It's only fair...

New for 2006! It's the Holiday Candle!

There's a Christ in my Movie!

My, my. How the times have changed. Once, in a pre-culture war era, C.S. Lewis was held in high regard, his Narnia books being considered pinnacles of children's fantasy.

Not nowadays! Now he's an insidious villain--a third-rate hack whose poisonous pen will brainwash your youngsters with it's hateful Christian principles.

Seriously, gang. I'm baffled at how the English-speaking world's view of Lewis has done a complete 180 in the last few months simply because one of his books got the big-budget Hollywood treatment like Rowling and Tolkien.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there are subliminal Chick Tracts hidden in the pages of Narnia books. They're just stories with Christian symbols and themes. But the mere presence of a Christian element is aparently enough for some people to denounce Lewis outright. I used to think people just didn't like preachy Christians. I'm coming to realize that what they don't like is--well--Christianity itself.

It's really interesting to read negative reviews of the 'Wardrobe' film. Take a look at some of them. It's worthy of note that these critics all seem to think the movie is great--if it weren't for that dag-blamed Jesus with a mane! Waiter! There's a Christ in my movie! We can't have this! Two stars! (and seeing as how the movie really waters down the original story, I'd hate to see what would've happened if Disney hadn't messed with Lewis' narrative to give it a wider appeal)

And for the record, for these folks to pooh-pooh Lewis for being "preachy" (nowadays, merely alluding to Christ is considered "preachy", amazingly enough) or heavy-handed with his allegory is kind of missing the point. His goal in 'Wardrobe' was to retell the crucifixion/resurrection story. And I think we can all agree that he achieved what he set out to do.

Check it:

"In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually done in ours?" -C.S. Lewis on Aslan

A Sophisticated Proposal

So I'm busy writing these Eventual Practical Services Letters to Santa for the Office Party tonight. One of the people we're razzing is Ginjur, the administrative assistant to the office athiest (the devout one). Ginjur is very short and petite and people are always kicking her out of bars because at first glance they think she's 12. No kidding.

So for Ginjur's letter to Santa, I had her asking Santa to make her a tall elderly woman for one day--but with a good liver so she could still party like a rock star.

I gave the draft to Mr. Archibald and it came back with the word "elderly" circled.

"I think," he said, "that people might find the word 'elderly' offensive. How about...'sophisticated'?"

That's funny. I thought we called old people elderly to keep from offending them. And now "elderly" is offensive. Or maybe what this is really about is people are afraid of anything that reminds them that life is fleeting and sooner or later we'll all be pushin' up daisies.

It's much too difficult for me to pinpoint. So to make it easy, I have a modest proposal: Let's get rid of adjectives!

Who's with me?! This will be a time! A time!

A Simple Question

So we have two Jehovah's Witnesses up here on the 42nd Floor. Right now, all the admin assistants are busy trying to get the Christm--Holiday cards out. But Geraldine and Cathy won't even touch them. So Candie, the receptionist, is having to send their team's stacks of cards out FOR them.

Seems awfully unfair, n'est-ce pas?

So I have a question for our Jehovah's Witness friends.

If they don't celebrate Christmas--to the point that they won't even TOUCH the company Christm--Holiday cards--then shouldn't logic dictate that they MUST come in to work on Monday the 26th when our office is closed in observance of Christmas??

By taking the day off, aren't they kind of celebrating Christmas in a roundabout way?

Out of the Closet

JJo and I managed to score ourselves some advance screening tickets to 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' (LWW) this weekend. How was it? Well, I'm about to tell you--what I thought anyway.

LWW is one of my very favorite books. I distinctly remember first hearing the story in our Sunday school class when I was six or seven. Our class watched about ten or fifteen minutes of the cartoon version (which is surprisingly faithful to the book--all the dialogue is lifted straight from the pages so there are no wisecracking animals or anything like that) every Sunday and then the Sunday school teachers would tell us what each of the characters represented.

