Most Pixar movies are kid movies that adults can appreciate. WALL*E was an adult movie that children can appreciate.

I may write more later, if I have time.

This is rough; both transitions and sound need work. But I thought I’d put this trailer for A Flower for Mara up for comment. Any thoughts?

I’m going to combine two posts into one. Fear my blogging power!

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I’m doing okay, actually. Had a bit of a moment when I read this, but otherwise I was on an even keel for the day. That’s good, actually. Looking back at previous years, this day has been better or worse, depending on stuff.

Elder James McDonald grabbed me after worship and said that he had been praying for us. He lost his mother a few years ago, too, and he said that he’d been thinking about us. On the one hand, it’s a positive indication that it took me a moment to figure out what he meant. On the other hand, I was deeply moved and appreciative that he had remembered. Made me feel loved.

The day before that, I watched Baby Mamma with Crystal. She wanted to see it, and it was for her birthday, so I said yes.

Now, before I launch into my cultural critique, I need to say that I enjoyed the movie. As my father would say, “It was diverting.” It followed the romantic comedy formula without the central relationship actually being a romance. In other words, it was about a relationship founded initially on a lie that needed to be transformed to a relationship founded on truth. Maybe it was a buddy movie…or maybe buddy movies are related to romantic comedies.

Anways, the bits about pregnancy and childbirth were pretty funny, and I laughed at the right places. At least, I’m pretty sure that they were the right places.

Then I left the theater with Crystal, opining that our civilization is doomed.

Providentially, as we wandered the Shoppes after the movie, we stumbled upon the display of the Dirty Laundry Project, which essentially reinforced my concern.

We have disconnected love, sex, marriage, and childbearing. In the movie, one of the characters says to another one, “What does being married have to do with having a baby?” One of the T-shirt said, “Love does not equal sex. Sex does not equal love.” While it’s certainly true that sex doesn’t always equal love, isn’t it supposed to? Several of the T-shirts talked about waiting to have sex. Wait for what? Marriage was never mentioned. Apparently, you’re supposed to wait for “the right one”. But, in the heat of the moment, the one in front of you is “the right one”.

And, ultimately, we take love, sex, marriage, and childbearing, and turn them into ways to satisfy our own lusts and desires. Yes, even childbearing. It’s the new way to self-actualize, to find meaning in your existence. Having children has become about being fulfilled as a person, not about giving to the next generation.

The more I wander the world, the more that I realize that the simple act of establishing a household, centered on the marriage of a God-fearing man to a God-fearing woman, raising God-fearing children, is a revolutionary act of epic proportions. The kind that makes the foundations of this corruption system tremble.

Here’s one from the quote file:

“Surely avant-garde enemy rebels of the system never had to change diapers.”–Bruce Sterling, Islands in the Net

I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone.

I haven’t forgotten about this. However, this Friday, the folks at Film and Theology at Mars Hill Church in Seattle will be watching this. I’m waiting to hear what James Harleman has to say before writing up my thoughts. This is mostly because I’m still gathering what I thought about this movie.

…all of you a post about No Country for Old Men. I’m still collating my thoughts on the film, and then I’ll write them up.

I’ll probably use my writing time today to work on A Flower for Mara, though, so I’m putting this here so that I’ll remember to write about this movie.

Or, alternately, so one of you will nag me in a bit.

I saw this a couple weeks ago and hadn’t gotten around to writing about it. I’m not going to be particular about spoilers, so I’ll put this one below the fold.

But first, the trailer.

Oh, and a mention that this is a must-see if you’re at all into Dirty Secrets.

(more…)

Still, the hot button genre with the highest temperature seems to be horror, and how Christians should - or shouldn’t - interact with it.

Horror, Gore, Fear and the Christian…

Since I mentioned horror in an earlier post, I thought that I’d link to this.

Sons of Liberty should be played like this.

People have hoped and speculated on if it would happen, but I just heard today that it’s actually happening. Hooray!

(Why yes, I am being deliberately mysterious.)

