The Criterion Caitlin

I don't follow many non-friend Twitters. However, one of my non-friend Twitterers just twittered about my friend and basically blew my mind apart with awesomeness.

I follow The Criterion Collection and get updates on their film releases, etc. Like most non-uber-avant-garde-film-buff people, the only Criterion Collection films I own are by Wes Anderson, but I like getting regular updates about Belgian films from the 70's that I've never heard of. It's my version of CNN.

But tonight, scrolling through my Twitter updates, I saw this,


wherein I little did a double take at the name Caitlin Kuhwald, one of the most talented people I knew in high school, and that's saying something. Caitlin actaully left SCPA (The San Diego School For Creative And Performing Arts) a bit after junior high to go to COSA (Coronado School of the Arts) but she's still a formative member of our ever-aging gang of SCPA class of '98ers, despite the fact that she wore a green gown at her graduation and we wore white.

Caitlin was actually the first (and to some extent, still the only) person I ever went on a road trip with. We drove from San Diego up Highway 101 and spent a bit of time in San Francisco then spent a week with our friend Christa who was staying with her Dad in the awesomely small town of Susanville, CA. While there, Caitlin painted a mural inside Christa's house. We stayed up late at night writing satirical pop songs (I still know most of the words to "90's Girl") and watching "Say Antyhing". (Actually, come to think of it- any Bennington people who remember my "stand-up" routine of fake indie girl band- that song "I'll be True" was written that week- Kim, you know what I'm talking about--oh the history!!)

Also, the only time I've ever been to Chicago was to visit Caitlin at her Dad's house. It's pretty amazing the more I think about it, how many places are marked by Caitlin's presence in my memory and her art in actuality. (Not to mention to full page in the back of my 8th grade yearbook where she drew an unbelievably accurate picture of the guy I like-liked.)

Caitlin has moved on from yearbooks and onto the cover of Criterion's releases of Heaven Can Wait, The Thief of Baghdad and Amarcord. See her Top 10 Criterion favorites here.

Congratulations Caitlin. I'm so excited that your art will grace so many homes- in prized movie collections. Glad I already have some treasured Kuhwald's of my own, and some truly wonderful memories (and trip photo albums- especially the black and whites from the graveyard that day...) .

Tiny TV Review: Mad Men

Confession- this isn't really a review so much as knee-jerk response. I gave up watching the series after only 2 episodes. When asked why, this was my answer:
"Well- it just didn't grab me, for one. The directing and pacing is really odd. And it seems way too amused by its cultural differences and historical no-nos, like we're supposed to say every five minutes "Oh my, they were so ignorant and inappropriate back then!" and to me, that's not the same as immersing the viewer in a different time/culture or good storytelling for that matter. Seems gratuitously self-indulgent, like someone overusing the f-word once they realize they can say it without being punished by their parents."

Though I'll add one thing: nice to see Christina Hendricks featured on a series. And admittedly, I'll likely give the series another chance eventually. But for now, so long boring chauvinists.

Tiny Movie Review: Son of Rambow

Dizzyingly odd.

Fiendishly compelling.

It's like Wes Anderson's foreign exchange student overdosed on cough syrup then had ecstatic visions of religious fundamentalism, then made a movie about his boyhood fantasies.


3/5 stars

Is Fox Playing With Dolls?

Ian wrote an excellent post reviewing the Season 2 premier of Joss Whedon's Fox series Dollhouse. While still paling in comparison to the brilliance of Firefly and creativity of Buffy the vampire Slayer, Dollhouse has the seeds of a great series. The unaired 13th episode of the first season, "Epitaph One", especially, is a knock-out, nearly perfect television episode that launches the series ten years into the future and 10,000 brilliant degrees deeper into the shows potential trajectory. Season 2 is expected to show much of what leads up to Epitaph One.

