BrianPrewitt

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: A Review

2009-05-17T14:59:00.001-04:00

I needed to give it a week on this one, and I’m glad I did. Walking out of Wolverine, I was less disappointed than just indifferent. Thinking back on 2008, when Iron Man was the second-best comic book movie of the summer, the bar was set pretty high for this year’s summer lineup. The idea of doing a reboot or an origin story is nothing new, and so Wolverine wasn’t exactly walking in new territory. Nevertheless, Wolverine was taking on a tough assignment, and unfortunately, didn’t really rise to the occasion. Star Trek greatly improved the outlook for the season, but Wolverine was a tough step out the door.

With this entry into the X-Men franchise, the direction for it gets that much more interesting. Bryan Singer did a progressively impressive job with the first two films in the series, and then came Brett Ratner. The Last Stand wasn’t exactly a failure, and for a light summer film was a reasonably good time. But Singer had proven that you could deliver summer explosions while still exploring interesting characters with some degree of depth. Ratner largerly walked away from that depth, and opted for broad and sweeping action. In doing so, he lived on our investment in the characters that Singer had provided.

Unfortunately, Wolverine wants to live in both of these worlds. The early moments provide promise, as we are introduced to Logan/Wolverine as he comes into his powers. The hero is born in tragedy, a tragedy that drives he and his brother Victor to spend their lives on the run. Born in the early 19th century, Logan, who will grow into adulthood then age no further, fights alongside he and his brother in America’s wars, delivered in a montage that probably should have been developed into the entire movie. After the music video ends, we join Logan in Vietnam, where he gets into deep trouble, only to be offered rescue by Stryker, a government operative who promises to help them both in exchange for their work on a secret government project.

It’s at this point in the story that the movie encounters its deepest problems, problems that it never figures out how to solve. If you’ve seen the first 3 films, and with $600 million combined domestic gross I’m thinking a few people have, than Stryker’s appearance is walking people down a road that we’ve already been. In fact a significant piece of X2 was Wolverine finding out a lot of this stuff. So we already know coming in that he’s going to get his adamantium skeleton from this government experiment, that he’s going to work on their behalf, that they will use him, and that ultimately something they do is going to take away his memories. Given all that, we have to wonder what else they have to tell us. Their answer: not much.

Let me be clear, I’m not opposed to prequels per se. I loved the Batman reboot. Star Trek was outstanding. Lost has even been sustaining our interest for two seasons by flashing forward in time then telling us how it’s going to get to that place. Where Wolverine stumbles is in its inability to expand our understanding of the character of James Logan. And that’s a shame. They’ve got a great actor in Jackman, and while he delivers as much as possible, they just don’t ask enough of him. A little brooding, a little anger, then a random fight with a rogues gallery of characters. Things look cool, but the plot just kind of wanders along.

The two banes of storytelling in the sci-fi/comic world are amnesia and time travel tales. Too often they show up as lazy devices that manufacture cheap drama. Over the course of two weeks, we see Star Trek find a way to rise above it, bringing us a great ride despite its time travel plotline, and Wolverine fail to figure out how to rise above its amnesia story.

Logan is an interesting character. In the opening reel, they touched on what was most interesting about him in the tragedy of his life and the decades he spent running from that tragedy. There’s a story there. By rehashing the government conspiracy from X2, they refuse to walk deeper into his life. They want to make him a hero (because that’s what a summer blockbuster needs), then take that away by removing his memories, because that’s what the storyline demands. This amnesia plot fails for the lack of accountability it produces. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, because anything they do with him they just get to reset at the end to get ready for his true heroic arc in the first two films.

The best film to make use of an amnesia arc in recent years in my mind is Memento, detailing a man who can form no new memories by telling his story backwards. For that film, the lack of accountability that forgetting produces was central to the theme of the film. These filmmakers probably needed to study that one. Wolverine had an opportunity to explore a character that moved through American history always running from a past. It was only when his memories were taken away that he was forced to confront that past. It was that confrontation that transformed his character and turned him into a hero. This ironic path had something to say, something that we needed to hear. Too bad they weren’t willing to walk that road.

Star Trek: A Review

2009-05-14T16:44:00.001-04:00

I wonder how the fanboys are dealing with Star Trek? I’m not the one to ask. I’ve seen all the movies, and had some streaks of watching The Next Generation in college, but hadn’t ever seen an original series episode until a few weeks ago. So while I recognize that the attempt to reboot the franchise, complete with recasting of all the original characters, is stepping on sacred ground for a lot of people, I’m not the right defender. It’s Wars, not Trek for me, baby.

Even from the casual viewer’s perspective, though, I can tell there’s a lot that could challenge these folks. The film is driven by a time travel plot that plays with the character’s origins (and creates a few plot holes that will certainly prove distracting for some). It offers up a cameo by Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, who becomes central to the plot in a way that may pull a few out of the film. For those who walk through the original work as hallowed halls, I’m sure some are being stretched.

And yet, I hope that they can pick up what the rest of us can enjoy, which is just how much Star Trek gets right. For me it comes down to one word: energy. This is an unapologetic summer blockbuster, and it brings it in spades. The opening moments, introducing us to Kirk’s father needing to save his ship’s crew, including his pregnant wife, in a no-win situation, is a gripping opener that gives us much of what we need to know about Kirk. Flash forward a few years, and we see the rebel farm kid interested in driving fast and breaking the rules (others have already commented on the connections to Luke Skywalker). Flash forward again, and we see him resisting the call to step into his father’s shoes and become a great pilot.

The plot skips over most of Kirk’s academy years, but gives us enough to establish the personas of the three main characters. Kirk, the arrogant womanizer is a brilliant pilot uninterested in following the rules. “Bones” McCoy is a temperamental hothead with unquestioned medical talent. Spock is ever caught between two worlds as a half-human, half-Vulcan, seeking to embrace the emotionless logic of his Vulcan upbringing while dealing with the passion that emerges from his human side. That we know these three are bound to strike up a lifelong friendship doesn’t detract from the intensity of the relationships we see in these early days. Theirs will be an unlikely friendship, as their personalities and priorities constantly put them at odds with each other. For me, knowing the outcome made the ride more enjoyable, as you could see the humor in the hostility, knowing that friendship would emerge.

The three have very separate journeys that get them on the newly minted Enterprise to face off against a new crises. I’ll save the plot for your own viewing, but events continue to put the three in impossible situations, pitting them against each other, and letting their own character and friendship emerge. The film continues at a fun, intense pace that we would expect from director J.J. Abrams. It works because of the great performances of the principals, the fun at watching these personalities interact, and because of the great action that surrounds the entire venture. All of that keeps it going when the plot may be a little less than perfect.

Without a doubt, Star Trek was the most fun I’ve had at the movies this year, and did a lot to purge the sour taste of Wolverine from my pallet (that review is coming). And yes, I’ll add my vote that everything Abrams did right he learned from Star Wars (you take your cheap shots when you can). That being said, the film fits an old school view of the summer blockbuster, rejecting the models of Batman and many of the other comic book properties, in that it really doesn’t try to explore or hint at deep themes. It promises a two hour frolic and an escape complete with popcorn and soda. And yet...

Over the last few months, I’ve read several discussing whether Star Trek can play for this generation. The property is almost 45 years old, and was started in a spirit of 60’s optimism that looked to the promise of space exploration as a framework for seeing the hope of the future. Can that kind of unapologetic optimism play in our more cynical age? I think so. Even where the perception is that our institutions are failing us, and the promises of prosperity that we cling to will not bear fruit, there is a power in hope that is far deeper than simple escapism. Star Trek works best when it gets small, focusing on the powerful friendships of people who fight alongside each other, offering loyalty even in hopeless situations. That we have a hope that we might rise above our institutions, yes even rise above ourselves, is a hope that seems relevant for any age.

Watchmen: A Review

2009-03-20T15:37:00.001-04:00

I can remember my high school junior year. Our English teacher had assigned us a paper to be written on the book of our choice. While we were trying to think creatively of titles that might pass muster with her critical eye, a friend and I decided to make a pitch for the Watchmen. This was the early-90’s, just a few years after the book’s serial publication, and already among those in the know it had obtained a certain reverential quality and was being held out as a real example of literature in the somewhat discounted genre of graphic novels (that is the respectable term for comic books). We brought her a copy, made our best pitch, and waited for her review. She was less than thrilled, and we proceeded to do our papers on a different book.

Well, time vindicated us, but oddly enough, I’m not sure the movie would be key evidence for that vindication. Watchmen over the years eventually obtained respected status in many literary circles. Long considered unfilmable, it took 300’s Zack Snyder to finally see the project come to bear. And, consistent with 300, Snyder delivers a film that is surprisingly faithful to its source material. Yet it may be this faithfulness that keeps the film from rising to the level obtained so recently within its genre. It is certainly an engaging and faithful adaptation of a marvelous work, but fails to achieve greatness in its own right.

The story that the film is trying to capture is a tough one. For the uninitiated, Watchmen posits an alternate mid-80’s in which costumed heroes, both ordinary and super, have been around for decades. While the vigilantes of the early years were entirely human, things changed with the arrival of the first legitimate superhero, Dr. Manhattan, in the late-50’s. His appearance changed world history, such that this alternate ’85 has Nixon still as president, serving a 5th term after bringing an end to the VIetnam War. The costumes eventually were outlawed, and so these heroes have retired, except for two who work directly with the government: that same Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian, a tough fighter who has been doing the government’s dirty work for decades. It is the Comedian that we get introduced to in the early moments, as we see his brutal murder at the hands of a mystery man.

The Comedian’s death begins an investigation by Rorshach, a costumed hero who previously worked with him and now continues his vigilante work in an underground capacity. As the investigation deepens, he reforges relationships with old heroes, as he becomes increasingly convinced that the Comedian’s death is part of a larger conspiracy against these heroes. These introductions become occasions for flashbacks through the lives of these heroes, whom we quickly discover are less than heroic. We see their failings, and for the most part the basic tragedy that their lives have become.

As if this story wasn’t enough, this is all happening with the end of the world looming in the background. The Soviet Union is threatening to invade Afghanistan, and it is made clear that their decision to do that could easily provoke a nuclear response from the United States. As the investigation deepens, so does the looming political crises, all the while leaving us to wonder if there may be some connection between the two.

Fortunately, the film’s best acting comes from some of my favorite characters. At the top of the list is Rorschach, who is brilliantly played by Jackie Earle Haley. Rorschach maintains a bleak view of the world, and everything we see throughout the film leaves us nothing to counter his conclusions. It is his voice, both literally through his narration, and figuratively that dominates the film. We see him dealing with the darkest parts of human nature, with no sense of hope that things might get better, yet somehow willing himself to fight.

In contrast to Rorschach, we have Dr. Manhattan, voiced by Billy Crudup. Dr. Manhattan was once a scientist with passion and hope, but years of living as this odd creature that he has become has left him a shell of a man. Crudup brings a low-key distance that captures well the oddities of this man. The more we see his distance and disconnect from reality, the more we feel the horror that the world has literally placed their future in his hands.

For fans, I’ll say that the end of the film, a significant alteration from the book, felt contrived and was one of the two biggest mistakes in the film (the other is with the lighting in the opening shots). I look forward to talking to folks that haven’t read the book to get their impression. I won’t comment on the details as I simply can’t without giving away major plot points, but I will say that I don’t think they arrived where they needed to arrive.

Despite this, the film largely brought to bear the powerful themes of the original work. Where it stretched away from the material, it experienced mixed results. Snyder, like in 300, made intense use of music to drive home emotional moments, and some worked better than others. Where the film tried to ramp up the blockbuster action aspects of the story, it felt like it was pushing against its own noir roots. The film probably needed more Sin City and less Dark Knight, and where it went towards the former, it generally worked fine.

This film had a vicious lawsuit that delayed its release for about a year, and leaving the film I felt that it really benefitted from that delay. Thematically, Alan Moore, the writer who disclaims connection to this and all of the films that stem from his works, explicitly stated that Watchmen was a criticism of “Reaganism” and the conservative global politics of the US and the UK in the ’80’s. As the book explores the fears of the Cold War, it runs the risk of being an interesting relic of a time that is passed.

Indeed, if the film were released a year ago, I think it might have diminished the story’s impact. After all, a year ago the message from media was virtually univocal when it came to politics: Bush bad, War bad, Need change. To put out this film in that environment could easily have seemed to echo the same message.

A year later, maybe there’s a chance we could see it differently. If Watchmen is nothing more than a criticism of cold war politics or conservative politicians, than it is simply too small a work to still be talked about 20+ years later. But the question that it asks, “Who watches the Watchmen?” has less to do with any particular brand of politics than it does our propensity to place our faith in heroes who are incapable of rescuing us. Watchmen is quite explicitly a godless universe, and the bleakness and hopelessness of its characters is at times directly linked to their acceptance that there is no God and their wrestling to understand how hope might endure in light of that tragic fact. The answer the story sees is that we place our hope, foolishly, in politicians who cannot provide the hope that we need.

In 2001, I was told I just needed to trust Bush and he would make things better. In 2008, I was told I shouldn’t have trusted him, because he didn’t make things better. It is as if he joins a long line of politicians of varying quality (I won’t put his dad and Winston Churchill in the same camp, but here they are) who endure summary rejection by people after their war is over. But instead of learning the lessons, I’m told now to place my faith in another politician. And here I thought I needed Jesus. Turns out I just need Obama.

The cautionary note of Watchmen, a note that still comes through in the film, is that our hope in these figures is simply misplaced, whether that hope deals with war, foreign affairs, or a bum economy. That we keep coming back to that well and appointing one messiah after another strikes me as our collective act of Sysyphus expressing or deep hope that simply will not be satisfied in the way that we keep looking for it. Instead, we need to look elsewhere, or as C.S. Lewis mused: “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

Gran Torino: A Review

2009-02-27T11:38:00.000-05:00

As the credits rolled in Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, we hear a quiet piano and the soft voice of Eastwood singing the gentle lyrics - gentle now the tender breeze blows, whispers through my Gran Torino, whistling another tired song. It’s a wonderful, and tender conclusion to an intriguing work from Eastwood. But I had to look the lyrics up, because I just couldn’t hear them over the mass exodus that was going on in the theater. It was a strange experience. Never had I seen a film that obviously was so intent on having you stick around for at least the opening moments of the credits, only to have an audience so soundly reject the invitation.

I chalk it up to a strange, Sunday night crowd at an odd, Charlotte theater, because it’s pretty clear to me that the film earned that moment. It was a fitting finish to a film that took many surprising turns. At the outset, we are introduced to Clint’s Walt Kowalski, a surly old man who is burying his wife. He lives in the same house and Detroit neighborhood that he spent his life in, but it is a neighborhood that is radically changed. What was once a bedroom community for auto workers is now run-down and struggling with gang activity. It is also populated by a large Asian population, something that runs against the grain of this small-minded guy.

In those opening moments, I was bracing myself for a tough adventure. Clint is rarely on screen without offering a broad and over-the-top sneer that echoes his signature characters. His look took me aback, as I couldn’t understand what seemed to be silly overacting coming from this master. It became clear, though, as the plot developed, that Clint knew what he was doing. Walt, a tough, Korean War vet, intervenes when his neighbor’s son is facing tough pressure from a local gang. This moment elevates his status for that house and the neighborhood, and despite his best efforts to be left alone and despise the changes in this community, he is barraged with gifts from those around him. This leads him to a grudging relationship with the neighbor’s daughter, an awkward friendship that undergoes it’s own story when her brother, in an effort to prove his worth with that gang, attempts to steal Walt’s prized possession: his 1972 Gran Torino.

The family requires the son to work for Walt as a way of restoring honor, and in their friendship and in Walt’s friendship with the family, we see something that’s rarely seen in these kinds of films: humor. While his sneer in those opening moments seemed overplayed, it was effective at lightening the mood enough to accept the humorous turn. The humor keeps us engaged and keeps us looking fresh at what could otherwise be standard fare for films on racism and urban life.

As expected, Walt’s views on his neighbors are softened as he gets to know them, and in the relationship with the son, he begins to instill life lessons that show cultural connections between the boy’s family and Walt’s old-school ways. Both Walt and the family’s worlds are facing the pressure of the urban gang and it’s ways of destroying the lives of the young. Again, nothing we haven’t seen before, but the film effectively shows us the ways in which both the young boys and girls can feel trapped by that world.

The film wisely avoids trying to postulate broad solutions for the challenges of urban crime and the destructive force of gangs, but as it tries to find a solution for this kid, it again takes down an interesting road. Without spoiling the plot, I found myself questioning where Walt seemed to be heading. After all, at least as I understood it, Unforgiven was supposed to be Eastwood’s movement away from revenge fantasies. This film wants to be just that kind of fantasy, as the plot moves us to that place. But the turn it offers is something that I think Christians should find resonate with our own story.

Films on racism and urban life are both fairly cliched, and so I found myself walking away from Gran Torino (after the song ended) glad to see a master like Eastwood offer his own voice on both subjects. He was remarkably able to engage those cliches while giving us something different. I am doubtful that he has discovered any deep solutions for these problems, but with ideas in view like forging relationships, sharing values, and living self-sacrificially for our friends, he is pointing to virtues that need to be in play in these and many other problems that we face in our world.

Slumdog Millionaire: A Review

2009-02-20T11:15:00.002-05:00

With Sunday’s Oscar ceremony approaching, there are some races that seem settled. Among these is Best Picture, and if any film other than Slumdog Millionaire walks off with the trophy, it will be an upset that will provide much delight to writer’s everywhere. I admit that, once again, I find myself almost entirely uninterested in the Oscars, and it stretches my imagination to understand a Best Picture conversation that doesn’t even have The Dark Knight on the list. Still, of those that remain, I have no doubt that Slumdog is a worthy recipient.

Given last years’ horse race between No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, it’s fascinating to see Hollywood’s shizophrenic personality that it has so readily embraced Slumdog. To be clear, Slumdog is as uncynical, positive, and hopeful picture as I’ve seen in awhile. That alone could make it hard to watch (cynic that I am), but the top-to-bottom quality of the film is just so strong, it quickly drew me in. The story centers on Jamal, a young man who is making his way through India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire to setup the chance to be the game’s big winner. The game producers are suspicious, and so we find him being carted away and put through brutal questioning from police about how he has rigged the game. As he explains how he knew the answers to each question, it allows him to tell about his life. Born in the slums, we see him as a survivor from his earliest days. He faces dreadful poverty and all that it entails, including the corrupting influence of those who take advantage of these children. We see him growing up learning to survive, and fiercely looking out for this brother and Prem, a young girl he meets along the way.

As the story moves on, we see Jamal grow up, getting out of the tougher parts of his circumstances, but trying and failing to rescue Prem from her lot. As he ages, his love for her only increases, and we slowly understand this film as an unashamed love story. As this comes clear, we see his journey in the game show from two different perspectives. The nation is gripped by a rags-to-riches story of a boy with the potential to earn extraordinary wealth. Jamal is consumed in the midst of this story with the hope of rescuing his love. How this plays out is better left to the viewing. Suffice it to say, the way the story is told was fun and captivating.

The question that frames the movie is why this would happen. Is he lucky? Is he cheating? The answer the movie gives is simple: “Because it is written.” The linking of ideas of destiny, fate, or providence to a story about a game show contestant could easily come across as trite, but it is Slumdog’s success that it earns the right to make this connection. Still, I had to wonder as I left the theater what it is I should have been rooting for. Even while Jamal was hoping for something deeper than just “getting the girl,” the game show’s viewers were just interested in watching a lottery winner. Does invoking these terms around a story of material success play to the worst aspects of our materialism? Is this an invocation of the God of health and wealth?

Despite this initial trepidation, I eventually made my peace with where the film went. Jamal has a clear eyed understanding that the money was not going to save him. For him, the money was merely a tool for a more worthy pursuit. The film’s hope lies in the promise that there is something or someone at work behind all of the horrors of life that is bringing about something good and worthwhile. That the film remains agnostic about what that something or someone is doesn’t diminish the worthiness of the message.

This is the right movie for a season of uncertainty. Slumdog Millionaire serves as a useful conversation partner for Christians, whose hope lies in the sovereign power and character of a God who is indeed writing “the end from the beginning” and who is working out good even in the midst of the darkest of circumstances. That’s a message that we need reminding of in all seasons.

The Wrestler: A Review

2009-01-31T17:07:00.000-05:00

As the credits rolled on The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky’s newest film starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Springsteen sings the line that captures Rourke’s capture: “If you’ve ever seen a one-trick pony, you’ve seen me.” That sums him up better than just about any other line, but what makes the film such a fascinating experience is just how interesting it is to watch this one-trick pony live his life.

Rourke stars as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a wrestler (you know, the “fake” kind) who had a heyday back in the ’80’s, when he was the biggest star in his business. That career culminated in 1989 when he wrestled his nemesis in Madison Square Garden. 20 years later, we see The Ram in a very different light. He’s still wrestling, though now in the minor circuits for small change. Even so, we get two different views of him. Within the wrestling world, he is respected, still with a following that remembers his glory years, and especially among the other wrestlers, who clearly look to him as a mentor of sorts. Within that world, he’s charming, engaging, still with some talent.

In his other world, the real world, Randy can’t quite seem to make it work. He can’t afford the rent on his trailer, can’t quite get enough hours at the grocery store to pay the bills. He has a daughter that he abandoned years ago that he can’t reconcile with. As we see him with his hearing aid, we recognize that time is taking its toll, and that the body that serviced him for a career isn’t going to hold up.

This finally comes to fruition after a particularly brutal match (a scene that can easily alter one’s view of pro wrestling), Randy has a heart attack, and wakes up after having bypass surgery. The doctor says he can’t wrestle again.

As he starts to adjust to his new life, he decides to pursue the closest thing to a relationship that he knows, that of a stripper at the club he frequents. The choice of pairing a wrestler and a stripper is fantastic. It would be hard to come up with two jobs that are more about creating a fantasy world. In both cases, we peer into lives of people that are used to being looked upon as objects. Within both lives, we see the wounds that are tearing each of them down, as they cling to dreams that are slowly fading away.

Whether it’s a hope for love, for reconciling with his daughter, for making a living after wrestling, Randy sure does give it a try. But the demons in his life that have haunted him along the way still are there, and there’s not much that he can do right. There’s only one thing that Randy knows how to do, and that’s wrestle.

In a way, The Wrestler goes where the original Rocky could have gone. As it does, I found myself left with a profound sadness at the end of the movie. Sad at Randy’s inability to bring all of that charm and diligence from his wrestling life and put it to use in the other. Sad because Randy ultimately believed a lie, embracing a path that he didn’t need to embrace. Sad because there was a hope for him that he simply walked away from.

Still, Aronofsky has an ability (think Requiem for a Dream) to give us glimpses of the raw aspects of life without apology. And so he does here. There are indeed many who can’t push through their demons, can’t seem to make sense of things, never figure out the hope that is before them. They have a story too, and The Wrestler captures it as well as anyone. It made me think of an old country song:

Here’s to all the soliders who have ever died in vain,
The insane locked up in themselves, the homeless down on main,
For those who stand on empty shores, and spit against the wind.
And those who wait forever, for ships that don’t come in.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A Review

2009-01-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

David Wilcox has a song “Start With the Ending” that muses on the possibility of strengthening relationships by living the relationship backwards. In a live version, he has a little monologue about living life backwards, beginning life with all sorts of wisdom and experience and ending it as a helpless infant. The song is more amusing than profound, but even in the whimsy, it offers some interesting thoughts about how we might conceive of our lives differently if we lived it a different direction.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button gives us a glimpse at a lengthier reflection on the same idea. For reasons that the film wisely does not explain, Benjamin Button is born with the (small) body of an old man, and lives his life growing younger. The third partnering between director David Fincher and Brad Pitt, it is probably the weakest of the three, but that’s not saying much given that the other two were Se7en and Fight Club. It’s getting a lot of attention during the award season, and it is attention that’s well-earned.

As a child, Button lives his life in a home for the elderly. This is key to his survival, as nobody in this home would ask hard questions about his oddities. It also means, though, that he grows up surrounded by death. He makes friends, and his friends die. From his earliest years, you see Ben cultivating a certain distance from life, accepting things about life and death that most of us wrestle with throughout our lives.

And then there’s love. Early on, he meets one of his housemates’ granddaughters, Daisy. They forge a friendship during their visit, a rare chance for him to interact with someone who matches his emotional maturity rather than his physical appearance. They meet through the years, and as she grows, so does his interest in her. Much of the romantic arc of the movie is driving them to meet in the middle, where they can find each other at similar stations and forge the love of both of their lives. Daisy becomes a dancer, and as she experiences the highs of living life to the full and the lows of life’s disappointments, Ben’s desire for her only grows.

The film is criticized by some for its length, and while the pacing is labored, I felt it helpful to the story. As Ben slowly figures out the body he has, slowly reaches the point where he can take on life’s adventures, slowly figures out the limits of those adventures and the boundaries that his situation imposes on him, the film needs the time to assemble it. Any other pacing would seem to sell the story short.

At its best, Button shows a person coming to terms with the limitations of life, and becoming the best person he can be within those limitations. He embraces the friendships that he has, even as he is always acutely aware of their temporal nature. When he falls in love, he loves fully, even while he is aware that hard choices will have to come. Ben Button must always be aware of the strangeness of his lot, yet finds a way to live the life before him in the midst of these limitations.

