Movie Time

We watched this last night. It's an eye-opener.

DIRT! The Movie--directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.

The opening scenes of the film dive into the wonderment of the soil. Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, "dirt is very much alive." Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted. "Drought, climate change, even war are all directly related to the way we are treating dirt."

DIRT! the Movie--narrated by Jaime Lee Curtis--brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil.

DIRT! the Movie is simply a movie about dirt. The real change lies in our notion of what dirt is. The movie teaches us: "When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked." But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, DIRT the Movie is a call to action.

"The only remedy for disconnecting people from the natural world is connecting them to it again."

What we've destroyed, we can heal.

Movie Time

I'm not quite sure why I haven't seen this film until now. It caught me in the first scene, when the bookseller pulls his cart through town hawking his wares, "Storybooks for women! Sacred books for men!"

Barbra Streisand portrays Yentl Mendel, a girl living in an Ashkenazi shtetl in Poland in the early 20th century. Yentl's Father, Rebbe Mendel (Nehemiah Persoff), secretly instructs her in the Talmud despite the proscription of such study by women according to the custom of her community.

After the death of her father, Yentl decides to dress like a man, take her late brother's name, Anshel, and enter a Jewish religious school, oryeshiva. Upon entering the yeshiva, Yentl makes friends with a fellow student, Avigdor (Mandy Pantinkin), and meets his fiancée Hadass (Amy Irving). The story is complicated as Hadass's family cancels her wedding to Avigdor over fears that his family is tainted with insanity, and decides that she should marry Anshel instead. Meanwhile, Hadass develops romantic feelings for Yentl (as Anshel), while Yentl herself is falling in love with Avigdor. After much turmoil, Avigdor and Hadass are reunited, while Yentl leaves Europe to go to America, where she hopes to lead a freer life.

My Last Summer Matinee

I've read the book, so I thought I should see the movie . . .

Now that I've seen the movie, I want to re-read the book. This re-reading thing's getting out of hand.

Eat Pray Love

- 2hr 13min‎‎ - Rated PG-13‎‎ - Drama‎ -
Director: Ryan Murphy - Cast: Julia Roberts, James Franco, Richard Jenkins, Viola Davis, Billy Crudup

Liz Gilbert had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having -- a husband, a house, a successful career -- yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.

A Film on Friday

Summer's slipping past me, and I'm trying to enjoy the last few weeks of freedom. And even though I should have been working on my JASNA paper, I decided to take yesterday off and go to Little Rock, shop a little, have a nice lunch, and see a movie at Market Street. My choice was Winter's Bone, winner of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize:

Living in the Ozark back country, seventeen year old Ree Dolly acts as the primary caregiver to her mentally ill mother, and her two younger siblings, twelve year old Sonny and six year old Ashlee. Her father, Jessup Dolly, is generally absent from their lives, he who earns a living primarily by running a methamphetamine lab. Without money from Jessup, Ree is barely able to make ends meet, and depends on the kindness of their neighbor, Sonya, to do so. Ree learns that her father is scheduled for a court appearance for his illegal activities, and he has skipped bail, putting their house and property up as bond. No one seems to know where Jessup is. Ree has to try and find Jessup to make sure that he shows up for his court appearance, otherwise they risk losing their home. As Ree goes on her quest, she finds that people seem to know more about his whereabouts than they are letting on, including her uncle Teardrop of whom she is scared. Rumors abound that Jessup is dead, but a dead father without a body does not help her cause. But Ree's persistence in finding out what happened to Jessup makes her come face to face with the code of silence for which some are willing to kill.

Top Ten

According to Newsweek, here's Netflix's top ten movie rentals:

1. 'Crash' (2005)
2. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (2008)
3. 'The Bucket List' (2007)
4. 'The Departed' (2006)
5. 'Iron Man' (2008)
6. 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
7. 'The Pursuit of Happyness' (2006)
8. 'The Proposal' (2009)
9. 'Gran Torino' (2008)
10. 'Casino Royale' (2006)

Booking It--Discussion

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

It does matter to me.

My oldest son is the only other reader in the family, and we do talk about books, but we are not often reading the same one. So, earlier this year a friend and I decided to choose one book a month to read. On a certain day each month, we drive to Little Rock to have a nice lunch and discuss the novel. Afterwards, we go to Market Street and see a film. Then, we discuss the film on the drive back.

It's a great system. We used to say, "We need to go see a movie sometime" or "We ought to have a book club," but it never happened Having a particular day set aside for it causes us to put it on our calenders and take it seriously. We're discussing our third novel this week--Home, by Marilynne Robinson.

Movie Day Book Club

This past Spring, a good friend and I started what we hope will be a new tradition for us--a monthly Movie Day. Actually, we could call it our Movie Day Book Club. We choose a book that we both want to read. Then, once a month, we go to Little Rock, discussing the book we read on the drive there and during a nice lunch. Then, we see a movie at Market Street and discuss it on the way home. (Sometime during the day, we usually manage to drop by a bookstore or two and visit Whole Foods.) You're jealous now, aren't you?

Part I:

This month's novel was Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed. We both had a love/hate relationship with the book. We thought it was well-written, loved the literary allusions, and liked the questions it raised. However, we found the novel somewhat depressing, the mixture of relatively current real-life events and fiction troubling at times, the PhD thesis interpolation interesting but distracting, and sometimes we just didn't like the main character very much. But overall we were pleased with our choice--lots to think about and to discuss. This next month, we're going to read Marilynne Robinson's Home.

Part II:

Independently, we check out the movie schedule before we go, and, so far, it's been kind of funny--we've each settled on the same movie before we even discuss it. Is this a great friendship, or what? This week we saw City Island. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that it's a really good movie. It made me sad, but at the same time, I couldn't stop laughing. Out loud. The movie explores how hard it is to be real with the people we know and love best and how our actions are like stones thrown into a pond--they plunk down into our own lives, changing them forever, and they ripple out and touch the lives of our family and friends. Yet the film also affirms the power of love. It's not a depressing movie; it's a life-affirming one. Two thumbs up. Or maybe I should say four.

Pre-Conference Event

One of the really nice things about the Christian Scholars Conference, in addition to the well-known plenary speakers and the excellent cross-disciplinary panel presentations, is the entertaining and thought-provoking extra events. Here's tonights': (don't know why the picture's so dark--blame the CSC website)

BURMA VJ

Ward Hall, Lipscomb University

Wednesday, June 2 • 7 p.m.

Free and open to the public.

Interfaith panel discussion with Lipscomb faculty and leaders of the Nashville Buddhist community to follow.

BURMA VJ is the crowning film in Lipscomb's 2009-2010 HumanDocs social-justice documentary series, which included Garbage Dreams, Made in L.A.,The Age of Stupid, Greensboro: Closer to the Truth, and Freedom Riders. The aim of the series is to stimulate reflection about and encourage action around key issues such as economic inequality, workplace injustice, racism, and climate change – areas of particular concern given Lipscomb's roots in the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures and the ethical teachings of Jesus.

HumanDocs is a presentation of the School of the Humanities within the College of Arts and Sciences and the Lipscomb Center for International Peace and Justice, in cooperation with the Nashville Film Festival.

In addition to the public Pre-event featuring Burma VJ Wednesday night, the film screens Friday morning 8:45-10:15 during the Christian Scholars' Conference, followed by a 90-minute discussion, "Burma VJ: Documentary Film as Art, Truth-Telling, and Call to Faithful Action." For more information, visit csc.lipscomb.edu, "Paper and Panel Sessions."

Movie Time

Sometimes, you just can't grade another paper. And Thursday afternoon was one of those times. So what'd I do? Watched a movie, of course.

A young girl seduced by an older man may be a common story, but An Education is no common movie. As Jenny, a precocious middle-class British schoolgirl charmed by a small-time criminal, newcomer Carey Mulligan is luminous; her face can be plain and beautiful at the same time, her eyes expressing a restless intelligence and a hungry soul. As David, the seducer, Peter Sarsgaard (Year of the Dog, Garden State) gives yet another rich, thoughtful performance. The script, adapted by Nick Hornby (whose novels High Fidelity and About a Boy have been made into movies), is full of unexpected details that bring every moment to life. Director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) has made sure that every character is vivid and real; even seemingly minor moments have texture and vitality. The supporting cast--including Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson, Cara Seymour (Adaptation), Dominic Cooper (The History Boys), and Olivia Williams (Rushmore)--is simply impeccable. In a small but memorable part, Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day) shows an unexpected (and marvelous) comic side. In short, An Education is a funny, smart, and compassionate movie that will launch a great career for Mulligan and be a jewel on the filmographies of everyone involved.

Oscar Weekend

Well, this is Oscar weekend. I love movies, but I don't get to see nearly enough of them. Here are the ten (ten! too many, I think) nominees for Best Picture:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

. . . and I've only see three of them: The Blind Side, The Hurt Locker, and Precious. I went to Market Street the other afternoon and saw A Single Man with Colin Firth, who's been nominated for Best Leading Actor for this role (a really well done film, in my opinion. One of those that gets more and more brilliant as you continue to think about it). Several films are playing there that I really want to see--An Education, The Last Station, The Young Victoria, and Crazy Heart, all of which have received various nominations for Actor/Actress in a Leading Role, Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role, and Art Direction.

I'd love to be in a movie club--something like a book club, where you get a group of friends together, watch a film, and then discuss it.

So many movies, so little time.

I Don't Usually Watch Horror Films, But . . .

. . . I did watch this one, and if you care about what you put into your body, you should, too.

"In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here."

Another Must-See

If you care about the plight of women worldwide, you should see this film. It highlights the fear and despair experienced by Muslim women under Taliban rule. It is heartbreaking, yet beautifully filmed.

Osama (Persian: أسامة) is a 2003 film made in Afghanistan by Siddiq Barmak.It was the first film to be shot entirely in that country since 1996, when the Taliban régime banned the creation of all films.

The movie was filmed on location in Kabul, Afghanistan. Work began in June, 2002 and was completed in March 2003 with a budget of approximately $46,000 USD. All the actors in the film are amateurs found by the director on the streets of Kabul.

It is the story of a 12-year-old Afghan girl and her mother who lose their jobs when the Taliban closes the hospital where they work. The Taliban have also forbidden women to leave their houses without a male "legal companion." With her husband and brother dead, killed in battle, there is no one left to support the family—mother, daughter, and aging grandmother. Without being able to leave the house, the mother is left with nowhere to turn. Feeling that she has no other choice, she disguises her daughter as a boy. Now called “Osama,” the girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity--something she increasingly realizes is only a matter of time.

A Must-See

If you haven't seen this film, you should. Several people had recommended it to me, and I just this past weekend made time to watch it. My only regret is that I waited so long to experience this film. It's one of the best films I've ever seen in my life--beautiful, deeply moving, and spiritual. The feast scene brought tears to my eyes.

Written and directed by Gabriel Axel, from a short story by Out of Africa's Isak Dinesen, this Oscar-winning film offers "an irresistible mixture of dry wit and robust humanity" (Newsweek). On the desolate coast of Denmark live Martina and Philippa, the beautiful daughters of a devout clergyman who preaches salvation through self-denial. Both girls sacrifice youthful passion to faith and duty, each turning down a chance to leave their Danish town, instead staying to care for their father and his small church. Even many years after their father's death, they keep his austere teachings alive among the townspeople. But with the arrival of Babette, a mysterious refugee from France's civil war, life for the sisters and their tiny hamlet begins to change, and the feast the woman prepares in gratitude is eclipsed only by her secret.

*1987: Foreign Language Film