https://azirona.com/ hi there en-us "Belfast" “If you had grown up in Belfast, you’d understand and wouldn’t ask me that question.” - C.S. Lewis (paraphrased) to J.R.R. Tolkien, asking why he hadn't become Catholic Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" takes viewers back to his childhood in 1960s Ireland. It is expertly written, cunningly directed, and poignantly themed. I recommend it before diving into any further commentary. The film juxtaposes the social differences between Irish of Catholic or Protestant association. The differences are hardly religious, and they are hardly political either. I wouldn't even say they are cultural. No, the differences are social. How two groups of people living basically in the same neighborhood have to watch out for random acts of mostly peaceful protest. The prejudices run deeper than those in the US regarding civil rights. England began colonization efforts 900 years ago, a form of generational siege that scales into centuries. The Protestants are seen as the bad guys. I have no issue with this, as a Protestant. Again, I don't think the differences here are religious in nature; the conflict uses religion as a hinge to open the door to violence and vandalism. The father is a "joiner," which in the UK means he works with wood. I didn't learn this until just now. Immediately, my mind goes to Joseph, husband to Mary, human father/guardian of Jesus, and skilled carpenter. He is behind on taxes; I can't tell if the bills are legitimate or frivolous. He works hard to provide for his wife and two boys, and his aging parents in the building they all live. He has to spend extended periods of time across the water in England. The checks roll in, but Dad gets precious little time to spend being a dad. He is uninterested in the fight between Protestants and Catholics. He takes his family to Protestant church services (I cannot tell if it's Anglican or Methodist, but that's a personal curiousity and ultimately unimportant), yet has nothing against Catcholics. He's certainly not interested in contributing to violent uprising that puts his kids and wife in danger. He and Granpda just want to griddle, man. The antagonist is a Protestant malcontent. He is young, clever with his words, and seems to have all the time in the world. His occupation is fomenting chaos. His target is Catholicism's presence in his neighborhood, but the real source he is mad at but probably doesn't realize is twice removed from religion. I began with that quote from C.S. Lewis because of its obvious relevance, and I'd love to know what Branagh thinks of it. I'm going to guess here as to why Lewis said what he did to Tolkien, based on my experience with this movie, but realize it's a guess from an ignorant American: The social pressure to conform, under threat of violence, is powerful. Lewis may have experienced the plot to "Belfast" from the opposite side, being in a Protestant community that got harassed by Catholics. I cannot say this for certain, it's only my guess. Alternatively, Lewis may have learned very early on that to just appear Catholic led to unwanted discrimination. If that discrimination was severe, it would explain why his family would find it practically unconscionable to even entertain Catholicism as a theological option. "Belfast" has only one scene where the father is drinking. He's at the pub having a glass with his buddies. He's far from drunk, just a relaxing time out with friends. It would've been too easy to make the dad a sleazy drunkard, too easy to pin the problems on that. For any faults the man has, he overcomes them by the end of the film. He defends his son with targeted violence meant to end violence, not continue it, and he leads his family away from the warzone. This is a movie with an exemplary father figure. For that reason alone, Christians should be at least interested in this film. It's so refreshing to have a dad that cares for his household, who doesn't look slovenly and disheveled, who makes hard decisions for the family because he's the leader, who reacts to violence by quickly putting it out. Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:30:44 GMT telegram-post-60 Again, I don't think this is a story about religion. The boy protagonist asks if it's okay to like the girl he likes even though she's Catholic and he's Protestant. Dad crouches down and says he doesn't care if she's a practicing Hindu. I think the hyperbole outruns that hypothetical. Theological quandary aside, the message I took away from all this is to be a good neighbor. Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:30:44 GMT telegram-post-61 "The Last Temptation of Christ" How'm I supposed to start this out. I guess I'll begin with Scorsese. Martin Scorsese makes films I learn a lot from and appreciate his passion for, but don't particularly enjoy personally. Goodfellas is essential viewing. Casino is very decent. Shutter Island was good. Taxi Driver turned out okay. Mean Streets is just a proto-Goodfellas. And Wolf of Wall Street is just skippable, you don't need that in your life. Come to find out he directed The Last Temptation of Christ, a nearly 3 hour film adaptation of a fictional work by a Greek Orthodox author. The book nearly got the author excommunicated; I don't know how one "fails" to get excommed, but that's what happened. When Scorsese adapted it to film, there was similar uproar amongst Christians of all traditions. I'll address that next. The controversy. A lot of Christians protested the movie without having seen it. Lots of theaters refused to show it. When it came to television, stations received complaints. While I ultimately disagree with most of the protestors' criticisms, I do see where they're coming from. It deserved its R rating. So believers rejected it. Apparently, The Passion of the Christ is inversely valid; the gore in that is acceptable, whereas in Temptation, the men kissing, full nudity, adult content, and seemingly blasphemous statements made by Jesus is not acceptable. To be charitable, I'll consider the perceived blasphemy as the most egregious offense. Whenever Willem Dafoe's Jesus refers to himself as bad, a sinner, unfaithful, etc., it is not an accurate statement according to the Bible. ...Which is why at the very beginning of the film, Scorsese disclaims Biblical accuracy in the story. It's not one of the Gospel accounts. It's not holy writ. It's fiction. It's unfair to treat his story as true to the Word of God when he comes out at the front of the film stating irrevocably that it is not. "Temptation" explores the human part of Jesus's dual nature: fully God and fully man. This is something all Christians believe. Scorsese is Catholic. I can't fathom why he would want to blaspheme his Savior whom he believes he consumes at every Mass. I don't believe Scorsese was bing ironic or whatever when making this film. I think he was taking the dual nature claim seriously, and venturing into the human side in a way that compels viewers to take it seriously too. As for me and my wife, we're pretty exhausted with Jesus stories that come out stale before the DVDs are even packaged. Even "The Chosen" does this, in our opinion. At least "Passion" was rated R for its DOOM levels of bloody violence. That sets that apart. "Temptation" suggests Jesus doesn't know who he is at the start. I intentionally leave "he" lowercase because I'm not talking about the Jesus of the Bible but the one in this movie. He has doubts about his purpose. He is enraptured with his destiny, stretched across and nailed to a piece of wood. Something I noticed about this Jesus is he responded to different people differently. To Judas, played by Harvey Keitel, it's as though they're reaching in to find their inner street gangster. To Mary Magdalene, he is a sobbing mess. To his initial followers, he preaches awkwardly. To the demon-possessed lepers, he is a superhero, casting out spiritual forces left and right. These different responses are so important because of the way each character interacts with this Jesus. More is revealed about the human talking to the son of man, than about Jesus himself. He is getting his audience to admit more about themselves. When Mary Magdalene says "You're just like all the others [men], you just don't admit it," it says a lot about her view of men, and very little about the Jesus she's talking to. The crowd that follows him around flees him in a frenzy. He tries to assuage them: "No no, I didn't say 'death!' I said 'love!'" Too late. Sat, 15 Aug 2026 04:52:12 GMT telegram-post-58 In fact, in revealing so much about the human characters, we viewers see just how un-divine, how non-deity, the humans are. We see how unlikely they are to carry their cross and follow Jesus. That's something Jesus told everyone to do. (Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23, Mark 8:34) Nathaniel keeps worrying about his sheep. Judas wants to start the revolution against the Roman occupiers. But Jesus continually preaches about the all-importance of love. God is love, don't forget. I have much more to say about this. We will watch this film again in a year or two. I'm grateful for a Jesus flick that doesn't merely give us a sanitized savior. Instead, The Last Temptation of Christ dares to go beyond our expectations, willing to seek something truly unique and artistic, while trying not to blaspheme the Creator. Sat, 15 Aug 2026 04:52:12 GMT telegram-post-59 Here's the cover art for Leavening, by the way. My wife is incredibly talented. ❤️ Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:22:51 GMT telegram-post-57 I no longer recognize Fire Emblem. Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:25:13 GMT telegram-post-56 https://youtu.be/dIMgp2Sk9MI I am in love with this game and its music. YouTube Heatwave: Lost Eden. HEAT Season 1 Soundtrack Hear the sounds of Lost Eden, as Season 1 brings its own soundtrack and main theme—calm and soothing, yet bearing a subtle, almost intangible danger. 00:00 | 01. Black Sun (Original) 01:54 | 02. Black Sun (Alt. Version) 04:00 | 03. Black Sun (Slowed) … 1 viewAlek Miller, 18:07 Sun, 26 Jul 2026 18:07:33 GMT telegram-post-55 "Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - OST" https://youtu.be/1VtwplwLW1Q YouTube Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion - Complete Soundtrack Every single song on the Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion Soundtrack (Discs 1 and 2) on a single video for your easy listening experience. Enjoy! Purchase the soundtrack in both MP3 and uncompressed FLAC formats on Steam for $10 here - http://store.stea… 2 viewsAlek Miller, 00:48 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:48:06 GMT telegram-post-54 "We use what we protest" It’s easy to find negative press surrounding AI data centers. There are plenty of valid reasons for doing so: environmental effects, noise concerns, deceptive job offerings, etc. Then why are Google, Meta, and others even building these things in the first place? These buildings aren't simply constructed to sit around and occupy space. The truth is there has to be something that entices massive corporations to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. They seek a return on their investment. Do we know what that return is? I want to caution data center protestors on what exactly it is they're protesting. Any and all positives that data centers provide need to be outweighed by the negatives. One such "positive" is the increasingly ubiquitous use of AI in everyone's daily lives. If you run a Google search, you're using AI, you're creating demand for one of these data centers getting built. If you prompt ChatGPT to sift through reams of in-house procedures, you create demand for one of these data centers. Perhaps we just don't know of the positives because we don't see them. When I worked at a copper mine, each truckload of shiny metal was a reminder of what we did, why we did it, how our work improved the lives of many, many others. That's not quite as obvious with an AI tool that generates a legal document in 30 minutes that normally takes several weeks and a few highly-trained individuals. (that's firsthand observation from an attorney, I didn't make that up) Or creating an app to help people crochet. (that's something my wife is working on now) Examine how much we use AI at home and at work. We are driving the demand for the thing that we protest. You can try starving the demand, finding alternatives. But replacing Red 40 in our diet is much easier said and done than refusing to use ChatGPT. We can't fairly judge the pros vs the cons of AI data centers without recognizing the pros. All the ways we use AI in our daily lives are "pros" whether we like them or not. Mon, 13 Jul 2026 02:40:04 GMT telegram-post-53 “Citizen Vigilante” When I heard the premise to this Uwe Boll (UB) movie, my mind immediately went to Death Wish. Man with no ties to hold him down goes around murdering bad guys, often of the minority variety. But this time, of course, there’s no Charles Bronson, automatically putting this at a disadvantage. Being a UB flick puts it at a further disadvantage. I was not aware of the intense inner-city violence of the 1970s and 80s until I learned of the controversy surrounding the original Death Wish franchise. Michael Winner directed the second one, and the reason it took 8 years to go from 1 to 2 was this controversy. How dare it be so popular. There was an uproar. Bronson didn’t seem to mind it too much; he got paid, and he may have even agreed with Winner on the franchise’s principles. It’s challenging to grow further-versed in cinema. We notice intentionality no matter how much garbage surrounds or results from it. Citizen Vigilante oscillates from pretty good to downright awful. Paul Kersey was a highly successful architect; Bruce Willis’s Kersey was a competent ER doc. Sanders (played by Armie Hammer) owns apartment buildings. And the bar underneath it. As well as the brothel somewhere in between. The pacing is all over the place. From what little I’ve seen of UB, this is standard for him. Inconsistency abounds. One scene between Sanders and his direct report is the best so far, but not until after the incredibly long sex scene interrupted by Sanders’ manic attention to detail: there’s mold on the ceiling, of HIS building. He will monologue to petty thieves on the bus, before threatening one’s life. I can’t tell if this is a valid personality quirk of our main character, or UB stating his message way too obviously for us. Is Sanders supposed to be autistic? ADD? OCD? CIA? I can’t tell. What darns me about this is