One Night With The King (2006)
0 Comments Published by Chris on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 10:31 AM.
The makers of this film had great source material for this. You can read the book of Esther in less time than it takes this movie to draw out the mundane parts of the story.The film doesn't even qualify as a good Sunday-school lesson. The important parts of the story are pushed to the margins to make the film the story of one woman's courage to change the heart of King Xerxes (also one of the stars of the film 300). At times the film seems forced into trying to be a romantic tale. I found the interpretation of the story to be trite (there are overt references to Haman being a Nazi; red and black flags with a frightening symbol on them).
Where the text allows for high drama, the audience of the film gets bad montages and didactic narration. I have always found the story of Esther to be fascinating, but this version makes it seem absurd.
Labels: gpv, michael sajbel, movies, number twenty-three
There have been plenty of movies made that tell stories of trauma; in fact, one might argue that almost all films are about traumatic experiences and how this changes and moves people through a narrative, toward either greater meaning or nihilistic chaos. These films need to find resolution in redemption or some level of healing in the afflicted person, or they ultimately settle for despair. When dealing with true tragedy, good films need to find an honest way to allow the audience to imagine the possibilities of hope and love.Reign Over Me is this sort of film. It never sinks to the level of despair, but is accurate in not providing false hope. Charlie (Adam Sandler) has been a recluse since the loss of his wife and three daughters on 9/11. He has stopped visiting friends and family, and spends his time playing video games, listening to music and collecting records. Alan (Don Cheadle), Charlie's former roommate, sees him scooting around town and tries to reconnect after a long absence. Alan soon realizes that he needs to try to help Charlie, but finds that the institutions in place for dealing with grief and loss are not adequate to the task. He realizes that it will require time and a slow reconnecting with a small group of new friends that might help Charlie to learn to live with the loss, and make sense of his own life. The film is really good at developing the characters, and as weird and random as the group seems, it works. The film doesn't try to make grand statements about death and loss. Rather, it simply shows that a little reflection on life can show us who we are and what it is that we love most.
Labels: gpv, mike binder, movies, number twenty-two
What I have come to realize is that while a Reformed view allows Christians the freedom to really engage and ask good questions of culture, it also places on us the responsibility of know where the boundaries are. Even before the Fall, God had told Adam and Eve the limits that they were under, not as slaves to God, but so that they could find their identity and flourish in their relationship with God, rather than being deceived by thinking of themselves as god. This has become clearer, or rather more muddled, after the fall, where we now see the world “through a glass darkly.” In a world with real goodness and real evil, we must come to realize what our boundaries are so that we are pursuing faithfulness, rather than running into ruin.
What we need is a community of conversation- a space where we can learn and grow in maturity and discernment. To be human is to be a creature in God’s world, and we flourish most when we live inside the limits that God’s grace provides. Engaging culture is not a free for all in which we celebrate every created thing as art, rather it is a careful process in which we work out our faith with “fear and trembling,” trying to discern the complexities of an originally good creation that we have screwed up by mistaking grace for irresponsible freedom. Engaging culture will involve developing appropriate gestures in response to culture; these gestures then shape our posture toward culture. Andy Crouch (Culture Makers, 2007) lists “condemnation, critique, consumption, and copying” as possible Christian responses to different things in culture. While each of these responses are appropriate for different things, we should not allow one of them to become the dominating response. Rather, within the limits of God’s world we have to become creators and cultivators of culture- to truly be salt and light in the world.
Labels: action, gpv, number twenty
Rarely do you get to experience a concert from on stage, looking out at the audience. Apparently, arriving late can have its advantages. The last available place to sit in Club Café, a small lounge/bar in Pittsburgh’s Southside, was a speaker just off of stage left. It made for an awkward crick in the neck for the two hours of stories and songs with David Wilcox…but oh, it was so worth it.Wilcox is not only a great musician, making his acoustic guitar keep the rhythm while sustaining intricate picking, but his ability to tell stories makes him unique. In fact, most of the audience was there because they knew Wilcox’s work (another advantage of seeing the crowd sing along to some of his more famous songs). Wilcox’s songs focus on human relationships, mostly the intensity of love, the pain of heartache, and the comedy of human mortality. Wilcox moved seamlessly from the laugh inducing “Reaper Sweepstakes” to the tearful “Deeper Still” ("In this life, the love you give becomes the only lasting treasure/And what you lose will be what you win/A well that echoes down too deep to measure") to narrating the philosophical in “Inside of My Head” ("I've got to empty out the inside of my head/This could be a room with such a view,/but its covered up with junk/Blocking off the place the light gets through"). Wilcox claims his best song is “Three Brothers” from his latest album, which explores the religious conflict in the Middle East in a subtle and beautiful way.
