Star Wars Trailer: Lego Version

What scares me about this is that someone already did it...impressive...most impressive...

STAR WARS TRAILER!!

Not that any of you haven't already seen this, but how about another look?  The shot of the Falcon is pretty awesome...

St. Vincent

It's always good to see Bill Murray on screen, even when the character he is playing is unattractive.  In the character Vincent in this movie, we have a man who is a drunk, a gambler, and a man who hires a pregnant prostitute because he likes her belly.  There would be no movie to speak of here if something didn't come into Vincent's world to change things.  Vincent's new neighbor Maggie (Melissa McCarthy, in a refreshingly non-crazy role) has found herself unable to care for her son Oliver after school.  In desperation, she agrees to begin paying Vincent to watch Oliver so she can continue to earn an income and support her son.  As a single mother, Maggie is in a bind, but the person she picks seems to defy her own better judgement.

The first 15 minutes or so of this movie show us one anecdote after another to establish Vincent as a cretin.  This is a set up to see the fireworks once the crisis that we know is coming does indeed come. While Oliver is at school, two chief things are happening.  First, as an outsider at a new school, he is faced with bullying and teasing.  Second, he is given an assignment to do a project about a Catholic Saint of the past, and to augment that through writing about a saint in his own life.  As Oliver spends more time with Vincent, the layers of Vincent's life are peeled back, and we begin to see through the hard shell the man has built for himself (or has been put upon him through suffering).  We begin to see him in his totality.  He doesn't suddenly become, well, a saint.  But the complicated realities of his life come to bare, and his predicament could help but bring sympathy and emotion from me as I watch the story unfold.

I don't think there is anything terribly unique about this movie.  The chief hole in the ploy is so great that the film itself ends up having to address it.  Once the viewer can get past the absurdity of Maggie paying Vincent to watch her son, the film begins to work really well.  I cannot help but have admiration for the fine performances in this movie.  Bill Murray is great as always.  The first and last images of him in the movie are both unique, and they serve as remarkable bookends for his character.  Furthermore, I think movie directors should take this movie's example and use the closing credits to keep the audience in the seats (Pixar has also done this well).  Melissa McCarthy is a fine actress. and it is wonderful to see her outside of her slapstick comic persona (as much as that persona is great).  She creates a character here who is world weary and backed into a corner.  She is out of options, so she makes Vincent her son's caregiver, even though she knows he is less than savory.  The young actor who plays Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher) is also very convincing.  He brings this outsider to life and makes us sympathize with him.  Oliver's character is the backbone of the film.  When the emotional payoff takes place at the end of the movie, it is made possible largely because of how believable Lieberher has made him.

The theme of the film really comes down to the question of what makes a saint.  As a Christian, I found the theme to be so applicable.  We live in a world corrupted by sin and human folly, and the notion that any human is a saint can be laughable.  This movie brings to the forefront the idea that ugly people can do saintly things.  How that happens is a matter of debate.  I think it shows us that any human can, by grace, be called a saint.

Good Will Hunting

Why is it that there are certain movies that one can watch again and again and they never grow old?  The chemistry has always proved to be perfect for my wife and I, so we have returned to this movie several times over the years.  Now, since Robin Williams has died, the time seems to have come to watch this movie again, which I am sure we will do int he near future.  What is it about this movie that makes it so watchable for us?  Why can we go back to it repeatedly and it doesn't get old?  There are several reasons.

First, to watch this movie is to capture a moment of time of two young performers who have ended up being significant players in the movies.  Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have gone on to be be two of the most accomplished performers in Hollywood, and this movie is really where they got their start.  To watch this movie again is to have a glimpse into why they have been so successful, each of them in their own way.  They create characters in this movie (both by acting and writing, since they wrote this movie) that are funny, vulnerable and real.  As two young men from South Boston, they are rough around the edges but share a core of loyalty and honesty that is refreshing.  Two scenes come to mind.  The classic scene wherein Will (Damon) blows away a pompous Harvard student with his intellect is a classic.  Part of the reason for that is not only Matt Damon's scene wherein he recites the history books, but also Affleck's clear role as a wingman/set up man.  As a side note, the gang of four friends that Damon and Affleck wrote is a classic case of using a group of friends to create a world where the viewer feels a certain belonging to a group.  As a viewer of this movie, you care about this group of young men.  The viewer laughs with them, hurts with them, and even shakes their head at them when they stray off the path and get in trouble.  The creation of this group of hoodlums is one of the pillars of tho movie.

