I HATE THE IDEA OF BOYCOTTS, BUT....

I don't know if the Paris Hilton commercial for Carl's Jr. is playing across the country, but it deeply disturbs me.

In it, the untalented, overly-lucky Paris, dressed in a high-end, quite revealing swimsuit, cavorts lasciviously all over a car while ostensibly washing it (and of course being drenched by the water), to the tune of Cole Porter's "I Love Paris." All this, believe it or not, to sell a hamburger.

Some have said the commercial qualifies as soft core porn. I can't boast enough of a familiarity with soft core porn to weigh in on that opinion, especially in this day of ubiquitous internet porn -- but I feel fairly confident that, at some point in my lifetime, this commercial would certainly have been considered soft porn, if not today.

My son is too young to care about overtly sexy women. (He squinched closed his eyes when the kissing scenes came on in Revenge of the Sith.) Yet, when this commercial came on in the middle of the American Idol finals, he was riveted to the screen, his mouth slightly agape.

I turned the TV off for about 30 seconds.

And I realized, my son may be too young for Paris Hilton. But he's not too young for hamburgers.

So I am simply not going to patronize Carl's Jr. for the duration of this commercial. Even though it's one of the most convenient fast food joints for us, at a time (6 days away from moving), where I expect to eat a lot of fast food. And I will drop them an e-mail on their website to let them know that.

I don't like the idea of boycotts in most cases. I think they are ineffective generally. I hate the way Christians have used them.

But if I'm going to shop at certain places because their advertising draws me in (e.g., Target), then I can equally avoid certain places because their advertising repels me.

So.... no Santa Fe chicken sandwiches, no criss-cut fries, no Famous Stars.... not until Paris has crawled back on the luxury yacht where she undoubtedly belongs. Sorry, Carl.

SEDUCED

We have a good friend who, for years, has not owned a TV.

He could chat about TV shows based on what he read about them in the paper. He would go to bars to watch sports, enjoy it with the crowd. He spent a lot of time on the Internet. But no TV.

This guy is one of the most fascinating conversationalists I know. If I were to be a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, he would definitely be one of my phone-a-friends, to tap into his wealth of knowledge of physics, biology, dance, classical music, you name it.

So imagine my surprise when he asked me if I was rooting for Bo or Carrie to win American Idol! Huh? How could he possibly know who the AI finalists were?

Turns out he just got married. And the new wife, newly immigrated from Brazil, is really into American TV. So all of a sudden, he is, too.

I knew things had irrevocably changed when he admitted to being hooked on America's Next Top Model.

Even as I tried to persuade him to start watching Lost, I felt as if I was watching a breach in a wall of purity somehow. Because sometimes it's not just entertainment. Sometimes it's seduction.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: STAR WARS III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

Okay, I saw Revenge of the Sith today. And there's just no way I can write a fair report on it. Because what I wanted was to come out feeling the way I felt after seeing Star Wars. Or The Empire Strikes Back. (Or even Raiders of the Lost Ark, for that matter.)

And there's just no way it can happen. I'm not the same little girl I was then. The movies aren't the same. The expectations are too high -- the end of a saga -- and simultaneously too low -- the last two movies just sucked too much. And of course, I know what's going to happen.

By now you've read several reviews, I'm sure, so I won't encapsulate. But here's a few thoughts.

The movie is visually spectacular -- sometimes to the point of overload. George Lucas set out to prove he could make a fully digital movie. I was a skeptic, but he convinced me. Other than some weird stop-motion problems with that creature that Obi-Wan rides, the visuals were dazzling and seamless.

[SPOILER WARNING!]

And the motivation for Anakin's turn to the dark side pretty much works. I never really believed that Anakin loved Padme all that much. Probably it was the wooden dialogue, combined with the complete lack of directorial attention to the actors' performances... But if you buy the depth of his love, then the motivation for his turn to the dark side is fairly believable. Especially when combined with the really nicely seductive performance by Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine.

