The Acting

This was a pure gem for Robert Downey Jr. as he masterfully filled the shoes of our metallic hero. With all the problems Downey has had in the past it’s easy to approach his performance skeptically… until the movie starts. The ease and comfort with which he fell into the role of Tony Stark (Iron Man) is nearly dizzying, as was his command of the camera and fellow actors.

Stark is a complex character who’s unbridled and energetic approach to women and engineering (a winning combination tantamount to chocolate and peanut butter) would leave both the geekiest slacker-geniuses and the smoothest lady-killers equally schooled. Downey fit the part like a glove.

Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow also rise to the acting occasion to round out the cast of conflicted characters. Bridges was excellent and sold the corporate suited Obadiah Stane. Paltrow, looking better than ever, deftly portrayed a demure yet savvy “Pepper” Potts (Stark’s assistant) including near-perpetual nonchalance at Stark’s antics.

The Physics

Being an engineer I always have a hard spot for bad science (especially physics) in movies. By “bad” I don’t mean things like light sabers or warp drive… I mean science that violates known and common laws of physics.

Now, it’s believable that some super-armor can absorb severe impacts by missiles and bullets… but if you’re inside the suit you still will feel the full forces from your sudden changes in velocity. In Iron Man there are times when Stark’s body undergoes accelerations and decelerations that would near-liquefy his brain, yet he easily survives.

At other times Stark lands (on his feet) onto both hard and soft surfaces from incredible speeds and without leaving much of an imprint… yet in one part of the movie just gently setting down his suit feet-first onto a concrete structure caused it to collapse - under his weight, I guess - and then collapse through an additional floor of the house down into the basement.

The Undertone

My biggest gripe, being a former soldier and perpetual patriot, is the goofy take on national defense and military weaponry that the story partially took. Stark is the mastermind behind his father’s business, the powerful weapons development and manufacturing company Stark Industries. After Stark’s ordeal at the beginning of the movie he starts to rethink the morality of creating weaponry after seeing his weapons used by the bad guys to hurt innocent people.

Hollywood frequently interjects leftism into its movies, and I’ve become numb to their depiction of the US military as a shoot-first outfit. Iron Man was a little better at not doing this. But the annoying thing is that the inevitable conclusion to Stark’s moral crisis would have to have been: making good weapons for ourselves leads to bad people using them for evil so I should stop making good weapons for ourselves. As if our enemies would no longer have any weapons? As if the mere existence of the weapons coerces people to do evil things?

Now, I work for Lockheed Martin (but don’t speak for them in any way construed or misconstrued) and our fighter jets (or any of our weapon systems) don’t find their way into terrorists hands regardless of what Hollywood says. America’s defense technology is kept under such tight export controls that it’s a wonder sometimes even our staunchest allies can get hold of it.

And speaking of… did anybody besides me notice that Stark Industries was a completely un-subtle spoof of Lockheed Martin Corporation, the United States’ biggest defense contractor? Not only does the Stark Industries logo (complete with bold-italic capitals and elongated angle-point) look strikingly like Lockheed Martin’s, but they even make the same F-22 Raptor fighter jets!? [see photo]

The Movie

Despite my bellyaching I highly recommend this flick for any lover of action and acting. I thoroughly enjoyed it and anticipate a sequel, because what’s a comic book story without lots of sequels?

SUPER-QUICK SUMMARY

The Golden Compass (the movie) is a great story captured in a well-made cinematic fantasy-scape that I enjoyed, and I found it fairly benign for kids despite the emails warning of impending doom. The book series that the movie comes from, however, is not as innocent. Although aimed at kids, it’s not nearly as kid-appropriate as the movie, and decreases so from book to book (as does the quality of the storytelling).

THE MOVIE

I thought the movie itself was well worth seeing. The special effects were impressive, although I have become numb to great CGI after the Lord of the Rings film trilogy’s mastery of the device. I also thought the casting was splendid - with a very demure and poised Nicole Kidman and a very wild western Sam Elliot (who is one of my faves). The little girl playing the lead character Lyra was Dakota Blue Richards, who in her first ever movie role managed to encapsulate the Lyra character almost identically to my perception of her from reading the book prior… impressive.

