___

___

___

___

"I always think I'm right, but I don't think I'm always right."

___

"You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."
Gandalf to Frodo, 
LOTR i.2

___

"Oh, miracle -- thus to be able to give what we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands!"
Diary of a Country Priest

___

"This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now."
Knightly to Emma

___

My writing is like Shakespeare's.  At lease in the sense that I use many of the same words.

___

Tennis: what I lack in control, I make up for by over-hitting.

___

home

These are the ARCHIVES of the OLD Presbyteer Blogsite.  Change your links to
http://www.presbyteer.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday, Joe.  (Yesterday.)  Seventeen.  You are a delight.

Diet Coke is my desktop beverage of choice.  I wait till the 2-liter price is 99 cents or less and then I buy several.  

So what's the deal with "Coke Zero"?  Is it replacing Diet Coke?  Coke Zero was all over the shelves at Walgreen's where the Diet Coke has always been.  Is this just a new name or have they also changed the formula?  Will I have to re-train the taste buds?  Is it time to switch brands?  

And what's with that name, "Coke Zero?"  What marketing genius chose a name that indicates a losing score when compared to Pepsi One? 

Nice win for the Huskers last night in the Alamo Bowl.  They needed 15 points in the 4th quarter to win 32-28 over #20 Michigan, who was favored.  We don't have cable, so I couldn't watch, but I did listen to most of the 4th quarter on the radio.  I tuned in to hear Michigan leading 21-17 and drive from midfield to score a TD, to which the Huskers responded with a 3-and-out series.  Things were not looking good.

For the first part of the evening I watched 1971's Dirty Harry with Clint Eastwood.  Boy is that thing dated.  It's like fashion.  The more strongly you follow the current fashion, the more quickly your clothes are out of date.  But the bonus features were interesting.  Ahnold Schwarzenegger credited Dirty Harry as a big part of the inspiration for his movie career.  So okay, we can grant that Dirty Harry broke new ground and introduced a new type of cop, and so forth, but we can also appreciate that movies have come a long way.  The actor who played the maniacal villain says that people still come up to him and quote Harry's famous line about whether he fired 5 shots or 6.

link to this post...

 

December 28

King Kong

I really wanted to like this movie.  Ebert called it one of the year's best movies (???)(!).  Director Peter Jackson had all the time, money, and technology he needed to make a ripping adventure tale set in 1933.  But like the giant ape, Jackson cannot be bothered with boundaries and has no concept of self-control, and after his self-indulgent rampage, this story is a smashed wreck.  To be sure there is a certain fascination in watching the wreck of something huge and magnificent, but I would have preferred to see him make something huge and magnificent.  

So instead of native villagers, Jackson has to give us the Village of the Demon Possessed who have no conceivable social existence or purpose except to appear instantly in mindless bloodthirsty numbers to surround the cast whenever they turn around after a close-up.  Jackson doesn't make them merely creepy or savage, he makes them sub-human, strung-out, and just as grotesque as the guys in the makeup department can manage.  Basically, they're orcs.  

At every point along the way, Jackson stops the story dead in its tracks in order to give us a little show about what he can buy in today's movie technology candy store.  There's lots of candy and he has an endless supply of dimes in his fat little fingers.  

So we have a dinosaur stampede through a narrow valley that goes on and on and on and on.  ("Lookit mommy, lookit! I can beat Jurassic Park!")  

Jackson also indulges a completely misplaced fascination with horror and gives us a long scene in the Valley of the Giant Bugs where the "characters" (see, they're not actual characters, they're just figures for Jackson to dump effects on) spend a long time trying to peel off the crawling swarm, and where for some reason Jackson thinks its important for us to see several giant mud worms slowly suck a screaming, struggling crew member (good thing we brought along enough crew members -- we wouldn't want to run out before Jackson can think of ways to kill them) down their toothy maws.  (DO NOT TAKE CHILDREN TO THIS MOVIE.)     

And so Kong's battle with the T.Rex to save the girl.  Except we have to have three T.Rex's, and the battle has to go on and on and on and over a cliff and tangled in swinging vines and on and on.

And when Kong finally dies atop the Empire State Building.  We don't get a sad and poignant moment when the beast shows some understanding and final tenderness to the girl, we get moment after moment after moment after moment in the longest teary I'm-not-dead-yet farewell since Ali McGraw in Love Story (which I don't think I've ever actually seen.)

Actually, there were some good things in this movie.  I liked the ice in the park and ... uh ... I really liked the art deco opening credits, and  uh ...  