The well-told stories interspersed throughout the set helped explain the inspirations to the songs, making the music take on heighten meaning. Wilcox is pretty honest about his faith and how it helps him see both the funny and serious sides of life, brokenness and spirituality; pointing out that our love for one another is a mired and grace-filled reflection of God’s love for us.
His latest album is called Vista. Wilcox was quick to point out came out before the latest version of Windows.
visit greg's blog.
Labels: david wilcox, gpv, live, music, number twenty-one
Richard Mouw -- Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport (2004)
0 Comments Published by Chris on Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 10:34 AM.
I am Dutch and a Calvinist (more specifically a neo-Calvinist). The obligatory joke here is that God decided this before the beginning of the world. Words like "Calvinism" make people feel uncomfortable; people are suddenly confronted with theological conversations that seem to mean everything and nothing at the same time. Lucky for us, in contemporary times getting burned at the stake for small distinctions is unlikely. But we also shouldn't be lazy when it comes to knowing what we believe about the "ultimate things."Mouw takes his book title from a scene from the Paul Schrader film, Hardcore. This film focuses on a Dutch Reformed man from Grand Rapids who goes to LA in search of his daughter, who has run away while attending a Christian youth conference. He ends up in the Las Vegas airport with a prostitute who has a lead on where his daughter might be. They have a brief conversation about their beliefs in which he can only manage to say that he believes in TULIP—the five points of Calvinism. The film suggests that in the emerging postmodern world, TULIP is a shabby antique of a theology.
Mouw has written this small book (127 pages) to show that the Calvinist heritage does indeed speak to a diverse and pluralistic culture. Using clear and concise language, he gives a brief explanation of the five points of Calvinism, and then goes on to apply them to contemporary conversations about God's sovereignty, the basis for cultural renewal and evangelism. Mouw is always reiterating the need for humility and compassion along side of conviction, in order to change the stereotype of Calvinism as an arrogant view that can be used as a pedestal and hammer—or in the case of South Africa, apartheid. For all of its downsides, Mouw also points out the valuable contributions that Calvinism has made to thoughtful Christianity, and a Christian engagement with culture and the public sphere.
I recommend reading this book, you might be surprised to find that God had you listed a Calvinist the whole time.
Labels: books, gpv, number twenty, richard mouw
In this 4 hour documentary, made for HBO, Spike Lee investigates the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. Lee looks at all the angles: the natural, social, governmental, and human disaster that Katrina created in its wake and aftermath. It is an eye opening film, and tries to ask more questions than it is able to resolve about the stakes and impact that Katrina had and has on the lives of those who were born, raised and continue to call New Orleans home.The documentary starts with the events leading up to the storm, and the government's failure early on. The second part focuses more on the media, and the good and bad that resulted from information on a mass scale. Lee does a good job of weaving together the big picture with the lives of individuals and the personal stories that those at the center tell about their experience. This film made me realize the filter and blinders that I have as a person who has never been to the southeastern US, and the difficulty of discerning the info-glut of CNN and the Internet.
The best insight of the film is not that we have a race problem in America (which is true, and may be the reason Crash won best picture immediately following Katrina), but rather the film points out the integral nature of human relationships that are mediated by social institutions. A personal disruption of your everyday life can be traumatic, but this can be exponentially damaging when social structures also start to fail in helping people recover a sense of normalcy and meaning. We all want personal freedom, and often times we overlook our intimate connection to the reality of a social world, involving a massive web of relationships. What we need is a politics that takes into account the reality of both.
Labels: gpv, movies, number twenty, spike lee
This film is about originality of dialogue and story structure--OK, I can't say that with a straight face. This film could not be further from it. Most of the lines are cliches and or slightly plagiarized from other works (there are actual clips from Gladiator in this film!...almost). However, this film is a cgi marvel, allowing the viewer to enter into a fantastical ancient culture, where gods, men and wild beasts struggle for survival and honor. Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller (Sin City, Batman: the Dark Knight Returns), Zach Snyder adapted and directs this film about the Persian/Greek battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The Spartan warriors are the inspiration of this film about the human struggle for honor and courage in the face of death. One of the films best qualities is its take on the religious structure of the time, with the Persian King Xerxes speaking and acting like a god among men. The visuals are stunning and the blood flies, splatters, and many other verbs. The sub-plot of family in Sparta actually gets in the way of the action-packed bloodbath. This is a film where you get a little history-lite and learn not to take yourself too seriously.
