TheGeoffRe(y)port

Wifey tagged me on this movie meme. So I figured I’d better do it.

Name one movie that:

1. Made you laugh
Empire Records

2. Made you cry
Life Is Beautiful

3. You loved when you were a kid
The Lion King

4. You’ve seen more than once
Snatch

5. You loved but were embarrassed to admit it
Love Actually

6. You hated
How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days

7. Scared you
Independence Day (OK - I was pretty young)

8. Bored you
Hoodwinked

9. Made you happy
Batman Begins

10. Made you miserable
Last King Of Scotland

11. You weren’t brave enough to see
The Ring

12. One character you’ve fallen in love with
Amelie

13. The last movie you saw
Iron man

14. The next movie you hope to see
The Dark Knight

Saw “Notes On A Scandal” last night - brilliant film that I don’t really want to see more than once - just a little too creepy. Brilliant performances from both Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench: both amazing actresses, and I can categorically say (having seen Helen Mirren in The Queen) that Dench deserved the best actress Oscar the other night. She was incredible, and the whole thing was directed and written remarkably well: I can’t think of a movie with a more effective use of narration.

But as much as Judi Dench’s character is unequivocably the villain, there’s a definite sense that this life is so hard for the lonely and elderly. It just really struck something in me, that in many ways helps me to understand the place for many old, single people that the traditional church has for them. A place where they belong, where they know how things operate, and where they can feel a part of a community. And as much as the revolutionary wants to mess some of that up, for many people that becomes a deeply missional activity.

There are few social commentators who are more interesting to read than Scott Adams - (aka “The Dilbert Guy”). Sometimes he writes on religion (usually against), sometimes he writes on world news - today he is writing about movies. And it’s hilarious !

Watched “Lantana” (for the second time) last night with my two favourite girls (it’s alright - one of them was my sister), and was really just struck by a number of the scenes in the film. I’m not sure what it is at the moment, but I seem to keep seeing things in movies that relate to “being a man”. Anthonly LaPaglia is better in this film than in anything else I’ve seen him in, and just typifies the Aussie male culture. The scene he shares with Glenn Robbins in the urinal (aside from the fact that I’m not convinced you ever talk with other men in a urinal) is as powerful a statement about being a man in this culture (and specifically the culture of the generation one rung above me).

LaPaglia: He starts to cry.

Robbins: What for?

l: I don’t know. What makes a man cry like that?

R: Yeah, a lot of things. So what did you do?

L: I just held him.I just stood there and I held him. But the whole time I was thinking, “You f***ing weak prick, pull yourself together.”

R: Don’t you want to cry sometimes?

L: Yeah, but… you don’t, do you?

In a funny way that describes some of my struggle to find my identity as an Australian man in exactly “that” culture. Because in this picture I am the guy who just bursts into tears and doesn’t know how to handle it. And I hear the thoughts that want to call that being a weak prick. So working out how much of that is being healthily in touch with your own emotions, and where you need to slap yourself out of it and just “be a man” is a tough line to draw.

Certainly don’t want to be where LaPaglia in this film is though…

There are few more stereotypically masculine films than “The Godfather”. It stands out as an all time classic, and it has so innumerable timeless quotes spread throughout (”and may their first child be a masculine child”). So this evening I watched “The Godfather” with two girls. Hmmm, not quite sure how that one happened.

It’s hard not to see the underlying references to what it means to be a man throughout. From the beginning, when Johnny Fontaine starts crying and Don Corleone gets mad at him - “You can be a man!” the film makes a number of points about the role of men in that society. Men don’t cry. There is no doubt that the film glorifies the pro-active model in Vito Corleone, versus the sit there and cry model of Johnny Fontaine.

The pivotal example of what it means to be a man is held in who Vito Corleone is. When Sonny is killed, he has to first ensure that his wife does not have to see her son in that state, and he must also do whatever is necessary to protect the rest of his family. The over-arching push is that the man of the house must always take the initiative. That being a great man is about assessing the situation and acting - not dilly-dallying, nor acting foolishly like the hot-headed Sonny, but to make the right decision at the right time.

And there’s something in that. As much as you don’t want to be a late 1940s mafia boss, there is something innate in being a man that makes you want to take ownership for circumstances, to get out there and be the one that can be relied on. I guess the hard part is trying to sort out the cultural context from the meaty self-evident truths. But there’s no doubt in my mind about one thing - being a man must be about taking action, not despite circumstances, but because of them.

Saw Pirates of the Carribean last night - and was pretty disappointed. I wasn’t quite as massive a rap for the first one: I do think that some of the enthusiasm was overblown, but there were quite a few parts in Pirates that left a lot to be desired. Orlando Bloom should one day have a fight to the death with Hayden Christiansen and Keanu Reeves to decide who is the more wooden, because I find him almost unbearable to watch. It consistently feels like he’s reading from a not-particularly-well-written script. And while Keira Knightley might have the market cornered for pouty english actresses at the moment, she certainly left quite a bit to be desired.

As you’d expect Johnny Depp turns in a really decent performance, despite not always having a wonderful script to work with. Regardless of the specific kind of eccentricity, if you were casting a slightly strange male lead in a film right now and hadn’t had a crack at getting Johnny Depp in to do it - you would be kidding yourself. He is very good. And the stuff with the cool tentacle beard on “Davy Jones” was pretty cool to say the least. But I even thought that some of the special effect stuff let itself down in a couple of places - there was a couple of moments where you started thinking that you were watching animation: not the ideal.

