Check this out, seems pretty cool, especially considering it is sponsored by NOKIA.
So-Called Apologetics
Many popular and widely read Christian Apologetics blogs, which seem more interested in winning and proving someone else wrong and/or stupid than anything else, remind me of this exchange in the Coen brother’s noir comedy The Big Lebowski:
Walter: Am I wrong, Dude? Am I wrong??
The Dude: No, you’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an a**hole!
Maybe I’m just cynical, but that’s how feel. At the end of the day, mowing your neighbor’s yard or helping an old lady with her groceries does more to promote the kingdom of Jesus Christ than apologetics on the Internet (or face-to-face debates, for that matter).
Ron Paul in Kentucky (and Louisville) Next Weekend
Ron Paul will be bringing his message of freedom, peace, and prosperity to Kentucky on May 16th and 17th for two Freedom Rallies! This is your chance to come and personally meet Dr. Paul, as well as to have him sign your copy of his latest book, The Revolution: A Manifesto.
The first rally will be taking place on May 16 at the Bowling Green High School Basketball Arena at 1801 Rockingham Lane, Bowling Green, KY 42104. The rally starts at 2:00 pm CT.
On Saturday, May 17th, Dr. Paul will be holding a Freedom Rally at the Louisville Palace, located at 625 S. Fourth St., Louisville KY 40202. The rally will start at 1:00 pm ET, and last until 4:00 pm.
Come hear Dr. Paul as he lays out clear solutions to the challenges our country is facing, and be sure to bring any friends or family members that may not be familiar with his message. Dr. Paul’s Freedom Rallies typically attract several hundred people, so get there early! We look forward to seeing you there.
Jeff Frazee
National Youth Coordinator
Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee
To Eat
Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite — the last “natural sacrament” of family and friendship, of life that is more than “eating” and “drinking.” To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that “something more” is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, p. 16
The Figure of Man
And Adam, when he left the Garden where life was to have been eucharistic — an offering of the world in thanksgiving to God — Adam led the whole world, as it were, into darkness. In one of the beautiful pieces of Byzantine hymnology, Adam is pictured sitting outside, facing Paradise, weeping. It is the figure of man himself.
Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, p. 18
P.T. Anderson on His Films
We all wish we could take our brains out of our heads and wash them clean; we’ve all done bad things and have guilty feelings in our hearts … In my own way I deal with guilt constantly, and I do believe there are consequences for our actions.
Paul Thomas Anderson, “He Knows It When He Sees It,” Los Angeles Times, 1997
“TWBB” 2nd Best Movie Ever, says Times Online (UK)
Ever.
After Casablanca.
And, considering the time when Casablanca was made, and the quality of its narrative, I’ll let that slide. I’m admittedly biased towards modern film making, so it’s understandable. Glorification, baby. Glorification.
Read the Times Online Article.
Whoops!
Oh yeah… I have a blog!
Sorry, I’ve been a little busy living in the material/physical/actual/real world.
I don’t really have anything to say. I’m thinking about doing some movie reviews, but I probably won’t have time.
I’ve also been thinking a lot recently about why movies are the only true form of Art left, but that would require time, lots of nuance, and many Heidegger quotes. Now that I think about it, food might be another form of Art still in existence. Basically, nothing new has been created for quite some time, so everything that is presented of value is a combination of things already brought forth. Movies are a combination of narrative (poetry), photography (which, in a sense, is a glorification of painting), and music (glorified speech/poetry), so they are one of the only truly unique creations I would consider to be “Art” left in the world today. Food would get an honorable mention vote, because it is always a combination of various combinations to create something “new” or fresh. But, the commercial aspect of movies (and food) hurts its chances for being considered Art by many standards I would hold to be relevant to this discussion.
But, I digress. Peace be with!
He Can Do It All
We may not be living in a golden age of American movies, but a new New Hollywood of sorts has emerged—a cluster of adventurous directors in their 30s and 40s who have figured out how to get personal films made with Hollywood or Indiewood money: Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, Alexander Payne. Many of them have a specialty. Fincher is a visual virtuoso, Linklater a verbal stylist. Payne is good with character, Coppola with moods and music. Tarantino has the encyclopedic geek smarts, Soderbergh the taste for reinvention. With Paul Thomas Anderson, all of the above apply. His thing is that he can do it all.
While Anderson fits the profile of a “hysterical realist,” to evoke the pejorative literary buzz-phrase of a few years ago, his films never indulge in excess for the sake of excess. He’s a born showman—his first three films bore the Barnumesque credit “A P.T. Anderson picture”—but his go-for-broke tendencies are tied to an expansive, humanist impulse.
