film | Mendes' Revolutionary Road

I have one word for Sam Mendes' film Revolutionary Road: stunning. It's that good. It's that - I'm not sure what to say - stark, honest, nuanced, blistering.

Mendes takes us back to the 'burbs. It has been two films (Jarhead, Road to Perdition) since Mendes' directorial Oscar for American Beauty. American Beauty was, in a way, a movie about bullshit. The characters weren't bad, but enmeshed in bullshit which disconnected them from actual desires. Harry Frankfurt has argued that bullshit is more detrimental than lying, for at least the liar has some connection to the truth. Whereas American Beauty began with an established family firmly enmeshed in a bullshit existence, Revolutionary Road starts with a young couple who is trying to avoid transforming into the family in American Beauty. American Beauty has a comedic element insofar as Lester Burnham can laugh at and play with the absurdity surrounding him at the bottom of the well. Revolutionary Road has a greater sense of both gravity, as we watch a couple as they attempt not to fall down the well, and reality insofar as bullshit is not yet their governing paradigm.

The film takes place in the 1950s, depicting a young couple who meet, marry and create a suburban life with all the trappings and a healthy sense of desperation. Frank and April Wheeler are the product of gifted performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. One can't help but think about Titanic. One can't help but think that love - whether a love like that portrayed in Titanic or otherwise - cannot bear the desire for salvation that people place on its shoulders. Fixing the Wheeler's problems also means upsetting a negotiated set of expectations, cultural and private. The couple demonstrates what happens when people are utterly unsatisfied with their lives and want the person they love to save them but realize that they cannot. The result: hate and love swirl together as one feels one's life hanging in the balance. If you've been there, these emotional performances will astound you with their nuance. It's not an easy movie to watch - it speaks too bluntly and with too much honesty and wades too deeply into the relational and structural contours of our human existence - but it is, in a word, stunning.

[America's Young Theologian][Film][Revolutionary Road]

film | Zwick's Defiance

Since Christmas I've seen a lot of WWII films: Der Untergang, a great film about Hitler's last days, Valkyrie, The Great Escape, Saving Private Ryan, and Saints and Soldiers. The last one to add to the list is Edward Zwick's newly released film Defiance.

The film follows three Jewish brothers as they attempt to evade the Nazis occupying Poland. This sends them into the Belarussian forest, where they end up being joined by other escapees. One brother joins the Russian resistance fighters, one endeavors to build a livable village in the woods, and the youngest shares both impulses. What took place in actuality over the course of three years is condensed in the film to a period of nine months. It ends up feeling like one part Robin Hood but with more hiding, one part Schindler's List but with less encounter with actual Nazis, and perhaps one part Legends of the Fall. Generally, I think Zwick may have had a little more success with movies he has produced (I Am Sam, Shakespeare in Love, Traffic) than in his uneven work as a director (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Glory), but I'd put Defiance in the top third of Zwick's work (closer to Blood Diamond and Glory, than the utterly forgettable Courage Under Fire and The Siege). As in Blood Diamond, the actors pull their weight and anchor the film amidst some plot weaknesses. Still, the film ended up feeling a slightly flat. Roger Ebert suggests that the culprit might be a function of the lack of interface with the Germans which makes the film seem more a game of hide and seek when no one is counting. I definitely found the film watchable but not necessarily something about which I'm ecstatic. One could certainly do much worse, but one could also do better, e.g. Gran Torino, Milk, Revolutionary Road, Slumdog Millionaire.

[America's Young Theologian][Film][Defiance]

life | This And That

This is just a quick shoot from the hip post. Was sick last week. I spent two days in bed feeling pretty awful. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling better. My friend Kat brought over food and medicine and generally gets credit for being awesome.

