the king of kong

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a beautiful reminder of why I love film and find myself sitting through two hours of mediocrity most of the time - there is always the hope of being blown away. This documentary about obtaining the world record at the classic arcade video game Donkey Kong is superb. Cassie and I finished watching it and both looked at each other repeating back and forth how great this movie is (and then immediately joined the Facebook group "Steve Wiebe is the Real King of Kong"). I've always had a ton of respect for documentary filmmakers and Seth Gordon has produced a masterpiece filled with characters I don't think Hollywood's screen writers could come up with. It's one of the best docs I've ever seen (probably second to only Hoop Dreams) and I urge anyone interested in being entertained for 90 minutes to immediately stop and drop it in your queue.

city of god

After recently revisiting Fernando Meirelles’ and Katia Lund’s 2003 film City of God (Cidade de Deus), I was struck once again by its utter brilliance. It is an interesting example of the importance of the artistic medium of film because it is not the plot that is so captivating, but rather the world that we are brought into using the visual and the auditory. It is a very rough and physical world of poverty and violence that is conveyed to the audience through mostly handheld DV with a traditional Brazilian soundtrack. The beginning of the movie takes place in a housing project called the “City of God,” establishing the background of the gang-members (“hoods”) with whom the film focuses. These scenes in the projects introduce us to the impoverished lifestyle that helps to form their characters. The scenes are noticeably orange and yellow reflecting the intense heat (literal and figurative) in which its citizens live. It is a physically hot environment that is only exasperated by the violence and desperate nature of its inhabitants. Rio de Janeiro, in which the majority of the rest of the film takes place is mostly shot with cool colors representing a transplant of the kids from the City of God into a new environment, a mixed environment of rich and poor, white and black, and common citizens along with the most wicked of society. Violence is prevalent throughout the film and while gruesome at times, one gets the impression that for the characters this is just life. You will be hard pressed to preach to people that grow up in this environment the sanctity of life. They are the forgotten of society, the desperate, and the downtrodden. The majority of the film captures rival street gangs seeking to gain control of the streets and of small-time drug dealing but perhaps the larger purpose is just survival.
City of God is a definitive example of the docudrama, where the unknown, amateur actors are so compelling that there are times where you are honestly astonished that these are actors. The movie is violent and there are scenes that many would consider sexually explicit, yet all of these factors help contribute a key reason for watching important films, specifically they transport us from our comfortable lives of suburbia into a brand new world of poverty, violence, and injustice. It is a dark and disturbing environment that cries out for something more than morality lessons and government handouts.
It is interesting that the characters live in a city called the City of God, where God is seemingly absent. Yet the paradox is that God isn’t absent. We see children made in the image of God forsake their relative innocence for belonging and acceptance by horrific gang initiations. Apparent is the need for God-shaped holes to be filled. We see the ugliness of sin reflected in the perversity of the characters lives contrasted with the beauty of Brazilian sunsets and panoramics. City of God brilliantly poses the paradox of great films with disturbing subject matter: beautiful hideousness. The ugliness of humanity’s sin shot along with and through the beauty reflective of God’s common grace, whether through locations or the director’s aesthetic vision. Films like City of God wake us up to the fact that we are not ok and the rest of the world is not ok. Far too many Christians live their lives (and by default view art) as if people have dirty hearts that just need sanitization. Films like City of God should remind us instead that we have dead hearts in need of transplants.

Hollywodd's Prophetic Voice

Throughout his career, Woody Allen has had somewhat of a prophetic voice in Hollywood. Though his own theological convictions are ambiguous at best, Allen works with theological categories, which for the most part have been completely absent in modern cinema. In his latest film, 2007's Cassandra's Dream starring Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, I was struck by the fact that there was a God-referential sense in which the characters acted. While by and large panned by critics, the film tells the story of two brothers in financial trouble who are offered an opportunity to get out of their situation if they murder a personal enemy of their rich uncle. To a certain extent I can understand the reasons why the film was panned (some poor over-acting, a simplistic story, mis-casting, and it was a bit morality play-ish), yet I walked away feeling as if I just sat through a modern-day Hitchcock.
In dealing with the existential crisis of murdering another human being, despite the brothers having no concept of God, the character played by Colin Farrell is haunted by the idea that this life may not be all that there is. What if the God who he has never believed in actually exists and there will be judgment to face when he dies? For the amount of films dealing with the subject matter of murder, the fact that Cassandra's Dream at least offered the idea that there may be a God of wrath upset with murder came as a breath of fresh air.
To use another film as contrasting example, last year's No Country For Old Men (NCFOM) had one of the most chilling villain's in years, brutally murdering people with a cattle gun. While the two films ultimately can't be compared from an artistic standpoint (in my opinion NCFOM was probably the best movie in the last 10 years) there was no sense of a just God who just might exist and one day make things right. One of the overarching themes of NCFOM was the banality of evil (especially murder), but you have to ask if this also plays into one of the overarching themes of society at large, the banality of human existence. Woody Allen, throughout his career has at least offered the possibility that there just might be a God after all. Because of this, he offers us the category of sin. The idea that murder is more than just mean and cruel because it interrupts my pursuit of personal happiness and pleasure but also violates the law of God is a category missing in modern films. This isn't a category that has always been missing in film though, one only has to put on Hitchcock or (even better) Westerns and realize that other cinematic killers have one day feared the concept of a God who says "vengeance is mine."
Casandra's Dream may not be a great movie, but at least through some over written dialogue and mediocre acting it conveys a message larger than its story.

