Film
Another Week Ends: Internet Morality and Self-Help Gatsby, Mary Karr’s Finger-Wagging, Springs of Life, The Rage of Self-Control, and Finding Potterland
Addiction / Children / Film / Gender / Grace in Practice / Identity / Interviews / Relationships / Religion / Theology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Internet Morality and Self-Help Gatsby, Mary Karr’s Finger-Wagging, Springs of Life, The Rage of Self-Control, and Finding Potterland

by WB on May 24, 2013 • No Comments

1. Over at the New York Times, A.O. Scott laments the rife materialism of recent films, focusing on Gatsby, Spring Breakers, and The Bling Ring. Fitzgerald’s message is potent given the flourishing of America’s economy right now amid anxieties from the last few years, but money really didn’t seem to be the main issue. In the movie, on the other hand:

The movie has been faulted, not entirely without justice, for its headlong embrace of the materialism that the novel views with ambivalence. Mr. Luhrmann, though following the book’s plot more or less faithfully, does not offer a stable moral perspective from which the world of its…

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The Many Jesus Complexes of Star Trek
Film / Forgiveness / Relationships / Theology

The Many Jesus Complexes of Star Trek

by Mockingbird on May 23, 2013 • 1 Comment

Let Intern Thursday commence! This one comes from newest Mockingfledgling, Win Jordan. For those who haven’t seen Into Darkness yet, spoiler alert!

The second installment of the reinvigorated Star Trek franchise hit screens on May 16th, raking in an impressive $86.7 million dollars in the domestic box office over its premiere weekend. Director J.J. Abrams and his crew kept the film shrouded in mystery which made for eager internet speculation amongst the members of the rabid Trekie fanbase. The special effects and the performances, mostly notably Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain, Khan, alone made it a must-see summer movie, even…

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PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River
Film / Music / Religion

PZ’s Podcast: Girl Can’t Help It and Old Man River

by Mockingbird on May 20, 2013 • No Comments

Episode 142: Girl Can’t Help It

I’d like this one to be considered avant-garde. Like Journey.

It’s a pastoral meditation on realism and hope, geared a little from Eric Rohmer’s “political” movie of 1993, “The Tree, The Mayor, and The Mediatheque”.

This cast also gives me a chance to introduce ‘George’ to my listeners. He’s been with me since the 2nd of April. I christened him ‘George’ on the basis of a “Way Out” episode from long ago, entitled “Dissolve to Black”. My friend George, however, is nicer than the original ‘George’.

Anyway, I hope you like the music, hope you like the movie,…

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For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend
Film / Forgiveness / Grace in Practice / Relationships / Suffering

For Those Who Love Poorly: Forgiveness in The Woodsman & Around the Bend

by B.I.C on May 16, 2013 • 3 Comments

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.” –Henri Nouwen

“…God’s grace and forgiveness, while free to the recipient, are always costly for the giver…. From the earliest parts of the Bible, it was understood that God could not forgive without sacrifice. No one who is seriously wronged can “just forgive” the perpetrator…. But when you forgive, that…

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Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend
America / Celebrity / Children / Church / Everyday / Film / Identity / Money / Music / Religion / Suffering / TV

Another Week Ends: Abercrombie’s Hot People, The Neverending “Me Me Me” Era, George Jones’ “Choices,” Katharine Welby, New TV, and New Vampire Weekend

by Ethan Richardson on May 10, 2013 • No Comments

1) The Atlantic provided an insightful zinger to the finger-waggers of today’s adultescent. Looking at today’s young people, of whom I am one—blogging away, shoes off—the piece is a response to the recent cover article of Time magazine, “The Me Me Me Generation.” The Time piece is a backhanded spotlight on the millennials, a heat-ray at their unique and insipid self-absorption, their phones, their extended stays at home. Contrary to this, Elspeth Reeve writes that the Me, Me, Me Generation is every generation—that we’ve been locating (and writing about) the narcissism of youth since we’ve written. She then delineates a…

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Rooting for Affairs: The Blurry Lines of Pop Culture Romance
Film / Relationships / TV

Rooting for Affairs: The Blurry Lines of Pop Culture Romance

by Mockingbird on May 7, 2013 • 2 Comments

This one comes from our friend Liz Riggs, a writer for The Wise Guise.

