January movie journal

1-1-06	--	Head-On
1-4-06	--	Boogie Nights
1-5-06	--	Memoir of a Geisha
1-6-06	--	The Family Stone
1-7-06	--	Cache
1-9-06	--	Alias Betty
1-11-06	--	Hitchhkers Guide to the Galaxy
1-12-06	--	Message from Fallujah (short)
1-12-06	--	Rana's Wedding
1-12-06	--	Marathon favorite viewing of month
1-14-06	--	A Time for Burning
1-14-06	--	Tony Takitani
1-15-06	--	Match Point
1-18-06	--	Porco Rosso
1-22-06	--	The White Diamond
1-25-06	--	Why We Fight
1-26-06	--	The Straight Story
1-27-06	--	Tsotsi
1-28-06	--	Transamerica
1-28-06	--	A Matter of Taste

Transamerica

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (Current Films)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

Poor Bree! She is days away from the final surgery that will compete her gender reassignment. It is a long and trying process – years of surgery, hormones, learning to live, walk and talk like a woman, counseling. Then, just as she has everything in order, she discovers that she may have fathered a child many years ago.

She tries to ignore this, but her therapist insists that she has to find out. It is a part of her life she is trying to push away – her life as a man. She always talks of that time in the third person – it was Stanley’s life, not hers. Now Stanley’s life is forcing itself into Bree’s anticipated life.

What follows is something of a road movie. Bree goes to New York, bails her son Toby out of prison and starts off with him to California. She has not revealed who she is – or, for that matter, that she is not fully female yet. They begin the trip as strangers, but as often happens in road movies, they grow together.

A few days before seeing Transamerica, I led a discussion at church about The Straight Story, another road movie. We outlined the way road movies give us a linear view of a story. Here is where we begin; here is where we end. In The Straight Story we don’t learn about the trip home – and it really doesn’t matter. But in Transamerica the story is all about the journey home – even when they don’t know that’s where they’re headed.

Both Bree and Toby want to be rootless. They each distance themselves from the families of their past. Bree, trying to find someone to take care of Toby, goes to his home town where she discovers the secret pain he has suffered. Later, Bree and Toby end up having to look into Bree’s family background and discover the pain that is there. But these are not the homes that they are traveling to. Unbeknownst to them, they are traveling to a new home, and they are becoming new people.

The homes they are avoiding are not really home for them. They are history that has to be addressed for Bree and Toby to be able to find their new lives. Bree and Toby are also an unknown part of each other’s past, but could be an important part in their new lives.

Bree and Toby are both lonely people. Bree is living “stealth,� that is, passing as a woman, even though still physically a man. Stealth is a perfect description of her life – it is totally hidden. When a psychiatrist asks her in her final interview if her friends support her sex change, she can only respond that she has a close relationship with her therapist. We see her washing dishes in a restaurant and calling people for telemarketing sales. She is very much alone.

Toby is a street hustler who has been getting by as a male prostitute. There is nothing in his future. His highest ambition is to go to California to star in porn films. He is a survivor. He learned how to survive abuse at home; now he uses his limited skills to survive whatever trouble comes his way – even this strange woman who claims to be from “the Church of the Potential Father.�

These two can never be a traditional father and son. Let’s face it, Bree is trying to become a woman – not really father material. Yet they have the chance to find in each other something that has been missing from their lives – someone who will care for them and about them.

What lies at the end of their road trip could be a new life. They have the chance, whether through surgery, education, or opportunities, to be reborn. They will never really leave all their past behind them; we never do. They can be remade into the people they want and need to be. But we see, even after they make it to California, that just completing their plans are not enough for their rebirth. They aren’t fully reborn until they find in each other a relationship that completes the process. When that happens, they have found grace.

Much of God’s Good News is about the chance to be reborn – to be made new. It doesn’t happen because of what we do, but because of the relationship God builds with us and we build with others. It is then, through grace, that we discover what it means to be home.