At its weakest, the film winds up creating a certain emotional distance from the audience. Pitt’s performance, while strong, at times slips into a kind of quiet smirk reminiscent of his Joe Black character from Meet Joe Black. It’s a distance that drives home the odd beat the film is trying to strike. How does one live life with a deep awareness of its limitations without practicing a kind of resigned fatalism about it? There is a temptation that the film, in trying to offer some kind of answer, might find its answer in a way that is devoid of real passion.

As I find myself in the midst of a season of change, whether it’s changing jobs, exploring a move, or even just watching my daughter grow so fast, the story of Ben Button seems particularly poignant. Can we learn to embrace and engage the joys of the present days, accepting their limitations? Do we find ourselves derailed by nostalgia or regret, or frozen by fear of the future? As we accept the transient nature of these days, can we still find a way to engage them with real passion? Though Button’s limits were indeed “curious,” they were no less real than the limitations that any of us have. Might there be a richness in the humility we might cultivate if we learn to thrive within those bonds? Might there be strength in the peace that that kind of self-awareness might foster?

I find myself resonating with much that Button offers, while recognizing that the film’s limitations are in part a failure of philosophy. We need to live with an aware of life’s limits, even while the Christian hope points to a source of limitless possibility. It is that hope that becomes for us a source of joy and passion that should shape and inform these fleeting days.

Bolt: A Review

2008-12-17T16:05:00.001-05:00

Last week, I finished what was certainly one of the most unique books I’ve read this year: Mark Barrowcliffe’s The Elfish Gene. In it, Barrowcliffe shares his memories as a teenager in industrial England in the mid-70’s. Already a bit of a strange kid and a misfit, he discovered a new game, Dungeons and Dragons, and quickly it came to consume his life. He writes with a strong self-disparaging tone, dismissing the person that he was. While he understands that adolescents, and particularly adolescent boys are prone to obsessions, the world of fantasy and role-playing games was a kind of obsession that to his mind worked much destruction on his life. Uncomfortable with the person that he was (and what teenager isn’t) he threw himself into a fantasy world that was for him more real than than the real world.

With an entertainment culture that can’t quite shake the “reality TV” bug, we have seen a number of movies that have served up various levels of reflection on this notion of reality verses fantasy. Bolt stands in this tradition, a kind of Truman Show for kids. In it, we are introduced to our central character, Bolt, a dog who is the centerpiece of a popular television show. He stars as a dog with superpowers, charged each week with fighting evil and typically doing his best to save his owner, Penny. The trick is that the show has been elaborately designed to convince Bolt that he is this superdog, and so every aspect of his life is designed to convey the fiction. This is fine, until a series of events sets him loose in the real world, on a search for Penny, with no knowledge that he is in fact just a normal dog.

Since this is a Truman Show theme aimed for younger audiences, the level of reflection in the film is more muted, but even so, it is driving towards some worthwhile themes. Bolt eventually discovers what he really is, and so he must wrestle with anything of his old life was real, and particularly his relationship with Penny. I’ll leave the plot points aside, but as he goes on his journey in a way that serves up some worthwhile entertainment, we witness his growth in character as he embraces who he is even given his newfound limitations.

Watching it, I couldn’t help but setting the film alongside Barrowcliffe’s reflections in The Elfish Gene. Emerging from years of extreme devotion to roleplaying and fantasy (and trust me, D&Ders, this dude was weird by anyone’s standards!), he eventually carved out a fairly ordinary existence. Years later, he reconnected with one of those old friends, a gamer that he hadn’t seen in decades. As they got to know each other, he learned that after years of hard living, his friend had become a Christian and was now living a very different kind of existence.

As the agnostic Barrowcliffe considered his gamer friend turned believer, he mused on the connection. Perhaps (I paraphrase) the desire to spark the imagination is something needed for one to turn to faith. He writes with an outsider’s perspective, but as he does, I find myself resonating from the insider’s perspective. Indeed, the blessing of faith is largely a blessing of imagination, to conceive that the impossible can be possible, that the supernatural might engage the natural, that are hopes might become real because of a truth that, as Rich Mullins once said, “is too good to be real, but is more real than the air we breathe.”

And so I return to Bolt, who must come down to earth and realize that his life as a superhero was merely an illusion. What is left for him, though, is a kind of heroism that emerges because of a fierce devotion to those he loves, and a willingness to sacrifice himself for others. The marriage of imagination and vital relationship creates a kind of character that is winsome and inviting. For Barrowcliffe, he discovered the one without the other, and it proved destructive. We need both, and Bolt offers an entertaining reminder of that need.

Quantum of Solace: A Review

2008-12-12T11:41:00.000-05:00

“Christ, I miss the Cold War.” - M

I grew up in the Roger Moore era of James Bond. Considered anathema by Connery fans, I knew no better, and so enjoyed Octopussy and A View to a Kill, the latter considered by many to be among the worst of the Bond legacy. Still, the Bond I knew was quirky, with plenty of comedic panache and a lot of innuendo that my 9-year old self never really picked up on. As my Bond horizons broadened over the years, I came to appreciate the different looks that the character has gotten over the years, an evolving character trying to keep pace with the times. Clearly, in movies like Goldeneye, the first for Brosnan’s Bond, it was clear that the creators were concerned that their character was a relic of a time that had past, and have struggled to find a beat for the misogynistic, relationally aloof, arrogant master spy that has been Bond through the years.

And so we turn to Daniel Craig’s sophomore outing as a young and novice Bond. It may be worthy of comment on the creators and their approach to the character, on the marketplace for spy heroes in film, or on the culture itself, and is probably a comment on all three, but we are reminded this time out that this is a Bond for a new day. In Casino Royale, we saw a brilliant interpretation of an arrogant but green Bond, growing into his character and figuring things out. He fought with rawness rather than with the precision of other interpretations. He made mistakes and had to compensate for those mistakes along the way. But the real gift of Royale was the one thing that Bond never had much of: passion.

The love interests of Bond through the years have been fine when they’ve been treated like the playthings that Bond uses them for. Every now and then the films have tried to take some of these interests seriously, and that almost always feel thin. Here, though, we saw Bond falling for Vesper Lynne, showing a real vulnerability and a viable explanation for his approach to women through the years. Her betrayal and death gave him motivation at the end of the film, a motivation that drives him in this film.

The villain here is a secret organization, an international group whose complexity is beyond Bond’s imagination and whose ultimate purpose remains elusive. What they learn at every corner is that their corrupting influence seems to know no bounds, penetrating even the ranks of MI-6, and that they always seem to be working a step behind this group.

I’d like to tell you that the machinations of the organization is fun to watch, but honestly, Quantum of Solace rarely slows down to really explain what’s going on. The film opts instead for movement and action, constant movement and action. This version of Bond should probably pay royalties to Jason Bourne, because he is certainly cut off the same cloth. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the Bourne trilogy clearly figured out spy thrillers for a post-Cold War era. But it does mean that the pacing and cutting of the film is frenetic. I expect most will spend the film not sure what’s going on, but knowing that whatever it is it is really tense and exciting.

I’m not sure that any version of Bond has offered much of a positive character worthy of emulation, but this version has his own unique challenges. You still have his low view of women and his arrogance, but this time you get a fierce and unrelenting anger. Constantly he pushes against M and MI-6, not because he is right and they are wrong, but he is personally driven and they have broader concerns. This Bond is a modern-day cowboy, pushing against the system to find his “quantum of solace,” a solace that will only be found in blood-spilling vengeance.

Thus, this Bond is mostly a revenge fantasy, but unlike the Bourne trilogy, which plays with the same themes, the film doesn’t wind up with much of a redemptive voice. This Bond will get his revenge, will feel less than complete from it, but will press on and keep moving. No time for reflection when there’s a chase to run.

All of this is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the film. While this film can’t top Casino Royale, that was a hard one to live up to. Still, as I see this anger played out on screen, I can’t help but thinking of the irony that the Bourne trilogy, which road the coattails of Bond’s success, has in many ways offered us a more substantive reflection on revenge that Bond has. Bond’s pursuit in this film often seem hollow, and its merit found mostly in the fact that his pursuit by happenstance serves the end of his job. As an action movie, it’s a great ride. As a character study, I can’t help but feel that something is missing.

Humboldt County: A Review

2008-09-30T14:30:00.001-04:00

Humboldt County is a film that largely fails because of the inability of the filmmakers to sustain their faith in their subject. What begins as a fairly routine setup takes on a unique turn, which gives the film promise that they simply can’t deliver on.

In the opening moments, we are introduced to Peter, a med student in the midst of a final exam. It’s obvious to us non-specialists that he’s failing, as he seems totally disengaged from every aspect of the work, displaying some of the worst bedside manner of a medical professional. We learn soon that he has failed this exam, primarily due to a potentially fatal misdiagnosis, a failure that will cost him a prestigious internship. We also learn that the professor who failed him is his father, and so we glimpse the broken nature of his relationships and some insight to his disengagement.

Working through that failure leads him to a one-night stand with the woman that acted as his patient in the exam. After their night together, he hops in the car with her for her drive home. What he didn’t know is that she’s taking him to Humboldt County, a rural county in Northern California, and a long way from his LA home. Her family is an eccentric collection of marijuana growers, living a simple existence that understandably places high value on living below the radar.

The idea of drawing us into a community of marijuana farmers is a fascinating and unique setup, and is filled with unfulfilled potential. His new friend quickly leaves town, leaving him stranded with her family. His discomfort slowly cools as he finds himself drawn to the genuineness of their community. The family lives under the leadership of Jack, played by Brad Dourif who delivers easily the strongest performance in the film. Jack was once a professor at UC Berkeley, but left that life behind for a life lived close to the land and in quiet peace. The film wants us to be drawn to their genuine community, as Jack models and preaches a message of a quiet family life, growing his marijuana without ambition, key to keeping the crops small and the feds at bay. Unfortunately, his family is struggling with his message, as his son is secretly growing a large stash with the hopes of striking it rich. Capitalism has invaded this contrarian culture, and with it comes the threat of federal interest and a crushing of this dream life they have assembled.

Obviously, for most of us peering into a community built around marijuana and asking us to admire this community is a pretty tough hurdle to jump. Had the filmmakers stayed committed to this, though, they may have been able to pull it off. The acting, with the exception of Jack, is pretty lethargic, but it is serviceable, and we still see the genuine nature of their community and contrast with the coldness of Peter’s world. We can understand why he might find this alternative life inviting.

And yet, the filmmakers fail us, opting by the end for routine melodrama and emotional manipulation instead of the genuine, if alternative community that the film celebrates throughout. The plot falls apart by the end, and with it our trust in the filmmakers’ world. The community that seems to offer much promise ultimately appears hollow, and Peter’s final decisions seem scripted rather than driven by genuine human connection.

Still, the film offers intriguing moments as it reflects on the desire for genuine human connection and the fragmentation that results in lives that are consumed with career or money. This is a theme that should resonate and is worth wrestling with, and the admiration of the alternative community seems to serve as a mere storytelling foil rather than an authentic anchor for genuine community. Pulling the question away from Humboldt County, the film caused me to reflect on the emptiness that results in our modern culture, and the need for an alternative vision for living life together. It’s a vision that the film can’t deliver, but a vision that is worth pursuing.

Burn After Reading: A Review

2008-09-23T15:06:00.001-04:00

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the brothers who gave us O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski know how to put on a farce. And from the opening moments of Burn After Reading we know that’s what we’re getting. Things just feel different after the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winning turn at No Country for Old Men.

Apparently, the brothers wrote the scripts for Burn and No Country at the same time, alternating days on each. It explains a lot, as Burn brings us over-the-top comedy in the same way that No Country gave us gut-wrenching looks at a dark world. It is as if the former was the constant cleansing they needed from writing the latter. And yet, the worldviews that the two films seem to express just don’t seem that far apart.

Burn After Reading initially introduces us to Osborne Cox, played by John Malkovich, a frustrated middle-aged CIA analyst who quits his job rather than being transferred by his higher-ups. A self-proclaimed genius surrounded by lesser mortals, he decides to devote himself to writing his memoirs of his time in the CIA. His wife, played by Tilda Swinton, is less than excited about the idea. But then again, she’s less than excited about Osborne himself, taking up with their family friend Harry Pfarrer, a hyper-active, endorphin-addicted sex junkie played broadly by George Clooney.

Alongside this love triangle and its complications, we also get to know Linda Litzke, as Francis McDormand gives us an echo of her turn in Fargo, as a gym employee frustrated by her insurance’s refusal to pay for extensive elective plastic surgery. She sees her opportunity when her co-worker Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), discovers a disc left by a gym patron that looks to be “spy stuff.” Thinking that they would get a reward for turning it over, they call the owner of the disc, who turns out to be Osborne. Rather than locating good espionage material, they have found a copy of his memoirs. And so the chase is on.

This is a comedy of errors where nobody is innocent, and nobody has it together. The CIA is keeping close tabs on the situation, as Litzke tries to sell the information to the Russians after failing to get money out of Cox. They show remarkable prowess at gathering information, as the CIA higher-ups get wonderfully detailed reports of everything that’s happening, but nobody, including them, can seem to make sense of why this is happening or what information Litzke actually has. Long on resources but short on intelligence, the CIA is no better off here than anyone else.

I’ll leave the plot to your own experience, because this is one that is worth seeing for the adults that can handle it, but I’m interested in the film’s connections with No Country. Last year’s Oscar winner looked at a world that was spinning out of control, and saw decent men who try to fight for good causes feeling lost and powerless in the face of incomprehensible evil. In that film, you had three central characters - a good guy, a bad guy, and one that sat in the middle.

Here, there is no clear distinction among the characters. Everybody in this film is radically self-involved, or arrogant, or broken by their addictions, and bent on pursuing their own interests at all times even in the face of great tragedy that befalls their supposed friends and lovers. The characters are richly drawn and richly acted, and so they are a delight to watch on screen, but they would be decidedly abhorrent people to actually know. But even in their caricature, they are reminiscent of everyday people, and shine a light on the basic flaws that we all share.

In a particular insightful comment on the entire movie, the CIA head asks as he hears the story, “So what did we learn from this?” His underling shrugs and says, “Um... I don’t know.” “I don’t know either.” That’s it. Nothing learned. Nothing gained. Just weathering another story unfolding involve radically self-involved people, pursuing their own selfish ends to the destruction of others around them.

In a sense, Burn offers an even bleaker view of the universe than No Country, though wrapped in hilarious packaging. It is perhaps possible to dismiss the evil of No Country because of our temptation to identify with the good guy who ultimately just escapes from dealing with it, rather than identifying with the middle guy who gets taken down by this evil. Here, the film gently prods us to see ourselves in this middle light, with the same capacity for selfishness and evil as anyone else we encounter. What neither film conceives us is a way out, an escape valve for this kind of doomed story.

Burn After Reading may offer a useful reminder to a Christian audience who can be tempted to forget the diagnosis before offering a prescription. I find myself resonating with their diagnosis, which increases my desire to share the prescription. And that’s more than worth a few laughs along the way.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008-08-19T13:40:00.001-04:00

As my wife and I walked out of the theater after seeing Clone Wars, we were behind several young boys. They were in the midst of a massive lightsaber battle, fully intent on declaring themselves the victor and the others the champions of the dark side. The battle made its way along the hall, until the parents made sure it didn’t make its way to the middle of the concessions. Of course, we both were cracking up through this experience. The curmudgeons have been in full force with this latest Star Wars effort, but the kids didn’t seem to notice.

Clone Wars offers an interesting, if odd, position in the Star Wars universe. At one level, you could say it doesn’t count as a movie, since at some level it’s simply a compendium of the pilot episodes of a coming TV show, albeit with a single story line. It takes us to the 5-year period between Episodes 2 and 3 (that’s Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith for the amateurs), when the Clone Wars is raging throughout the galaxy. This is the heyday of the partnership of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, when Anakin emerges as an uber-talented Jedi and earns his reputation as “the best star-pilot in the galaxy,” even while the darkness that ultimately consumes him peeks out now and then. It is the last great breath of the Jedi, whose multi-millennial defense of the galaxy culminates in their command of the clone army. It is the culmination of the decades-long machinations of Emperor Palpatine, who is in the midst of orchestrating the most complicated political seizure in the history of politics.

In other words, this is a fascinating time in the story, and a season that’s ripe for some rich storytelling. Fanboys across the globe have been thrilled to follow the development of this show, and with the fan’s expectations in mind, Clone Wars succeeds on a lot of fronts. Whereas Episode 2 gave us a few fleeting glimpses of the opening salvo of the Clone Wars, here we get an extended battle sequence that keeps its pace going long past the point where a traditional film would have had to cut it off. It’s a setting that plays to so many of the strengths of Star Wars’ prequel era, and avoids so many of its weaknesses.

Imagine a prequel movie with no Hayden Christiansen (Anakin in the prequel trilogy), with only the barest glimpse of the romance that was the source of so much of the trilogy’s wooden dialogue. In his place, his “sound-alike” actor, as with the bulk of the cast, does a fine job of echoing the original actor while still investing some real personality in the role. We get a few nods to the films with returns from several actors, but the quality of voice acting from the unknowns gives some real hope for the coming series.

For this round, the opening act of the film finds Skywalker and Kenobi leading Clones in a heated defense against an overpowering Droid army. In the midst of this attack, they receive a visit from Ahsoka Tano, a Padawan learner (Jedi-in-training) who comes to begin training under her master. While Kenobi had requested and was expecting a new Padawan, it turns out that she was assigned to Anakin by Yoda. This relationship provides an interesting a new outlet to see Anakin’s character emerge. They develop a sharp repartee, but slowly we start to see Anakin assume the role of Jedi and willingly teach her.

While this battle is going on, both the Jedi and the Separatists, led by Count Dooku, find themselves competing for the affections of Jabba the Hutt, the Hutt leader who controls vital trade lanes that would prove valuable to both sides. In the course of their collective efforts to woo the Hutts, Jabba’s child is kidnapped, and both commit to finding the child. Without digging into the plot, suffice it to say that the story becomes a leap-frog effort to outmaneuver the other, as Anakin and Dooku race to the finish line, all the while with Palpatine lingering in the shadows, working towards an end that none of the others can fully see.

The TV show is positioning itself to appeal to long-time fans and to young audiences, and with that latter in mind, my hope is that it fulfills its potential in exploring the slow fall of Anakin Skywalker. From what we see in the film, it gets Anakin right in a lot of ways. We have to deal with a character that is enormously talented, and whose flaws, while apparent, don’t overwhelm the fact that some of wisest and most insightful people in the galaxy found themselves trusting him with immense responsibility. We get glimpses of his greatness and his likability, both of which are necessary to see fully to experience the tragedy that is the rise of Darth Vader.

There are probably too many laser blasts and lightsabers flying around this film to spend too much time exploring deep themes, but as I delighted in the experience of this film, I concluded that this was exactly the point. The strength of Star Wars, a strength that has fanboys like me still coming back to it 30 years later, is in the sheer experience of joy that we are drawn to in the midst of a rich and rewarding mythology of the nature of evil and the power of good. Certainly the kids in front of me in that hallway seemed to capture the magic. But even in the midst of that fun battle, it is a sobering reality that the tragic rise of the evil Sith Lord came out of a life that seemed to thrive most in the midst of a great battle against evil. This is that battle.

Wall-E: A Review

2008-07-30T15:33:00.001-04:00

Wall-E is about as ambitious a project I’ve seen from a major animation studio in recent memory. Animation isn’t cheap, and Wall-E’s published $185 million budget (plus the exorbitant marketing costs) mean that Pixar needs a lot of ticket sales to turn a profit on this effort. Because of this, the temptation in animation is to play as broadly as possible, pandering to a young humor with a few references for the parents to appreciate.

Instead, Wall-E gives us... silence. Well, not silence so much as just the absence of dialogue. About 45 minutes worth of no dialogue. That means that they gamble on the power of the robot to engage the audience, to bring us into the story, to make us understand what’s happening and why, and to make us root for the hero without saying a thing for the first half of the film. As far as mainstream summer fare goes, that’s pretty ambitious.

Fortunately, it works. Wall-E is a janitor robot (actually a Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class). Left behind on a junked up world, his job is to keep things clean. It’s obviously been a long while since he’s seen anyone, and somewhere along the line he’s developed something of a personality. Despite the seeming inanity of his existence, Wall-E is fascinated by the world around him, searching among the junk for items of wonder that he can add to his collection. He has a collection of old romantic movies, and finds pleasure in the old dance numbers. The film takes its time drawing us into this charmer’s little world, who has somehow find a way to experience joy and pleasure even in his lonely existence.

But then one day Wall-E’s world changes. A new robot lands on earth. As he marvels at EVE, following her around and trying to strike up a friendship (and avoid being blown up by her), we’re slowly introduced to her mission. EVE is on a search for life, looking for evidence that earth, long abandoned by humans, is now ready for their return. She finds evidence of life, and sets off to return to the humans to report on her success.

Wall-E tags along, and so we are introduced to the rest of reality. In abandoning the planet, humans have settled into the ultimate leisurely existence, having lived for generations on a kind of space cruise ship. Few can walk anymore, as they have given themselves over to an entirely lethargic existence. All have long since given up on any hope of returning to earth, and they now seem at ease in this new existence.

As the adventure heightens, Wall-E devotes himself to EVE, showing a determination that slowly wins her over. Meanwhile, some humans slowly wake to the opportunity that EVE has discovered, and find themselves fighting to return to earth, facing opposition that rises at every turn.

The film has an interesting parabolic quality, with this lurking warning lingering about creation care and the cost of earthly neglect. But more interesting is the experience of humans who have learned to disengage from reality because of their obsession with gadgets. Of course, I’m watching the film as some lunkhead nearby tries to blind the rest of the audience with the light of their cell phone, checking their text messages throughout the film. It’s a connection they would probably miss.

On the one hand, we get Wall-E, who experiences wonder and joy at creation (even the gadgets), and finds his experience of the things in his life bringing out greater delight, even drawing him more to other people (well, other robots, in the form of EVE). On the other hand, we have the humans, who enjoy every convenience and comfort, but struggle to find anything joyful in their existence.

It was this beat of the film that was most engaging for me, and most interesting. As a self-confessed gadget guy, I own the warning the film offers, that I want my fascination with the stuff of life to bring out my sense of wonder, not quench it. I think our sense of wonder is a divine gift, and is meant to draw us to divine things. The pleasure that we can experience here is meant to draw us to the source of ultimate pleasure. Wall-E is a grand celebration of the gift of wonder, a gift that we can easily lose in a culture of entertainment and excess. If the message of Wall-E is to engage life grandly and discover the wonders within, then I celebrate with them.

Wanted: A Review

2008-07-09T09:21:00.001-04:00

There are times in movies when the desire to wrestle with interesting ideas must compete with the (often deeper) desire to look cool. Wanted is just such a film. For the first two acts, it seems to be doing little more than combining the work of two better films. By the end, it actually wrestles with something in a unique way, and almost has a great finish.

First, it’s tribute to other films. In the opening sequences, we are introduced to Wesley Gibson (played by the consistently impressive James McAvoy). Wesley is a mid-level accountant in a faceless corporation. He hates his boss, an oppressive petty woman, and hates his job. He hates his girlfriend, who is sleeping with his best friend (he hates him too). In all, this life that he hates has left him a muted man, going through the motions knowing that the next day promises nothing better than what today has given. His life has become a celebration of banality.

This is ground that Fight Club explored better than about any film, and in these moments I was struck by how little the reflection on these issues has really changed in ten years. The sense that modern life is an emasculating force in our lives is still very present, and this observation seems as timely now as Fight Club did then.

But Wanted doesn’t stop there, and moves from Fight Club to The Matrix. The film’s opening moments (at times directly quoting The Matrix), get explained as we learn that Wesley’s father, who abandoned him when he was young, is part of a secret society of assassins, who have operated for over 1000 years. His father, and Wesley, have a gift in the form of an ability that few possess, an ability that enables them to be skilled assassins. This organization calls Wesley to take his father’s place, to train so that he can accept his first mission: hunt down his father’s killer.

This hero’s call, laced with a framework from Joseph Cambell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, will look familiar to viewers of The Matrix, Star Wars, and other fantasy narratives. There’s very little new here, except for some cool special effects and fun action. For a large portion of the film, it doesn’t appear as if Wanted is going to do anything more either. And that wouldn’t be that bad. After all, they were fun movies, and if we don’t get much more out of a summer action flick than a reminder of better films, I doubt many will complain.
 But the film suddenly becomes much more interesting as the group reveals how they choose their targets. The organization discovered in the early years a secret contained in the weaving of fabric, that small blemishes could be read and interpreted to name the targets for assassination. Thus, they live to serve “Fate,” which uses them to reorder reality around its mysterious purposes.

As Wesley learns his skills and carries out his assassinations, he slowly learns to embrace his place, though not without some skepticism. How do you assassinate someone who hasn’t done anything yet, only because Fate has determined that they will do greater harm in the future? This doubt reaches its pinnacle when, after a number of critical plot points I won’t reveal here, Wesley and other members are faced with a difficult choice. Do they follow their orders and trust Fate, or do they trust in their own choice as better than the mysteries of fate?

Fate vs. free will. Now we’re talking! Of course, discussions around fatalism and free will are nothing new to film. But what is interesting for Wanted is that the choice they seem to make is that trusting to Fate is a better, even a more freeing choice than exercising an unrestricted free will. While the question they pose is nothing new to film, the answer they arrive at is somewhat novel.

