March viewing journal

3-1-06	--	Blazing Saddles
3-2-06	--	The Harmonists
3-3-06	--	Walk the Line
3-4-06	--	North Country
3-7-06	--	Three Colors: Red
3-8-06	--	Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
3-8-06	--	Joyeux Noel
3-11-06	--	Imax Deep Sea 3-D
3-12-06	--	Clockstoppers
3-13-06	--	Knife in the Water
3-15-06	--	Mystic River
3-17-06	--	Ford Transit
3-19-06	--	The Best of Youth
3-21-06	--	After… (short)
3-22-06	--	Find Me Guilty
3-24-06	--	Inside Man
3-25-06	--	Thank You for Not Smoking
3-26-06	--	Still Crazy
3-29-06	--	The Last Temptation of Christ
3-30-06	--	Les Miserables (August)

Thank You for Smoking

Every day we hear people spinning the truth. They may be part of the government (from either party), a lawyer trying to make his client look better than he is, a mother trying to convince a toddler that the child really does want to eat broccoli, or an advertisement trying to sell their product. At times, we all pick and choose the facts we want to highlight while hiding the facts we don't want known.

In Thank You for Smoking Nick Naylor does this for a living. As a tobacco industry lobbyist, he appears on TV shows to say how nice the people are who manufacture these deadly products. He testifies before Congress that science is inconclusive about the health dangers of smoking. He doesn't lie about much of anything. He misdirects and confuses. He's good looking, smooth talking and slicker than silk pajamas on a snake.

He meets regularly with lobbyists from the alcohol and firearms industries who call themselves the MOD Squad (Merchants of Death). They compare which of them has the toughest job. Naylor ridicules them for the paltry numbers of death per day they represent.

Why would people do this kind of thing for a living? Naylor says it pays the mortgage.

Thank You for Smoking really isn't about smoking -- it assumes we all know the dangers. Rather, it's a broad satire based on a book by Christopher Buckley about the way truth is used and abused. On the PBS program Now, Buckley recounted asking a lobbyist who was obviously intelligent and knew of tobacco's harms why she did this job. It was she who gave him the line about paying the mortgage.

At a time when lobbying is under scrutiny because of serious abuses, this film seems timely, even though Naylor doesn't do any of the things that Jack Abramoff and others have been accused or convicted of. Lobbyists have an important role: they speak for their clients. Some represent businesses and others represent non-profits of various stripes. Conservative and liberal groups lobby. It is part of our right of free speech.

But as often happens, things are abused along the way. In Thank You for Smoking we see the way that the truth can be abused. Naylor and the MOD Squad do all they can to keep the real truth buried under their own version of truth or other issues that sidetrack attention.

Because it is satire, the film lacks a sense of reality -- everything is overblown. But though it doesn't seem real, it still has a reality that is shown humorously so that we can consider it seriously.

One of the implications is how important truth is to the various issues that we deal with as a society and as a nation. And yet, often we don't get the truth; we get spin. Politicians and media and special interests all try to get their version of the truth heard. The underlying assumption is that their version is more important than other versions. But society as a whole suffers from all this twisting of the truth.

Another implication is the question of what we are willing to do to pay the mortgage. Naylor tries to protect and expand tobacco's place in American life so he can pay a mortgage. Heather Holloway, a reporter writing a story on Naylor, will do absolutely anything to get the information she needs. She has a mortgage too.

Lots of people have mortgages. I have one. What is it we are willing to do to pay that mortgage? Will we work for a company that harms the environment? Will we spin things at our job so we look good at the expense of someone else so our job is more secure? Will we say what our boss wants even if we disagree?

This is not a liberal or anti-business view of things. It pokes fun at everyone. This is an equal opportunity offender (a good thing in satire). We laugh when those we don't like are being sent up. We cringe when our own ox is gored, but it's because we see a bit of truth in what is said about us. And seeing the truth is what this film is all about.

Inside Man

The perfect robbery has been the idea behind many films. The films even have their own genre: heist films. Sometimes the robbers get away with it; sometimes the police outsmart them; sometimes the robbers outsmart themselves. A really good heist film will leave the audience amazed at the intricacy of the plot. Inside Man is one of the best.

This is the new film from Spike Lee. It has a very different feel from many of his earlier, edgier works. It isn’t as in your face as Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X. He doesn’t seem to feel the need to be quite as strong in his statements. But don’t take that to mean that he doesn’t still have something to say.