— Overview

Why We Fight

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (War Propaganda)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

In 1961, a few days before leaving office, President Eisenhower gave a farewell address to the nation. In it he gave a brief outline of the state of the world at that point in the Cold War. The part of that speech that is most remembered is that he coined the term “military-industrial complex�. He sees the establishment of a standing army and the growth of the armament industry as necessary for that time, but warns against such forces becoming too influential. He said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

In Why We Fight, Eugene Jarecki wants to awaken “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry� to what the military-industrial complex has become and how it influences and shapes our nation and our foreign policy. His thesis (as explained in a Q&A on the film’s website) is that since the end of World War II America has been developing into an empire. He views our current situation as both a divergence from and extension of our policies over the last 60 years.

The influence of the military-industrial complex (MIC) does indeed call for an examination. It is no longer a threatening sounding concept; it is the way of life in this country. We have become so used to the MIC that we hardly notice how extensive it is. Jarecki lays out some of the facts that we need to hear to oversee the “meshing� of these giants.

Unfortunately, this film falls far short of what we need to give serious consideration to his thesis, let alone the larger question of the influence of the MIC. While some of the information in the film is truly thought provoking, it is seriously flawed. Those flaws, while not destroying the credibility, certainly raise doubts about reliability.

For example, Gore Vidal speaks of Japan wanting to surrender all summer, but President Truman not accepting because he wanted to use the atomic bomb as a show of power to the Soviets. There is no substantiation offered to this assertion.

Jarecki gives an appearance of balance by including among the talking heads people who support the Administration or work in think tanks that promote some of the ideas that could be deemed imperialism. But overall, it’s clear that his sympathies are elsewhere. That turns the film into another jeremiad against the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq.

I’m no fan of the Administration, its policies, or the war, but by focusing so much on the current situation, Jarecki loses sight of the overall dangers of the MIC. He does include footage of other Presidents of both parties, but it’s clear that his real interest is in the present.

To see how much the war in Iraq is the focus of this film, consider the three real life stories that Jarecki includes in the film. The first looks at Wilton Sekzer, a retired NYPD sergeant who lost a son on September 11. He wants revenge and he wants some way of memorializing his son. When he comes up with a way to get both, he is eventually disappointed because he discovers that his understanding of the war in Iraq was misinformed.

Karen Kwiatkowski was a career Air Force officer (reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel serving in the Pentagon in the run up to the war in Iraq.) Because of her disillusionment with the way the intelligence was used, she retired from military life.

William Solomon is a young man who is getting ready to enter the Army. He is going not for patriotic reasons or because he believes in the war, but because he doesn’t think he can get by in the world on his own.

All three of these stories focus our attention on the present situation. The first two pointedly censure the Bush Administration. The third encourages us to see the military as a place of last resort, taking advantage of those without better options.

I’m sure there will be comparisons made with Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. There is a similarity in that they both take on the Administration’s policies about the military and the war. Moore’s style allows him to be far more outrageous in his attacks on the Administration. With Moore, you go in knowing there will be exaggeration and you will have to pick and choose what you find credible. Jarecki sets out to seem credible throughout, but ends up failing. With Moore, the thesis is clear – get Bush. Jarecki sets up a wider thesis, but ends up settling for getting the Administration. Jarecki may well be a better documentarian, but Moore’s film is far more satisfying in spite of (or maybe because of) its embellishment.

Overall, I find Why We Fight a minor disappointment. I really like Jarecki’s thesis. I’d love to see that thesis thoroughly examined and expounded in such away to call people’s attention to dangers that the MIC poses for our society and our world.

As a pacifist (a position that grows out of my faith and discipleship), I find the MIC, the war, and the policies that support what Jarecki deems imperialism to be a spiritual threat to the world. Why We Fight is an interesting first step at a look at an important issue that deals not only in political questions but also with our spiritual health as a nation and as individuals. If only it had been more.

