(500) Days of Summer

**Not promising this is spoiler-free**

I've been telling everyone that it's the year of even-keeled, realistic, tolerable, guy-friendly romantic comedies. While the two committed 30-somethings having a baby in Away We Go isn't exactly typical romcom material, I would classify it as such. Then there's (500) Days of Summer. I'm also looking forward to Paper Heart and Adam falling into the same category.

Finally! Some movies my wife and I can enjoy together! It seems to be a rarity sometimes.

(500) Days of Summer might be the most accessible of the bunch; you don't have to be an indie hipster to enjoy it, although it will probably help. It stars the attractive couple Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel and tells the story of them falling in and out of love along with all their quirks and sidesteps and mini-adventures in the city.

On the surface level, the film is a delight of creativity. It takes some unusual risks, like AO Scott was applauding in the article I linked yesterday. The integration of a lovely soundtrack, an unexpected dance sequence, use of split screen, some animation, a focus on architecture and drawing, and references to a myriad of other bits of pop culture will all keep a smile on your face for the duration of the movie. (Did those teeny-boppers sharing the theater with us know what Knightrider and Small Wonder were?? And did I have any idea about the Graduate and Bergman references??) It's lovely! It makes you fall in love with love, with life, with youth, with summer, with Ikea, with the city!

And maybe I should stop there without giving it too much thought. But as I mentioned yesterday, I'm seeing the need more all the time to think critically about any and all movies. So at the risk of sucking the life out of this thing, I feel I must go one step further, like it or not.

And so the question is: What does the story of Summer and Tom tell us about love?

The interesting thing is that Tom believes in true love, and even at first sight. You see the woman, and some subjective feeling let's you know she's the one. Romance ensues until you finally marry and spend the rest of your life together in cloud-nine bliss. Summer thinks that idea's a pile; it's a silly thing to pursue and life's too short to be tied down. She likes her independence and is too young to commit. ("Then why is she in my bed?" Tom rightly asks himself at one point.) As Tom's friend points out by eloquently declaring "She's a dude!" -- typical ideals are reversed here.

At the risk of giving away too much about the movie, I think it's safe to say they both get proven wrong. Tom discovers maybe he's just a bit too idealistic in his idea of love, and Summer discovers love will indeed take some level of commitment.

When frustrated by her fickle feelings, Tom demands some commitment, saying he needs to know she's not going to feel differently the next morning. Summer insists she can't give that to him, and no one can. She's right: Feelings are subjective, fleeting, unreliable, and no one can guarantee the feelings of a moment will remain for a lifetime. A foolish dependence on those feelings is one reason divorce rates are so high. But what she doesn't seem to realize is that she can give a commitment to Tom, agreeing to stick it out even when feelings of puppy-love romance come and go.

In that case, (500) Days of Summer gets love right. It declares the need for commitment in order to make any relationship work.

But I kept wondering, did Tom get that message? He was ready to be committed, but did his commitment run deeper than his feelings? When looking at the tone of the movie as a whole, it definitely celebrated Tom's idea of romance. This is not a bad thing; I walked away celebrating romance too, and that's something I personally need more of in my life over the celebration of commitment. (And I must remind myself: an important part of the commitment is the intentional cultivation of more romance!)

But I'd venture to say our culture needs more of a celebration of commitment, and I was a little disappointed in how overshadowed it was when the credits rolled. I'm afraid the movie primarily--whether intentional or not--supported our idolatry of romance, of seeking complete contentment and fulfillment in another person, our one true love.

I'm sounding like an old-fashioned married person that doubts the power and pleasure of romance, but this was a rare movie-going experience where my wife and I were some of the oldest in the theater. All I saw was a bunch of teenagers leaving the theater to go fall in love, with all its included side-effects, where commitment is only based on how long the feelings last.

Does that mean we should boycott the movie? Absolutely not. We need more movies like this one. But it does mean we should think and talk about it, as with all movies.

It's a lovely little film that I really did enjoy a lot. I appreciated its celebration of romance and its assertion of the need for commitment. But without some critical thought, I'm afraid its themes can be misleading. Despite all this, most of all, I'm just glad to see a movie that isn't following the typical conventions of romantic comedies.

