I really like Derek’s take on art and especially Christian art and Christian music.  Check out this really quick short video of him talking about Christian art needing to expand what it’s willing to engage.

Since it opened on May 8th I’ve been to see Star Trek twice.  Given the opportunity, I would go again at the drop of a hat.  It’s just that good.  It’s been a while since I was a self-avowed Trekkie, but trust me, there was such a time.  From 6th to 8th grade I was a die-hard fan.  The Trekkie chapter in my life contributed to my remarkable awkwardness during adolescence, but it was a chapter that made me a better person nonetheless.  Napoleon Dynamite will one day be a man of great character thanks to his awkward years of living on the margin.  And I was almost that nerdy.  I would sit and draw the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D over and over again at lunch.  I think it’s stored in my muscle memory now.  I could probably bust out a decent sketch of it to this day.  (As a side-note from a youth ministry perspective, a childhood without these kind of social struggles generally makes for miserable people.  It is a blessing to be a nerd.  A little dose of struggle, awkwardness or suffering makes us all better.  We all know people who have gone through all of their life as the “popular” kids… it is not pretty.)

All that is to say that there was a time when I wouldn’t have missed a Star Trek film, and would have been mostly excited about the spaceships and all that other über nerdy Trek stuff.  The story and the drama was secondary to me.  Well that was in middle school.  My Trek fandom has wained so much that I haven’t bothered to watch the last few films (and from what I’ve heard I didn’t miss much).  But then J.J. Abrams was brought on board to “reboot” the Trek franchise with a prequel.  As I’ve said before, there are some artists that get a free pass from me, Abrams being one of them.  Not that it took much arm twisting to go see this film, I mean, did you see the trailer??? It was obvious that this Star Trek was going to kick butt on so many levels.  And it did not dissapoint.  Like George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise, this Star Trek just jumps right into the action, putting credits off until after the ride is over.  And the film hits the ground running.  After the first 5 minutes or so your heart is pumping because of the intensity of the action and your eyes are tearing up because of the depth of the drama.  Then *BAM* pause just long enough for the “Star Trek” title to scrawl across the screen and we’re thrown right back into the action.  I can’t say enough about this movie.  The actors were great – doing an excellent job of playing their characters and not playing the actors who played their characters before them.  Chris Pine for instance, plays Kirk, not Shatner playing Kirk.  And it worked.  They did throw a few bones to the die-hard Trekkies out there, but this film was accessible and FUN, no matter what level dungeon master you happen to be.

I forgot to mention how great Michael Giacchino’s score was.  It reminded me so much of the Ennio Morricone’s score for Eastwood’s speghetti westerns.  Lots of trumpets and kettle drums.  Soooo epic.

A few weeks ago I went and saw The Soloist, a film I had been eagerly waiting to see since this fall when I saw the trailer for it in theaters.  I cried watching the trailer.  So I was really looking forward to this film.  The day before I went to see it I happened to catch Terri Gross’ interview with Steve Lopez, the LA Times journalist played by Robert Downey Jr.  Her interview added another layer of depth to the story for me, and helped fill out some of the story that gets lost in this two hour film.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, The Soloist is based on the true story of a friendship between Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless man with amazing musical ability and Steve Lopez, a journalist for the LA Times.  Originally from Cleveland, Mr. Ayers learned the cello as a young boy and was later accepted into Juilliard.  By the time columnist Steve Lopez meets Nathaniel his life is on a very different path.  Homeless and suffering from schizophrenia, Nathaniel was living on the streets of Skid Row in the heart of LA.  Mr. Lopez came across Nathaniel playing the violin in the street and was taken with his skill.  Over the course of the next several years Lopez would write about Nathaniel for the LA Times, telling his compelling story and bringing awareness to the reality of life on Skid Row in a city that likes to ignore such things.

There are a few departures from the truth in the film version of the story.  This is always the case with true stories.  The medium of film often demands tweaking some story elements for the sake of the medium, but Mike King makes a good case for why these particular points of departure were unnecessary over at his blog.  One element of the story that they got spot-on was the portrayal of Skid Row.  Back in college a group of guys from our dorm spent a few weekends working at Central City Community Church in the heart of Skid Row and the poverty we encountered there was just as stark and shocking as it is portrayed in The Soloist.  The later it is in the month the more people line the streets until it becomes a tent city of homeless refugees in the heart of LA.  The actors portraying the homeless in The Soloist are playing themselves and I really appreciated that the filmmakers included the homeless in telling this story.

