Best of the Decade

As I’ve seen a lot a movies over the last 10 years and many people are throwing out their best films of the decade list, I thought I would take a crack at the task as well. This, of course, is not a science but a reflection of what movies not only impressed me at the time I originally saw them, but a reflection of how the films have stayed with me. For that reason, there are no films on my list from 2009 (one in the honorable mentions). I found that interesting, but as I reconsidered my list I could not see fit to include one from the past year. In honesty I have not seen every movie released nor do I have any desire to do so. But I do try and see all the films that seem to make an impact culturally, say something important, are sources of public dialog, and those that garner critical attention. This list could possibly look very different in a few years, so goes the process of evaluation. But I think this list does give a fair and reasoned look back at the last 10 years in film. And now the winners are…

10. Hotel Rwanda – Dir. Terry George

While Hotel Rwanda attempts to document the country’s genocide in 1994, it does so by focusing on the character of Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who gave refuge to hundreds of fleeing Tutsis. Calling in dozens of favors with his extensive network of contacts, he was able to hold the Hutu extremists (the Interahamwe militia) at bay, until the Tutsi rebels drove the Hutu from power. Cheadle portrays Rusesabagina as an efficient manager who cares deeply about his family and the people in he looks after It’s a gripping film that bears witness to both a historic tragedy and one man’s bravery.

9. Finding Nemo – Dir. Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich

The movie that made me love Pixar. I could have put almost any Pixar film in this spot, but this was the one that made me believe in the art of CGI animated films. I had never before seen an underwater landscape with so much color and detail and richness. The story is a simple one. Father seeking to rescue his son. But it is told with so much wit and fun and most importantly, heart – that it is eternally watchable. One of the best scores ever and has paved the way for other Pixar classics like The Incredibles, Wall-E, Up, and Ratatouille.

8. Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World – Dir. Peter Weir

Roger Ebert said of this film, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” is an exuberant sea adventure told with uncommon intelligence; we’re reminded of well-crafted classics before the soulless age of computerized action. Based on the beloved novels of Patrick O’Brian, it re-creates the world of the British navy circa 1805 with such detail and intensity that the sea battles become stages for personality and character. They’re not simply swashbuckling — although they’re that, too, with brutal and intimate violence….”Master and Commander” is grand and glorious, and touching in its attention to its characters. Like the work of David Lean, it achieves the epic without losing sight of the human, and to see it is to be reminded of the way great action movies can rouse and exhilarate us, can affirm life instead of simply dramatizing its destruction.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

7. The Dark Knight – Dir. Christopher Nolan

To see it is to understand that Nolan and his co-writer brother Jonathan saw a chance to go deeper into familiar characters and mythology, a chance to meditate on darker-than-usual themes that have implications for the way we live now. Christopher Nolan’s second Batman adventure is the rare blockbuster that left me engaged and thoughtful instead of bored and bummed out. An ambitious, full-bodied crime epic of gratifying scope and moral complexity, this is seriously brainy pop entertainment that satisfies every expectation raised by its hit predecessor and then some.

6. Signs – Dir. M. Night Shyamalan

This film scared me before it moved me. I thought the movie was going to be a great, fun send up of classic Hollywood alien films with a Hitchcockian feel that Shyamalan has set as his trademark. What I didn’t expect was the rumination on the order of the universe and fate. Does everything happen for a reason? Does God really exist? What is the nature of faith? Mel Gibson is at his best here as a father trying to protect his children while dealing with his demons…literal and figurative. The conclusion surprised me and delighted me. This movie gives me chills…the scared kind and the emotional kind as well.

5. In America – Dir. Jim Sheridan

Approximately one minute of this film is all it takes to fall in love with the two girls in the lead roles (real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger). Four minutes later, you’re in love with the parents (Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine), too. This Irish family is recovering from tragedy by immigrating to the tenements of New York. Their attempts to mend their broken hearts and scarred psyches after the death of their son—with the help of AIDS-stricken Djimon Hounsou, and a new baby—is heartrending. The film pushes the edge of melodrama hard but never seems to go over the edge. This film about immigrants is everything America is about and is as uplifting as it is sad.

4. Minority Report – Dir. Steven Spielberg

The most amazing look at our future ever put to film. The story is one that is complicated and yet engrossing in the world of precrime. A futuristic film noir that destroys the genre of Metropolis and Blade Runner. There is luscious cinematography and set pieces that amaze me from an artistic and technical standpoint. Plus it brings up philosophical questions and wraps it all in a murder mystery chase movie that almost never stops. Brilliant characters and art direction…another of Spielberg’s masterpieces.

