HAIL, AVE MARIA
I made a brief visit at the new Ave Maria University near Naples, FL a few weeks ago. They are still on a temporary campus, while the plans go ahead for the new campus that is being funded by philanthropist, former pizza-man, Tom Monaghan. Having been to several of the "real" Catholic, higher-ed schools, clearly Ave Maria's temporary campus is pretty much nicer than the other schools permanent sites. I'm sure part of the impression came from the lovely, bright Florida sunshine and omni-present flowers, but the place seemed like a lovely place to get liberally educated to me.
More impressive was the climate on campus. The students seemed normal and happy -- not at all like they were in training to be future 1950's misfits on the fringes of 21st Century American culture. They looked college-y in jeans and flip-flops, and when I mentioned cultural icons like The Matrix and the show about nothing, they were right there with me. They were open-eyed,laughed in all the right places, and breathed out a kind of happy confidence. I thought to myself, "Now THIS, the 'New Evangelization' can work with."
I was glad to see that, even though it is optional, there were many students packing the noon Mass, which was also a normal 21st Century looking Catholic liturgy.
My sense is at AMU, they are fitting up their grads to be players in this current culture and Church...not more of the cave-dwelling anawim. Thank God.
I did over-hear one slightly distressing conversation in the student lounge, in which one young guy - cocky with all the insecurity of twenty-something guessing at manhood-ness - was making a case to several other students that women could never be president of the U.S. because they are crippled by emotions. A couple of the female students would have none of it, but they weren't exactly making a slam dunk response. When I mentioned it to the female faculty member I was with, she said, "I have two words for that kid: Margaret Thatcher." I laughed, okay, more than a bit relieved.
One other anecdote from my visit that has been hovering in my brain...The Mass the day I was at AMU was in honor of one of the Roman martyrs - St. Calistus maybe? Anyway, the priest celebrating the Mass noted in his homily, "Now, probably, none of us will be asked to give our lives for our faith...."
I immediately thought, "And what planet do you go home to at night, Father?" It struck me as somewhat irresponsible assurance to a large group of prayerful, orthodox, committed young Catholics, living in the middle of a society that more and more scapegoats them as 'what's wrong with the world.' In my research on the Spanish Civil War, I have found the same kind of willful refusal to note the signs of the times on the part of the clergy back in 1930's Spain. Deafened for decades to an ever-rising tide of hate rhetoric against the Church, these shepherds were holding parish festivals, liturgical processions, youth fieldtrips and catechism classes, right up to the moments when the anarchists stormed the church steps, and swept tens of thousands of priests, religious and laity into mass graves.
There is something so very un-creative in religious leaders refusing to see just a few feet past the obvious. The current horizon (of intra-parish warfare between the Hispanic music ministry fund and the Filipino dinner dance and "who is organizing the next seniors' trip to Vegas anyway?") obscures the future, instead of revealing it. Not that clueless, surprised martyrs are any worse than grim, prepared ones.
But, anyway, if I was a 17 year old again, looking for a college to go to, I would choose AMU over all the others out there. They're doing a good job now, and it is only going to get better. God willing....
Monday, November 08, 2004
CATCHING UP....
So, sorry I have been such a recalcitrant blogger lately. Every year, the weeks between labor Day and Thanksgiving seem to get busier and busier for me - it's conferences and grant writing and program debriefing and upcoming program planning. Mainly for me these past few weeks it has meant Delta, Us Air, United, Northwest and Continental. You know you travel too much, when you know exactly where you are when you are in ORD, PVD, PHL, IAD, CLT, and EWR.
I have dozens of brilliant thoughts to blog in the last couple months, but every time I get a moment, I seem to, well, fall asleep, instea of write. Here are some short blippy posts representing scattered impressions and notions. Let me know if you want more of anyone and I will try and oblige in upcoming posts...
So, sorry I have been such a recalcitrant blogger lately. Every year, the weeks between labor Day and Thanksgiving seem to get busier and busier for me - it's conferences and grant writing and program debriefing and upcoming program planning. Mainly for me these past few weeks it has meant Delta, Us Air, United, Northwest and Continental. You know you travel too much, when you know exactly where you are when you are in ORD, PVD, PHL, IAD, CLT, and EWR.
I have dozens of brilliant thoughts to blog in the last couple months, but every time I get a moment, I seem to, well, fall asleep, instea of write. Here are some short blippy posts representing scattered impressions and notions. Let me know if you want more of anyone and I will try and oblige in upcoming posts...
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
SEE BARB IN AUSTIN, TX
I will be giving a talk in Austin, TX on Friday, November 5th. It will be my "Gospel Spirituality for Artists" talk (which, if I keep giving as talks, I will presumably never need to write into a book...there won't be anyone left to buy the book if I keep at it like this anyway...) and will be open to the public.
If you live in the Austin area, or know a Christian artist who does, please join us.
The talk will be at 7pm at:
Hope Chapel
6701 Arroyo Seco
Austin, TX 78757
To RSVP, or for more info, contact: David Taylor, 377-3900, david@dosgringos.us
I will be giving a talk in Austin, TX on Friday, November 5th. It will be my "Gospel Spirituality for Artists" talk (which, if I keep giving as talks, I will presumably never need to write into a book...there won't be anyone left to buy the book if I keep at it like this anyway...) and will be open to the public.
If you live in the Austin area, or know a Christian artist who does, please join us.
The talk will be at 7pm at:
Hope Chapel
6701 Arroyo Seco
Austin, TX 78757
To RSVP, or for more info, contact: David Taylor, 377-3900, david@dosgringos.us
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
ENFRANCHISEMENT IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS
I walked to the school that serves as the east Hollywood Hills voting place at 6:40am. My neighborhood is about 80% entertainment industry people, and, pretty much, successful ones.
There were already about 20 tense people in line, even though the polls didn't open till 7am. People were standing there all grim and silent, and then a weird thing happened.
We were lined up along Franklin, which is a major thoroughfare that runs at the base of the hills. A red car at the school corner a few yards from us, was waiting to make a right-hand turn while the crosswalk escorted a couple of five year olds and their nanny (I presume) across the street.
All of a sudden, we heard screeching tires and then a car that was looking at the
line of voters smashed into the rear of the red car. Nearsighted though I am, I instinctively made a note of the license number. Everyone in line watched in shock as the smashing car, watched the red car pull over around the corner, and then zoom away - a hit and run. People started yelling and shaking fists. I said the license number aloud, and the lady next to me (in a "Whack Bush" T-shirt) helpfully offered me a pen and paper to jot it down. She said, "Go help her. I'll hold your place in line."
Three of us approached the distraught red car driver, who was looking at her dented bumper. We had all jotted down the offending car's license number and car info, and provided our phone numbers in case she needs witnesses. When we walked back to the line, people started applauding. The ice broken, everyone spent the next twenty minutes talking about the incident. It was a nice American moment, and I felt better about today, regardless of what happens.
When the poll doors opened, we all filed in, most of us gripping the voter booklet that had been sent us by the State. Mine specified that I should vote at the "Green Table." The lady ahead of me was an "Orange Table" and the fellow behind, "Blue Table." When we got inside, there was one long line with no obvious distinctions between the three sets of tables and polls in the auditorium. I leaned across the red, white and blue streamers meant to keep us in line and asked a poll-worker lady, "I am supposed to be voting at the green table. Where is that?" She said, "Huh?"
So, the lady in front of me waved her booklet, "And I am orange. Where do
I go?" The poll worker shrugged, "There is no green and orange here."
Then, I noticed that at the front of the room, written on a black board in chalk were the words "GReEN tABle" (kind of just like that - five year old handwriting). The three poll workers were sitting in front of it eating donuts and talking to each other without any voters to distract them. I broke out of the line and said, "Is this the green table?" One of them said, "Yeah." I said, "Why don't you put something green on it? People don't know which of the three sides of the room to go to, so everyone is milling around..." The lady said, "Yeah, somebody should do that."
I made my way to the person recording L-Z people. She asked my name and found me in her print-out. I tried to show her my license but she said, "We don't need that." I said, "Really. Cause I'd kind of feel better if you looked at it." She said, "It's against the law. We aren't to cause voters any undue burden." I said, "But how do you know I am me?" She shrugged, "We trust."
In the poll booth, I did the Bush-Cheney thing, and then Bill "Not a Chance Against Boxer" Simon (or is it Jones? He hasn't exactly run a hell of a campaign), and then was disgusted to see that my Congressional Rep, Diane Watson (D) is running unopposed - unless you count the Libertarian guy - who got my vote, btw. Times like these, I almost wish I was pro-choice so I could run for Congress from Hollywood, CA.
The only thing controversial on the ballot here in CA are the 17 referenda. Prop 71, for example, is on the ballot as an additional "Screw Bush" measure. This measure is to allocate $6 Billion dollars to breed baby humans in utero, and then suck out their cerebral cortexes, so as to heal ailments in selfish baby boomers. This, in a state with a $50 Billion dollar debt! Thanks, Arnold.
Anyway, it took me twenty minutes to vote and get out of there. Leaving
the building at about 7:20am, I noted that there were probably about
seventy-five people in line.
The local news are reporting huge lines all over the city. Good, I guess.
I went to Mass right after and was comforted by the first reading for
today...tell me these things are accidents:
Wisdom 3,1-9.
But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall
touch them...For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope
full of immortality; Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the
furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to
himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart
about as sparks through stubble;
They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the LORD shall be their
King forever. Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the
faithful shall abide with him in love: Because grace and mercy are with his
holy ones, and his care is with the elect.
God bless America.
I walked to the school that serves as the east Hollywood Hills voting place at 6:40am. My neighborhood is about 80% entertainment industry people, and, pretty much, successful ones.
There were already about 20 tense people in line, even though the polls didn't open till 7am. People were standing there all grim and silent, and then a weird thing happened.
We were lined up along Franklin, which is a major thoroughfare that runs at the base of the hills. A red car at the school corner a few yards from us, was waiting to make a right-hand turn while the crosswalk escorted a couple of five year olds and their nanny (I presume) across the street.
All of a sudden, we heard screeching tires and then a car that was looking at the
line of voters smashed into the rear of the red car. Nearsighted though I am, I instinctively made a note of the license number. Everyone in line watched in shock as the smashing car, watched the red car pull over around the corner, and then zoom away - a hit and run. People started yelling and shaking fists. I said the license number aloud, and the lady next to me (in a "Whack Bush" T-shirt) helpfully offered me a pen and paper to jot it down. She said, "Go help her. I'll hold your place in line."
Three of us approached the distraught red car driver, who was looking at her dented bumper. We had all jotted down the offending car's license number and car info, and provided our phone numbers in case she needs witnesses. When we walked back to the line, people started applauding. The ice broken, everyone spent the next twenty minutes talking about the incident. It was a nice American moment, and I felt better about today, regardless of what happens.
When the poll doors opened, we all filed in, most of us gripping the voter booklet that had been sent us by the State. Mine specified that I should vote at the "Green Table." The lady ahead of me was an "Orange Table" and the fellow behind, "Blue Table." When we got inside, there was one long line with no obvious distinctions between the three sets of tables and polls in the auditorium. I leaned across the red, white and blue streamers meant to keep us in line and asked a poll-worker lady, "I am supposed to be voting at the green table. Where is that?" She said, "Huh?"
So, the lady in front of me waved her booklet, "And I am orange. Where do
I go?" The poll worker shrugged, "There is no green and orange here."
Then, I noticed that at the front of the room, written on a black board in chalk were the words "GReEN tABle" (kind of just like that - five year old handwriting). The three poll workers were sitting in front of it eating donuts and talking to each other without any voters to distract them. I broke out of the line and said, "Is this the green table?" One of them said, "Yeah." I said, "Why don't you put something green on it? People don't know which of the three sides of the room to go to, so everyone is milling around..." The lady said, "Yeah, somebody should do that."
I made my way to the person recording L-Z people. She asked my name and found me in her print-out. I tried to show her my license but she said, "We don't need that." I said, "Really. Cause I'd kind of feel better if you looked at it." She said, "It's against the law. We aren't to cause voters any undue burden." I said, "But how do you know I am me?" She shrugged, "We trust."
In the poll booth, I did the Bush-Cheney thing, and then Bill "Not a Chance Against Boxer" Simon (or is it Jones? He hasn't exactly run a hell of a campaign), and then was disgusted to see that my Congressional Rep, Diane Watson (D) is running unopposed - unless you count the Libertarian guy - who got my vote, btw. Times like these, I almost wish I was pro-choice so I could run for Congress from Hollywood, CA.
The only thing controversial on the ballot here in CA are the 17 referenda. Prop 71, for example, is on the ballot as an additional "Screw Bush" measure. This measure is to allocate $6 Billion dollars to breed baby humans in utero, and then suck out their cerebral cortexes, so as to heal ailments in selfish baby boomers. This, in a state with a $50 Billion dollar debt! Thanks, Arnold.
Anyway, it took me twenty minutes to vote and get out of there. Leaving
the building at about 7:20am, I noted that there were probably about
seventy-five people in line.
The local news are reporting huge lines all over the city. Good, I guess.
I went to Mass right after and was comforted by the first reading for
today...tell me these things are accidents:
Wisdom 3,1-9.
But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall
touch them...For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope
full of immortality; Chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the
furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to
himself. In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and shall dart
about as sparks through stubble;
They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the LORD shall be their
King forever. Those who trust in him shall understand truth, and the
faithful shall abide with him in love: Because grace and mercy are with his
holy ones, and his care is with the elect.
God bless America.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
YOU CAN'T LOSE 'EM ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is for you Yaz...Rico Petrocelli, Tony Conigliaro, Carlton Fisk, Ted Williams, Jim Rice, Freddie Lynn, Dwight Evans, Dennnis Eckersley, Bernie Carbo, Denny Doyle, Rick Burleson, Luis Tiant, The Rocket, The Spaceman, Nomar, Wade Boggs....and yes, you too Bill Buckner!
Winning is better than losing.
This is for you Yaz...Rico Petrocelli, Tony Conigliaro, Carlton Fisk, Ted Williams, Jim Rice, Freddie Lynn, Dwight Evans, Dennnis Eckersley, Bernie Carbo, Denny Doyle, Rick Burleson, Luis Tiant, The Rocket, The Spaceman, Nomar, Wade Boggs....and yes, you too Bill Buckner!
Winning is better than losing.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
PASTORS AS THE LYNCHPIN OF THE NEW RENAISSANCE
I just sent in my next column for The National Catholic Register. This is the third and concluding part of my three-part "Beauty in the Church" series. I'll let you know if/when it gets posted on the NCReg site. Till then, here's a snip:
We need to give our seminarians and priests more beauty, because more will be required of them. Particularly in their years of formation, they will need heightened liturgical life as a way of “storing up” intimate encounters with God. They will need to bank these moments for a cold, grey Tuesday morning in the future, when they will need to propel themselves out of bed, and into a dark church, to say a beautiful Mass for a handful of quarrelsome old ladies.
A commitment to beauty in priestly formation will start in figuring out the kinds of things that seminarians can learn in a classroom, and the kinds of things that must be learned elsewhere. When I was in college, I used to go around saying, “The truth can change people. If you just expose them to the truth, they will cleave to it.” This is a naïve view. The sense of “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free” is the sense of knowing in which the Scriptures also speak of sexual intimacy, “Adam knew Eve.” So, it’s the cleaving to the Truth that makes you free, not having it blare out at you from the speakers in a classroom or in black words on a white page. The ‘making people cleave’ to things inwardly – things like compassion, mercy, nobility, self-donation, heroism – this is the province of the arts. You can discover reasons for conviction and certitude on the pages of a textbook, but if you want compassion that will motivate someone to sacrifice, you can find it much quicker in a movie like Shine. Ethics can tell me about the disordered attractions of my own soul, but Madame Bovary will sting me to the heart and have me understand on the deepest level St Paul’s cry, “Why do I do what I hate? Who can free me from this body of death?!”
Artistic narratives - that is, stories - whether in cinema, theater or novels, have a crucial contribution to make to priestly formation. I'm not sure where I read it, but I recall reading a comment of Pope John Paul II in which he notes that we owe deep consideration to even purely secular works of art, for “they can show us in a profound way what the world without God looks like.” I knew one seminarian, for example, who was deeply impacted by the film Requiem for a Dream. A very dark and disturbing story of loneliness that leads into the hell of drug addiction, this well-crafted film incited a wave of pastoral urgency in this future priest that has helped him bring the Gospel into many definitely scary places. With real passion in his voice, he said to me after seeing the movie several times, “No human being should ever feel completely alone.”
Exposing future priests to the artistic stories of “what the world without God looks like” can also balance out the elitist disconnect which is the potential dark side of having lots of beauty in formation years. Always, the goal in formation must be two-fold: to make present both the reality of God and the reality of poor humanity.
I just sent in my next column for The National Catholic Register. This is the third and concluding part of my three-part "Beauty in the Church" series. I'll let you know if/when it gets posted on the NCReg site. Till then, here's a snip:
We need to give our seminarians and priests more beauty, because more will be required of them. Particularly in their years of formation, they will need heightened liturgical life as a way of “storing up” intimate encounters with God. They will need to bank these moments for a cold, grey Tuesday morning in the future, when they will need to propel themselves out of bed, and into a dark church, to say a beautiful Mass for a handful of quarrelsome old ladies.
A commitment to beauty in priestly formation will start in figuring out the kinds of things that seminarians can learn in a classroom, and the kinds of things that must be learned elsewhere. When I was in college, I used to go around saying, “The truth can change people. If you just expose them to the truth, they will cleave to it.” This is a naïve view. The sense of “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free” is the sense of knowing in which the Scriptures also speak of sexual intimacy, “Adam knew Eve.” So, it’s the cleaving to the Truth that makes you free, not having it blare out at you from the speakers in a classroom or in black words on a white page. The ‘making people cleave’ to things inwardly – things like compassion, mercy, nobility, self-donation, heroism – this is the province of the arts. You can discover reasons for conviction and certitude on the pages of a textbook, but if you want compassion that will motivate someone to sacrifice, you can find it much quicker in a movie like Shine. Ethics can tell me about the disordered attractions of my own soul, but Madame Bovary will sting me to the heart and have me understand on the deepest level St Paul’s cry, “Why do I do what I hate? Who can free me from this body of death?!”
