Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I must confess that I snuck out yesterday afternoon (as opposed to actually working on my dissertation stuff, as I'd intended to do every day this week) in order to see the movies "Be Cool" and "Constantine" back to back at the multiplex.

As I'd expected, based on my previous enjoyment of "Get Shorty", "Be Cool" was very well done and great fun, with many, many hearty laughs (though the Rock's bits tended to inspire the loudest laughter in the theater, it seemed, since he was so adorably playing with and against his wrestling persona; that guy's more than just a pretty face and a gorgeous bod -- he has great comic timing!).

However, the rest of this post comes out of my thoughts during "Constantine" and an IM conversation earlier this evening with missmurchison.

( cut for major 'Constantine' plot spoilers )

So, naturally, as I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but find parallels between Constantine's 'theology of despair' or 'faith in the absence of hope', on the one hand, and the situation in which both Angel and Spike eventually find themselves. I couldn't help but flash back on that conversation in the Angel episode "HellBound," concluding that they're both damned by the very souls that allow them to know and seek to do good, and that they can never fully atone or redeem themselves, but they're going to continue to fight the good fight anyway, because "What else are we gonna do?"

( more 'Constantine' spoilers )