But somehow, even though so many of the pieces work, somehow the whole isn't as great as the sum of its parts. As we walked out of the theatre, one of our friends said, "I miss Han Solo." And I think that's the key to the problem with the movie: There is no one to fall in love with. I'm even more in love with my memory of Yoda from Empire than I am with anything he's been or done in these 3 movies (and let me say, the digital Yoda is an incredible achievement).

Also, if you've read the comments on my earlier Star Wars post from a few days ago, you know some people are unhappy with the thought that we seem to be meant to empathize with Anakin as he turns to the Dark Side, thus in a sense choosing the Dark Side along with him.

Now, having seen the movie and given that some thought, I think the fallacy there is in thinking of Anakin as a normal "hero myth" type of hero. The kind we root for and want to emulate. And he's not. Anakin here is a tragic hero. We are indeed to emphatize with him -- but we are to see his life as a warning. His story is told to keep us from becoming like him. That's the whole point, the reason for existence, for a tragic hero.

Now why doesn't he quite work as a tragic hero? I would sum it up in two words: Bad writing. A tragic hero is an incredibly delicate character to set up and to play out (Lee and I have done it once). And let's face it, delicacy and subtlety are not Lucas's strong suits. The music, in fact, did more to let us know we were watching a tragic hero than the dialogue did.

We should have been on the edge of our seats saying, "No! Don't do it!" as Anakin turns to the Dark Side. But since the dialogue and performances were so flat (and admittedly, since we knew it was coming), well, it all got a little ho-hum. A character who could have been on the mythic level of a Macbeth or a Michael Corleone just goes through the paces. And so we don't get the catharsis we should get, we don't go on the emotional journey that only tragedy can take us on. All those visuals are, I guess, supposed to distract us so we don't notice. A shame.

I have to follow up on my earlier comments on the plotting. Here, George seems to have touched all the right notes (mostly in the last 5 minutes of the movie!). Here's the list again: [EXTREME SPOILER WARNING!]


--Luke and Leia must be born. Yes. And the fact that Padme's carrying twins is kept till the very last minute, as is appropriate story-wise, but not really believable given that using today's comparatively stone age technology, a woman can know she's carrying twins before the end of the first trimester.
--Luke and Leia must be separated at birth (or very shortly thereafter). Yes. Handled very cleanly. And btw, isn't Jimmy Smits having a nice year, between Star Wars and West Wing?
--Leia must be hidden. Yes. Off to Aldaraan with her (though I wondered why the planet itself was never mentioned. It would have been more satisfying if it had been.
--Luke must be adopted by his Uncle on Tattooine. Yes. And what a shock to see them looking so young. The shot of baby Luke being held by his aunt and uncle before the double son was beautiful, and a lovely visual tip to the first Star Wars.
--Queen Amidala must die. Yes. Though unjustified as far as I can tell. Basically she seems to die because Anakin dreamed she would. What kind of medical technology is it that can save someone as badly damaged as Anakin, yet a woman in childbirth in a high advanced medical facility just chokes out her children's names and dies, and no one even tries to revive her, put her on life support? Come on, George. You could have done way better with this one.
--Anakin must be maimed so as to require the breathing mask, etc. Yes. Nicely done. As pointed out in a heated discussed between 10-year-olds in the car on the way home, the lava cauterized the wounds from all his limbs being severed, so that he didn't bleed to death. In essence, all Anakin is left with is his heart and his brain. And one of my favorite shots of the movie was the shot from Anakin's -- or should I say, Vader's -- POV as the breathing mask is lowered onto his head: The last time we will ever see anything from Anakin's point of view ever again.
--Anakin must become Darth Vader -- i.e., he must turn to the Dark Side of the Force/join the Sith. Yes. I still think the motivation could have been stronger, but at least Palpatine led him along a step at a time, finding and milking Anakin's fears, rather than having one incident turn him from fully Jedi to fully Sith.
--The Republic must be dissolved and the Empire formed. Yes. Efficiently done. Probably don't want to look too closely at it, because the logistics might not hold up, but who really cares about the politics anyway?
--Senator Palpatine must become the Emperor. Yes. Part of the above plot beat.
--The Jedi Council must be dissolved. I guess killing them all counts as their being dissolved!
--Obi-Wan must retire to Tattooine. Yes, and nicely justified. Although Yoda's little bit about continuing Obi-Wan's "training" by teaching him to talk to dead Jedi feels a bit tacked on -- like someone said, "Oops, we forgot to have anyone talk to dead Jedi for three movies, we'd better deal with it in a line of dialogue, yeah, that'll work."
--Yodo must go to Dagobah. He goes into "exile." I guess we don't need to know where.
--Mace Windu and all the other Jedi must be killed. Yup. And it all happened so easily, makes you wonder just a bit what good all their training was. Oh well.
--Droid warfare must end, replaced by clone warfare. We're clearly in a transition phase, with some factions using droids, some using clones, and the difference causing political friction and warfare. I think George balanced this well -- more of the droid vs. clone stuff, and we would have been bored out of our minds (as in, say, Episode 2). Nice design work, btw, seeing the clones wearing what are in essence stormtrooper uniforms, just not in the all-white that will come into fashion in the next 20 years or so.
--C3PO's and R2D2's memories must be wiped. (Some people have argued that R2 could remember it all, and just isn't telling anyone. Yes, possible.) Yes! I was so proud of George for remembering this! And yes indeed, it wasjust 3PO who had his memory wiped.