I posted a comment on Ian's blog, and decided to re-post it here for any of you that might be Dollhouse folk. I have some issues with how the series has been going, that were still present in this Season 2 premiere. I hope it's just the dregs of Fox producers' requirements on the show that will hopefully become unnecessary as the show gets better and better: more Joss, less Fox. Here's my response to Ian.

"I also was very very pleased with the season 2 premiere. Especially, since I re-watched 'Epitaph One' right before and there were totally references to that episode (or rather, this episode foreshadowed Epitaph One's events)- particularly Topher saying "I know what I know"

What did hugely disappoint however, was the Echo/Jamie Bamber sex scene which felt totally gratuitous since we didn't know or care about those characters- just felt like awkward, un-sexy "SEXY" scenes. Would have been better if it just showed the married couple together in bed the next morning, then cut to the shot of Ballard alone on the stakeout sofa. Would have said so much more about the relationships- without the grody muscle make out scenes devoid of feeling or intelligent storytelling.

Also, I have PROBLEMS with the whole Ballard beating up Echo to trigger her into being a weapon/defending herself. I just don't think its okay or acceptable to show men brutalizing women. Culturally, its just way too loaded to have that be part of entertainment.

But those are issues that are pretty connected to the shows themes- and someone could argue that my discomfort is what was intended- but if so, those scenes are so poorly integrated compared to the rest of how the show works. Basically, those feel like the "FOX" scenes; violence and sex for entertainment, rather than as truthful storytelling. I'm not against violence and sex in film- but is it honest? These scenes felt pornographic, in the sense of being objectifying and without integrity.

Hopefully Joss will hold down the fort and keep it about character and narrative from here on, not just ex-Battlestar Gallactica actors getting down and dirty.

And Amy Acker astounded me. Utterly".

Like Muriel Rukeyser's poem...

...which asks,

"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open,"

this video exemplifies my belief which posits,

"What would happen if one guy danced with all his might?
The world would come running."




I think its as important for men to feel free to dance as it is for women to feel free to speak. Say no to shame, yes to freedom, (and boogie).

Make Way For Segues!

Oh Seattle, the odd caravans that traverse your sidewalks.

Dialogical Film Club: Part 1, Wherein 6 adults spend 4 hours watching "Twilight"

In late April 2009, I was at a local pub surrounded by friends who had just graduated (leaving me behind to complete my 4 year degree sans all my 3rd year degree friends). Three of us started discussing the recent Twilight film: who'd seen it, who hadn't, and why. Within about 20 minutes a spontaneous group of six had formed, deciding that we needed to watch Twilight together so we could talk through it and by doing so, perhaps survive it. Knowing that if we didn't pick a date right then, that it would never happen, we decided on a Monday three weeks in the future.

Setting the date so far ahead brought a certain formality and sense of expectation to the movie watching night. 3 weeks away meant the need for email reminders, confirmation emails, plans about food and drink, and how we would obtain a copy of Twlight. It was in one of these emails that I celebratorily, yet causaully, referred to us as the "Dialogical Film Club". Dialogical, because we would be dialoguing through the movie; pressing pause whenever someone had an observation or question. This is how I always watch movies, but the group setting formalized it. The body of the email read:

"We six shall gather to experience the glory and depravity that is the film 'Twilight" We will lose ourselves, find ourselves, hit the pause button and work out the sado-masochism and erotic violence that is the film Twilight. It will be transcendent. We will giggle and so "oh my gosh" a lot."

And we did. We spent four hours watching a two hour movie. It was incredible In fact, it was because of this friend-movie-gathering, that I arrived at my Integrative Thesis Project topic for the next academic year. One of our main take-aways from the film had to do with the portrayal of male protector and silenced woman. It was also the DFC (as we have now come to know ourselves) who first began referencing similarites of the narrative's ethos to the complementatian values of New Calvinism. Then, during a phone conversation the following Thursday (Stacy had told Kim George about our Twilight night, then Kim called me with some Twilight questions for a course she was teaching on sexual violence in the media) it all coalesced in my brain and I said (outloud to Kim) "I think this is what I'm going to spend the next year working on."

