Flight of the Red Balloon

When I heard that a re-make of Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 classic short, The Red Balloon, was in the works, I wondered: how could such a film (about a boy in Paris who spends a day with a seemingly sentient red balloon) work today? And when I heard that the updated version was a project commissioned by Paris’s Musee d’Orsay (to celebrate their 20th anniversary) and would be directed by acclaimed Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien (Three Times), my curiosity was piqued.

I saw the new version this weekend, and I was absolutely blown away. It surpassed all my expectations and quickly jumped to the second spot (behind Paranoid Park) on my best of 2008 list so far. The film is less a remake of Lamorisse’s Oscar-winning version than it is an homage. The original film was only 34 minutes in length and free of dialogue; the 2008 version is 130 minutes and only intermittently “about” a red balloon.

One thing that I am always a fan of is out-of-the-box adaptation. That is: a film that takes inspiration from something else in theme, tone, and perhaps style, but which becomes something undeniably new in the process. A great adaptation works within an aesthetic context and frame, but expands and personalizes it as well. Hou’s work here maintains an uncanny respect and fidelity to the original, and yet pushes it further in to the mystical and metaphorical—as well as the geocultural.

It is totally fitting that a film so thoroughly about Paris is realized, in 2008, by a Taiwanese artist with a decidedly eastern sensibility. The significance of this is at least twofold: first, because we live in a globalized world and Paris—as anyone who has been there in recent years can attest—is a thoroughly international city. Secondly, the subject upon which The Red Balloon meditated (childhood), is no longer a solely western concept. The ideal of childhood (as innocent, light, and fancy free—like a red balloon) is something the whole world can relate to.

In his envisioning of The Red Balloon, however, Hou mixes in some cold, hard reality. The film opens with seven-year-old Simon (Simon Iteanu) walking around Paris, and then riding a subway, with a curious red balloon following his every move. The literal adaptation pretty much ends here.

The rest of the film is also centered around Simon’s life, but the red balloon—which infrequently appears outside Simon’s bedroom window—is relegated to the fringes, to the spaces outside the frame. Instead, we get two hours of thoroughly compelling slice-of-life observance of Simon’s daily routine, along with his mother Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), his nanny Song (Song Fang), and various other characters who float in and out of the story.

The film is, in many respects, about the juxtaposition of child and adult life. Simon and Suzanne represent the two extremes, while Song seems to occupy a place somewhere in the middle. Song is a film student in Paris for school (from Taiwan originally), and her role as nanny is one of protecting Simon’s childhood innocence, while mediating between the various “adult” intrusions that invade the family’s spaces. Song is a quiet, almost passive presence, and seems to represent the perspective of Hou—an Asian “outsider” standing on the margins, offering the artistic filter and frame wherein we can observe this family.

Suzanne is the opposite of Song: she is as frazzled and vivacious as her out-of-control blonde hair. Every scene with Suzanne becomes a three-ring circus of intensified emotion, amped up rhythm, and chaotic conflict. Juliette Binoche shines in what I think is her best performance since Blue. She is utterly familiar as the “barely keeping it together” single mom—sometimes strong, sometimes undone, but always busying herself with something. She is a striking contrast to Simon (and Song, for that matter), who lives life at a leisurely pace, wowed by the little things (pinball, video games, statues in the park, paintings at the museum) and never too disturbed by the big ones.

Still, Simon’s childhood can’t help but be victimized by his chaotic surroundings. His parents are divorced, his stepsister (his closest friend) is in Belgium, and his mother is—on her good days—a basketcase. As such, the magic red balloon (which Hou employs as a poetic symbol and aesthetic device) is sadly marginal to Simon’s existence. It shows up more in mediated form (painted on a wall, captured on Song’s digital video camera) than in physical reality—an interesting statement on the hyper-mediation of contemporary youth.

Indeed, the film’s reflexive comments on art (seen mostly through the character of Song with her video shooting, or Suzanne’s job as a puppeteer) are quite interesting. There is a sense here that “childhood” is more of an aesthetic construction than physical reality—borne out of decades of children’s literature, fairy stories, puppet shows, etc… But the film is also highly concerned with the redeeming of physical reality as such. There is a child-like wonder to be found beneath the surfaces, materials, and cadences of existence, Hou seems to infer. His camera is intensely observant in the way that a young child is—focusing on the things that exist and the actions that are happening in front of his eyes. He is not concerned with abstraction or complexity, just observing the curious circumstances of daily life. And it makes for some truly gorgeous cinema.

There is something otherworldly about the mundane goings-on of this film—the everyday household activities and structures of normality that Hou’s camera is so captivated by. A good example of the sort of “entrancing everydayness” that this film captures is its recurring focus on a rather unimpressive domestic object: an old upright piano. For long stretches of time (usually unbroken shots), we find ourselves watching Simon receive a piano lesson, but then the camera is diverted to other movement in the room: a tenant cleaning up from a party the night before, Song watching in stately observance). We later see the piano being moved up the stairs to another apartment unit, and then another scene is devoted to its being tuned (by a charming blind tuner).

I don’t know that I can articulate the unexpected beauty of these scenes—which, like most in the film—serve no purpose for anything you might call “plot,” insofar as that even exists here. All I can do is say that the everyday, when as lovingly and observantly rendered as it is here, is certainly a site of transcendent beauty. Paul Schrader once wrote (in Transcendental Style in Film), that “transcendental artists” use the mundane representation of life to “prepare reality for the intrusion of the Transcendent.” The everyday, he wrote, “celebrates the bare threshold of existence, those banal occurrences which separate the living from the dead, the physical from the material, those occurrences which so many people equate with life itself.” When we are focused upon this root level of existence (and cinema—perhaps more than any other art—can focus us on everyday reality), we begin to see the beauty and mystery of life itself. The Flight of the Red Balloon uses this tactic to great effect. It is one of the alive films I have ever seen.

Welcome, Pope!

No, I am not a Catholic. But I am terribly excited that the Pope is visiting my country! I was glued to the T.V. this afternoon as Pope Benedict XVI stepped off the papal plane (“Shepherd One”) at Andrew’s Air force Base, setting foot in the U.S. for the first time since he assumed the papacy three years ago. The Pope was immediately greeted by President and Mrs. Bush (and Jenna, of all people), who awkwardly shook Benedict’s hand and followed him through an extensive receiving line. One wonders what eloquent small talk Dubya had up his sleeve with which to amuse the Holy Father…

In any case, I’m sure the Pope and Bush will have some interesting things to talk about during their extended visits over the next couple days. Benedict has criticized the decision to go to war in Iraq, though he reportedly does not want any swift drawdown of troops (for fear of the humanitarian repercussions… especially for Iraqi Christians). There will also undoubtedly be some discussion of immigration (after all, as Bush has said, Catholicism is the religion of the “newly arrived”), as well as the many issues upon which Bush and Benedict agree (pro-life issues, anti-relativism, etc).

