Frederick Buechner movie available
Looks like the film is finished. You can even watch the first fifteen minutes online.Read more
Million Dollar Baby Joins My 2004 Top Ten
This always happens. No sooner do I turn in my Top Ten list of 2004 to meet a deadline than I suddenly discover a film that changes everything.Read more
The hero of Hotel Rwanda has some questions for us.
If you haven't seen Hotel Rwanda, you should.Read more
Buechner (2005)
[These comments were originally published in an installment of Film Forum column at Christianity Today in January 2005.]
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Buechner ... is simply a conversation with the subject. If that's what you're looking for, you won't be disappointed.
On the first day of the war in Iraq, Rob and Molly Collins sat down with one of their heroes — the writer and ordained Presbyterian minister, Frederick Buechner. The cameras rolled, and the result is a thought-provoking conversation with the writer of Godric, Son of Laughter, An Alphabet of Grace, and many other novels and classics of Christian thought.
In this context of tension, profound questions, and longing for peace, the Collinses share their questions and Buechner, clearly familiar with the themes, muses spontaneously and offers anecdotes from his experiences. He suggests that God is speaking to us through everyday occurrences and subtle details, just waiting for us to notice him and learn to listen. The film does not make any pretense to be about the writer's life or to explore his literature. It feels almost like a home movie about two readers' privileged hours with the man who has profoundly enriched their lives.
Here, Buechner's answers only scratch the surface of issues he has explored in-depth in his books, and we could certainly ask for a film that offers more background on his history, his many and varied publications, his influences, and other writers, artists, and Christian leaders he has inspired.
But Buechner can serve as an provocative conversation piece for Christians at home, at church, or with neighbors. (His casual blending of Buddhist sensibilities with Christian philosophy may seem unsettling to some, inspiring to others.) It can also give curious moviegoers their first taste of his personality and views, which might lead them to some of the most rewarding reading of their lives. Watching the Collins' work, it's easy to see that they would find nothing more rewarding than to know that their work coaxed viewers to try out Buechner's writing for the first time.
For more information on the Buechner DVD, visit the official site.
Overstreet’s Favorite Recordings: 2004
The wall has come down.
By my lights, anyway, it appears that this was the year that brought it crumbling to the ground.
When I was a teenager, I lived in a world where Christian music existed in a carefully protected city with high walls, where we whispered about the dangers and depravity of "secular" music. We believed that we could copy the sound and production values of secular music and just write "Christian" lyrics. We were fooling ourselves. If there is any such thing as "Christian music," it needs to be defined. Shouldn't that definition have something to do with truth? People beyond the wall have been singing about the truth. Shouldn't it have something to do with honesty? The blues, country music, and rock-and-roll are full of honest expressions. Shouldn't it have something to do with beauty? The music within the walls of the "contemporary Christian music" region was pleasant at times, but usually simplistic, sentimental, and derivative, whereas there was new ground being broken, new heights being climbed beyond those walls.
What we didn't know was that there were Christian artists beyond the walls, keeping a low profile but doing the hard work of telling the truth, asking questions, and building beautiful things, letting their light shine before the world.
And then a handful of artists—most notably Amy Grant, but most passionately Sam Phillips, U2, Bruce Cockburn, and The Call—slipped through a back gate and began reinventing themselves in the spotlight of popular culture. They didn't just sing praise songs or blatant advertisements for Jesus. They sang about every aspect of life, claiming them as sacred, calling out the hypocrites, ministering to the broken, confessing sins, celebrating freedom, and leaving signposts along the way that pointed to the source of all good things.
This year, I see no more reason to make the distinction between "Christian music" and "secular music." Some music is clearly and deliberately crafted for purposes of worship and spiritual reflection, but it can come from anyone. Some music achieves these ends inadvertently, or even in spite of itself... and it can come from anybody. Other music is self-indulgent, simplistic, superficial, and dehumanizing... and it can come from anybody. Many of this year's most impressive releases came from Christians who compose music so beautiful that the whole world seems drawn to it. And some of what strikes me as this year's most profound musical revelations of God's glory come from artists who would loudly deny any religious inclinations.