Don’t most of us fundamentally agree that cheating, no matter what the circumstance, is wrong? That it’s dishonest and treacherous and infinitely disloyal? That it is the sort of indelible unfaithfulness that, simply put, changes everything?

So, if that’s how most of the world thinks, then where does all the black and white turn grey? Where do the lines blur, and how do we make sense of them?

—

Infidelity has always permeated culture. From the dawn of time to modern television, “stepping out” has become a ubiquitous plot point…

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Another Week Ends: Underconfidence, Kate Middleton’s Picnics, Unreported Medical Advice, D.H. Lawrence’s Christian Wonder, the Double-Bind of Summer Movies, More Christian Wiman, and (Way) Too Much Sociology
America / Books / Film / Humor / Identity / Interviews / Poetry / Psychology / Suffering / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Underconfidence, Kate Middleton’s Picnics, Unreported Medical Advice, D.H. Lawrence’s Christian Wonder, the Double-Bind of Summer Movies, More Christian Wiman, and (Way) Too Much Sociology

by WB on May 3, 2013 • 2 Comments

1. How confident are you? Over at The New York Times, David Brooks surveyed his readers to get a sense for self-confidence, lack thereof, and the ways males and females experience confidence differently. While the word itself is a bit vague and murky, and Brooks found few trends in the survey data, the individual responses are definitely worth a look:

But it was really hard to see consistent correlations and trends. The essays were highly idiosyncratic, and I don’t want to impose a false order on them that isn’t there. Let me just string together some of the interesting points…

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Mine Eyes Have (and Have Not) Seen the Glory: Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder
Film / Religion / Reviews / Suffering

Mine Eyes Have (and Have Not) Seen the Glory: Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder

by Zach Williams on May 1, 2013 • 4 Comments

Terrence Malick

There are reasons not to perform well at your work. If you give a fine sermon that alters the thinking of your parishioner, your parishioner will have that sermon in mind when he listens to your next one. If you complete your projects at work and impress your superiors, you will be given more work. Or, as Jerry Seinfeld once said, if you host an award show and bring the house down, your only reward is the opportunities to host more award shows.

The quandary faces Terence Malick in the crafting of his new film, To the Wonder. Coming…

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John Cassavetes’ Faces and the Relentless Activity of People Who Are Afraid to be Seen
Film / Identity / Relationships

John Cassavetes’ Faces and the Relentless Activity of People Who Are Afraid to be Seen

by Mockingbird on Apr 29, 2013 • 1 Comment

It was only a matter of time til we got t0 Cassavetes. This one comes to us courtesy of Charlotte Hornsby:

“We need love like food, water and air and we don’t know how to get it. And that’s our struggle…”
-John Cassavetes, Writer/Director/Actor/Auteur

In his 1968 film Faces, John Cassavetes trains his camera on everything about ourselves that we don’t want other people to see. The film gets its name from Cassavetes’s bold aesthetic choice to use a hand-held documentary style that follows a character so intimately that his or her face fills the entire frame. This makes carefully scripted performances feel…

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Another Week Ends: Fairness, The Life of Wiman, Motherly Love, Malick Sacraments, Karr Talks Saunders, Anderson Shoots Prada, and the Ke$ha Trump Card
Art / Books / Children / Death / Everyday / Film / Forgiveness / Music / Relationships / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Fairness, The Life of Wiman, Motherly Love, Malick Sacraments, Karr Talks Saunders, Anderson Shoots Prada, and the Ke$ha Trump Card

by Ethan Richardson on Apr 26, 2013 • 1 Comment

1) The Chronicle released a preview last month to Wiman’s newest piece of work, My Bright Abyss, which we’ve already pulled from a couple of times, here and here, and the life and the illness that spurred it. Jay Parini writes that poetry criticism and commentary began by pulling the fabric of a piece of work as closely as possible upon the tables of lived experience, but Parini also notes that contemporary criticism has become so po-mo-phobic of plainspeak that it winds up saying nothing at all. But Wiman, on the other hand, with sickness, has been voided of this…

