The Hobbit

The Hobbit. Who isn't excited for this movie to come out? It's honestly going to be one of the best movies I've seen I'm sure of it. From watching behind the scenes video journals of the production it looks like they are following the storyline of the book extremely well and that makes me happy. Too often Hollywood adapts a book to the screen and they leave so much out. This looks nothing like that.

The way Peter Jackson has taken this story and put everything into it is incredible. He has gone from just a conception of it to a full on production spanning not just two movies, but three. The fact that they are doing that is huge because there will be nothing that they have to cut from the original story and that's great.

The casting of all the characters is, in my opinion absolutely perfect. I am currently rereading the Hobbit and as I get to a new character I think of how I envisioned them and it's just like Peter Jackson has everyone looking. The only two examples that I can say I'm less than happy about is the casting choices for Bilbo, and the design of the Great Goblin.

In the Fellowship of the Ring Gandalf makes the statement that Bilbo hasn't aged a day since their adventure of the Hobbit. But the Bilbo in this story looks much younger. I understand that the actor who played Bilbo last time is much too old now, but it's still frustrating.

The other frustrating character is that of the Great Goblin. When I read of the Great Goblin I assumed that he would be much the same as a normal goblin. Maybe a little taller. Perhaps somewhat grand looking, but in the end, a goblin like every other goblin. Instead we get this: 

While this is breathtaking from the perspective of CG, I don't think this was what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the great Goblin.

Those two things aside, I cannot wait for the Hobbit. I already have my tickets for the premiere and I will be anxiously waiting in line at the the local theatre waiting to have Peter Jackson blow my mind again.


PS. This is my last blog post. Be jealous.  :)

Munchkin

So over the lat few weeks on my floor the board/card game Munchkin has become very popular. We have spent several late nights playing this game over and over, sacrificing sleep to play it.

Basically this charming little game is a satire of Role Playing Games like Dungeons and Dragons. You all play as a generic adventurer exploring a dungeon. Your goal in the game is to reach level ten. To do this you must defeat monsters, sell equipment, and use certain action cards to go up levels.

Everything is this game is sarcastic. Monsters range from one titled "Hoard of Lawyers" to one that is simply a giant nose, to a potted plant. You defeat these various beasties by using items such as the "Hammer of Kneecapping" or the "Singing and Dancing Sword". You can also use potions and other crazy things.

The biggest part of the game, however, is the act of betrayal. At points in the game it becomes less about going up levels yourselves as it becomes trying to stop someone else from going up a level. You can play your potions to, instead of making the adventurer stronger, making the monster stronger. There ends up being a lot of treachery and backstabbing, which makes for a wonderful game.

This is all in all a great game that is very fun to play when you have an hour to blow. The best part about it is that it is endlessly expandable. There are currently 25 different expansions to the original game, each with around a hundred new cards.

Come by Baker during open dorms sometime to play this fun little game.

Respecting knowledge

So over Thanksgiving break I was visiting family and while talking with my cousin who is an engineer the subject of what I was studying in college came up. After telling my cousin that I was a film major and a philosophy minor he proceeded to tell me how he thought those were both dumb, worthless areas of study. Basically he believes anything that is not engineering is dumb. This frustrated me and I got very defensive of my passion.

You know what I realized from this ordeal? That all knowledge should be respected, not just that which is interesting to you. I personally have no interest in nursing, but I respect that as an area of knowledge.

How does this relate to film? Well I realized that this logic can be carried over into film. Earlier this semester we watched some movies that I didn't like and I treated them like my cousin treated my college study. With disdain and dismissiveness. I figured that there was nothing I could learn from the videos. That is arrogant and says that only what I'm interested in matters. But this is not true. All film styles matter.

I need to learn this and adopt it as a maxim in life if I ever want to go far in film. You can't enjoy your genre. You have to have a broad range of experience. You should respect all forms of film.

The Dark Knight Rises

Well the Dark Knight Rises finally came out on DVD and obviously I had to watch it again. Christopher Nolan is a favorite of mine and having already seen it four times in theatres I was raring to see it again.

This movie was just stunning. I can't think of anything I didn't like about it.

The villain in DKR was Bane and as far as villains go, he was second only to The Joker and maybe the Bond villain from the most recent bond movie. He is brutal, but not not a brute. He doesn't simply beat his enemies to a pulp with his hands, though he could. he is also brilliant. And he uses this brilliance to enact his retribution on Gotham. He also doesn't have any love for his minions. He is willing to kill anyone. Nothing is sacred, even his own life which he is willing to sacrifice to reach his ends.