I’m also interested to see how the Pope responds to the gaping wound of the American Catholic church: priest sex scandals. Before his plane even landed in America, Benedict was speaking about this issue to reporters, saying, "It's difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed, and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future."

One hopes that the Pope will be able to bring a new perspective and energy to the church in this country, galvanizing his flock to fortify the church for the 21st century. So far the Pope has not been able to reinvigorate the dying church in Europe, but perhaps—Lord willing—he can be more successful here.

It’s nice to be able to speak of the Pope in these terms—as an ally and role model in the faith. So often Protestants (and particularly those of the fundamentalist bent) view the Pope as either a cute anomaly in a funny costume, or a dangerous heretic leading many pagans (re: Catholics) astray. But even as I don’t necessarily agree with all his beliefs or venerate him as the supreme arbiter of Christian doctrine and truth (that is, the voice of God on Earth), I definitely respect him a deeply Godly man—someone who exemplifies, more than almost anyone in the public eye, what it means to devote one’s life to following Christ.

Amid the ongoing Catholic-Protestant disputes, we often lose sight of the fact that, in the end, both sides are followers of Christ. The historical events of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection gave rise to a thing called “the church,” a people called “Christians.” This is the rock upon which all else has been built. Theology has since shaped our various conceptions of how we are to live as Christians, but we can all agree on the core of what Christ means for the world: salvation.

I don’t want to make light of the differences—and there are some significant ones—between Protestant and Catholic theology (and between various Protestant denominations, for that matter). I just want to make a point that what the worldwide church (i.e. the 2.2 billion who claim Christ as savior) needs now is unity—a common cause and passion to respond to the world’s contemporary challenges with grace and love.

If the Pope’s visit to America results in 100,000 people converting to Catholicism (or re-discovering it), I’m not going to complain that those are 100,000 who might have become Presbyterians or Baptists. Rather, I will rejoice that here are 100,000 more potential saints to join the ranks of a worldwide, very-much-alive movement that--thanks be to God--shows no signs of fading into irrelevance anytime soon.

Some Thoughts on Immigration

Last week I attended a screening and panel discussion of the film,The Visitor. This beautiful film from director Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent) tackles a very complicated, current issue: immigration. I won’t go into too much detail about the film here (you can read my Christianity Today review here), but I will say that the film is refreshing in the way that it humanizes (rather than politicizes) the immigrant issue. And in this hyper-politicized election year—in which immigration is sure to be a major, divisive talking point—perhaps humanizing is what we need.

As a resident of Los Angeles and Southern California, I have seen the effects of immigration firsthand. I worked for a year at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, where most every kitchen worker was a Spanish-speaking immigrant (legal status unknown). I’ve seen the way that they are treated (by employers, customers, white coworkers), the way that they appreciate their minimum wage (usually sent home to families in Mexico, El Salvador, or wherever it may be). Most importantly, I’ve seen their kindness, diligence, and humanity, which is (apparently) hard for many in America to recognize.

I understand that immigration is a complicated issue. It’s an issue that, in some ways, sits at the nexus of many of the major issues America struggles with today: the economy, globalization, terrorism, racism, nationalism, etc. As such, it’s not an issue that we can easily come to terms with. Even so, I think that the prevailing discourses about immigration (especially from the far right) are very counterproductive. It’s frustrating to listen to conservative radio in L.A. and hear the ugly antagonism and veiled racism beneath the traditional “they’re taking our jobs, depleting our resources, ruining our education system” statements.

On the other side, it’s frustrating to hear the far left use the “we’re all immigrants” rhetoric to justify the presence of 12 million+ illegal immigrants in the U.S. today. After all, there’s a big (and legal) difference between immigrants who go through the arduous naturalization process and immigrants who do not. It’s a legal distinction, and a matter of fairness: should we reward (with amnesty) those who don’t play by the rules, even while millions others do?

Obviously there are arguments for all sides in this debate, and simple answers will not do. But I think that the first thing we should do—especially those of us who claim Christian compassion—is to begin to look at immigrants (legal and illegal) as fellow humans, not as foreign invaders. As The Visitor points out, there is more commonality than difference—on a human level—between people of different races, nationalities, and classes. We all want to survive, to do the best by our selves and our families. We need to get past our nativistic fears (post-9/11 or otherwise) and approach this issue rationally, with prudence and compassion.

Idols "Give Back"

Last night was American Idol’s second annual edition of Idol Gives Back—a 2.5 hour telethon extravaganza in which the Idol finalists (eight are left) are joined by scores of celebs, musicians, and—of course—Bono, to raise gobs of money for a couple dozen charities. When they first did this last year, I was pleasantly surprised to see such a successful (and relentlessly money-grubbing) TV megahit using their unprecedented exposure to raise money for charity. What could be wrong with that?

In watching it last night, however, I was left feeling rather less “inspired” and more, well, cynical about the whole ordeal. There’s something very odd about the event. For one thing, it’s the one night of the year in which Simon Cowell’s “humanity” is paraded around as if it were sincere and regular (last night he was “inspiring” a woman with Lupus). But then later he was publicly skewered by Jimmy Kimmel (unloading about Cowell’s man-boobs and v-neck T-shirts), apparently to keep the “Simon is to be hated” continuity in check. Are we to emulate or loathe Simon? I’m not sure.

Or maybe it’s just that the whole thing felt so formulaic and emotionally contrived. Why did I wince during a segment in which all-American girl Reese Witherspoon promotes the Children’s Defense Fund “freedom schools” initiative in New Orleans (as Moby’s “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?” plays in the background)? Why is it that I really wanted to fastforward through a heart-wrenching segment in which Forest Whitaker consoled children with malaria in Africa (as Sia’s “Breathe Me” plays in the background)? Why is it that—when Gordon Brown announced from 10 Downing Street that the British government was donating $200 million to the fundraiser—all I could think about was how curiously large Gordon Brown’s ears were?

Maybe I’m just dead inside, but nothing in Idol Gives Back particularly moved me. Maybe I’m just really really cynical about celebrities who talk about “giving back” but then drop $2000/day on personal stylist fees.

During one of many “celeb goes to Africa” sequences of the show, we hear Alicia Keys proclaim the following: “If only everyone could come to Africa, I know it would change them all… It’s crazy when you think about it: how you can change the lives of people forever, for the price of a pair of shoes!” Very true, Alicia! Especially with the shoes you wear—those $400 Jimmy Choos and $900 Manolo Blahniks can go a long way in saving lives in Africa!

