The Top Ten Films of 2008

Since this is the year of me graduating from Fuller Seminary---where I'm continually thinking and writing in theological language about films and music, art and culture---I decided to write this list in the spirit of a true seminary spirit suggesting that each film on my top ten list carries with it a true (serious and thought-provoking) kind of theology. So here we go. Here's the list, take it or leave it. (Thanks Nate for pushing me to finally publish this stupid thing---it feels good to have it done).

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10. MARLEY & ME: [THEOLOGY OF LIFE: AS SEEN THROUGH THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES, AND ONE SMALL NAUGHTY PUPPY]
The number 10 spot is always hard to pin down. I could’ve put a number of films here: the darkly subversive and sexy Woody Allen comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Wong Kar Wai’s lush (but uneven) ode to America My Blueberry Nights, or Oscar’s pick and American audiences surprise sensation favorite Slumdog Millionaire, that reminded me again just how pure and wonderful an audience is to the total experience of cinema watching. But I went with my gut and heart on the number 10 spot. I went for the Frank Capra lover in me (director of classics It’s A Wonderful Life, You Can’t Take It With You, Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and It Happened One Night). Frank Capra is one of my favorite “Golden Age of Cinema” directors. I know, I know, some people may call me a sentimentalist, a Carpri-corny film geek, but I don’t care. I love when films feel like an ode to life wrapped up in 2 hours of screen time and this is what Marley & Me is. At first glance, it looks like another Beethoven movie but it’s so far from this I feel like I’m insulting the filmmakers for even suggesting such a thought. Marley & Me is a pitch-perfect movie about life and its many messy details. It’s a cinematic ode to nostalgia, sure, but it’s a throwback convention film that’s worth going back for. There are good people in this very imperfect world and Marley & Me reminds us of this. Also, it’s Owen Wilson’s best film since The Royal Tenenbaums and Jennifer Aniston’s best work since The Good Girl. Both actors lend credibility to a story that feels so close to home, you’ll be in a bittersweet state of bliss after watching it. I was and in a strange way, still am.

9. UP THE YANGTZE: [THEOLOGY OF FINITUDE]
If anyone wants to know what I learned after living 2 years in China, see Up The Yangtze. This is one of those stories you wouldn’t believe if it were fiction. Its drama is that penetrating, its human subjects that real, its scope—epic, larger than Earth—is that wide. Through masterful direction, editing, and cinematography—where the seemingly insignificant and commonness captured in one single, sweeping shot takes your breath away—Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang has created the documentary of the year, and one of the best films of 2007 and 2008 (it was released in some countries in 2007, but screened first in the U.S. at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, the year I attended). Up The Yangtze is a visual cross between Hiorkazu Koreeda’s beautiful Nobody Knows and Edward Burtynsky’s stunning photography in Jennifer Baichwal’s exceptional documentary, Manufactured Landscapes. But Up The Yangtze is better than both (or maybe that’s the China bias in me talking), for its story isn’t just about being displaced or living in manufactured factories and socialist-capitalist landscapes created for the good of the country rather than the good of the people. More than this, it addresses poverty, grief, home, faith and greed with gripping clarity and an ultimate sensitivity. This is the real China. Take it or leave it.

8. SILENT LIGHT: [THEOLOGY OF RESURRECTION]
It’s so appropriate to be posting this list on Easter Sunday when it comes to this unseen gem of a small film that is Silent Light. This slow, gorgeous, moving, and unbelievably unforgettable work of cinema does what few great movies do: it makes believers out of skeptics and (simply) surprises. Believers in what you may ask? I’m not going to ruin the surprise (and there are many) that this film has to offer. I’ll only say this: I really hope we haven’t heard the last of director Carlos Reygadas, a man who embarked into a Mennonite community in Mexico, filming non-actors, and non-manufactured landscapes, and came away with something of a miracle: a post-Easter film merging sound (silent) and sight (light) in an act of creative and narrative genius.

7. THE VISITOR: [THEOLOGY OF CLASS]
There were two great films in 2008 highlighting the subject of class in our world today. One was the Cannes recipient of the coveted Palme d’Or award and Oscar nominated Best Foreign Language Feature aptly titled, The Class; the other (and better film in my opinion) was Thomas McCarthy’s small wonder The Visitor. The movie is just about perfect. Hilarious. Touching. Tragic. It's about finding the beat and rhythm inside yourself and syncing that beat with the friends you grow to love, yes, but it’s also about answering that age old Genesis question, “Where is your brother?” God asked this of Cain and The Visitor asks this question of all of us. Where is our brother? Who is our brother? What are we willing to sacrifice for the sake of another human, in another class, from another country? The Visitor asks similar questions that McCarthy’s first feature, The Station Agent asked in 2003, but this is a much better film than that. It’s more complete, more universal, more personal, in every way. When I saw it at Sundance Film Festival 2008, it received an overwhelmingly unanimous standing ovation. With over 1200 people cheering and applauding after that haunting final shot, I knew right then that The Visitor would find its way onto my top ten list of 2008. So here, at number 7, it is.

6. DOUBT: [THEOLOGY OF DOUBT]
Doubt is practically flawless. The cast is dynamite, the cinematography fantastic, the direction strong, and the story is timely and yet, timeless. It's a fantastic meditation on the Church, as a whole—hierarchy, holiness, and the hell we often experience between them—that will surely spark discussion as to what this story (and the church) is all about. But one of the things I loved most about it (after seeing it three times in theaters with different people each time) was how varied the interpretation on the film was. Kudos to stage writer/director John Patrick Shanley for his acute attention to detail in every scene; he shows us (in nearly every frame) the two sides to the power/importance of doubt in faith. It can enhance and mature us while serving as the catalyst to divide a community, and tear down unity in the body of Christ. Perhaps this is what a double-edged sword looks like. For this really is a total theology of doubt—from the beginning sermon to the final closing one.

5. MILK: [THEOLOGY OF HOPE]
Milk came at the perfect time (especially when it comes to California, and its heated October/November 2008 post-election protests over Proposition 8—doubly titled, Prop. H8TE, by many of its opposers). In a way, it’s a reminder of how a film is as much about the now as it is about the story it’s telling (or in this case, re-telling). For me, it took two viewings of Milk before I was able to see it for what it really was: a pivotal, turning point movie for America, highlighting not only the new Obama administration, but a new depression era, a new era for the Church to redefine itself from the inside out. Harvey Milk as seen through Gus Van Sant’s lens, is in-your-face and humble, in one unrelentlesss breath. It will undoubtedly be remembered as a turning point; a time when people really re-think what it means to be human and to be homosexual in this world. As Milk (the movie and the man) reminds us, hope is a movement. And as the late Harvey Milk would say, he’s here to recruit us to join in that movement. So will we join? Will we step up and enter into the real discussion? It matters little what side you come into the discussion/movement on; what matters is that you simply join the movement.

4. IN BRUGES: [THEOLOGY OF HELL]
As my professor Barry Taylor posited, In Bruges is a meditation on hell. Bruges is a place, and as the title suggests, both two main characters (who are hit men) are stuck in it. Stuck in hell, so to speak, and can’t seem to find there way out. But as one character indirectly asks, how do you find your way out of hell? What can possibly resurrect you out of this dark dream, this unending nightmare? How do you, simply, get out? Atonement is one of In Bruges answers, and its fascinating to see where this conversation goes in a film that (on the surface) looks like just another revenge thriller, just another buddy-bad-guy-shoot-em-kill-em-caper flick. But writer/director Martin McDonagh isn’t interested in staying within the traditional film genre. In his Oscar nominated screenplay, he entertains a world where most stereotypes are true, where most people are more evil than good, and where life (really and truly) can only be redeemed in and through death.

3. WALL-E: [THEOLOGY OF ESCHATOLOGY VIA ECOLOGY]
Andrew Stanton’s dark and somber feature (his best since Finding Nemo) plays off like added pages to the book of Revelation. The strangest feeling one gets while watching WALL-E is a sense of possibility. Seeing a future not too removed from our present age is unsettling, to say the least. Graciously, though, Stanton uses Earth’s inevitable apocalypse premise to recall a sense of wonder, beauty and messiness in life. Rather than simply attacking sterility, security, and shopping (which WALL-E does do), it moves into a homage to cinema, an ode to the great comic geniuses (Charlie Chaplin) and visionary filmmakers (Stanley Kubrick). It’s a movie about the love of movies, a movie about the love of earth, and a movie about the special (wonder) of chemistry and connection. Is it ironic that the new Earth is ushered into existence through two characters who aren’t even human?

2. THE DARK KNIGHT: [THEOLOGY OF EVIL]
Not much more needs to be said about Christopher Nolan’s disturbing, motorcycle ride into-the-abyss-of-what-it-means-to-be-human film that is The Dark Knight. Like every masterful work of cinema, it’s best just to experience it for yourself. Evil has rarely been this clever, this well thought out, this insightful into our own psyche, our own minds and hearts as human beings.

1.THE WRESTLER: [BODY THEOLOGY]
“It’s all about the sacrifice of the body. Everything in life is about the sacrificial lamb.” These two sentences haunt Randy “The Ram” Robinson’s character in Darren Aronofsky’s deeply moving and poignant The Wrestler. From the first time I saw this film, something about it haunted me. It stayed with me. Something about it would not escape my mind. This is what movies you love do, isn’t it? Refuse to leave your mind no matter how hard you try to force them out of it. In this case, part of this is because of its two characters, Robin and Pam, struggling to find their name, their place, their title in life. Stripper? Mother? Butcher? Father? Failure? Lover? Hater? Wrestler? Notice “The Ram” has many names he’s called in this film (Robin Radnzinski, Randy, “The Ram,”), none of which he’s comfortable with. But this is exactly the point. Labels aren’t too helpful, but this beautiful film helps us see something special beyond this: that behind every label, every name, every act of marginalization, is one very lonely person. Not since 2002’s Talk To Her have I felt such a powerful take on the subject of loneliness. This is my favorite (and the best, I think) film from 2008. It’s the perfect reflection of the state of our country, here and now; a country filled with lonely people filling up lonely bodies, looking for their name, their place, their calling.

