Brief Update

I haven't posted much these past two months, except to comment on some movies. There has been, I guess, the combination of much schoolwork and some emotional roller coasters that have made me reticent to set aside time to reflect on and share what is going on in my life.

I still have much to do--MUCH to do--between now and the end of the semester. I don't expect to write here again until after my assignments are turned in. December 18th I am flying to Jacksonville, where there will be an InterVarsity alum worship gathering (hooray) and family to see for the weekend before Christmas; I'll be there about four days. Then my mom, sister and I will drive to (just south of) Charlotte and spend Christmas there (another four days). Then the three of us are flying to Kansas City, MO for the OneThing Conference (another four days), and flying back on the--1st, I think. Then I will have another four days south of Charlotte, then fly back to Ambridge so I can take a January intensive on the New Testament from the 11th-15th.

So I'm basically gearing up for the busiest December of my life--wait, I'm already inundated by it.

Bonus: Yesterday I wrote an 850-word short essay that considered pentecostalism, women in ministry, international bible translation, the explosive growth of the church in the global south and the growing cracks in Western hegemony in order to postulate the shape of global Christianity in the next century. Woot.

The Best Movies of the Decade, 2000-2009

In December of 1999, I was 16, an atheist, an awkward loner-geek with a small circle of friends with a bright mind and no purpose in life. Ten years later I am 26, an Anglican seminarian, an awkward social butterfly-geek with an expansive circle of friends with a fresh sense of purpose and place. It has been a coming of age decade—especially so these past five years—where I have grown spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and so on.

And aesthetically. I’ve always loved movies, but since college my tastes evolved from simple fascination with resonant image, sound and story (a fascination I’ve maintained) to questions of meaning, literary structure, cinematographic beauty, and authentic expressions of human psychology. The following selections touch one or all of these categories at once, and are my choices for the best of the movies I have seen—a considerably smaller sampling of movies than of the professional critic.

If a couple of themes emerge from my selections, I would to identify the tension between romanticism and biblical theodicy as the main one. I find both emotionally resonant and for now take a both-and approach that isn’t quite sure how they fit. The other easy to spot theme is my love for playful concoctions of image and score, like the “Procession of the Spirits” sequence from Spirited Away or the “Remy Drives a Linguini” sequence from Ratatouille. Yet another, from the dystopias of Minority Report and Children of Men to the bload-soaked revisionism of Gangs of New York and emotional trauma of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is that of a world out of order. These doubtless reach that place in my psyche that exclaims, “This world is messed up!”

Additionally, I think There Will Be Blood (2008) certainly belongs somewhere on this list, but I find that film obtusely fascinating to the point that I am unable to analyze my reaction to it. Paul Thomas Anderson is not my favorite director, but as with Punch Drunk Love (2004), he has concocted an original film simultaneously relatable and ineffable.

15) Good Night and Good Luck (2005): A historically-rooted morality tale about scared but principled people attempting to do the right thing. Director George Clooney appropriates Edward Murrow and team’s story as an impassioned case for level- headed civil discourse over and against demagoguery and fear-baiting. 

“Cassius was right, the fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves. Good night, and good luck.” 

 14) Gosford Park (2000): Altman’s murder and manners comedy-drama doesn’t have a big heart, but what it lacks in emotional heft it makes up for in the sheer brilliance of its ensemble staging.

13) Kill Bill (2003-2004): Eccentric wunderkind Quentin Tarantino crafted this archetypal fever dream of violence and melodramatic posturing. Volume 1 tends to offend as an unapologetic monument of martial arts violence, a splattery apotheosis of far east combat films recast in a contemporary western setting. Volume 2 fleshes out its predecessor’s portentous phrases, providing “The Bride” a mythological past and a poignant resolution. 

“Yellow-haired warrior. Go.”

12) Rachel Getting Married (2008): Ensemble drama that finds fresh poignancy in the time-worn plot components of family, guilt and self-destructive behavior. Rachel's Hindu themed wedding plays out pantheistically in a jumble of families and ethnicities, colors (purples, oranges, yellows, blues), sounds (reggae, spare rock, sitar, string quartet) and a veritable torrent of emotion (love, shame, joy, regret, rage). Hathaway's Siva (i.e. Kym) functions as this pantheon's god most high; the actress shows her chops and delivers a harrowing, emotionally realized character.

