Simple Complexity

So, life is complicated. I'm probably not going to say anything terribly profound in this post. One of the more frequent issues that I've counseled people on is the apparent disconnect between the "black and white" language of the bible and the seemingly grey tension of normal life circumstances and the decisions we must make.

When people feel sorrow or fear grief, it seems trite to comfort them with God's sovereignty and the promises of the Bible, and in times of difficult choices, telling people of the simplicity of right and wrong is often unhelpful and misguided. But we can't just shelve truth when it's hard, right?

And the beauty of the Bible is it's robust complexity and simplicity distilled from it. You can explain the gospel to a 5 year old, and get a PhD in it. The major problem we have when we encounter truth is sin. Sin makes it more complicated. Sin creates tension, and makes it extremely grey. We're not supposed to be freaked out by that, resist the tension, or refuse to live in the grey zone. Christianity is a rollercoaster of grey. And being afraid of tension, of working it all out in the midst of our problems and taking the Bible and applying it is a presupposition that must be exposed.

I want to step passionately forward when I'm struck by how complicated life seems to the simplicity of the truth, because I want that truth to shape me through my experiences and I want to grasp more and more how truth applies to life. Sometimes We have amoral decisions, sometimes we have very evenly matched moral decisions, and sometimes we need to learn hard lessons, but don't pretend life is simple. Run hard, and stay focused, and my hope and prayer is that the decisions I've made will be the best that I could have made at the time. I know God is at work in and through this world, and trusting that is what has brought me to where I am, and will carry me to where I go as I passionately step forward. Philippians 2:12-13 tries to say this, and make it sound really casual. This is what life is about.

Trophies Are For Sports

The Annual gathering The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is tomorrow, and while I don't care a whole lot since they invariably get it wrong every year, the potential pleasant surprise is always welcome (like when Crash deservedly won best picture in 2005).

The big three when people talk about classic cinema and the best films ever made are of course Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and Sunset Boulevard, but only one of those three movies won best picture the year it came out. If you guessed Casablanca, you were right.

Citizen Kane came out the same year as The Maltese Falcon and both lost best picture to How Green Is My Valley?. Sunset Boulevard lost along with King Solomon's Mine to All About Eve.

So, if the academy missed those ones, it's obviously a tough call. Especially as they have expanded the field to 10 movies this year. This is probably silly, because it is obvious that some of these movies are not contenders.

District 9 won't win. The only fantasy/sci-fi movie to ever win was Return of the King.

I haven't seen Precious, A Serious Man, An Education, or The Blind Side, but I would bet none of them are going to win either.

Though it is visually stunning, Avatar should not win. Titanic should not have won either. It was up against LA Confidential, Good Will Hunting, and As Good As it Gets, which are all superior films, but the Academy likes James Cameron. I would like for him to win best director, since the amount of detailed work he put into creating Avatar is really, without question, excellent work, but the story itself and the acting and it's dependence on the visual effects really detracts from it as best picture material. It should also win all the technical awards (side note, how on earth did they not at least nominate Watchmen for best visual effects?)

Every year they talk about the annual Pixar movie being nominated, particularly the last three, Ratatouille, Wall-E and now Up. These movies don't have a chance because there's no female roles in them. There's a distinct lack of depth in the relational characteristics of the plot, though Up comes much further than it's predecessors. The only other animated feature to ever be nominated was Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

So the real nominees are Up In The Air, The Hurt Locker (directed by James Cameron's ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow) and Inglorious Basterds. I would really be happy with any of these three winning, but I have a bias for Tarantino, So Inglorious Basterds is my pick. I would also suggest 2 movies that weren't nominated, and that's Invictus and The Messenger. I really liked Watchmen, but I realize a lot of people didn't get it, so I won't even suggest it, even though it did make my all decade list, and none of the movies nominated for this year did. This is partly because I think it's the best adaptation of a comic book ever, and that's a preview of future blogs about what I think is so special about comic books and movies.

My favorite title for a movie that was ever nominated for best picture is probably "Kiss of the Spider Woman".