Sure, there are still those who live in fear of what they perceive as "secular," and yet jealously plagiarizing "secular" styles and trying to "save" them with un-poetic, cheesy, elementary, propagandistic lyrics. But the wall is down now, and when compared to other artists easily identifiable in the mainstream arena, they're shown up for the mediocre and misleading "artists" that they are.
The wall is down.
There is no more reason for the Christian music industry to exist. Christians have discovered that they can cross that line and the water is fine. Sufjan Stevens is being celebrated in Rolling Stone. The wall is down. Sam Phillips's concerts are treated like secrets so special that you want to tear down the posters for the show so she remains accessible. U2? They're on the cover of TIME again, and continuing to change the world, where their non-religious counterparts (R.E.M., Pearl Jam) are fading into history.
We live in the world I wanted to live in a decade ago, where Nick Cave, Over the Rhine, Pedro the Lion, The Innocence Mission, and Buddy Miller demonstrate that Christians can be serious artists doing work that requires no qualification, and they can do so without keeping their faith on the hush-hush. The controversial "crossover" is no longer necessary.
It's done.
1.
Sam Phillips.....A Boot and a Shoe
This year, there were three albums so great I had to listen to them every week from the day I purchased them. I felt compelled to study them, take them apart, and put them together again. The lyrics felt as though they were written directly to me, addressing both my personal troubles and the troubles dominating the headlines. The music was unpredictable, surprising, and intense, sometimes as quiet as whispers, other times as furious as storms.
But when it came down to this ridiculous pursuit of listing... I had to choose the one that won not just my head but my heart as well.
A Boot and a Shoe joins 1986's The Turning and 1996's Martinis and Bikinis as one of Phillips's true masterworks. It's more raw, personal, stripped-down, and soul-searching than anything she's recorded since The Turning, plumbing the depths of the heartbreak she endured during the long slow separation from longtime husband T-Bone Burnett ... who remains, amazingly enough, her producer, even for this album.
Musically minimalistic and yet melodically gorgeous, A Boot and a Shoe marks another "turning" for Phillips ... a turning from an era of collaboration to a new future where she looks likely to become more confident, more courageous, less cocky (and that's a good thing), and more independent. Her lyrics have never been more poetic, her humor never sharper, and her voice has lost that blunt, sarcastic edge to reveal a new vulnerability and openness.
In a year of conflict, Phillips is a still small voice of contemplation, confession, and hope.
Essential tracks:
Reflecting Light
If I Could Write
One Day Late
All Night
2,3.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.....Abattoir Blues
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds....The Lyre of Orpheus
If this was classified as a double-album, I would probably have chosen it as my #1 of the year. But Cave insists these are two separate records, and I can't say that either one of them, standing alone, is as strong for me as Sam Phillips's album. Moreover, they don't speak to my heart and my personal experience the way A Boot and a Shoe does.
But as far as a landmark accomplishment, these records stand as the most impressive artistic advance all year. They're both masterpieces, the two towering peaks of his career, and that's quite a surprise, coming as late in his repertoire as they do.
Where Shoe feels like a heartfelt letter, Cave's work has the complexity and scope of a great poem by William Blake. Abattoir Blues and The Lyre of Orpheus are two terrible twins, works of frightening and awe-inspiring gospel-rock music that faces the wickedness of humanity without flinching, and clings to the thread of hope that "the mystery of the Word" will prove true, and God will deliver on His promises. Nature becomes the vehicle of His voice, whispering of beauty and design in a world where we are spreading chaos as fast as we can.
Essential tracks:
There She Goes, My Beautiful World
Supernatural
Nature Boy
Let the Bells Ring
3.
The Arcade Fire.....Funeral
4.