11) Minority Report (2002): Whereas A.I. mixed genres and ended up less than the sum of its parts, Minority Report fuses metaphysical sci-fi, film noir, dystopia-lite and pulpy adventure action into a synergistic thrill-ride—so much so that its plot holes and Spielbergian sentimentality are negligible drawbacks. Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography makes it the most beautifully photographed action movie to date. 

10) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): A sad and vividly constructed mind-trip about love, loss and how we (don’t) deal with pain. Jim Carrey plays against type as a mopey and dissheveled sweater-wearer, Kate Winslet as his gleefully chaotic belle. Charlie Kauffman and Michel Gondry comes together in a psychologically astute marriage of words and images that plays like a fragmented map of contemporary romantic angst.

“How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.”  

 9) Children of Men (2006): This dystopian thriller labors to construct a fully-realized, chaotic future. It is short on the wide establishing shots that typically provide epic “city of the future” moments and long on day-to-day details and dialogue that build this world from the ground up. Clive Owen’s dramatic arc may not be deeply compelling, but the urgency and frailty of his life and task infuse this troubling vision with purpose.

8) Gangs of New York (2002): A bloody, feverish, revisionist history that paints America’s melting pot a matter of grim survival and American identity as forged with the musket and blade. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a gripping, terrifying performance as the alpha male of this Darwinian ethnic war.

“I'm forty-seven. Forty-seven years old. You know how I stayed alive this long? All these years? Fear. The spectacle of fearsome acts. Somebody steals from me, I cut off his hands. He offends me, I cut out his tongue. He rises against me, I cut off his head, stick it on a pike, raise it high up so all on the streets can see. That's what preserves the order of things. Fear.” 

 7) Munich (2005): Spielberg’s post-9/11 dissection of the Arab-Israeli conflict illustrates the cyclic nature of revenge and the wake of its psychological damage. 

 6) The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001): A deeply odd, brilliantly photographed throwback-noir about detachment and the persistence of uncertainty. Billy Bob Thornton plays an introspective barber, the passive everyman caught in a matrix of strong personalities and officials beyond his control—much like The Big Lebowski’s Dude. The Coens again exploit this structure to suggest the futility of human effort, thematically in touch with both Job and Ecclesiastes.

“Looking at something changes it. They call it the ‘Uncertainty Principle’. Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something.”

 5) Lord of the Rings (2001-2003): A cinematic tour-de-force of action, melodrama and narrative-driven special effects. Purists be damned, Jackson adapts Tolkien into the most rousing epic and fully-realized fantasy world of film history.

“My precious.”

4) Ratatouille (2007): A quirky short story in love with the creative life of sensory delight. The cartoon is a fusion of form and content, richly textured and multi-colored. Remy’s class-defying ascendance to top chef of Paris, though a tad naïve, celebrates the power of the truly beautiful with the transformation Grinch-like food critic Anton Ego (with the elegant and sonorous baritone of Peter O’Toole). Michael Giacchino’s score captures its romantic quirk with a unique pastiche of whimsical Parisian interludes and fantastic orchestral crescendos.

 3) No Country for Old Men (2007): Pulp and art make love in this stark thriller; the film beautifully adapts Cormac McCarthy’s tale of money, murder and the absence of authority. It evokes, especially via Tommy Lee Jones’s world-weary sheriff, a certain elegiac masculinity wistful for a time when moral righteousness and courage were the only requirements for overcoming evil. Its three lead performance (Jones, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem) all employ a less-is-more approach, leaving subtle nuances to imply volumes, and—in Bardem’s case—capturing the ineffability of violence, death and chaos.

“The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, ‘O.K., I'll be part of this world.’”

