"Bottle Rocket": Not So Much Defying Convention as Blissfully Ignoring It

We had two free rentals at the distant Box Office Video that we used to pass twice a week on the way to babysitting but that we now pass, approximately, never. Our library has a ton of new and classic videos and DVDs, and Steve's on an Ebay/Half.com streak where he hones in on video-store sales, swoops up dozens of researched winners, and puts them up for auction. All this to say that, since our Box Office coupons expired yesterday, we had to go, and we had to find something that we couldn't find elsewhere, or what was the point?

(And, yes, they had a previously viewed video sale, so Steve jotted down several titles, which he will pick up when we drop these off.)

One of the movies we picked, then, was "Bottle Rocket." Steve actually had seen this before but hadn't enjoyed it. (I know that's not a striking recommendation for repeat viewing, but let me go on.) It's by Wes Anderson, the director of "Rushmore," which I loved. Having now seen "Rushmore" twice (my doing), plus the DVD commentary and behind-the-scenes interviews and documentaries, Steve understood more of what "Rushmore" was trying to do and wanted to see "Bottle Rocket" again to see if he understood it better, too. I wanted to see it because I hadn't before.

I do recommend that you watch "Rushmore" before "Bottle Rocket," even though chronologically they go the other way around. (They don't have anything to do with each other, plotwise or characterwise, so it doesn't matter.) Neither is very Hollywood-ish; Wes Anderson and his scriptwriting/acting friend, Owen Wilson, bring a quirky humor not as often laugh-out-loud as inherent in the characters' bumblings. "Rushmore"'s main character is 15 years old and doesn't do well academically and has problems fitting into his school and peer groups. That's completely understandable. "Bottle Rocket," on the other hand, deals with late-20s screwups with a penchant for crime (but no talent for it) -- not as immediately lovable. Steve says that when he first watched "Bottle Rocket," he knew the characters were idiots, but he wasn't sure the filmmakers knew. They do.

And that is what I enjoy about Anderson and Wilson's films. The characters are never black and white, so that you pity and admire them by turns or at the same time. By the end, even though you disagree with some of their choices, you like them. And, what's even more refreshing, they like each other. Just when you think there couldn't be a reconciliation, there is, and it's never hokey. Often funny, but believable, at least in their offbeat world. I've found life is nothing so dramatic as movies -- a sworn enemy in a movie is a monster, a demon; in real life, a sworn enemy is another loser human like me. Eventually, we usually realize that.

I also like that you never know what's going to happen next. Their movies follow no formulas. Despite the subject matter, this is no normal big-heist movie. And, in the realm of relationships, the friendships weave in and out of focus, just like in real life instead of in a typical buddy movie. It reminds me of the way a friendship trio I was in in college would regularly divide into 2 and 1. Sometimes I would be with one friend, sometimes with the other, and sometimes left out. That's just how life is, and "Bottle Rocket" refuses to simplify it.

This is not to say that "Bottle Rocket" is my new favorite movie. I just enjoy watching the untypical but still enjoyable. We watched the Wim Wenders "Wings of Desire" again recently (I had watched it in German class). The movie "City of Angels" is loosely based on it -- except "Wings of Desire" has pretty much no plot, is in three languages, switches thematically from black and white to color (but with less fanfare than "Wizard of Oz"), etc. "Wings of Desire" is a good movie, and it makes you feel artsy and intellectual to have seen it, and it's certainly unHollywood, but it's not fun to boot. That's what's nice about "Bottle Rocket." I'm excited to see what the Anderson-Wilson team comes up with next.

"G.I. Joe: The Movie" and the art of play

I NEVER SAW "G.I. Joe: The Movie" when it hit video in 1987. If I remember correctly, I was just growing out of my Joes and into collecting football cards. (I remember thinking I'd never grow out of my toys, and asked for this $100 "Terror Drome" playset one Christmas -- then promptly grew out of them.)