And what of the requisite appearance by Brad “my wife is a UN Goodwill Ambassador” Pitt? Wearing a beret and standing shoulder-to-shoulder (and shovel to shovel) with Bill Clinton, Pitt lifts the spirits of a FEMA-trailer community in New Orleans (and promotes his ambitious “Global Green” campaign to rebuild an eco-friendly New Orleans). It’s great that you’re building sustainable low-income housing in the Ninth Ward, Brad, but if you really want to help the impoverished, why not start by auctioning off your excessive array of designer clothes, hats, and accessories?

Alas, I’m probably just bitter about my own failings in “giving back.” Or maybe I’m just cranky because my ears are still burning from the mawkish rendition of the Rent rouser “Seasons of Love” by the Idol finalists (decked out in GAP Red shirts). Or perhaps it’s because I had to suffer through two performances by Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus. TWO! Then we were forced to watch Miley and her dad (Billy Ray) return to their Appalachian roots in Clay County, Kentucky to expose the destitution of white trailer people in the hills.

By the way, it’s no coincidence that so many of these segments feature superstar celebs going “home” to the poor, depraved conditions of their childhood. It’s a nice message of “hope” to all those who suffer: someday you might escape the shambles of your lot and become an American Idol! So funny how Idol manages to legitimize their own rags-to-riches mythology, even on a night when the attention is supposed to be elsewhere. Other predictable moments of self-promotion included a segment on Daughtry (“The biggest-selling band of last year”) playing an acoustic song in a Ugandan village, a requisite Carrie Underwood ballad performance (available on iTunes!), and shots of various Idol alums in the audience (reminder: Elliott Yamin is still selling records!).

Of course, to counteract the endless tales of disease and squalor, there was a parade of comedians (Dane Cook, Sarah Silverman, Ellen DeGeneres, David Spade, Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, even Rob Schneider) to lighten the mood. And this was a nice touch—because it reminded us that this is, after all, first and foremost entertainment: pop, fluff, trifle…

Idol is a show for our pleasure and consumption, and it’s a show that knows how to make a lot of money for FOX. I guess I shouldn’t be displeased that they also know how to make money by spectacularizing the act of giving a lot of it away.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!

In what was undoubtedly one of the best NCAA championship games of all time (and only the seventh to go to overtime), the Kansas Jayhawks beat Memphis and won it all! I said KANSAS WON! My team, my home state... this is just utter joy! Mario Chalmers, you're my hero! And you will go down in history as making the miracle shot that made this a game for the ages. Ahhh, this is what it's all about. March Madness could not have ended on a better note. Kansas fans everywhere: BELIEVE IT! 1952. 1988. And now 2008!!!

My Blueberry Nights

Wong Kar Wai makes beautiful films. If you saw In the Mood for Love, 2046, or Days of Being Wild, you know how sensuous and luxuriant the Hong Kong filmmaker’s visual style is. His penchant for slow-mo sequences with 50s American pop/soul music playing in the background creates some truly breathtaking cinema.

My Blueberry Nights—the director’s first English-language feature—is just as remarkable from an artistic point of view. However, compared to his other films, Nights never quite feels as special or real or… something. Perhaps because it’s in English and we don’t quite give actors as much grace when they perform in our native language, but I really didn’t connect with the actors that much in this film (with the exception of Chan Marshall in a brief cameo).

Norah Jones is the star (in her first screen role), and though she’s not terrible, she’s just not equipped to give the role the depth it deserves. Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Natalie Portman round out the cast, and each has a few good moments, but on the whole they never quite embody the sort of sensual mystery that Wong Kar Wai’s films are so apt to capture. Then again, this may also be my limited western perspective on what Wong Kar Wai is visioning through eastern eyes. And herein lies the film’s biggest strength and biggest weakness.

Wong Kar Wai’s films have always excelled at navigating the dialectical tensions—visually, tonally, thematically—between east and west. When one lives in Hong Kong (a longtime British colony), I suppose this tension is borne into you. In Nights, Wong Kar Wai aims to make a deeply American film, though it features the sort of non-linear, mystical time-warp structure that his Hong Kong films often follow. The result is a bit messy and boozy and surreal, with moments that hit and some that definitely miss.

The film encompasses a vision of America that one would expect from a non-American artist. The understanding of America here is thoroughly mediated by postcard imagery, iconography, and pop-cultural exports that have long defined this country for the rest of the world. This includes a Hopper-esque New York City (dingy cafes under the train tracks, noir-ish wet streets, flickering neon signs), an Elvis-haunted Memphis (full of stilted lovers, drunks, and barroom brawls), and a desolate Nevada desert (full of casinos and highways made for muscle car convertibles). The imagery of Americana is also heavily defined by food—blueberry pie ala mode, steak and potatoes, cheeseburgers and fries, etc., which is interesting at a time when films (Ratatouille, Waitress, Bella), seem to be exploring the cinematic joys of food like never before.

Of course, the vision of America Nights envisages is also defined through the story. It’s a story in which each character is ending some relationship but then starting a new one—forgetting the past and taking a new path, as it were. It’s about movement and possibility and second chances, fully in keeping with the popular literary mythos of “open road America.” Indeed, the film toys with “road-movie” as its genre (Norah Jones’ character begins in NY and gradually makes her way out to Nevada by the end of the film), and the final scene brings it all back to the beginning—providing a semblance of T.S. Eliot (“to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”) to chew on, along with a big juicy slice of blueberry pie.

In the end, Nights is an imperfect though respectably ambitious ode to America from an outsider voice. I enjoyed the film in the way that I enjoyed German director Wim Wenders’ last film, Don’t Come Knocking, which was also a road movie that heavily invoked pop mythologies of Americana. It’s nostalgic more than prescient, lyrical more than challenging. Good bits of cinema… just not great.

The Hills Are Alive With Confused Identity

If you’ve ever seen the MTV show, The Hills, you know how utterly unique, interesting, and, well, odd it is. On one level, The Hills is just another MTV teen drama-fest with all the usual trimmings: hot twentysomethings, vacuous dialogue, an orgy of product placement… But there is something very different about the form of the Hills-type shows, and it strikes me as one of the more intriguing “experiments” of post-network T.V.

Essentially The Hills, like its groundbreaking predecessor/model, Laguna Beach, is a “faux reality” docudrama that is equal parts Melrose Place, The Real World, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The plots are simple: rich, beautiful white kids living the jet-set scene in Hollywood and beyond. The Hills centers around Lauren Conrad (who also starred in Laguna) as she pursues a career at Teen Vogue magazine in Los Angeles. The drama of the show comes from Lauren’s various romantic entanglements, friendship/feuds (most notably with Heidi Montag), and mini-crises of the “I ruined my dress” or “what should I wear?” variety…

It sounds trite and passé, right? Well, yes, but something about it is definitely resonating with the youth culture zeitgeist, because it’s the highest rated program on cable television. Season Three just resumed last week, and the premiere episode was 2008’s highest-rated cable telecast—with 4.7 million viewers. Clearly there is something alluring and addictive about this show, which also streams online to an average audience of another 1-2 million viewers each week.