So all in all, not a disappointment. And George at least kept his contract with the audience in touching all the plot beats he had to touch on. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it a second time. But I can't imagine seeing it five times, as I saw the original.

Because it's not the original. Not even close, really. It can't be. And this was brought home to me in a striking way:

Cory brought his best friend to join our writers group, who all went to the movie together. Cory's friend had never seen any Star Wars movie in a theatre. And afterward, his friend asked, "Why did you all want to see Star Wars rather than some other movie?"

And I simply didn't have an answer for him.

DOES GOD SKEW YOUNGER?

"I think talking to ghosts will skew younger than talking to God."

That's what Les Moonves, head of the CBS network, said in announcing the cancellation of Joan of Arcadia, and its replacement by a show called Ghost Whisperer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as a young woman who communicates with the spirit world.

That quote, and the thinking behind it, sums up the basic problem when it comes to Christians trying to get our stories told in Hollywood: They just don't get it.

CBS *wants* to reach that "spiritual" audience out there. Many of the networks do, as witness NBC's highly flawed attempt to reach the Passion of the Christ audience with its lame end-times drama, Revelations. But one kind of "spiritual" is the same as another to them. So out goes Joan, and in comes some sort of spiritual gobbledygook.

As for questions of artistic quality? Quality of message? Quality of production? Really not issues that matter at all. Great if "quality" should happen to skew younger. But Joan's fatal flaw was that the average age of her audience was 53. So buh-bye, sweetie.

It'd be easy to get mad at the networks when they pull bonehead moves like this. But it's not worth it. They simply don't get it.

WHAT MUST HAPPEN: STAR WARS 3: THE REVENGE OF THE SITH

For the past few years, as Lee and I have taught our seminar on "Developing Your Story" for Act One, we have focused one segment of our talk on the Aristotelian concepts of Probability and Necessity.

And we've had a great example to use as we teach the importance of thinking through what must happen (Necessity) in a story, and what is likely to happen (Probability): Star Wars

See, it's rare that you get to see how a story starts, see how it ends, and have to fill in the middle. So for the past few years, we've had the Act One students connect the dots: What must happen between the end of, say, Phantom Menace and the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope? A great exercise. And one that is, sadly for us but happily for most fans, over this week.

So in the interests of Aristotle, good storytelling, and the end of a saga, I thought I'd post our list of "What George Must Accomplish" (note that some of these may not occur *during* Revenge of the Sith -- some beats could happen during the gap between movies 3 and 4).