3. Letters from Iwo Jima – Dir. Clint Eastwood

Hollywood has been making war movies for a long time, but you seldom if ever get a sense of how it feels to be in war. Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” did this masterfully in the 90’s. But Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” accomplishes this feat in maybe even a more profound way. You get war in all its horror, boredom and grit all from the point of view of our country’s enemy, so any empathy is hard-earned. With unsettling brilliance, the film captures war as experienced by soldiers lost in its fog, as a grinding, sickening, numbing death machine. In Eastwood’s version, heroism and cowardice are two sides of the same coin, and glory a concept best left to generals and historians.

2. Pan’s Labyrinth – Dir. Guillermo Del Toro

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s vision of what’s, ostensibly, a childhood fable hews closer to the dark corners of the young mind (think the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen) than any squeaky-clean Disney versions. Our determined heroine, little Ofelia, maintains a fantastical imagination—filled with fairies like insects and a benevolent yet nightmarish fawn—even in the face of a facistic stepfather. The war drama is gripping and suspenseful and would have made a fine movie on it’s own. Add to it the fantasy spectacle that is beautiful and horrific at the same time and this is one of my all time favorite films and my favorite foreign language film ever. The ending left me devastated and hopeful…unlike anything I have ever seen.

1. The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) – Dir. Peter Jackson

Maybe it’s a cheat to pick a trilogy as my top pick, but I don’t care. This series of films realized the dream of so many fantasy readers in bringing to the screen a potentially unfilmable trilogy of books. Tolkien may not have loved every frame, but he would have been pleasantly surprised at the quality and care with which Peter Jackson and his team have imbued in this now classic. Groundbreaking special effects, terrific music, beautiful cinematography, a story that’s really about faith, love, and the abiding theme that there is good in this world and it’s worth fightin’ for…what’s not to love?

Honorable Mentions (films that didn’t make the top 10 but deserved to be mentioned because 10 is such an arbitrary number):

A Beautiful Mind – Dir. Ron Howard

Almost Famous – Dir. Cameron Crowe

Black Hawk Down – Dir. Ridley Scott

Changing Lanes – Dir. Roger Michelle

Children of Men – Dir. Alfonso Cuaron

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Dir. Ang Lee

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Dir. Michel Gondry

In the Bedroom – Dir. Todd Field

Munich – Dir. Steven Spielberg

Rabbit Proof Fence – Dir. Phillip Noyce

Slumdog Millionaire – Dir. Danny Boyle

The Passion of the Christ – Dir. Mel Gibson

United 93 – Dir. Paul Greengrass

Where the Wild Things Are – Dir. Spike Jonze

The two birds

(J. R. Miller, “Finding God’s Comfort” 1896)

“Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.” Job 5:17

He is not happy at the time, at least, in the world’s way. No affliction for the present seems to be joyous—but grievous. No one enjoys having troubles, sufferings, trials, sorrows. Therefore this statement made by Eliphaz appears very strange to some people. They cannot understand it. It is contrary to all their thoughts of happiness.

Of course the word ‘happy’ is not used here in the world’s sense. The world’s happiness is the pleasure that comes from the things that happen. It depends on personal comfort, on prosperous circumstances, on kindly and congenial conditions. When these are taken away—the world’s happiness is destroyed.

But the word happy, here means blessed—and the statement is that blessing comes to him who receives God’s correction. To correct, is to set right—that which has been wrong. Surely if a man is going in the wrong way, and God turns his feet back and sets him in the right way—a blessing has come to the man!

Afflictions are ‘God’s corrections’. They come always with a purpose of love in them. God never afflicts one of His children, without meaning His child’s good in some way. So blessing is always intended by God. It is usually afterward that people begin to see and to understand the good that God sent them in their trial. “You do not understand what I am now doing” said Jesus, “but you shall understand hereafter.” “No chastening seems pleasant at the time, but painful.Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” So when we have troubles and afflictions, we may know that God wants to do us good in some way through them.

Since this is so, Job was exhorted by Eliphaz, “Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.” God chastens us to bless us—to do us good. He chastens us because He loves us.

He is not a true parent, who sees his children doing wrong, and yet fails to correct them for fear he may hurt their feelings. He ought to think of their higher good, and chasten them now—to profit them afterward.