This film is powerful.  It’s moving.  And yet it left me with one really huge lingering question… is it a beautiful story because Nathaniel Ayers is such an amazing musician or is it beautiful because Nathaniel Ayers is a child of God?  Can we come to embrace the homeless in the way that Steve Lopez embraced Nathaniel, even if there is nothing extraordinary about them?

My prayer is that we will.

If you’d like to see the real Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ayers check out the following videos.

I just read this report on CNN.com which found that the more Americans attended church, the more likely we are to support torture.  What a terrible witness to this world we have become.  Rather than being an appetizer for the Kingdom of God we support the violence of this world more than it does itself!  I believe this is more evidence that as Christians we have become a people of “the means justify the ends” rather than a people willing to suffer as we follow the way of Christ.

What part of “your will be done, on earth, AS IT IS IN HEAVEN” do we not understand?

I missed this the other day.  via Brian McLaren

While I’m on the subject of sports teams logos… here’s a little rant I’ve had stored up in my heart for years.  J.R. mentioned in the comments of the last post that he thought some NFL teams logos seemed like they belonged in the Arena League.  Ouch.  If there’s a sports league with a worse reputation for logos than the Arena League I don’t know of it.  One common practice among sports logo designers that just plain drives me nuts, and is very “Arena League-esque,” is featuring sports EQUIPMENT in the logo!  It’s as if you’re reminding your fans what sport they’re supporting.  I hate the practice, and think it just plain lacks creativity and at it’s worst seems patronizing.

That’s why I think the NFL has far and away the best sports logos of any league.  That and NFL logos know that “less is more.”  Of the 32 NFL teams only three feature football equipment in the logo – The Dolphins logo has a helmet, and the Jets and Bucs both feature a football.  For logos featuring sports equipment they’re pretty subtle.  Trust me it could be worse.  The NHL has been getting better over the years, slowly working these kinds of logos out of the mix and of 30 NHL teams only 6 feature sports equipment.  The Thrashers, Sharks and Capitals all feature a hockey stick, the Avalanche logo includes a hockey puck, not to be outdone the Islanders have a stick and a puck and the Penguins take the cake with a stick, skates and gloves!

And then there are the BIG offenders.  Major League Baseball and the NBA.

Just over half (16) of MLB’s teams feature baseball equipment in their logos.  The NBA also has 30 teams, 21 of which feature sports equipment in their logo.  In these leagues the graphic designer’s plan of action seems to be this – identify ball used in sport… basketball, check.  Type team name over basketball, check.  Pick font.  Bill team.

The Detroit Lions, long-standing holders of the worst NFL logo have such and ugly look that Detroit fans have taken it upon themselves to design a new logo.  According to a March 10th post on Uni-Watch, a blog featured on ESPN.com that obsessively studies “athletic aesthetics” the Detroit News held a public competition for a new look for the Lions.

I recently heard on Sports Center that the Lions will be wearing new uniforms next year, but I can’t confirm if it’s just new jerseys or if the team really is donning a new logo.  But, rumors abound that there will be a logo change in 2009.  Either way, the Detroit News held an amateur competition for a new look.  And here’s the winner by Lonnie Walker…

For all you Point Loma Nazarene University Alumni… does that look familiar?  Does it look eerily like our very own PLNU Sea Lion?  Like this…

It’s one thing to check out the work of other artists for inspiration, it’s another thing entirely to take their work and simply tweak it and call it your own.  If it came down to it, I can’t see how this logo would ever pass muster from a legal standpoint.  I will say this, at least our Lion is looking at his prey, the Detroit Lion seems to be thinking about something else.  Anyway, for now this is just an amaetur competition, but keep an eye on it because we can’t let a lousy NFL team steal our logo!

If you don’t have a long commute or simply use an iPod rather than the car radio then chances are that you are not an NPR junkie like myself.  It makes me sad that you don’t listen to NPR.  Hey, I like to rock out to my iPod too, but NPR is like Jamba Juice – it tastes good and is good for you!  NPR has become my main (if not sole) outlet for news and information, and continuing education.  On Fridays I know that I’m going to learn something cool about Science thanks to Ira Flatow.  I’m always interested by the guests and conversations on the Dianne Rehm Show.  Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett has far and away the most intelligent conversations about religion and Fresh Air with Terri Gross is reason enough to turn off the iPod and check out your car’s radio.  Unless of course you podcast these shows like I do.  Then they’re with you anytime you want.