Artistic narratives - that is, stories - whether in cinema, theater or novels, have a crucial contribution to make to priestly formation. I'm not sure where I read it, but I recall reading a comment of Pope John Paul II in which he notes that we owe deep consideration to even purely secular works of art, for “they can show us in a profound way what the world without God looks like.” I knew one seminarian, for example, who was deeply impacted by the film Requiem for a Dream. A very dark and disturbing story of loneliness that leads into the hell of drug addiction, this well-crafted film incited a wave of pastoral urgency in this future priest that has helped him bring the Gospel into many definitely scary places. With real passion in his voice, he said to me after seeing the movie several times, “No human being should ever feel completely alone.”
Exposing future priests to the artistic stories of “what the world without God looks like” can also balance out the elitist disconnect which is the potential dark side of having lots of beauty in formation years. Always, the goal in formation must be two-fold: to make present both the reality of God and the reality of poor humanity.
SO YOU WANT TO WORK IN HOLLYWOOD
We have a book coming out next year that is a compilation of essays from our Act One faculty members. The working title of the book is "Greetings from the Church in Hollywood." The idea behind the book is to share the insights and experience of our group of savvy and successful Christians who have been on the front lines in the entertainment biz for years. Our folks have lots of things to say to the Church about impacting culture, and how the Church needs to change its rhetoric and thinking so that it can begin to make a real impact in the popular culture.
Friend and fellow screenwriter Jan "The Maven" Batchler has been putting drafts of her essay on her blog. She is writing about all the things a Christian should brood over before throwing his or her hat into the entertainment industry ring. It's a good read with some profound ideas. Check it out. Tell her I sent you.
We have a book coming out next year that is a compilation of essays from our Act One faculty members. The working title of the book is "Greetings from the Church in Hollywood." The idea behind the book is to share the insights and experience of our group of savvy and successful Christians who have been on the front lines in the entertainment biz for years. Our folks have lots of things to say to the Church about impacting culture, and how the Church needs to change its rhetoric and thinking so that it can begin to make a real impact in the popular culture.
Friend and fellow screenwriter Jan "The Maven" Batchler has been putting drafts of her essay on her blog. She is writing about all the things a Christian should brood over before throwing his or her hat into the entertainment industry ring. It's a good read with some profound ideas. Check it out. Tell her I sent you.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
MORE BARB IN NYC
The Daughters of St. Paul have kindly offered to have me give a talk at their Manhattan bookcenter next week while I am in the city. Here is the info...
MEL'S MOVIE. MTV UPSTARTS. ETERNAL SUNSHINE: REASONS FOR HOPE FROM HOLLYWOOD
Featuring Guest Speaker: Barbara R. Nicolosi, Executive Director, Act One, Inc.
WHERE: Pauline Books & Media Ctr., 150 E. 52nd St.
New York, NY 10022, Phone: 212-754-1110
WHEN: Thursday, October 28, 2004, 1:30pm
RSVP to manhattan@pauline.org
The Daughters of St. Paul have kindly offered to have me give a talk at their Manhattan bookcenter next week while I am in the city. Here is the info...
MEL'S MOVIE. MTV UPSTARTS. ETERNAL SUNSHINE: REASONS FOR HOPE FROM HOLLYWOOD
Featuring Guest Speaker: Barbara R. Nicolosi, Executive Director, Act One, Inc.
WHERE: Pauline Books & Media Ctr., 150 E. 52nd St.
New York, NY 10022, Phone: 212-754-1110
WHEN: Thursday, October 28, 2004, 1:30pm
RSVP to manhattan@pauline.org
Saturday, October 16, 2004
SEE BARB IN NEW YORK CITY
I have two public events coming up in New York in a couple of weeks. One is more mundane and one is more sublime. Blessed are you if you have a place for both in your storehouse...
Please feel free to copy what follows and forward either or both to anyone you know who might be interested. Hope to see some of you there!
OCTOBER 27,2004, 7pm
"A GOSPEL SPIRITUALITY FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE"
Featuring screenwriter and Executive Director of Act One, Barbara R. Nicolosi
Lambs Theater (basement)
130 West 44th St.
New York, NY 10036
What are the specific spiritual challenges of a career as an actor, writer, artist or musician? How can the rejection, instability, collaboration and celebrity of the artist's life be themselves stepping stones to holiness? Why is authentic Christian community an essential part of both the artistic vocation, and a new Renaissance? What are some positive signs that Hollywood is finding its way back to God?
Ms. Nicolosi is the founding Director of Act One, Inc, a non-profit training
and formation program for Hollywood writers and executives. Now in its
fifth year, Act One keynotes artistry, professionalism, ethics and Christian
spirituality. A screenwriter herself, Ms. Nicolosi is currently writing a Spanish Civil War drama for IMMI Pictures in Hollywood, CA.
Miss Nicolosi has also been featured as a guest or commentator on CNN, CBS, NPR, EWTN, CBN, and in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. She has been a monthly media columnist for Christian Single, Liguorian and the National Catholic Register.
She has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, and a judge for the Humanitas Prize, the Gabriel Awards, the Catholics in Media Award, and the Angelus Student Film Festival.
Refreshments will be available. Suggested donation: $10.00
Please RSVP to:
David Estes - Associate Pastor
Morning Star New York
david.estes@everynation.org
OCTOBER 28, 2004, 6:30pm
"A PRIMER ON SCREENWRITING FOR HOLLYWOOD"
Featuring screenwriter and Executive Director of Act One, Barbara R. Nicolosi
The King's College
(located in the Empire State Building)
350 Fifth Avenue (between 33rd and 34th Street), Lower lobby
How do you know if you are good enough to try and write for mainstream Hollywood? What should you know - as a writer and as a Christian - before getting started? What are the main "notes" that beginning writers are liable to see on their screenplay? What are the cliches and mistakes that make Hollywood scriptreaders want to throw a script out the window?
Barbara Nicolosi has an M.A. from the scriptwriting program at Northwestern University. She has been a Director of Project Development for Paulist Productions, and is the Founder of Act One:Writing for Hollywood, a five year old non-profit program to help beginning Christian screenwriters make a competitive start in mainstream entertainment. In addition to having read hundreds of scripts and treatments, Ms. Nicolosi has optioned two projects, and is currently writing a feature screenplay for IMMI Pictures in Hollywood, CA.
Suggested donation: $15
Please RSVP to elizabeth@actoneprogram.com
I have two public events coming up in New York in a couple of weeks. One is more mundane and one is more sublime. Blessed are you if you have a place for both in your storehouse...
Please feel free to copy what follows and forward either or both to anyone you know who might be interested. Hope to see some of you there!
OCTOBER 27,2004, 7pm
"A GOSPEL SPIRITUALITY FOR CREATIVE PEOPLE"
Featuring screenwriter and Executive Director of Act One, Barbara R. Nicolosi
Lambs Theater (basement)
130 West 44th St.
New York, NY 10036
What are the specific spiritual challenges of a career as an actor, writer, artist or musician? How can the rejection, instability, collaboration and celebrity of the artist's life be themselves stepping stones to holiness? Why is authentic Christian community an essential part of both the artistic vocation, and a new Renaissance? What are some positive signs that Hollywood is finding its way back to God?
Ms. Nicolosi is the founding Director of Act One, Inc, a non-profit training
and formation program for Hollywood writers and executives. Now in its
fifth year, Act One keynotes artistry, professionalism, ethics and Christian
spirituality. A screenwriter herself, Ms. Nicolosi is currently writing a Spanish Civil War drama for IMMI Pictures in Hollywood, CA.
Miss Nicolosi has also been featured as a guest or commentator on CNN, CBS, NPR, EWTN, CBN, and in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune. She has been a monthly media columnist for Christian Single, Liguorian and the National Catholic Register.
She has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, and a judge for the Humanitas Prize, the Gabriel Awards, the Catholics in Media Award, and the Angelus Student Film Festival.
Refreshments will be available. Suggested donation: $10.00
Please RSVP to:
David Estes - Associate Pastor
Morning Star New York
david.estes@everynation.org
OCTOBER 28, 2004, 6:30pm
"A PRIMER ON SCREENWRITING FOR HOLLYWOOD"
Featuring screenwriter and Executive Director of Act One, Barbara R. Nicolosi
The King's College
(located in the Empire State Building)
350 Fifth Avenue (between 33rd and 34th Street), Lower lobby
How do you know if you are good enough to try and write for mainstream Hollywood? What should you know - as a writer and as a Christian - before getting started? What are the main "notes" that beginning writers are liable to see on their screenplay? What are the cliches and mistakes that make Hollywood scriptreaders want to throw a script out the window?
Barbara Nicolosi has an M.A. from the scriptwriting program at Northwestern University. She has been a Director of Project Development for Paulist Productions, and is the Founder of Act One:Writing for Hollywood, a five year old non-profit program to help beginning Christian screenwriters make a competitive start in mainstream entertainment. In addition to having read hundreds of scripts and treatments, Ms. Nicolosi has optioned two projects, and is currently writing a feature screenplay for IMMI Pictures in Hollywood, CA.
Suggested donation: $15
Please RSVP to elizabeth@actoneprogram.com
GOOD PROBLEMS TO HAVE
It's official! Act One will be moving to new offices in December and January.
We have been most kindly housed and nurtured in our first six year by the amazing faith community at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Last year, it became clear that we were growing well-beyond the ability of the church to keep ceding us "just one more office" and just a little bit more administrative support. Everyone kept saying, "These are good problems to have." So, we formed a Board and filed the papers to become a separate non-profit 501c3 and started looking for our next home.
It's not completely in solid rock, so I will wait a few days till it is to tell you all about the great new place God has prepared for us. But, I want to take a moment here to marvel over how far we have come as an organization in just a couple years.
This past year since getting the 501c3 has been about all the organizational details of moving from being a neat little church sub-ministry into being an independent, sustainable corporate entity. I feel like I have earned an honorary MBA with all of the new stuff that I've had to learn just to make this transition.
We needed mission and vision statements, articles of incorporation, corporate bylaws and personnel policies all of which had to be processed through attorneys and various state and federal offices. We had to draw up long-term budgets, short term budgets, and essentially break down every frickin thing we do into a separate entity with its own budget for fundraising. In the last nine months I have learned the difference between a balance statement and a P&L, and have learned that Boards need to see projected budgets quarterly, and how they match up to YTD Actuals.
We have had to hire accountants and a payroll company, get our own bank and creditcard accounts, bulk mail and postal accounts. We had to get health insurance, liability insurance, Directors and Officers insurance and workers comp. In practical terms, running a non-profit for me means quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors, alternating monthly meetings of Writing and Executive program Advisory Boards, and weekly staff meetings.
The most ulcer causing of all the good problems we are lucky to have, has to do with rasing the funds to match our amazing growth. Since Act One was founded, we have moved from being a one and a half person show, to having a staff of 7 full-time, 2 part-time, and a slew of others with whom we contract out work seasonally. Our annual budget has grown exponentially to about six times what it was when we first started up. People keep assuring me that lots of people "out there" will want to support this great thing we're doing, but so far, the hoards of willing check writers haven't exactly been beating our door down. People tell me that we don't ask for help enough.
So, I'm making a point of asking now. This move is the next essential step if Act One is going to be able to meet the demands of our ever expanding alumni network - now 300 strong, as well as add the new programs that everyone seems to be insisting we absolutely must get off the ground. We will be training writers and executives this coming year. Soon, we want to start training producers. Then, directors. And maybe actors.
In terms of fitting out our new offices, we need everything. All of the stuff we have was donated to us when we were owned by the church. Technically, it belongs to them. Besides the fact that we are moving from a space of about 650 square feet to nearly 3000. Beyond desks and chairs, we need to acquire our own computer server and network. I just got the first bid for another good new problem to have - our own phone system in the new building - brace myself - $12,000.
The good news is, we can give tax deductions! (Yeah, what a neat thing to be able to do!) If you are able to help us out - or would like to refer a kindly millionaire who would be amenable to helping us heal the culture - we have set up a page on our website here with some of our immediate needs as we make this next step. It's set up as a Christmas/housewarming list. Buy us a desk - get good kharma and a tax deduction!
You can send a check too. Send to:
Act One, 1763 N Gower St., Hollywood, CA 90028
THANK YOU, if you can help with funds. THANK YOU for any prayers you can send our way. It's scary and exciting being in God's grip...
It's official! Act One will be moving to new offices in December and January.
We have been most kindly housed and nurtured in our first six year by the amazing faith community at Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Last year, it became clear that we were growing well-beyond the ability of the church to keep ceding us "just one more office" and just a little bit more administrative support. Everyone kept saying, "These are good problems to have." So, we formed a Board and filed the papers to become a separate non-profit 501c3 and started looking for our next home.
It's not completely in solid rock, so I will wait a few days till it is to tell you all about the great new place God has prepared for us. But, I want to take a moment here to marvel over how far we have come as an organization in just a couple years.
This past year since getting the 501c3 has been about all the organizational details of moving from being a neat little church sub-ministry into being an independent, sustainable corporate entity. I feel like I have earned an honorary MBA with all of the new stuff that I've had to learn just to make this transition.
We needed mission and vision statements, articles of incorporation, corporate bylaws and personnel policies all of which had to be processed through attorneys and various state and federal offices. We had to draw up long-term budgets, short term budgets, and essentially break down every frickin thing we do into a separate entity with its own budget for fundraising. In the last nine months I have learned the difference between a balance statement and a P&L, and have learned that Boards need to see projected budgets quarterly, and how they match up to YTD Actuals.
We have had to hire accountants and a payroll company, get our own bank and creditcard accounts, bulk mail and postal accounts. We had to get health insurance, liability insurance, Directors and Officers insurance and workers comp. In practical terms, running a non-profit for me means quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors, alternating monthly meetings of Writing and Executive program Advisory Boards, and weekly staff meetings.
The most ulcer causing of all the good problems we are lucky to have, has to do with rasing the funds to match our amazing growth. Since Act One was founded, we have moved from being a one and a half person show, to having a staff of 7 full-time, 2 part-time, and a slew of others with whom we contract out work seasonally. Our annual budget has grown exponentially to about six times what it was when we first started up. People keep assuring me that lots of people "out there" will want to support this great thing we're doing, but so far, the hoards of willing check writers haven't exactly been beating our door down. People tell me that we don't ask for help enough.
So, I'm making a point of asking now. This move is the next essential step if Act One is going to be able to meet the demands of our ever expanding alumni network - now 300 strong, as well as add the new programs that everyone seems to be insisting we absolutely must get off the ground. We will be training writers and executives this coming year. Soon, we want to start training producers. Then, directors. And maybe actors.
In terms of fitting out our new offices, we need everything. All of the stuff we have was donated to us when we were owned by the church. Technically, it belongs to them. Besides the fact that we are moving from a space of about 650 square feet to nearly 3000. Beyond desks and chairs, we need to acquire our own computer server and network. I just got the first bid for another good new problem to have - our own phone system in the new building - brace myself - $12,000.
The good news is, we can give tax deductions! (Yeah, what a neat thing to be able to do!) If you are able to help us out - or would like to refer a kindly millionaire who would be amenable to helping us heal the culture - we have set up a page on our website here with some of our immediate needs as we make this next step. It's set up as a Christmas/housewarming list. Buy us a desk - get good kharma and a tax deduction!
You can send a check too. Send to:
Act One, 1763 N Gower St., Hollywood, CA 90028
THANK YOU, if you can help with funds. THANK YOU for any prayers you can send our way. It's scary and exciting being in God's grip...
Monday, October 11, 2004
Friday, October 08, 2004
OKAY, NY "AXIS OF EVIL" YANKEES, WE KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE...JUST LET US ENJOY THIS FOR A FEW DAYS...
Red Sox Survive Rally, Advance to AL Championship
After Losing Five-Run Lead to Angels, Boston Finishes First Sweep Since 1975
By JIMMY GOLEN, AP
BOSTON (Oct. 8) -- The frat house full of fools will play for a pennant for the second year in a row.
David Ortiz's 10th-inning homer gave the Boston Red Sox an 8-6 victory over the Anaheim Angels on Friday, completing a three-game sweep that sent them into the AL championship series.
The Red Sox have three days to sleep off their celebration while the hated New York Yankees play the Minnesota Twins for the right to meet Boston.
Red Sox Survive Rally, Advance to AL Championship
After Losing Five-Run Lead to Angels, Boston Finishes First Sweep Since 1975
By JIMMY GOLEN, AP
BOSTON (Oct. 8) -- The frat house full of fools will play for a pennant for the second year in a row.
David Ortiz's 10th-inning homer gave the Boston Red Sox an 8-6 victory over the Anaheim Angels on Friday, completing a three-game sweep that sent them into the AL championship series.
The Red Sox have three days to sleep off their celebration while the hated New York Yankees play the Minnesota Twins for the right to meet Boston.
"EX OPERE AUTHORATO?"
Someone posted a great question in the comments of the Joan of Arcadia post below, that I wanted to bring out for broader consideration.
The poster (anonymous, otherwise I'd credit you), noted first that Graham Greene lived a degenerate life, and according to the poster, an unrepentant one. My reading of the post is that the charge is Greene was a Clintonian style misogynist. So the poster asks:
What I am wondering is more generally, when thinking about the subject of literature and faith--and teaching it for that matter--is the author's life relevant? Flannery O'Connor wrote quoting St. Thomas, that "art does not require rectitude of the appetite." Can the life of an artist be so depraved as to diminish or even negate the value of his or her art?
A few thoughts...
I am going to go ahead and say, "No, but..."
I think very often that people who have been cracked wide open and made vulnerable by their own sins, can mediate some astoundingly truthfilled art, that the rest of us would be too buttoned down to even dream of.
An artist can comunicate powerfully whatever life has revealed to them. We call it "the Credo" at Act One, borrowing from Prof. Louis Catron of William and Mary. Whatever a writer would list as "This I know to be true" they can bring forth. Artists who have lived in the grip of the dark side, can speak convincingly, as the Pope said in his Letter to Artists, "about what the world without God looks like." The Pope actually said we owe gratitude to pagan artists who have struggled to truthfully convey the misery of the life without grace.