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P.S.THE 2008 ODE-TO-CINEMA AWARD:
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
It's an import from Sweden and it's a damn good one. A vampire story like no other, Let The Right One In explores love and sacrifice in a way that my favorite film of the year also did. And I'm sorry to disappoint all you Twilight fans out there, but this movie is the real deal--a serious and thought-provoking (and beautiful) expose on vampires, first loves, and the dangers of letting too much light into hospital rooms. And why is this film worthy of this yearly award (one I started years back with Three Times)? Because it reimagines a film genre, it reinspires the traditional horror movie with wit, class and a scary sophistication. Maybe that's why Newsweek magazine named it "The best film of 2008." It isn't just another vampire movie; this movie has bite and you don't need fangs to see that.

Imagination (Part 1)

Thank you, God, for giving us minds.
Thank you, God, for giving us ears.
Thank you, God, for giving us love.
Thank you, God, for giving us tears.

Jesus is the Incarnate One. The one who we turn to when we're depressed, lonely, down and out. Sometimes all we feel we must do is get out. Get out of all our boxes, as Lauryn Hill would say. Jesus, like 2Pac, was a rebel from the underground, a Savior so completely different than what the majority of Christians accepted, he was hung for upsetting people's perception of his reputation. When people, particularly in the majority, are convinced something is 'wrong,' it takes a pretty huge leap to overturn that line of logic/thinking. It takes generations really. It took over a hundred years for people to even consider the idea that slavery (as America practiced it) was wrong. Inhumane. Disrespectful. Wrong. And we're still reaping what we sowed. We still are in the process of unlearning.

Sometimes I wonder how much imagination it will take for us to unlearn all the misinterpretations we've been fed from Scripture. From the practical to the academic level, there are lies floating around everywhere (sure) but there are also lies being masked as lies, yet, they are really true. Can we spot these? Can we see the Bible as Whole enough to see these sections of Scripture illuminated only by the Holy Spirit?

I think I'm more in agreement with the Gospel of Mark and Nick Cave on Jesus' redemption for our lives, really. I think he did come to save us, yes, but he also came to give us back our imagination. He came to ignite in his a passion to look out for the poor, the needy, the broken, the tired, the weary. I don't know about you but I haven't been doing too much of that lately. I've been saying I should, but I haven't.

I talk, yet don't walk.
Speak, yet don't listen.
Law, yet don't love.

How do I begin to unlearn this? With the help of Christ, yes...but what does that look like? How does God see me? How do I think God sees me? These are some of the most telling questions we can answer if we want to truly know who we are (and if we want to catch a glimpse, of who God is).

The Lonely, Isolated, Creatively Imaginative Christ

Here's a selection from Nick Cave's introduction to the Book of Mark. Our professor read it today and it gave me chills. This is the last part of it. For the full quote, search online on google and you'll find it.

"...The rite of baptism - the dying of one's old self to be born anew - like so many of the events in Christ's life is already flavoured metaphorically by Christ's death and it is His death on the cross that is such a powerful and haunting force, especially in Mark. His preoccupation with it is all the more obvious, if only because of the brevity with which Mark deals with the events of His life. It seems that virtually everything that Christ does in Mark's narrative is in some way a preparation for His death - His frustration with His disciples and His fear that they have not comprehended the full significance of His actions; the constant taunting of the church officials; the stirring up of the crowds; His miracle-making so that witnesses will remember the extent of His divine power. Clearly, Mark is concerned primarily with the death of Christ to such an extent that Christ appears consumed by His imminent demise, thoroughly shaped by His death.

The Christ that emerges from Mark, tramping through the haphazard events of His life, had a ringing intensity about him that I could not resist. Christ spoke to me through His isolation, through the burden of His death, through His rage at the mundane, through His sorrow. Christ, it seemed to me was the victim of humanity's lack of imagination, was hammered to the cross with the nails of creative vapidity.

The Gospel According to Mark has continued to inform my life as the root source of my spirituality, my religiousness. The Christ that the Church offers us, the bloodless, placid 'Saviour' - the man smiling benignly at a group of children or serenely hanging from the cross - denies Christ His potent, creative sorrow or His boiling anger that confronts us so forcibly in Mark. Thus the Church denies Christ His humanity, offering up a figure that we can perhaps 'praise' but never relate to. The essential humanness of Mark's Christ provides us with a blueprint for our own lives so that we have something we can aspire to rather than revere, that can lift us free of the mundanity of our existences rather than affirming the notion that we are lowly and unworthy.

Merely to praise Christ in His Perfectness keeps us on our knees, with our heads pitifully bent. Clearly, this is not what Christ had in mind. Christ came as a liberator. Christ understood that we as humans were for ever held to the ground by the pull of gravity - our ordinariness, our mediocrity - and it was through His example that He gave our imaginations the freedom to fly. In short, to be Christ-like.” -NICK CAVE

My Musical Autobiography

My final project for my THEOLOGY & POP MUSIC class is exciting: "write out (in some way, shape or form) your musical biography and hand in a life mix tape/CD to go with it." I found a used record at a store the other day that I cut up because its cover had bands and singers from the 20th century (mostly from the 60s and 70s) typed in tiny font all over the front in pink and blue and yellow and red and purple writing. In big, bold, funky white letters on the front the name of the record was aptly titled I BELIEVE IN MUSIC.

This is where I'm beginning. Let the process begin.

I called my childhood best friend Emiline and asked her to the lyrics of a song our 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Rexford taught us and she remembered. She began to sing it as if no time had passed, rhyming lyrics and all. I couldn't believe it. Music, I'm constantly reminded, is the substance running underneath my love and near obsession with cinema. If it weren't for music, I wonder if I would've ever even been attracted to writing stories or watching movies or making them or anything. Music is the reason I want to dance. It's the reason I exercise. I know I know I should do it because I want to be healthy and live healthily and sure, that's part of it, but I doubt my running would be consistent if I wasn't able to listen to "That's Just What You Are" by Aimee Mann, "All Mine" by Portishead, "Unison" by Bjork, or "All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands" by Sufjan Stevens. If these artists didn't share their talent, their gift to the world, think of how different people would be. Think of how boring our world would be.

I was reminded of this yesterday when my iPod went dead just before I began a nice bike ride around Pasadena. I stopped, looked down at the display screen and felt disgruntled and upset and threw my hands up asking, "what's the point of riding a bike now!?" Maybe that was more internally, but whatever it was, I walked my bike back to my apartment complex, parked it, locked it up and went to go charge my iPod.

I'll ride tomorrow maybe, I thought.

This is what music does to me.

And then there's the end of 1998, when my first car (I bought) Nissan's radio deck, cassette tape deck, whatever you wanna call it, was dead. I thought it wouldn't be so bad. I thought, "now I can drive peacefully and enjoy nature and meditate on being still and knowing God is God and become a more serene, responsible teenage driver."

That thought didn't last long.

I think it took 2 days for me to bring my yellow Sony half-sports boom box (battery operated) into my Nissan, wedging it between the driver and passenger seat with the speakers pointing up toward heaven. Every classmate or youth group friend or sibling that would drive with me was now blasted with music from the bottom of my car up, the sound waves bouncing up against their left ear lobe and quickly rushing up into their eardrum. And the sound, in all honesty, wasn't so bad. It was music and music makes driving worth it too. Even while driving across the country, the scenery may get old but the car's soundtrack (as long as it's playing) will make the ride worth it. It will make 32 hours driving from Michigan to California feel like a few seconds from a dream. This is another reason why music is so important. This is another area of our lives it pervades, most of the time, without us even recognizing it.

In 2004, this realization really took form inside me and it came in the form of a Leonard Sweet book on leadership called, "Summoned To Lead." In this book, Sweet writes of leaders being called, hearing the sound so intently so persuasively that they envision a future (first through sound, through hearing and then through seeing and looking) they can lead people into. This kind of blew my mind.

I always answered the childhood question, "would you rather be blind or deaf" with a resounding, "DEAF!!" But now, I'm amazed. As sure as I was when I was 7 years old, who would believe I could change my mind and change it so certainly. Now, the same question gets answered with a resounding, "BLIND! Of course! That's easy. No question." Some people still disagree with this, but that's because they've never thought about how much they depend on sound, on noise, on music to color the days of their lives. They don't see the dozens of way music faces them daily and they also don't see how much they enjoy it. They take music for granted and I am included in this group.

So this project is helping me not take music for granted. It's helping me realize that my life biography, really could also be synonymous with my musical autobiography. Music is there greeting me in every area, every (st)age of my life. At age 2, it's old records playing "Santa Lucia" and "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" as I dance in a euphoric, chubby state. At age 6, it morphs into VBS spelling songs such as "I Am A C...I Am A CH...I Am A C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N" or "O-B-E-D-IENCE." At age 8, my dad lets me listen to music from his days and "What The World Needs Now Is Love" and "Alley Oop" spring into my mind. At age 9, Paul Overstreet's "Pick Up The Shovel" and "All The Fun" blast through my dad's maroon 2-Door Buick Somerset on the 7 minute trip to school every morning. How I got to one day listening to Regina Spektor and Sigur Ros and The Roots and Eels is beyond me, but that story is now being told--in my head and onto the written page.

This is another picture of Grace, I think. That despite my upbringing, despite my conservative Christian school, despite some legalism in the church here and there, my ears would one day still come to hear beauty in music that went beyond a Disney theme song key change. Not by my own accord but by people around me, (and God, too I think) constantly showing me the way.

And this is one reason why I love, why I Believe In Music.

