Reformation Rush Hour

So you like movies? Here's a list of 10 movies that deal with Coveting. Listen to Pastors Ted Giese and Craig Donofrio talk about their picks on the Reformation Rush Hour program on KFUOam radio. Also these 2 lists of 5 movies are not movie recommendations, generally speaking this is a conversation about movies that delve into the 10th Commandment from Luther's Small Catechism many/most of these movies are not salutary or beneficial.   

4) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Rating PG

In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre the old prospector Howard, played by Walter Huston, says,  "Aah, gold's a devilish sort of thing, anyway. You start out, you tell yourself you'll be satisfied with 25,000 handsome smackers worth of it. So help me, Lord, and cross my heart. Fine resolution. After months of sweatin' yourself dizzy, and growin' short on provisions, and findin' nothin', you finally come down to 15,000, then ten. Finally, you say, "Lord, let me just find $5,000 worth and I'll never ask for anythin' more the rest of my life." One of the bums chimes in, "$5,000 is a lot of money." Howard continues, " Yeah, here in this joint it seems like a lot. But I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death would keep you from trying to add 10,000 more. Ten, you'd want to get twenty-five; twenty-five you'd want to get fifty; fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know. Always one more"

Here's the famouse scene from the film ... "Badges! We don't need no stinkin' badges" 

3) The Great Gatsby (2013) Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language

hummm ... coveting your neighbours wife... we've never heard that one before, "It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her"  (2 Samuel 11:2-4 ESV)

2) Elysium (2013) Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout

The rich in a space station, the poor left on earth to rot and die ... nothing bad could possible happen. One of the big themes in Elysium is coveting good health. There are two Bible verses, one from early in the Bible and one from near the end of the Bible, that link up nicely together to show the dangers of sin, how one sin can lead to another sin. The first verse is from the spot where The LORD speaks to Cain, not long before Cain kills his brother Able, it's from Genesis 4:6-7, "The LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.'" The second is from James 1:15, "Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." These verses help a person see how coveting, as an example, by itself usually leads to the next thing - that's why A Simple Plan and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre end up being about theft and murder, and The Great Gatsby ends up being about adultery and likewise in Needful Things stuff happens because of the coveting. Often coveting is the entry point into the story and then a good drama will take coveting somewhere else in the plot. What makes a good drama for a film and what makes a happy life are two different things because if you fall into the pit of coveting and then you start acting out on that you can get into lying and stealing and adultery, and all these other things that can come out of the initial coveting ... this is what you find in Elysium it starts out with a general premise which includes coveting and greed but then along the way gets into other things like extreme violence and murder.    

1) The Maltese Falcon (1941) Rating PG

In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels ...  but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day ... and man wouldn't they all love to get their hands on that bird! Humphrey Bogart as detective Samuel Spade has to deal with a rouges gallery of covetous backstabbing murderers all looking for a piece of that bird, if they can get their hands on it.

Clearly one of Donofrio's favourite movies! Last time we talked about Needful Things we looked at it from the devil side of things - this time we look at it from the human coveting end of things. This movie has both the tempter and the ones being tempted pitted against each other in this popular adaption of the Steven King novel of the same name.    

4) Wall Street (1987) Rated R 

3) The Great Gatsby (2013) Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language

2) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Rated G

1) Amadeus (1984) Rating PG

Here's a list of 10 Movies That ... Deal With Angles

Here's a list of 10 Movies That ... Deal With The Devil.

 

Here's a list of 10 Movies That Intentionally Or Unintentionally Express The Gospel