A New Renaissance One Church at a Time

I spent yesterday making a mini-pilgrimage to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano which is about an hour's drive south of Los Angeles. I talked my friend Karen of television writing into coming, and my friend Bernadette of Magis into hanging out with us for the afternoon. I wanted Karen to see the new altarpiece that they have recently installed into the Basilica church. (Karen also has come pictures up at her blog.)

The altarpiece was created in Madrid, by one of the only companies that can still do this kind of artwork. (Apparently they have been passing down the skills in one family for 450 years.) The altarpiece, a bargain at $3 million, is forty feet high and 25 feet wide. It is part of a comprehensive beauty facelift in which the pastor has replaced the altar, pulpit, altarpiece and next week, the tabernacle. I love that this is happening somewhere in Christendom. Somebody is actually spending money to make a place of worship beautiful - you know, as opposed to "inclusive", "functional", "simplified" or "IMPORTANT" (ie. political as in lame acrhitectural statements that everybody hates).

The altarpiece in Capistrano gets its unearthly gleam from the fact that it is plated with 24.5 carat gold. We saw a lot of this kind of thing in Spain, but they were all covered with 500 years of soot and darkened candle wax. This thing in Capistrano makes a good case for a nice cleaning of half the churches of Europe. (Somebody, get on that, will you?)

Exquisite in its craft and detail, the altarpiece is the kind of thing I haven't seen commissioned in a Catholic Church for my whole artistically wretched post-Vatican II iconoclasm period life. Kudos go to the pastor of the Mission Basilica, providentially named Fr. Art. Fr. Art told us that the installation of the new altarpiece has transformed the parish. I understand why. You sit there during the liturgy and stare up and something in you moves towards belief.


Anybody who lives in So Cal, it's time to make a pilgrimage to the San Juan Capistrano Mission. If you don't live around here, plan on taking your next vacation somewhere close to Orange County. Go here for the Mission's web site and schedule of Masses.

Here are some shots from around the basilica.

The crucifix over the altar.



There are four saint statues on the altarpiece, that have significance to the Mission. St. Kateri Tekakwitha, called the Lily of the Mohawks for her works of charity after her conversion to Christianity, is also the first Native American saint.



St. Francis is there because all of the California missions - and consequently all the principal cities of the state - were established by Franciscan missionaries.


St. Joseph is there because every year, the Mission relives the miracle of the return of the swallows on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19.


And then there is St. Junipero Serra, the Franciscan who founded the principal missions. He walked more than 35,000 miles in his life up and down the coast and back to Mexico City several times to get the Spanish authorities to do the right thing by way of protecting the native peoples.


Of course, in the middle of the piece just under the Trinity there is a lovely image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Patroness of the Americas.


Here's a shot of the detail of the framing that covers the altarpiece. The grape vines are a Eucharistic symbol. The swallows are there because of the annual miracle of the swallows for which the Mission is famous.

The pulpit and altar. The altar was designed by the pastor, Fr. Art.


The only thing that seems to me to be a flaw in the Basilica is the brightly colored, but badly executed painted designs on all the walls. They tell me that the art is in the style of the early mission churches. But, it seems to me that the reason they put those ugly things on the walls back in the mission days, was because they didn't have any decent artists around baby California in the 17th century. The designs look weirdly Pennsylvania Dutch to me.


And the portraits are just badly done. They aren't a good match for the splendor of the altar piece, and hopefully, everybody will figure that out eventually.



But overall, the Basilica gets four stars. It's worth a pilgrimage.

Just In Case Your Prayerlife Needs Pumping Up

My friend Frederica Matthews-Greene has posted a stunning testament to a priest friend of hers who was a living martyr of the Romanian Pitesti experiments. Very powerful stuff on torture and the devil. (Hat tip to the Great and Powerful Eve).

The piece had me wondering how I will act when the moment comes. And I think it is coming. Sorry to put a damper on your day, but my compulsion as a historian's daughter is to gaze fixedly at the horizon for the Signs of the Times. My prayer for several years has been for final perseverance.I remember an old nun telling me once that "Final perseverance is the one greatest grace that should be the object of all our striving."

Part of me - the schleppy pathetic part - hates that I am "competing" with the example of people like Fr. Roman in the annals of Church persecution. We are such wimps today, I think. How do we live up to the example of those who really suffered for Jesus? I think most of us will just give in fast under the assumption that God, after all, gets our basic orientation, and wouldn't really want us to suffer, right? I mean, who cares what you say in a pinch? That is, when you're, um, being pinched?

The unbelievable evil of the Pitesti thing is that they made the prisoners torture each other. Demonic. Honestly, when I hear Christopher Hitchens say he doesn't believe in God, I just want to hold him in the shoulders, look him in the eye and say, "Okay. But surely you have to believe in Satan? You can't be that cynical about human nature, seeing you share it. Can you?!"

Anyway, here's a snip of Frederica's piece.

The plan at the prison in the Romanian city of Pitesti was to take promising young men, 18 to 25 years old, and utterly break them down—then rebuild them into the ideal “Communist man.” In the book Christ is Calling You! (St. Herman Press, 1997) Fr. George explained to an interviewer that the Pitesti experiment involved several distinct steps.

Incoming prisoners would be handed over to a team of guards and experienced prisoners, who would beat them and kill one or two, whoever appeared to be a leader. Then the “unmaskings” began, in which prisoners were required under torture to renounce everything they believed. Fr. George recalled being compelled to say, for example, “I lied when I said ‘I believe in God.’ I lied when I said, ‘I love my mother and my father.’” This was extremely painful, as it was designed to be. The intention was to undermine the prisoner’s memory and personality, to infiltrate his consciousness with lies until he came to believe them.

A few months ago I was able to talk with another survivor of Pitesti, Fr. Roman Braga, when I visited the Michigan convent where he now is in residence. The Communists had arrested Fr. Roman on an inventive charge: he was accused of trying to overthrow the government by discussing the writings of St. Basil the Great, St. John Climacus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. He spent his first year in solitary confinement, and in the dark, narrow cell could not tell one season from another, nor could he look out the small, high window and see a horizon. “You had to go somewhere; you had to find an inner perspective,” he said, “because otherwise you would truly go crazy.”

Fr. Roman told me that religious beliefs were particularly mocked. Tormenters would set obscene lyrics to the tunes of familiar hymns, and celebrate parody liturgies designed to break believers’ hearts. His sole clue that Christmas or Pascha (Easter) might be near would be the appearance of their themes in the torturers’ arsenal.

One way guards particularly taunted Christians was by telling them that Christ and Mary Magdalene had had a sexual relationship. Fr. Roman noted, laughing, that in Romania this constituted torture, but in America people line up to pay for it in movies and books (“Here in the land of so-called freedom—I am not so sure you are free.”)

Neither man would describe what they’d endured. “It is secret, intimate,” Fr. Roman said, “I saw saints fall, and I saw the simple rise and become saints.” Fr. George admitted that he gave way under torture. When a victim is out of his mind with pain, he doesn’t know what he is saying. Fr. George told his interviewer, “It was a spiritual fight, between good spirits and evil spirits. And we failed on the field of battle; we failed, many of us, because it was beyond our ability to resist … The limit of the human soul’s resistance was tried there by the devil.”

This emotional and spiritual damage was even worse than the physical pain. Fr. George went on, “When you were tortured, after one or two hours of suffering, the pain would not be so strong. But after denying God and knowing yourself to be a blasphemer—that was the pain that lasted … We forgive the torturers. But it is very difficult to forgive ourselves.” At night a wash of tears would come, and with it, returning prayer. “You knew very well that the next day you would again say something against God. But a few moments in the night, when you started to cry and to pray to God to forgive you and help you, was very good.”

Again, somebody tell me why we never see the stories of the Gulag on the big screen? Or the little screen?!