But today I'm just mad at Peter Jackson for making this mess instead of the great movie that was within his reach.

link to this post...

 

December 27

Serenity

Firefly was a short-lived TV series that ran on Fox a few years ago.  By the time it was dropped, it was gaining an enthusiastic following, and when the series was released on DVD, the word spread and the popularity grew.   I saw the series on DVD in November, and have some real enthusiasm for the show.  (earlier blog comments here.)

The production team (= Joss Whedon) didn't want to give up on the story, and they eventually got things lined up to make a movie.  (They're a bit proud of being the only movie in history based on a failed TV series.)

There are some "rules" about movies based on TV shows.  The movie needs to be true to the series (keep the trekkies happy), but it needs to take you farther, and not play simply as just another episode.  Plus, the movie has to work on its own as a movie -- you shouldn't *need* to have seen the TV episodes.  Serenity succeeds.  Two in our living room were familiar with the series, and two were new to it.  All four found the story engaging and exciting, although we cheated a bit and gave some backstory help to the newcomers.

Anyway: I recommend both the series and the movie.  

(And "only" PG-13!)      

(Not counting the out-takes on the special features, where everyone says Ralphie's soap poisoning word.)

link to this post...

 

December 26

Two more Flickr sets:

(1) Sing for Your Supper, 2005.  Ever since the grandkids were little, my mother has hosted a Sing For Your Supper event at Christmastime.  Each grandkid took a turn and sang his piece from the Christmas program, or played her piano recital piece, or did some kind of skit.  As the grandchildren have grown (and now adding great-grandchildren), the event has stayed fun.  Grandma and Grandpa are still going strong.  Grandpa emcee's and runs the VHS camera, and Grandma does the hostess thing, and reads the Christmas story from Luke at the end of the program.

(2) Some foggy night pictures.  On the way home, the fog was pretty cool.  I walked around a bit to see what the old Pentax could make of it.  Love that ISO 3200.

Tonight we plan to eat out and go see King Kong.  I have very high hopes for that movie.

In the mean time, I'm sermonizing.  I'm filling in at Grace Covenant in Grand Island with Psalm 90 on January 1st, and Psalm 91 on the 8th.

link to this post...

 

December 23

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

This movie rates a hard R, so you may wish to take it off your list for that alone.  I usually enjoy Sam Rockwell, and the premise of this movie sounds like it could be fun.  Rockwell plays the real-life Chuck Barris, who was a bottom-feeding TV producer for some time, giving America such lowest-common denominator fare as "The Dating Game", "The Newlywed Game", and "The Gong Show."  The movie tells that story -- along with the story of Barris' sideline job as a contract killer for the CIA.  He chaperones a winning Dating Game couple to exotic West Berlin and ducks down the alley to shoot a bad guy.  That could be an interesting movie, if it could find the right Get Shorty kind of comic tone.

But instead we get a cynical, hard, dark tale full of a Rupert Pupkin sadness.  There's a fine line between pain and comedy.  Thus, Steve Martin, for example, is often painfully funny.  But this movie spends most of its time on the painfully painful side of the line.  Barris is an unhappy man, entirely driven by selfish desire.  In a tasteless early scene (that is typical of many in this movie), we are introduced to Barris as a child trying to talk a girl into a sexual act.  That quest for self-centered pleasure coupled with an profound lack of regard for anyone else is offered as the defining quality of his life.  Which, no surprise, makes for a pretty painful, boring, and unsatisfying life.  Eventually his game shows get canceled, and wouldn't you know it, his spy ring also implodes: a mole starts killing off the other agents.  "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick", as the fellow said.  

By the way, Edward Norton would have been the kind of guy to cast instead of Kevin Costner in A Perfect World (see below.)  I recently saw him in Primal Fear, which I will write about at some point, but not until I see the whole movie.  (This is the one Netflix DVD I've had so far that was just too scratched up to watch -- the final scene in the jail simply would not play.)  Anyway, Edward Norton brings exactly the kind of edgy danger-behind-the-charm that the Costner character could have used in A Perfect World.

link to this post...

 

December 21

Renae blogs a good idea about cross-referenced supermarkets.  (A sign next to the peanut butter: "see also Bread - aisle 4, and mayonnaise - aisle 9"). 

