Little Manhattan (DVD)

Oh To Be Ten Again!

His name was Danny Turner. He was ten and I was nine and he was the love of my life…

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has hit another home run with Little Manhattan! This film arrives on DVD today and is a must-see for anyone who would like to hear (and try to understand) the inner workings of the ten-year-old male mind. Fox touts this movie as “perfect for kids and adults alike� and I agree that it would be great to watch with your children and discuss whether or not it represents the reality of “coming of age.�

Originally released into only 35 theatres last fall, Little Manhattan is the creation of husband and wife team, Jennifer Flackett (writer) and Mark Levin (director). It uses the voice-over device that became popular in the hit TV series The Wonder Years that Levin co-produced. Throughout the bulk of the movie we are privy to the thoughts of the lead character, Gabe (Josh Hutcherson), as he moves from playing with Rosemary (Charlie Ray) as an equal while a toddler, being oblivious of her existence as they begin the school years, moving to hatred of her as cootie-producing monster, and finally realizing that she is the most beautiful creature alive and the object of his complete adoration and desire. The humor is very amusing and the angst of first love is touching and sweet. (Okay…I can hear the men gagging like they have a hairball, but just watch and see if it doesn’t bring back some very poignant memories!)

As the title says, the film is set in Manhattan. Both children have interesting but very different family situations. Gabe’s parents are in the process of getting divorced, but until the legalities are final, they must by law both remain in their apartment. So Gabe is subjected to the uneasiness of “welcoming� his mother’s dates in the presence of his father. He must also endure name labels on every item in the refrigerator so that one or the other won’t mistakenly eat or drink something that doesn’t belong to them. Rosemary, on the other hand, has very rich and cultured parents who produce a daytime soap. She has a baby sibling and is watched over by a Haitian nanny who constantly looks at Gabe as if he has three eyes, and she lives in a building with a doorman. Gabe habitually compares his life to that of Rosemary and of course determines that she lives in a perfect world.

Gabe goes everywhere on his scooter and is confined to a set limit of blocks he is free to roam. Rosemary lives half a block outside of this radius and so Gabe is pushed by true love to defy the rules of his parents and stretch the boundaries. He waits behind a tree across the street from Rosemary’s building in the hope that she will come out. If she does, he swoops down upon her as if he is “just in the neighborhood.� If she does not appear, or appears and gets into a car, he pushes off with a hangdog demeanor and goes home to stew.

There is a good bit of double standard and the difference of parenting styles in the way these two are being raised. Gabe, the boy, is most often on his own in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world and no one seems at all worried about it the bulk of the time. Rosemary, on the other hand, goes nowhere without the nanny or her parents and is watched like a hawk.

The main theme of the movie is the experience of first love. Rosemary is the “older� woman (she is eleven) who reminds Gabe that girls mature more quickly than boys but does it in a way that endears her to him all the more. He feels threatened when another male karate student who is better than he is becomes Rosemary’s sparring partner. He spends hours talking to himself and trying to figure out if he should kiss Rosemary or not. He is devastated when Rosemary says that she is too young to tell him, let along any boy, that she loves him.

This is where Fox scores major points with parents again. Earlier this year, the movie Aquamarine refused to give in to the make-believe garbage that teens need to be settling into life-long relationships with the opposite sex at a very young age and that if they don’t, there is something seriously wrong with them. When Gabe’s relationship with Rosemary ends, yes, he feels like his heart is ripped from his chest and left exposed in the dirt for all to see, but after he works through the emotional trauma of love lost, he completely comes to peace with the whole journey. He has experienced that greatest of all wonders—first love. The love that has you hurling into the toilet, second-guessing every word you want to say, and makes you feel like the universe has been ripped out from under your feet when it is gone. BUT… your first love (especially at ten) will not be your last. There will be other girls and then there will be women. What you are left with is something that nobody can ever take away—an experience that cannot be duplicated because it will always be the first.