So I was completely unprepared for the entire line of new toys, er, I mean characters, introduced in the movie; I had no idea they existed. Apparently, Cobra was not just the "evil terrorist organization determined to rule the world" that we'd been told, they were actually secretly controlled by an ancient race of creatures who once ruled the world prior to the ice age and were now attempting to reclaim the earth. (Kind of the same way the the "Scream 3" villain was lamely revealed to have been behind the events of the earlier movies.)

So now we get to meet Pythona ("Star Wars" artists obviously ripped off her design to create Prince Zixor), who seems to be a match for Cobra leader Serpentor, until we are introduced to the even-more-powerful Nemesis Enforcer, who, of course, pales in evilness to the monsterous Golobulus. Then there's a group of six new Joe trainees, and a group of four super-tough ex-mercenary Joes led by Sgt. Slaughter. And of course every single existing character from both G.I. Joe and Cobra are in the film, since no one on the show ever dies, despite the massive explosions every ten seconds. (After Duke's chest is practically ripped open, he says some inspiring last words, slumps, and Scarlett mourns: "He's gone into a coma!")

Anyway, I was sitting there being numbed by the sheer excess of it all, stunned by how little sense it made, when suddenly I was struck by how much this was like my own play as a child. When I made up stories with my toys I didn't make a three act structure, didn't think about character motivation, and didn't really even follow a train of thought. "G.I. Joe: The Movie" feels an awful lot like some kid grabbed his Joes and some of his space-alien toys and played with them, while his dad typed the whole thing into a screenplay. And as awful as the movie is, to be reminded of that earlier time, when I didn't know any better but to be in the moment, was worth it.

It was also fun to see those old public service announcements they'd run at the end of the G.I. Joe show, which are included on the DVD. "Knowing is half the battle," they'd tell us. Maybe remembering is the other half, or at least part of the battle. I don't have the gift of memory (like my brother does -- he was recently gathering old Joes for us to sell on eBay and knew exactly which weapons went with which guys), but to remember who I was and what parts of youthfulness are worth recapturing -- I think that's a good thing.

"Jurassic Park III": spino-whatus?

I VISITED MICHIGAN this weekend to see my folks, and also reunited with my high school buddy (and former Film Forum writer) Kent Straith. It just happened to be the opening weekend of "Jurassic Park III," and since the original had been such an important film to us -- we saw it on opening night after our graduation as the class of '93, and its relentless conquering of the box office that summer was further proof to us that '93 was the best -- that we couldn't withstand the nostalgia factor. We returned to the same theater and sat in the same row to watch part 3.

Alas, the movie is a piteous waste of time, and I wouldn't recommend it if not doused liberally with nostalgia. The plot is that Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), who pledges never to return to Jurassic Park, accepts an invitation not 24 hours later that lands him smack dab in the center of the site B island that was featured in "The Lost World." (That he once again accepts the invitation for mere money shows that he hasn't matured a bit in 8 years, although this time there's a greater sting to his misstep.)

From there on out, it's dinos vs. people, and feels more or less like deleted scenes from the original. The biggest difference is that this time there's an "even more dangerous than the T-rex!" spinosaurus, which, try as it might, doesn't really displace the T-rex's decades-old rep as the baddest of the bunch. (Irritatingly, Grant wonders aloud why this dino even exists, since it wasn't on InGen's species list, and then the film never resolves that point.)

The other difference is that the velociraptors are suddenly acting differently. Grant makes a speech in the beginning about the discovery of a vocalization chamber in raptors that allow them to communicate, and then by the time they get to the island the raptors begin acting a whole lot like people engaged in conversation. Um, were they faxed a memo about how to use these vocalization chambers since the last flick?

The overriding problem, of course, is that "Jurassic Park" was more or less a horror film. Less was more; you didn't see the raptors tear that cow to pieces, but you could imagine it and imagine what they would look like when they finally showed up on screen. You felt the sheer size of the T-rex in the water ripples long before she actually arrived. The tension was ratched up slowly, and, since this was 1993 and CGI was still in its infancy, you gasped not only in fear but also in marvel at what you were seeing. Part 3 has none of that -- dinos are old hat (heck, everything is old hat these days; I can't remember the last CGI shot I was awed by), and the carnage begins mere minutes after we first set foot on the island.