While they're at it, they should replace those signs that hang above each aisle listing contents with big product-shaped balloons, which would be visible from across the store (given a clear sightline). Hanging from the ceiling above each aisle would be the appropriate blow-up bananas, bread loafs, coke bottles, cakes, steaks, peanut butter jars, potato chip bags ... because at the store, you are thinking visually, not textually. I always have to stop looking, change gears, think about reading, and then read the signs ... which is frustrating, because as I do so, I'M WASTING TIME when I could be looking and I might find it 

I offer you this idea completely free, and I hereby renounce any and all legal and commercial interest in this project.  So you wanna make money?  Be self-employed?  Just make these balloons, show them to your local IGA guy, document his success, and then go national.

And remember to tithe.

link to this post...

 

December 20

Stage Fright

This is a Hitchcock from 1950, and I enjoyed it a lot.  I sometimes feel like I have to apologize for old movies, because they don't satisfy many modern sensibilities.  For example, in this one, the Jane Wyman main character uses the soft, breathy leading lady half-whisper that we can all be thankful has passed out of currency.  But it was the coin of the realm in 1950, so if you don't complain, I won't apologize.  And take Marlene Deitrich.  (Please.)  In a way, she is basically every bit as funny as Madeline Kahn's famous I'm Tired parody of her in Blazing Saddles.  But you've got to let this be a 1950 movie, and in 1950, Marlene Deitrich was at a point in her career when she was practically a parody of herself.  (Though arguably her two best movies were yet to come: Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Touch of Evil (1958)).    

Some people complain about the way that Hitchcock uses the opening flashback device, and maybe this was more of a problem in 1950, but it didn't bother me.  Again, I've seen so many used, over-used, misused, and abused movie narrative devices that this one just didn't bother me.  

This DVD version had a very good retrospective feature that included interviews with Jane Wyman and Patricia Hitchcock (whose father gave her a bit part in this movie).  And we learn that Hitchcock himself was unhappy with this movie by the time he finished it.

My Netflix experience approaches the one month mark.  I have a "threesies" subscription, which means they let me have three movies at a time.  If I mail a movie back on Monday morning, the next one in my queue arrives on Thursday (likewise Tuesday..Friday, Wednesday..Saturday, ... Saturday..Wednesday).  That turnaround time makes it hard to watch more than three movies a week, so it will take quite a while to work through my current queue of 90 movies.  But I realize that's a good thing.  Too many would be too much.

link to this post...

 

December 13

ANIMUSIC

A couple of music/computer geeks have done some amazing musical animation/visualization.  Son Joe borrowed a DVD from a school pal, and I find this stuff fascinating.  Like Fantasia with really advanced mechanical tinker toys.

On the DVD commentary, the guy explains that he begins with some concepts for the mechanical / musical device -- how it works, what moves, what happens when the note sounds and all.  His computer animator pal then does some preliminary versions, and they play with the way it looks and works.  Then they expand the instrument for a complete range of notes, add other instruments and throw some test MIDI music at the program, like a scale.  In the mean time, the musician is working on his synthesizer, composing the whole piece.  The computer interface takes the digital music and plays the "instruments" to create the animation.  The final product adds lights and moving cameras.  After lots and lots of rendering time, the result is ready.  You can listen/watch some samples here:

http://www.animusic.com/dvd-info-clips-1.html

link to this post...

 

December 12

Les Choristes.  (2004) A French boarding school for delinquent and/or destitute boys receives a new teacher who does not go along with the repressive and cruel policies of the school's head, and also begins a boy's choir.  This has elements of Music of the Heart, Mr. Holland's Opus, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and many other movies about the special teacher who made a difference.  But Mr. Holland's Opus was manipulative, and Music of the Heart was among the least true feeling of the true-life movies stories.  So I liked Les Choristes better.  It felt truer in an understated way than Music of the Heart, and didn't play as directly for the soap opera melodrama like Mr. Holland's Opus.  The bookend flashback device was a bit contrived (would the world famous conductor really have forgotten the teacher who made it possible for him to go to the conservatory?), but this movie does what good movies do: it shows you to a time and place that you would never otherwise see.  I was reminded of Au Revoir Les Enfants, though that is a better movie than Les Choristes.

Foreign Correspondent  (1940) On the eve of World War 2, The New York Globe sends a tough crime reporter to Europe because the editor wants real news.  The reporter falls in love, gets entangled with a web of spies, has information that will expose a traitor and save a man's life, and most importantly, delivers a wake-up call to America.  This is not one of Hitchcock's best, and Joel McCrea as the hero doesn't quite deliver the toughness that Bogart would have offered, nor the heart that Jimmy Stewart would have shown.  I try to think of this dialog on a page of the script, and I end up thinking that a different actor might have carried this movie farther.