 2) Spirited Away (2001): A grotesque, oriental riff on Alice in Wonderland doubling as an archetypal coming of age story. Miyazaki’s frames are alive with motion and color, pulling the viewer into his wide-eyed protagonist’s journey through a wonderland of wild images. No less, the film’s central tension is between loving sacrifice and self-serving inaction, effecting an emotionally realistic transformation in his Alice though it occurs in a fantastic world.

 1) Pan's Labyrinth (2006): Guillermo del Toro’s lush fantasy-horror film blurs distinctions between fantasy and reality. It approximates N.T. Wright’s proposal for a Christian aesthetic, one foot in the grim brutality of the “real” world, the other in the mythical beauty of the spiritual one. Young Ofelia stands at the intersection of these worlds, del Toro playing with the question of whether her fantastic experiences are only in her head. Javier Navarrete’s score is haunting, poetic, thematically anchored by a lullaby befitting this unsettling yet beautiful bedtime story. 

Rhythm of Life

I've been fairly busy these past five or six weeks and therefore haven't been regaling the world with updates on my day to day, nor with my occasional theological reflections. I did, of course, take time out yesterday to write that Wild Things review, mostly because I enjoy reviewing movies so much. I guess I am going to start integrating movies into this blog; I still want to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Lovely Bones, Avatar and maaaybe The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Maybe. It might be worth it just to see a Gilliam film in the theater.

Where to start? Obviously this has been the thick of the semester, though things promise to get thicker, like an old-fashioned milkshake. I'm mostly keeping up with schoolwork, and I'm figuring out more and more what my rhythm of life will be for the next several years. I had the strange experience on Wednesday of walking into a professor's office, reading the Greek words "eipev autoi de Iesous eimi ho anastasis kai he zoe"* on a wall poster and saying, "Oh, 'I am the resurrection and the life,' I can read that."

Last week I made the big decision to cut back on the amount of classes I am taking because I want to take the extra time to be spiritually formed and discern where I fit into the Anglican church professionally and also because a I was called to interview for a good job opportunity. The credit union barely three blocks from my house unexpectedly called me back about the resume I submitted in August about a part time position. The interview was short but positive, although she told me I might not hear back for several weeks because the individual who plans to leave has not yet given her two weeks notice. Ideally, I would be able to start right around the same time as the beginning of the spring semester so that I can both go home for Christmas for a few weeks as well as take a January intensive class. A job that I can walk to and work around my school schedule will do wonders both for my bank account and my manly sense of financial responsibility (it just feels better to work, however little...). That's not to say women aren't financially responsible! But I'll move on before I dig that ditch any further...

Understanding this new rhythm of life has helped me to accept the day to day, enjoy it, embrace it, and let go of any striving towards making a future happen for myself. I was praying before the monthly Trinity healing service last night and felt directed to consider and pray Psalm 23:1, "YHWH is my shepherd, I shall not want." It helps to remember that every good and perfect gift comes from above, and he will deliver my future and my calling--and one day a marriage? Hint, hint, God--on his calendar and according to his purposes.

I won't be going home for Thanksgiving, but I will be dog-sitting for the Thompson's this next week. At least I will have someone to keep me company. Just kidding. There are enough people sticking around that I won't have to spend the whole holiday alone.

*I have no idea whether this was the actual word order or whether I got the gender of resurrection right. The full text I quoted reads, And Jesus said to him, 'I am the resurrection and the life.

Where The Wild Things Are, reviewed.

Like Fantasia set to an indie-rock soundtrack, Where the Wild Things Are strings along a series of dazzling and incoherent images complemented by musical compositions which reinforce and/or augment meaning and mood. Spike Jonze—director of music videos, the one-two meta punch of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and actor who played Three Kings’s hilarious hick—serves up Maurice Sendak’s children’s book as a music video where the best scenes are extended sequences of motion, color, sound and mood. And so moody! Jonze and hipster novelist Dave Eggers have plumbed the book’s inherent darkness and come up with a world of lonely people (I suppose a denouement-set montage scored with Eleanor Rigby would have been too on-the-nose) whose only consolation is acting out like—wait for it—a wild thing.

