"EVERYBODY CALLS ME JOE."

This has nothing to do with Hollywood, but everything to do with the collapse of the sense of reverence and beauty in the Church.

I have been going through a dark, uncharacteristic anti-clerical phase for the last couple of years, largely because the recent scandals and consequent ecclesial rationalizations used up all of the respectful resignation with which I have been enduring terrible homilies, sloppy liturgies and pastoral sloth for the last quarter of a century. (And, I guess, anger makes me speak in run-on sentences?) I particularly don't have a lot of grace for baby-boomer priests who are still clinging to the license and liberalism that has gotten us mired in all these messes since Vatican II.

So, then, a lot of rancor was stirred up in my otherwise happy consciousness last week when I met a non-clericals wearing Jesuit at a meeting. I saw the SJ on his name-tag so I said, "Hello, Father," to which he replied (in a tone which said, "I'm a grown-up and you're not"), "Everybody calls me Joe."

Here's what I wanted to say.

No. I will not call you "Joe." You are a priest, and that dignity supercedes your Joe-ness. It has very little to do with you. You were called by God, formed by the Jesuits, paid for by the People of God, and now your life is for us. You cannot put your priesthood on and off like a coat. At least, let us call you Father Joe.

This is not my problem, it is yours. You will probably need help to get over the weird “anti-authority” thing that keynotes you baby-boomer priests and religious. You all seem to think that a patronizing gesture is your part in assaulting the mountain of hierarchy that you resent particularly because gen-xers like me DON't resent it. It's Psych 101 that by diminishing your office in the vineyard you seek to magnify yourself as an individual. In fact, diminishing your role in the community of believers is much more arrogant than accepting humbly that “what I have been set aside to be and do is now of greater note than who I was born.”

Jesus Himself preferred some formality from his friends, saying, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is fitting because that is what I am.” When Mary Magdalen recognized him Easter morning and called him “Rabboni!” he didn’t say, “Hey Mary, chill. Everybody calls me Jesus.”

You have lost something of value here. Your spiritual father, St. Ignatius had a reverence for the priesthood that is missing in you. Even after his ordination, for which he had spent six years preparing, he could not bring himself to say his first Mass for an additional full year so as to ready himself spiritually for the gravity of it. There have been “multi martyri” among the Jesuits whose sole crime was their identity as priests.

I don’t want to call you “Joe.” I’m not your friend, your family member or one of your brother Jesuits. You, as "just Joe," are basically irrelevant to me, and in fact, kind of creepy, because I'm a single woman not looking to initiate casual friendships with incognito celibates.

But what I actually said was, "Hi. You can call me Miss Nicolosi."

MORE SPICY (OR COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT) BITS...

Sorry about the sporadic blogging. Blame it on the pneumonia. Or else blame it on the wildfires which just make the pneumonia that much more blameworthy. Or else blame it on the recent proliferation of conferences and trips. Just don't blame it on the insidious computer game Pharaoh - because I'm not ready to give that up yet.

Anyway, here are more bits and pieces of news...

...I saw the upcoming release Resistance last week. The unfortunate piece was written and directed by New Sensation on the Block, Todd Komarnicki, who is pretty public about his Christianity. Resistance suffers from many flaws in its script. Set amidst the terrors of Nazi-occupied Belgium, the film looks lovely but falls flat early on and then just meanders around for another 90 minutes. It has a less than daring message which I would summarize as "Nazis are bad" and a quixotic message about adultery that left me dazed and confused because I know the director can't be advocating adultery, but it sure looked good here... I have been getting a lot of criticism lately for criticizing projects that my brothers and sisters in Christ have been putting out there. So, I'm going to be brief and suggest that the best thing for us all to do about Resistance is pray that Komarnicki figures out what went wrong here and gets another chance to do better next time.

...Steve McEveety, producer of The Passion of Christ, was a featured speaker at the Act One/Reel Spirituality Mere Entertainment Conference last week. Steve noted that the film has been a life-changing spiritual journey for all of the principles engaged in its production. Regarding the distribution, he said that Icon had shown the film as a courtesy to FOX (they have a firstlook deal), but that they had not seriously pursued any other major studios. He said that in light of the firestorm surrounding the project, "it didn't seem fair to ask a major studio to have to take on all that."

...The Discovery Channel aired an interesting, and very respectful, documentary about exorcism tonight. Granted, it's part of their desire to air something creepy for Halloween, but still, the piece presented the priest-exorcist as being successful with demoniacs, where psychology failed. At one point, one of the priests attributes much of the depression and exigencies of life as being the Devil's handiwork. He notes, "There are two spiritual worlds - God and His angels, or the Devil and his legions. We're are all operating in either one world or another all the time." The tenor of the show was that the Devil is a hateful Person. I think it is interesting that an age that more and more seems to want to strip God of His Personhood, has no trouble investing evil with it.

...Judging Amy had an eminently fair treatment of "the scandal" last week. A priest is confronted in Amy's court by a boy who had been abused. The episode at first seemed like it was going to be same old weirdly gleeful pile-on against the Church for the scandal, but then, it became obvious that theboy was mistaken about this particular priest being his abuser. The priest was compassionate, even after having gone through the trauma of being falsely accused. The residue of the episode was that there are good priests out there too.

...My friend and frequent collaborator, screenwriter, Craig Detweiler has just published a book. Craig gave us a taste of Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Popular Cultureat Mere Entertainment last week - and it was GREAT. Just a heads up for any of you smart people who are wondering what God has been up to lately. Craig knows.

...Somebody asked me today, "In honor of Halloween, what is the scariest movie you've ever seen?" Well, I guess that would have to be The Hours.

...I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Jim Caviezel (The Passion of Christ) and his wife Carrie last week. Jim is an incredibly intense person. One gets the feeling that Jesus is never more than one sentence away from his consciousness.

...The new show, Joan of Arcadia -- from my former RCIA student Barbara Hall - oh, did I let that slip? -- has been picked up by CBS for a full 22 episodes. Joan has won its timeslot every week since its debut. I lurk on a yahoo group of mostly 12-20 year old girls who love the show, and I am very encouraged by the discussion the show incites in their largely uincatechized little souls. The show is particularly good for such as these.

...I'll be in Washington, DC from Nov. 12-16 giving speeches here and there. I'll post particulars as soon as I can find all the info. I'm also going to be in DC scouting the location for our May 2004 Act One program. Yes, we'll be bringing our amazing faculty and program to the nation's capital next year. Applications open in December. Pass the word to any nascent screenwriters you know.

FROM TODAY's HOLLYWOOD REPORTER...

"HBO has signed comedian Doug Williams to a development deal for a darkly comic series about a relationship rocked by domestic violence."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ACT ONE'S ACT TWO IN THE NEWS

The Sunday Los Angeles Times had a very nice article about our Act Two program for advanced alumni. The link is here, but you may have to subscribe to access it. (Hate that...)

Here's an excerpt:

Sitting before an audience of 16 students in the Act Two program for Christian screenwriters, Dean Batali (writer/co-executive producer, "That '70s Show"), Lee Batchler (co-writer, "Batman Forever"), Jack Gilbert (former workshop director of the Warner Bros. Writers Workshop), Ron Austin (writer, "Matlock") and Act Two executive director Barbara Nicolosi are debating the meaning and merits of spiritually charged yet provocative movies like "Magnolia." Although it has a lot of profanity, themes of sexual abuse, family dysfunction and misogyny, the instructors believe the film offers amazing lessons — that it is an example of a film with flawed characters who seek and find redemption and forgiveness.

For an hour, questions and answers fly as the panel discusses such issues as when and how moral ambiguity can be helpful or go too far, and whether spreading a Christian message is better served by writing explicitly Christian characters or by conveying moral values through secular characters. While these debates have raged for years in church circles, Act Two and its parent program, Act One: Writing for Hollywood, have generated a great deal of interest in the past five years thanks to the caliber of faculty members and such bold credos as "it's better to tell an R-rated truth than a G-rated lie."

Despite the sometimes impassioned differences among faculty and students, one thing is clear: A new and savvier generation of Christians is hitting Hollywood, one that's come a long way from making apocalyptic thrillers and "altar call" films that ministries such as Billy Graham's sometimes used to convince people to accept Christ into their hearts.

"We all seek to incorporate the Christian worldview into movies and television, but we discuss how to naturally get our point of view in our work," said Batali afterward. "We don't want our art to be agenda-driven, but we do have a valid worldview that should be part of the cultural conversation."

Act One's voice in that conversation has become louder since the program's inception in January 1999 by members of the Christian entertainment fellowship organization Inter-Mission, which, along with the unrelated Actors Co-op theater group, is housed at First Presbyterian. From the start, the goal has been to offer a monthlong, daily series of interactive lectures on screenwriting by working industry professionals rather than a dry academic approach, to show students that thriving careers are possible for churchgoers worried about anti-religious discrimination in Hollywood.

Nearly five years later, the program has taught 210 students at classes in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Along the way, a course track focusing on TV writing careers, a screenplay critique service, writers' groups and a thriving online information community also have been established. Applicants for admission to Act One submit a variety of writing samples for consideration, while Act Two participants are selected from writers of completed scripts from the "best of the best" Act One graduates.