If I Am Alive This Time Next Year

My life is all about movie moments. I am defined not by the years I’ve been alive but by the movies that defined me while the years passed quickly by. For example...

1999 is not 1999 but the year that Magnolia and Fight Club were both seriously overlooked in the Oscar ceremony.

1997 is Titanic, period.

1994 was when I became incredibly sick of the phrase, “Life is like a box of chocolates-you never know what you’re gonna get,” thanks to Forrest Gump.

1993 is not 1993 but the year that Philadelphiabrought the issue of AIDS and homosexuality, and more importantly acceptance of homosexuality (too bad they had to use a dying gay man as the catalyst for acceptance but at the time, that was culturally where we were at I guess).

1992 is not 1992 but the year I first wept while actually in a movie theater. That movie was of course, My Girl.

And 1991 isn’t just 1991 but the year, for me especially, where I experienced celluloid salvation, thanks to a dollar theater viewing of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

Ever since 1991, movies have defined me and this presents a theological problem for many people in my life, I think.

I was talking to one of my best friends tonight on the phone and was reminded of how much I ache for movies that depress me, I thrive on exploring the madness, the sadness, and the helplessness so many (usually independent) movies offer nowadays. I only need a shred of hope; please save the happy-happy sports/hero/man-triumphs-over-adversity-yet-again for someone else. This is not to say I'm above this story structure or even that I'm tired of watching movies that follow such a story structure, I'm simply saying I like movies like About Schmidt, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days. Why does that make me such an "other." A "them," even, in so many "Christian" circles? I'm not sure. I guess I'm beginning to care less and less how I'm seen in those circles anyway so maybe asking such a question is futile (even to begin with).

Perhaps I'm viewed weird because Christians follow a person who's own life ended so happily. Perhaps the way Jesus triumphed over torture on the cross is how people justify their strange glances toward me. Because when his mother Mary was beside him on that hill, I'm sure she was just waiting for the applause to happen and for God to wink and say, "Just kidding! Everything's gonna be alright!" That's probably why people look at me funny sometimes. Because "their" Savior was just so damn happy all the time. Wasn't he?

Was he?

I don't think I want a Savior who puts Gladiator as his favorite film, or who sees his own life timeline of movie moments being captured in scenes from Radio or The Game Plan or Big Mamma's House.

I want a Savior who's comfortable with poop. Not just poop in the toilet but poop in people's lives. In our tragedies, depression and tears.

I thought that's who Jesus (the Savior of the Church) really is. But looking around in today's churches, and looking around at how they treat the gospel, how they see movies, how they look for the happiness around every corner, I wonder. I doubt. Over and over again.

I doubt.

Free Tibet? Free China!

The Western politics and media have once again persuaded American nationalism and patriotism into swallowing "freedom" rhetoric yet again. Now, I'm not trying to undermine the people who are actually being discriminated against in China or Tibet, but I am getting a little tired of violent protests going on (in Tibet by Tibetans, mostly Tibetan Buddhists) and our media calling them "peaceful protests" (see Los Angeles Times for repeated skewed-to-the-West articles on the matter).

In the past two months, Chinese embassies have been attacked in Austria, Germany, France, Hungary...and many more. Yes, these so-called "peaceful protests" fueled by "Free Tibet" thinking Tibetans and Westerners, resulted in beatings, rocks thrown, and burning and desecration of the Chinese flag, just outside the embassies. Imagine if this had happened to U.S. embassies worldwide. Imagine the outcry on Fox News by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Imagine how many times George W. Bush would've named this as "terrorists at work." Yet, this happens to China and we in America don't try and speak against these acts...no...instead, we encourage them. We encourage Tibet to be free from China. We encourage Tibetans to protest (violently) and call it peace and justice and liberation.

Ironic that it was the Chinese government that actually saved/freed Tibet (socially and economically) in 1951 from the agonizing effects of Feudalism, Imperialism and corrupt religious officials who were more concerned with hording riches, keeping poor people enslaved and widening the gap between the rich and poor. Is history repeating itself or what? Is the West really being fooled into thinking that Tibet was really so wonderful and peaceful and serene before 1951?

It's always easier to blame the government. For Westerners, when the government is Communist, this is even more reason to blame the government. As we all know, the U.S. (well, George W. Bush as representing the U.S.) is much more concerned with every country converting to a democracy instead of actually understanding a country's history. We think democracy will work everywhere because it works (well, for the most part it does) in the West. This is proving to be fatal for American political foreign policy leaders and heads of state.

So of course, it's easy to reduce the history of Tibet, fueled by slavery, wars, and disgusting displays of torture for anyone who challenged religious authorities...or basically anyone who wanted religious freedom, to a political statement by Mr. W himself. In the Los Angeles Times, George W. Bush is quoted as saying, "If they [China] ever were to reach out to the Dalai Lama, they'd find him to be a really fine man, a peaceful man, a man who is anti-violence."

Wake up Mr. American President! This "really fine" and "peaceful man" is part of a history of Dalai Lamas that oppressed its people. But I guess as long as its done in the name of religion, it's okay.

The reality is this: China is becoming more powerful and let's face it, 1.5 billion people is threatening to other world leaders. It's much easier to attack, to point out the plank in another country's eye, rather than attempting to address our own problems. So please America, stop jumping on the FREE TIBET bandwagon unless you've actually studied the history of Tibet, the history of Tibet and China before and after 1951 and consider what exactly the U.S. would do if "peaceful protesters" in Los Angeles set innocent civilians on fire (what some Tibetans did recently to Han/Chinese civilians) and claimed to be doing so in search for freedom and independence? How would the U.S. government respond? Would we allow these people of Los Angeles to secede from the U.S.? Would we honestly grant them independence from our country since they're so, supposedly, "peaceful?"

What's going on in Tibet is not peaceful and what's going on in other countries against Chinese embassies is not peaceful either. It is a push towards anarchy. Yet, the Western media doesn't report those incidences. We don't seem to believe much of what's done against China and its nation (and people) is worth reporting.

My question is: why? Or I guess my real question should be: why not?

The Top Ten Films of 2007

It's that time of year again. Just before Oscar Sunday and I've been putting it off long enough. So many films this year deserve to be in a top ten list--someone's list anyways--but I had to decide a few weeks ago that making a list should be about movies I loved, not necessarily about those that critics loved. It should be filled with ones that shocked or surprised me or made me fall in love with cinema all over again. It shouldn't just be filled with a list of the truly "great films" of the year. As I look at the list I made for this year, one thing is common to them all: the music (or deliberate lack thereof) colors the emotional core of the movie. From number 10 to number 1, the music plays a significant role in the story, the mood, and the character's struggle. So even though I'm leaving off a few films I thought for sure would make it on my top ten list and some also ruled by great music ("The Savages," "Juno," "The Namesake," "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "American Gangster," "Knocked Up," "The Orphanage," "The Devil Came On Horseback," "Waitress," "Dan In Real Life," "3:10 To Yuma," "No Country For Old Men" and one of my favorite summer flicks "Hairspray") the list must only be ten, that's the beauty of it. So here we go, like it or not:

10. Eternal Summer: What does it look like in a country where same-sex friendship, for centuries, has been more valuable, more precious, and more lifelong-lasting than opposite sex romances? More importantly, what does it look like when the Western world of romantic ideals clashes with the Eastern world of honor and friendship? Eternal Summer is that dilemma. Far from perfect, but consistently engaging in its simplicity, there’s a visual wonder present here that once again reinforces how and why Asian cinema simply is, the master of mood and atmosphere. With the three characters in the film all symbolizing particular objects in space—Jonathan (the sun), Shane (the earth), and Carrie (the comet)—the film uses this “space” to explore sexuality and the friendship that often muddles up, down and in between. It also uses this as a metaphor for the transition from childhood to adulthood. In a sense, Eternal Summer is as reserved as Chinese culture itself, evoking in its simplicity a raw brand of melodrama unparalleled in big-budget American films. In the end, Director Leste Chan suggests a final scene far more ambiguous, complex and ironically dreamlike (despite its element of tragedy) than a handful of American independent films. We the audience are cast out into the cosmos, and asked to wonder where the fate of these three friends—and people in the world like them—will be at life’s end. Haunting, heartbreaking and a much needed love letter to the people of Asia who live lives with similar complexities.

9. The Host:Welcome to my new obsession with Asian cinema. Some movies on a film lover’s list simply have to be on there for a sarcastic slap in the face of our world today. For me, South Korea’s mega blockbuster The Host is that film. Blending the dysfunctional family comedy of Little Miss Sunshine, the thrills of Jaws, the human nature values of King Kong and the contemporary circus politics of the Fox News Channel, director Joon-Ho Bong has crafted a relevant, scary, and funny cultural indictment on the political superpower known as America. Based on the real life events of an American scientist who ordered toxic chemical waste to be emptied into Seoul’s vast Han River, causing an outbreak of South Korean riots and protests, The Host begins with a simulated scene displaying this very act (set in the year it actually happened). After that, something freaky has morphed underneath the waters of the Han River and as expected, it’s attacking people, hopping along beaches and underneath bridges slurping and snapping up its prey as fast as it can. Essentially, The Host is a film showcasing an excellence in editing. It juxtaposes mass hysteria against our “everyday fear-driven evening news” in a way that asks, “Are we mere consumers, being controlled by the democracies we elect?” What’s fascinating about The Host is how it manages to be completely cultural—showing how ancient old society values of its senior citizens starkly contrast the bachelor’s-degree-holding mass of educated, yet dissatisfied youth—and yet, completely, universally now. When a monster movie can be this smart, this exciting, this culturally critiquing, how can it not be one of the year’s best?

