Funny People is a funny movie. But it’s also serious. It mixes genre in a way that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, and this will frustrate many viewers. It’s also a Judd Apatow film, which means there are about fifty too many penis jokes, lots of bromance comedy shenanigans, and touches of emotional depth and “growing up” insights. As part of the Apatow canon, it fits nicely in with The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, rounding out the trilogy (if you want to call it a trilogy) with an appropriate graduation to existential self-awareness.
Remembering Hiroshima
Was Jesus Ever Tipsy?
Thoughts After Writing a Book
(500) Days of Summer
(500) Days of Summer is a love story for my generation. Though it proudly declares at the outset that “this is not a love story,” the film is wholly about love. Or rather, it’s about our discombobulated, postmodern idea of love mixed with the rapturous ephemera of passion and romance. It’s about how difficult love is for a generation of youngsters who haven’t seen love first hand (their parents are usually divorced) and yet have been fed a steady stream of love abstractions as filtered through soap operas and The Sound of Music and Jesus and Mary Chain songs. This is a movie about “movie-style” love and “movie-style” life. It’s about the difficulties that arise when our ideas of love and life come entirely through artist renderings and Hollywood fakery.
Introducing the Poorgeoisie
When I was in New York City earlier this year, I took some pictures of a person lying on a couch on a sidewalk in the East Village. I wasn’t sure if he was a hipster or a homeless person. This question has come up numerous times in my hipster field research over the last couple years, and it’s definitely becoming harder to tell the difference. Apparently the homeless look is hotter than ever. Actually, I first noticed the trend a few years ago in L.A. and wrote a post on my blog entitled “Derelict Chic” back in 2007.
Sad Times for the Episcopal Church
I attended an Episcopal church one summer a few years ago. I’m not Episcopalian, but I enjoyed the church and the experience. I loved the liturgy and tradition of it—the sense of being part of an ancient, worldwide, structured body of believers. I loved the use of organ and the singing of 500 year-old hymns. I loved the creeds.
The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), is far and away the best film about our current war in Iraq. And it’s easily also one of the best films of the year. If you’re looking for nonstop action, white-knuckled suspense, and emotionally draining human drama this summer, I doubt you will find any film more satisfying than this.
God Knew I Would Blog This
Public Enemies
There is a lot that could be said about Public Enemies—a lot, for example, about the HD digital photography which is perhaps the most polarizing aspect of the film for many audiences. For a really insightful take on the visual style of the film, I recommend Manohla Dargis’ review for The New York Times (a review I happen to totally agree with).
Death And All His Friends
In what will no doubt be weeks of upcoming news coverage, tributes, memorials and TV specials chronicling the life and death of Michael Jackson, the point will likely be made that Michael Jackson died the same day as Farrah Fawcett and just two days after Ed McMahon. “We can’t forget Farrah and Ed,” people will say. But invariably, the immense, wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson will overshadow the other two, and history will forget that these three important twentieth century icons died in the same city in the same few days in June.
Interview With a Christian Hipster Icon: Shane Claiborne
Shane Claiborne is someone I’ve been following for quite some time—someone who I greatly admire and who I believe is an important, prophetic voice for the church today. If you've read his books or heard him speak, you know how provocative and compelling and fascinating he is. In my book on Christian hipster culture, Shane gets more than a few paragraphs mention.
Away We Go
I like Dave Eggers, and I really liked A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. But there were times in reading that book when I was like, “okay, I get it: your family is screwed up, life if a torrent of never-ending hassles and wonders and beauties and tragedies. Point established. Welcome to the world."
An Early Summer Arcade Fire Reverie
I’ve been thinking back to “early summer” memories like Vacation Bible School, camping trips, mowing the grass twice a week, Memorial Day barbecues, the cold water of early summer pool swimming, seeing Coldplay at Red Rocks in 2003, driving up the Pacific Coast Highway with my parents last June, seeing Jurassic Park one humid afternoon in 1993 after a morning at Bill Self’s basketball camp. And the list goes on.
Summer Hours
My Interview With Lee Isaac Chung
In the next couple of weeks, I will be posting my "Best Films of the First Half" list, just as I did last year. High on the list will no doubt be Munyurangabo, a fictional film about post-genocide Rwanda that I saw at the City of Angels Film Festival earlier this year and which totally blew me away (watch the trailer here). I met the film's director, Lee Isaac Chung, after the screening and later had an in-depth interview with him for Christianity Today. You can read that interview here.
Vaguely Literary Post-Travel Thoughts
Traveling is a funny thing. Those who do a lot of it know how addictive and essential it is, and how equally it pulls you with such force away from your mundane, everyday existence but then thrusts you back with sling-like vigor at the end. You always feel like you must “get away” from home when you venture out on some trip, but by the end it is “home” that beckons you, normalcy that grabs you, and a humdrum schedule that enlivens you with its familiar scent of mom’s cookies and newly washed sheets.
Debussy, Debauchery and Dieu (A Weekend in Paris)
My Work Here is Done
It’s amazing what a week of focus, peace, quiet and no distractions can do for a writer. Being at the Kilns this past week has been that for me, and it’s paid off. I wrote two whole chapters in my book (I am now two chapters away from the end!), plus the preface. Being in C.S. Lewis’ house has been quite an inspiration, and I’m so blessed to have had the chance to come here.
What Does "Mere Christianity" Look Like?
I always loved C.S. Lewis’ idea of “mere Christianity”—that there are fundamental beliefs about God and Christ that bind the church together, even while so many of the particulars might be different or contradictory. It’s an idea that makes sense. And it’s comforting. It helps explains why Christianity as a belief system has managed to survive so many centuries and penetrate so many disparate cultures. There are certain core beliefs (amazing, world changing beliefs) that can’t help but endure. And as I’ve spent the last few days in Lewis’ house here in Oxford, his idea—“mere Christianity” is one I’ve thought about again and again.