And don't get me started on the ending. I won't give it away, but boy does it reek of a stumped screenwriter. If you can explain: A) How Elie rigged that, B) How quickly they got there, or C) Why Costa Rica allowed it, please let me know. I'm stumped.

A Summer of Movie-Discussion Nights [Part Four: "Sense and Sensibility"]

The homework idea I mentioned in the previous installment didn't work out as well as I'd hoped; two of the four couples who were at the last meeting couldn't make this one, and I'd forgot to remind Amanda, so there were only three of us to talk about it. I decided to give it another try anyway, though: our question to pray over this time is "What does God want you to do with your life?" or "What is your spiritual dream?" (see question #3 below).

I dispensed with the pen and paper this time and we just each went around the room and gave an answer. (I can see that this won't work when we have all 12 members of our group together; it took a while with just 8.) I liked how everyone was able to give an answer to the question, but it does tend to cut down on discussion when everyone's waiting their turn. Perhaps you can't have it both ways.

This time we didn't bring popcorn, but we made little finger sandwiches and bought little cookies that seemed somewhat English, and Amanda braided up her hair ornately to help add to the atmosphere. Doing theme nights might be a fun idea if you're looking to start up a movie-discussion group -- although not every movie lends itself as well (next meeting is "The Hurricane").

Now, onto the questions: (Oh, wait, I forgot to mention that portion of the movie we watched starts 17:30 into the tape I have, when Edward and Elinor begin their walk, and ends at 56:30 -- when the Colonel tells Elinor not to wish for Marianne to be "better acqainted with the world"):

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Are you like your siblings in temperment or are you different?

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Elinor and the Colonel have different ideas about whether Marianne should "become better acquainted with the world." The Colonel wants her to be sheltered while Elinor thinks she needs to experience life with all its lumps. Which do you prefer in your own life -- do you prefer to learn from a teacher or book how to live or do you need to learn from making your own mistakes?

Which would you like more of in church: teaching of Biblicial principles or sharing of what people have learned in their lives?

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Edward's parents would rather have him in the army than the clergy. What did your parents want you to do with your life?

What does God want you to do with your life?

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Discuss which values from back then and from today you value more highly:

Attire: beauty vs. casual

Manners: hospitable vs. polite

Time: leisurely vs. hurried

Class: rigid social status vs. free market

Marriage: duty vs. freedom

Which do you think God values more highly?

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In the movie, the sick and dying are cared for at home. Do you consider that preferable to hospitalization today, or not?

Are there any professions of today that you feel should still belong to the family? (A friend of mine prefers to teach his kids sports himself rather than a coach, because even though a coach might train them better, he wants to build up trust and communication with his kids.) (Another example: homeschoolers find value in taking on the teacher's role themselves.)

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Next time I'm thinking about trying to teach our group to come up with questions on their own -- we'll see how that goes!

"Stigmata" and questioning Christianity

AS A HORROR movie, "Stigmata" is kind of lame. But as a spiritual movie, "Stigmata" is kind of Protestant.

"Stigmata" positions itself as a dangerously cutting-edge criticism of the Catholic church. An atheist woman in Pittsburgh (Patricia Arquette) is receiving the signs of stigmata, and a reluctant scientist/priest (Gabriel Byrne) is dispatched from the Vatican. What he doesn't know, but we do, is that the woman received a rosary from her mother that used to belong to a very devout priest. This rosary contains some sort of spiritual power that is forced on to her (which doesn't make much sense, either logically or theologically), and she begins spouting wisdom and writing things down in Aramaic.

Even though she writes a whole text on the wall in Aramaic, we only hear one sentence of this ancient wisdom told to us in English. It begins: "The spirit of God is within you," and then adds something about how religious trappings are not true religion. These words are supposed to be so dangerous that the Catholic church is willing to murder in order to silence what may or may not be the words of Jesus himself.

