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There are 36 reviews in our database. Latest Listings | Category: Movies
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Title: Inception  | views:6 |  Review by John L Ng August 10
As visually stimulating as Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is, it is not a gratuitous action-thriller movie. You cannot watch it while munching on popcorns. You have to stay alert, pay attention, keep up and take mental notes. Like reality, the narrative is complicated, layered and not always coherent at first glance. You just have to let the story run its two-and-a-half-hour course; glean what you can for later musings.
The plot is simple enough. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a corporate espionage specialist. He and his team are hired to pull off a heist. But instead of robbing a rich man’s casino like the plot in “Ocean’s Eleven” or stealing back from a traitor’s stolen loots in “The Italian Job,” Cobb and company are engaged to raid a man’s subconscious. There are two types of subconscious raids. Extraction is the type that enters the subconscious and extracts secrets from it. Inception is the other type that posits ideas to control the victim’s subconscious. Taito, a wealthy tycoon (Ken Watanabe), wants Cobb’s team to plant an idea in the subconscious of a young heir who is poised to inherit a conglomerate of Taito’s old rival.
But you don’t have to read Freud, watch Hitchcock or take Psychology 101 to know that the subconscious is an unruly space – a labyrinth of desires, hopes, sins and fears. One’s entry can cause havoc in your cognitive and emotive. Cobb’s team enters the subconscious through induced dreams. Dreams, unlike boundaries of reality, are limitless. In dreams, Ariadne (Ellen Page) envisions an entire Paris neighborhood enfold on itself like an origami paper or Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) flows through hotel corridors like a weightless astronaut.
As liberating as dreams may seem, probing the subconscious can be a dangerous game. Suppressed emotions and inadvertent memories can run amuck when in dreams. Cobb’s unresolved guilt toward his neglected children and haunting memories of his deceased wife, Mal, (Marion Cotillard) threaten to unhinge his sanity and sabotage their cerebral heist.
No doubt the movie’s subtext is control. Can one control reality by controlling dreams. There are several layers of our desire for control. On one level, we want to control our circumstances – Cobb’s team wants to control the young heir’s situation by attempting to orchestrate his dreams. On another, we are anxious of losing control – in dream sequences, Cobb’s team experience the common sensation of helpless free falls. Still another, we seek to change our past from effecting our present – Cobb wants to build a bound space to keep his wife in his memories so they can be and grow old together. Finally, we want to control how our narrative will end – Cobb dreams at last he would go home to his children.
Ultimately, to have total control over our circumstances is but a day dream.“We plan, God laughs,” so goes the Yiddish saying. We can try all we want, only the Creator is truly in control. Even Cobb with his dream controlling machine is not really effectively in control of his past or future
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| Review submitted: 2010/8/11
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| Category: Books
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 Title: Head and Heart – American Christianities | views:11 | Review by John L Ng Jul 10
Head and Heart – American Christianities
By Garry Wills The Penguin Press, 2007
Irrespective of the rancor in American politics concerning the separation between church and state, no reasonable person can ignore the influence religion, particularly Christianity, has in the founding and history of the United States. The meaning of separation is at the heart of this bitter debate. Some have sought to blacken the line of separation by defining it as the autonomous functions of church and state that must exist apart from the other. Another way to define separation is that the state should function independently but inseparable from the church.
The framers, both deists and theists alike, of the constitution never intended that religion, particularly Christianity, play no role in politics. As witnesses of European state churches, they feared governmental infringement on the establishment of religion and were desirous a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom in American life. Indeed it is the freedom of religion that has flourished Christianity in the new world. As Garry Wills notes in “Head and Heart,” government cannot legislate religious activities, like having faith in Jesus. But one would hope and expect that one’s faith in Jesus should influence every facet of that person’s life, including his political participation.
“Head and Heart” is a good read. Garry Wills, one of few American writers I enjoy reading, is a devoted Catholic and a learned historian. In his introduction to his class on the history of the constitution, Wills asked his students three questions: Do you believe in the separation of church and state? Do you believe in the separation of religion and politics? Do you believe in the separation of morality and politics? Almost all students responded yes to the first and second questions. But none responded positively to the third. Wills admits willingly that the answers to the second and third questions are inconsistent. A shared rationale recognizes that most people’s morality is affected by their religion. In fact, I would agree that answers to all three questions must be consistent. Since morality is affected by religion and much of religion is formulated by an instituted church, it would be reasonable to expect the church to play a role in politics.
