The Catholic Report on Brian Flemming's Claims That Jesus Didn't Exist
Brian Flemming continues his campaign to explain to the world why he's positive that Jesus never existed. And The Catholic Report is there to document his progress.
It's funny, the timing of this project. It seems like we're seeing every possible attack on Christ's credibility (or existence) at once, as if audiences will be happy to accept any alternatives to the truth, even if those alternatives contradict each other entirely.
(via Mark Shea, of course)
Adam Walter Really, Really Doesn't Like the Narnia Film
So anyway, yes, I finally got out and saw Narnia. What a waste of time. It's one of the few really boring films of 2005. It's hard to say all of what went wrong--I don't have the time or enthusiasm to compile such a list, frankly. For some reason, the filmmakers felt a need to deviate from Lewis' story on a multitude of details regarding plot, dialogue, setting, character & motivation. Nearly every scene loses its way in a muddle of unnecessary confusion. This was as much a full travesty of adaptation as was Garth Jennings' odious The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"The New World" Conundrum
Okay... I'm stuck.
Most critics groups, and the Oscars, will consider Terrence Malick's "The New World" a 2005 release, because it screened for some critics a few weeks ago.
But the final cut, which is much shorter, includes footage that wasn't in the longer cut, and is apparently quite a different film altogether, was just finished a few days ago... in 2006.
So what do I do?
Is this my favorite film of 2005... which it is, if it must be listed as a 2005 release?
Or shall I go ahead and call it a 2006 film... in which case it's very likely I've just seen my favorite film of 2006?
My full review will be at Christianity Today Movies on Friday.
The Image Film Festival Starts Friday!
If you can get to Seattle this weekend, you should be sure to catch the Image Film Festival.
Click the picture to see a larger version of the poster.
Click here for information about the event, which should feature some challenging discussions.
Mark Steyn is Right about "Brokeback Mountain"
Thanks to Peter Chattaway for alerting me to this review of Brokeback Mountain by Mark Steyn, which sums up why this big screen emperor has no clothes.
Caution: One obscenity included.
I like Ms Proulx's books not because of the characters or the plots but because she's spent much of her life roaming the same turf I have -- Vermont, Quebec, Newfoundland -- and she's got a tremendous ability to capture the essence of the land, and in particular the way a harsh land shapes the character of its people. She began writing fiction in the Seventies, for Gray's Sporting Journal, which wanted hunting stories about men called Zack, and she co-founded a local newspaper in my part of the world called Behind The Times ("All The News That's Kept Till Now"), and in both she did a better job than most liberal progressive artsy types do of accepting country folk as they are. "I lean toward realism, not myth," she says.
But when you take a short story and make a movie of it realism turns all mythic. For a start, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar become two rising male stars -- Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. You get a big orchestral score and tag lines on the posters ("Love Is A Force Of Nature") and, though the western literary tradition is not just Zane Grey and Bret Harte but also Willa Cather, when you put your fellows up on screen in cowboy hats on horses against the big sky of Wyoming, it looks far more explicitly like a gay take on the manliest of Hollywood genres: Queer Eye For The Straight-Shootin' Guy.
[ snip ]And from that point on the film settles down into not so much a "gay western" but a gay version of Same Time Next Year: the kids get older, the Sixties become the Seventies, Ennis divorces, Jack grows a moustache, but they still go up the hill thrice a year for "a couple of high-altitude fucks", as he puts it. Which, to be honest, is a better summation of their relationship than "Love Is A Force Of Nature".
In fact, across two-and-a-quarter hours, there's not a lot of evidence of "love", as opposed to a much-needed sexual release. For its urban audiences, Brokeback is a new wrinkle on one of the oldest gay fantasies: the masculine man who likes sex with men. So it's a gay love story with ungaylike protagonists -- Straight Eye For The Queer Guy. In the distaff answer to lezzie porn for het men, for the gals it's a gabby chick flick with uncommunicative tough guys.
But by the end of a bleak portrait of failed lonely lives, with one of the lads cheating on the other with ranch-managers and Mexican rent-boys, you're not even sure how gay-friendly the thing is: are the men bad uninterested parents because society's forced them to live a lie or because they're the sad self-destructive prisoners of their sexual appetites? And, if it's such a "bold" "courageous" "ground-breaking" film, isn't it a little ridiculous that a gay male love story has Miss Richards and Miss Hathaway both baring their breasts with straight abandon while Messrs Ledger and Gyllenhaal's penises remain discreetly tucked away? Instinctively, Ang Lee seems to understand that even this film's audience wants to keep some things closeted.
Specials: Allende & Walden; Slamming "End of the Spear"
Tuesday specials:
The New York Times looks at Walden Media's Isabel Allende project.
The Village Voice seeks to impale End of the Spear, the new film based on the famous and true missionary story Through Gates of Splendor.
Coy crypto-Christian claptrap masquerading as feel-good ethnography, End of the Spear is part missionaries-in-peril potboiler (sans pot) and part Bush-era evangelical screed. It's the kind of oversweet cinematic Kool-Aid they used to force-feed us in Sunday school....
......its Davey and Goliath dogmatism comes through as loud and clear as the sinister subtext behind its message of nonviolence—that the world's nonwhite, "undeveloped" cultures continue to require prophylactic doses of Yank benevolence in order to survive and thrive.
Yikes!
Who Will Star in Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow"?