Christians & Film

Film is far and away the most prevalent artistic medium that our society interacts with and therefore it is no surprise that one of the fastest growing theological disciplines is that of theologies of film. Sadly the direction this field is headed (or is already in) is a bit concerning. Over the winter break I read through the most popular evangelical introduction to the theological analysis of film in Robert Johnston’s Reel Spirituality. Johnston, an evangelical uses his own "transcendent" experience he had while watching Becket with Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole to argue for film being an important avenue for experiencing the Divine. Working (dubiously) with Barth’s concept of “parables of the kingdom," Johnson describes the cinema as a place where God can meet men and women on their own turf. Since many in our society no longer see the need for church, movies are a legitimate medium for spiritual experiences.
Johnston along with other pioneers in the emerging discipline of theology and film rely on the work of Paul Tillich and Jürgen Moltmann. For Tillich the Divine Spirit is manifest in the human spirit in both morality and culture. In relation to film when we witness the power and ingenuity of the human spirit on screen we experience the uppercase "S" Spirit of God. Drawing upon the work of Moltmann the Spirit's work is extended to all of creation where we are faced with the paradox of "immanent transcendence" in all of life. Johnston interacting with Tillich and Moltmann writes, "If the Spirit is active in and through the human spirit, then the potential for the sacred is present across our human endeavor. Yet Christian theology, though it might give lip service to the presence of the Spirit in all of life, continues largely to ignore such works of the Spirit in the mundane, the ordinary experiences of life" (Reel Spirituality, 97).
It is interesting and rather predictable that the church’s relationship to Hollywood seems to be on a pendulum that swings from total abstention and disdain to sacramentalizing the big screen. What this tells me is that for those of us who love the medium of film and understand that for the forseeable future it isn't going away, we have the important task of teaching our people how to be movie watchers. The question isn't whether our people will be seeing movies, but rather what movies will they be seeing? Those of us who see the artistic value of film and recognize that it isn't going away any time soon must teach our people to go to the cineplex able to discern both artistically and theologically what they are seeing before them. Theological presuppositions such as a robust view of common grace and the image of God must undergird the experience of going to the movies. We don't go to movies to find God but to experience the artistic gifts of men and women made in the image of God. Like a great novel we go to films to understand human nature better. To experience worlds unimaginablly different than our own.
To conclude, Kevin Vanhoozer best describes our role as Christians as we seek to better engage the culture around us. "The church is to be a community of interpreters. The church interprets what is going on in culture by offering theologically thick descriptions that inscribe our everyday world into the created, fallen, and redeemed world narrated in Scripture" (Everyday Theology, 55). More later on what it means to make our people better interpreters of film and all of life.

Best Movies of 2006

Being a student with limited financial resources and a demanding seminary curriculum it apparently takes until August of the following year to go back and reflect on the best films and music of 2006. Some may wonder why it would even be worth doing a list of the best films and music of '06 this late and I really don't have an answer for you except this is what blogs are for...namely sharing your opinion that virtually no one has any reason to care about. I will first be posting my top 10 films of 2006. I don't necessarily have a list of criteria on what determines the better movies of the year. I merely have an amateur eye for understanding film techniques and in no way have a future as a film critic. Yet I love movies and understand film to be one of the most powerful mediums today. Is it necessary to watch movies in order to engage with our culture? Probably not. But I like movies because great movies like great literature accurately portray the world and humanity as it really is. Why are movies backed by Christian production companies typically so bad? That's easy, they portray a world foreign to us all. A world full of positive and encouraging people and circumstances and if by chance conflict and adversity arises, God will save the day. The fact of the matter is that the world isn't always positive and encouraging. Often it is quite the opposite and our God often fails to save the day as he is portrayed as doing in Christian movies. All he promises to do is be with us, suffer with us, and one day redeem and make right every messed up part of this world.
Without further ado, my top movies of 2006.

