Let's Go Out To The Movies: The Book of Life (PG - 20th Century Fox/ Reel FX - 1hr, 35 mins)

Alo Party Peoples.

Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez
Written by Jorge R. Gutierrez and
Douglas Landale

Today's subject was apparently being passed around to various studios since at least 2007. It was turned down multiple times for one of two reasons. Either the studio wanted to mess with Jorge R. Gutierrez's artistic vision, or they objected to so many characters being Mexican, and The Book of Life is, at least in an aesthetic sense, distinctly south of the Rio Grande. In fact, that it got released at all speaks to the idea that the Hispanic movie going audience is now large enough to aim a production specifically at them.

Our story is the tale of three children in San Angel, the "town at the center of Mexico". The soft hearted Manolo, who comes from a family of bull fighters but has always wished to be a musician, the courageous and arrogant Jouaquin, the son of a late general who died defending the town from bandits, and the rambunctious Maria, the shared object of their affection.

Their little love triangle draws the attention of this world's two rulers of the afterlife. The saintly La Muerte, who rules over the neon infused, Day of the Dead celebration inspired Land of the Remembered, and the devious Xibalba, who rules over the limbo-land of lost souls that is the Land of the Forgotten. The two ended up with their domains in a bet, and Xibalba has grown discontent with his dreary lot in life. So he proposes another bet over which of the boys will marry Maria, the winner gets the other's domain forever. La Muerte chooses Manolo, Xibalba chooses Jouaquin, and the latter cheats by giving his chosen pawn an enchanted medal that protects him from physical harm.

Cut to years later, when Manolo has followed in his father's footsteps and become a bullfighter, Jouaquin has used his invincibility to become the hero of the town guard. Maria has just come back from studying in Spain, and their love triangle sparks back to life. The boys spend the day fighting each other over Maria's affections, and by the end of the day Manolo seems to have won out, but Maria is bitten by a snake and lies seemingly dead. That's when Xibalba approaches him with a proposition, he can reunite the two. He accepts, and is bitten by the snake twice and dies for real. After this, Manolo discovers that Maria was just in a coma, and Jouaquin's medal has brought her out of it, where she finds that if she doesn't marry Jouaquin, he will leave San Angel, leaving it at the mercy of the bandit king Chakal. Now Manolo must go on a quest to find La Muerte in the land of the forgotten so he can return to the world of the living and save the town.

That's a lot of backstory to get out, and the solution Gutierrez finds is to structure the film in the same style as The Princess Bride, in the sense that the story is being told by a museum tour guide to a bunch of grade school students, where she can act as an omniscient narrator explaining the film's cosmology.

This particular aesthetic isn't for everyone, but it looks gorgeous. The character models resemble wooden puppets, and intentionally so unlike some other productions. The production studio attached, Reel FX, is based in Dallas, and this is their second big animated production. Occasionally it's budget of only 50 million shows through, but most people won't catch the few hiccups present, because they will be distracted by the stylized, distinctly detailed woodcarving appearance of the characters and the world they inhabit.

Unfortunately, the script had nowhere near the same amount of attention to detail put toward it. It comes off as entirely conventional, if you've seen one children's fantasy adventure before, you will be able to guess the story beats more or less consistently throughout. Then again, this wasn't made for critics, it was made for children, and this will certainly keep them entertained.

The Book of Life is a beautiful looking, slightly above average children's movie, that forgoes substance for style and is only worth seeing in theaters for animation buffs and parents who want their kids to have a good time that night.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

Let's Talk About Movies: Life of Brian and The Gospel

Alo Party Peoples.

I just watched Monty Python's Life of Brian, a movie about the titular man being mistaken for a godsend. It is also set in Judea during the time of Christ. Just depicting the story of Christ in the context of a comedy would be enough to outrage, and thirty-nine local authorities in the UK did in fact ban the film, but it goes further than that. The actual Jesus shows up near the end, as a pedestrian witnessing criminals being marched off to be crucified. He offers to take the burden of one of the prisoners, who immediately flees the scene, the Roman officers assume him to be one of the prisoners, and take him off to be crucified. Jesus then says "I didn't realize I had to go through all of it." and tries to flee from his fate. They are implying that Christ was just some common do-good-er that got in way over his head.

It isn't just that, at no point is the presence of God ever explicitly depicted. That might be bad enough for some people, but consider this. There is a homeless beggar that claims to have been cured of leprosy by Jesus, but the audience never sees that happen and thus cannot know whether he is telling the truth. If he is telling the truth, then the filmmakers are implying that Jesus ruined someone's livelihood by ridding them of a disease that people took pity on him for and thus gave him money, and he's also an ungrateful jerk that took advantage of Christ's divine charity and had the gall to complain about it afterwards. If he isn't telling the truth, then he's committing blasphemy and, albeit failing, taking advantage of people's sincerely held religious beliefs for his financial gain. He took his blessings, and thought they weren't good enough.