I’ve watched Blade Runner a bunch of times. I’m enough of a die-hard that I have the original version on VHS, plus the Director’s Cut on DVD. It’s in my Top 10 favorite films. It’s worth seeing just for the sets. Remember, this is all pre-CGI. Everything that you see was built from scratch.

It’s also inspired by the sort of detective fiction that I’ve been reading of late. So I wanted to watch it again from this angle. I’ve viewed it many times from the SF angle. This time, I wanted to see it as a noir. In the final analysis, I’m not sure if it actually works from this perspective. I mean that exactly as it sounds; in my mind, the jury is still out on whether or not Blade Runner is actually a noir, or if it is only stealing the visual cues of the genre.

But that doesn’t really concern me, because I gained a little more insight into the movie this time around.

Blade Runner belongs to that philosophically-oriented subgenre of SF that is trying to probe serious questions through its stories. Specifically, Blade Runner is asking the question, “What does
it mean to be human?” [*]

For those of you who don’t know, the movie is about replicants, which are genetically-created robots, nearly indistinguishable from humans, except by their emotional responses. The newest models (Nexus-6) are so advanced that, in an attempt to keep them emotionally stable, their creators gift them with implanted memories to give them a sense of having a past. Also, they only have a four-year life span.

Since an out-of-control replicant can do a lot of damage, they are banned from Earth and are used on the off-world colonies instead as cannon fodder, slave labor, and the like. Any replicant that returns to Earth is “retired” by special police units called “Blade Runners”.

So, here’s the question. Replicants look like humans. They have memories like humans. They even have emotional response like humans. So why aren’t they humans?

The easy response is that they are made, and humans are not. But that fails to answer the question in a satisfying way, especially as, throughout the film, the replicants react and respond in very human, understandable terms.

What makes us human?

This time, watching the movie, I realized that there was an answer in the film that I had overlooked in the past.

At the end of the movie, Roy Batty, the leader of the replicants, is chasing Rick Deckard, the blade runner who has killed…er…retired all the other replicants in his little group. They work their way up through an abandoned building, where Roy traps Deckard. In desperation, Deckard tries to leap to the next building. But his jump is too short. He is left scrabbling for a handhold over the yawning abyss.

Roy, a combat model replicant, makes the jump easily, and stands over Deckard. Then he says, “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave.” Deckard struggles, flails, and slips. He is begins to fall.

Lightning-quick, Roy reaches out and grabs him, saving him from death. Then he drops Deckard on the roof, sits down next to him, and says these immortal lines: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” And then, while Deckard watches, he slumps and dies.

Mercy. In the end, Roy showed Deckard mercy.

Another character does so, too. Gaff is another blade runner who has been monitoring Deckard’s pursuit of these replicants. Gaff also knows that Deckard is harboring another replicant (Rachael) at his apartment. But he gives Deckard a chance to escape. He can’t give him much. Both Gaff and Deckard understand that Gaff will have to hunt them both. But Gaff shows mercy to both Deckard and Rachael.

All this brings me back to this quote, from one of the detective novels that I’ve read recently:

“That isn’t your real motivation. I know your type. You have a secret passion for justice. Why don’t you admit it?”
“I have a secret passion for mercy,” I said. “But justice is what keeps happening to people.” —The Goodbye Look, Ross MacDonald

Mercy is the virtue that makes us human. That certainly seems to be what Blade Runner is getting at. And isn’t that part of what God wants from us?

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:8; KJV)

*Another worthwhile film addressing the same question is Dark City. Interestingly, the visual cues are very similar. Maybe there’s more to the noir references than meets the eye.

When I first saw this video, it was strangely haunting. And then, yesterday, it made me think of Bliss Stage.

So, there. Two links for the price of one!

First, if you haven’t seen “300″, you really need to watch the trailer. Go on; I’ll wait here.

Now, based on that trailer, it would be hard to expect a reasoned, historical presentation the Battle of Thermopylae. “300″ is not about history; it’s about the myth of the 300 Spartans, the ultimate last stand, that we love to tell over and over. So, “300″ homes in on those features, not the uncomfortable history that actually sits behind the story.