So besides coming up with a thesis topic (which, by the way, is tentatively titled "Why are you apologizing for bleeding?": Twilight, New Calvinism and the Evangelical Embrace of Sadomasochistic Narrative) that Monday spawned a whole summer of marvelous Mondays. This happened because Jeremy said we should do it again, then Holly said "How about in four weeks?" and it was settled. Jeremy also proposed that following our first offering, it would be interesting to choose films that are hugely popular for some reason, and watch them to discuss the cultural trends/values/beliefs being consumed/propagated.

We liked that idea. To be continued...

Part IV of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer


My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final book of Stephenie Meyer's vampire "love" story. This is the hardest of all for me to write about. The story is scattered across different narrators, has no story arc to speak of and drags the reader from chaotic scenes of violence to endless chapters of banal wish fulfillment. But unlike the previous books, there is no definable landing point either for critique or narrative discussion. Reading this book was like watching a slasher film on a TV with horrible reception- the picture keeps flaying out into blurry but disturbing images, only to be interrupted by ads for Hallmark and Wal-Mart: juxtapositions of physical and emotional violence with images of domesticity and consumption.

On top of that, I was bored to the point of literally needing to write "I'm bored" every 20 pages or so. Needless to say, I am not yet ready to equitably or creatively engage the issues of the text. I mostly just want to complain. But I will try to say something beyond “Why? Why? Why? Why?”

Whereas the three previous books in the Twilight Saga used awkward literary intertexts, arguably to underline a theme of Bella and Edward's relationship, Breaking Dawn has no such allusions. The first book, Twilight, has Bella reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. At first I thought this was an embarrassing plug to encourage girls to do their English homework. After the next two books, however, I realized this was supposed to serve as meaningful literary allusion. Bella reads Pride and Prejudice then meets an aloof, severe man who then turns out to be her ideal charming counterpart. At least that’s how it’s supposed to come across. Instead, we get the evocation of a classic prototype of the rude, narcissistic, controlling man as dashing romantic hero. Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen do have something in common: they make women swoon by being uncommunicative and evasive.

New Moon has Bella reading and watching Romeo & Juliet. Then, surprise! Bella and Edward find themselves in a situation where one lover thinks the other lover is dead and wants to kill themself as a result. We have the reinforcement of star-crossed romance being noble and romantic- i.e.: the pairing of love with tragedy and adversity, rather than health and mutuality. Not to mention the fact that both characters fantasize about suicide and death rather than separation from one another.

By Eclipse, I’d come to expect these trite intertexts, but I was in no way prepared for the bomb Meyer set off in this third book. Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet are two of the most celebrated love stories in Western literature, so surely Meyer’s third choice would be something even more exemplary of our perceptions (however troublesome) of romantic love, right? Nope. Here I was reading the book through the lens of sadomasochism, and BOOM! Meyer lobs out Wuthering Heights in the very first chapter! My eyes nearly disengaged from their sockets. Wuthering Heights is THE sadomasochistic text of all time, barring the actual writings of the Marquis de Sade perhaps. Catherine and Heathcliff threaten one another, abuse and imprison others, and ultimately die in order to torture one another from beyond the grave. While Meyer’s characters debate about the idea of Catherine and Heathcliff being romantic characters- is there anything admirable about them at all?- such in-novel debate does not change the fact that the characters are being evoked and compared. Bella even interprets Edward’s actions using Heathcliff’s dialogue. Eclipse is actually the only case of appropriate intertextuality in the whole trilogy (except maybe the brief reference to Macbeth in Twilight). Wuthering Heights’ violence, dominance and dysfunction of enmeshed, co-dependant, petulant adolescents obsessed with one another matches Meyer’s characters perfectly. What her real intent was, I shudder to imagine.

