Shrek Forever After – The saga of that lovable green ogre adds what is its final chapter, and not a moment too soon. Each Shrek film has increased its opening weekend revenues: Shrek (42.3 million), Shrek 2 (108 million), Shrek 3 (121.6 million). I find it hard to believe that Shrek 4 can keep this upward trend in motion. Statistically, Shrek 2 was the peak of the series. It grossed over 120 million more than Shrek 3 despite lower opening weekend numbers. I think most fans of the series were disappointed with the third film and aren’t expecting much from this final installment. Therefore, I predict that it will barely pass the $100 million mark in its opening weekend.

MacGruber – Saturday Night Live is a great TV show. It is filled with current cultural happenings and has endured for 35 seasons and nearly 700 episodes. It has spawned several feature films, but none of them has met with particular success, The Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World are the only ones that have cracked the 50 million mark. Critics have given MacGruber mixed reviews, saying that the film is very crude and feels a bit like it was thrown together with duct tape and paper clips but many conclude that despite it’s shortcomings it is very funny. I think that MacGruber will be the best SNL adaptation of the past decade… Oh, wait, it’s the only one of the past decade besides The Ladies Man.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time – I’m not sure what to think about this movie. I’ve never played the game, and 16th century Persian history doesn’t exactly get my engine revving. However, I want to like this movie. I want it to be the next in a line of successful adventure movies from Disney like National Treasure and Pirates of the Caribbean, but video game adaptations have never fared well at the box office. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is currently the only one to ever gross more than $100 million. I think that statistic stands to be broken, but I’m afraid it still won’t be as successful as Disney hopes.

Another fun little factoid. Both of the films opening to wide release next week were shot in Morocco. One is supposed to be 16th century Persia and the other is modern day Abu Dhabi, but I guess to our undiscerning Western eyes, all deserts look the same. I had no idea that Morocco was wild about movies but it’s good to know.

Network (1976)

So what is it about a film made seven years before I was born and focusing on a topic that doesn’t pertain to me that I find so appealing? That is a hard question to answer. I suppose it has to do with the cultural impact of television. Aldous Huxley said about television, “In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that general artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.” We have become a vegetable garden of people, we do nothing but absorb, hoping to be entertained. However, even a fleeting moment of entertainment only leaves us more hopeless because we have no one to share it with. As T.S. Eliot once said, “It is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.”

Yet, somehow despite the verbosity of Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant script (I mean no one really talks like they do in this film), and the absurdity of the story, it has proven itself clairvoyant. We live in a world today that very much resembles the imagined world of the film. That is why I would classify Network as a Science Fiction film. It is a comedy and a drama to be sure, but the best Sci-Fi stories take a current trend and play it out to its obvious conclusion. Only a few years after this film’s release, FOX began to steal away ratings from the traditional stations by airing sensational fluff pieces. They became known for their willingness to air anything that would get the ratings regardless of what the censors at the FCC thought.

Network is really a remarkable film, it is not only watchable but compelling. It doesn’t have any computer graphics, no explosions, and no nudity, it is filled with long stretches of talkative monologues. It was made before the computers or the internet took over the world, but the actors made this film wonderful. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, half of those were for acting. It won three acting Oscars (only the second film in history to do so), and Paddy Chayefsky won for his brilliant script. Somehow, Rocky stole the Best Picture and Director categories. It is a film that few people my age have seen or even heard of, but it is a film that is worth every penny a DVD will cost you.

Peter Finch will always be remembered for his role as the “Mad Prophet of the Airwaves”, especially as he told his listeners to get up, stick their heads out their windows and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” He died just a few months before the Academy Awards, and remains the only person to win the Best Actor Oscar posthumously. He delivers his lines with such conviction and passion that you could easily be fooled into thinking that hie has been touched by some spirit that is guiding him towards a truth that he must proclaim to the masses from his own Mt. Sinai inside our televisions. And Faye Dunaway is frenetic and driven as this woman in a man’s world. She is obsessed with nothing more than the ratings numbers. She plays them like the stock market, unconcerned with the content of the show, only whether people will tune in or not. She is probably best known for her role in Mommie Dearest, but I think that this was a far superior role and it is the only one to win her Oscar gold.