Imaginative Autumn...repost

Now with trailers!

The Movies

Erica and I went to see (500) Days of Summer on Saturday night--which I'll tell you more about shortly--and I was a little depressed and outraged to find that the cinema has bumped up prices yet again, so that our little 90 minute date cost us a total of $19, without popcorn and soda, which we then skipped. Maybe we're a little too cheap, or maybe I'm just surprised at what people are dishing out so much money for.

Since Neville isn't too active in the blogosphere anymore, I'll take the liberty of blogging some of his recent thoughts, like how much money has been spent on movies this summer, and--what may be the greater disappointment--on what kind of movies it's been spent.

He forwarded and article by AO Scott from the New York Times. In it, the man who is one of the most respectable movie reviewers today sounds a little bit cranky and a little ostentatious, coming off in such a way that he'll probably end up preaching only to the choir. But I found myself agreeing, with Neville too, making me realize I'm tired of people declaring certain movies are weird and no movie is meant for thinking too much.

In a lot of ways, I am growing more and more convinced all the time about the need to make, watch, and support certain types of movies and think critically about and thoughtfully discuss all types of movies. At the same time, I am growing less and less vocal about both convictions, a little weary from being shrugged off or just misunderstood so often.

Is this post sounding really really arrogant? It's not meant to at all, I don't think, and perhaps it would be good to explain these thoughts further rather than just whine about it. But you can start by reading the article I'm mentioning:

"From toddlerhood we are fluent in the pop-cultural consumerist idiom: Again! More! Another one! Children are ceaselessly demanding, it’s true; but they are also easily satisfied, and this combination of appetite and docility makes the child an ideal moviegoer. But since there are a finite number of literal children out there, with limited disposable income and short attention spans, Hollywood has to make or find new ones. And so the studios have, with increasing vigor and intensity, carried out a program of mass infantilization."

Good Preaching

Certain circles in which I meander have been talking a lot about preaching lately. You see, preaching is kind of important. Jesus did a whole lot of it. The guys in Acts did a whole lot of it. And commands all through the Bible to preach and proclaim and declare are quite plentiful.

Other circles in which I meander seem to think that preaching can get too offensive. Humility has come to mean being shy and not speaking up. Keep peace means not stepping on anyone's toes and not saying anything like we might have any sort of authority. We'd rather have a casual chat over coffee, or let our actions do the talking. But, I might suggest--starting first by looking at my own life--that the casual chats rarely seem to get around to God and if they do, they don't get much towards the truth, and the actions are often sketchy at best, hit or miss.

We need preaching and we need to hear the Word of God.

Part of the problem is preaching is a lost art. Most Christians don't know what they're missing. They don't know the difference between good and bad preaching, or maybe more specifically, inspired and uninspired preaching.

Dr. Erik Thoennes is one of the only chapel speakers I remember from my time at Taylor University. I remember him bringing me to tears a couple of times, stirring me, his words waking me up from a slumber. The truth he delivered tugged at my heart, trying to uncover it from all the crap it had been buried in over the years.

He came back to Taylor after I was gone, and I just finished listening to a 4 part series he did in 2008. They have done me quite well, again, each one choking me up a bit and leaving me emotional for a couple days after. I'm not exaggerating.

So do yourself a favor, carve out some time, and give them a listen:

1 - Depending on Christ
2 - Obeying Christ
3 - Proclaiming Christ
4 - Suffering like Christ

'bout time

What took Barnes and Noble so long to get free Wi Fi? Thank goodness!

New Car

I successfully survived about a year without a car of my own. That makes it sound like I did so intentionally, when truth be told I would say to myself just about every day: "I really need to buy a car this week." Turns out I was just too cheap and too scared of car dealerships and Craigslist transactions to actually pursue it.

It worked out nicely about two months ago when my neighbor decided to let me borrow his daughter's car, since she was out on the west coast and it just sits undriven. Finally last week I got the call that he was ready to sell.

So I'm now the proud owner of a '94 Saturn, which is a lovely shade of almost-purple. I'm proud to say it is the youngest car I've ever owned, with the least mileage too -- 118,500. But I'm especially pleased to say it wasn't the most expensive. It was a full $100 less than my most expensive car, cashing out at $350.

It's got two computer-geek bumper stickers on the back. I purchased this to cover one, and I'm looking for an oval sticker to cover the other. Bumper stickers seem to be so out of vogue these days. Keep your eyes out for something fitting and let me know if you've found it. I was thinking about the one that says "I'm Pro-Accordion and I Vote" but then decided it wouldn't have been much of an improvement over the computer geek stickers.

The Cat

I know I promised a while back not to talk too much about our pet, but I think this warrants being mentioned.

A lot of people, after meeting Banjo the cat, have told us that he is probably at least partly a breed known as Maine Coon. We thought this was nice, but didn't think much of it.

From the moment we got him, we were always afraid of him getting really really large, because large cats are a little less loveable in our minds. But everyone would take one look at his big paws and say, "Oooo, he's gonna get big." Well, he's nearing his first birthday and is still a pretty manageable size (see how perfectly he fits in my arm?), so we were pleased, thinking he was probably close to done growing.
That is, until we did a little research. Some quick reading revealed he is definitely a Maine Coon. And a quick Google Image search confirms they are definitely the largest cat breed around. But he's done growing, right? Nope. Maine Coons are also the slowest to mature, not fully grown until 4 to 5 years! So this, ladies and gentlemen, is what we have to look forward to..................
Transporting him with us to France might be more of a challenge than we expected.

Bagel Balance

If I were that man across the street, the older one sitting on the bench seemingly doing nothing with all the time in the world, I'd be watching me, the kid eating the bagel.

First, he gets situated, pulling out iPod and book and organizing them strategically, then doing the hard work of unwrapping the honey grain bagel with cream cheese smothered inside.

I'd watch the cream cheese squirt out from between on the first bite, right onto his favorite summertime shirt, and then the cleanup ensues while trying to hold on to wind-blown napkins and brown paper bag, balancing the open book with earbud cord just getting in the way like a tether pulling in the wrong direction.

It doesn't get much easier for the poor boy after that. Even though the bagel is successfully being eaten, cream cheese is smeared all over the mouth and each individual fingertip, so that the stack of napkins gets used up fairly quickly, as he's looking mostly like a toddler devouring a cake on his first or second birthday.

But it really is mostly a humorous balancing act with crumpled napkins in one hand, piece of bagel in the other, book on the lap and the paperbag halfway on top to catch more squirting cream cheese, with that anchor of an iPod holding back, full mouth chewing and chewing, not to mention the Main Street traffic noisily passing by only 4 feet from the table.

Does he really expect to retain any of that reading? Kids these days.

What happened to the slow life of intention, where a bagel was enjoyed independent of distraction, unless that distraction was a good cup of coffee? After the pleasure of the bagel comes the focus of a good book all by itself. Next is spending time alone on Main Street, watching cars go by, just breathing in the air, or enjoying entertainment like this if you're lucky. Then you'd end the day with nothing else but by putting on the record and only listening, maybe singing along, the only distraction being getting up the nerve to ask your wife for a dance.

One thing at a time, boy! That's the secret of life!

Once that bagel is consumed things get a bit easier for the kid, though traffic and singing still vie for attention over the words on the page.

And he'll stay there until the sun comes up over the east side of the building spilling onto him, spoiling his shade and forcing him to squint for the words on that bright white page, and then making his computer screen almost impossible to see when he feels the need to pull it out and, for some odd reason I'll never understand, express the scene to the world in words of his own, showing me that while he was eating a bagel, dodging traffic, cleaning up, listening to music, watching pedestrians, and reading a book, he must have been composing a diary entry as well.

No, I'll never understand. I get tired just watching.

getting ready for an imaginative autumn

Wes Anderson directing Fantastic Mr. Fox...
And Spike Jonze directing Where the Wild Things Are...

(Video removed...a featurette with Maurice Sendak...watch it over here.)

I'm already giddy!

The Bird