I can only take so much of it, but when I do watch an episode (and I watched last Monday’s “Paris Changes Everything” episode), I am struck anew by the curiosity that is The Hills. It’s such a strange thing to watch “real” people interacting in such a staged/performed/fake (pick your word) way. One could argue that this is what all “reality TV” is, but The Hills takes it to a new level. They flaunt the uber-constructed, un-reality of it all. These kids are living out fantasies and movie scripts and E! adventures in Hollywood, arranged and financed by the world’s biggest pop culture pimp: MTV. It’s about as unreal as it can get—and the MTV producers know it. Question is: do the audiences know it? And more intriguingly: do the stars of the show know it?

Does Lauren Conrad know that any value her “career” at Teen Vogue might hold pales in comparison to the value she—as an iconic commodity of flighty pop-culture fluff—offers the MTV/Madison Ave advertising behemoth? Do Heidi and Spencer know that their “relationship”—its survival or failure—is only important as a plot point or dramatic foil for the ongoing soap opera that is their publicized twentysomething lives? In short: as these “characters” live out their “real” lives, how much of it are they playing for the camera vs. living for their lives? Or perhaps those two have become indistinguishable?

When you watch any given interaction on The Hills, you can see two things very clearly: 1) scenes are setup and scripted, just like anything you see on TV, and 2) there exists some reality, somewhere—some measure of truth to every interaction, expression, and plot development. For example, in last week’s episode, Spencer tracks down Heidi at her picturesque Crested Butte cabin where she is “working on herself” in the comfort of her parents’ comfy abode. I was struck by one scene with Heidi and Spencer at dinner with Heidi’s parents. The scene was clearly setup by the producers to be a high-water mark of awkwardness—and several things Heidi and Spencer say are very suspiciously “straight from a movie.” But in watching the scene you can see—in Spencer’s eyes, in Heidi’s blank stare—that there is some truth to their relationship; they are really going through this tension and awkwardness, on some level. But herein lies the fascinating thing about this show: it fuses reality and fiction on a very cerebral, intrinsic level.

The stars of The Hills are performed characters. But they are performances of real people. “Lauren,” “Heidi,” “Audrina,” and all the rest are avatars for some real girls who are also called Lauren, Heidi, and Audrina. They are the performed selves of some actual selves (and, interestingly, there are also virtual selves at play here in "The Virtual Hills"). But in the end, are they necessarily different?

In this digital, second-life, avatar age, are our public constructions of self who we really are? The girls on The Hills seem to think so. Audrina told TV Guide, "Who I am on the show is who I am in real life.” And why wouldn’t she want to think this? On the show she is a rich, glamorous covergirl who can get into any club in L.A. If she is or ever was someone else in her life outside of MTV, that “self” is now no longer relevant and certainly no longer desired. When you become a character that millions across the world want to be like, who cares who you really are? The glossy, costumed, makeup’d character is who you want to be.

In our Facebook/Myspace/blog culture, who we are to ourselves (our “inner” or “ultimate” Self) is less important than the image we present to the world. Or rather, perhaps who we are to ourselves becomes the self we project to others. In either case, it is clear that our culture is characterized by identity confusion—and The Hills is cashing in on it.

Obama's Smart Speech

If you have not heard or read Barack Obama’s much-discussed “race speech” from a few weeks ago, I urge you to do so. You can read the transcript here (warning: it’s lengthy).

Now I am far from an apologist for Barack Obama. I have many reservations about him, as I do for the other candidates vying for the presidency. But one area in which I think Obama does exceed Hillary Clinton and John McCain is in rhetorical capability—the command of the spoken, well-articulated word.

Quite simply, Obama’s speeches blow the doors off of any of Clinton’s or McCain’s. Case in point: the “race speech.” Ostensibly delivered as a damage-control oration (to tranquilize the understandably damaging Rev. Wright controversy), the speech turned out to be one of the most complex, nuanced, unexpectedly brilliant bits of prose uttered by an American politician in the last two decades.

The speech was so striking because it did not sound political; it sounded intellectual. It did not pander to the lowest common denominator, but instead demanded a high level of cerebral engagement on the part of the audience. This is all very shocking and uncharacteristic of politics in the 21st century.

Even conservative intellectuals have noted the uncommon intelligence of Obama’s speech. Here’s an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal editorial by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan:

“The speech assumed the audience was intelligent. This was a compliment, and I suspect was received as a gift. It also assumed many in the audience were educated. I was grateful for this, as the educated are not much addressed in American politics.

Here I point out an aspect of the speech that may have a beneficial impact on current rhetoric. It is assumed now that a candidate must say a silly, boring line—"And families in Michigan matter!" or "What I stand for is affordable quality health care!"—and the audience will clap. The line and the applause make, together, the eight-second soundbite that will be used tonight on the news, and seen by the people. This has been standard politico-journalistic procedure for 20 years.

Mr. Obama subverted this in his speech. He didn't have applause lines. He didn't give you eight seconds of a line followed by clapping. He spoke in full and longish paragraphs that didn't summon applause. This left TV producers having to use longer-than-usual soundbites in order to capture his meaning. And so the cuts of the speech you heard on the news were more substantial and interesting than usual, which made the coverage of the speech better. People who didn't hear it but only saw parts on the news got a real sense of what he'd said.

If Hillary or John McCain said something interesting, they'd get more than an eight-second cut too. But it works only if you don't write an applause-line speech. It works only if you write a thinking speech.

They should try it.”

Indeed, I think the reason Obama is so appealing to many of my generation is because he is so very counter to the cable news soundbite/infotainment zeitgeist. He is smart, serious, and eschews political stupidity. After eight years of an “I feel your pain” amoral politico and then eight more years of an anti-intellectual cowboy in the oval office, Americans are aching for something new—something as far from the “establishment” as possible. We don’t want a trigger-happy maverick in the White House; we want an educated visionary. We don’t want a politician in control of the free world; we want a professor.

Obama’s speech was more akin to a lecture by a college professor than it was a policy speech by a politician. It requires more than a thirty second Fox News soundbite to process and inspires us to rediscover the art of thinking through the issues. It recognizes that complicated problems can’t be solved in campaign speeches—but campaign speeches can at least get us thinking productively and critically about what and why these problems are.

Buzzword R.I.P. - "Emerging"

Can we please dispense with using the phrase “emerging church”? I’ve never been a fan of the term, for the following reasons: 1) What does “emerging” mean in reference to the church? Isn’t the church always in transition? 2) Why do we need a label to define something so broad and fluid? Defining “emerging church” is almost as futile as defining “postmodern.” 3) Labels like this scream “buzzword to sell books!” to me. How many gullible pastors, youth pastors, and otherwise interested Christians have bought “emerging church” books just to see what all the edgy fuss was all about?

