The WB’s Jack and Bobby

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It's not unlikely that somewhere in a junior high or high school is a young man or woman who will, in about another 30 years, become President of the United States. We don't know which student it is. He or she probably has no idea of what lays ahead of them. But the experiences of these years are important influences on the person they will become.

In The WB’s Jack and Bobby, we see a present day family in which one of the sons is a future President. The show spends most of the time in the present day, watching Jack and Bobby McCallister and their single mother Grace get through the trials of life. But occasionally the show shifts to future “documentary� interviews of people talking about President McCallister and the things that made him a great leader.

Some have likened the show to West Wing. Since it deals with the Presidency, there is a certain similarity. The difference is that rather than seeing the power of the office and those involved with it, we see a much more fragile version of the person who will assume that office.

Each week the show gives us a little more information about the family and the McCallister presidency. The show offers a bit of a twist each week. For example, since the first episode is gone until reruns, it's hardly a spoiler to tell which brother is to become President. Throughout the first episode, it isn't clear until the end, when it is finally revealed that the younger brother, Bobby, is the one destined for high office.

A few other bits of information: Jack and Bobby are not named after the Kennedy's, but their absent father, who was Mexican. Bobby becomes a Republican (much to his mother's disappointment), but runs for President as an independent. Courtney, one of Jack's potential girl friend, ends up as Bobby's wife.

Like other people their ages, Jack and Bobby make good and bad choices and may get into trouble. It is these choices and the consequences that we see forming who Bobby is and who he will become. His understanding of personhood, of citizenship, of right and wrong are being formed week by week.

Faith is one of the formative factors in Bobby's life and values. Although his mother is antagonistic to religion, in the fourth episode of the series, Bobby begins to have a spiritual awakening. A variety of faiths come into play that in that episode. The different religions are each treated fairly, even giving the viewer insight that we may not have considered. We learn that this religious awakening is of major importance to Bobby's development, in that before he went into politics, Bobby becomes a minister.

One problem is that, so far, the show relies on fairly obvious stereotypes. The boys’ mother is a dope smoking, single mother, liberal university professor always trying to stir up students or trouble with the administration. Her nemesis, the new university president, Peter Benedict, is of course a Republican who seems to be more concerned with cutting budgets than educating students. His is a business attitude, not academic. The stereotypes are so obvious we can tell the politics of these two just from visual clues: Grace has hair and body language that go a bit wild. President Benedict has short white hair, a ramrod posture, and deadpan face.

There is hope, though, in that the writers seem to enjoy breaking down stereotypes. They like to twist our expectations. Already there are some crack in these stereotypes. Grace and Benedict will, I'm sure influence and be influenced by one another, just as Jack and Bobby are being shaped week by week by their encounters with other people and situations.

This is a show that has a great potential for growth as it moves through the season (and future seasons.) I expect that in many ways the characters will discover things about life and about themselves that are valuable for us all to know.

It also has the potential to help us grow in our understanding of the ways each of us influences other people in our lives. Character is not something that people are born with; it is something they develop through the choices they make and the ways they learn from their successes and their failures. We have influences on one another. How are people being formed by what we do? How are we passing on our values? If a future president is in our lives, what are we adding to his or her character?

The show also challenges viewers to think about their own character and values. What has made us into the people we have become? Are the values we are passing on truly the values that need to be passed on? Are there values we have learned that we should rethink and perhaps discard?

As we watch Jack and Bobby (and Grace and the other characters) growing into who they are yet to become, perhaps they will also help to fashion the character of viewers as well. That marks the potential for a great series.

Veronica Mars

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The early teasers for Veronica Mars suggested that it would be a cross between Nancy Drew and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. I've never been much of a fan of Nancy Drew, but for a new Buffy-esque show, I'm willing to give it a chance.

The show is set in an upscale Southern California beach community. Veronica is in high school with lots of rich snobs. Actually, she used to be part of that crowd. All that changed when her best friend (her boyfriend’s sister) was killed. Veronica’s father, the sheriff, botched the investigation, made enemies, and was removed from office. He now works as a private investigator and Veronica helps out along the way.