For everything negative about the books you may read in this post, keep in mind that I don’t apply that to the movie. The only caution would be if seeing the movie may lure your kids into reading the books… books you may find inappropriate.

THE CONTROVERSY

Now for the controversy - I have been sent emails that warn me to not give any “support” to this movie and to warn every parent I know to keep their children far away from this movie. That’s really quite overblown. The emails also warn that there are clearly anti-church, anti-Christian themes in the books. That’s quite TRUE.

Though, let me interject here that with the thousands of people involved in the business of movies (from making to marketing to merchandising) there does not exist a blockbuster movie whose ticket revenue doesn’t support someone evil somewhere… so if you don’t want to give “support” to anything evil join an Amish community.

Anyways, this controversy is SOMEWHAT similar to the clamor over the Harry Potter books… and although I haven’t read any Potter I have enjoyed the movies and thought them harmless fun. Despite the outcry that Harry Potter would swoon young children into a dangerous curiosity with witchcraft, the reality is that young children long for the flying broomsticks, scaled dragons, magic wands (that shoot lightning), and fairy creatures - these things are not only part of Harry Potter, but are largely found in The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. But REAL witchcraft is more like mixing a special hot tea to get that promotion you’re looking for, or drawing a circle in the dirt and standing in it to imagine the face of your soul-mate, and no kid is interested in such “mundane” witchcraft.

THE BOOKS

In PARTLY the same way as Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass is a children’s story rich in creatures, magic, compassion, oppression. HOWEVER, the book series (His Dark Materials) does go way beyond the generic “good versus evil” tale. There are clear counter-Biblical messages which the author does not deny.

Now the counter-Biblical messages in His Dark Materials can be compared to The Da Vinci Code, except that the latter was never meant for children, and adults would see it as readily filled with enough historical nonsense that there was no semblance of truth to be mistook (at least not by anyone intelligent). But kids are much more innocent and impressionable, and there are indeed - in His Dark Materials - specific counter-Biblical messages found directly in the storyline… it is very subtle in the first book, more open in the second, and blatantly obvious in the third. In fact, the third book’s dialog holds messages that would surely confuse impressionable young Christian children.

From what I’ve read online the author of His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman, is a self-assigned Atheist and decided to write His Dark Materials as a sort-of counter-Narnia story. Pullman would have done better to just write a solid epic children’s story, because although the first book is great, he starts to meander into an amalgam of preachy open-ended bunny trails that bear little resemblance to the exciting start of the tale. Indeed, the further you read the more convoluted (and counter-Biblical) the message gets - until the end of the third book when the reader is doused in a horrid yawn-fest of anti-climax.

If you are looking for an Atheist children’s story complete with homosexual fallen angels, pre-teen main characters who have sex with each other, and “God’s” military general of Heaven’s army getting horny for Nicole Kidman… then this is your book series.

Here is a great critique of the book series: His Dark Ending by James Schellenberg.

Here is an Amazon customer’s rant about the book series… it reads like something I would write.

Then I saw on Lifehacker (an absolute gem of a site) an article on a great little utility called TED (Torrent Episode Downloader). TED, when paired with your friendly BitTorrent client (I like uTorrent), will make watching episodes of today’s most popular shows nearly effortless (we’ll discuss the gray legalities in another post sometime).

Anyways… after getting TED I saw Battlestar Galactica listed and figured - what the heck. I was instantly enthralled… consumed. The plot is aggressive unlike any series I’ve seen. The actors are almost all unknowns and it injects the cast with a refreshing burst of creative believability - as seen in 300, whose cast of mostly unknowns is widely held to have bolstered the film’s success. The special effects are superb, but the acting is even better. The storylines are rarely contrived, and often wildly unpredictable - so much so that the Season 3 finale this past Spring ended with the most intense, cinematic, plot-electrifying 10 minutes of revelations and confrontations I can possibly imagine ever occurring in any movie, TV show, or theatrical presentation.