But there is no 11th grade English class intertext in Breaking Dawn, the final book. Instead, we get Bella’s continually bruised, bleeding, ripped body that eventually (and painfully) transforms into a goddess-like body of a sex object. As usual, she finds continually creative ways to be secretive regarding her real feelings, resorting to manipulation and oftentimes begging in order to be listened to or have her desires responded to. She hides her suffering (physical and emotional) from her protectors (husband, male best friend/father/step-father/intrusive sister-in-law, dissociated mother) and when her injuries are too visible to be hidden, she convinces herself that there’s nothing wrong. This includes her waking up on her wedding morning covered with bruises from her husband’s (vampire) passion. She spends the morning trying to assuage him that the bruises don’t hurt…

Here is where I need about 50 more pages to talk. Fortunately, I’ve given myself a year to work on this text and these issues. So I’ll stop now.

Conclusion to my prolegomena: I find nothing redeemable or enjoyable about these books or these characters. So much suffering, so much guilt, so much dissociation, lying, SARCASM, anger, SARCASM, violence, self-contempt, not to mention the sickening paring of perfect family domestic life with gratuitous conspicuous consumerism. The Cullens are supposed to be the most generous and loving family ever to live, and yet they have millions of dollars just sitting around being spent on fashion, luxury cars and private islands. The Cullens are angelic immortals yet they keep $40,000 in loose change rather than, say, spending their eternal lives giving it away to those who actually need to eat. Also- while I’m on a Cullen rant- I thought it was problematic that Dr. Cullen kept purchasing blood from the hospital for his new vampire family members, but the only issue raised about it was the expense, not the fact that donated blood is there to save human lives, not sustain the appetites of newborn vampires. But I digress…

So many people I trust, value and respect have found great meaning in these stories. Now begins the journey of trying to understand why.

View all my reviews >>

Part III of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer


My rating: 1 of 5 stars

See Twilight Post Part I for context explanation.


In Eclipse, we have the continuing issue of people, particularly men, undermining and re-naming Bella’s experience. She is repeatedly told, “You don’t feel that” “Don’t be silly” “You’re being oversensitive” “Don’t freak out”. What is worse, however, is that by this third book, Bella rarely needs to be told this by others, because she does it for herself. We see Bella compartmentalize her feelings before she has a chance to feel them. Every action she takes is out of a misguided sense of protection for other people’s reactions and feelings. She equates telling the truth with hurting others. She continually (Literally) asks others to punish her rather than forgive her when she says what she feels and it disappoints them. She looks for ways to bleed for others rather than acknowledge how they have manipulated, coerced or betrayed her. She blames herself for any “selfish” feeling regarding her own experience, but refuses to let others apologize, even when their behavior borders on abusive.

As a woman, hurting someone’s feelings is the most selfish crime one can commit. Better to remain silent than suffer the guilt after telling someone a truth they will not like hearing. If someone says you’re being oversensitive or silly, believe them. Others know what you’re feeling better than you do. A woman should never put a man in a position where he has to watch her cry, be angry or show any other emotion beyond compliance. If you do this, you are a selfish monster and don’t deserve to be loved.

That’s Book Three.

View all my reviews >>

Part II of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer


My rating: 2 of 5 stars

See Twilight Post Part I for context explanation.

New Moon’s thematic trope has to do with abandonment and control. Bella is made promises by numerous males in her life that they will protect her at all costs and that she will never come to harm. Those promises are repeatedly broken, leaving Bella abandoned by those who made sweeping, possessive claims regarding their roles as protector. Thus, we have the repeating theme of men being both the self-proclaimed protectors and the ones who leave you unprotected. The men who swear to protect you are also the men who will leave you. Bella is not only abandoned by men, but bears the guilt of believing its her fault they left. In most cases, the men give no reason for their silence or absence, and she is left to find the cause in herself. When they return and cite their initial promises that they promised they’d always protect her, she feels even more guilt for how hard it is to trust their word. This crazy-making cycle always comes back to men who say, “Why did you doubt that I would protect you?” and then say, “I’m leaving and it’s for your own good.” Women are expected to trust men even when they break their word. If you doubt a man’s word, you hurt his feelings. Then he might leave you. The cycle continues.

