Film

While I’m not nearly as much of a movie buff as many, I do like ’em and watch ’em when I can.

Narnia followup

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A selection of quotes from reviews of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe…

The book’s well-discussed Christian allegorical content, by contrast, is rendered precisely as Lewis wrote it; no more and no less overt than on the page.

— The Seattle Times

Los Angeles Times reviewer Carina Chocano described the film as “real by the logic of childhood” and noted that the book’s much-discussed Christian themes do not overwhelm the simple tale of four children’s adventures in Narnia.

“As a Christian primer, it’s terrible. As a story, it’s timeless,” Chocano wrote in a review on Wednesday.

— Reuters

The Christianity may be too New Age to make good 700 Club fodder. On the other hand, The Lion et al. could serve as a powerful teaching story: the gospel according to Tumnus. Certainly, the Boschian “crucifixion” that Aslan suffers has to be friendlier than Mel Gibson’s Jew-baiting sadomasochist extravaganza. Anyway, for all the Lion‘s blatant allegory, the tale’s engagingly child-centered family dynamics will most likely be understood as a cosmic divorce settlement pitting Aslan’s cuddly dad against the White Witch’s castrating mommy.

— The Village Voice

Some evangelical groups have been promoting the movie as ” ‘The Passion’ for kids,” which makes it sound potentially like a greater source of lifelong trauma than “Bambi.” But the Christian allegory embedded at its chewy center serves less as evangelical cudgel than a primer on morality and the myths we create to explain it. The magical land of Narnia is a place where Western myths and religions (classical, Christian, Celtic, Norse, you name it) are jumbled together so that we may consider their similarities and uses. If it weren’t for Lewis’ stated intention to write a fantastical story to make the dogma go down, it might even come across as a liberal humanist parable about myth and its function in society, especially during times of trouble.

[…] If a scene featuring the torment and grisly execution of Aslan is meant to recall the crucifixion (the lion is eventually resurrected, thanks to the rules of the “deep magic” that governs Narnia), the other stuff cancels it out. That is, unless Christianity has lately been amended to allow for the Christ figure in pitched battle against a witch, a Minotaur and evil dwarfs (the centaur, the faun and flying wildcats are on his side), which, these days, you never know.

[…] No wonder that some might take it as religious instruction: It’s a medieval vision of Christianity for another dark age, with the Christ figure as soldier and war as the way to make the world safe for Santa Claus. As a Christian primer, it’s terrible. As a story, it’s timeless.

— Los Angeles Times

If you’re not a fan, perhaps you’re among those who know of the book mainly thanks to the bleating of certain evangelicals who claim that Lewis’ tales–unlike those featuring that satanic Harry Potter–bring viewers to Christ. (“Go spend money on Narnia stuff to show that you love the Lord!”)

It’s true that there are elements of biblical allegory in here; it’s also true that this is a fantasy. And frankly, it’s the story that matters; even if you must categorize Narnia as a Christian movie, it’s many times better than any overtly Christian movie in recent memory. Faith-based films like Left Behind tend to pile on the sentimentality; Narnia does not.

— The Dallas Observer

While pundits and the press witter on about whether C.S. Lewis’ ageless tales of Narnia are too Christian, or not Christian enough, or the wrong kind of Christian, children the world over will yawn politely and read on. I must have devoured The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at least 10 times while growing up in an aggressively Anglican culture, and it never once occurred to me that Aslan the super-lion died the death of Christ and was similarly resurrected. Nor would it have bothered my little Jewish soul had someone set me straight.

…if Narnia according to Adamson is more a democratic war on crypto-fascist totalitarianism than a holy war against the non-Christian barbarian, I for one won’t be filing a complaint.

— LA Weekly

…generations of readers have found The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe to be a gripping adventure that reaches well beyond its religious underpinnings, and this robust version respects both aspects and finds the same winning balance of excitement and meaning.

— The Onion AV Club

The lion’s eventual resurrection is crucial to the Christian overlay in Lewis’ work, and while this element may help “Lion” lure Gibson’s passionate audience to untold upward B.O. effect, the film does not stress its religious parallels.

— Variety

Narnia and Christianity — does it matter?