Having said that, it’s worth noting how different their dichotomy of fatalism and free will is from robust Christian theology. As much as large swaths of the Christian world today embrace the language of free will as indisputable theology, I don’t think most of them mean what they mean in a film like this, nor should a notion of Fate as seen here be familiar to Christians who live in a theistic universe. Their understanding of Fate is locked in mystery, whose purposes are always kept fully secret, and who gives nothing but orders for followers to obey. Such is not the God of the Bible. His otherness means mystery abounds, but His revelation speaks to a moral order to the universe, who calls people into action but drives home again and again the motivation for doing so. We trust not to an impersonal Fate, but to a personal Father.

Similarly, regardless of debates and diversity within Christian tradition, popular notions of free will should prove unfamiliar to us. After all, we don’t live an unbound existence, but instead spend our lives in tension between two types of bonded existence: bonded to sin, or bonded to Christ. One of the key BIblical revelations is that a life bonded to Christ is the true life of freedom.

 As I said, the film winds up touching on profoundly interesting ideas, and almost makes a good point. But in the end, the need to be cool wins out, and what we’re left with is a kind of “theology light.” Still, Wanted offers a pretty interesting journey with a unique detour that certainly offers a unique point of view for popular film, and that alone makes it worth the journey.

The Incredible Hulk: A Review

2008-06-30T11:04:00.001-04:00

The Incredible Hulk is one of the odder “reboots” in recent films. Five years after The Hulk, the comic book cash cow shows no sign of slowing down for the summer blockbuster machine, and Marvel has drawn from that well better than anyone. It makes sense to have the Hulk, one of the most recognizable of the Marvel universe characters, in play during this boon season. And the impression of the 2003 film depends greatly on who you talk to. At the time, Ang Lee had convinced the US of his action chops as a director with the remarkable Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the more controversial Brokeback Mountain was still to come). His approach to the film was fascinating, seeking to convey visually the look and feel of a comic book through the use of panels. While the visual experience was to my mind largely successful, the story left many tepid. In lieu of a broad summer action film, Lee sought to layer the film with a deeper theme of father relationships as a way of exploring Hulk’s origin.

Along comes The Incredible Hulk. Lee is replaced with Louis Leterrier, unknown to any except fans of The Transporter 2 (both of them). Eric Bana is replaced by Ed Norton (a worthy upgrade), and Jennifer Connelly is replaced with Liv Tyler (a small downgrade). The film joins Bruce Banner in South America, where the last film left him, so while they don’t deny that the last film took place, they disconnect you from it enough that they don’t invite tight comparisons.

The Hulk is a tough character to pull off, especially within the rules of the summer movies. It’s hard to describe him as a hero, the beast full of rage with an uncontrollable bent on destruction. The first film captured that, dealing more with Banner’s creation of the monster and his failed attempts to control it. This film picks up on that last theme, as we find Banner fighting to live an anonymous life, thus below the radar of the US military that is hunting him down, fighting to control the rage that unleashed the monster, and searching as much as he can for some kind of cure. These are complicated goals, and despite his acumen at managing his life, it’s clear from the beginning that it’s doomed to fail.

And it does. The military finds out about him through a little mistake, and General Ross, now with William Hurt for Sam Elliott, unleashes his military machine to find him. The ensuing panic convinces Banner that it is time to head back to the US, and to pursue in earnest a cure that he has been chasing with the help of a New York scientist.

To get there, he winds up bringing Betty back into the picture. The love of his life, she seems to have moved on, but quickly abandons that life when she gets to spend time with him. As they spend time together, it quickly becomes fully apparent to her just how much of a beast he’s trying to deal with.

It’s at this point that the film starts to turn, and I think for the first time in these two films starts to position this character for a longer life in film. The way they have spun his origin, the Hulk is a product of Banner’s arrogance in his scientific pursuit, and his pent-up anger. It is a monster, and Banner’s passion is to cure himself. Through Betty, he starts to realize that the monster is in fact a part of him, and that while a cure may be preferred, the challenge that may be more realistically before him is to harness this beast and use him for good.

 I’m not enough of a Hulk historian to speak to these dimensions in the comic book, but it strikes me that this concept, constructing Hulk as a kind of tragic anti-hero, makes for some interesting storytelling. To the extent that he emerges in coming films as a hero, it offers an interesting dimension to these stories, as his heroics must always be tempered by a viable ability to be consumed by the rage that creates his heroism.

The Marvel characters explore many similar themes. Many of these heroes emerge from accidents that came from arrogant science or through the overreaching of power. While Spiderman reminded us that “With great power comes great responsibility,” for characters like Hulk, that power emerges from their own failings as people. It strikes me as an odd thing that the multi-billion dollar comic book movie industry keeps coming back to the theme of humility, but it does in its own way. These films see passions become obsessions, government desire for order turn to government desire for control, and unresolved anger become a kind of madness. In all, there is a positing that heroism emerges in the midst of flaws, and as much through harnessing of those flaws than in defeating them.

The Incredible Hulk is a good, if not great movie, that is a victim of bad timing by being released around the far superior Iron Man (and hopefully, far superior Dark Knight). Still, despite Ed Norton’s apparent objections to the final cut (I'd love to see his version), they have positioned the character to find its way into the larger Marvel film universe, including an apparently forthcoming Avengers movie. I’m glad their keeping him around, if for not other reason than to see how honestly they maintain these tensions in the midst of this character’s emerging heroism.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: A Review

2008-06-27T15:16:00.001-04:00

Raiders of the Lost Ark may serve as one of the greatest, meaningless films ever. I mean, sure, I could try to pontificate about some of the deeper meaning of the film, about its view of heroism and humility before the mysteries of the world, but it wouldn’t take me long to get past where I think the creative voices wanted us to go. Raiders wanted to give a nod to the experience of the Saturday matinee, the serials that caught the eye of George Lucas and so many other children in their day. It was about the spirit of adventure and wonder more than anything else, and was meant to keep us glued to the seats and coming back for more. In the course of doing this, of course, it propelled Harrison Ford on to superstar status, giving him two signature characters (couldn’t escape without a Star Wars reference, could we?) that in many ways defined masculinity for a culture.

While the two sequels almost by necessity couldn’t reach Raiders’ level, they nonetheless kept the mystique alive. But how do you return to this mythology after two decades? Filmmaking has definitely changed. Special effects are now computer-driven. Lucas demonstrated through three films that he lost some knack for dialogue, Spielberg got serious and respectable, and Ford either gave up on acting or at least on finding good scripts. Can these three come together and make it work again?

Well, opinions are divided, but for me, they largely succeed. These guys ask us to make a big leap for this one, and some don’t seem to be able to make it. No longer are we giving a nod to the serials of the ’30’s and ’40’s, full of Nazis and jungle adventures in exotic locations. Instead, they shift their attention to the Saturday matinee of the 1950’s. The Nazis are replaced by communists, and the real mysteries are alien in nature. Hence, we open in Roswell, New Mexico, and pursue an object that is not of this world.

Indiana Jones with aliens and poodle skirts? I admit, it took me a bit to make the leap, but once I did, the film delivers a satisfying nod to its past. The character has aged as much as the actor, and after we are immediately reminded of his action chops (a great choice for an opening act), we catch up with his life. He’s lost his friend Marcus, he’s lost his father, and we find the swagger diminished somewhat, as he seems to be mostly sad at the loss around him in his life. Still, his sadness doesn’t keep him from getting caught up in this adventure. He meets Mutt Williams (rotten name, there), a greaser kid with attitude, who asks Indy to help him find his mother.

The details of the search are secondary to the energy of the chase. I expect many will need a couple of viewings to actually figure out what he’s after and why. But we know with certainty that everybody is after this thing, and everybody in Indiana’s life, including Indy himself, are threatened because of it. Their adventure takes us from New Mexico, to the streets of a university town, to the jungles of South America (yes, we get to go back to the jungle). In the course of the adventure, he reconnects with Marion, a great nod to Raiders. While the chemistry of their relationships is pretty muted in comparison, it was still great to see the connection drawn.

The character of Indiana Jones was never a clean-cut hero. He was a non-committal womanizer, whose passion for adventure got him into trouble as much as it kept him out of it. This time, the film revisits the power of family, echoing themes explored in The Last Crusade. Moving away from the rugged cowboy from the first film, he finds himself drawing people around him, and wanting it. For all the rugged individualism that the character of Indiana Jones represents in our culture, his later films, including this one, are more a celebration of friendship, family, and the power of connection.

 Still, at the heart of Indiana Jones is the adventure. Even as he ages, and the gruffness of his character reflects his age, he is still a character that has seen the wonders of this world and still both marvels and respects them. It’s Spielberg’s strength, a strength that made him a rich man long before he got respect. Whether it is the jungle adventurer, or a little alien friend, or the clone dinosaurs, he invites to the theater to marvel. That this sense of wonder is embodied by a 60-year old with more loss than gain in life is simply a reminder that, for all of the marketing power of teenagers in the film market, this desire, even need, for wonder is ultimately ageless.

Glad to have you back, Indy. It’s been too long.

Prince Caspian: A Review

2008-05-23T14:59:00.001-04:00

I suppose that the Narnia film series, however long it winds up being, will always be saddled with its associations with Lord of the Rings. The source material comes from two close friends who in their own way were both significant Christian writers in the mid-20th century. The two book series are both still much loved and have found wider audiences than their religious roots. The impetus for the Narnia series was certainly driven in part by the breathtaking success of LOTR, and even the film location in New Zealand and the use of Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop as the special effects house for Narnia create associations that the series will probably never shake.

With all that in mind, it is extremely difficult for me to watch Narnia without thinking of LOTR, and unfortunately, Prince Caspian isn’t helping that cause. The opening moments of the film have us rejoin the 4 Pevensie children a year after the events of LWW (apologies for all the acronyms, I feel like I’m navigating government bureaucracies!). This is post-war London, and so life seems to be beginning again, but all of them, Peter especially, seem restless to head back to Narnia. They get their wish as their whisked away, but as they explore their adopted homeland, they realize that this is not the same land they left. Indeed, 1300 years have passed since they returned to the wardrobe. Narnia has long been conquered by an invading people, the Telmarines. They are involved in their royal fight, as Prince Caspian, the heir apparent to the throne, finds himself hunted by his uncle, who tolerated his existence until the birth of his son. Fleeing from this power grab, Caspian stumbles upon Narnians, and eventually meets the Pevensies, who were summoned by his blowing of Susan’s horn.

The movie makes significant departures from the book, perhaps the largest being an additional battle inserted into the middle. Peter and Caspian seem to compete for authority, but join together in an effort to take down Caspian’s uncle. The battle fails, and many Narnians fall. While this move seems to frustrate a number of fans, it’s these kinds of scenes, the large scale CGI battles, that play to the director Adamson’s strengths, as well as to his seeming interests. These battles are fun summer spectacles, and this one is no different. To his credit, Adamson does find a way to make the Caspian battles look and feel different from each other and from LWW. Some will say that he is expanding the vision of what a PG-rated action movie can be. I’d argue that he gets his rating because it’s a Disney movie more than because he’s earned it.

The actors who play the four kids have grown well, and while their acting was mainly serviceable in the first film, they actually become a strength this time around. That being said, Adamson often gives them little to work with, and his choices in how he is developing these characters is somewhat suspect. Arguably, these kids have a lifetime of experience in Narnia where they had time to become masters as swordsmen and bowmen, but they are still kids, and having these kids play the role of fighting heroes often comes across a bit awkward.

As I said, the LOTR parallels abound, and it is in these two areas, the battle sequences and the place of the heroes, that Caspian suffers from these parallels. Moments in these battles seemed ripped straight from Jackson’s storyboards (there’s Minas Tirith, and there’s Helms Deep, etc.). While homage and quotation are certainly appropriate in film, here it seems to stem from a lack of creativity. Similarly, when Susan becomes the expert archer, it looks like a lesser version of Legolas, and she simply can’t hold up to that kind of comparison. Taken together, my concern is that the creative team is inviting the comparison between the two franchises, and they will almost always come up short in the comparison.

My largest criticism, though, is in the weakening role of Aslan. In terms of the larger series, he is obviously the key figure, and his role in the lives of the children and the Narnians, even when he is off-screen, is key. Here, he has taken a backseat, and while his appearance doesn’t obliterate his message from the source material, it is muted. Some of the more interesting themes, including the loss of faith over time and the recovery of faith in the midst of hardship, only get scant mention here.

While I enjoyed the film, I find myself hesitant when I think of what it might have been. In a sense, this film is the price of success. To land the big budget for this series, they have to make sure they can fill the seats. To fill the seats, in typical Hollywood creativity they try to make the thing look like something else that filled the seats. The price for this is the particular unique voice that Lewis’ books offer to young children and to the many adults that love the series. There is a warmth to these books that seems lost in the spectacle of these movies. So while Caspian remains enjoyable summer fare at the movies, the series is unfortunately positioning itself as the weaker cousin of a better franchise.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Review

2008-05-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

Jean-Dominique Bauby would have been the envy of many. In his early 40’s, he was the chief editor of the fashion magazine Elle, living the high life in Paris. His kids lived with their mother in the country, and he embodied the “fast cars and fast women” lifestyle in the city with a vengeance. The world was indeed his oyster.

Then came December 8, 1995. At the age of 42, he experienced a massive stroke that left him completely paralyzed, what the professionals call “locked-in syndrome. “ Left only with the use of his eyes, he was quickly further restricted when his right eye had to be sewn shut. Now, he was confined to a hospital bed, dependent on full-time care for his every need, with the use of only one eye. All of this, while his mind was completely intact.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly begins as Bauby opens his eyes for the first time, waking up from a 3-week coma. He learns what happens to him, and we learn of the great dissonance as we hear his thoughts but realize he cannot communicate them. Literally trapped by his body, his therapist comes to his rescue as she teaches him how to communicate through blinking. It is a slow cumbersome process, but is the only way he is able to communicate.

Before his accident, Bauby had negotiated a book contract. As he learns his communication style, his therapist contacts his publisher and announces the surprise that he intends to keep his contract. Over the course of the next 18 months, he works with an assistant to write his book. As he puts it, “I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.”

The history of this story is profound enough that it would seem the film could add very little. But the great success of this as a film is the way it invites us to experience Bauby’s world, the thought life that was his means of keeping his sanity in the midst of this extraordinary challenge. The director makes wise us of his camera, spending the bulk of the film looking at the world through Bauby’s eyes. We are invited to experience his entrapment. Through this great struggle the former playboy has to wrestle with the meaning of his existence, his misplaced values, and the sense of regret over the ways in which he failed in life. At one point, he reflects that his life has been a series of missed opportunities, and only now in this trapped existence can he see how he might have lived.

One Christian reviewer I respect put this film on his “10 Most Redemptive Films of 2007”, and indeed there is much here to chew on from a spiritual perspective. In the Christian world, much is being written about the need to see the reality of the “Kingdom of God” in the present world, a calling to Christians to engage in social action, and in transformative activity at every level of culture. The challenge to have a “realized eschatology” is a Biblical one, but the history of the Christian church is to fall into two extremes. The first is an “underrealized eschatology,” where Christians show no concern for the problems of this world, and withdraw to wait for their reward “in the sweet by and by.” The other is an “overrealized eschatology” where Christians so look for the reality of the kingdom of God in the present that they equate the gospel of Christ itself with social and political activity and with “good works.” Both extremes distort the Christian message in fundamental ways. Both are extremes that Christians in general and evangelicals in particular have shown affinities to run to.

The Diving Bell is an exceptional reminder of the tension that Christians must live in. On the one hand, we witness people engage Bauby as a human being with real value, and work to allow him to express himself. Through this redemptive work, he does more of a service for humanity than any would have thought possible in his condition. It is a celebration of the value of life that speaks with power to the “quality of life” discussions that go on in medical circles.

At the same time, we see in this film the limits of our redemptive work in this life. Bauby’s imagination, his “butterfly”, helps him keep his sanity, and gives him a sense of purpose. But it is a “butterfly” that allows him to escape his “diving bell,” his body that has failed him so deeply. Even as people expose him to their own faiths, his agnosticism fails to keep him from searching for deeper meanings. He wants something more, and as he is left with only his imagination and his memory, he recognizes that it is not enough. His body has failed. This world has failed to deliver the deepest needs of his soul.

The film leaves us with a certain ambivalence because this challenge remained unresolved in Bauby’s life. Even as we seek to recognize the redemptive reality of God’s kingdom in this world, The Diving Bell is a powerful reminder that the gospel points to something deeper still. At its best, the ways in which God’s kingdom is seen in this world are but a pale reflection of the world that is to come, where the limitations that we feel, and which this film vividly calls us to experience, will be gone, and “real life” can be truly experienced. Even as Christians yearn to see the gospel made manifest now, we should never leave behind the deeper yearning for the “far country,” the true home that we are heading to.

The Darjeeling Limited: A Review

2008-04-30T16:36:00.001-04:00

There aren’t many directors active today that inspire stronger emotions than Wes Anderson. In a true auteur-styled career, with writer-director credits for 5 feature-length films in 12 years, he has fashioned a unique visual and story-telling style. Some love it, some hate it. I’m one of the few that often finds myself somewhere in between, wanting to like it, but realizing that my own mood swings may keep me from doing so.

In The Darjeeling Limited, Wes extends this style but also themes that have been explored in his previous film, mainly his interest in the theme of family. In this venture, we begin with a fascinating opening shot, showing Bill Murray and Adrien Brody running to catch up with a train. Murray is one of Anderson’s favorite actors, and so fans of his films almost expect Murray to board the train. But he doesn’t, and as Brody hops aboard, it’s as if we leave behind Murray’s character and his presumably fascinating story to follow Brody’s character.

But I get ahead of myself. The film has a prologue, The Hotel Chevalier, that sets the stage in a unique way. There, we are introduced to Jason Schwartzman’s character Jack, who is spending time in a hotel in Paris when his girlfriend from America, played by Natalie Portman, shows up for a rendezvous. In a short few minutes, we see his emotional barrenness, his inability to communicate, and even his cruel way of mistreating her. While it’s played with Anderson’s quirky sense of comedy, we realize that something is wrong with this guy.

Darjeeling explains to us what is wrong. Jack, Peter (Brody), and Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson), are brothers who haven’t seen each other in a year. Some time ago, their mother left their father and moved to India. She didn’t even return last year when their father died unexpectedly, the last time the brothers have seen each other. Now, Francis has brought them together to travel through India as a way of rediscovering themselves and, unbeknown to them, reunite them with their mother.

So begins their spiritual quest. What becomes clear is that each of them bears the scars of a youth that remains in the background. Francis is a control freak, Jack seems incapable of expressing emotion, and Peter displays a weird process of mourning his father’s death. Each of the quirks becomes occasion for odd comedy in the Anderson universe, but each emerges with a common narcissism as a way of dealing with their past. This kind of self-involvement quickly shows each of them as an unlikely candidate for a spiritual quest of any sort, and the journey quickly becomes a farce as a result.

While they set out to find themselves along the road, they slowly come to recognize the inadequacy of this kind of search. Their answer will not be found in a mystical encounter, something that each of them is grossly unsuited for. Nonetheless, their journey is not without hope.

In the course of this journey, there is occasion to explore their relationships, and in that exploration lies the strength of the piece. Along with a unique visual and writing style, Anderson is cultivating a unique commentary on family, letting Darjeeling build on Life Aquatic and The Royal Tennenbuams in particular. He seems to see in family a safe place within which to express our eccentricities and to find healing for the challenges of the past. In his creative expressions, here as in the other films, he invites us to consider the complexity and the diverse ways of expressing this healing. In that light, the metaphor of journey, seen through the train of Darjeeling and the boat of Life Aquatic, seems to support his vision of healing.

Darjeeling seems to embrace the tension of family life, that there are equal parts acceptance and change as we learn to live with one another. The characters that emerge at the end are pretty much the characters that we meet at the beginning, though perhaps a little wiser, a little more sympathetic to each other, and a little more capable of handling the challenges that they face in each of their lives. I like that idea, as it invites us to consider family as healing place in a life of incremental change. In a fast food world, where we are bombarded with false promises of instant life change, I embrace the reminder that change, whether that is overcoming the failures of the past, mourning for loss, or the emotional hiccups of our lives, does not come quickly, and that one of the most powerful salves we can hope for is family to walk with us along the way.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: A Review

2008-04-30T10:58:00.000-04:00

Fatalism runs throughout The Assassination of Jesse James. The title reveals the direction the movie’s heading, and most everything in the movie, from the lighting, the camera work, the music, even the characters themselves seem to have that sense of doomed destiny.

Not that the essential story is so invested. As the movie unfolds, Jesse James met Robert Ford as a 19-year old who was meeting his boyhood hero. Enamored with the mystique of Jesse and his fame and notoriety, he and Ford’s brother eventually convince him to let him join the gang and to become part of his inner circle of trust. In a matter of months, James would die at the Ford’s hand, shot in the back in his own home. In terms of history, it is not a death that was invited or expected. At least, not on the surface.

The film depicts the final months of James’ life. This is a time when he is already an iconic figure, with years of robberies behind him. But he is also seeing an unwinding of his work, as most of his original gang is now dead or in prison. In the opening moments of the film, we see them pull off a train robbery, after which even his brother Frank leaves Missouri and heads back east. It’s as if we are joining the film at the end of Jesse’s story, celebrating what should be his last hurrah and his final sendoff.

What follows then is a kind of working through of the aftermath of Jesse’s career, even though nobody acknowledges or knows it as such. Even as Jesse talks about pulling off other crimes, mostly he seems to wander from gang member to gang member, some of whom are feeling the pressure of the law. In the midst of this is Bob. When we first meet him, Bob, remarkably played by Casey Affleck, comes across as awkward, even a bit slow, and definitely playing over his head. His hero, Jesse, starts out as a relaxed and winsome person, but over time his personality changes provokes Bob to change his view. What begins as hero worship becomes increasing jealousy at his success, his fame and notoriety. Couple that with an increasing fear of Jesse, and the groundwork is laid for Bob’s betrayal.

The place where the film invites the most discussion is on the portrayal of Jesse James by Brad Pitt. When we see his early charms, it seems a natural place for us to connect with a character played by a Hollywood megastar. But over time we see his explosive violence, his erratic depression, and his looming sense of despair. What becomes increasingly apparent throughout the story is Jesse’s foreknowledge that his death is coming quick, and at times a seeming acceptance, even invitation, for that relief.

Where the film takes off for me is in its final 25 minutes. After Jesse’s death, the film considers the aftermath of the assassination for Bob. In a sense, he achieves his dreams, as he becomes a household name throughout the country. In that single act, the film posits, he achieves as much fame as Jesse did in his entire career. But it’s a success that charges an enormous price. When he killed Jesse, he thought he’d be appointed a hero. The film’s title reminds us that neither history nor his contemporary audience were so kind. Instead, as he retells the story on stage, something the film claims he did over 800 times in the years following Jesse’s death, he deals with the increasing knowledge that he is seen as a coward. It’s a sense of failure that shapes his life and leaves him, like Jesse, seeming to long for death as his release.

The film provoked my thinking on at least a couple of topics. Jesse’s foreboding sense of doom seems to stem from a kind of saddling of sin. Weighed down by years of guilt, he seems here to long for escape. We don’t see him enjoying his fame or the fruits of his crimes. Instead, the only moments he seems somewhat happy is when he hides in his private life, living with his wife and kids under an assumed name. Having chosen his lot, he seems full of regret, but not knowing any way to escape.

Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, the film offers interesting commentary on our contemporary celebrity culture. Historically, it is a reminder that our celebrity culture may not be as new as we think, as we witness the appointment of legendary status to an outlaw. More importantly, though, the film invites us to consider the stories of fruitless pursuits. Whether it’s Jesse or Robert, their pursuit of wealth and fame winds up hollow, though for different reasons. For Jesse, he seems to glimpse happiness in the mundane life of a family man, but it is a life that eludes him because of a lifetime of sinful choices.

For Robert, his ambition gets the best of him. Admiration turns to jealousy, and so he achieves his dreams in the form of wealth and fame. But the price is heavy indeed, costing him friends and family, and dumping on him an isolation that must be lived out in the public eye.

While the film invites us to be careful about what we seek, it’s interesting that it sees no redemption for these choices. It only lets the characters live out the consequences of what they pursued.

Lord, save me from myself, my ambitions, and my pursuits.

Horton Hears a Who!: A Review

2008-03-28T14:34:00.001-04:00

My daughter has learned to crawl over the last few weeks. Among the many changes that this brings to her parents’ world, I find myself musing about how she sees our home, the people in her life, and the world that we are now both mobile in. After all, when I need to get by her, I can just step over her without any trouble, and when she’s crawling around, we literally tower over her. Her perspective is no doubt different because of her small size, and it amuses me to consider how big our world must seem to her, turning a modest bedroom into a grand playground and a walk around the neighborhood into a trip into the great yonder.

It was with those thoughts swirling around in my head that I saw Horton Hears a Who!, the latest and most successful attempt to adapt Dr. Seuss to the big screen. The story centers on Horton, a gentle spirited elephant making his way through his home jungle. He is a self-appointed teacher, telling his friends about the world around him. His efforts to teach are turned on their head one day when he hears a tiny voice. He figures out that the voice is coming from a tiny speck that has come to rest on a small dandelion. The voice is that of the Mayor of Whoville, a delightful place where life is celebration and bad things never happen. In an amusing connection to the end of Men in Black, Whoville’s residents are entirely oblivious to the reality that their world is but a speck in an entire universe. The connection between the two worlds has never been made until now.

