: 'God Grew Tired of Us'
Catch a glimpse of this documentary, narrated by Nicole Kidman, about the Lost Boys of Sudan.
God Grew Tired of Us
“God Grew Tired Of Us" tells the story of three of the "Lost Boys" of Sudan--a group of 25,000 children, ages 3 to 13, who fled the famine and war in their villages, traveled together for five years, and eventually made it to a United Nations refugee camp. Nearly 4,000 of them--including the three profiled in "God Grew Tired Of Us"--later settled in the United States, where they built active and fulfilling new lives but remain deeply committed to helping the friends and family they have left behind. The film follows the three as they journey to America and are faced with its unfamiliar ways. Even a trip to the supermarket, with its endless array of choices, is baffling to them.
The documentary is narrated by Nicole Kidman, and its producers include Brad Pitt. Presented by Newmarket Films, "God Grew Tired Of Us" is a National Geographic Films/LBS Production. It opens in New York and Los Angeles on Jan. 12, and moves to wider release on Jan. 19.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Happy New Year...Now, Off to Australia!
Hi everybody! I wish you all every blessing in this coming year.
I have been mostly in hiding these last few months. Enjoying my family in CT, working on a screenplay assignment, consulting on several movie projects and playing way too many games of computer Scrabble. Also Railroad Tycoon. Basically I am transitioning off of eight years running Act One, and am looking forward to helping it continue to grow in my new role as Chairman of the Board.
I haven't been watching a lot of movies. I am way behind in being able to disdain with authority the movies that the industry is preparing to lavish with Golden Globes and Oscars. My only definitive picks so far would be for Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep to walk home with statues. And probably Todd Fields for Little Children. I did enjoy Rocky Balboa and found The Fountain an intriguing visual poem (which is a mess under a merely narrative lens the way poems usually are). I have been smugly watching The Nativity flounder, and even more smugly watching the crowds throng to and the critics rave about Apocalypto.
2007 looks to be a year of much - how does Job put it about Satan? - wnadering around the face of the earth. I leave for two weeks in Melbourne, Australia tonight (Jack Dwyer - if you live in Melbourne, we should have tea! Also, if Claire M. is reading this, send me an email!). I will be consulting on a very interesting movie project that will be of interest to people of faith. More I cannot say right now.
Other trips on the calendar so far include...
January 23 - speech at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
January 26 - a really kind of cool but not public speech in Washington, DC
February 27 - Legatus, Houma, LA
February 28 - Legatus, Mobile AL
March 1 - Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH
March 3 - University of Notre Dame, IN
March 14 - The University, Thousand Oaks, CA
March 21 - April 4 - The HOLY LAND, baby! My mother and family are horrified that I am going to Israel right now. But I figure, if you die on a pilgriamge to Jesus' places, you win!)
April 5 (date still TBD) - Catholic University of Milan, Italy
May 15 - Legatus, Fairfield, CT
May 16 - Legatus, LeHigh Valley, PA
May 17 - Legatus, Morris County, NJ
August 4 - Catholic Family Conference, Wichita, KS
September 5 - Legatus, Colorado Springs, CO
November 8 - Legatus, Ft. Worth, TX
I know I am missing a few more on that list. Oh well.
And did I mention that my New Year's Resolution is to cut down on traveling? Rats.
Anyway, if you have a group, college or parish in any of these places and would like to set up a speech, now is the time to get on the calendar. Just send me an email at brnicolosi@aol.com.
I have been mostly in hiding these last few months. Enjoying my family in CT, working on a screenplay assignment, consulting on several movie projects and playing way too many games of computer Scrabble. Also Railroad Tycoon. Basically I am transitioning off of eight years running Act One, and am looking forward to helping it continue to grow in my new role as Chairman of the Board.
I haven't been watching a lot of movies. I am way behind in being able to disdain with authority the movies that the industry is preparing to lavish with Golden Globes and Oscars. My only definitive picks so far would be for Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep to walk home with statues. And probably Todd Fields for Little Children. I did enjoy Rocky Balboa and found The Fountain an intriguing visual poem (which is a mess under a merely narrative lens the way poems usually are). I have been smugly watching The Nativity flounder, and even more smugly watching the crowds throng to and the critics rave about Apocalypto.
2007 looks to be a year of much - how does Job put it about Satan? - wnadering around the face of the earth. I leave for two weeks in Melbourne, Australia tonight (Jack Dwyer - if you live in Melbourne, we should have tea! Also, if Claire M. is reading this, send me an email!). I will be consulting on a very interesting movie project that will be of interest to people of faith. More I cannot say right now.
Other trips on the calendar so far include...
January 23 - speech at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA
January 26 - a really kind of cool but not public speech in Washington, DC
February 27 - Legatus, Houma, LA
February 28 - Legatus, Mobile AL
March 1 - Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH
March 3 - University of Notre Dame, IN
March 14 - The University, Thousand Oaks, CA
March 21 - April 4 - The HOLY LAND, baby! My mother and family are horrified that I am going to Israel right now. But I figure, if you die on a pilgriamge to Jesus' places, you win!)
April 5 (date still TBD) - Catholic University of Milan, Italy
May 15 - Legatus, Fairfield, CT
May 16 - Legatus, LeHigh Valley, PA
May 17 - Legatus, Morris County, NJ
August 4 - Catholic Family Conference, Wichita, KS
September 5 - Legatus, Colorado Springs, CO
November 8 - Legatus, Ft. Worth, TX
I know I am missing a few more on that list. Oh well.
And did I mention that my New Year's Resolution is to cut down on traveling? Rats.
Anyway, if you have a group, college or parish in any of these places and would like to set up a speech, now is the time to get on the calendar. Just send me an email at brnicolosi@aol.com.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
What Writers Do Instead of Writing
I am back in L.A. supposed to be working on writing projects today. Which is, of course, why I am taking Internet quizzes. This one was fun and pretty true. I was born in NJ and learned to talk there. Moved to RI when I was five, too late to acquire the Go-ad in heaven, wicket biz-ah way of talkin' that my de-ah sistahs have.
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| The West | |
| Boston | |
| The Inland North | |
| The Northeast | |
| North Central | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Act One in the News
Here's a nice piece about Act One that just ran in the Houston Chronicle this past weekend. I had a speech at St. Thomas University there, and the university kindly set up this interview. Here's my favorite snip...
"The goal of Christians in the arts is not to make stuff that is only for Christians," Nicolosi said. "The role of Christians in a secular world like Hollywood is to say there is beauty, and people long for it. There is truth. There is goodness."
She's is critical of films like this summer's church-produced Facing the Giants that extol acceptance of Christ as the solution to life's problems.
[NOTE FROM BARB: Something must have gotten lost here in my rambling in the interview. Just to be clear, Jesus IS the answer to life's problems. And this answer is not that we have no problems, but that loving Him means suffering without despair in a way that is saving for the world...I'd so much rather people get furious with me for what I did mean that for what I didn't.]
She wants writers to produce scripts like A Man for All Seasons, Ghandi, Chariots of Fire or Schindler's List. "Those kinds of films will be part of the dialogue for the ... human family, about things that are lasting, about human meaning," she said.
After the blockbuster success of The Passion of the Christ, Act One began receiving calls from studios looking for writers and executives, Nicolosi said. But she warns that Hollywood still does not understand the religious market or respect traditional morality or ethics.
"Let's face it, no one is writing a To Kill a Mockingbird anymore. That would require a letting go of the cynicism that has Hollywood in its grip. For Hollywood, there can be no heroes." But Nicolosi is also critical of the Christian community for supporting poorly made films simply because they are "Christian."
The religious community should accept that great dramas often involve evil and violence, she said. "We have to be able to talk about sin, and Christians should be comfortable with that," she said. "We have to have sin in our drama, but it doesn't have to be an occasion of sin for our audience."
The Passion of the Christ did more than change Hollywood's support for faith-themed projects; it also showed Christians the power of films "to be the means of doing good in the world," she said.
"The church set the standards for beautiful art, for music, for architecture back in the Middle Ages," Nicolosi said. "The church has to wake up and get back to excellence. I think it will happen."
Thanks to the journalist, Richard Vara, for being so gracious and fair. Special thanks to the heroic Bill Cork of the Archdiocese of Houston for driving me around all that day, and for sitting through the long interview (and the tortuous photo session... Yes, that photo was the result of about forty minutes of painstaking effort by the Chronicle's staff photographer. Rats.).
"The goal of Christians in the arts is not to make stuff that is only for Christians," Nicolosi said. "The role of Christians in a secular world like Hollywood is to say there is beauty, and people long for it. There is truth. There is goodness."
She's is critical of films like this summer's church-produced Facing the Giants that extol acceptance of Christ as the solution to life's problems.
[NOTE FROM BARB: Something must have gotten lost here in my rambling in the interview. Just to be clear, Jesus IS the answer to life's problems. And this answer is not that we have no problems, but that loving Him means suffering without despair in a way that is saving for the world...I'd so much rather people get furious with me for what I did mean that for what I didn't.]