Veronica is now an outcast. Her former friends have dumped her; her mother has abandoned her family. Veronica is very much alone, but also very capable at getting to the bottom of things and solving mysteries. However, the mysteries that really matter to her, what happened to her friend and where her mother is, are beyond her.

We keep seeing hints that imply the circumstances of the killing are not as they seemed to be. There are secrets in this town of tony houses and fancy cars. Will Veronica be able to uncover them?

Of course, Veronica is not Buffy (who could be?), but there are some similarities. Like Buffy, she is an outsider, very gifted, and tough (but tender). She is beginning to acquire her own little “Scooby Gang� to help her. But the real similarity is the battle between good and evil.

In Buffy, that battle took place in a supernatural realm. The good and evil were cosmic. For Veronica, the evil is not from some cosmic evil, it grows from within people (which is far more sinister.) Buffy was always saving the world (literally); Veronica saves people that no one else really cares about.

So far, the episodes are a bit uneven. Relationships still need to be developed. Occasionally, there is an episode that does very little to move the meta-plot along, instead focusing only on a little minor mystery. Buffy relied on having a meta-plot that moved through the season, while Nancy Drew could get by with solving a mystery every week. In that sense, this is a bit of a combination of the two. It needs, however, to concentrate more on being Buffy in this way, and less on being Nancy.

Around the Bend

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Henry Lair was an archaeologist. Even on his deathbed he keeps wanting to go with his grandson Jason and great-grandson Zach on one last dig. When his long lost son (and Jason’s long lost father) shows up, Henry lays a plot to send them on a road trip to spread his ashes at key places along the way. Will the trip give these men the chance to get beyond the past?

Around the Bend is in some ways a tweaking and retelling of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). There are a number of small connections to the parable for those who look for them. In that parable, a man has two sons, the younger one takes his share of the inheritance, leaves home, and squanders his money on high living. The older brother stays home, working for his father. When bad times come to the younger brother, he resolves to go home to ask his father for a job. Before he even gets to the door, the father greets him and starts planning a welcome home party. The older brother comes home to see this and is distraught that his father is treating this worthless son so well.

The parable is tweaked by the film by giving the character of the older brother in the parable to the son of the prodigal in the movie. Jason is the one who has stood by his grandfather in times of need. Not out of obligation, but out of love for the man who raised him, since his father has been out of his life since he was a small boy. Jason is extremely resentful of Turner’s presence. Jason has considered Turner dead for many years.

The story also moves beyond the parable, giving us a look at the parable’s two brothers after the father’s death. Will the father’s love for each of them give them enough in common to hold them together in spite of their animosity? Can the “older brother� even accept the returned prodigal? Will the prodigal change his life with this new opportunity?

In the film Turner, Jason and Zach end up heading out to Henry’s old haunts in an ugly and ancient VW bus. Henry has planned the route, giving them places of meaning to spread a spoonful of his ashes. Along the way walls are built, torn down, and rebuilt. It’s not easy to overcome the years of separation.

At one of the stops, some old Native American ruins, after spreading the ashes, Turner reminisces with Jason about being on digs with Henry. As Turner put it, “He liked to dig up old shit.� And as they travel together, we see that Henry has designed the trip to dig up the emotional “old shit� of the family’s life. It is only through that digging that there can be any hope of forgiveness or reconciliation.

Such emotional archaeology is not easy. The things found may be treasure or may be trash. It may help the men understand each other or may drive them further apart. Neither of the adult men wants to make this trip or go through the emotional artifacts of their lives. Jason keeps wanting to know why Turner abandoned him and never made contact with him or with Henry. Turner keeps wanting to live in the present, not looking back at the mistakes in the past that are over and gone. But out of respect and love for Henry (plus some financial incentive from Henry’s estate) they keep at it until they come to the real issue that divides them, one that Jason doesn’t even know about.