Rats. Go read the whole thing here

More on Moore

This post started out as me following up on the challenge by a commenter to post the news that Michael Moore is denying charges in the upcoming documentary about him which asserts that he fabricated all the essential details in his first film "Roger and Me."

So, I started looking for the news story of Moore's denial to link to. But on the way I found this:

A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million US, saying Moore misrepresented him in the film Fahrenheit 9/11.

Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, Mass., says Moore twisted excerpts from an interview he gave to NBC's Nightly News to portray him as anti-war.

Former National Guard Sgt. Peter Damon says filmmaker Michael Moore's portrayal of him as anti-war has caused "loss of reputation" and "personal humiliation."

"The work creates a substantially fictionalized and falsified implication as a wounded serviceman who was left behind when Plaintiff was not left behind but supported, financially and emotionally, by the active assistance of the President, the United States and his family, friends, acquaintances and community," Damon says in the lawsuit, according to the Associated Press.

He is claiming damages because of "loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation," the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week says.

Damon claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from the interview. The clip, which shows him talking about an "excruciating type of pain," referred to pain from his injuries, rather than a complaint against the war effort, he says....

Moore did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday. (CBC)

Anyway, here's a recap of the original Moore post about the two Toronto documentarians who started out to make a valentine to their idol, Michael Moore. But then...

"It was a slow reveal, really," Melnyk says. "We go into things and start to research them as we go along and start to do interviews with people, and we started to realize: 'Oh my God, there are some cheats in these films.' Obviously, the biggest one being that Michael actually did talk to Roger Smith twice during the making of 'Roger and Me.'

"That one really, really bothered me. Because, OK, if you're willing to lie about the entire premise of the film, then what is sacrosanct? There must have been other smaller cheats along the way. So that was a shocker."

Moore, for his part, hasn't commented on "Manufacturing Dissent," suggesting recently to a New York film website, www.thereeler.com, that he'd never heard of it - even though, as shown in the documentary, Melnyk approached him at various public events over two years to plead for an interview.

"There are a lot of films made about me ... there's probably nine or 10 of them out there," he told a reporter for the website.

Such apparent disingenuousness is par for the course for Moore, according to those who spoke on camera to Melnyk and Caine. Indeed, the couple say the dishonesty about Roger Smith wasn't the only false note in "Roger and Me" - an entire segment featuring an ABC news reporter telling viewers how a disgruntled autoworker had driven off with the network's satellite truck was a fake. (CBC)

And here is a recent story from the AP in which Moore calls the Canadian documentarians (expletive) liars:

BELLAIRE, Mich. - Filmmaker Michael Moore gave people in the rural county where he lives an early look at his new film “Sicko” on Saturday, and had some harsh words for critics of the documentary that launched his career.

“Manufacturing Dissent,” a film that accuses Moore of dishonesty in the making of his politically charged documentaries, alleges that he interviewed then-General Motors Corp. Chairman Roger Smith, the elusive subject of Moore’s 1989 debut “Roger & Me,” but left the footage on the cutting room floor.

“Anybody who says that is a (expletive) liar,” Moore told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday after a showing of “Sicko,” his take on U.S. medicine, in the northern Michigan village of Bellaire....

Moore, who said he hadn’t seen “Manufacturing Dissent,” acknowledged having had “a good five minutes of back-and forth” with Smith about a company tax abatement at a 1987 shareholders’ meeting, as reported by Premiere magazine in 1990. But that was before he began working on “Roger & Me” and had nothing to do with the film, Moore said.

A clip of the meeting appears in “Manufacturing Dissent,” released in March. Filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk also interviewed an activist who said he saw Moore interview Smith in 1988 in New York.

Caine and Melnyk say that undercuts the central theme of “Roger & Me” — Moore’s fruitless effort to interview Smith about the effects of GM plant closings in Flint, Moore’s hometown. Moore, however, said the film wasn’t primarily about interviewing Smith, but getting him to observe the economic devastation in Flint.

We report. You decide.

At the theaters...

I am not sure I am going to have time to write full reviews, but briefly, I want to recommend Evan Almighty as pure, broad, over the top, comedy fun with some nice theology alongside.

I also want to warn you off Ocean's Whatever NUmber We Are Up To Now as it is a complete waste of time. Beautiful actors preening themselves and winking to themselves, "All those people out there really want to be as rich and cool as us." Dumb.

Je Regrette La Vie En Rose

The only really good thing about La Vie En Rose, the biopic of Edith Piaf now in theaters, is the music. Piaf's voice echoes off the screen and mesmerizes so effectively that you understand the momentum that carried this production forward. The last number in the movie "Je Non Regrette Rien" is still playing in my head, despite the fact that the film never convinced me that Piaf could possibly not have had numerous regrets for her sad mess of a life which is documented in the film.

The narrative here is more than regrettable. And it isn't the usual show-offy European mess, in which one has a sense of the Director trying to stand out in your mind with weird images and stylistic closeups. In this film, I really had the sense that the filmmakers were trying their damnedest to write a biopic that would do justice to their larger than life subject, but they were just not up to the task.

This piece is impossibly episodic, with incoherent bits of Piaf's life, played with three different actresses, being intercut in no particular order. The moments are played as highly melodramatic, proceeding unsympathetically from the character of Piaf herself who is all screams and shrieks and unmotivated bad treatment of the people around her. I disagree with the reviews I am reading that claim that the central performance, of Marion Cotillard, is wonderful. I found the make up and costuming the real wonder here as Cotillard is aged so seamlessly, that I thought there were actually four actresses playing the character. The performance to me was over the top, without any moments of nuance that would have drawn me into sympathy with Piaf. I was watching my own lack of sympathy during the screening, wondering, "Have I become so hard-hearted that this woman's plight is not touching me at all?" But no, I am not hard-hearted. The problem is the storytelling, and the acting which was at the level of caricature much of the time. But she really looked good though in the sense of looking and moving like Piaf.

Here's a note about biopics. Most beginning writers (and the principal writer Of La Vie En Rose is a first timer) make the mistake of trying to tell a whole person's life in two hours. You can't do it. In this sense, La Vie is a clinic in the biggest mistake people make in biopics, namely, the failure to make tough choices. What you must do to make a biopic intelligible and entertaining, is pick one phase or theme in a subject's life that somehow gives a sense of all the rest of their life. That means you have to choose to leave a lot of cool stuff out.

La Vie, by contrast, starts with Piaf at five, and then jumps us around from her mother abandoning her to a brief scene of her father in WWI to her father suddenly back and picking her up from a woman we learn is her grandmother. Then, we see her dumped in a brothel and contract blindness, and then meet some friendly prostitutes, and then get snatched back by her father and brought into a circus, and then suddenly she is fifteen and singing on the street with a new friend who becomes a major character, but not before Edith's alcoholic mother shows up begging for money before Edith is discovered by a club owner who gets murdered with Edith's underworld connections which we have just learned that she has, leading Edith to be investigated for the murder, before Edith is really discovered by a guy named Raymond who teaches her how to sing professionally while she is shacked up with a guy who fathers her child which dies two years later of meningitis, and we haven't really gotten to her singing career yet.....do you see what I mean? And that isn't even to the midpoint of the movie.

Way too many events, not enough real moments. Way too many people running by, not enough characters.

But IRONICALLY, another big complaint I had with the film is that it leaves out one big huge HUGE part of Edith's life that I actually wanted to see. World War frickin' Two is skipped over without a mention. Here we are in Paris in 1939, and then suddenly, we are in New York in 1952! HUH!!!??? After the screening, I did some googling on Piaf and discovered that she bravely used the access of her celebrity to save countless lives as a member of the Resistance. I find it to be a stunningly bad choice of the filmmakers to leave all this out of this film. But the idea of "What did she do in WWII?" was diestracting me all through the second part of the movie. Like telling a story set in NYC on September 12, 2001 - without mentioning 9-11. It's hard not to think it is devious.