8. Superbad: “Tell your story, no matter how bad it is.” This mantra could be the vision for the evangelical world, couldn’t it? I recall once in youth group in high school a sponsor commented that when people come to give a testimony, they spend entirely too much time focusing on the “sin part” of the story. That is, it all seems to be about how horrible this person was before they found Jesus. Their story was about their dirty deeds (had sex a lot before marriage, did every drug imaginable, cursed profusely). To myself, a kid born and raised in the church, this part always intrigued me. I looked forward to this part of the story. It fascinated me. In all honesty, this is why I loved to listen to these stories: to hear all the bad that I was told I could never do. This is the difference between the evangelical world and the rest of the world: the latter embraces the “badness” of every story; the former usually doesn’t. The evangelical world tries to theologically tell us it’s not apart of the whole person who we really are. But they can’t seem to come to grips with the reality that this is and was part of a person’s past. They are only one person and you can’t split a person into halves (as much as we’d like to think we can). This is why I loved Superbad so much. It effortlessly merges today’s raunchy youth with Ecclesiastes 4:9, figuratively and literally. In an age where most people suspect intimacy between two people of the same sex on film as almost always “homo-erotic” it’s refreshing to watch Superbad and see it’s not about the sex, but about the friendship. Masked as another raunchy high school comedy, it’s actually an elitist comedy really, with most of the jokes hitting high above the heads of everyday adolescents. And I know I’ll get a lot of crap for putting it there on my top ten list, but I’m sorry. Here’s a film that got me. It shocked me by how much I loved its irreverence and appreciated its blend of high/low cinematic art. Farting is still funny but it’s never been this well-written, I swear.

7. There Will Be Blood:There’s always one film on my top ten list that deserves to be there and I can’t even explain why. But when you’ve been wrong about a certain director for so long (with Boogie Nights and Magnolia I missed the point when I first watched them—probably due to my age—and only later realized they were both top ten material, for sure) you begin to change from your old ways. Initially, after I saw There Will Be Blood I saw no hope. There only was a very desperate man who was very, in a sense, soulless. But after some good conversations I’m already learning how wrong that assumption of the film was: this isn’t just a film about how bad one man is, but about a complex figure in American history: the oilman. Once chipping away lonely in a dark hole, alone, and covered in dirt is now a man speaking to crowds, making more money than he knows what to do with. How does the former become the latter and still keep his soul when his world is but an open road? More importantly, what happens when you’re surrounded by the very worst in “Christian” religion, where it becomes the next thing in line behind oil that people are ready to sell (and ready to “buy” so to speak)? This is why There Will Be Blood works on so many levels. It is a historical sum up of America in the 1920s California, revealing how greed works its way into every aspect of life, no matter what a person’s faith may be. And once again, as he did in Boogie Nights and Magnolia writer/director P.T. Anderson crafts a story that’s a warning sign to future generations, overtly moral and striking in visuals and substance. What is it about? It’s about people. It should always be about people. Every time it loses focus, things go awry. There Will Be Blood shows us how bad it did get and how bad it will get if we don’t start taking Jesus’ words seriously: “money is a bitchy barrier to God—you can’t serve them both; when you try, be prepared to die twice.” That’s a paraphrase but it works, doesn’t it?

6. The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters: Every once in awhile, a documentary breaks through the barriers of capturing “life on film” and captures the competitive history of humanity in one 100 minute sweep. In 2003, a little documentary called Spellbound did just that. Not until now has a documentary repeated that feat. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters could very well be “Spellbound-as-adults.” Essentially, it narrows in on a group of 80s gamer geeks (a few of them geniuses) with one particular story in focus: who is the best Donkey Kong player on the planet? This question starts a film loaded with laughs, giggles (they are not the same) and so many smirk-cracking-to-laugh-out-loud moments you’ll swear you’re a character inside of the game. On top of this, the footage these guys capture is nothing short of a miracle. It’s a movie where more is at stake than the title of being Donkey Kong champion. It’s a movie about competition, competitiveness and ego, and it’s the best, most exhilarating, most entertaining documentary of its kind.

5. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly: So many critics are talking about this film and so many of them have named it the best film of 2007. That’s not a surprise. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is visually intoxicating and explosively emotional, and may very well be the most unique, haunting and creative "true story" vision to appear on film in years. Imagination hasn't looked this good since In America or Amelie. Many films try to get inside the heads of their characters visually, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly achieves such a feat with an emblematic visual rhythm. There are a few moments in the film that feel like home video footage from one’s childhood, slowly etching its way into our hearts. When the film gets frustrated, we get frustrated. When the film shows the most vulnerable moments between father and son, we recall our own personal moments. These moments carry the film and bleed into the harsh, seemingly hopeless reality that is the main character’s life (and real life person, Jean-Dominique Bauby). Every act of the film is fleshed out to perfection, thanks to the Cannes award recipient in 2007 for best director, Julian Schnabel. And don’t be surprised if he does an upset at the Oscars in a week.

4. Ratatouille:Disney and Pixar just keep getting better. Not only is this a film that was worthy of a Best Picture nomination (when are Oscar voters going to realize that 5 Academy Award nominations in other categories such as Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing and others warrant a Best Picture nomination, despite it being “animated”). In the tradition of Beauty and the Beast and Finding Nemo, Ratatouille may even be a more fully realized whole film. I can’t remember the last time an animated film honored Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet in story, in drama and in visuals. It also could’ve shared the title of another great film about Paris this year—Paris, Je T’aime (Paris, I love you)—in the way it seems to act as a love recipe to the city of blinding lights. Added to this, the movie really does (as cliché as it sounds) have it all. It blends high culture with low culture, criticism with creativity, and devotion with destiny. For a movie appealing to all ages, that’s pretty much a miracle in 2007.

3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days:Romanian films are quickly becoming the cinematic cultural touch points of today. Between past and tomorrow, moral choices and immoral social systems, nothing and everything seems to be sacred in the present. Romania showcased this brilliantly with its 2006 masterpiece The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and it’s done it again here in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, where the world of 1987 is seen through a 2007 lens. Watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is an experience that must be absorbed in one sitting. You can’t take a break, you can’t pause for an interrupted cell phone call; you simply must focus on the film’s use of space. With no music in the film, only silence showing the distant space between people, the film works through you gradually and meticulously like a shining razor, cutting through emotionalism in an effort to exploit its audience. You watch and wonder why the camera lingers for so long after a scene—that in most Hollywood films would be cut out in an instant—and marvel how director Cristian Mungiu brilliantly relishes in the mystery of the after space. The after space is that intangible but completely felt mystery weaving through the air after any choice made between two people. It is confused by how love often manifests itself and even more confused at how politics encourage such warped expressions of this love. The space is explored in this film between the heart of the character and the heart of the audience, merging the two in a climax that is eerie and unforgettable. This is breathtaking cinema that will be haunt you for days after you see it.

2. Lars And The Real Girl:Ryan Gosling somehow manages to upstage himself yet again (from last year’s Half Nelson) into this wholly complex character of an ordinary lonely man in Wisconsin who grew up without a mother. Hundreds of actors have played characters like this before but no one has given the depth and emotional intelligence that Gosling gives to Lars here. Having said that, the entire cast fully supports this tricky performance. Patricia Clarkson as the wonderful psychiatrist/MD Dagmar, Emily Mortimer as Lars’ overbearing yet completely loving sister-in-law, and Paul Schneider as Lars’ older, sometimes wiser (sometimes not) brother. In a sense, the movie redeems our perception of what a sex doll could do for people (and in this case, an entire community). There are endless layers to Lars and the Real Girl—with its visual chemistry warmly fused with its lyrical story—but I really saw it as one giant contemporary parable with shades of pink colored in everywhere. Lars is about redemption, yes, but it’s also about how perception and community can make us into truly good people. There are so many wonderful scenes in the film, so many crying out desperately needing to be noticed it seems as though the loneliness Lars feels is actually connecting to us. The movie is mostly somber and quiet but there’s a level of respect, humanity and honor in this quiet. It has its outrageous, hilarious moments (as shown in too great of detail in the movie’s trailer) but these are not where the film’s strengths lie in. Like my last year pick for second best film of the year Stranger Than Fiction, Lars and the Real Girl rests its head in between the tragedy and comedy of everyday life and everyday people. And there, in the transformation of seasons—from winter to spring—is where we see its heart and our own.

1.Into The Wild:There’s a pattern going on here. Roger Ebert, the undisputed greatest film critic of the twentieth century, is freaking me out. Every other year for the past few years, his “number ten spot” on his wrap-up top ten list of films for the year has been my “number one.” In 2003, his number ten was my my number one: In America. In 2005, his number ten was my number one: Millions. And now, two years later, it’s happened again. His number ten is my number one—my favorite and pick for the best film of the year: Into the Wild. The film (even after three viewings) is a deeply moving, completely complete motion picture event. Movies like this rarely get made anymore. It’s got the character driven-ness of great films like Five Easy Pieces and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and the pitch-perfect-poetic flare of a really good nonfiction book. It’s about a selfish kid trying to find his way (with to his credit, a seriously disturbed past) in life, out on the road, and climaxes in a way that movies rarely, if ever, do: a spiritual, emotional, purely human supernatural epiphany. Is it from God? Heaven? Nature? Inside himself? Let the viewer decide.

NEVILLE'S LIST RE-VISITED:
-----------------------------------------
10. Eternal Summer
9. The Host
8. Superbad
7. There Will Be Blood
6. The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters
5. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
4. Ratatouille
3. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days
2. Lars And The Real Girl
1. Into The Wild
-----------------------------------------

THE 2007 ODE-TO-CINEMA AWARD: I started a tradition a few years back picking out one film a year which furthers the art of cinema. It honors the past while creatively putting together a fresh, unique vision for the future. Essentially, I like to think of it as part of my 2007 Top Ten list, just in a different way. This year's award goes to, Paris, Je T'aime.Eighteen different directors and dozens of world-famous actors come together for various interpretations--sad, lonely, tragic, scary, happy and wondrous--of what it means to be in love in Paris and in love with Paris. Each vignette takes place in one of Paris' streets and is named after it appropriately. There are of course a few favorites I've watched more than 10 times already (see Alexander Payne's film, Tom Tywver's film, and Gus Van Sant's film for three greats inside of here), but what I love most about this film is the way it captures--sometimes in five minutes or less--moments in life. It moves us, sweeps us up and enchants us. I hope the future of movies come close to resembling something like Paris, Je T'aime.