Batman, like always, delivers and brings an amazing performance. He is the perfect hero. He sacrifices everything to help those around him. He spends billions of dollars to save the people of Gotham. He allows his body to be broken multiple times. The people he protects turn against him and he has to live with the scorn of the people he gives everything for. At one point Catwoman states "You could leave with me, you don't owe these people any more. You've given them everything." Batman responds by saying "Not everything, not yet". He then goes on to fly a bomb away from the city, presumably sacrificing himself in the process.

Watching the feud between good and evil in the movie play out was amazing. So many characters rose to the challenge of protecting the city and sacrificing their everything for the good of the city.

Lastly, the character of Blake (AKA Robin) was incredible. He was a character who exhibited tremendous bravery and faith. He puts everything on the line near the end of the movie to save a bunch of children. He also is willing to change his profession and give up everything to continue to protect the people who is put in charge of protecting by quitting the police force and becoming a vigilante like Batman.

This movie was amazing all around and I think everyone should try it once.

Christmas Vacation

I watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation last night and it was a great Christmas movie to watch that I hadn't watched in a while.

The movie was such a great example of older comedy before the advent of modern language and sex driven humor. Chevy Chase was a brilliant artist of humor during the whole movie, delivering joke after joke with ease.

I loved the emphasis they placed on family in the film. Though Chevy Chase's character did sometimes get frustrated with his family and there were fights, the whole movie he spends his efforts trying to bring his whole family together for Christmas and to give them a good time.

One thing I did not like about the movie that I never noticed was the absurd materialism. Throughout the whole. movie Chevy Chase waits for a Christmas bonus and pre-spends a lot of money expecting the bonus. When it doesn't come, he loses his mind and acts very immaturely. When the bonus does come he and his whole family rejoice and cheer and cry with joy. There's always been and always will be materialism in film, but this was an over the top display of it.

All in all I still enjoyed this movie, but my goodness, there were some things that were absurd.

The Tree of Life

So I watched the Tree of Life last night with another student and it was an interesting experience. Visually this movie was beautiful. It was up there with Planet Earth in terms of beauty and amazing shots.

I felt like the movie did actually have a plot unlike what everyone else said about it. I'm pretty sure the intent of the movie was to show the struggle within Sean Penn's character in his early childhood, dealing with his abusive father and his brothers.

The overarching theme of grace was very good and I enjoyed how they interspersed Scripture into the movie. Really in the end I watched a very long movie that was enjoyable, but I did not see it in the same light as either the critics who thought it was the worst movie ever made and those like Leeper who thought it was amazing. I did like it, but it didn't change my life.

Product Placement in Films

So in researching for my presentation on Tuesday I found out about a wonderful thing called product placement. If you couldn't detect the sarcasm I am being very facetious. I hate product placement. I used to not think it was that bad. Just a clever way to sneak in advertising to make money. But in my research of product placement I found out how disgusting it is.

Not only do they tailor sets around products to make them fit, they also have screenwriters work on rewrites to add in dialogue that will work for product placement. The fact that movie makers have to resort to such a cheap tactic to make money is just a testament to how unoriginal their movies are. If the films were good they could stand on their own and make enough money to pay for their budget. Obviously, however, the films these days are not profitable enough to stand on their own and so studios resort to prostituting their film for the extra money needed to fund their projects.

I think this is a disgusting practice that shouldn't be done in the film industry.

Skyfall

So I saw Skyfall this past weekend and I have to say it was one of my favorite, if not my favorite James Bond movie yet. I have not seen every James Bond movie, but of the ones I have seen I felt like it was the greatest.

The character of James Bond is looked at in a new way that I have yet to see until now. They show his weakness. He is depicted as struggling physically and mentally. At one point in the movie he almost dies which is something that usually doesn't happen to James Bond. He is the ultimate spy and in the previous movies even when he is in dangerous situations you are never worried. You worry for this Bond, fear he may not make it.

Another thing I liked was the villain. He was a terrifying villain who actually made me think he might win. I didn't feel like he was cheesy or stereotypical. He had genuine emotions and experiences. He had a past and story.

