My Best/Worst Films of 2010

Here's my basic premise: most movies are terrible. The acting is terrible. The plot is terrible. The directing is terrible. The dialogue is terrible. I realize that this premise is completely subjective because different people like different things, but some people are just easy to please and will watch whatever schlock the previews tell them to watch. I will ALWAYS advocate that people approach all media - movies, music, books, news, etc. - with an intelligent thoughtfulness and a healthy dose of skepticism. That way, they're less likely to spend their time and hard-earned money on something that has no value.

Now, with that subjective opinion-filled diatribe out of the way, allow me to offer my opinion on the movies of 2010.

Very Good Movies

1) Robin Hood. Great cinematography. The actors, particularly Crowe, were fantastic. Decent attempt at a fresh take on the classic story.

2) Inception. I love everything that Chris Nolan does. Throw in a handful of fantastic actors and a thought-provoking plot/premise, and the results are quite good.

3) Despicable Me. Maybe it's just because I have little girls, but the adoption story arc actually made me tear up. Coupled with the laughs from Carrell and company, it was quite an emotionally satisfying experience.

4) True Grit. Killer dialogue. GREAT acting from the entire cast, particularly the young Hailee Steinfeld. The Cohen bros, against all the odds, manage to remake a classic film, and actually improve upon it.

5) Toy Story 3. A great wrap-up to an already great franchise. I vote that Pixar be put in charge of all entertainment. If Pixar had made Lost, the ending wouldn't have been such a train wreck.

Honorable Mention / Pretty Good Movies:

Narnia: Dawn Treader - didn't butcher the book, but wasn't truly special

How To Train Your Dragon - some laughs, some heart, mostly run-of-the-mill

Ramona & Beezus - only if you're the parent of young girls :)

Tangled - no major complaints, but nothing to write home about

Alice In Wonderland - did Depp's oddball performance save or ruin this movie?

Karate Kid - decent remake. Kinda cheesy dialogue, but good for my kiddos

The Book of Eli

Mediocre Romantic Comedies That My Wife Watched But I Somehow Dodged:

Bounty Hunter, When In Rome, Valentine's Day (her favorite of the mediocre rom-coms), The Killers

Just Truly Terrible Movies - Some I've Seen and Many I Don't Need To See To Know How Awful They Are:

Letters To Juliet, Devil, MacGruber, Charlie St. Cloud, The Back-Up Plan, Piranha 3D, The Social Network, Saw 3D, Iron Man 2, Burlesque, Little Fockers, Paranormal Activity 2, Wolfman, Vampires Suck, Eat Pray Love, Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Last Airbender, Marmaduke, Sex and the City 2, Furry Vengeance, Kick-Ass, Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia, The Spy Next Door, Legion, Dear John, She's Out of My League, Hot Tub Time Machine, My Soul To Take, Wall Street,

There are still a few movies that I would like to see once they're out on Blu-Ray. Only then can I formulate an informed opinion: Knight and Day, The Tourist, MegaMind, The Fighter, Salt, Tron...maybe.

One final unique category for me...movies that looked like they might have had some potential but I chose not to see because of the content, particularly sexual content & nudity:

Date Night, Dinner For Schmucks, Due Date, Love and Other Drugs, The American, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

If I called your favorite movie terrible, forgive me; it's just an opinion. But I'm still right...

Book Review: The Jesus You Can't Ignore

The Jesus You Can’t Ignore is a book by John MacArthur that highlights the conflicts of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The main thesis of this book is that Jesus often gets portrayed in our post-modern America as a soft-spoken, mild-mannered conversationalist who would never ever do anything to upset anybody, but that is an untrue caricature. The Jesus... is mainly comprised of scriptural accounts where Jesus finds himself at odds with the leading religious figures of the day and proves that He is not afraid of conflict.

MacArthur also takes opportunity to call out some of the Emergent Church-type Christians who, in his view, are more interested in theological conversations that are non-emotional, intellectually disconnected, and open to all possibilities than they are with the truth. I can’t help but feel like MacArthur is missing something, though. In this book, virtually all of the stories show Jesus clashing with the religious leaders of the day, while it seems that the Emergent folks are calling for civility with those who are skeptics, seekers, and the like. While I am certainly not a fan of Brian Maclaren, I don’t think that he has any problem clashing with those who, in his mind, are the modern day Pharisees.

