They\u2019re not reviews, exactly, but three interesting commentaries have gone up in the last day or two.<\/span><\/p>\n 1.<\/a> Focus on the Family\u2019s Citizen Link<\/a> took part in an interview with Sylvester Stallone, who has been aggressively promoting the upcoming Rocky Balboa<\/a><\/i> (AKA Rocky VI<\/i>) to the Christian market:<\/p>\n \u201cThe more I go to church,\u201d he said, \u201cand the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now.\u201d<\/p>\n And, admitting that the analogy might be a little pedestrian, he made a correlation between physical and spiritual fitness.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n His next film, Rambo IV: In the Serpent\u2019s Eye<\/a><\/i>, in which the formerly ultra-violent Vietnam vet defends some missionaries, will also apparently be heavy on the Christian content:<\/p>\n \u201cIt rekindles something in him. He doesn\u2019t believe at first, he\u2019s seen too much. He\u2019s bitter. But when he meets these people and looks into their eyes, he\u2019s swept up in it, and literally he\u2019s just taken on this journey,\u201d Stallone said. \u201cHe\u2019s a Christian warrior! Can you believe it?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n UPDATE: IGN.com<\/a> has its own Rambo IV<\/i> quotes:<\/p>\n During a recent conference call with members of the press, Sylvester Stallone said, \u201cIt\u2019s time again to revisit Rambo. The other Rambo films has always been about some military quest or revisiting Vietnam\u2026 but this time I was looking for subject matter that would take everyone on a spiritual quest to really explain what God means to people in other parts of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The film, Stallone explains, is set among the Karen people of Burma \u2014 an ethnic group that have been subjected to systematic genocide for over 50 years. A group of Christian relief workers from the United States are captured there and it\u2019s Rambo\u2019s job to go in after them.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a story that deals with action,\u201d Sly says, \u201cbut it\u2019s about Rambo\u2019s spiritual journey. At first you think that Rambo doesn\u2019t believe in anything \u2014 he\u2019s seen too much, he\u2019s done too much \u2014 but this rekindles something in him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 2.<\/a> David Neff at Christianity Today<\/a><\/i> says the best thing about The Nativity Story<\/a><\/i> is its portrayal of Joseph<\/a> \u2014 no argument there \u2014 but he criticizes the film for its \u201cdepartures from history\u201d.<\/p>\n Leaving aside the question of to what degree the gospels might, themselves, depart from history \u2014 e.g., the genealogy in Matthew<\/a> and the genealogy in Luke<\/a> both agree that Joseph was descended from David, but they don\u2019t agree on how<\/i>, and Matthew in particular omits some names<\/a> in order to make a symbolic point with the number \u201cfourteen\u201d \u2014 it must be said that films restructure historical events all the time for dramatic impact, and having the Magi arrive at the stable on the very night Jesus is born makes better dramatic sense than to drag the movie out while Mary and Joseph spend a year or two living in Bethlehem and getting used to their new neighbourhood before Herod\u2019s troops arrive and force them to flee. And given that more or less every<\/i> film has conflated these two events \u2014 Zeffirelli\u2019s Jesus of Nazareth<\/a><\/i> (1977) has the Magi arrive a week or so after<\/i> the birth of Christ, to allow for the circumcision of Jesus and the encounter with Simeon at the Temple, but that\u2019s a negligible difference \u2014 I don\u2019t think there is anything \u201cjolting\u201d about this particular departure from history.<\/p>\n Neff has a point about the \u201cromanticism\u201d and \u201csentimentality\u201d in The Nativity Story<\/i>, though it must be said that this film is nowhere near as bad, in those regards, as certain earlier movies that have been exclusively about Mary and Joseph. I am also not quite sure what to make of Neff\u2019s remark that \u201cThe Nativity Story<\/i> is not boldly realistic like The Passion of the Christ<\/a><\/i>.\u201d Gibson\u2019s film was gory, yes, but does that necessarily make it more \u201crealistic\u201d? Wasn\u2019t that film also<\/i> heavily influenced by artistic and religious traditions regarding Satan and Mary and so on? Didn\u2019t it arguably pile on too much<\/i> violence \u2014 that is, if \u201crealism\u201d is your thing?<\/p>\n It seems to me that both The Nativity<\/i> and The Passion<\/i> try, in their own ways, to represent points in time when, to borrow a concept from C.S. Lewis, \u201cmythic\u201d realities intruded on \u201cfactual\u201d realities. And since The Passion<\/i> concerns the death<\/i> of Christ, whereas The Nativity<\/i> concerns his birth<\/i>, it only stands to reason that the \u201cmythic\u201d aspects of the two stories would take on a different hue.<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> Alex Wainer at Breakpoint<\/a> looks at how Casino Royale<\/a><\/i> casts a new James Bond<\/a> for a new era:<\/p>\n And true to the book, this Bond can be physically hurt; tortured in fact. This is the most violent Bond film to date and the bloodiest, with most of the blood being Bond\u2019s. That is a big change from the superhuman who always comes out of his violent adventures without a scratch on him, ready to bed the girl by the fadeout. The new Bond is tougher and subject to pain. . . .<\/p>\n Is the man at the end of Casino Royale<\/i> a damned soul, allowed to use this world\u2019s glittering gadgets, gorgeous women, and guns, but never to be secure in the reciprocated love of one person? Like the classic hero of the Western film, he is a man of effective violence whose sacrifice of the greater part of his humanity makes an oblivious world safe. I suppose there is admirable nobility in that, but maybe this glimpse into the tortured psyche of a superspy will make us envy him less.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wainer also cites the influence of the Bourne<\/a><\/i> movies (2002-2007) on the current spy genre, adding: \u201cBut they were also R-rated in their violence.\u201d This last point is actually incorrect; the two Bourne<\/i> movies that have come out so far were both rated PG-13, just like every James Bond movie since Licence to Kill<\/i> (1989).<\/p>\n