An artist who has had an experience of the Living God (ie. of Mercy, Goodness, Truth, Beauty,...or even just the warm, fuzzy comfort of a purring kitten kneading her little paws in your side...Did I mention I got a kitten a couple of weeks ago?) can convey that powerfully.
But I would not trust someone to tell me about sin through art, just because they happen to be a prodigious sinner. I think you need sin + grief to make something true and redemptive. You need to have a profound sense of falling short of your nature at the least, and ideally the certainty of having turned away from God ("Against You, You alone have I sinned. What is evil in Your sight, I have done."
My sense is, Graham Greene lived in a continual state of grief. As did Dostoevsky. As did Emily Dickinson. As did Lord Byron.
I remember once when I was in the convent, that I complained to the Provincial, that one of the other sister's was a genius at picking the speck out of everyone else's eye, but couldn't see the log in her own yadda, yadda, and therefore, I didn't think I should have to pay attantion to any of her comments. The Provincial, as it happens, carrying a degree in psychology said, "No, it may be with some people that the truth of their words is all they have to give."
When I first started training Christians as writers, it seemed to me that they were just too virtuous to have anything gritty and real to say. I thought erroneously that sinners have more profound things to say in art. But then one day a lovely woman in Ohio with the shade of suffering just behind her gentle eyes, noted to me that it is not sin that makes someone deep, but suffering. Self-inflcted suffering, ie. the kind that comes from sinning, might sting the most, and in that sense afford the greatest possible depth ("She who is forgiven much, loves much.", but there is no necessary connection between sinning and artistic creativity.
I am reading a book about the connection between artistic talent and psychology, specifically depression, which definitely establishes a connection, but isn't sure if the depression is a result of the demands of creativity, or if creativity is a flight from depression.
I would like to hear from some of you on this.
Someone posted a great question in the comments of the Joan of Arcadia post below, that I wanted to bring out for broader consideration.
The poster (anonymous, otherwise I'd credit you), noted first that Graham Greene lived a degenerate life, and according to the poster, an unrepentant one. My reading of the post is that the charge is Greene was a Clintonian style misogynist. So the poster asks:
What I am wondering is more generally, when thinking about the subject of literature and faith--and teaching it for that matter--is the author's life relevant? Flannery O'Connor wrote quoting St. Thomas, that "art does not require rectitude of the appetite." Can the life of an artist be so depraved as to diminish or even negate the value of his or her art?
A few thoughts...
I am going to go ahead and say, "No, but..."
I think very often that people who have been cracked wide open and made vulnerable by their own sins, can mediate some astoundingly truthfilled art, that the rest of us would be too buttoned down to even dream of.
An artist can comunicate powerfully whatever life has revealed to them. We call it "the Credo" at Act One, borrowing from Prof. Louis Catron of William and Mary. Whatever a writer would list as "This I know to be true" they can bring forth. Artists who have lived in the grip of the dark side, can speak convincingly, as the Pope said in his Letter to Artists, "about what the world without God looks like." The Pope actually said we owe gratitude to pagan artists who have struggled to truthfully convey the misery of the life without grace.
An artist who has had an experience of the Living God (ie. of Mercy, Goodness, Truth, Beauty,...or even just the warm, fuzzy comfort of a purring kitten kneading her little paws in your side...Did I mention I got a kitten a couple of weeks ago?) can convey that powerfully.
But I would not trust someone to tell me about sin through art, just because they happen to be a prodigious sinner. I think you need sin + grief to make something true and redemptive. You need to have a profound sense of falling short of your nature at the least, and ideally the certainty of having turned away from God ("Against You, You alone have I sinned. What is evil in Your sight, I have done."
My sense is, Graham Greene lived in a continual state of grief. As did Dostoevsky. As did Emily Dickinson. As did Lord Byron.
I remember once when I was in the convent, that I complained to the Provincial, that one of the other sister's was a genius at picking the speck out of everyone else's eye, but couldn't see the log in her own yadda, yadda, and therefore, I didn't think I should have to pay attantion to any of her comments. The Provincial, as it happens, carrying a degree in psychology said, "No, it may be with some people that the truth of their words is all they have to give."
When I first started training Christians as writers, it seemed to me that they were just too virtuous to have anything gritty and real to say. I thought erroneously that sinners have more profound things to say in art. But then one day a lovely woman in Ohio with the shade of suffering just behind her gentle eyes, noted to me that it is not sin that makes someone deep, but suffering. Self-inflcted suffering, ie. the kind that comes from sinning, might sting the most, and in that sense afford the greatest possible depth ("She who is forgiven much, loves much.", but there is no necessary connection between sinning and artistic creativity.
I am reading a book about the connection between artistic talent and psychology, specifically depression, which definitely establishes a connection, but isn't sure if the depression is a result of the demands of creativity, or if creativity is a flight from depression.
I would like to hear from some of you on this.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
LISTENER LINK for October 4, 2004
[note from Barb: I am now going to be doing a spot every Friday morning at [good frickin' grief!] 8am CT. Here's the promo piece:]
New Weekly Feature Friday Mornings on Morning Air™
There's no business like show business! Morning Air™ now includes a weekly entertainment report every Friday morning by Barbara Nicolosi, a Hollywood screenwriter, film and television consultant and media maven. Tune in to
Morning Air™ on Friday mornings to get Barbara's take on what's new in TV, music and movies, and insight to help you and your family make appropriate entertainment choices that are both fun and faith-affirming.
As always, other weekly features on Morning Air™ include Dick Lyles with "Faith in the Workplace" on Mondays; "Time Management" with Dave Durand on Tuesdays; and "Rome to Home" with Christine Mugridge on Wednesdays.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information on Relevant Radio™ programming visit www.relevantradio.com.
Thank you for listening to Relevant Radio™. May God bless you as you continue to bridge the gap between faith and everyday life!
[note from Barb: I am now going to be doing a spot every Friday morning at [good frickin' grief!] 8am CT. Here's the promo piece:]
New Weekly Feature Friday Mornings on Morning Air™
There's no business like show business! Morning Air™ now includes a weekly entertainment report every Friday morning by Barbara Nicolosi, a Hollywood screenwriter, film and television consultant and media maven. Tune in to
Morning Air™ on Friday mornings to get Barbara's take on what's new in TV, music and movies, and insight to help you and your family make appropriate entertainment choices that are both fun and faith-affirming.
As always, other weekly features on Morning Air™ include Dick Lyles with "Faith in the Workplace" on Mondays; "Time Management" with Dave Durand on Tuesdays; and "Rome to Home" with Christine Mugridge on Wednesdays.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information on Relevant Radio™ programming visit www.relevantradio.com.
Thank you for listening to Relevant Radio™. May God bless you as you continue to bridge the gap between faith and everyday life!
ROCK ON, DAUGHTER OF GOD!
Has anybody noticed some of the cool things showing up on Joan of Arcadia so far this season?
For example, the season opener introduced an ex-nun character who agrees to instruct Joan's mother in religion, using a literature based catechesis! So, in the second episode, there is Joan's mother talking about how great Graham Greene is! Barbara Hall told me that the fan websites for the show have all been buzzing about who Graham Greene is, and which of his books would make a good first read. How cool is that?! There was also a point in the first episode in which Joan's character opens a copy of Howards End and reads the two word preface out loud: "Only connect." (It's probably just a coincidence, but this is our Act One motto, btw, and the title of our alumni newsletter. I'm just saying...)
See, class, this is one of the reasons we want to be in Hollywood...
About five years ago, I was involved with starting a special RCIA (that's Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) program for people in the entertainment industry. It seemd to me that, as artists, they particularly respond to narrative. And also, I wanted to introduce them to some other really smart and talented artists who believe this Christian stuff. (There aren't a lot of folks in the biz who do, so part of the battle in RCIA here is in fighting antagonistic peer pressure.) We also use the Catechism and Vatican II so that nearly every lesson involves a story and then doctrine.
The program has been flourishing over the last five years. It's very smart, and it asks the candidates and catechumens to do much more reading,. writing and thinking than any other RCIA program probably anywhere. But they love it. And we always end up attracting twice as many Catholics who want to come just because they haven't ever been catechized, or certainly not in a smart literature-based way.
Barbara Hall was one of our students a couple of years ago, and so, now, the whole world gets to hear that the coolest way to study Christianity is to read some great novels.
Several people have asked me for the curriculum we use. I will happily send it to anyone who requests it by email, but here are a few of the titles we have used, along with the class topics in which we use them:
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh - "That Catholic Thing"
Silence, Shushaka Endo - "The Problem of Suffering"
"The Grand Inquisitor" (from The Brothers Karamazov), Fyodor Doestevsky - "Sin and Temptation"
The River, Flannery O'Connor - "Baptism and Grace"
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene - "The Priesthood"
Babette's Feast, Isak Denison - "The Mass and the Eucharist"
The Reed of God, Caryll Houselander - "Mary the Mother of God"
The Mission (WB pictures) - "Conscience"
The Inferno, Danta - "The Last Things"
It's a very wonderful program, and it smashes early on the lingering prejudice some of the candidates come in with that Christianity is anti-intellectual.
The only downside to the program, is that when our students come in to the Church, they are shocked by the anti-intellectualism they find in the Sunday liturgy. As one of my former students noted to me after being in the Church a year, "Father's homilies are kind of embarrassing, aren't they? It's like he is talking to fifth graders."
Has anybody noticed some of the cool things showing up on Joan of Arcadia so far this season?
For example, the season opener introduced an ex-nun character who agrees to instruct Joan's mother in religion, using a literature based catechesis! So, in the second episode, there is Joan's mother talking about how great Graham Greene is! Barbara Hall told me that the fan websites for the show have all been buzzing about who Graham Greene is, and which of his books would make a good first read. How cool is that?! There was also a point in the first episode in which Joan's character opens a copy of Howards End and reads the two word preface out loud: "Only connect." (It's probably just a coincidence, but this is our Act One motto, btw, and the title of our alumni newsletter. I'm just saying...)
See, class, this is one of the reasons we want to be in Hollywood...
About five years ago, I was involved with starting a special RCIA (that's Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) program for people in the entertainment industry. It seemd to me that, as artists, they particularly respond to narrative. And also, I wanted to introduce them to some other really smart and talented artists who believe this Christian stuff. (There aren't a lot of folks in the biz who do, so part of the battle in RCIA here is in fighting antagonistic peer pressure.) We also use the Catechism and Vatican II so that nearly every lesson involves a story and then doctrine.
The program has been flourishing over the last five years. It's very smart, and it asks the candidates and catechumens to do much more reading,. writing and thinking than any other RCIA program probably anywhere. But they love it. And we always end up attracting twice as many Catholics who want to come just because they haven't ever been catechized, or certainly not in a smart literature-based way.
Barbara Hall was one of our students a couple of years ago, and so, now, the whole world gets to hear that the coolest way to study Christianity is to read some great novels.
Several people have asked me for the curriculum we use. I will happily send it to anyone who requests it by email, but here are a few of the titles we have used, along with the class topics in which we use them:
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh - "That Catholic Thing"
Silence, Shushaka Endo - "The Problem of Suffering"
"The Grand Inquisitor" (from The Brothers Karamazov), Fyodor Doestevsky - "Sin and Temptation"
The River, Flannery O'Connor - "Baptism and Grace"
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene - "The Priesthood"
Babette's Feast, Isak Denison - "The Mass and the Eucharist"
The Reed of God, Caryll Houselander - "Mary the Mother of God"
The Mission (WB pictures) - "Conscience"
The Inferno, Danta - "The Last Things"
It's a very wonderful program, and it smashes early on the lingering prejudice some of the candidates come in with that Christianity is anti-intellectual.
The only downside to the program, is that when our students come in to the Church, they are shocked by the anti-intellectualism they find in the Sunday liturgy. As one of my former students noted to me after being in the Church a year, "Father's homilies are kind of embarrassing, aren't they? It's like he is talking to fifth graders."
[FROM THE LOTUS POSITION] "HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....."
Red Sox One Win Away From Advancing Past Angels
Martinez Pitches Seven Strong Innings in Boston's 8-3 Win
By JOHN NADEL, AP Sports
ANAHEIM, Calif. (Oct. 6) -- Pedro Martinez did his part, the bullpen did theirs and now the Boston Red Sox are heading home with a big lead in the AL playoffs.
Martinez rebounded from a wretched September by pitching seven effective innings and Manny Ramirez hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly that sent the wild-card Red Sox over the Anaheim Angels 8-3 Wednesday night for a 2-0 edge.
Red Sox One Win Away From Advancing Past Angels
Martinez Pitches Seven Strong Innings in Boston's 8-3 Win
By JOHN NADEL, AP Sports
ANAHEIM, Calif. (Oct. 6) -- Pedro Martinez did his part, the bullpen did theirs and now the Boston Red Sox are heading home with a big lead in the AL playoffs.
Martinez rebounded from a wretched September by pitching seven effective innings and Manny Ramirez hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly that sent the wild-card Red Sox over the Anaheim Angels 8-3 Wednesday night for a 2-0 edge.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
BEAUTY AND THE CHURCH, PT II
Here's the second part of my series for the National Catholic Register about Beauty and the Church/Liturgy/Priesthood. I must say, it was an inestimable honor to have my article appear on the same page of the Register as His Serene Ineffablensss, Mark Shea, Magnate of St. Blog's parish. ("Now, O Lord, let your servant go in peace...")
Because The Register has a way of removing articles after I link to them, I am going to put the full text here. Hopefully, soon, I will take the thirty seconds to email Tom Allen about getting my articles posted at Catholic Exchange after they have appeared in print the way I used to do with Liguorian.
So, here it is...
Beauty Will Save the World
National Catholic Register
Oct. 3-9, 2004
Near the end of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky perceived that the frameworks of human society were crumbling.
Church, state, the family, academia, the sciences — all of them would lose their authority with future generations. With prophetic clarity, he wrote that, as all other conduits of meaning lost their power, "Beauty will save the world." Why? We must figure this out, because the answer will give us the energy to make the sacrifices that the restoration of beauty in the Church will demand.
What does beauty have to do with salvation, and what should it mean to the Church’s composers, musicians, artists and pastors?
In his great fable Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis includes a haunting passage that tries to get at the way beauty feels in us. The young princess, Psyche, tells her sister that beauty fills her soul with something that is both happy and sad.
She says, "It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on the happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine … where we couldn’t see the village or the palace. Do you remember? The color and the smell, and looking across at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, ‘Psyche, come!’"
This kind of longing is itself a religious experience. The Holy Father noted in his 1999 "Letter to Artists" that the yearning that proceeds from an encounter with beauty is the unique source of a vital and saving "enthusiasm." This sense of enthusiasm comes from the original Greek meaning of the word for moments in which the gods literally took possession of certain people, empowering, energizing and animating them with a divine vision. The Pope notes, "People of today and tomorrow need this enthusiasm if they are to meet and master the critical challenges which stand before us. Thanks to this enthusiasm, every time it loses its way, humanity will be able to lift itself up again and set out on the right path."
There is a desperate need in the Church for works of art that can summon and foster this kind of holy longing and saving enthusiasm. From the hymns that we sing, to the homilies that are preached, to the environment around the worshipping community — all of these should be evaluated from an aesthetic standard, as well as from theological and canonical ones. The arts can connect people to God and each other with a potency that exceeds theological or catechetical study. Woe to us as a Church if we fail to harness their power.
A commitment to beauty is meaningless without a requisite commitment to the things that beauty demands. If we are going to ever have beautiful things in the Church again, we have to change a number of things in the way we operate. The Church will not be the patron of the arts again without a bit of elitism and sacrifice.
Beauty is rare and exclusive. And the next conclusion is unavoidable: The people who can produce beautiful art are also rare. Artistic talent has nothing to do with the qualities of a person’s heart or the level of their devotion. For most pastors, the most difficult aspect of leading the movement to restore beauty in the Church won’t be writing checks, but will be confronting those very nice people who should never be allowed anywhere within 100 feet of an open microphone.
I once belonged to a parish that was tortured weekly by two of the nicest Catholic folks you might ever meet. "Tone-deaf Charlie" and "Tempo-free Doris" had been strumming their guitars, banging their tambourines and trilling dreadfully at the Sunday-morning liturgy for as long as anyone could remember. In my nightmares, I still hear Doris chiding all of us wide-eyed sufferers, "Come on now, you all know this song: ‘Awaaaaaaaaaake from your slumber! Ariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise from your sleeeeeeeeeeep!’"
They were quite awful. Finally, a group of us parishioners recruited a sponsor and a few music grad students from the local university to stop the insanity and bring some beauty to our Sunday Mass. But when we brought the fully funded proposal to our pastor, he killed it. "I would never want to offend Charlie and Doris. Maybe their voices aren’t that good, but their hearts are pleasing to God."
This was nothing but cowardice wearing a mask of charity. It isn’t charity to spare the feelings of two people while flaying the sensibilities and pastoral needs of hundreds of others.
Beauty is in the harmonious selection of details. In a liturgical sense, it means things like getting the lighting just right and having flowers that are, well, alive, and tastefully arranged. It means vestments that are cleaned and ironed, and vessels that are polished. It means all the elements should be coordinated to be either beautiful in themselves, or at least so well-ordered that they will not attract any attention from the beautiful things going on at the heart of the liturgy.
This is why hi-tops and wrinkled vestments on the altar servers are not acceptable. These things, in their inappropriateness, have a jarring effect and take the people out of the liturgical moment.
Beauty is expensive to produce. "You get what you pay for" is nowhere more true than in the choir lofts of most churches. My sister is a professional opera singer. She gets $100 a week to cantor at the local Episcopalian church, which has an endowed chair for a mezzo soprano. At our church, they want her to sing for free and, as she has said to me with a shrug, "They want me to sing crap." The music in our churches will continue to be abysmal until we make paying for it as much a reflex as paying for the lights and heat.
It’s a matter of adopting a new priority. There will never be beautiful music at Mass by accident or coincidence.
