RNC: The Official Day 1

I've been promoted to working utility for the only RF High Definition camera in the country (priced at a quarter million dollars). That means I'll be on the floor of the convention all week spotting for the cameraman, keeping people from bumping into him, making sure his batteries are charged or a fresh one is on hand, and looking for celebrities and their families we can film. If you don't own an HD television set, you can still see our work on PBS, so keep your eyes open; the wardrobe will be a black shirt with khakis.

This morning's session went well, although hours of logistical motions and resolutions had to first be passed (all in favor say aye) before the convention could officially start. I ended up five feet from Giuliani, seven feet from Dick Cheney, and shook hands with the Lt. Governor of Maryland, who said to enjoy the space on the floor, it would be insanely crowded from here on out. Also of interest: Joni Eareckson Tada gave the benediction, which was spoken in Spirit and in Truth; it was really the only time all the delegates quieted down completely—I wonder if they could sense the difference.

RNC: Our First Protesters

I was putting up signs outside our mobile truck yesterday when I heard what I thought were anti-Bush chants begin. A few minutes later I went to cross back to Madison Square Garden when there in the middle of the street I saw a naked woman. The cops let the several nude protesters do their thing for about ten minutes before arresting them. Most of the time I don't think stunts like that work, but strangely enough, most of the people I've talked to about it now know they wanted funding for AIDS prevention.

RNC: Week 1

My first day of truly professional work ironically found four of our top people crowded around a single desk in a borrowed office at PBS. Most of the week that followed then went to setting up our office on the fifth floor of Madison Square Garden (Verizon has still failed to setup our high speed internet, though we've been able to pirate a wireless signal in the area).

The Seattle Cafe on 33rd St. has become my almost daily source of breakfast and chai; even during the lunch rush, the staff is so nice you almost forget you're in New York. And despite the lack of decor, I certainly recommend it to anyone working or visiting the city.

So far I've impressed the service guy by assembling our copier, learned how to create petty cash reports (organizing and documenting receipts for every penny spent), and finally comprehend just how incomprehensible, complicated, and interrelated media relationships really are between the different companies and networks (ask me sometime and I'll at least try to explain who it is I work for).

The train commute hasn't been as bad as I expected, I'll be able to put up with it for at least the six months I've committed to living at home, but that time could certainly go to other things (I've already finished my first book).

Good news, though, my boss graciously decided to put me up in the Hudson Hotel until the convention is over. And yes, it's as gorgeous as the pictures suggest, though the rooms are quite small. It's oddly the first place I've been where I want complete strangers to perceive me as cool; I wonder if that's what Hollywood is like. All the same, if anyone wants to visit, have a drink on the terrace and play chess, consider this an open invitation.

I Heart Huckabee's

Three Kings is perhaps the only film to ever shape my viewpoint on a subject (or at least clarify what I couldn't yet articulate), but it's now been five long years of waiting for the release of David O. Russell's next film:
I Love Huckabee's.

The first glimpse came out today and I'm just really confused as to what it all means, but I'm sure it might perhaps eventually someday all make sense in context several months after viewing the film in its entirety several times with at least two screenings of it played in reverse while synced to the Beatles album Abby Road.

Giving out of Joy

This week marks the beginning of a three week gig with a news company covering the Republican National Convention. I'll actually be on the floor of the convention center amidst all the craziness, but honestly, it's probably the safest place I could be that week.

It suddenly struck me though that tithing from this job (giving ten percent of your income to the Kingdom purposes of God) is now a much larger sum of money. It had never been a problem before because all I ever had to give was fifteen dollars here, twenty dollars there. Now I'm thinking, "I could really do something with that money."

Well I listened to a John Piper sermon a few weeks ago and he pointed out that Jesus only referred to tithing one time. "You tithe even your spices," he said to the Pharisees. "That's right. You should. But you have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness" (Matthew 23:23). He was saying, of course you tithe, that's a given. Now get busy with the big things.

In the Old Testament there was a bare minimum you would sacrifice and then different free will offerings you could choose to give on top of that. The early church went so far as "selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:45). I want the freedom from anxiety they display here and the joy Paul wrote of concerning the church in Macedonia that "in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity"
(2 Cor 8:2).

For them tithing wasn't a goal, it's a starting place. So let us get commit ourselves to the weightier matters of justice and mercy and faithfulness.

Letter to The Economist

Always look on the bright side.

Gothic Comicbook Superheros

This past weekend I needed a film I could jump in and out of several times while eating lunch or dinner and not really care about what happens next, so I watched Daredevil. Here's why it utterly fails as a film:

During the day, Daredevil's alter ego works as a lawyer, so as opposed to other superheros who simply capture the bad guys and tie them up in webbing or leave them dangling from street lamps for the cops to pickup, he's already tried the court system and must now bring his own form of justice—he kills them! As much as the audience sees the twisted need for this, they also know how inherently wrong it is. He's a hero we must struggle to root for, which makes for very uncomfortable viewing.

At times his blindness is used to reveal his humanity, such as the way he folds a ten dollar bill differently from a five so he can distinguish between them as he goes to pay for something. And every time he uses his radar to do something a normal blind person couldn't, like telling someone to "watch your step" or stopping Stan Lee, with his nose buried in a newspaper, from walking in front of a truck, we get a small smile on our face.

There are other character quirks, however, that they never explain. He sleeps in a water-filled coffin; that's cool, but why? A sound transition as he laid down to muffle the world so he could sleep would have been both informative and really stylish.

