New movies are usually released to theaters every Friday, but who’s got 10 bucks these days to drop on a movie that may well be a load of crap? Given those odds, on Friday I offer an alternative on DVD that you can rent at your local video store (or in some cases, avoid at all costs). Some will be new releases, others you may have to hunt for, but all of them are available to light up your small screen should it be a lazy Friday night.

The Game

Tomorrow is Halloween, which means people across the land will be combing the horror section of their local video store looking for a movie to provide a scare for the occasion.  Personally, I’ve never been much for horror films.  Sure, there are exceptions (Frailty is a personal favorite and I actually thought the first Saw movie was quite good), but on the whole I think that the genre tends to lend itself to stupidity.  I’m much more likely to pick up (and be unnerved by) a good thriller with some creepy elements (a la M. Night Shyamalan or vintage Hitchcock) than a typical splatter-fest.  One director who has demonstrated an ability to make that kind of film is David Fincher, and while I’ve liked several of his movies, one film stands above them all as perhaps my favorite thriller of all time – his 1997 effort The Game.  If you’re looking for something riveting and smart this weekend, you ought to give it a shot.

Michael Douglas plays Nicholas Van Orton, an incredibly successful and wealthy businessman in San Francisco.  Despite his professional successes (or rather, because of them), Nicholas’ private life is an empty shell.  He is quiet, cold, and cut off from any meaningful relationship.  As he turns 48, his personal unrest is even higher due to the fact that his father committed suicide at the same age – an event that left Nicholas traumatized as a boy.  As a birthday present, his brother Conrad (Sean Penn) gives him a strange gift – admission into a mysterious game offered by a company called CRS.  Conrad, who is Nicholas’ opposite – rebellious, fun-loving – tells his brother that “the game” will give his life the fun it desperately needs.  As Nicholas goes to CRS and the game begins, however, he finds an experience that becomes more troubling at every turn and a company that may not be what it seems.

The setup I’ve just given you covers only the first twenty-or-so minutes of the movie – to give away anything else would be a grave disservice.  This film has more twists and turns than just about any I’ve seen, and the combination of Fincher’s and Douglas’ talents makes the viewer feel as helpless and confused as Nicholas as we’re brought along for the ride.  As anyone who’s seen his earlier film Falling Down is aware, Douglas is equally adept at playing a composed and professional businessman and a tormented man on the brink of sanity.  He does a superb job at making Nicholas relatable and interesting – a good thing, given that he spends a large chunk of the film by himself.  Fincher is a master of mood and pacing, and both aspects are pitch-perfect here.  From the incredibly creepy moment that starts the downward spiral all the way to the final scene, this is a mesmerizing journey.  Many thrillers make it a point to pull the rug out from under the viewer, but The Game is one of the few that forces its audience to do without a floor altogether.  At every moment, I was always wondering what was going on (in a good way) and was as desperate as Nicholas to piece the puzzle together.  All-in-all, as thrillers go, it’s hard to do much better than this.  If you’re looking for a good movie to watch this weekend with the lights off and your brain on, give The Game a rental.  It’ll make your life…fun. - **** (out of 4)

The Game is rated R for language, and for some violence and sexuality.

From Douglas Jones’ article, “How Not to Watch a Film Like a Twelve-Year-Old,” in CREDENDAagenda…

“Natural revelation reveals Triune style more indirectly. We see a gray mountain or an ocean or the interior of a plant, and they don’t come with labels. They don’t have big ban­ners pasted on them that say “The persons who made this are majestic and surprising.” No. We have to infer that from God’s works of arts. We have to infer divine style via the hints and indirectness of nature. Natural revelation shows us that Triune style overflows, wastes, and loves detail. Some of God’s best handiwork is hidden in ocean depths we’ll never see. God reveals His comic style in walruses and orangutans, his ugly style in hyenas and eels, his elegant style in hawks and horses. “Can you hunt prey for the lion? Or satisfy the appetite of young lions….Who provides food for the raven?” Triune style loves and shouts out to us through all these. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech.” Speech, and yet it doesn’t speak like special revelation. Pines and palms speak without words, without labels. We have to work to understand Triune personality. We have to infer and inter­pret and conclude. We don’t get a narrator explaining most of God’s revelation. Just hints, and we’re expected to gird up our imaginations.

