36th Favorite Movie - Inside Man

I've got no time to talk about this movie since we are leaving for our High School Winter Retreat to Twain Harte today. Should be a great weekend, we are taking about 50+ students and staff up to Camp Berea in a chartered bus. Hopefully there will be SOME snow to play in!

As far as the movie goes, the cast is great (Denzel, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen) and it provides a great twist on your standard heist/hostage premise. This is Spike Lee's highest grossing and perhaps most accesible film.

I just realized that this section of my list is heavy on recent films. When we get to the top 25 or so it evens out a little.

Also, after I get to #1, I am going to post a list of what the next 50 would be. But I will be WAY sick of writing about them by then so a list will have to do... apologies to my faithful readers, I mean reader (thanks Grace!!!).

37th Favorite Movie - Walk The Line

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

This one comes as no surprise to anyone who was at our wedding ('Ring of Fire' was the recessional) or who saw me much when this movie came out last spring. Geoff B jokes that after I saw this movie I went through a Man In Black phase and wore black every day for a month and listened only to music by "The Cashman". And you know what? It's kinda true.

I walked into the theater knowing nothing about Johnny Cash except that he had a song about some boy named Sue. I left the theater humming 'I Walk the Line' and rushed home to download it and other songs from the movie. Honestly, it took me a while to get used to Cash's voice, I actually preferred Joaquin Phoenix's voice from the movie at first! But after Gladiator and Signs, I was already a pretty big Joaquin Phoenix guy. Both he and Reese Witherspoon are great in this. One of the small scenes that I really enjoyed was when Johnny is talking to his brother before bed when they are kids. Johnny asks his brother why he is always reading the Bible and he responds, "If I'm gonna be a preacher I gotta know what story to tell people when they need help." I really liked that part. You get periodic glimpses of Cash's faith in the movie.

Speaking of Cash's faith, check out this excerpt from an article I found online...

In a recent interview with Christianity Today, master guitarist Phil Keaggy, a Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) veteran since the 1970s, expressed regret for the many years he was consigned to a genre that wound up reaching the converted more than the people he had been able to reach before signing up with CCM labels. With CCM’s contractual constraints on lyrical content, artists are kept from singing about all aspects of life and must have so many mentions of Jesus per minute (known in the industry as “JPMs”) to please the label management. This self-limiting system keeps the artists singing to the choir and away from other topics that might get secular listeners’ attention. Whereas Cash hadn’t been allowed to sing songs of faith at Sun Records, CCM didn’t allow its artists to sing anything but “Jesus music.” Ever the maverick, Cash left Sun for a label that gave him that freedom.

In a way, Cash broke ground for artists like Switchfoot, P.O.D. and Sufjan Stevens who follow Christ but do not want to become pigeonholed by calling themselves "a Christian band" or "Christian musician". Johnny Cash's music reached a wide audience, both saints and sinners. To read all of that article, go to:

http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2834

I'll wrap things up with this anecdote. Once, Bono and bass player Adam Clayton from U2 visited Cash at his home. Johnny gave thanks before the meal and then opened his eyes, winked at Bono, and said, "Sure do miss the drug though.”

That's what I call a sinner saved by grace.

38th Favorite Movie - About Schmidt

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

About Schmidt is more an Alexander Payne movie than a Jack Nicholson movie.

Let me explain: a Jack Nicholson movie tends to have him smirking a lot, making witty wisecracks, looking sexy, etc. Here, Jack is not smirking, not witty and not sexy... unless you like old guys who spend most afternoons in their pj's eating frozen dinners in front of the TV.

Alexander Payne is the writer/director who also made Election and Sideways. I couldn't really put my finger on what makes his movies stand out, so I went on imdb.com and snagged this post from someone: "Payne has a wonderful capacity for balancing bittersweet wit and black comedy with a genuine, heartfelt compassion for his characters. He can really capture a certain fragile, ephemeral quality to life that most other writer-directors seem incapable of pinning down."

Thank you SugarSnap, whoever you are, you hit the nail right on the head.

This movie is flat-out funny. A few years ago when I was running the college/young adult group at church, we would gather to watch movies and talk about what they meant. Some scenes from this film brought the house down with laughter.

But it also led to some heartfelt discussion. About Schmidt is a very personal movie. As you can tell from the title it is about a guy named Schmidt. But it is also about you, the viewer. As Schmidt looks back on his life after retirement and wonders if it all meant anything, we are forced to ask ourselves the same question: what mark, if any, will I have left on the world after leaving it?

My favorite element of the movie is the relationship that Schmidt builds with a child he sponsors in Africa. Throughout the film he fights his loneliness by pouring his heart out in letters to this six year old boy.

******SPOILER ALERT!!!******

In the last scene of the movie, he receives a letter back from the child. The link below is to the last 3 minutes of the movie. I debated whether to post this link because it is much more powerful after seeing the entire movie before it, but it is still one of my favorite endings of all time in the history of cinema and it never fails to move me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfcjyXmSqOs

******END OF SPOILER ALERT!!!******

Schmidt finds meaning in his life not through work... not through retirement... not through having a big house and new motorhome... but through discovering that he has helped another less fortunate person - "the least of these" as Jesus said. Speaking of, I recently learned that the saying "It is more blessed to give than to receive" is not only from the Bible, but from the mouth of Jesus! It is found not in the Gospels but tucked away in Acts 20:35. Through giving, Schmidt finds a purpose to his life.

We should all be so lucky!

39th Favorite Movie - Collateral

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

In that most of my creative energy is going in to making the films and skits for our upcoming Winter Retreat with the high school group, this will be a short review.

I think what I liked most about this movie is feeling like I had no idea what was going to happen next. The setup is Tom Cruise is a hit-man who waves down Jamie Foxx's cab one night and forces him to drive him around from one "job" to another. I am a sucker for movies and TV shows that take place in just one night, or one day, or a couple hours - real time, they call that. Apparently millions of "24" fans feel the same way. I also thought the scene where Jamie Foxx had to bluff the guy in the club was fantastic. I felt so nervous for him and so bad for him to be in that whole situation. I loved it when he finally takes control of his cab and stops giving in to Cruise's demands.

The film was directed by Michael Mann, who is never short on style points. He also made The Jericho Mile (a cool little 70's movie about a man in prison for life who becomes an Olympic-caliber runner), Manhunter (which tells the same story of Hannibal Lecter as Red Dragon, only better), The Insider (which everyone loves and I can see why) and Heat (which everyone loves and I can't see why). But Collateral is my favorite of his movies. Like Quentin Tarantino, Michael Mann has a knack for making even the most simple shots "cool".

A Great Day

Today was one of those days when you get in bed and smile and think "today was a great day." (Danny is now singing the Ice Cube song "Today was a good day" and says I'm missing out because I'm not familiar with it.)

Although I did have to wake my night-owl self up at the unholy hour of 5:45 am, I started my new job at Fuller Seminary and really enjoyed the day. I have a lot to learn and a lot to remember, but it's a great place to work!

After dinner Danny and I scratched off the lotto tickets that his mom gets us every year for Christmas. We've never won more than a free ticket, and on my last ticket I was just commenting on how no one ever wins anything on these, when I won $100! It's not a fortune, but it'll do! Danny thought I was joking so we both had a good laugh over the moment. We'll have to think of something fun to do with the free money!

We hope you all had a great new year's holiday!