But alas… I wait for Season 4… but it won’t begin until… November.

Must… h o l d… o n . . .

The folks at Boca Java Gourmet Coffee & Tea have put together Blogger’s Fuel.com devoted to their blogging coffee fans and the fans’ favorite blends. Now, what I think really sets these guys apart is not just great coffee (at good prices even for the internet) but that they use people’s passion for coffee to channel passion towards rising up for various worthy causes (like fighting cancer and fighting evil). You can see how this thought pattern resonates well with bloggers as a whole.

The coffee… is great and fresh. My personal favorite? Definitely the “Bloggers Pajama Passion” which is kinda a gay name, but is flavored with hints of vanilla, caramel, and kahlua. MMmmmm…. It hits the spot with me, especially with a bit ‘o the creme. I’ve always been a fan of flavored coffees (unlike some of my more ‘purist’ associates) and this stuff does not disappoint. I suck it down and I feel great like the caffeinated epicurean I am! If you don’t like flavored they have an ample mix of regular blends from the richest coffee fields on this rock.

Now I am most impressed with their commitment to the troops. As a former officer myself I know the importance of having coffee out in the field… both for keeping me sane and keeping my troops going strong. They started an effort called Operation Million Cup whose goal it was to get coffee in the mugs of our troops. They let you buy a bag of coffee at production cost that they’ll send to the troops… and then they match your donation one for one with a bag of their own! Recently they just tipped a million cups donated, but they’re still going for as long as we have men and women out there busting their hump serving this country - so check it out: www.OperationMillionCup.com.

So what is it about this book? First of all… this is not a highfalutin and boring diatribe on Christian blah blah blah. In fact, nowhere are the words highfalutin or diatribe used. But the book is written very well, and with a straight-forward no-nonsense manner that breathes honesty… and is injected with a poignant wit that can only come from sincerity. In effect, Mark Driscoll writes perfectly.

“Reaching Out Without Selling Out” is the tagline for this tome of relevancy. And indeed, being relevant (and theologically sound) is what makes modern missions effective (see my previous post on relevance). If ever there was an instruction manual on how to be a Christ-follower carrying out the great commission right where you are… surely this is it! Most of our present approaches to reach the world fail… and we need a radical change in how we share the truth to reach our post-Christian culture. That radical change is what Driscoll calls “reformission”.

We are all on a mission with Jesus everyday, and we are either good missionaries or bad.

I could write for days on the topics expressed in this book, but you’d assassinate me or my wife would leave me, so I’ll be pithy. Driscoll makes clear that effective churches need to have the message of Jesus (the gospel), a true gathering of believers, and hearts in tune with the culture they reside in. Missing any of these three creates a ministry that lacks a vital component of who Christ told us to be. The balanced blending of all three of these, built on the foundation of the Bible, is what being a reformission Christian is all about.

What most churches and Christians seem to have the problem with is “culture”. Reaching the world actually means you have to go in the world… and if you think that’s intuitively obvious you haven’t been to many churches lately. Most church leaders will pay out mad duckets to send someone to an unpronounceable wasteland thousands of miles away to spend years learning and embracing the language and culture and music. Yet these same “leaders” won’t learn the music of their own culture a mere one mile away. You can’t make this stuff up. Driscoll calls the Christians that ignore their own culture “traditionalists”.

…Traditionalism fails to distinguish between Biblical principles for ministry and cultural methods for implementing those principles. Traditionalism clings to dated ineffective methods in the name of staying truer to tradition than to Scripture. The result of traditionalism is a Christianity that has all of the right answers to all of the wrong questions…

I remember a good friend who was the Principal of a school in Michigan. He would watch the show Dawson’s Creek religiously. As adult male to adult male I would toss him the obligatory hardship for devoting his time to such a teeny-bopper diversion. But you know what he told me? When asked why he watches it he responded in a tone similar to someone answering a trivia question they already knew the answer to… “All my students are watching it.” That really stuck with me… that short sentence spoke volumes.