—1. Overview

Manson's Memo 1/24

I heard an interesting fact a while back. Someone was talking about time. They noted that any period of time has a beginning and an end. A year goes from January 1 to December 31. A day goes from midnight to midnight. No matter how small you break down time it always has a beginning and an end.

Even something as small as a nanosecond (1/1,000,000,000 second). A way of noting the beginning and end of that time is to think about light. Light travels very fast – more than 186,000 miles per second. A nanosecond is approximately the time it takes for light to travel one foot. (This newsletter is on 14� long paper – a bit more than a light-nanosecond.) If you were to slow down time sufficiently, you could see that nanosecond as light traveled 1 foot.

Our days and our lives flow on, as time, from beginning to end. But it’s not just a beginning at birth. Each day, we start something new. God gives us many beginnings as we go through our lives. Some of them we mark as special – new families when we marry or have children, new jobs, new homes. But there are many more ways we find newness. God gives us new life – and new beginnings – whenever we come to God in faith seeking grace.

Our lives are made up of nanoseconds and decades. Even more, our lives are made up of all the new beginnings which God has given to us. Let us always be grateful for the gifts of life and time. May each nanosecond, and each hour, and each day, and each year, be a reminder to us of God’s grace.

שלן�

Match Point

—1. Overview
—2. Cast and Crew
—3. Photo Pages
—4. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—5. Posters (Scarlett Johansson)
—6. Production Notes (pdf)
—7. Spiritual Connections
—8. Presentation Downloads

Woody Allen is America’s preeminent purveyor of nihilism. He is quoted as saying, “I think that at best the universe is indifferent. At best.� His films are filled with the existential angst of the search for meaning in a meaningless universe. There is often open debate in the films about God’s existence or about if there is any moral structure to the world. For Allen the answer is clearly that there is no universal meaning. We design our own meaning to fill the void.

In his newest film, Match Point, Allen continues his search to understand a meaningless world. He continues to show us that often injustice prevails. He continues to show us that guilt can be fleeting and meaningless. He continues to present a world that seems to be devoid of right and wrong – only what is. But… (Well, I’ll get to that “but…� later.)

Match Point is prefaced with a shot of a tennis ball hitting the net and going straight up. There is a moment in which the ball can go forward or back, determining who will win. The luck of such a moment is central to Match Point. The story follows the upward mobility of Chris Wilton, a mediocre tennis pro. He’s not good enough to make a living off the tour, so he gets a job at an exclusive club in London. There his luck begins to pay off as he makes friends with Tom, a client from a well to do family. Tom invites Chris to the opera, where he meets Tom’s sister, Chloe. He courts Chloe, gets a job in the family business and is on his way up the social ladder.

But he also meets his Tom’s fiancée, Nola. Chris and Nola are perhaps too much alike. They are immediately attracted to each other. The setting within the family provides opportunity, but also restrictions on their relationship. However, after Chris and Chloe marry and Tom and Nola break up, things heat up considerably. Luck begins to work in some strange ways as Chris and Nola’s affair progresses.

Chris often seems completely amoral. He has good things in his life and refuses to give up any of them. At one point Nola pleads with him to do “the right thing� and he promises using the same words. But the viewer knows that neither of these two would know “the right thing� if it bit them in the butt. Eventually, this will lead to him going way beyond merely being something of a cad and he will commit a heinous crime. When confronted with manifestations of the guilt of his crime, he considers that it would be proper for him to be caught and punished, because then there would be some meaning in the universe. But, alas, there is none.

So far, this is all in line with Woody Allen’s films. (It’s time!) But, in this film I think, Allen also offers the beginnings of a critique of his nihilistic vision of the world. He leaves the angst unresolved. In Crime and Misdemeanors, a character who has gotten away with a terrible crime tells his story (in the third person), saying that for a few weeks guilt held sway, but with time it went away. Now this character has discovered that as long as you don’t get caught, there is no moral authority other than what you make yourself.

