Favorite Movies and Books in 2014

Well, it’s already the end of the year and it’s time for my list of favorite things watched and read in 2014. I’ll try and get a 2014 year in review post together at some point also. It’s been quite a year for us!

Movies

I haven’t yet seen the new Hunger Games, Interstellar, Big Hero 6, the new Hobbit movie, Foxcatcher, The Imitation Game, or Big Eyes. Maybe some of those will make my 2015 list.

Here are some movies I really enjoyed watching this past year, all for various reasons.

A Most Wanted Man – Great slow burn espionage film based on one of John Le Carre’s novels.

Captain Phillips

Dirty Wars (documentary)

Edge of Tomorrow

Ernest and Celestine

The Gatekeepers (documentary) – Very interesting documentary about the Israel/Palestine conflict as told through the eyes of multiple former Shin Bet heads from the past few decades. Highly recommend regardless of your level of knowledge about the conflict.

The Great Gatsby

Muppets Treasure Island and Muppets Christmas Carol – These, along with Muppets from Space are my favorite Muppet movies of all time.

Nebraska

Philomena

Prisoners – Definitely a favorite. The story was so well told and had so many twists. Chilling and completely engrossing, I was thinking about it for days.

The Rape of Europa (documentary) – The true history behind The Monuments Men

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Beautifully shot

Tiny: A Story About Living Small (documentary)

Books

This year, I read 31 books. Here are some of my favorites from that bunch. For a complete list of all the books I’ve read this year, friend me on Goodreads!

Fiction (17 books read in 2014)

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling – I’ve decided to try and read through the whole series every two years. This was my second time through and I loved it just as much if not more this time around.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Non-Fiction (6 books read in 2014)

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (obviously I was on a Malcolm Gladwell run this year)

Wilson by A. Scott Berg

Christian living (8 books read in 2014)

Erasing Hell by Francis Chan

Generous Justice by Timothy Keller

When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett

Let me know what I should read and watch next year in 2015!

Four Documentaries and a View to Our Broken World

Michael and I only have an antenna for broadcast TV so most of what we watch are movies on Netflix. One great thing about Netflix is its vast collection of documentaries. In the past couple weeks we've watched four that I'd like to recommend.

*A caveat - I know documentaries are biased. They're made because they want to present a certain point of view and will generally show things that only strengthen their thesis. Regardless, I still think they're very important in shedding light on certain things and at the least they raise very important questions that need to be asked.

• Farmageddon - Sheds some light on some of the nonsensical government crackdowns on local farms, raw milk distributors, and private crop sharing partnerships.
• We Steal Secrets - A documentary about Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning, among other things. I didn't know that much about all this and it was an informative documentary that presented a lot of different angles to the story. It also raised a lot of interesting questions about the flow and control of information in this information age.
• The Square - Fascinating documentary detailing the progression of protests in Egypt as its citizens fight for a just and democratic political system free from corruption and Islamist extremism. Again, I didn't know very much about what was going on during the Arab Spring in Egypt and I feel like I somewhat better understand the series of events that took place.
• Dirty Wars - Profile of some of the human costs of war, civilian casualties, the ruthless and self-defeating nature of the military machine, and the massive growth of covert military operations around the world since 9/11.

After watching all these documentaries we were left with a sense of sadness. There are so many broken things in this world, broken people, broken government systems, corruption, injustice, greed...the list goes on. I think we need to be regularly reminded of these realities as we live in our comfortable and materialistic bubbles in the U.S. One thing that was so affecting to us about The Square was having our eyes opened to the harsh and depressing reality of life in these times for the people depicted. We had to constantly remind ourselves that this was reality, not just a story. This was real death, real oppression. I can't even fathom living in that reality because I have never faced suffering remotely like that. And of course there are countless other horrors being lived out across our world - human trafficking, addiction, poverty, etc.

In the midst of all this I must remind myself of two things. First, that true justice will eventually win out, and God is not blind to all the pain and suffering of this world. He will rectify all things in His time. Second, that because of His great love in giving me grace, hope, and new life through Christ, I (and all Christian believers) am to be the fragrance of hope and a pursuer of justice in this dark world. I should not turn a blind eye to any of the suffering in this world and we (especially and definitely Christians) should be spending our lives in some way or another to care for the orphan, the poor, the oppressed. Not because doing good works saves us or gives us points with God, but because He lavished His love on us while we were still rebellious sinners. How can we not then want to be about the things He is about? Compassion, mercy, grace, truth.

And not least, we pray.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.