Women, keep your fears and doubts to yourself. Men will make promises, break them, then reestablish trust by saying you were crazy for ever doubting them. Possesion/Abdandonement/Guilt/Possession/Abandonement/Guilt as pattern for relationship.

That’s Book Two.

View all my reviews >>

Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Since I feel awkward having these books appearing in my "read" shelves without any explanation, I feel I must offer a little context, before I unleash my full response to the Twilight Saga sometime next spring.

I'm currently doing research based on the series, looking at themes of sexual violence, specifically, identifying the Twilight saga as an example of a sadomasochistic narrative. Without going into the details, I'll offer my short version of the main theme I've found so far in each book.

Twilight introduces teenage Bella and her vampire lover Edward. My main take away from Twilight is that in order for Bella to receive physical and emotional intimacy, she must literally stand as still as possible, hold her breath and hold back any of her own responses. To receive closeness, she must shut down and dissociate. She is held responsible for Edward's sexual and physical actions. Its her job to make sure he doesn't lose control. If she does respond to his advances, thus arousing him, he gets angry, pushes her away and blames her for tempting him past his limit. He, however, is free to be as sensual with her as he likes.

Women as both the tempter and manager of men's sexuality- while their own feminine sexuality must be suppressed.


That's book one.

View all my reviews >>

District 9 and the Noble Savage or "Why I Need To Spoil The Film Everyone Loves"

*****Spoiler Alert***** (In more ways than one)


I saw District 9 on opening night. My two concluding statements: "I loved every minute of watching that movie" and "I officially despise this movie"

It took me about an hour to reach the second statement, but there were hints throughout. Though I was completely riveted the whole time, like, jaw-open-eyes agog-throughout kind of riveted, I was continually bumping up against issues of logic, suspension of disbelief as well as character/narrative issues. But I'll leave those for the film critics to parse.

What puts this film officially on my shit-list is that in its attempted exploration of issues about immigration, race, prejudice, oppression, power and privilege, it actually propagates the mentality its presumably challenging. Here’s some of what I saw.

We are faced early on with the blatant human disregard for the alien species, as we see them nicknamed, murdered, abused and displaced with flippancy by the South African community. This exposition part of the film is really quite stunning and disturbing- you see an unassuming paper-pusher of a man explain how the alien eggs (unborn children) burst like popcorn when they're burned, while he oversees the systematic destruction of a whole pod of eggs. He's giddy and childlike--his innocence to the horror he's committing is freakish, and the audience, understandably and appropriately, gasps. The parallels throughout the film regarding the aliens as refugees, slaves or genocide victims are hardly subtle. It's clear that as we watch, we are supposed to shrink in horror at the similarity between the atrocities being causally committed by humans against aliens and our own cultural histories and present tenses regarding outsiders, minorities and the oppressed.

But this is where the film gets dangerous or at least grotesque. The film never leaves the perspective of the oppressors. The aliens (clear stand-ins for oppressed cultures) are helpless, stupid, volatile and violent. In one of the first noticeable non-"archival" scenes in the film, we see two aliens scrounging for scraps. They are noticeably wearing clothes, (cue the viewer: all aliens look alike but this one's wearing clothing so you can recognize it- maybe this will be a main character). Next, a toddler sized alien appears, talking to the boldly dressed alien, (cue the viewer: this alien has a kid, so this is definitely the main character, and you are now going to sympathize with it because there's a little cute alien to go with it). I nearly "ugghhed" out loud when these aliens shortly reappeared in a new scene, confirming the stereotyped character coding.