U2.....How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Don't be surprised if you hear these playing on Classic Rock stations even though the songs are brand new. Atomic Bomb is packed with irresistible pop songs disguised as ferocious, macho, swaggering rock and roll anthems.
While it's not nearly as exciting as U2's 1990s forays into new territory--a courageous and experimental period that alienated fans who wanted U2 to be predictable and redundant--this album seems calculated to lure back the fans that have bailed over the last decade. It sounds like Edge is saying, "No, please, don't go, we can still turn out those great guitar-driven hits like we did with Achtung Baby and The Joshua Tree!"
And yet, while they may be resting on their laurels, and they may not be breaking any new ground here, this is still fantastic rock and roll, with several tracks that can stand alongside the best of Achtung Baby. Furthermore, these songs wrestle with God more than any collection they've ever released. And Bono seems to be getting younger, his voice getting stronger. Where All That You Can't Leave Behind felt half-finished, filling in the corners with B-sides, Atomic Bomb is an album of solid, radio-ready, "instant classics" with only a couple of stumbles along the way. It may be predictable. It may be old-fashioned. But it's still better than almost anything on rock-n-roll radio this year.
And sized up against the latest album from rock's other Superband of the 80s and 90s—R.E.M.'s Around the Sun—there's just no contest. Where R.E.M. sounds like they've given up and checked into an assisted-living facility, their creativity on life support, U2 sounds ready to storm the stage for another decade of astonishing live shows.
Essential tracks:
A Man and a Woman
Vertigo
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
Crumbs from Your Table
All Because of You
Equal in power as a rock album, and superior to U2's Dismantle as a work of art (if not quite as wide-ranging in style), Arcade Fire's Funeral is a gorgeous, complex work of deep sadness woven through with threads of furious hope. This is the most astonishing debut by a rock band in ages, echoing the better qualities of bands like The Cure, Talking Heads, Modest Mouse, and Radiohead. And their lyrics are pure poetry. Just when the world needed to know that we haven't seen the last of the Great Rock Bands, Arcade Fire comes to show us that we don't have to settle for Coldplay.
Essential tracks:
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Wake Up
6.
Patty Griffin.....Impossible Dream
Patty Griffin reaches a career peak with this collection of songs that ache with the wounds of love gone wrong. It's on the level of Emmylou Harris's finest work, and thus it makes complete sense that Harris, Lisa Germano, Buddy Miller, and Julie Miller are able to participate on the album without ever threatening to upstage this star in her shining hour. This is clearly one of 2004's greatest musical highlights ... but proceed with caution, because it's also the heaviest dose of heartbreak you're likely to hear in any year.
Essential tracks:
Top of the World
Useless Desires
Kite Song
Mother of God
7.
Ron Sexsmith.....Retriever
From my previous review: "Each track on Retriever is a minor masterpiece of pop that bursts like a camera flash and leaves little glowing spots all over your brain. The songs are short enough never to wear out their welcome, deceptively simple at first and then packed with unexpected key changes and delightful turns of phrase, poised between sentimental diary entries and poetry. Sexsmith sings them with the same effortless grace that he’s known for, each plaintive performance as clear and tart as a good glass of gewürztraminer. He sings without ego, sounding sincere and humble and reflective, the kind of talent that usually slips by unnoticed because it lacks anything indulgent. His greatest strength is melody, putting him in good company with Rufus Wainwright, Ed Harcourt (who plays piano on the album), Chris Martin of Coldplay, and, his ballads can stand alongside any of Elvis Costello’s."
Essential tracks:
Whatever It Takes
Hard Bargain
Dandelion Wine
From Now On
8.