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After reading Terrence’s ‘Saying No to Narnia‘ and Pharyngula’s ‘Narnia as an inoculation‘, both of which pointed to a Guardian UK article titled ‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion‘, I was somewhat annoyed. As an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal who was brought up in a Christian household and counts Christianity as a major part of who I am and why I’m an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal, it occasionally gets under my skin when I’m reminded yet again that ‘Christian’ has become a dirty word synonymous with the worst of the bigoted bible-thumping set, tainting anything that it touches.

It was quite nice to see Arcterex’s take on the same article, then:

I read the Narnia books as a child, and absolutely loved them. They had a similar draw as modern day Harry Potter. The downtrodden who think they aren’t anybody in the world finding out that they are a heros in a magical world.

Of course, then I found out later on in live about the religious overtones in the books…

And couldn’t care less. A good story is a good story, and personally I find this sort of ignorant reporting as bad as the Christian groups who go around saying how Harry Potter is promoting kids to become satanists and how it’s an evil book. It’s a friggin’ book and a good story. Geez.

Damn skippy. Sure, there are Christian overtones to the Narnia stories. There are Christian overtones to the Matrix stories, the Lord of the Rings stories, the Star Wars stories, and countless other stories (both printed and filmed), too. Why all the rancor? Just because the religious right (who all too often seem to embody the antithesis to the Christianity I grew up with) has jumped all over The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is it suddenly impossible to go out and enjoy a fun fantasy movie?

Sure, you can read all sorts of meaning into the stories and why they’re being brought to the screen now — religious indoctrination, right-wing propelled mass media conspiracy theories, whatever. You can also tell your inner Fox Mulder that every so often it doesn’t matter and go watch a movie.

That’s what I’m planning on doing.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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Prairie and I just got back from (finally) seeing the latest Harry Potter movie. In brief, I think this is my favorite of the series so far. Rather fast-paced (though it would have to be to pack everything in that it needed to) but still quite coherent and hitting all the key points, and absolutely spot-on performances from Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody and Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort.

Plus, I think I’ve got a crush on Cho Chang. ;)

They made a sequel?

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While I was not exactly overly enamored with Underworld — “disappointing and frustrating” were my actual words after seeing it, in fact — I just took a look at the trailer for the sequel, Underworld: Evolution. I may end up wandering out to catch a matinee to see how it fares…the original was quite pretty and nice eye candy, and perhaps they’ll actually have invested in some slightly more competent screenwriters this time around.

I won’t hold my breath…but hey, if nothing else, it’s a chance to watch Kate Beckinsale wearing skin-tight outfits.

He wrote some pretty creepy stuff…

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In Someone is Watching, a movie that Prairie got for me as a silly Halloween present that otherwise doesn’t rate much more than “laughably bad” (it was $1 at the local dollar store), there was this gem of a quote, about a character’s eight year old son:

He has a terrific imagination, he’s going to be the next Ray Bradbury.

Anyone who’s familiar with Ray Bradbury’s works would be able to tell you that that’s probably not really a good sign.

Scalzi’s Top 50 Significant Sci-Fi Films

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Another list meme: this time, John Scalzi’s top 50 significant sci-fi films (alphabetical, not ranked).

…the part of the book that’s going to get most people’s attention — and raise hackles — is The Canon, which features the 50 science fiction films I have deemed to be the most significant in the history of film. Note that “most significant” does not mean “best” or “most popular” or even “most influential.” Some of the films may be all three of these, but not all of them are — indeed, some films in The Canon aren’t objectively very good, weren’t blockbusters and may not have influenced other filmmakers to any significant degree. Be that as it may, I think they matter — in one way or another, they are uniquely representative of some aspect of the science fiction film experience.

As always, films I’ve seen are in bold.

Read more

Another Cheaper by the Dozen?

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I ranted a while ago about the Cheaper by the Dozen film, a bastardization of one of my childhood favorite books, vowing not to see the results.

It’s time for another vow — this time, sadly, for Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

Never, never, never. The only even vaguely interesting pieces of the trailer were two quarter-second long shots of girls in bikinis…and since if I ever feel the need to see that I can do a quick Flickr search, that takes care of that.

Would someone please just forcibly retire Steve Martin and put us all out of our misery?

Shining

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Okay, so I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve really got to check out the trailer for a little heartwarming family comedy called Shining (9.5Mb QT .mov). A definite must-see!

