full marital gown and all.

At first glance, I know this might sound an awful lot like this film is going to be no different than all those other Disney animated movies, where it’s mostly a conglomeration of songs and dance numbers accompanied by some whimsical characters and a good versus bad plot. Movies like The Little Mermaid or The Lion King per say. But trust me when I say that Disney begins to poke fun of itself by parodying its own genre when Giselle attempts to navigate herself through the real streets of New York City trying to figure out where she actually is. So as not to ruin any of the unique and witty humor to come, let’s just say that most of it truly starts when a divorce lawyer and good Samaritan named Robert (Patrick Dempsey) finds Giselle frantically knocking on the door of a glitzy billboard that’s in the shape of a castle. From there, the laughs multiply exponentially when Giselle’s loyal chipmunk Pip discovers Narissa’s evil plot and gets Edward to pursue Giselle through the portal into New York City too. As there, Pip finds himself unable to speak and Edward, still in his full prince garb, begins running around Times Square, sword-a-blazing.

While I’ve never been much of a fan of most of those classic Disney animated films, mostly because I’m not one who enjoys seeing a serious tone and dialogue going on and then suddenly having to deal with a character breaking out into a rousing ballad and dance number, I can safely say Enchanted isn’t that at all. Instead, it takes this typical Disney genre and plays off of itself by plopping those animated characters who usually live in those positive, magical bubbles into the non-animated world of New York City, a place that I grew up near, where people often seemed to me to be quite rude, mean, irritable, and angry on a daily basis.

So, if you happen to be down and out and are looking for something to lift up your spirit, I suggest you check out the movie “Enchanted”. It’s not your typical Disney animated movie by any means. Rather, it’s a film that’s chock full of good-natured laughs that are “potty-free”, original, and truly gut-bursting. And it’s why I give Enchanted my best rating of a full five out of five stars.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I had no idea who Kim Burrell was up until she became a major news headline lately, as well as the subject of a number of conversations that went on around me. For those who quite possibly didn’t hear about this already, the quick summation is this. Burrell is one of the singers on the soundtrack for the recent hit movie titled Hidden Figures. She’s also a pastor at the Love & Liberty Fellowship Church in Houston, Texas where one of her sermons went viral and showed her preaching that gay people are “perverted” and an embarrassment to God (To see that part of her sermon, click here). When approached with the backlash to her sermon, her response was “I make no excuses or apologies.”

Hearing something like this truly saddens me, not because it was about a person who was expressing their anti-gay views, which is something I’ve actually grown used to hearing in the past two decades, but more so because they did it on behalf of God, meaning they felt they were speaking directly for God.

As far as I know, Kim Burrell isn’t God, nor am I, nor are any of my friends or family. But all too often, there have been far too many people who come along and express their religious views and do so by justifying that it is God’s will, solely because of their own interpretation of God.

Look, everyone is entitled to their own views and opinions in this world, but when someone begins speaking for God and throws a whole class of people in a bucket labeled “perverted”, it bothers me greatly. Frankly, I’m not sure if Burrell realizes that Jesus himself said to never judge another, yet she did just that not only in front of her congregation, but to millions and millions of people in the rest of the world too when her sermon went viral on the Internet.

It also seems as if Burrell is forgetting about the main message that Christ hammered over and over again and that’s the principle of love. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and will all your mind. And the second was to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I have a hard time believing that Kim Burrell was actually practicing either of those commandments by denouncing the entire LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender) community, given how far from loving her statements were.

Ironically, Burrell was actually scheduled to appear on the Ellen DeGeneres show around the same time her sermon ended up going viral. And being that Ellen is a very open lesbian, as well an extremely pro-LGBT activist, it goes to show why it was decided to pull Burrell from appearing. Since then, Burrell’s weekly radio show has also been cancelled and she was uninvited from appearing at a gospel awards show as well.

It’s kind of sad that Kim Burrell has had to experience the fallout she has, given how good a singer she truly is. Her talented voice is ultimately God-given, and one that can really move the soul. But how easily it was for her to use that same God-given voice to let other words come out of it that weren’t moving to the soul at all.