The bottom line to me is this: why do Christians seem to have such a hard time finding balance? I completely agree with MacArthur’s premise that there absolutely a time and a place to “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3), there also needs to be a humility present that says “maybe I don’t have everything completely figured out.” Call me crazy, but I think followers of Jesus are at their best when they are neither spineless nor butt-heads, when they know which battle are worth dying for and which battles are worth having a conversation about. I think this book by MacArthur brings up some very necessary ideals that we must be reminded about, but in the end, he just kinda sounds like he’s looking for someone to fight with. In the end, however, one fact remains incontrovertible: Jesus was and is and will continue to be a controversial figure who is impossible to ignore.

Legal note: I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review. I am not required to make this a positive review.

Unholy Underwear

The following is from a paper I am working on for school on the subject of "calling." It highlights some things that I believe are important to remember as we seek God to know what we are called to do.

One of the areas that we must address when it comes to the subject of calling is the relationship between that which is considered sacred and that which is considered secular. The Old Testament - particularly the Torah - spends a great deal of time explaining to the people of Israel the difference between sacred and secular. There are holy days and unholy clothing, sacred implements and unclean animals, a most holy place in the temple and everywhere else. I believe that it was not God’s purpose to teach the Jews that certain aspects of his creation were good and others bad, but to teach them that he himself is a holy God. With pantheism and nature-worship so prominent at the time of the writing of the books of the law, God was teaching his people that he was separate from and transcendent over his creation.

In the New Testament, however, we begin to see a fuller picture of how God desires us to relate to all of his creation. In his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus explains to her that the location of the worship is not what is important, but that we must worship God “in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) At the moment of Jesus’ death, the curtain that divided the most holy place from the rest of the temple was torn in two. We later read in the book of Hebrews that the priests are now no longer the only people who have access to God’s holy presence, but that all who believe in Jesus now have access “by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” (Hebrews 10:20) Paul too, in his writings, affirms the thought that now all things are sacred before God because of what Jesus did on the cross, even as he instructs us to deal humbly with those who still wrestle with these distinctions. “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.” (Romans 14:14)

When we hold to the idea that some things are sacred and others are secular, we run the risk of missing out on the calling of God that is right under our nose. We imagine that certain tasks - preaching, teaching, leading worship - are somehow more valuable than others. The mother who stays at home with her children may miss the fact that she is the primary preacher, teacher, and worship leader to those children. The young man working at a restaurant may not value the opportunities he has to show God’s love to his patrons because he is caught up in the thought that what he is doing is not particularly sacred. In the book of Ruth, we see the example of the businessman Boaz, who, because of his financial success, was able to be the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth. Because of their marriage, Boaz became an ancestor of King David and, ultimately, Jesus of Nazareth. Was his vocation any less important to God’s purposes than the “holy men” and priests who served in the temple? Of course the answer is no. Or take for example Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, the tent-makers from the city of Corinth. Even though they were tent makers, not priests in the temple or rabbis in the synagogue, they were able to have a major impact on the spread of the gospel by correcting the theology of Apollos, a powerful teacher and apologist for the gospel. Were they any less faithful to the call of God because they weren’t public teachers or preachers themselves?

It should be noted here that there are going to be certain tasks that will have a more immediate impact or a more noticeable influence than others. If God calls a person into the realm of education, the impact that they have on a young child’s life is immeasurable. But if God calls someone into the realm of administration or office management so that the teacher can be free to teach, it should be understood that the administrator’s time and effort is every bit as valuable as the teacher’s. When we start to understand that there are fewer distinctions between the sacred and the secular, it frees us to begin to live out our calling right here and now.

Gasoline and South Korean Immigrants

I'm still trying to figure out what just happened...

After my small group tonight, I went out with two of my friends to the Snow Goose. On the way home, I noticed that my gas gauge was reading low. (Does anybody else do the "naw-I-can-make-it-until-tomorrow" game the same way that I do?) After a short argument with myself, I decided to stop at the Chevron near my house to fill up.

While gassing up, I noticed two men on the other island trying to start a van with one of those pre-charged jumper/compressor things. As I filled up my Suby, I watched the two men attempt, to no avail, to start the van.

