Directed by Tarsem Singh, The Fall is a sumptuous cinematic visual feast, for which we already produced a written review last year by Claudine Miller; if you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out the trailer. This well-reviewed artistic endeavor provides an interesting look at storytelling and escapism, and its resonance with the human heart.

Listen right here by clicking the play button above. You can also listen to the audio in another browser by clicking on the link below, or right click and “save as” to download the mp3. For those options, click here.

Founder and Reviewer James Harleman’s picks
1. Dark Knight
2. Iron Man
3. Wanted
4. Quantum of Solace
5. Cloverfield
6. Kung Fu Panda
7. Wall-E
8. Incredible Hulk


Reviewer Zach Malm’s picks
Wall-E
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Encounters at the End of the World
Let the Right One In
Man on Wire
Mister Lonely
Snow Angels
The Pineapple Express
Paranoid Park


Others I saw: Be Kind Rewind, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Step Brothers, Baby Mama, Iron Man, Son of Rambow, The Fall, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Burn After Reading

Others I intend to see: The Wrestler, Ballast, JCVD, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Standard Operating Procedure, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Rachel Getting Married, W., Synecdoche New York, Wendy and Lucy, Flight of the Red Balloon, Chop Shop


Reviewer Elliot Strong’s top picks
Rambo
Dark Knight
Quantum of Solace

Others I saw that were enjoyable but don’t rise to the top: Iron Man, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, WALL-E, The Fall, The Bank Job

Film I saw but wish I didn’t: Max Payne

Films I wanted to see/need to catch up on: Appaloosa, Burn After Reading, Defiance, Gran Torino, Punisher: War Zone, The Wrestler, Valkyrie, Hancock, Redbelt, Wanted, RocknRolla


Reviewer Diana Taibi’s picks
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Let the Right One In
Hellboy II
Cloverfield
The Fall
The King of Kong
The Incredible Hulk

Meh: 27 Dresses, Doomsday

Still want to see: Stop-Loss, Slumdog Millionaire, Wanted, Burn after Reading, The Wrestler


Contributor Andrew Meyer’s picks
The Dark Knight
The King of Kong
Wall-E
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Iron Man
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Pans: Mamma Mia!, There Will Be Blood, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Get Smart

Iron Man flew high this summer with a high number of positive reviews including the text review on our own website. In November, however, our good friends at Mars Hill hosted a showing of the film followed by an interesting look at the film from a narrative and philosophical perspective. While this thorough look includes spoilers, check it out for an in-depth look at Tony Stark’s redemption as a metaphor for spiritual transformation.

Tony Stark hits bottom… Tony Stark should be dead. He’s created a trail of Human wreckage and is finally caught by a piece of the shrapnel.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
- Jeremiah 17:9

Yinsen refers to Tony as “The Walking Dead”. Stark is a man who has everything, yet nothing, and sees how his contributions have added to the conglomerate evil of the age. We take for granted how our “little sins” or things we think we do in a vacuum have far reaching consequences. One of the most noted and prolific writers in the comics industry today, Warren Ellis, says “the only way Tony can look himself in the mirror is by being Iron Man.” Iron Man represents Tony’s need for redemption.

Listen right here by clicking the play button above.

You can also listen to the audio in another browser by clicking on the link below, or right click and “save as” to download the mp3. For those options, click here.

Hey everybody, I’m back and bringing you another cultural phenomenon. This time, there are no singing and dancing high school students! This time, there are sparkly vampires and a small rainy town on the Washington peninsula!

This latest cultural phenomenon began for the world in 2005 with Stephanie Meyer’s book about a teenage girl who moves to a small, cloudy town and falls in love with a vampire. The author, mother of 3 from Phoenix, Arizona, got the idea for her first of 4 novels from a dream she had about “two people…having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire” (from stephaniemeyer.com/twilight.html). Stephanie Meyer has since written New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn and the series has sold over 25 million copies worldwide in 37 different languages.

