Tag: theology

WHAT TO WATCH WHILE WEATHERING THE WUHAN —–

AUDIO PODCAST OPTION FOR MY ARTICLE: “WHAT TO WATCH WHILE WEATHERING THE WUHAN”

BEFORE WE START – GO WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

Then – I offer you two thoughts.

#1 Whenever faced with an anxiety provoking situation I ask myself: What’s the worse thing that could happen? The answer usually does not warrant my initial visceral knee jerk to whatever the problem at hand is, and it makes me realize I’m overreacting. In short – I tend to be a worry wart and freak out if I let my emotions get the better of me.

#2 Disaster movies are great fun for a number of reasons. (READ Cataclysm as Marital Therapy). But the most relevant reason for this article is: perspective. Having to grit your teeth through another boring meeting at work seems like a paid holiday if you remember you don’t have genocidal aliens hovering in mile wide spaceships over your building waiting for the right moment to incinerate you (“Time’s up” Independence Day). Dealing with a flat tire isn’t so bad when you note you can do it while making all the noise you want without fear of attracting killer monsters (A Quiet Place). Watching a disaster movie can help one embrace the philosophy: “I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

So given these two thoughts and while we’re all being denied: church services, sporting events, movie theaters, parties, festivals, and hugs, I give you:

FOUR MOVIES TO WATCH WHILE WILING AWAY THE WEEKS WAITING TO WEATHER THE WUHAN

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971)

One of my all time favorites. Understated and steeped in extrapolated current science fact, the story, based on the book by Michael Crichton, revolves around, not action heroes, but scientists at the top of their fields who tackle an unknown disease which turns blood to powder in moments. Arthur Hill is Dr. Jeremy Stone, expert bacteriologist and government attache who knows of certain hidden agendas. David Wayne is Charles Dutton, pragmatic and old school pathologist who always reminded me of Dr. McCoy. Kate Reid is Ruth Leavitt, curmudgeonly microbiologist with a secret that could endanger the team’s progress. James Olson is James Hall, slightly geeky surgeon, who you could easily believe spent a lot of his teen years playing Dungeons and Dragons. These people were no one’s idea of Avengers but worked as a team against time and an extraterrestrial virus which could cause global cataclysm.

Compared to The Andromeda Strain, the Wuhan is a wimp.

CONTAGION (2011)

Talk about jumping off today’s headlines! Contagion is a movie by Steven Soderburgh whose structure is much like Paul Haggis’ Crash! with multiple storylines woven, like a crocheted serviette, around a central issue which come together to form a whole picture. This movie is chock a block with familiar faces: Matt Damon (Bourne “fill in blank with a variety of nouns”, Good Will Hunting), Kate Winslet (Titanic, Hamlet), Gwenyth Paltrow (in so many Marvel movies with Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man they finally broke down and gave her her own suit, Sliding Doors), Elliot Gould (M*A*S*H, Oceans’ 11, 12, 13, and 8), Jude Law (Fantastic Beasts, Captain Marvel), Laurence Fishburne (Othello, Matrix), Marion Cottillard (Nine, MacBeth), Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Argo), Chin Han (Dark Knight, 2012).

Paltrow is patient zero of a pandemic which has jumped animal DNA from bat to human to become a brain eating, lung congester which kills pretty much every victim we see within 2 days of showing the first flu-like symptoms.

Compared to the bug in Contagion, the Wuhan is a wussy.

OUTBREAK (1995 )

In one of the more formulaic thrillers, we have: the legendary Dustin Hoffman of MANY classic movies (Midnight Cowboy, Little Big Man, Finding Neverland, Tootsie, Rain Man, The Graduate, Marathon Man, Lenny, Papillon, Hero … *whew*), Rene Russo (Lethal Weapon), the disgraced Kevin Spacey, Cuba “Show me the money!” Gooding, Jr. (Jerry Maguire), Donald Sutherland (with a list of 194 credits he’s been in everything from the slapstick Start the Revolution Without Me to Pride and Prejudice), and the ubiquitous Morgan Freeman (Batman, Shawshank Redemption, Bruce Almighty) all struggle to contain an Ebola-like virus which originated in an African jungle, but, through a series of mishaps, infects the town of Cedar Creek, CA. Our intrepid heroes are hampered in their effort to find a cure by forces which want to retrieve the virus so they can turn it into a bioweapon and incinerate the infected town, ostensibly to prevent its spread, but in truth to hide their nefarious plans.

