Review: The Village

As a writer and director, M. Night Shyamalan consistently splits the critics in half: either you love his films or you hate them, and there's no middle ground. Of course, that's all generalization--even my own sentiments fail to fall into just one category.

I always enjoy the concept behind his stories; this film in particular with its isolated community, simplicity of life, and postured old English dialogue strikes a chord of romanticism that resonates well with me. With none of these things do I take quarrel.

But the execution of his films drives me to complaint: his awkward framings that hold at length, the lack of intensity in particular scenes (i.e. being chased in the woods), the missing nuances of performance that turn characters into people, and how we never quite believe our main character is blind, cane or not.

Shyamalan, continue writing films, please...but leave them for someone else to direct.

Reviewing Our Rights

The Greiders graciously let me sleep over at their apartment Thursday night and naturally Scott and I got onto the topic of marriage. It's been two years since I saw anyone seriously and I've often wondered what I could have done better in that relationship. Well, I thank God for Scott, because without even knowing the situation he summed it all up:

Fully disclosing our emotions can often be overwhelming to a woman, and it's our responsibility as the man to guard their heart. It would be wrong to burden them with how we feel and then expect it to be reciprocated. No matter how long a couple's been dating we do not have a claim to their heart, that right belongs to another, so when we go into a relationship it should be giving everything and expecting nothing.

Thoughts for Easter

Jeffrey Overstreet pointed me to these:

The cross has become a piece of jewelry, a beautiful decoration in a church, a symbol of faith. It is difficult for us to pass back through the centuries of tradition to see crucifixion as a form of capital punishment so horrible that polite people would not so much as mention it...If the idea of crucifixion was abhorrent to decent people in the ancient world, imagine the difficulty of trying to convince them that a god——indeed, the God——had willingly endured such a punishment.
     — Thomas Schmidt, "A Scandalous Beauty"

If resurrections happened regularly, there would be nothing different about Jesus being raised from the dead. He would be one among many, just another statistic...If [Jesus' resurrection] is unique, then, by definition, there will be no analogous events. That makes it a lot harder to believe. It also makes it worth believing.
     — Alister E. McGrath, "What Was God Doing on the Cross?"

How fair and lovely is the hope which the Lord gave to the dead when he lay down like them beside them. Rise up and come forth and sing praise to him who has raised you from destruction.
     — Syrian Orthodox Liturgy

Post Fast

So here I am, my first night home since the fast and I'm up consuming information until almost three in the morning (and it'll be such by the time I get in bed). Why do I take such pleasure in this when I skim more than read and rarely finish an article? What makes it worse is that I don't press on late into the night writing my own material, enthralled by the stories my characters are struggling to tell.

Snowy Walk

My dear friend Anna came over for the afternoon, but by the time she decided to leave spring had turned strange and it had snowed five inches. She was wearing high heels, which would make walking outside difficult, so my Dad jokingly suggested I carry her to her car. Ironically, the idea had already crossed my mind, so when we stepped onto the porch I swept her off her feet.

She protested at first, afraid I was going to drop her down the stairs, which I must admit, with all that snow, they were a bit difficult to navigate, but as we got further down the walk she said, "This is kind of fun. You want to be my boyfriend."

Revisiting Good Friday

In case you're still confused about how they get three days between Jesus death on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday you might want to read this.

A King and a Kingdom

Lyrics to a new Derek Webb song.

Who’s your brother, who’s your sister
You’ll just walk past him, think you missed her
As we’re all migrating to a place where our Father lives
Cause we married into a family of immigrants

So my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country or a man
My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
It’s to a King and a Kingdom

There are two great lies that I’ve heard
The day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will not surely die
And that Jesus Christ was white, upper class, republican
And if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like him

So my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country or a man
My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
It’s to a King and a Kingdom

And nothing unifies like a common enemy
And we’ve got one sure as hell
He may be living in your house
He may be raising up your kids
He may be sleeping with your wife
Or he may not look like you think

Numbing Sorrow

A girl I was friends with in high school died two weeks ago. I missed the funeral; I only found out yesterday. I wish I felt something more than I do, but honestly, I'm not sure I know how to grieve.

Maybe watching a show about funeral directors has normalized death for me. I don't know. Perhaps I'm just content with providence. A month ago I was at a funeral for an older friend of mine and, though it was sudden, I'm comfortably at peace about it, but Becky—I don't know where she is and it's not peace I feel now, but silence.

The week she died I was visiting my Grandfather for his eighty-sixth birthday. It had been over a year since I'd seen him last and his hair had thinned; he'd lost weight and started using a walker. He just looked so tired.

In college I went to five weddings in twelve months and with neither of my grandparents doing all that well of late I'm wondering if this won't be the Year of the Funeral.

Scott's Simple Page

Let me be the first to congratulate Scott Greider on the birth of his fourth child. We pray he'll give it lots of love and attention for the sake of the adoring public who love kids in cute outfits and say funny things about their parents.

An Unexpectated Benediction

Last night I had twenty minutes before I needed to leave for book club, so I wandered into a Barnes & Noble and read the first page of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It took my breath away.

Practicing Lent

Over the weekend I was watching a friend bake a cake; it had just cooled and she was now putting on the decorations (skyscrapers and taxis), but whenever icing got on her fingers she would wash them. "What are you doing," I asked. "Why aren't you licking them off?" To which she answered, "I'm not eating sweets for Lent." Well that didn't make any sense, she wasn't Catholic.

She referenced, however, the Lutheran celebration of Advent as inspiration, the time preceding Christmas used to prepare for the celebration of Christ's birth—it's also known as Winter Lent. Great Lent, on the other hand, runs for forty days leading up to Easter and is a "season of sorrowful reflection...punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays, the day of the resurrection...[It] is a way for the Christian to identify with Jesus in his suffering" (Wikipedia)

Remembering how little I celebrated Christmas this year or dwelt with wonder on the miraculous mystery of the incarnation, completely missing the spirit of the season, I thought fasting for Lent was a great idea; a chance to commit the coming weeks to remembering Christ's sacrifice for us, because I for one am so prone to forget.

For my fast I've chosen the internet. In view of what Christ did it may seem trivial and not much in the way of suffering, but I feel it's important, that I give a lot of time to it that could be better spent meditating on Christ's death and resurrection. Email will be the exception and I might blog on Sundays when the fast is traditionally broken, but those aside, I'm excited to spend this month in focused devotion, to make a conscious effort towards remembrance. I'll let you know how it goes.

Comic Video Shorts

Tonight my Mom came home from a party with her co-workers raving about an internet video I needed to watch of some pudgy kid from New Jersey lip-syncing to a Romanian pop tune. Actually, I thought it was pretty funny and the New York Times even did an article on it last week.

Better yet, it led me to this great flash animation spoof of the Matrix. Simply click "Watch this movie," then choose the episode titled "There Is No Spoon" (warning: the rest are pretty bad). Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go steal shampoo from the bathroom.

Cozy Flatmates

"I used your deodorant," said Emily.
Joe looks up from his beer. "Oh."
"Actually, I've been using it all week."
He considers this for a moment. "Does it work better?"