Young Max, like so many child protagonists, is fatherless and lacking in friends. His ripe imagination, showcased in the “real world” scenes where he composes freudian-slip stories for his mom and barks orders at a fence, provides the excuse for the film’s extended digression on loneliness, fantasy and escape. After biting his mom and shouting Sendak’s brilliant child-angst exclamation “I’LL EAT YOU UP!” at her, he runs out of the house into dark suburbia and ends up in a fantasy-wilderness of heaving, anthropomorphized beasts who share Max’s confusion, loneliness and anger. Like the fatherless Max, they are kingless and pine for someone to bring authoritative order to their lives. One of the film’s central tensions is the problem of authority; not that these beings despise it, but rather they long for it and find it elusive. Glum concessions like “There’s no such thing as a king” suggest the intractable chaos left in the wake of absent fathers and, ultimately, an absent god.

Jonze shot the film in Australia, its images painted like some beautiful desolation, wide open spaces that are all rustic earth tones and blue skies. Those music video sequences show Max and the wild things at play, running, having a dirt fight and—most spectacularly—building the greatest child’s fort ever conceived. Max orders the wild things to construct it, and they rip trees straight out of the ground in order to thatch a hulking home for themselves. The film’s other great tension is that between self and other, individual and community; if Max learns any lesson, it is that he must consider the needs and feelings of others in his words and actions. This comes to a head when the others realize that Max had only himself and his imagination in mind when he designed the fort. The wild things’ friendship provides him with support, but also exposes his selfishness.

All the poetry of themes and images granted, I still found the film contrived. Maybe were I a couple of years younger, or perhaps less in touch with the roots of my own loneliness and angst (and what I take, as a Christian, to be some plausible solutions), then I might have emotionally resonated with its thematic structure. Jonze and Eggers succeed at describing and illustrating the isolation and loneliness of growing up fatherless and friendless with a moody, great-looking and mildly frightening film. This is no small accomplishment. Yet that darkness remains a little too intractable, too unresolved. Not that the conclusion needed to wrap up all of Max’s issues, but making the changes he went through more explicit would have helped.

Where the Wild Things Are evokes another Disney classic, Alice in Wonderland. Any narrative framework that moves from the real to the fantastic/absurdist and back to the real involving wide-eyed children does. I like the film better than Disney’s Alice, but not better than another recent film which evoked it, Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. I think the difference might be that while Max seemed coddled when he returned home, Chihiro was so transformed by her wild ride that she didn’t need to be coddled. I like my coming of age movies to convey the dynamics of the central character, however subtle and token. If Wild Things wasn’t intended as a coming of age movie, but perhaps rather a child’s rebellious night out of the house, then I find its one hundred angsty and childish minutes as self-indulgent as the chocalate cake Max enjoys at its end.

Cranmer & Hope

"Cranmer's sainthood cannot be established on the grounds of sinlessness or denial of weakness, which is an adolescent expectation. He loved life and retained a real measure of the fear of death. The Church, quite early, learned a danger of martyrdom as escape, when some were tempted to give their lives, not so much as witness, but as release from the ambiguities of life and to gain the joys of heaven prematurely.

The Christian paradox, that God uses the weak to confound the strong, can be seen in the life of Cranmer, where strength is above weakness. However, the paradox can be read the other way. There is strength beneath weakness which is obscure to a secular age (cf. II Corinthians 11:30ff.)

There is something everlastingly encouraging about Cranmer's faithful death. All who suffer injustice, betrayal, and defeat of what seems fair and good and according to the purpose of God himself can consider the mind of Cranmer as he died. The burning, dying Cranmer saw nothing with his natural eyes but a bleak Friday with the complete and utter failure and destruction of all he believed in. The unseen Easter reality was Queen Elizabeth's restoration of all his accomplishments and their abiding nurture over subsequent centuries. They were things hoped for but unseen by Cranmer, perceived only by the eye of faith and a heart of hope, faith and trust in the providence of God that gave Cranmer his courage in those last hours."

~C. FitzSimmons Allison in C. Frederick Barbee and Paul F. M. Zahl, The Collects of Thomas Cranmer (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), xvii.