As if these inconsistencies weren't enough, when Daredevil's normal alter ego meets the love of his life, she rejects him and walks out of the cafe they're in. All right, conflict's not such a bad thing—but then he follows her down the street like a creepy stalker! No one wants a guy like that. So what do these star-crossed lovers do? Fight of course (which is unfortunately the best scene in the film). Moments like these are just absurd and destroy any credibility the story might have had.

On top of that, the film comes off as a strange mix of bubbly comicbook and gothic horror elements that fail to blend. The secondary villain, Bullseye (played by Colin Farrell), with a grin like Jack Nicholson in The Shining and an actual bullseye tattooed on his forehead, is perhaps the campiest character to ever grace the screen. Yet despite his eerily clownish nature, he manages to kill Daredevil's love interest.

Although these extremely dark moments aren't necessarily bad in and of themselves, they're completely unexpected for a story with characters in ruby rubber suits. In the end, the filmmakers go too far in breaking the expectations of the audience to the point they are no longer trusted.

Lonestar Flashback Transitions

After meeting John Sayles last week it was serendipitous to have “on demand” this month his 1996 Oscar nominated film Lonestar, following the demythologization of town hero Sheriff Buddy Deeds after the skeleton of his murdered predecessor is discovered.

One thing that really grabbed me was the unique use of flashback transitions, although quite a common trick today. A good deal of the film is filled with characters telling stories about Buddy Deeds, so as someone starts to recount what had happened around the time of the previous sheriff's disappearance (generally in the same location they were standing now) the camera would pan off of them to reveal this scene from the past taking place right there in the room as if the original people weren't even there. Then, as the flashback finished, the camera would pan back to the original scene as if the characters had just been watching it happen. Not only is this less distracting than the commonly used dreamy, wave dissolve, it's also more engaging and highly innovative.

Going Abroad

Saturday was so hot that I walked to Harvard Yard to do my reading. While studying D.A. Carson's exegesis of John 1 on how the life that is in the Word is the light of men, a gentleman walked up and inquired whether he could ask me a few questions about the American education system. Unexpected, but I said all right.

Turns out Dr. Newton had taught commerce at a University for twenty-three years and was now Assistant to the Minister of Education for India; the two of them had flown over for a conference there at Harvard. We discussed when American children started their schooling, how grade levels were broken out, the difference between one teacher in middle school and subject specific teachers in high school, how much homework was generally given, what a conservatory was, the cost of going to college, and how students attained government aid. Thinking about it now, I wonder which parts surprised him and what stuck in his mind that might change the way education is done over there.

I, on the other hand, learned that in India you could still discipline even a college student by hitting them, that it does cost money to go to high school ($15), but, if you had the marks to get in, it only costs $30 per year for college. Of course, you have to realize that a man of his moderately high position only made $2000 a year, but over there you could buy a very small house for that amount. It's just a different cost of living. “So the secret is to make your money here, but spend it over there,” I said. “Exactly.”

That's ironic because I recently seem to have caught the bug to travel. Reading House of Sand and Fog and watching lots of French films, I've felt very stuck inside my American mindset and want to see how people in the rest of the world live. I'd never even considered India until seeing the opening scenes of The Bourne Supremacy, which shows their amazing beach communities, as beautiful as those of the Philippines. My roommate Ben also pointed out that India is now the largest English speaking country in the world, so language barriers would be less of a problem the say Europe or South America.

Rather than going to the busy and often dirty cities, Dr. Newton recommended I visit the beach town of Gao and the countryside village of Jumme where he's from. He also gave me his card and said I should call him before I come over, he'd set me up with the proper hotels and so on. Sounds good to me, I started packing my bags last night.

Poor Direction in Manchurian Candidate

Everyone is raving about the Jonathan Demme's remake of the Manchurian Candidate, but frankly I'm just disappointed; not because they modernized the original, but that it could have been so much more.

Surprisingly, most of the problems don't lie with the script; in many cases the changes they made were well thought out (i.e. the Tyson-esque biting scene—sheer horrifying genius). The real issue lies with Demme's self-aware directing that so often distracts from the story.

Everything is pieced together like an MTV commercial and handled tongue-in-cheek, such as the overly flashy news graphics. Similarly, many of the scenes lack a tautness necessary to a thriller like this. Times with the Russian scientist, Marco's love interest, or even flashbacks to the brain washing were at best glossy, but more often went all the way to camp.

The first third of the film drags with disjointed episodes and repeated fades to black as Marco, in search of the truth, wrestles with the obstacle of his own faulty memory. There was no reason in the opening scene for the constant changes in music and time, they neither serve the plot nor reveal something new about the characters. The original had a good tempo to it, and yes, in remaking the film it needed a faster, more “modern” pacing, but that's all it has—it just isn't gritty enough.

The first famous murder scene (originally with the milk carton) was turned from two simple gunshots to a set of drawn out drownings, where the emotional shock can really be held at length. The final shootout in the remake, however, the very climax of the film, was just horrible. In the original, it happened so quickly that for a moment you lost your bearings and were unsure about what had just happened—the ending came as a surprise. The new film, however, belabors the point so much that the audience knows exactly what's going to happen well before the trigger is pulled. Demme's completely removed the emotional punch.

Not all is lost though. The performances were superb and Meryl Streep will certainly get a well deserved Oscar nomination for it, if not the win. The film is worth seeing for her alone, although certainly watch the original first so you can enjoy the story before having it ruined by Demme's poor handling; and yes, he'll unfortunately get an Oscar nod for this as well.