Compared to the buggie in Outbreak, the Wuhan is a weakling, with the added fillip that no one is planning to nuke any towns to get rid of it.

THE STAND (1994)

Done as a miniseries, the book was far better BUT, like Contagion, there is a legion of distinguished standards of both large and small screens as well as theater who ensemble their way through this 6 hour and one minute marathon. Look them up on us.imdb.com and enjoy some of these classic actors’ iconic roles: Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump, Apollo 13), Molly Ringwald (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink), Jamey Sheridan (Sully), Lara San Giacomo (Pretty Woman), the multi-talented stage and film legend Ruby Dee (The Jackie Robinson Story, Raisin in the Sun), another legend Ossie Davis (one of the kings of 1950’s and 1960’s American TV shows from Car 54 Where are You? to Night Gallery, plus films ranging from Do the Right Thing to Grumpy Old Men), Matt (Max Headroom) Frewer, Rob Lowe (The Orville, Saint Elmo’s Fire), Ray (My Favorite Martian) Walston, Ed Harris (The Rock, A Beautiful Mind), Kathy Bates (The Blind Side, Richard Jewell).

The Stand also has a unique twist – after the plague has swept through the world and humanity’s remnants are just starting to put their lives and a fledgling new civilization back together, God and the Devil begin a competition for their souls.

The source book, especially, presents a surprisingly complex and extensive examination of extreme medical phenomena, societal structures, theology, and the internal and external struggles every man faces in choosing between good and evil.

The miniseries begins with an Apocalypse level virus, nicknamed Captain Trips, which wipes out 999 out of every thousand people around the world. In the aftermath, the survivors become the unwilling soldiers in a battle between Hell, represented by Randall Flagg, who sets up shop, appropriately in Las Vegas, NV, and God, represented by Mother Abigail Freemantle, who leads her flock to Boulder, Colorado.

Although the acting is not of uniform quality, many of these veteran character performers, like Sinise, Dee and Davis, shine above the awkwardly truncated story and pedestrian technicals. The soundtrack, by the gifted and prolific Snuffy Walden, has a charming midwestern Americana feel.  

The movie even occasionally uses homages to classic literature such as Of Mice and Men.

Compared to Captain Trips, not only is the Wuhan a walk in the park, it’s a stroll you can take without the incarnation of the Devil himself chasing you in cowboy boots.

So — while you’re quarantined with no: sports, festivals, parties, restaurants, wedding receptions, theater events, movie popcorn, concerts, church fairs, handshakes, confirmations, church services, communal bowls of M&Ms, bridge nights, dances, sci fi conventions, bake sales, open air markets, live opera, or hugs – turn out the lights, choose one of these cathartic gems, confront your worst fears and … count your blessings.

AND WHILE YOU’RE AT IT — GO WASH YOUR HANDS!

SCREWTAPE LETTERS – A RIVETING LIVE PERFORMANCE OF THE C.S.LEWIS CLASSIC

 

SHORT TAKE:

A fascinating one-man play based on the C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters – the letters from a senior demon to his nephew/student demon.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Anyone old enough to read and understand the source book: The Screwtape Letters. As a rule of thumb….13 years old and up.

LONG TAKE:

My husband and I spent a disturbingly delightful and entertaining 70 minutes with a demon the other afternoon. The demon’s name was Screwtape and he is the creation of one C.S. Lewis. Lewis is the author of the children’s Narnia series as well as deeply philosophical books like The Four Loves, science fiction like Out of the Silent Planet, religious apologetics like Mere Christianity, theological guides like The Problem of Pain and self-mortifying confessions like A Grief Observed.

Lewis was a prolific writer and a deeply committed, practicing Christian who made the long, arduous and painful, but soul fulfilling journey from casual Christian to atheist to devout believer.

