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!?

I checked Google and my blog was the first to make the direct connection between the two (albeit obvious). Since then, it has popped up on a few other blogs and the Stark Industries entry on Wikipedia has been updated to reflect the company logo’s peculiar likeness to Lockheed Martin’s.

I would say “you be the judge”, but is there any doubt?

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?

Heston was the quintessential iconic male… using his rugged face and deep voice to play all manner of heroes and leaders – Marc Antony, John the Baptist, Moses, Ben-Hur to name a few. Of course, Heston was better in known later in life as being a staunch supporter of the right to bear arms as granted by the Constitution of the United States of America. He was president of the Nation Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003.

What you’ll see from the life of someone like Heston is somebody who’ll stand up for what he thinks is right, period. Indeed it seems he chose the correct side of every issue he addressed. He was marching for civil rights, as he says, “long before Hollywood found it fashionable.” He stood for racial equality and against affirmative action, which is the only stance on those issues that make sense together – but the logic of which still seem to escape the left-leaning elite. He was against infant-murder for any reason, let alone convenience sake. He faced opposition by those who would render American citizens helpless to government tyranny – the crazy left-leaning gun-prohibition lobby and its cronies like Michael Moore and George Clooney, but that never deterred Heston who always seemed to maintain an air of class in the face of Hollywood idiots.

Indeed Heston was a man’s man… a conservative’s conservative. America has lost a patriot.

Parting words from Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA:

Today, my heart is heavy with the loss of Charlton Heston. America has lost a great patriot. The Second Amendment has lost a faithful friend. So have I, and so have four million NRA members and eighty million gun owners. And so has every American who cares about the Bill of Rights, individual liberty, and Freedom.

My heart is heavy, but not without a sense of pride. Pride in a man who devoted his life to his profession with grace and dignity. Pride in an American who devoted himself to civil rights, to correcting injustices around him, and to standing up for what he knew was right. Pride in a friend who stood with me and stood with fellow NRA members to preserve our freedom for future generations. Pride in a patriot who believed with every fiber of his being that our Bill of Rights is the foundation of our freedom that makes Americans singular among the masses of nations.

And now, Charlton Heston has passed that duty to us – the next generation. I am as proud to continue his cause as I am to have known him as my friend.

But today, my thoughts cannot leave the Heston family. They have always had my utmost respect and admiration and, today, they have my deepest sympathy and most earnest prayers, And they will always have my friendship.

Charlton Heston, rest in peace.

Now, I don’t put much faith in the so-called Academy Awards – mostly because the “Academy” is elitist Hollywood lack-of-intelligencia who feed on their own self-stimulation. For Walk the Line, I think the attention it got was deserved, and I wish I had seen it long before now. The story felt sincere and was well screen-played.

However, the biggest plus was that these famous actors did their own music! Witherspoon and Phoenix earned MAJOR street cred with me by putting their musical chops to the test. They performed wonderfully and several of their performances can be found on the movie soundtrack.

By the way, when buying music tracks I have been thoroughly pleased with Amazon‘s newish MP3 service. It’s usually cheaper than iTunes… but most importantly, it’s DRM-free!

I think the movie is one of the best independent flicks I’ve seen. I watched it with my wife – we found it full of passion and sincerity. Particularly, it was refreshing to see professional musicians acting in lead roles with such engaging realism… probably so engaging precisely because they aren’t actors, and therefore their acting was much more believable, if that makes any sense.

Without giving anything away, the movie is about two amateur musicians each struggling in their own way. They by chance embark on a week-long musical collaboration that culminates with them recording their songs over a weekend. Throughout the movie each of them shares songs that find their way into the storyline (and ultimately onto their recorded CD).

Mere hours passed after watching Once before I bought the soundtrack… which was filled (pleasingly) with all the songs from the movie. For fellow musicians especially, I highly recommend this movie and its soundtrack.