The overall feeling I got from this movie is that it was not a simple action adventure full of explosions, sex, and lots of drinking. It was sophisticated. They played up the new angle in action movies of technological warfare. The smart characters held all the cards and guns didn't really matter half the time.

True, there was fighting. There was a spectacular shootout scene and I do love some good action on occasion, but there was so much more than that in this movie. It was intelligent and engaged on more than a base level. I was very happy with this installment of James Bond. If they continue like this I will continue to be this excited for new Bond movies.

Remakes

So I recently read an article about a famous Spanish painting of Christ that was restored, but the restoration was done by an inexperienced woman who was a member of the church, and she ruined the painting. Here is a before and after of the paintings:

Some things should be left alone. They shouldn't be improved, or altered, or updated.

Along the same lines as this art restoration is the subject of movie remakes. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie remake that I have liked. Over the years Hollywood has remade some of the greatest movies and absolutely destroyed them.

My favorite example of a bad remake is the new "Karate Kid". The old one is a great movie that was a classic. I loved it and I was even okay with the less than amazing sequels. The new Karate Kid, however, was on its own a terrible movie, but it was an even worse remake. What they did with the movie was a travesty. They changed the setting, the name of the characters, even the style of Martial arts. There is no reason to have changed those things. There wasn't even reason to remake the movie.

The movie "The Wolfman" was a reasonable remake because they had the opportunity to improve the graphics. I didn't like "The Wolfman", but I did at least understand the reason for making it though. Karate Kid was not like that. They didn't improve on it. They changed it and claimed "artistic license".

My problem with remakes is that there is no originality or creativity in it. I feel like they are only done to make money off of something that was once successful. It is a poor excuse for filmmaking.

Once in a rare while you get a good remake. I believe King Kong is the only remake that I have ever enjoyed. It was well made, and it was not touted as a remake of the original, but a new movie about the same character.

For the most part I think that remakes are a bad idea and should be avoided. You should let a good thing be, even if it is outdated or irrelevant. Once in a while you get a good movie like King Kong, but usually you end up with a ruined painting of Jesus.

Geri's Game

I loved the film Geri's game. Since I first saw it I thought it was the funniest thing. I remember acting out that scene when I was about 7 years old and just loving it. The film is so fun and enjoyable.

I don't feel like there is some great experiential truth to learn in this film. Maybe that the elderly people are still young at heart. But honestly I don't think there was any truth that was meant to be conveyed in this film. I think the animators simply set out wanting to make a beautiful film that people could enjoy, and they wanted to stretch their creative abilities.

In the end, "Geri's Game" is a nice film that makes me smile and I can enjoy it as just that. Nothing more and nothing less.

Cloud Atlas

So this Saturday I went to see Cloud Atlas. I have been very excited about it coming out since I saw the first preview over a month ago. Unfortunately it didn't come out in Huntington so I had to wait around till I could make a trip to a bigger town.

I won't give anything away in this blog so have no fear. It was astounding though. I have not seen a movie like this in a long time. It was not the awe inspiring majesty of some films I have seen, but it was so unique I couldn't get over it. And there were times when it touched on brilliance.

Not all the credit can go to the Wachowski brothers, though they did a phenomenal job. The script was adapted from David Mitchell's book of the same name. And what a story it is. They seemlessly wove six different storylines together and they kept you asking questions until the very end when everything came together and you understood the entire movie all at once. It was a heavy moment when it all dawned on me.

Not only was the storytelling brilliant, the way it was filmed was amazing. All the actors played multiple, varying characters. For instance Halle Barry played an old Asian man. Because of this astounding use of makeup, prosthetics, and costumes, the hair and makeup director and the costume director were given fifth and sixth billing respectively.

There were a few bones I had to pick with the movie, and only a few. They glorified suicide in one scene which I feel should not have been done. There was also a sex scene that while it was integral to the story and I accept it being there, was much more graphic than it needed to be.

But all in all, the good outweighed the bad. Many truths were displayed in the film and it was one of the best films I have seen in a long while.