The film works very hard to show Piaf as being an unrelieved narcissist. It makes the case that she really isn't to blame for being a mess of a human being, but then proceeds to stare at her drunkenness, her rages, her adulteries and her drug use with unabashed voyeurism. The heroics of Piaf's Resistance work really mess with this picture, eh? So they had to be left out presumeably. Some day I am going to write a book about truthtelling in biopic/historical pieces, but for now, know that when you sit down to write a person's life, you owe some fidelity to the essential truth of the person.

On second thought, I don't think they meant to leave out the one good thing Piaf ever managed to do. I don't think the writers here were skilled enough to be aware that even a historical biopic needs a point of view. They left out WWII becaus ethey just didn't have time to go through it all. They thought it was enough to stuff in as many events from Piaf's life as they could without a lot of thought as to what the project was about thematically. It wasn't. Such a project ends up being unsatisfying as documentary, and equally unsatisfying as narrative.

Having said all that, I did retreat quickly in the first act from my expectations that this would be an entertaining movie, to trying to enjoy the visions from the story of 20th century Paris that it recreates. I also spent a lot of time brooding over the mystery of artistic talent. Done much better (because it was conscious!) in Amadeus, this movie is a reflection on how awful personally a person of unbelievable talent can be. And also how the very gifts that are given through the artist to the world, often corrupt the artist herself. (ref. JPII Letter to Artists) But all of these thoughts still didn't make this movie seem less tedious, plodding and repetitive.

Pass on La Vie En Rose. Do go out and buy an album of Piaf's music, however. Her gift still works.

Frederica's Podcast

My friend (is that the right word for someone you hold in reverential awe?) Frederica Matthews Greene has recently started podcasting on a site called Ancient Radio. Frederica, an Orthodox believer, has the charm and serenity that is the mark of wisdom. In my moments of doubt, it is knowing that people like Frederica believe it all that allows me to keep on walking. You'll thank me for the link to her reflections.

Frederica was out here last week for a conference at Pepperdine on sacred music, affording me the rare and wonderful opportunity to pick her up for a too brief lunch. A few minutes into the lunch, Frederica pulled out her cool, state of the art podcast recorder, turned it on and said basically, "Talk." Very smooth! Anyway, so we talked for a few minutes, just enough time for me to alienate every Christian out there who has made a movie in recent years. I didn't listen to it past the first few sentences as I can never stand how nasal I sound when I hear recordings of myself. Sigh. Anyway, it is here if you want to hear another take on my schtick.

Attention: Act One Writing Program Alumni

Dear Writing Program Alumni,

I'm pleased to announce that applications for the 2007/2008 Act Two
Writing Program are now available. The program will provide six
months of advanced training in feature film writing for alumni of the
Act One Writing Program. Applications can be found online at
www.actoneprogram.com/acttwo.htm. Details are below.

Program dates: September 2007 through February 2008

Application deadline: August 6, 2007

Opening retreat: September 14-16, 2007 (lunchtime Friday through
Sunday afternoon, in Idyllwild, CA)

Program description: The Act Two Writing Program provides advanced
training in feature film writing to graduates of the Act One Writing
Program. The program is designed to replicate the studio development
process, with faculty members acting as producers to guide students
through the selection of a promising story and the development and
writing of a feature screenplay. The curriculum includes an opening
retreat and closing party, ten small group development and notes
meetings spread over six months, and four classroom lectures on
advanced screenwriting topics. Writers should expect a rigorous
writing experience that results in completion of the best screenplay
they've ever written and a specific plan for what they will do with
the script next.

Project selection: Writers will propose multiple story ideas and will
work with faculty members to arrive at mutually agreeable projects.

What about writing for television?: This year, the Act Two Writing
Program will focus exclusively on feature film writing. Advanced
training in television writing for Act One alumni will take place
through our successful and thriving TV Spring Training and Fall
Classic programs.

When and where will the groups meet?: Small writing groups will meet
at a time and place to be determined by faculty members in
consultation with members of their groups. Some groups will meet on
weekday evenings, while others may meet during weekdays or on
weekends. We will work with all students to place them in groups
meeting at a time that works with their schedules, and writers will be
expected to attend all sessions.

Application process: Along with the application form attached to this
e-mail, submit two copies of a completed screenplay, personal
statement, 10 loglines, and up to three one-page project proposals;
you may propose a rewrite of an existing script; teams may apply with
a single script that represents their joint efforts.

Application fee : $40

Cost: $1195

If you have questions, please contact me by e-mail at
chris@actoneprogram.com or by phone at (323) 464-0815. You may also
contact Jack Gilbert at the same phone number, or by e-mail at
jack@actoneprogram.com.

Best,

Chris Riley
Director, Writing Program
Act One, Inc.

Script Consulting Service

My friend and associate at Origin Entertainment, (and Act One Alumna!), Vicki Peterson, has formally started a service to read and critique scripts for writers at all levels. I have been using Vicki for over a year now to read and evaluate projects, and she is one of the best that I've worked with. She is very pastoral with writers, helping them to say better what they have to say, as opposed to trying to make every project in her own image and tastes.

Go here for more info about how to enlist Vicki to get your script to the next level.

You Tube sleeze

Here's an email message I got today.

Have you seen the new change to YouTube? It seems that now, when you click on a video clip to watch it, there's a new thing that happens when you hover your cursor over the screen. Small thumbnails of "related" videos pop up. Of course, only some are related; others are just an attempt to porn up your world.

Let me give you an example. I keep a blog for my son's Catholic high school. Since we're small, I manage to keep everyone informed of deadlines, meetings, practices, etc. plus anything that young Catholics might be interested in...clips of the Fransican Friars of the Renewal, those funny clips that those oh-so-creative seminarians put together, and sometimes non-religious stuff...from the National Spelling Bee, some astronomy stuff, etc. So I had that neat clip of the Sisters of Life posted. And sure enough, there are lots of little "related" videos that pop up now...and one of them "just happens" to be "bisexual sisters". Needless to say, I hadda go through my entire blog, pulling all YouTube videos off.

Here's where I thought you might have an answer: Do you have ideas about alternative video sights that wouldn't promote porn/sleazy pop culture? I saw that there's GodTube and GospelTube, but not only are there explicitly anti-Catholic clips there, it's mostly religious stuff, no academic/artistic/etc. videos.

I'm sorry for bothering you, but I know you're someone who cares about what passes for culture "out there"...and maybe you knew of an alternative site or even know someone who wants to start a clean version of YouTube.

Sigh.

I post this for you parents out there whose kids are surfing You Tube, so that you know that they are being relentlessly, aggressively assaulted with violating and even pornographic material. Even if they are just looking for "nice" You Tube things.

Does anybody know if there is a way people can block these pop ups? Does anybody know how we can assail the Overlords at You Tube to stop propositioning surfers with smut? A focussed campaign here would be a good idea if somebody feel God is calling them to take it on.

Once Won't Be Enough

Hey! I finally saw a good movie this year! And it's sad that I'm kind of in shock because it is such an odd feeling these days to see a really good movie. But the sadder thing is that most of you who read this blog won't get the chance to see this rare good movie, because it has a teeny weeny little distribution, meaning it will play in NYC and L.A. and that's probably it. So, keep an eye out for the DVD. It will be worth a rental.

Once is one of those dramas in which not a lot happens exteriorly, but something huge happens in the soul of the main character. This makes the project, in my book, a very good dramatic film. I really enjoyed it in a way that I rarely enjoy movies anymore because it had such solid craft. My only criticisms came down to matters of taste. It has remarkable creative control, and a profound humanity at its core that has you leave the theater wanting to be kind, and wanting to commit yourself to whatever creative passion you have.

Once is less of a traditional narrative and more of a kind of rock opera...although the music in the film isn't rock as much as poetic pop crooning. But still, with the movie completely built around the sound track, the movie manages to pack in more of a story - and a profound one - than 90% of the movies that are out there right now. It tells the story of a poor street singer in Ireland, whose day jobs is to fix vacuum cleaners. We never learn his name, but we learn everything essential about him from his music. He meets a Czeck immigrant girl who is an accomplished pianist, but who cleans houses to pay the bills. They make a connection through music, and the relationship and music then heal them and allow them to do what they have to do in life.