What's strange about the movie is the "startling" realization that a person doesn't need to go through a priest to have access to God. Um, has the screenwriter ever heard of Protestantism? I believe that most of the concerns in the movie were addressed by Martin Luther several hundred years ago. What's also strange is that when the movie came out I heard nothing but complaints about this movie from Christians. It's telling us that people are crying out to know God personally, and we attack it?

Perhaps one of the reasons it was shunned was its endorsement of the Gospel of Thomas in a little tag at the end. This was one of several ancient manuscripts found last century that the church believes are Gnostic writings but others believe are the lost words of Christ. So I did a little research on the subject, and when I read more of the Gospel of Thomas, I found out why there's only one sentence in "Stigmata." Its ideas about the body, women, and salvation are skewed from Christ's other teachings, and more importantly, his actions.

Still, I'm glad the movie got me to check out the Gospel of Thomas; neither my churches nor my Christian education got me to. Examine the evidence, I say; listen to new ideas. Much of the church wants to keep the Gospel of Thomas, "Stigmata" or movies in general at a distance because they will pollute our minds. I say God can stand up to our questions.

"Lost in America": the first half, at least

I'VE ALWAYS liked how Albert Brooks, even though he's making comedies, isn't afraid to ask the big questions. I thought "Mother" was a very clear look at the love-hate relationships in families, and while "Defending Your Life" seemed kind of misdirected in its ideas, at least it was asking questions about mortality and the afterlife. Recently I got to see "Lost in America," his farce about dropping out of upper-middle-class society and living on one's wits. The premise resonated with me because I'm at a much lower standard of living than I grew up in, and have no intention of returning. I'm hardly living by my wits a la "Easy Rider," but I'm not devoting my life to chasing the brass ring. At 25, I'm already where I want to be. My ambitions are only spiritual.

I sort of expected Brooks to take a crack at his protagonists' foolishness, given his general pessimism, and he certainly pulls the rug out from beneath them in a hurry. The only problem is that the movie ends shortly after this first hurdle. Seriously, when the credits rolled I thought I was only halfway through the movie. I thought the characters would dig their pit deeper and deeper the further the experiment went on, but instead it's more like a fall down a well on their first step.

At least the stuff up until the ending is funny, and Brooks first shows his talent here for creating complex, interesting, love-anchored marriages (see also "The Muse," and "Defending Your Life"). He's a refreshing voice on the Hollywood landscape, even if at times he's not precisely certain what he wants to say.

"Heavenly Creatures" and love of the unreal

FANTASY IS ONE of the movies' strongest and most celebrated qualities; the ability to sweep us away to Oz or to a galaxy far far away exercises our imaginations. "Heavenly Creatures" takes our love of fantasy and makes us question our infatuation with the unreal.

The main characters in "Heavenly Creatures," schoolgirl friends played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, love to make up stories about castles and royalty, crafting clay figures of their characters and writing letters to each other in the lovers' names. This seems wistfully cute, since we've grown up on stories of people living in imagination, from "Where the Wild Things Are" to "The Little Princess". But it turns out that this pair is criminally insane; this is a true story of two teens who shocked New Zealand in the 1950s by killing one of their mothers.

You go through the movie knowing that these girls are dangerous, and yet you can't help but sort of root for them because they more or less seem like normal people. You can't wait for the friendless Lynskey to finally find a pal; you feel badly for Winslet that she's a burden to her parents. You willingly enter the fantasy world they create, and you eavesdrop as they share their secrets, but when they share their bodies and they plot their liberation you are amazed at where all this girl-bonding has led. It's a cunning way of revealing that barbarism isn't just something "out there," but something that springs from the familiar.

"Miss Congeniality" and defying the pigeonhole

I'VE NEVER SEEN a beauty pageant, and even at the end this movie I'm not convinced of their worthwhileness, but it's interesting to note that Sandra Bullock's character is. She plays an FBI agent who goes undercover as a pageant contestant to catch a mad bomber, and mellows from her moral stance against the contests by getting to know -- and bonding with -- the women.

I wonder if church doesn't seem an awful lot like pageants to an outsider. It's got a language all its own, rules that many follow without understanding, and seems exploitive at first glance. The armchair participants have diverted its initial purpose.