There has been a lot of criticism lately over Christians who would force 'their interpretation' of Narnia onto a child. These critics believe that nobody should tell kids about the allegory in C.S. Lewis' story and that it's only as Christian as you want it to be--that it's REALLY just a fun fantasy novel.

Well, I hope those critics are pleased with themselves, robbing children of the discovery that not everything in the world is literal. When I was told that Aslan was Christ and the White Witch was the devil...that the story of LWW is a retelling of the Crucifixion/Resurrection story, I began to look at the world in a different way. Things began to carry a deeper meaning. I began digging in to find the deeper, hidden messages behind stories--not just settling for surface level. In fact, I believe I owe a great deal of how my mind developed to discovering Narnia at an early age.

So I think it goes without saying I'm a big fan of the book.

As for the film version... not so much.

The kids do an admirable job, with little Lucy being the Kewpie-doll cutest of the bunch. The film is chock-full of gee-whiz! state of the art CGI and a score that doesn't let up. Performances all around range from just fine to swell. There's a lot to like.

However, there's a very familiar feeling to it all. We've seen it all before. We know what a CGI ogre and CGI goblin look like. We've seen so many epic battle scenes since 'Braveheart' that the whole 'fields of war' thing feels a mite stale. And so on.

Still, much like the recent 'Willy Wonka' film, up until the halfway point or so, the film is surprisingly accurate to the book, right down to Lucy entering the wardrobe and looking over her shoulder to make sure she can still see the light from the spare room behind her (for she knew it was a foolish thing to shut oneself up in a wardrobe).

Then the halfway mark hits and it becomes an action movie. The children run for their lives for the next twenty minutes, outrun a pack of wolves, and go on a white water adventure as the frozen river they're trying to cross begins to crack beneath them due to the rapidly approaching spring (in the book, spring is a GOOD thing. It meant that the Savior had come. In the film, it's just another danger for them to endure).

Another fatal misstep comes from the director's decision to cut away from Aslan's resurrection in favor of yet another dime-a-dozen Lord of the Rings-style battle sequence. I remember reading in an interview early on that he always felt that the death and resurrection scene in the book was dull, dull, dull--that what he always wanted to see was the battle scene that takes place when Aslan comes back to life, flies to the White Witch's palace, and breathes life into her stone prisoners. Yeah! Who wants to see all that stuff anyway? Let's see another battle!

Nice try, Mr. Director Man. You just screwed up your movie.

Folks, we all saw ten hours of battles in the three Lord of the Rings movies. If I see one more windswept battle field with orcs and ghoulies with bad teeth roaring on one side and the good guys with clean teeth cheering on the other... It's simply not exciting. What you want to see is what's going on with Aslan. As it is, we get to see one statue come to life, then we cut back to the battle sequence for ten minutes, then we cut back to Aslan who, during this time, has restored all the statues to back to their living selves.

Well great. Instead of seeing something different and interesting, we're treated to yet another tedious fantasy battle.

It's all very distracting. Lewis' novel is very tight. He didn't write filler (*cough* *Rowling* *cough*). Everything in his book is there for a very specific reason. By packing the latter half of the movie with so much extra stuff to make the film more mainstream and 'Disnefied', the meanings behind Lewis' images fail to carry the same emotional impact they have in the book--to the point that, in the film, when Aslan kills the White Witch and says, "It is finished" it sounds less like Lewis and more like a production company who wants to try desperately to cater to both a Christian and a secular audience. It sounds false. Nice try, Disney. I wasn't born yesterday.

In the end, if you really want to see it, what the heck. It's not terrible (though the director really shows his roots when his talking animals make wisecracky Shrek-esque jokes) and the White Witch's palace truly is a wonder to behold. By the end, however, the film has totally lost its focus, trying to play to both the religious and secular crowds. This is a mainstream Narnia. Not the one Lewis wrote.

C+ to B- (depending on my mood)

Busy Monday

It's another scary Monday morning! I've got so much to do I don't have a single moment to write my advanced screening review of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (oh yes--someone saw it this weekend and that someone's name is me!)

So let this picture suffice for now:

Hack

Uh oh. Smells like someone's smoking in the stairwell again...