Second, the movie gives as a tremendous amount of depth to every significant character.  For examples, as Will's mathematic genius begins to reveal itself, Jerry (Stellan Skarsgaard), an accomplished mathematician at MIT, takes an interest in him.  Jerry keeps Will out of jail, but them wishes to take him under his wing.  Jerry promises the judge that he will get Will therapy, and that brings Sean (Robin Williams) into the mix.  Sean is a professor of psychology at a community college.  Jerry insightfully believes that Sean will understand Will, and after some rough early sessions, it becomes clear that Sean can indeed help Will.  The depth of character to which I refer comes to light not only with Sean and Will's interactions, but also in the interactions of Sean and Jerry.  As the story moves along, it becomes clear that Sean and Jerry have a past as well, being friends and rivals at MIT during their college days.  This tension between them is handled masterfully in the screenplay.  The subtext of their relationship os assumed by the characters, but it is never awkwardly belabored.  Sean and Jerry talk to each other in a real way, not in a way that artificially reveals their past.  I have always thought that the relationship between Sean and Jerry could make for a great movie of its own, and that is part of what makes this film so rich.

Finally, the joys and losses of the characters prove to be relatable to the audience.  It is easy Will to put his girlfriend Skylar (Minnie Driver) in a privileged box because she goes to Harvard.  It is only when he begins to become vulnerable to her that she reveals her pain to him.  The only reason she can go to Harvard is because her father died and left her the money to do so.  The emotions that come from these confrontations cause Will to be scared and flee from intimacy.  This sets up the wonderful interactions Will has with Sean.  Robin Williams' character in this film proves to be a challenge to Will's world.  He pushes Will to become vulnerable, even though Will has been abused or abandoned by nearly everyone who has been close to him, except his circle of friends.  At the same time, Will challenges Sean as well, since Sean has had his own share of deep pain.  Sean's wife has died of cancer, and he is also reticent to be vulnerable again.  The scenes between Matt Damon and Robin Williams are the heart of the movie.  Williams' comic persona is almost absent here, though it does show itself a few times.  It is in a performance such as this that Williams showed, to me, the extent of his talent.  Of course his comedy was in its own world, but his ability to create a character here and interact with the other actors in the cast is noteworthy.  The subtext of his relationship with Jerry is rich, and the challenge both that he gives to will and receives from him is wonderfully executed in his performance.  Sean's life is in shambles, and this young man seems to give him a purpose as well as a challenge.

Since Williams is a supporting character in this movie, it can be lost how good Matt Damon is in the central role.  He is in most every shot, and he carries the title character with verity.  Robin Williams adds a great deal to this movie, and his ability to do this kind of work will be missed by all of us.  His best scene is a wonderful scene wherein he challenges young Will to open up to him.  If I could have bookends that would encapsulate this man's career, I would show this clip, and the clip I shared in my last blog entry about Williams.  This is a wonderfully written and performed scene, and I think it shows how good Williams could be (word to the wise...some ROUGH LANGUAGE AHEAD).  We will miss his performances...

Robin Williams

I have been out of town for a few days, but I did hear about Robin Williams' death while away.  When I returned home today, I was somewhat surprised by the outpouring on the social media.  So many people my age were profoundly affected by his life and work, and it showed as I scanned through the tributes on Facebook and Twitter.  Through this little blog of mine, I wanted to add my voice to the chorus.

I can't comment much on the issue of depression.  I have very little experience with it, so anything I would say would be sophomoric and throw away.  Many others have shared their thoughts on depression, and there are lots of helpful and sympathetic words floating around that speak to that angle on this.  His death was shocking (as almost any early death is), but not surprising at the same time.

What I can comment on is my reaction to him as an audience member and as one who observed some of his work.  His finest films, to me, were his dramatic ones.  "Awakenings" is a wonderful film, and his performance in it (as an introverted, left-brained research doctor who ends up aiding patients with a nervous system disorder) is heartfelt and true.  "Good Will Hunting" is hardly a unique work, but it feels like it is, partly because of his presence in it.  "Good Morning Viet Nam" is great not only because one sees his comic largesse, but also because it is a story rooted in the tragic realities of war and his character's reaction to that.

Where he always truly shined, to me, was in talk show interviews, particularly when he visited Johnny Carson.  It was only there that the confines not only of the medium but also of the host could be truly obliterated by his comic genius.  The reason he was at his best with Carson is that Johnny was the best host at truly being a spectator along with the rest of us.  When Jonathan Winters died last year, I watched the clip of him and Robin Williams together on Carson several times.  My wife truly got sick of it.

There was a searching for God in his humor as well.  Whether he mocked religion or merely toyed with some of its implications, it always seemed like he had a mind that was partly focused on the spiritual.

As my own little tribute, I will share that clip of him and Winters which aired in 1991...