For those unfamiliar with the book, The Screwtape Letters is a precursor to the “found footage” movies so prevalent today but created for far more ennobling reasons. The preface to the book Screwtape warns of the dangers of either denying the existence of devils or, contrarily, indulging in an “unhealthy and excessive interest” in them. The first half of the warning reminds me of the line in The Usual Suspects by “Verbal” Kint who admonishes his listener that: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The latter half of the warning brings to mind a comment by C.S. Lewis that this book was the easiest for him to write but also the one that made him most uncomfortable – so much so that he resisted the urgings of his publisher and the general public to write a sequel. He did, some years later, write a short piece entitled Screwtape Proposes a Toast, which, in a condensed version opens the play.

In any event, C.S. Lewis in his preface to Screwtape Letters, states he will not explain how these letters “fell into my hands”. Suffice to say they are a collection of correspondence between Screwtape, a senior demon in Hell, to his nephew/student/lesser demon, Wormwood. In these letters Screwtape attempts to instruct Wormwood in the fine art of seducing a soul (referred to as his “patient”) away from “the enemy” (God) to be food for the denizens of Hell.

During the course of his instructions, Screwtape exposes many of the subtle fallacies and self-delusions to which people who call themselves atheists, as well as those who think of themselves as Christians, can fall prey (my choice of phrase here both gruesomely punny and deliberate).

One would not think that a one-man play dramatizing what amounts to a series of theologically themed short essays could be either interesting or funny. But this play is both. This is a credit to both the wry, dry wit of Mr. Lewis as well as the construction of the play itself. The set is fairly sparse, creating the allusion to a well-to-do Englishman’s smoking room, (smoking – like brimstone. See what I did there?), with two unusual additions. One customization is the twisting ladder which reaches up to the ceiling upon which one can climb to retrieve and send posts via an attached pneumatic tube. The second inclusion is of Screwtape’s wordless, androgynous assistant demon, Toadpipe, who, in the production we saw, is costumed like an evil Papagano from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, all in artificially colorful feathers from head to toe. He/she has no lines but grunts and growls and pantomimes his/her obsequiousness and occasional little mutinies.

The performance was riveting, compelled as we are to breathlessly await the determination of whether the man about whom they communicate will succumb to Wormwood’s ministrations or successfully resist the abyss of Hell.

There is an interesting tension created by Lewis, in that the protagonist, the one with whom audiences, in the overwhelming majority of plays, are naturally manipulated into sympathizing, is a demon from Hell. Resisting the impulse to root for Screwtape, as the protagonist of the tale, is similar to the same pull of temptation which each of us must continually struggle. This odd conundrum reminds us how easy it would be to find ourselves in the clutches of a Wormwood – or that we might already be in this danger. Fortunately, in Screwtape’s commentaries on his increasing frustrations with the failures of his nephew, we are also shown how to extricate ourselves.

We saw Screwtape at the beautiful Jeanette and LM George Theater in Houston, but it is only playing through March 17, 2019. However,  it will be playing at many future theaters to come and you should catch it when you can. OR a community theater in your locale should contact the Dramatic Publishing Company and see about performing it.

In addition, I must compliment the A.D. George Theater whose self-proclaimed mission is:

To produce compelling theatre, from a Christian world-view, that engages a diverse audience.

Screwtape was our first experience with this theater and it promises to most definitely NOT be our last.

BRAVO to the George Theatre and C.S. Lewis!

MOTHER! – YET ANOTHER CINEMATIC CASUALTY OF POORLY UNDERSTOOD THEOLOGY

Aron  SHORT TAKE: Brutally violent and deeply disturbing metaphor for poorly understood Judeo-Christian theology.

LONG TAKE: Having seen Darren Aronofsky’s unusual and creative but theologically sound Noah, I had hopes that the rumors Mother! was a Biblical metaphor would play out and that the grosteque brutality I had also heard tell about would be justified.

I was disappointed…and more than a little shocked. Rex Reed savaged it as the worst movie of the century, calling it a "delusional freak show…of pretentious twaddle." I wouldn’t go that far, but even reading two synopses in advance I found it hard to watch.