The book examines the dynamic and uneven relationship between church and state. Their interplay has transformed the political and the religious landscape in American. Wills divides the history of church and state into five epochs: The pre-enlightenment period of the 17th century that witnessed the early Puritans, the conflicting colonies and the first Great Awakening; The enlightenment of the 18th century that included the rise of the Unitarians, the Quakers and the founding of a new nation; The Romantic Era of 19th century ushered in the slavery conflict, the Civil War and the second Great Awakening; The Cultural Wars years of the 20th century that included the two great world wars, the rights movements and Evangelical politics; The Religious Nation period of the latter 20th and early 21st centuries that gave rise to faith based politics, advanced social services, education and wars.
Whether one is initiated or not in the debate of church and state politics, this read provides an informed background for conversations. Every good Christian ought to be a good citizen; every good citizen ought to be informed of the political issues. Many of these issues are at once hostile and friendly to our faith and practice.
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| Review submitted: 2010/8/6
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| Category: Movies
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| Title: Film Review : Disgrace | views:21 | Review by John L Ng June 10
Disgrace is not an easy movie to sit through. Much of its many scenes and dialogue is difficult and ruffles our shared sense of jurisprudence. The film is an adaptation of J. M. Cortzee’s novel of the same title. The story centers on David Lurie, a professor of poetry in post-apartheid Cape Town, South Africa. David (played hauntingly by John Malkovich) recites fine poems and sips finer wine. He likes to believe that he is refined man. He also likes to bed women, irrespective of whether they are prostitutes, other men’s wives or his students. His sexual instinct is indicative of his unbridled arrogance that no one can fault a human for pursuing his primal desires.
After he is exposed for seducing a troubled student, David pleads guilty to the charges but unrepentantly refuses to defend his behavior. Humbled by his dismissal but not ashamed, he retreats to the farmhouse of his estranged daughter, Lucy. In the countryside, soon his self imposed solace and amoral conviction are shattered when three black youths viciously attack him, sexually assault his daughter and brutally shoot her dogs. (Dogs are prominent in the movie. Perhaps a pervasive reminder throughout that if their primal instinct is no different from that of human’s, then humans are no different from dogs.)
The converging reactions of people near David to the gang crime are a meditative study of morality and being human. Lucy accepts the thugs’ violation of her body as justifiable for the injustice caused by those long years of her country’s apartheid. She refuses to report the crime to the police. Petrus, Lucy’s handyman, waxes incoherent platitudes about a new world order in post apartheid South Africa without acknowledging that the incident is criminal, admitting that one of the youths is a relative. Bev, who runs an animal clinic and sleeps with David, shows sympathy for Lucy but passively resigns to things as they are in a world she has little say.
As David struggles to come to terms with their reactions, especially Lucy’s rationale, he retreats within to the question of his amorality. If there are no right and wrong in human instincts, then why is he so morally outraged by the youths’ crime against him and his daughter. The mere notion that David is capable of righteous anger means that he is above primal desires. Toward the end, there is profound but ambivalent self awareness that leads to personal remorse. He inexplicably visits the family of the student he has wronged. The father lets him in his home but only to warn that ultimately it is God David has to face. David kneels with his head bowed before the mother seeking forgiveness in utter humiliation and repentance.
After a long sweaty walk along the dirt road back to his daughter’s farm, David quietly resigns to accept his new country and consequences of his personal action. “How humiliating, to end like this,” he laments, perhaps rendering a commentary of what it means to be ‘disgraced’. Human behavior has both personal and societal consequences. David’s uncontrolled lust has ruined his personal honor and communal respect. Lucy’s choice to escape the privilege of urban living in white Cape Town to a simpler life style in the barren plains of East Cape has its own risks. Apartheid has reaped what it sowed. Much of the violence in the movie is off screen (in contrast to the novel’s graphic details), as if to suggest that we can look away but not avoid. It does not negate the personal and social consequences of being an inhumane humanity before God. The psalmist acknowledges that God has made us a little lower than angels and has crowned us with glory and honor (Psalm 8). With that glory and honor comes moral responsibility.
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| Review submitted: 2010/7/1
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| Category: Books
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| Title: The Prodigal | views:26 | Review by John L Ng June 2010
The Waiting Father by Helmut Thielicke, Lutterworth Press. 1987
The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Image Book. 1994
The Cross & the Prodigal by Kenneth Bailey, IVP. 2005
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller, Zondervan. 2009
The parable of the prodigal in Luke 15 is as old as the Gospel story and as timeless as the Gospel truth. It is perhaps the most well known of Jesus’ parables. Enough books, commentaries and sermons have parsed it for our puritan consumption. The four monographs in this review look at this well rehearsed story and give fresh imagination to our hearing. Seeing the parable from different perches, the four authors take the readers in refreshing and different directions. And study and teaching of this parable is enriched when the four monographs are read together.
