A Quick Evaluation of Benjamin Button

Spoiler Alert: This post contains details pertaining to the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I haven't been able to get out and see many of the films that have been nominated for the Academy Award's "Best Picture," but Jana and I were able recently to drop the little one off at the folks so we could go watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. We wanted to see Slumdog Millionaire, but it was not showing in the part of town we were visiting, so we settled for Benjamin Button.

I have read various judgments of the Academy's nominations and many of them have been highly critical--including this one. I have to say, after seeing Benjamin Button, I tend agree with these nay-sayers.

The main problem with film--besides the fact that its been done before (see Forrest Gump)--is that Benjamin is so uninteresting. He doesn't change. Actually, I take that back: he does change, but the change is only skin deep--quite literally. He goes from ancient-ugly-infant to a weird A River Runs Through It Brad Pitt to adolescent-trying-figure-himself-out to cuter infant. But that's it. He's a manchild all the way through and static; his co-star Cate Blanchett's character (i.e. Benjamin's "Jen-nay") is more interesting with her moving to New York, talking about D.H. Lawrence, and having a career-ending accident. Her struggle is more internal, and she seems a bit more complex and therefore, interesting.

Also, I am not sure why Hurricane Katrina in the frame story is so important. Is it there simply for context--to let us know that the frame story takes place in recent years? Fine. But when the waters from the broken levees begin to flood the basement where the clock, which is so central to the story, is stored, you being to think Katrina is supposed to represent something more than just a backdrop to the present-day story.

I am not always this critical of the Academy. I was pleased with No Country for Old Men's selection last year. But then again, there have been other years when the Best Picture went to more mediocre fare.

Throw Down Your Heart

I just found out about this documentary coming out this Spring. In it, Bela Fleck (you should know him and his music if you do not) takes the banjo back to Africa, where it is believed this beautiful instrument originated, to play with African musicians from all over the continent.

There are not many instruments that "send the chills down my spine," as I heard Bill Monroe once say, like the banjo. Its history also interests me given that it was brought over by slaves and eventually became a core instrument of bluegrass, country, etc.

It's Been a Really Looong Time...

It's been a really long time since I posted anything on this blog. I had pretty much given up on it. What, with taking on new teaching duties and adopting the cutest baby in the world, I've had little time for such superfluous activities. But, hey, here I am taking some steps back into the blogosphere.

I thought I would re-christen this weblog by posting a copy of the poem that inspired its name. It captures, I think, the single most common theme running through the lives of all men and women and children: limitation.

I was reminded the other day of why this fact of life is of such interest to me when I was listening to some old radio interviews with Rich Mullins. In one of them, he points out that that most blessed of gifts we have been given, friendship, is not a cure for loneliness: that even in the most intimate moments with an Other, there is something undone, something not-yet-united, something incomplete. This absence, or lack, is always there lurking underneath all the fluttering emotions and the activities of the glands (a la Faulkner) that often accompany our many and varied experiences--including friendship. It's that lack, which works itself out into a holy "restlessnesse" (see the poem below), that is central to this blog.

As Herbert depicts below, we are body and spirit, and though these two forces are meant to live in harmony, they often are at odds. Moreover, though the Incarnation reaffirms our life in the body, we will never, in this age of the "inaugurated eschaton" (thanks, NT Wright, for that apt term), find rest-wholeness-unity in its complete and final form. This blog is borne out of that restlessness and the urge it creates to continue to explore God's wonderful (literally) world, looking for signs of wholeness, beauty, truth--signposts of that wholeness to come--even in the midst of darkness and brokenness--especially in the midst of the darkness and brokenness.

So, one of the signposts I hope to continue exploring on this blog is art in all its forms: poetry, prose, music, painting, design, etc. The postings may be sparse, but I plan to at least be "faithful" (wow, that feels silly--faithful to a blog).

Enjoy and see you 'round the 'sphere.

THE PULLEY.
WHEN God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure :
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse :
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.

~ George Herbert