She wants writers to produce scripts like A Man for All Seasons, Ghandi, Chariots of Fire or Schindler's List. "Those kinds of films will be part of the dialogue for the ... human family, about things that are lasting, about human meaning," she said.
After the blockbuster success of The Passion of the Christ, Act One began receiving calls from studios looking for writers and executives, Nicolosi said. But she warns that Hollywood still does not understand the religious market or respect traditional morality or ethics.
"Let's face it, no one is writing a To Kill a Mockingbird anymore. That would require a letting go of the cynicism that has Hollywood in its grip. For Hollywood, there can be no heroes." But Nicolosi is also critical of the Christian community for supporting poorly made films simply because they are "Christian."
The religious community should accept that great dramas often involve evil and violence, she said. "We have to be able to talk about sin, and Christians should be comfortable with that," she said. "We have to have sin in our drama, but it doesn't have to be an occasion of sin for our audience."
The Passion of the Christ did more than change Hollywood's support for faith-themed projects; it also showed Christians the power of films "to be the means of doing good in the world," she said.
"The church set the standards for beautiful art, for music, for architecture back in the Middle Ages," Nicolosi said. "The church has to wake up and get back to excellence. I think it will happen."
Thanks to the journalist, Richard Vara, for being so gracious and fair. Special thanks to the heroic Bill Cork of the Archdiocese of Houston for driving me around all that day, and for sitting through the long interview (and the tortuous photo session... Yes, that photo was the result of about forty minutes of painstaking effort by the Chronicle's staff photographer. Rats.).
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Please beam me up, Jesus.
This just in courtesy of The Seattle Times:
The Sundance Film Festival announced Wednesday that Seattle filmmaker Robinson Devor's documentary "Zoo" has been accepted into the 2007 festival's documentary competition. The film examines the widely reported case of an Enumclaw man who died in 2005 after having sex with a horse.
I don't suppose anybody has any idea about the appropriate vehicle to protest this? Is there a way someone can say to the overlords at Sundance that bestiality is not pushing the envelope of artistic expression, but is just pushing human society into the crude, coarse hell of anti-civilization?
You feel that hard, pit in your stomach? That's your better instincts telling you that in a couple years, bestiality will be old hat on the screen.
"And the days will come when people will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!'"
The Sundance Film Festival announced Wednesday that Seattle filmmaker Robinson Devor's documentary "Zoo" has been accepted into the 2007 festival's documentary competition. The film examines the widely reported case of an Enumclaw man who died in 2005 after having sex with a horse.
I don't suppose anybody has any idea about the appropriate vehicle to protest this? Is there a way someone can say to the overlords at Sundance that bestiality is not pushing the envelope of artistic expression, but is just pushing human society into the crude, coarse hell of anti-civilization?
You feel that hard, pit in your stomach? That's your better instincts telling you that in a couple years, bestiality will be old hat on the screen.
"And the days will come when people will say to the mountains, 'Cover us!'"
Un-Bond
I went to see Casino Royale last night. Profoundly disturbing film. Much of the movie is really the stuff of a top action film. But I think it may have singled-handedly ruined one of my favorite screen characters for me. Rah.
The people who are saying that the film is the best Bond movie ever are mistaken. It isn't really a Bond film, is it? The whole tone of the movie is different. Whereas the Bond films are famously tongue in cheek, this film has absolutely no sense of irony or absurdity. Where Bond films are generally thrilling with the creativity of the gadgets in action, this film is tense with the principle gadget being the brutalized body of the main character himself. Where you usually walk out of a Bond film feeling a rush, this film left me very disturbed...in a violated kind of "I never wanted to see stuff like that kind of way."
Just so we know what we are talking about, I am referring to the fact that I never wanted to see my beloved Bond, James Bond, stripped naked and bound in a cane chair to then have his scrotum viciously beat on while he screams in agony. Nope, never wanted to see that.
(Yeah, maybe that counts as giving away a spoiler. But I'm feeling really mad that somebody took my Bond away this morning. But really, I look at it as more of a warning to those who don't like to get violated than giving away a plot point. I felt completely disgusted that none of the Christian critics had cued me in that a truly perverted, vile scene was coming. What the hell is wrong with us in the Church these day?! We've gotten so avant garde that we are afraid to send out a loud, resounding "BLECK!" when we get slimed by the culture? And watching that scene was getting slimed, my friends. The fact that you didn't register it as such just means your innocence has been lost.)
Now, it may be that the whole problem was with the idea of the James Bond franchise in the first place. Here is a character that is the embodiment of the Sexual Revolution. eh? He's free (no troubling conscience), he's fabulous (terribly clever, cool cars, limitless money, exotic places, never gets caught by a stray bullet) and he's getting tons of sex with only gorgeous women (no AIDS, vd or pregnancy in this universe). And that's all a lie, isn't it?
So, by this reasoning, Casino Royale is one more deconstruction of the web of boomer lies....? Maybe. The film feels much more cynical than enlightening. It seems to me to be one more shredding of a beloved hero, for no good reason except to take something people love and spit in their eye.
See, the thing is, the James Bond franchise was formerly fun because the films were always winking at the lies of the popular culture, and the Sexual Revolution in particular. We all knew that his life was the stuff of fantasy. We weren't looking for realism in Bond andy more than we were in Superman (before we saw his 2006 reincarnation stuck in an adolescent cruch that had him knock up chick and then become a deadbeat dad). Did anybody really need Casino Royale to shatter their faith in Octopussy cliques and albino assassins?
Stay tuned, next week we are going to see a film in which we learn that not only didn't the prince marry Cinderella, but rather, the corporate climate of corruption which is the DARK REALITY beneath the trappings of monarchy, refused the poor little fool health insurance to treat the ACTUALLY REAL TB that she got while ingesting fumes from trying to make herself slippers out of broken shards of her REAL filthy basement HUD-assisted low income housing, because the REAL shoes that she should have gotten from a VERIFIABLE government contractor were IN FACT made of cheap materials in a third world sweat shop and fell apart. All that stuff about a fairy god-mother and glorious pumpkin carriage were the result of crystal meth haze which her step-mother got her addicted to so she could profit off the kid as a sex-slave.
Aren't you glad you know the whole story now? Buck up you idealistic fools! Movies are hard, then you die.
Oh yes, another disturbing note... When I was in film school, my radical feminist lesbian professors were quite adament that we all leave Northwestern with a keen sense of what they called "the male gaze" in cinema. The "Male Gaze" is a fundamentally skewed-with-patriarchy way of seeing the world and especially women that, my professors contended, was predicable of pretty much all of classic Hollywood cinema. They used to endlessly dissect camera angles and lighting in shots to reveal cues of the male desire to dominate and dehumanize women. A lot of times I thought my professors were nuts and paranoid. But every now and then they had a point.
Well, I gotta say, there is something icky in Casino Royale that feels very much like what we could call "the homosexual gaze." The women in the film, first of all, spend much of the film very ioconically made up - shall we say, like Liza Minelli or a Marilyn impersonator? Then, the women all end up as victims of sick and/or violent acts. All three are tortured or threatened with torture. Can we say the disdain of women is part of the homosexual "culture," even unofficially? (Cause I have seen it first hand, and I'm not in a mood to deny my own experience today.) Anyway, I don't recall women being tortured as part of the traditional Bond canon.
Then, there are the many loving and languid shots of the - admittedly picturesque - torso of the star, Mr. Craig. A more notable one of these was Bond coming out of the water - and the camera almost cuts off his head to focus on the middle of his body. I don't remember the same kinds of voyeuristic shots holding on the mid-section of Sean Connery.
Finally, there is the afore-mentioned, extended, gratuitous, sado-masochistic torture scene in which a naked and slimey Bond, James Bond, is first complimented on his fine body by the lascivious male villain, and then, well, whipped on his privates. In between screaming in pain, Bond cries out for more evidencing a sick enjoyment of the sexual torture. It is a kind of moment that deserves to be dissected by film scholars for evidence of the "gay gaze." (Oh yeah, and as I learned in film school, it deosn't matter if the filmmakers are gay here. This stuff is systemic.)
But maybe all that feminist film theory stuff in film school just has me seeing goblins everywhere!
If you like your action tense, brutal and perverse, go see Casino Royale. I certainly wouldn't let my kids go.
The people who are saying that the film is the best Bond movie ever are mistaken. It isn't really a Bond film, is it? The whole tone of the movie is different. Whereas the Bond films are famously tongue in cheek, this film has absolutely no sense of irony or absurdity. Where Bond films are generally thrilling with the creativity of the gadgets in action, this film is tense with the principle gadget being the brutalized body of the main character himself. Where you usually walk out of a Bond film feeling a rush, this film left me very disturbed...in a violated kind of "I never wanted to see stuff like that kind of way."
Just so we know what we are talking about, I am referring to the fact that I never wanted to see my beloved Bond, James Bond, stripped naked and bound in a cane chair to then have his scrotum viciously beat on while he screams in agony. Nope, never wanted to see that.