First, here are the necessary plot beats that occurred after the end of Episode 1 and by the end of Episode 2:

--Anakin and Queen Amidala got together romantically.
--Anakin finished C3PO.
--Shmi Skywalker died.
--Anakin trained as a Jedi.

Clearly George didn't accomplish all that much plotwise in Episode 2...

The Act One classes who went through this exercise after Episode 1 was released and before Episode 2 was released actually came up with some interesting ideas for Episode 2. They thought something that was likely to happen (i.e., probable, though not necessary) was that Anakin would return to Tattooine to free the slaves (after all, he promised to come back and free his mother -- a promise that was just let drop into the depths of outer space, evidently).

The Act Oners also hypothesized that during Episode 2, Shmi would be killed during the attempt to free the slaves, possibly at the hands of Obi-Wan, thus fueling Anakin's anger at the Jedi and prepping him for his turn to the dark side.

For my money, that plot line is more interesting than anything that actually happened onscreen in Episode 2.

Okay, let's get back to Episode 3. What must George accomplish in Episode 3 to keep his implied contract with the audience? Here we go:

--The Clone Wars must occur (not onscreen, we have been told, and the set-up for this is already pretty much done).
--Luke and Leia must be born.
--Luke and Leia must be separated at birth (or very shortly thereafter).
--Leia must be hidden.
--Luke must be adopted by his Uncle on Tattooine.
--Queen Amidala must die.
--Anakin must be maimed so as to require the breathing mask, etc.
--Anakin must become Darth Vader -- i.e., he must turn to the Dark Side of the Force/join the Sith.
--The Republic must be dissolved and the Empire formed.
--Senator Palpatine must become the Emperor.
--The Jedi Council must be dissolved.
--Obi-Wan must retire to Tattooine.
--Yodo must go to Dagobah.
--Mace Windu and all the other Jedi must be killed.
--Droid warfare must end, replaced by clone warfare.
--C3PO's and R2D2's memories must be wiped. (Some people have argued that R2 could remember it all, and just isn't telling anyone. Yes, possible.)

Okay, that's the list. And according to Aristotle's laws of Probability and Necessity, George owes you every single thing on this list (either on screen or well-enough set-up that we can believe it would happen off screen between movies).

Preliminary reviews are actually good. So buy your tickets, start your engines, and don't forget to take the list with you! After you see the movie, check back in and let's see whether George came through for us.

LOVE WHO AS YOURSELF?

A friend sent me a supposedly "cute" thing by e-mail the other day that literally made me sick to my stomach.

It depicted two sets of photos of recognizable women. The first consisted of horrible pictures (yawning, scowling -- basically the kind you want to tear up when you pick them up at the developer) and was labeled "Theirs." The second consisted of glamour headshots (the kind where someone does hair and make-up for you) and was labeled "Ours."

And the "Theirs" vs. "Ours" division was pretty much a straight-line red-state/blue-state division.

It doesn't matter which "side" generated this piece of sheer nastiness. After all, you could do a glamour shot of Jennifer Aniston or a glamour shot of Ann Coulter.

What matters is that the only -- THE ONLY -- reason for existence for a piece like this is to be (a) nasty, (b) mean and (c) smug. In what way is political discourse, human discourse -- hey, any kind of discourse heightened by this kind of kindergarten behavior? Talk about your lack of redeeming social value.

(And as for the underlying presupposition that the main value women bring to the table is their physical looks -- well, let's not even go there. For now.)

Now, the friend who sent it to me is not a Christian. But the person who sent it to him was. And I can pretty much guarantee that many Christians received it and forwarded it. (Okay, I guess that's a hint as to who was "Theirs" and who was "Ours.")

And all I can say is, shame on them.

The last time I looked, Jesus' command to "Love your neighbor as yourself" did not have a footnote with a disclaimer that such command does not apply of said neighbor is of a different political persuasion.

Not too long after 9/11, our senior pastor preached on the Good Samaritan. I'm sure half the congregation settled back to half-listen -- after all, we've heard this one before.