During the Sermon on the Mount, the words "blessed are the peacemakers" are misheard by people in the back as "blessed are the cheese makers", the characters then go on to debate whether that was meant literally, or as a blanket term for all dairy workers, or as something else entirely. On its face, that might be relatively harmless, but ponder this.

My father discussed this film and what its subject at length just before I started writing this, and he interprets "peacemaker" as someone that helps people find a common ground, but others might define peace as stability. Thus those that bring and maintain stability are blessed, and the Roman Empire is often seen as having brought safe travel and commerce to all of the Mediterranean world, thus they would be blessed. Add to that, that the Romans at this time saw ideas like those preached by Jesus, and the local religious establishment for that matter, with their assertion that worldly authority is less important than salvation, as a dangerous threat to stability in Judea. Thus, under that interpretation of "peacemaker", the Romans are blessed and Jesus is damned. While discussing initial drafts with my father, he said I was missing the point, and that the characters were also missing the point of "peacemakers

The thing is, as my father put it, the movie isn't making fun of Christianity itself, it's making fun of the insane things that people have done in the name of Christianity, or misinterpreting good ideas for their own ends. As an example, partway through the film, Brian has attracted quite the following of people who think he is the Messiah, he doesn't want this position, and is literally shunning it by fleeing from them. While running he inadvertently drops a gourd and a shoe. One of his followers picks up the gourd and proclaims it to be a sign. Then another one finds the shoe and thinks that's a sign as well, and thus they think that everyone should take off a shoe for their Messiah. If they were depicting the sale of indulgences or 16th century witch trials, you could argue that they are mocking faith, but they made the decision to stay away from actual events, and stick to stuff they made up.

Was the arguable blasphemy intentional, it probably was. The Python troupe did share a distrust of organized religion, and they clearly thought the material is fit for comedy, in the same way that they thought Arthurian lore was worth making fun of in Holy Grail. But, during early brainstorming sessions for the Life of Brian, they found that they didn't object to any of Christ's teachings, and couldn't find anything to mock about them. That's probably why the focus isn't on Christ himself, and is instead on someone mistaken for Christ that isn't preaching. The persons actually being made fun of are those that take the ideas at the heart of a religion, and use them for their own ends, like the Preachers of the Gourd and the Shoe, or the Catholic Church selling indulgences , or the courts in Salem hanging radicals under the pretense of punishing witchcraft i.e. organizers of religion.

Of course, Life of Brian isn't the only film to criticize faith, or this particular one. Would it surprise you to find that some people think Pleasantville advocates sin? I've already talked about Pleasantville at length, and this is already a long post, so if you've never heard of that movie, read this. Anyways, that movie is commonly interpreted as an allegory for the Garden of Eden, and the man behind that film definitely drew on imagery from Genesis when making it. However, again while discussing this with my father, he argued that the town of Pleasantville wasn't really Eden because it is clearly not paradise. The conformity of the town is not portrayed as a good thing, and it's even shown as soul crushing and, after a while, something akin to torture.

Now I turn things over to my father. Who, when asked if he would write a response to this, wanted to know if that could be an addition to this article. I told him yes. After the end of this paragraph, everything you read will have been written by him. I think he's a smart guy, and we often discuss the subjects of this blog before and after I write about them. Without further ado...

Hey y'all ... wow, what an opportunity. Us parentals often look at our kids and wonder about how things would have been different if we had known what we know now at their age, and desperately desire to communicate our hard earned understanding so they can benefit without paying the price that we did. While watching Life of Brian with my kids was both an opportunity and a risk, I'm betting it will be a bridge for communication and growth well worth the risk.

As Greg mentioned, Life of Brian was widely banned by the religious institutions it satirizes. Monty Python's gig in all things is exaggerating the absurd and ridiculous, and the fact is Christian history and religious institutions (as opposed to personal faith in Christ) has given them way too much material to work with. When my friends and I saw Life of Brian as teenagers it summed up so much of what bothered us in the religiosity we saw around us. Classmates in Church rejecting alcohol/drugs/promiscuity on Sunday but drunk/high/sex-ing on Friday. Out of context scripture and better-than-you hypocrisy fully worthy of parody, ridicule, and rejection. What we saw was real,but there is more to the story.

"Blessed are the cheese makers" mishears, misinterprets, and misapplies the message, and that's the point. While some mishear, misinterpret, and misapply Christ for their own benefit, "blessed are the peacemakers" calls those who follow Christ to be peace makers. The crowd following after the Messiah's gourd or the Messiah's shoe or following after some "thing" are not following after the Messiah, and that's the point. Following after a cross or a church or a preacher is not the same as following after Christ, and following after Christ is life.

By processing through Life of Brian together I hoped to help my kids understand and see through a whole lot of crap and come closer to saving faith in Christ.

(BTW and FWIW, while Life of Brian hardly mentions God or Jesus directly, in one scene it does misrepresent Jesus as an oblivious do-gooder looking to briefly shoulder the burden of a crucifyee  but not really willing to pay the ultimate price. As always, this was a teachable moment Romans 8:28.)