(Yeah, maybe that counts as giving away a spoiler. But I'm feeling really mad that somebody took my Bond away this morning. But really, I look at it as more of a warning to those who don't like to get violated than giving away a plot point. I felt completely disgusted that none of the Christian critics had cued me in that a truly perverted, vile scene was coming. What the hell is wrong with us in the Church these day?! We've gotten so avant garde that we are afraid to send out a loud, resounding "BLECK!" when we get slimed by the culture? And watching that scene was getting slimed, my friends. The fact that you didn't register it as such just means your innocence has been lost.)
Now, it may be that the whole problem was with the idea of the James Bond franchise in the first place. Here is a character that is the embodiment of the Sexual Revolution. eh? He's free (no troubling conscience), he's fabulous (terribly clever, cool cars, limitless money, exotic places, never gets caught by a stray bullet) and he's getting tons of sex with only gorgeous women (no AIDS, vd or pregnancy in this universe). And that's all a lie, isn't it?
So, by this reasoning, Casino Royale is one more deconstruction of the web of boomer lies....? Maybe. The film feels much more cynical than enlightening. It seems to me to be one more shredding of a beloved hero, for no good reason except to take something people love and spit in their eye.
See, the thing is, the James Bond franchise was formerly fun because the films were always winking at the lies of the popular culture, and the Sexual Revolution in particular. We all knew that his life was the stuff of fantasy. We weren't looking for realism in Bond andy more than we were in Superman (before we saw his 2006 reincarnation stuck in an adolescent cruch that had him knock up chick and then become a deadbeat dad). Did anybody really need Casino Royale to shatter their faith in Octopussy cliques and albino assassins?
Stay tuned, next week we are going to see a film in which we learn that not only didn't the prince marry Cinderella, but rather, the corporate climate of corruption which is the DARK REALITY beneath the trappings of monarchy, refused the poor little fool health insurance to treat the ACTUALLY REAL TB that she got while ingesting fumes from trying to make herself slippers out of broken shards of her REAL filthy basement HUD-assisted low income housing, because the REAL shoes that she should have gotten from a VERIFIABLE government contractor were IN FACT made of cheap materials in a third world sweat shop and fell apart. All that stuff about a fairy god-mother and glorious pumpkin carriage were the result of crystal meth haze which her step-mother got her addicted to so she could profit off the kid as a sex-slave.
Aren't you glad you know the whole story now? Buck up you idealistic fools! Movies are hard, then you die.
Oh yes, another disturbing note... When I was in film school, my radical feminist lesbian professors were quite adament that we all leave Northwestern with a keen sense of what they called "the male gaze" in cinema. The "Male Gaze" is a fundamentally skewed-with-patriarchy way of seeing the world and especially women that, my professors contended, was predicable of pretty much all of classic Hollywood cinema. They used to endlessly dissect camera angles and lighting in shots to reveal cues of the male desire to dominate and dehumanize women. A lot of times I thought my professors were nuts and paranoid. But every now and then they had a point.
Well, I gotta say, there is something icky in Casino Royale that feels very much like what we could call "the homosexual gaze." The women in the film, first of all, spend much of the film very ioconically made up - shall we say, like Liza Minelli or a Marilyn impersonator? Then, the women all end up as victims of sick and/or violent acts. All three are tortured or threatened with torture. Can we say the disdain of women is part of the homosexual "culture," even unofficially? (Cause I have seen it first hand, and I'm not in a mood to deny my own experience today.) Anyway, I don't recall women being tortured as part of the traditional Bond canon.
Then, there are the many loving and languid shots of the - admittedly picturesque - torso of the star, Mr. Craig. A more notable one of these was Bond coming out of the water - and the camera almost cuts off his head to focus on the middle of his body. I don't remember the same kinds of voyeuristic shots holding on the mid-section of Sean Connery.
Finally, there is the afore-mentioned, extended, gratuitous, sado-masochistic torture scene in which a naked and slimey Bond, James Bond, is first complimented on his fine body by the lascivious male villain, and then, well, whipped on his privates. In between screaming in pain, Bond cries out for more evidencing a sick enjoyment of the sexual torture. It is a kind of moment that deserves to be dissected by film scholars for evidence of the "gay gaze." (Oh yeah, and as I learned in film school, it deosn't matter if the filmmakers are gay here. This stuff is systemic.)
But maybe all that feminist film theory stuff in film school just has me seeing goblins everywhere!
If you like your action tense, brutal and perverse, go see Casino Royale. I certainly wouldn't let my kids go.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
You Can Quote Me
John Paul II on The Passion of the Christ: "It is as it was."
Barb N. on The Nativity: "It is what it is."
Barb N. on The Nativity: "It is what it is."
Monday, November 27, 2006
Strangely More Inept Than Fiction
My sisters and I ran out to see the latest movie with Emma Thompson in it, Stranger Than Fiction, because we have been huges fans of hers since Dead Again.
Well, the picture fails terribly in many areas - casting, direction, production design, and, of course, writing, and so it would be lamentably forgettable, except for one thing. The film repeats over and over a shocking technical blunder that we just don't get to see in Hollywood films these days. Long after we stopped trying to follow the film's mess of a story, my sister and I were waiting expectantly for the sound boom to peek-a-boo into every scene.
I've scanned both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, and nobody seems to be commenting on what is to me an astounding technical gaff...pun intended. I can't figure out how this could have happened in modern technically obsessed Hollywood. And then, I can't figure out why the critics are covering for this kind of inexcusable screw-up.
It starts early in the film and goes all the way to the end. My sister noticed it before me,
"Hey, what's that black thing bouncing on the ceiling."
"Humph. It's the boom."
"The what?"
"The boom...Maybe it's going to be a plot point. You know, maybe the whole story of his life is actually being made into a fiction movie."
A scene or so later, there it was again. A dark fuzzy ellipse bouncing down between the two actors.
"There it is again."
"Yeah. What a mess. Is it possible that nobody was watching dailies of this project?"
"No. No. It HAS to be on purpose."
"Yah think? Why not? This film is so beyond credibility that the idea that the whole thing might be a film in a film is intriguing."
A few scenes later it was back. Bobbing in and out. And then again a scene later."
"I know what it is. Will Farrell is really tall. Maybe the boom operator is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he is towering over Dustin Hoffman."
"No, no, no. I'm telling you it is on purpose. They couldn't have that many screw ups in the film."
But then, there was the boom again, hovering over a scene with just Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. I think the boom must have intruded into the screen about fifty times during the film. How weird is that? Does this mean that the director was not looking into the camera enough? Or that the cinematographer was asleep? Or that the producers didn't have time for the dailies? (Help me out here, Jan.) Whatever it is, Stranger Than Fiction ends up being truly much stranger than any other movie I have seen for a while. The one thing Hollywood can usually boast about is technical craft.
Putting a good spin on it, watching for the boom to peek into the scene was really the only suspense in this terrible film. Pass. A big booming one.
Well, the picture fails terribly in many areas - casting, direction, production design, and, of course, writing, and so it would be lamentably forgettable, except for one thing. The film repeats over and over a shocking technical blunder that we just don't get to see in Hollywood films these days. Long after we stopped trying to follow the film's mess of a story, my sister and I were waiting expectantly for the sound boom to peek-a-boo into every scene.
I've scanned both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, and nobody seems to be commenting on what is to me an astounding technical gaff...pun intended. I can't figure out how this could have happened in modern technically obsessed Hollywood. And then, I can't figure out why the critics are covering for this kind of inexcusable screw-up.
It starts early in the film and goes all the way to the end. My sister noticed it before me,
"Hey, what's that black thing bouncing on the ceiling."
"Humph. It's the boom."
"The what?"
"The boom...Maybe it's going to be a plot point. You know, maybe the whole story of his life is actually being made into a fiction movie."
A scene or so later, there it was again. A dark fuzzy ellipse bouncing down between the two actors.
"There it is again."
"Yeah. What a mess. Is it possible that nobody was watching dailies of this project?"
"No. No. It HAS to be on purpose."
"Yah think? Why not? This film is so beyond credibility that the idea that the whole thing might be a film in a film is intriguing."
A few scenes later it was back. Bobbing in and out. And then again a scene later."
"I know what it is. Will Farrell is really tall. Maybe the boom operator is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he is towering over Dustin Hoffman."
"No, no, no. I'm telling you it is on purpose. They couldn't have that many screw ups in the film."
But then, there was the boom again, hovering over a scene with just Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. I think the boom must have intruded into the screen about fifty times during the film. How weird is that? Does this mean that the director was not looking into the camera enough? Or that the cinematographer was asleep? Or that the producers didn't have time for the dailies? (Help me out here, Jan.) Whatever it is, Stranger Than Fiction ends up being truly much stranger than any other movie I have seen for a while. The one thing Hollywood can usually boast about is technical craft.
Putting a good spin on it, watching for the boom to peek into the scene was really the only suspense in this terrible film. Pass. A big booming one.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
A Prayer of Gratitude for Delle Chatman
My beloved friend, writing mentor and Act One faculty member Delle Chatman died Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. She fought recurrent ovarian cancer
for just over four years, and each year she rebounded and spent precious
time teaching at the opening retreats of our Writing Program. She
joined us as recently as this July to teach at the 2006 Summer Writing
Program retreat in Malibu.
I first met Delle at Northwestern University where she headed up the screenwriting department. I remember thinking on the first day of class with her, "This lady has got to be a Christian." She stood out from the bitter, intolerant nostalgic Marxists on the film department faculty there because of her grace and passion for beauty, and her genuine respect for each student.
Delle was an amazing person and absolutely defied any easy categorization. She was always kind and full of hope and optimism. I loved her and it makes me sad to think that I will have to wait who knows how long to see her again. Please say a prayer for Delle today, and her daughter and friends and family.
Below are excerpts from a recent email she wrote.
FROM DELLE:
The time has come for me to begin my journey to God through the sacred
corridor of hospice.
The cancer has gotten so far ahead of us that the side effects from the
drugs we're using to overtake it have themselves become debilitating.
Rather than allow further treatment to beat me down, I want to invest my
remaining strength and time in Ramona, God, friends, and getting my
house in order so that my loved ones are not left with a monumental
mound of Delle-dom through which they must sort and sift. To complicate
matters more, because Medicaid has paid for two years of my medical
treatment, if things are left just so, they will come back after my
death and take much of what I hope to leave to the Remarkable Ramona.
This isn't news to any of you who have laid a loved one to rest. One of
my mantras is, "I will not leave a mess!" ...
So many have prayed for so long that I would be delivered from this
horrific disease. Thank you. Thank you for every last prayer and
please do not feel that those prayers have been in vain. I certainly do
not. November 5 is my ***fourth*** "cancer-versary" and for a gal with
Stage IV Ovarian, this has been an extraordinarily long haul. Not only
that. These have been wondrous years for me and Ramona and for me and
the Lord. He's still working with me, even now.
My other mantra is "I'm Yours, Lord. All yours!"
I catch glimpses of Him from time to time, eyes full of compassion and
mercy. He is beautiful to behold.
Pray that my faith holds, that my family's faith holds . . . and that as
the dust settles all will be well. ...
It has been a privilege to share this journey with each of you.
Peace,
Delle
P.S. Remember, brothers and sisters, either we believe in eternal life
or we don't.
for just over four years, and each year she rebounded and spent precious
time teaching at the opening retreats of our Writing Program. She
joined us as recently as this July to teach at the 2006 Summer Writing
Program retreat in Malibu.
I first met Delle at Northwestern University where she headed up the screenwriting department. I remember thinking on the first day of class with her, "This lady has got to be a Christian." She stood out from the bitter, intolerant nostalgic Marxists on the film department faculty there because of her grace and passion for beauty, and her genuine respect for each student.
Delle was an amazing person and absolutely defied any easy categorization. She was always kind and full of hope and optimism. I loved her and it makes me sad to think that I will have to wait who knows how long to see her again. Please say a prayer for Delle today, and her daughter and friends and family.
Below are excerpts from a recent email she wrote.
FROM DELLE:
The time has come for me to begin my journey to God through the sacred
corridor of hospice.
The cancer has gotten so far ahead of us that the side effects from the
drugs we're using to overtake it have themselves become debilitating.
Rather than allow further treatment to beat me down, I want to invest my
remaining strength and time in Ramona, God, friends, and getting my
house in order so that my loved ones are not left with a monumental
mound of Delle-dom through which they must sort and sift. To complicate
matters more, because Medicaid has paid for two years of my medical
treatment, if things are left just so, they will come back after my
death and take much of what I hope to leave to the Remarkable Ramona.
This isn't news to any of you who have laid a loved one to rest. One of
my mantras is, "I will not leave a mess!" ...
So many have prayed for so long that I would be delivered from this
horrific disease. Thank you. Thank you for every last prayer and
please do not feel that those prayers have been in vain. I certainly do
not. November 5 is my ***fourth*** "cancer-versary" and for a gal with
Stage IV Ovarian, this has been an extraordinarily long haul. Not only
that. These have been wondrous years for me and Ramona and for me and
the Lord. He's still working with me, even now.
My other mantra is "I'm Yours, Lord. All yours!"
I catch glimpses of Him from time to time, eyes full of compassion and
mercy. He is beautiful to behold.
Pray that my faith holds, that my family's faith holds . . . and that as
the dust settles all will be well. ...
It has been a privilege to share this journey with each of you.
Peace,
Delle
P.S. Remember, brothers and sisters, either we believe in eternal life
or we don't.
Flags of the Angst Ridden, Ridiculous (Will They Ever Go Away?) Baby-Boomer's Fathers
Gonna take a two second time out from Jane Austen and Santa Barbara polo writing to deride and dismiss Clint Eastwood's latest directoral over-hyped disappointment, Flags of Our Fathers.
A friend of mine had warned me aout the movie in advance by saying, "I wanted to walk out at least twice it made me so angry." Myself, I didn't get as angry, because I have taken to watching the relentless and pathetic ravings of grayhaired baby-boomers with kind of a sick fascination these last few years. I sit there watching them with a cruel grin, the way one watches lobsters hissing while they go headfirst into a pot of boiling water. "You're going down, boys and girls. Your power is gone. And you are the only ones who don't know it. Pass the melted butter."
Anyway, much more egregiously than in Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers seems to be trying to make the case that nobody who fights in a war is a hero. They just end up there on battlefields and then their bodies get chopped up by the whims of meglomanical politicians and generals. And they die confused and angry and wondering what the hell we are all here for anyway?
This kind of tedious angst absolutely fits from a generation that decided to rebel against everything in their youth, and now have nothing in which to believe. But the thing that makes it my business, is that it absolutely undercuts any fun I might have at the movies, watching a story where the filmmaker has no coherent point of view!
Movies are supposed to be better than the real. That is, they are supposed to offer some kind of coherent, intelligible meaning. The audience is watching to try to put together and then either assent to or reject whatever the filmmaker is communicating. If the filmmaker is basically communicating, "Heros? Whatever. What does anything matter anyway?" then the viewing experience will be alternately disquieting and then confusing and finally irritating to the audience.
So, nobody in the theater clapped at the end of Flags of Our Fathers ...unless you count the nods we got to my sister's exhalation, "Thank God that's over" as being a kind of accolade.
Maybe I should get more specific here....
The movie makes the classic story mistake of making much ado about nothing and missing something much bigger in the process.
So, the basic storyline is, "Nevermind those 5,000 guys who died fighting the Japanese on Iwo Jima. The BIG story is how there were two photographs taken of these guys raising the flag!!!! God, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! They had TWO flag-raisings on Iwo Jima!!!!! IT'S STUNNINGLY MIND-BLOWING!!!!!! TWO FLAG PICTURES!!! QUICK! SOMEBODY CALL CLINT EASTWOOD!!!!!"
I remember once a student of mine coming to me with a pitch for a movie. The idea was basically flawed in the same way as Flags of our Fathers. The pitch was all about the story of the first "First Man" of the United States. That is, the first guy married to the first female president. So, the movie story kept talking about the woes of the first first man trying to pick out china and then decorating the White House and trying to get the kids off to school all while the first lady president is dealing with avoiding WWIII.
See the problem? The big story is THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT! The first, "First man" is the stuff of a comic sub-plot on the side.
This was the problem with the original West Wing concept, btw. In exactly one week, Sorkin and company figured out that the West Wing was only interesting because of its proximity to the Oval Office, and that the Presidency needed to be what the show was really about.
Okay, so, the first flaw of Flags is, as my sister said to me halfway through the movie and then many times thereafter throughout, and in the car going home, "I really didn't care about the drunk Indian guy. I wanted to be back on that beach with the Marines." Yup.
I can only surmise that the reason the movie, and the book on which it is based, spend so much time on non-essentials in this story, is because they think that politicians conniving to raise money for war bonds is innately more compelling than watching 5,000 Marines die.
For the Watergate generation, however, unmasking dirty politicians is always what it is about. "See, if we can unmask corruption in the establishment, maybe nobody will see the rot and inconsistency and meaninglessness of our own disastrous sexual revolution racked lives. If we can say that "The Greatest Generation" wasn't really that great, maybe we can drown out the voices of our kids who hate us for our selfishness? If we can say that there are no heros, even on a place like Iwo Jima, then maybe we can rid ourselves of the uneasiness we feel for our own pampered narcissitic lives?"
The look of Flags is great. There are some beautiful tableaus of the starkness and horror of war. Some of the bloody effects were badly executed and border on slasher-cheesy, but the main look of the battle scenes was quite effective. We just get far too little of it.
I went to the movie expecting to see fleshed out some of the myriad heroic stories of which I have read so much in my weird obsession with battlefield heroics. There were none of the Iwo Jima stories here. Just an obsession with a minor factoid that should have been a two minute scene at best in the larger story.
As with every Eastwood film, the directing of the actors here is horrific. The characters are all made to be one dimensional stereotypes - remember the "bad bully guys" in the gym and the redneck Christian trailer dwellers in Million Dollar Baby? Well, here we have "crooked corporate lobbyist guy", "arrogant clueless senator guy", "angry brutish general guys" and lots of "clueless farmboy soldier guys." And many more. They could make a dictionary of stereotypical characters from Clint's filmography. Really, really a bad actor's director.
Flags should be buried with a jubilant jazz-styled riff of TAPS. Don't hit this beach. Pass, Marines.
A friend of mine had warned me aout the movie in advance by saying, "I wanted to walk out at least twice it made me so angry." Myself, I didn't get as angry, because I have taken to watching the relentless and pathetic ravings of grayhaired baby-boomers with kind of a sick fascination these last few years. I sit there watching them with a cruel grin, the way one watches lobsters hissing while they go headfirst into a pot of boiling water. "You're going down, boys and girls. Your power is gone. And you are the only ones who don't know it. Pass the melted butter."
Anyway, much more egregiously than in Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers seems to be trying to make the case that nobody who fights in a war is a hero. They just end up there on battlefields and then their bodies get chopped up by the whims of meglomanical politicians and generals. And they die confused and angry and wondering what the hell we are all here for anyway?
This kind of tedious angst absolutely fits from a generation that decided to rebel against everything in their youth, and now have nothing in which to believe. But the thing that makes it my business, is that it absolutely undercuts any fun I might have at the movies, watching a story where the filmmaker has no coherent point of view!
Movies are supposed to be better than the real. That is, they are supposed to offer some kind of coherent, intelligible meaning. The audience is watching to try to put together and then either assent to or reject whatever the filmmaker is communicating. If the filmmaker is basically communicating, "Heros? Whatever. What does anything matter anyway?" then the viewing experience will be alternately disquieting and then confusing and finally irritating to the audience.
So, nobody in the theater clapped at the end of Flags of Our Fathers ...unless you count the nods we got to my sister's exhalation, "Thank God that's over" as being a kind of accolade.
Maybe I should get more specific here....
The movie makes the classic story mistake of making much ado about nothing and missing something much bigger in the process.
So, the basic storyline is, "Nevermind those 5,000 guys who died fighting the Japanese on Iwo Jima. The BIG story is how there were two photographs taken of these guys raising the flag!!!! God, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! They had TWO flag-raisings on Iwo Jima!!!!! IT'S STUNNINGLY MIND-BLOWING!!!!!! TWO FLAG PICTURES!!! QUICK! SOMEBODY CALL CLINT EASTWOOD!!!!!"
I remember once a student of mine coming to me with a pitch for a movie. The idea was basically flawed in the same way as Flags of our Fathers. The pitch was all about the story of the first "First Man" of the United States. That is, the first guy married to the first female president. So, the movie story kept talking about the woes of the first first man trying to pick out china and then decorating the White House and trying to get the kids off to school all while the first lady president is dealing with avoiding WWIII.
See the problem? The big story is THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT! The first, "First man" is the stuff of a comic sub-plot on the side.
This was the problem with the original West Wing concept, btw. In exactly one week, Sorkin and company figured out that the West Wing was only interesting because of its proximity to the Oval Office, and that the Presidency needed to be what the show was really about.
Okay, so, the first flaw of Flags is, as my sister said to me halfway through the movie and then many times thereafter throughout, and in the car going home, "I really didn't care about the drunk Indian guy. I wanted to be back on that beach with the Marines." Yup.
I can only surmise that the reason the movie, and the book on which it is based, spend so much time on non-essentials in this story, is because they think that politicians conniving to raise money for war bonds is innately more compelling than watching 5,000 Marines die.
For the Watergate generation, however, unmasking dirty politicians is always what it is about. "See, if we can unmask corruption in the establishment, maybe nobody will see the rot and inconsistency and meaninglessness of our own disastrous sexual revolution racked lives. If we can say that "The Greatest Generation" wasn't really that great, maybe we can drown out the voices of our kids who hate us for our selfishness? If we can say that there are no heros, even on a place like Iwo Jima, then maybe we can rid ourselves of the uneasiness we feel for our own pampered narcissitic lives?"
The look of Flags is great. There are some beautiful tableaus of the starkness and horror of war. Some of the bloody effects were badly executed and border on slasher-cheesy, but the main look of the battle scenes was quite effective. We just get far too little of it.
I went to the movie expecting to see fleshed out some of the myriad heroic stories of which I have read so much in my weird obsession with battlefield heroics. There were none of the Iwo Jima stories here. Just an obsession with a minor factoid that should have been a two minute scene at best in the larger story.
As with every Eastwood film, the directing of the actors here is horrific. The characters are all made to be one dimensional stereotypes - remember the "bad bully guys" in the gym and the redneck Christian trailer dwellers in Million Dollar Baby? Well, here we have "crooked corporate lobbyist guy", "arrogant clueless senator guy", "angry brutish general guys" and lots of "clueless farmboy soldier guys." And many more. They could make a dictionary of stereotypical characters from Clint's filmography. Really, really a bad actor's director.
Flags should be buried with a jubilant jazz-styled riff of TAPS. Don't hit this beach. Pass, Marines.
Jan's New Potter Book!
Friend, colleague and fellow blogger Jan "The Maven" Batchler has just got a book out in time for the Christmas season. It is the ultimate rush gift for anybody who loves Harry Potter. Jan has predicted with astute precision where J.K. Rowling should and even must go in the last book of the series to tie up all the loose ends and threads of her earlier work.
I am not really one of the race of Potter (although I like the movies), but even I have been fascinated to read Jan's recollections, deductions and insights. It's a fun read. Check it out!
_____________________________________
Dear friends--
I'm very happy to announce the publication of WHAT WILL HARRY DO?: THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO PAYOFFS AND POSSIBILITIES IN BOOK 7.
This is a great read for any Harry Potter fans -- and a great gift! It will soon be available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com -- but you can get it at a substantial discount NOW, by clicking "What Will Harry Do? The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7 by Janet Scott Batchler" (or paste this URL into your browser: http://www.lulu.com/content/318567).
Here's a brief description, and some of the advance praise for the book:
WHAT WILL HARRY DO? ..... Will Harry return to Hogwarts? Is Draco a werewolf? What did happen at Godric's Hollow? What is the sixth Horcrux? Is Snape truly evil? Truly good? Or just out for himself? Who will live?... Who will die? You may think you have to wait for HP Book 7 to answer these questions. But the clues... the set-ups for them have already been cleverly established in Books 1 through 6, and are just waiting for you to put the pieces together. WHAT WILL HARRY DO? is the unofficial guide that will help you unlock the puzzles of the all-encompassing question: What Happens Next?
ADVANCE EXCITEMENT FOR "WHAT WILL HARRY DO?"
"Not only is WHAT WILL HARRY DO? must reading as far as Book 7 speculation goes, it's a long-lasting representation of the best in Harry Potter thinking..." - Travis Prinzi, SwordOfGryffindor.com
"...I was hooked. Janet's book will definitely tide us over until the publication of Book 7." - LaShawn Barber, FantasyFictionforChristians.com
"...Her command of canon is magisterial and her 'set-up and payoff' approach to speculation is novel and engaging... You will be challenged to reconsider what you thought you knew for sure." - John Granger, author of "Looking for God in Harry Potter" and "Unlocking Harry Potter"
Don't forget to buy your copy today!!! And SPREAD THE WORD -- feel free to forward this e-mail to any interested party or website you like! Thanks!
I am not really one of the race of Potter (although I like the movies), but even I have been fascinated to read Jan's recollections, deductions and insights. It's a fun read. Check it out!
_____________________________________
Dear friends--
I'm very happy to announce the publication of WHAT WILL HARRY DO?: THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO PAYOFFS AND POSSIBILITIES IN BOOK 7.
This is a great read for any Harry Potter fans -- and a great gift! It will soon be available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com -- but you can get it at a substantial discount NOW, by clicking "What Will Harry Do? The Unofficial Guide to Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7 by Janet Scott Batchler" (or paste this URL into your browser: http://www.lulu.com/content/318567).
Here's a brief description, and some of the advance praise for the book:
WHAT WILL HARRY DO? ..... Will Harry return to Hogwarts? Is Draco a werewolf? What did happen at Godric's Hollow? What is the sixth Horcrux? Is Snape truly evil? Truly good? Or just out for himself? Who will live?... Who will die? You may think you have to wait for HP Book 7 to answer these questions. But the clues... the set-ups for them have already been cleverly established in Books 1 through 6, and are just waiting for you to put the pieces together. WHAT WILL HARRY DO? is the unofficial guide that will help you unlock the puzzles of the all-encompassing question: What Happens Next?
ADVANCE EXCITEMENT FOR "WHAT WILL HARRY DO?"
"Not only is WHAT WILL HARRY DO? must reading as far as Book 7 speculation goes, it's a long-lasting representation of the best in Harry Potter thinking..." - Travis Prinzi, SwordOfGryffindor.com
"...I was hooked. Janet's book will definitely tide us over until the publication of Book 7." - LaShawn Barber, FantasyFictionforChristians.com
"...Her command of canon is magisterial and her 'set-up and payoff' approach to speculation is novel and engaging... You will be challenged to reconsider what you thought you knew for sure." - John Granger, author of "Looking for God in Harry Potter" and "Unlocking Harry Potter"
Don't forget to buy your copy today!!! And SPREAD THE WORD -- feel free to forward this e-mail to any interested party or website you like! Thanks!
It's The Most Wonderful Concerts of the Year
Here follows info about the annual Christmas concerts performed by the Daughters of St. Paul choir. Lovely music - perfect pitch, perfect timing, perfect harmony - the nuns do it right. It's worth a trip to the tri-state area just to hear them.
________________________________
DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL IN CONCERT!
"SEASON OF LOVE"
JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST THROUGH SONG.
STATEN ISLAND, NY
Thursday, November 30, 6pm
Benefit Concert/Dinner for the Daughters of St. Paul, Hilton Garden Inn
1110 South Ave @ Lois Lane
Call for ticket reservations: 718-477-2100 ex 244
MANHATTAN, NY
Saturday, December 2, 1pm
St. Malachy's Church (The Actor's Chapel)
239 W 49th St. @ Broadway
free will offering, call for info: 212-754-1110
PRINCETON, NJ
Sunday, December 3, 3pm
St. Paul's Church, 214 Nassau St.
free will offering, call for info: 732-572-1200
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Wednesday, December 6, 7pm
Bala Golf Club, 2200 Belmont Ave.
Call for ticket reservations: 215-676-9494
BOSTON, MA
Saturday, December 9, 7pm
Sunday, December 10, 3pm
Daughters of St. Paul Convent
50 St. Paul's Ave., Jamaica Plain
free will offering, call for info: 617-522-8911
________________________________
DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL IN CONCERT!
"SEASON OF LOVE"
JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST THROUGH SONG.
STATEN ISLAND, NY
Thursday, November 30, 6pm
Benefit Concert/Dinner for the Daughters of St. Paul, Hilton Garden Inn
1110 South Ave @ Lois Lane
Call for ticket reservations: 718-477-2100 ex 244
MANHATTAN, NY
Saturday, December 2, 1pm
St. Malachy's Church (The Actor's Chapel)
239 W 49th St. @ Broadway
free will offering, call for info: 212-754-1110
PRINCETON, NJ
Sunday, December 3, 3pm
St. Paul's Church, 214 Nassau St.
free will offering, call for info: 732-572-1200
PHILADELPHIA, PA
Wednesday, December 6, 7pm
Bala Golf Club, 2200 Belmont Ave.
Call for ticket reservations: 215-676-9494
BOSTON, MA
Saturday, December 9, 7pm
Sunday, December 10, 3pm
Daughters of St. Paul Convent
50 St. Paul's Ave., Jamaica Plain
free will offering, call for info: 617-522-8911
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
See Barb in Houston, #2
I will be giving another talk open to the public in Houston, next Thursday night, the 16th Thursday at 7:30pm at University of St. Thomas, Cullen Hall, sponsored by UST Campus Ministry Office and Department of Young Adult and Campus Ministry, Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
(Contact at UST is Sr. Maura Behrenfeld, FSE, Director of Campus Ministry, 713-525-3589 for more information.)
Special thanks to Bill Cork for making all this "See Barb in Houston" stuff happen!
(Contact at UST is Sr. Maura Behrenfeld, FSE, Director of Campus Ministry, 713-525-3589 for more information.)
Special thanks to Bill Cork for making all this "See Barb in Houston" stuff happen!
See Barb in Houston, #1
I will be giving a talk in Houston Thursday, November 16th
at noon at Texas A&M University, Galveston, sponsored by Catholic Student Organization.
We're not sure yet of the exact location. I will post it as soon as I know.
at noon at Texas A&M University, Galveston, sponsored by Catholic Student Organization.
We're not sure yet of the exact location. I will post it as soon as I know.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Facing Facing the Giants
Brace yourselves. I am long overdue for a rant...
I am just about on my way out of town for a few months to sequester myself with nothing but polo and Jane Austen. This script is due in February and is the primary reason why I have not been blogging lately. How can I authoritatively whine to my producer that I can't get the script done, if he can just log on and see me procrastinating for free on this blog? It's a dilemma.
One of the things I look forward to escaping for a few months is the debate that has been simmering among Hollywood Christians because of the whole "FOX FAITH to Greenlight 12 Cheapie Christian Movies in 2007!" headlines, married to the controversy surrounding the weird little film made by a Church in Georgia, Facing the Giants.
A while back when I screened the film, I wrote a brief post that it should never have gotten a PG rating, and also that clearly, the folks who made the film, had every right to make it. I assumed the project was so bad as entertainment that it would just kind of disappear, and there was no reason to get involved smearing something that bad. It would be like jeering at a junior high talent show. What's the point?
That was before the FOX Faith announcement and the small success of Facing the Giants at the box office, which has all of us Able Christians (as in Cain and Able) in Hollywood scared to death that Facing the Giants will be the prototype of the movies that all the new divisions geared to "creating product for Christians" will be seeking out and producing.
I have taken to calling "Able Christians", those who are committed to giving God beautiful, first fruits kind of work. We talk about excellence alot and "the demands of beauty*"(JPII, Letter to Artists) and professionalism and the rigors of the craft. We talk about being missionaries to Planet Hollywood, and how God is much more interested in the people making movies than in the movies being made. We are always wrestling with making projects true AND commercial, beautiful and mainstream. Not because we want the money of studio success, but because we believe that the Gospel needs to be preached to those who haven't heard it, to those who might never wander into a church.
In contrast to this movement of Christian artists, are the ones who are yearning to replicate the Christian Contemporary Music model in Hollywood with a Christian Contemporary Cinema. The goal of these folks seems to be to create fantasy movies for Christians, made by Christians, and paid for by Christians.
Facing the Giants from any serious perspective is a fantasy film. Its message is very dangerous for Christians, and scandalous for pagans. Adult Evangelical Christians watching Facing the Giants is like sex addicts watching the Spice Channel. (Nope. Not going to take it back.)
We are going to leave alone the fact that the film is badly acted, terribly written, completely lacking in imagery, and directed and shot without any style or evident skill. Let's skip all that and just talkabout the content problem.
The film tells the story of a poverty-stricken, generally disdained, losing football coach who drives a broken down truck and goes home at night to a devastatedly infertile wife. Incited by no particular plot point, the coach reads the Bible one day and then kneels down in a field (Why the hell is it always a field? Is that like in Zecharaiah somewhere?) and gives his life to Jesus. In short order after he utters the Evangelical commitment formula aloud, he wins back the esteem of his fellow townspeople, he turns around his terrible team so that they win the championship, somebody gives him a brand new shiny red truck, AND his infertile wife becomes pregnant!
WOW! Give me some of THAT Jesus-stuff!
Absolute fantasy stuff. The kind of thing that makes Christians puff out their chests proud to be on the winning team! This film fumbles deep, deep in the prosperity Gospel end zone. It is icky to tell people that they should be Christian because of the career and health benefits. We have the problem on the team of that embarrassingly unsuccessful crucified coach of ours.
Anyway, everybody who has been laboring as a believer in Hollywood is talking about this film, because it is clearly what Hollywood thinks "the Audience of the Passion" wants.
At a dinner the other night, one of my fellow Able Christians looked at me sadly and said, "Is there a way we all can write a better Facing the Giants for the industry?" He was sad because he knows the answer. NO! We can't write a better version of Facing the Giants because that movie was designed to be easy. It was designed to not challenge the audience, but rather make the audience (of Evangelical Christians) feel good about being on the winning team. We can't make a better version of this film because easy is a lie. Human society is tinkering on the precipice of disaster today. "Easy" isn't going to be the fix.
Another friend told me a couple days ago that he knows the fellows who made the film, and that their philosophy (apologies to philosophers everywhere...) of filmmaking is that entertainment should be idealistic and not mirror the world as it is, but as it should be.
WRONG!
WRONG.
Entertainment should not be real. To be healing it needs to be better than real. But it needs to be AT LEAST as good as the real. The "better than realness" that makes entertainment healing is in its beauty - its, wholeness, harmony and radiance - elements which are not found stumbling along in the real world of property taxes and upset stomachs and mold on the ceiling.
The problem with too much contemporary cinema is that it seeks to imitate the real in a way that doesn't require or deliver and insight.
The problem with Facing the Giants is that is seems to ignore the real and deliver a lie. It is not idealistic but silly.
Strong words. Probably some of the bravest I have ever written. (Don't believe me? Just keep checking the comments boxes.) Yes, but I feel on firm ground here. As Flannery O'Connor said, "Sentimentality for Christians is INEXCUSABLE." And Facing the Giants is pure, easy, emotional sentimentality.
So, am I saying that the FOX Faith thing will be bad for the whole God in Hollywood thing? I don't know yet. I do know that greenlighting 12 movies for what one regular studio picture usually costs says that FOX believes that believers can be had on the cheap. And they are probably right. Pathetic and sad.
Making a movie that is beautiful is damn hard. Damn hard. Expecting to be able to produce a film with no experience or training is arrogant and as absurd as someone thinking they could just build a building with no traiing or experience in architecture.
Facing the Giants won't save anyone. It needs to be saved itself. Let's pray that it doesn't become the template.
I am just about on my way out of town for a few months to sequester myself with nothing but polo and Jane Austen. This script is due in February and is the primary reason why I have not been blogging lately. How can I authoritatively whine to my producer that I can't get the script done, if he can just log on and see me procrastinating for free on this blog? It's a dilemma.
One of the things I look forward to escaping for a few months is the debate that has been simmering among Hollywood Christians because of the whole "FOX FAITH to Greenlight 12 Cheapie Christian Movies in 2007!" headlines, married to the controversy surrounding the weird little film made by a Church in Georgia, Facing the Giants.
A while back when I screened the film, I wrote a brief post that it should never have gotten a PG rating, and also that clearly, the folks who made the film, had every right to make it. I assumed the project was so bad as entertainment that it would just kind of disappear, and there was no reason to get involved smearing something that bad. It would be like jeering at a junior high talent show. What's the point?
That was before the FOX Faith announcement and the small success of Facing the Giants at the box office, which has all of us Able Christians (as in Cain and Able) in Hollywood scared to death that Facing the Giants will be the prototype of the movies that all the new divisions geared to "creating product for Christians" will be seeking out and producing.
I have taken to calling "Able Christians", those who are committed to giving God beautiful, first fruits kind of work. We talk about excellence alot and "the demands of beauty*"(JPII, Letter to Artists) and professionalism and the rigors of the craft. We talk about being missionaries to Planet Hollywood, and how God is much more interested in the people making movies than in the movies being made. We are always wrestling with making projects true AND commercial, beautiful and mainstream. Not because we want the money of studio success, but because we believe that the Gospel needs to be preached to those who haven't heard it, to those who might never wander into a church.
In contrast to this movement of Christian artists, are the ones who are yearning to replicate the Christian Contemporary Music model in Hollywood with a Christian Contemporary Cinema. The goal of these folks seems to be to create fantasy movies for Christians, made by Christians, and paid for by Christians.
Facing the Giants from any serious perspective is a fantasy film. Its message is very dangerous for Christians, and scandalous for pagans. Adult Evangelical Christians watching Facing the Giants is like sex addicts watching the Spice Channel. (Nope. Not going to take it back.)
We are going to leave alone the fact that the film is badly acted, terribly written, completely lacking in imagery, and directed and shot without any style or evident skill. Let's skip all that and just talkabout the content problem.
The film tells the story of a poverty-stricken, generally disdained, losing football coach who drives a broken down truck and goes home at night to a devastatedly infertile wife. Incited by no particular plot point, the coach reads the Bible one day and then kneels down in a field (Why the hell is it always a field? Is that like in Zecharaiah somewhere?) and gives his life to Jesus. In short order after he utters the Evangelical commitment formula aloud, he wins back the esteem of his fellow townspeople, he turns around his terrible team so that they win the championship, somebody gives him a brand new shiny red truck, AND his infertile wife becomes pregnant!
WOW! Give me some of THAT Jesus-stuff!
Absolute fantasy stuff. The kind of thing that makes Christians puff out their chests proud to be on the winning team! This film fumbles deep, deep in the prosperity Gospel end zone. It is icky to tell people that they should be Christian because of the career and health benefits. We have the problem on the team of that embarrassingly unsuccessful crucified coach of ours.
Anyway, everybody who has been laboring as a believer in Hollywood is talking about this film, because it is clearly what Hollywood thinks "the Audience of the Passion" wants.
At a dinner the other night, one of my fellow Able Christians looked at me sadly and said, "Is there a way we all can write a better Facing the Giants for the industry?" He was sad because he knows the answer. NO! We can't write a better version of Facing the Giants because that movie was designed to be easy. It was designed to not challenge the audience, but rather make the audience (of Evangelical Christians) feel good about being on the winning team. We can't make a better version of this film because easy is a lie. Human society is tinkering on the precipice of disaster today. "Easy" isn't going to be the fix.
Another friend told me a couple days ago that he knows the fellows who made the film, and that their philosophy (apologies to philosophers everywhere...) of filmmaking is that entertainment should be idealistic and not mirror the world as it is, but as it should be.
WRONG!
WRONG.
Entertainment should not be real. To be healing it needs to be better than real. But it needs to be AT LEAST as good as the real. The "better than realness" that makes entertainment healing is in its beauty - its, wholeness, harmony and radiance - elements which are not found stumbling along in the real world of property taxes and upset stomachs and mold on the ceiling.
The problem with too much contemporary cinema is that it seeks to imitate the real in a way that doesn't require or deliver and insight.
The problem with Facing the Giants is that is seems to ignore the real and deliver a lie. It is not idealistic but silly.
Strong words. Probably some of the bravest I have ever written. (Don't believe me? Just keep checking the comments boxes.) Yes, but I feel on firm ground here. As Flannery O'Connor said, "Sentimentality for Christians is INEXCUSABLE." And Facing the Giants is pure, easy, emotional sentimentality.
So, am I saying that the FOX Faith thing will be bad for the whole God in Hollywood thing? I don't know yet. I do know that greenlighting 12 movies for what one regular studio picture usually costs says that FOX believes that believers can be had on the cheap. And they are probably right. Pathetic and sad.
Making a movie that is beautiful is damn hard. Damn hard. Expecting to be able to produce a film with no experience or training is arrogant and as absurd as someone thinking they could just build a building with no traiing or experience in architecture.
Facing the Giants won't save anyone. It needs to be saved itself. Let's pray that it doesn't become the template.
Heads Up for Midnight Clear
Here is a preview of a film by one of our bright young talented directors in Hollywood who happens to be Christian. Dallas Jenkins is a thoughtful committed Christianand director who is one of the guys I am expecting to lay down the foundation of the renaissance in cinema made from a Christian world-view.
There are a lot of Christians out here who have elected to disengage from the problem of being intentional as a Christian making films. Exhausted or intellectually and academically ill-equipped to figure out a philosophical underpinning for their work, we hear Hollywood Christians living the unexamined life in Hollywood say things like, "Hey, I am a Christian. Anything I make will refelct that."
No. Way too easy. A renaissance in Christian filmmaking is not going to happen by accident. It's too hard. It certainly isn't going to spring from the creative loins of believing filmmakers who routinely subvert their intended good messages by co-opting cinematic and storytelling conventions that are problematic or even perverse.
Anyway, Dallas isn't living the unexamined life here. He is an artist and a believer who works with pagans and believers with that missionary mindset that we Act Oners are always harping on. No Christian ghetto-dweller here.
My sense is that Dallas' films won't be the stuff that will be intelligible or desirable to FOX Faith and Sony Inspirational and Lionsgate "Whatever they are calling their holy stuff division" and Newline "Whatever they are calling their holy stuff division". At least not this week. I think Dallas' style of films is more what the future for Christians in Hollywood will look like. More difficult. More ambiguous. More stylistic. Definitely less Pollyanna and more Flannery O'Connor.
So, check out the preview to his current project "Midnight Clear" and be hipper than all your Christian cinema geek friends!
Click here
There are a lot of Christians out here who have elected to disengage from the problem of being intentional as a Christian making films. Exhausted or intellectually and academically ill-equipped to figure out a philosophical underpinning for their work, we hear Hollywood Christians living the unexamined life in Hollywood say things like, "Hey, I am a Christian. Anything I make will refelct that."
No. Way too easy. A renaissance in Christian filmmaking is not going to happen by accident. It's too hard. It certainly isn't going to spring from the creative loins of believing filmmakers who routinely subvert their intended good messages by co-opting cinematic and storytelling conventions that are problematic or even perverse.
Anyway, Dallas isn't living the unexamined life here. He is an artist and a believer who works with pagans and believers with that missionary mindset that we Act Oners are always harping on. No Christian ghetto-dweller here.
My sense is that Dallas' films won't be the stuff that will be intelligible or desirable to FOX Faith and Sony Inspirational and Lionsgate "Whatever they are calling their holy stuff division" and Newline "Whatever they are calling their holy stuff division". At least not this week. I think Dallas' style of films is more what the future for Christians in Hollywood will look like. More difficult. More ambiguous. More stylistic. Definitely less Pollyanna and more Flannery O'Connor.
So, check out the preview to his current project "Midnight Clear" and be hipper than all your Christian cinema geek friends!
Click here
Monday, October 23, 2006
Prestige Doesn't Pay Off
I think The Prestige was a disappointment. I'm qualifying myself here on the off-chance that the film might actually be brilliant, and I just missed it. But I don't think so.
I think it ended up wanting to be much more clever than it really was.
Which is unfortunate, because it had a very nice message about not letting revenge and obsession become, well, vengeful obsessions.