That's all for now. Be forewarned though...once I see more films from 2007 and once I see movies I loved more than once, sometimes that makes me rethink my list. So as always, this is subject to change. But enough for now. Sorry Nathan for making you wait so long. I hope you're not heavily disappointed.

Sundance (ReDirect)

Sorry for doing this but I've been having trouble posting pictures on blogger so I'm using xanga for a few days (and all of the Sundance updates).

www.xanga.com/nevillekiser

Sundance Film Festival 2008: DAY ONE

In Park City, Utah, the infamous Robert Redford darling Sundance Film Festival, has been underway for a few days. The theme this year is: "Film Takes Place." An interesting one packed with films from all over the world, competing and premiering and hopefully, finding an audience. After an almost 20 hour first day, here are the films I got to see today.

9:15 - "The Last Word" (Starring: Winona Ryder, Wes Bentley, & Ray Romano)

A man makes a living writing other people's suicide notes. This is the premise of this dark, but sharply observed comedy that hits as many good notes as it misses. Some scenes in "The Last Word" explode and creatively showcase a kind of energy rarely found in a black comedy. However, for me, there was a lot that just didn't work...mostly...this had to do with the screenplay. Gimmicky is what it ended up being, with little substance really left over in the end. Maybe it was because I felt like I didn't get to know the lead character, that I knew more about the supporting ones and they seemed far more interesting. I'm not sure. Whatever the case, it was a pretty good film that was creative in its subject matter but in the end, not a very memorable last word. Ray Ramona is wonderful though, and his scenes are where all of the film's best laughs are. Neville's Grade: C+


3:15 - "Henry Poole Is Here" (Starring: Luke Wilson)

REVIEW TO COME

11:30 - "Phoebe In Wonderland" (Starring: Elle Fanning, Felicity Huffman, Patricia Clarkson, Bill Pullman, & Campbell Scott)

REVIEW TO COME

25 Movies You Should See Before Making Your Top Ten Film List for 2007!

In honor of Entertainment Weekly's recent "25 Movies You Should See Before Oscar Night" list, I wanted to highlight (and add) few not found on that list. Not necessarily because they will be showcased or nominated on Oscar night but because before making any top ten list, you probably should check them out. First though, let's look at the list EW gave us:

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Atonement
3. Juno
4. Michael Clayton
5. There Will Be Blood
6. Into The Wild
7. American Gangster
8. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
9. Sweeney Todd
10. Charlie Wilson's War
11. The Kite Runner
12. Away From Her
13. Eastern Promises
14. La Vie En Rose
15. I'm Not There
16. A Mighty Heart
17. Gone Baby Gone
18. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
19. Lars and the Real Girl
20. Hairspray
21. 3:10 To Yuma
22. The Savages
23. Enchanted
24. Before the Devil Knows Your Dead
25. Ratatouille

----

Ones on the list you really need to see (I've seen them all so that's why I feel like I can tell you this):

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford---You probably missed it but don't overlook this beautiful Western that was just as good as 3:10 to Yuma, even if only 1/100th of the number of people saw it.

2. Lars and the Real Girl---It's beautiful, transcendent, and one of the best scripts of the year (and one of the best films of the year in my opinion) and Ryan Gosling will likely get a Best Actor nod so see it if you can.

3. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly---Haunting, visually arresting portrait of one man who blinks his way into eternity.

4. Ratatouille---In case you (or Oscar voters) forgot last summer...let me remind you of one of the highlights: Pixar's exhilerating and funny and perceptive Ratatouille. I really would love to see this one get a Best Picture nod. It would be oh-so-perfect.

5. There Will Be Blood---This movie will mess you up. Pay attention to the beginning and ending. Pay attention to the way Daniel Day-Lewis' soulless oil tycoon character is driven. Pay attention to the creepy and devastating score by Johnny Greenwood. Pay attention to everything. It's one of the most visually stunning landscape motion pictures since, well, the early days of cinema.

Other films to see before making your own list for the year!!!

1. Eternal Summer---Taiwanese tragedy photographed to perfection about two guys and one girl, and one very long summer. Aside from one plot jump this movie is powerful--even if it's all about the culture and the mood and the music--the director has done his homework. It gets inside of a mind and of a world that many of us have never dared to ever enter.

2. The Host---South Korean cinema is quickly giving Hollywod and Bollywood a run for their money. Watch Oldboy and this film and you'll see why. It's like Jaws and King Kong and Jurassic Park as if they were all crammed into one political satire with the family like spirit of Little Miss Sunshine. Wonderful!

3. The Namesake---Mira Nair's best film since Monsoon Wedding is this stunning journey of one family's move to America. I loved it...my only complaint was that the ending felt rushed. I could've lived inside of this world for at least another hour.

4. Waitress---Keri Russell will likely get overlooked in the Best Actress category (it's been a solid year for leading ladies) but still, you owe it to yourself to see this sweetheart of a romantic comedy that's more about finding yourself than it is about finding your man.

5. The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters---Still, from what I've seen, there hasn't been a more enjoyable, surprisingly delightful (and slightly sinister) film than this superb documentary all year long. It's coming out on DVD Jan. 29. See it with a group of friends if you can. It will be much funnier I assure you.

The Drama of Doctrine

Reading this new book ("The Drama of Doctrine") has definitely been a challenge. However, it's a new kind of systematic theology that our Western World has been dying for I think. Madeleine L'Engle wrote about it. Karl Barth hinted to it. The divinity unfolding within the drama of the greatest story ever told. It seems so funny to be called that, doesn't it? I always used to cringe when I was younger thinking that title was too ambitious, even for the writers of Scripture. To me, it seemed that if it was the 'greatest story ever told,' nobody needed to tell people it was. Greatness is great because of what it is, not because of what someone says it should be. That's the thing about stories, too. They grab you and won't let go. And great fiction--in my opinion--is the greatest venue for truth we humans have around today. Is that because the medieval Christians were so hostile to it? So hostile that they failed to see the affirmation of fiction, of story, of drama unfolding within the Christian doctrine the Church was slowly but surely setting forth?

Who knows.

I'm back on Blogger and hopefully will start writing more than I have been in the past 6 months.

Back to Blogger, Censor-free from China

Okay maybe not "censor-free" but still, I can access Blogger now and not Xanga. What is up?

The first nightmare of teaching happened 2 days ago. Something I never thought would happen to me, but something that happened quite frequently to every nerdy, foolishly creepy (or just plain strange) teacher I've had over the years. My seventh grade history teacher for example. The one that made us do "clusters." He would have ran into this kind of embarrassment often but I never thought I would.

After 2 hours of group presentations in one of my oral english classes, I came up to the front of the class to talk about the final exam and to simply give the students the exact date and time and so on and so forth. After I dismissed the class, two girls came up to me---almost unable to even look me in the eyes but displaying the biggest grin their pudgy Chinese cheeks could muster---and one of them gestered for me to come closer to her. I leaned forward and put my ear to her mouth as she whispered, "Mr. K...um....your trousers...are uh....(point to my crotch)...yeah."

I looked down and sure enough, my olive-colored Express khakis were open. The most serious case of XYZ I had ever seen and I quickly zipped up and said "Thank you so much, but why didn't you tell me sooner?" The girl shook her head in embarrassment and for the first real time as a teacher here in China, I was blushing with near shame.

"I'm one of those teachers" I thought. "Obvlivous to anything around him, single, talks too much, and forgets to zip up whenever he goes to the bathroom. Sad."

Maybe this comes with approaching one's quarter-century birthday?

The best films of 2006 so far...

Here are the good ones, worth the trip to the theater or DVD store or Netflix queue should the release date permit:

Little Miss Sunshine: The film to beat in 2006. It's got the greatest opening shot and the best ending scene since 2004's Napoleon Dynamite.

Brick: Rian Johnson's dark and gritty little indie-film-noir-flick starring Joseph-Gordon Levitt (who's on a role with movies and chilling/committed performances) trying to piece a dead-girlfriend-drug puzzle together with the help of his screwed up high school peers.

Bubble: Steven Soderburgh produced this ultra-low budget, reality film (meaning, it's as close to real life as you could get) about a trio of bored factory workers who find themselves mixed up in a murder in a small town and its almost creepy the way it feels like this could happen to anyone. Best scene in the film: the prison conversation. The staging of this scene, the set design, the direction...all of it, pitch-perfect.

World Trade Center: I know this is supposed to be an inspiring film---and it is, don't get me wrong---but I didn't know some things about this story and about the number of survivors who actually survived from after the rubble and it actually depressed me more than it inspired me. But even still, it reminded me of the power of hope---especially when this hope is being liften up with the words of another.

John Tucker Must DieOkay, maybe "best" doesn't apply here at all but nevertheless, this movie is almost exactly what it's trying to be: a teen comedy with a little bite and a little revenge/sassy/sweetness in a summer filled with movies made to blow you up. The first half hour of this film, unlaughable, but as the movie goes along, three characters make this high school romp worth the trip to the end (even though we all know how it's going to end). And although the moral of the story is preachy, it's oddly encouraging to be reminded from a movie as shallow this, the value of telling the truth. Too bad John Tucker never learned this. But then again, something is not exactly right with the screenplay or direction when the character your supposed to hate actually ends up being the most interesting, most engaging, most charming, most endearing and most likeable one of them all. Maybe "WICKED" was right: it's all about pop-u-lar. (Come to think of it, maybe this movie has no plae being on my list at all. But I guess if I had to include a stupid summer movie you thought would be god-awful but wasn't, this would be the one) It's a far far cry from MEAN GIRLS though. Let's be clear on that for sure.