PASSION DISTRIBUTION

The word is that The Passion of Christ (note name change due to the fact that Miramax has another film previously registered as The Passion) will be distributed by Newmarket Films. This seems to me an odd choice -- but I know nothing about it. Newmarket is a small distributor. Their biggest films of the last couple years have been Whale Rider and Memento. The Passion of Christ will do for Newmarket what Blair Witch did for Artisan and Harry Potter did for Scholastic Books.

But it's a puzzlement why the studios would pass...

HIATUS REPORT...FROM HELL...

Okay, so everybody was telling me I needed to take a vacation. So I invited my sister Alison and my nephew John Thomas to come out from CT and do fun Southern California things with me. They got here last Tuesday... And then Alison started coughing. We did Disneyland and the La Brea Tar Pits, all the while with Alison coughing. By Friday morning, I had a sore throat and Alison was wheezing and dragging. But we still went to Sea World, and then left early because, well, John Thomas wanted to hang around the hotel pool instead of watching dolphins jump. (Don't get that.) On Sunday, Alison was clearly feverish, and I was feeling bad too, so we finally broke through our family suspicion of the medical profession and went to the Emergency Room back in L.A.

So, then the doctor takes one quick look at Alison's chest x-ray and admits her to the hospital. She had a 102 fever and advanced pneumonia. She seems to have three different strains of bacteria in her system - each of which requires a different specialist.

I have a severe viral infection, so they put me on penicillin and sent me home to entertain my four year old nephew, who is, oh so, NOT low maintenance. But, thank God, he hasn't come down with the viral demons.

Today is Tuesday, and we get the word from the doctors that Alison needs to stay in the hospital until at least Friday. I called American Airlines, and of course, they will not let us change the ticket because we got a cheap non-refundable fare, but they assure me that for a mere $2048 they will be happy to book new flights for my sister and my nephew sometime next week.

Meanwhile, I'm still sick and I have to teach a college course on Thursday, with a four year old in tow, and my sister lonely and bored in the hospital.

Feel free to send some prayer our way... And, can I please go back to work now?

ME AT UNIVERISTY OF MI

Sorry this is late for most of you. Tis is mainly for those I have been meeting all weekend here in MI who might want to come to my speech today at the University of MI.

I am speaking at the campus chapel at 3pm. Directions are:

The Campus Chapel is located on the eastern edge of the central campus. The Chapel's easily-recognizable building is just south of the Central Campus recreation building, and adjacent to the Forest street parking lot (which is free and open on Sundays.) From Domino's Farms, follow Washtenaw into Ann Arbor,and the Chapel is visible on the left just before the UM hospital becomes visible on the right.

Address: 1236 Washtenaw Ct., Ann Arbor Michigan 48104

Talk will be on Hollywood and God and Christians and culture... The usual shtick.

Sigh.

THE BODY IN ART

Here's an interesting article comparing the use of the human body in Chicago to that in The Passion. The fact that the author uses a citation from this blog has nothing to do with the fact that I am linking to it.

WHAT KIND OF A SUPER-HERO DOES IT TAKE...

...to run an interdenominational screenwriting program to teach Christians artistry, professionalism, creative ethics and the keynotes of a vocational media spirituality? Click here to see who I came out to be [humble cough].

MORE PASSION TO COME

So, the word is, Mel and crew are back in Italy shooting some more scenes for The Passion. I imagine this is in response to all the feedback he got during the test-screenings. It's odd, for a film of the scope of The Passion. Very hard to reassemble all the people involved, for continuity's sake, I imagine. Could be the studio distributor wanted some changes. But the fact that they are still shooting could be keeping the distribution deal on hold.

Curiouser and curiouser.

WE INTERRUPT THIS TRIP TO JACKSONVILLE, FL TO EMOTE....

The Sox made it to the play-offs! This could be the year!!! I believe! I believe!

BLOG-BITS

Did I say a few weeks back that my schedule would be getting back to normal in September? I guess it has, only "normal" now seems to mean plain old inconceivably hectic. Life is leaving very little time for blogging...which is unfortunate, because, in being so busy, life is giving me lots of cool things to blog about. Tonight is also one of the high holy days here in L.A. - Emmy night - and as my friend Rob King's project Door to Door is nominated in 11 categories, I can only type in between his categories.

So, I'm going to be pithy and just throw random news down here.

.....I went to a screening of the new feature film Luther. ... And Luther said there is no such thing as purgatory.... The film stars Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Molina and Peter Ustinov. The production values are good - certainly not epic level, but solid, and the cast is very talented. The actors do the the best they can with a script that is really draggy and episodic. There is no arc for the main character, Luther, who is written as, uh, well, the holiest, brilliantist, deepest, sincerest, articulatest, goodest damn guy on the planet. His principle flaws are his consuming passion for crippled children, his blinking-eyed fervor for the good, and his zeal for God. Bad film. Luther is, however, a huge leap forward for Evangelical film-making if Left Behind and Omega Code were the previous standard. But there are no pretensions to art here. Unless revisionist history and anti-Catholic bigotry is an artform. My main quandry is, where are all the people who are so enflamed about subtle anti-Semitism in The Passion? The historical Luther was a fire-breathing anti-Semite if ever there was one. Where is the outrage that a bigot is being portrayed in this film in a favorable light? Where is the outrage?....

....I quit my job as the monthly Media Matters columnist for Liguorian magazine. They refused to print my review of The Passion because they are afraid of siding with a film that some people are saying is anti-Semitic. They wanted to me rewrite my review to be less of a rave and "more balanced" - whatever that is in a movie review. My sense is the anti-Semitism thing is just a blind for the real issue - if Mel was a liberal, they would have no problem with the film. The magazine is setting itself on the wrong side of this whole question...and I do not choose to be on the wrong side with them.

P.S. The Vatican apparently released an official statement this week that The Passion is just fine theologically and Scripturally, thank you. I'd say, "Nah-nah nah-nah-nah", except that I feel sure that the approval of the Vatican will not matter at all to the folks who are against this film. "Even if a man came back from the grave, it wouldn't be enough for them."

.....I got hired as a monthly media columnist for the National Catholic Register. I'll start sometime in January. Oh, and my first column is a review of The Passion.

....On October 4th, philanthropist Tom Monaghan is generously hosting a gala fundraiser for Act One at his home in Ann Arbor, MI. I will be giving a speech and we will have clips from The Passion and Radio (an upcoming release - very sweet film). If anyone wants to attend, email actone@fpch.org for an invitation.

...The Fighting Temptations is not intelligent, but fun for pre-teens. At least the ones in the screening I attended were practically throwing themselves on the floor in sheer glee and mirth. Maybe they were paid to impress us press? That's too cynical. The film has nothing objectionable and has a sweet little redemption story, but the music is really the only thing excellent thing here. The film comes from MTV productions, so hopefully if it does well, they'll pass on the next feature-length sado-masochistic gangsta rap music video, and do another sweet movie about Gospel choirs. Yeah right.

...I was interviewed by a reporter for Daily Variety last week. They are doing a story on Act One and other Christian initiatives in Hollywood. Roles reversed for a moment during the interview, and I asked the reporter why he thought Christians get so much bigotry and intolerance in this town. He didn't even think for a second. "It's because of abortion. If you all were on the other side of that issue, I don't think anybody would care about you at all." Shockingly refreshing bit of truth. I think that it is amazing that with all of our problems in the Church, we can still manage to earn some martyr points for a legitimate reason. "What further need do we have of witnesses?..."

I debated The Passion on NPR last week with Michael Medved with me on the "Yeah, rah, great film!" side vs. arch-Biblical deconstructionist Paula Fredricksen and The New Yorker's oh, so earnest Peter Boyer on the "this is a Jew baiting, pogrom in celluloid" side. It is, of course, interesting to "debate" a movie's merits with Fredricksen, as she has not even seen the film -- but clearly she makes up in gaul and fury what she lacks in perspective. Michael and I didn't even get to speak until 35 minutes into the hour-long show. They kept us on mute, while the NPR host and the other two guests did tag-team character assassination of Mel, using as responsorial psalm the mantras, "The Passion is not Biblical and is anti-Semitic," and, "Oh, yeah, the New Testament is anti-Semitic too." I think it is curious that Fredricksen takes issue with Gibson for not being truly, truly Scriptural, and hence anti-Semitic, and at the same time takes issue with the Scriptures for being truly, truly anti-Semitic. In the end, we "Yeah, rah" people only got to talk in about 15 minutes of the hour. Unfair, but, as always, tolerance and consistency are only ever required of people on the right.

...I'll be giving a day-long presentation on screenwriting in Jacksonville, FL this coming Friday, the 26th of September. There are still openings if anybody out there wants to come. Email actone@fpch.org for more information.