Serenity

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Saw Serenity last night — Prairie and I got to hang out with eckstacie, sgtjesse and [oblique_ref], saw ogremarco, got donuts from the people in line right in front of us who were playing Buffypoker (Buffy playing cards) and betting with Gummi Worms, and talked with a lot of the fans, browncoats, and assorted self-described “geeks and freaks” around us. Much fun was had.

The movie…I’m still letting it percolate. And I’ve gotta get in gear to go to work. More later.

Cage Match: Gaiman vs. Whedon

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Okay, so no, it’s not really a cage match. What it is is a really good interview in Time with Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon, on the eve of the release of their movies, Mirrormask and Serenity (respectively).

Plenty of good stuff in this interview — I knew I was going to enjoy it right from the start…

TIME: Joss, this is Lev from Time magazine. You’re also in the virtual presence of Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman: I’m not virtual. I’m here.

TIME: Sorry. You’re virtual, Joss. Neil’s real.

Joss Wedon: Okay. I wondered.

TIME: I’m glad we settled that.

Neil on writing, and the drive to avoid repeating yourself:

I saw a lovely analogy recently. Somebody said that writers are like otters. And otters are really hard to train. Dolphins are easy to train. They do a trick, you give them a fish, they do the trick again, you give them a fish. They will keep doing that trick until the end of time. Otters, if they do a trick and you give them a fish, the next time they’ll do a better trick or a different trick because they’d already done that one. And writers tend to be otters. Most of us get pretty bored doing the same trick. We’ve done it, so let’s do something different.

Neil and Joss on their primary fan base:

TIME: Let’s talk about your respective fan bases. A lot of them self-identify as kind of on the geeky side.

NG: I think the fan base is literate. You need to be reasonably bright to get the jokes and to really follow what’s going on. That, by definition, is going to exclude a lot of people who will then get rather irritated at us for being pretentious and silly and putting in things they didn’t quite get. But it’s also going to mean that some of the people who do get the stuff will probably be fairly bright.

JW: Especially, I think, living in any fantasy or science fiction world means really understanding what you’re seeing and reading really densely on a level that a lot of people don’t bother to read. So yes, I think it’s kind of the same thing.

But I also think there’s a bit of misconception with that. Everybody who labels themselves a nerd isn’t some giant person locked in a cubbyhole who’s never seen the opposite sex. Especially with the way the Internet is now, I think that definition is getting a little more diffuse.

On mainstream culture’s growing acceptance of genre work:

TIME: I almost miss the stigma that used to attach to these things. Now everybody’s into Tolkien. And I feel a little like, hey, I’ve been into that stuff my whole life. And in fact, you used to beat me up for it.

JW: I miss a little of that element, the danger of, oh, I’m holding this science fiction magazine that’s got this great cover. There a little bit of something just on the edge that I’m doing this. That’s pretty much gone. Although when I walk into a restaurant with a stack of comic books, I still do get stared at a little bit.

NG: I always loved, most of all with doing comics, the fact that I knew I was in the gutter. I kind of miss that, even these days, whenever people come up and inform me, oh, you do graphic novels. No. I wrote comic books, for heaven’s sake. They’re creepy and I was down in the gutter and you despised me. ‘No, no, we love you! We want to give you awards! You write graphic novels!’ We like it here in the gutter!

JW: We’ve been co-opted by the man.

Neil on “family” films:

…in America, it almost seems like family has become a code word for something that you can put a five-year-old in front of, go out for two hours, and come back secure in the knowledge that your child will not have been exposed to any ideas. I didn’t want to do that. I like the idea of family as something where a seven-year-old would see a film and get stuff out of it, and a fifteen-year-old would get something else out of it, and a 25-year-old would get a different thing out of it.

Joss on his upcoming “Wonder Woman” treatment:

NG: She’s such a character without a definitive story. Or even without a definitive version.

JW: That’s how I feel. I hope to change that because I really feel her. Let’s face it: She’s an Amazon, and she will not be denied.

TIME: I’m really hoping her bustier will slip down a little bit further than it did in the show.

JW: You’re just after a porno, aren’t you?

TIME: Yes.

JW: It’s all about priorities. Yes, it’s very empowering for her to be naked all the time.

(via Pop Astronaut)