If you’ve never seen Network, you owe it to yourself to add it to your Netflix list at the very least, but I would advise buying the DVD, because once you see it, you will want it. It is a classic. It speaks to our human condition, our desire to be spoon-fed and entertained. How many churches have been ruined because their members attend to be entertained week in and week out? Christians should not be like the people in this film. We should not be like so many are today. We can talk about the internet and video games, but it is that simple box that sits so comfortable in our living rooms that sucks the life out of so many of our families and melts our children’s brains to mush. Listen as Howard Beale tells you about the great evils of television in my favorite scene of the film. Warning: There is some language… watch at your own risk!

“Television, the drug of the Nation,
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.
Where imagination is sucked out of children
by a cathode ray nipple.
T.V. is the only wet nurse
that would create a cripple.”
- Michael Franti

In Mother and Child, a 14 year-old girl has sex, gets pregnant, and gives up her baby for adoption. We meet this woman forty years later in the present day, her name is Karen (Annette Bening), and she is bitter and emotionally closed off having never gotten over giving up her child. She is caring for her dying mother and after mom dies, she is left alone with her guilt and pain. As you might expect, we also meet the daughter that she gave up at 14, her name is Elizabeth (Naomi Watts). She is now a beautiful and successful lawyer. Finally, we meet Lucy (Kerry Washington) who is having trouble conceiving with her husband, and is turning to adoption to help her create the family she desires.

I’m not sure what it is about our society and adoption, it seems like the only time we hear about it is when Madonna or Angelina are pining after third-world babies or an unsatisfied parent sends their adopted son back to an orphanage in Russia. It’s always the sensational, negative, and shocking that gets the story. And while I don’t think that this film is addressing adoption with such prejudice or sensationalism, I don’t think it is giving the full picture of what adoption is really all about. I’m sure that this film will not do well at the box office, but the critics will love it, it gives a handful of female actors a chance to shine in hopes of winning Oscar gold. It will be weepy and filled with all sorts of emotional turmoil, but the one thing I don’t think it will have is insight into what adoption really feels like.

As Christians we are adopted, loved by a Father who cares about us. Adoption is a picture in scripture of redemption, that which is unwanted and useless becoming priceless and filled with worth. That is how we feel being adopted as His sons and daughters. But this movie isn’t about adoption, as much as it circles around that topic, it is about women. It is about the emotions that go along with motherhood. It is about three women who are looking for fulfillment in something that can never satisfy, and their struggle to pull their lives together. Maybe if I had a baby I would be happy, maybe if I knew my real mother everything would be alright, maybe if I could reunite with the baby I gave up in my teenage pregnancy, then I could be fulfilled. It’s all about the mess that we as sinful people make of life and family. It should give us a glimpse of our desperate need for help.

I hope that as people watch Mother and Child they don’t come away thinking that adoption causes problems. No, people cause problems. Adoption is simply one person loving a child that another couldn’t or wouldn’t. The problems come when people expect to get fulfillment from things that can’t satisfy. I am looking forward to seeing Samuel L. Jackson in his role, it may help me forget about Snakes on a Plane. I’m going to give it a predicted score of 68.

Kick-A** is the marriage of a raunchy R-rated comedy like Superbad or American Pie and an ultra-violent Tarantinoesque movie, with a superhero theme thrown in for good measure. It was written and directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) in collaboration with Mark Millar (Wanted) who was writing the graphic novel at the same time. Kick-A** has received a very mixed response from the community of film critics with a 77 @ Rotten Tomatoes and a 66 @ Metacritic at the time of publication. Roger Ebert gave it two thumbs down and said, “I find “Kick-A**” morally reprehensible.” While Richard Corliss of TIME said, “This is a violent R-rated drama that comments cogently on the impulses — noble, venal or twisted — that lead people to help or hurt others.” However, it’s controversy has not been enough to earn it the ticket sales that many were expecting, with a less than desirable opening weekend of 19.8 million. However, some have suggested that the low numbers combined with a spike in sales of the four-week old How to Train Your Dragon may indicate that large numbers of teens unable to buy tickets for Kick-A** bought tickets for the other with the hopes of sneaking into the theater.

