|
Main Menu
PaLM Sites
|
PaLM ReviewsBrowse reviews by alphabetical listing
There are 13 reviews in our database. Latest Listings | Category: Movies
|
Title: The Dark Knight  | views:10 |  Film Review : The Dark Knight John L. Ng 8/08
The Movie The Dark Knight can be mistaken for a dark night. Christopher Nolan’s epic long Batman film is indeed darkly grim. An action hero flick, not – it is more like a Shakespearian tragedy, a Gotham City Hamlet or Macbeth. There are few gratuitous special effect thrills, only existential grimace. Much of the movie is at night, where glimpses of light are artificial and darkness is real and pervasive.
This Gotham City’s universe is morally ambiguous and contradictory. Batman, our hero, is tortured and ambivalent. In that iconic pose, where Batman, played by Christian Bale, perches on a skyscraper’s ledge overlooking Gotham City (Chicago, not New York), our hero appears more defeated than definite. Ironically, its villain, the Joker, played brilliantly by the late Heath Ledger, is delightfully mischievous and banally evil. Self assuming, he roams, taunts and muses freely.
With tangled greasy hair, a face caked with clownish white paint, deep hallowed eyes and a tongue that licks wickedly his smeared red lips, the Joker goes about his senseless mayhem. Others may carry guns, but he reels a knife. When he flashes it, it is more menacing. But his evil is beyond playful bantering. Destruction and deaths pile up like a garbage heap. It is so banal, we are numb in our juristic anxiety. The troublesome thing is that I find myself viscerally giggling and amuse with his perverse but clever carry on.
To make sense in this morally dark and chaotic universe, everyone seizes the moment to pontificate. Harvey Dent, the district attorney, played by Aaron Eckhart, laments, obviously about himself and perhaps also Batman, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” I don’t know what to do with that. Like much of the philosophical sound bites, it just doesn’t sound right.
The movie seems to bind us to two philosophical assumptions. To be sure, much in this universe is chaotic, complex and cynical. Justice is seldom systemic, but vigilante. Institutional law is utterly inapt and corrupt in its enforcement. Batman is at best a vigilante and at worst a failed vigilant for truth, justice and the American way. The Joker is more fearsome than our hero. He is feared by lawless gangsters and lawful citizens alike. He is so dangerously unpredictable, we, in quiet fear, wonder if anyone, including Batman, has enough moral integration to face the challenge. The only person that is truly heroic is the police lieutenant, Jim Gordon, played by Gary Oldman. He is a common man of simple integrity, helpless but not hopeless. No wonder he seems so out of place in this morally dark place.
The other assumption defines our human conditions. Strangely, Batman and the Joker’s relationship is symbiotic. The Joker jokes with Batman, “I don’t want to kill you. You complete me!” That playful wisecrack is deadly serious. Like good and evil in the cosmos, they are both opponents and complements. Their truer selves are better realized by the ontology of the other. Batman’s vulnerable self is shaped by the Joker’s self-assurance; the Joker’s determined evil is fed by Batman’s reluctant virtue. Without the other, they won’t not know who they are or perhaps they can’t even exist.
I walk out of the dark theater into sunlight exhausted and disturbed. Alan Jackson’s Here In the Real World lyrics come to mind: “Cowboys don’t cry/ heroes don’t die/ good always wins/ again and again. . . . But here in the real world/ it’s not easy at all. . . . If life were like the movies/ I’d never be blue.” The universe Batman and the Joker reside makes me hopelessly blue. The Dark Knight is not fun.
|
|
|
| Review submitted: 2008/8/17
|
| |
| |
| Category: Movies
|
| Title: Reservation Road | views:33 | Film Review : Reservation Road John L. Ng 4/08
Reservation Road is a grim and grievous story. Based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, the movie begins when night falls on two families. Dwight, played Mark Ruffalo, hurries to drive his son home to his ex-wife after a baseball game. Ethan and Grace, played Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly, are driving home from their son Josh’s cello recital. They stop at a convenient store in a secluded area on Reservation Road. In an incomprehensible and life altering moment, Dwight loses control of his black SUV and hits Josh who is standing on the side of the road. Josh is instantly killed. In a panic, Dwight drives off as Ethan watches in helpless horror.
