Saturday, February 25, 2012

Who Will Take Home the Little Golden Man?

The Oscars are at hand. How many of the films nominated for Best Picture have you seen? If you are old like me, you remember the days when Bill Murray used to pick the Oscars on Saturday Night Live and toss films aside simply because he hadn’t seen them. There was something right about that in that day. But that doesn’t count anymore – at least since The Hurt Locker, a movie almost no one had seen, won the big prize.

I did add Hugo, another of the nominated films, to my viewed list last night, bringing me to five of nine. I don’t think I am ever going to see three of them: The Help, War Horse and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. (If you are a fan of one of those movies, change my mind.) They look too predictable, too maudlin, or too painful for me. I do want to see The Artist. At this point I’m waiting for it to come to the el cheapo theater by my house. Or just for the right invitation.

Hugo was fun and charming but I don’t think it has the gravitas to be the best picture. It’s a movie about the magic of the movies, and life as well, but after taking a deep bite of it one might realize you’d just swallowed something like meringue, which turns out to be a lot of sugar and air. This is an astonishing thing to say about a Martin Scorsese film, but the movie tightrope walked the line of sentimental fluff and just might have slipped over. That’s not to say it wasn’t entertaining – I had a great time watching it – but as I thought about it later and asked “what did it mean?” I was left thinking that Scorsese’s main point was that old movies should be preserved. There’s something self-aggrandizing about a movie about how valuable movies are. (Of course, nothing is more self-aggrandizing to the movie business than the Oscars themselves, but I still watch.)

The Oscar nominated movie with the most heft to it was The Tree of Life, a movie that I am going to write about next week on The 12. If you loved, say, 2001 or The Thin Red Line, you may love the Tree of Life. But if you like story and character development and something as conventional as a plot, then you may find, after watching it, that you’ve just lost 2 ½ hours of your life that you’ll never get back. To say this movie is ponderous and challenging to watch in our short-attention-span-world is to say something as obvious as noting that Mt. Everest is tall.

So, using the Bill Murray test and throwing out the four movies I haven’t seen, what movie would I choose for the Best Picture Oscar? Not Moneyball, which is about baseball, for goodness sake. Not Midnight in Paris, because it’s too quirky for such a mainstream award. Not Hugo or The Tree of Life for the reasons I’ve mentioned above. Which leaves The Descendants, a film I believe is truly worthy of the little golden man. But I don’t believe it will win, bringing me to pick The Artist, a movie I haven’t seen. Forget Bill Murray. I’ll be cheering when The Artist wins Sunday night, because I love picking a winner.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Obama's Catholic Blunder and Reformed Folks

The administration's birth control blunder has me thinking about the gaps between official church policy and the actual behavior of average people. This is a new entry on The 12, you can read it by clicking here.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Jeremy Lin: The Rejected One

I’ve got Linsanity.

Since I posted so much on Tim Tebow last fall, I believe it is time to come clean and admit I’m a Jeremy Lin fan. He’s the freshly-minted New York Knick point guard who has suddenly come from deep off the bench (and from sleeping on his brother’s couch) to inspire millions with both his athletic ability and his Christian faith.

Over the course of the football season, I warmed to Tim Tebow, but didn’t start out there. But with Jeremy Lin, I’m a fan and I haven’t even actually seen him play a game. I’ve been asking myself what’s different. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

  • Jeremy Lin went to Harvard.More US Presidents have come from Harvard than NBA basketball players. I like that.
  • Jeremy Lin went to InterVarsity at Harvard. I have friends who work for InterVarsity. I like that.
  • Jeremy Lin has not invented a public praying posture. I like that.
  • Jeremy Lin actually is from a minority group.When Tebowmania hit, I heard an apologetic being made for Tim T. as a persecuted minority. I never bought that. I do buy that Jeremy Lin is crashing stereotypes. I like that.

Finally, there’s this thought, something I heard Frank DeFord eloquently commenting on about Jeremy Lin on NPR the other day. (I’m paraphrasing his idea for those of you that didn’t hear it.) I’m rooting for Jeremy Lin because he symbolizes all the talented and creative people in the world that never got their chance. The Knicks are his second NBA team this season and the only reason he got some playing time was their roster was depleted by injuries and the coach figured he had nothing left to lose by giving him a chance in a game. The Knicks promptly went on a Lin-led winning streak that probably saved the coach’s job. But how many Jeremy Lin’s are there in the world? How many songwriters have written beautiful music that only their family and friends have heard? How many people with great voices never get a shot? (I haven’t seen much of American Idol, but have seen enough to know I have NO idea how the judges make their decisions.) How many great books do publishers pass on every year? For every JK Rowling who kept going after 9 or 10 rejections and finally found a publisher, how many others are there who get discouraged after rejection after rejection and quit trying? I mean, most of us had a lifetime worth of rejection in adolescence and aren’t interested in going through it again. Van Gough never sold a painting in his lifetime. Gerard Manley Hopkins never had a poem published until 23 years after his death.

So keep going Jeremy Lin. It seems ironic that a recent poll named LeBron James, who first appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated under the headline “The Chosen One,” as the most hated athlete in America. Jeremy Lin is the anti-LeBron, the rejected one instead of the chosen one. Lin is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. (A great issue, I might add, because not only is Linsanity covered, but there’s a moving article about Fennville’s Wes Leonard as well.) The headline says “Against All Odds.” I wish I was writing headlines for SI. I would have said, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Monday, February 6, 2012

Let's hear it for the vicar

A recent episode of Downton Abbey and the compromises we make to "get along" in life are on my mind in today's post on The 12, which you can access by clicking here.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Duck Soup

My latest classic film recommendation for the "Into the Dark" project can be accessed by clicking here.

Duck Soup is one of my favorite movies of all time, and is one I return to again and again as perhaps the greatest comedy ever made. If you've never become acquainted with the Marx Brothers, do so. You won't regret it. And let me know if you do.