Anderson subverts the stereotype of the chilly, Kubrickian technical genius. He makes stunning use of gliding, Steadicam-abetted tracking shots, a favorite trick of showoff directors. (In Boogie Nights, he and his cinematographer, Robert Elswit, quote two of the best-known tracking shots in film history: Goodfellas’ nightclub prowl and I Am Cuba’s swimming-pool dive.) But the snaking camerawork is not simply a demonstration of daredevil prowess. Often it provides social or emotional context. While David Fincher, for instance, has a special love for spatially impossible, digitally enhanced camera maneuvers, Anderson’s long, unbroken takes are rooted in human movement and contact. They speak to the interconnectedness of his characters or the distance between them.
Dennis Lim, The Village Voice
A Quote from “There Will Be Blood”
Listen carefully for it next time you watch.
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I shall thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”
My Daily Prayer
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job 1.21
Feeling Called to Ministry? Read This
This is good stuff.
“You’re Not the Chosen Brother”
Don’t forget, movie fans, There Will Be Blood is available on DVD today.
Drink it up.
Thoughts on “No Country For Old Men”
Some friends have suggested that I give a few thoughts on this movie, so here goes, in brief:
- Ed Tom is the main character. The movie is a tragedy because Ed Tom gives up, not because Llewelyn is killed.
- Determinism and Nihilism are major, underlying themes to the narrative. Anton’s sayings, “The quarter has traveled 22 years to get here, and now its here, and you must call it” and “The coin got here the same way I did” are clear indications of a deterministic, meaningless universe. Anton’s words to Carson before killing him, “If the rule you follow led you to this, of what use is the rule?” are clear indications of a nihilistic worldview.
- Anton has no beginning and no end. We know nothing about where he came from, what is driving him, or where he ends up. He is almost more of a personification than a person, but the Coen brothers brilliantly solve this by showing a moment of reflection and vulnerability in him near the conclusion. Anton looks in the rearview at the two boys on bicycles. It is almost as if we’re led to believe he is reflecting on his childhood, or of a simpler life, or even simply finding a kind of peace or joy in seeing those kids enjoying their worry-free life.
- Again, in that scene, Anton shows his one conscious moment of “following the world’s rules,” when he looks at the green light and continues through the intersection, where he is subsequently rammed into by another car. Why does Anton get in this wreck? He’s following the rule; the very rule he said he didn’t need and has flatly rejected in his lifestyle.
- Llewelyn should have tried to save his wife’s life, and given up his own for hers. Instead, he is selfish, and his wife suffers as a result of it. Anton says she was “accountable” because of what he did, a sort of federal headship theme.
- The opening scene has the narration of Ed Tom, reflecting on the “good old” days of lawkeeping. However, by the movie’s end, especially in the scene with Ellis, we learn that there have never really been “good old” days. There’s always been evil in the world, and this world (this country, specifically) are hard on people. It is vain to think we can singlehandedly stop the evil in the world, but it is even worse to give up altogether, which Ed Tom does by retiring early.
- Ed Tom sums up his problem at the end of the beginning narration, when he says you would have to put your soul at hazard, and say, “I’ll be a part of this world” to deal with the evil that is in it. Instead, he gives up, and his dreams reflect that.
- Ed Tom’s dreams deal with going to be with his father, who has died. If Ed Tom is no longer fighting evil, he might as well be dead and join his father. They’re both surrounded by darkness and cold.
What is a “Good Movie,” as a Christian?
I won’t lie, films are one of my biggest passions. I love movies, just as I love many other forms of art. However, films resonate with me the most. I’m an extremely visual person, and learn visually in most areas of life (my mother says I have a photographic memory, when it comes to seeing something and being able to reproduce it on canvas or paper, and maybe she’s right). I’m also passionate about music, and music which resonates with me has the ability to affect me on a deeply emotional and psychological level.
It makes a lot of sense, then, for movies to have such a lasting or significant affect on me. They combine the visual with the musical (whether they’re words, lyrics, or rhythms).
Eucharistic Homily; Luke 24:13-35
On the Third Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2008.
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
C.S. Lewis on “Formal” or Liturgical Worship
The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty; we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it — it might be phony or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible.
In a fixed form we ought to have ‘gone through the motions’ before in our private prayers; the rigid forms really set our devotions free. I also find the more rigid it is, the easier it is to keep one’s thoughts from straying.
Also, it prevents getting too completely eaten up by whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (i.e. war, an election, or what not). The permanent shape of Christianity shows through.
I don’t see how the ex tempore method can help becoming provincial, and I think it has a great tendency to direct attention to the minister rather than God.
C.S. Lewis, Letters, 1 April 1952
Whether Good or Evil
At His coming, all men are to arise with their own bodies; and they are to give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith. Everyone must believe it, firmly and steadfastly; otherwise He cannot be saved.
Quicumque vult (The Athanasian Creed)