#10 - Babel
As the name suggests, biblical imagery and references permeate this film highlighting the confusion and utter frustration of human beings not being able to communicate with other human beings. With multiple story lines running throughout the film the one thing that binds them all together is the fact that not being able to verbally communicate with one another leads to confusion and ultimately tragedy. The profundity of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel is made vivid when we are shown the very real consequences of God's ancient judgment that is still experienced today.

#9 - Thank You For Smoking
A hilarious satirical film about the cigarette industry and all of the political and legal lobbying that goes on behind the scenes. The story revolves around the world of a top notch spin doctor who works for the tobacco industry and does everything from encourage Hollywood to bring back smoking in films to bribing the dying Marlboro man in order to avoid a law suit. It's not an easy task finding an intelligent film that is still laugh out loud funny.

#8 - The Prestige
Director Christopher Nolan continues to prove himself as one of the best new directors. This suspenseful drama about two rival magicians was one of the most intelligent films of the year begging to be watched multiple times in order to grasp all of the twists and "misdirections" present throughout. While The Prestige could have been just an edgy movie movie about magicians starring beautiful people, I was especially engaged by Hugh Jackman's portrayal of a man consumed with obsession for his rival (Christian Bale). Plus David Bowie can only help but make a good product awesome.

#7 - Marie Antoinette
While most likely one of the more historically dubious movies of the year, it was one of the most entertaining films of the year. Sofia Coppola's third turn as director is my favorite of what she's made so far (I never really appreciated Lost In Translation to the extent critic did). This biopic of Marie Antoinette probably makes my list because of Coppola's full use of her artistic medium. Roger Ebert makes my point better than I can, "Coppola has been criticized in some circles for her use of a contemporary pop overlay -- hit songs, incongruous dialogue, jarring intrusions of the Now upon the Then. But no one ever lives as Then; it is always Now. Many characters in historical films seem somehow aware that they are living in the past. Marie seems to think she is a teenager living in the present, which of course she is -- and the contemporary pop references invite the audience to share her present with ours."

#6 - Stranger Than Fiction
While not on most critics lists for the best film of the year, the fact of the matter is that I love Will Ferrell. In college when Cassie and I would have a bad day we would simply give each other the look and in went Anchor Man. Sometimes as a film viewer you just appreciate a creative story with a decent message, for me, that's what this movie was. It wasn't great and didn't win any prestigious awards, it was just a fun and entertaining film.

#5 - The Queen
By geographical default, the United States is an isolationist nation. Our local newscasts would sooner run a story about a pig that can windsurf than actual global landscape changing events on the other six continents in the world. The Queen makes my list because for two hours I was deeply concerned with the British government's handling of an event that was on the scale of a national crisis. It was bigger than just a retelling of the story of Princess Diana's death and the response of Queen Elizabeth. It was about a dying (if not dead) way of life. In the United States we have long understood the impotence of the British crown but seeing the power struggle between the Queen and new PM Tony Blair at the time of events gives those of us far removed from such an event fresh perspective.

# 4 - Brick
A teenage crime drama where modern 16 and 17- year olds in Southern California speak with classic film noir dialogue. While sounding like a recipe for disaster it some how miraculously works. Brick is one of the more engaging films of the year. We don't really care about the characters' fates because we know they are over the top, they are merely representing old school crime drama archetypes but we still watch to see what will happen next in a stylized way with overwritten dialogue.

# 3 - The Departed
When I was in high school I saw The Godfather for the first time. For three hours I was completely and totally engaged. From there I saw the rest of the Godfather series (te absolvo non Part 3) Goodfellas and any other moffia inspired movie that came out since. All of this to say I really liked The Departed.

# 2 - Little Miss Sunshine
What can I say, an iconic comedy with an iconic yellow VW bus and an iconic dance. A seriously messed up family going to a beauty pageant with more seriously messed up families ruining their daughters lives. Little Miss Sunshine is both hilarious and tragic, much the same as life.

# 1 - Children of Men
First of all let me say that I am embarrassed to admit that I had no idea that this was a novel before I saw the film let alone a novel by P. D. James. It was after listening to a Mars Hill Audio Journal with Ken Myers that I was informed that The Children of Men was perhaps her most blatantly Christian novel. In retrospect this doesn't surprise me. I still haven't read the book but this film portrays such a bleak outlook on the depravity of humanity. It's true that in the film there is no Gospel and there is no Christ. But there is plenty of hopelessness and sin, and that is after all half the equation. Director Alfonso Cuaron presents a visually stunning movie that takes dark, gray tones to a new level with Emmanuel Lubezki's breathtaking cinematography . I recall reading a Paste Magazine review of this movie where the reviewer expressed concern that the film (specifically its ending) was nihilistic. If nihilism was the only thing some viewers are taking away from a film like this, it is merely a reminder of how quickly this is becoming a depressing world where self-sacrifice and teleological ethics are interpreted as nihilistic.