Books Ruin the Movies

For most of my thoughtful life, I have been of the opinion that this shirt is mostly correct. It seemed to me that every time a piece of literature was adapted to film, the medium proved sorely lacking. Naturally, the easiest person to blame is someone else, claiming that no creative expression can match up to the individual imagination.

That would be the way I have always looked at it: the Lord of the Rings movies were fantastic, and it was enjoyable to see the story visual depicted. But, the battle for Helm's Deep was not as epic as the one I read. Nor was Saruman as evil. Nor Minas Morgul and the Ringwraiths as terrible. But I don't think this comes from a shortage of creativity on the director's part. I think the books are the ones to blame.

A recent Curator article spoke to this--the author essentially saying that no one who dove headlong into the books will ever be able to fully enjoy a film adaption, because it will always be the second time he or she has seen it. This has been my experience--I have only recently been able to get caught up in the emotion of book-to-film adaptions that I have read, because I already knew what was coming. I didn't even frown when Dumbledore died, I was too busy critiquing the differences they had made in the plot that lead up to it.

The solution, obviously, is to stop reading books. Or, and this is just a thought, we could try really really really hard to treat the movies as their own story. Certainly, you won't be surprised when Mr. Male Supporting Role dies tragically, or when Ms. Protagonist admits to that love affair, but you can enjoy the d*mn movie--which you probably paid $10+ to go see--without musing about your superior creative direction for the film.

I should say, my two favorite movies--Star Trek and Pride and Prejudice--represent both sides of this issue. Granted, I have never read the Jane Austen classic, but I know the story so well that it never surprises me. Yet, each and every time I am pissed at Darcy's arrogance and surprised by Elizabeth's ironic pride. I cry every time I watch Star Trek, and fist pump multiple times in celebration of a certain explosion or stellar cinematography. So read the book, then forget about it. Go enjoy a movie.

Deconstructing Childhood Construction

When your dad works for the church, your family doesn’t have much disposable income. As a kid, I rarely picked up on this—I didn’t mind eating the store brand cereals or wearing Wal-Mart clothes. What I was aware of, though, was the fact that my family didn’t get as many new toys as my friends’ families. This wasn’t a problem, but it did result in one necessity: recyclable entertainment. My personal venue for such reusable fun was my substantial collection of Legos.

The infinite combination of seemingly endless plastic blocks occupied a significant portion of my childhood. The spaceship of today was tomorrow’s race car, the next day’s superhero base, and the next week’s medieval fortress. For me, the joy was not in the imaginative battles and adventures the finally constructed sets could engage in, but in the creative process itself. I would rather have the opportunity to build one set than play with three. My brother would hastily construct a not-to-poorly designed car and then immediately begin to ask if I would play some variation of a race or demolition derby. For me, this was unthinkable! How dare he suggest I risk destroying that which I had spent such a lengthy and tedious amount of time constructing!?

The constructs I was most proud of were perfectly coordinated in structure and color; not a single Lego brick was unnecessary or out of place. I would naturally build any brand new set exactly as the instructions indicated. The longer the pieces were in my possession, however, the more likely they were to be shuffled and recycled into a new, inventive piece of sci-fi machinery, the specific engineering of which only I could explain. These prized productions would then proceed to occupy a special location on top of my dresser or bookshelf, safe from the war-mongering grip of my “less scrupulous” fellow creator.

Yet, even my carefully conceived and composed creations were eventually destroyed, if only to make way for the next great endeavor of my early engineering career. Sometimes, I wonder if I missed out a little bit. Not that I would trade the care I put into making each and every set. I have merely found myself pondering my brother’s consistent, endearing urge to just play, and mine to think and create. Maybe my 10-year-old self could construct a happy-medium bridge between the creative process and simply enjoying the participation.

The Tonight Show Controversy

In case you were wondering, or you were preparing to amass the battle lines. As Paste Magazine pointed out, I don't think there really is an "I'm with NBC crowd."

I do understand how NBC probably invest a good bit of money in Leno, but that doesn't make canning Conan a smart move.

Personally, from what I've seen, more entertainers and more people are leaning for the O'Brien side of things. He just seems more collected about the whole ordeal, more tactful, and, what really counts when it comes to entertainment, funnier.

Rooting For A Serial Killer

To tell the truth, I had never even heard of the TV show Dexter before I moved into the Testosterhome and several of my roommates had started watching it. Maybe that was because I had never had the luxury of Showtime as a channel option.

Since that first contact, I have definitely become engrossed. Granted, I have only seen probably 70% of the first two seasons, but I am trying to get around to more. Maybe I'll even catch up with where the show is now?

When I started to get involved in the show, I had to ask myself "Why are you rooting for a serial killer?" It would be easy to play the "he only kills bad people" card, but that's not his goal. Dexter doesn't kill because he wants bad people gone, he kills because he is screwed up and needs to satiate his desire for killing in some semi-socially-acceptable manner.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and a recent Paste article essentially coalesced my thoughts. I like Dexter because he's jacked up in the head. In one sense, I like him because he's more obviously jacked up than I am, but we are both really screwed up and really fallen.

