I meant to post this before the end of January but apparently being a day late and a dollar short applies to blogging as well as to the rest of life.
Basia Bulat was the soundtrack of my life for the month of January. Her second offering Heart of My Own is a rich compilation of acoustic folk/pop. Bulat has a voice that is both strong and edgy, and uses well a variety of instruments (guitar, keyboards, drums, horns, hammered dulcimer). The album alternates between fast-upbeat tracks (“Go On”, “If Only You”) to more somber offerings (“The Shore”). The title track (“Heart of My Own”) is brilliant, featuring Bulat’s rich voice and quality musical score. The final track (“Hush”) is a stunning reminder that Bulat can croon but also is an artist who is unafraid to practice her trade in unique fashion.
This was supposed to have gone up last week, but since I spent last week in St. Louis at Intervarsity’s Urbana Missions Conference petty pursuits like this one had to wait. Out of the 65 films I viewed this year which were new to me I have chosen 10 that I consider worth viewing. Consider this a sort of annotated bibliography from my film watching in 2009. Hope you find time to sit down with a good friend and relax sometime this year with one of these films.
Top 10:
10. Into the Wild - Sean Penn directs this adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s acclaimed retelling of the last years of Chris McCandless’ life. Slow in places, the film still manages to leave you wishing for more from life while simultaneously treasuring the people with whom you spend it.
9. Traitor – I know Don Cheadle as an action figure sounds completely unappealing, and he’s no Jason Bourne, but this film has plenty of fun and manages to explore issues of inter-religious dialogue between Islam and Christianity without being heavy-handed. Props to the film for not even trying to pull the wool over your eyes and make a surprise ending, but instead letting the characters and the story carry the day. Mix in the fact that I’m a sucker for action/espionage films and you’ve got one of my favorite films of 2009.
8. Star Trek – While I’m making confessions, I better go ahead and admit that I’m a Trekie. I grew up watching TNG (The Next Generation), DS9 (Deep Space Nine), and even (gulp) Voyager & a bit of Enterprise. Alright, now that you’ve laughed your head off at how ridiculous my childhood was please go check out this gritty little sci-fi/action piece. Even people who are not nerds were telling me how great this movie was. I just waited for Blockbuster and yes..it was worth it. For the all flak I’ve given J. J. Abrams over Lost, Alias and his forgettable War of the Worlds spin off Cloverfield he hit a home run with this one. And for the record I just had to rack my brain trying to even remember the name of Cloverfield. All I could think of was Godzilla meets War of the Worlds on a home video camera.
7. Silverado – In addition to being an incurable Trekkie as a child I was also a huge fan of Westerns. If Star Trek was the most fun I had this year being a nerd, then Silverado was the most fun I had this year being a cowboy. And that’s saying something. By my count I watched at least 11 good westerns this year, including the whole Sergio Leone “Man with No Name” series. If you enjoy Westerns I would say this is another one you must see. Maybe something close to a modern day Magnificent Seven.
6. Michael Clayton – George Clooney was not a great Batman, but he makes a great lawyer. Michael Clayton is a well put together movie with some great acting performances, crisp dialogue and excellent storytelling. There’s a reason I regard it as the best “non-message movie” film I watched last year.
5. Unforgiven – Probably be the best modern Western I have ever seen. Eastwood’s storytelling and character are memorable. In true Eastwood fashion the end of the film holds the entire interpretative clue for the film, so if you are turned off during the beginning and middle just wait for it. Oddly the movie was one of the most powerful messages of grace I heard during the entire year. Be warned though, this is a gritty and harsh movie. I liked it but wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
4. Defiance - This is undoubtedly the most controversial of the top 5, considering the fact that not everyone even liked this film last year. However, as a fan of history, and in particular WWII, I liked the movie. Also, Daniel Craig’s character in the movie is one of the most powerful examples of servant leadership I have ever seen portrayed on the silver screen. I was half way serious when I said that I would make a pastoral theology class watch the film and discuss it.
3. Letters from Iwo Jima - Another WWII film and another Eastwood film in the top 5. This movie is much, much better than it’s companion piece Flags of Our Fathers, although watching them together does enhance this film in some ways. At the end of the day this stands as one of my favorite WWII films, earning a place alongside Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day.
2. Memento – As a new decade arrives, go back and check out one of last decades best films. Chris Nolan’ break out film may still be his best, although it will never supplant Dark Knight in terms of popularity. Memento is a movie that expresses the ethos of our times, and captures questions of epistemology on film in a way I hadn’t seen since 12 Angry Men. In fact if I were teaching a class on epistemology, or even wanted to generate discussion on critical thinking, post-modernity and argumentation I would probably have people watch both of these films.