This is the way our heavenly Father works. He never loves us better—than when He is correcting us. Therefore we ought not to despise this chastening. We ought not to murmur orcomplain when God does not give us our own way—but checks us, lays His afflictive hand upon us, and sends trouble upon us! We ought to have such faith in God—that we shall submit quietly, confidently, and sweetly to his will—even when it brings a heavy cross into our life.

A great many people need to pause at this line—and learn it. They do not treat God’s chastening with reverence. Sometimes they are crushed by it, and refuse to look up into God’s face with submission and love. Sometimes they grow bitter against God and say hard things of Him! We ought to reverence God’s chastening; we ought to listen to the voice that speaks to us in our grief or pain.

The way in which God brings blessing through chastening, is emphasized: “For He wounds—but He also binds up; He strikes—but His hands also heal.” Job 5:18. God never smites with both hands at once! When one hand is laid upon us in affliction—the other hand is reached out to help, to uphold, to heal.

Sometimes there is a trouble in a man’s body which requires the surgeon’s knife. There must be amputation, or cutting away, or cutting into. In such a case the skillful surgeon does not hesitate. He thinks far more of his patient’s health for the future—than of his comfort at present. So he uses his knife—that he may cure disease, or save life. He wounds—to heal. He makes sore—that he may bind up. It is just so in all afflictions which God sends. He chastens—that He may deliver from the power of temptation. He hurts the body—that he may save the soul. He takes away earthly property—that He may give true, heavenly riches.

One writer tells of two birds and how they acted when caught and put into a cage. One, a ’starling’, flew violently against the wire walls of its prison, in unavailing efforts to escape—only battering and bruising its own wings. The other bird, a ‘canary’, perched itself on the bar and began to pour forth bursts of sweet song, from its little throat. We know which bird was the wiser and happier.

Some people are like the starling—when they are in any trouble, they chafe and fret and complain and give way to wretchedness! The result is, they only hurt themselves, make themselves more miserable, and do not in any sense lessen their trouble. It is wiser always, as well as more pleasing to God, for us to bear our trials patiently, singing songs of faith and love—rather than crying out in rebellion and discontent.

Job wanted to get near to God in his great trouble; he cried, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” He felt sure that that would be the best and safest place for him to be. We ought not to lose this lesson. When trouble is upon us—the true thing for us to do, is to flee to God! Some people, in their affliction and sorrow—flee away from God. Thus they lose their joy and peace, missing the comfort which they would get if only they kept near to Him. The right way to respond, is to try to find the way to God’s very presence. He is the only safe refuge, when thestorms of trouble break upon us. The first thing always, in any time of trouble—is to find God and hide away in His bosom, as a child runs to the mother in alarm, or as the little bird flies to its nest. To find God—is to be safe!

God is our truest and best friend! He is our Father—we need never fear to go to Him. He gives heed unto our cries. He loves us. All His omnipotence is on our side. No mother’s heart was ever so full of love for her child—as is the heart of God for us, His children!

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is the newest film from innovative director Spike Jonze. In this film Jonze collaborates with celebrated author Maurice Sendak to bring one of the most beloved books of all time to the big screen in “Where the Wild Things Are,” a classic story about childhood and the places we go to figure out the world we live in.

The film tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

I am not one of those people who loved the book growing up. It was certainly part of my childhood in that I read the book several times and the images and story are familiar to me. That being said, I was more excited about the film because Spike Jonze was going to be directing. I have found Jonze’s work to be intriguing and challenging and thought provoking. His take on this simple story was surely going to be interesting and most likely polarizing.

Having seen the film and reflected on it, I found myself profoundly moved and by the story in a way the book never grabbed me. The film’s story takes the kernel of plot from the original book and have expanded and improved the story to a journey into the emotions of childhood. The film is about loss, friendship, and what it means to love our family. The themes of the film have stayed with me long after the viewing experience was ended.

The special effects are beautiful in their simplicity. The music is perfect in reflecting the mood of the film without choreographing our emotions as an audience. The cinematography and art direction is realistic and gorgeous. The movie is scary and funny. The pacing is perfect, though might feel slow for younger kids and those who have ADD.