But we all sat up straight and listened pretty quickly when our pastor reframed the parable in terms of the "good al-Qaeda."

Excuse me? "Good?" Al-Qaeda? Who are we kidding?

Seems when Jesus referred to a Samaritan as "good," he was dropping a political and social bombshell that big on his Jewish listeners.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." But here Jesus is saying that we are to love the person diametrically opposed to us. The person we have been taught to hate and fear and demonize and criticize.

It would seem that only applies to people long ago and far away. Not to Americans. Because we certainly can't be expected to treat those we disagree with with any kind of respect (forget "love"). At least not on the Internet.

All I could do was delete the piece of trash that had been forwarded to me in the name of humor. And try to get the sick feeling out of my stomach. And try not to think about how many of my friends would have found it hilarious and forwarded it to dozens of theirfriends.

It makes me sick still, days later. It almost makes me want to warble out a chorus of We Are the World.

Why can't we get along? (That's not a rhetorical question.)

MOVIE THOUGHTS: KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

I had moderate hopes for Kingdom of Heaven. Okay, I knew from word of mouth and reviews that it would be far too politically correct and certainly not positive towards Christians. But at least I expected to see some cool action scenes.

Instead I found myself wishing I'd saved my money and taken a nap.

Kingdom of Heaven is just flat-out boring. Not badly shot -- parts of it are quite lovely. But it's as badly written as a movie of this sort can be, it goes nowhere, it has only one surprising moment (in 2 1/2 hours!), and it's full of holes.

And did I mention it's boring?

Kingdom of Heaven follows the story of blacksmith Balian, played by the incredibly wooden Orlando Bloom, who heads off to the Crusades after he murders a priest who insulted his dead-by-suicide wife. Ostensibly he goes to Jerusalem to seek forgiveness -- however, after giving us that set-up, the concept of forgiveness is never mentioned again in the movie, so forget it.

Balian has to be one of the most passive, boring "heroes" (for we are clearly meant to think of him as such) I've seen in a movie in a long time. He has no real motivation to go to the Crusades (motivation to leave home, yes, as he will undoubtedly be in trouble for murdering that priest). I guess he's chasing after his father (Liam Neeson, in the only well-acted role in the film), who conveniently showed up to introduce himself just in time for Orlando to follow him. But after his father dies early on, there's really no motivation to keep going.

But on to Jerusalem he goes, stopping only for a convenient confrontation with a pair of Arabs, the survivor of which we clearly know we will see again at a convenient time. In Jerusalem, he doesn't seek forgiveness, he doesn't really do much of anything. He does lose his faith, as we are told repeatedly. However, it's not clear that (a) he had much faith to begin with or (b) that the writer (the sloppy and pedantic William Monahan) has a clue what it could possibly mean for someone to lose his faith. And then, well, he pretty much hangs out, with a brief interlude to sleep with the wife of the bad guy.

Jerusalem is governed (if one can call it that) by a potentially interesting character: a very young king with leprosy who wears a tin mask throughout. They could have done a lot with this character. But they didn't. And they sure didn't let us know why anyone follows someone so disfigured, not to mention so bland and unleaderlike. They also didn't bother to let us in on the secret of why the king takes blacksmith Balian under his wing and, when he (the king) dies, why he entrusts the defense of Jerusalem to a blacksmith whose only military training was five minutes in the forest with his dad.

But the king dies, the bad guys who are itching for war take over, and we move into a series of some of the longest, most boring action sequences seen on screen in a very long time. Balian takes over the defense of Jerusalem -- and amazingly, everyone follows his commands, even though he shows not a shred of leadership, not an ounce of charisma, not a whit of wit.

The siege of Jerusalem should not be boring. But it is. Oh is it ever. You want to see a siege? Go rent Lord of the Rings and enjoy the siege of Gondor one more time -- now that was an action sequence! Exciting in every detail (even for those of us who have basically memorized the books and knew exactly what was going to happen next). Here... been there, done that -- and done it better elsewhere.