This heist film boils down to a confrontation between Dalton Russell, who masterminded this perfect crime and Detective Keith Frazier, the hostage negotiator dealing with the situation. Their cat and mouse (who is who?) game keeps taking fascinating turns all through the film. Russell doesn’t seem all that upset that the bank is surrounded by half the police in Manhattan. Frazier isn’t sure why he’s so calm about it. What is really going on? We can tell this is more than just your everyday heist.

Add to the mix the interference of Madeline White, a “fixer� with friends in very high places. A client wants to make sure something in the bank is kept safe from the robbers. She pulls strings so that Frazier has to accommodate her agenda. If he goes along, he could get a promotion. If not, he could end up the fall guy. He just wants to do his job.

On the superficial level of heist film, this film gets all the stars you can give it, in spite of a couple of holes in the story (one major, one minor). I’m willing to overlook those holes since everything else is done so well. This is a great, mind challenging trip through a twisty and exciting plot.

At a deeper level, the film becomes much more than just a nifty crime drama. It is about something important that is all around us in society – corruption. Where this film differs from many heist films is that it’s not about discovering who the corrupt character is – a cop or a robber. In fact, as the film unfolds, we discover that Russell and Frazier may be the most moral people in the story. We see the corruption in White’s efforts to do what her client wants. In fact, nearly everything she touches is corrupt. She has worked for powerful people. Her price is not paid only in money, but in “friendship.� At one point she tells Frazier that she does what she does not by making enemies, but by making friends. These friends she can then call on for the favors she needs to help others. She corrupts even the idea of friendship.

She enters the story to help Arthur Case (who is chairman of the board of the bank being robbed) keep something secret that is in his safe deposit box. It could lead to a great deal of embarrassment for him. It is a reminder of the corruption of his past – sins that he has been trying to atone for with good works for many decades. White goes to the mayor (one of her former clients) who gets her the help she needs. (He’s a politician; of course we’ll accept him as corrupt.)

But when White gets to talk with Russell, we discover he knows all about Case’s secret. He will not play along. What Case did was wrong and Russell will keep him twisting in the wind. He probably won’t blackmail him –just that someone knows will be hell enough for Case.

We also see Russell as something more than a thief. He cares about the people here, even as he holds them hostage. He is constantly gruff and threatening, but is his bite as bad as his bark? When he talks with a child hostage playing a video game that deals with stealing cars, dealing drugs and killing people, Russell is appalled. He sees the corrupting influence on such a game. He makes a point that he’ll have to have a talk with the boy’s father. He cares about Frazier when he talks to him. When Frazier mentions that his girl friend wants to get married, Russell counsels him about love. Frazier also is one who isn’t interested in the offers from White. After the robbery ends, he pushes on with his investigation even after the word comes down from on high to let it go. White tries to make it clear to him that it would be best for him to be her friend. He is more concerned with the truth. And we know that somehow, he will find a way to that truth. Strangely, that is also what Russell seems to want – that the truth come out.

Ten years ago, Spike Lee would have shouted to us about corruption. Now he shows us more subtly – maybe because corruption often is so subtle. It may happen when we have the best of motives. It just entwines around our lives until we are captured and wake up one morning to see how trapped we are in that corruption. The real hostages are not the people in the bank. The real hostages are those people who have been corrupted by the world that steals our morality.

Find Me Guilty

Sidney Lumet is one of the most respected directors of all time. His first theatrical film was 12 Angry Men, which quickly became a classic. He has visited the courtroom many times, starting with 12 Angry Men, and continuing in films like The Verdict and his TV series 100 Center Street. His courtrooms dramas are not so much about procedures and evidence as they are about the people that are involved in these cases. In 12 Angry Men we watch as a jury deliberates and battles over the question of guilt. In The Verdict the focus in on the lawyers and judges and the games they play trying to win. 100 Center Street was a look at the attorneys and judges as everyday people trying to do their jobs as best they could.

Lumet has returned to the courtroom in Find Me Guilty, based on the longest trial in U.S. history. Twenty defendants faced seventy-six charges in a large racketeering case alleging bribery, robbery, drugs, kidnapping, extortion, gambling and several other crimes. If found guilty the defendants could have been looking at the rest of their lives in jail. The trial lasted over twenty-one months. One defense attorney’s closing statement lasted five days.

The center of Lumet’s latest trip to the courthouse is Giacomo DiNorscio (aka Fat Jack, aka Jackie Dee). Jackie Dee is not the most powerful person in the alleged crime syndicate, nor the smartest. He’s just one of the many who play a part in the rackets being run.