But even having talented people is not enough. Beauty requires lavish investments in time and patience, too. There is only one way to deliver a homily that will work on people as a powerful piece of oratory. There is only one way for a lector to get to the point of proclaiming the Word of God so that the hearers can absorb its deepest meanings. There is only one way for an organist to be able to deliver a haunting melody and a singer to trill the right note in the right tempo. Rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. We have to get it through our heads that we aren’t just paying our artists to perform at the 10 o’clock Mass. We are paying them for all the time they need to invest to perform at the 10 o’clock Mass. Again, a rethinking is required.
In terms of liturgical environment, a commitment to beauty will mean the overall setting for the liturgy tends to help the people get past their distractions and enter into a climate of prayer. Admittedly, this will be nearly impossible in the church-in-the-round buildings that have proliferated in the past 30 years.
In its buildings, the Church could at least take a cue from the secular side. There’s a reason the best theaters and opera houses aren’t built in the round. The point is to gather the audience’s attention toward the action for which they are paying. No one who goes to see Shakespeare wants to be distracted by the audience. Why would this dynamic be less in effect for people who come to encounter the divine?
Beauty is not necessarily just found in old things, but many old things are beautiful. The best notion is from the Scriptures, "Blessed is he who can bring forth from his storehouse both the old and the new."
In my years with the nuns, we used to have the custom at the motherhouse of saying the rosary outside together from May to October. Altogether, we would be about 100 nuns, walking in rows around the convent’s grounds. We’d end by chanting the Litany of Mary. I used to love it best in the Latin. (I had studied Latin for two years, so it was more than just the texture and the sounds; it was the meanings, too.) I will never forget the power of those times of prayer: the coolness of the summer evenings, the colorful flowers in the garden out of which rose the life-size marble statue of the Madonna, the voices of the sisters, some of them adding spontaneous harmony.
I used to feel my heart swelling with the psalms, "How good it is for us to be here!"
I imagine that, had it been photographed, that image of the group of us, all looking the same in our habits and chanting the same old words, would be horrific to some people. It would smack of the loss of individuality and spontaneity. But I didn’t find that ritual diminishing. I found it comforting. There was something so steadying in the knowledge that, for 50 years, our sisters had been singing together on a hill outside Boston, calling down God’s love and mercy on all the hoards of people of the city and of the world.
Some old things are very, very good.
We need to be clear that the people of God do not attend the liturgy as people going to watch a performance. They are not the audience, but rather the players. The members of the community who organize the liturgy are simply and humbly serving the work of art that is the joint creation of the people of God. The goals of their efforts are to rouse the assembly to reverence plus compunction.
In the closing of the Pope’s "Letter to Artists" are words that should intently be applied to the work of the progression from beauty to wonder to enthusiasm:
In this sense, it has been said with profound insight, "beauty will save the world."
Here's the second part of my series for the National Catholic Register about Beauty and the Church/Liturgy/Priesthood. I must say, it was an inestimable honor to have my article appear on the same page of the Register as His Serene Ineffablensss, Mark Shea, Magnate of St. Blog's parish. ("Now, O Lord, let your servant go in peace...")
Because The Register has a way of removing articles after I link to them, I am going to put the full text here. Hopefully, soon, I will take the thirty seconds to email Tom Allen about getting my articles posted at Catholic Exchange after they have appeared in print the way I used to do with Liguorian.
So, here it is...
Beauty Will Save the World
National Catholic Register
Oct. 3-9, 2004
Near the end of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky perceived that the frameworks of human society were crumbling.
Church, state, the family, academia, the sciences — all of them would lose their authority with future generations. With prophetic clarity, he wrote that, as all other conduits of meaning lost their power, "Beauty will save the world." Why? We must figure this out, because the answer will give us the energy to make the sacrifices that the restoration of beauty in the Church will demand.
What does beauty have to do with salvation, and what should it mean to the Church’s composers, musicians, artists and pastors?
In his great fable Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis includes a haunting passage that tries to get at the way beauty feels in us. The young princess, Psyche, tells her sister that beauty fills her soul with something that is both happy and sad.
She says, "It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on the happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine … where we couldn’t see the village or the palace. Do you remember? The color and the smell, and looking across at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, ‘Psyche, come!’"
This kind of longing is itself a religious experience. The Holy Father noted in his 1999 "Letter to Artists" that the yearning that proceeds from an encounter with beauty is the unique source of a vital and saving "enthusiasm." This sense of enthusiasm comes from the original Greek meaning of the word for moments in which the gods literally took possession of certain people, empowering, energizing and animating them with a divine vision. The Pope notes, "People of today and tomorrow need this enthusiasm if they are to meet and master the critical challenges which stand before us. Thanks to this enthusiasm, every time it loses its way, humanity will be able to lift itself up again and set out on the right path."
There is a desperate need in the Church for works of art that can summon and foster this kind of holy longing and saving enthusiasm. From the hymns that we sing, to the homilies that are preached, to the environment around the worshipping community — all of these should be evaluated from an aesthetic standard, as well as from theological and canonical ones. The arts can connect people to God and each other with a potency that exceeds theological or catechetical study. Woe to us as a Church if we fail to harness their power.
A commitment to beauty is meaningless without a requisite commitment to the things that beauty demands. If we are going to ever have beautiful things in the Church again, we have to change a number of things in the way we operate. The Church will not be the patron of the arts again without a bit of elitism and sacrifice.
Beauty is rare and exclusive. And the next conclusion is unavoidable: The people who can produce beautiful art are also rare. Artistic talent has nothing to do with the qualities of a person’s heart or the level of their devotion. For most pastors, the most difficult aspect of leading the movement to restore beauty in the Church won’t be writing checks, but will be confronting those very nice people who should never be allowed anywhere within 100 feet of an open microphone.
I once belonged to a parish that was tortured weekly by two of the nicest Catholic folks you might ever meet. "Tone-deaf Charlie" and "Tempo-free Doris" had been strumming their guitars, banging their tambourines and trilling dreadfully at the Sunday-morning liturgy for as long as anyone could remember. In my nightmares, I still hear Doris chiding all of us wide-eyed sufferers, "Come on now, you all know this song: ‘Awaaaaaaaaaake from your slumber! Ariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise from your sleeeeeeeeeeep!’"
They were quite awful. Finally, a group of us parishioners recruited a sponsor and a few music grad students from the local university to stop the insanity and bring some beauty to our Sunday Mass. But when we brought the fully funded proposal to our pastor, he killed it. "I would never want to offend Charlie and Doris. Maybe their voices aren’t that good, but their hearts are pleasing to God."
This was nothing but cowardice wearing a mask of charity. It isn’t charity to spare the feelings of two people while flaying the sensibilities and pastoral needs of hundreds of others.
Beauty is in the harmonious selection of details. In a liturgical sense, it means things like getting the lighting just right and having flowers that are, well, alive, and tastefully arranged. It means vestments that are cleaned and ironed, and vessels that are polished. It means all the elements should be coordinated to be either beautiful in themselves, or at least so well-ordered that they will not attract any attention from the beautiful things going on at the heart of the liturgy.
This is why hi-tops and wrinkled vestments on the altar servers are not acceptable. These things, in their inappropriateness, have a jarring effect and take the people out of the liturgical moment.
Beauty is expensive to produce. "You get what you pay for" is nowhere more true than in the choir lofts of most churches. My sister is a professional opera singer. She gets $100 a week to cantor at the local Episcopalian church, which has an endowed chair for a mezzo soprano. At our church, they want her to sing for free and, as she has said to me with a shrug, "They want me to sing crap." The music in our churches will continue to be abysmal until we make paying for it as much a reflex as paying for the lights and heat.
It’s a matter of adopting a new priority. There will never be beautiful music at Mass by accident or coincidence.
But even having talented people is not enough. Beauty requires lavish investments in time and patience, too. There is only one way to deliver a homily that will work on people as a powerful piece of oratory. There is only one way for a lector to get to the point of proclaiming the Word of God so that the hearers can absorb its deepest meanings. There is only one way for an organist to be able to deliver a haunting melody and a singer to trill the right note in the right tempo. Rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal. We have to get it through our heads that we aren’t just paying our artists to perform at the 10 o’clock Mass. We are paying them for all the time they need to invest to perform at the 10 o’clock Mass. Again, a rethinking is required.
In terms of liturgical environment, a commitment to beauty will mean the overall setting for the liturgy tends to help the people get past their distractions and enter into a climate of prayer. Admittedly, this will be nearly impossible in the church-in-the-round buildings that have proliferated in the past 30 years.
In its buildings, the Church could at least take a cue from the secular side. There’s a reason the best theaters and opera houses aren’t built in the round. The point is to gather the audience’s attention toward the action for which they are paying. No one who goes to see Shakespeare wants to be distracted by the audience. Why would this dynamic be less in effect for people who come to encounter the divine?
Beauty is not necessarily just found in old things, but many old things are beautiful. The best notion is from the Scriptures, "Blessed is he who can bring forth from his storehouse both the old and the new."
In my years with the nuns, we used to have the custom at the motherhouse of saying the rosary outside together from May to October. Altogether, we would be about 100 nuns, walking in rows around the convent’s grounds. We’d end by chanting the Litany of Mary. I used to love it best in the Latin. (I had studied Latin for two years, so it was more than just the texture and the sounds; it was the meanings, too.) I will never forget the power of those times of prayer: the coolness of the summer evenings, the colorful flowers in the garden out of which rose the life-size marble statue of the Madonna, the voices of the sisters, some of them adding spontaneous harmony.
I used to feel my heart swelling with the psalms, "How good it is for us to be here!"
I imagine that, had it been photographed, that image of the group of us, all looking the same in our habits and chanting the same old words, would be horrific to some people. It would smack of the loss of individuality and spontaneity. But I didn’t find that ritual diminishing. I found it comforting. There was something so steadying in the knowledge that, for 50 years, our sisters had been singing together on a hill outside Boston, calling down God’s love and mercy on all the hoards of people of the city and of the world.
Some old things are very, very good.
We need to be clear that the people of God do not attend the liturgy as people going to watch a performance. They are not the audience, but rather the players. The members of the community who organize the liturgy are simply and humbly serving the work of art that is the joint creation of the people of God. The goals of their efforts are to rouse the assembly to reverence plus compunction.
In the closing of the Pope’s "Letter to Artists" are words that should intently be applied to the work of the progression from beauty to wonder to enthusiasm:
In this sense, it has been said with profound insight, "beauty will save the world."
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
WHO CARES ABOUT DEBATES? [PANT, PANT, PANT...]
ANAHEIM, Calif. (Oct. 5) -- Curt Schilling and the Boston Red Sox got the jump on Anaheim in the AL playoffs. Perhaps that's how the Angels prefer it.
Schilling pitched 6 2/3 effective innings, Manny Ramirez and Kevin Millar homered during a seven-run burst, and the Red Sox beat the Angels 9-3 Tuesday in Game 1....
ANAHEIM, Calif. (Oct. 5) -- Curt Schilling and the Boston Red Sox got the jump on Anaheim in the AL playoffs. Perhaps that's how the Angels prefer it.
Schilling pitched 6 2/3 effective innings, Manny Ramirez and Kevin Millar homered during a seven-run burst, and the Red Sox beat the Angels 9-3 Tuesday in Game 1....
EMILY MONDAY...A DAY LATE
579
I had been hungry, all the Years --
My Noon had Come -- to dine --
I trembling drew the Table near --
And touched the Curious Wine --
'Twas this on Tables I had seen --
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope -- for Mine --
I did not know the ample Bread --
'Twas so unlike the Crumb
The Birds and I, had often shared
In Nature's -- Dining Room --
The Plenty hurt me -- 'twas so new --
Myself felt ill -- and odd --
As Berry -- of a Mountain Bush --
Transplanted -- to a Road --
Nor was I hungry -- so I found
That Hunger -- was a way
Of Persons outside Windows --
The Entering -- takes away --
579
I had been hungry, all the Years --
My Noon had Come -- to dine --
I trembling drew the Table near --
And touched the Curious Wine --
'Twas this on Tables I had seen --
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope -- for Mine --
I did not know the ample Bread --
'Twas so unlike the Crumb
The Birds and I, had often shared
In Nature's -- Dining Room --
The Plenty hurt me -- 'twas so new --
Myself felt ill -- and odd --
As Berry -- of a Mountain Bush --
Transplanted -- to a Road --
Nor was I hungry -- so I found
That Hunger -- was a way
Of Persons outside Windows --
The Entering -- takes away --
Monday, October 04, 2004
"Starting"?
"Cinema, the world's youngest muse, is starting to show distinct signs of dimentia... The world has a fever. Societies are ill and frightened. The cinema feels it and - not knowing how to deal with the disease - pretends there is no fever and so continues to play the waltz on the modern day Titanic."
(Polish director, Agnieszka Holland, speaking at the Dutch Film Fest, 9/26/04)
"Cinema, the world's youngest muse, is starting to show distinct signs of dimentia... The world has a fever. Societies are ill and frightened. The cinema feels it and - not knowing how to deal with the disease - pretends there is no fever and so continues to play the waltz on the modern day Titanic."
(Polish director, Agnieszka Holland, speaking at the Dutch Film Fest, 9/26/04)
Friday, October 01, 2004
"JESUS,... HOLLYWOOD"
(Got the above method of prayer from my fav spiritual writer, Caryll Houselander. She says, when you don't know what to ask for, don't even try. Just bring "whatever it is" into God's presence.)
It's 6:53am and I'm already up and running. Just did a half hour on Relevant Radio in our new weekly "Hollywood Update" spot, and now I'm out the door to the first annual National Media Prayer Breakfast, happening in about 90 minutes in Beverly Hills.
The point of the day is to lift up everyone who works in media, the arts and entertainment; to pray for conversion and overall fleshiness of hearts, and to offer up the work our of hands. Lots of cool people will be there today, praying from the heart of this industry, for the people of this industry, and the audience whom we serve.
Please join us from wherever you are today, in praying for artists, writers, directors, executives, actors, journalists, cinematographers - everybody above and below the line who labors in this vitally important arena.
(Got the above method of prayer from my fav spiritual writer, Caryll Houselander. She says, when you don't know what to ask for, don't even try. Just bring "whatever it is" into God's presence.)
It's 6:53am and I'm already up and running. Just did a half hour on Relevant Radio in our new weekly "Hollywood Update" spot, and now I'm out the door to the first annual National Media Prayer Breakfast, happening in about 90 minutes in Beverly Hills.
The point of the day is to lift up everyone who works in media, the arts and entertainment; to pray for conversion and overall fleshiness of hearts, and to offer up the work our of hands. Lots of cool people will be there today, praying from the heart of this industry, for the people of this industry, and the audience whom we serve.
Please join us from wherever you are today, in praying for artists, writers, directors, executives, actors, journalists, cinematographers - everybody above and below the line who labors in this vitally important arena.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
DISASTROUS QUIBBLING?
I admit to being sadly remiss in the study of plate-techtonics and geological, uh, stuff. Undoubetedly, this is why I never heard the word "fore-shock" before this weeek. Yet, in the last two days I've heard it at least five times from the TV weather and news guys.
We're having our CA paradise version of FL hurricanes and mid-west tornados these days - earthquakes have been rumbling the left-coast lately. Nice big rumbly ones that can be felt for hundreds of miles from their epicenters (another term that I managed to grow up for thirty years in New England without ever using once in a sentence).
Anyway, the geologists are telling us that the first 5.9 quake Monday was a singular stand alone event, but that the 5.2 yesterday south of the first one, was an after-shock of the 5.9. However, they also are noting that an after-shock can be a fore-shock of another quake, and that we have a one in twenty chance that there will be another big after-shock making the quakes a series.
At first, I was confused as to how geologists would distinguish between fore-shocks and stand alone earth quakes, until an exhuberant geologist from Cal Tech (I think) explained that we can't know if a rumbler is a stand alone or a fore-shock until a period has gone by with either another rumbler, or else nothing. And some times it might be months or weeks until we can really say for sure. But that sometimes, what looks like a stand alone might really be just an unfulfilled fore-shock. And then, of course, sometimes, a rumbler might be a fore-shock whose normal trajectory is subverted by another random event like for example a disconnected geological phenomenon rendering it in actual fact ultimately a stand-alone.
(Aren't you all glad we have science to be certain about instead of just the immeasurable uncertainties of religious faith?)
The geologist on TV this morning was particularly urgent that we all know that if a big quake happens along the fault in the next few days, that we should all consider it an after-shock and not a singular stand alone rumbler.
I'll try to remember that as my cat and I are falling through four floors of our apartment building, sofas and bookshelves raining down all around us.
I admit to being sadly remiss in the study of plate-techtonics and geological, uh, stuff. Undoubetedly, this is why I never heard the word "fore-shock" before this weeek. Yet, in the last two days I've heard it at least five times from the TV weather and news guys.
We're having our CA paradise version of FL hurricanes and mid-west tornados these days - earthquakes have been rumbling the left-coast lately. Nice big rumbly ones that can be felt for hundreds of miles from their epicenters (another term that I managed to grow up for thirty years in New England without ever using once in a sentence).
Anyway, the geologists are telling us that the first 5.9 quake Monday was a singular stand alone event, but that the 5.2 yesterday south of the first one, was an after-shock of the 5.9. However, they also are noting that an after-shock can be a fore-shock of another quake, and that we have a one in twenty chance that there will be another big after-shock making the quakes a series.
At first, I was confused as to how geologists would distinguish between fore-shocks and stand alone earth quakes, until an exhuberant geologist from Cal Tech (I think) explained that we can't know if a rumbler is a stand alone or a fore-shock until a period has gone by with either another rumbler, or else nothing. And some times it might be months or weeks until we can really say for sure. But that sometimes, what looks like a stand alone might really be just an unfulfilled fore-shock. And then, of course, sometimes, a rumbler might be a fore-shock whose normal trajectory is subverted by another random event like for example a disconnected geological phenomenon rendering it in actual fact ultimately a stand-alone.
(Aren't you all glad we have science to be certain about instead of just the immeasurable uncertainties of religious faith?)
The geologist on TV this morning was particularly urgent that we all know that if a big quake happens along the fault in the next few days, that we should all consider it an after-shock and not a singular stand alone rumbler.
I'll try to remember that as my cat and I are falling through four floors of our apartment building, sofas and bookshelves raining down all around us.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
TWO STORIES ABOUT NOT GETTING IT
It's "Starting Out in Hollywood 101" class. Here are two questions for the final exam based on real events that have happened to me in the last month.