Reformission Christians and churches exist to perpetuate the gospel and should be swift to change their cultural forms if they are not the most beneficial for achieving that goal. This is what Paul told the Corinthians about being all things to all people and using all means to see as many people as possible saved (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Reformission churches have to continually examine and adjust their musical styles, websites, aesthetics, acoustics, programming, and just about everything but their Bible in an effort to effectively communicate the gospel to as many people as possible in the cultures around them.

At the end of each chapter in the book Driscoll includes an interview with a reformission Christian. These people span the full spectrum for sure… Hollywood insider, secular radio host, former exotic dancer turned office administrator, secular band manager, television broadcaster, pub & brewery owner and operator… and my favorite, the tattoo and piercing studio owner, operator, and artist (who also owns his own tattoo magazine).

The tattoo guy’s remarks showed more insight than a dozen Christian Sociologists could journal together in a week, and packed more truthful punch than a 100mph Gideons King James taken in the belly. When asked about his ministry…

[I'm] revealing the truth of the gospel to everyone I come in contact with, primarily people between eighteen and thirty-five, and many who are very unlikely to set foot in a traditional church setting.

[...]

I feel I was put in this particular profession for the purpose of reaching this postmodern generation with the truth of the gospel in the arena of a desperate, lost, and angry culture. My goal every day is not to target and convert anyone but to look for opportunities when I might be able to show Christ’s love to people who have never once been shown what the real message of the gospel is. What they have been told, and what they’ve seen themselves, are the lies of legalism masquerading as the gospel, and “quick to judge and condemn” Christians pointing their fingers at them.

[...]

From what I see in the Gospels, Jesus preached to a society from within the culture of his day, not from above it as the Pharisees did. In my opinion, the majority of churches today are more concerned with converting one cultural image into their own cultural image, with the implication that theirs is “Christian” (where no one drinks alcohol or listens to secular music and everyone dresses in business attire), while those cultures which differ from their view are not. Once again, this is definitely pharisaical. Unfortunately, I find this sums up the majority of the church world all too well.

Wow! How true is that!

Driscoll deftly crafts the path to reformission, and it involves breaking down several myths that have been injected by the enemy into churches over the years (and no, this does NOT involve the Da Vinci Code). The biggest myth to me was “culture equals worldliness”. The fact that Christians have regarded to two as synonyms has nearly killed reformission.

There are elements in every culture that could be used to oppose God and His work on the Earth but that are in and of themselves neutral and useable for either sin or worship. Examples include tasty food that could be used for either sinful gluttony or holy feasting, music that could be used for either idolatry or worship, and stylish clothing that could be used for either lust or beauty.

And of course, what book on being culturally relevant would be complete without a quick refresher on alcohol. Our feminism-driven romance with prohibitionism (alcohol is sin) and abstentionism (it’s not a sin but Christians should abstain) has sickeningly not only produced a couple generations of pussified church leaders, but has made them dangerously close to being liars. Indeed, the enemy has been using this lie to mislead an entire nation of believers. So, compliments of Mark Driscoll, let’s have a history lesson, shall we?

• Saint Gall was a missionary to the Celts and a renowned brewer
• After Charlemagne’s reign, the church became Europe’s exclusive brewer
• When a young woman was preparing for marriage, her church brewed a special bridal ale, from which we derive the word bridal
• Pastor John Calvin’s annual salary included upwards of 250 gallons of wine to be enjoyed by him and his guests
• Martin Luther once wrote of the Reformation, “While I sat still and drank beer with Philip and Amsdorf, God dealt the papacy a mighty blow.”
• Luther’s wife Catherine was a skilled brewer, and his love letters to her when they were apart lamented his inability to drink her beer
• When the Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock, the first permanent structure they erected was a brewery

Most of those facts I did not previously know. Indeed I have cause to believe much Biblical truth on alcohol has been obscured from many a pulpit for many years. Some Methodist minister by the name of Welch invents grape juice in 1869 to replace communion wine and we’ve been suckling it ever since.

