Is Ned Flanders Your Role Model?
Here's Peter T. Chattaway musing about just how much Ned Flanders' role in The Simpsons Movie has impressed some Christian media personalities.
Is Ned *your* role model?Read more
Stereo Subversion's Over the Rhine Interview
Stereo Subversion has a new interview with Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine...
Mother Teresa, Scott Cairns, and the Holy Struggle
Jesus has a very special love for you. (But) as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves (in prayer) but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have (a) free hand.
- Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979
That's the hook at the front of next week's TIME Magazine cover story.
And the following article by David Van Biema has me intrigued...Read more
Once (2007)
On the streets of Dublin, a guitar-wielding singer/songwriter (Glen Hansard, lead singer of The Frames) is just trying to make a living, belting out favorites for the passers-by. But at night, he performs powerful songs of his own, tearing open his own broken heart for anyone who will listen.
In the opening scene of John Carney's film Once, that's exactly what this singer is doing — singing as if his life depends on it. It takes about 30 seconds, and the audience is riveted by his intensity and passion. And a couple of minutes later, the singer finds himself in an unexpectedly hilarious chase to recover the tools of his trade.
It's one of the fundamental rules of great storytelling — make us care about, and like, your main character, rough edges and all. And Carney does that effortlessly. This engaging, down-on-his-luck performer, whose name is never revealed, and who happens to have a day job as a vacuum-cleaner repairman, is not likely to make it big anytime soon. But no matter... he's wins our hearts, and we'll follow him anyway.
Against all odds, it happens again a few minutes later.
Enter "the Girl" (Markéta Irglová, a Czech actress who should have no trouble finding roles elsewhere). She's a spirited young lass who happens upon "the Guy" during one of his curbside performances. She likes his style, and has something of her own to add to the musical mix.
And who would have guessed? She's got a broken vacuum cleaner… and he repairs them!
Date movies don't get more romantic and inspiring than Once. It's an unsentimental story of new love, creative collaboration, and tough reality-checks. As "Guy" and "Girl" — we never learn their names — strike sparks that rise into fiery emo-rock performances, we're rooting for them all the way. Will they make a hit record? Will they break loose from their troubling past relationships and run away together?
In scenes so naturalistic that they seem more real than "reality TV," we're drawn into jam sessions, late-night heart-to-heart conversations, family dinners, studio recording sessions, and lonely nights while the lovebirds wonder where this is all going to lead.
Whatever you think of the conclusion, you'll be recommending this simple, near-perfect little gem to all of your friends, whether they like musicals or not. Once steers clear of the stagy spectacle we associate with big screen musicals — you'll never hear this movie compared to Hairspray — and goes straight for the heart with subtlety and realism. The songs have contagious melodies, and although a couple of them are overused by the end of the movie, the singers convince us that they're being sung, yes, from the heart... but also from personal histories.
And those histories have something to offer. This isn't a love story about hormones and frivolous misunderstandings. It's about being real, sharp edges and all, and finding someone who will listen and understand that. It's about bonding through honesty and trust. And it is bold enough to suggest that art can be the language through which we see each other best.
After it's over, you'll have a hard time shaking off the notion that Guy and Girl are still out there, somewhere, jamming up a storm.
And by the end of the year, Once will be the movie doomed to lose at the Oscars but destined to live on in everyone's hearts.
God Grew Tired of Us (2007)
You may have to remind yourself, as you watch God Grew Tired of Us, that Daniel Abol Pach, Panther Blor, and John Bul Dau are not fictional characters. Their circumstances are so dramatic and severe, it's hard to imagine the memories they carry, and even harder to imagine how the world seems to them after experiencing such trama as they, and the other“Lost Boys of Sudan,” have experienced.
And that's the other thing: It strains credulity to imagine the unlikely survival and new-world experiences of these three. Now try to comprehend that there are 25,000 boys ages three to thirteen who fled Sudan’s civil war and made a five-year journey across the desert to a U.N. refugee camp in Kenya. Almost half of those who fled Sudan were lost to disease, malnutrition, and the desert’s other dangers. But Daniel, Panther, and John survived, and God Grew Tired of Us, a new film from Newmarket Films and National Geographic Films, tells their story.