How much did I enjoy it? Well, I walked right out of the Arclight theater at Sunset and Vine, and into the Borders bookstore acorss the street, and I bought a CD of Glen Hansard's music.

The movie is about art and music and the connection it makes between people. It is about the relationship between friendship and creativity. It is about music as a legitimate escape, and something that can fortify us in our mundane lives. It is poignant, hopeful, humane, and has a sense of mystery at it's core that makes it compelling.

And there is a wonderfully heroic character in this film. The lead female - whose name we never learn in the film - does her duty over and over. There were a few moments in which I sat there thinking, "Ah, heres where the two lonely people connected by music fornicate." But they don't. Ever. Even though they want to. The girl looks at the guy and says, "It would be nice," but then she shakes her head sadly, the loud subtext coming across, "That isn't who I am." It was very cool.

The movie is an exemplar of Gen X dramas in which the story doesn't end in a happy ending, but rather in a firm resolution to tough out life and face up to one's responsibilities. In this aspect it reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Lost in Translation.

And talk about one of the greatest last shots ever in a movie. It's topflight and really shows that the director knew what this project was about.

So, why is it rated R? Well, there are a spate of "F" words as adjectives and adverbs in the film, as in, "effing guitar case" and "you're effing kidding me", but there are really only a few of these. I hate that the film is rated R, because a lot of folks who would otherwise love it won't go for this reason.

Once gets my rare, highly coveted "two thumbs up" award. Go see it twice.

"Somebody Save Me from Me"

I've exchanged a few emails with a NY friend about Company, the Tony nominated revival musical that apparently is all the rage on Broadway right now. It's Sondheim, heralded as a key artistic voice of the Baby Boom Generation, (kudos to researcher, Kit) a revisiting of the original 1970's version. I haven't seen the play (I was six when it had it's first largely unsuccessful run), but I've read with interest the lyrics of all its songs, mainly because I always like to see what all the buzz is about, whenever there is cultural buzz about something.

Company is all about modern people being very busy and surrounded by people, and yet being profoundly lonely. Here, for example, are the lyrics to the song that comes at the end of the play, that is supposed to be a breakthrough for the main character, Robert.

Being Alive
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Somebody, hold me too close,
Somebody, hurt me too deep,
Somebody, sit in my chair
And ruin my sleep
And make me aware
Of being alive,
Being alive.

Somebody, need me too much,
Somebody, know me too well,
Somebody, pull me up short
And put me through hell
And give me support
For being alive,
Make me alive.

Make me confused,
Mock me with praise,
Let me be used,
Vary my days.
But alone is alone, not alive.

Somebody, crowd me with love,
Somebody, force me to care,
Somebody, make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being alive!


Sigh. A lovely use of language, and yet there is still that echo behind the words of the narcissistic refrain that defines the Boomers, the sad whimper of which might end up going nowhere except with them to the grave. The subtext here seems to be, "It's not fair no one loves me. Somebody make me happy!" Or, the subtext of that subtext, "God, you have screwed up again!"

First of all, the obvious thing that seems to be missing to the person singing this song is, "There's a reason nobody loves you. It's because you haven't really loved anybody." Is it really that difficult to figure out what the twilight year legacy would be of a lifetime of "looking out for number one"? Did nobody stop to figure that Botox and tennis weekends weren't going to be able to love them back someday? I always figured it was a trade-off that they were making. But now, the generation that raised its kids according to the creed 'real love means you never have to say your sorry,' wants to have the security of love and caring as they approach death. I am not angry here, really. Just amazed.

On the plus side, it is a good thing that the successful revival of this piece right now seems to indicate that the Boomer Generation is ready to accept that all of the revolutions of the last half a century have basically resulted in such a profound alienation that it feels like death to live. And another huge step forward for the Boomers singing this song is the recognition that love and discomfort kind of go together. So, not having fun all the time is actually a key to finding a life-giving love. Huge! Huge.

If directed to human beings, this song is a frightening and destructive kind of idolatry. No human being can completely free you from your ultimate alienation, because we were designed to be filled only by our relationship with God. If the Somebody in this song is God, then this becomes a stirring and evocative prayer, in line with the psalms that mankind has been singing to I AM WHO AM for thousands of years.

The only thing is there needs to be another verse in this song, and I don't know if Sondheim's generation has enough time left to start singing it. If they do, inspite of all their meanderings and flailings around, they will make it. The last verse needs to be something like this:

Somebody soften my heart,
Somebody forgive me my sins,
Somebody shatter my pride,
And teach me to pray,
And help me to die,
So I can really discover what it means
To be alive.

What you really want to say to the poor soul who is singing for "Somebody" to give their life meaning is, "Dearest, you need to worship God."

For now, I take Sondheim's cry and raise him one Litany of Humility by Cardinal Merry del Val:

Litanty of Humility
Music by the Wisdom of the Ages; Lyrics by Cardinal Merry del Val

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being extolled. Deliver me Jesus
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…
Amen.

Pirates Pillage the Audience Again

In case you are one of the four people who didn't go to see Pirates of the Caribbean this past weekend, don't. I went despite fair warning by several critics whose opinions I generally respect, like Jeffrey Overstreet. This movie is not worth me trying to come up with a better chapter of faults than Jeffrey has already done:

Not even a dozen Captain Jack Sparrows can save this overstuffed ship from sinking. If less really is more, Verbinski must have missed the memo. (In last summer's Dead Man's Chest, he proved that excess can be a good thing; it's hard to have too much fun with slapstick sequences as inspired as those. But here, it's just chaotic action, a lot of shooting and swordplay without character development to give it gravity.)

...Verbinski and the effects team work overtime to spoil your appetite. The previous Pirates movies have shown a flair for the grotesque, and this time, they pull out all the stops. In fact, they dismember them. Characters have a troubling tendency to snap off digits, gouge out eyes (and suck on them), rip brains out of craniums (and lick them), and yank out beating hearts (and maybe even stab them). It's like touring the popular "Bodies" exhibit (featured in Casino Royale), only to see the corpses come to life and dissect themselves.

...Three hours is a long time to sit watching self-centered buffoons scrambling about the deck of an unsteady ship. For all of the talk about love and freedom, these "mateys" are as fickle and reckless as a cafeteria full of juvenile delinquents. Everybody lies to everybody. Understanding their motives and grudges is like trying to comprehend sectarian violence in the Middle East. The movie's most telling scene involves a super-sized Mexican standoff, in which the gunslingers can't decide who to shoot. Who can blame them? They're all losers. Moviegoers might as well root for Lord Beckett.

Thus, the movie ends up like Davy Jones himself—many-tentacled, full of bluster, and devoid of a beating heart.

It's just a mess of a film. Impossible story. Too many characters. Half the dialogue unintelligible because of bad accents or inconvenient costumes/makeup. Depp's usual delightful characterization has grown stale and without surprises. Keira Knightly pouts her way annoyingly through yet another film.

My eight year old nephew - WHO LOVES PIRATE ANYTHING! - was bored and disgusted. He proclaimed the movie "a scam" when it finally ended. He is right.

The only pluses in film are the stunning visuals. It's really a showcase of what is possible with the latest CGI effects.

But that isn't enough to justify sitting through three hours of tedium. Wait for the coffee table book. Judging by the unrestrained marketing connected with this franchise, I'm sure a cofeetable book must be forthcoming.

Pass, matey. A thousand bottles of rum couldn't obscure this movie's flaws.

Try this, Maine!

