Monday morning notes:
First off, I am so grateful for all the commenters who have come here to conduct a vigorous and civil discourse below some of my more recent posts. I have had to ban two folks, however, who regularly used profanity or used slurs to refer to others in the thread. While all viewpoints are welcome, ad hominem attacks on individual commenters are not.
Speaking of thoughtful comments, go here for some interesting and insightful criticism of my Friday post by Keri and others. More for me upon which to reflect!
We had a busy weekend. Yesterday, I got on the bike for the first time in well over a month, and am happy to report I managed to make it up and down through the nearby Verdugos just fine. My fiancee and I have our first century ride of the year coming up in just six weeks, in Solvang. My current plan is to do long runs on Fridays and Saturdays, and long rides on Sundays after church.
Speaking of the Solvang area, we saw Sideways on Saturday night. (Like many folks, we are frantically trying to see all of the Oscar nominees before the awards are handed out; we also saw "Ray" last night and "Million Dollar Baby" a week ago). "Sideways" is superb, though not untroubling. For obvious reasons, I’m a huge fan of films that focus on men’s friendships with one another, and the authenticity of the dialogue between the two lead characters in the film was breathtakingly good. Good enough that I may allow extra-credit papers on the film in this spring’s "Men, Masculinities, and the American Tradition" class I’ll be teaching!
And yesterday morning, at church, one of those marvelous "amen" moments. All Saints Pasadena is a big church; at our 11:15 service, we average about 750-800 in attendance. In between the sermon and the beginning of the eucharistic rite, our rector, Ed Bacon, made his customary announcements. For the past six weeks, like so many churches, we’ve been praying for and collecting money for tsunami victims. But every time we mention it in public (see this prayer), we always refer to the disaster as afflicting Southeast Asia. Yesterday, as Ed was thanking the congregation for its generosity, an elderly black woman stood up in the rear of the church, and in a firm voice called out "Ed, Ed." Ed was silent. "Yes", he asked "what is it?" "Ed", the woman said, "the tsunami hit Africa too. Everyone only talks about Asia, but Africa suffered too." You could feel the shock of recognition — and yes, of shame, throughout the congregation. A pause. "Yes", Ed replied, "you are absolutely right. Africa too." The old woman sat down, and all around, I could see nodding heads. Our congregation is perhaps 20% African-American, one of our priests is black — and yet, we had never referred to the tsunami’s impact on Africa before.
How easily we forget Africa, where far more people die every month of preventable causes than were killed in the earthquake and tsunami on Boxing Day! I’ve had that woman’s voice in my head since yesterday. Africa, too.
More soon.
i haven’t seen this film yet, although i’m looking forward to doing so in the very near future.
what did you find troubling about it, hugo?
Well, Matt, I don’t want to give away all of it. The womanizing is graphic (though dead-on accurate in terms of dialogue, I thought), and it left me a bit unsettled. That said, the film is absolutely worth seeing, but it is one of the most “adult” films (in the authentic sense of the term) I’ve seen in a while.
Speaking of films… I would like to add that I thought “In Good Company” was a very good movie. Not only did it touch on age dynamics in the workplace, but I thought the conflicts that the young male character “Carter” faced illustrated what many young men may be feeling about success, family and interpersonal relationships.
lol now i’m even more intrigued ;)
and my heartfelt thanks for not tossing out any spoilers.
another film that’s on the top of my must-see list is dogville, directed by controversial danish filmaker lars von triers (probably best known in north america for breaking the waves), without a doubt the most critically polarizing movie of 2004.
my wife (who happens to be danish) turned me on to his films (and the ‘dogme’ movement in general) several years ago.
Hi Hugo… I have been reading your blog with interest, although I have a slightly different understanding of gender that makes me skeptical to a lot of your positions.
I don’t think you should be troubled by Sideways: in fact, I read it as a polemic against dishonest womanizing (something that I can agree is a problem). Even though at first the womanizing friend seemed to have the upper hand on the more passive and less “masculine” main character, but in the end the dishonesty caught up with him. Without his macho facade, the “bad boy” suddenly became very helpless and immature.
Hugo, as I’m sure you know by know, Africa is one of my passions, particularly because of how readily its people are forgotten. It was an excellent point to make, though I can’t help but notice that all of the comments above are about movies and none about Africa. And Hotel Rwanda was not included in the movies mentioned.
Amy, it’s on my list! We’re going to see all the nominees by Oscar night! Promise!
“The womanizing is graphic (though dead-on accurate in terms of dialogue, I thought), and it left me a bit unsettled.”
Well, I don’t know if anyone is actually going to read this a few days after the original post… but I’ll add my opinion. I too always try to see the nominated films (although I was very discouraged last year when I really only needed to see one film to have seen the winners… LOTR)…
I saw Sideways tonight and would agree that the womanizing seems acurate… but it was the Stephanie character who really bothered me the most. And Hugo - don’t be unsettled by it.. afterall just have hope that the guy will have a life altering shift in faith and will see the errors of his ways.
Now to the bigger problem with this movie - how on earth could this be considered one of the top 5 movies of the year ????? To me its just another garbage Hollywood excuse to show cheap morals, nudity and sex. I really resent movies like this (and 21 Grams from last years nominees) getting unwarranted attention just because of an Oscar nod.
I can think of many movies this past year which were far superior; like “The Phantom of the Opera” -which may not be as good as the play - don’t know never seen it- but was beautifully filmed and told a gripping love story without being “dirty”.
In my opinion, there is no comparing decent films like “The Aviator” and “Finding Neverland” with the trash that is “Sideways”. (And incidentally, if they just could have kept the same story, cleaned up the language, and kept everyone’s clothes on… it wouldn’t have been half bad.)