Now, before I am attacked for any of this, you must understand: I am a fan of much of what we might call “emerging.” I love Rob Bell, prefer liturgical worship (candles too!), and generally agree with the admittance of “mystery” into the epistemological discourse of Christianity. But I do not like the fact that “emerging” or “Emergent” is a thing. I don’t like the fact that suddenly there is this debate about whether emerging is a good or bad thing (as if there are two clear cut sides on the issue!). I don’t like that we’ve elevated the last ten years of history to be some revolutionary epoch of massive church change. There have always been shifts in how Christianity is understood and contextualized. Why are we getting so worked up about it now?

There are larger questions about trends in Christianity that we might be concerned about (and that probably implicate the “emerging church”): namely, the trendification of the faith. If anything really worries me about “emerging” things, it is that it has tended to make Christianity “hip” (in the “I’m not a fundamentalist, anti-environment, gay-hating prude!” sort of way). I’m not so sure “hip” is a thing Christianity should be… or can be. There is much more to say about this, and much more I will say about this. Stay tuned.

Snow Angels

If there is one word that describes David Gordon Green’s new film, Snow Angels, it is challenging. If there are five words, they are “challenging in a good way.”

The same words could be used to describe any of Green’s films, which have been consistently complex, beautiful, and multilayered. If you have not seen his stunning first feature, 2000’s George Washington (made for a paltry 40k), or 2003’s lush All the Real Girls, you should definitely check them out. His gorgeously gothic third film, Undertow (which was produced and co-written by Green’s inspiration Terrence Malick), is also a must-see.

Green’s fourth film and first adaptation (based on the novel by Stewart O’Nan), Angels is an ensemble drama about a chain of shattering events in one wintry Pennsylvania town. Like Green’s other films, Angels focuses on the complexities of interpersonal, familial, and intergenerational relationships. The film centers upon Annie and Glenn (Kate Beckinsdale and Sam Rockwell), a recently separated couple with a young daughter and a lot of issues to work out. Annie is having an affair with a man (Nicky Katt) who is married to her closest friend and coworker (Amy Sedaris). Glenn—an unstable, unemployed loser who has recently turned firebrand evangelical Christian—refuses to let Annie go, and a series of poor choices by all parties results in tragic consequences. On the lighter side, the second major relationship of the film is a budding high school romance between band-nerd Arthur (Michael Angarano) and new-girl Lila (Olivia Thirlby). Arthur’s parents are divorcing and his friend (and former babysitter) Annie is suffering, but his innocent and awkward relationship with Lila gives an otherwise cold film a hearty, curiously nostalgic warmth.

Snow Angels (opening March 14 in NY and LA) divided audiences at Sundance last year, and it’s easy to see why. This is not an easy film. I have seen David Gordon Green speak about his films on several occasions (and I met him in person three years ago), and he always reiterates that his goal in filmmaking is to “do things differently” than conventional Hollywood. He eschews the traditional three-act structure, preferring a “two-halves” form, and privileges moments over coherent narrative. He foregrounds odd little character moments and curious visual details not to service the plot but rather to add texture and color to his extremely unique, realist/phenomenological cinematic aesthetic.

Photographed by Green’s film school comrade Tim Orr, Angels beautifully captures the slightly-antiquated, worn-down material and heavily naturalistic settings that have come to define his films. The film’s post-rock instrumental music (including songs from Mono, Uno Dose, Silver Mt. Zion and a new track from Explosions in the Sky) further enhances the organic, ethereal mood. It’s an intensely artistic film, juxtaposing easy-listening poetry with brazen, balls-out subject matter that will leave unsuspecting viewers utterly confused.

Typically, Green’s films are most challenging on the tonal level, and this is where audiences and critics have been divided about Angels. “I like movies that challenge me tonally,” said Green at a recent screening of George Washington. And Angels is certainly one such film. At times it feels like a dark comedy, at others a tragedy. Frequently it is beautifully mellow, but there are several scenes of terrible intensity. Green loves to jump back and forth from humor to tragedy, sometimes within the same scene. There is a striking scene in which Sam Rockwell’s character is heartbroken and impossibly drunk at a dingy rural bar. It is desperately sad, until he starts slow-dancing with some equally blitzed drunks to a Gene Autry song. All of a sudden it is funny, and odd, and tragic—all at the same time. And it’s not just quirkiness for the sake of irony. It works. You never know what kind of wonderful and compelling nuggets Green will throw at you next, which is a rare and wonderful trait in a director.

I am purposefully avoiding a discussion of what actually happens in this film, because the joy of watching it is that it is totally unpredictable—even shocking. It’s a film that asks deep questions about morality and collective responsibility, offering little in the way of justice or blame. It’s a film that shows the small joys and heartbreaks of life in all their symbiotic simultaneity. It’s a wonderfully unsteady, untidy experience that will mess with the tidy filmgoer. But sometimes we need to be messed with.

Could it be True? Friday Night Lights Renewed?!

In what could be the happiest news of this Lenten season, reports are surfacing that NBC has decided to bring Friday Night Lights back for a third season! The ink has yet to dry on the deal (which has not been officially reported by NBC), but it appears that the peacock network has teamed with DirectTV for a co-finance, co-airing strategy that will ease the burden on NBC to justify higher ratings for the underseen show. The network has been in similar talks over the past month with several networks--CW, USA, even ESPN--but it appears that DirectTV was the one that finally coughed up the needed sum to make NBC happy. Thank you!

Fans of the low-rated show have been in fearful limbo since it ended its second season on an abrupt, Writer's Strike-induced note last month. Lights has been consistently low-rated (averaging around 6 million viewers) and yet critics have showered praise and awards on the show since it's debut in 2006. A dedicated band of diehard Lights fans have been circulating online petitions and bombarding the offices of Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman (NBC pres) with little "Save FNL" foam footballs over the last several weeks. Whether this little bit of grassroots effort pressured NBC into making the decision to renew or whether it was a band of NBC execs who lobbied hard internally for the show, I don't know. All I know is that Lights is still the best show on network television, and a third season demands to be seen by more viewers.