A) Scenario: A moderately wealthy Christian from some homey place in flyover, decides enough is enough. Without even waiting to buy a white horse and shining armor, he swings into Los Angeles and starts taking meetings with anybody who will listen to him. "It's time for things in the entertainment industry to change," he proclaims with a sincere sense of mission. "No more banging on doors at the studios and networks. We need to stop begging and find creative new ways for Christians to make entertainment!"
Do you agree, why or why not?
B) Scenario: A young woman, with the ink barely dry on her Comm Studies degree from a small Christian college, is certain that God has called her to change television. With a boldness - some might call it gall - borne of religious conviction, she attends a Christian fellowship event, intent on making a connection with a famous, successful, and recenlty Emmy nominated television show-runner. While the everyone at the event is eating dinner, the TV writer wanna-be makes her way to the head table, kneels beside the show-runner and, after a few words of intense flattery, announces, "I am a Christian writer and have real talent. I'm ready to come on board your show and support you in what you are trying to do. Can you tell your agent to take a call from my agent about setting up a meeting for me?"
Is this a stunning coup or professional suicide? Why or why not?
Okay, class. Grades time.
If you think that either of these two Christians has hit upon a winning strategy for cultural renewal, you flunk.
If you think this kind of approach is bold instead of self-defeatingly stupid, you flunk and get expelled.
If any part of you feels the least bit of admiration for them and wishes more Christians would follow suit, you flunk, get expelled and will have your name smeared around our imaginary campus in the most rapacious graffiti.
NOTHING CREATIVE ABOUT CUTTING CORNERS
The first example occurred two weeks ago. A very well-meaning and godly man with pastoral credentials, arrived in Hollywood zealous to fix things here fast. I sat in a room with the leaders of four other Christian entertainment ministries, as the man proclaimed with a Moses-like light radiating off his face, that what was needed to fix the culture is ways around the networks' and studios' system.
He went on to suggest a few of his creative ideas...
...We should put out a national call for the most-talented Christian kids in colleges everywhere. We should get a thousand of them to submit to a kind of talent testing contest, and then choose the top twenty to come to Hollywood. Then, we put them all in a room, and have them come up with new ideas for television shows.
[response of Christian ministry leaders with glazed eyes: "Uh, no."]
...We should allocate a cable station, and start lighting Christian theater company productions for broadcast. Eventually, talented Christians everywhere will know that they have a place to air their own kind of programming!
[response of CML's with a kind of horror, "Oh, no..." (and the follow-up, "Have you heard of PAX?)]
...We should have a script contest to find the best projects "out there" and then work on getting them produced.
[response of CML's, "There is no there out there."]
Let's get to the bottom of the errors in this man's thinking. We DON'T need "creative ways" for Christians to find success in Hollywood. We need to do it THE way. We need to do what everybody has to do, just as well, and arguably even better. It takes time, lots of it. It takes paying our dues. There won't be anything sneaky or clever about it. The cleverness must all be in our work.
FAVORS ARE FOR PARTIES, NOT CAREERS
It isn't "bold" to be absurd. The young female writer in example two may indeed be talented, I don't know, but she read a stupid book somewhere that told her getting in people's faces is the way into Hollywood. It isn't. And the problem is, trying to bully your way in by playing "the Christian card" with a fellow believer, is the biggest red-flag you can wave in the Christian community of Hollywood. It freaks us all out. The weird sense of entitlement that we find in so many Christians who arrive here every day is shockingly disrespectful.
It's like, imagine if I was a great neuro-surgeon at Mass General, and one day, you, say a junior high school teacher, met me at a lunch counter. And suppose you said, "Hey, I heard you were a Christian. So am I. We need more Christians in medicine, so I decided I'm gonna do it. Can you get me into doing some brain surgery tomorrow?"
No, I'm not being facetious. It's eggzackly like that.
This happened the other night at the Barbara Hall event at Inter-Mission. In the end, this particular young writer not only blew it with Barbara, who was - God love her - just resignedly bemused at being accosted over her salmonn and spinach, but then, she accosted me afterward for shutting down the assault. After I had quietly informed her that dinner was not the place to pitch our guest, she persisted trying to get a promise of help from Barb, until I finally said, "Please stop. We don't do that here." So, after dinner, the young writer waited around to inform me with holy indignation that I had violated her, and that she was only trying to do Jesus' bidding. She questioned me with narrow eyes, 'And whose cause are YOU trying to promote?!"
I tried to tell her that no show-runner, ever, ever, ever, would agree to call their agent for an unknown, unrecommended writer who appeared kneeling and flattering at a banquet table, but she wouldn't hear me. She actually accused me of not having faith in God's power.
I share these stories by way of catharthis, and to point out that the mistakes surrounding the Therese movie are not unique to a few orthodox Catholics. We Christians have a lot of learning, and quite a bit of repenting to do before we get anywhere in the arts.
It's "Starting Out in Hollywood 101" class. Here are two questions for the final exam based on real events that have happened to me in the last month.
A) Scenario: A moderately wealthy Christian from some homey place in flyover, decides enough is enough. Without even waiting to buy a white horse and shining armor, he swings into Los Angeles and starts taking meetings with anybody who will listen to him. "It's time for things in the entertainment industry to change," he proclaims with a sincere sense of mission. "No more banging on doors at the studios and networks. We need to stop begging and find creative new ways for Christians to make entertainment!"
Do you agree, why or why not?
B) Scenario: A young woman, with the ink barely dry on her Comm Studies degree from a small Christian college, is certain that God has called her to change television. With a boldness - some might call it gall - borne of religious conviction, she attends a Christian fellowship event, intent on making a connection with a famous, successful, and recenlty Emmy nominated television show-runner. While the everyone at the event is eating dinner, the TV writer wanna-be makes her way to the head table, kneels beside the show-runner and, after a few words of intense flattery, announces, "I am a Christian writer and have real talent. I'm ready to come on board your show and support you in what you are trying to do. Can you tell your agent to take a call from my agent about setting up a meeting for me?"
Is this a stunning coup or professional suicide? Why or why not?
Okay, class. Grades time.
If you think that either of these two Christians has hit upon a winning strategy for cultural renewal, you flunk.
If you think this kind of approach is bold instead of self-defeatingly stupid, you flunk and get expelled.
If any part of you feels the least bit of admiration for them and wishes more Christians would follow suit, you flunk, get expelled and will have your name smeared around our imaginary campus in the most rapacious graffiti.
NOTHING CREATIVE ABOUT CUTTING CORNERS
The first example occurred two weeks ago. A very well-meaning and godly man with pastoral credentials, arrived in Hollywood zealous to fix things here fast. I sat in a room with the leaders of four other Christian entertainment ministries, as the man proclaimed with a Moses-like light radiating off his face, that what was needed to fix the culture is ways around the networks' and studios' system.
He went on to suggest a few of his creative ideas...
...We should put out a national call for the most-talented Christian kids in colleges everywhere. We should get a thousand of them to submit to a kind of talent testing contest, and then choose the top twenty to come to Hollywood. Then, we put them all in a room, and have them come up with new ideas for television shows.
[response of Christian ministry leaders with glazed eyes: "Uh, no."]
...We should allocate a cable station, and start lighting Christian theater company productions for broadcast. Eventually, talented Christians everywhere will know that they have a place to air their own kind of programming!
[response of CML's with a kind of horror, "Oh, no..." (and the follow-up, "Have you heard of PAX?)]
...We should have a script contest to find the best projects "out there" and then work on getting them produced.
[response of CML's, "There is no there out there."]
Let's get to the bottom of the errors in this man's thinking. We DON'T need "creative ways" for Christians to find success in Hollywood. We need to do it THE way. We need to do what everybody has to do, just as well, and arguably even better. It takes time, lots of it. It takes paying our dues. There won't be anything sneaky or clever about it. The cleverness must all be in our work.
FAVORS ARE FOR PARTIES, NOT CAREERS
It isn't "bold" to be absurd. The young female writer in example two may indeed be talented, I don't know, but she read a stupid book somewhere that told her getting in people's faces is the way into Hollywood. It isn't. And the problem is, trying to bully your way in by playing "the Christian card" with a fellow believer, is the biggest red-flag you can wave in the Christian community of Hollywood. It freaks us all out. The weird sense of entitlement that we find in so many Christians who arrive here every day is shockingly disrespectful.
It's like, imagine if I was a great neuro-surgeon at Mass General, and one day, you, say a junior high school teacher, met me at a lunch counter. And suppose you said, "Hey, I heard you were a Christian. So am I. We need more Christians in medicine, so I decided I'm gonna do it. Can you get me into doing some brain surgery tomorrow?"
No, I'm not being facetious. It's eggzackly like that.
This happened the other night at the Barbara Hall event at Inter-Mission. In the end, this particular young writer not only blew it with Barbara, who was - God love her - just resignedly bemused at being accosted over her salmonn and spinach, but then, she accosted me afterward for shutting down the assault. After I had quietly informed her that dinner was not the place to pitch our guest, she persisted trying to get a promise of help from Barb, until I finally said, "Please stop. We don't do that here." So, after dinner, the young writer waited around to inform me with holy indignation that I had violated her, and that she was only trying to do Jesus' bidding. She questioned me with narrow eyes, 'And whose cause are YOU trying to promote?!"
I tried to tell her that no show-runner, ever, ever, ever, would agree to call their agent for an unknown, unrecommended writer who appeared kneeling and flattering at a banquet table, but she wouldn't hear me. She actually accused me of not having faith in God's power.
I share these stories by way of catharthis, and to point out that the mistakes surrounding the Therese movie are not unique to a few orthodox Catholics. We Christians have a lot of learning, and quite a bit of repenting to do before we get anywhere in the arts.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
IT'S UP TO YOU, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
I have a speaking gig at a college on Long Island, on the morning of October 28th. I will be taking a train to CT for the high-Halloween holy days on the 29th. But I was thinking I might try and get together some kind of speaking event somewhere in Manhattan for the evening of the 28th.
Anybody in the area interested in helping me set something up? We can keep it informal - a question and answer kind of thing including command performance expansions on my usual schticks, or else we can have something specific on screenwriting or artists and God.
We just need a place and a little help getting the word out.
If you can help, do send me an email.
I have a speaking gig at a college on Long Island, on the morning of October 28th. I will be taking a train to CT for the high-Halloween holy days on the 29th. But I was thinking I might try and get together some kind of speaking event somewhere in Manhattan for the evening of the 28th.
Anybody in the area interested in helping me set something up? We can keep it informal - a question and answer kind of thing including command performance expansions on my usual schticks, or else we can have something specific on screenwriting or artists and God.
We just need a place and a little help getting the word out.
If you can help, do send me an email.
EVER RELEVANT
I'll be on a morning drive time show on Relevant Radio on Friday, October 1. They will be calling me at 6am PST, so I guess that will be 8am for the mid-country people and 9am on the East coast.... Does Relevant Radio air on the East coast?
The subject of the hour will be the first annual National Media Prayer Breakfast that will be happening at 8:30am PST here in Beverly Hills. Considering I am also attending that event, and that I live about 30 minutes from Beverly Hills, I guess I will be brushing my teeth and dressing while taking calls...or else during the breaks. It should be an interesting morning.
We're looking to doing some kind of regular broadcast for Relevant Radio. I told them I couldn't possibly start anything new until after January, but I'll probably be doing these one hour "What's Going On in Hollywood?" spots every month until then.
I'll be on a morning drive time show on Relevant Radio on Friday, October 1. They will be calling me at 6am PST, so I guess that will be 8am for the mid-country people and 9am on the East coast.... Does Relevant Radio air on the East coast?
The subject of the hour will be the first annual National Media Prayer Breakfast that will be happening at 8:30am PST here in Beverly Hills. Considering I am also attending that event, and that I live about 30 minutes from Beverly Hills, I guess I will be brushing my teeth and dressing while taking calls...or else during the breaks. It should be an interesting morning.
We're looking to doing some kind of regular broadcast for Relevant Radio. I told them I couldn't possibly start anything new until after January, but I'll probably be doing these one hour "What's Going On in Hollywood?" spots every month until then.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Sunday, September 26, 2004
EXTREMELY GOOD TELEVISION
Okay, I need to know if anybody else out there watches ABC's Extreme Home Make-Over weeping copious tears. Because I do. Pretty much every show slays me, and the cornier it gets, the more I sit there sobbing and sniveling.
Tonight, I actually went and got a box of Kleenex as the episode started. Looking around the sofa, here 47 minutes later, it looks like someone has had pneumonia...
Tonight's episode, they redid the home of a family with eight children. The family, clearly cery committed Christians, is being raised by a single dad, because his wife died four years ago. The older kids - all in their teens, put their own stuff aside to help raise their younger siblings.
If you've never caught the show, it's brilliant because it combines the stuff America is best at: materialism at the service of generosity to deserving families. Check it out, and try to get your teens to watch it with you. It's the kind of viewing experience that would be very good for families, I think.
Okay, I need to know if anybody else out there watches ABC's Extreme Home Make-Over weeping copious tears. Because I do. Pretty much every show slays me, and the cornier it gets, the more I sit there sobbing and sniveling.
Tonight, I actually went and got a box of Kleenex as the episode started. Looking around the sofa, here 47 minutes later, it looks like someone has had pneumonia...
Tonight's episode, they redid the home of a family with eight children. The family, clearly cery committed Christians, is being raised by a single dad, because his wife died four years ago. The older kids - all in their teens, put their own stuff aside to help raise their younger siblings.
If you've never caught the show, it's brilliant because it combines the stuff America is best at: materialism at the service of generosity to deserving families. Check it out, and try to get your teens to watch it with you. It's the kind of viewing experience that would be very good for families, I think.
AN EXPENSIVE LEARNING CURVE
This is going to be a little rant. I'll introduce it by saying that, on Wednesday, I received a heads-up from a friend who works in marketing that the long-awaited film Therese from St. Luke Productions in Oregon, was having press screenings for its upcoming release. I emailed to be included in one of the area screenings and received the message, "Oh, sorry. The press screenings were last week. If you want to see the film, you'll have to wait to see it in the theater when it opens October 4th."
I'm trying to figure out if I should be annoyed at having been deliberately excluded, or if the press junket was just one more thing about this project that was mishandled.
I have no personal animosity towards the folks at St. Luke's. They are certainly very devout Catholics, and very sincere in their desire to put drama at the service of the Gospel.
It's just that everywhere I go, good Catholics ask me about the project, and "Isn't it a shame that Hollywood is shutting out the movie just because it's devout Catholic?!" No, the project is not being shut out because it's Catholic. If it's getting shut out, it's because it's a bad movie. It is disingenuous to try and get people into the theaters on some pretext of "showing Hollywood", when what you are really trying to do is desperately make back some of the millions and millions of dollars you obtained from good people who trusted you to know how to make a good movie.
Three years ago, I was approached to give notes on the screenplay for Therese. The screenplay, a first effort for the well-intentioned writer, was in very bad shape. The screenplay was not professionally formatted, and was missing all the most basic points of introducing and growing characters, of structuring for some kind of suspense, of thematic develpment, and also, there was really no story. The writer had lifted long sections of dialogue right out of St. Therese's work, putting them in extended voice-overs over shots of the saint doing laundry, looking out windows and gazing toward unseen horizons in prayer.
Because I have always had a special love for St. Therese, I spent a lot of time - for free - reading the script, giving extensive notes, and then trying to help in at least two extended phone calls. These were the days when I was still reading projects from non-Hollywood Christian writers for free. (I have since learned that people do not respect "advice". They respect "consultation." The difference between advice and consultation is that they pay you for consultation.)
A few months later, the writers sent me a new draft of the script. It showed some improvement, but was still far from being a commercially viable, and technically functioning project. I expressed to the writer and director, "My opinion is, you are over your head here with the screenplay. I do not discern any signs of writing talent, or even proficiency, here. I don't see any mastery - or even awareness - of any of the skills necessary in screenwriting: character creation, story, structure, dialogue, use of language, use of imagery, etc." I strongly encouraged St. Luke Productions to recruit an experienced screenwriter for the project. (I considered pitching myself for the project, but there was no way I could do it at that moment.) I offered to help them find a real screenwriter.
But no, the principles told me, "We're going to go with God here. There are a lot of people praying for us."
So then, I said, "We will be holding a month-long screenwriter's intensive in August - just a few weeks away. I will let you come for free, to sit in the back as observers. I promise you, at the end of the program, you will have a much better idea of what you need to do as filmmakers."
But no, the answer came back, "But we are planning to start shooting in September."
To which I said, "You are not ready to start shooting. You don't have a screenplay yet." They kind of laughed at my lack of faith. I remember someone saying, 'St. Therese is going to make this movie a miracle." I think I came back, "God is talking to you now. I'm on your side. I'm trying to help." I remember them kind of laughing again.
I made several other desperate suggestions like, "Please, please if you want ANY CHANCE of getting festivals, or distribution, hire some name actors." And, "You've never made a film before. Why not take $250,000 and make a short film first, just as practice..." And, "Hire a director who has made a movie before." But, no. The film went ahead as scheduled.
A year later, I got an inquiry from St. Luke Productions. I was writing a monthly column for Liguorian at the time. The request came in for me to write a feature article on the making of the movie Therese. I was kind of shocked. "Do you really want me to write something like that?" But then I thought, "Well, maybe the film will beat the unbelievably incrediblely monumentally enormous odds that it will come out mediocre....maybe, it will be a miracle."
So, I said, "Sure, I'll consider doing a feature on it. Please send me a VHS of the film so I can see it."
But the answer came back, "Oh, no. We aren't showing it to people yet. We just want you to write a feature in support of these good Catholics who are trying to make a wonderful Catholic movie." (I was actually told a few months later by some millionaires in Portland, that they had seen a roughcut of the film...but whatever.)
See, I can't support the way Therese was made. It goes against everything I am doing here in Hollywood to try and get Christians to make inroads as professionals. To the people who work at the craft of entertainment here in the business, watching the millions of dollars Christians waste in "showing" Hollywood, by outsider attempts at movie making, is heart-breaking. And kind of annoying. Multiple Emmy nominated screenwriter and Christian, Karen Hall, used to say, "It's like if I woke up one day and said, 'Hey, I have a shingle. I think I'll put it outside my front door and start doing psycho-therapy."
But anyway, they wouldn't show me the film, so I wouldn't write a feature on it.
About a year later, I got a call from two different dioceses, and also from an office at the U.S. Catholic Conference, asking me whether Therese should get the Bishops' support. Even just informal support.
So, I called St. Luke Productions and said, "Please, can I get a screener of this film? I could help you get the word out. But I have to see the film first." I had heard that the project was being shown around down to various studios, and I also offered my willingness to go to one of those. I was told that it wouldn't be possible for them to send me a screener, and that it wouldn't be possible for me to see it in the rounds here in L.A., but that if I wanted to fly to Portland, they would let me see the film there. Of course, this was an absurd thing to ask. It really started to seem to me that St. Luke's Productions didn't want me to see the film. (Which is also weird, because, frankly, I'm really not big enough to be worth hiding from...) I sighed, as I recall, and said, "No, I will not pay to fly to Portland to see the film. But do let me know when there will be press screenings here in L.A.."
This is why I got kind of mad this week, when I got an email from a marketer, asking me to help "Get the word out about Therese opening this week!"
I have participated in many, many studio film junkets. I have NEVER been treated worse, as a member of the press, than on this project coming from my fellow devout Catholics. No Hollywood studio would ever ask me to support a film without letting me see it first. This is the kind of non-professional weirdness that you have to be in the Christian market to encounter.
I hope the junket for the film here in L.A. was a little affair and maybe it was just an oversight that I didn't get invited. I think this is unlikely, because I am certainly THE ONLY member of the press in L.A. who had issued at least two prior requests to see this project. I am also certainly THE ONLY member of the press who had volunteered several hours of work in the early stages of this project. And that alone should have merited, as a professional courtesy, an invite to a screening. Hell, even the pagans do that.
I hope Therese is a great film. Although, several people who have seen it have basically kind of shrugged, "Really devout catholics will probably like it."
I hope the people at St. Lukes will make more films, now that they have had a multi-million dollar personal film school experience. Otherwise, it will REALLY be a waste.
I hope nobody ever, ever comes to me again and says, "God is going to make this movie great."
Well, I guess this is me getting the word out about Therese.
This is going to be a little rant. I'll introduce it by saying that, on Wednesday, I received a heads-up from a friend who works in marketing that the long-awaited film Therese from St. Luke Productions in Oregon, was having press screenings for its upcoming release. I emailed to be included in one of the area screenings and received the message, "Oh, sorry. The press screenings were last week. If you want to see the film, you'll have to wait to see it in the theater when it opens October 4th."
I'm trying to figure out if I should be annoyed at having been deliberately excluded, or if the press junket was just one more thing about this project that was mishandled.
I have no personal animosity towards the folks at St. Luke's. They are certainly very devout Catholics, and very sincere in their desire to put drama at the service of the Gospel.
It's just that everywhere I go, good Catholics ask me about the project, and "Isn't it a shame that Hollywood is shutting out the movie just because it's devout Catholic?!" No, the project is not being shut out because it's Catholic. If it's getting shut out, it's because it's a bad movie. It is disingenuous to try and get people into the theaters on some pretext of "showing Hollywood", when what you are really trying to do is desperately make back some of the millions and millions of dollars you obtained from good people who trusted you to know how to make a good movie.
Three years ago, I was approached to give notes on the screenplay for Therese. The screenplay, a first effort for the well-intentioned writer, was in very bad shape. The screenplay was not professionally formatted, and was missing all the most basic points of introducing and growing characters, of structuring for some kind of suspense, of thematic develpment, and also, there was really no story. The writer had lifted long sections of dialogue right out of St. Therese's work, putting them in extended voice-overs over shots of the saint doing laundry, looking out windows and gazing toward unseen horizons in prayer.
Because I have always had a special love for St. Therese, I spent a lot of time - for free - reading the script, giving extensive notes, and then trying to help in at least two extended phone calls. These were the days when I was still reading projects from non-Hollywood Christian writers for free. (I have since learned that people do not respect "advice". They respect "consultation." The difference between advice and consultation is that they pay you for consultation.)
A few months later, the writers sent me a new draft of the script. It showed some improvement, but was still far from being a commercially viable, and technically functioning project. I expressed to the writer and director, "My opinion is, you are over your head here with the screenplay. I do not discern any signs of writing talent, or even proficiency, here. I don't see any mastery - or even awareness - of any of the skills necessary in screenwriting: character creation, story, structure, dialogue, use of language, use of imagery, etc." I strongly encouraged St. Luke Productions to recruit an experienced screenwriter for the project. (I considered pitching myself for the project, but there was no way I could do it at that moment.) I offered to help them find a real screenwriter.
But no, the principles told me, "We're going to go with God here. There are a lot of people praying for us."
So then, I said, "We will be holding a month-long screenwriter's intensive in August - just a few weeks away. I will let you come for free, to sit in the back as observers. I promise you, at the end of the program, you will have a much better idea of what you need to do as filmmakers."
But no, the answer came back, "But we are planning to start shooting in September."
To which I said, "You are not ready to start shooting. You don't have a screenplay yet." They kind of laughed at my lack of faith. I remember someone saying, 'St. Therese is going to make this movie a miracle." I think I came back, "God is talking to you now. I'm on your side. I'm trying to help." I remember them kind of laughing again.
I made several other desperate suggestions like, "Please, please if you want ANY CHANCE of getting festivals, or distribution, hire some name actors." And, "You've never made a film before. Why not take $250,000 and make a short film first, just as practice..." And, "Hire a director who has made a movie before." But, no. The film went ahead as scheduled.
A year later, I got an inquiry from St. Luke Productions. I was writing a monthly column for Liguorian at the time. The request came in for me to write a feature article on the making of the movie Therese. I was kind of shocked. "Do you really want me to write something like that?" But then I thought, "Well, maybe the film will beat the unbelievably incrediblely monumentally enormous odds that it will come out mediocre....maybe, it will be a miracle."
So, I said, "Sure, I'll consider doing a feature on it. Please send me a VHS of the film so I can see it."
But the answer came back, "Oh, no. We aren't showing it to people yet. We just want you to write a feature in support of these good Catholics who are trying to make a wonderful Catholic movie." (I was actually told a few months later by some millionaires in Portland, that they had seen a roughcut of the film...but whatever.)
See, I can't support the way Therese was made. It goes against everything I am doing here in Hollywood to try and get Christians to make inroads as professionals. To the people who work at the craft of entertainment here in the business, watching the millions of dollars Christians waste in "showing" Hollywood, by outsider attempts at movie making, is heart-breaking. And kind of annoying. Multiple Emmy nominated screenwriter and Christian, Karen Hall, used to say, "It's like if I woke up one day and said, 'Hey, I have a shingle. I think I'll put it outside my front door and start doing psycho-therapy."
But anyway, they wouldn't show me the film, so I wouldn't write a feature on it.
About a year later, I got a call from two different dioceses, and also from an office at the U.S. Catholic Conference, asking me whether Therese should get the Bishops' support. Even just informal support.
So, I called St. Luke Productions and said, "Please, can I get a screener of this film? I could help you get the word out. But I have to see the film first." I had heard that the project was being shown around down to various studios, and I also offered my willingness to go to one of those. I was told that it wouldn't be possible for them to send me a screener, and that it wouldn't be possible for me to see it in the rounds here in L.A., but that if I wanted to fly to Portland, they would let me see the film there. Of course, this was an absurd thing to ask. It really started to seem to me that St. Luke's Productions didn't want me to see the film. (Which is also weird, because, frankly, I'm really not big enough to be worth hiding from...) I sighed, as I recall, and said, "No, I will not pay to fly to Portland to see the film. But do let me know when there will be press screenings here in L.A.."
This is why I got kind of mad this week, when I got an email from a marketer, asking me to help "Get the word out about Therese opening this week!"
I have participated in many, many studio film junkets. I have NEVER been treated worse, as a member of the press, than on this project coming from my fellow devout Catholics. No Hollywood studio would ever ask me to support a film without letting me see it first. This is the kind of non-professional weirdness that you have to be in the Christian market to encounter.
I hope the junket for the film here in L.A. was a little affair and maybe it was just an oversight that I didn't get invited. I think this is unlikely, because I am certainly THE ONLY member of the press in L.A. who had issued at least two prior requests to see this project. I am also certainly THE ONLY member of the press who had volunteered several hours of work in the early stages of this project. And that alone should have merited, as a professional courtesy, an invite to a screening. Hell, even the pagans do that.
I hope Therese is a great film. Although, several people who have seen it have basically kind of shrugged, "Really devout catholics will probably like it."
I hope the people at St. Lukes will make more films, now that they have had a multi-million dollar personal film school experience. Otherwise, it will REALLY be a waste.
I hope nobody ever, ever comes to me again and says, "God is going to make this movie great."
Well, I guess this is me getting the word out about Therese.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
NOT A RACKET
The new Kirsten Dunst film, Wimbledon is not as bad as some of the critics have said. I went with one of my twenty-something male students, and he pronounced along with the closing credits, "That was actually entertaining." High praise, considering I had to drag him there. (It balanced out, because I let him drag me to Sky Captain...) From the standpoint of the new evangelization and guaging the "Signs of the Times," Wimbledon is pretty much a must see.
Coming from the folks who did Notting Hill and Four Weddings, this is a mostly British romantic comedy that is most funny when it exploits the "quirky group of friends and family" that made both of those prior films work. Unfortunately, all the humor drops out before the mid-point of the film, as the writers try desperately to find a reason why two people should be committed to each other. I mean, we really don't have to make a commitment anymore, do we? Why do we even want to? So, what is the point of this film?
Fascinating problem for the modern romantic comedy.
I also watched Pillow Talk this weekend, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Back in the 50's romance preceded sex. And then marriage - or at least permanent commitment was the goal. They didn't have to struggle with ambivalence about the point of it all. The audience knew what to root for, and the writers challenge was in getting the two warring parties into permanent commitment in the most humorous way.
Then, we had three decades of the sexual revolution in the movies. And the net result is we don't know what romance is, we think permanent commitment is a fantasy, and we wouldn't swear that blood or marriage has anything to do with family. It's really a quandry for the whole romantic comedy genre, because they all end up turning into dramas now! In comedy, funny is supposed to be first, but in romantic comedy, a kind of crippled metaphysics is ending up first. Love it.
Wimbledon, very much in the mode of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and my friends are telling me Garden State, by the way, ultimately makes its way back to the same values as Pillowtalk, although sadly and with an air of resignation. It's like Generation X is saying, "We can't stop wanting unconditional permanent love. Our parents told us it's a phantom. Our grandparents lived as though it was real. We choooooooooooooooooooose, ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, our grandparents."
One of the funniest confusions in contemporary drama is everything having to do with sex. So, in Wimbledon sex is something that needs to be gotten out of the way so that romance becomes possible. Amazing! The seediest moments of the movie occur when the Kirsten Dunst character propositions her handsome lead. She notes early on that fooling around before a tennis match is a good kind of recreation. They both agree, and so they go to bed. Then, later, when they start to really care for one another, the romance is played out in a slow-mo montage of them walking on the beach, running in the park, talking and eating. These "romantic" scenes are almost completely devoid of physical contact.
Later in the film, sex actually becomes the enemy of the relationship. The couple almost breaks up over it. But not in any Christian sense, of "By using each other like things, we have ruined our chance for real sexual intimacy." It's more that the sex is opposed to self-donation instead of being the impulse of self-donation.
It's all such a mess. A wonderful hopeful mess for us with a theology of the body to unleash. Because sex isn't going away any time soon. It's just when and how we are going to make our case. We're going to need more than academic papers here.
Anyway, I wouldn't recommend Wimbledon to unaccompanied teens, as there are too many issues that need to be processed, and I would be afraid that they would absorb some of its confusions - or have their own confusions validated. I recommend it as fascinating viewing for anybody who pastors or counsels young people.
The new Kirsten Dunst film, Wimbledon is not as bad as some of the critics have said. I went with one of my twenty-something male students, and he pronounced along with the closing credits, "That was actually entertaining." High praise, considering I had to drag him there. (It balanced out, because I let him drag me to Sky Captain...) From the standpoint of the new evangelization and guaging the "Signs of the Times," Wimbledon is pretty much a must see.
Coming from the folks who did Notting Hill and Four Weddings, this is a mostly British romantic comedy that is most funny when it exploits the "quirky group of friends and family" that made both of those prior films work. Unfortunately, all the humor drops out before the mid-point of the film, as the writers try desperately to find a reason why two people should be committed to each other. I mean, we really don't have to make a commitment anymore, do we? Why do we even want to? So, what is the point of this film?
Fascinating problem for the modern romantic comedy.
I also watched Pillow Talk this weekend, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Back in the 50's romance preceded sex. And then marriage - or at least permanent commitment was the goal. They didn't have to struggle with ambivalence about the point of it all. The audience knew what to root for, and the writers challenge was in getting the two warring parties into permanent commitment in the most humorous way.
Then, we had three decades of the sexual revolution in the movies. And the net result is we don't know what romance is, we think permanent commitment is a fantasy, and we wouldn't swear that blood or marriage has anything to do with family. It's really a quandry for the whole romantic comedy genre, because they all end up turning into dramas now! In comedy, funny is supposed to be first, but in romantic comedy, a kind of crippled metaphysics is ending up first. Love it.
Wimbledon, very much in the mode of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and my friends are telling me Garden State, by the way, ultimately makes its way back to the same values as Pillowtalk, although sadly and with an air of resignation. It's like Generation X is saying, "We can't stop wanting unconditional permanent love. Our parents told us it's a phantom. Our grandparents lived as though it was real. We choooooooooooooooooooose, ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, our grandparents."
One of the funniest confusions in contemporary drama is everything having to do with sex. So, in Wimbledon sex is something that needs to be gotten out of the way so that romance becomes possible. Amazing! The seediest moments of the movie occur when the Kirsten Dunst character propositions her handsome lead. She notes early on that fooling around before a tennis match is a good kind of recreation. They both agree, and so they go to bed. Then, later, when they start to really care for one another, the romance is played out in a slow-mo montage of them walking on the beach, running in the park, talking and eating. These "romantic" scenes are almost completely devoid of physical contact.
Later in the film, sex actually becomes the enemy of the relationship. The couple almost breaks up over it. But not in any Christian sense, of "By using each other like things, we have ruined our chance for real sexual intimacy." It's more that the sex is opposed to self-donation instead of being the impulse of self-donation.
It's all such a mess. A wonderful hopeful mess for us with a theology of the body to unleash. Because sex isn't going away any time soon. It's just when and how we are going to make our case. We're going to need more than academic papers here.
Anyway, I wouldn't recommend Wimbledon to unaccompanied teens, as there are too many issues that need to be processed, and I would be afraid that they would absorb some of its confusions - or have their own confusions validated. I recommend it as fascinating viewing for anybody who pastors or counsels young people.
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE CINEMA OF ATTRACTIONS
I'm not someone who disses movies for being principally vehicles for special effects. The "Lookee what we can do!" impulse is one of the tings that defines the art form which is inseparable from advances in technology. Virginia Wolfe said that there could never really be a mature film criticism, because the medium kept changing so fast that there were no standards of comparison.
What I do object to, is boring the audience by being self-indulgent with the special effects and trying to make the impressions they create last for the duration of a two-hour movie. For non-computer geeks, the impact of the effects in the recent release Sky Captain really only lasts for about forty-five minutes. After that, it is all the same stuff over and over. Picture yourself on even the coolest new roller coaster for forty-five minutes. Once you done it, you've done it. The thrill is so much in the newness of it.
Inexcusably, Sky Captain has nothing to hold the viewer's brain and emotions once the CGI attractions wear thin. The plot holes in the story are big enough to drop a fifteen story steel robot through. The characters have no arc. No one changes or grows. So, by the usual definition, there's no drama here.
By way of dubious achievement, Sky Captain could be considered the first film that is purely a vehicle for CGI, which is served by the human actors - Oscar winners Gywnneth, Jude and Angelina. That is, we generally disdain movies that are pure "star vehicles." This is a movie that "uses" human actors to serve the effects. It would be fascinatingly icky, if it wasn't a complete failure as entertainment.
[FADE IN, SEPIA] Pass, Dex.
I'm not someone who disses movies for being principally vehicles for special effects. The "Lookee what we can do!" impulse is one of the tings that defines the art form which is inseparable from advances in technology. Virginia Wolfe said that there could never really be a mature film criticism, because the medium kept changing so fast that there were no standards of comparison.
What I do object to, is boring the audience by being self-indulgent with the special effects and trying to make the impressions they create last for the duration of a two-hour movie. For non-computer geeks, the impact of the effects in the recent release Sky Captain really only lasts for about forty-five minutes. After that, it is all the same stuff over and over. Picture yourself on even the coolest new roller coaster for forty-five minutes. Once you done it, you've done it. The thrill is so much in the newness of it.
Inexcusably, Sky Captain has nothing to hold the viewer's brain and emotions once the CGI attractions wear thin. The plot holes in the story are big enough to drop a fifteen story steel robot through. The characters have no arc. No one changes or grows. So, by the usual definition, there's no drama here.
By way of dubious achievement, Sky Captain could be considered the first film that is purely a vehicle for CGI, which is served by the human actors - Oscar winners Gywnneth, Jude and Angelina. That is, we generally disdain movies that are pure "star vehicles." This is a movie that "uses" human actors to serve the effects. It would be fascinatingly icky, if it wasn't a complete failure as entertainment.
[FADE IN, SEPIA] Pass, Dex.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
CLOSE—ON FATHER BARRY
He stands over the body of Kayo Nolan, which lies on the pallet and has
been covered by a tarpaulin.
FATHER BARRY
I came down here to keep a promise.
I gave Kayo my word that if he stood up to the
mob I'd stand up with him all the way. Now
Kayo Nolan is dead. He was one of those fellows
who had the gift of getting up. But this time they fixed
him good— unless it was an accident like Big Mac says.