For me, it all started when a girl I worked with told me that her favorite verse was “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” from Genesis 2:17 because it was on the title pages of Twilight. I decided that I should engage this aspect of the culture I was working with and read the books for myself. I was quickly hooked. I read New Moon and Eclipse in short order and then waited at Barnes and Noble at midnight to get my copy of Breaking Dawn, which I finished within the next few days (unfortunately I had to work a couple 8 hour shifts in the middle, hindering the speed at which I finished them). My family and I even stopped for some Twilight fun in Forks on our vacation this summer.

The time came for the movie to come out, and people were flocking to places like Hot Topic to buy the t-shirts and necklaces emblazoned with Edward’s face, the “Cullen Crest,” and quotes from the movie. At the movie theatre on opening night (morning, if you want to be specific), I felt legit in my Forks sweatshirt while nearly ever other girl at the 12:04 am showing was wearing a t-shirt they bought that evening at Hot Topic in the mall.

When it was time for me to start thinking about what I was going to write in this review, I had a very startling realization: I had initially intended to read these books with the specific point of seeing how they connected to my relationship with Jesus. After a year of reading and re-reading them, I felt like I was so far from that goal. I had allowed myself to be sucked into this world of sparkly vampires and teenage romance without a second thought. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that that is exactly what I should have learned from the first book and the movie themselves.

In Twilight Bella Swan moves from Phoenix because her mother got remarried and is feeling torn between being with her daughter and traveling with her minor league baseball player husband. So Bella, being the ever self-sacrificing young woman, decides to move in with her dad, Police Chief Charlie Swan, in the small town of Forks, Washington on the cloudy Olympic Peninsula. At school she is the novelty, to everyone except for one group of “devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful” students who sit off to the side at lunch and seem to not interact with anyone. She asks her new friends Jessica and Angela who they are and she learns that they are the Cullens, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen’s “foster kids.” One in particular catches her eye – Edward Cullen, the brooding, James Dean-esque one with “untidy, bronze-colored hair.”

Bella soon discovers that she is in Biology with Edward. When she sits next to him, he only glares at her, seemingly disgusted, and she has no idea why. For the rest of the week Edward is absent, but when he comes back, he acts as if that first day never happened and attempts to befriend Bella. They chat a little and then the next day, an icy day in Forks, Bella is nearly crushed by a van that slips on the ice and spins out of control. But Edward is there instantaneously and stops the van with his hand. When Bella demands to know what happened, Edward doesn’t say anything and doesn’t talk to her for a while.

After they begin talking again, Bella starts to piece together some of the strange things that she noticed about Edward, particularly after going to the Quileute Indian reservation on the coast and talking with her new friend Jacob about why the Cullen’s don’t go to the reservation. He tells her briefly about how the Quileute’s were supposedly decedent from wolves and the legend of “the Cold Ones.” This inspires Bella’s research further, including a trip to Port Angeles to get a book on the subject.

However, while in Port Angeles, Bella is followed by a group of drunk men, meaning her harm. Before anything can happen, Edward drives in and rescues her – a knight in a “stupid, shiny Volvo.” He takes her to dinner, and then home, during which she pieces together more ideas of who, or what, Edward really is. And when she reaches the conclusion of vampire, she confronts him.

And he reveals what he really is to her. He tells her that he is “the world’s most dangerous predator,” that everything about him invites her in, “as if I would need any of that!” He let’s her know that he is “designed to kill.” To which she quickly replies, “I don’t care.” He continues – his family is different, they don’t drink human blood, but to him, her blood is his “own personal brand of heroine” and he wanted to kill her that first day. Rather than being scared, she tells him that she’s not afraid of him, that she’s only afraid of losing him. “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb,” he says. “What a stupid lamb,” is her reply. “What a sick, masochistic lion,” he laughs sadly.

Their relationship continues to grow, though in the movie we are not privy to all their conversations, you at least get to see them, talking and getting to know one another. Everything is great until some “non-vegetarian” vampires come to town and disrupt their peaceful existence. One of the new vampires, James, is a tracker and he decides that Bella is his new hunt and he turns it into the best game ever when he realizes that the entire Cullen family is ready to defend her. Edward tells Bella that she is his life now, and that he will do anything to make her safe again. However, when it comes down to it, Bella is willing to sacrifice herself, if it means keeping her family – vampire and human – safe.