Faith and Film Critics Circle Pick '07 Winners

The Faith and Film Critics Circle (of which I am a member) has just announced its awards for 2007. I'm happy to say that Into Great Silence won our highest honor: "most significant exploration of spiritual themes." It's a great, deserving film that was tragically under-seen. I had the pleasure of writing about it for Relevant last April. Here is the full list of awards and nominees:

Most Significant Exploration of Spiritual Themes - Into Great Silence

Best Narrative Film - There Will Be Blood

Best Documentary - Into Great Silence

Best Film for the Whole Family - Ratatouille

Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Best Performance by an Actor - Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Performance by an Actress -Ellen Page, Juno

Best Performance by a Child - Saoirse Ronan, Atonement

Best Supporting Performance by an Actor (tie) - Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James & Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men

Best Supporting Performance by an Actress (tie) - Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There & Jennifer Garner, Juno

Best Ensemble Cast - Lars and the Real Girl

Best Cinematography - Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood

Best Original Screenplay - Diablo Cody, Juno

Best Adapted Screenplay - Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men

Best Original Score - Dario Marianell, Atonement

Paranoid Park: The Best Film of 2008 (Thus Far)

Gus Van Sant’s new film, Paranoid Park, is without question the best film of 2008 thus far. And if we consider it a 2007 film (it did qualify as such for the Independent Spirit Awards, for which it won one and was nominated for three), I would have to put it in the top four (certainly just as good as There Will Be Blood, I’m Not There, and No Country for Old Men).

Paranoid Park is one of those films that jolts awake my deep love of cinema (and I know that’s a cliché… but it’s true). I’ve seen six films in the theater over the last seven days, and admittedly such a schedule makes cinemagoing frightfully mundane—even laborious. But as I left Park I felt more alive and entranced by the beauty and possibility of cinema than I have since probably The New World. Like Malick’s film, Park is brimful of moments and sequences that are achingly beautiful.

Like several of Gus Van Zant’s more recent works (Elephant, Last Days), Park is on the experimental/lyrical/avant-garde side of things—which to this critic is definitely a good thing. Van Sant’s more mainstream films (Finding Forrester, To Die For, Goodwill Hunting) display a great mastery of the cinematic form, but the scope of the auteur’s striking talent and vision is only beginning to be fully realized. Paranoid Park is his most accomplished film—I might even dare to call it perfect.

But enough of the glittering generalities and over-the-top superlatives. So why is this film such a big deal? Why did it receive (and totally deserve) the 60th Anniversary prize at Cannes last year? Let me officially begin my review…

Adapted by Van Sant from the novel by Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park tells the seemingly simple story of a 16-year-old skateboarder, Alex (non-actor Gabe Nevins), who begins hanging out at a notorious Portland skate park (“Paranoid Park”) and associating with shady characters. One fateful night Alex accidentally kills a security guard, and the film is about how he deals with the (mostly psychological) consequences of this life-altering event.

Like its precursor and companion film, Elephant, Park features a cast of unknown teenage actors—a brilliant move that lends a striking awkwardness and realism to the film. Gabe Nevins is perfect in the lead role—a wide-eyed, innocent teenager who finds himself in the midst of something too horrible to comprehend. The film is told from his perspective, though in a non-linear, “never sure where or when we are” sort of fashion. Like a highschooler recounting his day at school to his mother, Alex gives us scarcely little in the way of sensical verbal narrative—repeating some things multiple times (with slight variations or shifted emphasis), retracting or reframing other things, giving staccato answers to immensely involved questions, etc. His fragmentary, confused perspective and stilted utterances speak many volumes of truth, however.

Unlike the fast-talking characters of other teen movies (Juno!), Nevins and the other adolescent actors in Park speak in the choppy, awkward, believable parlance of net-generation millennials. They talk about obligatory teen stuff (getting laid, making weekend plans), their personal problems (absentee dads, divorcing parents, annoying girlfriends), and even give MTV-style lip service to the problems of the world (Iraq, starving children in Africa, etc). They are the teenagers of today, and Van Sant’s eye captures them more perceptively than any film I’ve seen.

Paranoid Park explores the contemporary teen psyche well—externalizing the confusing and contradictory voices, influences, and narratives that crowd their mediated minds. Nevins’ Alex is never quite present in his interactions with people and lacks a tangible grasp of his own unfolding life. A scene of him driving a car and reacting to various songs playing on the radio (from classical to rap) displays his fluid, impressionable sense of self. Indeed, music is a huge part of the film, as it is in any teenager’s life. There is sort of “iPod shuffle” aesthetic to the soundtrack of Park—an eclectic, seemingly random assemblage of artists (everyone from Elliott Smith to Beethoven) that embodies the alternately angsty, meditative, whimsical, and disturbing mood of the film.

In the end, Paranoid Park is a film about the heavy incomprehensibility of “the self behind the self” (to use a phrase from an Emily Dickinson poem). There are multiple levels to this: Obviously Alex languishes under the tension between wanting to unload the terrible information that he holds and yet knowing that he can’t; but he also faces the more unsettling question of how he can live with himself in keeping it forever secret. Can one cordon off the unpleasantries of guilt and memory?

This is a film that astutely captures one young man in his first encounter with the burden of interiority—both as an adolescent in search of an authentic identity (beyond the Facebook self, the cell phone self, the skatepark self, etc) and as a human who must reckon with a reality that upsets the tidy balance of segmentation. All of this is rendered in far more organic and unpretentious ways than my discussion here would suggest. Still, it is complicated, challenging material—definitely not for the recreational filmgoer.

One of the things people will either love or hate about Park is the use of extended lyrical skateboarding sequences. During these audio-visual “interludes” (shot in a more home-video style), cinematographer Christopher Doyle (2046, The Quiet American) delicately follows the acrobatic swerving, flying, and weaving patchwork of teenage skater boys in slow-motion. It’s a remarkable sight to behold. For me, these were the most heartbreakingly profound moments—instances of making the familiar strange, of alienating the material environment while also exposing its truth. These scenes (and the whole movie), remind me of what realist film theorist Siegfried Kracauer believed cinema was most adept at capturing: “the flow of life.” Unlike photography, which can only capture moments and not movement of reality in time, the cinema, Kracauer believed, has the ability to capture reality in motion—an indeterminate glimpse into the open-ended continuum and “flow” of material existence.

Kracauer often referred to “the street” (i.e. shots of large groups of people in motion) as one of the most thrilling applications of cinematic potential. In his seminal work, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, Kracauer wrote:

The street in the extended sense of the word is not only the arena of fleeting impressions and chance encounters but a place where the flow of life is bound to assert itself. Again one will have to think mainly of the city street with its ever-moving anonymous crowds… Each [face] has a story, yet the story is not given. Instead, an incessant flow of possibilities and near-intangible meanings appears.

This applies to much of Van Sant’s film, which revels in the very indeterminacy and “near-intangible” meaning which photography and cinema uniquely relay. Indeed, much of Doyle’s photography in Park consists in long shots with purposefully little in the way of explicit meaning, point of view, or plot utility. As in Elephant, there are frequent tracking shots that simply follow Alex around as he walks in the school halls or carries his skateboard down a Portland sidewalk. Other shots linger on complicated faces (not just Alex) that could be thinking any number of things. There is a thrilling editorial restraint to this film, though it is no doubt a source of frustration for some viewers.

