It’s over here.

And I’m not impressed. Did they read the book? Thankfully, an article in Esquire says that the trailer does not reflect the film that well—the film is much closer to the novel in its pacing and dialogue. According to the article, the film, like Cormac McCarthy’s novel, offers no explanation for the post-apocalyptic setting. The trailer makes it look like another post-apocalyptic action story like, I Am Legend, rather than a beautiful story of the love between a father and his son in the midst of a harrowing future. I hope that the trailer truly does not give us a good picture of the film and that The Road merely goes down as another example of a bad trailer for a good movie. My hall of shame includes trailers for The Truman Show and Cast Away, which gave away significant plot points that the films try to keep hidden for, you know, dramatic purposes. The trailer for Master and Commander made a cerebral epic look like Gladiator at sea. Then there is the all-time king of a bad trailer for a good movie: The Princess Bride. “It’s as real as the feelings you feel”? A saxophone? Really?

Via a link from Tony Jones, I have enjoyed the word clouds on Wordle. Here are a few word clouds taken from the texts of some sermons I’ve given. You can see the rest here.

“When God Changed the Rules,” Jeremiah 31.31-34

“Behind Locked Doors,” John 20.19-23

“A Mother, a Disciple,” Luke 1.46-56

Last night, NBC aired the series debut of The Chopping Block, a new reality elimination show that pits teams wannabe restaurateurs against each other. At the end of the season, the winners make off with $250,000 to start their own restaurant. British chef and the man who supposedly made Gordon Ramsay cry, Marco Pierre White hosts, offers criticisms and aphorisms, and ultimately casts off the losers. The reason I’m sharing this is that my brother-in-law, Todd, helped write and perform the majority of the music for the series. We went to his house to watch the premiere last night. I’m so excited to see him get his work out to a national audience. It was great to celebrate with him. He did a great job.

So yes, this is a shameless plug to tune in next week, Wednesday night at 8pm. You can watch the premiere at Hulu.

Once again, it’s time for my year-end(ish) picks. You’re probably saying, “It’s a new year already.” I say, “Meh” (which is in the dictionary now, by the way). As per the previous lists, this is a list of arts and entertainment I encountered for the first time in 2008, not necessarily stuff that was released in 2008. It is more autobiographical. You’ll notice a lot of 2007 films on the list since I got to watching most of them after 2007 was over. 2007 was arguably the strongest year for movies in a long time—perhaps since 1999? Well, here are my picks, in no particular order. And oh yeah, happy New Year.

I’m behind in my reviews for Andy Crouch’s book Culture Making, so here’s my overdue discussion of chapter 3, “Teardowns, Technology and Change.”

In this chapter, Crouch critiques dominant views of how cultural change comes about: progress and revolution. The problem with the myth of progress is that many of our most important cultural goods cannot be improved. They can be changed, but how does one measure improvement to things such as language? The English language has grown and evolved over the years, but is it any better or worse than the language used by the Saxons? They were certainly able to communicate and make sense of their world using the language they possessed even if it had just a fraction of the vocabulary we have today. Instead of progress, Crouch suggests we evaluate cultural change through integrity. “We can speak of progress when a certain arena of culture is more whole, more faithful to the world of which it is making something.” (54)

Crouch establishes that cultural change has two key components: the “speed of change” and the “longevity of impact.” (56) He argues that often, the faster a layer of culture changes, the less likely that its influence will last that long. Conversely, “any change that will profoundly move the horizons of possibility and impossibility will almost always, by definition, take lots of time. The bigger the change we hope for, the longer we must be willing to invest, work and wait for it.” (56-57)

The second assumed means of cultural change Crouch addresses is revolution. Most revolutions have a desire to tear down some system or structure that currently exists. More often than not, they do not have an alternative to put into place after the demolition is complete. Thus, revolutions move at great speeds, but they often do not have long lasting effects. Those “overnight” revolutions that were successful often had a long history leading up to the tipping point. “Nothing that matters, no matter how sudden, does not have a long history and take part in a long future.” (58) Crouch uses the example of Jesus’ resurrection as an event that did not change much in the immediate moment, but few can deny it has become the most culturally significant event in history.

Finally, Crouch adeptly looks at the idea that culture is merely a worldview, a means of thinking. If culture is only or mostly a worldview, then the primary means of engagement and change is analysis. To change culture, one needs to look at all its parts and form a new way of thinking. Crouch thinks this is backwards. “The language of worldview tends to imply…that we can think ourselves into new ways of behaving. But that is not the way culture works. Culture helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking.” (64) He uses the interstate system as his example in that it was not just a result of thinking differently about the world, but the interstate system was itself “a new way of viewing the world.”

In “Cultural Worlds,” the second chapter of Culture Making, Andy Crouch further explains his understanding of the terms culture and culture making. Culture, he says, “requires a public.” (38) That is, for an artifact or a tangible good to become culture, it cannot remain a private product—it must be received by others. T. S. Eliot’s disillusioned poetic masterpiece, “The Waste Land” is therefore culture, whereas the overly metaphorical poem you wrote in the tenth grade raging against the conformity imposed by “the system” with which you meant to impress the girl across the room in geometry and then burned when she went to winter semi-formal dance with someone else, is not culture. “Culture making is people (plural) making something of the world.” (40)

Crouch helpfully describes cultures as having scales and spheres, that is, different cultures have limits and different sizes. The most basic and most powerful culture is the family unit. So if we are to change culture or make culture, we must know what sphere or scale of culture we address. The smaller the culture, the easier it is to make lasting change. To change the English language is difficult, whereas changing your family’s dinner rituals is much easier.

Because the way the world has changed with communication and transportation, most people are no longer born into one culture where they will likely remain. Instead, most people have become cultural immigrants, often “in pursuit of economic or political opportunities.” Christians who have become immigrants “in pursuit of evangelistic or religious opportunities” are called missionaries. “But as the wheels within culture overlap more and more in a mobile world, most of us have some choice about which cultures we will call our own. We are almost all immigrants now, and more of us than we may realize are missionaries too.” (48-49) I would argue that all Christians are missionaries.

NPR is streaming the entirety of Radiohead’s August 28 concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl. I’ve only seen them perform live once, back in 1998, and I missed their recent Southern California shows. Thanks to NPR for providing us with the opportunity to hear these geniuses.

Eddy has created an online book club of sorts to discuss Andy Crouch’s new work, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. I first encountered Crouch’s writing when he wrote for and edited the excellent, but now defunct magazine re:genereation Quarterly. The jacket of Culture Making’s states, “It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture, copy culture or consume culture. The only way to change culture is to create culture.” This post will discuss the book’s introduction and first chapter.

Introduction:
Crouch says that Christians and their relation to culture have been in the stages of childhood or youth. Childhood’s essence is innocence and youth’s essence is awareness. He calls us to become adults with regard to culture and the essence of adulthood is responsibility. The Church has gone from innocence of culture to awareness of it and we seem to enjoy that place where we can critique and engage. But Crouch believes we need to be at the task of making culture.

Many criticized H. Richard Neibuhr’s seminal work, Christ and Culture for not offering a definition of culture, and Crouch tries to avoid that mistake. He says, “We talk about culture as if it were primarily a set of ideas when it is primarily a set of tangible goods.” (10) He also discloses his influences, namely the Dutch Reformed theologian turned statesman Abraham Kuyper who called people to cultural responsibility. I have Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism somewhere, but I haven’t read it yet.

For Crouch, culture needs to be created in the power of God. “Culture is not finally about us, but about God.” (13)

My review of Christopher Nolan’s latest take on Batman, The Dark Knight can be read here. The brief summary is that I liked it. A lot.