...And the Red Sox are 1.5 games ahead of Seattle in the Wild Card race. As my sister noted to me on the phone, "They can still blow it, Barb." Yes, the Sox can and probably will still blow it. But I do take comfort in the fundamental odds of the universe: You can't lose 'em all. Maybe this year. Oremus....

act one: writing for hollywood and reel spirituality present,

MERE ENTERTAINMENT
THEORY MEETS PRACTICE

A two-day seminar,
Oct. 23 and 24, 2003,

in conjunction with the Tenth Annual CITY of the ANGELS FILM FESTIVAL

and featuring:

John Tinker (Writer, St. Elsewhere, Executive Producer The Practice)
William Romanowski(Author, Pop Culture Wars, Eyes Wide Open)
Steve McEveety (Producer, The Passion, Braveheart)
Todd Komarnicki (Producer, Elf, The Flash)

...And many more!


Within the church, there is a divide between those who study film and television and those who create it. Many pastors and educators teach and minister about entertainment without any first-hand knowledge of the industry that creates it. Many writers, filmmakers and executives fail to contemplate the larger ethical and aesthetic issues that surround their work.

Oct. 23rd and 24th, theory and practice come together for an intense, two-day conference sponsored by act one: writing for hollywood and reel spirituality. Held in conjunction with the City of the Angels Film Festival, “Mere Entertainment” will bring together pastors, thinkers, and industry veterans to share practical experiences and consider the deeper issues at stake in Hollywood.

The ultimate goal of the conference will be to employ both theory and practice in drafting an aesthetic credo: a positive statement to which Christians can assent that articulates how to use the medium of cinema to create enduring works of beauty.

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MERE ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE

Thursday, October 23

8:30 a.m Registration / Continental Breakfast

9:15 a.m. Opening Prayer and Greeting - Barbara Nicolosi

10:00 a.m. The Hollywood Divide - Ron Austin

11:30 a.m. A Filmmaker’s Progress - Scott Derrickson

12:45 p.m. Lunch Break

1:45 p.m. Writing for TV in the Real World - John Tinker, Dean Batali, Sheryl Anderson

3:30 p.m. Pop Culture and the Classroom- William Romanowski, Read Mercer Schuchardt, Barry Taylor, Scott Young

5:00 p.m. Dinner Break

7:00 p.m. Screening and Discussion: D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance

Friday, October 24

8:30 a.m.Continental Breakfast

9:00 a.m. The Post-Modern Shift: Beyond Body Parts and the “F” Word - Craig Detweiler

10:30 a.m. The Bottom Line: Art and the Executive - Panel of Creative Executives TBA

1:15 p.m. A Credo for Christian Filmmakers - Barbara Nicolosi

3:00 p.m. Imagining The Passion - Steve McEveety (schedule pending)

7:00 p.m. L.A. Premiere of Resistance, starring Bill Paxton and Julia Ormond, plus a discussion afterward with writer/director Todd Komarnicki.

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LOCATION

The Mears Center
First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood
1760 N. Gower Street
Hollywood, CA 90028

and

The Directors Guild of America
Sunset Blvd. at Fairfax
Hollywood, CA

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GUEST SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS

Sheryl Anderson has been a television studio executive, a half-hour writer (Parker Lewis Can't Lose and Dave's World), and an hour writer (Charmed).

Ron Austin, most recently of USC School of Cinema, is a writer and producer with over one-hundred primetime television credits, including Mission: Impossible, Charlie's Angels, Hawaii Five-O, Matlock, and The Father Dowling Mysteries. Ron has authored numerous articles on film and culture and serves on the editorial board of Image Quarterly: A Journal of Art and Religion.

Dean Batali is Co-Executive Producer of FOX's That 70's Show. He wrote for the initial two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB), and served as co-producer on ABC's recent remake of Fantasy Island.

Scott Derrickson was the co-writer of Urban Legends and the co-writer/director of Hellraiser: Inferno(Miramax). He has written films for Disney, Dimension Films, Artists Production Group, and Jerry Bruckheimer. He is currently writing films for Martin Scorsese and Firm films.

Craig Detweiler is Associate Professor of Mass Communication at Biola University. He made the award-winning short Williams Syndrome: A Highly Musical Species. His feature credits include The Duke and ExtremeDays. With Barry Taylor, he is author of A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture.

Todd Komarnicki is Producer of the upcoming holiday comedy Elf, starring Will Ferrell, and Executive Producer of The Flash television series, based on the popular comic book, for the WB. He is writer/director of the feature Resistance as well as a novelist and playwright.

Steve McEveety is a producer and one of the principles at Icon Productions. He executive produced Braveheart and What Women Want and produced We Were Soldiers and the upcoming The Passion.

Barbara Nicolosi a Los Angeles area screenwriter, is Director of Act One: Writing for Hollywood. She has been a director of development, a member of Gabriel Award, CIMA and the Angelus Award film juries, and a consultant on many film and television projects.

William Romanowski is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College. He has been published in numerous books, journals, and popular magazines. He is author of the acclaimed books Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life and, most recently, Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture.


Read Mercer Schuchardt is assistant professor of media studies at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. He is the contributing editor on media and culture for Regeneration Quarterly magazine, founder of CLEAVE: The Counter Agency and the publisher of Metaphilm (www.metaphilm.com), a film interpretation website. This year and next, Spence Publishing will release his first two books, Metaphilm: Seers of the Silver Screen and The Disappearance of Women: Technology, Pornography, and the Obsolescence of Gender.

Barry Taylor teaches pop culture, cultural change and faith as an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. With Craig Detweiler, he is author of A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture.

John Tinker started in television as a staff writer on St. Elsewhere. He went on to co-executive producing jobs for L.A. Law, Home Fires, and The Road Home. He wrote for the short-lived yet well-received Tattinger’s, and since then has been an executive producer on Chicago Hope, The Practice, Snoops, and HRT.

Scott Young is an instructor at Fuller Theological Seminary and the 2003 Chair and Co-Founder of the City of the Angels Film Festival.

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REGISTRATION

For the conference (including the two screenings and meals), the price is $150. For the conference plus admission to The City of the Angels Film Festival, the price is $200. (For Act One alumni, the prices are $85/$135.)

To register by phone, call 323-462-1348.

To register by mail, send your name, address, phone number or email address, check or credit card number and expiration date to:

Mere Entertainment Conference
Act One: Writing for Hollywood
1763 N. Gower St.
Hollywood, CA 90028

or, you mail email the information to aplatipodis@fpch.org.

The registration deadline is Oct. 17, 2003.
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Act One: Writing for Hollywood is a month-long comprehensive training program for screenwriters from the Christian community. Its goal is to foster and instill artistry, professionalism, substance and concern for moral content in entertainment writers. For more information, visit www.actoneprogram.com.

Reel Spirituality is a creative encounter between the church and Hollywood, bringing together leading filmmakers, emerging pastors, and rising scholars around our image driven culture’s primary texts – film and television.

The City of the Angels Film Festival grew out of a dialogue between filmmakers and theologians who believe that spiritual perspectives are indispensable to the filmmaking process. It is dedicated to screening quality works that not only celebrate film as art but also raise vital religious and social issues. For more information, visit www.cityofangelsfilmfest.org.


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TO CONTACT US

Call Act One at 323-462-1348 or email aplatipodis@fpch.or

FLOGGING THE AUDIENCE WITH A MATCHSTICK

There's a lot to like in Matchstick Men, but it is really all in the performances. This film is essentially a star vehicle for Nicholas Cage and company and they certainly deliver, but, in the end, I wanted to stand up and yell at the screen, "Okay, you've all had fun, can we play too?"

The problem with this film is the lack of any delightful pay-off for the audience. We get set-up for a great twist, but then when the twist comes, it just feels dreadful and creepy. The movie then goes on for another fifteen minutes of meandering, trying to convince us that this creepy ending is really the best thing for all...but I didn't like it. It's a sanctimonious Hollywood ending that makes the case that love and being a carpet salesman is better than being rich and clever -- but does anybody REALLY believe that? I guess if I see Nicholas Cage giving away all his money and fame and settling down in a lower middle class domicile with a grocery store check out girl...and that's surely going to happen any day.

I found the dark and disturbing last act of the film to be completely irreconciliable in tone to the first two acts which were funny and humane. I walked away no better than I was when I started, except for the fact that now I'm wondering if my parents are actually really my parents or if maybe they've been conning me all these decades...if that's being better.

If you have nothing else to do, Matchstick Men won't make you sick. It won't make you well though either.

"I write the way I do because and only because I am a Catholic. I feel that if I were not a Catholic, I would have no reason to write, no reason to see, no reason to fell horrified or even to enjoy anything."
Flannery O'Connor

HARDLY A LION, DEFINITELY SECOND-HAND

The new film Secondhand Lions was written and directed by Tim McCanlies (The Iron Giant, Dancer Texas; Pop 101). I liked The Iron Giant, and Dancer was surprisingly good, but this film suffers from the problem of having one (non-genius) person write and direct. There are story problems here that a director would normally have caught in the writer's script -- but when the director IS the writer, there is no one around to say, "Hey, there is no real tension in the whole second act!" and other stuff like that.

The ensemble here is talented enough, however, to almost make us overlook the project's conceptual flaws. Robert Duvall (The Apostle), Michael Caine (The Quiet American) and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) do the best they can -- although all of them need to fire their people for letting them sign onto this project while it was still three or four drafts away from being shot.

But maybe I've just lost the ability to enjoy a movie like a normal person any more?