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Oh I’ve Been to Prague: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig on Truth, Joy, and O’erhanging Firmaments
Art / Children / Film / Psychology / TV

Oh I’ve Been to Prague: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig on Truth, Joy, and O’erhanging Firmaments

by David Zahl on Apr 25, 2013 • 4 Comments

If for whatever reason you are ever asked to address a group of college students, I’ve found that few things hit home with as much depth or laughter as the first ten minutes of Noah Baumbach’s overstuffed yet incredibly charming debut film, Kicking and Screaming. Some of the trappings might have dated a little, but the humor holds up, as does, more importantly, the content. The opening depicts a bunch of college seniors moping around a table at their graduation party, lamenting the loss of their identity and contemplating the uncertainty of their future(s). Who am I now that I’m…

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Mockingbird at the Movies: Evil Dead (2013)
Addiction / Film / Identity

Mockingbird at the Movies: Evil Dead (2013)

by B.I.C on Apr 16, 2013 • 4 Comments

I used to be like “Why are we doing a remake? What are remakes being done for?” But then, we do that all the time in the theater. If we weren’t doing remakes, nobody would know who Shakespeare was. I’m not saying that Robocop is Shakespeare, but it’s a way to … we’re retelling. That’s what we do as human beings. We retell our favorite stories. That’s what we’ve done since we were sitting around campfires. It’s a part of the human spirit. It doesn’t have to be negative to creativity. It can be completely opposite. That’s how you can break new ground by rethinking something that’s already been…

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The 80s: A ‘Me’ Decade of Law-Gospel-Love
Film / Music / Testimony / Theology / TV

The 80s: A ‘Me’ Decade of Law-Gospel-Love

by Mockingbird on Apr 12, 2013 • 8 Comments

This one comes to us from our good friend Jonathan Adams:

Minding my own business at the local Starbucks this morning, everyone’s favorite high brow publication, USA Today, grabbed my eye, specifically, an article entitled “We’d Zap Back To The 80’s, If We Could” written in conjunction with National Geographic’s new documentary “The ’80s: The Decade that Made Us” which airs this weekend. The headline alone had me turning on my Walk-man and singing “Take on Me” by A-ha (the best music video MTV ever put out!). I was instantly transported into my parachute pants and Nike Air Jordan’s, break-dancing on…

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Mockingbird at the Movies: A Quick 2013 Summer Blockbuster Preview
Film / Humor

Mockingbird at the Movies: A Quick 2013 Summer Blockbuster Preview

by Bryan J. on Apr 8, 2013 • 1 Comment

It’s April, and you know what that means? A mere four weeks away till the start of the summer blockbuster season! By no means complete, here’s a list of “big” movies to look out for this summer, based upon trailers, the likelihood they’ll merit a fuller Mbird review after they premiere, and my personal taste in movies. But if I run afoul of the almighty Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, perhaps my recommendations will change? As has been noted elsewhere, it looks like we’re in for a quite a bit of post-apocalyptic mayhem:

4/5 Jurassic Park 3D: This is the first…

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The Place Where Roger Ebert Didn’t Look For An Argument
Addiction / Film

The Place Where Roger Ebert Didn’t Look For An Argument

by David Zahl on Apr 5, 2013 • 2 Comments

I was saddened yesterday to hear that Roger Ebert had died. Like many of my generation, I grew up watching him and Gene Siskel talk movies and do their thumbs-up-or-down routine on TV, probably my first public role models for cultural criticism of any kind. Ebert gave you permission to have an opinion–a strong one–about a movie, yet also didn’t seem consumed by loftiness. At least, not completely. You could disagree with another person and still be generous to them; it was clear that he and Siskel were friends. Plus, you always got the sense that he genuinely liked movies,…

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