I loved this movie in a way that is rare. I feel the experience and emotion I felt while watching is one I cannot completely describe and one that I’m sure not all people with share. This film is not an intellectual exercise but more like a piece of classical music or fine art. It will hit different people different ways. I hope it hits you with the same emotion it hit me. Where are the wild things? They are in each of us…and growing up is about learning to understand and deal with our emotions, especially when it seems life has dealt us some tough blows. **** (out of 4)

Some Curses are Blessings…

I think it’s always interesting how people always react man-centeredly to news from God. I noticed this in reading the reaction I think is most normal when hearing the news of Genesis 3:15 and God’s curse to the serpent. Like a rose, which in all its beauty still has thorns, so do the messages of God often come with implicit blessings that we might not notice until we see them from the perspective of Heaven. Often we think nothing more of the curse to the serpent as though he was getting his just desserts for tempting Eve. Or, we wonder what a beautiful relationship man and serpent might have had if not for the curse give by God.

It is very important for us to see that this curse, especially in verse 15, contains in it an implicit blessing. That implicit blessing is found in these words. The very first phrase of Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman.” This enmity is just war. This is a war that God has established between the woman and between the serpent. It is a divinely established enmity designed to protect the woman from the enemy of her soul. God’s curse against the serpent contains an implicit blessing for the woman and for all mankind. For God to put enmity between Satan and the woman is to drive a wedge between the woman and the one who wanted to undo her; to drive a wedge between the woman and the enemy of her soul. You remember the woman had been drawn to the enticing words of Satan. Now God is establishing a barrier, a wedge, a warfare, an enmity between the woman who had been enticed and deceived and the one who had enticed and deceived her. He is establishing a barrier between her and the enemy of her soul.

And so this enmity is the best kind of enmity that one could ever imagine. We usually think of war as always negative. But in the context of the Christian life, isn’t it interesting that the Christian life is itself described as a fight, a battle and a war. The origins come right here from Genesis 3:15. The Lord has established a war. It is the best war that could possibly have ever existed in this fallen world. And it is a war which Christ won at the cross in his defeat of Satan, sin and death.

The Gentleness of Jesus

(J. R. Miller, “Things to Live For” 1896)

“Learn from Me—for I am gentle and humble in heart.” Matthew 11:29

There are some Christians who seem never to have learned love’s secret of gentleness. There is nothing that this sorrowing, sinning world needs—more than gentleness. Of the gentleness of Jesus it was said, “He will not break a bruised reed, and He will not put out a smoldering wick.” Isaiah 42:3.

We need to pray for the grace of gentleness, that we may walk softly among men, never hurting another life by harsh words or ungentle acts.

We can have something of the beauty of Christ in our life. As we can get into our hearts the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the mind that was in  Jesus—the light of divine love will shine out from our dull nature, and transfigure it. This will make us sweet-tempered and gentle-spirited. It will make us honest in our dealings with our fellow-men. It will make us kind to all about us. It will make us godly people to live with at home. It will make us good neighbors and faithful friends. The unconscious ministry of such a life through long years—will leave untold blessings in this world.

Such a life of quiet, simple, humble, Christlike goodness—will pour out its unconscious influence into other lives—making them better, happier, holier, sweeter. Such a ministry of simple goodness is within the reach of every Christian. It requires no brilliant gifts, and no great wealth. It is a ministry which the plainest and lowliest may fulfill.

In these days of ‘fashionable worldliness’, the church needs just suchsimple goodness. It has eloquence in its pulpits, and activity in its pews—but it needs more godly people filled with the gentleness of Christ, repeating the life of Christ wherever they move.

Seed of the Woman or Seed of the Serpent?

I have been interested in the past week over some of the issues in the declaration of curses and consequences in the latter half of the third chapter of Genesis. Sin has come into the world through the fall of Adam and Eve and God doles out the consequences of sin to the perpetrators in the order of offense. First the punishments to the serpent whom Satan had used to be the corporeal presence used to tempt and deceive Eve. This curse is also applied to Satan. Second, Eve is given the consequences of her sin that would plague humanity from that point forth. Finally, Adam is given his consequences. Then the couple is clothed in the skins of animals and cast out of the garden.

This story is familiar to me as it is to most Christians. It is a story that we all grew to understand and embrace as the entrance of sin into the world. In preparing a sermon for this passage last week, I found that though the broad strokes of the brush I had understood, the details of the story had remained foreign to me. One particular portion of the text had always eluded me. The portion of text is found just prior to the protoevangelium, or first presentation of the gospel (in seed form) to humanity.