A Perfect World. (1993)  Kevin Costner escapes from a Texas prison, takes a 6-year old boy hostage, and, drives off for Alaska, a postcard from his long-deserted daddy in his pocket.  It's about 1960.  From time to time, we follow the progress of Clint Eastwood, the savvy old Texas Ranger who leads the man hunt from a state-of-the-art airstream trailer, aided and distracted by the educated liaison from the Governor's office, Laura Dern, who basically looks great in a tight skirt and gives Eastwood a chance to say something terse and colorful every so often about what he's thinking now. The movie depends on the Costner character and the kindness he shows the boy.  Costner is a dangerous man prone to bursts of violence and cruelty, but we never have the feeling that he will do anything to hurt the boy.  Or do we.  If this character had been played by Tom Cruise (in his psycho mode) or Ray Liotta, we would worry more for the boy; Kevin Coster is too "nice."  Plus, for some reason the movie begins with a snip from the final scene, giving us another hint that we needn't really worry.  So what we're left with is the way the man and the boy are surprised by the deep emotional needs the other begins to meet, while we observe the amazing power that even an absent father holds. 

link to this post...

 

December 09

Okay, there are other apparently serious Christians characters in the LOST series.  Charlie Pace, the Driveshaft band member has a Catholic background.  And Rose is a praying woman.  But Rose is a second-tier character, and Charlie's Catholicism is a circumstance he wrestles with rather than the center of his character as we see in Mr. Eko.

link to this post...

 

December 08

It is interesting that the one (apparently) serious Christian character in the LOST teevee series is Mr. Eko, an African.  What does it say about American Christianity that in order to present an intense, strong, spiritual character, the writers have chosen an African?  And can anyone imagine a believable American character in that dramatic slot, delivering anything like what Mr. Eko brings?  There's just no perception out there that the American MegaChristian connects with anything otherworldly, powerful, and mysterious.  

For instance, before Eko offers the missing film to Locke, he retells the Josiah story from 2 Kings about finding the long lost book of the law in the temple.  Eko interprets his current circumstances in terms of the Biblical story.  I'm afraid the only story that an American character would know to offer in Eko's place would be something out of the Left Behind pulp. 

The domestic animal known as American Christianity is the stuffed kitten alternative to the African Lion.

Not that this is anything like the whole story of course, (and I keep expecting the writers to have the Eko character say something truly goopy and sub-orthodox); all I am doing here is pointing out this *perception*, and that this perception says something about the American Christian that doesn't rhyme with "well done thou good and faithful servant." 

link to this post...

 

December 07

Nothing Sacred (1937).  This is an also-ran among the screwball comedies.  It doesn't measure up to Bringing up Baby, My Favorite Wife, or The Awful Truth, but it does have Carole Lombard and what's more, it's filmed in Technicolor, so Lombard's hair is unmistakably red.  William Wellman the director had some silly fun, such as when Lombard and Frederic March have part of a conversation with their heads fully behind a tree limb.  I wonder if Wellman was also secretly laughing at the studio bosses who were anxious to get their money's worth for this expensive Technicolor stuff by putting huge bunches of colorful flowers everywhere, often completely dominating the actors in the setup.  In fact, the Technicolor is a distraction, since the technology was barely ready for prime time, and since there was some effort to justify the expense by flooding everything with light and providing lots of colorful sets.  It's something of a shame because the Hollywood cinematographers were just becoming really good at shooting light and shadow in black and white, and then Technicolor came along and took away all the shadows since shadows are a "waste" of all that expensive color film.  Another thing that keeps this movie from ageing more gracefully is the pervasive ethnic stereotyping.  Let's see, we are presented with gags at the expense of New Englanders, Blacks, Native Americans, Scandinavians, and Drunks.  Nevertheless, the whole thing is played with a light, comic touch and basically succeeds in it's effort to entertain.  

link to this post...

 

December 06

Nothing will more dependably make my brain refuse to shovel thoughts here and there than asking it to consider profound philosophical philosophers philosophizing in long sentences and big words about things like whether the personal self has continuing existence or not.  I'd rather go to the dentist, or even watch reality TV.  But Peter Leithart, of large brain and clear speech, has done what nobody else (except maybe Joel Garver) could do, and that is to make me understand why philosophers (at least the ones whose personal selves continue in existence long enough for them to finish writing a book) think that the continuity of the self is an interesting question.  I wish the professor in my Philosophy class at Anderson College would have been able to point me to something like Leithart writes.  Philosophy absent Trinitarian Theology is a garden that will always produce weird and nightmarish plants, among which I do not care to wander.  Leithart shows why.  His title gives it away:

Myself in the Gaze of Another.   