Am I missing some here? Is that all? :/

Chinese Stars

I love the night skies in America. Or at least, in Richland, Michigan that is.

I love the way the stars drop down to the dark horizons and then explode the more and more you tilt your head up towards the twinling. I love the way the misty clouds sift their way through the blackness that is night, sometimes almost unrecognizable to the unobserving eye. And I admire the stars---just as they are---and nothing more. They don't pretend to be anything else. They simply, shine and shine.

And they embody beauty---pure beauty from a human perspective---even though we learn from science class what these tiny fire nightlights are really made up of. And whenever I find myself running beneath them, whenever I find myself looking up longer than I've been looking straight ahead, I can't help but feel at peace. I can't help but think of peace. Why do stars do this to me? Why do I always remember my Taylor years and the Upland night skies the moment I catch a glimpse of the heavens at night?

One night a few months ago while in a tiny village deep in the farming fields of Shandong, China, I experienced an eyefull one night when the sky was bombarded with stars, nearly bursting at the seams of the heavens. It was a cosmological miracle, and my eye heart could not believe my eyes. And then, my heart gave away one breath. I stumbled to try and take it all in, wanting to not leave anything out of my own mind and memory. I didn't want to forget by morning what a night this had been because I now realize and am learning day-by-day that every morning, every new day is simply another chance to get it right. To---before you lay your head down on the pillow that night---see beauty, and meditate on it and admire it and totally be filled in awe of it. And this type of admiration is connected to love, which is connected to God, which is connected to every one of us whether we believe it or not. And on that night in this tiny, tiny Chinese village, my friend looked over at me and wondered what I was looking at. And for once in my life, I didn't feel the need to answer.

I simply stared up and off into the distance, my eyes glowing reflections of millions of rays of beaming light. And on that night, I felt happy. The kind of happiness that touches on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, humility and self-control. And this, I've come to realize, is one of the millions of ways we feeble humans worship the Trinity (the Sun, the Moon, the Stars). The three total, perfect, whole lights that run through every fiber humanity comes to experience. The lights that no person, in their entire life, can possibly do (or live) without. They are three, but they are one.

The Spirit Within

"We all go a little mad sometimes," says Norman Bates in the film PSYCHO. The same could be said for us Christians.

For one, I'll never understand how simply being with other Christians can somehow internally irritate me. I mean, I guess I understand how "theologically" this happens but I still find it hard to swallow practically. It just doesn't make sense.

Why am I irritated by those I love the most so easily? On this note, I can empathetic with Oscar Wilde when he wrote, "I always want to know everything about my new friends and nothing about my old ones." But then, on the other hand, there are those few friends in which I still (day by day) deeply desire to know more. They are the ones (of course) that are far away and so perhaps if they all lived next door to me they would cease to be interesting anymore.

I don't know about that, but maybe.

Anyway you look at it, it's almost impossible to always figure out the spirit within. The one you always seem to question. The spirit that tells you to love yourself and be unhappy with yourself all before you go to bed at night. How can you discern which is right? Of course unhappiness with yourself in a "good guilt" kind of way is essential for the maturing Christian. But then again, I think of Brennan Manning and how he goes around preaching and preaching and preaching about how "self-hatred" is the biggest hurdle for the gospel to overcome. Not wars. Not genocide. Not gay marriage. Not abortion clinics being erected on every corner. No, the scariest moment for him is when he meets a Christian who doesn't really believe God loves him/her. And every day I keep living and living, I am constantly forgetting the idea that "God loves me" or rather, "God likes me." Part of this is because the enemy is trying to tell me I am unloveable and part of the reason is because I really am, in pure human terms, unloveable (by worldly standards at least). I will never measure up, so why do I try?

I try because I believe in love I guess. Because I believe that grace and mercy is better than judgment and criticism. I try because I want to believe that at the end of the day, the person that has loved the most has won rather than believing its the person with the most money in his/her pockets. I try because it hurts more to try to love than it does to not love at all, and in some sick way, I find that to be more fulfilling, more important, more eternal. Loving people is hard. Yes. And most of the time if I have the choice to talk to an old friend of my parents' or try and make new ones in a very short amount of time, I simply want to throw in the towel and say, "the hell with it." But one day out of the month, a light comes on. A click finally clicks. And the spirit within is finally awakened from its dead, cold, unlove-filled sleep.

And then my eyes are open.

The Top Ten of 2005...

Finally, I can put this out with confidence. I've seen enough (too many) of the movies released in 2005 and through much grueling effort, I can now (with good conscience) publish my own top ten film list.

Although 2005 was a funky year for movies, with the documentaries probably ruling once again, it wasn't the best or the worst. There were good movies (Cinderella Man, A History Of Violence, Red Eye, Capote, Mad Hot Ballroom, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Batman Begins, The Family Stone, Good Night And Good Luck) and really good movies (Heights, 2046, March Of The Penguins, Munich, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, The Upside Of Anger, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe) and great movies (Me And You And Everyone We Know, 15 and Nobody Knows)...but still...something about this year was funny and a little overrated. Standouts were not common, and excellence in filmmaking was rare.

But here's my list. Most of these I've seen twice (okay, Nate? Happy?!) and have thought enough about them to give them credit where credit is due. And I think, for the most part, that I'll stick with this one until months later when I've reconsidered after the Oscar buzz/hype. Until then....here it is...from number ten to number one.

10. Brokeback Mountain -- There are two ways to watch this movie: (1) watch the movie as a critic of a character’s moral decisions or (2) watch the movie as if you’re living within this character’s 1963 context. The first time I watched Brokeback Mountain, I could only see the former; but on a second viewing the latter view seemed to give me well enough reason to include this on my list. Contrary to what many critics are hailing Ang Lee’s beautiful and haunting western drama as, Brokeback Mountain is not a “tragic” love story, but rather, a love story with extremely sad side effects. Here you have a story about two young cowboys—one from Texas, the other from Wyoming (which ironically is the same birthplace of Matthew Shepherd, the young gay man who was beaten to death and hung up on a barbed wire fence back in 1998 because he was gay)—who wrestle through their sexual identity within the highly prejudice 1960s context. The setup may sound a bit depressing, but thankfully Annie Proulx’ story steers clear of complete bigotry and minimizes the melodramatic clutter possible to one or two, still fairly poignant scenes. Illuminated by Gustavo Santaolalla’s wonderfully simple musical score, the film’s end conjures up an emotional response that is confusing and frustrating and difficult. But this is the true hidden genius behind this story: it could’ve been a one-sided political outcry for homosexual marriage, but instead it leaves you with ambiguous thoughts and real life dilemmas about a very complicated subject. The ones not solved overnight and the ones with few black-or-white answers.

9. Mysterious Skin --There are a lot of independent films out there dealing with child sexual abuse and many of them are powerful. But none of them come close to capturing the disturbing, yet emotional effectiveness that director Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin achieves. Based on the even-better breakthrough first novel by Scott Heim, the movie is about two boys who both experienced something horrible when they were young, but yet can’t fully remember the mentally blurred and distorted details. One boy grows up thinking he was abducted by aliens and obsesses over searching for answers, while the other boy ends up into being a hustler, selling himself (and his very hard heart) again and again to other men looking for sex. Although the movie treads over subject matter tackled by previous films such as My Own Private Idaho, L.I.E., and Twist, it’s stronger than all three of these combined. After all, it’s not just a story of recovering memories, exploring how adults often romanticize their childhoods to almost mythical, mystical and (of course) mysterious levels, but it’s a story of deep-seeded pain, inevitable family failures, the loss of sexual innocence, and most profoundly, it’s a story about discovery. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Angels In The Outfield, and TV’s 3rd Rock From The Sun) and Brady Corbet (Thirteen) give two of the most powerful, most engaging, and most underrated performances of 2005, balancing the wounds of their characters’ childhoods with near-perfect grace. In the end, the result is a harrowing, daring, hopeless yet, quietly hopeful work of art, with the film’s final scene—one that is so emotionally complicated, so cinematically profound, it could very well be the most deservedly moving scene put to a Sigur Ros song ever—lifting Heim’s novel up into the rafters of Christmas carolers singing, old wounds being uncovered, and two human beings sharing that intimate and rare moment of connecting over a very dark past. (WARNING: Mysterious Skin is rated NC-17, so I can’t say I’m recommending this for everyone. Some people do not need to see (and will never need to see) this one. But for those of us who can, I think it’s more important than most people think)

8. Walk The Line --James Mangold’s Walk The Line is this year’s Ray, except with a stronger story and much more endearing true-life love story. And although Academy Award voters snubbed it in the Best Picture category (Capote was clearly not Best Picture material, but oh well), Walk The Line will be the film from 2005 most people won’t soon forget (unlike many of the other Oscar nominees). Here, you have a story of grace—catapulting love and God and drug abuse and music together in one film—which blossoms into a truly moving story that is closer to the real story than to movie fiction (unlike other films released this year such as Cinderella Man). Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are dead-on, performing all their character’s songs themselves, and matching the kind of cinematic chemistry not found too often these days in American cinema. And while some people may sigh and yawn at the thought of yet another “biopic” being made about a musical legend, let’s give them a break. Just because the formula works, doesn’t mean the movie will! Yet with Walk The Line, it is different. And the difference is in the uniqueness of the story. Family. Intervention. True friendship. Community. Faith. These are the themes and they go a very long way in this touching, ode-to-Johnny-Cash musical film tribute.