Whoville has a problem. Their life on the dandelion is uncertain, and for all of their spirit of celebration, they need Horton to bring their dandelion to a safe place where their world will be protected from the dangers of Horton’s world. Trying to do this for them, Horton encounters one obstacle after another, driven mainly by the fact that nobody in his world believes him. He’s the only one who can hear the Whos, and as his nemesis the Kangaroo reminds all of them: "If you can't hear, see or feel something, it does not exist.” Skepticism abounds, and it runs the risk of destroying the people Horton is trying to protect.

As Horton fights for the Whos, the mayor encounters similar problems. For a world that has never known things to go wrong, he must convince them that something is quite wrong, and that they need the help of a big voice that none of them can hear. In pursuing their best ends, he must endanger his relationship with his family, his friends, and the grand tradition of his office.

For a movie directed at children, Horton raises fascinating questions that are worth wrestling with at various levels. The film reflects on the need for imagination and wonder, a gift that can lie instinctively within children but that can be lost as we grow older. The Kangaroo, offering a great summary of a secularist perspective, is herself filled with jealousy and envy, and mostly joylessness. It is Horton and those who can live lives of imagination and wonder who experience the richness that life has to offer, especially the richness to see an entire dimension to his world that nobody had ever experienced before. The film is a celebration of imagination, and succeeds in inviting us to join them in their sense of wonder.

Alongside this is Seuss’ signature phrase: “a person's a person, no matter how small,” the tagline for the film that invites reflection through its deceptively simple message. It intrigues me to think about this line, written in the early 50’s, and its easy later co-opting by the pro-life movement. Of course, that kind of political commentary is far beyond Seuss’ intent, but it’s interesting to see the line come back in a 2008 film release, where the political implications would seem to be obvious.

While I expect that this kind of political jockeying is well beyond the filmmakers’ intent, I celebrate the idea and like its connection with Horton’s call to imagination. Just as our need for imagination is a celebration of life, so is our calling to protect the smallest voices. We embrace a life-giving message when we reach for those who can’t speak for themselves, who find their voices drowned out by the loud arguments of politicians or the deceptive ends of agenda-setters. Seuss’ twin values, very much alive here in the film adaptation, are as pressing and present for us today as it was when he first wrote the words.

Horton is not a perfect movie, but I was pleased to see a Seuss adaptation that could sustain the simple and complex nature of his messages without losing itself in the gimmicks that come with converting his books to feature-length films. Whether it’s the nieces that I saw the picture with, or the daughter that I step over to get where I’m going, I realize that Seuss’ messages are worth them knowing about, mostly for the deeper truths that they will point them to as they live in a world that loves to steal imagination and step on the innocent.

Be Kind, Rewind: A Review

2008-03-21T16:09:00.002-04:00

Be Kind, Rewind has a quirky concept that I expect will leave some cold, but I found worth a chuckle. Mos Def stars as Mike, an employee of an aging video rental store owned by Danny Glover’s Elroy Fletcher. It’s an aging store, hanging onto VHS against the DVD revolution, in an aging section of a decrepit New Jersey town, fighting to hang onto its life in the face of “urban renewal.” Trying to figure out how to keep the business going, Fletcher heads out of town and leaves the business in Mike’s hands. Struggling to prove himself, Mike tries to keep it all together, including trying to enforce the one clear rule: “Keep Jerry Out.”

Jerry, played by Jack Black, is Mike’s odd friend with lots of odd notions. Quickly after Fletcher takes off, Jerry gets the idea for he and Mike to sabotage the nearby electric power plant, trying to get them back for causing his headaches. After Mike bails, Jerry somehow is able to get himself magnetized, something that they slowly discover over the next few days as complaining customers bring Mike to realize that his friend has inadvertently demagnetized every single one of his tapes.

Panicked at the destruction of the business, Mike and Jerry concoct their grand act of desperation (and the grand suspension of disbelief for the film) to save the business: instead of buying new tapes, they pull out a camcorder and decide to film their own versions of the films. The film takes the most time with their filming of Ghostbuster’s, which was pretty hilarious. Everything is done uber-cheap and uber-fast, making for a great recreation of this and other films. They’re dependent on their memory of these films, which is sometimes less than perfect, adding greatly to the comedy.

The second act of the film shows their budding success. The real comedy is not that they pull off these films, but that increasingly people find out about their work and demand more. They become local celebrities, and their efforts, now dubbed “Sweding,” morphs to involve incorporating the customers into the films.

Running underneath the comedy are some fascinating social commentaries. The film is itself a celebration of film and its ability to bring people together in community. Despite the individual nature of watching a film at a theater, the film delights in showing the ways in which popular film becomes the lingua franca of a community. One discussion about The Lion King engages strangers who are decades apart, but share in their delight in particular aspects of the film.

The “Sweding” process reflects on our desire to be participants in the elements of our pop culture. While film unites, it also isolates, as it can keep us from creatively participating in our culture. This process reminds us of our own desire to participate. Whether it’s the internet boon and its interaction with the celebrity culture, the You Tube generation, or the rise of “fandom” for all aspects of pop culture, the entertainment industry itself is acutely aware of the power of encouraging this kind of participation, and the film seems to understand the power that participation brings.

Still, the film takes a significant plot turn as the studios find about Mike and Jerry’s creative efforts. Showing up with injunctions and damage awards, Mike and Jerry are quickly faced with the challenge of saving the business again, as well as saving the community itself. Without walking too much into the third act, they decide to make their own film, this one focusing on their own town’s history. As much as “Sweding” has brought their town together, so will their film unite people around their own community.

It is here that Be Kind, Rewind offers the most intriguing commentary, and one that I think extends far beyond the films boundaries. As they pour themselves into their town history, they encounter the reality that legends have built up that just aren’t historical. Rather than seeking to find the truth, or to describe legend as legend, they, and the participants in the story, just decide to make up their town’s history as they go along. Truth takes a backseat to this celebration of community.

It is a fascinating example of a postmodern treatment of history. Community is celebrated, and the experience of telling history, even fabricated history, is unifying and thus good. Within the context of the film, it works. We’re rooting for these people and their struggling town, and aren’t too worried about the veracity of their story. We just want them to find some pride in their town and enjoy the experience of working together for a better community.

Even as their story comes together, though, I could only wonder about the places in life where this kind of story would ultimately be destructive. Within the contemporary American church, there are a number of voices who offer a version of the church’s history that show about as much fabrication or simplistic misinterpretation as Be Kind’s storytellers. There is a spirit among many that echoes the film’s values and shows less concern about the veracity of our telling of history than of the emotive power that our telling has for our present community. We don’t care about whether the story is true, only that the story has emotional power for us.

It is in this place that Be Kind offers an interesting caution. For a community trying to save itself from dreadful poverty, I expect there’s not much harm in a little homegrown story about a community legend that isn’t grounded much in fact. But the story of the church is rooted in the Story itself, and the Story’s only meaning is found in the historical reality that it actually happened. The testimony of the Christian church is that it finds its strength when it tells its story well, and that includes that it tells the story how it really happened.

The ultimate value of Be Kind, Rewind is in elevating community over truth. The church has the same temptation today, but the testimony of the past, indeed the testimony of Scripture, is that those two values aren’t in opposition to each other, and in fact depend on each other for their real meaning.

Once: A Review

2008-02-27T15:48:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite music moments was about 13 years ago. Spending some time in Britain, I traveled up one weekend to St. Andrews to visit a friend who was spending a year studying there. We had forged a friendship first through our shared love of the guitar, and after we spent some time touring this great town, we found ourselves holed up in his room passing his guitar back and forth. We shared songs we knew, songs we were working on, and in the course of conversation, spent some time writing a couple of tunes. We certainly weren’t masters (well, I wasn’t, he was actually quite talented) but in the rich moments of sharing music and poetry, the quality faded to the background as we drank deeply from the beautiful bonds of music.

It’s this kind of experience that drives Once, the fascinating ultra-low budget “modern-day musical” that just took home an Oscar for Best Song. It stars Glen Hansard, who plays “Guy,” a true starving musician who makes his living playing guitar on the streets of Dublin. One night, “Girl”, played by Marketa Irglova, listens to him singing some of his original work, songs that he tends to only play during the slow hours. She is impressed, and over the next few days they get to know each other a little bit. She herself is a keyboardist, and as they start to share their lives, they start to share their songs.

The film could quickly turn into a traditional romantic comedy, but it avoids the pitfalls. It is a love story, though, it’s just a love story about the music. She connects him with a friend that runs a studio and persuades him to take a weekend and record some of his stuff. They gather some musicians together, and thus begins a rich weekend of musical creation.

“Guy” is an amazing talent, and in the course of the weekend we get to witness the process of musical creation. The style of the film dominates, and I expect that one’s enjoyment of the movie hinges greatly on one’s ability to enjoy its documentary/reality style and the Irish folk/pop style of the music. I enjoyed the first, and was captivated by the second. As the music unfolds, their conversation becomes the occasion to talk about the hurts of their past, their hopes for the future, and the anxieties they carry in the present. In all, the healing salve for both of them will be found in the music.

I love the sense of restraint in Once. It’s hard to watch these two interact and not root for some kind of relationship to emerge. But that isn’t what this is about. As one reviewer put it, this movie is “a little ditty about a girl he once knew.” But in that restraint is the film’s strength. It believes in its own message about the power of music to connect, to process our past, and to heal.

As I’ve thought about the movie, I’ve thought about musical moments with friends like the one I opened with. I’ve had a lot of enjoyable musical moments, and a few especially powerful ones. Many of these people aren’t still in my life, but I’m grateful for the healing power the shared moments we had provided and the meaning they had for me along the way. It’s a picture of grace for the moment, the grace that comes into our lives and provides us what we need when we need it. It doesn’t solve everything, but it doesn’t have to. It just helps us keep on moving.

I’m glad to see this movie get some attention, because it offers an intimate picture of relationship and healing that’s worth talking about. It certainly made me pull out my guitar and sing a few songs from my own past, enjoying singing a few stories about life along the road.

Atonement: A Review

2008-02-21T15:16:00.001-05:00

Arguably, the scene in Atonement that does the most to take us out of the story’s emotional journey may invite us directly to its thematic center. Towards the middle of the film, we join Robbie Turner, played by the remarkable James McAvoy, as a soldier making his way through the beach of Dunkirk, in the midst of the British Army’s miraculous retreat across the sea. Over the course of a 5 minute tracking shot, we walk with him through the madness, seeing the sense of panic, injury, organization and madness in this strange scene. Yet, for all of its madness, we stay on Turner, as he somehow tries to climb through the madness, much of it beyond him and most of it out of his control, as he seeks to find the most basic of needs, in this case food, sleep and first aid. Without a word, we see in the madness that somehow even these basic needs may elude him.

Atonement should be a pretty straightforward period love story. In 1935, Robbie Turner is the son of the housekeeper for a aristocratic British family. Due to their long tenure, the family sent him to Cambridge, and so even as he works around the elaborate gardens of the family estate, we quickly realize he is an intelligent man with ambitions to rise above his station. He is friends with Kiera Knightley’s Cecilia Tallis, the oldest daughter of the hosting family. As she lounges with friends and plays arrogant with Robbie, one sees the romantic tension underneath. This is a relationship-in-waiting, searching for the right moment for their youthful passions to come together.

But then there’s Briony, Cee’s 13-year old daughter. She clearly has a crush on Robbie, and we quickly realize that this is the kind of thing that should make us nervous. An aspiring writer, we see her in early scenes trying to convince her playmates to act out her play, and in her failure we see her desire to control, her deep imagination, and her unintuitive interaction with other people.

It is a formula for disaster, as a series of events unfolds that puts her misunderstandings at center stage. Catching Cee and Robbie by themselves, she misinterprets their actions and comes to falsely accuse Robbie of other crimes. It is this fateful moment that changes the lives of all three of them.

The first act of 1935 sets the stage for the flash forward to the early days of World War 2. Given the opportunity to get out of prison, Robbie is fighting in France. Cee and Briony have both become a nurse, though Cee has no interaction with her family since the false accusation. Each are searching to rebuild a life destroyed by that one night. Robbie longs for a relationship with Cee, Cee longs for Robbie to return safely, and Briony somehow wants to find a way to make peace with both of them. At every turn, the world seems to orchestrate to keep them from achieving any of their ends.

The title is of course intentional, and it invites us to consider the nature of “atonement.” What can we do to make up for the mistakes of our past? The bleak perspective of the film is that sometimes there is nothing. Sometimes the mistakes we make, even the innocent ones or those that are most understandable, yield consequences far beyond our imaginations. From the film’s perspective, Briony’s act set in motion events that would unwind their lives, and nothing she can do can put that back together.

It’s not a message we want to hear, but it may be a message that we need to hear. Searching for justice, reconciliation, or harmony is at times an impossible or unreachable goal when left to human efforts. The inability to find this peace can be the very thing that drives us to the Divine. We cannot achieve “atonement” by our own power, and must contend with the consequences of our actions. Our hope is not that we will make it all right, but that He will work redemptively to make things right, both here and now and, ultimately, in the age to come.

At a number of points in Atonement, we find characters looking back on their life, wishing moments could be redone or that their choices could be undone. But of course they can’t. And so we come back to that tracking shot. In the midst of this bleak picture of war, the shot comes upon a group singing a hymn, and leaves them behind singing the simple refrain, “the still small voice of God,” words that are echoed again at the end of the shot. In the midst of madness, as we deal with choices we make, the choices others make, and the seemingly random events of our lives that at times drive us towards messy ends, we have the single hope, the promise even, that God is at work, if quietly, and is directing all things to His own good purposes. It is that faith that can sustain us when everything else around us seems bleak. It is that faith that points to the real atonement that we can hope for.

Juno: A Review

2008-01-25T11:16:00.000-05:00

And so we cap 2007, Hollywood’s “Celebration of Life.” So that might be a little extreme, but it is interesting that at least four mainstream films (Waitress, Knocked Up, Bella, and Juno) deal quite explicitly with the question of new life from a somewhat consistent perspective. While it is clear at least in the cases of Waitress, Knocked Up and Juno (I haven’t seen Bella yet) that the creative force behind them are probably not NRLC members, they allow the key character to “choose life” and explore the consequences along that journey, even as they take decidedly different turns.

Of those three films, Juno certainly should have the broadest audience. For folks that can appreciate a certain juvenile, frat-house male humor (and if you read my review of Knocked Up, you’ll figure out that I do), then Apatow’s Knocked Up is for you. But for the rest, Juno offers a much more accessible comedy that manages to achieve much with well-drawn and well-delivered characters.

Juno is a clever and charming 16-year old girl who has her life changed after a single sexual encounter with her boyfriend. As she slowly awakens to the reality that she might be pregnant, she heads to her local convenience store to be sure. The tests aren’t lying, and as her friend working checkout reminds her as she shakes one of the tests, “That ain't no Etch-A-Sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, Homeskillet.”

Dealing with the shock, she rises to the occasion and starts working through her options. She reaches the place where she is going to get an abortion, but an encounter with a pro-life advocating friend and her experience at the fairly creepy abortion clinic convinces her otherwise. As she tells her father later, “I mean, it has fingernails, allegedly.” She’s going to have the child.

While she wrestles with the option of raising the child herself, she settles pretty quickly on the idea of finding an adopted family. Even in the midst of the comedy, we sense the creeping reality of just how much Juno is stepping into an adult world. What began as a single sexual experience that was as much born out of boredom as deep desire has now given her the responsibility for a life inside her. While she has a glib and casual manner, beneath the quips we see her slowly realizing what she’s walked into.

She takes it on herself to find an adopted family, and finds what seems to be an ideal match. The Lorings, played ably by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, are the ideal suburban couple. Wealthy, beautiful, they seem a perfect home for her child, and so Juno agrees to give the baby up. In the course of the pregnancy, she gets to know them better, especially Mark. Mark is a former member of a rock band who now writes music for commercials, and their shared love of music, guitars, and film helps them strike up a quirky friendship. The film wisely avoids any kind of sexual dimension to the relationship, which allows us to relax and watch Juno as she slowly understands the challenges in the Lorings’ relationship.

All is not right in the pretty Loring household. Vanessa is very serious about adopting a child, as she is very serious about everything else in her life, including presenting a clean and beautiful existence. Meanwhile, Mark has within him something of the old rocker, and we see him wrestling, if quietly, with the banal trappings of his suburban existence.

Each step along the way, Juno rises to the occasion, even while she is facing more responsibility than she ought. The plot twists along the way are yours to experience, but throughout the gentle comedy and the naturalist approach of the actors reinforce how this film has moved from the art-house to the mainstream. The strength of the film is that it doesn’t allow it’s quirky beat and intelligent writing to detract from the journey.

As polarizing as contemporary political discussions are about abortion, I wonder if a film like Juno offers something of a pathway to healthier conversation. As Juno navigates decisions that she shouldn’t have to make and deals with an adult world that has come to her to soon, she is aided by the support of those who stand behind her, even when they do so quietly or from a distance. I was intrigued in watching it at how much she needed this help to make her way.

For those of us who bemoan our culture’s sacrifice of the unborn, I was challenged by Juno to be thinking more deliberately about how I can be a part of a “culture of life,” and help cultivate environments where people can ably choose to work for life.

No Country for Old Men: A Review

2008-01-24T09:57:00.000-05:00

It’s taken me awhile to write about No Country for Old Men, the latest film from the Coen brothers. I saw it over a month ago, and it still is sticking with me. Yet, the darkness of the film is just so deep, it eludes comment. Maybe that darkness can best be described by the words of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the hero played by Tommy Lee Jones. As he looks out over a vast Texas landscape, he mumbles the words, “I always figured when I got older, God would sorta come into my life somehow. And he didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I would have the same opinion of me that he does.” And so there isn’t much reason to feel hope.

The film starts as a slow-moving chase. It begins with Llewelyn Moss, a ordinary guy in West Texas that happens to be out hunting one day when he comes across the leftovers of what appears to be a drug deal gone bad. Out in the middle of nowhere, he finds several vehicles, a few dead bodies, one guy who is clearly on the verge of dying, and a briefcase full of cash. Without too much hesitation, Moss ignores the dying man’s request for water and takes the briefcase and leaves. He heads home to his trailer, hides the briefcase underneath the building, and spends the evening with his wife.

It would be a clean getaway until, appropriately enough, his conscience gets the better of him. Lying awake in the middle of the night, he decides that he needs to give that man some water, and so he heads back out to the site. While there, his truck is discovered by men who are trying to retrieve the case, and so the chase is on.

We then wind up witnessing the story through three views. Moss is on the run, trying to stay ahead of the men who are hunting him down. Despite moments of cleverness and his best efforts to conceal, we quickly get the sense that he is simply over his head, and barring intervention, the end game for him will not be a positive one. He has several men after him, but none more ominous than Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. Chigurh is a Frankenstein-like monster who seems indifferent to life itself. He kills casually wherever he goes, and seems undeterred in his intent to hunt down Moss and kill him.

The third view is the Sheriff. He is the wise man of the film, trying to train a young deputy in the details of criminal investigation, while he seems to be growing increasingly concerned about the nature of this search. Throughout, it is Bell who seems to understand where this is heading, and supported by Jones’ typically excellent understated delivery, helps us feel his own sense of helplessness.

In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, he visits his dad, himself a retired sheriff. Ed Tom Bell’s conversation with his dad has the makings of a pretty typical conversation between old men (remember the title), as he pontificates about how much worse things seem to be getting. His dad provides the tough response that shapes a lot of this film, by essentially telling him that things really aren’t getting worse, they’re just as bad as they’ve always been.

His dad gives Ed Tom Bell a tough call for any that want to fight for good things in the world, but it’s a realistic call. Those that are called to work for good must deal with the reality that their work will often appear vain, as if they are merely providing the thumb in the dike when the flood is coming. It’s a call to work without any sense of immediate reward, and I expect it’s the experience of many who work for good in our world.

I tend to find myself drawn to the Coen brothers’ comedic fare, like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Big Lebowski. But there seems to be a connection between these films. In all of them, there is a searching for grace in the world that struggles to offer it. In No Country, they seem to propose an answer that in God’s silence, there simply is going to be no answer found.

It’s pretty bleak, but it has forced me to reflect on the rich tradition of lament within the Biblical corpus. It an important tradition that comprises much of the voice of the Psalms. But it’s also a voice that we don’t use much within the church today. No Country is a challenging reminder that we lose something when we lose that voice.

No Country deals with God’s silence and seems to conclude that no answer is coming because there is no one to offer an answer. The lament tradition within Scripture offers us a reminder that believers will in fact experience seasons where we feel God’s silence as vividly as this film. But it offers a language to pour that aching over God’s seeming absence back to God Himself, converting what would be a kind of rejection into a form of worship. The wisdom of the lament tradition is that in can offer us a path that can take us from the darkest places to the true source of comfort.

As I said, I struggled with what to say about No Country for Old Men. When one encounters such a pervasive picture of depravity and emptiness, my own gut reaction is simply to remain silent. Scripture’s lament tradition offers a different voice, modeling for us a way to speak to the Silence, longing for the day when the Voice will be heard again.

There Will Be Blood: A Review

2008-01-22T10:07:00.000-05:00

I found myself surprised in the early moments of There Will Be Blood, the latest critical hit from one of my favorite directors, P.T. Anderson. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a prospector turned oil baron, documenting his rise to power and the consequences of his success. The last time I saw Lewis it was in The Gangs of New York, where he played Bill ‘The Butcher” Cutting, one of the most deliciously evil characters in recent film history. The look of the character Plainview is a clear echo, intentional I’m sure, of Cutting, and so anytime we look at him early in the film, there is a natural instinct to dislike him or to not trust him.

But then we watch Plainview. In a fascinating sequence, the opening moments of the film, without using a single word, draws us into this man’s existence. We see him as a lonely prospector, risking his life mining for silver on his own. We see him with a small crew a few years later, working hard to dig his first oil well. When one of his crew member’s is killed, we see him take the man’s son in his arms, embracing him as his own. And we flash forward again, this time to Plainview as a legitimate “oil man,” trying to convince a town to lease him their land. As he talks, he speaks of family values and integrity, and even walks away from the deal because of the dissenting voices in the room. And we think, maybe, just maybe, this guy really wants to do it right.

We’re left with those lingering impressions even as the story slowly takes an ominous turn. The heart of the tale is found when Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday, the son of a poor goat farmer in remote Texas. Paul knows that there is oil on his land, and wants to work a deal with Plainview to let him mine it. Daniel pays Paul $500 as a finder’s fee, and then begins his investigation. This is a time when oil companies are jumping over each other to find the next big claim, and so Daniel has a deliberate process that he must go through as he begins his efforts to buy up the mining rights for the town.

It is at this point that we are introduced to the other key character, Paul’s brother Eli. Played by the same actor, it can be a bit confusing to make the connection, but where Paul has quietly put together a business deal than can give him his start in the world, Eli is concerned with weightier matters. He is the minister of the “Church of the Third Revelation,” the local charismatic church that is a major influence in the town. Because of his influence, Eli wields power, and despite his somewhat restrained demeanor, we quickly realize that he is very deliberately using that power to accomplish what he wants.

It is here that we begin to see Plainview’s character emerge. He is passionate about mining his oil and building a pipeline to the sea, and to do that he must placate those who can stand in his way. He does his best to get along with Eli, even as we get glimpses of his antipathy for him and his brand of religion. But as his efforts encounter barriers, Plainview finds himself required to play to Eli’s world more than he would like.

As I was watching the film, I kept thinking of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the classic Huston/Bogart film that deals with the emerging greed and obsession among three prospectors. Afterwards, I was intrigued to read that Anderson would watch Madre every night before filming. But where Madre dealt with an emerging greed that consumes otherwise decent people, Blood seems more interested in exploring a rage that is suppressed and finds ways to emerge. Looking at the film from the end, I don’t think he’s asking us to think of Plainview as a good man gone wrong, but to think of him as a man whose evil inclinations found their voice through a lifetime of self-serving pursuits.

That kind of picture of Plainview sits alongside a view of Eli that is pretty similar. While his brother uses his fee to start a nice business and to care for others, Eli continues to use his religion as a way of gaining power, influence, and wealth. In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, Plainview is able to get Eli to shout out “I am a false prophet and God is a superstition” over and over. It is exactly what we have come to know that Plainview thinks of Eli, and our opinion of him by that point isn’t much different.

There Will Be Blood is a powerful picture of greed and the consuming nature of sin. Plainview is consumed with himself and his own greed, and oil becomes the means by which he pushes away every good thing in his life. Eli finds that religion serves the same ends. Both are tools to pursue what it is they want. “God” for Eli seems nothing more than a word to speak that offers the prospect of power and control. Even when both get what they want, it is clear that their end is hollow, as everything of meaning is lost to them by the end.

The film is filled with quietly modest people that offer a different kind of model for living. But what it doesn’t see is how the search for power and control, whether that is gained through wealth or religion, can end up well. There’s a healthy challenge there, to recognize our own inclinations for evil desire and our ability to justify using good things, even the best of things, to serve those ends.

Lars and the Real Girl: A Review

2007-12-31T14:55:00.001-05:00

Lars is at once one of the more endearing and frustrating characters you can encounter in film. In the opening scenes of Lars and the Real Girl, we are introduced to a quiet and reserved guy who goes about life on the back row, making his way through his job, his church, his family, and what might pass for friendship without making too deep an impression. Because he offers so little, we get to know Lars primarily through the responses of others. We see his sister-in-law’s hunger to have him as a vital part of their family. We see the receptionist at work and the older ladies at church reach out to ask him about his life. We see the girl who shows obvious interest only to experience his awkward indifference. Taken together, we know little of Lars except that those he interacts with seem to like him, and so we can too.

With the character offered, we can let the squirming begin. His sister-in-law and brother are excited/bewildered when Lars shows up one night and says he has a new girlfriend and would like to bring her over for dinner and would like them to let her stay with them. Anticipating an exciting new chapter for the reclusive family member, they are shocked when he shows up with a life-size doll we had ordered off of the internet. They ran the gamut of emotions as they come to realize through the dinner that this is not a joke, and in fact Lars is fully convinced that she is real and is intent on cultivating a relationship with her.

The film navigates the awkwardness expertly. Lars is not interested in sex, and the chasteness in the relationship invites us to consider the nature of his delusion and his need for healing. We aren’t allowed to dismiss him, and in fact those that surround him refuse to. His family leads him to a psychologist, who convinces him of the need for them to meet weekly for his doll’s treatments. But as important as that relationship is, the key to Lars’ journey is the response from the community. His friends at work go along with the delusion, to allow him to engage socially in ways he has never done before. The church community embraces him and embraces her, finding a way to navigate the weirdness by emphasizing Lars’ place as a part of their family. His family feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, and goes to great length to incorporate her into their lives, all for the sake of reaching out Lars.

Over time, the community’s acceptance of the doll takes on comical dimensions. She eventually finds volunteer work in the community, and involvement that creates for her a life apart from Lars. While Lars has manufactured a relationship, the community essentially teaches him about the price of relationship, and the need to think unselfishly in our most precious relationships. While Lars created a relationship built around safety and control, he slowly comes to realize that relationships don’t function with that kind of control in mind.

For a film with a such a bizarre and often whimsical premise and beat, I was surprised to find how moved I was by its resolution. The community’s embrace of Lars and acceptance of the situation is tested in extreme ways, but the depth of character on display in their response was moving. Lars doesn’t experience a “Hollywood Healing” where everything is finally put together in his life, but he’s moved to a better place, and that movement is as gentle as the actions of those who served as its agents. We’re left with hope for his future, knowing that he has a remarkable community behind him.

Lars and the Real Girl was written and directed by two relative unknowns, Nancy Oliver and Craig Gillespie, but I hope the critical acclaim it has received invites more from them. I applaud their depiction of the church community, and find it an almost prophetic challenge to the real church. Can we be as accepting of the odd folks within our ranks? Is our church community the kind of place where broken people can walk through a gentle journey of healing? Lars is a remarkable picture of healing and the need for a community to embrace their broken people. At its best it offers a “gospel on display” that churches and Christians can and should find provoking as we reflect on our own community life, and of the powerful role that people play in each our healing journeys.

Putting the X Back in Xmas

2007-12-14T15:57:00.001-05:00

Walking through the labyrinth of the catacombs in Rome, one comes across some of the earliest symbols used by the church. As people would gather and mourn their loved ones, sometimes because they had been martyred for their faith, they would carve expressions of their faith in the stone. One of the most common was what would appear to us as an “X” and and overlapping “P.” It was the combination of two Greek letters, “Chi” and “Rho,” the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos,” or Christ. For us, the most enduring symbol of the Christian faith is probably the cross. For the early church, it was most likely that Chi-Rho combination.

When did the letter “X” come into use to represent Christ? The evidence isn’t clear, though most trace its origins back to those early days of the church and this Chi-Rho symbol. What we do know is that as early as the 1400’s, when Johannes Gutenberg was first introducing the printing press, its use became widespread as one of many abbreviations that were highly valued in a day of high printing costs. X was widely used as an abbreviation for Christ, and terms like “Xmas,” “Xn,” and other derivatives were quite common and considered entirely appropriate.

One would think that 600 years would be enough time to get used to an idea.

I usually try to stay out of a lot of cultural wars, finding most of them just too exasperating and often silly. But one has come home for me in the last few weeks, and seems like it may be worth taking a break from reviewing films to comment.

Our church is holding a Christmas celebration this year. Striving to make better inroads into our community, we have done a lot to try and build up our annual tradition and add features that might be of interest to our neighbors, things like a petting zoo and a visit with Santa. We’ve been trying to get the word out, spreading the word with door hangers and public notices. And of course we’ve used the marquee on our property, which is where we got into trouble.

Having limited space with a lot to communicate, several of our postings over the past few weeks have talked about our “Xmas Celebration.” One would have thought we had posted “Happy Birthday Satan” on Halloween. I wouldn’t say we have been inundated, but there have certainly been several calls from usually less than gracious people offended at our posting. Despite our efforts to educate them about their faith’s own history, our callers are usually pretty much locked into their assessment that our church is set on “taking Christ out of Christmas.”

The topic fascinates me on several fronts. As my comments at the beginning might suggest, to anyone who strives to appreciate the rich and diverse history of the Christian faith, the debate itself is fundamentally flawed. The use of “X” to represent Christ is very much a Christian symbol. It’s ours, and using it offers us the chance to echo and honor the very earliest days of our faith and the people who, often in the face of great persecution, were used mightily by God to pass on a faith that endures across the world thousands of years later. It is a wonderful connection to a remarkable past that we should seek to honor and celebrate. In the midst of a season that offers us many positive and negative things to be shaped by, I’m glad to point to such a rich tradition that is there to shape us, and challenge the historic amnesia that pervades the church.

Of course even if the symbol didn’t have such a rich tradition, it strikes me that the debate is still remarkable silly. Reading an article the other day, the writer had observed a busy person working the checkout at a retail store. Handing the customer their package, the clerk offered “Happy Holidays,” to which they got a terse, and indeed merriless, reply “It’s Merry Christmas!” I expect that this person probably would have called had they seen our sign as well.

What’s the issue? We live in a diverse culture. Many celebrate Christmas, including many who do not worship the Christ for whom the holiday exists, but many do not. Do we want to see a culture where people feel compelled to pay lip service to a faith that they do not subscribe to? The media allows Chevy Chase and Bart Simpson to tell us about the “true meaning of Christmas” (as Bart would say, “We all know Christmas is all about the birth of Santa”). In that context, shouldn’t Christians (excuse me, Xns) seek to invest the holiday with greater meaning, so that people might encounter the real “reason for the season.”

Admittedly, there is a ridiculous hostility on the other side of this cultural war, too. In this camp, advocates are pursuing a “naked public square,” where symbols of any faith are stripped from public places. Pushing back against this is worthwhile, but the response requires a bit more subtlety than we are seeing. Our battle is not for empty symbols in the public square, but instead a context where we can have a robust and meaningful conversation about the coming of our Lord.

The way that Christians need to respond is of course complex and necessarily variegated. But at times it may mean that we appreciate the use of symbols that represent Christ in quieter ways. It is what Eugene Peterson speaks of when he calls Christians to practice “subversiveness” in their culture, offering a message and a lifestyle that quietly offers an alternative to the culture without having to stand in opposition to it.

So I guess we need to put the “X” back in “Xmas,” practicing a greater appreciation for symbols, and looking for quieter ways to express our faith and message in a culture inundated with hostility. One thing’s for sure, the non-Christians that saw our marquee wouldn’t care one wit about the “X” on our sign or the one whom the “X” represents until they see the lives of the people who put the “X” there.

Merry Xmas!

Beowulf: A Review

2007-11-30T14:43:00.000-05:00

I’m just not sure if English teachers are excited or exasperated these days. In the course of seven months, we have seen two works of classic literature brought to life for the Internet generation. They are certainly borrowing from the same page. Like 300, Beowulf opts to interpret (or reinterpret?) this classic heroes journey into a visceral, hard-driving, emotive affair that is meant to bring you top-notch moviegoing “experience” more than it is seeking to invite reflection on the hero’s choices along the way.

Using that as our standard, it is worth saying that Beowulf works. The first film I have ever seen to demonstrate an actual future for 3-D technology in film, it succeeds at captivating your attention. While other attempts in the last year at 3-D have either seemed to be mostly unnecessary, adding little to an already solid work (The Nightmare Before Christmas) or gimmicky, throwing in a few “BOO!” effects to an otherwise mediocre story (Monster House), Beowulf finally demonstrates why so many filmmakers, among them James Cameron and George Lucas, have been touting 3-D as the future for blockbuster cinema. Here, the 3-D experience coupled with the high-level animation invites you into a world that is just enough like our world to be familiar, but different enough to keep us watching. When the gimmick effects come, and yes they do throw a few things at you in this one, they seem to just fit better to the grand-scale of the epic. Whether this is the “future of the filmmaking” is beyond me, but this film convinces me that we will be seeing more of this, and with good promise.

Oh, and there is a story here too. Kind of. Beowulf takes us to the early days of a courageous and brave young hero, who already is creating legends with his victories. He comes to the aid of a kingdom who is being attacked by a local monster, one with a story far more insidious than our hero know. The love-child of the king’s “deal with the devil,” this monster must be beaten, but even as he is, Beowulf is invited to make the same compromises that this king has made. He has pursued victories in the vain pursuit of glory and honor, and here in this battle, is finally given the offer that will secure his darkest dreams.

As one of the great stories of classic literature, this is obviously an epic story worthy of epic treatment. Here is where the film encounters its more severe limitations. The nature of the animation and the 3-D experience invite us to consider the “epic” nature of this film, but the story necessarily cuts short the hero’s character arc. Some of the most interesting parts of his story, namely seeing him slowly work through the consequences for the sins of his past, is completely absent, as the tale abruptly skips over huge portions of this hero’s life. This is understandable given the cost realities of digital animation. But in choosing to do this kind of story, the film is quickly standing on the shoulders of Lord of the Rings (or merely “the Trilogy” for fantasy buffs with to little appreciation for Star Wars), a film that understood better than about any other just what “epic” really means. While it stands on those shoulders, it fails to live up the promise of contemporary fantasy epic. We’re told to expect “epic” because of the novel technology, but the story opts instead for a sound-bit approach.

Despite this criticism, Beowulf, like 300, has an interesting place in our contemporary film diet. If you want to see the big dollars thrown at special effects that are intensely engaging and fascinating, both films succeed in the payoff. You can get a great experience, you may just have to search elsewhere to find the meaning in the journey. That the moral instincts of the film are largely sound, seeing a hero bear the consequences for bad choices, just makes us look forward to the time when costs would allow them to give more time to the story.

Take it for what it is, but be careful not to make more of it than you ought.

American Gangster: A Review

2007-11-28T14:42:00.000-05:00

I think American Gangster is a film that wants you to feel conflicted. On the one hand, it is a difficult film to like. In it, you watch the ascendancy of Frank Lucas, a North Carolina native turned Harlem criminal who rose from obscurity to captain New York’s heroin empire in the late days of the Vietnam war. In watching this ascendancy, we watch a man who succeeds by force of a fierce personality who can boldly gun a rival down in the middle of the street surrounded by witnesses. He had a business acumen that exhibited itself in a remarkable creativity that allowed him to deliver a purer product to the streets for half the cost, destroying the profitability of the rival (mostly Italian) gangs. This allowed him to succeed at a dark and seedy game which produced wealth as it destroyed the lives of those who consumed its products and their friends and family.

At the same time as we watch this climb to success, we have to see the lives of those who are tasked to bring him down. Law enforcement personnel that were involved in these events have threatened lawsuits over the film, and I can certainly understand why. The law enforcement of this film are universally repulsive, embracing a culture of kickbacks and corruption and showing open revulsion at anyone within their ranks that might show signs of integrity or character. The threats of lawsuits of course depend much on the veracity of these assertions, but I know I certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with the law enforcement of this film.

On the other hand, American Gangster is a difficult film to hate. Combining the strong direction of Ridley Scott and the exceptional acting of Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, we are seeing masters of their craft take us through this journey. Lucas’ rise to success is as captivating as it is challenging. We are drawn into the world of early-70’s Harlem in a vivid way, and for what it is, it is a great ride. Beyond the excellence of the filmmaking, the story itself takes decidedly unconventional turns, turns that for my money work well to complement a difficult story. It begins with a decidedly Hollywood interpretation of the world, with Crowe playing the fiercely heroic Richie Roberts who, despite a mess of a personal life, is devoted to the cause of justice and determined to find the bad guys both within the police ranks and out on the street. This idealism leads him down a tangled journey until he stumbles on the rising star of Frank Lucas. While the film could have ended with the obligatory capture of Lucas, it doesn’t, and as it does, it invites into a much more complex picture of the characters and the story.

Among the criticism the film has received, some of the most fascinating has come from black film critics. While overall the reception has been very strong, there are a large number of black critics that have been especially dismissive of the film. Arguing that the film paints Frank Lucas and his lifestyle in too positive a light, some worry about its impact, as impressionable young men see the film and aspire to emulate Lucas’ success. They worry that Lucas will now become the hero of a new generation of criminals.

Their concerns are not without base. The Frank Lucas of American Gangster is a remarkably charming person. The casting alone can tell you that, as you’d struggle to find more than a handful of names with more charisma in Hollywood that Denzel. In Lucas’ story, you see a rags to riches that is built on hard work and innovation, and at times the consequences of this climb, or the horrific social cost that it is built on, seems to get only subtle allusions. In that, one might conclude that Scott is simply being irresponsible with his material, playing to our base emotions in providing us with a sadistic success story.

On the other hand, I am persuaded that Scott’s portrait is much more complex, and may simply reflect the reality of the story. After seeing the movie, I read several interviews with Frank Lucas and with people who knew him. It was an eerie portrait, as I encountered time and again the testimonies of people who had direct knowledge of his crime, even some who prosecuted him (including Richie Roberts himself) and men that sat on the bench for his cases who proclaim their affection for him. If Denzel offers the portrait of an evil man who is hauntingly charming, it seems that he is only reflecting the person he is trying to depict.

That Scott allows this portrait to emerge about Lucas strikes me as an important choice that elevates the film and its commentary. It would be easy for us to dismiss a Frank Lucas, whose rise to power is so despicable and whose “industry” is so clearly evil. But his rise, a climb to power that saw him rubbing elbows with leaders in entertainment and politics, was not done despite his personality, but often because of it. Indeed, the real portrait of evil itself is not unattractive, but in truth it is the attractions of evil that make it so alluring. If we are to be real about the truth of sin and evil in our lives, we would understand that temptation exists precisely because it is tempting.

American Gangster challenges us to consider the nature of evil in our own lives and the reality of temptation. We might look at Lucas’ rise to power and find his temptations easy to resist, but as we are drawn into his life, we are forced to recognize that we have our own temptations that seduce and call to us as well. We are not immune.

Gone, Baby, Gone: A Review

2007-10-25T13:26:00.000-04:00

Gone, Baby, Gone welcomes us into the world of South Boston. It’s a world that seems to ooze with character. The Departed, Mystic River, and Good Will Hunting are just a few of the recent efforts to take us into this world, and Gone is a worthy successor to these solid films. I have mixed feelings about Ben Affleck as an actor, but he seems at least to have a future on the other side of the camera.

The film opens with the media circus already in a frenzy. A girl is missing, the mother is frightened, and the police are scouring the community looking for any possible leads. The problem is that this is the kind of neighborhood where not everybody talks to the police, and so the child’s aunt decides to hire Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennarro, two locals that have a small PI operation, to assist the police in the investigation. Reluctant at first, both agree, and being to turn over rocks in their neighborhood to see what they can find.

I found Gone’s setup a bit challenging to get through. Ultimately, Casey Affleck won me over with his solid performance, but at the outset, I couldn’t believe he was doing PI work. He actually was playing his true age, 31 at the time, but like Matt Damon, has such a young face it was hard to see him in the role. Moving through this distraction, though, the film quickly establishes why Kenzie would be an interesting hire for a desperate family. He knows the neighborhood, and knows its underbelly and the people that inhabit it.

Kenzie’s work leads him to work with Detective Remy Bressant and his partner. Bressant, played by Ed Harris, is a Louisiana native who has a lot of years in the neighborhood. Kenzie quickly wins over Bressant’s trust, showing his knowledge of the street that provides leads Bressant had no chance to drum up. Through Kenzie’s legwork, their work takes them into the depths of the local drug culture, as it becomes increasingly clear that Amanda, the missing girl, has been the victim of a drug deal gone bad.

The film does a very capable job of exploring the world of the media circus. At least since Al Pacino’s amazing performance in Dog Day Afternoon in 1975, the world of film has had many voices exploring the drive of the media to manipulate “human interest” stories to serve their own marketing ends. Here, the media creates the story of the desperate mother, victim of a cruel world, who only wants to be reunited with her child. The story is a myth, and we are forced to contend with the cruelty that lies beneath that surface, and the fiction of the public face. The media’s need to paint in broad brushstrokes, searching for clear heroes and villains, fails to comport with the real world.

This reflection on the media is an excellent setup for the moral center of the film. Ultimately, the plot brings us to a place where Kenzie is forced to contend with moral choices in a morally ambiguous world. While the plot itself may be a bit convoluted, the payoff is worth the suspension of disbelief, as the film refuses to let us off the hook. We want moral clarity and we want moral choices to receive their rewards. Gone won’t let us go there. To the extent we think the choices are clear, the more the film makes us see the price they pay for those choices. Left with a wrong choice that could produce right results and a right choice that will produce wrong results, we are left to wonder which is the right way to go.

I expect we will rarely be presented with the choices that have this kind of clarity in life, but the moral universe this film inhabits is nonetheless very much our own. We are surrounded by systems that are broken, that reward poor ethics and punish good behavior. Christians enter those systems with a worldview that calls us to a different kind of living. Standing against the brutish pragmatism that calls us to compromise, the Biblical call is to a kind of fierce commitment to kingdom living that is unwavering even when the price is high.

As vivid as this call may be in Scripture, it is a call that still exists in a real world where the consequences will be vividly felt. Gone, Baby, Gone invites us to feel in vivid terms the reality of our broken world, and challenges to remain unsettled regardless of our convictions. That is not a bad corrective to have before us regardless of the decisions that we are wrestling with.

Michael Clayton: A Review

2007-10-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

In law school, it was a story told so frequently it was easy comedy. A fresh-faced One L (first-year student) would enter law school with wide-eyed dreams of fighting for justice, whether that be by keeping criminals off the streets, keeping those same criminals on the streets by fighting the inequities and injustice in the system, or by fighting for some other cause of the neglected and downtrodden.

Then came the second year. In the fall, when the interview season would open up for second-year summer internships, those same crusaders would be seen wearing their finest suits giving the firms with the long and impressive string of names a try. By the end of the third year, they were already researching the lease costs on their new car, planning their vacation and condo rental, and getting ready for their full dive into the world of the big firm.

This kind of path isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Michael Clayton invites us to explore the compromises that come into the play in this somewhat ordinary legal journey. The directorial debut for Tony Gilroy, the screenwriter for such strong scripts as the Bourne series and The Devil’s Advocate, another excellent film about the big time law firms, Clayton is a fascinating study of compromise in its late stages. George Clooney plays the title character, a man pushing 50 who traded in a career as a prosecutor for a role as a special counsel for one of the giant firms in New York. He is the firm’s “fixer,” the guy who cleans up the messes that the extremely wealthy and powerful clients of the firm find themselves in.

One of Clayton’s “fixer” projects was Arthur Edens, played by Tom Wilkinson, who is one of the partners at his law firm. Edens is a brilliant litigator and fierce fighter, but has struggled with mental illness throughout his life. Though the illness has been controlled through medication, it fell to Clayton years ago to get him straightened out when he had fallen off the wagon and threatened his career and the firm’s viability. Now, years later, Edens has gotten himself into trouble again.

Edens has been pouring himself into a single case. His client is an international agricultural products company and is facing a multi-billion dollar class action suit for allegedly introducing some kind of chemical into the water supply that has killed or injured a number of people. In the middle of a deposition of one of the plaintiffs, Edens goes off the deep end, and strips naked and runs through the building screaming.

In trying to help Edens out, Clayton is brought into a case that quickly puts on him a crises of conscience. Already struggling with personal failures, Clayton finds his firm defending the bad guy here, and he quickly becomes aware that there is much at stake in this battle. The company’s general counsel, played by Tilda Swinton, is fierce in her desire to defend the company and, perhaps more importantly, defend her boss. In the midst of his madness, Edens has discovered the fateful memo, the single document that shows that the company knew of the chemical’s risks, and signed off on the distribution based on their own cost-benefit analysis.

The film does a fantastic job of setting the stage for our entry into this life. Clayton’s world is a ruthless and vicious world, where lives are bought and sold in the name of self-interest and survival. Clayton, struggling with his own sense of disappointment in his life, seems to come at the case with a dawning realization of the price he has paid for the life he has lived. When he tries to raise some of these questions to his boss and mentor, he is pushed aside, with a reminder that he has always known how “we pay the light bills around here.”

The film poses more questions then answers. Clayton is essentially trapped within a system for which there is no answer. Even though he knows the truth, it is not as if he can simply come forward and betray his client. To do so, he would subject himself to disbarment and his firm to a bankrupting claim of malpractice. The film opts for some stereotypical Hollywood pyrotechnics to wind its way out of this mess. That’s all well and good, but it simply drives home how difficult the questions of real life become.

As an attorney, I represented some clients I found fairly distasteful. I wasn’t always sure I like the side that I represented. I rarely like the outcomes the cases had. My own wrestling in this world, a wrestling that led me first into public service and eventually into ministry, was a desire to live a life of meaning. In my own wrestling, I would often reach the end of my cases, look at the resolution, and say, “Is this it?” Hollywood rules dictates that Michael Clayton does something to solve the problem, but the real life version of this story may realistically involve nothing more than Michael Clayton finding the strength to walk away, knowing that some problems really can’t be solved.

In one of the more interesting scenes in the film, Edens recounts how many billable hours he had put into this case. As he toys around with the numbers, he winds up proclaiming that he had spent 12% of his life on this case. Edens is driving himself insane as he realizes he has wasted that much of his life in a worthless venture. It is the sadness of wasted time, the sadness of a wasted life.

The power of the Michael Clayton is in the call to count the cost. Perhaps the work we do will not take us down as dark of corridors as we see here, but the opportunity to compromise is still a daily pressure. Michael Clayton makes the bold proposition that many of those compromises aren’t that mysterious, and that many times we walk into these traps with our eyes wide open. Whether the seduction is money, or power, or security, or ego, the temptations only expose the darkness in our souls and our willingness to trade meaningful lives for meaningless enticements.

“What does it profit a man, if he gains the world, but loses his own soul?”

Shoot 'Em Up: A Review

2007-09-26T14:50:00.000-04:00

They say that comedy involves risk. For Shoot ‘Em Up, that risk first comes to us as Smith, our “hero,” has to use a gunshot to sever an umbilical cord after helping a woman give birth in the middle of a gunfight. Hope you set your steel will in place for this one.

Smith is sitting at a bus stop when a pregnant woman runs by him, fleeing from some tough looking characters. Reluctantly, Smith comes to her aid, taking on the strangers and trying to rescue the woman. He fails, and the woman is killed shortly after the birth. With the newborn in his arms and having no real understanding as to what is going on, Smith determines to keep the child away from the bad guys.

I’m not sure that everyone who sees Shoot ‘Em Up will perceive it as a comedy, but it’s about the only thing that makes the film palatable. Standing in the tradition of Quentin Tarrantino (I’ll leave the question of whether it is a “grand” tradition in your hands), who himself was echoing John Woo and a long line of Hong Kong cinema, Shoot ‘Em Up is a satirical action movie that prides itself in capturing the absurd. It takes a classic American action setup - the lone action hero, drawn into a battle he can’t win, finds a way to overcome through grit and determination - and stretches it as far as it can. The action sequences have a lyrical quality, serving as a kind of ballet for alpha males. Even the obligatory female sidekick, this time a “fetish” prostitute with her own bizarre business, stretches stereotypes to the limit. It eventually draws us into an even more absurd political plot that makes Watergate look like shoplifting penny candy at a drug store.

For all of its grand action, the movie is kept more captivating than it deserves because of the great actors involve. Clive Owen, playing the hero “Smith,” shows the dark hero that will be familiar to fans of Sin City, while Paul Giamatti plays a truly despicable villain in Hertz. Owen gives us an understated performance, which contrasts well with Giamiatti’s broad performance. Between the two of them, we are drawn into their dance, “enjoying” an intense and fascinatingly bizarre ride.

Shoot ‘Em Up could serve as an easy escape for fans of extreme action film, but what is a Christian to do with this kind of exploration of violence? Like the Kill Bill series, this film explores the world of extreme action cinema, but Shoot ‘Em Up doesn’t wear its social commentary on its sleeve. Unlike Kill Bill, it sustains its sense as a revenge fantasy throughout, and to the uncritical eye, one could walk away from the film with a sense of affirmation of the extreme violence that it has explored. For this reason alone, many would reject the film outright.

The problem that Shoot ‘Em Up has is that it isn’t cleanly drawn. Yes, it’s a satire, but a satire of what? The extreme action genre? American violent entertainment? We’re not sure, and as the political plot unfolds, it is increasingly clear why. It’s hard to define what’s in view in the satire because in the end everything is in view in the satire. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is worthy of admiration. Like the Ecclesiastes writer, everything is meaningless.

I’m reminded of Jim, the bully from The Simpsons. After making some snide remark, a friend asks him, “Dude, are you being sarcastic?” He hangs his head and responds, “I don’t even know anymore.” Shoot ‘Em Up is an enjoyable entertainment as far as it goes, but as it pushes the absurd, with less art and style than a more capable director like Tarantino might exercise, it runs the risk of exhausting itself on its own cynicism. The great tradition of satire and absurd comedy works best when it offers a constructive alternative to the institutions or way of life that it cuts down. Shoot ‘Em Up has no idea how to go to that place.