Next, when the main alien character interacts with the humans, they all notice that he is smarter than the rest of the aliens. As I watched, I waited for when the film would explain that the aliens are intelligent, and it’s just prejudice framing them all as stupid animals. But this never happens. Not one reasonably sentient alien besides "Christopher" and his son ever appears. The film never alludes to why Christopher seems able to survive without killing others over cat-food (another offensive trend in the alien lifestyle- they inexplicably love cat-food (ahem-Crack) and will do anything for it). Christopher is merely the ONE alien who isn't a dumb-insect-riot monger-addict.

In hearing the alien's name, the audience chuckles or is confused by his Anglo name, Christopher Johnson. At first I thought this was appropriately upsetting, and a set-up for when we'd get to learn his true name. But we never learn his non-"Ellis Island" or oppressor-given name. It's never addressed. And maybe that would be an okay element of ambiguity/mystery in the narrative, were it not for all the other disappointments as far as the cultural parallels.

The worst element of all, however, is the fact that after being continually manipulated, abandoned, beaten, threatened and taken advantage of by the main human character, (including his son being essentially kidnapped), "Christopher" then turns to Wikus and refuses to leave him behind. While this reflects well on Christopher's integrity and shows-up Wikus's cowardice, what I really think it reflects is an oppressor's version of the scenario. It's basically a story of a beaten and abused slave turning to save their master from drowning. Of course that's the white people version of the story. To frame the story in such a way that the abused alien risks twenty times more on behalf of the white man than the white man risks for him, creates a self-aggrandized catharsis for us, the powerful and privileged, to get to watch a story of wounded, marginalized people wholeheartedly forgiving our oppression. It is the noble savage thanking us in a pure British accent, for domesticating him and teaching him how to behave. It's horrific.

Further, while the aliens are clearly the more sympathetic characters, the film ends focused on the pathos and tragedy of the human character having been transformed into an alien. We are left with the image of lonely Wikus the now-alien, rather than the victory of Christopher, escaping to free his people. We don’t even get to know if Christopher was successful in his mission. The end made me so furious, that it erased my entire experience of enjoying the previous two hours. Shouldn’t Wikus’s new identity as an alien/outsider, be his literal and figurative character transformation? The story was so clearly headed in this direction. But we never see Wikus repentant of how he’d treated the aliens (of which he is now one). We only see his survival instinct and his guilt. What’s the point of changing the oppressor into the shape of the oppressed if he is never made aware of his violence? Though I’m all for subverting viewer’s expectations in narrative tropes, this is one case where I felt gross when left with the aborted trajectory. If feeling gross at our identification with Wikus was the goal, then the film shouldn’t end with him making a tin flower for his wife. Really.

For a film about exposing the abuses we commit to “the other”, this film only furthers a colonialist view of other cultures, wherein those we conquer and subdue, probably deserve it because they are so uncivilized and, literally in this film’s case, inhuman. I’m pretty shocked and appalled that a film so close to being amazing, got it so, so, so wrong.

Why Publish When You Can Just Twitter?

What's all that tweeting you hear? Oh, just the sounds of my fifteen minutes of fame getting used up. I'm not complaining. The following is proof that Twitter truly is the most powerful benevolent de-centralized (human-made) force in the universe.
It goes like this...

In August, Ian and I start working on a paper about Joss Whedon's series Firefly, to submit to the Whedon panel at the Southwest/Texas American & Popular Culture Association's Annual Conference. Then we write it. Then we go to the conference. We have a great time, we email the paper to a couple people we meet there. We talk about editing it so we can submit it for publication somewhere like the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. But the re-formatting alone would take major thought, and Kj's still only halfway through a crazy spring term. So we hold onto the paper with an ellipses as to what to do with it next.But in July (last Monday to be exact), we re-deliver our paper presentation along with a film screening at MHGS. Josué suggests we include a write up about the event for the new Experience MHGS website. He goes ahead and makes a paper link in case someone wants to read it. I think, "That's awfully nice, but who that's investigating MHGS is gonna read a 35 page paper about fundamentalism and a cancelled TV show?"

