The church service, I found when I arrived, was not one I would have wanted to miss. First of all, there was a giant screen on the stage, which is not usually there so I figured this service would not be like any others. Second, we took the offering at the beginning. Very odd and different from the standard routine at my church. And then when my pastor stood up, he began talking about movies he enjoyed and showed the congregation clips from several movies that stuck out to them. The categories for the movies were odd though...He chose clips from the following movies and T.V. series: Apollo 13, The Killing Fields, Green Mile, Up, and Amadeus.
Two clips were from the older 90s mini series Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. May pastor loves Tom Hanks. The one from those two that really stuck out to me was a clip of one of the training sessions the astronauts had to go through in order to learn what moon rocks were the rocks they needed to bring back. The teacher or whatever was talking about origins or rocks and how the mountains in california came to be. There was a granite rock on top of a peak they stood on, but one of the astronauts noticed that there wasn't any granite around. The teacher took them to a place lower on the mountain where a bunch of granite could be found and it was amazing to hear about how things come to be. One of the only times in my life when science as amazed me instead or bored me.
The other one I found really great was a clip from Amadeus. The movie is about Mozart and his conflict with another composer named Salieri who just completely envied Mozart. When he was an old man, Salieri attempted suicide and the clip is when he's being interviewed by a person in an insane asylum about why he tried to kill himself. Salieri has a flashback of when Mozart's wife came to him with original compositions of music that didn't have any corrections or anything. It was perfect as it was to begin with. And Salieri says it was utterly miraculous and perfect and amazing. Mozart's wife takes that as a good thing, but when she asks for Salieri's help in publishing them, he drops them on the floor, walks over them, and goes to the other room and burns a small crucifix that was hanging on his wall. An image that has been burned into my mind was at the end of the clip, Salieri in the insane asylum tells his story and he was angry and spitting about how envious he was and how Mozart was his enemy and God was his enemy for not giving him the same incredible ability as Mozart, but then, after he finishes his nasty threats and promises of vengence and destruction of Mozart, he sits back. When he sits back, he smiles. This wasn't a "oh i'm just kidding" smile or even an evil glare/smirk. No, this smile was the smile of one so enveloped and engulfed with jealousy and hatred that it had corroded the mind and had driven one to insanity. A smile of...maybe unawareness of the depth of the action he tried to commit and the condemning nature of his words. Just...a smile.
Needless to say...I must see the whole movie.
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