Reviews

Movie review: Ordet, dir. by Carl Theodor Dreyer

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I had the idea that I’d read about the film Ordetover at Big Hollywood, but a search of their archives shows that that isn’t true. So I’m not sure where I learned about it, but I was impressed enough to place it in my Netflix cue.

Considered one of the masterpieces of one of the world’s great directors, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ordet (The Word) is a movie that makes demands on the viewer (and not only because it’s in Danish and subtitled). It’s glacially slow by contemporary standards, and will shock many viewers with its treatment of subjects that, in our day, would only be handled in the cheesiest, low-budget Christian films. But I found myself increasingly engaged as the story went on, and was deeply moved by the end. Continue reading Movie review: Ordet, dir. by Carl Theodor Dreyer →

Authors, Writing

Overstreet on Paying Attention

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Jeffrey Overstreet talks art all of the time. Find him at a coffee bar, and you’ll hear him talking art. He doesn’t give directions to his dry cleaners without literary allusion. Here’s a quote from an interview with Heather Goodman:

If an artist focuses on the idea, the compulsion, the inspiration, then questions about how to engage the audience will probably find their answers along the way. I think a great deal of contemporary art is compromised and weakened by too much concern about who’s out there paying attention, and what they want to see. An artist’s first responsibility is to listen, and then to engage whatever questions or ideas or mysteries they’re encountering.

My favorite stories and movies don’t give me a sense that an artist is eager to please. They give me the feeling that I’ve stumbled onto a project that has the full attention of its artist. . . .

The Auralia Thread is being criticized by some readers of Christian fiction because it contains things that readers of Christian fiction don’t like to read. And it doesn’t have feel-good conclusions or obvious allegories, which readers of Christian fiction sometimes want. Well, perhaps that’s because I was just writing the story that seemed best to me . . .

Uncategorized

A Modern Hamlet

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2010 Winter TCA Tour - Day 5

Sir Patrick Stewart and David Tennant will portray Claudius and Hamlet in a BBC production of Shakespeare’s play to be shown on PBS’ Great Performances tomorrow night and online afterward. Watch a trailer for it on the Great Performances site.

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Too tired to come up with a title

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Dog laying down

Photo credit: Getty Images.

I’m not much use today, I’m afraid. A drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. Slogged my way through work, and then drove home knowing I ought to mow the lawn, but pretty sure (I was correct) that I didn’t have the energy to do it.

I woke up last night a little before 3:00 a.m., to the sound of someone pounding on a door. I’m not sure it wasn’t my door, but in any case it’d stopped by the time my head was clear. I pulled on some clothes and went out and looked around, but saw no sign of either Paul Revere or the Angel of Death. So back to bed, and insomnia (as is my wont when my sleep’s disturbed in any way at all). Got up again. Checked email and Facebook. Finally grew tired again and managed a couple hours more sleep before the alarm went off.

So instead, just a link to Mitch Berg at Shot In the Dark, who came out with this gem today:

Our father in heaven:

In the past year you took away my favorite b-list cheesecake actress, Britney Murphy. You took away my favorite libertarian-conservative columnist, William Safire. And you took away the inventor of one of my favorite guitars, Les Paul.

I just want you to know that Barack Obama is…

…still the worst president of my lifetime. Don’t take him…

Read the rest here.

Uncategorized

Stop Tweeting Your Life Away

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Miley Cyrus is coming to grips with life in the 21st century. She has stopped tweeting and uses the web less often than she used to. “I’m a lot less on my phone, I’m a little bit more social,” she says. “I have a lot more real friends as opposed to friends who are on the Internet who I’m talking to — which is like not cool, not safe, not fun and most likely not real. I think everything is just better when you’re not so wrapped up in [the Internet].”

Of course, she doesn’t read BwB, so that part of her life (that very small part) is malnourished.

Religion

Perils Facing the Evangelical Church

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R.C. Sproul writes:

In the sixteenth century, the term evangelical came into prominence as a description of the Protestant church. In many cases, the terms evangelical and Protestant were used interchangeably. Today, that synonymous use of the adjectives no longer functions with any accuracy. Historic Protestants have forgotten what they were protesting in the sixteenth century. The central protest of the Reformation church was the protest against the eclipse of the gospel that had taken place in the medieval church.

He points to loss of biblical truth, loss of discipline (meaning appropriate church discipline of congregants), and loss of faithful worship as three danger points for the modern church.

I heard yesterday a Moody radio producer say they believed their listeners were hungry for teaching on the fundamental principles of the Christian faith. Why would that be? Have these people only heard sermons that make application points of principles assumed to be understood? Do most of our churches preach notes from a Christian life over the character and heart of our triune God through whom that life is possible?

Poetry

A Song for Earth Day

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Our Hope and Expectation,

O Jesus, now appear;

Arise, thou Sun so longed for,

O’er this benighted sphere.

With hearts and hands uplifted,

We plead, O Lord to see

The day of earth’s redemption

That brings us unto thee. Continue reading A Song for Earth Day →

Religion

Green sin

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Man Holding Recycling Bin Full of Glass

My impression (of course I only move in limited circles, usually three times before I lie down) is that this past Earth Day was a relatively muted celebration. The Greenies were observing in private, while we Spoilers of the Earth were having a big old time whooping it up over tired Al Gore jokes.

So I think I’ll pile on a little more. But in a serious vein.

One of the most common responses I’ve met when talking religion with non-Christians (and liberal Christians) is, “I can’t believe in your angry God. Your doctrine of Original Sin offends me. My God is a God of love. My God would never condemn a baby for something Adam and Eve did.”

And it occurred to me, “Well, what do environmentalists believe about sin and guilt?” Continue reading Green sin →

Poetry

A Poem by Seamus Heaney

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The Guardian Hay Festival 2006

He would drink by himself

And raise a weathered thumb

Towards the high shelf,

Calling another rum

And blackcurrant, without

Having to raise his voice,

Or order a quick stout

By a lifting of the eyes

And a discreet dumb-show

Of pulling off the top;

At closing time would go

In waders and peaked cap

Into the showery dark,

A dole-kept breadwinner

But a natural for work.

I loved his whole manner,

Sure-footed but too sly,

His deadpan sidling tact,

His fisherman’s quick eye

And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible

To him, my other life.

Sometimes, on the high stool,

Too busy with his knife

At a tobacco plug

And not meeting my eye,

In the pause after a slug

He mentioned poetry.

We would be on our own

And, always politic

And shy of condescension,

I would manage by some trick

To switch the talk to eels

Or lore of the horse and cart

Or the Provisionals.

Continue reading “Casualty” by Seamus Heaney

Religion

Them's the breaks

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Doctor looking at a x-ray

Here’s another of those insights that many of you probably have already figured out. But I share it on the chance that a few of our visitors may be even more spiritually immature than I am.

As you know, I’m a big fan of Dennis Prager’s radio show. Today he was promoting a charity called CURE International, which provides medical services in the Third World.

He talked with a physician who told a story which intersected (in my mind) with something I was thinking about, and gave me an insight which, frankly, frightens me. Continue reading Them's the breaks →