Buddy Miller.....Universal United House of Prayer
Buddy’s closest thing to a rock and roll record is still laced with southern-fried Nashville twang. Backed up by the fiery gospel soul of Ann and Regina McCrary, with the help of his wife Julie, Emmylou Harris, and Jim Lauderdale, he delivers an energy and war-year passion that’ll burn down any house he plays in. It’s also an unapologetic gospel album that will break your heart and then put it back together again. Opening with Mark Heard’s anthem “Worry Too Much,” soaring with the soul-shaking “Shelter Me,” climbing higher with a superlative 9-minute delivery of Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side,” and concluding with the grin inducing gospel fireworks of “Fall on the Rock” (try not to chuckle at the audacity of the refrain), this is Buddy’s strongest album yet.
Essential tracks:
Shelter Me
With God On Our Side
Don't Wait
Worry Too Much
9.
Over the Rhine.....Changes Come
On Changes Come, Over the Rhine sounds like a band playing their last concert, pouring every last ounce of energy and passion into making these songs as brilliant as they can be. The result is a performance so intense, soulful, soaring, and astonishing that it will make everyone hope this is actually not the end, but the beginning.
In the summer of 2003, I saw Over the Rhine at Cornerstone take the stage in the company of multi-instrumentalist Paul Moak, bass player Rick Plant, and drummer Will Sayles. I've seen Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist several times with different Over the Rhine combos, but what happened there felt like defying gravity. They became something new, ferocious, and beautiful on that Fourth of July, while the fireworks exploded outside the tent. This recording, thank goodness, captures the energy of that performance at an unlisted stop along the tour soon after.
The set list for the album is, of course, shorter than the real show, but their selections are perfect. Highlights: Well, where do I start? The whole album is a highlight. This has immediately become, for me, the essential Over the Rhine album. It's the one in which Karin's voice reaches new heights, and the band pushes the songs into spacious new territory. It's the peak of the band's career as a live band, and we can only hope it's a sign of things to come.
Essential tracks:
Changes Come
The World Can Wait
She
When I Go
10, 11.
Wilco.....A Ghost is Born
Tom Waits.....Real Gone
Both of these albums show artists courageously breaking new ground, concerned about vision and passion when, with their popularity, they could have just thrown out something derivative and earned applause.
A Ghost is Born is a sorely misunderstood release, one that rewards only those listeners patient enough to wrestle with it. Wilco turns in another unpredictable, courageous album of personal revelations, cryptic language, Scripture references, and beautiful poetry. Full of noise, distortion, and feedback, it occasionally congeals into piercing beauty that makes all of the hard work worthwhile.
Essential tracks:
Muzzle of Bees
Spiders
Hummingbird
Handshake Drugs
Tom Waits' latest is not one of his greatest, but it's certainly one of the most original and memorable. It's a fierce nightmare at the end of the world, with wreckage that's been hammered into instruments for a cacophonous, arresting, and sometimes hilarious sound. If you thought Bone Machine was edgy, wait'll you hear this.
Essential tracks:
Hoist that Rag
Sins of the Father
Dead and Lovely
Stop and Get Me on the Ride Up
12.
Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama....There Will Be a Light
Need to have your spirits lifted? Here’s the trick. This recording of Ben Harper crooning and soloing in the company of the brilliant Blind Boys is casual but frequently inspired. You know how Bono talks about those moments in the studio when “God walked through the room”? This is one of those sessions when God walked in and stuck around. Harper’s humble enough to give the Boys plenty of room to work their magic, and his restrained use of simmering lap steel guitar give it a rock and roll edge, especially during the smokin’ anthem “Wicked Man." There’s not much to the record in the way of production or special effects—the guys pretty much walk in, sit down, and sing their hearts out. You’ll be moved, delighted, and satisfied after spending some time with them. This one’s unlikely to leave my “heavy rotation” list anytime in the near future.
Essential tracks:
The Wicked
Well Well Well
Take My Hand
13.
Sufjan Stevens.....Seven Swans
14.
Iron and Wine.....Our Endless Numbered Days
Mysterious. Spooky. The distillation of prayers and stories into psalms. There's a glow of revelation here, something glimmering in the poetry that will bring you back for more. One of these, though, is much darker than the other.