But we do know that He is the epitome of interesting person­ality. In fact, we might define interesting as the Trinity, because reading off Triune life from nature we have to conclude that Father, Son, and Spirit are surprising, unique, tense, paradoxi­cal, unified, different, communal, precise, hilarious, frighten­ing, and “ugly.” And it’s the (somehow) simultaneous com­bination of all of these that captures Christian divine style. That’s what we look for in ourselves, in others, and in films. That is the image of God in man.”

The article is a must-read for any film enthusiast and for anyone who wants to find in the arts a deeper appreciation of the majesty of God.  Read the whole thing here.

I make no secret about the fact that I think the greatest TV show of all time is one that FOX canned after only half a season and you’ve quite possibly never heard of.  However, if you’ve ever caught an episode of Firefly (or the movie it inspired, Serenity) you know just how fantastic it was.  One of the show’s stars, Nathan Fillion, now has a very good show on ABC called Castle, and during this week’s Halloween episode he threw a bone to the many fans who will forever know him as Captain Malcolm Reynolds.  Enjoy, Firefly fans!

Our culture is at a very interesting point right now.  We’ve retained our traditional view of marriage as a societal structure – good, valuable, meaningful.  Yet, we’ve completely discarded the meaning of marriage and a traditional view of human sexuality, thus stripping marriage of any actual meaning.  I thought about this the other night while Heather and I got caught up on the season premiere of House and I watched the show portray an affair in a tender and generally positive light.  Any problems inherent in the affair were emphasized as practical difficulties (someone could get hurt, it can’t last, etc.) rather than moral failures.  After watching a clip this morning from ABC’s upcoming series V, I started thinking about the last time I saw an engaged couple portrayed in a film or TV show that wasn’t already living together.  I honestly can’t think of one within the last decade (if you can, fire away in the comments).  The point is that while the stories our culture tells still ostensibly value marriage (weddings are always played for emotional highs in dramas), it has been stripped of any real meaning and value. 

Then, today I read a front-page piece on CNN.com about the fading of monogamy.   The article uses recent high-profile affairs like the David Letterman scandal to ask whether lifelong monogamy is an unrealistic expectation for our modern society.  The article seems to give the impression that it is (one interviewed psychiatrist compares the ability to stay faithful for life with the ability to “play the Beethoven violin concerto” or “ice-skate beautifully”) and even ponders whether serial monogamy (having one partner at a time) is too tough, exploring polyamory (openly having multiple sexual partners at the same time) as an alternative option.   Interestingly enough, the article concludes with a couple paragraphs about the benefits of sticking with monogamy – but even those are hopelessly hollow when you realize that they’re merely practical benefits, nothing more.  They are a glaring indication of the fact that we have completely lost any and all reason for an inherent “oughtness” in our view of sexuality.  The sexual revolution is, for all intents and purposes, complete.  Our culture still retains the facade of a Christian view of sex and marriage, but that’s all it is – an empty facade.  There’s nothing holding it up anymore, and thus no common moral ground for us to appeal to on a societal level. 

The article was fascinating to read, and its peer into our culture’s shifting sexual norms should rattle the cage of the church.  While we’re crusading to have traditional marriage codified in law, the very meaning of marriage and our societal foundations for it are evaporating before our eyes.  I have a feeling that we’re in the middle of a major societal shift, and people from ten years ago wouldn’t even recognize the American sexual culture that we’ll see ten years from now.  This means that how we as the church view and practice marriage and sexuality is more important now than ever, and it has nothing to do with passing laws.  Will we by our lives, our marriages and our churches demonstrate the great value, beauty, and goodness of biblical sexuality in a way that draws unbelievers in our culture to the one true God who created sex for his glory and our good?  They’ll hear our negative condemnations, I’m sure, and to an extent they certainly need to.  But even more imporatnt is that we treasure marriage and sexuality in a way that’s God-honoring and incredibly attractive (albeit confusing) to a watching world.  It’s beyond important that we do, because, much like Old Covenant worship in the book of Hebrews, biblical sexuality has become obsolete in our culture – and what has become obsolete is about to pass away.

Despite being defending division champs, the Carolina Panthers are 2-4 and will possibly relegate a healthy Jake Delhomme to the bench for the first time in seven years.  Despite reaching the NHL’s final four last year, the Carolina Hurricanes have been bitten by the injury bug and are off to a disappointing 2-5-3 start.  What’s a Carolina pro sports fan to do?

Welcome the start of basketball season.