Thankfully, the resurgence of microbrewing in the United States is helping to overcome the great loss and to resurrect the art of brewing. I personally long for the return to the glory days of Christian pubs where God’s men gather to drink beer and talk theology.

Fortunately where I worship is inside a nightclub operated by (and right nextdoor to) Brown’s Brewing Company, a great local pub and microbrewery. But why does the alcohol thing matter? Driscoll explains this and much more in the book. I need to quit now or I’ll never stop… but maybe meet me for a Cherry Raspberry Ale at Brown’s and we can speak more on these things… as true Christians like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would… over a beer.

With the marketing industry being at the top of its game, and the wild popularity of J.K.Rowling’s books to begin with, and with the relative enjoyability of the first three movies… OF COURSE this one was going to make the mad duckets (lots of money). But, although I enjoyed the first three Potter films I had some trouble with this one.

It wasn’t the darkness by any means… I rather enjoyed the small departure from pure sugar candy. It wasn’t the lack of good special effects, because they were excellent… the dragon climbing on the castle looked really good to me. What it was, in my best estimation, was trying to squeeze a huge book into a little 2-hour movie.

The plots were many, varied, and unrelated. At several points during the movie… even as far as two thirds of the way through, I’m wondering when the main plot of the movie is going to start! A couple times… just when I thought things were gettin’ a move on… a completely unrelated subplot would take full-reins of the film for 15 to 20 minutes. I was sitting their bewildered. I was confused that three of the six characters on the cover of the DVD (the ones besides Harry, Ron, and Hermione) had they been put in a ranking by plot-importance and/or screentime would have ranked more like 12th, 17th, and 20th. I was confused that Harry never smiled or acted with any male impetus… and in fact I was beginning to get sick of his whining.

Now, was it a fun movie? Sure. But, unlike my esteemed Pixar flicks, this one will leave adults’ common sense nerve hurting a bit. It may still be good fun for the kiddies (and indeed some of you may wonder why I have not left it as such)… but for the so-called grown-ups… instead of this DVD, I’d throw one of Tolkien’s in my DVD player if I were you.

Despite seeming like a clone with cliché looming over every scene, this film jukes left when you’d think it would juke right. Fight scenes expected to be short are long. And vice versa. Good guys are bad, and bad, good. And really, you get to see the hero transform from a zealous (if there is such a no-emotion equivalent) law enforcement agent to an unwilling weapon at the command of oppressive authoritarians. This is very reminiscent of that of the Apostle Paul in the book of Acts and also of the main character in ::amazon(”0842384065″,”Soon”)::, by Jerry B. Jenkins.

I enjoyed this movie. I’m a dystopic nut and this was right up my alley.

A dystopia can be thought of as the polar opposite of a utopia. A dystopian society is usually depicted as having an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government that has imposed some kind of oppressive social control over society.

Here’s a great example of a dystopic movie I just saw recently… The Island. Now for whatever reason this film was given tepid reviews and a hasty box office stint, but I thought it was excellent… good acting, great storyline (I don’t care how Matrix-y it was), crazy action sequences and enough suspense to keep me riveted even if there’d been no action. The movie also skillfully mirrors the modern-day debate over stem-cells and organ harvesting from living human babies.

Anyways, for much more information about dystopias (and some lists of dystopic films and literature) visit the Wikipedia article :: dystopia.