Bravo to Fox for keeping a proper perspective on the relationships between boys and girls!!

End of the Spear (Memoir)

Author: Steve Saint
Category: Nonfiction
Publisher: Saltriver
Format: Hardback
Pub Date: Dec. 2005
Price: $22.99
ISBN: 0842364390

“The New Has Come!�

Many who read the title of Steven Saint’s book are going to assume they know what the content focuses on, especially if they saw the movie or are old enough to remember the news stories in 1988. They would not be more wrong. Although Saint does return to the murder of his father, Nate, along with four other missionary coworkers, these interludes are very brief and useful only to enhance the story of the indigenous Ecuadorian people who killed them. The focus of this book is on the Aucas (meaning savage) and their metamorphosis into the Waodani (meaning God followers).

End of the Spear has little to do with the fact that Nathan Saint and his comrades died at the end of an Auca spear on a sandbar in Ecuador 18 years ago. The title has everything to do with the transformation of a people who used their spears to define their lives, living in perpetual fear and by the maxim “strike first and kill before someone else kills you.� Whereas the expectation would be that those who actually impaled and killed the missionaries would be brought to trial, condemned, and punished, Saint’s book is the incredible true story of the power of a forgiveness that lives out the definitions of love and mercy so completely that an entire culture does a 180-degree turn. Aucas, who lived in slavery to fear, now live in a newness of freedom and peace as the Waodani. And, this forgiveness is forthright and genuine not only from the families of the murdered missionaries, who choose to return and continue the work with the Waodani, but the Waodani, too, miraculously put down their weapons and cease the decades (centuries?) long blood feud between Auca families. This stands in sharp contrast to our “enlightened� culture, which demands justice and retribution for every death.

Basically what Steve Saint has done is write a primer on how not to put conditions on salvation—a very refreshing “first do no harm� approach to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. The book is an apologetic on what evangelization of the world does not mean. It should be a textbook for anyone considering a call to the mission field, and also should be read by those who teach and prepare them.

As the information age rapidly shrinks our planet, we will not be able to ignore cultures that are very different from us. And we will not be able to continue to have the temerity to demand that people act, talk, think, and live like we do. I am not just pointing here at Americans or Christians but at every culture on the planet. But, lest you think these attitudes are not prevalent in the Christian church… just take a look at what the denominations argue about during their annual convocations! Think of the missionary movements that nearly wiped entire cultures off the planet, e.g., Hawaiians, Native Americans, and several African tribes being some of the very prominent. Some very advanced civilizations such as the Mayas and the Incas were completely destroyed by contact with Westerners who decided that God meant destroy and repopulate with “civilized� Christians. The supposition is that the old culture must be replaced with the culture of the developed and technologically sophisticated industrial nations. Forgiveness and new life = change of heart and mind—AND becoming a western capitalist. Not in the Bible I read!

Exploitation seems to be a mainstay of the Western world. Saint challenges us to consider what will be lost if outreach to the less developed parts of the planet does not change. Who is to judge what less developed means? While we are trying to make sure everybody has the opportunity to shop at a local Target Superstore or drive the latest gas-guzzling SUV, the Waodani see themselves as a very progressive people without these things. We are challenged to ask ourselves, “Were we meant to live in this stress-producing, roller coaster, ‘hell-bent for leather’ busyness that we have become addicted to?� Do we have the right to “infect� the rest of the world with our way of life? Do the ones with the most toys get to spoil life for those who aren’t even concerned that they don’t have all that stuff they don’t want anyway? Could we ever entertain the idea that we could learn something from people who love monkey for breakfast and don’t need walls or rooms in their homes?

This is an unabashedly Christian book and that is unfortunately going to keep many people from ever reading it. However, the bulk of the book deals with the way Saint and his family struggle to ensure the autonomy (sometimes with very tough love that is hard not just for the Waodani but the Americans) of this beautiful indigenous people. Steve Saint does not write self-righteously or preach in his text. I often forgot I was reading the work of a Christian because he is so strongly gentle with his message, just like Jesus was, and that will upset some believers today who will misunderstand just as people did when Jesus walked and taught on this earth.