12 Years a Slave

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph."-Exodus 1:8

"I don't want to survive, I want to live."-Solomon Northup, "12 Years a Slave"

The human race is puzzling in many ways.  Sometimes I think that what truly is shocking is not the horrible things we do to each other, but how sometimes we see how horrible they are.  Human history is filled with so much cruelty that when we recognize the suffering and injustice of a particular person or group, it is almost miraculous.  This has begun to happen in the United States and Britain with our heritage of slavery, and this movie is another sign of that.  What is shocking is not so much the graphic portrayal of what must have gone on in the slave trade, but how commonplace it was to the people of the time.  This is the movie's strongest point.  It depicts a culture where slavery is a reality that all of its citizens simply are made to accept.  Within that acceptance there is great variety.  Some slave owners were kind to their slaves, while others were terribly cruel.  However, even the kind slave owners accept the fact that the slaves of African descent were inferior beings.  My view of humanity leads be to be impressed whenever we can see that there is something wrong, and being able to look at a subject from a new angle gives the story and the experience of our heritage more texture.

The different angle here (though the film is based on a book that was written in 1853) is that of an African American who is a free man, but who is kidnapped away from his wife and children and sold into slavery.  Perhaps the most effective and affecting scene in the whole movie depicts the first moments when Solomon discovers he is in bondage.  The men who sold him into slavery had made him drunk, and Solomon awakens in a prison in shackles, and is immediately given a painful and shocking beating.  Solomon is not only in pain, but is completely confused by his circumstances.  The more he insists upon declaring his true identity, the more trouble he gets into, so he begins to be compliant and relatively obedient, hoping that an opportunity will arise for him to gain back his freedom and his dignity.

On his journey, Solomon meets many other slaves who have never known freedom.  When he comes into the hands of Epps, a brutal owner that reminded me of Simon Legree from Uncle Tom's Cabin.  He is greedy and ruthless, and uses the Bible to justify his methods, as so many people over the years have done.  Epps cannot even love up to his own crooked standards (the Bible commands masters and owners to treat their servants and employees well-a fact that those who used the Bible to justify their lifestyle tended to overlook), and he lusts after his slave woman Patsey (Lupita N'yongo), whom he greedily treasures in an almost Gollum like fashion.  Epps is a sadistic man, and it is this man who provides the greatest challenge to Solomon.  Solomon's struggle to find freedom is made more real by the powerful performance of Chiwetel Eijofar.  Other wonderful actors add great texture to the film as well (Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, and others).

Though the movie never goes into much theological idealism, I couldn't help but reflect upon my own faith and how it deals with injustice and suffering.  The book of Exodus is about the deliverance of the Israelites from the house of slavery in Egypt.  But the story begins with the forgotten fact of the vital role that Israel played in the survival of Egypt.  Humanity always finds ways to deliver others of its kind into deep and excruciating pain.  In that light, it is both common and shocking what humans can do to each other.  Also, human history is littered with stories of new ways that humanity learns to do evil.  Almost as soon as Europe began to colonize other parts of the world, the evil of the African slave trade was introduced.  Slavery is as old as humanity, but is timeless and an ever changing story.  We must learn from the story of Exodus, and it is vital that we understand our own history.  How we correct the breach and how we reconcile and heal is beyond the scope here, but one thing is certain-stories like this must be told if we are to understand that humanity does not progress on its own.  We are broken.  Specifically, the story of Christianity is humans finding a way to brutally murder God Himself.  The human story is replete with this kind of cruelty.  But the central strength of Christianity also is grace, and the suffering Christ undergoes has meaning.  It was horrible, yet it atones for sin. Why some people or races struggle or are abused is a mystery.  Hiding from the struggle helps no one.  Acknowledging the pain and understanding that is vital.  Here, Solomon never sees any meaning behind his suffering.  He has simply loses 12 years of his life.  Like Job in the Bible, the people in humanity often never know why they suffer so.  But the redemptive truth is that somehow Christ came not to save only the well to do or those who"deserve" it.  He came to save the poor and the oppressed.  He came to save those who can recognize their own total need for him.  The art of the spiritual that the slaves sung speaks to the truth that the slaves believed that even though man had forsaken them, God was with them.

While the theological theories here may be off topic, they are what occurred to me as I watched this movie and reflected upon it.  It is a movie of unflinching power.  I can see why it won Best Picture.  It is the kind of movie that wins-it is not only well done, but it also reminds us of the role that cinema can have in informing us and moving us.

"Unbroken" Trailer

I was able to read this book last year.  Louis Zamperini just died last week after a long life of joy, struggle, and in the end, a life lived to God's glory.  I look forward to how his life is handled in this film, especially as Joel and Ethan Coen share screenwriting credit.