3:10 to Yuma: A Review

2007-09-12T17:36:00.000-04:00

During a couple of summers in college, I felt the lure of the West. Whether it was hiking in Colorado and Utah, or just making the amazing drive along the Tetons or across Montana, the West represented, and represents, a place for healing and renewal, a place with no memory and the promise of tomorrow. Over the years, many trips out there, now more often for snowboarding than backpacking, have proven to be just the kind of healing moments I have needed.

Because of that deep love I have for the West in my own story, I’m particularly intrigued to see Hollywood do its best to revive the Western genre this fall. 3:10 to Yuma is the first of several to come, and if Yuma is any indicator, we’re in for a treat. This is a remake of a 1957 classic starring Glenn Ford, and if you’re going to remake a classic, you would be hard pressed to find a better duo than Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, two of the very finest out there today. They deliver fine performances that are the centerpiece of this interesting drama.

Bale plays Dan Evans, a Union veteran and partial amputee who has made his way to Arizona with his family to make a new start as a rancher. Suffering under a brutal drought, he has buried himself in a debt to a local landowner who is set on getting Evans’ property out from under him to sell it to the railroad. He is a man without allies, fighting to survive in a harsh world where everyone is using his back as a stepping stone to bigger things.

While riding to town to deal with his debt, he comes across Ben Wade, a notorious outlaw who is in the process of robbing a stagecoach. Evans’ survives his encounter with Wade and his gang, and continues on to town, only to find that Wade has beat him there. The gang is in process of throwing the sheriff off their trail, but Wade shows his weakness, delaying because of a woman, allowing them to capture him. A representative of the railroad company, who was the victim of the robbery, recruits several people to take Wade to a nearby town, where he must make a prison train that is coming through the next day. Short several men, they recruit Evans to accompany them, giving him the chance to make some desperately needed cash.

It is a somewhat convoluted setup, but what it leaves us with is a long trail ride for Evans and Wade to interact. They are fascinating characters, defying many of our stereotypes from Westerns. Wade is certainly a villain, but he is also a charmer, drawing Evans’ wife to declare that he is “not what [she] expected.” His charm and engaging conversation could easily leave one disarmed, feeling safe around him. He takes advantage of that, of course, reminding us several times of the core brutality that has made him such a feared outlaw.

Evans can be frustrating to figure out. He seems to be trying to stand for the right thing, but at times it isn’t clear why. Is his intensity born out of stubborn pride or selfless nobility? The film eventually unveils more of his motivations, but even as we learn more of his past, the relative purity of his motives aren’t always made entirely clear. Perhaps in the end he is simply a man of mixed motives, as it is for almost everyone in the film’s universe.
I expect that people’s response to the film will be grounded in their ability to deal with the ambiguity of the moral universe. Similar to Unforgiven and other modern interpretations of the Western genre, we are not given many characters who are fully sympathetic or purely evil. Our hero and our villain each can at times be imminently likable and imminently detestable. This is appropriate, as it sets us up for a fascinating last action sequence, as our hero and villain remind us more of Butch and Sundance than Marshall Kane and his showdown. Their unlikely partnership with an unlikely goal allows us to see their best come out. We start by rooting for Evans, and wind up rooting for both of them.

This kind of ambiguity, reflective of many of the films of our more cynical age, is something I find myself resonating with. It is easier for me to relate to a flawed hero than a pristine one, easier for me to comprehend the villain with a spark of humanity than the wholly depraved one. The more we glimpse visions of sinner and saint coexisting within the same human being, the more the characters invite us to hold up a mirror next to them. We are indeed complex souls, shaped by forces both within and without, given to sin but not wholly devoid of that mark of true humanity that was our divine gift in creation.

Where I want to depart from this ambiguity, though, is when it comes to its vision of redemption. The film leaves us with an uncertain conclusion, as we are not sure what is going to happen or whether there was real redemption at all. I think it’s fair that many would leave the film with the sense that there was no redemption at all, merely the end of a single chapter that would repeat itself down the road with a new cast of characters. Others may find the promise that characters have grown and changed, and will be different because of their experiences. Either way, where I find hope is that the complexity and ambiguity that this film captures is not the end of the story. We are not doomed to forever be sinner and saint, but have the hope that there is an Outside Force stronger than the shaping winds in our lives that can yet decisively win this battle within us.

The Lives of Others: A Review

2007-09-05T14:14:00.000-04:00

“To think that people like you once ran a country.”

The story is told of Lenin, who reached a point in the midst of the Russian revolution where he could no longer listen to his favorite musical work by Beethoven. Listening to it, he said, made him want to hug people instead of strangling them, something that the revolution required of him. What if he kept on listening? Could things have turned out different?

In the midst of the late August movie doldrums, I enjoyed the absolute treat that was The Lives of Others, last year’s well-deserved Oscar for Best Foreign Film, which sought to deal with this very question. This film transports us to 1984 in East Germany. Taking place not long before Gorbachev’s election as Soviet president, the words glasnost and perestroika are still unfamiliar to most people, and for the people we meet, from artists to politicians to members of the Secret Police, the communist state is well-entrenched and is here to stay. Within that bleak backdrop, we are introduced to Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, brilliantly played by Ulrich Mühe, who sadly passed away from stomach cancer a few weeks ago. A long-standing member of the Stasi, the East Germany secret police that monitored the activities of GDR citizens throughout its existence, our first glimpse at Wiesler shows him teaching a group of new recruits about the art of interrogation. Taking them through the brutal and unrelenting methods that bring out the “truth” from unwilling suspects, we see the cold and calculating approach that has made him brutally effective at his job over so many years.

Wiesler is tasked to open up monitoring on Georg Dreyman, a playwright who is introduced to us as the only East German artist read in the West that isn’t a subversive and remains loyal to the state. Started because of Wiesler’s prompting of his former classmate and now boss, Anton Grubitz, we witness the astoundingly thorough manner in which the Stasi would conduct their surveillance. The writer/director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, apparently meticulously researched the methods and technology of the Stasi, and so what we see is a remarkable reenactment of their work. Wiring Dreyman’s home with microphones and cameras, Wiesler then began a surveillance of every conversation, every phone call, and every visit, throughly documenting Dreyman’s life so that senior officials might find out the truth within this national treasure.

What should have been a routine surveillance, though, goes awry for both the listener and the suspect. For Dreyman, he is surrounded by other artists who have found different ways to express their dissatisfaction with the state. Most of these efforts have cost them, as friends are being denied the ability to publish, are being restricted in travel, and are undergoing other threats and intimidation to bring them in line. Although initially resistant to the temptation to criticize the state, Dreyman is brought to question his loyalty with the suicide of his friend and mentor, another playwright and artist. With the questions coming, Dreyman sets out to publish a criticism of the GDR in the West, bringing to light some of the dark underbelly that hasn’t been exposed to the world.

Meanwhile Wiesler is undergoing his own conflict. Our exposure to his superiors leaves us convinced of their inadequacies. For all of their talk of the great socialist state, his boss is an ambitious politician, who spends most of his time placating his superiors and planning his ascendancy to greater things. The party leader he is trying to win the favor of is a repulsive man who is more interested in seducing Dreyman’s girlfriend than he is in providing meaningful leadership. This is the painting of corrupted power that Orwell gave us in novel form. Slowly, we see Wiesler quietly observe this hypocrisy and, generally without verbalizing it, start to challenge their world.

In contrast, Wiesler is secretly drawn to Dreyman. He hears his music, he reads his books, he listens to his passionate relationship with Christa-Maria, and he seems to find himself wanting more. We get few glimpses into Wiesler’s world beyond his job, but what we see makes us understand that there is a desperation and a loneliness that defines his existence. The more he observes, the more he is drawn in, and so we see Wiesler start to cross boundaries. He orchestrates Dreyman’s discovery of Christa-Maria’s relationship with the party leader. When she declares that she is going to be with this party leader, he confronts her, persuading her to go back to Dreyman without exposing his relationship. As Dreyman’s questioning of the system becomes more profound, so Wiesler finds himself risking more and more to protect Dreyman.

I will leave the details for your own discovery, but within this journey lies the point that some found offensive about the film. For those that lived through life with the Stasi, the notion that there was a gentle and kind person inside an agent waiting to be brought out, a kind of “hooker with a heart of gold,” is difficult in the extreme. From what I’m reading, some want to see the people that participated in this evil regime as irredeemably wicked.

I remember an article a few years ago written by a Rabbi that had a title that was something like “Why the holocaust teaches us nothing about evil.” Essentially, the argument he was making was that the evil of the holocaust was so extreme that it could not be categorized alongside other examples of evil that we encounter. It was evil of a different stripe, not just a more extreme version of evil we encounter.

I hear echoes of this argument in the negative response to The Lives of Others. The brilliance in the movie is that it draws us into Wiesler’s world, letting us see the emerging conflict as he saw a different way of living than the way he had spent his career. His heroic acts, made all the more heroic because of the silent way that he endures their consequences, offer a glimpse into an emerging sense of humanity, a struggle with a moral universe that doesn’t seem satisfied with the choices he has made.

Much like Downfall and Letters from Iwo Jima, Lives lets us glimpse at the perspective of “the enemy.” What we see gives us hope. Hope that evil can be seen for what it is, and that good can emerge even in the darkest of backdrops. Hope that the glimpses of good are worth the heavy price they can exact. Hope that people can change, even if systems seem like they can’t.

Superbad: A Review

2007-08-31T16:22:00.000-04:00

Seeing Superbad reminded me of many conversations with Steve Mackler. Steve was a foul-mouthed guy who was a year-older than me in school. I was on the debate squad, he did humorous interpretation, and so we had many weekends around each other at speech competitions. Steve had a knack for making the conservatives blush with his raw and frank sense of humor. He was also easily one of the funniest people I have ever known, with the ability to bring me to tears with his quips.

Jonah Hill is Superbad’s Steve, a foul-mouthed and horny high-school senior named Seth. Already dealing with the sad reality that he and his best friend, played by Michael Cara (to the delight of Arrested Development fans everywhere) will be graduating and heading to separate colleges in the fall, he is fairly myopic in his concerns. He doesn’t want to graduate from high school a virgin. He wants sex, and he wants it tonight.

What follows is a buddy comedy standing in a fairly deep tradition of similar comedies over the last 30 years or so. This one, coming from the same folks that brought us Knocked Up earlier this summer, is a good one, and in good I mean that it is extremely funny if you can handle that kind of humor. Seth Rogan and Judd Apatow have given us The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad, and in all cases my wife has reminded me that she’s not sure she wants to admit to anyone that she’s actually seen them. That’s OK, I caught her laughing.

To accomplish his mission, Seth commits at school to providing alcohol to a party that night. The party is hosted by the girl that he’s after, and Cara’s Evan finds out that his interest is heading there, and so their adventure must take them into the liquor store. They find a friend, Fogell, with a newly minted fake ID, and so they set out on their trail. The trailers give some of the zaniness away, but to spare you, I’ll suffice it to say that Fogell, or should I say “McLovin” winds up riding around with the strangest pair of cops since Reno 911, Seth winds up way over his head in a death match at another party, and Evan bumbles his way through much before they get back together. Their quest is not easy.

Admittedly, the nature of the comedy makes this a difficult movie to recommend blindly. I have friends that I know would enjoy it, and I have friends that I know wouldn’t. Either way, there are several things about the film that interest me. First, I wondered as I reflected on the movie whether it should be required viewing for parents of teenagers. I expect many of them would be shocked and horrified at the way in which sexual topics are explored, but my sense is that it is much closer to the reality of what teenagers are being exposed to than what parents assume their kids know. The film takes for granted the widespread access to sexual information that is a basic reality for many teenagers in our wired world.

Second, like Virgin and Knocked Up, the film takes a surprisingly conservative turn by the end. This genre, probably set in motion most by Animal House, has a knack for being a sustained celebration of sexual liberation in all its forms. This film isn’t. The path to freedom for these guys, mainly getting their objects of lust drunk so that they can conquer them, is a hollow dream, and by the end they seem to recognize that. Despite having a shocking amount of knowledge about sex acts and the female anatomy, they have very little wisdom about relationships, love, and the rich meaning of sexuality. This divide between wisdom and knowledge seems very prescient in our culture.

In the end, the movie is more a celebration of male friendship. Their friendship is what they understand most deeply and is what means the most. They still have sex on the brain, but in their more sane moments, they seem to recognize that their pursuit of alcohol and sex are mere distractors or coping mechanisms. The characters are pretty bankrupt in their pursuits, but they aren’t without hope. I think the success of the film and of these filmmakers in this brand of comedy is that they are drawing up imminently relatable people. We too often find ourselves bankrupt in our pursuits, but hope that there is something deeper, something more substantive that might pull us through.

Of course, it may be that Apatow and Rogan are just throwing in the heart in these films to justify a whole string of racy jokes and seedy adventures. I don’t think so, but even if it is, then they have just backed their way into something more substantive than they might expect. The deeper strain of these characters, from this and their other films, are strains that I can live with. There are certainly worse places from which to start a conversation.

The Bourne Ultimatum: A Review

2007-08-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

The Bourne Ultimatum is about responsibility. Sharing the spot with Ratatouille for the best reviewed mainstream film of the summer, it comes to us as one of the final “Part Three” films that seems to have defined the summer blockbuster lineup. Among those, it is undoubtedly the best of the lot.

The Bourne Identity introduced the movie-going public to Robert Ludlum’s much loved character Jason Bourne. We met Bourne at the end of an accident that left him with amnesia. Knowing nothing of his past, we slowly learned along with him that he had been a part of a CIA operation that trained the world’s greatest assassins and set them about performing some of the most seditious missions the government ever denied involvement in. As the mysteries surrounding his amnesia and the accident that produced it came to light, he became a hunted man by the very people who had trained him to be the killer that he is. In The Bourne Supremacy, Jason was thrust back into the espionage world by those within the system who sought to use his name to cover their own dark secrets. Where Identity was a journey of discovery, Supremacy was a journey that had a mixed bag of revenge and repentance, as Bourne was finding out more about his past and finding more to dislike about those discoveries.

In Ultimatum, the movie cleverly weaves its way into the final moments of Supremacy, taking us to a Bourne who is still on the run, still trying to discover more about his past as he is trying to stay ahead of the very people who have those answers. While Identity gave us Chris Cooper as a superb foil and Supremacy gave us Brian Cox as Cooper’s sleazy boss and Joan Allen as the virtuous agent who contends for truth, Ultimatum brings us David Straitharn as the exceptional leader who needs Bourne eliminated. As with Cooper and Cox, Straitharn gives us an agent who has little to redeem himself, who is an “avowed patriot” who seems to profit well from his patriotism. The villains of the Bourne films are enjoyable to watch because they have been played by such fine actors, but they are not ambiguous figures. We know who the bad guys are, and we are clear that they are bad.

Jason’s a bit tougher to figure out. Damon does well with the emotionally-stilted character of Bourne. While early on we might have excused his coolness as a function of his amnesia, as we learn more about him we see this as a product of his training. He has no emotion because he was trained to have no emotion. He was trained to have no emotion because he can have none to do the evil things he is called upon to do.

Of course, from the first film we have seen that the problem for Bourne is that there is something in him that can’t rest with this kind of withdrawn life. He bucked the system then, and he continues to buck the system here. What is interesting about this film is how it changes our perception of the system itself. In the trilogy as a whole, the government agencies are led by people who manipulate their underlings to serve their ends, ends which are often selfish and against the larger purposes of the country. This is a corrupt system that is broken because of a leadership that has no virtue (no political commentary there, I’m sure). Bourne is pitted as a hero who is standing against that system.

Here, though, the system is not entirely to blame for Bourne’s predicament. In a plot development worthy of the actor they use to develop it, we see in new ways how Bourne is what he is because Bourne wanted to be that way. While he was used by the system, it is harder to see that he was simply shaped by the system. The battle in Bourne’s life has not been man verses system, but man verses himself. He has a darkness within, and it is this darkness that is his greatest enemy.

While these ideas emerge from the film, it is worth mentioning that the pacing of the film makes them elusive. This is kinetic and energetic film making, with action sequences that at times border on the incomprehensible due to their fast pace. The great reviews for the film are probably evidence of the emotional excitement that this style of filmmaking produces. It is a fascinating combination of modern technique interpreting a very classic human drama. The freshness isn’t found in the special effects (a significant exception for a summer blockbuster) but in the energy in the story. The story lives or dies on our investment in the person of Bourne (I expect that some won’t like it because they don’t like the actor Matt Damon), and our enjoyment of the film hinges significantly on our visceral experience of the action. In other words, take your potty break before you enter the theater!

The ideas in Ultimatum need development in other places. In the end, it is an action piece that I expect many will take, enjoy, and leave without reflection. The nature of the film’s pacing doesn’t really invite that kind of reflection anyway. Nonetheless, the ideas are worthy of reflection because they strike me as particularly important.

In the last few months, I’ve had to have several tough conversations with people about the issue of responsibility. For all the good that our innovations in psychology and counseling have brought us, one of the challenges it has presented has been the way it has armed people who are prone to deny personal responsibility the language with which to rationalize that denial. Instead of exploring the past with an eye towards root causation and the way that sin has impacted our desires and the choices we make, we can instead find in our search the other people or events that can take the blame from us for the mistakes that we make. The basic sadness that I have seen in these situations is how it has fundamentally denied the ability to heal. We heal when we can acknowledge responsibility for that which we can and grow through the mistakes, not when we can lay the responsibility at other’s feet.

Bourne is a character with hope precisely because he is a character who seems to be trying to take that responsibility where he can. The films are not mere diatribes against the “system,” but instead a study of a life who is bearing the fruit from the seed that he has planted. Acknowledging that core responsibility, even in the backdrop of a complex system that manipulates and uses those bad choices and bad desires, is itself a significant statement in our contemporary culture.

Live Free or Die Hard: A Review

2007-07-06T14:22:00.000-04:00

Ah, the summer blockbuster. Given that I was only 2 when Jaws came out, I never knew a world without it. The concept has morphed over the years and lately, with fierce competition for those precious summer dollars, it has become almost a caricature of itself. Big budgets, special effects and heavy action are supposed to draw us into the seats for an experience that can’t be replicated on our small screens. Unfortunately, of course, this has too often also meant a persistent recycling of old ideas, a neglect of story and character, and a pandering to the lowest common denominator as the films strive to appeal to the widest moviegoing audience as possible. Reading film reviews, there is typically a noticeable change in tone from a lot of these folks, many of whom have long since grown cynical about the whole summer tone to movie-going.

And so we turn to Live Free or Die Hard, the latest attempt to resurrect an old franchise. The first in the series, Die Hard, generally makes my short list for the best action films ever made. It combined a tight premise and clean “rules,” something that is vital for this genre, with great action and solid acting, particularly from Alan Rickman, who gave us one of the most delightfully vicious villains in film history. After that, the franchise failed to live up to its predecessor. The second was OK, though a shadow of the first. The third was better, but still less than the first. The challenge for both of those films was their need to get broader. In the first film, Bruce Willis gave us John McClane, a New York City cop that gets caught up in a terrorist attack on an office building. Part of the film’s strength was the boundaries of the building, forcing all the action to take place in tight quarters that imposed real limits on where the characters could go and what they could do. In the later films, the work got bigger, with John saving an airport in the second, and the entire city of New York in the third. As it got bigger, the franchise lost the hold that made the first film so exceptional, and the films became simply ordinary.

With that history in mind, I entered Live Free with some trepidation. In it, John McClane, still a New York City cop, is ordered to go pick up a known computer hacker as a favor for the Feds. As he is doing so, the apartment is attacked by assassins, who are set on killing the hacker. John rescues him, leaving him is as the only survivor of a simultaneous effort that killed a number of hackers. This is but one part of a larger mystery, as we see these same villains begin to infiltrate computers around the country, taking control of traffic signals in D.C. only to cause simultaneous accidents around the city, then infiltrating the stock exchange only to create a panic in the marketplace.

The film does a great job of drawing us into the emerging chaos that comes as the villains reveal their intentions. What we learn is that they are about attempting a “fire sale,” a simultaneous attack on every computer system of merit in the country, causing the entire nation to come to a grinding halt. The notion of a fire sale lies in hacker myth, but now we are seeing it unfold in reality. Of course, it’s up to John McClane to figure out how to stop it.

As I said, the franchise has kept building up the premises. It’s pretty far-fetched, but does a capable job of selling it to us. McClane is served up as an old-school fossil, an aging cop that doesn’t understand the high-tech world. The hacker, ably played by the goofy Justin Long, provides the comic contrast as well as the know-how that helps navigate the technological aspects of the battle. McClane fights to keep him alive, take out whatever bad guys he encounters, and eventually, to rescue his own daughter from the clutches of the henchman.

Live Free will have to compete with a lot of high-budget action movies this summer, but if it’s a big explosive few hours you want, you’ll do a lot worse than to check this one out. As an action piece, it certainly is the best of the franchise since the first. The villain, played by Timothy Olyphant, is no Alan Rickman, but the premise is just so broad, that it is amusing to see how they can pull it together and resolve it.

As a side note, the movie presents an interesting commentary on the ratings system. In an effort to get the adolescent movie dollars, they set out to make this the first PG-13 rated film in the franchise. They thus had to play with McClane’s signature line (“Yippee-ki-yay, mother_____”) but still pulled off an incredibly intense action experience. We’re OK with our kids being unsupervised and see government buildings and power plants blow up, helicopters and planes shot down, and a body count that was at least in the dozens, but can’t expose them to a single word referring to a sex act that unfortunately is pretty ordinary language of the street. Interesting.

Leaving the movie, I mused about the possible political commentary that lies underneath the film. Bruce Willis long carried the reputation as being one of the four Republicans in the movie business. He recently tried to distance himself from that reputation. This film involves a villain who, in his overzealous attempts to protect the country from itself brings the nation to the brink of disaster. Of course, while he is overzealously protecting the country, he also made sure he could make a tidy profit for himself and his own. Intended of not, thoughts of Halliburton and Guantanamo Bay danced in my head for awhile.

McClane is a quintessential American action hero. He is fearless and daring, inventive and bold. He is able to accomplish what the bureaucracy of the federal law enforcement, always mocked in this franchise, can’t accomplish because he is the only one that combines common sense with his heroic strength. As enjoyable as he is to watch, what interests me is how ordinary his picture of heroism is for us.

Whether its McClane, Jack Bauer, or Indiana Jones (coming next May), our heroes have a particular look and represent a value system that we are immersed in within our culture. That is all well and good, until we turn from our culture to other pictures of heroism. I think particularly of the Hebrew writer and his depiction of faithfulness in Hebrews 11. Within that story, heroism is entirely absent, but instead that which is worthy of admiration is faithfulness. In the seductive challenge to build up a story of faith, and a picture of a savior, that is so often in our own image, it is worth asking how much our pictures of heroism will alter, even corrupt, our images of faith, and particularly our image of our Savior. Left unchecked, this temptation suggests a spiritual cost that may be higher than rising ticket prices and overpriced popcorn.

Bridge to Terabithia: A Review

2007-07-05T16:05:00.000-04:00

Spending my week on the beach last week with family, I logged many hours with my 2 and 6-year old nieces. I’m thinking now of one particular afternoon with the 2-year old, an afternoon full of adventure. We ventured to Neverland, only to find ourselves then swimming with mermaids under the sea. From one adventure to the next, for her the swimming pool and the kiddie pool next to it were constantly in a state of transformation, changing from one imaginary universe to the next. What a treat to glimpse at the world through her eyes, seeing the sparks of imagination fly as we played our games, sang our songs, and enjoyed the afternoon sun.

It was with this experience in mind that I watched Bridge to Terabithia, the adaptation of the popular children’s novel. In Terabithia, we meet Jesse, a misfit kid struggling to make life work in elementary school. His family lives outside of town, so he’s labeled a “country kid” in a city school. They’re struggling to make ends meet, and so he has to make do at times with hand-me-downs from his sisters, including the childhood horror of having to wear his sister’s sneakers with pink stripes. Fighting to fit in, we join him at the beginning on a morning run, as we see him striving to make his mark by being the fastest boy in the class. When recess comes, he sets out to prove himself, and does, beating out the competition that includes one of the class bullies. His joy is short-lived, though, as the winner of the race is Leslie, the new girl that showed up in class that morning.

Already frustrated at being beaten, and by a girl no less, he is further horrified when Leslie gets off at his bus stop, revealing that she has moved into the house next door to him. We see them struggle through the awkwardness of childhood, but in a fairly short time they begin to forge a real friendship, a friendship that is bound up in Leslie’s imagination. They venture into the woods, and there begin a time of wonderful childhood discovery.

Leslie looks upon the woods as an invitation to dream. They find a rope that crosses a stream and, ignoring the dangers, Leslie swings across and enters into a world of her own creation. She slowly draws Jesse into this world, and together they create Terabithia, an imaginary place full of mystical creatures. It is a world full of good and evil, and a place where they are constantly discovering their own magical powers as they fight for good and deepen their discovery.

As they grow in their discovery of Terabithia, their friendship also deepens. Leslie encourages Jesse to explore his talent as an artist, a gift he is embarrassed to share with others, feeling the glare of disapproval that he gets from his older sisters and especially his cool and practical father. His dad doesn’t have much place in his life for any of the wonder that Jesse is discovering through his friendship with Leslie, a sense that is a necessary component of his life as an artist. Through her he even gets the strength to speak to his music teacher, his secret crush who becomes for him a vital mentor that further sparks his imagination.