--gpv
greg's blog
imdb
rotten tomatoes
Labels: gpv, movies, number twenty, zack snyder
As biopics go, this film is as good as Walk the Line and Ray. Amazing Grace is about the life of English politician William Wilberforce, especially his work in bring about the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. The movie chronicles a small part of his life as he grows more and more confident of his convictions and influence in the political sphere. The film highlights the people that were around him that kept him going, especially his live-long friend William Pitt. Amazing Grace mentions a few other important parts of his life in passing: the Clapham Sect that he was a part of, his friendship with former slave-ship captain-turned-composer John Newton, and his fast romancing of his wife, Barbara. I feel like I had an advantage in knowing a lot about Wilberforce before seeing the film--viewers with less background may need to do some research following viewing in order to fully understand the film, but the movie is a much-needed introduction to a great example of a man struggling and eventually finding his vocation.
Labels: gpv, michael apted, movies, number nineteen
This is not your typical film about a teacher in an urban school. Most of the films in that category usually work on the premise that the teacher comes in as a sort of renegade savior, and changes students, the school and the world.There are, of course, degrees of this. Dead Poet's Society, the History Boys and Stand and Deliver do a pretty good job of staying in the realm of the real, which gives them more relevance to actual situations; films like Dangerous Minds and Coach Carter, on the other hand, make education trivial and simple if the teacher just asserts themselves.
The rest of the film develops the nuances of this relationship and how it changes both Drey and Dan. This secret connects them to the truth and while it doesn't ultimately set them free, it allows them to recognize the potential to be set free.
Labels: gpv, movies, number eighteen, ryan fleck
We often separate knowing from doing. These are not two separate entities, with labels like “good” and “bad,” sacred/secular, etc. Rather, “the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it” ( Ps.24:1). Culture.ish. longs to see life holistically, like the Biblical narrative teaches. This does not, however, mean that Culture.ish. is a priest that baptizes and makes holy everything that it reviews and talks about so that students will know that it is safe and pleasing to God. Culture.ish. is the beginning of a conversation about what it means to live in God's world, to see the world and hear the world the way God does.
It is deism to say that God doesn't listen to U2 and watch The Office, because the Christian God is a God who is involved in our redemption, on a very physical level... “lowering himself...”(Phil. 4). God redeems us by making us discerning participants of this world, to be culture critics, culture lovers, and culture makers and shapers. Culture.ish. places its hopes in God being able to transform Geneva students from a view of a legalism that damns them to a view of God's grace manifesting itself in all the places we sometimes fail to look. The Christian God is huge; we are merely the small and finite creatures. Hopefully Geneva College can be a place where people are known for having "eyes to see, and ears to hear," and hearts and minds to practice wisdom and resurrection. Culture.ish. is an attempt to step faithfully into God’s world.
Labels: gpv, number eighteen, respond, why culture ish
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) and Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
0 Comments Published by Chris on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 8:59 AM.
In February and March of 1945 America and Japan struggled in a 35 day battle over an island in the Pacific Ocean named Iwo Jima. Clint Eastwood (director of Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River) has made two films chronicling the lives of American (Flags of our Fathers) and Japanese (Letters from Iwo Jima) soldiers.Both of these films follow in the anti-war tradition by focusing on the human face of social conflicts. Flags tells the story of three men, John "Doc" Bradley, Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon, who became famous for being in a photo, raising a flag on Iwo Jima (see movie poster). They are soon sent for by the government to be the spokespeople for raising money for the war effort. The story is told by the son of Bradley, one of the flag raisers. Using interviews and flashbacks, the story comes to a climax in the final scenes when Bradley tells his son about the catastrophe of war and the construction of heroes. The main theme of Flags is the way in which we define heroes and give political meaning to our actions. The film does a great job of making the viewer more reflective about the complexity of war.