I should warn you that this review contains “spoilers.” That is, I have reviewed the film as one might review classic literature, with freedom to describe the plot and ending and relate them to the overall interpretation. If you cannot bear to know the ending and details in advance, I urge you to see the film before reading the review. Unlike some other Christian reviewers, I don’t keep track of curse words and possible objectionable content. If you are a parent wondering if you should let your teenage kids go see this… don’t. As for adult viewing, the title of the movie is enough to offend many, and the creators were kind enough to release a red-band trailer, if it offends you, then don’t touch the movie. But I have a morbid curiosity for all things cinematic and cultural, so for better or worse, I watched it. If you want/need to read a synopsis there is a good one on Wikipedia.

Review

Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 

However, even though our superheroes aren’t so super anymore, we still place them, as well as our other heroes, which have supplanted the old west sheriff, in a slightly less than realistic world where we can safely make some assumptions. We can assume that, if this is a superhero story, if we see Spider-Man foiling some two-bit thieves in the first 15 minutes of the movie, one of them is not going to pull out a gun and end his reign of goodness. If “die hard” John McClane gets pushed down an elevator shaft, he’s going to get up (wincing, bleeding, and with a limp), but he will still get up. We love our comic violence, comic in the old sense, that it doesn’t end the story in tragedy. But in the real world that we live in, this hyper-realistic framework doesn’t exist. You can be sure that somewhere in the world today, a woman will be mugged, raped, and left for dead in an alley with no superhero to come to her aid. Somewhere else a mere child is contemplating taking his father’s gun to school and terrorizing those who have made his life hell, before he ends it in front of them. We live in a very messed-up world a world full of darkness, but we long for goodness and justice and righteousness to prevail. I believe that’s the reason people created comic books in the first place: to dream of a better world. A world where heroes triumphed over evil. It is a remarkably Christian idea. Romans 8:20-22 talks about creation being “subjected to futility”, and how we have this hope that it will one day be set free from it’s “bondage to corruption.” All of these stories with a shining hero are pictures of the hope of redemption. And as Christians we that that redemption will come through Jesus Christ, our great hero and Savior.

But Kick-A** exists on the thin line between the real world and the hopeful world where justice is meted out by a sovereign hand. It exists somewhere just outside of the land in which the villain captures the hero and after smiling at meeting his enemy, pulls a gun from his side and puts a bullet in his head. We have wonderful dreams of a universe full of heroes, but this film confronts us with reality. In this post-modern age, we want our heroes to be “more-realistic” but we never want to actually submerge them in reality. This movie isn’t really a spoof of comic books, it is confronting the desires of the viewers, the desire for reality or fantasy. I see this play out in scenes through out the film, from a the miraculous recovery of Dave after being stabbed and hit by a car, to a kid getting costumed performer being shot in an alley. But I want to look specifically at two scenes.

The first occurs while Kick-A** is in a room full of violent drug dealers. He is there to tell one of them to stay away from his love interest, Katie, but as he delivers his message they become increasingly agitated by this cucumber colored ninja. The situation escalates out of control and Kick-A** fires a Taser onto the forehead of one of the thugs but after doing so, he is pinned to the ground by two others. As the Taser wears off the thug grabs a knife and says, “You’re dead now.” Thus far, we have bought into this realistic landscape and believe that Kick-A** is about to meet his doom. He is too weak and uncoordinated to fight off these ruffians and he’s not smart enough to have come up with some type of master plan, so he is doomed by his own unbridled enthusiasm. But then as the offender steps forward to gut Kick-A**, the blade of a sword juts through his chest. A look of shocked pain fills his face and as he falls to the ground we see Hit Girl wielding a double ended samurai sword. She lays down a colorful one-liner asking who’s next? Then the music shifts from subdued and dark to the Banana Splits and she proceeds to brutally and effortlessly kill at least 4 grown men and a prostitute. As she delivers bloody slices and stabs she grins like a pixie and looks to Kick-A** for approval. Meanwhile, he can’t believe what is happening and struggles to keep from vomiting at the sight of all the gore. Just as we were on the verge of tragic reality reaching it’s conclusion, fantasy breaks in to save us from what we thought we wanted. Slowly to movie will drift back towards reality, only to reach it’s conclusion in the final battle scenes.