When I was leaving the screening, an ebullient woman ahead of me in the parking validation line couldn't wait to share her enjoyment. "What did you think of the film?"

I hesitated. "You mean, really?"

She hesitated. "Well, yeah..."

I sighed. "Okay. There was no conflict in the first act. There should have been a lot more struggle before the main protagonists bonded. The director/writer was in a big rush because of the set-up that the story needed to unfold in one summer, so he ended up rushing the primary relationships and just asking the audience to believe him. Hence, the characters - especially the old men - are completely inconsistent. Then, you have to ask, 'Whose movie is this?' The young boy is presumably the main character, but he is passive through the whole film. HJ Osment is great, but even he got tired of standing around looking freaked out and, so he ended up settling into a posture of staring and pouting. There is no natural climactic conflict in the story, so they had to resort to importing a villain for the last ten pages. Finally, the film suffers from absolute genre-schizophrenia. It morphs from Heidi with a boy to Born Free meets Old Yeller to Aladdin in live-action meets Rocky V. I have no idea how they are going to market this movie."

I suddenly realized the woman was listening to me mouth agape. She mumbled. "I thought it was cute."

And so it was.

Parents, feel safe to take your kids if you get rained in and can't come up with anything else for them to do. For those who don;'t have kids, stay home and read a book.

SEABISCUIT: A GOOD MOVIE BY A NOSE...

Seabiscuit is a good film - particularly for those peope who say they don't go to the movies anymore because, "it's all garbage." This is a film which - except for two or three profanities - has no garbage. It is good storytelling about a group of beings (three men and a horse) who each need healing and who find it through working together for a common goal. It is very well-produced with beautiful cinematography, solid performances and a well-written script. This is the rare film that I am going to recommend to my parents...enough said?

From a storytelling standpoint my primary quibble is the use of the narrator, and still photos periodically throughout the film. It feels as though the filmmakers think people are too stupid to know about the ravages of the Depression, and so have to keep interrrupting the story to give us a history lesson. I found this particular voice over artist, David McCullough, particularly distracting as it is the same fellow who was the voice of the Civil War series by Ken Burns. I kept expecting a shot of Gettysburg in between all the dustbowl remembrances.

And then, I wish the film had given us more horse time. The storylines belong almost entirely to the three fellas, with the horse losing screen time by a few lengths. I wanted more shots like one finds in Black Beauty and Black Stallion where the horse gets the close-up.

But those are just quibbles. This is a lovely, entertaining film and is a good place to land in the vast sea of cinematic medicroty which has been the summer of 2003.

IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF WHICH DISTRIBUTOR...

From yesterdays Variety:

Interest is heating up for Mel Gibson's controversial Aramaic and Latin-language pic The Passion.

A number of distributors -- Newmarket, Paramount Classics, Sony Classics and Lions Gate, among them -- are talking to Icon Prods.' Bruce Davey and ICM chairman Jeff Berg about a possible North American deal, even though they have yet to see the pic. Gibson's Icon produced the pic, and Berg reps it....Reps for Icon Prods., which produced the pic about the last 12 hours of Christ's life before his crucifixion, said no distribution decisions would be made until after Labor Day.

Ahem. Now, I'm not one to say, "I told you so"....

...so funny...I thought when we
first went out, we were really
goin' somewhere...but this is it--
we're just goin', huh?
(from Bonnie and Clyde, 1967)

UNIVERSAL CALL TO...ARTISTRY

The notion that the arts are optional is absurd in the same way that the suggestion that making choices could be optional for human beings. We are constituted as a kind of being that chooses and a kind of being that decorates. Both things set us apart and define us.

The Pope notes in the Letter to Artists that the reason God stopped creating, and, well, permanently rested, was because He had created a kind of being finally that could continue creating in His stead.

“Finally, He created the human being: the noblest fruit of His design, to whom he subjected the visible world as a vast field in which human inventiveness might assert itself.” (Letter to Artists 1999, JPII)

We human beings are supposed to keep recombining the elements in creation: out of chaos...into order...beyond order, into harmony. Creation is the act in which we each find our destiny. I like that. Good Pope.

Then, this...

“All men and women are entrusted first with the task of crafting their own lives; in a certain sense they are to make of their life, a work of art, a masterpiece.” (Letter to Artists 1999, JPII)

I always think of St. Paul’s “new man” in this sense. The "New man" that we put on in the life of grace can be understood as the work of art that we undertake in collaboration with Christ. It's our "baby" with Jesus. Us. The us of destiny, that is; the realization of that image God had of us that was so beautiful that He just had to make it.

If you had to describe your life up till now, would it be a masterpiece?

Would it be a reproduction or an original?

Would it be the kind of thing you would feel safe to expose children to? Is it mostly tragedy or comedy? Is it an ascent (a story of growth?) or a descent (a story of squandering?) or is it without any climax at all?

Emily Dickinson said, "Nature is a haunted house. Art is a house that tries to be haunted." What is it that "haunts" your life as you have made it?

A TALE OF TWO PRIORITIES

Too many people think that the arts are optional. Especially in the Church. Especially in rectories.... sigh.

Story... A couple of years ago I was running the liturgy at my parish somewhere here in L.A. We had one overworked priest and half of our people were "undocumented aliens." Very poor parish. Well, the music was horrible every weekend. The worst of the worst. Most of the time we had no musicians, but then on really bad weekends, a middle-aged couple, Mary and Steve, would show up and and wail very flat and loud, strumming the same three chords on their cursed guitars regardless of the hymn.

The pews were mostly empty. Only a few of us suffering stalwarts would trickle in week after week, staring blankly ahead, victims of the liturgical beauty lobotomy.

So, then, in a moment of crazed desperation, I drove to UCLA one Sunday after Mass and stormed the music school. I found three student musicians and a soprano - all very talented and broke - who were willing to come and play and sing for us every week for forty dollars each.

I took up a collection from some of the other desperate pew martyrs, and unearthed one fairly wealthy old lady who agreed to subsidize the musicians for a year.

So, I went to Father and told him my good news. He was dismissive and petulant.

"I don't want to offend Mary and Steve. They've been volunteering for years."

"Yes, Father," I offered, "but they are awful."

Then, his eyes narrowed.

"This kind of elitism is what Vatican II was supposed to stop. The point now is for everybody to sing, not for just a few." And then a pithy bit, "God judges our hearts not our vocal chords."

Resisting the impulse to scream, "GOOOOOOOD GRIEF!!!!!", I made the point that the addition of trained musicians would cost the parish nothing. He moved from petulant to annoyed.

'Of course it will! Whoever is giving money for the music will certainly give less to the parish. Besides, once we start this, we'll have to find a way to keep it up, won't we? Suppose the donors drop out. Then, what?"

In the end, Father refused to allow the musicians to disrupt the perfect awfulness of our Sunday morning liturgies.... He did, however, ask me who the donors were so that he could hit them up for the parish food bank.

Our dear pastor and persecutor was suffering under the misconception that feeding his people bread was essential, but feeding them beauty was an extra. So sad. Beautiful music would have roused the people out of numb comas and created a powerful climate of prayer. Praying together better would have made us a stronger community. Hearing beautiful music would have made us want to make our lives "works of art" to borrow from JPII, and so we would have been roused to greater generosity, kindness and solicitude. Finally, beautiful music would fill the pews and, [drily] the collection would have gone up.

PRAISING NEMO FROM KOREA

I'm in Korea until Tuesday, and after that will actually be home in Los Angeles for nearly a month, so blogging should get back to some kind of regularity. Meanwhile, did I mention that I'm in Korea?

Love it here. People are just wonderful, food is fabulous and social (you have to eat here to know what I mean) and, honestly, Seoul 2003 makes most of the USA look like a technological third world nation. This country is unbelievably hi-tech - 90% Internet access, mobile units that function as cameras, beepers, phones, flashlights, entertainment centers and well, fashion statements. It's not at all what I expected (fill in "because I am an ignorant, isolationist-leaning, provincial American who is only fluent in English and movies.") The best part of Korea is certainly the people. There is a grave formality about the hospitality here that has left me in awe from the first day. Bowing and broad smiles. Bowing and smiles. There seems to me to be a natural warmth and joy in the Korean spirit. They love color and laughter and basically, people. And you have to love a country that has a daily spiritual meditation on the front page of the morning paper. The only downside here is the traffic. Jammed. Makes L.A. seem somehow transportationally efficient.

Okay, so back to things cultural...

Finding Nemo is the best film of the year. I apologise for letting you all know after the film has already logged $300 million in domestic boxoffice, but I generally loathe animation and always have to drag myself to see a cartoon. Pixar has been gradually converting me with their 3-D Toys and Monsters and, now, lovely South Pacific sealife. Nemo is a fabulous film on every level beginning, of course, with its framework in a terrific script.

There are two interwoven stories here, each with a significant arc for the two main characters. The most clever part of the writing is the way the writers (eek - Clare, I don't know their names and I am in a hotel lobby in Seoul so give me a break already!) have avoided the traditional cartoon character antagonist. There is no bad guy in Finding Nemo. The "antagonist" is life itself. Fantastic stuff.