1. Up – Full of laughter and tears, this is Pixar’s most adult film yet. It captures the essence of life, joy and sorrow, life and death, stability and change, relationship and loneliness in a way that I have rarely if even seen in a movie. It might be the best animated film I have ever seen and it is undoubtedly my favorite film of 2009.
That this is an arbitrary exercise hardly needs to be stated. As I entered the year there was no set corpus of literature or body of films which was assigned to me (outside of the rather hefty reading assignments dished out by graduate school). So it is only fitting that as I review the best of what I have seen or read in 2009 that the awards and even the classifications are arbitrary as well. Because I rarely watch TV outside of sports and until August of this year have not lived in a house where I had access to cable television I have seen very few TV miniseries. However, my roommate Kyle and I decided to spend hours of our summer working our way through HBO’s Band of Brothers, and as a result I am forced to make special mention of this series in my year review.
My limited interaction with the genre of “miniseries” may make my unqualified to speak on the quality of this series, but the continued critical acclaim and popularity of the series lend some credibility to the opinion I am going to express here that if you watch one dramatic tv miniseries next year make it this one. Band of Brothers is in some ways vastly inferior to other great WWII films such as Saving Private Ryan, A Bridge Too Far or The Thin Red Line. But this is in many ways a factor of its different genre. However, there is one WWII film to which it bears the closest resemblance and that is The Longest Day. While the The Longest Day views D-Day through the eyes of numerous characters, so also Band of Brothers views the final two years of the war through the eyes of its various characters. Due to time constraints the focus and character development of The Longest Day is understandably smaller than that of Band of Brothers but the effect is similar. The view of war expressed through so many eyes allows the view to gain a much broader, mutli-perspectival view of the effects of war on both individual humans and even human society in general. Thiis method of character vignettes and group acting rather than the traditional protaganist, antagonist struggle allows for a story that is a bit closer to “real” life and draws viewers into the story in ways that are particular to each viewer. Certainly Band of Brothers devolves in places into episodes that drag along or perhaps are even “uninteresting” to some viewers, but this is all part of the challenge of presenting the totality of war, and it is a challenge that is admirably done in Band of Brothers.
Documentary of the Year: Jesus Camp
While I respect the genre of documentary I rarely watch them. Partly this is due to the fact that when I take a break from working what I want to hear is a cracking story, rather than be forced to jump into another mentally exhaustin discussion of an issue that deserves my thought and attention. All this to say I watched pitifully few documentaries this year, only three. However, among those three one clearly stands out as being worth the time and attention of Christians reading this blog, Jesus Camp. The film examines a dark and disturbing branch of the Pentecostal movement in America that mixes a rampant militarism with Christianity, marinates in charismatic expression, seasons with faulty theology and serves to children in the heartland. The result is terrifying on film and even more disconcerting when you realize that for some in the media there remains little difference between the people seen in Jesus Camp and the millions of well meaning evangelicals who neither want to manipulate children nor back the political far right. The film then serves as a critical call for Christians both to clean their own home by rebuking those who are doing more harm than good, and as a warning that we must pursue ministry with a level of selfl-awarness and self-criticism which is sorely lacking in much of American evangelical expression. Jesus Camp can thus serve as a call for greater public self-awareness among Christians.
Jesus Camp also serves as a call for greater hermeneutical self-awareness from Christians. How you read the Bible will shape how you form your theology and yourch church. The shape of your church inevitably shapes the beliefs and structure of individual Christians. Sadly it only takes one rotten apple to ruin the barrel. Christians in America are obligated to understand the implications of their reading and teaching of the Biblical text. The seccesationist tendencies of popular American evangelicalism to promote America as the New Israel, and the proclivities of the far right to read mandates for social action as mandates for Christian legislation must be questioned not on pragmatic grounds but on hermeneutical grounds. An improper reading of Scripture allows some Christians to place divine authority behind commands and ideas that are simply human convention. The hermeneutical self-awareness is thus something which we must apply first to our own readings of Scripture and then also to those who offer radically interpretation of the same text, interpretations which prove to be not only harmful but out of line with the rest of Scripture.
Third, Jesus Camp offers evangelicals in North America the opportunity to rethink the relationship between church and state, or even church and society. The subversive, militant approach taken by the characters in Jesus Camp should frighten believers in America. Quite frankly the evangelicalism displayed in Jesus Camp is closer to a domestic terrorism program than most of us are willing to admit. Much of this misplaced drive and energy comes from an improper understanding of the relationship of the church to the state, or more broadly the role of the people of God within society at large. Jesus Camp affords Christian of every denomination and political affiliation the opportunity to reflect both on their social ethics and their political ethics in light of their Christian doctrine, ministry practice and reading of Scripture.