The movie at times seems to meander without purpose, but I think that even that itself is intentional. Childhood itself meanders, as the movement between the real world and the world of imagination is constantly in motion. For those, like me, who haven’t experienced the novel, we are left to wonder where we are heading with the plot, knowing only that the friendship is strengthening as they share their lives together.

Even while it moves through these quiet days, the movie gives us a number of precious images of friendship as we see these two grow up. He shares in her family’s experience in painting a room, and she goes with him to church, inviting their shared reflection on faith. This interaction was awkward but genuine, as we see children try to make sense of the mysteries of faith while still deeply entwined in the stories of their families of origin and the limitations that childhood necessarily imposes. Their reflections aren’t deep, but they are inviting nonetheless.

In truth, much of my experience of the movie fits that same phrase: awkward but genuine. I think the awkwardness stems from the film’s attempt to have us view the world as much as possible through the eyes of the children. As we see the world through their eyes, we are given a wonderful world of possibilities as the imagination is ignited. But we are also then given a limited vocabulary, as so much of the “adult world” that surrounds them involves new and strange experiences for which they have no language to process. When the movie succeeds, it does so by having us experience the same limitation of vocabulary while still giving us the experience of wonder that they know.

The movie does take a dramatic turn, and when it does it forces a confrontation between this world of imagination and wonder that Jesse has discovered and the often brutal realities of our world. What can sustain us as we make our own journey? What is left of that childhood sense of wonder?

As I reflect on the movie, I turn back to my time with my nieces over the previous week. There is an adult world that surrounds them. At times, it presses in on them and so they must glimpse realities for which they have no vocabulary and no way to process. Part of their survival will be grounded in their ability to experience the world of wonder that lies alongside those harsher realities. Indeed, that is a survival skill that will be needed even as they move further away from the years where imagination can reign supreme.

Terabithia invites us back to the kinds of worlds that Tolkien and Lewis explored with great depths in the past century. Living amidst the brutalities of our world, they invite us to remember the spiritual gift of wonder, a gift that looks at dying things and sees the life that lies beneath. They connect for us the truth that the gift that lets my niece see Neverland in the middle of the swimming pool is the seed of the gift that will let her look at the pain and hardship of life and see the Hand of God at work. The first may seem the trite wonderings of a child, but the second is indispensable.

May her Neverland never disappear.

Knocked Up: A Review

2007-06-07T16:30:00.000-04:00

Knocked Up is a difficult movie to review. In fact, I have found very few Christian critics that were willing to even offer one. That's too bad, because its $30 million opening weekend take suggests that a lot of people are seeing it. It strikes me as an excellent moment for Christians to offer their voice on that experience. Having said that, I don't know too many people that I would recommend it to, even though I thought the movie was exceptionally well done. Like Borat, the controversial "mockumentary" from last year, the movie offers an uncomfortable mix of poignant cultural observations, at times winsome and likable characters, and outrageously funny but extremely offensive comedy. While those first two features offers much for many people, I expect the brand of comedy that the movie offers severely limits its audience, particularly within conservative Christian circles.

Knocked Up stars Seth Rogan as the aptly-named Ben Stone, an aimless twenty-something who fills his days smoking pot and hanging out with his friends. Unemployed, he makes his way by stretching out the proceeds of a government settlement. The $14,000 payment has lasted him nine years and counting, so materialism isn't really his problem. He's not without his ambitions, though. He and his friends have been working on a website that will collect information about the nude scenes of famous actresses. So the productive side of his life is spent "gathering research" by watching movies that contain nudity and logging the information about each scene. An abundant life, indeed.

In contrast to Ben, we have Alison Scott, played by Katherine Heigl. Alison is a rising star on the E! Network. Having worked her way up as a production assistant, she finally gets her big break with an opportunity to appear on camera as an interviewer. Thrilled at the opportunity, she decides to go out and celebrate with her sister. At the bar, she meets Ben, who clumsily buys her a drink. With encouragement from his friends, and a little bit of "liquid courage" Ben approaches and talks with Alison. As the evening progresses, their relationship follows a familiar track, as the alcohol begins to takes over where wisdom belongs. It leads them to her place, and you could fill in the rest.

Then the morning comes. For Alison, the morning brings the awful awareness of what she has done. As she stares down at Ben in the bed, she has an understandable mix of regret and horror. For Ben, he doesn't remember much of anything, and for the next few hours they must get to know each other anew. Alison quickly realizes that she has not found "Mr. Right," and the oddness of their conversation ends with polite promises to talk again.

That talk probably never would have happened until a few months later, when Alison realizes that she is pregnant. In the days that follow, Alison walks a familiar track, as she has to grapple with the reality of the pregnancy, contact Ben and let him know, then try to make sense of what this means for her future. Ben is understandably overwhelmed by the experience, realizing very quickly that he has no idea what he is doing and that he is entirely unfit for parenthood.

While Alison begins the process of picking a doctor, trying to keep her job going without them knowing about the pregnancy, and preparing for motherhood, Ben and Alison decide to give a relationship a go. The film wisely takes its time trying to cultivate this unlikely relationship, working its way to convince us that a guy like Ben could actually have a relationship with a woman like Alison. This effort works because the filmmakers are patient enough to let their relationship move slowly and in fits and starts, as we see Ben try and fail to figure out how to grow up.

Like Director Judd Apatow's breakout hit The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up is a coming of age film for an overgrown adolescent male. In Virgin, it was Steve Carrell's shy comic book-loving bachelor trying to figure out relationships long past the point where he should have. Here, it is a loser learning about responsibilities like working and relationships in the context of unplanned fatherhood. In both cases, the movies succeed because of skilled writing and a great comedic beat and because of great casting choices, particularly in their choice of leads. Rogan's Ben is a loser, but a lovable loser, and while he is certainly unfit for a relationship and for fatherhood, his unfitness echoes the awkwardness that many of us feel when we reach these steps in life. These characters are likable because they are real, and as we laugh at them we are laughing at ourselves.

Also like Virgin, one of the things that intrigues me most about the film is the stark contrast between the comedic beat of the film and the underlying value system the movie seems to uphold. After all, in the real world, could this story ever be told? An up-and-coming career woman with no identifiable faith background has a mistaken one-night stand with a hopeless loser and winds up pregnant. With little prospects to get meaningful help through this process and with a career that would likely get derailed by having a child, how many in our culture would opt for, as Knocked Up describes it, that word that "rhymes with Shma-shmortion." Although the movie takes a moment to acknowledge her "choice" to keep the child, there is surprisingly little conflict over this. Instead, it seems from the beginning that there is instinct to keep the child, and to contend with the impacts that the child will have on her and their lives.

Alongside this choice is her immediate reaction to involve Ben in her life and her desire to cultivate a relationship, if only for the benefit of their child. Even Ben, hopeless loser that he is, feels a responsibility to act well on behalf of his child and to make things work as much as possible. He talks to his Dad, trying to seek advice about how to make things work. He stumbles on the way, but seems intent in his best moments at wanting to make things right for both Alison and his child. While I don’t want to give away the ending, I’m impressed with the way the character grew, and found myself rooting for him throughout his journey.

Although it was slow to develop, I wound up enjoying a subplot that focused on the relationship between Alison’s sister and her husband. Early in the film, the relationship seemed little more than a foil, a chance to glimpse the stereotypical negatives of marriage and commitment and offer Ben and Alison a chance to see what they needed to stay away from. As the film went on, we get to know the couple more, and especially get to enjoy the budding friendship between Ben and Pete.

As in Reign Over Me, another recent release I reviewed awhile back, the time between Ben and Pete, particularly in a quick road trip they take together late in the movie, provides opportunities for reflection on male friendship. While Ben has been spending his life around his buddies, Pete has become locked down in a marriage that leaves him little time for male companionship. In a clever parallel, as he seeks to sneak time to be with fellow “nerds” we see him acting like a man cheating on his family. As much as the movie offers reflections on family values, it is also offering some thoughts on male friendship that are worthwhile.

Knocked Up is a fascinating juxtaposition of conservative values and tasteless comedy. Its comedy serves as a language that allows the film to communicate to the college crowd and the young adult audience that should be its primarily field (keep the teens away, please). The values it communicates, though, are some that I think Christians of all ages should be largely echoing. The film’s instincts are that the unborn need protection and care, that two parents should be devoted to raising a child with love, that there is a need in our lives for real friendships, and that careers and other pressures in life are secondary next to the value of life itself. There’s more that we need to say, certainly, but what it is saying is significant, and worth celebrating.

Having just had my first child two weeks ago, the film’s birthing scenes, which included some of the most outrageous and most memorable comedy in the film, were extremely fresh for me. The freshness only enhanced that the film’s strength is in its ability to walk the same paths that we all walk in different ways, and to muse about the comedy we encounter along the way. The movie captures in part what I just experienced in whole: that birthing a child is at least one if not the most painful, most intense, and most emotional experiences a person can know in this life. But holding a newborn child in your arms, indeed, holding your newborn child in your arms, changes your perspective forever, and leaves no question in your mind that the experience was worthwhile. I even think my wife would agree with that.

Little Children: A Review

2007-05-17T15:08:00.000-04:00

Sadness reigns in Little Children. We begin with a summer playground populated by three bored housewives and their children. This is their daily ritual, a morning at the playground, engaging “conversation,” which is more a series of anecdotes and opinions delivered to nobody in particular. In brief glimpses, we know the basic unhappiness that seems to define each of their lives.

Alongside this conversation, we meet Sarah Pierce, Kate Winslet’s too-bright mother, struggling to find some place in this universe. A doctoral candidate in English Literature, her bright mind is unchallenged by the life she has chosen, and finds the playground a small solace that gives her a change of scenery, if not a real escape from the madness she feels lurking below the surface of her life.

While we come to know Sarah more than the other women, she seems at home with them in dealing with a malaise about her life. Having fiercely fought to stay home as the primary caregiver for her daughter, she questions why she took that stand, and finds herself desperate every day for the small amounts of time she has to herself when her husband comes home. Her marriage, though, is becoming increasingly strained. Her husband, presented to us as a dreadfully dull advertising executive, excuse me, “branding” executive, has himself become lost in a fantasy world. One click of the button began his slow seduction into the world of internet fantasy, and we observe one of the most realistic depictions of the comic-sadness that is internet pornography (a $4.9 billion industry, by one count). While Sarah catches him in the act, we never watch them fight through the issue. Instead, Sarah seeks her solace elsewhere.

For awhile, that solace will be found in the arms of Brad. We first meet Brad as the “Prom King,” dubbed so by the Playground Three for his frequent visits to the park with his son. He is the handsome stranger, and on a whim and a bet, Sarah meets him, and finds herself drawn to him. Their first encounter has its own strange ending, but eventually they come back together, and forge a “public friendship,” spending afternoons at the pool while their kids play.

Brad has his own struggles. A law school graduate, he is studying for his third attempt at the bar exam. While he readily accepts and talks about that failure in his life, he also finds himself drawn to various things, whether watching boys skateboarding or playing night football, that offer the hope of rediscovering his own since of masculinity. He’s married to a bombshell wife, played by Jennifer Connelly, and she pours herself into her job such that we sense a basic distance in their marriage from the very beginning.

Brad and Sarah find in each other a fantasy that they can live out. For Sarah, she sees in Brad a handsome lover who finds her engaging. He sees in her someone that believes in him, that sees the man in him that he no longer sees in himself. Their affair has been played out in their minds long before they ever act on it. When they do, it is nothing more than the raw expression of the pent up fantasies they have been living out in their minds since they met.

Then there’s the sex offender. In one of the stranger subplots in recent memory, we are introduced to Ronnie, a sex offender recently released from prison and now living in the neighborhood with his mother. Our first glimpse of him is only through the posters that the “Committee for Concerned Citizens,” actually just one unemployed ex-police officer, is putting up around the neighborhood. The town is abuzz about his presence. Everyone has an opinion about him, opinions he seems to confirm with every turn throughout the film.

We first meet him when he comes to the pool and swims around with goggles. When the police remove him from the premises, he protests that he was only there to “cool off,” but we know otherwise. In perhaps one of the saddest dating scenes in recent memory, he shows the depth of his sickness with the blind date his mother setup for him. He is a deeply disturbed man, and creates a level of discomfort any time he is present in the film.

While one might get lost in the increasing diversity of these characters, the film finds its heart in a single discussion. Invited to a book club to discuss Madame Bovary, Sarah endures a rant from the most arrogant of the Playground Three, who dismisses Bovary’s wanderings as the actions of a “slut.” Enduring the rant, Sarah responds with her gracious assessment of the character. She sympathizes with her for the unhappiness that defines her existence, and her willingness to fight against it. While she understands that she fails in her efforts, she admires her effort.

Hence, the film gives us characters who are each dealing with a defining kind of disappointment with life. For each, redemption comes not in a destination or a solution to the problem, but in a willingness to fight against that unhappiness.

Director Todd Field wisely resists a Hollywood solution to this drama. I found myself cringing through much of the last 20 minutes of the film, expecting a mundane turn in the plot. Despite several chances to do so, though, Field opts to stay true to his premise. This is not a film that gives easy solutions to its drama. I don’t even know if Field has an answer to the questions he’s asking, which allows him to find a more honest conclusion than he might otherwise have offered.

I expect that Little Children is the kind of film that a lot of Christians would have trouble seeing, but it may be just the kind of movie that many of them should see. It’s understanding of the despair that can take hold in a prosperous life is something that is probably familiar to many of us. One need only observe the balding 40-something in his convertible, the sports-obsessed at any weekend game, the conversations at a local Starbuck’s or at the local mall to see the reality of angst in the midst of success and the power of escapism to offer a salve for this angst. Perhaps we would easily dismiss the solutions these characters find for their problems, but I don’t know that we are always leading the way in finding better solutions.

The piece that I admire most about the film is its unwillingness to settle for despair. This is the necessary first step in the fight for joy, a fight that to my mind defines the Christian’s existence.

As I write this, I’m awaiting a phone call from my wife to tell me that she has gone into labor with our first child. I await word on her grandmother’s heart surgery and my cousin’s chemo treatments. I recall my conversations with friends in recent days over their frustrations over their jobs and their excitement about their pregnancies, coming weddings and graduations.

What is the outcome of this constant mix of joy and sadness, pleasure and pain all played out in a life that can move from seeming terminably long to dreadfully short in a span of hours? For many, the outcome is the kind of malaise that Little Children understands so well. We can come to see joy as a periodic byproduct that may or may not come in the midst of our journey, but certainly can’t be expected in the midst of life’s disappointments.

I think the Christian story describes a different kind of reality. It takes the desperate searching that the film describes, but points it to the Source of joy itself. C.S Lewis tells us that the basic problem of the human condition is that we are often too easily satisfied, settling for lesser pleasures than that which we are meant to know. Little Children understands some of the reasons for that, because for some the mediocrity of living makes real joy just seem to hard to actually experience.

If we are to engage in the kind of pursuit that both Lewis and Little Children consider, it may take the kind of dissatisfaction that the movie explores. If we are satisfied with a new convertible, a decent IRA, relatively conflict-free marriages and obedient children, what is there in us that will crave the passion of delighting in God above all things? Little Children understands what it takes many of us years of heartache to learn, namely, that these things will not satisfy. Resisting the temptation to settle for the mediocre as the best we can find, our call is to fight for joy, and to keep fighting until we find the real thing.

Spider-man 3: A Review

2007-05-09T10:45:00.000-04:00

“If you want forgiveness, get religion” - Spider-man

Christ gets a prominent role in Spider-man 3. Driven to desperation, Eddie Brock, the photographer who failed in his attempts to surpass Peter Parker at the Bugle, finds himself in a church. Kneeling towards the front, he looks up at the crucifix, a vivid image of Christ on the cross, and begins his prayer. Humbled, emotional, weakened, he stumbles in the address until he finally states his single request to God: “Kill Peter Parker.”

OK, so maybe it’s not the best showing for faith in film. Nonetheless, the Spider-man saga has provided interesting commentary on heroism, if not faith, over the years. Building around the mantra that Stan Lee gave to the character from early on, “With great power comes great responsibility,” we have seen through the films a young man fighting to understand the nature of the abilities that were thrust upon him and how he can best make use of those powers for good. But Spider-man isn’t Batman, and consistent with the character the movies haven’t tried to move too much into the inner life and explore Parker’s motives. We have seen his sorrow over Ben’s death, and we have seen his failed response to that death. Beyond that, most of the emotional drama that has driven Parker to date has been his struggle to live out his new existence while still living an “ordinary life.”

Spider-man 3 is a worthy, if lesser, successor to its predecessors. $300 million can buy you some eye-popping special effects these days, but it seems it can’t always buy a good editor for a script. While the movie resists the “franchise-killer” label that other superhero “thirds” have embraced (see Batman and Superman for excellent examples), it is still a franchise that is at a crossroads, struggling to make a decision as to whether or not it is going to let these characters grow. Peter and Mary Jane have now secured their place on the list of the most boring romantic couples on the screen, having a relationship that is still marred by a thoroughly adolescent inability to communicate the barest of emotions, and as a result we feel like we’re lost in an endless relationship cycle manufactured by silly misunderstandings. While it may be unfair to simply shout at the characters, “Grow up,” the movie often fails to lets us see them grow at all.

Despite this weakness, Spider-man 3 does give us hints at a deeper voice that makes the film imminently watchable. The film’s three villains, Green Goblin, the Sandman, and Venom, all provoke Spider-man to face three basic issues in his life. In Green Goblin, the identity assumed by Peter’s friend Harry Osborn, Parker must encounter the costs his alter ego has imposed on the people he loves. In this journey, Goblin takes Spider-man on early in the film, and winds up losing his memory. This lets us glimpse at a rejuvenated Harry, freed from his resentment of Peter as he is freed from his memory of Spider-man’s involvement in his father’s death.

Alongside Harry’s story we are introduced to Flint Marko. A fugitive, we see him first on the run from the police, pausing in his run to visit his daughter. After seeing his softer side, we see him stumble into a restricted location into the middle of a radioactive science experiment (always the magic elixir of the Marvel universe). This transforms him into the Sandman, the springboard for some of the movie’s best effects. Oh, and it also turns out that he was also involved in Ben Parker’s murder, a revelation that is laid on Peter as an early piece of the unwinding of his relatively joyful existence.

Our third villain in the rogue’s gallery is Venom/Eddie Brock. Eddie is an ambitious photographer bent on stealing Peter’s job. Venom’s origins remain a mystery in the film, but originates as an alien black oil-like substance that first finds its way to Parker. The parasite tends to act as a symbiote, first attaching itself to a host then magnifying certain characteristics of its host, particularly the aggression within the host. This is key, because it tells us that whatever we see of the people who become victim to the parasite exhibit that which was already within themselves.

For Parker, the parasite’s first victim, it brings out an aggression and anger that we have only briefly glimpsed in previous movies. On the street, he is ridiculously confident, oblivious to the disgust of others at his newfound swagger. In costume, he is angry and aggressive, showing no restraint against his foes. For Brock, the second victim, the effects are even more pronounced. Consumed by anger, he transforms into the character Venom, a vicious parody of Spider-man, set on killing him. Both victims manifest their darker side, and so allow us to glimpse the shadows of their souls.

With the stage set for a grand piece of action, spiritual themes emerge that shape the film in significant ways. Chief of these is the matter of forgiveness. When Ben died, Peter went after the one he assumed was his killer, the one that he failed to stop shortly before Ben’s death in the act of committing a theft. While he wasn’t directly responsible for the thief’s death, Peter blames himself for both deaths. Facing the Sandman in this film, he does his best to kill him, and through all three stories Peter must face his need to forgive. As Aunt May reminds him, the key for Peter is not in forgiving others, but in forgiving himself.

This theme of forgiving oneself is echoed in other recent films. I think especially of The Lookout, a recent suspense film that deals deeply with a character driven by his own failure to forgive himself. In both cases, we see people who shape their lives around the realities of unforgiveness. For Peter, one of his greatest needs in his life is to extend grace to himself, and his failure to do so proves destructive to his most precious relationships. Both films suggest a broader need in our culture to contend with our failure to forgive ourselves for the mistakes of our past.

Along with this theme of forgiveness, we also see the theme of vengeance. This is such a common theme in modern super-hero films, often manifesting the values of the old westerns, that we could often pass on the issue without comment. Here, though, the desire for vengeance is paramount in Peter’s struggles. When Peter learns of Flint’s involvement in Ben’s death, he is consumed with a need to bring him to “justice.” After he assumes that he has done so, he is angry with Aunt May for failing to share in his exuberance. Aunt May reminds him of the limits of “vengeance,” and the need to let go of the pain of the past.

Peter can’t let go, and so we are invited to connect his desire for vengeance with his failure to forgive himself. Indeed, they are the same problem, as Peter can’t forgive either himself or others. He is tied up in the past, and is desperate to know the freedom of forgiveness.

Standing behind these two issues is the issue of sin itself. Actually, sin is not the film’s word, so maybe we should speak of it as “corruption.” The film’s world-view posits that Peter’s desire for vengeance and unforgiving attitude are not character flaws that exist in a vacuum, but are manifestations of a darkness in his soul. Peter doesn’t forgive because there is something within himself that doesn’t want to, a dark spot that revels in the blood lust of vengeance.

The problem with Spider-man 3 is that it doesn’t believe it’s own vision. The film positions itself well in trying to understand the universal corruption of the human soul, that which Christianity calls sin. But what is the solution to that corruption? For the film, the solution lies within Parker himself. Similar to his mantra, Parker comes to see his need to “make good choices,” knowing that bad choices will always prove tempting.

This reveals a basic failure to understand its subject. If Parker has this darkness within himself, if the aggression, anger, and selfishness that we see when he dons the black suit is truly an expression of his deeper urgings, why should we believe that there exists within that same person the ability to “shut it off?” If this corruption is real, than it should effect the whole person, including whatever faculty that Parker must rely on to make that good choice.

It strikes me that the filmmakers are ready to give us a universe that has good and evil, and even see some of that evil lying within ourselves. But they’re not ready to call that evil “sin,” and as such, there is something missing in their moral universe. The Christian view helps us understand Parker’s problem. Through the Christian story, we see Parker’s corruption, made manifest through the alien symbiosis, as the expression of the darkness that we all inherit from the fall. But this problem of sin cannot be solved by ourselves. The darkness is too deep, and it consumes too much of what we have become.

I don’t want to be too hard on the film, because too often Christians believe the same thing that the film does. We don’t like to talk about sin, and at times the church can present the false notion that we are generally decent people in need of minor correction. The gospel story, that we are desperate sinners without hope but for the divine intervention of the cross into our lives, falls away as we present ourselves as morally upright and upstanding citizens. We redefine our moral boundaries so that we can suggest that we generally comply with our diminished moral universe, and can praise God for covering over the slip-ups.

What the we need, and what the film needs, is a deeper understanding of the human condition. Yes, we need to forgive ourselves, and yes, there is a vital connection between our failure to forgive ourselves and our inability to forgive others. But these are merely manifestations of the deeper problem from which we need rescue. At our core, we are in need of transformation, and that transformation must ultimately be found outside of ourselves. We cannot generate it, and we cannot maintain it. We are paupers in need of grace, no matter how good our disguise.

Spider-man 3 understands the need for salvation. Christianity speaks of a need for a Savior. The difference between these two is critical, because in the end we cannot have the former without the latter.

Notes on a Scandal: A Review

2007-05-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

One of the more haunting images of the past few weeks was that of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer, posed in his homemade video with a gun in each hand and a cruel snarl on his face. It was a stark image, especially when taken alongside the initial picture of the expressionless schoolboy that had circulated in the days following the shooting. The university, the Korean-American community, the state and the nation have been left to wonder about the tale of a quiet misfit and his path to mental instability and finally to enraged evil. His pose gives voice to that rage, as it reveals the obsession that he expressed that day on the campus.

But what of that obsession? Is it merely the property of the mentally disturbed, or are others subject to the same lure? Strange as it may seem, Notes on a Scandal, the recent Oscar-nominated film by Richard Eyre, gave me the context to consider this question. Eyre, who himself has a rich background in the British theater, gives us a platform to demonstrate the acting prowess of Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett (both of whom received nominations for their work), and it is their work that stands as the great strength of the film. Dame Dench plays Barbara Covett, who is introduced first as a surly, cynical and unappreciated school teacher. She has long since lost any delusions about her job, and is bored by the machinations of the school process. We hear the world described through her journal, but must measure those words with what we see. They don’t match up.

In contrast to Barbara’s despairing cynicism we have Blanchett’s Sheba Hart, a new art teacher, who is full of life and, while lacking wisdom in the art of teaching, at least brings zeal and passion. Through the quiet use of the camera, we learn immediately that Barbara’s interest in Sheba is more than passing. She is attracted to her, and though masking it with her cool demeanor, slowly finds ways to bring her into her world.

They forge a friendship, and it is through the conversations around this friendship and the rantings from Barbara’s journal that we come to learn that both of them are writing tales about obsession. For Barbara, she conjures up a story of their budding love affair, of the deep and meaningful companionship that they are meant to have together for a lifetime. On the other, we learn of Sheba’s unhappiness with her marriage, her exhaustion at raising two children, one of whom suffers from Down’s Syndrome, and eventually of the pressure she feels because she is the daughter of a famous man. The film slowly sets the stage for her feelings of being trapped, and then, in a wonderfully delivered scene, we learn along with Barbara her terrible secret: She is involved in an affair with one of her 15-year old students.