And is this really a bad thing? When I went to see “300″, I was expecting an uber-macho film with over-the-top action and crazy costuming. And that’s what I got: Spartan supermen with tough guy lines.

Of course, the fun bit is that some of the tough guy quotes were actually said. “Come and get them” has to rank up there with the best that Schwarzenegger has given us.

I must confess, though, that I left the movie theater uncertain as to what I thought of the film. There were several areas that concerned me.

The first was the sexual explicitness of the movie. There were several scenes that were fairly explicit, including one with rampant sexual deviancy. Now, I understand why those scenes were there. (Well, two of the three; the whole thing with the Oracle was actually gratuitous.) However, I wish that the filmmakers had decided to achieve their story goals in other ways. As it is, I’m hesitant to recommend the movie as it stands.

I’m also concerned about the violence in the film. Let me be clear; I’m not throwing out the use of violence. I spoke highly of Apocalypto, which was another violent film. Also, the violence in “300″ was highly stylized, reflecting its comic book origins. There was lots of blood, but it was more like Mortal Kombat than true battlefield carnage. And yet…what does it say about our society that a popcorn movie is full of such violence?

Also, I had to laugh when the movie tried to set up the Spartans as the guardians of freedom and liberty. Since I’m too lazy to do my own research, I simply refer you to this link, where some of the actual history is discussed. I’ll let a quote suffice:

The Spartans were a highly militarized, brutally hierarchal, and ferociously violent civilization. And that’s the opinion of a Greek who is very friendly to the Spartans. They often refused to fight in foreign wars — like the Ionian Revolt — because they were afraid of their own slaves revolting.

For that matter, what about the Spartan childhood which was depicted fairly accurately by the movie? The physically imperfect are killed at birth. At six you are taken from your family to live in communal barracks, where you are brutalized until you survive your rite of passage. Nice place, eh?

So, yeah, I’m not really buying “Sparta the free”. Or, as was said by Joshua BishopRoby

300 is a movie about a city that intentionally turns its citizenry into psychopaths and the one moment in history when that turned out to be a good idea.

That all being said, there were some positive things about “300″ that I’m going to point out.

First, there’s something irresistably attractive about someone who refuses to be corrupted, even if taking the high road is harder. Leonidas is easy to like for this reason.

But, even moreso, I want to call attention to Gorgo, his wife. Now, my understanding of Greek history and culture is that there’s no way that a woman would have had the sort of sway that Gorgo has in the movie. Chalk it up to another anachronism. But I think that Gorgo is a wonderful picture of what a good wife can look like. Gorgo is a submissive wife, to be sure. She was trying to be a helpmeet to her husband, not pursue her independent goals. Yet, at the same time, no one could accuse Gorgo of being weak. On the contrary, she was tough as nails without ceasing to be feminine.

As a result, her husband values her opinion greatly. In the trailer, you can see the brief exchange between Leonidas and Gorgo, right before he kicks the Persian messenger into the well. He has drawn his sword and has it to the messenger’s neck. But, before he takes irreversible action, he looks to his wife. You can see the conversation play out in their expressions.

“What do you think, dear?” Leonidas says. “Should I kill the Persian messenger and plunge us into war? I’m thinking that I should, but I wanted to know if you were seeing something that I’m missing.”

“Hmm,” Gorgo says. “No, you’re right. Better go ahead and do it.”

Now that’s a wife.

So, what did I think of “300″? As a raw action film, I rather enjoyed it, and I think that there are some valuable examples in the film. Just, don’t expect too much of it.

Sometime last week, we sat down to watch the movie Brick. I had first heard about it on NPR and had forgotten about it until I saw it in my local movie rental store. Since I’ve been working on my Dirty Secrets project, I’ve been reading a lot of noirish detective novels and watching a lot of noirish movies, so I was eager to see this one as well. The idea of a noir mystery set in a high school seemed unusual; indeed, I was expecting something on the level of a farce. But, even a good farce can reveal aspects of a genre, so I was all set.

I was so very wrong.