The Waiting Father is this great scholar’s sermonic work of several of Jesus’ parables. One of them is the prodigal in the first two chapters. Thielicke’s imagination of God as the ‘waiting father’ in the title captures the essence of the story. Some preachers are indifferent scholars and some scholars are poor communicators. But this professor of Hamburg University, Germany, is both an insightful interpreter and imaginative preacher. Any student of scripture and lover of truth would enjoy reading his theological insights. A word of caution. The two chapters are not a breezy read. Thielicke’s thoughts are dense with layers. One must be intentional and diligent to appreciate them.
The Return of the Prodigal Son is Nouwen’s reflection of the parable based on his lingering contemplation of Rembrandt’s masterpiece of the same title. The Rembrandt painting provides a fascinating sensory interpretation of the parable. This Catholic priest simply writes what his senses enjoy the varied and many nuances of the father, the younger and older sons. To appreciate Nouwen’s reflection, the reader must take the time to enjoy the Dutch master’s painting. It would be good to have a print of it along side while reading. You will never hear or tell the parable again without seeing the rich images of this masterpiece.
The Cross & the Prodigal is one of several books by Kenneth Bailey on the parable. For 20 years Bailey was a Near East School of Theology professor in Beirut, Lebanon. Living in the land of the New Testament has given him a unique insight into the cultural and social backgrounds of the parable’s literary forms. The book’s subtitle – Luke 15 Through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants – preludes his fascinating look at the parable through the cultural and social nuances of Jesus’s first audience. The parable’s reality is made more vivid and vital.
The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller is this New York pastor’s summary of Christianity for a post-modern, urban world. His play on words by calling God prodigal alludes to God’s reckless and extravagant grace on humankind as portrayed by the father in the parable. True to form, Keller skillfully weaves the theological threads of the parable with the strands of contemporary culture in its hang-ups and assumptions. He lucidly presents the Gospel with post-modern imagination. (The book is complemented by a separate DVD presentation by the author and discussion guide for group studies.)
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| Review submitted: 2010/6/17
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| Category: Books
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| Title: Jesus And Community | views:42 | Reviewed by John L Ng Apr 2010
Jesus And Community
By Gerhard Lohfink, Paulist Press, 1984
This not so recent book has something to say to our post modern generation. First written in German in 1982, this English edition was published two years later. Gerhard Lohfink was a New Testament professor at the University of Tubingen for many years. In 1986, he resigned from the university to join the Catholic Integrated Community, founded to address the meaning of being a faith community. His involvement with this group gives credence to Jesus and Community. Its subtext seeks the meaningful relationship between having faith in Jesus and being part of Christ’s church.
In the first winter of the 20th century, Adolf von Harnack, a theologian and historian, in his lectures on “The Essence of Christianity” attended to the notion of religious individualism. Harnack contented that the rule of God comes to individuals and not community. An individual hears the good news and makes a volitional choice “to stand on the side of God.” Not that he overlooked the communal nature of the people of God, whether it was Israel or the church. Rather Harnack posits that the primary essence of faith is individual. This religious individualism has seeped into our popular theology and shaped the way we think about faith and practice. Not only is salvation personal, it is also private to many of us. On any Sunday, just listen to our responses to God in worship. The pervasive “I” in our songs and prayers exposes our religious privatization.
Lohfink contests that private faith has no space in the kingdom of God. When Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God (Mark 1.15), he envisioned a community under God’s reign. Like any earthen kingdom, the Kingdom of God must have a collective people. He explores that communal requirement in kingdom thinking in sequential and related subjects. First, Jesus’ communal intentionality for his disciples was imaged in the light of God’s creation and in the historic redemption of Israel. In the Exodus event, God liberated a nation, not merely individuals. Second, the calling and nurturing of the Twelve by Jesus was intended to create a faith community. The disciples represented a renewed people of God now and in eschatological reality. Third, Lohfink shows how the New Testament church saw its communal life as a fulfillment of Jesus’ teaching of God’s kingdom. The final chapter contours the church of earlier centuries as a counter-culture community who embraced its identity and sought to live God’s reign on earth.
Although the book is rich in theological language, it is a practical read for everyone. One example is Lohfink’s reading of the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11. At first glance, the first person plural usage in the prayer at once sets the communal context of faith. As intimate as prayer is, Jesus teaches us how to pray in communal language: our Father . . . , give us. . . , forgive us. . . , lead us. . . . This communal aspect of personal faith is further enhanced by the prayer’s first petitions: hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Lokfink insightfully shows that when we pray for the sanctity of God’s name, in effect we are seeking God’s preservation of his people for his name’s sake in eschatological anticipation (Ezekiel’s vision in 36.22-24). Where ever we are, we gather as a faith community that lives, moves and has its being under the rule of God and representing God on earth. That is the essence of being Christian.
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| Review submitted: 2010/5/6
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