Would someone forced to be in church eventually grow to understand and appreciate it, even though it seems laughable in our culture? Are we authentic? Do we know why we're there? Are we open to teaching others our joy instead of shunning those who don't understand us?

Back in college I knew a Miss America contestant, and she didn't fit the stereotype of dumb-blonde goodie-two-shoes that even "Miss Congeniality" propagates. I realized then that there's got to be something more to the contest than the media lets on. I've never really followed up on investigating, but she piqued my interest. I think one of the reason I try so hard not to fit the stereotype of the church is for that very reason: I pray that I might pique interest in what Christianity is truly about, once all the trappings are stripped away.

"Save the Last Dance" and couples under scrutiny

THE BEST PART of "Save the Last Dance" is the dance audition at the end. Julia Stiles plays a ballerina-to-be whose first audition for Julliard went poorly; her mother crashed and died on the way to cheer her on. By the time she has another one, she's been living with her father in the city and attending a nearly all-black school, where she's become versed in the ways of hip-hop. Hence, her contemporary dance number mixes the energy of hip-hop and the precision of ballet in wonderful ways. (Much like "Billy Elliot" and "Center Stage," which also put contemporary spins on ballet in climatic moments.)

I'd never been very interested in dance growing up, perhaps because it seemed shameful within the Christian subculture bubble. Bodies were supposed to be so temptuous that the gyrations of teen dancing and the leotards of finer dancing were something to shield my eyes from. (Nobody ever taught me that there was another option than lust when looking at the female form, such as, say, marveling at God's glory revealed in its arrangement and movement.) Since then, I've learned to appreciate dance as an expression of the soul as much as writing is for me. Stiles' dance isn't just another routine for her, but a missive about the new person she's become.

The other aspect I liked about "Save the Last Dance" was the interracial romance between Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas. Such relationships are becoming more normal on TV and the big screen, but what I thought was fresh about it was the tension between the couple by themselves and the couple in public. As much as they'd like to the issue to become a non-issue, they still have to deal with anger and leering from outsiders. Amanda and I are both the same race, but I identify with that struggle. We like being alone together most of the time because we can just be ourselves. Around friends and church, we're always fighting other people's ideas of who we are and how we should be as a couple. We don't fit the traditional models of our gender or of an American marriage, and so people are always surprised that we spend about 95% of our time together, that I cook, that Amanda does the finances, that I don't like sports and that Amanda is going to seminary. It does make it hard to be in public because you rarely feel as known as at home, but it's still a part of our life and our relationship. Nobody exists in a vacuum.

However, there were two things about the movie that bugged me. The first is a barely-there Christian friend of Stiles' who is quite ditzy, oblivious, and racist. Sure, she's perky and tries to be helpful, but she doesn't understand the first thing about the world. I try not to get upset when Christians are bashed in the movies, instead trying to find the validity in the criticism and then work on that in my own life. (It's true that most Christians are sheltered, hypocritical, or self-centered, and I try hard to eradicate those traits from my life rather than get upset when the movies point them out.) However, in this case the character was so minor and her two scenes so brief that it felt less like a real concern about Christian testimony and more like like a suckerpunch. Or perhaps I'm just being too sensitive this week.

The other thing that bugged me was in the "making of" portion included on the DVD, the director kept talking about the characters' choices between doing "the positive thing" and "the negative thing." Whatever happened to the right thing and the wrong thing? I'll admit that there's a certain attraction to his terms, especially because doing the "right thing" seems to have become synonymous with something difficult, whereas the "positive thing" seems to connote something more beneficial to oneself. But still -- blunting sin down to a "negative thing" also waters down the amazement of redemption. Being rescued from negativity doesn't quite hold the same power as "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

"X-Men" and the curse of superstars

MAN, I LOVED this movie. Those of you who've been reading my columns for a while know I'm a sucker for superhero flicks, and this is one of the best, ranking just behind Tim Burton's "Batman." My idea of a good comic-book film is one that takes place in the real world, where the implausible is made human. "Batman" did this well, making its hero more urban legend than crime fighter, a shadow-stalker who uses fear and surprise as allies.