BUT far and away THE best reason to check out NPR is a show from Chicago called “This American Life.”  Be warned, TAL is addictive.  I first encountered TAL driving around Kansas City when I was in Seminary, and before I knew it I was hooked on whatever story was being told.  I have a distinct memory of being so captivated by a story of a little American girl who became pen-pals with Manuel Noriega that I sat in my car in the parking lot of Blockbuster for 45 minutes listening to the story.  I couldn’t get out of the car to go rent a movie for fear that I would miss even a minute of the story.

This began to happen more frequently until I figured out what that crazy show was that kept me trapped inside my car, so that I could just subscribe to the podcast and not fear being trapped in my car again.

The next distinct episode I remember hearing was about prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and stories of how they got there.  It made my blood boil.  I haven’t missed an episode since.  TAL is why I donate to NPR now.  But what IS This America Life?  Is it a news show?  Is it just stories?  Well it’s hard to say, but usually they have a theme for the week and bring us several stories relating to that theme.  Most are true, some are audio from stand-up comedians, it really is rather unpredictable.  Some weeks there is one story that is just so compelling that the whole hour is devoted to it.  For instance they’ve done three shows now explaining the economic collapse “for the rest of us” who don’t speak economic-ese.  The first episode “Giant Pool of Money” explained the sub-prime mortgage crisis in a way that was both incredibly understandable and fun (or at least funny).  There latest economy episode explains the banking crisis we’re in now.  That episode is called “Bad Bank” and it will enlighten you to what the heck is going on in our world right now and why we might care… again done in a way that was ridiculously easy to understand and fun to listen to.

So seriously go check out This American Life right now.  Then subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Then give them like $5 or $10 a year to help pull your own weight and pay for the bandwidth.

Tonight New Jersey Devil goalie, Martin Brodeur, broke Patrick Roy’s record for wins by making 30 saves in a 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.  I am not now nor ever will be a New Jersey Devils fan.  Going back to the mid-ninetys there has been a rivalry betwen New Jersey and Detroit (the two best teams of the past 20 years) and the 1995 Stanley Cup to ensure no love is lost between the Devils and my Red Wings… but I can’t say a bad thing about Brodeur, the guy is the best there ever was at the position and classy to boot, which is more than I can say for the guy whose record he broke.  So here’s to Brodeur finally getting the record that will solidify his title of best goaltender ever… and also to the “fall” of Patrick Roy from such consideration.

If you think the football season ends after the Super Bowl then you’ve missed the drama currently going down in Denver.  New head coach, Josh McDaniels and star quarterback Jay Cutler are fighting like a bunch of jr. high girls.  McDaniels apparently entertained the thought of a trade to get his protege from New England, Matt Cassel.  It didn’t happen, Cassel went to Kansas City.  But Cutler is insulted and has been talking about his “trust” issues with the team.  For all the talk coming out of the Broncos organization about “Jay Cutler will NOT be traded,” McDaniels apparently couldn’t help but stir the pot during his talk with Cutler on the phone yesterday by re-emphasizing that no player is beyond getting traded.  Ugh, just when things could have been patched up.

Sports Illustrated linked to an article from the “Mile High Report” which blames the whole thing on Cutler’s agent, Bus Cook.  Aparently Cook has a history of “cooking” up these dramatic scenarios in order to get big long contracts for his players.

Well it’s a business.  And aparently just as childish as a lot of other business out there.

Meanwhile the Chargers did right by LT and gave him a fair contract keeping him in San Diego.

In my last post I said that Slumdog Millionaire was the best film I saw before the Oscars.  That’s true, BUT, Gran Torino was easily my favorite film from last year.  If you saw the trailer and thought that this looked like a geriatric version of the old-school Clint Eastwood butt kicking movies you’d be well within reason to do so.  But that’s the tricky thing about trailers, a great one piques your interest without giving away the story and terrible ones mine the best stuff from the movie leaving you dissapointed at the theatre.  The trailer for Gran Torino tells you part of a much larger much more impressive story.  And if the grumpy old racist who’s quick to pull a rifle out to defend his front lawn didn’t get you into the theatres the rest of the story should have, so take it from me – go to the theatre this week to catch it while it’s still out.

[spoilers ahead]

Is Clint Eastwood a grumpy old racist quick to draw his rifle in Gran Torino?  Yes.  But there is oh so much more.  Eastwood is one of those people that gets an automatic pass from me.  I’ll go see any project he’s involved with, I’ll give any Eastwood film a chance.  I mean he has been on a ROLL since 2003’s Mystic River and he’s just been in so many good films he’s always worth the benefit of the doubt.