Some people think the Crucifixion
only took place on Calvary. They better wise
up. Taking Joey Doyle's life to stop him from
testifying is a crucifixion— Dropping a sling on Kayo
Nolan because he was ready to spill his guts
tomorrow— that's a crucifixion. Every time the
mob puts the crusher on a good man— tries to
stop him from doing his duty as a citizen— it's a
crucifixion.
And anybody who sits around and lets it happen,
keeps silent about something he knows has happened—
shares the guilt of it just as much as the Roman soldier
who pierced the flesh of Our Lord to see if He was dead.
TRUCK
Go back to your church, Father.
FATHER BARRY
Boys, this is my church. If you don't think
Christ is here on the waterfront, you got another
guess coming. And who do you think He lines up
with—
Every morning when the hiring boss blows his
whistle, Jesus stands alongside you in the shape-up.
He sees why some of you get picked and some
of you get passed over. He sees the family men
worrying about getting their rent and getting food
in the house for the wife and kids. He sees them
selling their souls to the mob for a day's pay.
What does Christ think of the easy-money boys
who do none of the work and take all of the gravy?
What does He think of these fellows wearing
hundred-and-fifty-dollar suits and diamond rings—
on your union dues and your kickback money?
How does He feel about bloodsuckers picking
up a longshoreman's work tab and grabbing
twenty percent interest at the end of a week?
How does He, who spoke up without fear
against evil, feel about your silence?
SONNY
Shut up about that!
FATHER BARRY
You want to know what's wrong
with our waterfront? It's love of a lousy buck. It's
making love of a buck— the cushy job— more
important than the love of man. It's forgetting
that every fellow down here is your brother in
Christ.
But remember, fellows, Christ is always with you—
Christ is in the shape-up, He's in the hatch—
He's in the union hall— He's kneeling
here beside Nolan and He's saying with all
of you—
If you do it to the least of mine,
you do it to me! What they did to Joey, what they
did to Nolan, they're doing to you. And you. And
YOU. And only you, with God's help, have the
power to knock 'em off for good!
(turns to Nolan's corpse)
Okay, Kayo?
Amen.
He makes the sign of the cross.
(from On the Waterfront, writtten by Bud Schulberg)
He stands over the body of Kayo Nolan, which lies on the pallet and has
been covered by a tarpaulin.
FATHER BARRY
I came down here to keep a promise.
I gave Kayo my word that if he stood up to the
mob I'd stand up with him all the way. Now
Kayo Nolan is dead. He was one of those fellows
who had the gift of getting up. But this time they fixed
him good— unless it was an accident like Big Mac says.
Some people think the Crucifixion
only took place on Calvary. They better wise
up. Taking Joey Doyle's life to stop him from
testifying is a crucifixion— Dropping a sling on Kayo
Nolan because he was ready to spill his guts
tomorrow— that's a crucifixion. Every time the
mob puts the crusher on a good man— tries to
stop him from doing his duty as a citizen— it's a
crucifixion.
And anybody who sits around and lets it happen,
keeps silent about something he knows has happened—
shares the guilt of it just as much as the Roman soldier
who pierced the flesh of Our Lord to see if He was dead.
TRUCK
Go back to your church, Father.
FATHER BARRY
Boys, this is my church. If you don't think
Christ is here on the waterfront, you got another
guess coming. And who do you think He lines up
with—
Every morning when the hiring boss blows his
whistle, Jesus stands alongside you in the shape-up.
He sees why some of you get picked and some
of you get passed over. He sees the family men
worrying about getting their rent and getting food
in the house for the wife and kids. He sees them
selling their souls to the mob for a day's pay.
What does Christ think of the easy-money boys
who do none of the work and take all of the gravy?
What does He think of these fellows wearing
hundred-and-fifty-dollar suits and diamond rings—
on your union dues and your kickback money?
How does He feel about bloodsuckers picking
up a longshoreman's work tab and grabbing
twenty percent interest at the end of a week?
How does He, who spoke up without fear
against evil, feel about your silence?
SONNY
Shut up about that!
FATHER BARRY
You want to know what's wrong
with our waterfront? It's love of a lousy buck. It's
making love of a buck— the cushy job— more
important than the love of man. It's forgetting
that every fellow down here is your brother in
Christ.
But remember, fellows, Christ is always with you—
Christ is in the shape-up, He's in the hatch—
He's in the union hall— He's kneeling
here beside Nolan and He's saying with all
of you—
If you do it to the least of mine,
you do it to me! What they did to Joey, what they
did to Nolan, they're doing to you. And you. And
YOU. And only you, with God's help, have the
power to knock 'em off for good!
(turns to Nolan's corpse)
Okay, Kayo?
Amen.
He makes the sign of the cross.
(from On the Waterfront, writtten by Bud Schulberg)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
WELL SAID! [AHEM]
Fr. Ron Rolheiser has kindly written a column expanding on a talk I gave this summer at a conference on the affective formation of seminarians. My talk was on the connection between the arts and affective formation. (The notes for said talk are somewhere in the archives on the right. Somewhere around July 12 if you're the curious sort.)
Fr. Rolheiser picked up on the second part of my talk which had to do with the spiritual power of beauty. Go here to read the whole piece.
I have reworked the talk as a three-part series for the National Catholic Register. Quite by weird accident it seems, the "kinder, gentler version" of the first piece ended up not getting printed in favor of the original "mean" version. I'm getting a lot of very positive mail about the article from beauty-starved Catholics in pews everywhere. Seems like the column really hit a chord.
Here are a couple of the letters:
(from a pastor)
Dear Barbara Nicolosi,
Thank you for your clear and enjoyable article “Art and Liturgy” in last week’s National Catholic Register. I am the pastor of a large Catholic church, 4300 families. I am trying to bring beauty back into the weekend Masses and it’s not so simple. The biggest problem is our church building, which neither acoustically nor visually supports Catholic liturgy (we are hoping to demolish and rebuild). Another problem is lack of talent or even basic understanding. I myself began a Gregorian Chant schola but am not qualified to direct any level of polyphony. I hired a competent organist as music director, but she is Orthodox and does not have a clear idea of what makes for Catholic liturgical music. I have seven different choirs and not nearly enough time to review weekly music lists. While our music director makes beautiful music, I can’t depend on her to do beautiful liturgical music. She was the best director we came up with in a 10-month nationwide search. It’s slim pickins out there!
I write for three reasons:
* to thank you for articulating, in winning prose, our current distress
* to offer you some insight into what your pastors face in trying to rebuild a lost patrimony
* to ask if you know of anyone whom we might hire as “liturgical director.” You might observe that the pastor should invest his time into directing his own liturgies, but should I do that with all of our choirs, lectors, altar servers, altar guild, environment people, extraordinary communion ministers, etc., I would have very little time left to visit the sick, direct our building program, counsel the doubtful, etc. I am quite willing to invest parish funds into the liturgy, as I know it will come back (“I can’t afford not to”). But who?
Someone with both an appreciation for beauty and an education in authentic liturgy. The latter just means, I suppose, a “Catholic” sense of sacramental rites and a knowledge of the pertinent documents.
Thank you again for articulating the problem in your article. Perhaps you can help this one parish with a solution. If you know of anyone, have them email me, or shoot me over contact info.
Fr. M.S., CA
[Note from Barb: Does anybody know of a liturgist I can refer on to Father? Thanks..]
Dear Ms. Nicolosi,
You cannot imagine how relieved I was to read your article on the Arts and the Church. I have often felt like I was the only person left in the Church who feels that what we offer God in the sacrifice of the Mass is less than stellar. I am not an artist myself, therefore, I did not feel it was appropriate to criticize and judge. However, I know something about art appreciation having spent a good deal of time in Europe and status quo isn't cutting it! When our Byzantine priest was new to the parish, he was appalled at the lack of a crucifix (we had a Resurrected Christ instead, and, by the way, what are known around the state as "Precious Moments" stained glass windows) and proceeded to "Catholic Up" the place. What an improvement! We got real icons and holy objects, he used incense and beeswax candles...it was amazing! Our Holy Thursday and Good Friday liturgies are a true offering to God. It is beautiful and Holy and one's worship is, therefore, more intense and meaningful. Thank you for writing this article! Perhaps more parishes will wake up and offer the best of our humanity through the arts to Our Lord who deserves nothing less.
In Christ,
C.C.
Lawton, OK
...and another...
I just finished reading your piece on the death of beauty in Catholic worship and I couldn't agree more. From the total banishment of Mary to the hideous new churches we are building, it seems as though there is no place for many Catholics to turn... It's almost as though the modern American Catholic church is ashamed of what we believe as Catholics and why we believe. I conclude this because one of the last things you'll ever hear at Mass is any attempt at explaining to the faithful why they believe what they believe. I now see it as almost completely my job to pass my faith on to my children. Whether its the artistic heritage that past generations took for granted or the spiritual heritage, I am primarily responsible. Sadly, I am, many times, up against my own church in accomplihing this task. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good fight, it's worth it. God bless you.--T.B.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser has kindly written a column expanding on a talk I gave this summer at a conference on the affective formation of seminarians. My talk was on the connection between the arts and affective formation. (The notes for said talk are somewhere in the archives on the right. Somewhere around July 12 if you're the curious sort.)
Fr. Rolheiser picked up on the second part of my talk which had to do with the spiritual power of beauty. Go here to read the whole piece.
I have reworked the talk as a three-part series for the National Catholic Register. Quite by weird accident it seems, the "kinder, gentler version" of the first piece ended up not getting printed in favor of the original "mean" version. I'm getting a lot of very positive mail about the article from beauty-starved Catholics in pews everywhere. Seems like the column really hit a chord.
Here are a couple of the letters:
(from a pastor)
Dear Barbara Nicolosi,
Thank you for your clear and enjoyable article “Art and Liturgy” in last week’s National Catholic Register. I am the pastor of a large Catholic church, 4300 families. I am trying to bring beauty back into the weekend Masses and it’s not so simple. The biggest problem is our church building, which neither acoustically nor visually supports Catholic liturgy (we are hoping to demolish and rebuild). Another problem is lack of talent or even basic understanding. I myself began a Gregorian Chant schola but am not qualified to direct any level of polyphony. I hired a competent organist as music director, but she is Orthodox and does not have a clear idea of what makes for Catholic liturgical music. I have seven different choirs and not nearly enough time to review weekly music lists. While our music director makes beautiful music, I can’t depend on her to do beautiful liturgical music. She was the best director we came up with in a 10-month nationwide search. It’s slim pickins out there!
I write for three reasons:
* to thank you for articulating, in winning prose, our current distress
* to offer you some insight into what your pastors face in trying to rebuild a lost patrimony
* to ask if you know of anyone whom we might hire as “liturgical director.” You might observe that the pastor should invest his time into directing his own liturgies, but should I do that with all of our choirs, lectors, altar servers, altar guild, environment people, extraordinary communion ministers, etc., I would have very little time left to visit the sick, direct our building program, counsel the doubtful, etc. I am quite willing to invest parish funds into the liturgy, as I know it will come back (“I can’t afford not to”). But who?
Someone with both an appreciation for beauty and an education in authentic liturgy. The latter just means, I suppose, a “Catholic” sense of sacramental rites and a knowledge of the pertinent documents.
Thank you again for articulating the problem in your article. Perhaps you can help this one parish with a solution. If you know of anyone, have them email me, or shoot me over contact info.
Fr. M.S., CA
[Note from Barb: Does anybody know of a liturgist I can refer on to Father? Thanks..]
Dear Ms. Nicolosi,
You cannot imagine how relieved I was to read your article on the Arts and the Church. I have often felt like I was the only person left in the Church who feels that what we offer God in the sacrifice of the Mass is less than stellar. I am not an artist myself, therefore, I did not feel it was appropriate to criticize and judge. However, I know something about art appreciation having spent a good deal of time in Europe and status quo isn't cutting it! When our Byzantine priest was new to the parish, he was appalled at the lack of a crucifix (we had a Resurrected Christ instead, and, by the way, what are known around the state as "Precious Moments" stained glass windows) and proceeded to "Catholic Up" the place. What an improvement! We got real icons and holy objects, he used incense and beeswax candles...it was amazing! Our Holy Thursday and Good Friday liturgies are a true offering to God. It is beautiful and Holy and one's worship is, therefore, more intense and meaningful. Thank you for writing this article! Perhaps more parishes will wake up and offer the best of our humanity through the arts to Our Lord who deserves nothing less.
In Christ,
C.C.
Lawton, OK
...and another...
I just finished reading your piece on the death of beauty in Catholic worship and I couldn't agree more. From the total banishment of Mary to the hideous new churches we are building, it seems as though there is no place for many Catholics to turn... It's almost as though the modern American Catholic church is ashamed of what we believe as Catholics and why we believe. I conclude this because one of the last things you'll ever hear at Mass is any attempt at explaining to the faithful why they believe what they believe. I now see it as almost completely my job to pass my faith on to my children. Whether its the artistic heritage that past generations took for granted or the spiritual heritage, I am primarily responsible. Sadly, I am, many times, up against my own church in accomplihing this task. Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good fight, it's worth it. God bless you.--T.B.
Monday, September 20, 2004
EMMY REDUX
I really don't have much to say about the Emmy's. They were pretty embarrassing - not funny, inarticulate, excruciatingly earnest, smugly left-wing.
You know it's a bad red carpet pre-show, when the best hosts have to be reckoned Miss Piggy and Kermit. Message to Star Jones(using the language style you adopted for your hosting duties): "Sistah, don't you go and quit you alls day job, momma!"
You know its a bad show, when you keep escaping to a rerun of Titanic and the season premiere of Charmed on other networks.
I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos, so I don't know if all the accolades are deserved. (We have a thing in our family about having seen enough entertainment in which Italian Americans are mafioso hoods. It's right up there with Irish as drunks, Southerners as bigots and Californians as surfers. We do permit French people as obnoxious, opinionated and over-critical, however. And we can do it without malice as we're half French...) I was very biasedly and unapologetically rooting for my friend,Barbara Hall's show, Joan of Arcadia to win. But the Red Sox also lost two of three to the Yankees this weekend, demonstrating that often iin this valley of tears, the virtuous and deserving go unrewarded...
As I predicted, the gay valentine Angels in America took as many awards as it possibly could. It is an election year, after all. I felt the waves of John Kerry's wince when Tony Kushner blew kisses to "my husband Mark. Maybe soon we can get legally married so you can make an honest homosexual of me!" Was the ensuing clamor, the Emmy attendees cheering, or 2 million Americans deciding to vote Republican?
Anyway, at least the clothes were mostly lovely.
I really don't have much to say about the Emmy's. They were pretty embarrassing - not funny, inarticulate, excruciatingly earnest, smugly left-wing.
You know it's a bad red carpet pre-show, when the best hosts have to be reckoned Miss Piggy and Kermit. Message to Star Jones(using the language style you adopted for your hosting duties): "Sistah, don't you go and quit you alls day job, momma!"
You know its a bad show, when you keep escaping to a rerun of Titanic and the season premiere of Charmed on other networks.
I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos, so I don't know if all the accolades are deserved. (We have a thing in our family about having seen enough entertainment in which Italian Americans are mafioso hoods. It's right up there with Irish as drunks, Southerners as bigots and Californians as surfers. We do permit French people as obnoxious, opinionated and over-critical, however. And we can do it without malice as we're half French...) I was very biasedly and unapologetically rooting for my friend,Barbara Hall's show, Joan of Arcadia to win. But the Red Sox also lost two of three to the Yankees this weekend, demonstrating that often iin this valley of tears, the virtuous and deserving go unrewarded...
As I predicted, the gay valentine Angels in America took as many awards as it possibly could. It is an election year, after all. I felt the waves of John Kerry's wince when Tony Kushner blew kisses to "my husband Mark. Maybe soon we can get legally married so you can make an honest homosexual of me!" Was the ensuing clamor, the Emmy attendees cheering, or 2 million Americans deciding to vote Republican?
Anyway, at least the clothes were mostly lovely.
Friday, September 17, 2004
SILENT - NO MORE!
I'm SOOOOOO excited. A friend just forwarded me the following release. It's not the law suit that's got me excited, but the project!
Celebrated director Martin Scorsese is being sued for allegedly failing to have a medical examination for his new film Silence. Hollywood Gang Productions filed the breach of contract lawsuit against the Goodfellas creator in Manhattan Superior Court on September 3, claiming Scorsese agreed in February to "submit to a physical examination" but ignored repeated requests to fulfill that commitment and consequently lost the company insurance cover for the period drama - about Jesuit priests in 16th Century Japan. Hollywood Gang Productions' lawyer, Richard Golub, says, "All we want to do is stick a thermometer in him." The company had a contract with Scorsese which gave them power to take out a $1 million policy to insure themselves in case anything happened to the director during production. They are now seeking legal fees of more than $10,000.
Oh, the project! I love Endo's Silence, and use it with all my RCIA students. Along with Howard's End (on the secular side), I think Silence is one of the most important novels of the 20th Century. Certainly, one of the greatest Christian ones.
And, if I had to handpick the director to make the movie, ten times a hundred times, it would be Scorcese. He can do it! He can do it! We need to pray for him, however.
My big concern about this project is that, like any great Christian novel, (ie. Brideshead Revisited, The Power and the Glory, Wise Blood, etc.) taken from the wrong perspective, the project could seem to be anti-Christian. So, many of my RCIA students, don't get the point of the book, and some are actually scandalized by it. But for those who GET it, it becomes a benchmark. And so, I always take the risk and keep it in the program.
So, I'm very excited and a little anxious. I was thinking of actually whipping off a letter to Scorcese's company, pleading to just have an hour or so to talk about the theological meaning of the book.... Have to figure out a way to get an audience without appearing like a complete wacko. Or a profiteer, which would be worse.
But, anyway. I'm SO excited to think we'll get to see this film soon! Get thee to a doctor, Martin!
I'm SOOOOOO excited. A friend just forwarded me the following release. It's not the law suit that's got me excited, but the project!
Celebrated director Martin Scorsese is being sued for allegedly failing to have a medical examination for his new film Silence. Hollywood Gang Productions filed the breach of contract lawsuit against the Goodfellas creator in Manhattan Superior Court on September 3, claiming Scorsese agreed in February to "submit to a physical examination" but ignored repeated requests to fulfill that commitment and consequently lost the company insurance cover for the period drama - about Jesuit priests in 16th Century Japan. Hollywood Gang Productions' lawyer, Richard Golub, says, "All we want to do is stick a thermometer in him." The company had a contract with Scorsese which gave them power to take out a $1 million policy to insure themselves in case anything happened to the director during production. They are now seeking legal fees of more than $10,000.