7. The Constant Gardener -- I knew back in 2003 when I first saw the visually arresting film City Of God that it wouldn’t be the last of Fernarndo Meurilles. And sure enough, after receiving a Best Director Oscar nod for City Of God, he went on to make this best-selling novel adaptation—part love story, part pharmaceutical drug thriller—with the same directorial genius that so marked his previous film. In The Constant Gardener, the global world’s eyes are on Africa, as an overseas pharmaceutical company attempts to find a cure for local people inflicted with the Tuberculosis disease. What sounds to be a noble attempt in bettering the wellness of these poor African people ends up being something much more complicated, as a British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) and his wife (Rachel Weisz) come to find out on a trip to the country. What follows is a complicated (yet, in a way, very simple) web of paranoia, corruption, deceit, corporate greed, and a most unsettling ethical way of working the world over in one’s favor. In a sense, the movie tramples on previous territory—it’s sort of a cross between Hotel Rwanda, and Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room—but in my opinion, The Constant Gardener is better than both. Shot with intelligence, vividness, and a kinetic pacing that attempts to lessen the invisible wall setup between the screen and its audience, The Constant Gardener couldn’t be timelier, or more plausible, which is why it’s easily one of the smartest and most unsettling real-life thrillers to come along in years.

6. The Squid And The Whale -- The phrase, “Like father, like son,” couldn’t be more true. In a year filled with movies that fail to surprise, fail to inspire, and are as “okay” as a Sunday evening snack, Noah Baumbauch’s The Squid And The Whale becomes a minor miracle. In 81 razor-sharp melancholy minutes, the story of an intellectual couple (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney) and their two sons who must accept their recent news to get divorced (but with a sensible, joint-custody agreement) is as heartbreakingly funny as it is uncomfortably moving. The brilliance of the film, however, lies in the very commonness of their divorce experience. In modern day America, a social love affair with broken marriages seems to be the norm and Baumbauch treats this fact with judgment and grace. The father, played with a cunning brilliance by Daniels (his best performance in years) is a “Woe is me,” artsy-fartsy, jerk-of-a-dad, who is always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time even though he lives in a world where he is right and everyone who disagrees with him is always “not very intelligent.” The mother, played with perfect emotional conviction by Linney, is a “My life is me and your life is you,” self-absorbed, yet well-meaning woman, who’s always changing the man she shares the sheets with. Within that context, the film soars bravely and radiantly along in a matter-of-fact fashion, thanks to a solid thematic grounding in J.D. Salinger’s literary masterpiece The Catcher In The Rye, pertaining to the squid and the whale at New York’s Natural History museum. At times, laugh-out-loud funny, at times, bracingly authentic and witty and weird and dysfunctional, The Squid And The Whale is that tiny little treat that 2005 needed oh-so desperately.

5. Grizzly Man -- I’ve never used the word “transcendental” to describe a documentary before, but here it’s the only word to come even semi-close to capturing this film’s spirit. In what is sure to be the most memorable documentary for years to come (and possibly the most hilarious and most tragic), the world of humans is being lived out with one man as the centerpiece. On the breathtaking Alaskan landscape, T.T. and his 13-year-long love-relationship with a bunch of wild (as if this word needs to be placed before the next two words I’m using here) grizzly bears, is the setup. The rest of the story here, as narrated by W.G. points out, is found within those unintentional moments of rare natural wonder, where the eye of the camera lens captures sights beyond explanation. The animal world is chaotic, yet harmonious; and the inner heart of man seems (in comparison) to top even this, as T.T.’s rants and raves and confessions bleed into the light captured by the camera like a subtle, humble prayer. In a year filled with some wonderful documentaries (Murderball, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, March Of The Penguins, Mad Hot Ballroom, and Rize) Grizzly Man stands tall above them all as an eerie, bigger-than-life-or-death rarity, that is both maddening and moving, sensitive and daring. Too bad Oscar voters were too lazy to see this for themselves.

4. King Kong-- There’s a much grander and bigger story going on here then what’s on the surface—one that has been going on for centuries really. Which is why I almost immediately fell in love with Peter Jackson’s ode-to-cinema-and-life-itself creature picture King Kong. Say what you will, but this is not just another Jurassic Park nor is it another New-York-City-gets-demolished action pic. It is first and foremost, a beautiful film with a text and subtext so rich and so simple and yet, so philosophically intriguing, it will be a shame if it doesn’t get a best original screenplay Oscar nomination. But King Kong is more than a throwback B-movie monster flick, and it’s more than a love story between a beautiful young actress and big, loud gorilla. The movie explores the endless dilemma of entertainment vs. reality, man vs. nature, love vs. obsession, and obviously, the inevitable undercurrent we know as ‘power’ running through them all. The things we love we often end up destroying, and as the U.S. divorce rate climbs, the race for world power/control continues to linger on every first and second and third world nations’ mind, Kong sits on top of the Empire State Building looking as beautiful and as natural as can be. And finally, like any work of cinematic art, King Kong ends up entertaining just as much (if not more) as it does enlightening.

3. Junebug-- I was born in Greenville, South Carolina and lived there for the first 10 years of my life. Words like “y’all” were apart of my daily vocabulary, and family was pretty much everything down there in the South. Which is maybe why I loved Phil Morrison’s Junebug so much. In this story of a somewhat snooty art dealer from Chicago falling for a North Carolina boy and then traveling down to his homeland to meet his family (but more importantly to her, to check out a local, eccentric, promising folk artist) there is a kind of world explored and visited where few movies dare to go: the world of the normal, Southern American family. Rather than treating their accents as comical crutches and reducing their religious faithfulness to blind-sided bigotry, Morrison pretty much leaves these people as they are. Because of this, Junebug never falls into trap of having the normal, one-dimensional, stereotypical Southern movie characters. For even if this family may seem simple and normal, their lives are complex and ambiguous. Family is treated here as family should be treated: not something to take lightly and not something with problems easily resolved by the end of a weekend visit home. But the two things I loved about Junebug the most were the people these characters reminded me of from when I was young (and no doubt, they will remind you of people you once knew too) and Amy Adams’ winsome, delightful, and heartbreaking best-supporting-actress-performance-of-the-year hands down. If she doesn’t win the Oscar on March 5th, it will be the stupidest mistake of the night!

2. Crash-- Crash, Paul Haggis' directoral debut (he wrote Million Dollar Baby) is as impressive as they come. And I’m willing to bet if it had been released in December instead of last May, it would be this year’s Oscar runaway hit. And even though I’m sure it will have a tough time beating out Brokeback Mountain for best picture, it is the only one of the five that truly deserves such a title. Crash is a melting pot of a movie about the melting pot that is, America. Set in L.A., the movie explores the city people’s lack of human-to-human contact through the lenses of culture, race and class, and does this with surprising clarity and insight. Essentially, the movie sees America as it is today—a world filled with language differences, culture clashes, and good and bad around every small town and big city corner. Like the smart and sassy Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle, Crash thrives on racial stereotypes—which could’ve been a disaster, but in this film it works almost perfectly—and touches on the unsaid and unspoken universal fibers running through just about every American. With some of the most haunting and intensely entertaining moments of 2005 captured on film in this movie, within those high and extremely high-level heart-pounding scenes, it’s no wonder Crash is film critic Roger Ebert and many others’ best film of 2005 pick. And although I can’t agree that it is the best, it’s the best second best movie of the year, ever.

1. Millions-- I’ve waited for a long time to say this: Millions is my favorite and the best film of 2005. Similar to my best of 2001 list, the number one pick (then, Moulin Rouge) was not even in my mind as the year’s best film upon a first viewing. But of course, repeated viewings allowed this overlooked, underrated family film from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, and 28 Days Later) to be my pick for my favorite (and the best I think) film of 2005. It’s a movie about childhood, about faith, about money, about grief, yes; but more importantly it’s a movie about epistemologies. How people come to see and know the world around them—whether society or family or school or God shapes them—all come together in this appropriate titled film covering so much ground. The story is told through the mind of an 8-year-old, which plays out appropriately with the film’s plot as it hops from new scenes to new topics like the mind of any 8-year-old kid. Like the film’s visually spectacular and exhilarating opening sequence (reminiscent of such great openings as Amelie and Magnolia, although not as grand), the movie is enchanting…a word that describes no other movie I saw this past year. And so for the third year in a row, here’s me choosing another movie about childhood (but wow, it’s so much more than this) as my number one film of 2005. So don’t watch the trailer before you see it; just go rent it now. Watch it two or three times, and tell me there is not more to meets the eye in this wide-eyed meditation on the money, childhood, and the Gospel.

Needing God

China is on my mind. More specifically, Chinese people who continue to amaze me and encourage me and be there for me, despite the distance. Which brings me to this reoccuring thought: what happens when you meet people who are living out the fruits of the Spirit far better than you (the Christian) ever has, and they don't profess to know Christ? How do you approach the Gospel to these people?

Obviously, the Gospel is about freedom and redemption and more than anything else, love. Love between God and people. Love between man and women. Love between children and parents. But isn't it moreso about making meaning in one's life? After all, if we sell the Gospel as something to simply "make you happier" or "make you more successful" or (God-forbid) "make you feel blessed all the time," then what happens when these things are not so after one trusts in Christ? What happens if these three things feel as if they fly out the window of people's hearts the moment they become disciples?

I don't know how to word this, or how to tell people who don't know God about this yet, but I want to try and play with this idea as my way of talking about the gospel from now on. I want to talk about how it's more about giving meaning to things, and less about feeling safe and happy and quaint. How it's about living in and on a certain kind of paradox. One that understands pain and suffering but does not delight in it; one that embraces mystery without embracing an ignorance on tough questions; and one that realizes life is really about loving people and loving God, no matter how many people choose to do the exact opposite. We live on the opposite ends of a spectrum, when really we should be living in the middle. Not the lukewarm middle, but the middle that teeters on balancing mercy and grace with justice and peace. The middle that does not believe in blind love or blind faith, but rather, faith that doesn't marginalize and love that doesn't compromise. I realize, this is the ideal...and we will never (ever) get there. But as I like to tell my students when a few of them have approached me and told me that hope, in the end, turns into hopelessness I say, "No, I don't think it does."