Saint invites the reader to entertain a new way of thinking: a radical change in the way that we act around and the way that we approach other cultures as our world becomes more and more of a global village whether we like it or not. Although nonfiction, the book reads like a novel and would make a very good book club read.

Levi’s Will (Novel)

Author: W. Dale Cramer
Category: Fiction
Publisher: Bethany House
Format: Paperback
Pub Date: June 2005
Price: $13.99
ISBN: 0764229958

Will Times Three

Meet W. Dale Cramer! Here is an author who can write a novel with multiple complex themes, many-faceted characters, and page-turning great reading without confusing or irritating the reader. Levi’s Will is one of the best novels I have had the pleasure to read in a good long time. It would be a very good book to pass and discuss; great for any book club.

The novel spans two wars (WWII and Viet Nam) and forty years of William (Mullet) McGruder’s family relationships. The story is both plot driven and character driven in an intricate dance between the choices of the characters —especially Will and his father Levi—and the consequences that occur and the circumstances that come about because of the choices that they each make. The first chapter begins in 1985 as Will prepares to go home and bury his father, Levi. The chapters then trade back and forth amidst the forty year span between 1943 and 1985 as the story of Will and his families (the one left behind and the new one he begins) and his life—past and present—run parallel and finally converge into one again.

As a young man, Will runs away from home with his younger brother Tobe, to escape the suffocation of the Amish life he into which he has been born and brought up. In defiance of the social norms of Amishness, he runs away, leaves the girl he is expected to marry pregnant, changes his name, and begins a new life away from the legalistic beliefs of the Amish community, assuming that life is going to be a lot easier. So begins the journey of a tortured soul who seeks all his life to do nothing but return home, reconcile with his father, receive the forgiveness that he needs, and experience the full restoration that he desires.

Cramer does an insightful and informed job of giving the reader a glimpse inside the Amish community, writing as the son of a man whose father also left the Amish. The refreshing fact is that there is no feeling of emotional manipulation and no sense of judgment on the part of the author. He truly keeps his voice neutral so that the reader can think and decide what to do with the information. Cramer does the same in his presentation of both sides of the war issue—pacifism/conscientious objection or killing for what is believed to be a just cause.

Another encompassing theme of the book is the impact of generations upon each other. As Will matures and struggles with facing the issues of his life, he comes to realize that “every man’s failure dips its roots into the previous generation and drops its seeds into the next.� In the new life of lies that he has made, one of his own sons “pays him back� by being as good at pushing buttons with Will as Will was with his own father. Will finds (as many of us do when we become parents) that there is more of Levi in himself than he would like to admit and that he has attempted to paint his son, Riley, into the same corner he has felt backed into by his own father.

Amidst a myriad of sub-themes, there is also the broad issue of faith. Will goes through the full evolution belief in a salvation by following rules, to rebellion, doubt, and agnosticism and back to pretending to believe in God (even becoming a deacon in his church) and finally coming to understand a God of love, mercy, and forgiveness that he has never before experienced but who changes his life completely. He is guided gently on this journey by a savior-figure character named Jubal Bigfoot whom he meets in the army. Jubal is a hulking, Native American who never preaches to or at Will, but by the example of his life, shows Will who Jesus is and why Will needs him. Jubal is always there, always loyal, always faithful, a constant and consistent friend, and never a judge. He is also one of the few people in Will’s life who always tells him the truth.

Finally, not only is this book well written, the title itself tells three stories. It is the story of Levi’s Will—Will the son of Levi Mullet. It is the story of Levi’s will—the stubborn, demanding, crippling desire to bend Will to his life and his religion without concern for Will’s individual worth. And, finally it is the story of Levi’s will—the legacy that Levi leaves behind after he is gone that will filter into his family’s future and affect them for generations to come.