There have been a lot of movies which allege to "interpret" the Bible but which mishandle, mangle and demonstrate a lack of understanding of the Bible in general and Judeo-Christian theology in particular. Some are Dogma, Paul, Michael, Legion, and pretty much anything written by Dan Brown. Some are merely misguided, some just foolish, and some viciously biased anti-Christian propaganda.

To give the benefit of the doubt to Mr. Aronofsky, and because of his Noah, I like to think Mother! falls under the sincerely meant but ignorantly misguided category. It is my understanding that Aronofsky attempted a metaphorical telling of the entire Bible, from pre-Genesis to the Apocalypse and, for a little while, he got it right.

SPOILERS

The premise has an almost Thorton Wilder – Skin of Own Teeth feel and made me think it might work better as a play. The story is about a never named young Woman (Jennifer Lawrence), deeply in love with her also never named older Husband (Javier Bardem), living in the quiet pastoral countryside in a charmingly creaky mansion that might have, at one time, been a farm house or even minor plantation. The Husband is a once famous writer with block and both patiently wait for his inspiration to happen again.

Unexpected guests appear in the form of a sickly doctor who is a fan of the Husband’s work (Ed Harris) and his boozy prickly wife (Michelle Pfeiffer). The Woman wants them out but the Husband wants them to stay. The sons of the guests show up (played by real life brothers Domhnall and Brian Gleeson), fight over the coming inheritance and one kills the other then flees but not before demonstrating the mark of Cain on his forehead in his brother’s blood.

Up to this point I get it. The idyllic scene is Paradise. Bardem is the Creator whose very Words will fill their world with life. Lawrence is the paradigm for Mary. Harris and Pfeiffer are Adam and Eve – Harris brings death in the form of cigarette smoking and his own disease. Pfeiffer represents the vices of lust, uninhibited behavior, spite, and vengefulness. Their sons are, obviously, Cain and Abel. And up to this point, if you are prepared for this vision, it plays out as an interesting allegory. Had Aronofsky kept to the Biblical themes it might have been a great film. But it is at this point his theological symbology train goes off track.

God is love and desires obedience of His Creations but does not NEED love or adoration the way the Husband does. If Lawrence is playing Mary then she would not be clueless about the arrivals to her house, nor scream at "God" nor slap Him nor tell him no. As difficult as we humans all are, Mary is our adopted Mother. While she might be grieved at our condition, she would not try to bar us from her house – this is if we are keeping to the theology from which Aronofsky is supposedly dipping his ladle. And the linchpin of all Creation is that Mary told God "yes" in ultimate obedience to Him – "Mary said, 'Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.'”  Luke 1:38.

By the end of this very odd film, Aronofsky’s Woman is more Kali, Hindu goddess of destruction and sexuality than Catholic Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus our Savior and Prince of Peace. By Aronofsky's own admission Lawrence's character is a "Mother Earth" figure, which druidic reference is completely inapproriate to a movie with all the Judeo-Christian themes and symbols. This inclusion alone exposes the glaring errors in Aronofsky's vision. 

Bardem is more like one of the Roman gods who craved worship and "needed" the love of others to thrive and be creative. In Christian theology, God is not the greatest among creations, yearning for approval and recognition, but is entirely outside of creation, being Creation Itself, and requires nothing from us – any more than a painter requires anything from his painting. But in Aronofsky’s misguided understanding of the Bible he seems to see God as suffering from creative entropy until he has one really good night with his wife and is greeted by a crowd of adoring fans. He is more admiration addicted rock star than God of Jacob, Joseph and Issac.

And, frankly, Aronofsky’s interpretation of the sacrifice of Jesus had me running to take a judiciously timed bathroom break. Again, Aronofsky's version is theologiocally unsound as Jesus was more than full age of consent and knew exactly what He was doing, what was being done to Him and why. He was not an unwilling infant martyr to a misguided divinity’s misplaced trust in his groupies.

Mother!, to borrow from a What Culture evaluation, is really only for film students and critics. It is a study in art house script writing which might have risen to masterpiece had Mr. Aronofsky had a firmer grasp of the theology he was supposedly analogizing. Instead it comes off as the violent musings of a gifted high school videographer who didn't pay enough attention in Bible study but only vaguely, and without context, remembered all the gory bits.