Oh, the project! I love Endo's Silence, and use it with all my RCIA students. Along with Howard's End (on the secular side), I think Silence is one of the most important novels of the 20th Century. Certainly, one of the greatest Christian ones.
And, if I had to handpick the director to make the movie, ten times a hundred times, it would be Scorcese. He can do it! He can do it! We need to pray for him, however.
My big concern about this project is that, like any great Christian novel, (ie. Brideshead Revisited, The Power and the Glory, Wise Blood, etc.) taken from the wrong perspective, the project could seem to be anti-Christian. So, many of my RCIA students, don't get the point of the book, and some are actually scandalized by it. But for those who GET it, it becomes a benchmark. And so, I always take the risk and keep it in the program.
So, I'm very excited and a little anxious. I was thinking of actually whipping off a letter to Scorcese's company, pleading to just have an hour or so to talk about the theological meaning of the book.... Have to figure out a way to get an audience without appearing like a complete wacko. Or a profiteer, which would be worse.
But, anyway. I'm SO excited to think we'll get to see this film soon! Get thee to a doctor, Martin!
Thursday, September 16, 2004
MOORE HYPE
Michael Moore's got the biz buzz again these days for his announcement that he will be foregoing submitting his Fahrenheit 9/11 for the Best Documentary Oscar this year, and, instead, will be going for the Best Picture nod. This might be a classic case of the devil biting his own tail, but, on the other hand, this is Hollywood...
In more testimony to the weird weird extreme polarization of our times, Daily Variety reported a few weeks back that, considering the Best Picture race so far, the two top contenders have to be reckoned The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11.
It would be great to see pictures of the Suffering Savior splattered all over the industry trades for the next four months, but, honestly, I just don't see it happening. And my sense is Icon isn't going to go for it.
A few of us conservative Catholics worked really hard to get TPOTC the annual official Catholic organization in Hollywood award. This award is given at a big Beverly Hills brunch attended by the Cardinal of Los Angeles (or, this year, his delegate) and about a thousand industry Catholics. There was great resistance on the part of many of the liberal Catholics in the group toward giving TPOTC the award. The argument was that the film was offensive to "our Jewish friends and colleagues in the business." Fortunately, there wasn't any other film that offered any competition except maybe Big Fish. Well, I liked that film, but as my friend argued to the Board, "We can give the Award to an international block-buster and the most significant religious film ever made, or we can give it to a movie nobody saw." Still, we nearly lost the dispute. We ended up prevailing by making the triangulating case that the film was "Particularly beloved of the poor in the Third World, and that it would be an expression of solidarity with the poor to give the film the Award." Which is true....but sheesh.
Anyway, when I called Icon to inform them of the award, there was decided reticence about anybody from the production coming to pick it up. Certainly not Mel. I made the case, "This award could be a really important kick-off for the Academy Award campaign season." The response came back, "Mel already has his Oscars."
(Another friend recently pitched a TV series at Icon as they are now heavy into prime-time with three series this fall. My friend's series has a spiritual component to it, which, in the wake of Joan of Arcadia got the pitch a good reception at several networks. But, at Icon he was waved away, "We don't want to do anything with religion here." I guess it's shell-shock from all the anti-Semitic crap that was thrown at them last year. But it's also a little, well, ungrateful, in light of the $600 million dollars they made off of religion recently...)
Anyway, this indicated to me that Icon is not going to be pushing TPOTC for an Oscar, and without the campaign, the film's chances are dead in the water. The only way to explain an Oscar campaign is "saturation." The top contenders are generally featured in the trades through advertising or other buzz every day for three months. Clearly, Fahrenheit 9/11 will be in our faces. It doesn't seem like Icon wants to engage, however.
But even if Icon did enter the race seriously, I still don't see this town giving Oscar to a film which is a devout bloody depiction of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Sorry, but, it's hardly news that this is, culturally, a very Jewish town. One of my Jewish friends assured me that few people in the business even saw TPOTC.
No, I think that in an election year, the pressure will be over-whelming to register a vote against the "right-wing Republican Christian menace," by giving the Oscar to Fahrenheit. I could be wrong, but you have to understand how giddy with power people in this industry are. They get all sanctimonious about "Coming Out" with their opinions, as though they have earned a political responsibility along with their creative achievements. It's a kind of insanity, but they really have nothing to lose, do they? Whether it's acrimony or love the celebrities here get, the hunger for attention is still fed.
Friend and fellow screenwriter, Jan "The Maven" disagrees with me. I hope she's right.
Michael Moore's got the biz buzz again these days for his announcement that he will be foregoing submitting his Fahrenheit 9/11 for the Best Documentary Oscar this year, and, instead, will be going for the Best Picture nod. This might be a classic case of the devil biting his own tail, but, on the other hand, this is Hollywood...
In more testimony to the weird weird extreme polarization of our times, Daily Variety reported a few weeks back that, considering the Best Picture race so far, the two top contenders have to be reckoned The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11.
It would be great to see pictures of the Suffering Savior splattered all over the industry trades for the next four months, but, honestly, I just don't see it happening. And my sense is Icon isn't going to go for it.
A few of us conservative Catholics worked really hard to get TPOTC the annual official Catholic organization in Hollywood award. This award is given at a big Beverly Hills brunch attended by the Cardinal of Los Angeles (or, this year, his delegate) and about a thousand industry Catholics. There was great resistance on the part of many of the liberal Catholics in the group toward giving TPOTC the award. The argument was that the film was offensive to "our Jewish friends and colleagues in the business." Fortunately, there wasn't any other film that offered any competition except maybe Big Fish. Well, I liked that film, but as my friend argued to the Board, "We can give the Award to an international block-buster and the most significant religious film ever made, or we can give it to a movie nobody saw." Still, we nearly lost the dispute. We ended up prevailing by making the triangulating case that the film was "Particularly beloved of the poor in the Third World, and that it would be an expression of solidarity with the poor to give the film the Award." Which is true....but sheesh.
Anyway, when I called Icon to inform them of the award, there was decided reticence about anybody from the production coming to pick it up. Certainly not Mel. I made the case, "This award could be a really important kick-off for the Academy Award campaign season." The response came back, "Mel already has his Oscars."
(Another friend recently pitched a TV series at Icon as they are now heavy into prime-time with three series this fall. My friend's series has a spiritual component to it, which, in the wake of Joan of Arcadia got the pitch a good reception at several networks. But, at Icon he was waved away, "We don't want to do anything with religion here." I guess it's shell-shock from all the anti-Semitic crap that was thrown at them last year. But it's also a little, well, ungrateful, in light of the $600 million dollars they made off of religion recently...)
Anyway, this indicated to me that Icon is not going to be pushing TPOTC for an Oscar, and without the campaign, the film's chances are dead in the water. The only way to explain an Oscar campaign is "saturation." The top contenders are generally featured in the trades through advertising or other buzz every day for three months. Clearly,
But even if Icon did enter the race seriously, I still don't see this town giving Oscar to a film which is a devout bloody depiction of the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Sorry, but, it's hardly news that this is, culturally, a very Jewish town. One of my Jewish friends assured me that few people in the business even saw TPOTC.
No, I think that in an election year, the pressure will be over-whelming to register a vote against the "right-wing Republican Christian menace," by giving the Oscar to Fahrenheit. I could be wrong, but you have to understand how giddy with power people in this industry are. They get all sanctimonious about "Coming Out" with their opinions, as though they have earned a political responsibility along with their creative achievements. It's a kind of insanity, but they really have nothing to lose, do they? Whether it's acrimony or love the celebrities here get, the hunger for attention is still fed.
Friend and fellow screenwriter, Jan "The Maven" disagrees with me. I hope she's right.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
RATED D: FOR DECEIT
Last October, Act One was contacted by an AMC film crew that was shooting a documentary on - according to the producer - "Religion in Hollywood." We were in the middle of the Act Two Advanced Screenwriters Workshop for a group of our alumni, and the film crew asked me if they could come and shoot some of the sessions. The producer-director of the piece was Jesse Moss, and Act One gave him and his people pretty open access to shoot classes, and interview students and faculty.
During his interview with me, in the middle of the questions about being a Christian in Hollywood, he asked me - what I thought at the time was - a weird question, "So, what political party do you belong to?" I was taken aback, "Whaaaaaaaaat?" He asked me directly if I would be voting for Arnold Schwarzeneggar. I remember blinking in confusion and saying somethng to the effect of, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Now, I understand that the question had to do with everything.
Some of you will have read the NY Times article or have seen the documentary last night on AMC. Turns out, the doc wasn't on "Religion in Hollywood" at all, but rather on "Republicans in Hollywood." After 30 minutes of stuff about Arnold and Charles Heston and five young Republicans at a cocktail party, the doc segues into the Act One section. The implication clearly is that, if you are a committed Christian, you must also be a Republican.
The doc also interviewed Patty Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) and made the same implicit connection by doing so. I've been at events with Patty where she has clearly identified herself as a Democrat. She said at UCLA, "Becuase I am pro-life, very often I have to hold my nose and vote Republican." The doc also incorrectly id'ed Patty as being the "Founder of Feminists for Life." She isn't.
So, we're annoyed this morning at having been duped. I would never have allowed Mr. Moss access to Act One if he had been upfront that his project was about politics. Act One is absolutely non-partisan. I will, no doubt, spend the day, answering queries from faculty and friends and alumni, assuring them that Act One isn't part of the Republican insurgency in the industry.
Mr. Moss owes us all an apology, and a correction in the NY Times.
Last October, Act One was contacted by an AMC film crew that was shooting a documentary on - according to the producer - "Religion in Hollywood." We were in the middle of the Act Two Advanced Screenwriters Workshop for a group of our alumni, and the film crew asked me if they could come and shoot some of the sessions. The producer-director of the piece was Jesse Moss, and Act One gave him and his people pretty open access to shoot classes, and interview students and faculty.
During his interview with me, in the middle of the questions about being a Christian in Hollywood, he asked me - what I thought at the time was - a weird question, "So, what political party do you belong to?" I was taken aback, "Whaaaaaaaaat?" He asked me directly if I would be voting for Arnold Schwarzeneggar. I remember blinking in confusion and saying somethng to the effect of, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Now, I understand that the question had to do with everything.
Some of you will have read the NY Times article or have seen the documentary last night on AMC. Turns out, the doc wasn't on "Religion in Hollywood" at all, but rather on "Republicans in Hollywood." After 30 minutes of stuff about Arnold and Charles Heston and five young Republicans at a cocktail party, the doc segues into the Act One section. The implication clearly is that, if you are a committed Christian, you must also be a Republican.
The doc also interviewed Patty Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) and made the same implicit connection by doing so. I've been at events with Patty where she has clearly identified herself as a Democrat. She said at UCLA, "Becuase I am pro-life, very often I have to hold my nose and vote Republican." The doc also incorrectly id'ed Patty as being the "Founder of Feminists for Life." She isn't.
So, we're annoyed this morning at having been duped. I would never have allowed Mr. Moss access to Act One if he had been upfront that his project was about politics. Act One is absolutely non-partisan. I will, no doubt, spend the day, answering queries from faculty and friends and alumni, assuring them that Act One isn't part of the Republican insurgency in the industry.
Mr. Moss owes us all an apology, and a correction in the NY Times.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
FELONY TWIST
It's really been a bad year for movies. Even here in L.A. where EVERYTHING has to play for seven days, there still is next to nothing my friends and I wanted to see at the theater this past weekend. We actually almost settled on watching a DVD at my place, but then somebody noted that the new caper film Criminal was getting strong reviews.
I can never resist a good con/caper film. [sigh] I should learn to...
Starring John C. Relly and a new guy named Diego Luna (who my twenty-something femals friends assure me is "hot" but he just looks kind of effeminate and under-fed to me.), the best thing in the film is supporting actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. Not that she does anything noteworthy here. She's just such a natural talent, that she is fun to watch even when she doesn't have much to do, as in Criminal.
Criminal is a remake of an Argentinian film Nine Queens, which also got critical raves, but, IF that prior film had the same stupid ending as Criminal, I think the real caper in the story is the one pulled on the audience.
The film plays out nicely with some good characterizations and overall technique. I did kind of wish the director would cease and desist with the unmotivated close-ups already, but I suppose this is a pedestrian way of building tension in a caper film. The story keeps your attention, but only because, all the way through, the viewer thinks it is setting up some really clever con or caper. You sit there watching for minute clues, wondering what the twist is going to be, and, for that reason, you stay alert. But then when the twist is revealed (and no, I am actually not going to say what it is for a change) it is so lame and easy that you want to throw your empty popcorn box at the screen. And not in a good way.
Basically, the story's problem comes down to a huge suspension of disbelief moment that occurs in the first five minutes of the film, and which all throughout, I kept waiting to see how the filmmakers were going to deal with. Well, they don't deal with it at all. Just kind of hope at the end that the viewers won't remember how contrived the initial set-up was from 86 minutes ago.
Well, this viewer didn't forget. And I'm still mad. And not in a good way.
Mucho pass, amigo.
It's really been a bad year for movies. Even here in L.A. where EVERYTHING has to play for seven days, there still is next to nothing my friends and I wanted to see at the theater this past weekend. We actually almost settled on watching a DVD at my place, but then somebody noted that the new caper film Criminal was getting strong reviews.
I can never resist a good con/caper film. [sigh] I should learn to...
Starring John C. Relly and a new guy named Diego Luna (who my twenty-something femals friends assure me is "hot" but he just looks kind of effeminate and under-fed to me.), the best thing in the film is supporting actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. Not that she does anything noteworthy here. She's just such a natural talent, that she is fun to watch even when she doesn't have much to do, as in Criminal.
Criminal is a remake of an Argentinian film Nine Queens, which also got critical raves, but, IF that prior film had the same stupid ending as Criminal, I think the real caper in the story is the one pulled on the audience.
The film plays out nicely with some good characterizations and overall technique. I did kind of wish the director would cease and desist with the unmotivated close-ups already, but I suppose this is a pedestrian way of building tension in a caper film. The story keeps your attention, but only because, all the way through, the viewer thinks it is setting up some really clever con or caper. You sit there watching for minute clues, wondering what the twist is going to be, and, for that reason, you stay alert. But then when the twist is revealed (and no, I am actually not going to say what it is for a change) it is so lame and easy that you want to throw your empty popcorn box at the screen. And not in a good way.
Basically, the story's problem comes down to a huge suspension of disbelief moment that occurs in the first five minutes of the film, and which all throughout, I kept waiting to see how the filmmakers were going to deal with. Well, they don't deal with it at all. Just kind of hope at the end that the viewers won't remember how contrived the initial set-up was from 86 minutes ago.
Well, this viewer didn't forget. And I'm still mad. And not in a good way.
Mucho pass, amigo.
Monday, September 13, 2004
EMILY MONDAY
712
Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility --
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess -- in the Ring --
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain --
We passed the Setting Sun --
Or rather -- He passed Us --
The Dews drew quivering and chill --
For only Gossamer, my Gown --
My Tippet -- only Tulle --
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground --
The Roof was scarcely visible --
The Cornice -- in the Ground --
Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity --
712
Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility --
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess -- in the Ring --
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain --
We passed the Setting Sun --
Or rather -- He passed Us --
The Dews drew quivering and chill --
For only Gossamer, my Gown --
My Tippet -- only Tulle --
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground --
The Roof was scarcely visible --
The Cornice -- in the Ground --
Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity --
STILL WORKING OUT THE KINKS...
...with the blog. Eventually, I know I'll be glad I did this, but right now, I just want my plain ole boring looking blog back. (Clayton help! Sean help!)
Anyway, sorry about the mess.
But it could be worse. For example, I could imagine being part of the team behind the new NBC series LAX. I'm sitting here reading, playing a computer game, cooking dinner and still managing to be insulted by the crass easiness of the pilot episode. It's so clearly trying to be ER goes on vacation, I keep expecting a group of people in teal scrubs to run by pushing a gurney.
Actually, I'm kind of glad LAX is so lame. Now, I won't have to worry I'm missing anything while I do my weekly David Caruso gazing.
...with the blog. Eventually, I know I'll be glad I did this, but right now, I just want my plain ole boring looking blog back. (Clayton help! Sean help!)
Anyway, sorry about the mess.
But it could be worse. For example, I could imagine being part of the team behind the new NBC series LAX. I'm sitting here reading, playing a computer game, cooking dinner and still managing to be insulted by the crass easiness of the pilot episode. It's so clearly trying to be ER goes on vacation, I keep expecting a group of people in teal scrubs to run by pushing a gurney.
Actually, I'm kind of glad LAX is so lame. Now, I won't have to worry I'm missing anything while I do my weekly David Caruso gazing.
Friday, September 10, 2004
LIKE CURING A HEADACHE BY DECAPITATION
I couldn't fix my wrap-around margin problem, so I just decided to go to a whole new template. I'm finally breaking out of the Mark Shea - Eve Tushnet model...which is as it should be, because this humble blog is not worthy to refresh one of their main pages. [demure, looking down through lowered eyelashes] Ahem...
So, the new look here still isn't quite right. It was nightmarish last night as I tried for three hours to get all the stuff from my old template over. I still haven't gotten my Squawkboc comments back. I've got the blogger ones up, but I'm loathe to lose all the brilliant comments that have been posted over the last two years, so I hope I can figure out how to get them back. Stay tuned.
I couldn't fix my wrap-around margin problem, so I just decided to go to a whole new template. I'm finally breaking out of the Mark Shea - Eve Tushnet model...which is as it should be, because this humble blog is not worthy to refresh one of their main pages. [demure, looking down through lowered eyelashes] Ahem...
So, the new look here still isn't quite right. It was nightmarish last night as I tried for three hours to get all the stuff from my old template over. I still haven't gotten my Squawkboc comments back. I've got the blogger ones up, but I'm loathe to lose all the brilliant comments that have been posted over the last two years, so I hope I can figure out how to get them back. Stay tuned.
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