There we see Frank D’Amico deliver a roundhouse kick to the face of the diminutive Hit Girl. We’ve just watched this girl march down a hallway reigning down blood and terror on a whole host of armed guards. But she’s 11. And the minute we see her writhing in pain on the floor with blood pouring from her nostrils we are reminded of that. We are forced to think, “What is this little girl doing here?” We are once again brought close to reality and are reminded that we live in a universe where The Joker kills Batman and that we are afraid that D’Amico will kill Hit Girl and from the comfort of our padded seats, with our popcorn in hand, there is nothing we can do about it. We plead for this movie to become a comic book again.

And then Kick-A** waltzes in and says, “pick on somebody your own size!” and he fires a bazooka and launches D’Amico out a window and vaporizes him in a cloud of fire and blood. Just in the nick of time fantasy breaks in to save us from reality. Kick-A** reminds the audience that as much as they think they want realism, they really want fantasy.

Christians do the same thing. We don’t want reality. We want to create a Christian sub-reality where leaving a tract on the table at a restaurant thinking, “Jesus is worth more than any tip,” is actually going to lead a waitress to Jesus. Or where a bumper sticker that says, “Abortion is murder,” will cause a doctor to quit his job at the abortion clinic and a pregnant woman to have that unwanted baby. We try to pretend that everything is rose colored and peachy. We need to be jarred into reality at times. We need to understand that all of our man made virtual realities pale in comparison to the perfection that God is preparing for those who love him. We need to live in this reality and do the best we can to help people here and now even as we look forward to the day when every tear will be wiped away and all pain and death will be stopped in its tracks.

Also, as I watched Kick-A**, I couldn’t help but think of the parable of the Good Samaritan in which the least likely of people steps in to help the victim of a violent crime. While everyone else tries to ignore it, or even worse stands back and considers it entertainment, our unlikely hero has a desire to help people. This might lead some people to become social workers or ministers or police officers, but not Dave. In his adolescent cartoon violence filled mind, the only solution to the problem is to add more violence. But the message still comes through clearly: many people see the evils that go on around them, but most people do nothing about it. What will you do?

This idea came to a head in the confrontation that was caught on tape and made Kick-A** famous. In this fight, he is barely withstanding the attacks of three thugs who are assaulting an unarmed man. He flails around comically and continually gets beaten but doesn’t quit. He successfully holds them off, then a gang member pulls out a knife and tries to talk some sense into him.

Gang member: Give it up man, just walk away.
Kick-A**: No, never.
Gang member: What the f*** is wrong with you man? You’d rather die for some piece of s*** that you don’t even f***ing know?
Kick-A**: You three a**holes are laying into one guy while everybody else watches, and you want to know what’s wrong with me? Yeah, I’d rather die… So bring it on!

Dave has plunged himself into this superhero business for some really great reasons. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Dave is tired of people, including himself, standing around while evil’s afoot instead of doing something about it. Later he says, riffing on Spider-Man, “With no power comes no responsibility. Except that wasn’t true.” Dave understands that even though he’s not blessed with superpowers he has a responsibility to suck it up and help his fellow man (or fellow superhero). He again does the wrong thing with this idea, this time strapping on a jet pack equipped with Gatling guns, but the sentiment is absolutely right. The truth is, we all sometimes feel powerless to stand up to the challenges we face—but we’re called to take them on anyway.

James Harleman from Cinemagogue.com and Mars Hill Church in Seattle gives another look at Kick-A** and how it’s narrative reflects upon the meta-narrative of Scripture. He even goes so far as to make comparisons between Big Daddy and God the Father which I didn’t originally think of but can definitely see now. It’s definitely worth watching.

Have you seen Kick-A**? Do you think I’m a bad Christian for watching it, much less for liking it. Did you get something different out of it? Leave me a comment to let me know, and don’t forget to like (or dislike) this post.