• The week in reviews:
"Seriously, it looks like someone filmed dress rehearsal and the studios sent it off to the printers in hopes of soaking a few more dollars out of Jon Heder before his 15 minutes ran out. Unfortunately, it looks like they were too late."
"And, I guess — given what The Guardian had going against it at the outset — that I was a bit surprised that I didn’t actually loathe it; indeed, it’s a typical, glossy, mainstream, more-than-adequate piece of entertainment, even if it has absolutely nothing original or marginally interesting to say (though the hooey-filled ending may leave you gagging for the better part of the night.)"
"Montiel has trimmed away all the flourishes that would have set his story apart from the thousands of other coming-of-age tales we’ve seen before, and the resulting film is a wobbly mix of youthful verve and grown-up posturing."
"While the film is an illuminating look into a growing niche of hard-line faith, it’s also a jaw-dropping and often sad look at the kids caught in the middle. It is, for lack of a better word, unsettling."
• It's good that someone else sees through for Mitch Albom's phony act. Seriously, I was forced to read Tuesdays With Hurry Up and Die Already when I was a sophomore at the oft-referenced but never specifically mentioned private religious university I attended in the Texas desert, and my anger at having to slog through that pabulum was only matched by my extreme disappointment that the college of biblical studies was the one responsible for distributing that crap. (It was a class required for graduation, and I spent 16 weeks listening to bucktoothed classmates expound on the allegorical similarites between Jesus and Forrest Gump, which was easily among the most damaging things that's ever happened to my faith.)
• Granted, it's nothing new for Time to ask really loaded questions in their features and ramble on for a few thousand words without actually getting anywhere, but still, this is an interesting read. Osteen, Hagee, et al.: dangerous.
• Man, this takes me back. You should also know that this guy went to prom with Grace. Gotta respect that:
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Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
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Sunday, October 1
Sunday Recap: Religiosity Edition
by
Dan Carlson
on Sun 01 Oct 2006 12:05 AM PDT
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"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising." "Film lovers are sick people." "I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army." "Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these." current reading
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Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
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