So, while I do feel everyone is entitled to vocalizing their own personal views on anything, like I do quite a bit in my blog on a regular basis, doing so in a way that judges and hurts others and claiming it’s God’s will is something I don’t support. If love is all that matters to God, is saying statements that claim all gay people in this world are “perverted” and an embarrassment to God being loving? I think you already know the answer to that, regardless of where you stand on the subject of homosexuality.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I often use the website Rotten Tomatoes as a gauge for whether I choose to go see a movie in the theater or not. If you’re not familiar with this site, it’s where most of our country’s top film critics pool their reviews and then a rating is given by the “Tomatometer”, which is based upon the overall summation of those reviews. A good review is denoted by a fresh red tomato, which means at least 60 percent of all critics liked the movie. But if that rating falls below 60 percent, then it’s denoted by a rotten green tomato splat. Most often, when any movie drops below a 30 percent rating or less, I rarely, if ever, go see it because that means that at least 70 percent or more of all the critics in the country didn’t like it. And when the rating gets that low, I’ve usually tended to agree with the critics each time I’ve gone to see the film anyway. In light of that, when I saw on Rotten Tomatoes that a recent release titled “Collateral Beauty” received a measly 13 percent rating, I was extremely disappointed because all the previews I saw for this film had peaked my interest greatly. That being said, I opted to go against the critics, as well as the masses of people who saw it already and said it was terrible, and ironically, I’m glad I did because I truly treasured this movie.

Collateral Beauty is about a man named Howard (Will Smith) who has been broken ever since his young daughter died due to cancer. When the movie begins, it’s been over two years since that happened, yet Howard is still completely unable to effectively communicate with anyone nor live his life with any sense of normalcy. His company is also beginning to fall apart, much to the dismay and frustration of his fellow business partners, which include Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet), and Simon (Michael Pena). While Howard spends most of his work days building complex chains of dominoes, his partners are trying to figure out a way to convince Howard to accept a buyout that’s being offered, which would help save the company and their jobs. When it’s decided that the only solution is to usurp control from Howard by proving to the board he’s incompetent, Whit hires a private detective to find enough evidence of that. In the process, it’s discovered that Howard has been mailing letters on a regular basis to “Love”, “Death”, and “Time” due to his immense grief. When they realize that’s not going to be enough to prove Howard’s instability, Whit runs into a strange woman named Amy (Keira Knightley) at his company who’s in line for some audition. After a brief conversation with her where it’s apparent she’s his type, Whit watches her abruptly disappear into the nearest elevator. He immediately follows in pursuit and ends up at an old, broken-down theater where he sees both she, and two others, Brigitte (Hellen Mirren), and Raffi (Jacob Latimore) rehearsing lines with each other. It’s then that Whit concocts the idea of hiring each of them to answer Howard’s letters by playing the respective parts of “Love”, “Death”, and “Time” where the main stipulation made is that Howard will only be able to see them. In doing so, he then plans on having the detective film Howard from safe distances and later digitally edit out the actor’s presences each time they confront him. This then will be used later as the evidence needed to prove that Howard is losing his mind and not able to make any type of sane business decisions. Ironically, all of this happens in the first ten minutes or so of the film, setting the stage for the rest of it.

Why I believe so many critics and viewers alike bashed this film is due to the spiritual complexity it presented. In the previews for it, it appears that there’s going to be a supernatural element present, yet when watching it, it’s pretty easy to think otherwise at the precise moment when Whit meets the three actors who end up playing Love, Death, and Time. But it’s also pretty easy to miss a few key lines early on in the movie as well that are strongly reminiscent of the premise from an old television show named “Touched By Angel”. In that series, angels appeared as everyday people who showed up in individual’s lives at cetain times for specific reasons to help them. And only those who needed to see them would. So, while many viewers may have thought they were misled and never caught on to any of the supernatural subtleties being presented, I clearly noticed them. And I also saw how those “actors” were there in the film not just to help Howard, but also to help heal the wounds that Whit, Claire, and Simon were carrying as well.

Movies like this are frequently hard to sell in mainstream society. They present elements that often go beyond most people’s thinking and spiritual views. The idea that angels could actually appear in human form and act just like us can seem quite preposterous to some. Yet I often believe that’s exactly how they’d present themselves in my own life if they ever appeared. That basically, I would never even know they were an angel in the first place. Frankly, I’ve even wondered at times if God or Christ or any other Higher Being of Light has done this in my life before without me ever knowing. While I may never discover the answer to that in this life, I can say this.

Collateral Beauty was exactly the type of movie I treasure because it presented some spiritual elements that left me expanding my mind rather than deflating it long after the credits rolled. It also left me with a very positive feeling and became the first movie where I wholeheartedly disagreed with the critically-bashed rating it received on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m glad I ignored all those bad reviews and went to see it anyway, because in the long run, I realize the openness of my spiritual journey these days helped me to fully appreciate this hidden gem of a movie. I personally give this film 4 ½ stars out of 5.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson