Posts Tagged ‘film’

For a number of years many people have liked Rob Bell because he is different. He is passionate, engaging, energetic, insightful, and creative with refreshing language and perspective.

For a number of years many people have not liked Rob Bell because he is too different. He has been accused of embracing humanism and pluralism and paganism and many other -isms.

Just when people have (for better or worse) been getting used to Bell , his speaking tours, podcasts, NOOMA videos, and books named with stars, sex, and velvet, he produces something else that is, well… different. If you haven’t watched the Resurrection video you can view it below.

You may be distracted by the visual elements included in the production. However, that which the effects represent is something that we too often don’t even see. As products of modernism, we insist on a logical reasoning and scientific proofing while we close our eyes to the supernatural things all around us. We insist that the only things that are real are the things that our sensory perceptive capacity enables us to see or taste or touch or smell or hear. Like the biblical character Thomas who had to see the holes that wounded Jesus on the cross, we ignore the possibility that things are happening all around us that exceed our quite limited human comprehension. Hence, resurrection:

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

A dialogue from the 1995 film Braveheart:

Princess Isabelle: The king desires peace.
William Wallace: Longshanks desires peace?
Princess Isabelle: He declares it to me, I swear it. He proposes that you withdraw your attack. In return he grants you title, estates, and this chest of gold which I am to pay to you personally.
William Wallace: A lordship and titles. Gold. That I should become Judas?
Princess Isabelle: Peace is made in such ways.
William Wallace: Slaves are made in such ways. The last time Longshanks spoke of peace I was a boy. And many Scottish nobles, who would not be slaves, were lured by him under a flag of truce to a barn, where he had them hanged. I was very young, but I remember Longshank’s notion of peace.

In what ways is peace made?

May the creative and artistic expressions in dance be considered worship? Does dance possess the same type of depth of meaning as other forms of creative production such as music and film?

What’s the saying?… “Dance like nobody is watching?” Or should it be… dance like everyone is watching and allow the lyrical flow of human movement to express the soul and texture of humanity in touch with the divine.

The most meaningful pieces of human struggle, tragedy, creativity, and beauty from So You Think You Can Dance?:

1) The Interplay of Creation: Hok and Jaime as a hummingbird and flower to The Chairman’s Walk from the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack.

2) On Confession and Forgiveness: Anya and Danny performing to Apologize by One Republic.

3) Time: Neil and Lacey dance as father and daughter to an emotionally invested Mia Michaels routine. Music by Billy Porter.

4) Commitment and Brokenness: Danced to Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, Mark’s character commits his life to something other than the bleeding Chelsea.

5) Marriage at Bedtime: Jeanine and Phillip wrestle through anger to Mad by Ne-Yo.

6) Addiction and Freedom: Kayla is controlled by the sinister addiction (Kupono) danced to Gravity by Sara Bareilles.

When I opened up christianitytoday.com to read today’s interview formatted article with Rob Bell talking about his most recent book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians , I laughed out loud. Sitting right in the midst of the text was an dynamic (technical term, not descriptive of the ad content) ad "From the Creators of Facing the Giants: Fireproof on DVD, Never Leave Your Partner Behind." "Christian"^ marketing kills me. Of course and unfortunately, the marketers for "Facing the Giants" had to play off the "Left Behind"^^ language. The Christian life is about so much more than getting "left behind." As Bell eloquently presents in his book, salvation is not confined to the afterlife or to individual reconciliation with God. There is salvation in this life from systems of tyranny and injustice. Here is a bit from the article in CT that I particularly liked:

Question to Bell :
Are you a pacifist, or do you think that a truly Christian church has to be a pacifist church?

Rob’s Response :
My dad is a U.S. Federal District Judge and gets lots of death threats. On Father’s Day a couple of years ago, there were bodyguards in the driveway at our house. And I am okay with that.

But I sit right in that tension. Sometimes people say no police, no armed forces, no anything. And the truth is, whether I am falling short of Jesus’ teaching or not, there are situations where I am really glad that there is a policeman standing right there and that he has a gun. So I don’t know how exactly you work that out in detail.

But my hope would be that as a Christian, you would have a larger imagination. Take Saddam Hussein. Your first impulse would be, "Man, if he wasn’t in power, it would be great—and the only way is to bring in a hundred thousand troops." To me, the third way of Jesus is always asking if there is an imaginative, subversive, brilliant, creative path.

^ Christian is used in quotation marks to designate "Christian" in its use as a quasi-psuedo-popular subculture rather than a term that describes a person reflecting the image of Jesus.

^^ I do not recommend the "Left Behind" series – just so we’re clear about that.

Since my last posting on movies I have seen a number of additional motion pictures that have altered a previously determined list of best movies ever.

The Top 10 Films Ever
NOTE : This list is not biased and is completely accurate.

In NO particular order:

1. The Bucket List
2. Reign Over Me
3. Rain Man
4. Braveheart
5. Shawshank Redemption
6. The Dark Knight
7. A Beautiful Mind
8. The Matrix
9. Batman Begins
10. Good Will Hunting
11. Finding Forrester
12. Crash
13. Pay It Forward

It appears as if my postmodern tendencies permitted me to supersede the previously prescribed list of ten movies. If you were to eliminate three movies, which would you choose and why? If you were join me in my postmodern exploits, what films would you add and why?

WARNING : Spoilers ahead. If you have not yet experienced The Dark Knight [now playing in a theater near you] then forgiveness may still be imparted and you may not want to read any further so as to avoid disclosure of the unveiling story that is the saga of Bruce Wayne and a nameless, unhuman.

Yes. Unhuman.

My favorite scene (currently) in The Dark Knight is when the man called "The Joker" is sitting in the Gotham City jail cell. When Police Commisioner James Gordon enters the holding area one of the GCPD officers informs Gordon of "The Joker’s" identity. He is… well… mmmm… no one. He has no name. He has no fingerprints. No DNA matches. Nothing. Even his clothing and shoes have no tags or identification. Though found in the form of man he doesn’t really seem to be… a man, a… hu-man. In addition to having no physical identity, the character doesn’t act or think like a human. His behavior and thought patterns caused me throughout the film to think of him as a genious, psychotic lunatic who can’t be… a man. So what is it that has stripped this man, now called "The Joker," of his humanity?

The evil in our world has quite tragically succeeded in the process of dehumanization. I must confess that, even in an attempt at good, I have been engaged in the dehumanization of others. In my poor attempts at "ministry" I have objectified people by seeing them as "projects" rather than as human beings loved deeply by God. I have been consumed by consuming "works of righteousness." I the more "good" I could feed myself, the more satisfied I thought I was from "helping others." When will I cease to pridefully desire the satifaction that seems to come from suppossed "good works?" When will serving others be something more than my very own Wayne Enterprises? How may I be a part of a community that goes about restoring humanity?

I am a dark knight.