If next year wasn't an election year, Finding Nemo would certainly have to get the nod for Best Picture from Oscar. Unfortunately, the industry generally gets particularly propagandistic on us every four years and so we'll probably see the principle awards go to some badly executed but earnest leftwing flicks. Or else, the Academy will reward Peter Jackson with a statue just because they didn't give it to him two years ago when they probably should have....even though I personally wouldn't give Lord of the Rings anything except a bottle of shampoo.

Sigh. In a perfect world, Pixar's little fish would take it all. Quick, dive in to your nearest cineplex if you haven't seen it yet. And that means you too, you people over eight.

"I left Kit in the parlor and went for a stroll outside the house.
The day was quiet and serene, but I didn't notice, for I was deep
in thought, and not even thinking about how to slip off.
The world was like a faraway planet to which I could never
return... I thought what a fine place it was, full of things for
people to look into and enjoy."
(from Badlands)

REALITY TV: JUNK FOOD FOR THE SOUL

My latest on Catholic Exchange... A few words are missing which is curious. But the idea is still there.

I actually think this is one of the best things I've ever written. Feel free to concur.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, MARXISM!

There was an article in Last Sunday's L.A. Times that is garnering a lot of buzz here in Hollywood. Written by David Weddle, the piece lambasts film theory programs in many universities as being (in Roger Ebert's words), "a cruel hoax for students, essentially the academic equivalent of a New Age cult, in which a new language has been invented in which only the adept can communicate."

You have to register to read the whole article. I recommend going to the trouble, especially if you have any kids or young friends who are contemplating plunking down $30,000-$120,000 for film school.

Weddle describes examining one of his daughter's textbooks. His daughter, a student at UC-Santa Barbara, happens to be enrolled at one of the most radicalized film study programs in the U.S., but reading the article, her experience was not too far from my own at Northwestern University, "the heartland Ivy League school."


The prose was denser than a Kevlar flak jacket, full of such words as "diegetic," "heterogeneity," "narratology," "narrativity," "symptomology," "scopophilia," "signifier," "syntagmatic," "synecdoche," "temporality." I picked out two of them‹"fabula" and "syuzhet"‹and asked Alexis if she knew what they meant. "They're the Russian Formalist terms for 'story' and 'plot,' " she replied.

"Well then, why don't they use 'story' and 'plot?' "

"We're not allowed to. If we do, they take points off our paper. We have to use 'fabula' and 'syuzhet.' "

Weddle goes on in the article to be amazed at the fanatical dogmatism of the film criticism professors in his daughters Department at UCSB. (Where has this guy been for the last thirty years?! It is always funny when a liberal finally starts to see the oppressiveness and errors of long cherished theories. It's as hard as admitting your own child is, well, a rotter.) This is my favorite citation from the article, because it reveals a latent bigotry against conservatives which keeps the writers from having a keen sense of the obvious as to the problems in their creed, such that they could completely abandon it.

From Kevin Brownlow, the world's leading silent movie historian, author of "The Parade's Gone By . . .," and co-producer, with David Gill, of acclaimed documentaries: "You would think, from this closed-circuit attitude to teaching, that such academics would be politically right wing. For it is a kind of fascism to force people practicing one discipline to learn the language of another, simply for the convenience of an intellectual elite. It's like expecting Slavs to learn German in order to comprehend their own inferiority. But they are not right wing. They are, regrettably, usually left wing‹quite aggressively Marxist‹which makes the whole situation even more alarming."

I found this article to be DEAD ON in terms of my own experience in graduate studies in film at Northwestern. My professors were either proudly out Marxists, or else, closeted fearful non-Marxists who didn't dare raise their voices in dissent against the raging of the Party faithful in the department. Few of our professors had any real experience in the commercial film industry. In fact, they loudly derided and disdained Hollywood as being a capitalist tool of oppression. And believe me, they weren't bemoaning the excesses of graphic sex and violence in the biz. One of my professors told me she had to be very careful talking about her past, because she had actually made a living in the business at one time, and her colleagues considered her, therefore, a sell-out to capitalist oppression.

We were required to take one of two film theory tracks, our options being either a) Queer Theory, or b) Feminist Film Theory. I took the latter and then had to sit through a whole quarter of absolute propaganda garbage in which our lesbian/feminist professor wailed against patriarchal power-brokers in Hollywood ad nauseum infinitum. She kept referring to herself as part of the proletariat. (Hmmmm...I used to think. You are probably making more than any two hundred Russian peasants who were oppressed by the Tsar...) We had to study the work of any one of a small group of minor female film directors -- not because of their contributions to the art form, but JUST BECAUSE they were women. We had to watch film after film made by famous male directors, looking for anti-women patriarchal , oppressive "coding.'

I remember that we spent nearly a month watching the mind-numbing colorless drudgery of Soviet montage cinema, but only one day on the work of D.W. Griffith, the "Father of Cinematic Technique." I got a B in that class, because I actually challenged my professor one day. "If Soviet cinema was so great, than why did Stalin used to ship in Hollywood movies to watch in his private screening room?' The professor sputtered with rage something about Stalin taking on the burdens of his people by subjecting himself to the evils of Hollywoodism. Yeah, right, Mack.

I remember being amazed at how, day after day, our professors managed to get whatever the topic of the class was around to Marxist rhetoric and anti-religious/anti-capitalist/anti-American railing. The funniest was on Day One of our research studies class with one professor, who was a particularly frustrated Marxist whose life seemed to be a tortured rationalization of his own very non-proletariat salary. Dr. "Call Me Jim because PhD's are just Part of Bourgeois Power Structures" was giving us a tour of the stacks when he all of a sudden turned on us, a group of twenty-something kids mostly from upper-class backgounds or else the intellectual top percent of their highschools of colleges.

"How many of you have ever even raided a library?! Huh!!! How many of you have ever even been arrested in a protest?! What is wrong with you people???!!"

I could write a book about some of the stuff we had to put up with just to get a degree. But maybe I don't have to as Mr. Weddle has done it already here.

"So that was Mrs. Lundegaard in there? And I guess
that was your accomplice in the wood chipper.
And those three people in Brainerd.
And for what? For a little bit of money.
There's more to life than money, you know.
Don't you know that? And here you are,
and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't
understand it."
from Fargo

REVIEW: DISNEY'S PIRATES STAYS AFLOAT

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is much better than I expected. In an industry in which movies that have "swords and sandals" are generally panned, this film keeps its head above water with both a good story and one outstanding performance by the exceedingly talented Johnny Depp. Depp plays his Captain Jack Sparrow with a slightly off-balance quirky swagger that is pure fun to watch.

The story here is also much better than projects of this sort tend to be. It holds together well, keeps moving and has a nice little twist at the end. Along the way, there are a lot of tongue and cheek swashbuckling moments that keep subverting the traditional formulas. The production values are high and the characterizations are well-conceived and executed. As a bonus, there is no profanity or crassness or nudity or sex in the project. The violence is about the same as you find in any Errol Flynn swashbuckler.

I was ready to hate this movie as an example of Disney's shameless self-promotion. The movie is derived from the Disney theme park ride of the same name, and it seemed to me that any movie based on a three minute attraction couldn't have a lot to it. I was wrong. They have done a good job, and have created a movie that is genuine family fun.

In what may end up revealing a total dearth of new ideas, however, Disney also has a movie in production that is based on the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland. Not sure wheher they are intending to create a whole new genre here - but if anyone from Disney is paying attention, I would avoid any pitches you about dramatizing the Tikki, tikki, tikki, tikki, tikki Room. Unless it's like, a horror film.

BLOGGING PROSPECTUS AND LIFE SINCE THE PASSION

We are just at the end of our first week of the Act One 2003 summer program. We have thirty-one wonderful new students and a really packed schedule which doesn't let up until August 2. I won't have a whole lot of time to blog while the program is unfolding. Please do keep the students, faculty, mentors and program staff in your prayers.

After Act One wraps, I head to New England for a week of brooding with a group of Catholic artists about what an ideal Catholic university arts curriculum would look like. I'm bringing my parents along, so it should be nearly heaven - New England, arts theory discussions with a group of very cool people, and Mom and Dad!

After New England, I am off to Korea for a week or so. I'm consulting on a children's animated project called Antenna Adventures. Being produced by Santa Fe Communications of Milwaukee, WI, the series is very cute and funny - and is rooted in Biblical themes.

I'll be back in L.A. sometime around the third week of August. So, blogging over the next two months will be sporadic at best.

Actually, I am really just fleeing from the hundreds of people who have been contacting me in the last two weeks to set them up in a meeting with Mel Gibson, or to pass on to him books, resumes, musical scores, and other odd personal artifacts. One screening of The Passion and suddenly every Catholic or Christian group wants me to deliver the star for their local carnival. Good grief. Clearly, there is a reason Icon Productions doesn't post their address on their web site. If any of you reading this are tempted to ask me to set up an interview for you, please save yourself the effort. I am not a publicist. I am a writer. I am not Mel's friend. I met him once. I will probably never see him again. So please, stop sending me things to give him.

I really hate this celebrity stuff, especially among the People of God. We all need to reflect on the words, "You know how it is among the pagans, how their great ones lord it over them. IT CANNOT BE THAT WAY WITH YOU."