Well, today in church another blend of reasoning overtook me. The thoughts of Chardonnay and fat collided again in my mind… let me explain. (To my non-Christian readers this may be a bit foreign but you should read on.) There was chatter in my church regarding the drinking of alcohol by Christians and insinuations that temperance is holiness (a notion that a rational Christ-follower would easily dispel since Jesus himself drank alcohol… and, in fact, Jesus was readily accused of being a drunk by the 1st century version of some people in my church). Anyways, there was, in this chatter, the obligatory Bible references used to ask if drinking wine was beneficial and honoring and glorifying to God… of course the questions were asked in such a way that it’d be uncomfortable, even arrogant, for most people to definitively answer yes to any of those questions for anything except maybe for prayer and fasting. (A more honest and practical approach would be to ask if it dishonors God) I mean, really, could you really say that it glorifies God to eat dessert… dessert which is loaded with saturated fats and sugar… useless calories that do not benefit our “temple”… usually eaten for the vulgar epicurean delight of its devourer? (sounds sinful to me… get the fires goin’!) I say that obesity, the abuse of food, has far greater in-roads in the church-goers I know than alcoholism, the abuse of alcohol. However, abstinence of dessert sounds pretty ridiculous (especially to obese church-goers)… and it just doesn’t have the same resonance with the ole-timers as temperance-talk. Needless to say, the leanings of the chatter were as evident as the slant a peace-protester-turned-journalist would put on an “objective” news story from Iraq… the facts stated were correct, but the way they were delivered and the parts that were left off bias the story and reveal the chatterers agenda. (To be fair… I don’t believe the agenda today was intended to deceive anyone.)

So be certain that, on their own, I don’t think it is any more wrong to eat dessert than to drink alcohol. Be certain that there are those who think alcohol is wrong (for everyone) and who would sway you to come to their conclusions with them. A great comedian, Conservative and Christ-follower, Brad Stine, wrote a book touching on this very topic and this very comparison between alcohol and dessert. The book is called Being a Christian Without Being an Idiot, and while the literary editing is a bit rough, the content is funny, smart and extremely relevant. If you are one of my fellow Christ-followers (and hopefully better at it than I) this book is a must read… at the very least to be aware of some prevalent idiocy pitfalls. And while you’re at it it wouldn’t hurt to watch any of Brad’s multiple comedy DVDs. He’s also been a featured speaker the last 3 years at Promise Keepers and I suspect he’ll be there again this year.

Hugh Ross talks on the words of scripture in the Genesis account of creation and compares them to the physical evidence found in nature. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) when you take an honest look at each they don’t disagree!? But why would they? As a scientifically minded engineer I was rather appalled at myself for having avoided these questions in my own mind for as long as I did. I should be beaten. Anyways… I don’t want to get too much into a raging soapbox soliloquy here so I’ll leave you with two key points of the book.

God created the universe and gave us His Word. Therefore, no contradiction exists between science and Biblical theology except by human misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

If taught that a young universe is the Bible’s clear message, many seekers and nonbelievers will conclude, under the barrage of compelling scientific evidence for the universe’s antiquity, that the Bible must be accepted on a purely subjective, nonfactual basis.

I highly recommend this book to any Christ-follower who wants to have any relevance in their school or workplace. Before reading this book I did not know the ancient Hebrew word for ‘day’.

I am almost done with this book and it is great! No More Christian Nice Guy, by Paul Coughlin of Christian radio station KDOV, is practically a sequel to John Eldridge’s Wild at Heart, the highly acclaimed tome of masculine apologetics, no apologies required! Now Paul Coughlin documents the causes and cures of modern Christian male pussification… that is the acceptance and practice of men shunning their masculine qualities (regarded as somehow sinful) in favor of effeminate over-domestication (like a pussy cat). This is a must read for any Christian male who has forgotten they have a pair, and even those who are readily aware of the fact but find themselves in a world that doesn’t want men with pairs. What the book does, clearly and simply, is dispel the myths of Christ’s nature and conduct that have been pushed by post-modern feminist culture into our modern church culture. In fact, Christ was not the nice, soft, peaceful, non-confrontational, non-controversial nice guy that we paint him to be. Don’t believe me? Read your Bible!!! (and then read this book)

Here’s a great review found on CrossWalk.com.