The government really wants to win this case; they start by trying to get Jackie to cooperate as a witness against the others. Jackie has also been arrested and convicted of selling drugs and sentenced to thirty years. The US Attorney is willing to cut time off his sentence if he will testify against the others.

Jackie, though, believes in loyalty. These are his friends. As he says often, he loves them. He lives by a code that you don’t rat on your friends. Even when his cousin tried to kill him, he wouldn’t tell the police about it. Even though it could well have been in his self-interest to testify, he believes his betrayal of friends would be a betrayal of himself.

Jackie, who has lost faith in lawyers, chooses to defend himself in the trial. His legal experience is limited to spending half his life in jail. He begins be seeing this as not much more than a big joke. He claims during his opening statement, “I’m not a gangster. I’m a gagster.� He tells inappropriate jokes. He clowns for the jury. Both sides would like to get rid of him. But it would only complicate things more.

As time passes (and in a 21 month trial, lots of time passes) he gets more serious about what he’s doing. He gets to cross examine witnesses at a very personal level – not only about their testimony, but about the relationship that they are violating by that testimony. By the time the trial is over, he was earned the respect of one of the defense attorneys as well as the audience.

Jackie Dee understands loyalty far more than his co-defendants. Each of them is looking out for themselves, so they each have their own lawyer who only cares about that defendant’s interest (as is proper in such a case.) They are all willing to distance themselves from Jackie, especially if it looks like he’s hurting them. The thing is though, it’s hard to tell if he’s helping or hurting.

In his closing remarks, Jackie makes the ultimate sacrifice – he offers to give up his life for his friends. He tells the jury that if they think someone needs to be found guilty, “Find me guilty, not my friends.� Compare that to Jesus statement: No one has greater love that this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13 NRSV) To be sure, there is a qualitative difference between Jackie and Jesus and their respective sacrifices, but we know that Jackie is not merely pulling some sort of legal ploy; he is acting out of his love for his friends, even if they do not show the same love to him.

This is not among the best of Lumet’s work. The characters are stereotypical. Vin Diesel’s performance is over the top. The story jumps through the trial too much for us to appreciate the jury’s verdict. But on the other hand, it’s not a wasted evening. We can learn what it means to love another – that in the end it means doing for them even if they do nothing for you.

Manson's Memo 3/21

The vernal equinox, that day in spring when day and night have the same length – when the sun is directly over the equator. Warmer days ahead for those of us in the northern hemisphere. The tilt of the earth is bringing us to the inevitable summer ahead.

But for me the official first day of spring seems like being in the middle. We’re midway between the long nights of winter and the long days of summer. Equinoxes are like a lukewarm bath – not too much of anything, but comfortable and maybe even relaxing. It’s tempting to start eating in the patio, but it’s just not quite time yet. We need to enjoy spring as spring before we’ll be ready for summer.

This year that midpoint of the sun’s trip north happens to fall in the middle of Lent. We’re right around the halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Easter – between being told “you are dust� and being told “He is risen!� We’ve had time to get used to whatever fasting we are doing or whatever disciplines we are making part of our lives. But it’s still too soon to be making Easter baskets. We are in one of those in between times – waiting for what we know is coming, but trying to hold back our enthusiasm to maintain our proper attitude for this season. We need to appreciate Lent as Lent so we’ll be ready to celebrate the beauty of Easter.

Sometimes it seems like all of life is one of those in between times. We’re never at our final destination. We always have something ahead that we look to. Birthdays, Christmas, vacations, new school years and new jobs – all the things that keep our lives interesting.

We also look forward to God’s kingdom which can seem so near, but not quite here. We look forward to it with all our heart, but we also have to live in appreciation of this in between time to be ready for that Kingdom yet to come.

שלןמ

Joyeux Noel

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

The story is often told of the first Christmas during World War I when troops in the trenches sang Christmas carols back and forth, and even shared their Christmas rations. The stories have taken on a mythic quality through the years. They serve as an example of how we may sometimes rise above our circumstances and let our humanity triumph over situations of divisiveness.

Joyeux Noel tells the story of one of those Christmas celebrations that transcended the war that surrounded it. An international production, it has been nominated for awards in many countries and well deserves the attention. It manages to inspire without being saccharine or overwrought. It portrays a situation that may seem surreal in ways that seem very real.

The film opens with a chilling reminder of the venom that is intrinsic to war. It is hardly possible to be at war without hating and demonizing the enemy. So the film shows us three school children -- one French, one British, one German -- reciting patriotic poems that not only extol their countries virtue, but also speak of how evil the enemy is. This kind of indoctrination is necessary to fighting a war.

