"Don't Come Knockin'" - Wenders and Shephard together again.
Wish I was at Cannes. Here's FilmStew's J Sperling Reich...
Over 20 years after the German filmmaker collaborated with renowned playwright Sam Shepard on Paris, Texas, the two reunite for Don't Come Knocking. This time, though, Shepard actually stars in the film as well. "To have Sam in front of the camera is one of my oldest desires as a filmmaker," admitted Wenders. "This time I didn't ask and that was a sneaky thing of me. After a few scenes, he mentioned sort of casually, 'By the way, I think I can kind of play this.' So I never had to say I would kill him if he hadn't."
Shepard plays Howard Spence, a down-and-out actor best known for his westerns. Well into his middle age, Spence combats his loneliness with plenty of booze, drugs and young women. For no apparent reason, he runs away from the set of the movie he is presently on and heads off to visit his mother in Elko, Nevada. Thing is, he hasn't seen his mother in 30 years. His mother informs him that a couple of decades back a woman called her looking for him, as she was pregnant with his son. Of course, Spence was unaware of any son, but decides to set out to find him in Montana. He does indeed find Doreen (Jessica Lange), his old flame and the mother of Earl (Gabriel Mann), his son. But Don't Come Knocking wouldn't be a Wenders-Shepard film if that were all Spence found in Butte, Montana.
Flush the Koran, and That's Bigotry. Flush a Christian Sacrament, It's Comedy.
Here's an interesting editorial by Brent Bozell:
The riots caused by Newsweek's story claiming American interrogators were flushing the Koran caused many Americans to be amazed by the extreme reaction in the Islamic world. Ken Woodward, the long-time religion writer of Newsweek, tried to explain to Christians just how offensive Koran-flushing is to Muslims: "Recitation of the Koran is for Muslims much like what receiving the Eucharist is for Catholics -- a very intimate ingestion of the divine itself."
There's a certain irony here. If you wanted to see the Eucharist in the toilet, you needed only to watch the NBC sitcom "Committed" in February, when NBC played for laughs the idea that two main characters thought they accidentally dropped a communion wafer in a bar toilet.
Hollywood makes lame jokes and harsh satires of Christianity all the time, figuratively and literally tossing Jesus, the Bible and church figures into the toilet. Those alleged American interrogators are pikers compared to Tinseltown. They could learn at the feet of the masters of mockery.
...
So why doesn't Hollywood produce storylines about the Koran being flushed down the john? That, they would tell you firmly, with conviction, would be religious bigotry.
Christianity Today Book Awards 2005
The Christianity Today Book Awards 2005 heap even more praise upon Marilynne Robinson's Gilead.
And they also honor Unveiling, a novel by a new friend of mine, Suzanne Wolfe, who I met at the recent Over the Rhine concert at Seattle's Tractor Tavern. Congratulations, Suzanne!
Firefly fan alert: A comical testimony of the "Serenity" preview
Thanks, Prof. Rambo, for this!Read more
Anne M. Doe Overstreet Rocks the Seattle Art Museum
There's only one person in this world whose work I love so much that I actually chased her down and married her.
"The Passion of the Christ" - A Film of Ideas
Found this article via GreenCine. Nice to see some critics still finding some merit in Gibson's work.Read more
Revenge of the Sith: Post-Viewing Questions
Okay, when you've finally seen Revenge of the Sith, I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of these questions, a few of which I alluded to in my review.
CAUTION: A small degree of spoilage is involved, so read on at your own risk.Read more
Darren Hughes on Beau Travail
Darren's elaborating on an exquistely filmed Claire Denis film, its provocative soundtrack, and one of my all-time favorite closing scenes.