"X-Men" manages it, too, despite the leather costumes and funny nicknames. It focuses on two mutants, Rogue (Anna Paquin) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), whose powers are nearly curses. Rogue absorbs the life-force of anyone who touches her skin, and Wolverine has no memory of his past, courtesy of a traumatic operation in which someone grafted adamantium to his skeleton. Wolverine is a feisty and ill-mannered loner; Rogue is a gentle yet lonely wanderer. This pair makes the movie about searching, and about hope, rather than mere bad guy vs. good guy stuff.

I can't speak to the purity of this adaptation; I read Wolverine's comic when I was a teen but not the X-Men title. But I'll say this: The movie makes me wish I'd read the X-Men comics. I love the character of Rogue. If comic heroes are, as creator Stan Lee says, a way for teens to cope with the awkward physical transitions, intense loneliness, and rushes of invincibility that adolescence brings, then Rogue is one of the best I've seen.

I, too, was very reluctant to touch anyone in my teen years. I was afraid of physical contact, yes, but I was more afraid of growing comfortable with physical contact. I knew I had such rage inside me -- which at times I would release by beating my bean-bag chair with a baseball bat -- that I was sure I'd become violent with people if I erased my respect of their personal space. This was not an idle worry; sometimes I would roughhouse with my little sister and find myself pushing her a little too hard, making her cry, and my parents would warn me that I didn't know my own strength. I would like to have known Rogue at the time, desperately wanting and yet desperately fearing human touch.

What's cool about "X-Men" is that all the characters have such intriguing backgrounds, even those the movie doesn't delve into. (Director Bryan Singer wisely opted not to tell the stories of all 10 main characters.) Even the villains are given dimension: Magneto (Ian McKellan) spent his teens years in a Nazi prison. Branded and stripped of humanity once, he will do anything in his power to see that it doesn't happen again, now that the government is talking about making mutant registration mandatory. He's not out to kill, but he will protect himself "by any means necessary," as he says. Indeed, he is the Malcolm X figure in this not-so-subtle message against bigotry. Taking a Martin Luther King Jr. stance is Professor X (Patrick Stewart), an old friend of Magneto who tries work peacefully with the legislature. He has the unglamorous job of fighting the daily battles on the Senate floor and in the courtroom, trying -- since the heart of the matter is really fear of the unknown -- to make the faces and lives of mutants known.

Ah, but just because Singer concerns himself with character and context doesn't mean that this doesn't rock as an action movie or effects-fest. (Or a barrel of laughs -- there's plenty of chuckles here.) A great deal of the cool factor comes with Wolverine, who not only has those dangerous claws but has a loose-cannon streak that makes all his fight sequences highly energized. The bad-guy henchman Toad (Ray Park) has some amazing moves, including leaping onto walls, that have me excited to see what the Spider-Man movie will look like. A few of the larger set pieces (including the Statue of Liberty) are a little silly, especially considering no one asks them to pay for the property damage after the fights. But fights themselves are attention-grabbing, partly because they avoid the ordinary handgun warfare we're used to seeing, and partly because they're real struggles -- one measly mutation can be someone inadequate in battle.

I can't wait to see a sequel to this; I hope it makes a ton of money. I'd love to explore other members of the team, especially Storm (Halle Berry), who I read was worshipped as a goddess in her African village before she was found by Professor X. That's got to be quite an emotional journey, from believing yourself a powerful deity to finding out you're only human after all. And if Singer were again in charge, I think a sequel could avoid the we-did-this-to-make-a-buck stigma and instead really blend in with the original. In crafting the first one, he did a great job of leaving many elements merely hinted at -- Wolverine's past, for instance. This leaves future installments plenty to explore. (And more importantly, it also works well for this movie, pointing to a life beyond the screen. That might not seem like much to some of you, but in order to really love a movie I have to be able to imagine the story existing beyond the confines of the screen.)