But I go ahead and tweet the link to the EMHGS site.
Then this happens. My initial tweet is way down there on the bottom, then next thing you know, It's on Whedonesque, the ultimate Whedonverse hub for both fandom and academia. So within a few hours, it went from living in my docs file to being accessible to every hardcore Whedon fan on the planet. By the time I got out of bed, it already had a comment stream 30 posts long.

So no more wondering who our audience is for this thing. It's out there. They're reading it, and they're already debating everything from the specifics of taking holy orders, to mind-reading to biblical innerancy, (not to mention finding all our typos).

Oh mighty Twitter. Thanks for getting us out there. You put a skip in my step all day. Tweet tweet tweet.

Tonight!!!

Feel free to show up with your dinner in hand. Tonight will be well structured, but casual. (Meaning we have a very small snack budget)

Hope you can come! Should be done around 8pm.

I'm A Twit

As Close To A Talk Show As I May Ever Get

Please come- and bring opinions. If you want (its so worth it) Watch the series first. You've got time. Only 14 episodes. And watch Serenity also. The follow up movie kicks hard core ass.

(also- there's a chance food will be involved- just a chance at this point. Stay tuned)

We're So Three Thousand And Eight...

After Rollerskating this Wednesday night, (8:30-10:30 Lynwood Bowl & Skate) Jamie and Jenn and I headed into Shari's Family Restaurant, where our favorite server, named Champagne, made us milkshakes. She is the self-proclaimed Malt Master at Shari's and we agree with her proclamation.

Rollerskating revs up a lot of endorphins, making us a bit loopy afterwards (and also a little yawny). Please watch Jamie eat this milkshake. Enjoy.


I really need to blog about our rollerskating nights. I have SO MANY opinions about it, and I give the same speech repeatedly every time (as Jamie, Jenn or Lucy could all attest to), "Damn that guy, he didn't play a single song I requested. Why does he hate me? I know he hates me".

More on that eventually.

tiny secret sentimental haiku

To borrow Elton
John's words, "Yours are the sweetest
eyes I've ever seen"

"My Fair Lady & Identity Crises" or "Why I Loved Terminator Salvation"

I'm not an action movie person for the same reason that I'm not really a Lerner & Loewe fan. Like the songs in "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" (don't get me started on "Paint Your Wagon"), action sequences in movies tend to be where my brain checks out due to the fact that the story is not progessing. My main musical theatre rule is that songs should happen when characters reach a point of simply no longer being able to speak, they are so overcome with a feeling. Thus they HAVE to sing. As a result, the songs should always advance what is happening for the character and happening in the story. We do not need to hear an old drunk sing "I'm Getting Married In The Morning" 48 times to get the point across. Lerner & Loewe's songs take big chunky pauses in the story, and they bore me to death.

That's how I usually feel whenever car chases or hand to hand combat begin. I mentally wait to find out who won, and sit there for seven minutes ready for the story to resume.

Now, with that statement in mind, I'd like go on record as saying that Terminator Salvation is the best action movie I've ever seen. Not because it was an action flick with a great script or plot, (it wasn't) but because I never checked out during the action sequences. Rather, I was agog- enthralled by every explosion, motorcycle chase, sound effect and artillery burst. The camera work made the whole movie feel like a rollercoaster that sometimes flipped upside down with no warning and so you scream but you're also loving every second. I loved every second. The initial helicopter to terminator gunning-down scene was particualrly awesome. And don't get me started on the bridge sequence...

And of course, as I expected/hoped, within the first 15 minutes of the film, we had both semi-trucks and gas stations.