Brick isn’t a farce at all. Indeed, it’s a solid entry into the genre. To be clear, I have decided that I’d like to own this movie. I don’t purchase movies lightly, since renting is so easy, so I consider this to be high praise. Certainly, there’s a bit of self-referential humor, but the movie understands the moral core of the genre and holds the focus there. Greed, obsession, power, love, honor…these are at the center of the noir drama, and these are at the center of this movie.

Despite a particular image in the trailer (which didn’t end up in the cut of the movie that I saw), the film was surprisingly clean. It earns its “R” rating mostly on the immersion in the drug culture of this particular high school, plus some violent moments. The soundtrack is particularly good; you can find samples here, if you’re interested. In particular, listen to “Emily’s Theme”. It’s haunting in its beauty.

Recently, I figured out that I tend to judge art by how it affected my outlook on life. Do I think about the world differently because I interacted with this piece of art? Did it challenge me to broaden my views or to think more deeply about a topic? Do I live my life differently because of this artwork? By these standards, Brick was a gripping movie.

You see, once you filter out some of the hardboiled tone of the movie, you’re left with a situation that, sadly, is quite believable. My wife attended a public school in Erie when she grew up, and she said that many aspects of the story seemed very familiar. Sure, Brick was set in a rich high-school, as opposed to the poorer one that my wife attended, but the rich high schools in Erie had a worse reputation for drugs than the poorer ones. The more I watched the movie, the more I bought what I was seeing. This wasn’t an attempt to force a noir-style story into a high school for laughs. This was a serious noir-style telling of a very believable story.

In particular, as I watched, I found myself noticing the nearly complete lack of parents, or adults in general. Aside from the assistance Vice Principal and a brief appearance by the Pin’s mother (which you can see in the trailer), the teen-aged characters live totally independent lives. There’s no sense of belonging to a larger family, or even of having wiser adult friends who would understand the situation and be able to help. No, these characters live in their own world and are largely stuck solving their own problems with their own resources.

How sad.

All these people, rapidly destroying their lives, with no one to help them.

Crystal said that something clicked while watching the movie and discussing it afterwards. She realized that my sister and I had never lived separate lives from our parents. In contrast, her experience of growing up was one largely disconnected from her parents or, indeed, of any real adult oversight. Adults were to be distrusted and avoided. The result: violence and heartbreak. Of course, she also readily admits that the adults that she knew weren’t really worth heeding. Those that weren’t distant were often trying to be “cool” by being permissive. Again, violence and heartbreak were the result.

I want better for my children, both those that are mine by blood and those that God will bring under my care. I guess that means that I need to work on being close to my children without being permissive, being wise without being distant, so that they will come to me with their problems, and I will be able to help them.

Last Saturday, I went to see Mel Gibson’s new movie Apocalypto with Crystal.

I did a chunk of reading on Mesoamerican Indians in 2006, both on Aztecs and Mayans, so I’d been looking forward to seeing this movie for quite some time. Then I read Josh Gibbs’ review, which only increased my interest in this film.

But, having seen it, it’s taken me until today to be able to put my thoughts about the movie in order. Was Apocalypto a good movie? Uh, well, you see….

There are a couple of levels to the film. On one level, Gibson is trying to connect the Mayan civilization to our own. He opens the movie with a quote from historian Will Durant: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” And the Mayan civilization was great.

There’s a stretch of the movie where the Mayans are hauling their captives into their city. Honestly, the trek just keeps going and going and going. But it works! Each scene shows a little more civilization. First, they are clearing trees. Next, they pass through the limestone mines on a well-constructed road. Then they pass through the agricultural suburbs of the city. Then they pass into the bustling marketplace. Then they pass into the temple complex at the center of the city. With each concentric circle, you feel more “civilization”.

But, at the same time, you feel the wrongness of the place. Something feels…off…somehow. Then you come to the temple complex, and you find the crowd of elegantly dressed people, dancing and singing and cheering, while, above them, men are being sacrificed. To be clear, this means that the man is bent backward over a stone while a priest cuts out his heart. Then his head is cut off and rolled down the steps of the pyramid, soon followed by his body. And the people cheer.