The best thing about a well-crafted superhero movie is the comfort that special powers don't bring a happier life. One more (or one less) sense does not alter life's difficulty. I need this reminder from time to time, especially when I fall into that oh-so-American worship of the superstars. "If only I was a Billy Graham and reached millions." "If only I had as many hits as Hollywood Jesus." "I haven't really made it until I've published a book." "Why can't I speak to God as readily as Jim can?" I need to recall that Billy Graham, David Bruce, published authors, and Jim all have problems, too. Solomon had the superpower of wisdom, and it didn't stop his wives from destroying him. The playing field is level on the things that really matter. As Paul tells the Corinthians: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Cultivating this love, "X-Men" shows, is more valuable than any sort of amazing powers. The ending contains a scene of Paul's agape love that's as moving as any I've seen at the movies. This is one superhero movie unafraid to follow through on its premise.

A Summer of Movie-Discussion Nights [Part Three: "The Wizard of Oz"]

As I'd contemplated in the previous installment, this time I had people write something down in response to the question before we talked. It worked out well; that way everyone had something to contribute and I could talk without feeling like I was stealing the show. (Of course, this time we only had 8 people instead of 12, so that might also have contributed to the more egalitarian feel of the evening's discussion.)

This time, we tackled "The Wizard of Oz," and instead of coming up with the all questions myself this time, I borrowed about half of them from these books: "The Motion Picture Prescription," "Reflections on the Movies," and "Video Movies Worth Watching." (Sometime this summer I'm aiming to create a page that lists all the books I know of dealing with Christanity and the movies; there's about 20 or so you might want to check out someday.) The other book I relied on, in order to set the tone for the evening, was Frederick Beuchner's "Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale." If you can get it from your library or something, you can precede the movie-viewing with a reading from pages 89-91, which compares the upside-down nature of fairy tales to the reverse-expectations of the gospel. (The frog becomes a prince, the ugly duckling a swan, and the homeless man the king of kings.)

We watched about a half-hour of the movie, starting from when the foursome starts down the long hall to meet the wizard. (This is about 1:10 into the tape I got from the library.) Then I passed out the pens and paper; I just used blank notebook paper rather than something with the questions on them, because, as usual, I didn't use all my planned questions and I changed the order depending on where I felt the conversation headed.

And one last thing: I gave a homework assignment this time. We'll see how it goes, 'cause it's kind of a scary one. After asking people which quality they wished they had (patience, courage, decisiveness, etc.), I challenged everyone to ask God for it this week and to see how he answers. Some of us weren't so sure we really wanted God to change us -- we get comfortable with our weaknesses, perhaps. There's a difference, maybe, between asking God to "keep us from evil" and making us the people we most want to be.

And now, onto the questions, in no particular order:

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"The Wizard of Oz" has been loved by generation after generation; it's worked its way into the national iconography. Are you the kind of person who enjoys that connection with the past and sheer numbers of people who love the film? Or are you the kind of person who likes to find movies on their own, and is more comfortable liking unknown films?

Which are you in your faith? Do you lean toward tradition or invention in your Christianity?

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There's a yearning in the film for home. What place most means home to you?

There's also a yearning in the film for transcedence, for finding a "place with no trouble." How do you try to "get away" in your life?

Heaven is both our true home and a "place with no trouble." How come it's hard to long for heaven?

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The good witch says that Dorothy had to discover the truth for herself, not just be told. What truths have you learned that way?

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(If you have the Buechner book, read the first paragraph on p. 96. If not, bring up the idea that modern-day Christianity has taken a lot of the fairy-tale mystery out of our faith, and with it some of the power. Buechner says the faith that can raise the dead has been turned into the faith that makes life bearable until we die.)

Do you wish your faith had more of that mystery, or is that too scary?

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Do you ever fear that the curtain will be "pulled back" on God and not reveal what you think?

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Do you ever feel like you need just "one more thing" to be whole? What is it?

Have you ever asked God for it?

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The wizard hands out titles and medals to affirm that the lion, tin man, and scarecrow already had what they were looking for. When in your life has someone helped you find out what you were really like?

What recognition or encouragement can you give to someone else this week?