Sellout

Today the news broke that Disney bought Lucasfilm. This is rather depressing news. With all the selling out that film studios are doing these days, to see a person as legendary as George Lucas sell out like this for money. Lucasfilm is a wonderful company that has created some of the greatest films of all time and it has always been a beacon of exceptional film making. This move will create so many problems with the Star Wars saga. In the article it discussed how Disney already has plans to make new Star Wars movies. In the past I have always hoped that George Lucas would make more Star Wars movies, but only with George Lucas making them and doing it under the umbrella of Lucasfilm. Being made by Disney and being directed by someone else will be a travesty. I cannot imagine seeing Star Wars made by someone other than George Lucas. In the long line of sellouts that have come out of Hollywood, this is the most disappointing in a while.

Bad Animation

These last two weeks in 101 have been a rough experience for me. I have not enjoyed them at all. I am a fan of animation, I even like not realist animation like that of hedgehog and the fog, but many of the films shown in the last two weeks I have not enjoyed at all.

I am a firm believer that story carries a film and even a terrible film cinematically can be saved by a great story. Some of these films had just that. The film about the rabbit and the wolf was a great story and while it was not the most beautiful or real film it had such a brilliant story that I excused all of it. (I also really liked the style of the animation)

The other films we watched were just rough experiences. The one where they scratched film footage was technically amazing, but I thought it was just unappealing visually and on top of that the story was weak. I can appreciate the extreme talent required to make some of these films such as the sand animation and the oil painting on glass. But I don’t believe that talent alone can make a film wonderful. I think you need great story and it needs to be beautiful visually.

Films like the ones we showed in class the last two weeks didn’t have all of these elements in my opinion. I can accept a lot in a film and I know that art is subjective and what is beautiful to one person is not beautiful to another. I know that many people in class enjoyed the movies and thought they were great, but personally I didn’t at all.

I have not been blogging because I didn’t know how to blog on films that I had no interest in. I do like the opportunity to learn about new art mediums and film styles, but at the end of the day I will take the style of film shown to me and make a decision if I like it or not. I did not like these.

Pixar

Today’s discussion on Pixar really got me going and I enjoyed it tremendously. Talking about a company as great as Pixar was inspiring and uplifting after these last few weeks. Their practice of having the director head up the whole project and give them free reign away from the constraints of a focus group or investors.

Seeing a company do this instead of selling out to just make money was refreshing. Pixar always pushes the envelope in how amazing their films are cinematically. Brave was just another great movie in a long line of great movies. Besides be aesthetically beautiful it was a great story that really was a nice story about a princess that didn’t follow the usual princess story that Disney pursues. It was refreshing and original.

Pixar really shows how a big studio can keep integrity and still make amazing films that are world spread and make phenomenal sums of movies. To work in an environment like that would be a blessing and I hope to work in that environment someday.

The short films that Pixar does are an incredible way to showcase new skills and new abilities of animators. When watching “For the Birds”, “Geni’s Game”, and “Luxi Jr.” I was inspired about how you can really show off a great deal of talent in a short amount of time, even in live action. I used to have an aversion to short films and think they were rather silly, but now I have a new respect for them that I used to not have.

Forester Lecture

So I went to the Forester Lecture hopeful. I figured I would get to listen to two intelligent adults have open discussion about a hot issue. I was disappointed.

The debate started out promising. They both stated how they were friends and respected each other and didn't fight and I decided to take them at their word and believe them. This is was dumb and niave on my part. They did not follow their own rules. What started out as a friendly discussion between two friends turned into a sniping argument about who was more wrong and who actually followed the Bible.

I want to talk on three of their issues specifically. The first was economics. The woman, who was the Liberal, stated her views on the economy. She believed that the big businesses in America were hurting the lower classes. I agree with her that the empire status of different businesses is not good, and I loved her theory on how if businesses took the Sabbath off they couldn't grow to empirical size. This is, I believe, the only point I agreed with her on. After that she descended into lunacy in many of claims.

The second point I want to talk on is the issue of same-sex marriage, which was talked about for quite a while. Both had interested viewpoints. In principle, I actually agree with the woman. She stated that she doesn't think marriage should be legislated. I agree. As Christians, we can't expect the rest of the world to follow our moral code. We have morals and they are ours. If a Christian is living outside the moral code of Christianity, then we need to confront them, but if a non-Christian is, we have no right to tell them otherwise.

What I did not agree with her on was her rationale for getting there. She claimed that marriage has never been an institution, it has just been a a commitment between the husband, wife, and God. Her exact words were "back then if you had sex with a girl she was your wife". This is patently untrue. They had week-long wedding celebrations in the ancient near east. Marriage was a big deal and it was not simply a commitment between two people. Her theory that the term is an ever evolving word was absurd.

