Need to Start over on this a bit Journal

There is no original in putting words to paper, so I want simply to write down what it is I am planning and how I am feeling through the experience of media. The past writings are really warming and forming and my process continues here.

Radical is kinda bland

Radical by David Platt fits nicely into the milieu of missional emerging breakout primitivist church dogma, but really, it's kinda bland. There's nothing particularly radical about his proposals. This is another book written by a megachurch institution that wishes it reached people who oppose church the institution.

There still doing church like it's 1985, telling you it's like it was in 85, and that by 2015, everyone will be doing it this way again.

Short term outreach can be very good, but 80% of the time it is very bad. And so as a hallmark of his churches missional expression, I have to protest.

It's easy to write a book and say "the problem with the church is sin." But then you're completely overshadowing your own woundedness and deficiency.

One thing he does point out and is at the same time guilty of is doing church in the culture of professionalism, and the Babbit-styled production line is really what most churches tout themselves as, and all they do is play into the military industrial complex.

The best chapter deals with the gospel being for the lost and the lost's american inoculation to the gospel of the common church. True. I wonder what the missional walk looks like in a mega church in the deep south. It doesn't look like this book where I am from.

This is a fantastic book on the theory, and as most missiologists are guilty of, it does a superb job of identifying cultural markers, and then blows by them in pursuit of a monochromatic gospel. The real test of a radical gospel is stopping business as usual. What Mr. Platt seems to say is that there aren't really churches in America, there are only corporations in the field of religion. What he fails to realize is this applies just as much to his church as anyone else.

Toys

This is a classic tale of the Zevo toy company. When the owner passes away, he has the options of leaving it to either his brother, Gerneral Zevo, or his blessed innocent son, Leslie (Robin Williams), who is aided by his sister, Alisacia (Joan Cusack). The general, though extremely edgy about minding the toy factory, decides to do it and ends up taking over the toy company, and perverting it’s innocence minded production into a war-game frenzy.

He also turns the plant into a prison, who’s security is air tight, headed up by his very own son, a master of camoulflage (LL Cool J). So Leslie is trapped between the airtight security and defending his Father’s vision, which is so poorly represented in the aims and thoughts of the general.

He also must prove he is serious about opposing the general in order to continue seeing the beautiful and wacky girl in the duplicating office (Robin Wright).

The climax is one of hilarities, and extremely bizarre, but this is a good movie, with lots of humour and some truly strange plot devices.

I give it a two, but it’s not the best Rbin Williams flick.

Traitor

Don Cheedle (Reign Over Me) plays a phenomenal role in this film as he has truly developed into a leading man after such films as Hotel Rwanda. He plays a double cover agent, basically a former CIA poperative who has converted to Islam and joined al-Qaeda, however, he is really playing the whole thing off as a spin to intercept intel and mismanage al-Qaeda resources and ops.

The plot circles around him gaining credibility by staging various terrorist acts and playing shadow games with al-Qaeda to make them believe they are truly making a difference, inciting terror, while the actual efforts are geared towards coordinating planted bodies, identifying non-targets to spin as targets.

The two way nature of his mission makes him, much like Mother Night, a prime target to become collateral damage as he may be mistaken for a genuine terrorist. TO be perfectly honest, this movie was engaging and entertaining, but I really don’t remember the specifics and details, and if someone suggested it, I’d probably just say that I had already seen it.

It’s got rewatch value, but it’s very much a action, plot twist, thriller movie without much depth or meaning, other than the whole debate over what an identity truly is, and how one can preserve ones self. 

The whole thing is fun, and goes by really quickly, so I give it a 2, and enjoyed it a great deal, but it’s not like a cinematic genius or anything.

Tough Love

This is quite a film. I think it was a TV movie, but it’s really quite captivating. Young Gary (Chris Patric) is a promising kid who seems to make every bad decision in the book. A Junior in High school, he gets a job and nice car with the help of his trusting father. Little does his dad know that Gary is a pothead. 

Christin is also a doper, and a constant runaway, who abuses her mother constantly. The two are in love, and do all sorts of drugs together. While Gary’s parents are totally naïve and always try to give their son the benefit of the doubt, Christin’s mother has had enough and has joined a Parent support group called Tough Love. It’s a support group for parents of out of control teens. 

Soon Gary’s parents join tough love. Christin dies of a drug overdose, and Gary quickly descends from recreational user to hardcore junkie. After numerous interventions, being kicked out of the house, and arrested and stuck in Juvenile detention, Gary learns the true meaning of tough love.

It’s a B-ish movie, but, I found it worth the watch, and captivating in a way. It’s an interesting chronicle of modern parenting, and how far we’ve gone from discipline, and defined love. Parenting is definitely gone from our society, so it was refreshing to see a movie that looks at it. See also Parenthood. 2.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

In some ways I really did not like what they did with this. The plot did not follow a traditional reboot, and the characters were all brought back in a classic serial retcon. Rather than passing the torch to Starscream and bringing him in to his own right, much in the tradition of Ethan Hunt from the Mission Impossible franchise, they simply discover a way to bring Megatron back from the Dead.

The new plot, like so many alien movies centers around the aliens first contact with primitive humans and  a regime of decepticons which mistreated and enslaved humanity, so basically, this was Stargate with cars that talk.  The genius of Transformers is of course, the fact that there is a distinct nostalgia to the characters, and the powerful action scenes which are truly flawless in their integration with CG. 

The Retcon of the human interaction, including Sam’s (Shaya LaBouf, Disturbia) sudden connection to all knowledge of the transformers as well as the horribly poor dialogue which stands in stark contrast to the witty banter of the first movie along with Megan Fox’s incessant sexual pandering is really enough to make an average viewer turn it off, but the comic violence of giant robots really makes any movie worth watching. This is simply put, a popcorn Michael Bay (Bad Boys) movie, and so it’s a 2 for action, but if you wont’ anything else, don’t pick it. The action sequences should definitely be worth it for anyone.

Transformers

Every boy’s childhood dreams come to life in this movie. This is an epic stage of massive robots fighting for control of a distant world, and earth is the venue. We begin in Iraq where a mysterious chopper lands with no markings. Soon we learn, it’s no chopper at all.

Flash to southern California, a somewhat geeky young man begins to suspect all is not well with the used car he just purchased. Flash to the Pentagon where a team of analysts has been assembled to idenitify the signals that attempted to hack the military datalink in Iraq. 

Led by the secretary of state (John Voigt, Midnight Cowboy) this team must discover who is trying to attack the US. But it’s not the US that is being attacked directly, it is a mysterious government organization known as Sector 7. They hold the key to both the autobots and decepticons saving or destroying their homeplanet. Soon Optimus Prime and Megatron show up, and the ultimate battle begins.

This is such a rich story to tell with the classic archetype characters, framed against some rather strange and eccentric human characters. An ensemble cast featuring John Turturro (One-eye Jimmy) and Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings) leads the way in this fun yet serious epic action comedy. All the cars are sweet GM models as well, so if you like cars, make this 2 a priority.