Sure, my brokenness isn't manifested in a life-long systematic murder rampage, but what about a life-long systematic lust binge? Or my repeated instances of pride and anger. Or my ignorance of those in need around me?

I like Dexter (the show) because while it places a semi-psychotic serial killer in the position of protagonist and therefore the position of favor, the show never attempts to glorify, deify or in any way support his killing habits. Dexter himself wonders if he is a monster, if he should bring an end to it, if he can bring an end to it.

I like Dexter, the man, because he shows me a lot of myself. What does an seemingly insurmountable urge inherent in a man's psyche do when it is given full control?

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is right there. I enjoy what God has decreed as right (his law) in my heart and soul, but I see in my flesh another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that lives in my flesh.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Sound familiar?

Written On Their Hearts

I just read a very interesting article over at Paste Magazine. It talks about how John Darnielle, the front man for The Mountain Goats, and his deep struggle with his faith. I first heard about them through fellow Charlestonian Stephen Colbert. To tell the truth, their music was less than impressing, but this article is astounding to hear him talk about his faith.

While I was reading the article, I had Romans 2:15 flashing through my mind. Darnielle is apparently firmly of the belief that there is no god, but he states that "Anyone who says they never doubt is lying. But anyone who’s perfectly happy with there being no force of total love and forgiveness in the universe is also pretty foolish."

He has a firmly Catholic background, prays the rosary, and he loves "going to Hare Krishna temples to chant." His reasoning? "I believe in the spirit of prayer, and the process, and finding some way of acknowledging my own smallness in the infinite." Amen, I do to. "But I think you need to engage beyond technical exercises." Amen, I do to.

I can see him, so close to the truth, just getting ready to step into a big, messy pile of God's grace. I can see definite merit in engaging "beyond technical exercises," what I think he is using to refer to religious practice or organized religion.

We do get too often caught up with the right type of praise and worship, saying the right liturgy, and forget to engage God through the ways he's given us: His Word and prayer. And then we complain about not being able to hear God.

It is intriguing that a man of such staunch beliefs has devoted the entirety of The Mountain Goats new album to the Bible: song titles, narratives, et cetera. Apparently the final track is taken from Ezekiel's account of the end times. I kinda want to hear it.

His ending quote was particularly mind-blowing to me, I'll leave you with it: "There are plenty of people in the Bible who do things for which they shouldn’t be forgiven unless they beg, and they don’t. Yet grace, divine or otherwise, absolves the most monstrous sins. If there is grace."

What do you think?

Culture Diet

In this article, Charlie Brooker talks about the superfluity of literature and entertainment he possesses. And I agree:

"I'm fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain. I can't possibly read all these pages, watch all these movies, before the grim reaper comes knocking. The bastard things are going to outlive me. It's not fair. They can't even breathe."

I have bought 8 new books since the beginning of summer, and I've only read three. And two of them weren't one of the books that I bought.

Summer and Fall Conferences for RUF are a struggle for me: they've got a table of a whole dang lot of literature that I'd like to pick up, and poor little me with the knowledge I have a growing heap of unread-ness on my shelf at home.

About Crime & Punishment, Brooker says, after buying it, "I never read it. A few months ago, having forgotten I already owned a copy, I bought it again. This means I haven't read it twice." While I have yet to do that, it's only a matter of time. I have had someone tell me that I could borrow a book of theirs that I want to read, but instead I go and buy my own copy to not read.

Brooker's idea of the perfect solution for said problem is to obtain a fantastical sort of environment furbished with the technology available around the 1970s. "And every time I think about complaining," he writes "I want a minotaur to punch me in the kidneys and remind me how it was before."

While I cannot deny the comedy in that last statement, I don't know if that is the solution I would prefer. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of times when I wish we just lived in a period where life was...simpler.

Unfortunately, culture is such that once you've had a taste, you will only with great difficulty be able to refrain again forever.

Take the illegal downloading of music: if it had not become so readily available and widespread so quickly, then it would have been fairly easily to implement a system to prevent it.

Now, however, because the world has experienced it, there's no way in hell they're going to let it go. The same could be said for social networking, for iPods, modern art, pornography, et cetera.

That's what I think, but what do you think?

[from The Guardian via Curator]

Of Dr. Horrible

If you have not already seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you should. I say this for your benefit. It is a very vital piece of you entertainment, I assure you.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was an alternative musical written, directed and produced by Joss Whedon during the writer's strike. It contains a plentiful amount of witty lines such as "It's not about making money, it's about taking money! Destroying the status quo, because the status is NOT quo."

In addition to the hilarity of a musical about an aspiring evil scientist who want to join the Evil League of Evil and get up the courage to talk to the girls of his dreams/co-laundromat user, the three-act musical speaks sincerely and pointedly to a number of profound topics. Many of the songs consist of intense and direct dialogue about everything from the real nature of evil to social change to a time-stopping freeze-ray.

Honestly, you should go watch it. Now.


Neil Patrick Harris is making that face at you. Because you have not seen it yet.

There. I gave you two different ways to watch it. Now go.