BIGGEST LETDOWNS:
People You Meet
No sooner had I discovered a great new band, fallen in love with their first album, and been thrilled by several live shows, then they had to go and break up! Okay, okay, I know they broke up for good reasons. And that it was much harder for them than it was for me. But I sure hope they find new vehicles for their talents in the near future. They were a blast while they lasted. Mr. Partain ... keep writing songs.
R.E.M......Around the Sun
I've never been so deeply disappointed by a favorite group. R.E.M. sound as if they've lost vision, discernment, and creativity on this record, and I come away depressed, discouraged, bored, and even angry that they would be content to release something so half-baked. I'm not giving up on them because of one bad album, but I seriously hope they learn from their mistakes and pull it together. Or quit.
Merry Christmas!
My life would be empty without Christ, who has shown me what little of love and beauty I have seen, who has spoken to me what little of truth I have heard, who has forgiven what foolish things I have done, and who occasionally finds that he can do something, here and there, with my feeble capabilities.
I'm taking the next three days off, giving my computer a rest and focusing on my wife and family, giving back to them a small fraction of what they've given me. As a wise songwriter once sang, "The world can wait."Read more
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
[This review was originally published at Christianity Today.]
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For the second time this year, American audiences are being treated to a martial arts epic by the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou. But where Hero was a perfect title for a movie about a courageous warrior's quest for vengeance, the title of the new film, House of Flying Daggers, is misleading. In Japan, it is more appropriately titled The Lovers. Daggers is a more colorful choice, but The Lovers correctly identifies the focus of the film.
Set during the Tang dynasty, 859 A.D, Daggers follows the rapidly accelerating romance between Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a police deputy in service of the emperor, and Mei (Hero's Zhang Ziyi), a woman who belongs to an undercover resistance effort called House of Flying Daggers, a group of powerful warriors who, like the famous "Merry Men," steal from the rich and give to the poor.
Jin first encounters Mei while investigating rumors that a brothel called Peony Pavilion is harboring a Flying Daggers agent. Enthusiastic about his assignment, he poses as a customer and teases the beautiful courtesans until they introduce him to "the new girl." He's astonished by Mei's beauty, but even more so by the fact that she is blind.
Overcome with lust, Jin nearly rapes Mei right there in full view of everyone, and he has to be apprehended by his superior officer, Leo (Andy Lau), who proceeds to test Mei himself. What follows is one of several applause-worthy sequences—a dance challenge called "the Echo Game" that might as well be titled "Dance of the Very Long Sleeves." Mei may be blind, but her hearing, her intuition, and her dancing are almost superhuman.
But her beauty may be her strongest weapon. It inspires a rescue that enables her to flee into the wilderness with an unlikely companion—Jin. Infatuated, Jin declares that he's abandoning his post in order to join the Flying Daggers. Forget about his police duties—Jin calls himself "the Wind" because he likes to live free of any binding commitments. Hoping to shape him into a more suitable suitor, Mei quips, "I want the wind to stop and think."
Mei's gravity-defying talents are not limited to dancing. Her pursuers quickly learn that they're no match for the blind warrior. But as Jin and Mei fight their way out of close calls, we're led to wonder if she's being deceived. Is Jin being honest about his love? Or is he a liar and an opportunist?
Daggers' battle scenes, like Hero's, are beautifully choreographed—they almost qualify as dances—and exquisitely filmed by Zhao Xiaoding. The Peony Pavilion is as ornate as a palace, the opulence distracting us from the action in the foreground. Later, the flirtatious fugitives are surrounded by sword-bearing soldiers in a field full of yellow flowers. At times, there's a comic book quality to the combat: daggers and arrows move as smartly as heat-seeking missiles. A conflict in a forest concludes with the most thrilling exhibition of archery since Legolas pincushioned the orcs in The Fellowship of the Ring. The most awe-inspiring sequence takes place in a patch of sky-high bamboo—the camera gazes up at a shadowy army leaping through the branches of a green ceiling, the soldiers hurling sharpened bamboo spears which whistle like flutes as they descend toward their targets. The climactic battle takes place in snow that wipes detail from the screen, so that a single drop of red blood, echoing the single drop of red ink that opens the film, is shocking.