The scandal is revealed, and Barbara decides to use her knowledge to her advantage. She uses the affair to manipulate Sheba, and then when Sheba rejects her affections, she uses her knowledge to try and bring Sheba down. Soon, both become embroiled in a scandal that is national fodder for the tabloids.

Both women spend their lives constructing a fantasy world that is their means of coping with and escaping from their reality. While Barbara’s lesbianism could be a major focus of the piece, Eyre makes the wise choice to avoid that issue. While Barbara is pursuing this relationship, we get a brief scene between her and her family, where they reference a prior relationship that Barbara had had. They do so with a voice of acceptance, perhaps even approval. This is key, because we could assume that Barbara’s obsession is driven by her lifestyle and the disapproval that society brings. It isn’t, and the acceptance that we see in the film simply drives home the truth that Barbara’s fantasy world is one of her own creation that is made for her own ends. The root cause of her fantasy life is found not in her culture’s constraints, but in her own basic dissatisfaction with life.

But if dissatisfaction is what drives the obsessive retreat into fantasy, what is the cure? For the film, I think the answer is found in one brief scene towards the end. Both Barbara and Sheba’s obsession is brought to life, and both must endure some degree of public shame for the way in which their fantasy failed to comport with reality. But while one eventually simply begins to spin a new tale of fantasy, the other gives us some hope of finding healing, as she embraces her family and the role that they can play in her recovery.

In the end, Scandal provides a fascinating commentary on the private nature of our lives and the negative consequences that this can bring. It is easy in our world to become captives of our technology, our commutes, and the other treasures of our world. We have few friends, more time in the car, and know less about our neighbors with each passing day. And while we can isolate ourselves further and further, we have some of the same basic human weaknesses and human need that we always have had. We have a longing for love and acceptance, for relationships that are meaningful, and for lives that have purpose. Life has a way of challenging each of those needs.

There is a temptation that is alluring for us when we encounter these isolated lives of longing, and it is the temptation that Barbara and Sheba live out in extreme form. That temptation is to live in a fantasy world, whether that fantasy is constructed of material possessions, or success in career, in illicit affairs, or the retreats of the imagination. The cure for them and for us is community. The truth is that we need each other. One of the sources for our own healing from the anxieties, fears, and frustrations that we see in Barbara and Sheba is found in the care and concern we have for each other. Community is the cure, but as Sheba demonstrates, it is a cure that we must submit ourselves to again and again, knowing that there will be much along the way to make us want to retreat.

Of course, this kind of analysis is incomplete, and for every film like Scandal that sees a redemptive role for communities, we can find as many films that will show us destructive communities and the evil that they do. But that is simply a reminder of the need for the community itself to live in submission to Someone higher than itself. See, we don’t just need community. We need the Church, the real Church, not just the easy substitutes that we embrace so often today. Without it, the healing that Barbara and Sheba both need to find will always be incomplete.

Perhaps it seems too easy an answer, but I expect the complexity must be found within it. Christ is the answer, whether it is for Barbara's ramblings, Sheba's malaise or Cho's darkness. He is indeed the hope of the world, and the only object worthy of our deepest affections.

Reign Over Me: A Review

2007-03-29T10:42:00.000-04:00

I'm weary of the nights I've seen inside these empty halls - Jackson Browne

Over the last few days, since walking out of Reign Over Me, my mind has drifted through the past. Gin Rummy with Dave. Luther’s rib night with Sam. Madden ’92 (and ’93 and ‘94) with Kevin and Chris. The X-Files and Spades with Brien, Erik, and Kyle. The Bayou Kitchen with Jeff. Lupie’s, or the gym, or jogging, or a hundred other things with Brett. These are just a few of the friends that have walked through my paths, and some of the things that we did together.

At the core, I don’t think these kinds of associations are wrong when engaging Reign Over Me, because at its core, the movie is a reflection on the healing power of friendship. It introduces us to two men, Alan Johnson and Charlie Fineman, and lets us see the tender place their friendship has in each other’s lives.

Alan Johnson is a man that we have seen before. He’s making his way in his 40’s and is hitting his professional stride. A dentist, he has a successful Manhattan practice, a beautiful wife, and a kid that seems well-adjusted. He’s playing life at the top of his game, and of course, is completely bored with the whole experience. Alan isn’t really facing a midlife crises so much as a midlife malaise, an inability to look within and find what’s wrong when all around him seems to be going so well.

And so Charlie comes into his life. His old college roommate, Alan sees Charlie one night and tries to run him down. He doesn’t, but then sees him again, and so they reestablish their connection. It’s an odd reunion, as the Charlie he meets is a shadow of his old self, lost in a world of grief after losing his family in 9/11. Now, he is a true eccentric, spending his days constantly remodeling his kitchen, playing video games and music, and surrounding himself with his ever-expanding LP collection.

This is “Charlie World,” and for all the plot points that Reign Over Me works through, “Charlie World” is its strength. It is in this world that we get to dwell with these two men, ably played by Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler, as they fight through Charlie’s erratic madness and his inability to rebuild his life to forge a new friendship.

While the movie centers around Charlie, its success is driven in large part because it successfully develops Alan as a fully orbed character. Alan looks to Charlie with charitable eyes, but the reality is that Alan needs Charlie too. Alan loses himself in “Charlie World,” rediscovering pleasure he had long forgotten in evenings playing video games, laughing at Mel Brooks movies, and jamming to Bruce Springsteen records. For Alan, the drive of career and the responsibilities of family had left him forgetting a part of himself, and it is somewhere in the pleasures of these evenings that he starts to remember.

The movie walks a fine line, because the pieces that help Alan rediscover himself are things that could just as easily derail a man in his place. I doubt most readers think of a video game junkie, an obsessive collector, or a movie hound as the stereotype of a well-adjusted adult male. In fact, it is these very pieces that are Charlie’s escapes from reality, the fantasy world he is able to build up around himself to run from the pain that the real world gave him.

But these tools work for Alan, because in the end they aren’t the real salvation. His salvation is found in the redemptive work of real friendship. Alan’s world, with a good career and a great family was incomplete because of a lack of real male friendship. It is through his journey with Charlie that he is able to understand the ways in which he was running his life largely on autopilot, retreating into self-pity and pulling away from the very people he loved most. Charlie spent his life running away from grief, while Alan spent his running away from boredom. They needed each other to figure out how to engage the world again. The friendship that they forge is built on a healthy investment of fun time together, not on a forced and artificial intimacy that is disconnected from the basic pleasures they find in living.

Watching the movie, I was reminded of Fight Club and Lord of the Rings, two movies that have this constant theme of male friendship, as well as Wild at Heart, a book by John Eldredge that deals with “rediscovering the heart” of Christian men. When Eldredge’s book was published, I knew of a few men that misread his work and decided that they needed to spend their weekends rock-climbing to capture the essence of Christian “manliness.” I don’t think that’s what Eldredge was saying, anymore than Fight Club was an invitation to have spontaneous brawls or Lord of the Rings was an invitation to dress in elven cloaks and run to the woods. But the misinterpretations that each of these works brought about only drive home how elusive this concept of friendship, and particularly male friendship, can be.

We are a nation of lonely men. The solitary nature of our work and commuting lives, the declining number of close friendships outside of the family, and the isolating nature of our technologies, leaves far too many of us without real companionship. And no matter how strong our marriages can be, or how devoted we can be to our families, the absence of real male friendship is a hole in our lives for which there is no real substitute.

My favorite moment in Reign Over Me came in a small conversation towards the beginning of an otherwise uneven and derailing third act. While the movie itself started to doubt its own convictions about this larger theme, as it attempted to solve all of the problems in a formulaic and broad manner, it gives us this small conversation between Alan and Charlie. Alan is playing the role of tender friend, speaking with candor about some of his own frustrations with his own life before turning to Charlie’s problems, probing for a way to help his friend. Charlie, looking down and giving a classic Sandler wry grin, says “Man, I’m more worried about you.”
Did you hear that? Charlie, who threw the rest of his life away when tragedy took its best parts, is more worried about his friend who has the success and family that are miles away from Charlie’s life. The success of the movie, though, is that his statement rings true. Friendship does that, making us care more about the other guy than we do about ourselves.

Jesus himself said that the greatest love we can have is to “lay down our lives for our friends.” His vision, a vision which Reign Over Me echoes in the palest of fashions, is that of a self-denying love, a love that finds its greatest satisfaction in the well-being of the other person.

I walked out of the movie (alone, appropriately enough) with a sense of gratitude for the friends that have made their way through my paths, some for a season and some for a lifetime. I miss them, and am reminded that the gadgets that pervade my existence, the priority of family and ministry, and the tyranny of busyness, schedules, traffic and excuses must not keep me from pursuing that basic need for male friendship, a need for which there is simply no substitute.

Anyone up for barbecue?

300: A Review

2007-03-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

300 is a difficult movie to review. I got into the experience, which is primarily a 2 hour testosterone-fueled adventure. Perhaps the most faithful response to the experience would be to simply offer a pronounced, guttural roar and move on. Certainly that response would be consistent with the intent of the marketing machine behind the movie, and perhaps of the director’s purposes.

The source material for 300 is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, a beloved comic book artist turned film director. That the movie grounds itself in the graphic novel rather than the famous Battle of Thermopylae, where a Spartan-led small army held off the Persian army for days, is significant to understand the movie’s ways. Miller made a name for himself in the world of graphic novels (read “comic books” for the less sympathetic) as a master of mood, drawing people into his worlds and stories through visceral art that captured the imagination, at times regardless of the strength of the story he was telling. This emphasis on the visual, a major reason why the comic book medium itself translates well into blockbuster films, comes through in 300. The movie is exciting storytelling, building on the fascinating and unique images from Miller’s work, much like Miller and Robert Rodriguez accomplished in the masterful Sin City, but expanding on the novel with a more interesting back story and character than the book originally offered.

That being said, historians will no doubt scoff at the picture. The movie takes huge liberties with the events themselves, the characters who played a part, and the cultures in view. Indeed, it is this last part that is currently catching the world’s attention, as the Iranian press proclaimed that “Hollywood declares war on Iran” through its depiction of the Persian Empire and its king. For those who have a love for history or an affinity for the cultures that are this movie’s villains, there are a lot of toes to step on, and 300 dances away.

But 300 doesn’t dance on these toes merely to offend, as these realities are a byproduct of the efforts to turn the participants in the Battle of Thermopylae into caricatures of heroes and villains. The Spartans are intensely devoted and passionate warriors, creating a culture that is perfectly geared to fight. King Leonidas, our film’s hero, is a passionate idealist, devoted to the freedom of Sparta and to his wife and child. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the other 300, is centered around their fight for freedom, for the triumph of “rationalism” over “mysticism.” The heroes of 300 wear no warts, and present a courage that is as sculpted as their bodies.

The villains also are as simple to understand. The Persian army is literally held up on the backs of slaves. Xerxes, the giant God-King, draped in gold and speaking with a thundering bass voice, reminds us of this as he steps on the slaves heads and backs as he walks down his “stairs” to meet Leonidas. Sexuality becomes one of the ways 300 depicts good and evil, as the Persians offer a decadent culture with apparent widespread homosexuality. One of the Spartans even makes reference to the Athenian “boy-lovers,” presenting us with the Spartans as the one noble, and heterosexual, culture. This, too, is a complete change from the historical realities for the Spartan culture. But this isn’t about their culture anymore. It is about ours.

What makes a hero? This is a question that could be asked of many movies, and especially of the summer, blockbuster fare (of which this movie fits in extraordinarily well). For 300, that answer lies in the clarity of conviction, in a courage to stand, in passionate love within monogamous (and apparently, heterosexual) relationships. Within Sparta, evil is found in the mystics who rely on superstition (that is, religion) rather than logic, in politicians who use their power to pursue their own ends at the expense of their people, and a deformed traitor who refuses to accept his place supporting the Spartan army.

These are clear lines that I expect many would resonate with, so long as it is not their own ancient culture that is the object of the caricature. These clear lines and defined roles make for enjoyable movie-viewing. It is fun at times to escape into a world where the lines between hero and villain are so easy to see, and all that is left is for the hero to draw the only line that he can draw. This is unambiguous and a place where good can triumph before the credits roll.
The Iranian response to the film, misguided though it may be, is a reminder of the limits of this hero’s journey. The reality that we live in rarely offers the kind of clarity that 300 depicts. The mistake comes when we attempt to draw the untextured reality of a world like this and bring it into our own world. Our current political climate, which seems to be sustained on polarization and radically simplified analysis of the world, commits this exact kind of mistake every day, as it asks us to divide the world into heroes and villains, to see the issues we face with a black-and-white clarity, and to stand firm against the evil that we face.

It is not that I disagree with this last value, only that I question my clarity on the first two. I want the kind of courage, loyalty, and heroic faith that Leonidas and the heroes of 300 embody. But I want to bring that character into a world where the politics are complex, and where my personal call is to love my enemies and to demonstrate to the world the love of God through the love that I have for other people. The “cowboy” hero, which is what the 300 hero embodies, has little room for these kinds of values, and so my search for heroism must go deeper, and will look different, than the heroes that emerge from the vivid world of the big screen. It is not, then, that 300 fails, in fact in many ways it is a great success. It is only that is asking questions that need deeper answers than what it is prepared to offer. Some of our answers will be written with periods rather than exclamation points, and most won't need a roar to accompany them.

Zodiac: A Review

2007-03-15T10:34:00.000-04:00

There is a moment later in the movie Zodiac where Robert Graysmith, the political cartoonist turned self-appointed investigator, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up at the home of Inspector David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo. Energetically offering ideas and asking questions about the investigation of a serial killer now several years stale, he is rebuffed by the detective, who asks him if he knows how many murders have been committed in the San Francisco area since the Zodiac killer’s last murder. “Hundreds,” the inspector answers his own question. Hundreds of grieving families. Hundreds of killers to bring to justice. Hundreds of cases with the same degree of importance as the case that both fascinates, then consumes, then haunts these men. Why, then, should they continue to chase trails that grow ever colder in pursuit of a resolution that may never be found?

This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.

It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.

Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.

The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.

Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.

In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.

And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.

The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.

Breach: A Review

2007-02-21T19:44:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the most important image from the movie Breach is prayer. “Pray more” is the answer given by Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who was arrested in 2001 for selling information to the Soviet Union and to Russia over at least 15 years, to Eric O’Neill, the young agent recruited to aid Hanssen’s investigation, over the stress he was experiencing in his job. “Pray for me” Hanssen cries after he is caught. Indeed, Hanssen does just that, as we see him praying throughout the film, prayers that only reveal the haunted nature of his life. We are told the outcome at the beginning of the film, and so even those that don’t know the history can engage the film with a sense of doom as we watch this duplicitous character’s life unfold.

The Hanssen of the movie appears to be a deeply religious person. He attends daily mass, and speaks with disapproval on O’Neill’s comment about an attractive woman. He is deeply concerned about O’Neill’s Catholic faith and about the faith and church membership of O’Neill’s wife, a disinterested Protestant. He is devoted to his wife, loved by his grandchildren, and offers a faith that informs his conversation, and changes how he acts in his daily life. He is the model of a “good Catholic,” and a good Christian.

Of course, there is an edge to this brand of faith. He is stern in his discipline, and looks down on those that don’t share his discipline. While he would fiercely fend off various sins, he seems victim to the fundamental sin of pride. In this, he fits a Hollywood stereotype, a judgmental Christian, devoted in his faith and dismissive of lesser versions. That, of course, and the hypocrisy that underlies his very existence. For all the surface faith and practice, Hanssen is a master at betrayal. He betrays his country, selling secrets while persuading himself he is a patriot for doing so, and betraying his wife, videotaping their sexual encounters and mailing them to others, and describing their sexual encounters online. He betrays those closest to him as a matter of course, leaving us to make sense of this complex character.

The script frames the story around O’Neill’s slow discovery of these details. While Ryan Phillipe does a good job in this role, it is Chris Cooper’s Robert Hanssen that is the real interest. The movie does not want to answer the question that most of us wonder about most, that is, the question of why. Instead, we are exposed to glimpses of the duplicity and the at times conflicting reasons that Hanssen might give. He is obviously bitter at a career route that left him behind, while the ones with more personality succeeded. He reveals an arrogance about his own capabilities that his long success as a mole would seem to confirm. But in all of this, there is a captivity, as Hanssen appears haunted by something that hours of mass, prayer and confession can’t quite cure.

As I said, the Hanssen of Breach is a Hollywood stereotype, a hypocritical Christian who substitutes integrity for judgment. Of course, the challenge in the stereotype is that in this case it is largely true. The real Robert Hanssen did attend mass daily, did speak of an intensely serious faith, did betray his country for most of his 25-year career, and did betray his wife. He was a man of contradictions, contradictions that challenge us to explain this conflict.
Hanssen invites us to deepen our own understanding of duplicity. The testimony of the Christian faith is that the darkness of human sin is a universal reality. We should all expect to encounter duplicity in ourselves because we are simultaneously sinner and saint, the battleground for the war between human depravity and the redeeming work of the Holy Spirit. While Scripture testifies that this war has a clear end in the lives of Christians, it is a war that is experienced with great intensity while we endure it.

It is interesting to consider that Hanssen’s time at mass, and his apparent devotion to the church may have had little to do with a front. Is it possible that his faith was genuine? That in that time at mass or in confession, he was seeking an escape from himself? Perhaps Hanssen offers us a glimpse at the difference, once known in Christian circles but now often overlooked, between an authentic seeker and an authentic disciple. It is possible that Hanssen was the former, though the fruit in his life casts serious doubts on whether he was the latter.

We live with a temptation in the modern church of reducing faith to simple decisions and clean processes that people can follow. The problem with this, the problem that Breach exposes, is that sin is deeper than this, and can’t reliably be uprooted from the human soul through mechanistic processes. The freedom from the kind of duplicity that defines Hanssen’s life requires a supernatural work, a work that offers a far deeper vision of transformation that Hanssen ever found in his hours of devotion.

The "Rubbish" of Culture

2007-02-08T15:52:00.000-05:00

I returned last night from three days in Minneapolis, attending the 2007 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, sponsored by Bethlehem Baptist Church and Desiring God Ministries (http://www.desiringgod.org/Events/PastorsConferences/2007). It was a gathering of about 1300 Calvinist pastors from a variety of denominations. When I got on the plane to head up there, it was -16 in Minneapolis. It gave me a whole new meaning of the term “Frozen chosen” (drum roll, please).

The theme was “The Holiness of God,” and featured R.C. Sproul. One of Sproul’s most popular of his 60 books is a book by the same title, so he has made the rounds for years giving talks on the theme. I’d heard him give talks on the same texts with similar themes before, but nonetheless found the time immensely encouraging. Walking among missional Calvinists like Sproul and Piper, who share a deep love for the Puritans and for the doctrines of grace, is to breath rich air. The speakers, and so many of the pastors I spoke to, emanate a love for God and a desire to see a deeper form of the faith take hold among their people. It was powerful to join in a chorus of voices from across various denominations that share a penetrating vision for their churches and their people. I certainly left encouraged.

One of the more interesting points in the week came on the last day. Each year, one of the speakers focuses on the theme of mission. This year featured William Mackenzie, a Scottish pastor who is doing a marvelous work from the UK to distribute Christian literature throughout the world. He told story after story of the power of good Christian books, and the need for people to read more, and to read more quality works. It is his passion and mission to put some of these quality works into their hands.

The fascinating point came as he offered his assessment of contemporary culture. As one might expect from an advocate for reading, one of his great enemies was television and film. He cited the current box office numbers in England for the movie Borat, and pointed the number of people who were seeing this movie. He even pointed out (shock!) that he PERSONALLY spoke to a pastor (yes, that’s a Christian pastor!) who had not only SEEN the movie, but thought it was hilarious! Hilarious, even though the movie was “rubbish!” (please fill in your best Scottish brogue to complete the experience).

How marvelous. There is nothing like hearing a Scotsman call something rubbish and mean it. While I found the rest of the talk illuminating, I pondered over this comment for awhile. He got a few “amens” on the comment, and no doubt many more were nodding their heads in agreement, but I wonder if he went for too much in his example.

I’ve seen Borat. I, too, found it hilarious. Many parts were indeed “rubbish,” though I don’t think me saying it has quite the same impact. But there was something underneath the offensive content that was provoking. In the course of his guerilla comedy, Sacha Baron Cohen provided a context for people to expose a piece of themselves they may not always want to show in public. And, in the midst of theaters full of laughter, America blushed. He exposed the xenophobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism that winds its way through our culture. These are undercurrents that rear their head at times, but perhaps don’t always get the raw kind of exposure he was able to bring out in his shocking, and at times offensive, comedy.

Mackenzie’s analysis of culture was to point out the shallowness of our culture, and the need for more reading of better books as a part of the cure. I support his prescription, but expect that there is more that is needed. Borat may actually be part of the solution, not part of the problem. There is power in comedy, and there is power in film that is simply different from the power of the written word. Ellison’s Invisible Man is certainly more profound, and offers the ability to change lives in a way Borat can’t, but Borat may provoke people to laugh at racism, or whatever “-ism” it points its finger at. Somewhere in that mockery is something that may guide people to the right place to start exposing the darker corners of their own heart to the Light.

There has been something of a renewed interest in Reformed theology over the last few decades, and it has created a rich and vibrant community of Christians who share a theological commitment and are trying to live out that commitment in their own faith communities. There is a great challenge within this community to read the works of great thinkers of the past, and to bring “dead” theology alive and let it live in this culture. I walk with them into that place, but there is a danger in this process of dismissing the culture entirely. I’m not ready to do that. The answers that the culture offers are always imperfect, and many times just complete “rubbish.” But sometimes the questions they’re asking are the right ones to be asking. That alone makes the conversation worth having.

Broken Trail: A Review

2007-02-02T15:49:00.000-05:00

“Never judge wealth with money.” - Prentice Ritter

It is a dangerous to typecast an actor with as storied and diverse career as Robert Duvall. Nonetheless, his work in Broken Trail, a movie/mini-series produced by AMC for its cable station, is a significant contribution to a body of work that have included rich characters that embody grace. His Oscar-winning performance in Tender Mercies as Mac Sledge, an alcoholic country music singer, gave us a man who finds peace and healing in the quiet ministry of grace through a gentle Christian woman and her son. He gave us a powerful statement of the way grace can work its way into the most flawed of lives through the character of Sonny “The Apostle” Dewey, a murderer/adulterer/preacher who somehow finds himself back in conversation with the God that he continues to let down. Now, he gives us Prentice Ritter, a turn-of-the-century cowboy, who embodies a tale of grace that is rare and noteworthy in contemporary cinema.

The story begins in California, with Prentice showing up at a ranch where his nephew Tom, played with elegance by Thomas Haden Church, is working as a hand. He tells him that his mother has died, and that she, for reasons we learn over time, has left the farm and all of her modest wealth to Prentice. He makes a proposition, borrowing money against the farm to purchase a herd of young horses to drive to Wyoming, where a buyer waits with the promise of a rich reward. Tom agrees, and they set out on their ride across the rugged West.

Their journey is interrupted by another traveller, this one a mercenary who is carrying five young Chinese girls who have been purchased in the underground slave market of California. They are making their way to a small mining town, where they will become a lucrative part of the prostitution business of “Big Rump Kate” (certainly one of the great names of recent film).

Through a series of events, “Uncle Prentice” and Tom free the girls, and so the journey begins in earnest, as what was once a business venture becomes a string of interruptions, where they encounter one challenge after another. It is Ritter’s response to these interruptions that not only form the life of the movie’s dramatic tensions, but also reveal his true heart. Playing true to the cowboy stereotype, Ritter says so little, it can at times seem hard to understand what is going on in his head. But his actions speak true, and over time we see him unwittingly building a family. When given the opportunity to go with the law, the girls beg him not to turn them over, instead wanting to stay with him.

Others enter into this family, including a wounded prostitute played by Greta Scacchi, who gives us a tired woman, weary from her personal trail of tears. It is in the presence of Prentice that she begins to find renewed hope, and life that did not seem possible.

The story avoids many of the cliches it could have followed, but the power in the adventure lies centrally in Duvall’s performance and the character of Prentice Ritter. He is a man who treats the “slings and arrows” that life throws his way as opportunities, and with the simple consistent response of a wise kindness, he brings life, and turns strangers into friends and family, then changes their lives for the better.

Ritter carries his own wounds, and even as we see those revealed, they only serve to enhance our admiration for the grace that has survived and thrived in him despite, and perhaps at times because of, the sorrow that life has brought him. He at times clings to that sorrow, which robs him of joy that he could otherwise have known. And so we see his weakness, and we are reminded of his humanity. But grace can thrive even in flawed people, and Ritter becomes a great testament to that truth.

It has been awhile since we’ve seen a powerful Western. This is perhaps the best since Eastwood’s Unforgiven, and each are in their own way offering a challenge to the American Western monomyth that often celebrates rugged individualism and the power of a “justice of vengeance.” Ritter moves through this tough land with a wisdom that allows him to survive. But he rises above his world, and somehow still has a heart that survives the ravages of the Western sun.

The stories that we saw of Mac and Sonny allowed us to focus on their challenges and the ways in which they experienced redemption in the midst of their mistakes. Ritter’s story shows us a life that is pouring out grace to others. He draws people to himself by emanating this kindness. Indeed, he is in many ways the kind of person that I want to be.

Broken Trail is a movie that deserves to rise above its genre, and certainly rises far above what we normally expect from a cable television mini-series. Most importantly, it offers yet another extraordinary example of what a life transformed by Christ looks like. Duvall, regardless of his own personal faith commitments, has given us at least three of these examples. We are richer because he has done so.