T-3: SETTING UP AHNOLD, T-4, AND THE AUDIENCE

Terminator 3 would be better titled, "Acts One and Two of Terminator Three." The film isn't bad, it's just all set up for the next film. Action in the first hour could easily have been condensed into about half the time. The studio clearly didn't want to speed things up because they are counting on getting two movies out of one story. The film leaves us about where the mid-point of a good movie would have left us - with a new Adam and Eve waiting out the Apocalypse in a 1950's bomb shelter.

My sense is, this film is all part of Arnold's pre-political campaign. Arnold has all the laughs in the film, and he still looks buff in leather. If the film had tanked, chances are his political ambitions would too. It didn't tank. When Arnold as Terminator puts on his very cool designer sunglasses as a precursor to, saving the human race, theater goers could almost hear the sub-text, "There's another one Gray Davis can try."

Ultimately, the audience is the ultimate victim of the set-ups. But, T-3 is a fun enough visual romp that you won't mind too much.

"Millions of books written on every
conceivable subject by all these
great minds, and, and in the end,
none of 'em knows anything more
about the big questions of life
than I do. ... Nietzsche with his, with
his Theory of Eternal Recurrence.
He said that the life we live,
we're gonna live over and over
again the exact same way for
eternity. Great. That means I,
uh, I'll have to sit through the
Ice Capades again. Tch. It's not
worth it.
from Hannah and Her Sisters

THE STUFF OF REAL CONTROVERSY?

Columbia Pictures has acquired The Da Vinci Code for a seven-figure sum. Describing writer Dan Brown as a "master Storyteller" Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman, John Calley notes that they "can't wait to bring this puzzle to the screen."

The real puzzle is how come a book that is known to be virulently anti-Catholic can be acquired without a peep of indignation from the people who have been overflowing with horror about how some supposed scenes in The Passion may possibly be contorted by some twisted wackos somewhere into a validation of anti-Semitism? There is nothing subtle about the bigotry in The Da Vinci Code. It's just badly researched, offensive hate-blather which uses Christians as its object.

I try very hard to get my fellow Christians to give Hollywood a break, but then, damnit, one of the studios goes off and does something indefensible like this.

PROTESTANTS LIKE IT TOO!

Focus on the Family leaders got a screening of The Passion. They sound enthusiastic. I was a little worried how they would react because the film is so very graphic in its depiction of the violence inflicted on Jesus. But, I'm glad to see they are letting a work of art be a work of art.

“It conveys, more accurately than any other film, who Jesus was,” Ted Haggard said based on clips he viewed at New Life. “You can’t help but be upset when you realize the gravity of what Jesus went through.”

“I was very impressed,” said Don Hodel, president of Focus on the Family. “It’s certainly the most powerful portrayal of the passion I’ve ever seen or heard about. The movie is historically and theologically accurate.”

MORE PASSION

I said I would answer questions about my comments on the screening. I will not enter into the frenzied trap of trying to convince people that the Gospel is not anti-Semitic. Nor will I address the specific list of depictions that someone has decided would render the film anti-Semitic. It wouldn't prove anything.

The film is not anti-Semitic. It is beautiful. Think how insane it is to be condemning something without any experience of it. It is absurd and frivolous. No one will even remember this discussion once the film is released. And I only enter into conversations that have the possibility of being thoroughly memorable... But if some of you want to look really foolish, keep on keeping on with the sniping in the darkness.

From the Comments....

Did you discuss problems with getting a distribution company with them? Do you know the status?
No, we didn't discuss this. I don't know the status.

... you mentioned subtitles. Was he ever serious about not having them?
I don't know if Mel was ever serious about not having any sub-titles. If he was, he has moved beyond that now. The version I saw actually had too many sub-titles. We don't need distracting translations flashing on tthe screen when the Roman soldiers are saying obvious things like, "Hey, you, move!" Mel, noted that they were going to eliminate some of the sub-titles in future edits.

And, what was Jim Caviezel like as Jesus compared to, say, Robert Powell in Jesus of Nazareth (the standard for actors, I'd imagine)?
It's hard to answer this. This movie is completely other. I would say that Powell was great in Jesus of Nazareth, and Jim is great in The Passion. It's not really about performance. He embodies the role in a way that makes discussions of performance feel inappropriate.

does the film end with the Resurrection?
I'm going to say wait and see. It is really the only possible suspense left to the filmmaker isn't it? Because we all know what happens on Good Friday. I think it would be ungrateful of me to put this out there. Someone will probably leak it in the next nine months. It won't be me.

I SAW THE PASSION

So I was at a private screening at Icon Productions yesterday, and got to see a rough cut of The Passion. There were about twelve people in the room, including Mel Gibson, his producing partner Steve and four or five other Icon staffers. After the screening, we talked to Mel and friends for about an hour. (As cool as that was, the quality of the film was such that the celebrity stuff was completely gone from the moment. I can't explain it really, except that it would be like standing in the Sistine Chapel next to, well, someone like Mel Gibson. Great art is a great leveler....) The rough cut we saw obviously didn't have the final score or special effects, and there were many more sub-titles than they will have in the finished film.

So, here's my take...

The Passion is a stunning work of art. It is a devout, act of worship from Mel and his collaborators - in the way that Handel's Messiah and Notre Dame were artistic acts of worship in previous times.

Let's get the controversy out of the way right at the top. The film is faithful to the Gospel, particularly St. John. It is no more anti-Semitic than is the Gospel. There are at least two members of the Sanhedrin who come forward to protest on Jesus' behalf during the sham trial. The Romans are just as guilty of cruelty and hatred against Jesus in the film. And best of all is a final look right into the camera of Mary, holding her dead Son. She is looking at all of us with a kind of , "Look what you've done"/This is for you" expression. A cinematic Pieta worthy of Michelangelo.

Having seen the film now, I can only marvel that the attacks are pretty much demonic. Hopefully, the devil will end up spitefully biting his own tail on this one-- as he does in The Passion by inciting on the executioners of Christ, and thus being complicit in his own ultimate defeat. The Passion is high art. It is the greatest movie about Jesus ever made. In the discussion following the film, Mel and co. were asking us how mainstream theater audiences would react to the film. I told them, "Who cares? What you have here is so much more than just a product to sell. It will live forever, regardless of whether it is a commercial success for you or not."

For those of us who love Jesus, The Passion is devastating to watch. It is so good, I almost couldn't stand it. There is one moment on the way of the cross sequence, in which the whole tragedy unfolding devolves into a vicious riot of hatred between Romans and Jews with the Savior on the ground in the middle of it getting it from both sides. It was so frenzied and terrible, I wanted to run from the room. But then, the film again finds Mary, Jesus's Mother on the sidelines, and her presence gets us through it. Kind of like how Mary's presence helped Jesus get through it, it seemed to me.

The film is lovingly Marian. Mary is perfectly portrayed here. She is contrasted repeatedly with the really super creepy Satan character, who is also a woman (something for the feminist theologians here? heh heh...).

The film is strongly Eucharistic. There is a beautiful juxtaposition of images that cuts from the stripping on Calvary to the unwrapping of the bread to be used at the last Supper. Fabulous stuff.

Every Christian needs to see this film at least once. Just to remember, in our current comfort zones while evil is closing in, the price that was paid for us. On my way home from the screening, I found myself praying in the car, "Jesus, I'm so sorry, I forgot..." How many films have led you to compunction lately? The Passion is a miracle.

I'll take questions...

"You are so beautiful, are you sure you weren't
altered? This is not the face, the body, of
a Godchild. How could something so lovely
be a product of chance?"
from Gattaca

MOVIE REVIEW

So, yesterday our usual group of young L.A. Catholic Hollywood people met at our beloved St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood for the 10am Mass as usual. The choir was all geared up for Corpus Christi and sang a fabulous high Latin Mass and then Panis Angelicus and Ave Verum. Our choir director used to head up the L.A. Master Chorale, so we have like, the most incredible music on the planet every week. But then we had the sad news that the choir is taking the summer off, so no more fabulous music to make the lukewarm preaching bearable.

After Mass, we all went to breakfast as is our custom. We laughed and ate and argued about movies and television for a couple of hours. We hung around media center in Burbank for a few hours and then broke up. I came back home and read a few bad screenplays and then changed the sheets on my bed. My friend called in the late afternoon and we went for a walk. We had Pad Thai for dinner. It was a pretty good day.

Oh, and I saw The Hulk too.

BONNIE HUNT IS VERY COOL

Everybody should watch Life with Bonnie on Tuesday nights on ABC. Bonnie is super - very funny, smart and, oh yeah, Catholic. She made a great little film a couple of years ago called Return to Me. It's a wonderful romantic comedy with some deep themes of faith and family. Somebody just sent me the following quote from Bonnie about Return to Me. It's vintage Bonnie.

Forget the heart-transplant issue in the movie. There are a lot of women out there who are sexually inexperienced at that age, women who aren't necessarily having sex at 16 or 20. I feel they are under-represented in films, and I wish I could take out the heart-transplant part so I wouldn't have to justify her life.