I'm on vacation in Orlando with my sister, nephew and brother-in-law. It's kind of a rebellion for us to be here. My family has only ever gone to one place for vacation: Maine. Specifically, the Belgrade Lakes region of central Maine. My Mom is from Waterville, ME. And it's a lovely place. But after thirty years, my sister and I decided we had fished enough under-sized trout, shivered in enough icy cold waters, and critiqued enough quilts at the Windsor Country Fair, for several lifetimes. So, we decided to pick a vacation that is the categorical opposite of a cabin on Long Lake. Hence, we've been Disneying, Sea Worlding, Universaling, Wet N' Wilding, MGMing, boating, swimming and putt-putt golfing for the last ten days.

And, honestly, I think I'm done. It's been fun watching my eight year old nephew, whose expression every day says more eloquently, "We are a long, long way from eastern Connecticut." Of course, we're all a little insecure about the fact that he seemed to have as much fun splashing around in the free resort pool as he did in the $65 theme parks. It was funny to see in nearly every theme park, around 4pm, parents practically shaking their kids, "You can't be done yet! We have to have more fun! Do you know how much this is costing?!"

Still, it was a great change for all of us, and we are going back to our lives much tanner and replete with yummy seafood and simulated thrills. And I got through six hundred pages of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" - fabulous read. It's been a good time.



Here was one place that was relatively cheap, and really good "8 year old" bang for the buck. We spent about two hours putt-putt golfing (I came in last....rats.) at Congo River Golf. They had live aligators!




Here are the brave New England tourists fearlessly feeding hotdog chunks to the ferocious beasts (none of whom were more than three feet long...)



Here's JT at Disney, schmoozing with the great and good Lotte the Bug Lady. (Thanks so much, "Lotte"! You are our hero!)



Here's JT and my sister releasing ladybug carcasses into the Disney gardens. Um, there were a few still crawling around, but I think the Overlords at Epcot need to consider turning down the fridge where they store the poor bugs.


And here are some shots of the teenage Chinese acrobats doing amazing things outside Chinaland in Epcot. I like to call this series of photos, "Why We Never Want to Get in a War with These Folks."





It was Flower Festival Week at Epcot. Breathtaking everywhere you looked.

And then Sea World.

Yeah, I know they are horses. My nephew wanted to know why they are there too. Something about the Busch beer folks owning the theme park. They have to keep them somewhere, right? Besides, free beer samples very quickly reconciled us to the presence of horses at Seaworld.

SeaWorld is always my favorite themepark. And the dolphin show this year is, by far, the coolest, most wondrous thing of its kind I have ever seen. There was none of the science talk about mammal characteristics. No talking at all, really. Just a beautiful colorful synergy of music, dolphins, birds, and human divers and swimmers. It's a must see.

See Barb in Los Angeles

My next speaking gig will be at the Blue Army Conference in Los Angeles on July 1st. I will be given two talks - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I will be talking about positive things going on in Hollywood, and also specifically about my experience in Australia working on a new movie that is in the works about Fatima.

Clickhere for the conference schedule.

The Most Successful "Documentarian" in History....

When I was in grad school, the first question I had to answer for the film program was whether I wanted to be in the documentary track or in the narrative track. Even at mostly Marxist Northwestern University film school, my agenda -riddled professors understood the difference between making up a story and reporting one. Sadly, this is a question that no one ever asked Michael Moore, apparently. This following piece is from a longer story about the new documentary on Michael Moore called Manufacturing Dissent. The project comes from two liberal documentarians who started off as Moore admirers. But as they proceeded in their investigation of the methods of the "most successful documentarian in history," their enthusaism and their project's bent changed.

In another bit from Roger & Me, Moore explains how Nightline planned to do a special on Flint, where struggling local leaders were to talk with Ted Koppel via satellite hook up. In the next scene, a local TV reporter informs audiences that the special has been cancelled because ABC's satellite truck was stolen by an unemployed GM worker. What a gem. How did Moore get it? Caine and Melnyk made some calls.

The answer is, he made it up. There was no laid-off car thief. No truck had been stolen. There was no truck to be stolen. Nightline had never attempted to do a special on Flint. Moore made the entire incident up, gave a script to a cooperative reporter and passed it off as real...

...The premise of Roger & Me was that Roger Smith, (the CEO of GM) would not talk to Michael Moore. In Manufacturing Dissent's big payoff, Melnyk and Caine learn that Moore actually did get two interviews with Roger Smith, in which they talked--for longer than Moore talked to Melnyk--about Flint and GM. There are videotapes, transcripts, and witnesses (whom Moore subsequently asked to deny everything). So the very founding conceit of Roger & Me, the film that launched Moore's career, is predicated on a lie.

The thing that frosts my cookies the most about this is strictly personal. I had a roomamte once who fancied herself a "socially awakened Christian" who claimed Michael Moore as her guru of enlightenment. She said to me several times, "Roger and Me changed my life." It's always problematic when a Christian cleaves to any other guru than Jesus Christ. "These are not the times to pin your soul on anyone's sleeve. Pin your soul on Christ." (St. Teresa of Avila)

Go here to read the whole piece. Hat tip to the Overlords atThe New Advent

Transforming Culture Symposium, April 2008

Here is a web page for a neat conference at which I will be speaking next year. (I am very honored top be asked to be part of this event. Although I admit it's depressing to me that I am already booked for April 2008. I may otherwise have been able to become a forest ranger by then, except now I have to give one more speech.)

Anyway, if you are into the stuff of this blog, this symposium will be right up your alley.

The Last Judgment of the New Evangelization

And on the last day, the Son of Man will be seated in judgment of the various generations of men. And the People of God from the age of technology will also appear before Him.

And He will turn to those on His Right, who were Lampstands in the culture, with their laptops and microphones and scripts and notebooks radiant and transfigured. Suddenly, just beyond them will appear millions of souls, the saved from the age of technology. And they will plead for the Lampstands whose stories and songs are engraved in the individual books of the saved.

And the Judge will turn his eyes to the writers who told stories, and He will say to them, “Enter into joy. For I was cynical and unmotivated, but you gave me a hero to enthrall me.”

And He will turn to musicians and singers and say, “Enter into joy. For my heart was hard and dead, but you sang me stirring melodies.”

And He will find actors and say to them, “Enter into joy. For when I was obtuse and couldn’t see myself you became a saving mirror for me.”

And He will turn to journalists and say to them, “Enter into joy. For when I was uncertain and ignorant, you sought out the Truth for me.”

And He will turn to the makers of images and say, “Enter into joy. For when I was blind, your paradoxes compelled me to see.”

And He will wave in those who wrote mediocre CBA novels and sentimental Christian movies and ‘the Painter of Light’ saying, “And even you all come in. Because at least you tried. (But not the ladies who danced in leotards and red sashes at Catholic Churches. You can't come in.)"

And he will turn to those who just made entertainment. And He will say, “Come, Blessed of my Father and enter into your joy. For when I thought I was alone, you were my friend. When I was depressed you made me laugh. When I was pitiless, you gave me tears. When I was bored, you gave me the joy of life again. When I was empty, you inspired me.”

And the Lampstands will say to Him, “Lord, when did we tell you stories or sing to you? When did we teach you or inspire you or make you laugh and be your friend?”

And the Judge will say to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, any time you spent hours practicing scales for an audience, or delving into a character for a producer, or auditioning for a cold director, or submitting an article to an editor. You did it for me. Now, inherit the Kingdom that has been prepared for you.”

And then, the Judge will turn to one of the angels of the apocalypse and say, “And where are those who are supposed to be on my left?

And the angel will reply with more than a hint of frustration, they are waiting for You in their caves. They have spent their age in personality wars and fighting over which of them is really a Christian.

And the Judge will have His angels flush the Cave Dwellers out and He will say to them, “Depart from me, you who have sent no souls ahead of you.”

And the Cave Dwellers will say, “Oh, but Lord. We did send some souls. See! Here are a few members of our families and also several of the folks in our church small group. (Sadly a lot of them were, you know, seduced by the evil media and lost. That damn Hollywood!)