Thanks to Beth Rambo for alerting me to the latest on the film adaptation of The Sparrow, one of my favorite sci-fi novels.Read more
Where the Golden Globes Went Right or Wrong
As the results come in, I'll be listing the decisions that make some sense, and the decisions that make no sense at all... (And some I'll be ignoring because I don't care.)
YES
Best Television Series - Drama - Lost
You'd better believe it! It stumbles from time to time, but it's full of surprises, great characters, and the sensational cast makes even the forgettable episodes worth watching.
Best Actor, Drama - Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Fan. Tastic. This really is one of the great performances of the year, and the best from this group of nominees.
Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In A Series, Mini-Series Or
Motion Picture Made For Television - Paul Newman - Empire Falls
Justice! Newman's performance made Empire Falls worth watching. He is a joy to watch in this movie.
Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series - Drama Hugh Laurie - House
Brilliant. Laurie's performance makes this show one of the most engaging on television. Has a British actor ever done a better American accent? Has a hospital show ever been so consistently surprising?
Best Mini-Series Or Motion Picture Made For Television - Empire Falls
Okay. It's a decent film, but Newman's so much fun in it that I'm happy to see it win.
Best Performance By An Actor In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy - Steve Carell - The Office
YEEEESSSSS!!! Okay, so it's a ripoff of a British series, but Carrell and the rest of the cast have made it something unique.
Best Actress, Musical/Comedy - Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
In a year that's painfully low on great performances by lead actresses, Witherspoon gave one of the few worth noticing.
NO
Best Picture Drama - Brokeback Mountain
Far, far, far from the best film. Sure, the performances are strong. Yeah, the scenery's pretty. But if you're one of the folks who voted for it, I'd love to hear you explain why this is a better movie than... oh... Millions, A History of Violence, Tony Takitani, 2046, Broken Flowers, Capote, Munich, Downfall, Nobody Knows, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana, The Squid and the Whale, Pride and Prejudice, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Winter Solstice, or... heck, even Batman Begins! For starters.
Best Actor, Musical/Comedy - Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
It's not a musical. It's not a comedy. What's it doing in this category?
Best Director - Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
It's his least creative, least interesting film, popular primarily for its political momentum.
Best Supporting Actress - Rachel Weisz, Contant Gardener
Strange choice, especially when the only thing almost every critic agrees about is that Michelle Williams is heartbreakingly good in Brokeback Mountain. I love Weisz, and since I met her in L.A., my admiration has quadrupled. But she'll do bigger, better work in the future.
Best Supporting Actor - George Clooney, Syriana
He was very, very good, yes; and of these nominees, he's the best. But what happened to Ed Harris and William Hurt from A History of Violence? Two unforgettable performances.
Best Television Series - Musical Or Comedy - Desperate Housewives
Bleccch.
Best Screenplay - Brokeback Mountain
NO! In a year of many good screenplays, the writing for this film was nothing particularly special. I'll be saying this a lot in the coming days, but if you sit down and watch a double feature of Brokeback Mountain and Millions, or Brokeback Mountain and Walk the Line, or Brokeback Mountain and Cache, or Brokeback Mountain and A History of Violence, you'll start to see through all of this hype.
Best Original Song - "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" -- Brokeback Mountain Music By: Gustavo Santaolalla Lyrics By: Bernie Taupin
Best Original Score - John Williams - Memoirs Of A Geisha
His score for Munich was better.
Interesting
Best Performance By An Actor In A Mini-Series Or A Motion Picture Made For Television - Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Elvis
Huh. So, they're celebrating Meyers as Elvis. Will they celebrate Phoenix as Johnny Cash?
Best Foreign Language Film - Paradise Now
Really? Haven't seen it yet, but is it better than Cache? 2046? Kings and Queen?
Cory Edwards Joins Derrickson and Gibson with a Rare Achievement. Plus, Narnia DVD and Walden Media news.
Cory Edwards, former director of contemporary Christian music videos, just watched his first feature film, the animated Weinstein picture Hoodwinked!, win the weekend box office race.
Congratulations, Cory! You're in very rare company, being the first professing Christian to make a #1 movie since Scott Derrickson did it with The Exorcism of Emily Rose!
Of course, being #1 is just a blessing. What really matters is whether or not the movie is good. I've seen Hoodwinked!, and I recommend it. It's a hoot AND a holler, and it features the most memorable mountain goat the screen has ever seen.
And speaking of popular movies based on stories written by believers...
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will be available for your DVD player on April 4, according to NarniaWeb.
And speaking of films made by Walden Media, here's a peek at what they're doing next... (Hint: Any fans of Isabel Allende out there?)
The Online Film Critics Society awards: The Rotten Tomatoes gang decides!
Wow... some real surprises here.
And a few of the names that got my votes WON!
Best Director: David Cronenberg, “A History of Violence”
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Capote”
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, “Walk the Line”
Best Supporting Actor: Mickey Rourke, “Sin City”
Best Supporting Actress: Maria Bello, “A History of Violence”
Best Original Screenplay: “Good Night and Good Luck,” George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Brokeback Mountain,” Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana, based on L. Annie Proulx’ short story
Best Cinematography: “Sin City,” Robert Rodriguez
Best Editing: “Sin City,” Robert Rodriguez
Best Score: “Brokeback Mountain,” Gustavo Santaolalla
Best Documentary: “Grizzly Man”
Best Foreign-Language Film: “Downfall” (Germany)
Best Animated Feature: “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”
Breakthrough Filmmaker: Paul Haggis, “Crash”
Breakthrough Performance: Owen Kline, “The Squid and the Whale”