So one cold January night I drug my wife to the theater and sat there with a few hundred retirees (seriously we were the youngest people in the theater by about 30 years!) to see what story Clint Eastwood would have for us.  Gran Torino turned out to be an incredibly powerful story of Walt Kowalski, a Korean war vet who has watched the world litterally change around him.  Walt never left the home he and his wife had in suburban Michigan like the rest of the whites had and after she dies he finds himself the lone white man in a Hmong neighborhood, emphasis on the hood.  When Walt breaks up a fight between some gangsters and his neighbor’s son, Thao, by showing up with his war rifle, the Hmong neighbors exalt him as a community hero.  Walt says he simply didn’t want anyone on his lawn and gruffly reject the gifts and praise, but his neighbors persist.  One in particular, Thao’s older sister Sue, shows up on Walt’s porch and makes it a point to educate him on Hmong culture.  Sue is persistent and draws Walt out of his grumpy isolation and into an unlikely friendship with his neighbors, especially with Thao.  Thao is a prime recruit for the local gang and Walt rescues him from being initated and takes the young boy under his wing.  And this is what makes Gran Torino my favorite film from last year.  Walt Kowalski is not a nice guy.  Walt is not sensitive, he drinks too much, he swears all the time, he is pretty darned racist and yet… his relationship with Thao is so beautiful it brought me to tears.

I know, I know, I am SOOOOOO late to the game in posting about Slumdog Millionaire.  But I swear that I saw this movie back on January 19th and have just now sat down to blog about it.  Had I blogged back then about Slumdog I could have reccommended the film to you and told you how amazing it was.  Today, a couple of solid weeks post-Oscars that kind of seems like saying that the internet is great and you should really check it out.  But if you haven’t seen Slumdog yet, chances are that your local movie theatre just picked it up in the last few weeks to capitalize on the Oscar buzz and you should run straight to said movie theatre and reward them for doing so.  Slumdog Millionaire treads the same road as other “poverty films” like City of God or Tsotsi without getting lost in it’s own seriousness.  Instead Slumdog dares to tell a story from within the slums that is hopeful and triumphant.  I am drawn to films that make poverty their subject matter, but like most people leave the theatre feeling pretty beat-up and outraged.  Slumdog takes us into the darkness of the slums of Mumbai and shows us the light.  Kara said that it has become her favoirte movie and I would easily say that Slumdog Millionaire was the best film I saw in 2009.

I wanted to catch Charlie Wilson’s War when it came out in the theater but never got around to it.  Well that’s the beauty of Netflix.  Eventually these movies find you.  So I popped CWW in the DVD player the other day to see what all the fuss was about.  What unfolded was an interesting story of how a morally questionable Senator teamed up with CIA hothead to divert millions of dollars into arming Afganistani fighters with anti-tank and anti-helicopter weapons.  Afghanistan was getting crushed by the Russians and Charlie Wilson set out to fight the Russians the only “safe” way to do so… by pretending that you’re not.

It was a decent enough movie, very well acted by Tom Hanks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman but would have been forgettable were it not for the very next film I watched.  One that Charlie Wilson’s War oddly and unexpectedly enough was a perfect setup for.  That movie was…

One of the last scenes of Charlie Wilson’s War has Charlie at a table with some other senators trying to get one million dollars to help build schools in Afghanistan.  This is after he has funneled millions and millions more to giving Afghanistan fighters weapons.  No one will budge.  The one million dollars seems excessive to the others and is shot down.  Wilson warns that pouring money into Afghanistan for war but not so much as lifting a finger to help rebuild what was left over from that war will create a country worse off than before.  But it’s obvious that Afghanistan was just a pawn, and that these congressmen never cared about the freedom of the Afghan people – they just wanted to beat the Russians.

The Kite Runner is set in Afghanistan, both before and after the time covered in the film Charlie Wilson’s War.  This story of friendship between two boys in Kabul is tragic but very moving.  Amir and Hassan grow up together because Hassan’s father works as a servant for Amir’s father.  They run the streets of 1970’s Kabul (before the Russian invasion) working together Kiting.  By the way, did I just miss out on this whole underworld of kite fighting or what?  I thought you just flew kites, I did not know that you fought with them!  The Kite fighting scenes were mesmerizing.  It’s hard to get into too much more without giving away too much, so suffice it to say that The Kite Runner was a great drama set in a very tragic Afghanistan amid the height of the Taliban’s power.

And take a pass on Charlie Wilson’s War… unless you plan to watch it right before The Kite Runner.