It's cold tonight in Anchor-town tonight. 6 degrees or so.

After a few minutes, I walked over to the guys and asked if there was anything I could do to help. The two men had apparently just met at the gas station themselves. One was an Asian man with a thick accent and the other was a white guy who had a weird speech impediment or something. The white guy informed me that he was trying to help the Asian man jump-start his van, which had died while sitting at the gas pump. The van was an older model (80's??) Dodge and had definitely seen better days. While trying to help start the Dodge van with his charger/compressor, his own car (a new 2010 Chevy Eqinox) had also died. Apparently this was his first attempt to drive it since he drove up with his new wife from Delaware in April and the battery was not up to the challenge offered by the cold Alaskan night.

I have never seen two cars with dead batteries at the same gas station before.

I told the guys that my house was 2 minutes away, and that I didn't mind going home to grab my jumper cables. The white guys (rather sheepishly) said that it would be very nice if I was able to help them out. I jumped in my car and headed home.

** Total side note: ever since I installed subs in my car two weeks ago, I cannot stop listening to rap and hip-hop music. Tonight's Pandora mix was brought to you by Tupac, The Fugees, and Jay-Z. It was totally refreshing for me, musically speaking, but, MAN, I wish they didn't swear so much. Gratuitous cursing makes people sound like idiots. One well-placed "swear" word can (operative word, can) be an effective tool at driving home a serious point, but constant swearing makes people sound like they have absolutely no linguistic skills. But I digress...

As I pulled back into the gas station, I decided to pull up to the Chevy Equinox first. I figured it had the best chance at starting and I was in the mood for a success. After 15 or 20 seconds of charging, the car fired up without a problem. I unhooked the jumpers and drove over to the van. As I pulled up to the van, I noticed that HE ALREADY HAD JUMPERS HANGING FROM HIS BATTERY!! Why the heck did I drive home first if he already had cables? Oh, well. As I starting working with the Asian man to hook up the cables, the white guy walked up and handed me $20 for my help. I tried three times to politely turn him down, but he assured me that he knew I would have done it for free, but he wanted to show me his appreciation. I politely accepted the $20 and turned back to the Dodge Van.

After we hooked up the cables, I knew I had a few minutes to kill while we waited for the battery to charge. I asked the man his name, and he told me (in very broken English) that it was Suh. I kept asking some basic questions while we waited. He immigrated from South Korea in 2001, and he had no family in America. He has worked in the restaurant industry for the last 9 years, but was recently fired because they thought he was too old and no longer of any use. Suh is 67 years old. Without me asking him, he informed me that he was living in his van.

Seriously? In 6 degree weather? In his van??

As an Anchorage pastor, I have some information and access to services in the city that could be of benefit to Suh. Despite my repeated offers and encouragement, he assured me that he wanted to stay in his van overnight. I asked him if he had food, and he told me that he went to McDonald's in the morning and the Downtown Soup Kitchen in the evening. City Church is an official DSK partner and I was glad to know that money I had helped (with the pastoral staff) to decide to send to them was helping this man I had just met.

I can't describe to you the spirit that this man had. Despite his broken English, he was communicating to me a grateful attitude and an optimistic spirit. We all could learn a thing or two from Suh.

I told him that I was a pastor and that Jesus loved him and that our church had ways to help him out, especially when it comes to food. He told me that he had just started visiting a Korean church in town and he was very thankful for them. I told him to please call me tomorrow afternoon so I could follow up with him and offer help and assistance.

After a few parting pleasantries, I sat down in my car and drove away. I looked over on my passenger seat...and there was the $20 bill from the Chevy guy. Why did I forget?!? I should have given it to Suh.

I'm still trying to wrestle through what exactly just happened in the middle of the night at a Chevron near my house. I can't exactly describe it, but it was significant for me. It's very easy to pass by a couple of people in a situation like I witnessed tonight and do nothing, but for some reason I felt compelled to step in. In situations like this, I never know who is the real beneficiary, myself or the people I helped. I really wish that I had more insight into the whole thing.

I don't know the final story. All I know is that this once, I was faithful to what God asked me to do. I'm hopeful that there will be many more opportunities like this.