The awe-inspiring visual experience of House of Flying Daggers is almost a match for its predecessor. Hero looked as though it would stand as the pinnacle of the wuxia genre for years to come. But here, the director has risen to challenge his own standard-setting work. Viewers will argue over which film is superior.
They differ in many ways. Shigeru Umebayashi's Daggers score is more beautiful and melodramatic than Tan Dun's Hero soundtrack. Whereas Hero's special effects were seamless, Daggers' digital animation is obvious and at times distracting. This is a tale told in close-ups; Hero tended toward vast panoramic scenes. Hero's dialogue was heavy and solemn, but this script, co-written with Yimou by Li Feng and Wang Bin, boasts some witty banter between "the lovers," who tease and test each other with lines as sharp as their weapons.
But they have many similar elements as well—melodrama, lust, betrayal, swords, arrows, and beautiful environments that change their colors in synchronicity with the changing emotions and experiences of the characters. Like Hero, Daggers would be an overwhelming experience even without its characters and plot; the backdrops are enough to convince audiences to plan their next vacation in China.
The cast, just as impressive as Hero's, develops memorable chemistry. Zhang Ziyi delivers her greatest performance. While she still lacks the nuance and complexity of the director's most famous leading lady, Gong Li (To Live, Raise the Red Lantern), audiences will be spellbound by her beauty and the way she confidently shifts between acrobatic combat and delicate love scenes. She steams up the screen with Takeshi Kaneshiro on more than one occasion without any nudity or unnecessarily explicit behavior. She's secretive and mysterious, starkly contrasting her pursuer's playfulness and reckless emotion. Andy Lau makes Jin's superior officer a memorably dour and determined character, authoritative at the beginning and unhinged at the end.
The narrative, like Hero's, leads us to confounding surprises. (If you want to be surprised, avoid other reviews!) The first and best surprise occurs two-thirds of the way through the film. For a moment, the story has an opportunity to become a triumph of true love over the glorified infatuation that passes for love in its earlier chapters.
But Zhang Yimou has something more complex in mind. This is not a simple morality play, but rather a film that ends with questions about the warring inclinations of the human heart. Is the impetuous love of youth, which breaks rules, seizes the day, and indulges in life's pleasures, stronger and more valuable than the steadfast love of maturity, which favors trust, duty, responsibility, and fidelity?
Alas, this conflict between two sides—hormones without integrity, and commitment without compassion—seems irreconcilable. Women are portrayed as fickle and manipulative; men are proud and possessive. While Hero troubled American audiences by its seeming-glorification of Chinese Imperialism, Daggers will make viewers squirm with repeated scenes in which Mei is the victim of severe sexual advances. There's more emphasis on the sex drive than the drive for a communion of minds and hearts. The story offers us no example to suggest that love can be both spirited and faithful, enraptured and disciplined. By the end of the film, we no longer know where to place our sympathies.
Nevertheless, discerning viewers are likely to more reason to praise Zhang Yimou than to punish him. As in Hero and 2004's other beautiful-but-flawed epic, A Very Long Engagement, the achievement of visual splendor will outweigh the narrative's missteps. Storytelling is just one aspect of what cinema has to offer. Beauty is a powerful gift as well, and Zhang Yimou's exhilarating imagination is reason enough for most moviegoers to get in line for House of Flying Daggers. His narrative may never apprehend what true love is all about, but those who discuss these characters and their motivations may learn a thing or two from observing what true love is not.
What friends are saying about Lemony Snicket...
My good friends and ever-so-dependable colleagues in film-dissection have beaten me to the punch on Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. In fact, I haven't even seen the film yet. But they have.Read more