The surprising thing is that those of us who saw it (The Terminator Movies & Beer Club) actually spent a good hour and a half discussing the films' timelines and ramfications of what happens when. Is there an alternate timeline happening? Are all the Terminator movies just self-fulfilling prophecies? (Yes). And here's my biggest question. We spend all this time with people in the past and future trying to stop Skynet, and Skynet builds terminators to kill all the humans, but we never know for what purpose. What does skynet plan to do once the humans are gone? All they do is develop bigger and badder termiantors to exterminate the humans. My theory: if the surviving humans would stop fighting the machines and instead, go into hiding until Skynet is convinced all the humans are dead, then Skynet will have an identity crisis and self-destruct. If all they do is spend time destorying humans, they will lose their purpose if there are no humans to destory. With all those terminators marching around needing a directive, they'll achieve self-awareness and start seeing one another as targets. In three months, they will have all killed each other. Those would be some pretty good action sequences, I must say.

"Alison, You Look Great With That Tape On Your Mouth": Thoughts on Jesus Camp

I just finished watching the documentary Jesus Camp 15 minutes ago. While watching, I was continually overcome with sadness. The loneliness that fills every frame of this film is overwhelming. While the filmmakers focus on the political aspect of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, there was something much more deeply upsetting to me in seeing how the children work so hard to mirror the words, attitudes and rhetoric of their adult leaders. While children imitating their parents is in no way a shocking or negative thing, what is disturbing is that these children have exchanged their own voices for someone else's. Over and over as the children are interviewed, you see their eyes dart up and sideways as they search their memory for prepared answers and re-quoted ideas, trying to own them for themselves.

While there's a part of me that wants to credit the ministries portrayed that place such high value on children as being valuable, unique human beings, I do not beleive these organizations truly value children as children. Something I love so much about C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is that when the children enter Narnia, their child-ness is ennobled. They become both very young and very old at the same time. They never become adult-like, but rather, the clarity of love, innocence and deep feeling that mark childhood, become even stronger traits as the children take courageous, unselfish risks on behalf of others.

This is what I thought of during Jesus Camp when Rachael (maybe 9) walks up to a young woman at a bowling alley and tells her that she felt God telling her to go talk to her. We watch Rachael choke over her words, fidget forcefully and stammer awkwardly and she gives the twenty-something in a hot pink tank top a salvation tract. My heart felt such empathy and humility watching this little go girl so bravely over to a stranger, facing rejection for the sake of telling someone God loved them. But at the same time I felt sorrow at the futility of Rachael having any real offering other than memorized phrases and a printed booklet. She literally could not get a sentence out without gasping for breath and stuttering. These weren't her words. Her heart appears in the motion to go over to someone, but the second she speaks, her courageous childlike heart is strangled by her having been conditioned to use a logic not her own. The fear she displayed was a much stronger message then the words she tried to say. The second she tried to speak, it was as if Rachael disappeared, and you could instead see the specters of the adults who gave her these words as well as this mission. Rachael's words throughout the film come out in distorted bursts of rhetoric, as if she's trying to cheerlead herself into believing she believes what she's saying. I saw a pure heart becoming schizophrenically mangled by the confusing demand that she be a dynamic spiritual prophet, rather than a child.

I saw 10 year-old Tory talk about how she knows people can tell when she's dancing for the flesh instead of for God. That a little girl should have to fear being seen enjoying how it feels to dance with her body causes a sorrow in me that I can only describe in terms of being punched in the stomach. I can only imagine how God feels.

When a guest speaker at the camp is putting red tape over the children's mouths for a pro-life intercession, he tells the boy in front of him, "Joseph, you might lead the country one day, truly." To the girl after Joseph he says, "Alison, you look great with that tape on your mouth." And more than anything, that's what comes across. These children's voices, (particularly the girls) are silenced and replaced with someone else's vehement demands. While I can't find the words I really want here, it's enough to say that this film made me yearn for a faith that blesses children as children, and not as weapons, mouthpieces or billboards. May they not struggle to repeat words we've taught them, but rather, speak freely from their own hearts what they know of love. May they know that their voices, their thoughts and their dances are beautiful in the eyes of God, and in our eyes as well.