And the Judge will stare at them in utter disbelief for what will seem like a few centuries and then say, “Depart from me, you slothful, fearful, worthless disciples. You not only did not read the Signs of your Times, but you took pride in ignoring them.

“For I was a poet who was supposed to give words to the fears and longing of my times, but you told me to get a real job.”

“For I was a composer who had an anthem that would have rallied the world to communion, but you cut my budget.

“For I was a novelist, with a story that would have brought insight to millions, but you grew impatient with my first efforts.

“For I was an actor who was bent under rejection, and you told me to just quit.

“For I was a radio host who gave you company and comfort many days when you would alone in your car, but you never found a way to support me.

“For I was a director with a prophetic vision, but you just shrugged and said, ‘Movies are all garbage.’

“For I was the global audience, that was desperately in need of meaning and encouragement and communion. That needed to be persuaded to choose life and not death. And to know that they are not alone.

And the Cave-Dwellers will turn to Him and say, “Lord, when did we see you needing meaning, out of work, or rejected or alone?”

And the Judge will say, “Whenever you failed to embrace the arts and media, you failed to embrace millions of souls. And you failed to embrace me. Away with you to wail and gnash your teeth and watch lame reality show reruns for all eternity.”

And the Cave-Dwellers will be led away to languish forever in sloth and fear, but the Lampstands into the joy of unbridled and perfect creativity.

Act One News

Go here to check out Act One's updated and redesigned web site. It looks really great and has lots of new blurbs from the alumni about the program, as well as an expanded section just for alumni - of which Act One now has 600.

Please consider putting a link to Act One on your blog and helping us get the word out by sending an email message to your friends (especially the rich ones!) inviting them to check out the site. Then everybody can click HERE to make a donation to Act One so we can keep this very important effort going.

Our lease is up next July. We anticipate having to sustain either a major jump in rent, or (much better!) making a move to a better home with more room. It's going to take money of which we have little. Thanks for anything you can do.

20% full of shame and self-loathing...

You Are 80% American

You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges. Tough and independent, you think big. You love everything about the US, wrong or right. And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

How American Are You?

It's a good day....

...any day you turn in a screenplay. Which I do today when I turn in the first (actually third...I never turn in a first draft) draft of the Jane Austen adaptation (more of a resetting)/ Santa Barbara polo movie that I have been working on since last Fall.

Screenwriting is such a weird activity, in that you go from complete ignorance on a subject to the level of unbelievably abstruse intelligence. Screenplay research requires a minuteness for detail so that you can allow the audience to experience what I think of as the rush of arena fascination. They want to learn without realizing they are learning, and this all happens in the teeny little flourishes of detail that the screenwriter picked up in a letter that she found in a long-out of print book at a Church used book sale on an island somewhere in the geographical middle of the Black Sea....

The weird part is how much you want to share what you have written, while at the same time dreading having people read it. especially people who know you. I want to sit under the elbow of every one who reads my script registering every flicker of muscle movement on his or her face as they traverse it line by line. "Why are they laughing there? That wasn't supposed to be funny." "Why aren't they laughing there?! The Neanderthalism! That is hilarious stuff! Or else maybe I have no sense of humor?! I might need therapy instead of more screenplay jobs...." "What just made you jolt?" "Why do you look like you are in a sitting coma?"

Then there is the character attachment. The screenwriter creates characters who - after a while, you can't believe aren't really real - because their psychology and choices becomes the default object of your thoughts for months or years. You spend much more time with your characters while writing than you do with most of the real people who pass through your life. While you brood over your characters' speech, your imagination spends hours and hours in their homes and favorite haunts - which you also have to create. You dress them up, and make them fall in love, and break their hearts and you try really hard to not make them too obviously like anyone in your immediate circle of friends and family.

Anyway, then, you turn in the script, as I will today, and it's not just yours any more. Your pat them on the shoulder and send your characters and ideas into the treacherous and often (for the characters) barbaric terrain known as Notesville. Notes. When people who have read your script once quickly in between watching The View and picking the kids up from kindergarten, get to tell you that a character's choice is unmotivated. Notes. In which a moment you thought is haunting and profound ends up becoming just one more derrivative proof of everything that is wrong with movie writing today. Notes are very great when they are good, and they are necessary, but wow, is it humbling.

I often experience envy of the guy down at the hall who bags gorceries at Mayfair. Nobody ever takes him aside at the end of the night and says, 'What did you mean by putting that shampoo in with the Raisin Bran? And in a paper bag?!??! Don't you realize that every other grocery bagger is packing ceral and hair products just that way? How could you be so unoriginal? It just doesn't work for me. And that weird little thing you did with letting the lettuce peak out of the top of one of the bags? What the hell was that? The customer isn't going to get it, when the lettuce is all wilted by the time she gets home. You are going to have to find another way. Tomorrow we will talk about this weird cliche you use in putting the heavy stuff on the bottom of the bags. Get over it already. "

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Anyway, so, I turned in Polosuasion today. Now I wait for notes, and then I spend another month on a rewrite. And then I wait for more notes. And then I spend another month on a polish.

And then, I am done with horses and Argentinian polo and Santa Barbara whale watching and waterfalls and Samoan welcome dancing and birthing breeched foals and tango dancing and all of the other areas that had to become daily bread for my imagination while I was working on this project. I will be done with Anne and the Colonel and Admiral Croft and his wife Sophia and Frederico and Carlos and Elizabeth and Adelaide Russell, and Manuel the Latin butler who I really like very much.

And then, I have to start rading books about growing up in Indiana during the Depression, and C.S. Lewis and Oxford in the 40's and WWII at Pearl Harbor and the theology of conversion and yachting in the Carribbean and all things A Severe Mercy.

It's a weird way to make a living....But very cool too.

Here's where I'd be this weekend if...

...I wasn't heading back home to CT for my nephew's First Communion. (Which I am actually really excited about. Haven't been back in New England since Christmas.)

My friend, the luminously intellected, Sr. Marianne Trouve, fsp is giving a talk about Mary and the Theology of the Body at this event in Texas this weekend. The conference is definitely worth checking out if you like cerebral meanderings through the ongoing development of dogma (our understanding of it, anyway).

Here's more info and the conference schedule....


Mariological Society of America 58th Annual Program on The Virginity of Mary

May 22-25, 2007

Cedarbrake Retreat and Renewal Center
P.O. Box 58, Belton, TX 76513


TUESDAY, May 22, 2007

6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:30 p.m. Welcome--Prayer Service
Moderator: Father John Phalen, CSC

WEDNESDAY, May 23, 2007

Morning

7:15 a.m. Morning Prayer and Eucharist
8:00 a.m. Breakfast
8:45 a.m. Registration
9:00 a.m. Welcome, Announcements

9:15 a.m. "Mary's Virginity as 'the sign of her faith': A Study of the Nature-Grace Dynamic"
Patricia Sullivan (Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire)
Moderator: Father Thomas A. Thompson, SM

10:45 a.m. "Francisco Suarez, S.J. (1548-1617) on Mary's virginitas in partu"
Rober Fastiggi (Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, MI)
Moderator: Father Thomas Buffer, STD

Afternoon

12:00 p.m. Lunch

1:30 p.m. "Virginity and the 'Wholesome Person'"
Sr. Elena Lugo (Schoenstatt Sisters, Puerto Rico, Pontifical Academy for Life)
Moderator: Sister Jean Frisk

3:00 p.m. "Survey of Recent Mariology, 2007"
Father Eamon R. Carroll, O.Carm.(Nokomis, Florida)

Evening
5:00 p.m. Dinner

7:30 p.m. "Virginity and the Theology of the Body"
Sr. Marianne Trouve, FSP (Boston, MA)
Moderator: Dr. Virginia Kimball

9:00 p.m. Marian Devotion/Evening Prayer

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Morning

7:15 a.m. Morning Prayer and Eucharist
8:00 a.m. Breakfast

9:15 a.m. "Mary, Virgin and Ever-Virgin, in Patristic Iconographic Tradition"
Father Johann G. Roten, S.M. (Dayton, OH)
Moderator: Father Thomas A. Thompson, SM

10:45 a.m. "Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of the Father and of the Virgin Mother"
Dr. Deyanira Flores (Oca de Montes, Costa Rica)
Moderator: Sr. M. Catherine Nolan, OP

Afternoon

12:00 p.m. Lunch

1:30 p.m. "Recent Literature on Mary's Virginity"
Father Johann Roten, SM (Dayton, OH)
Moderator: Father Thomas Thompson, SM

3:45 p.m. Business Meeting and Elections

Evening

5:00 p.m. Dinner and Festive Reception

8:30 p.m. Marian Devotion/Evening Prayer

Friday, May 25, 2007

Morning

7:15 a.m. Breakfast

A BUS TOUR to visit the "Painted Churches" around the Austin area will be provided, with lunch included ($35.00). If interested, book your return flight for later in the afternoon on Friday. The tour ends at the Airport (see below).