I suppose it's appropriate that boring, non-leaderly Balian should end the battle by surrendering Jerusalem. After all, no one could possibly believe he's capable of winning a battle like this. But why is this seen as a victory -- All those cheering multitudes within the walls, and not one of them thought, "Hey, didn't we just lose this battle?" Please.

The treatment of Christianity is, as reported elsewhere, execrable. The only moral characters are Muslims or ex-Christians who have lost their faith. There is no sense whatsoever that any of these folks have or ever had a genuine faith of any kind, even though they profess to be willing to die for it. In fact, dialogue hints that Christianity and Islam are basically the same thing, since characters on both sides spout the same catch phrases ("God wills it!") and they all seem guided by fate.

Granted that many Christians did indeed behave horribly during the Crusades (as did the Muslims) -- Doesn't anyone here know what they're supposed to be fighting for? At the climax, Balian asks Saladin (the wise, moral Muslim leader) "What is Jerusalem?" and Saladin replies (in some of the stupidest dialogue to hit the screen since Catwoman), "Nothing.... Everything." So you're telling me that the two leaders of the two sides don't know what they're fighting for??!! Then why the hell are they still fighting?!!!

Historical, factual, and behavioral errors abound. The use of crossbows which aren't going to be invented for hundreds of years. The use of "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" in the score, when it isn't due to be written for a while. The fact that Balian is allowed to sass the King of England and gets away with it.

And my personal favorite, one that probably few people will notice. See, I have a compass in my head. I know where north is at all times (when I come up out of a subway and don't know which way I'm facing, I have to pause and wait for the compass to settle). So I'm probably more likely to pick up on this one than many others.

In a nicely-shot scene, thousands of Muslim warriors pray at sunrise. Bowing on their prayer mats, chanting their responses in unison, a moment of quiet and reverence before the big battle. (Not that the Christians ever get such a moment of reverence. But I digress.) It's a lovely shot, with the early morning sun streaming over the Muslims' right shoulders --

Hey, wait a minute. That would mean they're facing -- north! Now correct my geography if you can, but I don't see any way that Mecca is north of Jerusalem. And this was an easy error to correct: Just flip the negative, the sun is coming over their left shoulders, they're facing south, Mecca is more or less south of Jerusalem. Sloppy sloppy sloppy. Like the rest of the movie.

Sloppy. Predictable. Spineness. Meaningless. Disrespectful. And above all, boring Boring BORING.

Go rent SpongeBob instead.

BLOGGER DOESN'T LIKE ME

It's not that I haven't tried to blog in the last week or so. But every time I tried, either AOL crashed on me, or Blogger was down for maintenance (but didn't say so until I tried to post, and then wiped my whole post).

So I figure either Blogger doesn't like me... Or you just didn't need to read the rather grumbly rants I was trying to post. Ah well. Anyway, I'm back. I hope.

TRUE LOVE STRIKES!

Just a little true story to encourage all those out there who might be wondering if "true love" even exists in our cold, post-modern world...

Got an e-mail yesterday inviting us to the wedding of an old friend -- What?!! We were in a Lenten Bible study together, and she didn't say a word about being engaged! What's that about?!

So here's the story: She met her now-fiance a little over a year ago while working on a movie for the 168 Hour Film Project. Later in the year, while working on another project together, they became prayer partners, meeting once a week to pray together.

She began having feelings for him, but never betrayed a hint of them. This year, they worked together again on a project for the 168 Hour Project -- and after 3 days w/ no sleep, all those defenses down, she began to stop hiding her feelings.

And then last week, they got together to pray as usual -- but instead he proposed! All those hidden feelings were apparently mutual! Up till that moment, they hadn't kissed or even held hands!

They're getting married in two weeks -- clearly the kind of celebration that will necessarily be about the marriage, not about the wedding! Followed by a huge Chinese wedding banquet afterwards -- we wouldn't miss it!

So, anyone out there needing a dash of romance in your lives... Know that nothing is impossible with God.