(And by the way, for those who are keeping score, Leithart shows how some Reformed thinking about matters like, oh say justification, is hampered by being bundled with inadequate philosophical notions of an autonomous, independent self.)  

I will always remember what one dear friend said about her experience teaching young children in Sunday School.  She observed, as have many others, that when you ask young children a question and the little hands go up, they will basically give you one or two all-purpose answers.  The first answer will be, "Jesus?", and the second will be "Read the Bible and Pray."  That's about the level I'm working at sometimes.  Were somebody to call on me with a tough theological or philosophical question, I would take my cue from Leithart and answer, "ummmmm, ... the Trinity?"

I often feel like I have to do some explaining when I tell people that I read Doug Wilson, because some view him as something like the red-haired stepchild of the current scene in Reformed churches.  But I will make someone a deal.  If you think I would spend my reading time better elsewise, then just tell me whose writing will give me stuff like this:

I have to say that reading an emergent book by Brian McLaren is like watching a six-year-old do card tricks.

I've never seen nicer red hair.

link to this post...

 

December 05

Strangers on a Train is one of Hitchcock's best.  It is highly regarded by critics and film buffs, and I don't say anything new by agreeing: this is a very enjoyable movie. The DVD has a commentary track that includes general comments from several different sources, including pieces of an old interview with Hitchcock himself.  

Of course, it is an old movie, and that means that we will smile at some moments where the cultural and technical distance between us and the world of this movie is too great.  But I was generally impressed with the careful work they did, and on a second viewing, I paid particular attention to the way he framed and composed his shots.  Why certain camera angles and points of view, why did he light the scene this way instead of that way.  I'd be interested to hear somebody who knows about these things talk about the language of film and point things out.

Then after watching Strangers on a Train, I watched Danny DeVito's Throw Mama From the Train again, this time with some appreciation for the way DeVito quotes the Hitchcock.  Ebert was not happy with Throw Mama when it came out, and partly for the way it used the premise and other elements from Strangers without adding anything interesting.  He thinks it would have been a better movie if they had unpacked the Mama character and explored the Danny DeVito character's strangeness.  But I really like Throw Mama, it remains on my favorites list, and more so now that I have seen Strangers on a Train.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  Best of the Potter movies yet.

link to this post...

 

December 01

Rich Lusk comes at the issue of Paedofaith from many sides.  One line of reasoning follows the question of infant salvation.  

1.  Nobody teaches that all who die in infancy are condemned to hell.

2.  On the other hand, nobody who pretends to believe the Bible proposes that anyone is saved other than by grace through faith.

3.  Therefore, the infants whom God saves must in some sense be saved by faith.

4.  If you deny that, then you have torn an ugly hole in Sola Fide.

Lusk reasons much more elegantly that my little summary here.  His book deserves a wide reading.  (God forgive me, but I do like to see Baptists squirm when Presbyterians will keep saying, "But the BIBLE says ...") 

Unforgiven.  Kevin Costner made Dances With Wolves in 1990 and hit upon the device of falling down a lot, evidently with the idea that the audience will think it's kind of funny and grant the main character some extra sympathy and affection.  Clint Eastwood must have seen that movie, because he made Unforgiven in 1992 and darn it if he doesn't fall down a lot, thereby communicating that he is just a regular guy with sick hogs and two young'uns to see after.  But he's not very good at being a regular guy, and years ago, before his dear departed wife reformed him, he was really good at being a pretty tough hombre.  And now as a regular fall-down kinda guy, he's not making a very good go of things (witness his sick hogs), so when he hears about a vengence reward well, he falls down getting on his horse to take the job, even though he keeps saying he's not that kinda guy any more.  Morgan Freeman comes along because he's his partner.  Gene Hackman is the despicable town boss whose evil ways must be opposed. 

This movie doesn't work as a good guy / bad guy contest, because there's not much difference between them.  Clint wants to care for his kids and honor his dead wife.  Gene wants to build a porch on his house and watch the sunset.  But Clint has to take up a very questionable cause (tedious vulgarity alert), and Gene has to defend because, well, that's who they are, I reckon.

Yup.  He was some kind of man.

FAM BLOGS
Exsamination
pontifikate
Valerie
Karen
Becker Blog
Daniel
Micah

ALSO ONLINE...
The New Pantagruel
Covenant Renewal
Theologia
First Things
Touchstone
Biblical Horizons
Credenda-Agenda
CRTA
larknews.com
Townhall.com
OpinionJournal.com

A SHORT BIO ...
movies...
Ebert...
wish list ...