that for all the blinding clarity, the actual messages seem impossible to decipher. Is Sanders a good guy with unfortunate psychopathic tendencies? Is Sanders a bad guy who’s just a racist who spent too much time radicalizing himself on right wing propaganda? Ohp. He played “chicken” in the oncoming lane of a rural road. The innocent driver in the other vehicle veered off, tumbling twice. I said “It’s gonna blow up” right before it actually did, not expecting it. Even THAT, I thought UB would be above. There is no avoiding the tropes, sorry to dash your hopes. The absolute worst shootout I’ve ever witnessed takes place in the man’s bunkered-up compound. Equally cringe is the three minute leadup to the event. I’m okay with actors who don’t have any SWAT training still gearing up in their plastic props and doing their best to appear authentic. These poor saps don’t look like they even tried. “Special” tactics, indeed. I can only suspend so much belief. The movie ends with a short monologue from the protagonist who is still at-large. UB posted an AI-generated image of the sequel, slated for next year (2027). There’s no way to conclude this is satire, as the final epigraph dedicates the movie to all the victims of crime committed by migrants. ...Oh, it doesn’t say that, it reads “dedicated to the thousands of rape and murder victims in Europe who were betrayed by our legal system.” To its narrow credit, the film is not racist, nor does it pin the ultimate blame on the migrants portrayed here. UB points to the legal system that didn’t do its job. Also to its narrow credit, Citizen Vigilante is an unapologetically rightwing extremist film. It feels like leftwing extremist movies are free to abound, so pushing the boundary the other way deserves the barest modicum of praise, in my opinion. It doesn’t follow that the movie is any good. 3/10 Sat, 27 Jun 2026 04:13:11 GMT telegram-post-52 "QUAK" https://mombotro.itch.io/quak About a month ago, as I was watching my daily perusal of baby chicken, duck, and turkey videos, I chanced upon one where the cameraperson had their other hand placed firmly at the bottom of the screen like it was an FPS. My wife pointed this out, saying it would make for a fun game concept. I immediately thought of DOOM. Name? Quake? Nah. QUAK. Now we HAD to do it. My wife is incredible. She got to work right away using Claude Code to come up with basic gameplay in Godot engine. I playtested the builds. She added sprites and artwork. I contributed voiceover. She got the sound effects from somewhere. My face inspired the one you see at the bottom-center of the screen. Lots of touch-ups and bug fixes later, QUAK is released and ready to play! itch.io Quak by Mombot Storm's coming soon. Ducklings gotta be put away. Play in your browser 1 viewAlek Miller, 04:19 Mon, 22 Jun 2026 04:19:45 GMT telegram-post-51 "Leavening" The next seven stories I have finished writing. Where "Witnesses" at least stuck to Scripture pretty closely, "Leavening" fills up space in and around one or two verse references. They are tangents of tangents of Bible passages. Wife has the files. She will draw up covers for them, though this collection will start as one book of all seven, then maybe later we'll make little pocket sized books. Sun, 21 Jun 2026 23:13:18 GMT telegram-post-50 "Mea Culpa (or, Check the Packaging)" Wanting to talk more about this romance novel subject, but this is the third time in a week, so I better stop. Once I become "the guy who talks about that," I doubt I'd ever shake the accusation off. So a final parting shot of advice. Now more than ever, it's important to be on guard against garbage for the eyes and the ears. We don't let our kids eat literal garbage with their mouths. We should not let them consume garbage with their eyes either. Feed them good media. "Furnish their minds with beauty," as Peter Hitchens said. It's a good thing garbage tends to stink. We avoid the smell. When it's prettied up, people fall for it instead. In the UK, kids cereals can't have too attractive a logo. Should be eating their fruits and vegetables instead. There's concern here in the US of marijuana treats looking too much like harmless fruit snacks. Regardless of their effect on adults, when kids take them, they lead to hospitalization. The packaging is really similar without close examination. Man, I gotta stop... I can just FEEL this connection I want to make. There's two wires that'll light up the path to the point I'm driving at. But there's a hundred others that, instead, will simply detonate me. And here I am prodding around with a screwdriver... "From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man's hand comes back to him." Proverbs 12:14 ESV Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:51:24 GMT telegram-post-49 "Standing Corrected" I've been informed about the show referred to in my post from last