Letters is a more traditional film, following the lives of Saigo, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi and Baron Nishi, as they dig in for the long and continually bleakening battle ahead. Through flashbacks you come to know these men and the tension they feel in fighting for their country and the longing for home and family. In the end, these men realize that fighting is not the purpose of their lives; rather, it is the dignity and worth they have as human beings in life and in death. Rather than killing themselves, as so many of their fellow officers do, they value the honor of their lives. Like Flags, this film also allows the viewer to critically reflect on the tragedy of war. The directing is well done and there are good performances by Ryan Phillippe, Adam Beach, Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya.
Labels: clint eastwood, flags of our fathers, gpv, letters from iwo jima, movies, number seventeen
I’m no expert of rap music, just a fan and observer of what might be the most important cultural movement of the last two decades. Nas being a big part of the development of rap with his debut album, Illmatic. Since then he’s released six albums, and ended up in a feud with Jay-Z who dissed him for having only one good album. Well that has all turned around for Nas. For Hip Hop is Dead, he has signed with Jay-Z’s label, DefJam, and written the funeral music to an era of hip hop as we know it. Making sure to end the album with a resurrection chant to ‘live hip hop live…I pray hip hop stays” (Hope). Nas has always had is pulse on life in gritty urban life in
--gpv
Listen.Labels: gpv, music, nas, number sixteen
Guillermo del Toro has the gift of seamlessly putting the real and the otherworldly side by side without the audience blinking. The story here is both beyond belief and it succeeds in helping the audience suspend their disbelief.Set in
The harsh and brutal reality of the war is intentionally juxtaposed to Ofelia's fantasy world, until the very end of the film where the two worlds collide in a heart wrenching confrontation. In an NPR interview, del Toro talked about how the imagination is a way to cope with childhood traumas and the reality of evil in the world, not as a way to escape it but as a way of survival. While a portrait of a child's experience, this is neither a film for children nor a fantasy film. Instead this film explores the depth of human evil, and the imagination required to recognize the good, to love, and to hope.
Labels: gpv, guillermo del toro, movies
Mindy Smith - Long Island Shores (2006)
1 Comments Published by the call on Monday, February 5, 2007 at 6:46 AM.
I fell in love with Smith’s debut album One Moment More (2004) from the first notes of Come to Jesus. Her beautiful voice draws in the listener to a bigger story. While her earlier work focuses on early stages and elementary questions of spirituality and relationships filled with angst you can hear and feel, on this sophomore album she matures both lyrically and musically. These songs are more reflective, the pace gives the sense of an open space to reflect: “The edge of love, like a knife/Shimmer shines when it hits the light/Just like that it’ll change a life/And it makes time stand/It makes time stand still” (Edge of Love). It has taken me longer, but I have come to appreciate these new songs.On this album she goes deeper into issues of spirituality: “Bird on the telephone wire/Come down and sing to me/Have you heard from my Father/have you any news to bring/I know I’m not the only one asking/Among wandering souls down here/Can you shout it from the highest peak/Or at least whisper it in my ear” (I’m Not the Only One Asking), she also gets more personal singing about her childhood home on Long Island and on the title track, remembering her adoptive parents who were both taken by cancer within 3 years of each other: “There my father/Preached at the church/On the corner of old Nichols Road/He raised four children in a green house/We are all well/And now we’re all grown.” She is never trite in trying to make sense of life and human brokenness, rather she lets the questions and thoughts linger.
Long Island Shores stays closer to the folk/country roots, toning down the electric guitars of her first album, in favor of an acoustic guitar, strings, and banjo, she also adds a great duet with Buddy Miller (What if the World Stops Turning), and has moments of hushed tones as she sings gentle lullabies (Peace of Mind).
While this album is not love at first listen, these songs are more like a friendship that develops.
Labels: gpv, mindy smith, music
Engaging Culture by Greg P. Veltman
Greg’s Blog
Labels: action, engage, engaging culture, gpv
This is a great film about the "dumbing down" of The world is a very different place. So dumb, in fact, that if Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber strolled in they would be seen as tragic characters for being to rational in their stupidity. Which is what the main characters find when they reemerge after a 500 year gap. They were pretty average when they started the freezing process and now they should be in charge of the government, which they eventually do.
The film ends with a rather interesting and deep comment on the anomie (feelings of social alienation) that come with knowledge in relation to the social world that one lives in. It is not a happily ever after; it is merely survival. It begs the question of whether anything more is possible. I suspect the audience is suppose to answer yes, and then do something about it now. While a funny film, the moral of the story comes across well: go read a book or two and vote intelligently in 2008.
Labels: gpv, mike judge, movies