But they had set up so long the idea of "THE PRESTIGE!" that they kind of had to have a big whammy of a finish. But I don't think they really did. Or, at least, I sat there in the last shot not sure of what just happened, and frustrated by Michael Caine's strong Cockney accent that garbled the last word of the film which might have been key.
But, I guess I'll never know.
The film's other main twist - I mean the one that comes before the last frame twist that might not really be a twist not sure I'll ever know - is really kind of pathetic as it is broadcast all throughout the film.
And were they asking us to believe that science can really do what they seem to say it can in the film? I didn't get that either.
The film has a couple of vioolent moments. It's really not scary. Teenagers can see it without harm. As long as they don't become overly frustrated by movies that are too clever by half.
Sometimes too clever is really just that. Not much fun.
If anybody can explain the ending to me here, I would be obliged.
I think it ended up wanting to be much more clever than it really was.
Which is unfortunate, because it had a very nice message about not letting revenge and obsession become, well, vengeful obsessions.
But they had set up so long the idea of "THE PRESTIGE!" that they kind of had to have a big whammy of a finish. But I don't think they really did. Or, at least, I sat there in the last shot not sure of what just happened, and frustrated by Michael Caine's strong Cockney accent that garbled the last word of the film which might have been key.
But, I guess I'll never know.
The film's other main twist - I mean the one that comes before the last frame twist that might not really be a twist not sure I'll ever know - is really kind of pathetic as it is broadcast all throughout the film.
And were they asking us to believe that science can really do what they seem to say it can in the film? I didn't get that either.
The film has a couple of vioolent moments. It's really not scary. Teenagers can see it without harm. As long as they don't become overly frustrated by movies that are too clever by half.
Sometimes too clever is really just that. Not much fun.
If anybody can explain the ending to me here, I would be obliged.
See Barb in Houston?
I have to be in Houston for a non-public speech on November 15th, but I was hoping I could set up another speech or informal thing at which I could sell books while I am in the area, probably on the 16th.
Anybody want to help? Or anybody just want to meet and have lunch?
Email to BRNicolosi@aol.com.
Anybody want to help? Or anybody just want to meet and have lunch?
Email to BRNicolosi@aol.com.
Monday, October 16, 2006
News From Barb
Okay, here is a letter that I have been sending around lately. If I have time later today, I will write a bit more about the reasons behind this decision (no scandal, really!) and what I will be doing now that I am unemployed.
_______________________________________________________________
Dear Friends -
After nearly eight years at the helm of Act One, I decided this summer that it was time for me to move on from my all-consuming responsibilities as the Executive Director. So, I am pleased and excited to advise you that as of October 6th, I am no longer be on staff at Act One. The Board of Directors has hired the charming and talented Thomas Deason (former executive of Alaska Airlines, Act One Executive Program '05) to be the interim Executive Director while they conduct a search for the next permanent head.
I will mostly be writing for the next few months although I will certainly be doing some speaking engagements as well. I won't have an assistant anymore, so the best way to reach me will undoubtedly be email. (Does anybody like listening to twenty-seven phone messages?)
My new contact email will be BRNicolosi@aol.com. For appointments for writing or speaking, check out my website at www.barbaranicolosi.com or else you can reach my manager Matt Malek at Origin Entertainment at (310)319-1349.
Chances are, I will be out of the Los Angeles area for much of the last quarter of this year. I am hoping to go back East and get some writing done in a nice little cottage near the beach. We'll see how that works out.
I am very excited to see what this next season in my life will bring. Of course, I will stay intimately involved with Act One as a Board and faculty member and I look forward to being able to enjoy a little more solitude, a lot more time for friends and family, and many fewer airports! - as my twilight years continue to unfold.
God bless -
Barbara
_______________________________________________________________
Dear Friends -
After nearly eight years at the helm of Act One, I decided this summer that it was time for me to move on from my all-consuming responsibilities as the Executive Director. So, I am pleased and excited to advise you that as of October 6th, I am no longer be on staff at Act One. The Board of Directors has hired the charming and talented Thomas Deason (former executive of Alaska Airlines, Act One Executive Program '05) to be the interim Executive Director while they conduct a search for the next permanent head.
I will mostly be writing for the next few months although I will certainly be doing some speaking engagements as well. I won't have an assistant anymore, so the best way to reach me will undoubtedly be email. (Does anybody like listening to twenty-seven phone messages?)
My new contact email will be BRNicolosi@aol.com. For appointments for writing or speaking, check out my website at www.barbaranicolosi.com or else you can reach my manager Matt Malek at Origin Entertainment at (310)319-1349.
Chances are, I will be out of the Los Angeles area for much of the last quarter of this year. I am hoping to go back East and get some writing done in a nice little cottage near the beach. We'll see how that works out.
I am very excited to see what this next season in my life will bring. Of course, I will stay intimately involved with Act One as a Board and faculty member and I look forward to being able to enjoy a little more solitude, a lot more time for friends and family, and many fewer airports! - as my twilight years continue to unfold.
God bless -
Barbara
Monday, October 09, 2006
Mirren Saves The Queen
I really enjoyed this film. What could be better than two hours of one of those great Brit actresses walking through palaces and Scottish highlands all while acting emtionally understated and discomfitted? Very fascinating to watch.
Unfortunately, the script wasn't what it should have been. It felt unbalanced to me. The opening few minutes were terribly written, and then suddenly there were a few scenes which were well-written. Made me think that there must have been two or more writers operating. At least one of whom was pedestrian.
The movie tried to be about how the Queen was a woman of another time - a time when personal restraint and private dignity and quiet courage were virtues. Mirren's great QE2 doesn't fit in the brave new world of her people with its tabloids and its voyeurism and its need to be coddled and patronized. Thematically, the movie loses its way, but basically, this contrast makes for the central problem of the film - and it is a worthy reflection.
Another issue in the film is why the world fell apart when Diana died. The film doesn't know. The Queen doesn't know.
I know.
The crowds went crazy when Diana died because of guilt.
We all know that Diana was not good enough to have merited the outpouring of love that accompanied her death. You know, the death that came when she was speeding away with her latest playboy lover instead of being with her adolescent sons back home? Not to step all over my point, but, come on. The crowds weren't crying because of the terrible loss that Diana would be to the sorry world. They were crying to absolve themselves of complicity in her death.
Everybody intuits that the paparazzi were acting on the celebrity-obsessed mob's behalf. They weren't taking pictures for the dwellers on the planet Zondor, now, were they? Pictures of Diana commanded millions BECAUSE the mobs plunked down billions to stare at them.
Bringing flowers to Diana's grave, weeping and hurling abuse at "the media" and "the royals" were all defense mechanisms on our global part to evade our own self-critique. Try and drown out with "Candle in the Wind" the inner voice that calls you to compunction, "Diana died because you couldn't stop staring."
Let the one who never gaped at a photo of the Princess, who never watched the interview, who never read an article about her latest love, cast the first stone.
Anyway, The Queen is a pretty good film. More fascinating than I expected for its look at the inner life of royal people. Also cool for its ultimately sympathetic portrayal of QE2 as a noble relic.
We decree the film good and we bestow our grateful thanks to the filmmakers of the realm.
Unfortunately, the script wasn't what it should have been. It felt unbalanced to me. The opening few minutes were terribly written, and then suddenly there were a few scenes which were well-written. Made me think that there must have been two or more writers operating. At least one of whom was pedestrian.
The movie tried to be about how the Queen was a woman of another time - a time when personal restraint and private dignity and quiet courage were virtues. Mirren's great QE2 doesn't fit in the brave new world of her people with its tabloids and its voyeurism and its need to be coddled and patronized. Thematically, the movie loses its way, but basically, this contrast makes for the central problem of the film - and it is a worthy reflection.
Another issue in the film is why the world fell apart when Diana died. The film doesn't know. The Queen doesn't know.
I know.
The crowds went crazy when Diana died because of guilt.
We all know that Diana was not good enough to have merited the outpouring of love that accompanied her death. You know, the death that came when she was speeding away with her latest playboy lover instead of being with her adolescent sons back home? Not to step all over my point, but, come on. The crowds weren't crying because of the terrible loss that Diana would be to the sorry world. They were crying to absolve themselves of complicity in her death.
Everybody intuits that the paparazzi were acting on the celebrity-obsessed mob's behalf. They weren't taking pictures for the dwellers on the planet Zondor, now, were they? Pictures of Diana commanded millions BECAUSE the mobs plunked down billions to stare at them.
Bringing flowers to Diana's grave, weeping and hurling abuse at "the media" and "the royals" were all defense mechanisms on our global part to evade our own self-critique. Try and drown out with "Candle in the Wind" the inner voice that calls you to compunction, "Diana died because you couldn't stop staring."
Let the one who never gaped at a photo of the Princess, who never watched the interview, who never read an article about her latest love, cast the first stone.
Anyway, The Queen is a pretty good film. More fascinating than I expected for its look at the inner life of royal people. Also cool for its ultimately sympathetic portrayal of QE2 as a noble relic.
We decree the film good and we bestow our grateful thanks to the filmmakers of the realm.
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