In the end Jesus Camp offers Christians the opportunity to reflect on how we conduct our ministry, how read Scripture and express doctrine, and how we relate to the state and society at large. Although, in places a gut wrenching film, it remains one that is worth viewing for those interested in better understanding the perception by some of the “evangelical” movement in America.
Honorable Mentions: Expelled, Religulous
The Manhattan Declaration may have already become old news by now. Being in graduate school is a bit like hibernating for two seasons out of the year. Anyway, since I have found myself unable to actually analyze the document I will at least give a couple of articles written by one of my favorite professors, Dr. Michael McDuffee of the Moody Bible Institute.
His first response covers Evangelicals and their failure to appropriately respond to their failures in history, particularly regarding the slave trade.
His second response is a rather pointed shot across the bow of First Things editor Joseph Bottum. If you are familiar with ECT initiative you should enjoy it.
The wit and humorous insight of this quote is textbook Chesterton. Desiring God ran it days ago.
A cosmos, one day being rebuked by a pessimist replied, “How can you who revile me consent to speak by my machinery? Permit me to reduce you to nothingness and then we will discuss the matter.” Moral. You should not look a gift universe n the mouth.
-G. K. Chesterton (Quoted from Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Volume 1, 71)
So the beginning of the end of the year has come at last. And while everyone else is busting out their top lists of the decade this blog (and blogging in general) is simply too new to have a best of the decade list. However, hopefully I can supply you with a few year in review notes. In the nature of good blogging these will of course be wildly subjective, driven purely by personal opinion and experience. So to aid in your information obesity I’m going to lay out a series recapping the year from a couple of unique angles. But to understand the end I must go back to the beginning, to the freezing December of 2008 and the days and weeks leading up to this ultimate year of the decade.
It was during the beginning of 2008 at the end of my first semester of graduate school that I became aware of a horrible realization. Not only was Texas going to be robbed of the chance to play Florida for the national title, but I was also losing my appreciation for film and literature. Yes, I still read. And read a lot. But throughout highscool my two favorite activities, films and books were slipping away and if I did not take action they would be lost to me. For reading the point was driven home to me when someone asked me who my favorite authors were and what I had been reading lately. I suddenly realized that in my four plus years in higher education the only author I had added to my list of favorite writers was Marilynne Robinson. Outside of that I had read virtually nothing other than required reading for classes. This was simply unacceptable to me. When I entered college I had been fairly wide-read for a high school student, yet half-way through my first year of graduate school I now found myself lagging behind others. I had stanated in my growth and development as a reader. So like any blue-blooded American I made a New Year’s resolution to read more books this year. Lots more books. A book a week this year.
My realization with film took place largely because I work with teenagers, and I got tired of answering, “Nope. Haven’t seen it. To junior highers, high schoolers and college students, when they asked if I had seen this or that film.” Now on a certain level I will still maintain that being ‘relevant’ is way overplayed for those involved in student ministry. This is not because being relevant is unimportant but because by ‘relevant’ people generally mean being somewhere between the ages of 22-32, having no more than 2 children (if any at all), mainting some small amount of facial hair [limited to areas around the mouth and in no cases to exceed a goatee], continually living as if stuck between the years of 1989 and 1999 (evidenced by listening to U2, continually saying “dude”), having a shaved head (if balding) or a fohawk, by livng on soda and pizza, and playing video games. Oh yeah, and playing the guitar is a plus too if you want to be relevant. Anyway, on some level I thought it might be helpful to be more ‘relevant’ and since I was stuck at 22 and couldn’t do anything to change that, had no children and didn’t want to change that, refused to grow a soul patch or chin hair, already listened to U2 and said dude, and wouldn’t shave my head or grow a fohawk for any amount of money less than $1,000 $500, I was running out of movies. And since I didn’t have the patience for guitar I was stuck watching movies. So that’s how I decided I was going to make a second New Year’s resolution to watch 52 new films this year, to go along with my 52 new books.
But since 3 was the magic number I still needed one more resolution to round it out. So after two decades of counting my own ribs I decided it was time to put on some weight and the 09lbs in ‘09 campaign was born. The mission was simple, gain 9lbs of weight in 2009.
So that’s how the year started. More books, more movies and more weight…
This quote from Sartre captures my understanding of Existentialism.
“The existentialist . . . finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: ‘If God did not exist, everything would be permitted’; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. . . . Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free.”
Originally posted on Great Cloud blog, which remains a helpful introductory blog to all things philosophy.