Allen continues to make that point here, but unlike Crimes and Misdemeanors, where the character goes on to find happiness and prosperity, in Match Point it is less clear that Chris will ever find any happiness. Actually, I think most viewers will perceive that he is doomed to a life of unhappiness. Not so much because of his guilt (although that could play a part), but because he doesn’t have a sense of what happiness would be. By cutting the story off at this point, rather than continuing on to when the guilt wears off as in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Allen leaves us in the bleakness of meaninglessness without showing us a way out. We are allowed to see that when the world has no meaning, it ends up as a dark and depressing place, even when there is joy all around you.

I wouldn’t say that Allen is backing away from his view that there is no external moral structure, but I do think that he is at least showing us the shortcomings of that philosophy.

Watching Match Point (and Woody Allen films in general) should be approached not because of the answers to the existential questions he deals with, but to gain some insight into the questions themselves. I think Allen is continually struggling with the question of the meaning of life, the basis of morality and even the existence of a God he does not believe in. It is a struggle that we all go through at times.

—1. Overview

Darrel's Dozen

I’ve sometimes struggled with the cut off in my choices for a Top Ten. So I decided to give myself a bit of extra room (like I need in my jeans) and have Darrel’s Dozen. Plus I’ll add some lists of other films other than just the pick of the litter this year. (And I should note that “litter� is a good word. There’s been some trash this year. The best stuff has been very good, but it’s way too rare. My overall grade for this year is a pathetic D+.)

Here’s Darrel’s Dozen (with links to my reviews when available):

1. Crash – Paul Haggis’s look at racism and violence in our society.
2. A History of Violence and
3. Munich – two films that focus on violence and revenge.
4. Millions – a lovely story of a child’s faith and sainthood.
5. Brothers – Wonderful Danish film about grace and redemption.
6. Born into Brothels – Amazing documentary about children in Calcutta’s prostitute families who learn to create art – and possibly find a new life.
7. Brokeback Mountain – it’s far more than a “gay cowboy movie.�
8. Capote – outstanding performance by Philip Seymore Hoffman showing the conflict of the creative process.
9. Good Night, and Good Luck – a look back at political oppression. Why does it seem so familiar?
10. Hustle and Flow – If an old, white guy like me thinks it’s a top film, it must be special.
11. Paper Clips – A junior high school in rural Tennessee learns about the Holocaust by trying to collect six million paper clips.
12. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – That it just barely makes the list is something of a disappointment. But it’s here.

Favorite discoveries from earlier years:

Ikiru – probably the best film I saw this year
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Play Misty For Me
The Mayor of Sunset Strip
Koyaanisqatsi

Some highlights from film festivals:

The Hobart Shakespeareans
West Bank Story (short)

Manson's Memo 1/10

Flu. Everybody seems to have a chance at it this year. We’re all coughing. Some of us have ended up in bed with fevers. All because of one of the smallest of living things, a virus.

It seems strange that something so small can have such power. It takes control of our bodies, raising the temperature, congesting our heads and chests. It takes away our appetite and saps our strength. And for the most part, we’re helpless against it. We have to wait for our bodies to start fighting it off, but it takes time. Even after the virus is gone, its effects (runny nose, cough) may hang around for weeks.

We live in a world that often sees the strength of size. Banks brag of their assets. Nations rely on their arsenals. Athletes use steroids to bulk up. There are so many ways that we think that bigger is better.

Yet, consider how often the biblical story relies on runts. David against Goliath. Gideon’s army of 300 against the much larger Midianite army. A group of Jesus followers hanging out in Jerusalem until the winds of Pentecost blew through their house.

The Gospel is very much like a virus. It may not seem very formidable, but once it takes hold of our lives, there is no stopping its spread into every corner of our world. The church carries this virus wherever we go. We may not always seem like much, but what power we can have.