From wikipedia…
Once is an Academy Award winning 2007 Irish musical film written and directed by John Carney. Set in Dublin, this naturalistic drama stars musicians Glen Hansard (of popular Irish rock band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová as struggling musicians. Collaborators prior to making the film, Hansard and/or Irglová composed and performed all but one of the original songs in the movie.

Shot for only €130,000 ($160,000), the film was very successful, earning substantial per-screen box office averages in the United States. It received extremely enthusiastic reviews and awards such as the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for best foreign film. Hansard and Irglová’s song “Falling Slowly” received a 2008 Academy Award and a 2008 Grammy nomination, and the soundtrack as a whole also received a Grammy nomination.

It’s the politics. Rather than a day dedicated to the otherwise noble pursuit of conscientious living, Earth Day is an event laden in politics and alarmism. Under the guise of appropriate global stewardship schools and institutions push left-tainted propaganda that has more to do with their agendas than with genuine science and conservation. Don’t believe the hype, it’s a sequel.

This should really be called Hypocrisy Day. Big-name politicians and Hollywood elites parade their small armies around in private jets giving high-brow lectures at ritzy, exclusive donation dinners… or at quasi-socialist college activist groups. These aerial jaunts are the least “green” action anyone could legally perform… yet nobody in the green-camp questions these shysters… because they are all on the “same side” – wink wink nudge nudge.

And in today’s information age video is actively streamed to all corners of the globe. At no other time in history has there been less of a need to parade around in jets to promote anything… with the internet that’s no longer necessary – and I dare say for promoting “global warming awareness” it’s a bit contradictory. While we’re at it, let’s employ a fleet of C-130s to carpet-bomb every major city of the world with leaflets warning of deforestation due to wasteful uses of paper.

For my Earth Day I wanted to increase my carbon footprint. I read an article that said various global-warming loony-tunes believe bovine omissions (yes… their anal gases) are causing more greenhouse effects than most any other source… due to mankind’s “insatiable” desire for beef. Well, if God didn’t want us to eat cows He wouldn’t have made them out of steak. So I just spent the last 24 hours eating around 60 ounces of steak.

It’s the end of the world as we know it… I feel fine.

America, and all it’s people, were attacked by gutless pigs… Islamo-fascist cowards. They wanted fathers to be crushed. They wanted little girls to burn alive. They wanted elderly to be broken into pieces. They are evil. They validate that evil exists in our time. Never forget that evil exists. Never forget that with evil afoot your duty is to protect your friends, family, and country with your life. Never forget that evil knows no reason, nor mercy. Evil cannot be rehabilitated, nor reeducated. Either fight evil or surrender to it… and since they have professed that they will not stop until the entire United States converts to Islam that kinda narrows down the choices.

Thousands of people fled those burning towers, while hundreds of police, firemen, and emergency workers ran INTO the doomed buildings. That’s courage. Those are heroes. Don’t let politically correct pussification bind us, blind us, muzzle us, desensitize us, and dull our minds. Don’t listen to Hollywood idiots who can’t figure out why we’re “harping” on this event.

Our friends and family are being targeted by Islamo-crazies as we speak… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Keep living free, and keep vigilant. Support out troops, and support the fight against evil. Find a fireman or cop you know (or mayber even one you don’t) and thank them… and when they say that they’re just “doing their job” you tell them that their job is a hero’s job and you’re thanking them for their courage. And then find your politicians and ask them why elderly wheelchair-bound Asian women are being frisked at the airport in response to a terror threat from young, male, Middle-Eastern, Muslim extremists. And then find your family and hold them close… because life is the frailest of things.

Most of all… never forget.

I am going to see TDVC because it will probably be a great movie and I like to see great movies. I like to watch Tom Hanks breathe an intangible but undeniable spark into the life of almost any character he plays. I try to only watch so-called Christian movies when they also are great movies on their own (like The Passion) or have some merit other than their “Christian” label. It makes no sense to watch inferior artistry just because of the label. Would you let a dubiously mediocre surgeon cut you open because he was a Christian?