What follows is a contemplation on how Ethan, Grace and Dwight suffer grief with life’s inexplicable cruelty. Ethan is a college professor with volitional control of mind and body. After the initial visceral shock of watching his son die from the hit and run, he mourns in a quiet cognition. He chooses cold comfort by seeking solace from other victims’ families through an internet chat room and by seeking legal counsel to oversee the police’s investigation. Phoenix’s breaded face gives Ethan a melancholic but calm countenance. But as the investigation flounders, Ethan’s quiet cognition descends into emotional chaos. He buys a gun as he morphs from a comfort seeker into a hunter for his son’s killer. Grace mourns the lost of her son with the fierce but silent screams of a pained mother. Refusing comfort from others, she coils in desolate despair on the bathroom floor. Connelly’s strong beauty lends to Grace’s lonely grief. As days become weeks, she ascends privately from her dark abyss into a determined decision to move on. Ethan and Grace’s grief paths intersect when they fight over what to do with Josh’s belongings. Dwight’s grief over his involuntary transgression is of another kind. Confronted by his guilt, he is a prey chased by rational and irrational moods. One moment he wants to do the right thing and surrenders to the police; the next moment he recoils in moral ambivalence. When Ethan finally encounters him in the dark of night and threatens to kill him, Dwight begs desperately for Ethan to tell him what to do.
Whether we are proudly sitting through our son’s cello recital or happily watching a baseball game with our son, we celebrate life almost oblivious of our flawed and broken human condition. We take so much of what we are and have for granted. Then when a hard tragedy strikes our soft beings, we retreat from community to grieve privately. Ethan hurts in the middle of night before his computer, alone and lonely. Grace hurts quietly as she goes about her maternal chores. She picks up her daughter from school but refrains from human encounters. Dwight desperately wants to connect with his son but his criminal secret confines him to ambivalent solitude. When life is in day light, we enter our relationships with mindless ease. When day turns to night, we retreat into our private selves.
Much of life’s tragedy is incomprehensible. Thousands of children die daily. Although their surviving families mourn somewhere, the thousands are only a number to us. But when one statistic happens on a road close to home, we are not as confident with life’s incomprehensibility. How we get to the other side is determined by how we grief.
|
|
|
| Review submitted: 2008/6/21
|
| |
| |
| Category: Books
|
 Title: Two Books by Andy Stanley | views:51 | john l. ng May 08
7 Practices of Effective Ministry
By Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner, Lane Jones, Multnomah Publishers, 2004
Communicating For A Change
By Andy Stanley, Lane Jones, Multnomah Publishers, 2006
Some time ago, I attended Sunday worship at the North Point Community Church. Its senior pastor, Andy Stanley, was the minister of the word. As a recovering cynic, I have to confess how impressive I was of his effective communication. His performance was engaging, lucid, precise and profoundly simple. My companion and I found ourselves talking about his sermonic idea throughout the day and for many weeks. When I got back to New York, someone per chance gave me two books written by Stanley and his leadership team. Still stewing in the impact of his ministry of the word, I viscerally took a long morning and read his two books.
It was not difficult reading them in one sitting. Both books, from North Point Resources, a ministry arm of the church for professional ministry, have the same format. Each has two parts. The first tells an imaginary, illustrative story; the second presents the principles based on the story. Like that Sunday morning’s sermon, the two books are engaging, simple (maybe simplistic) and precise. The chapters are kept short and dotted with stories and repetitive phrases. I could not help but to think that the books were written for readers who don’t like to read. So if you don’t like to read, I have two books for you to improve your communicative ministries.
