Servanthood, and Feng Shui
[Today's Christian, Nov/Dec 2004]
Q. The Bible tells us to serve. I have a friend who is having some difficult times. How do I know when to help and when to let God teach her through the circumstances?
Author: Frederica Mathewes-Green
Frederica Mathewes-Green is a wide-ranging author who has published 11 books and 800 essays, in such diverse publications as the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Smithsonian, and the Wall Street Journal. She has been a regular commentator for National Public Radio (NPR), a columnist for the Religion News Service, Beliefnet.com, and Christianity Today, and a podcaster for Ancient Faith Radio. (She was also a consultant for Veggie Tales.) She has published 10 books, and has appeared as a speaker over 600 times, at places like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Wellesley, Cornell, Calvin, Baylor, and Westmont, and received a Doctor of Letters (honorary) from King University. She has been interviewed over 700 times, on venues like PrimeTime Live, the 700 Club, NPR, PBS, Time, Newsweek, and the New York Times. She lives with her husband, the Rev. Gregory Mathewes-Green, in Johnson City, TN. Their three children are grown and married, and they have fifteen grandchildren.
Finding Neverland
[National Review Online, November 18, 2004]
Somebody, somewhere, hates imagination. In some Dickensian institution where children wear lace-up boots and stare glumly at their porridge, a wicked, wrinkled figure reflects gleefully that they will never hear of talking animals and flying ships. We know that such a killjoy must exist, because “Finding Neverland” is so heroically opposed to him. Throughout the film beautiful figures keep imploring us to welcome the liberating power of imagination, and they must be talking to *somebody*. I attended a screening for movie critics, and these tend to be more hard-boiled than most, but I still didn't spot anyone shaking his fist at the screen like Snidely Whiplash. I did eventually hear someone gently snoring.
Alfie
[National Review Online, November 9, 2004]
If you're of a certain age, when you hear the name “Alfie” a song immediately starts up in your head. You might even be able to sing mentally through the entire theme (though for some of us it veers into a part where Tom Jones is going “wo, wo wo,” and then there's a verse about Georgy Girl). But the line you remember for sure is, “What's it all about, Alfie?” In other words, What is the meaning of life? Is it only about pleasure? Does “life belong only to the strong”? What about that “old Golden Rule”? Wo, wo wo?
The Incredibles
[National Review Online, November 8, 2003]
How do you make a kids' movie that adults can stand to watch - and watch over and over again, once it comes out on video? One approach is to load it with references to pop culture, so everyone can feel fashionably knowing. But five years later those same refs will be unfashionable, and in a couple of decades incomprehensible. Or you could go for plenty of gross stuff, bathroom jokes and double-entendres. That might amuse the less mature segments of the grownup audience, but it wears mighty thin on repetition, and makes responsible parents uncomfortable.
Is there any solution? Well, how about an enthralling plot, compelling characters, genuine humor, and a stirring message? It's so crazy it just might work.
Ray
[National Review Online, October 29, 2004]
I hope Jamie Foxx has a nice Oscar-sized spot dusted off on his mantle, because if there's any justice in the world, he'll be going home with a statuette next February. His starring performance in “Ray,” a biography of Ray Charles by director Taylor Hackford, is gripping from the start. It's not just the dazzling grin, not just the swaying head and tottering walk, but most of all the voice-a little higher and faster than you'd expect, with a hint of a stutter. Every time he speaks there's a jolt of energy, and it always comes as a surprise.
Joyous Cursing
[Christianity Today Online, October 9, 2004]
As four-letter words become an ever more popular form of communication, it's hardly surprising that athletes might use them, or that one might slip out in a TV interview. NBC's Matt Yocum had just asked Dale Earnhardt Jr. how it felt to win a race at the Talladega Superspeedway for the fifth time, and he replied modestly that his famous dad, Dale Earnhardt Sr, had won there ten times. “It don't mean s---,” he said.
The sky fell in.
I [Heart] Huckabees
[National Review Online, October 12, 2004]
Toward the end of “I [Heart] Huckabees,” the “existential detective” Vivian Jaffe (Lily Tomlin) is talking with a client. As the camera swings back her way we discover that she has unexpectedly taken out a pair of large, bone-colored knitting needles and is busily working some black yarn. This startling visual distraction must mean something (recall Chekhov's famous dictum that a gun seen in the first act must be fired in the next), so the viewer immediately does a mental Google on “knitters.” Top result is Dickens' cruel Madame Defarge. Compare and contrast: Vivian Jaffe is like Mme Defarge in these ways; she is not like her in those ways.
Shaun of the Dead
[National Review Online, September 27, 2004]
Just as the fire department tells us we should rehearse what we'd do in case of fire (planning escape routes, designating a safe meeting place), disaster movies do us the psychological service of forcing a quick march through “the worst that could happen.” At the end we see that you win a few, you lose a few, some cars are up in trees, and only the most attractive of the young people have survived. This should have the effect of sending us straight from the theaters to our Stairmasters, but instead we head straight for the comfort food, judging by the looks of the crowd that shows up at the next disaster movie. We can't say they didn't warn us.
More than a Feeling
[Beliefnet, September 17, 2004]
Last night found me yelling at the television once again over a panel discussion about “science and religion.” Both sides thought that rational processes can only take us so far in the journey to faith (agreed). After that, people turn to some other resource in order to connect with God (so far so good). What they use is their emotions.
Around my house, that’s when the sputtering starts. Only in the realm of religion is it assumed that every experience is a subjective experience, which means it’s an emotional projection—which means: Look, dear, a lunatic.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
[National Review Online, September 17, 2004]
The most distinctive thing about “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” is the thing you need to forget right away. It's the thing you probably know already: everything in this movie is a fake.
That's not unusual, of course; there's a reason “Hollywood” is an adjective. But this movie is faker than most. The action was shot in just 26 days on a sound stage in London, the actors standing before a bluescreen and emoting in a visual vacuum. Everything else, apart from the props actors actually touch, was generated in a computer. The tiny, live elephant inside a glass dome, the airplane dashing along under the sea, the 90-foot robots stomping down Fifth Avenue, all were computer-drawn.