I am going to see TDVC because it will be a topic of conversation for sure. The controversy alone has generated more dialog than any movie already released right now. The talk may well be questions about the validity of various parts of the movie… the accuracy of the historical references… the theological implications… and of course, the “could it all be true?”. Many of my friends and coworkers will come to me, being “the religious guy”, and ask me what I think about it or what my “priest” says about the movie. I know this from experience.

If I don’t see the movie I can’t enter into those conversations… I can’t directly and credibly engage those people with their questions. As a Christian I’m called to engage. Some Christians might say I could engage by speaking what I know to be true from the Bible about who Christ was and who Mary Magdalene was without having to see the movie… but it wouldn’t be as genuine, as applicable to specific scenes, or as honest. And it wouldn’t be as credible. Credibility is important, because there’s too many hypocritical Christians out there already. You know who you are… you who will condemn Desperate Housewives or Harry Potter or [fill in the blank]… and you haven’t even seen any of them!? All you know is that some schmuck behind a pulpit found it to be a convenient target to fill a Sunday morning rant session and you walked away with an opinion other than one you formed yourself. Now I’m not advocating diving headfirst into the sin city underground and steeping yourselves in every manner of worldly medium… there has to be some limits and you need to use your brain… but today’s Christians tend toward a missionally debilitating conservatism when it comes to culture.

Back to TDVC… I’ve heard Christians tell me that “I don’t want my money going to them”… but who is them? The “them” is probably about 75,000 people scattered over all of the cinematic industry, from marketers to mass-producers to theater employees to stunt doubles. The notion of keeping money away from a particular “them” is a fool’s notion. Your money will go to Hollywood in some form or another no matter what movie you go to. Then the argument Christians are ultimately making by proxy is whether or not to see movies at all, but that’s not the argument they’re vocalizing… so are they confused or intellectually dishonest? Or maybe just plain hypocrites? Christians have had a shameful streak of openly boycotting a “Judas” only to ultimately patronize a “Pontius Pilate”… whether we’re talking clothing, movies, restaurants… you name it. Here’s a tip – see the best movies, buy the best clothing, and eat at the best restaurants. Dig?

So you’d have to be an “outed” gay Muslim cleric hiding in a Pakistani cave not to have heard all the controversy surrounding this movie. Catholic and Protestant groups are calling for boycotts and disruptive litigation. But why? They say the movie is offensive… but how? Sure, the story has all the historical accuracy of an episode of the Teletubbies… much like most other stories from books and movies. Sure, it said Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, but does that offend you to hear someone think or say that? Are we all of a sudden offended by anyone with a different view than our own? Do we only see movies or read books that we already agree with? Who exactly, then, are we trying to engage? Many are seeking some truth from somewhere in this topsy-turvy world, and they just may look for it in TDVC… wouldn’t it be great to use TDVC to enter into a dialog with them about Jesus? Wasn’t that what the Book of Acts says Paul did in Athens?

Pastor Ed Marcelle of Terra Nova Church was a scrambled soul looking for truth in 1988, long before he became a pastor, when the movie The Last Temptation of Christ came out. The movie was met with much controversy from Christians for how it depicted Christ, so local churches would picket theaters and hold demonstrations. Ed recalls going to see the film and having to jostle his way through a crowd of Christian protesters who wore stern frowns of disapproval toward everyone they saw and stood in stiff-shouldered groups to impede entrance into the movie. What was the goal of any of that? What possible constructive purpose did that serve? None… those Christians may have had sincere hearts and some Biblical knowledge but they were acting like idiots. They could have brought a friend to the movie and then afterward talked all about Christ for hours over coffee… a priceless opportunity.

To my Christian readers, listen up a second. TDVC comes out soon. Don’t play the idiotic boycott game… and don’t let priceless opportunities slip away. Be like Paul in Athens and go see the movie. Because if you don’t then someday you may just have to explain why not. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

Here’s a good site for TDVC error checking: www.davincidelusion.tv

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.