7 Practices of Effective Ministry deals with the practices of leading and running a ministry organization. Having written that ministry leadership is more art than science, the book provides a template for strategic planning, program implementing and vision communicating. These practices are: one, clarify to win – make clear the destination of your organization; two, think steps, not programs – define the incremental steps clearly and measurably to get there; three, narrow the focus – reduce every ministry to one or two things that it does well; four, teach less for more – communicate only what is necessary to those who need to hear and see it; five, listen to outsiders – focus your efforts on those you’re trying to reach, not on those you’re trying to keep; six, replace yourself – prepare now for the future to let someone else do what you are doing; seven, work on it – maintain relevance and effectiveness, make time to improve yourself.
Communicating For A Change focuses on a communication strategy on the traditional homiletic task. With the premise that most sermons have too many ideas, the seven imperatives seek to reduce a sermon into a single, grand and manageable idea. Those who are familiar with Haddon Robinson’s Big Idea will see nothing new here. One, determine your goal – what are you trying to accomplish with the sermonic text; two, pick a point – what is the simple, single idea you are trying to say; three, create a map – with a simple idea determine what is the best way to bring your point across; four, internalize the message – make the sermon yours by internalize its contour and contents; five, engage your audience – make plans to capture and keep their attention with literary devices; six, find your voice – no one style fits all, each preacher needs to find an unique voice that works; seven, start all over – work over the notes to make them more palatable for listening. Always write for listening, not reading.
|
|
|
| Review submitted: 2008/5/5
|
| |
| |
| Category: Movies
|
| Title: Film Review - Michael Clayton | views:69 | John L. Ng 2/08
Michael Clayton is a good movie about a bad world that is messy and untidy. It is a story of ethical, or rather unethical, choices corporate masters make in quiet desperation and silent paranoia. Michael Clayton, played by George Clooney, is the cool fixer for a high price law firm. He is the ‘janitor’ who cleans up messes his firm’s respectable clients get into. As jaded as his sleepless face looks, he sweats not and raises his voice not. The firm’s top litigator, Arthur Edens, while defending a giant chemical company in a class action lawsuit, comes across an in-house document that proves the company’s guilt in fatally poisoning its customers. While deciding to blow the whistle, he suffers an emotional meltdown. Clayton is sent to mop up Edens’s media nightmare. The company’s chief counsel, Karen Crowder, played by Tilda Swinton, seeks to stop Edens at all cost.
As Clayton is cool, Crowder is cold. Their protagonist and antagonist interplay provides a study of flawed humanity in a messy world. Clayton is the embodiment of imperfect decency. He longs to do well and make good but has an insatiable gambling habit, messes around with the mob and owes them a lot of money. He takes delight with his young son and sticks his neck out as Edens’ loyal friend but can’t find forgiveness for his feckless brother. He finds solace coming home to family only wanting to escape its tormented dysfunctions. In contrast, Crowder is the embodiment of banal evil. We know almost nothing about her. She has no personal past or social present. Sexless and joyless, she is without family or friends. Her mere existence seems to consist only of her grimy corporate world.
To watch the movie in a temperature controlled theater, the temptation is to judge their in white and black according to our convenient jurisprudence. But a rabbinical proverb cautions us: judging is done in heaven, but fixing takes place in this world. Two scenes tempt us sorely to usurp heaven’s prerogative. While getting dress in her hotel room, Crowder rehearses her public statements to cover their falsity with cool blandness. All the while, underarm perspiration stains her silk blouse in quiet desperation. We disdain her. In another scene, Clayton, having been awake all night to help Edens, drives along a winding country road. He comes to a clearing and sees another day dawning. He gets out of his car to walk the hill toward a new day’s fresh light. Unlike the phatic noises in Crowder’s hotel room, Clayton’s walk is in prolonged and profound silence. We like Clayton for the choices he has made.