Women feel they're either part of the group or not, and it's a really lonely thing when you're not, especially when you're a young girl going to see movies. I went through that. You think everyone else has these incredible romances when they're 15 years old and are in love. You think, 'What's wrong with me?' So it was nice to have a woman in her 20s who didn't know what the heck to do. (Film Vol 21 4/5/00)

Bonnie will be one of our guest speakers at Act One next month. Yes, the program is that cool...

A MEDIA STRATEGY FOR FAMILIES

My latest on Catholic Exchange.

"Goodbye, Father. I'll speak for you. I speak for all mediocrities
in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint. On
their behalf I deny Him, your God of no mercy. Your God who
tortures men with longings they can never fulfill. He may forgive
me: I shall never forgive Him. Mediocrities everywhere, now
and to come: I absolve you all! I absolve you! Amen!"
from Amadeus

FOX NEWS ON ACT ONE

Here's a piece about Act One's recent trip to Washington. A snip...

Members of Act One, which includes theologians as well the writers and producers of shows and movies such as Mission Impossible, Batman Forever, The Family Man, A Different World and The Addams Family, were hosted on Capitol Hill recently by Sen. Rick Santorum (search), R-Pa., and Rep. Mike McIntyre (search), D-N.C.

"There's plenty of negativism already in the entertainment industry, unfortunately — profanity, sexual acts, violence," McIntyre said. "Whenever we can promote an opportunity to promote the positive view on issues, on family, on society, then I say more power to those that will promote the positive."

In an e-mail to Foxnews.com, Brownback said the entertainment industry has "fought hard" to discredit concerns about the effects media have on children, and he sounded a note of encouragement for the group's efforts.

"The work of Act One has the potential to change all of this ... for they are not only willing to listen to these concerns, but also to do something about them," said Brownback, who has held committee hearings on the effect of media on children. "Through their efforts, we may finally see some improvement in the products coming out of the entertainment field."

Overall, we're happy with it. Especailly the lovely and quotable blurb from Sen. Brownback.

Zena Dell Schroeder, our Associate Director is mortified that they have those pictures of her alongside the article...especially the one with her in the New Age looking shirt and the drugged out faraway look... Just for the record, though, we are NOT asking Congress for funding.

"It's just something that happens.
It's like seeing a person you never saw
before -- you could be passing on the street --
you look at each other and for a few seconds,
there's a kind of recognition. Like
you both know something. But then the
next moment the person's gone, and
it's too late to do anything about it,
but you remember it because it was
right there and you let it go, and you
think, "What if I had stopped and said
something?" It might happen only a
few times in your life.
from Out of Sight

BE NOT AFRAID! PT. II - MISTAKES CHRISTIANS MAKE BECAUSE WE ARE AFRAID OF HOLLYWOOD

a) Because we are afraid of Hollywood, we do not pay it any respect.

- "It’s easy to watch. Must be easy to make. Let’s send a message to Hollywood by showing them what we can do!”
When we do this, we send a message alright: That we are trapped in Plato’s double ignorance. We don’t know, and we don’t know that we don’t know.

- Because we feel a spiritual and moral superiority to the evil people in Hollywood, we refuse to admit that they might know more than we do about anything. Even their own business of making movies. It reminds me of the Pharisees dismissing the testimony of the man born blind: “Would you, who are a sinner, dare to teach us?”

- A Christian informed me recently that he and his friends had just decided to produce a series of videos to the tune of three million dollars. When I asked him what his credentials were to make videos he said, “Never wrote a script. Never held a camera. Never been in an editing room.” I looked at the first ten minutes of one of the videos and thought, “Never gonna sell it. Never gone get seen by more than a few hundred loyalists.”

b) Because we are afraid of Hollywood, we tend to produce media/entertainment as Outsiders.-

- Christians are famous in the business for not being able to trust anybody. They end up ruining the creative process by being overly-legalistic or suspicious or inapropriately demanding. We do this with best of intentions – wanting story purity. We are afraid that we are going to give Hollywood Cinderella, and it is going to come out a triple X Last Tango in Paris. If only you knew how rarely this really happens.

The industry tends to only mess with projects that don’t work. It’s only when your second act is boring and flat that some executive somewhere tries to fix it using one of the methods they always use: “Hey, maybe we could have a decapitation before the ten o’clock break! Maybe a naked woman gets decapitated!!”

- The problem with working outside the system is that, even if you do get a movie made, AND even if it miraculously comes out half way decent, you still won’t be able to get it into theaters, because the exhibitors(theater chains and television networks) are all dependent on the studio distributors for product. So a movie made outside the Hollywood system will most likely end up unseen by the masses.

- The main reason I am against the Christians keeping to themselves approach, is that it eliminates any potential for us to connect with creative people in the industry, in the hopes of winning them over to Jesus. God could have lovely family movies on the screen tomorrow if that was all He wanted. He wants us to reach out to the people in this industry. To love them into the Kingdom. We can’t do this from afar.

c) Because we are afraid, our approach to the culture tends to be reactionary, in spurts, with no strategy for the long-term.

We should focus on People not projects.

- I have seen scads of projects from good people come into the industry with one project. They struggle to get it made, and most of the time they fail. If they do suceed, it generally results in a pathetic production. If it is half way decent and manages to get on a few screens, the producers stand back and wait to watch the whole planet fall into awe and compunction. It doesn't happen.

It is a mistake to think that one movie or even a few movies are going to make that big a difference in the popular culture arena. It’s like the Church keeps trying to plant one lily in the middle of a huge garbage dump. Even if you get ten lilies to all be living at the same time, it’s still fundamentally a garbage dump. We need to remake the whole dump. We need to change the whole system of the business from the inside, by establishing hundreds of believers in places of influence.

d) Because we are afraid of the people in Hollywood, we failure to respect the real, but often subtle, temptations of the industry.

Committed Christians who come to Hollywood generally end up falling into one of three groups. They either leave just when they are starting to have power, basically because it occurs to them that no amount of money is worth all the exigencies of the business. Or else, they find a way to stay and adopt a missionary attitude to sustain them.

But many more Christians end up becoming the problem. They lose their spirit. My new students say to us all the time, “It isn’t about the money for me. I just want to do good.” Yeah, right! What are you, made of special dirt? Pretending that you will not be seduced by the extraordinary perks of money, influence, beauty, luxury and celebrity that come with a successful Hollywood career, is a recipe for destruction. Anyone who comes to this town and wants to hold on to their faith, must be fortified by a fervent prayer life and a vibrant connection to a faith community.

"Ha ha, you fool!! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders.
The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia;
and only slightly less well known is this:
Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!"
from The Princess Bride

DECODING BIGOTRY

Here is Amy Welborn's review of the best-selling book The Da Vinci Code. Several people have written about how the book is very profound and provocative. Amy debunks that.

Here's a snippet...

Brown’s treatment of the Roman Catholic Church is unoriginal as well, as he uncritically repeats, among many other lies and distortions, the canard that the Church was responsible for killing five million accused witches during the medieval period.

And of course, there’s the whole, totally unfounded Divinity of Jesus Christ thing, which the experts in the Da Vinci Code coolly declare was invented by the Emperor Constantine as a way of shoring up his power:

Of course, the fact that both NPR and the New York Times raved about the book was a pretty big red-flag for me anyway.

...He said I was "Modern Man," and
if they voted to convict me, well,
they'd be practically cinching the
noose around their own necks. He
told them to look not at the facts
but at the meaning of the facts, and
then he said the facts *had* no
meaning. It was a pretty good speech,
and even had me going..."
from The Man Who Wasn't There

SPELLBOUND: S - T - E - L - L - A - R

Spellbound, a feacher-length documentery was releesed in 2001 and nomminated for an Academy Award (Can't imagen why it didn't win!.. Sum pc matchinashuns probebly afoot....Ooooh, am I turning into a sinic?). The film has been makeing the rounds of varioss film festivals looking for disstribution for the last two years, and is finally in a limited theatrickle releese.

Go find it, whereever it is. It is a wonderful, humain, thoughtful, inspirrational and really fun film about America. Shot in 1999, it follows eight kids form ages 12-14 who are on their way to the Nashunal Spelling Bee competishon in Washington. Brown, black and white, the kids hale from unbelievably diverse backrounds. Some kids live in manshuns and have professionel spelling coaches, others live with single-moms in run down projecks. We meet the kids' proud, driven and often baffled familys, in sequenses that are as funny as anything Christopher Guest has ever done in Guffman or Best in Show. It's probebly bekuz normul people are so funny that Guest's stuff works, eh?

Blessedley unspoilt by PC levelling, the Spelling Bee is driven by one trueth: there is only one rite way to spell a word, and you either get it write and stay in the limelight, or you get it wrong, and you leave the stage. The awdience I screened it with was chearing and ringing its hands along with the torchured parents watching there kids struggle with words like "menhir" (men-heer: n. a tall upright stone set up in pre-historic times) and "eponymous" (eh-PON-ih-mus: adj. a person whose name is taken for a people, place or institution, etc. as in Duth navigator, A.J. Tasman, for Tasmania).

This film will work with kids from about six-grade on (or any kids who have been a party in any kind of competitive rituell),. Adults love it. Including guys. Two T - H - U - M - B - S up. Check it out. Bekuz, spelling is vary importunt.

Reviews are here, here, and here.