This story is about more than getting to know each other, even more than being able to reestablish a family bond. It is a story about how one forgives others and how one forgives oneself. It is a story, in the end, that reminds us that even unforgivable actions need to be dealt with. The injuries of the past live inside both the injured and the one doing the injury. It is only through honestly dealing with these pains that forgiveness in some form can be found.

Around the Bend reminds us that the pains and animosities that we harbor in our lives do not have to stay there. There’s plenty of digging for us to do.

The Motorcycle Diaries

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I wonder on how many college dorm walls the poster of Che Guevara has hung. For my generation, at least, Che was the epitome of the ideal of revolution. Even after death, Che continued to inspire those who wanted to change the world --whether by violent or non-violent means.

Before there was a Che Guevara, there was Ernesto Guevara, a medical student from a middle-class Argentinean family. With a semester to go before graduation, Ernesto, like many students have done before and since, took some time off to travel and see the world. Along with his friend Alberto Granado, Ernesto traveled the length of South America. Along the way, they met people from all walks of life. They saw things that were outside the comfortable lives they had lived.

The Motorcycle Diaries is based on this trip and the accounts that Guevara and Granado later wrote about the trip.

Road movies, as a genre, are especially suited for showing the influences that transform a person. This trip certainly had a formative influence on the young Guevara. He begins to see injustice and suffering that were fairly unknown to him. Certainly he grows as a person though the journey and through the film. But even by the end of the film, he is not yet the Che who has now become mythic.

That is because the film is, for the most part, apolitical. It doesn't expect the viewer to experience the same things Ernesto did. Rather we are invited to observe him as he experiences them. As we observe Ernesto, we begin to see, not what made him what he was, but a bit of the humanity that goes into who he becomes. One of the strengths of the film is that we are pulled into the lives of Ernesto and Alberto without any judgments. We are interested in them as people --for who they are at that point, not who they become.

The key quality we discover in Ernesto is compassion. He cares for an injured dog, for indigenous people displaced from the land, for exploited miners. Ernesto and Alberto spend a time at a leper colony helping provide medical care (remember, Ernesto was soon to be a doctor.) At the leper colony his compassion begins to create small revolutions: not wearing gloves like the nuns require even though they are medically not needed, setting up a soccer game with the patients.

One of the most quoted statements by Che is “The true revolutionary is
guided by great feelings of love.� In this film we see the beginnings
of those feelings in Ernesto.

Such a journey by a young man who would become such a mythological figure also invites us to think about what things form and transform us. Is it that, because of where they went, Ernesto and Alberto saw things that we don't see? Or are such things all around us waiting to be seen? Sometimes the journey only shows us what we have gotten used to ignoring. Surely such injustice and need could have been found in Guevara’s home of Buenos Aires, but by seeking life on their trip, they discovered a new world.

It is interesting that the qualities that transformed Ernesto into the Communist revolutionary Che are so similar to the qualities that can also transform us into servants of Christ. Those “great feelings of love� can be just as transformative in our lives as they were in the life of Ernesto Guevara, but to a higher purpose.

Silver City

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—Review by Darrel Manson
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Dicky Pilager is running for Governor in Colorado. One would be naive indeed not to recognize that Pilager’s character is designed as a George W. Bush clone. He’s the latest generation of a political dynasty. He is very good when on script, but on his own, his mouth will get him in serious trouble. He doesn’t seem very bright (although a sham website makes the point that his GPA was higher than President Bush’s). He’s very closely tied to big business. On top of all this, Chris Cooper seems to be “channeling� the President in his portrayal of the candidate, and the comparison is not meant to be flattering to the President.

Silver City is John Sayles’ comment on the state of the political process. Among the things he wants to show us is that the marketing of a candidate takes precedence over substance so candidates like Pilager learn quickly to avoid having to speak extemporaneously or to answer surprise questions. Instead they learn to stay “on message,� that is, to say only what they plan to say, especially if it fits into a sound bite.

Sayles’ films often deal with appearances as opposed to reality. Prime examples are Lone Star and Sunshine State. Here, too, it’s clear that Sayles is showing us a public image of a politician while letting us know that the real person is quite different. On camera or in prepared events, Pilager looks and sounds strong and confident. In a scene with reporters but no handler, he is obviously incapable of serious problem solving.

The film does have some important points to make. Unfortunately, many of the issues get buried under a mystery plot that distracts us from what I think is the real reason for this film. The mystery involves a body that Pilager hooks with a fishing lure while filming a campaign ad. Are dirty tricks involved? Investigator Danny O’Brien is hired to let a few people know they are suspected. But as a former journalist, he can’t help trying to solve the mystery of who this is and how he died. In his searching, he uncovers lots of information that looks bad for people involved with Pilager, but really can't be traced back to any one person.

That the film was released a few weeks before the presidential election makes it obvious that Sayles is not a fan of President Bush. He expects people to be able to see Bush in Pilager. His expectation is so obvious that it becomes another distraction from the issues that could have been raised in this film. Silver City is a cynical film. While there are many issues in our electoral system that invite such cynicism, it is just too easy to see the film as being cynical only about President Bush. I am not a Bush supporter, myself, but I would note that many of the issues of campaign marketing and financing are issues that apply to all major candidates. Because Pilager is so obviously a Bush stand-in, the film looks more like an attack on Bush than a film that is asking serious questions about the way we elect our leaders.

This may be one of Sayles’ weakest films, which is too bad, because the subject matter is important and needs someone of Sayles’ abilities to focus our attention on such issues.

Bright Young Things

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There are those who seem to believe that the rules don't apply to them, or at least that they are governed by different rules than most people. It's not just those who end up in the celebrity “trials of the century� that seem to come along once or twice a year, or those whose money give them access to the halls of power. Sometimes it is those who are just raised to believe that they are a privileged class.

Evelyn Waugh wrote a series of satirical novels about the British upper class in the 1920s and 1930s. With great wit he exposed the vapidity of their world. Stephen Fry has adapted one of those novels (Vile Bodies) into Bright Young Things.

A group of rich and titled young adults party their way through life. They relish the celebrity they gain through the gossip columns. They don't care about scandal: that is what makes life interesting.

On the edge of this crowd is Adam Symes, a penniless writer who is trying to get enough money to marry Nina Blount. Adam's luck runs hot and cold. One minute he wins £1000, the next he has given it away on a bet and it is likely gone forever. Each time he gets money, he tells Nina they can get married, but shortly, he has to tell her “not yet.� Certainly Adam would like to be just like the others, but there is just something missing from his personality.

What we see as we watch this crowd is that they are totally self-absorbed. They really know nothing about what the world is like or what things are important. They care only about their own egoistic hedonism. They seek, not a greater good, only their own pleasure. It is this narcissism that is missing from Adam. Even as he takes part in their world, he also exhibits a bit of unease about the excessiveness of their lifestyle.

At one point later in the film, one of this group of hedonists, now in a mental hospital, tells of a dream where they are all driving cars in a circle having to go faster and faster. This is what their world has become -- constantly having to do more and more for excitement, but getting nowhere in the process.

Of course, stories like this make it easy for us to point fingers at the rich and privileged and how they do so little with their lives. Waugh certainly had easy targets for his wit in the upper class of his day. But what makes the stories enduring is not how they poke fun at the privileged, but the ways in which the stories are more universal -- shedding light on our lives as well.

It is always easy to be lured into the seeking of pleasure. We all enjoy having a bit of fun and excitement. And we should treasure such experiences when we have them. Jesus’ first miracle was creating wine from water. He was accused by his opponents of being a wine-bibber and friend to sinners. Jesus enjoyed life; we should as well.

But when that kind of enjoyment becomes the focus of life -- if we become obsessed only with that which serves our desires -- we run the risk of becoming as empty and meaningless as the people in this film, who, for all their searching for fun, never find happiness.

Fry does make some changes in Waugh’s story, including tacking on a happy ending. The happy ending is a good addition, not just because it leaves a better taste in our mouths, but because it reinforces the idea that real happiness is not to be found in drugs or money or excitement, but in the sharing of life with others.

Taegukgi

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The opening scene of Taegukgi shows an archeological dig of a Korean battlefield. The workers unearth corroded weapons, remnants of books, bits of personal property, and piles of bones and skulls. There is very little to identify whether the remains are of South Koreans, North Koreans or Chinese. All are placed in coffins and covered with a South Korean flag (which is called Taegukgi.) In the aftermath of war, there really is no difference between the combatants -- all their differences ended at their deaths.

Taegukgi follows two South Korean brothers conscripted to fight after the North Koreans invaded the South in 1950. Actually, the younger, Jin-Seon, was drafted. His older brother, Jin-Tae, is forced to fight after he tries to take his brother off the train that is taking the draftees away.

Jin-Seon is the hope of the family. He has made good grades in school and has the chance to go to a good university. Jin-Tae shines shoes to help make it possible for Jin-Seon to concentrate on his studies.

Jin-Tae will do anything to get his brother out of the army to fulfill the family's dreams. The plan he settles on is to win a Medal of Honor to use as leverage to arrange his brother's discharge. So Jin-Tae volunteers for every dangerous mission, and acts with great heroics and valor. Jin-Seon cannot understand why his brother is so reckless. He doesn't understand that his brother is sacrificing on his behalf. Even when he learns this, he is not willing to accept it.

We often look at the valor of soldiers and assume it grows out of a patriotism and dedication to a cause. There can be many factors in that valor -- perhaps loyalty to comrades, perhaps fame and glory. Jin-Tae’s heroism is complex. He certainly seems attracted to the recognition and promotion that comes from his actions, but his real focus is on saving his brother, whether his brother wants to be saved or not. There is nothing that will stop him from this cause. He doesn't care how many or who will be injured or killed in the process, as long as his brother can go home.

War seems like an odd setting to think about ethics. However, as we've seen in the news, right and wrong actions are often a central part of waging war. There are scenes in Taegukgi in which we see prisoners being abused. In our present setting, we are reminded of the abuses at Al Graib. It is easy to understand how the soldiers can become hardened and embittered toward the enemy. Jin-Tae and Jin-Seon argue over the costs of Jin-Tae’s actions, even at the death of a comrade that died because of what Jin-Tae was doing. It is hard to focus on what is right, when there is so much evil happening all around.

The film has tried to make the battle scenes as realistic as possible. They are absolutely frenetic, as the camera cannot be still. There is constant motion and confusion in the fighting. There is also a great deal of blood. There is no sanitation of violence here. Nor is most of the killing done at long range, rather it is face to face, often with hands. It is personal.

This War is still very much alive for Koreans. There has been a truce for the last fifty years, but still the armies face each other each day across a demilitarized zone. Families continue to be divided after all these years. In some ways this film serves to memorialize the veterans of the war, and remind them of the sacrifices made.

But in other ways this is a very universal story. It is as meaningful to the current war in Iraq as it is to the history of Korea.

The English subtitle of this film is “Brotherhood of War.� This can have a variety of meanings. Certainly it refers to the two brothers and their relationship. It can also refer to the comradeship that binds those who fight together. It could even refer to the shared suffering of both the soldiers and the families they leave behind.

On a much deeper level, it also refers to the brotherhood of those whose bones are unearthed from the battlefield decades later. In the end, even the enemy is the brother.

What the Bleep Do We Know?

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Quantum physics was developed to understand how very small things work -- like subatomic particles. At that level of matter, the laws of traditional physics break down. The world that quantum theory considers is one very different from what we consider to be reality. Of course, quantum physics is built on debatable assumptions and interpretive leaps as these physicists try to describe what is real at that level.

When thinking in terms of different realities, it is quite easy to make a shift from physics to metaphysics. When the physics are so mysterious, it is easy to shift to mysticism. What the Bleep Do We Know? is built around those kinds of shifts. Most of the film is a series of comments by talking heads (some physicists, other scientists, a theologian and an ancient shaman channeled by a mystic) about the nature and meaning of life based on the understandings of quantum physics. Another part of the film really deals more with neurochemistry and how that relates to our lives and our control of our
lives.