The second phrase in Genesis 3:15 declares,  ”I [God] will put enmity between your [Satan's] seed and her [woman] seed.” This is an expansion of the conflict between Satan and Eve. It’s not just an individual conflict between those two. But who is the woman’s seed? Is it all mankind? No. God immediately begins to explain to us that not all men are of the good seed of Eve. Cain himself, the son of Eve, is not of the seed of the woman. In other words, he is not in the redemptive line. John tells us himself in I John 3:12 that Cain was of the evil one. So though he was physically born of Eve, yet he was not of the seed of woman. He was not of the redemptive line which God has established. And so the seed of woman does not refer to all mankind.

Well then, who does it refer to? It refers to the descendants of the woman in whom God has placed enmity in their hearts against Satan. It refers to those whom God has redeemed out of the world and has placed in divine enmity against Satan. Who is Satan’s seed? In this passage it refers to those humans that God does not set enmity against Satan and Satan’s fallen angels in. In fact, Genesis 4 through Genesis 11 give us a lineage of the seed of woman and of the seed of the serpent.

In Genesis 4, verses 1 through 17, we find the story of Cain. Cain is the first murderer by the killing of his brother Abel. Then in Genesis 4, 19 through 24 we see the story of Lamech. Now there are two Lamechs. One was evil and one was good in this section of Scripture. This Lamech was the first polygamist. He took to himself two wives and made great boasts of evil. Then in Genesis 6, verses 1 through 6 we see a description of Noah’s contemporaries and they are described in this incredible verse, Genesis 6:5: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And then in Genesis 10, verses 8 through 10, we see the story of Nimrod, the man hunter. And finally in Genesis 11, verses 1 through 9, we see those who gathered at Babel to build the great tower. That’s the picture of the seed of the serpent.

Genesis 4 through 11 gives us a genealogy of those who were in rebellion against God and His people, but it also gives us a genealogy of those who were of the seed of the woman. Look for instance back at Genesis 4, verses 25 and 26. In Genesis 4, verses 25 and 26, the Lord gives Eve a son in the place of her slain son, Abel, and his name is Seth. And it is from Seth that the line of the woman descends. Enoch, for instance, in Genesis 5, verses 22 through 24, is descended from Seth. The Lamech of Genesis 5, verses 28 and 29, is descended from Seth. This Lamech is the father of Noah, and Noah, of course, himself in Genesis 6, verses 8, 9 and 22, we learn that he is descended from the godly line of Seth. And so we see the degeneracy of the seed of Satan in Genesis 4 through 11 and we see the grace which is displayed in the seed of the woman in Genesis 4 through 11.

So it is as if in Genesis 3 God shows us that two lines of humanity are going to representative on the earth. The godly seed of the woman and the ungodly seed of the serpent/Satan. Then the two sides are set forth in the opening chapters of the Bible in contrasting stories. In this great drama we are presented with a protagonist and antagonist. Which side will be victorious? Will the seed of the woman or the seed of Satan prevail?

Beginning in chapter 12 of Genesis we begin to see the answer as God begins to deal with the godly seed of the woman through the ethnic family line of Abraham. This line would be heir to the promise made to the seed of the woman in 3:15 that their ’seed’ would crush the head of the serpent/Satan. This, of course, is fulfilled in Christ at the cross.

Throughout the Bible we see this pattern of the two seeds continue. Isaac – the seed of the woman. Ishmael – the seed of Satan. Saul – seed of the Satan. David – seed of the woman. The disciples – seed of the woman. Judas Iscariot – seed of Satan. Check the records of good and bad kings of Israel. Check the history of the world. These two lines have been proceeding since the time of Adam and Eve. Which line are we in? Which line are you in? Are you in the godly line of the woman, heir to the promise of Christ and the benefits accrued to them by his sacrifice? Or, are you in the ungodly line of Satan, enemies against God forever in enmity with Him, never to return to paradise?

CJ Mahaney’s Office – T4G ‘10

C. J. Mahaney – Study Video from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

What’s does a pastor-athlete’s office look like? Find out on C. J. Mahaney’s study tour. No sneakers required.

Welcome to the New Blog!

It’s great to be a part of the True Baptist community! I look forward to this joint venture with my friends and fellow laborers of Christ. I hope that this blog will continue to be a place of discipleship, encouragement, challenge, and growth for those who read. More than anything, I pray this will be a source of disciplined thinking for all of us as we seek to grow in our faith and sharpen the iron of the body of Christ.