"I guess I'd like to prove there's
something pure in me, you know?
They say the soul is part angel and
part monster. Sometimes I think
life is a chance to set the angel free."
from The Iron Giant

MORE PASSION

Disclaimer: There is a lot of scuttlebutt flying around about this movie. Here's some news someone (who is in a position to know) shared with me yesterday. It may not be true.

So, Icon Productions - the production company of note for The Passion - has had no luck in finding a studio to distribute the film. They have hired Paul Lauer, the former editor of You! magazine to distribute the film. Paul, who seems to be a nice guy, is actually not in the theatrical distribution business, but has been doing freelance PR for various projects around town.

I'm not sure I can express how very weird this is to those of us who work in the industry. It's truly bizarre.

The upside for Icon is that they will keep much more of the ticketsales and ancillary sales of the movie. Generally, the movie theater keeps 40% of ticket sales and then the remaining 60% goes two thirds to the distributor, and one third to the production company of note. Another plus of this plan is that Icon will not have to edit the project to suit a distributor's sensibilities.

The downside is that, very often, editing for a distributor helps a project. Directors are known for meglomaniacal vision (Exhibit A: Scorsese on Gangs of NY; Exhibit B: Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut; Exhibit C: Anything by Barbra Streisand) and very often the distributor is the only entity that can provide a veto to the insanity.

The principal downside is that setting up screens in theaters is a very complex task. I have personal experience here. A few years ago, I worked with Fr. Bud Kieser, and ended up with the unenviable task of trying to get his movie Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story into theaters. Just like The Passion, Fr. Kieser had been unable to secure studio distribution for the project. So, he basically got me a list of every movie theater in the US and Canada, and said, "Here. Book the film in theaters."

The problem is, except for the small art house and family owned local theaters, theater screens are owned and booked by a small group of people who represent the major chains. It's very much about deals with the studios and keeping relationships so that they can have future releases. So, we had many bookers say to us about Entertaining Angels, "We like your film, but we have to run Idiot Movie from Studio A because we want to be sure to get NEXT Blockbuster Comic Book Film later in the year." When you only have one movie, you have no clout with the exhibitors.

Secondly, chances are this will be a limited release because Icon has already put up $25,000,000 on the project and they won't want to spend too many more millions on the release. For example, it costs about $1500 to make a print of a feature to send to theaters. To really take advantage of a wide pr campaign, a movie needs a wide release these days of anywhere from 600 - 3000 prints. That means, to just make copies of the movie for a semi-wide release, Mel has to come up with $2,000,000 dollars.

Why do you need a wide release? Generally, because the national media won't touch reviewing a film that is not generally available to the viewing audience. This won't be a problem for The Passion, because this project is Mel, after all. But remember that EVERYTHING for Hollywood is built around the success of a film on opening weekend. If you don't have a wide release to match a wide pr campaign, then you can't hope to compete for top spots at the box-office opening weekend.

But there's more. A standard one-sheet campaign (that's the movie poster/essential image for the pr process) will start around $250,000. An epk (that's electronic press kit - standard element for all electronic media to promote the movie) will run another $250,000 to produce, duplicate and distribute. A quality trailer for theaters can cost anywhere from $100,000 upwards - sky's the limit. Then, you have to have a company who will be sending your trailers and one-sheets out to the movie theaters. Then, you need people to monitor that your trailers and posters are being utilized at the theater level. See, you only have one movie, and the theater is much more interested in keeping Warner Bros and Paramount happy than you, you little one-movie wonder.

Let's not even get into how much advertising for a feature film will cost. TV time and full-page ads are unbelievabley expensive and they don't just happen. You have to have a pr firm on board to buy and place the ads. Generally, in Hollywood, if a movie costs $25,000,000 to make, they will budget at least half that much to promote it. Often more.

So, let's hope this rumor is not true. Let's hope that Mel is still trying to find a studio to take on the project. Although, that looks more and more unlikely with every new accusation of lawsuits and latent anti-semitism...

"A TRUE BRAINIAC'S FILM FEST!" (LA WEEKLY)

My favorite weekend of the year is always somewhere in late October or early November when my friends and I all get together to bring-off the amazing City of the Angels Film Festival. I am honored to be on the Executive Committee of this very cool event, which is a retrospective film festival that features fascinating forums and panels after every screening with filmmakers, theologians and academics. The festival looks at well-crafted films as works of theology, and engages them as signs of the times. The weekend is always like a graduate seminar in whatever is our theme - using movies as texts. What could be better?!

This year's festival will happen October 23 - October 27. Our theme is: Revolutions/Revelations: A Century of Cinema. We are looking at films that sparked a revolution in society and in cinema from throughout the 20th Century. The film festival is held at the pretigious and classy Directors Guild of America building on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood.

The City of the Angels Film Festival (CAFF) is the smartest thing the Christian community does in Hollywood (Act One is a close second... kind of have to say that...good thing it's true...), and it is very appreciated by the broader community of artists, critics, and film fans.

We have just finished hammering out the line-up of films for this year's festival. And when I say hammering... It was a lively encounter indeed for our coalition of scholars, pastors, filmmakers - cinemaniacs all - to pick out the ten most revolutionary films of the century. This year's festival will also include a two day conference on Thursday and Friday called "MERE ENTERTAINMENT: TOWARDS A CHRISTIAN AESTHETIC OF CINEMA". More details on that soon... So, here's the schedule. (A couple of screenings are still tentative because of availability of print issues.)

THE 10th CITY OF THE ANGELS FILM FESTIVAL

THURSDAY, OCT 23
9:00am MERE ENTERTAINMENT CONFERENCE
Sponsored by Act One & Reel Spirituality

7:00pm INTOLERANCE (178 min)
at Mears Center, Hollywood Presbyterian Church

FRIDAY, OCT 24
9:00am MERE ENTERTAINMENT CONFERENCE
Sponsored by Reel Spirituality and Act One

5:00pm OPENING V.I.P RECEPTION
Sponsored by Fuller and Pepperdine

7:00pm at DGA Theater 2
METROPOLIS (120 min)

9:45pm at DGA Theater 2
DO THE RIGHT THING (120 min)


SATURDAY, OCT 25
11:00am at DGA Theater 2
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS

11:30am at DGA Atrium
CRITICAL ISSUES FORUM
Sponsored by Focolare

1:00pm at DGA Theater 2
THE BICYCLE THIEF (90 min)

3:00pm at DGA Theater 1
THE ANGELUS AWARDS finalists
Sponsored by Family Theater

3:10pm at DGA Theater 2
NANOOK OF THE NORTH (documentary, 65 min)

5:00pm at DGA Theater 2
DON’T LOOK BACK (documentary, 96 min)

5:00pm at DGA Atrium
THE ANGELUS AWARDS STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL Reception

6:00pm at DGA Theater 1
THE ANGELUS AWARDS
Sponsored by Family Theater

7:15pm at DGA Theater 2
THE GRADUATE (105 min)

9:30pm at DGA Theater 1
PULP FICTION (154 min)

9:45pm at DGA Theater 2
HEARTS AND MINDS (documentary,110 min)


SUNDAY, OCT 26
1:00pm at DGA Theater 2
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (111 min)
(or THE 400 BLOWS –99 min)

4:00pm at DGA Theater 2
STAR WARS (121 min)
(or ANNIE HALL—94 min)

7:00pm at DGA Theater 2
MOULIN ROUGE (128 min)

9:30pm CLOSING DESSERT RECEPTION

People for whom CAFF should be a MUST on the annual schedule:
- Those who think movies are all garbage. Quick! Before it's too late and you miss out on the art form of your time!
- People who work with young people in any kind of educational or formational capacity.
- People who love cinema but have't had the chance to study the artform.
- Theologians, pastors, culture watchers, writers.

More info about the Festival is here. There are plenty of good hotels right around Hollywood. Buy yourself an early Christmas present. Buy your air plane ticket now!

"Found a culture, have you, Rita?
Found a better song to sing, have you?
No--you have found a different song, that's all."
From Educating Rita, 1983

I love this film. It's all about sophos-moros, an affliction that has just about killed the Academy. Check it out.

Here is a thoughtful review to whet your cinematic appetite.

AND THE DEVIL SITS BACK AND LAUGHS...

Sigh.

NBC'S COUPLING: PUSHING THE ENVELOPE, THE MAIL BOX, THE POST OFFICE....

So, NBC has a new show on the schedule in the Fall, Coupling, that is based on a British hit of the same name. In the words of the Hollywood Reporter, the show is libidinous enough "to make the Sex in the City girls blush." Peachy.

I know some of you are tempted to ask, "Why?" Just when it seemed like the industry was seriously starting to question itself and the impact it has on general societal health, why this kind of prime-time slime fest?

It has to do with that old disconnect between the creative people in this industry and the people, out there beyond the limits of L.A. county. As evidence, I cite words of Ben Silverman, the Executive Producer of Coupling, as quoted in Holywood Reporter (June 9, 2003):

"On other shows, people kiss and get married. On this show, our characters might have sex, but still just be friends. It's adults behaving in a way that my peer group operates."

See, he thinks most people are like him. That they have sex with no real affective connection, just like alley cats. It's a disconnect.