And so that this isn’t just a straight movie review, this article from “Out of Ur” (a consistently good performer blog from the Christianity Today people) has some very valid points on the way christians react to movies, and looks at some of the reasons behind it (although I think they are over-stating the badness of the Pirates film). Pretty fair comments, and while I’m not really one to get out the placards and protest against any movies, let alone Harry Potter or Pirates of the Carribean, there’s no doubt that as chrisitians we need to be consistently evaluating why we’re “opposed” to some things and allow others. Where you draw these line I’m not sure, but at very least when you do - they need to be straight ones.

I didn’t want to be a film snob. I wanted to at least be able to put aside concerns about poor acting/directing/scriptwriting to engage with the appeal of the wider phenomenon that is “The Da Vinci Code”. I usually like Ron Howard. I really quite like Audrey Tautou (those eyes - and she speaks French, how could you not love her) and I wanted to be able to put up with Tom Hanks’ mullet. I wanted to at least have something nice to say about the movie. It’s pretty hard. I did like the “smart car” car chase, although it was plenty unbelievable enough to set the scene for the rest of the film. And I did think that Ian McKellen was very good - I do like him a lot. But the movie really didn’t do anything that the book hadn’t already done, and I certainly didn’t come out feeling as though it had been at all thought provoking.

Poor Audrey Tautou was fed some horrifically bad lines. One of the most unintentionally funny things in the film was when Tom Hanks has just said that the letters are all scrambled up, and the line from Tautou is “An anagram?”. Even Tom Hanks looks at her like she’s an idiot. I couldn’t not help laughing at that.

There’s no doubt that the ideas behind the book have caused at very least discussion (and at worst, the church whining about how bad they look). And so I’m glad that I’ve seen the film, so that if it comes up in chats with work people that I have a reference point from which to be able to explain why I believe that as non-fiction it is a festering pile of cow dung.

Just saw a remarkably intense and confronting film. If you haven’t yet seen “Crash” - then you certainly should. It’s a difficult film to describe without describing the entire plot or being remardkably vague - so vague it is. The film exposes with an almost brutal honesty the deeply ingrained influence of racial stereotypes in American (and in this case particularly LA) culture.

Nobody in Crash is unaffected by the racism that in inherent in the American culture. The film diagnoses the problem but cannot offer any answers. Those who try to ignore the stereotypes; who try to treat different races the same as themselves can only hold out so long before they revert to following the rest of the world. It’s a difficult film to watch, you can’t help but identify with the characters, while at the same time being repulsed by their actions.

And as an Australian it would be the easy thing to say that the brand of racism found in American culture doesn’t have the same magnitude as in Aussie culture, but that would quite simply be a lie. People expect behaviours from certain people groups, whether it be that we expect Aboriginals to be unemployed alcoholics or that we expect Asians to be hard workers who are a bit nerdy or whatever. You could read any column that Andrew Bolt writes in the Herald Sun to see some of the attitudes people have towards Muslims. The Cronulla riots were a highly visible demonstration of the revolting racism, but the problem is certainly not confined to the Sydney beaches.

But it’s not just the violence. It’s the “bloody asians” muttered under the breath. The way our politicians speak about taking on “our way of life”, “our values” and having to leave behind “their ways”. Stop talking about us and them! Anybody living in this country deserves to be a part of “us”. Stop with the subtle remarks.

So how does a nation break those stereotypes? Do we uphold the people who break those stereotypes? Has the success of indigenous people like Cathy Freeman and Aden Ridgeway done anything to break the stereotypes implanted deep into the national psyche? Maybe a little, but not much. It all feels hopeless. Yet there must be hope, somehow, somewhere. What does it take for us to actually start just seeing people? How do we break the cycle of snide remarks, the sideways glances when someone different walks into a room.

Like Crash, I have no answers. This country, and the world, needs a complete paradigm shift. And all of the lip service in the world won’t get us there. I just don’t know what it is that will.

We had a break from Home Group this week but because everyone is so keen to meet up us boys got together and watched “Fight Club” - which most of the group (me excluded) hadn’t seen. The girls were all doing something at Jess’ place, which if you really want to read about, you will probably be able to over at All Said And Done. (edit: ask and ye shall receive) We had about 16 guys rock up at our place which was a pretty decent turnout really.

But I’m really here to post about some of the all time classic lines that come out of Fight Club. Quotes brought to you by IMDB tomorrow.

####WARNING - In this post you will find the words “Crap”, “Ass” and “Docile” in far more applicable contexts than I have used them here. You have been warned####

“This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. ”

“Only after disaster can we be resurrected.”

“Now, a question of etiquette - as I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?”

Brad Pitt: “You know why they put oxygen masks on planes? ”
Edward Norton: “So you can breath.”
Brad Pitt: “Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you’re taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It’s all right here. Emergency water landing - 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows. ” (Pointing at the airline safety card)

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. ”

“Its not until you lose everything that you are free to do anything ”

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your ducking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.”

And on it goes. If there’s not something for you to think about in all of that - maybe it’s time that you learnt to read. Or stop picking on my blog posts that are little more than copying and pasting from IMDB. One or the other. I forget which.