Clearly, Paranoid Park is not for everyone (again, a cliché!), but if you have any interest in seeing something truly unique and provocative and beautiful, I urge to go see this film. It comes out in NYC on March 7 and then releases wider as the month goes on.

The New Vigilantes

I recently saw Neil Jordan’s new film The Brave One, which stars Jodie Foster as a Erica Bain, a vigilante killer who cleans up the scum of NYC in revenge for the brutal murder of her husband by a couple of thugs in a park. It’s a very interesting film for a number of reasons—essentially a feminist retelling of Taxi Driver (which also starred Foster)—but its chief provocation is that it offers up a likeable protagonist who kills for pleasure, walking the streets at night in search of (male) sinners who need to be silenced.

Another incarnation of this amoral anti-hero is seen in the show Dexter (now on CBS). A sharply written and well-acted drama, Dexter follows a serial killer (the title character played by Michael C. Hall) who has an insatiable urge to kill those who kill others. He’s as likeable as any character on television and wouldn’t harm a hair on any principled, law-abiding citizen. But when it comes to rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and human traffickers, Dexter is as menacing as Jeffrey Dahmer. The show doesn’t condone or celebrate Dexter’s actions, but it definitely wants us to be on his side. To that end, it offers a “life is horribly complicated” backstory that attempts to explain (perhaps justify?) Dexter’s violent actions. Like Erica Bain, Dexter faced a violent past that made him who he is today: an unstable timebomb with a murderous axe to grind.

These are just two of the most recent examples of vigilante heroes in pop culture, which is just one subset of the much broader trend of moral ambiguity (the tendency of culture today to celebrate “the gray areas”). But none of this is especially novel or unique to the 21st century. I immediately think back to the novels of Dostoevsky that tackled these notions of DIY justice.

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky explores the idea that some men are of an “extraordinary” nature, set apart from, or rather above, the common man. The character of Porfiry interprets the idea in this way: “The ordinary must live in obedience…while the extraordinary have the right to commit all sorts of crimes and in various ways to transgress the law.” In the novel, this concept is embodied in the character of Raskolnikov, a neurotic, distressed student who kills a pawnbroker and her innocent sister. Like Porfiry, Raskolnikov believes that the extraordinary man has a right (not official, but his own) to “step over certain obstacles, and then only in the event that the fulfillment of his idea—sometimes perhaps salutary for the whole of mankind—calls for it.” For Raskolnikov, his murderous actions constitute the “stepping over” of an extraordinary man, for in the killing of the wretched pawnbroker many people—if not the whole of mankind—will be better off.

So goes the logic of both The Brave One and Dexter. In each case we find ourselves rooting on the murderous actions of these vigilantes because they are “taking out the trash” so to speak. The disturbing allure of these types of films (and TV shows) is that we all, secretly, enjoy seeing a bad guy get shot in the face or (in the case of Dexter, chopped into pieces and thrown in the trash).

But there is a frightful end sum to this type of vigilante amorality. In Crime and Punishment progresses, Raskolnikov begins to understand that in trying to rationalize his killing through some grand idea, he is deluding himself. He senses the dishonesty of it, and though it proves painful, admits to himself that: “I simply killed—killed for myself.” At the end of the novel (the “punishment” portion in Siberia), Raskolnikov imagines the true implications of the idea that had fueled his former torment. He has a disturbing vision of pestilence taking over the world and producing a race of men who each assume the right to step over and who each find the truth “in himself alone.”

This vision paints a scary portrait of a world governed by relativistic morality. Dostoevsky’s comments that in this world “they did not know whom to judge, could not agree on what to regard as evil, what as good” prophesy the coming of postmodernism. Of course, the initial cultural manifestation of the “stepping over” idea seems to have been the rise in totalitarianism in the early-mid twentieth century, but Dostoevsky expresses a foresight of what would ultimately come in totalitarianism/modernism’s wake. Once one or two “extraordinary men” step over and take the reigns of a totalitarian authority, the natural outcome is that more and more people view themselves in the same way. Soon, because extraordinariness is so arbitrary and totalitarianism so distasteful, everyone claims the same rights to power and/or truth. Raskolnikov sees something of this future in his idea, and that is why he ultimately discounts it.

Does our culture today see the folly and contradiction that Raskolnikov finally does? Or are we once again romanced by the notion of “extraordinary” men and “above the law” morality? More broadly: is our emphasis on cultural specificity and relativism weakening our ability to even delineate where the “stepping over” lines are? It’s a question and pesky problem that deserves to be discussed.

The Art of the Cover

I’ve been thinking about covers recently, and not as in bedsheets. The cover is ubiquitous in our culture (form karaoke bars to American Idol in all its kitschy glory), but what makes a good cover? What, if anything, happens to the meaning of a song when it is covered by someone else?

Last night I went to a Cat Power concert at the Wiltern theater in Los Angeles. It was a very, very interesting show. Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) is a strange person and a very odd performer. In years past she was known to have emotional breakdowns during shows and frequently walked off the stage, unable to finish a song or set. Last night she was gleefully happy (a little too happy if you ask me—prancing around on stage like a bunny doing the moonwalk), and she plowed through an 80-some minute set of entirely cover songs, including 5 or 6 covers of some of her own older songs.

But how, you might be wondering, does an artist cover themselves? Isn’t that just called a performance? Not if you heard Chan Marshall last night. She played a medley of songs from her 2006 album The Greatest, but they were rather unrecognizable and completely reinterpreted from their original form. At best it was intriguing, at worst terribly frustrating; but this is Cat Power. She’s all about the covers… and she’s probably the best at it. That is: the art of the cover.

Most people who cover songs take the “imitation is the best form of flattery” approach—mimicking the original song in melody, phrasing, tone, and mood. Cat Power can do this too (just listen to her spot-on rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again”), but her preferred method of covering songs is to reconstruct them from scratch and sculpt them in her musical image. Take her cover of the Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”—there is little of the original left in her morose, acoustic version, save some remote, flickering (yet very much alive) musical idea. But songs are mysterious creatures, and to each listener they are completely different things. The meaning of a song is fluid, multifarious, easily changed and infinitely pliable. Every time a song is sung or performed (whether in the shower or on stage) it means something different, so it makes sense to say that the performer and audience have just as much or more to do with the “reality” of a song as the notes, chords, and instruments. And this is what Cat Power recognizes; this is why her covers are so utterly brilliant.

Chan Marshall has now made two albums of cover songs—2000’s The Covers Record (in which she covered Neil Young, Nina Simone, The Velvet Underground, among others) and this year’sJukebox (a two disc album which covers Hank Williams, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, among others). These albums don’t feel like covers records, however. They feel totally original, personal, and uniquely Cat Power. For Marshall, singing other people’s songs is not just an act of mimesis or karaoke. It’s an act of reinterpretation—and that, in a way, is what all art is.