Filmed by Christopher Quinn and Tommy Walker, and narrated by Nicole Kidman, the movie describes the story of the Lost Boys’ ordeal. But it also documents their next incredible journey to America. We watch as they are welcomed to new homes and jobs in a world beyond anything they’ve imagined. Electric lights! Apartment buildings! Bags of potato chips! (Note: Even refugees dislike airline food.) Rummaging through a refrigerator, the boys are delighted to find a bottle of Pepsi. “We have this in our country. Only there it is called … Coca-cola!”
This new life brings hardships of its own — loneliness, alienation, confusion. But the Lost Boys work together to preserve a sense of their African identity, and their Christian faith gives them comfort and hope. Applying themselves to the daunting challenges of factory jobs and education in a second language, they strive to serve their friends and families back in Africa. “This is my duty,” says one of the determined survivors. “My people have hope in me.”
Every victory is hard-won. But the Lost Boys’ gratitude for simple things will humble those of us accustomed to comfort and opportunity. And their endurance, ambition, and compassion should inspire us — they achieve more in a few years than many of us do in a lifetime.
Kate DiCamillo's Back!
Kate DiCamillo has joined the short list of my all-time favorite storytellers, and this year she's releasing a new book on my birthday!
Not familiar with DiCamillo?
Start with The Tiger Rising, a heartbreaking masterpiece, and then read The Tale of Despereaux (quick, before it becomes a movie).
Over the Rhine, Reviewed by Thom Jurek
Here's Thom Jurek's review of Over the Rhine's The Trumpet Child.
Jurek, like Andy Whitman, is one of the music critics whose reflections always challenge, inform, and inspire me... even when I disagree.
His review of The Trumpet Child is sharp and full of references to send you scurrying about and discovering the treasure troves that inspired Over the Rhine to make this music. He singles out a couple of tracks he wishes they'd left off. Me, I would have made different selections... but that is often the case with OTR listeners.
Jurek would probably include me in what he calls "the devotional wilderness of [Over the Rhine's] cult." And I suppose that's not far from the truth. I am an enthusiastic fan, because their music has had a profound influence on my life and led me into an appreciation of genres and traditions and artists I would otherwise have missed. One song in particular I can honestly say "changed my life." And I've ordered the vinyl version of this album, just so I can frame that beautiful cover and hang it up. (I do, however, insist on writing about the aspects of their albums that don't work for me... and always have. I'm not going to slavishly celebrate anything they record.)
I've written two reviews of The Trumpet Child: One will be in the next print issue of Christianity Today, and then I've contributed some more thoughts on the album to the next issue of Risen.
And by the way... for you poetry readers out there... Karin Bergquist has admitted that the great poet Scott Cairns inspired a line on this album. Can you figure out which line that is?
"Days of Heaven": The Criterion DVD
Best DVD news in a while!
Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven is coming to The Criterion Collection. And what an intriguing development... it's a going to have a new look.
Can the director's cut of The New World be far behind? Please, Criterion, please...
Thursday Food for Thought: free lunchtime readings at Seattle Pacific University
Seattle Pacific University has begun hosting readings and booksignings at the SPU Library, and they're open to the public.
I'm clipping from the calendar here, just so you know what's coming up...Read more
A Reader Comments on Focus on the Family's Rejection of Harry Potter
I received this note from a reader in response to something I mentioned in my review of Stardust:
After following the Focus on the Family link about Harry Potter in the Looking Closer review of Stardust, I went to Focus's homepage, and the first story was Dr. Dobson talking about the dearth of examples of sacrificial heroes in today's culture.
Sometimes I like irony, sometimes it just makes me sad.
I have nothing to add to that.
Oh, by the way, I've written a review of the latest Harry Potter movie, but haven't had a chance to post it yet. Stay tuned, I'll get to it eventually...
(P.S. Someone has complained that the above contains a spoiler. But the quote only implies that the story has something to say about sacrificial heroes. It doesn't name any sacrificial heroes, nor does it say anything about the nature of any kind of sacrifice made in the story. It only implies that the Potter story has something to say about sacrificial heroes. I don't think that's really a spoiler.)