Watching the Emmy Awards tonight reminded me of how much I love television. These are good days, especially with the new TV season upon us. The show had a lot of nice moments. One of the most fun ones, though, was when the presentation by some behind-the-scenes people got interrupted by this . . .
This weekend was one for grown men and their problems. Which, of course, made for a sad but quirky look at the things that hold us back and but make us human.
In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti gets himself. Turns out he's has a role in a Russian play and can't seem to get his act together. So when he hears of an organization that can remove your soul and "store" it, he feels like that would be the thing to free him from what holds him back. The movie becomes a bit of an adventure, though, when his stored soul is stolen. It's an interesting concept, really. And the first half of the movie is both quirky and thought-provoking. When the soul get stolen, though, the movie tends to trail away from the quirky philosophy that I sometimes like. Still, props to Giamatti and others for crafting a movie out of the mainstream but enjoyably thought-provoking. I'll be sure to show clips of it in my class one day.
The other movie that I caught was one of the weekend's big releases: Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!. The movie, which looks like it should be a comedy, is really something else entirely. Don't get me wrong: Damon is brilliant, Soderbergh's style is sharp, and everything works in a certain way. But the movie trails off, takes a twist or two that was hard for me to follow. It reminded me of Soderbergh's Ocean's 12, which was unwieldy and only salvaged by Julia Roberts' spot-on performance. It's a real story, which is fine enough. It's set in the 90s, but Soderbergh uses music and title fonts that seem off by a couple of decades. Mark Whitacre's story is a twisty one, one that I can't believe actually happened. His time as an informant for the FBI was only part of a much bigger thing going on. I wonder if it works better as a book, really.
You can check the Cold Souls trailer here. And The Informant trailer is here.
Today marked the tenth anniversary of the the shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church. While I was not there that night, that evening and the events that happened in its wake will probably stand as one of the most life-shaping events of my life. I have a difficult time believing that so many years have passed, that so many things have happened since then. It was a galvanizing moment in many ways, brining people together in ways that have lasted for almost a decade.
I haven't actually talked to anyone today from that time in my life; I haven't been sure how to broach the topic with friends who were there or with friends who weren't and who remain at the church all these years later. I did kind of talk to my students about it this past week in the context of the problem of evil. It was a weird moment, things real but so far gone.
You can check out the original 48 Hours news piece here. The segment starts at the 3:50 mark.
You can also check out a recent news article from the Star-Telegram here. The article has a link to a slide show of that evening with voice-overs by Pastor Al and a relative of the gunman.
To the right is a news segment from a Fort Worth channel about the shooting. One of the women interviewed is the daughter of some of my closest friends in Fort Worth. She seemed barely a high school students all those years ago.
The first thing that you'll notice about Reborn, the new album by Avalon (after the sunflower, that is), will probably be that every song on the playlist is only one word long. That terseness sums up the album quite well, really. 10 songs, many of them a good bit less than 4 minutes: it's not a showy album. At least not on the surface, that is.
Upon listening to the album, you might be struck by a couple of things. One: the arrangements are lush in a nice way. Not in the same way that many of the group's best ballads are lush, mind you. But the sound is full: lots of nice guitar, good drumming. Second: the vocals are strong and dynamic. The arrangements play to the group's strength of tight harmony. Tight, like terse, is a good word to describe the album. There aren't many (if any) wasted musical measures on the album. And yet each song feels complete, each song carries a complete thought well. And the songs are well written. Will they be memorable? Time will tell on that one, really. It depends on your preference. If you like the quirkiness of A Maze of Grace, this album might really be for you. There are no hymns here. There are few "great builds" as with many of their big hits.
Honestly, upon early listens, this is probably the album that the group needed to make. There's only one original member left, and it would be very easy for them to go the utterly safe route. Which would have been nice on one level. But this album works well to honor what has gone before while reaching for a fresh sound and a fresh take on things. What is encouraging is that the lyrics are unabashedly Christian. Not much ambiguity in what they say and sing. And that's alone is reassurance enough.
This weekend was one for grown men and their problems. Which, of course, made for a sad but quirky look at the things that hold us back and but make us human.