The last point I wanted to touch on was that of illegal immigration. She tried to argue that we should take care of illegal immigrants because both Jesus and Abraham were immigrants. She is wrong, however. Jesus was not an immigrant, he was a refugee. We do not turn away refugees in America. Abraham was an immigrant it is true, but did not sneak into another country and hide. He entered the nation, contributed to the society, and was a blessing to the nation he entered. This is not the same as illegal immigration, but she tried to make it that way.

In all of this, I was very disappointed with both speakers. The fact that I only spoke about the woman is because she was verbal in her stupidity. The man kept his ignorance to himself.

Children's Literature

The subject of children's literature has been an eye opening topic. I have a strong desire to be an author and as such read a lot. I have never read children's literature, however, because I considered it a poor genre with little to offer to the "more scholarly" pursuits of "real fiction." I have been very wrong.

There is a beauty in children's literature that you cannot find other places. In "real fiction" even though it is nature not true, there is still a need for it to be this believable world of fact and reason. Children's literature can take that need to ask for suspension of disbelief and throw it out the window. Children are not upset when everything doesn't line up just right. When someone can suddenly fly, when dead relatives are in a castle, when giants are commonplace, these are all normal to children. They accept them as they are.

Children know how to see the story and enjoy it for what it is. They don't overanalyze. They enjoy. A child knows how to read a story or watch a film and just enjoy it. They may not be able to write a five page paper on the allegory of the story, but they understand it. They feel it in their souls.

Only children's literature can do this. It is beautiful in its simplicity. "Real fiction" is beautiful in its complication and large words and detailed scenes, but it is a different kind of beauty. The beauty of children's literature is a land that grows toffee trees when toffee is placed in the ground. Barely a sentence is used and yet you have one of the most vivid images. This is what gives children's literature a brilliance that is unique to it alone.

World of Glory

So for this quiz I chose to write on World of Glory. This film was a very heavy thing to watch. The first  scene was shocking. Sitting in a classroom at a Christian college my first week here, that was a surprise to see something like that. I wasn't offended, but it shocked me. From that scene though, the movie became almost eerie. I wasn't sure what to think of the man going through his daily life and narrating the whole thing. It was so monotone and monotonous. I really didn't know how to take it. I almost became funny, but something told me in the back of my head that I wasn't allowed to laugh because of that first scene. I didn't. The scene where is partaking of communion was totally lost on me until Leeper pointed it out. The symbolism was beautiful once I understood it, but before then I was confused and thought in a way they were trying to be offensive to Christianity. Finally the last scene, where he hears voices really brought it all home for me. Any feelings of humor that I had been experiencing as I watched him narrate his life were lost as soon as this scene played. It was disturbing to hear him talk about the screaming people that he still heard. This movie left me chilled and depressed. It did exactly its job.

Art's place in the Church

Art is a beautiful. I’ve seen more art in this last month at college then I have in my entire life up until then. I like it, but it makes me wish I had seen this much art my whole life. Such richness, such depth, such raw spirituality. This is something I had not experienced as a child for the most part. In the last year I have come to discover the wonders of art and as I said have been exposed to so much more here.

The church has no art. Gone are the days of commissioned paintings in beautiful cathedrals. There are no more stained glassed windows behind the alter. Even the churches themselves have changed from the beautiful palaces of worship from the Gothic era to now being built only for efficiency. The Church has forsaken beauty for function.

If we worship a beautiful God, should we not worship him with the beauty He gives us the talent to create? He is a creative God. He has made us a creative people. The Church has forgotten its role of leading the world in art; in setting the bar for good art. We no longer see art that was commissioned by the Church. Much of what Bach composed in his lifetime was commissioned by the Church. Now we are told by the Church to stay away from music because it is Satan’s tool to corrupt us. Something about that seems wrong to me. God commands us to worship Him with music, but somehow that is wrong?

The same is true with every artform. We shy away from art unless, as Dr. Leeper happily points out, it is Thomas Kinkade. The first man to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the Bible however was Oholiab. He was an artist who God chose to design the tabernacle. He sculpted the ark, he embroidered the curtains, he made all of the instruments of worship. Without Oholiab, there would have been no worship. Now, however, we keep a distance from art, thinking it not appropriate for the Church.

This is my favorite Caravaggio painting and a great example of art in the Church: