Champions of Faith: Baseball - Thanksgiving Special Offer

Champions of Faith: Baseball is one of the best documentaries in recent years. On November 4, 2007 it won a CIMA (Catholics in Media) Award for documentary film.

I just received an email with a link to a special offer for bulk orders of this wonderful DVD (excellent for middle-school kids through adults of all ages). What a meaningful Christmas gift this will make for you, your family and friends - for anyone teaching Confirmation classes, too. Instead of a gift card this Christmas, why not give this DVD to your pastor or pastoral staff at your parish? It's inspiring and entertaining! (Many nuns are great baseball fans, too.)

Here is the link: good only for this weekend! I only received it today (Friday evening) so I hope you will be able to place your order on time (or give you a little extra time if you are only opening this when you get to your office on Monday!)

http://championsoffaith.com/

Tags: baseball documentary Christmas gift; baseball DVD Christmas gift; baseball Christmas

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Cine&Media Elist

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Several years ago a few folks who love theology, spirituality, and film, started a yahoo group called Cine&Media.

In typical technology overload fashion, I forgot my password and the list and languished a bit for lack of management. However, my technology-enduced brain cloud lifted and I remembered!

If you are interested in joining out group (you can sign up for a daily digest or individual emails when people post), please do the following:

Go yo www.yahoogroups.com

Search for  cineandmedia

Request membership.

I will approve your request and voila'! You can post about your insights, questions, ideas (for teaching or ministry).

We are not that busy of a list, but when we do get into a film or a topic, it's great.

The only requirement is an interest in theology, spirituality and film.

There are 102 members at this time.

Blessings to all!

R

Tags: movies, theology; theology and film; spirituality and film; talking movies

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Where's the Love? Movie Critic vs Religious Audience

Jeffrey Overstreet, moderator; Rev. Peter Malone, Claudia Puig, Eleonora Granata, Jonathan Bock, panelists.

On Sunday, October 28, 2007, Catholics in Media Associates (CIMA; www.CatholicsInMedia.org) and Open Call (http://home.catholicweb.com/OpenCall/) sponsored an panel discussion event during the City of Angels Film Festival (www.cityofangelsfilmfest.org) at the Directors Guild of America in Hollywood.

The event was a panel conversation entitled: "Where's the Love? The Movie Critic vs. the Religious Audience." As one of the panelists, Rev. Peter Malone, MSH, past president of SIGNIS (www.signis.net), the world Catholic organization for communication, put it, "This is not the title I would have chosen since it sounds adversarial; I see my role as a film reviewer as one of mediation between the film and the audience." This was a point well-taken by his colleagues on the panel.

The moderator of the panel was Jeffrey Overstreet, a novelist and award-winning film critic whose reviews appear on the Christianity Today web site. (See http://lookingcloser.org/jeffreyoverstreet.htm)

Our panelists included:

Rev. Peter Malone and Claudia Puig chat after the event

 

Claudia Puig has been a film critic at USA Today since 2001. Her odyssey led to the position of lead film critic in 2006 and since that time she has also served as a film festival judge, moderator for Screen Actors Guild panels,  presenter at the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. annual awards dinner and is a regular contributor for National Public Radio’s Film Week and on public television’s Life and Times. She is also a frequent contributor on Mitch Albom’s syndicated radio show.  She has discussed the socio-cultural impact of specific movies on NBC News, CNN and MSNBC. She has also been nominated  Entertainment Journalist of the Year three times, an award given by the Publicists Guild. Claudia began her journalism career in 1986 at the Los Angeles Times covering city government, crime and courts. She was part of the teamthat won a Pulitzer for its coverage of the L.A. Riots in 1991.  In 1993 she began covering primarily the movie business, until her departure in 1997. She began her tenure at USA Today in October, 1997 covering the film industry as a reporter for the Life section. She still writes the occasional news story, feature or obituary, but concentrates mostly on film reviews and analyses. Claudia lives in Glendale, California, is fluent in Spanish and speaks Italian and French also. She has a B.A. in Communications Studies from UCLA and an M.A. in Communications from University of Southern California’s Annenberg School.

 

Eleonora Granata is currently the U.S. Representative and Program Advisor for the Venice Film Festival – a position which she has held for the past five years.  She isalso the Senior Programmer, World Dramatic Features at the Miami International Film Festival. She previously worked as the U.S. Representative for the Locarno International Film Festival and Taormina Film Festival.  Prior  to working with these festivals, Ms. Granata served as Senior Vice President, Acquisitions and Production at Pandora Cinema and as Vice President and Head of the Acquisitions and Co-Productions Division at Turner Pictures. She began her career with RCS Films and Television in Italy, where she held various acquisitions positions and eventually oversaw the company’s worldwide acquisitions and production from Los Angeles.  She is a graduate of the Milan Institute of Higher Education where she studied economics and law, and she has a Juris Doctoratein Political Science and International Law from Milan University.

 

Jonathan Bock is the founder and president of Grace Hill Media, a company that promotes mainstream films to faith communities and most recently the producer of two Christian comedy concerts: Thou Shalt Laugh and Thou Shalt Laugh: The Deuce (these are available at the book store in the lobby). Jonathan is a former television comedy writer and also worked for the publicity department at Warner Bros. Jonathan attended Connecticut College, is married and the father of two daughters, and a member of Bel Air Presbyterian Church.

 

The Reverend Peter Malone is a Missionary of the Sacred Heart from Melbourne, Australia, who lives and works in London, UK. Peter is the award-winning author of more than 30 books on faith, scripture, and film, (several of which he co-wrote with Sister Rose Pacatte, the Director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Culver City). His latest book is “Through a Catholic Lens: Religious Perspectives of Nineteen Film Directors from Around the World” (it is available at the CAFF bookstore in the lobby). Peter is the President-emeritus of SIGNIS, the Vatican-approved world organization for communication. He now heads the film desk and writes reviews for the SIGNIS website as well as for Catholic newspapers in the UK. Peter has participated in CAFF for the last seven years.

 

 Members of the audience

Open Call and CIMA members chat after the event

Please note: I was able to download the video files to mycomputer; I am still working on uploading them to this site.

Watch this space!

R

Lars and the Real Girl

"Lars and the Real Girl" is my favorite film of the year so far. Written by Nancy Oliver (who also penned several episodes of Six Feet Under) and directed by Craig Gillespie (Mr. Woodcock), Lars is a complete surprise.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) moves back home but lives in the garage while his brother and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) live in the family house. Lars, dreadfully shy, insists on living alone. Their father has died, and we discover that their mother died when giving birth to Lars.

Lars has a job and the other worker in his cubical finds a site on the internet that sells anatomically correct sex-dolls. Lo and behold, Lars orders one - but not for the reasons his co-worker might have. A big box arrives for Lars. He then presents himself at his brother's door and says a female friend has come to visit, she doesn't speak much English, and she's in a wheelchair. Lars is a church-goer so he knows it would be improper for Bianca to stay with him and he asks if she can stay in the guest room. Karin, his sister-in-law, goes along with his delusion; his brother struggles with it - to say the least.

Patricia Clarkson plays the town doctor who is also a psychologist. Her care for Bianca/Lars is understated and moving.

This amazing little film is about how a family and a community gathers around a fragile man as he integrates the dimensions of his life and becomes a man. The scene where he follows his brother into the basement, where his brother is doing the laundry because his pregnant wife needs help, and asks: "When did you know you became a man?" is wonderful. It's not about sex, it's when "You stop jerking other people around, you take responsibility for those you care about" and so on. And there he is, doing the laundry.

This film is also about the role of play in child - and human - development. It's about empathy, caring, the church community, the community at large, and their caring for the weakest among them, throughout a long, cold winter.

Ryan Gospling is amazing as the frightened Lars; Paul Schnieder as the brother is excellent and Emily Mortimer sees what others don't - at first - and shows us all what caring about someone unconditionally means.

And did I mention the good humor?

The film also shows what a church community can really be for people - a safe place where love takes root and grows in hearts and action.

I loved the way the audience responded to the film; the innocence of the laughter reflected the innocence of the film itself.

I told a friend that I would love to see a film about a woman who grows because of the love of the community. My friend said, yes, but the women in the film have strong roles - as helpers, I replied. As usual. A fine film with a woman as the example of universal human experience is still to be made, I think. (Gender roles is a good media literacy angle for looking at this film.)

Tags: Psychology and film; media literacy; stories about unconditional love; faith and film

Lions for Lambs

Robert Redford's new film is a study in how media and politics reinforce the other and the tragic results of journalism's failure to ask questions in the current war. Parallel to this storyline skillfully played by Tom Cruise as the arrogant and ambitious senator and Meryl Streep as the veteran journalist in an hour-long conversation, are two more. One of these is a storyline about a political science professor played by Redford, who is trying to get a student to become involved in the bigger events in the world (and come to class), events that mean something, but war isn't what he has in mind. He uses the story of two of his most promising students who decided to make a difference in the world by getting off the gang-ridden streets of Los Angeles to fight the war in Afghanistan - when he meant to change the world where you are planted. While this conversation is going on, the two soldiers are deployed, during this same hour, to be part of a new war strategy proposed to the president by the above-said senator (based on a failed strategy used in Vietnam but the senator doesn't want to think of the past only the future.)

 

 

This tightly wound drama that takes place almost in real time ends by showing the influence of television when a young man finally decides to do something meaningful.

 

I think Lions (wonderful, talented, intelligent young soldiers) for Lambs (men in white collars and suits who never get their hands dirty and don't have a clue about combat) is a tough, not-so-subtle or enjoyable, statement of the current status of the war - the role of the media in the film's view is unmistakable.

 

 “Nowhere have I seen such Lions led by such Lambs" is said (in the film) to have been spoken by a German soldier during World War I after witnessing the slaughter of British troops at the Battle of the Somme. Thoughts of Peter Weir's "Gallipoli" also come to mind as does Kubrick's anti-war films "Paths of Glory" and "Full Metal Jacket." The heartbreak and the  tragedy of war and the culture it creates - as well as the culture that creates it.

 

"Lions for Lambs" is a good subject for media literacy study, I think - for itself and for its commentary on the role of media and war.

 

It is also a study in the role of ethics and morality in modern life.

Tags: war, media, media literacy; journalism and war; politics and journalism

Primo Levi's Journey the Film

Primo Levi’s Journey – (not rated) Primo Levi (1919 - 1987) was an Italian Jew, a writer and scientist, who spent about a year in Auschwitz before liberation by Russian troops. He survived but before he could reach his home in Milan, Italy, he made a journey of 1,000 miles to get there. This unique documentary re-traces Levi's eight-month journey through Russia, Poland, and Romania. These months coincided with the brief truce between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. The film is based on Levi’s 1963 memoir, “The Truce” and it asks the audience to reflect on the current truce that began when the Berlin Wall fell along with the Iron Curtain and effectively ended on September 11, 2001.

The film evokes the question: When and who will take responsibility for the next truce and what will it mean for humanity?

(Primo Levi fell to his death in his home from a staircase landing; it was ruled a suicide but many contest this verdict.)

Tags: Primo Levi; Journey of Primo Levi; documentary films

Golden Compass the Movie

I am receiving many email requests for information on the upcoming release of the book-into-film The Golden Compass. The novel on which the film is based is part of a trilogy by Phillip Pullman called “His Dark Materials”, said to come from a line in Milton’s Paradise Lost. The first volume was originally titled Northern Lights in the UK when it was published in 1995.

 

 

 

 

According to some sources, about two months ago the Catholic League began a campaign to boycott the film. Although I have not seen the organization's materials, I understand a kit was sent to all the Catholic schools in the U.S. The CL does not seem to be taking issue with the film itself, but that the film will make young people want to read the books, which the CL finds anti-Catholic. But again, I have not seen the materials.

 

To prepare for the film’s release, I am currently reading The Golden Compass, and the rest of the trilogy (The Subtle Knife, 1997 and The Amber Spyglass, 2000). New Line Cinema has said that if the first film does well, then they will make the others.

 

As a proponent of media mindfulness (media literacy within the faith community), I suggest that it is more useful to enter into communication and conversation about the books and the issues the books and movie may raise rather than to “just say no.” If parents do not wish their children to see the film, they would do well to explain "why" based on their own reading and research. Otherwise, when the parents or caregivers are not looking, kids will find a way to see the film, if not in December when it is released, then when it comes out on DVD - and kids may be unprepared to question the film in ways that can help them view more deeply.

 

One Catholic mother I know listened to The Golden Compass on CD with her family and then theytalked about it. My guess is that she and her family will go and see the film because their practice as parents has always been to talk with their children about the movies they see – even difficult films when some of their older children were teenagers. Education and faith formation is more important to them than control. By just saying "no" the feeling that they are in control may make some parents feel better but doesn’t really inform a child (except that it teaches something about power and how it is administered especially to kids who are old enough to care or want to see the film.)

 

Children don’t see what adults see, and vice versa; children don’t have the faith formation or level of religious education yet to be able to judge subtle (or not so subtle) attacks on the power of an institution like the Catholic Church, which is what has been said about the novel.  Children won’t “get” what parents or adults are upset about. This means that some serious faith formation/catechesis (including Church history) needs to take place for adults so they can explain the “why” of their decision about the film; that their reasons be set within a frame of reference that young people may understand, whether or not parents decide to let their children see the film.

 

It is a very good habit to question films with children and young people (and even our own more mature viewing selections and practices.) One of my favorite sayings is: "Control is for the moment; communication lasts a lifetime."

 

Also, audiences young and old may or may not interpret the film in ways that some people fear. This is why talking about the book, film, and issues, with respect for the opinions of children and young people, is required.

 

This is my advice at this point: parents, read the book. Then when the film is reviewed, seek information for guidance and make an informed decision. Remember, your kids are going to see this film anyway, especially if they are forbidden to, if not today, then tomorrow. Their peers will see it; the film will influence young people regardless of what anyone says - and it may or may not be a negative influence. You, as parents and caregivers, are their best hope for understanding the film and for negotiating and making meaning from it.

 

I also wonder about all the thousands of young people who have already read the trilogy; wouldn't this be a good occasion to talk to them about what the books meant to them and what they mean to adults? These readers are probably going to be the first ones in line at theaters to see the film (and if it does not live up to their expectations, word of mouth will take care of the film without much ado on anyone's part.)

 

One commentator said that the film has been stripped of its religious references and now attacks the power of all big organizations and institutions. I don’t think it is ever a mistake to question those who hold power that touches peoples' lives. St. Thomas Aquinas, a good patron of critical thinking (an attitude of inquiry), was never afraid of any question. And neither should we be afraid.

 

The media mindful persons asks: What’s going on? What’s the story? What’s really going on? Why was the film made? Who profits? Who loses, and why? What difference does the film (TVprogram, book, video game) make to me, to others? What difference can I make? In other words, does the story inspire me to do something? Does it compel me to think about others and want to live my Christian life in more concrete ways? How? Why? Why not? What is the movie about? There may be valid disagreement about what the film means, but the only way we will know for sure is by seeing the film. Yes, we can trust others’ opinions, and that is fine, as long as we know why we choose to go with someone else’s view rather than trusting our own critical (not negative but questioning) abilities. But let us recall that the more long-lasting, positive approach and attitude is to respond rather than to react to films and other media.

 

Your children will thank you for your thoughtful response because you will be communicating relevant life skills and enduring communication values that they will one day use with their own children.

 

A colleague mentioned to me that The Golden Compass film will probably end up being a high concept fantasy film. We shall see.

 

Blessings~

 

P.S. I never pronounce myself on a film until I have seen it. And yes, a good movie (good = well made, interesting, a well-told story) can send anyone to seek out the book. Parents who are active in the lives of their children will have the wisdom to know how to work with their young people regarding this film/book and others that will inevitably come our way.

Tags: movies and parents; movies and faith formation; media mindfulness and moveis; media literacy and movies; Golden Compass