Reviews

Film review: Cowboys and Aliens

Leave a comment

OK, here’s the deal. When you’re talking about a movie called “Cowboys and Aliens,” you’ll do well not to overthink it.

I’m glad I hadn’t read some of the reviews I’ve read today, before I went to see the film last night. Because I had a great time. I don’t think I’ve sat in a theater seat and enjoyed myself so much since I saw “Taken.” When you’re talking summer movies, it doesn’t get much better than this, if you’re asking me.

The secret to carrying off a ridiculous genre mash-up like this, unless your intention is to do farce, is to take it as seriously as “High Noon.” No ironic, I’m-above-the-material lines from the actors. No winks at the audience. No blatant contemporary references, either pop or political.

In this the makers of “Cowboys and Aliens” succeeded splendidly. There are funny moments, but the actors don’t know they’re funny. All they know is that they’re being attacked by nearly invulnerable monsters, that their loved ones are missing, and that time is running out.

The film opens with the hero, Jake Lonergan (underplayed in Eastwoodesque style by Daniel Craig), waking up in the desert. He can’t remember who he is, he has a painful wound just under the ribs, and a strange metal shackle is wrapped around his wrist. Continue reading Film review: Cowboys and Aliens →

Non-fiction, Religion

Christian Smith's Straw Men

Leave a comment

Professor at the University of Notre Dame Christian Smith has written a book criticizing an evangelical view of the Bible. The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture complains that many American Christians have what he calls a “biblicist” point of view, meaning essentially the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, understandable by any intelligent reader, and universally applicable to all. (The list is longer than this, but I think it boils down to these main points.)

Kevin DeYoung reviews The Bible Made Impossible:

For starters, the book is littered with straw men. Smith frequently attacks ideas that none of the mainstream institutions, documents, or persons he criticizes holds. He opposes mechanical dictation theory, admitting that “most” thoughtful evangelicals do not hold to it (81). I can’t help but wonder which thoughtful evangelicals do? He chides biblicists for things I’ve never seen anyone do, like worshiping the Bible (124) and thinking that fellowship with God comes through paper and ink (119)…. Likewise, he mocks the logic of biblicism for being equally certain about the divinity of Jesus as it is about the ethics of biblical dating (137). But who actually espouses any of this? These are simply cheap shots…. He frequently attacks the notion that the Bible is completely clear, but then in the end he says the Bible is perfectly clear when it comes to the important stuff of the gospel (132).

Having not read this book, I’m sure Prof. Smith makes some good points in it, but it appears from DeYoung’s review that he loses those points in the middle of a lot of partisan propaganda, by which I mean he is defending his team against other teams with whom he agrees essentially. Read all of DeYoung’s review, and you’ll see what I mean.

Non-fiction, Reviews

The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser

Leave a comment


There is said to have been a tradition among the Borderers that when a male child was christened his right hand should be excluded from the ceremony, so that in time of feud he would be better equipped to strike “unhallowed” blows upon his family’s enemies.

At the end of the 2001 Common Reader edition of George MacDonald Fraser’s 1971 book The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers, an interview with the author is inserted. There, in response to a question as to whether he plans to write more straight history books, Fraser (most famous for his Flashman series of serio-comic romances) replies that “he found he could get closer to the truth of the past in fiction.”

I think his instincts were good. Although The Steel Bonnets seems to me (a fairly uninformed reader in that area of history) a masterful work on a challenging subject, I also found it hard to follow, and wished it no longer than it was. If I had Scottish roots I might feel differently. A lot of people, I’m told, are very keen on this book, which is not surprising when you note how many of the names that show up again and again in the accounts of the Border feuds are familiar today—especially in America. At the beginning of the book, Fraser muses on Richard Nixon’s inauguration ceremony, in which you found a Johnstone (Lyndon Baines Johnson), a Graham (Billy) and a Nixon together on the platform. Nor does he fail to note that the first man on the moon was an Armstrong, a scion of perhaps the greatest Reiver family of them all. Continue reading The Steel Bonnets, by George MacDonald Fraser →

Writing

"Productivity is Overrated"

Leave a comment

Michael Hyatt, publisher, blogger–no doubt a very decent person–says bloggers shouldn’t worry about being productive, because it’s overrated. Effective writing is much better, and even if it takes a while, it’s worth more to your audience than frequent, quickly written posts.

“This applies to every aspect of your online presence,” he explains. “For example, it is often tempting to tweet snippets of your life’s happenings, but the result of these outbursts is an undermining of your relevance; followers grow less likely to pay attention to your next tweet, which might be great content.” (HT Jane Friedman)

Reviews

Film review: Max Manus, Man Of War

Leave a comment

It was pure coincidence that Max Manus: Man Of War came up in my Netflix queue just a few days after the bloodbath in Norway, whose perpetrator, Anders Barfing Breivik, named its main character as one of his heroes. That fact, needless to say, is entirely irrelevant. Max Manus did indeed blow things up, and performed some assassinations (something not touched on in the movie), but he never murdered the children of collaborators.

Max Manus (English title Max Manus: Man Of War) is a 2008 film dramatization of the wartime adventures of a Norwegian Resistance hero. I appreciated it as a refreshingly traditional war movie. Some European critics complained that it was too black and white. I don’t really imagine they wanted the Nazis treated more positively. I expect what they wanted was for the film makers to say that the Resistance was just as bad. Me, I say good for the film makers.

The movie (subtitled in English) opens with brief footage of Max fighting in Finland in 1940, where he has volunteered to help fight the Russian invasion. Then he’s back in Oslo, a newly occupied city. He and his friends want to fight the Nazis, but all they can think of to do is start an underground newspaper, which frustrates the action-oriented Max. Continue reading Film review: Max Manus, Man Of War →

Uncategorized

Shortest Winner of Bulwer-Lytton Contest

Leave a comment

This year’s winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for Bad Writing is the shortest entry to win in 30 years. Here are the 26 winning words Suzanne Fondrie submitted for this profound, profound honor:

Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

Also of note, this year’s runner-up is a local man, Rodney Reed of Ooltewah, Tennessee. See what he wrote here. (via Books, Inq.)

Uncategorized

Of the introverts, by the introverts, for the introverts

Leave a comment

I have nothing, nothing, nothing, tonight. I’ve been fairly productive this week, but I’ve felt as if I’ve been slogging through Redi-Mix every day. Depressed about Norway, I guess, plus a personal anniversary coming up that I’d just as soon ignore.

Anyway, First Thoughts comes to my rescue with this link–a masterful article from The Atlantic on Introversion, by Jonathan Rauch. Introversion is only one among my sparkling constellation of personality quirks, but I always like to see someone trying to raise the consciousness of all those extroverts out there, running around slapping people on the back and never meeting strangers.

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in life. “It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert,” write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

Authors

Brad Thor Interview

Leave a comment

Here’s a fun audio interview with Brad Thor, author of Full Black, Foreign Influence, and other thrillers. He talks about his books a little and how writers must write (for one thing) and focus on what they love to read.

Fiction

Story Contest Results

Leave a comment

I am very pleased that my dragon story, Wilruf the Plunderer, scored at least 40 out of 45 possible points. Many of the stories in the contest achieved this level, which they said is unusual. I guess the bucket of lucky rabbit’s feet I sent the judges didn’t win me any favors since the story didn’t place, but congratulations to Loren Eaton for winning both second place and a tie for reader’s choice. You had my vote, sir. Here are the contest results.