It is especially important that soldiers internalize such understandings if they are to kill the enemy. Even when one believes their cause is just, it makes it easier to kill another when they are perceived as less than human.

This mindset is the backdrop for Joyeux Noel. The events of that Christmas in 1914 are not just nice stories; they represent men having to overcome deep feelings about those in the other trenches.

This film focuses on three groups of soldiers, French, German, and Scottish. The three officers are all career soldiers and know the danger of such fraternization; it will destroy the will to kill the enemy because they will be seen as like us.

In the film, one of the German soldiers (an operatic tenor) has been called to the Crown Prince's headquarters to sing for that Christmas Eve celebration. He knows he must return to his unit and sing for them. When he arrives and sings Stille Nacht, the Scottish chaplain begins to accompany him on the bagpipes. The tenor then carries a Christmas tree into No Man's Land between the trenches while singing Adeste Fideles. Soon all the soldiers from the three trenches are at the top of the walls watching. The officers meet and decide that the war won't be decided tonight, and allow the men to gather, share chocolate and champagne and whiskey. Then they gather as one group as the chaplain says Mass in Latin, a language that belonged to none of them, but to all of them.

The next day (Christmas) the officers decide it would be appropriate to bury the dead, and the men take advantage of the time and their new acquaintances to play some soccer or cards as well.

How can they go back to fighting one another?

The officers are all reprimanded, but none more severely than the chaplain who is sent back to his parish in Scotland. The bishop tells him he has ruined the troops, then goes into preach to the replacements, telling them that this is a holy war, that the enemy are not children of God, that they must kill all Germans, young and old.

I read one review that said that the events we see are truly unbelievable, except that they are true. That is a fair representation. How could soldiers who have faced one another in those awful conditions and killed the enemy and seen the enemy kill their comrades overcome the enmity they felt just because it was Christmas? And yet they did.

Part of what makes the film so compelling are the personal stories that are included -- the story of the tenor and his lover, the story of the French lieutenant whose wife is in German territory and should have delivered their child by now, the Scottish soldier whose brother's body lies in No Man's Land covered in snow, the chaplain who seeks to minister in whatever way he can.

The film is also very interesting visually. A scene early on in the Scottish church as the news of war comes -- the candles have just been lit, but as the door is opened the wind extinguishes them all. Or as the Scottish soldier buries his brother, we see him putting a pair of gloves their mother had sent into the grave.

We are reminded by watching this film that war is destructive -- not only to the land and those who are killed and maimed, but to all those who take part. To fail to see the enemy as a child of God -- as our brother or sister -- is not only to dehumanize them, but causes us to lose our own humanity.

But on that Christmas in 1914, German, French and Scottish soldiers found their humanity in the face of the enemy as they shared together a day that was special to them all -- a day when they remembered the one called the Prince of Peace. The German lieutenant said, "I'm a Jew. Christmas means nothing to me. But I will remember last night forever."

On that Christmas, peace did come for a brief and shining moment -- not only in No Man's Land, but in the hearts of those in opposing trenches.

-- Overview

Manson's Memo 3/7

Did you watch any of the curling in the Winter Olympics? I’ve never done it, so I certainly can’t criticize it. I understand it’s popular in Canada and some northern parts of the US (and other cold places). It’s sort of like shuffleboard on ice and with brooms. It appears to take great skill, because it involves pushing the rock with just enough speed to get it to stop where you want, and possibly to hit your opponents stone and knock it out of the bull’s-eye. It also takes great accuracy (which I think would be very hard on ice). It also takes skill by those using the brooms to speed it up or slow it down or whatever else they do with the brooms.

Like I said, it certainly looks like it requires great skill, but let’s face it, it looks very silly. Brooms don’t strike us as athletic equipment. And to see a couple people running along the ice sweeping in front of a gliding rock seems (to the uninitiated eye) pretty funny.

There are things in the life of the church that probably seem just as strange to some. The whole idea of prayer may seem to some people to be foolish or superstitious. Fasting during Lent (usually in the form of giving something up) seems like mush ado about nothing. Meeting at the Table to manifest the unity of the Church that is so visibly divided may look utterly nonsensical.

But those teams at the Olympics took what they were doing seriously, because they knew what they had put into the sport to get there. We too need to be ready to explain why it is the things we do aren’t as silly as some people may think.

שלןמ

(shalom)