week. There is, in fact, quite a faithful adaptation of the source material. Color me corrected, partially; like the characters and their nudity. This isn't a new phenomenon, of course. Game of Thrones did this years ago. But I like to think that there's a difference in expectation between this and that. The most prominent issue (not the only one) to me is the innocuous looking title and cover art. You kind of expect a Hallmark special. Far from it. Tue, 09 Jun 2026 02:50:47 GMT telegram-post-48 Pallette cleanser. https://youtu.be/ji5qK1uqiO4?si=OkamBPcpRZ8MfROz YouTube World of Tanks: HEAT Original Soundtrack 2026 World of Tanks: HEAT Официальный саундтрек 2026 Time codes (Таймкоды): 00:00 Lobby Theme, Version 1 (Ангарная музыка, Вариант 1) 04:10 Battle (Боевая) 07:17 Battle Loading (Загрузка боя) 08:44 Post-Battle (Послебоевая) 🎵Плейлист в VK: https://vk.com/music/playlist/… 2 viewsAlek Miller, 14:07 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:07:06 GMT telegram-post-47 "Romance Novels" Perhaps my experience with romance in fiction is too limited for me to be considered anything more than woefully amateur. There are intimate scenes in Clancy, notoriously mocked by more serious readers, and they are graphic enough for my taste. It doesn't usually require me to skip the chapter, they're that short. The single Stephen King novel I read, there was initial intimacy and innuendo, and at least it moved the plot along. Well, Hoopla recommended a novel from Elle Kennedy and I had the free borrow. I am also a grown man, darn it. I gave it a listen. Partway through, deleted, then redownloaded and continued. And another time. This content is not romantic, it is pornographic. The only difference between this and a spicy fanfiction is an editor. I wasn't going to mention the author. Doing so makes it look like I'm singling her out. No. No, I'm not. There's many, many authors exactly the same as her. But her name popped up on my Audible too, with the notice that the book was going to be turned into a season on Amazon Prime. As a matter of practical necessity, this visual adaptation will NOT be faithful to the book. A faithful adaptation would belong on OTHER streaming services. The ones you don't use work computers to look up. Now, the book getting turned into an Amazon show is actually available to read, in full, online, for free. A simple Google search managed to bring up the thing, no viruses attached (to my knowledge). Even comes with a search function. I took the liberty of searching up various red flag terms so no one else reading this has to. Should you object to my listing of certain words, remember what I said earlier in this paragraph: it's all out there on the Web, no charge, no ID verification, nothing stopping anyone with temptation from indulging anyways. Instead, I'm going to assume you're an adult with discernment. (Term - number of citations) Bulge - 2 out of 3 are erotic references Boobs - 2 Penis - 6 Orgasm - 14 Clit - 10 F*** - over 100 Look. There are many factors here beyond our control. Audible is going to continue hosting content like this. Romance novels will continue to showcase cover art that looks innocuous and PG, while its text is X rated. This doesn't at all exonerate visual pornography. All of this stuff is ridiculously easy to get to. So parents: be hyper vigilant. Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:02:38 GMT telegram-post-46 "Akira" Back in college, some 15+ years ago, I watched Akira. My great anime sampling period. I watched it, really enjoyed the animation, assumed it was pretty standard for high-end anime films, but was put off by how weird and confusing the story was. My wife and I watched it this week. She came to the same conclusion: excellent animation, glad she experienced it, content to never touch it again. On the scale of 1 to Gross, this is about a 4.5. There's plenty of violence and mild gore up until the great transformation, where it becomes just freaking WEIRD. More unnerving, less discomfiting. It's a classic. One of those you want to say you've seen without devoting the time and mental energy to see it. It's important historically. Fortunately, the animation is so good that that part alone makes the experience enjoyable. So yes. I do recommend Akira. Once. Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:13:49 GMT telegram-post-45 "Contentment" I'm reading "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" to the fam at dinner every night. We're only in chapter 2 and already my wife is seeing and applying the wisdom from it all over the place. This will be the... I think 4th time I'm going through it. Various versions exist; the audiobook narration is fairly archaic. There is an "original" version I gave someone and I regret that immensely. For our household, I got an updated English version. It is fairly literal in its translation, sticks to the rails of the original book, more like a copy-paste for every instance of "state" with "situation," that sort of thing. In any case, it's an excellent book, 10/10, would recommend to all and everyone. Every Christian would benefit from it. Wed, 15 Apr 2026 03:40:27 GMT telegram-post-44 "Two Weeks to End the War" Six years ago, the world was told two weeks would stop the spread. Now we're getting told that this war has been won and re-won several times already. It really feels like the Iranian Navy got completely annihilated, 5 times now. Unbelievable. I know Trump has 60 + 30 days to complete his "special operation" according to the War Powers Act, but I really hope it doesn't take that long. I also recently learned how much of a raging attitude Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz have for supporting Israel. Over their own constituents. What's wrong with you guys. Come back. Three months is already too long to be over there. I will be MIGHTY pissed if it goes on every day after that. Thu, 02 Apr 2026 04:15:46 GMT telegram-post-43 "Obligatory Unnecessaries" It has not been "too long" that I've been putting off this topic. Rather, it's that I waited till I had the right amount of time to get this all out in one, big go. (I'll still get interrupted here and there, oh well) How required is it of any piece of media to include a scene of excessive violence, gratuitous gore, non-stop swearing, extended sexuality, and detailed nudity? Is a movie no longer objectively good because the sex scene got taken out? Does a book need to include tons of curse words every page? What volume of blood is allowed per simulated killing? Which upskirts are okay? Which ones are not? At the risk of avoiding the question, I'm going to answer with a conditional statement: It depends on the audience. What's allowed for 5-year-olds should be very, very limited. What's allowed for a veteran is in many ways not at all limited, although PTSD may make certain content inappropriate for them too. What's allowed for a stable guy of mid-30s age should probably be just about unlimited. I suppose that does avoid the question. Sorry. That said, I think it's very important, and still pertinent. I would never show my kids Top Gun: Maverick. They drop the F-bomb at a clear and obvious point in the story. I would never play DOOM 2016 in front of them. They don't need to see that. And yet in my opinion both of those are 10/10's. So objectively good... for whom? There are some out there who are grossness-agnostic. Anything goes, doesn't matter to them. But what I find is that the more vocal proponents of hyper-gross material (Spine of Night, Heavy Metal) appear insistent on having the objectionable material in. Suggest they take it out? They will revert to the grossness-agnostic ("Why not? What's YOUR problem?"), but the truth is they argue it HAS to be in there. Because "It's just not the same without that part." Why not? Why is it suddenly different? Lesser? Chesterton's fence analogy comes to mind. The grossness-advocate may want to claim it applies to them, but the truth is it applies to the more moderate, more chaste, more prudent (prudish?) party. Before we include the ojbectionable content, we must recognize that it will break some fences. So before we remove those fences, we must understand the reason that fence was originally installed. Besides audience, we come back to objectivity. How much is too much? Well, that depends on what the "much" is and how it applies to the story and themes. Is it a war movie and meant to be super accurate? Expect language and violence. Is it set in feudal Japan? Prepare for some really weird kinks. So authenticity to the time period is acceptable. If there's absolutely no relation to the setting, then that should be an obvious omission. But say there's something objectionable yet applicable. I would say it's time to go back to the question of audience. Somehow, The Passion of the Christ invariably receives a free pass to all this discussion. N.D. Wilson says that when you reach the point in a movie or book where you actively think "God doesn't like this, He is displeased by this," that is when and where you should turn it off and put it away. Regardless of worldview, this is good advice. Don't engage in "vice tourism," as he puts it. What is the purpose of the objectionable content? All too often, it is not used as a supplement to the story or characters; rather, it is used to shock the audience. Artists love to do this. Same reason we ride roller coasters or watch anything horror-related. I have friends who review video games. They go through a lot of objectionable material in these titles. The purpose is to inform others before they make their own decision. Perhaps it's not strictly necessary that these reviewers exist, but it certainly benefits others. Mon, 30 Mar 2026 05:01:48 GMT telegram-post-41