Maybe it turns into a smaller kind of hope...a shred of hope that seems so thin and fragile it appears to not be hopeful at all. But in truth, it is still called hope. And it is still worth clinging to (I think) no matter how many future wars come or how many Tsunamis hit or how many children in orphanages die believing no one loved them. Just because these things are so, doesn't give us right to live less. But it should give us reason to live more.

At least, I think that's what it's all about.

And The List Goes On...

Are there any must-see movies from 2005 that you think would make my top ten list?

Right now, I'm doing my pathetic end-of-the-year scurry to try and see all those films I've missed from this past year and it's overwhelming. From "King Kong" to to "Munich" to "North Country" to "The Constant Gardener" to "Brokeback Mountain," there just seems to be an awful lot that came out in the past 2 weeks that are already being talked about as potential Oscar favorites.

But then again, I guess that's how every year goes.

So far, the list of potential ten-best-films is as followed: Crash, Millions, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, Me And You And Everyone We Know, Mysterious Skin, Walk The Line, and maybe (just maybe) Cinderella Man.

Oh, and "My Summer of Love" (although it won all sorts of international awards and critics' prizes) will not be on my top ten list. Although it was at times, an interesting look at love---with its disturbing portrayal of an older brother redeemed by Jesus juxtaposed over his younger sister, lost in a sea of girlhood fascination---the movie was at its best, only somewhat interesting. However, I do love how ambiguous the film played out to be. We need more of that in American movies today.

Behind the Times

Being in China for only 4 months does things to you.

First, for someone like me, it makes you way behind when it comes to movies. My knowledge of what's out there consists of Narnia, King Kong, and Harry Potter. I had no idea their was a sequel to Cheaper By The Dozen, another end of the year movie by director Ang Lee, nor did I ever even hear of Jim Carrey's latest "See Dick and Jane Run" or whatever it's called.

Second, which is related to the first, it makes me feel like I'm behind and there's no use even trying to catch up. It's not everyday that my sister Tiffany is talking on and on about all these indie films she saw in L.A. while I'm sitting there listening to her thinking "I've never even heard of that movie! But it sounds so good!" I can't remember the last time where she---or anyone in my family really---saw an indie, arsty-fartsy movie before me. It's disconcerting for someone who sees the last 6 or 7 years of their life through the lens and grid of what has happened in the world of cinema (i.e., 1999 was the year of "The Matrix," "Magnolia," "American Beauty," and my senior year of high school; and 2002 was the year of "About Schmidt" and "Punch-Drunk Love," and the best Fall semester I ever experienced at Taylor---you get the picture). And so now, it makes me feel like I have little to offer people now when it comes to movies.

Maybe I didn't realize how much my useless movie knowledge was the springboard for half of my conversations but I'm realizing this is true. And so, I've resorted to something else I feel I can talk on for hours---boring people to death---and that is China. So for those of you who haven't been around me in person lately...watch out. Because my "In China..." stories are shooting out of me like slippery watermelons.

What a pretty sight, huh?

Pudding and Alvin and Me

Today, I ate with the cutest Chinese student couple I've ever seen. They're both non-English majors, but through a series of weird and random encounters, I met up with them finally for lunch after my classes.

Their english names? Pudding and Alvin. And I'd like to add that Pudding is the boy and Alvin is the girl.

All afternoon, the three of us connected in ways and on levels that people who I can speak perfect English with never could. It is odd when you realize although someone does not understand your words exactly, they still understand your meaning. And yet, so many of my English-speaking American friends I have trouble with communicating with? Why? We both speak the language! Maybe we should both start speaking in the simplest of words? Maybe we should always dumb the language down until our friendship is worked up enough to withhold the burden and fickleness of weighty three-syllable+ words?

Whatever the reasons, I had a fun time explaining to Pudding and Alvin why their English names were so funny. Telling them that Alvin was a little boy cartoon chipmunk's name was hard, but eventually, it clicked inside both their heads. And that's when the light flickered on in Pudding's eyes!

"Oh! I know your mean! You think "why are our names a 'food' and an 'animal?'" Pudding said.

"Exactly," I said. "You understand me exactly!"

And in the freezing, brisk Linyi City air, we walked and laughed and talked and mumbled in our broken Chinglish knowing that no matter where the conversation turned, we could always count on bringing it back to smiles with me asking them two simple words: "food" and "animal???"

I've yet to see Chinese people laugh so hard.

Mary

Recently, I've been taken aback---at times, to almost tears---when thinking about the Christmas story this season. Being in China doesn't help, as the usual Sunday church-going experience is gone and the constant reminders of Joseph and Mary and Jesus are not scattered in manger scenes all over the city. But still, a song will play on random from my iTunes and it will send me swimming in a mixed bag of emotions---all concerning this teenage girl.

Most of the time, we miss the real Mary at Christmas time I think. We see her as this calm, ever-giving, ever-willing woman who's merely the passing point from the heavens to the Earth. But in reality, she wasn't this at all.

She was however, this very young girl who just happened to believe in the impossible. To believe the radical call to obey what some angel named Gabriel told her in a dream to believe in. And it wasn't some fairy tale bit-of-magic-sort-of-dream, but it was the ordinary and extraordinary dreams we humans have all the time. The ones that make us believe in something greater out there.

But lately, I've wondered about what kind of thoughts and emotions must have been running through her head and heart that night and the following morning. Obviously, we've all had times where we feel God has spoken to us---from the tiny moments through our conscience as a 6-year-old to the loud and outragous repeated calls to love He stirs up in us each and every day---but the rational part of us tends to always question this voice. And rightfully so! For how many crazies and loonies have there been out there who thought they heard the voice of God but really only heard themselves talking very quietly? Or more importantly, how often do we write off the crazies and loonies out there (Mary would be one in our day, no doubt, making every CNN and FOX news headline from China to Cairo to Chicago) as merely fools fooled by themselves?

I believe in the mystery of the Gospel, but what does this look like? Is it some ambiguous whirwind of supernatural phenomena, or is it simply the acts of love that often go unseen in the world today, everday?

I don't know, but right now, I'm humbled by the thought of anyone who behaves like Mary today.

Psycho

You should try listening to some really intense instrumental music whenever you next post to your blog. Right now, I'm listening to the theme song to "Psycho," starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins and it is hilarious. I keep bobbing my head from side to side, and picture myself driving alone with some scary police car following me. And my eyes stare into the movie camera---penetrated, focussed, and frightened.

It doesn't do wonders for inspiring good thoughts worth reading on a blog though. Oh well, songs over. Happy hump day.

There's something to be said for the day or moment or second you finally realize your walk is not matching your talk. The time when everything and everyone gets to look at you---the real you---and see that your shortcomings and mistakes are, in a word, hypocritical. I know we all have many times in our lives where these times come up but how often is the evidence so blatantly contrary to how we say we live? How often does the evidence make our insides turn, our minds cramp up, and our heart sink and sink and sink?

I had one of these surreal moments this past weekend. The ones you tell yourself you will never have, because you are a good Christian. A good, balanced Christian. But I guess even Christians should never say never. Because when you do, you find yourself doing exactly what you told yourself you would never do. After this whole escapade occurred, the smell of justice was in the air and my name was up. And then I finally got what my self-righteous attitude had coming to it: a wake-up-and-smell-the-reality check.

And for the first time in my life, I woke up from a night of drinking---way too much, of course---and realized I had puked somewhere between the time of getting undressed for bed and the time I lay sloshed and sound asleep, on top of my blankets. And then I saw the trash can sitting next to my bed I did not put there, and the towel under my face hiding the puke I evidently spew up hours earlier that I also did not put there. Which was enough evidence to make me think: one of my friends did this for me and so, they know!! They know how pitiful and ridiculous and pathetic I looked at 3 a.m. lying fast asleep, unconsciously munching on bits of vomit spattered all over my pillow. I became the evidence that my words could not hide over anymore, and it felt unnervingly shameful.

But I guess we all need these moments that remind us again of how fallible we are. We need to be told again and again that 'yes, you are imperfect and you still make mistakes and you still are failing to live up to what you speak.' But it sure is difficult facing this fact. Especially when you're the one everyone's looking at. Like a dried up french fry you find under your car seat looking undesirable and cold and just plain pitiful, I felt like I was even smaller than this.

And so, to reach a new level in how-small-can-I-be, I decided to write you all this and confess via the blog world of just how stupid and selfish I really can be.

Even in China.

Blogger is so much better than Xanga.

It feels good to be back. Even if no one is out there, it's nice to hear and see my voice illuminated by the blogger template rather than the annoying xanga one. Although I will try to keep up with xanga blogs I like to read, I don't know how well I'll do with keeping up at posting there now that I can post here instead.

Happy Weekend. Bye.

I think I finally realized and put into words what relationship I have with the Bible. I know that sounds weird to just come out and say, but I've been thinking a lot about this lately and it has really been bugging me.

Part of me loves it, part of me hates it. Does this make sense?

Whenever I read something beautiful in it, I underline, I say 'yes,' I am personally reaffirmed of the faith I cling to and claim to be apart of. However there are those moments when I find myself hating it. I hate the way it looks at me sitting on my nightstand. I hate how when sometimes I read it, I want to run away from my conscience after finishing a certain sentence. I hate it for the way it makes me feel sometimes inside, even though most of the time, this is a good way of helping me grow.

But ironically (or paradoxically) I think what I hate the most (and have come to love the most too...if you give me a long enough time) are those times when the words sting so close to home and scrape so sharply at my own life. The moments when I read and can hear the ringing 'this is for you' in my head and heart. I can hear my body ache because of it.

And this may not be pretty and it may make me sound like a looney boy, but I don't mind it really. It's what I've come to accept as me, living the paradox, and its best if I stop pretending it's something that it really is not.