Within this discussion, there is also a fictional narrative portion focused on a character played by Marlee Matlin. This narrative is supposed to be illustrative of what the talking heads are discussing. Occasionally it is.

It's not unusual for people to try to unite science and religion. Certainly they can be complimentary to one another, even if they deal with different realms of understanding. (An excellent book on science and religion is Barbara Brown Taylor's The Luminous Web.) The attempt to bring them together in What the Bleep meets somewhat uneven results. The neurochemistry seems much more grounded than the quantum physics part. That could be my own bias of understanding. (Note that I find quantum physics very mind-numbing. I just can't wrap my brain around the issues.)

The discussion deals with some very big questions: Why are we here? Are we responsible? Is there a god? What is real? These, of course, have been the basic philosophical and theological questions throughout time. What the Bleep is an attempt to bring new light to the questions, but it comes at it in a very postmodern, subjective manner.

In quantum physics, observation affects the experiment. The very fact that things are being observed affects the outcome. That concept plays an important role in the discussions of reality. If we each are observers of the world around us, then that observation affects the world around us. As such, we are in control of our reality.

When the talk turns to God, the range of understanding of God encompasses a New Age mixture of animism and “You are god� to ideas that would resonate fairly well with process thought to a twelve-step concept of “a power greater than myself.� Nowhere in this film do we find the idea of a personal or transcendent God that people from many cultures would recognize even if they didn't embrace a belief.

I think there is a key problem with the approach taken by the film. Remember that quantum physics is about the very small and why “the way things work� in the rest of physics doesn't work at that level. I don't doubt that quantum physics has an important role in the understanding of the physical world. However, to take those understandings from the subatomic world and apply them to big questions is probably just as unworkable as Newtonian physics are in the subatomic world.

A question that is asked in the film is “How far do you want to go down the rabbit hole?� (a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.) This film is a trip down the rabbit hole. It gives the viewer some interesting ideas to ponder. For many, such questions are great fun to think about and discuss. But the concepts set forth in this film should not be thought of as being securely based in science, reason or philosophy. For some it will be a pleasant mental exercise, but I wouldn't want it to be taken as serious philosophical thought.

But then “what the bleep� do I know?

Friday Night Lights

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—Review by Kevin Miller
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—Review by Matthew Hill
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My thoughts on Friday Night Lights should be seen as an addition to Kevin’s review, although I think he liked it a little better than I. I think it’s very good, but not great. Perhaps my sojourn in West Texas many years ago (where I officiated at high school football games) colors my thinking a bit.

The film wants to portray Permian High as a small town school trying to outdo the big city schools. In fact, Odessa?with a population just under 10,000?isn't really a small town, and it’s certainly not a small town by West Texas standards. We should also understand that Permian is a football factory in a state that values football. Class AAAAA schools are all large schools, and Permian is usually among the top schools in the division. A sign on the stadium notes the state championships the school has already won. This is one of the factors that adds to the pressure on the players that Kevin notes. To play for Permian carries with it an expectation of greatness. It’s very easy to fail to meet those expectations.

The pressure to perform, as Kevin points out, is a central part of the story. That focus threatens to overwhelm the story at times, and early on I thought the plot might degenerate into a story about these poor young men with all this pressure. But slowly the film moves on to showing the way out?the search for Coach Gaine’s “perfection.�

One of the ways this is carried off is seen in the character of Charley Billingsley (a very nice performance by Tim McGraw.) Charley is the drunken, abusive father of Don Billingsley. Charley was part of one of the state championship teams in Permian’s past. He goes off on his son for any mistake, even a fumble on the first day of practice. His abuse grows until a scene when we see that Charley feels pressures of his own?to raise Don to be a man, even if Charley has a skewed idea of what that means. He is failing at it. We, and I think Charley, come to see that his success will not come through Don living up to whatever Charley’s dreams are, but in Charley seeing his son as the man he has become. This, too, is an example of the “perfection� that is more important than winning.