The Charlotte Bobcats open the new year tonight in Boston against the Celtics, and I’m as excited for their season as I’ve ever been.  It seems like each of the past three years or so have had people wondering if the ‘Cats would finally break through and make their first playoff appearance, but that possibility seems stronger than ever this year after their near miss last season and coach Larry Brown coming into the year with a roster that fits his style.  Tonight will be a tough opening night test, but Charlotte has always played Boston well for whatever reason and a win would be a huge tone-setter for the season, which includes a pretty tough November schedule.  I’ll have my internet radio tuned to the game tonight, so let’s go Bobcats – Carolina fans need something to get excited about.

The day has arrived – Collision, the documentary following Douglas Wilson and Christopher Hitchens on their cross-country tour debating the question, “Is Christianity good for the world?” releases today on Amazon.  You can purchase it here, or you can head to the official website to check out some press and clips – including the uncut first 13 minutes of the film.  I can’t wait to see it, and I’ll be posting a review once I’ve had the opportunity.

Yesterday, Heather and I visited Fellowship Church and had a great time of worship.  During Pastor Tom Pussel’s

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on Matthew 20:20-28, he played a song by Dave Matthews Band called “Bartender” that perfectly illustrated the human heart’s longing to taste the life that ultimately only Christ can offer.  I had never heard the song before, but I found it a really accurate and raw reflection on our condition as fallen humanity – especially coming from a self-professed agnostic.  God truly has written his truth into our very hearts.  Give the song a listen (lyrics included in the video).

New movies are usually released to theaters every Friday, but who’s got 10 bucks these days to drop on a movie that may well be a load of crap? Given those odds, on Friday I offer an alternative on DVD that you can rent at your local video store (or in some cases, avoid at all costs). Some will be new releases, others you may have to hunt for, but all of them are available to light up your small screen should it be a lazy Friday night.

Sunshine

Certainly, if there is any director out there who can’t be pigeonholed into a particular genre, it’s Danny Boyle.  With films spanning from 28 Days Later to Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle has explored many different types of stories – and excelled at telling them all.  So, it was with great interest that I rented his 2007 foray into sci-fi, Sunshine.  Drawing cinematic inspiration from contemplative sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris, Boyle weaves a great tale of a group of people who are the last hope of a doomed humanity – if they can maintain their sanity long enough to be saviors.

In 2057, the sun is shutting down and earth is locked in a solar winter.  Eight people set off on the spacecraft Icarus II in an attempt to deliver a massive stellar bomb and restart our failing star.  Seven years prior, a preceding crew (the Icarus I) left, but disappeared and was never heard from again.  This time around, all the earth’s remaining fissile material has been mined for the bomb – meaning that this mission is humanity’s absolute last chance for survival.  The crew - consisting of the ship’s captian (Hiroyuki Sanada), physicist (Cillian Murphy), biologist (Michelle Yeoh), engineer (Chris Evans), doctor (Cliff Curtis), navigator (Benedict Wong), communications officer (Troy Garity) and pilot (Rose Byrne) – heads off on their years-long mission hoping to save humanity and return to earth.

The plot setup may sound similar to a film like Armageddon, but its execution couldn’t be more different.  This is quiet, old-school sci-fi with a focus that’s contemplative and psychological.  The movie is far more interested in exploring the mental and emotional strain of the mission on the crew than it is in action setpieces and special effects.  Don’t think that you’ll be getting a boring film, however, as Sunshine’s well-written characters provide gripping drama laid against a beautiful cinematographic background.  Boyle gives this film a unique and unforgettable look, using light, darkness, and color to tremendous effect and making the sun a truly awe-inspiring presence and almost a character itself.  The ensemble cast does a great job of portraying a group of people with the weight of the world on their shoulders and an inescapable sense of isolation – a volitile combination.  The characterization, cinematography and attention to detail make the movie very immersive and drew my attention and emotion into the journey.  The film’s final act does feel a little different, but I didn’t think the change of pace was all that jarring.  All-in-all, if you’re a sci-fi fan, this is definitely a movie worth checking out, though admittedly it probably won’t be for everyone (my wife wasn’t really impressed).  However, if the notion of a sci-fi film by Danny Boyle in the vein of 2001 and Solaris sounds exciting to you, you’ll probably find Sunshine as good as you’d think. – ***1/2 (out of 4)

Sunshine is rated R for violent content and language.

Well, a week after I kicked things off, we’ve finally got a good discussion going over at the TrueBaptist blog on the subject of infant/believers’ baptism and Christian fellowship. Go check it out and chime in with your thoughts.