..... and I'm back. As you might have guessed, my father is a confident follower of Christ. This has caused much discussion between us over the years because, as you might have guessed, I am not a very religious person. Unlike those following the Preachers of the Shoe and Gourd, my father did not just go into Christianity blind. He spent decades contemplating the issue, and only when he experienced something that went beyond reason or logic, did he commit. In his words, "knock [on God's door] and the door will open", that if you look for it, revelation will come to you.

Have a nice day.

Greg and Vince B.

Let's Go Out To The Movies: The Judge (R - Warner Bros. - 2 hrs, 21mins)

Directed by David Dobkin
Written by Nick Schenk, David Dobkin,
and Bill Dubuque

Alo Party Peoples.

We made it. It was a long, slow, tedious September, but we've finally reached prestige season. The kids are back in school, the leaves are falling, the weather is getting colder, and theaters are now being graced with serious contemporary dramas, lower scale genre material, some family movies on lucrative holiday weekends, and in general productions hoping to snag an Academy Award.

The Judge is a courtroom drama Robert Downey Jr as one Hank Palmer, a big city defense attorney known for getting guilty clients off the hook. One day, during a trial, he receives a phone call informing him that his mother has died, and heads to the funeral in a small town in the Indiana backcountry, one that he describes as a "Bible Belt backwater". There he sees his father, the judge of the title, and discovers that he isn't well thought of there. After a ruling, his father is implicated in a murder trial when a man he sentenced some years ago is found dead in a ditch. Hank decides, out of the goodness of his heart, to help him by defending him in court.

The cast is damn good. Downey is damn good in this, presenting a man that has definitely drifted from his roots, and a good chunk of the drama comes from just how much he's changed and how much the town hasn't. Robert Duvall as the judge of the title is good, Vera Farigma as his old flame is good, I just wish there was a script there that was worthy of the caliber of the performances.

Not that I think The Judge is a bad movie, it's not. It's well shot, really well acted, there aren't any plot holes to discuss, but it's entirely relying on pathos and there isn't much in the way of a message it wishes to impart, or themes to explore, it's like air, I guess. I don't know why, but stuff like this tends to be difficult for me to talk about.

The Judge isn't a movie that will change anyone's life, but it's a damn good one, and when it ends up being circulated on cable, it will make fine Saturday afternoon background noise.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

Let's Talk About Theatre: Vunderland (PG-13 - RHS Theatre - Variable Length)

Alo Party Peoples.

Directed by Erik Archilla
Written by Cleft McClelland

As some of you may know, I'm currently attending school. What you didn't know is that I am part of the theatre department, which is currently putting on their Fall production, Vunderland. I am also required to see at least one live theatre performance a year, so I figured I'd get an article out of it.

Vunderland starts out as a straight adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, but it soon becomes something both different and unique, starting by moving the stories' time period from the mid-19th Century to the middle of the 1930s'. When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, the story starts to diverge from the form it usually takes. She sees that the boundaries of Wonderland have started to break down, and thus begins encountering characters from other works of classic literature. She encounters the pirate Long John Silver in search of a treasure, a bunch of animal men created by a doctor who's name begins with an 'M', and falls in love with a Stranger that, while I'm sure his identity was supposed to be a big reveal, those familiar with his source material will figure it out almost immediately.

Once they get to the Queen of Hearts' garden, things get explicit. The Queen fears the changes that have been occurring in Wonderland as the borders between worlds burn away, so she starts taking on the attributes and policies of the reason the borders have been burning. Namely, the Nazis during the buildup to World War 2.

The assembled cast is terrific, especially for a bunch of high school students. One Molly Harrison as Alice puts on a fine accent, one Zeara Seaman as a Cheshire Cat who is now a veteran of the Great War sells the madness of both the character and the Great War, one Killian Ellis as the Stranger's intentionally monotone speech is entertaining, but the standout is unarguably Chloe Clark-Soles as the Queen of Hearts. She has a compelling, dominating onstage presence, and as a four year member of the Theatre department, I can see this kid going places in ten or fifteen years. Either in more theatre, or perhaps one of those moving picture shows that this site normally focuses on.

I can praise the performances as much as I like, but ultimately that won't matter to potential viewers. By its very nature, a stage play, whether because of different actors, aesthetic choices, or just technical goofs, will be different every time it is performed. The only constant between any two productions will be what's in the script, and Vunderland has an excellent one. A script about the power and longevity of ideas, and how the times when they are challenged are often when they become the most powerful.

Vunderland is a fantastic production with good performers, and a thoughtful script, that most of you won't have the chance to see. Since this is a small, local thing, it's very unlikely that people outside of the Dallas, TX area will ever be able to experience it, and fifteen years ago wouldn't even be able to know about. It might thus seem odd for me to bring it up here, but I think that if I do, it slightly raises the potential that the school board might do something with the script after it's initial run.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B