The film is about making moral choices by desperate and imperfect people. The world Clayton and Crowder live is also darkly cynical and sinister. Banal evil is lurking behind every corporate grin and whitewash euphemism. The evil they face are real and constant. Some, like Crowder, embody that evil, some, like Bach, Clayton’s boss, cater to it and others, like Clayton, try to face up to it. Our simplistic jurisprudence urges to make them all into cardboard thin caricatures. We simply want to root for Clayton and boo Crowder. But the wise reminds us that it is not our place to judge. Judgment is reserved for heaven. Like Clayton, we are all but janitors trying our best to fix things when they are broken. Clayton is our hero because we realize very well that it is all he can do. At the end of the day, all he has are choices he made, as imperfect as they and he are. We feel good about Clayton because he survives. The choices he makes turn around and make him. Crowder also makes some choices. And they turn around to unmake her. We feel good about that too.
|
|
|
| Review submitted: 2008/4/2
|
| |
| |
| Category: Movies
|
| Title: Film Review - Atonement | views:112 | John L. Ng 2/08
The movie Atonement is typical British; it is slow, understated and detached. Rightly so. Those involved are British – its director, Joe Wright, its screenwriter, Christopher Hampton, the novelist, Ian McEwan, and the actors. The setting is a British family in an old country estate. The pastoral surroundings can not disguise the family’s repressive undersurface. Its members are properly trimmed in dinner jackets and evening dresses. Their conversations are restrained with stiff upper lips. A periodic outburst is judged with askance. All smoke habitually with deep inhales and long exhales. Their long glances are etched with quiet tension and emotive repression. Much is unsaid but noticed. Cecilia, played by Keira Knightley, discovers that she is in love with and loved by Robbie, James McAvoy, a family servant’s son who dabbles in gardening. The presence of Cecilia’s unhappy brother, Leon, and his arrogant friend, Paul Marshall can only heighten the quiet tension.
Whispers of a sexual scandal stirring are overheard but faintly. Cecilia and Robbie’s covert courtship is covertly observed by Cecilia’s younger sister, Briony, Saoirse Ronan. Briony’s lonely and penetrating eyes are precocity in adolescent confusion. After a series of false assumptions and misunderstanding, she witnesses their coitus in the house library and is troublingly incensed. Before the family and the police, she perpetrates false accusations against Robbie that results in catastrophic consequences.
The rest of the movie is the unfolding pain of that catastrophe. Sin is always slow and pervasive. It is indiscriminate. It concerns not with what is true and who suffers. In this case, the sin of Briony’s false witness procrastinates and stews into an unjust ruins for Cecilia and Robbie. But they are not the only ones who suffer. Because of one long lie, a torrid of pains floods all who are involved with pains of guilt, of falsehood, of longing, of unconsummated love, of separation anxiety, of war’s wounds, of failure and of unforgiveness. Abraham Hershel, the eminent Jewish theologian, once wrote that pain atones us for our sins. Pain is not just the wages of sin. Pain often times is necessary to amend our sinful ways.
The backdrop in the movie’s second half is the advent of World War II. Perhaps a prolong war is the best scenario for suffering atonement. For war, like sin, is ruthless. It cares not who dies or who is maimed. The horrific images, with long panning battlefield shots and close-up scenes in the hospital, are an inescapable reminder of war as the crucible of atonement. Robbie is a soldier lost, wandering aimless in soul and body. Cecilia and Briony, who is grown, are volunteer nurses. They are also lost as well in the pain of war. Briony’s nun habit like uniform seems to suggest that charity and chastity are her means of atoning for her youthful indiscretion. She has repented of her erring way but repentance is powerless. It can never right what she has wronged. No matter how persistent Briony tries, the painful consequence of her sin lingers to the final end. Since her adolescence, Briony has always aspired to be a playwright. Perhaps the only atonement for her sin is her adult imagination. But even here, there is the undeniable pain of helpless virtual reality. Willful sin is that mighty. |
|
|
| Review submitted: 2008/2/6
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