Memoirs of a Geisha

—1. Overview
—2. Reviews and Blogs
—3. Cast and Crew
—4. Photo Pages
—5. Trailers, Clips, DVDs, Books, Soundtrack
—6. Posters (Japan)
—7. Production Notes (pdf)
—8. Spiritual Connections
—9. Presentation Downloads

One of the difficulties of making a novel into a film is that novels often are very multilayered with much attention given to each layer. When one is working with several hundred pages, the writer has the time to develop each subtheme and subplot with care. A film, on the other hand, has severe time restraints that often lead scriptwriters working with large novels to cut away entire themes and subplots. Or, they may try to cover everything but do it so sparsely as to be trifling, giving us an idea that something is there, but not enough depth to appreciate it fully.

Leaving the theater after seeing Memoirs of a Geisha, I wasn’t quite sure what it was that left me unsatisfied. To be sure, it is a visual pleasure of the highest order. Director Rob Marshal and cinematographer Dion Beebe made almost every frame a work of art. Add to this a wonderful John Williams score incorporating both Western and Eastern music and including gifted musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman. On the aesthetic level, this is a film that may be without peer this year.

It also takes us to the exotic world of pre-war Japan, with its strange customs and traditions. The whole idea of Geisha is a bit hard for Westerners to understand. These are women who are not prostitutes, and yet sell themselves (especially their beauty and cultivation) for the use of men. Memoirs gives us a look into that world in ways that we haven’t seen before and gives us a bit of appreciation for the women who lived this life.

But in the end, I was disappointed, I think, because the film never picked which themes it wanted to focus on. Instead it gave us bits and pieces of many themes, but not enough to fill out any of them.

Memoirs is a mixture. Take one part story of the struggle to find oneself, one part about the artistry of Geisha, one part about the oppression of women in society, one part of the internecine politics of a Geisha house, one part love story and shake well. Unfortunately it doesn’t blend all that well. Instead we get tastes of each – usually just enough to make us hungry for more that doesn’t come.

For me the least interesting part (and the hardest to buy into) was the love story. Yet it is that part that really wants to be the focus of the film and that has the most theological import.

Alert: from here on, major plot spoilers will be discussed.

The love story involves Sayuri and a man known only as the Chairman. Their first encounter is when Sayuri is still a girl – one who has been relegated to being a house servant rather than training as a Geisha. Sayuri is on a bridge with a sad look when the Chairman, with two Geisha in tow, stops and brightens her day, making her smile and buying her flavored ice. From that point on, Sayuri only wants to become Geisha so she can once again encounter the Chairman and make him happy. Eventually, she is taken under the wing of another Geisha and develops into the most acclaimed Geisha in the district, often spending time with the Chairman and his friend Mr. Nobu.

In the happy ending (which I saw coming, but still wanted to cry out, “Oh, spare me.�) it is revealed that the Chairman, from the day he first met her, has been her sponsor, leading to her becoming Geisha. Now they are free to share their love.

As sappy as all this is, it does serve as a wonderful portrayal of grace. That first encounter between Sayuri and the Chairman is his responding to this girl he does not know, merely because she is sad. He treats her as someone with an intrinsic worth. He reaches out to her even before she understands that she needs his help. Her response to that grace is life changing. Because someone has treated her as someone of value, she becomes someone who lives out that worth.

Yeah, it’s all pretty sappy. But come to think of it, sometimes the Gospel seems pretty sappy, too.

— Overview
— Reviews and Blogs

December viewing

12-2-05 - Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
12-3-05 - Walk the Line
12-5-05 - Shopgirl
12-7-05 - Lamumba
12-10-05 - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
12-11-05 - The Day I Became a Woman
12-14-05 - The Wrong Man
12-15-05 - Syriana
12-19-05 - Brokeback Mountain
12-22-05 - King Kong
12-23-05 - Munich (favorite of the month)
12-23-05 - Princess Mononoke

Total for the year: 238 titles, of which 20 were shorts.