Something is fundamentally wrong with this people.

Yet, this level of the movie didn’t really work for me. It felt tacked on somehow, or maybe like a theme of the movie that hovers in the background. Because, really, Apocalypto isn’t a big movie.

It’s a small one.

Josh Gibbs put his finger on the core of this movie, when he wrote this: “From the point that Jag is taken away from his family, the dramatic question of the story becomes, “How will the hero rescue his family?” …. The story focuses on a man accomplishing something, not a man trying to learn something about life.”

One man. One wife. One family.

And now that family is in danger of being destroyed.

What is he prepared to do?

That’s what Apocalypto is really about. And, on this level, it is a deeply moving and stirring film.

From one perspective, so many films that are released these days are designed to fit into one of three categories: guy movies, chick flicks, and “family-friendly” movies. Chick flicks are all about love and relationships, guy movies are all about guns and explosions, and “family-friendly” movies are about cute puppies and stupid situations. As a result, movies that touch the emotions are usually aimed at women. All men want is that adrenaline rush. Or so goes conventional wisdom.

That makes classifying this movie difficult. Because, this is a guy movie but not in the “adrenaline-pumping” sense. Rather, this movie exalts proper manliness. Our hero, Jaguar Paw, is a true man. He loves his wife and son, and he is eagerly awaiting the birth of his second child. But how does he demonstrate this love? By grabbing a club and trying to beat their attackers to death. By risking everything to return to where they are stranded and rescue them. By leaping over tall waterfalls. By killing.

Killing for love.

The scene where the Mayans raid Jaguar Paw’s village is really harsh. I vividly remember one warrior grabbing a baby by the foot, pulling him away from his screaming mother, and hurling him off-screen somewhere. Women are being assaulted, dragged off-screen where they are being raped. When the captives are being dragged off, the few surviving children tag along behind, crying “Don’t leave us! Don’t leave us!” At camp the first night, one of the men is talking about his wife who had been raped and killed. She stopped screaming before they were done. Had she fought until the end? Would they meet again in the afterlife? These questions were haunting him.

And I found myself thinking about my own family. My wife, my children. And, in that moment, I realized that I am prepared to do what it takes to protect them. Shoot to kill? Stab for the heart? Absolutely.

Because I have no illusions about my place and time. I know full well that evil men walk this earth, and I know that they may come for me and mine. But I will stand ready to protect them.

As the captives were dragged across the river ford, being pulled from the few surviving children, I was also struck with another simple thought: this is what the world is like without Jesus. We were made for heaven, but we have turned this world into hell. “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.” (Ecclesiastes 4:1) But Jesus has come to establish His own kingdom, which is a kingdom of peace. “He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)

Look around. He’s obviously not done yet. So there’s more work to be done. So again the question: what am I prepared to do? It’s easy to look to the end and say, “I wish that this were all over.” Looking to the end gives hope, to be sure. But, as the old hymn says, “Must I be carried to the skies/on flowery beds of ease,/while others fought to win the prize,/and sailed through bloody seas?” For now, we are called to fight against “this present darkness”, which means suffering. But Jesus promises that our suffering and faithful labor will result in the victory of the kingdom of peace. Isn’t that something worth fighting for?

So, what did I think of Apocalypto? Hard to say, isn’t it?

This Saturday, I’ll be going to see it again with my brother, “Fritz”. I guess we’ll see what I think then.

So, I’ve been reading a lot of spy novels and detective novels recently. I’ve been playing Spione, when time has permitted. I’m working on Dirty Secrets, a detective storygame.

And now I have discovered my soundtrack.

Jon pointed me in the direction of Portishead after I exposed him to a group called Bliss.

To Kill a Dead Man
Sour Times
Glory Box

I’m not usually a fan of music videos, and, honestly, from one perspective these aren’t really that great. But they have atmosphere!

Plus, “To Kill a Dead Man” was actually a short film that Portishead put together so that they could score it.

(Didn’t believe me, James, did you?)