8:00 a.m. Bus departs for Tour

Note: We will celebrate Eucharist together at Sts. Cyril and Methodius (Dubina, Texas) and share a catered meal at the parish hall in nearby Hostyn, Texas.

4:00-4:30 p.m. Tour ends at Austin Airport

Barb's Next Frontier!

On Friday, Origin Entertainment, (a production company based in Santa Monica at which I am a new partner), received the documents from Harper Collins securing the movie option rights to one of my all-time favorite books FOR ME TO ADAPT AS A SCREENPLAY!



This is a wonderful and scary thrill for me, as the book and I have traversed quite a storied journey already since I first read it in college in 1981. (Stay tuned. Someday soon, I will certainly blog about it....) But now, the real adventure gets started. A literal journey as well as spiritual and creative - the book takes place in Hawaii, the Carribbean, Oxford and the rolling hills of Lynchburg, VA. (Several friends have already heroically and selflessly volunteered to be my traveling research assistant on this one.)

If you haven't read the book yet (and to that, can I just say, "Eeeek!!!!"), go here and order it right away. You will feel for me giving you the heads-up, "quick gratitude" (linguistic hat tip to Emily D).

Please keep this project in your prayers. I am rarely excited about anything, but I admit to anticipating this project with wonder (and fear and trembling).

Of course, we will be looking to partner with one of the new studio entities that are hungry for "fodder for the Christian audience" on this one. It is SOOOOO much NOT fodder. Haunting narrative. Theologically profound. Psychologically subtle and rich. Cinematic on several levels. Way, way more to work with here than, wel, - going out on a limb here - a Thomas Kincaid painting....

Anyway, Origin would like to go into a partnership with a strong as hand as possible. Consequently, we will be making a few trips around the country to make presentations on the project for investors. If you would like to host an event for your rich friends who might want to be part of bringing a really beautiful and wonderful project with strong transcendent themes (and a cameo appearance by C.S. Lewis!) to the screen, please send me an email. This one is too good to hamstring with an inadequate budget and untried talents. Please do keep it in your prayers.

(P.S. Did I mention I left Act One primarily because I was sick of begging for money?...Sigh....The truth is, entertainers are pretty much all beggars.)

The title of the book comes from The Confessions of St. Augustine in which the saint is compelled through suffering to accept the saving grace of God. Here's the snip...

Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken. By now I was held but slightly, but still was held. And thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my inmost heart with a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame; lest I should again give way and that same slender remaining tie not be broken off, but recover strength and enchain me yet more securely.

I kept saying to myself, "See, let it be done now; let it be done now." And as I said this I all but came to a firm decision. I all but did it -- yet I did not quite. Still I did not fall back to my old condition, but stood aside for a moment and drew breath. And I tried again, and lacked only a very little of reaching the resolve -- and then somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it. Yet I still did not quite reach or touch or grasp the goal, because I hesitated to die to death and to live to life. And the worse way, to which I was habituated, was stronger in me than the better, which I had not tried. And up to the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer the moment approached, the greater horror did it strike in me. But it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but held me in suspense.

It was, in fact, my old mistresses, trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, who still enthralled me. They tugged at my fleshly garments and softly whispered: "Are you going to part with us? And from that moment will we never be with you any more? And from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you forever?" What were they suggesting to me in those words "this or that"? What is it they suggested, O my God? Let thy mercy guard the soul of thy servant from the vileness and the shame they did suggest! And now I scarcely heard them, for they were not openly showing themselves and opposing me face to face; but muttering, as it were, behind my back; and furtively plucking at me as I was leaving, trying to make me look back at them. Still they delayed me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free of them and leap over to the place to which I was being called -- for unruly habit kept saying to me, "Do you think you can live without them?"

But now it said this very faintly; for in the direction I had set my face, and yet toward which I still trembled to go, the chaste dignity of continence appeared to me -- cheerful but not wanton, modestly alluring me to come and doubt nothing, extending her holy hands, full of a multitude of good examples -- to receive and embrace me. There were there so many young men and maidens, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and ancient virgins; and continence herself in their midst: not barren, but a fruitful mother of children -- her joys -- by thee, O Lord, her husband. And she smiled on me with a challenging smile as if to say: "Can you not do what these young men and maidens can? Or can any of them do it of themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me to them. Why do you stand in your own strength, and so stand not? Cast yourself on him; fear not. He will not flinch and you will not fall. Cast yourself on him without fear, for he will receive and heal you." And I blushed violently, for I still heard the muttering of those "trifles" and hung suspended. Again she seemed to speak: "Stop your ears against those unclean members of yours, that they may be mortified. They tell you of delights, but not according to the law of the Lord thy God." This struggle raging in my heart was nothing but the contest of self against self. And Alypius kept close beside me, and awaited in silence the outcome of my extraordinary agitation.

Last Shots from Barb's Camera

Back, by popular demand, the last few shots from my recent trip to Israel. This is my version of inflicting my home movies on my friends and family...

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Palm Sunday in Jerusalem


This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. If you ever go to Jerusalem, try and be there for Palm Sunday. First of all, the weather is cooler, and that makes the constant traversing up and down on stone steps much less penitential. ( If you are particularly in need of penance, go in July....) Anyway, the traditional walk route is from Bethany up and down the Mount of Olives, through Gethsemane, down into the Kidron Valley and then up to the Temple through the Damascus Gate.

People told me there were about 12,000 people there. It was the most multi-ethnic thing of which I have ever been a part. Truly, Christians from ever part of the world were there, and filled with a supernatural euphoria probably not unlike the euphoria of that first Palm Sunday. We were wedged in between a group of female Korean pilgrims who were positively ethereal in the love for Jesus shining off their faces as they danced and sang, and a group of boisterous Armenian college guys who jubilantly kept singing the same three-line song for about two hours until we finally pushed way ahead of them to fall in line behind some wide-eyed American pilgrims from Georgia.

I am glad I lived to be part of a Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem.

A shot of the crowd starting to descend into the Kidron Valley from the top of the Mount of Olives. The Temple Mount is in the background, with the procession's destination, the Damascus Gate, on the right of the Temple complex. It was a hearty walk, and I definitely got why the Lord would have done it on a donkey... I was longing for one myself many times.


Polish pilgrims gathering outside of the Carmel on the top of the Mount of Olives.


My sense was that for the Christian community in the Holy Land, the Palm Sunday procession was as much political as spiritual. There were scores of Christian Arab youth groups, their hundreds of members dressed in clothes that looked liked scout uniforms, marching in formation as if to say, "We are here and organized!"



The ever-present Israeli AK-47 toting army, watches the procession from on top of the Damascus Gate.


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Church of the Holy Sepulchre


If you do go to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, be sure to stay as far away as possible from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that day! We made the bad, very bad, judgment call, of going to the CHS Palm Sunday morning. We were almost trampled to death in the loud and scary procession of what I thought of as Woodstock Greek Orthodox and Armenian style. There seemed to be some kind of religious ceremony going on, but between the yelling in languages I couldn't make out and the banging of sticks on the ground, and the shoving and pushing of the mob of believers - I was actually off the ground a couple times in the press of the crowd and it occurred to me I could die just a few feet from the place where Jesus rose! - my impression of the place was of Christian group-think insanity.

