Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Flotsam & Jetsam
The weird story of Amy Grant suing Dr. StrangeObama-ize thyself
Bishop Will Willimon sticks it to antitheist Bart Ehrman
Why Disney dumped the Narnia series...I hope they can find another distributor, at least long enough to make The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. More Reepicheep!
Freaking awesome guitar-shaped boat for sale
The bioethics of prenatal cancer gene screening
How marketing affects (read: controls) moviemaking
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Curious Case of Forrest Gump
I enjoyed "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", but this is pretty funny:
The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos
Monday, January 19, 2009
Kings
I'm cautiously excited about a new series NBC has coming out. It's called "Kings" and it appears to be a modern-day retelling of the story of David and Saul. You can learn about the show here. You can read the story of David here.
I've often thought that the Samuel/Kings/Chronicles narrative would make a fabulous movie or TV series (or comic book, or something). Film versions of Bible stories tend to be centered around either Exodus or Easter or the Christmas story (all of which are great, mind you) and tend to be depressingly traditional. Everybody wears bathrobes, like they stepped off a flannel-graph display, and everyone speaks in stilted, grand cadences. And until fairly recently, all the Jewish characters (Moses, Jesus, etc.) were suspiciously Norwegian-looking.
But so many more interesting things could be done with the stories. Make Jesus black in the South during Jim Crow, and make the Roman Empire into the KKK. Make Moses the adopted son of a factory owner at the height of the Industrial Revolution, leading his people out of unfair working conditions. Or zoom in a little bit. Tell the story from Peter's perspective. Or Pilate's. Or Judas'. Mel Gibson did this a little bit with The Passion of the Christ, in that the film is really just about Jesus' crucifixion (I wish he'd done more than this, actually; the flashback scenes between Jesus and Mary were the best in the film, but I give him credit for trying).
And the story of David and Saul is absolutely ripe for this kind of artistic interpretation. It's epic. It's tragic. It's full of Shakespearean intrigue. It is not a pious Sunday school story. Sex! Violence! Betrayal! Hundreds of foreskins! Revenge! Impotence!
You really could make a show about this that could last for years. David's rise from small-town shepherd boy, to new king favored by God, to arrogant rapist/murderer, to repentant yet inevitably declining monarch...he's a tragic hero the Greeks wish they'd thought of. Plus he's the rock star of the ancient world. Ooh, that would be interesting...David as young wannabe to Saul's aging rock god...
What biblical story do you think is unjustly ignored, and deserves a good retelling? How would you tell it?
I've often thought that the Samuel/Kings/Chronicles narrative would make a fabulous movie or TV series (or comic book, or something). Film versions of Bible stories tend to be centered around either Exodus or Easter or the Christmas story (all of which are great, mind you) and tend to be depressingly traditional. Everybody wears bathrobes, like they stepped off a flannel-graph display, and everyone speaks in stilted, grand cadences. And until fairly recently, all the Jewish characters (Moses, Jesus, etc.) were suspiciously Norwegian-looking.
But so many more interesting things could be done with the stories. Make Jesus black in the South during Jim Crow, and make the Roman Empire into the KKK. Make Moses the adopted son of a factory owner at the height of the Industrial Revolution, leading his people out of unfair working conditions. Or zoom in a little bit. Tell the story from Peter's perspective. Or Pilate's. Or Judas'. Mel Gibson did this a little bit with The Passion of the Christ, in that the film is really just about Jesus' crucifixion (I wish he'd done more than this, actually; the flashback scenes between Jesus and Mary were the best in the film, but I give him credit for trying).
And the story of David and Saul is absolutely ripe for this kind of artistic interpretation. It's epic. It's tragic. It's full of Shakespearean intrigue. It is not a pious Sunday school story. Sex! Violence! Betrayal! Hundreds of foreskins! Revenge! Impotence!
You really could make a show about this that could last for years. David's rise from small-town shepherd boy, to new king favored by God, to arrogant rapist/murderer, to repentant yet inevitably declining monarch...he's a tragic hero the Greeks wish they'd thought of. Plus he's the rock star of the ancient world. Ooh, that would be interesting...David as young wannabe to Saul's aging rock god...
What biblical story do you think is unjustly ignored, and deserves a good retelling? How would you tell it?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Flotsam & Jetsam
<--I have no idea who this woman is, but she's my hero-Does this spin, or are the wheels just for effect?
-Get ready for action
-I don't usually say things like, "What's the world coming to?", but...what's the world coming to?
Cities are too gridlike. Let's just throw buildings around randomly.
As a former video editor, I thought this was just really charming
Bars & Tones from André F. Chocron on Vimeo.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Bushisms
No matter your opinion of President (for another week, anyway) Bush, he is not a great orator. Here's my favorite of his mangled phrases:
"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."
—Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
I like the way he gives up halfway through the saying and just sums it up.
What's your favorite Bush quote or made-up word? "Misunderestimated"? "Strategery"?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