While in bed I read a book, entitled The Alcoholic, that I got from one of my housemates for Christmas. Luke, you also get a gold star. It's a graphic novel written by Jonathan Ames and illustrated by Dean Haspiel that DC Comics released last fall. I found it really touching even if it is an unblinking look into a life somewhat crippled by sexual yearning, drugs, and, as the title suggests, alcohol. I'll let you read the NYTimes review, which starts with the delightful line "If ending up in a station wagon with a pudgy, dwarflike hag doesn’t make you want to quit drinking, what will?" You follow the main character through a process of wondering and answering how he ended up where he has. The struggles with sexual confusion, a lost childhood friend, a woman he can't seem to get over (which I thought was well-portrayed), and the gnawing knowledge that there is a better him are poignantly written and depicted. As long as you're not easily offended (and maybe if you are easily offended), I'd recommend it.

Since the whole Muxtape thing went down, I'm now using iMeem.com when I want to throw together a mix for the blog. I put up a new free track that will be on the new A.C. Newman album that comes out in a week. You can download it using the link above, which will take you to Matador's webpage and give you the opportunity to download a collection of tracks, or just go to A.C. Newman's page and download it there. Generally, I love anyone or anything with any connection to The New Pornographers, and can't wait for their frontman's second solo effort. Go Carl Go!

Was happy for the two best picture winners at the Golden Globes: Slumdog Millionaire (drama) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (comedy). Loved both.

Watched The Business of Being Born, which I'm convinced everyone should see. You can stream it on NetFlix, I think.



-- Oh, it's 2009, about time you subscribe to this blog. --

[America's Young Theologian][Music][Film][Birth]

theology | Why (On Jan 18-20th) It's Morally Superior To Be American Than Christian

Stanley Hauerwas once wrote an essay that provocatively asked "Why Gays (as a Group) Are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)." In short, his piece argued that (at the time) homosexuals being banned from the military - a particular moral achievement for Hauerwas - was something that Christians had failed to achieve.

We all know that on January 20th at the inauguration of Barack Obama, Rick Warren, the conservative pastor and author from California, will offer the invocation. His selection caused consternation among progressive Christians and non-Christians alike because of his support for Prop 8 in California and comments that many see as equating incest and homosexuality. Today, it was announced that Gene Robinson, the first openly gay person to be ordained a bishop in the ECUSA, will participate in the first event attended by the president-elect on Jan 18th.

So, in the coming days, you'll have Warren and Robinson participating in a singular function to pray for a place called the United States of America. In the coming days, there will be this little glimmer of unity, something that has been lacking for a long time, but particularly evidenced in the recent schismatic formation of the Anglican Church in North America which separates itself from the ECUSA. It should be clear that church unity - that for which Jesus prayed - is a more important virtue than getting a stance on human sexuality right. It should be clear that lack of church unity, schism, is a greater sin than homosexuality could possibly be. Well, at least in the coming days, there will be this little glimmer of unity, Christians from these unnaturally divided camps together in a particular task. It's sad that being American brings these Christians together rather than being Christian...so much for family values.

[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Homosexuality]

news | Richard John Neuhaus Died, Thursday

"The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a theologian who transformed himself from a liberal Lutheran leader of the civil rights and antiwar struggles in the 1960s to a Roman Catholic beacon of the neoconservative movement of today, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 72 and lived in Manhattan." [NYT Obit]

I always respected even if I never agreed fully with Neuhaus; I am sadden by his passing and thankful for his life.

music | What I'm Listening To

It's been a while since I've written about the music to which I'm listening, so I thought I'd throw together a playlist. Some is new, some is old. Happy listening.

View This Playlist On Imeem.com

[America's Young Theologian][Music]

poem | The Ripples Always Lakeside Roll

It's a new week, a new year. It's Monday morning and a warm day in North Carolina. I was sorting some files on my laptop and came across a poem I wrote maybe five years ago and thought I'd share it. It's strange for me to encounter it now.

+ + +
The Ripples Always Lakeside Roll

part the willows branches
with your fingers, with your face,
brush a fern and denim scene
of a grace sometimes displaced

gleeful, muttering, furrowed, hushed,
the ripples always lakeside roll,
a shore knows only arms outstretched,
the water filling, making whole

breaking shores become banks
with water learns to play, to move,
to dance within a field together,
never every whole is new

--Daniel R. Morehead