Indeed, I might argue that the art of covering is, in fact, the art of art. After all, very little art is completely original. Whether you are making a film (in which you copy the styles, conventions and motifs of other films), writing a book (abiding by centuries of literary rules) or creating music (perhaps the most derivative of all art forms), repurposing the past is just part of the game. Shakespeare was the worst offender (none of his stories are original to him), but that doesn’t diminish him as an artist. On the contrary, it’s a rare skill to be able to take other stories and inspirations and histories (as Shakespeare did) and make them something altogether better and greater in a recombinant form.

Cat Power is one artist who gets it. Her view of “the song” is an interesting one—she seems to conceive of a song as a living, free-market organism that is more about collective intelligence and cultural ownership than singular expression or solitary authorship. Indeed, it is interesting that so many of the songs she covers could be considered “folk art” tunes of the sort that define a culture/region/era rather than a particular artist. These are artifacts of people, not one person. Cat Power is just one modern girl who connects to the songs she hears and sings them in her own voice and way—embedding a song’s meaning with her own meaning (which is the only way anything ever means anything).

At a time when the remixed/repurposed/recombined seems to be the only means of creativity in our increasingly exhausted artistic climate, Cat Power is a shining, thoroughly postmodern exemplar. As classic songs are systematically stripped of meaning by the vacuous performances on American Idol two nights a week, other artists—like Cat Power—are envisioning new ways of breathing life into long-lost art and ephemeral culture.

No Discussion Allowed

Yesterday I went to a press screening of the new film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. For those who are unfamiliar with this film, it’s an agit-prop documentary of the Michael Moore variety, with one main difference: it’s conservative. It’s about the evolution debate, and takes the position that Intelligent Design theory (ID) should at least be allowed a place at the table in discussions of biological origins.

The film stars Ben Stein as the Michael Moore/Morgan Spurlock/Al Gore figure—mounting an “op-ed” type argument that is less about why ID is right or evolution wrong as it is about why there is such a concerted effort by the mainstream science community to squelch any and all debate on the matter. The film begins by recounting about a half dozen cases of highly-qualified PhD professors at various universities who have been fired in recent years for daring to mention that evolution as a theory has some weaknesses. From here the film gives a general narrative of how the scientific and academic powers that be have aggressively sought to silence any dissent—either by ID proponents or anyone else with questions about Darwin’s theory.

I came into this film very, very skeptical, worried that it would be all about trying to disprove evolution and argue for creationism (thereby reinforcing stereotypes of anti-intellectual religious fundamentalists). I was worried that it would further reinforce the (false) binary that says Christianity and science are on two sides of a battle and can never have any common ground. But I was pleasantly surprised with Expelled on a number of levels.

First of all, it’s pretty funny and quite entertaining. Ben Stein’s hyper-dry way of interviewing people is great fun to watch, and his “everyman” persona makes him easy to sympathize with. His “anyone, anyone” Ferris Bueller character also makes him an appropriate choice for a film about the expulsion of dissenting ideas in the classroom.

Secondly, it’s a reasonably effective, well-mounted argument (if a tad on the manipulative side). The filmmakers interviewed many prominent figures from both sides of the debate, including an extended (and deliciously uncomfortable) interview between Stein and Richard Dawkins (atheist extraordinaire and author of The God Delusion). The film is smart to keep its focus on the glaring double standards and contradictions among the evolution advocates—who have built impenetrable walls around the sacrosanct theory of evolution and (in a very un-academic spirit) refused to allow any rational dialogue on the matter.

Indeed, the film hits a nerve in its critique of the contemporary American academy. As a graduate student immersed in academia and all its idiosyncrasies, I can attest to the pervasive and disturbingly hypocritical sense of close-mindedness that stifles the spirit of progressive discourse. It goes beyond the scientific communities in higher education and touches many disciplines. Quite simply: if you are not on the “right” side of the wall (whatever wall it may be), your voice is stifled, your work discredited, and your intelligence questioned. It’s gone beyond political correctness and is now something altogether more militant and sinister. Sadly, the academy today is less about the sharing and discovery of truth as it is about the wielding and protecting of power.

Critics will attack this movie and claim that it is manipulative propaganda, but if Michael Moore can get an Oscar for it, why hate on Ben Stein? Certainly the film has its faults. It is less-than-subtle at times and heavy-handed at others (the sequence on Nazism and Hitler as direct descendent of Darwinist thought is perhaps unnecessary), and overall it is very derivative of other films of this type. Obviously Stein knowingly mimics Michael Moore in his leading-question, “I’m going to make you look stupid” method of interviewing. But there are also direct parallels to Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Like Gore in that film, Stein gives a speech in a lecture hall, incorporates “deeply personal” elements, and plays on apocalyptic fears (in this case, the fear that free speech is increasingly suppressed, East Germany style).

But Expelled’s lack or originality and copycat style is, in a way, sort of the point. It’s a film that very deliberately presents itself as an alternative type of film—the anti-Michael Moore, perhaps. It is trying to argue that there is (or should be) room at the table for both sides, for multiple arguments on any issue. But more than likely the film will be denied wide distribution or much (if any) press coverage, just as Intelligent Design theory is either ignored or laughed out of most cultural discourse. Whatever you may think of ID or evolution (and I’m not saying either is wrong or right) it’s hard to argue against the injustice of denying the discussion. But unfortunately that’s just what is happening.

White People Like: Making Fun of Their Whiteness

The "Stuff White People Like" blog simply consists of an ongoing list of things that white folks like (or, more specifically, things yuppie/hipster white folks under 40 like). Some inclusions on the list: Difficult breakups (#70), Asian fusion food (#45), Knowing what's best for poor people (#62), Arrested Development (#38), Japan (#58), "Gifted" Children (#16), The Sunday New York Times (#46), Wrigley Field (#30), Writer's Workshops (#21), and Farmers Markets (#5).

It's a hilarious blog, with aggressively ironic writing (after all, "irony" is #50 on the list!) and humorous pictures throughout. The whole endeavor is blindingly white in nature (i.e. spending so much time ironically skewering whiteness in a non-standupcomedy sort of way).

If you look over the list on the blog, one of the major recurring themes is the idea that above all, white people like being the best or superior (but not in a self-deprecating sort of way) at whatever they do or whatever situation they are in. They're constantly trying to one-up one another and prove themselves better than the next white guy. It's funny and ironic, then, that "Stuff White People Like" screams of this sort of "look how smart and witty and self-deprecating we are" attitude. But then maybe the people behind the blog are trying to make some meta critique of the whole process of reflexive self-stereotyping (wouldn't that be white of them!). In any case, the sort of half-hearted deconstruction with which I'm concluding this post is certainly stereotypically white. We love taking things--even (perhaps especially) amusing and entertaining things--apart and analyzing them. There's no fun in that. But then again, white people are very prone to becoming wet blankets.