Here was a little prelate of some group or other that a phalanx of male ushers were guarding quite vociferously. I got shoved aggressively for this little man's space several times. His expression said to me that he would much rather be alone in a garden somewhere quietly talking to Jesus.


THE SPOT where Jesus' cross is believed to have been planted on THE SPOT which is thought to be the site of Golgatha.

On the road again...

I have travels coming up next week. Most of my speaking engagements this time out are not open to the public, but I am always happy to try and fit in meet n' greets the mornings or afternoons in between. So, here's where I will be for the next month...

May 13-14 - Eastern Connecticut

May 15-16 - New York City

Mary 16-17 - LeHigh Valley, PA

May 17-18 - Northern NJ

May 18-31 - Orlando, FL

June 1-2 - Milwaukee, WI

If anybody wants a get-together, send me an email at brnicolosi@aol.com.

Rosary Bowl Pasadena

Passing on this message from my friend Fr. Willy, the Director of Family Theater Productions here in Hollywood.

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Dear Friends,

There are 41 billboards around greater Los Angeles announcing the Rosary Bowl for May 19th, 2007, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. This historic event comes to you from Family Theater and its parent ministry, Holy Cross Family Ministries.

Radio and television in Spanish and English, along with local newspapers, are promoting the Rosary Bowl and expecting 65000-70000 people to celebrate together under the banner of "A WORLD AT PRAYER IS A WORLD AT PEACE."

There will be three incredible speakers:

* Bishop Oscar Solis, the first Philippino American bishop and beloved Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles for Ethnic Ministries,

* Immaculée Ilibagiza, courageous survivor of the Rwandan Genocide, and author of her autobiography, "Left To Tell."

* Carl Anderson, the dynamic leader of the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world, the Knights of Columbus.

There will be music and song including a special Rosary Bowl choir and instrumental ensemble, featuring the celebrated member of the Gypsy Kings Family Mario Reyes and his group. Paul Harrigan, a frequent participant at Prayer and Pasta events is coordinating the music and song for the Rosary Bowl.

You can also join former Miss Mexico, 2000, actress and braodcaster, Jacky Bracamontes, and others as they lead the 50+ nationalities of southern California in praying the Rosary.

His Eminence, Cardinal Roger Mahony will preside at Benediction and preach at this massive gathering of the many peoples who make up the Catholic and Christian community of Greater LA.

If you wish to volunteer, please contact Family Theater at 323-874-6633 and/or visit the RosaryBowl.org website.

We still need volunteers. To get involved, please plan to show up one week before the event at the Rose Bowl May 12th at 11 AM. Your participation as a volunteer would be a great blessing to all of us and most of all to yourself.

See you there!

Fr. Willy Raymond
Family Theater Productions

More Good News from Act One Alumni

In the past several weeks, alumni of the Act One Writing Program have enjoyed a string of successes. This is the kind of thing we knew was going to start happening eventually, when we hit the "tipping point" of alumni. There seems to be good news every week lately. Here are some of the most recent things we've heard:

- In February, Fox Faith released The Ultimate Gift, starring Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Drew Fuller, Ali Hillis, Bill Cobbs, James Garner, Lee Meriwether and Brian Dennehy, with a screenplay by Cheryl McKay (Writing Program 1999).

- In March, Melissa Dogero (WP 2002) and Jessica Rieder (WP 2001) signed as a writing team with CAA and Kimberly Wilson-Lauziere (WP 2005), who is currently in the 2007 NBC Writers on the Verge program, signed with the Brant Rose Agency. Melissa and Jessica were also finalists for the 2007 Warner Bros. Writers Workshop.

- Robin Knight (WP 2004) was signed by CAA.

- Bryan Belknap (WP 2002) inked a deal with Universal Pictures and Judge Reinhold to write a feature comedy and signed with the Brant Rose Agency.

- Chris Foley (WP 2000) has optioned his screenplay Stubborn Creek to Origin Entertainment. The screenplay relates the adventures of a young boy during the Civil War.

- On April 11, the Hollywood Reporter announced that Clare Sera (WP 1999) will co-write the family action-comedy Captain Abdul's Pirate School, based on the book by Colin McNaughton, with partner Karey Kirkpartrick (Chicken Run, Over the Hedge, Charlotte's Web) for Nickelodeon Movies.

- Last week, the trades announced that Isaiah Washington (Grey's Anatomy) will star in the indie feature The Least of These for writer-director Nathan Scoggins (WP 2005). The film will begin a month-long shoot in June and is being produced by alumni James Duke (WP 2001) and Christina Lee (WP2003).

- Andy Griffith has agreed to star in writer-director Scott Teems' (WP 2001) indie feature I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down. The script, which was developed in Act One's advanced Act Two writing program, won the Emerging Narrative Screenplay Award at the 2006 IFP Market in New York.

- In addition to his extensive resume doing stuntwork, Ian Eyre (WP 1999) can currently be seen doing stunts in Spiderman 3 and Disturbia....you have to look really close though!

"TV is getting better."

My friend, Karen Hall put a post up yesterday that has good news about the upcoming TV season. It's under the heading "Attention TV Nerds" - because I don't know how to link to a specific post on somebody's blog.... Sigh....

Here's a snip...

TV is getting better. A lot better. Cable, which was largely responsible for its unraveling, as we all struggled to understand the New World, has ended up being the thing that raised the bar and forced network TV to strive for something better -- for mercenary reasons, but what the heck. The revolution had to start somewhere.

I'm a little shell-shocked to watch what I do for a living come back from the dead. My goal, back in 1979 (woof) when my career began, was to write for the 10%. The shows like M*A*S*H and Hill Street Blues and others that I defined as floating atop the sea of garbage. As the years went by, that 10% shrank to 5%, and then 3%... Not that I was raising my standards, mind you. What I wanted to do for a living, and what I'd always done for a living, was going away. Not just the shows that aimed higher, but the shows that were built around characters. Eventually, between reality programming and "procedurals" like the CSIs, there was no room for character drama. Year after year, my agents (and optimistic friends, not that I have many) would predict its return. Year after year, they'd be wrong.

....And then I sold "Vows." That caused me to take a look at what was going on in television, which caused me to realize that everything has taken a turn away from procedurials and back to characters. What I do was coming back.

Act One Screenwriting Weekends: Dallas and San Jose

The Road to Hollywood Starts in Dallas!
 
Join us at the ACT ONE SCREENWRITING WEEKEND – DALLAS, TEXAS
 
June 1-2, 2007
Sponsored by CrossPointe Community Church
 
Registration TODAY at www.actoneprogram.com

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And don’t forget about…
 
San Jose and the Hollywood Insider Event
 
May 4-5, 2007
 
Valley Christian Schools Skyway Campus
 
What: 
Two days of fun, fast-paced instruction from Hollywood pros
 
*Story    *Formatting    *Structure                *Visual Writing    *Character    *The “Biz”    *Dialogue    *Christianity and Culture    …and much, much more!
 
Dates:  
Friday, May 4th (3:30 – 10 pm)
Saturday, May 5th (10 am – 5 pm)
           
Location:         
Valley Christian Schools Skyway Campus
100 Skyway Drive
San Jose, CA  95111
 
Scheduled To Appear: 
Dean Batali (That 70’s Show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
Thom Parham (Touched By An Angel, JAG)       
           
Registration:
$195 – (includes study materials, Saturday meals and Hollywood Insider Event)
$175 – Students (with ID) and Groups (10 or more)
$10 – Hollywood Insider Event only
 
SPACE IS LIMITED – Visit www.actoneprogram.com to register online now!
 
 
Act One is proud to partner with Valley Christian Schools in their Quest For Excellence.