Suffice it to say there are a few more books with Bella and Edward in it, so you can guess how this first edition ends. But I hope that if and when you do go see the movie, that you will look at it with open eyes to see what I am only now realizing – we need to keep our eyes open, get good council and have mature and wise people speaking into our lives.

“What does that have to do with vampires and a teenage romance?” you may ask. Well, let me tell you. Bella dives into her relationship with Edward with her whole heart, and that is exactly what is at stake – her heart. She gives Edward herself so quickly she even calls herself a “stupid lamb.” So often we give ourselves away so quickly, as I did with Twilight, that we don’t often realize how much we are putting on the line. We give so much time and effort to things without even a second thought, and most often, they’re not even things that are inherently harmful to us, but we don’t do them in a way that glorifies God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says that “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Whether it’s reading a book series, or watching a movie or whatever, we need to be doing it with the specific point of worshiping God with our actions and motives. We need to be throwing ourselves into our relationship with God with the same intensity as a teenage girl in love with a vampire.

In closing, for those of you who have read the books and have been hesitant to see the movie, go see it, with the open mind that they will not get everything right, but that it will be a great supplement to the books – a fleshing out of the main ideas. For those of you who have never read the books, or have been avoiding the teenage-vampire-romance, go check it out and be challenged to have the same kind of passion for God that Bella has for her sparkly vampire.

“We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people’s minds.”

Really? No. I can’t believe it… are they suggesting entertainment is not mindless escapism? With a wink, I would humbly suggest they are on to something.

Their focus on Rom-Coms (romantic comedies) examines the fact that “students watching the romantic film were later found to be more likely to believe in fate and destiny. A further study found that fans of romantic comedies had a stronger belief in predestined love.”

The full article is here, and you can even participate in an ongoing online study. This is the same island that gave us Hugh Grant, right? I guess this could count as the first step in a long road to repentance…

Seriously though, the notion of this notable influence on our disposition should drive us to reexamine our need for mindful – not mindless – entertainment and exploring what truth MIGHT lie even in these fluffy fairy-tales. The article also asserts that “the problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise.”

I believe that the perfect DOES exist… just not in marriage, and not in human relationships. Are these stories completely without merit, or do they hint at a higher relationship we’re seeking to satiate with lesser things?

This is the third and final (*sob*) installment of my High School Musical review.

The morning of October 24th found me excited and on the bus to see High School Musical 3 – IN THEATRE!!! I was not going to pass up a chance to go on opening day to a movie I had been waiting a year for! So at 10 in the morning, I and 50 others sat anxiously in the theatre to see what would happen to our favorite Wildcats during their senior year.

As the lights dimmed, gasps and squeals filled the theatre and it only got louder as the movie began with a close up of Troy Bolton’s face, as we jump into the final basketball game for the Wildcat seniors. Down at half time, Coach Bolton encourages his team and then leaves the rest to the captains, Troy and Chad. They encourage their teammates, knowing that for the seniors it’s “Now or Never” – there are only 16 minutes left and “the way we play tonight is what we leave behind!”

Because it is their senior year, the knowledge of graduating and leaving East High has people clinging to the past, and wishing that “this moment was ours to own it and that it would never leave.” Even the musical is going to be a reflection of their senior year, as Kelsi (the musical genius of the group) gets almost the entire class to sign up.

Amidst prom invites and attempts to steal the lead in the show, Troy and Chad enjoy memories of the past in a junkyard (with the best song in the movie, “The Boys are Back”) and Gabriella tries to decide whether to stay at East High or go early to college as part of a special program. She finally decides to go to college, leaving a bewildered senior class behind. Troy’s response to this and his father discussing college and future plans (Dad laying out “the plan”) with him is a late night trip to school in another Footloose worthy song that ends in him screaming at center stage, hence the name of the song “Scream.”

The night of prom arrives, and Troy dresses up and drives to Stanford to dance with Gabriella and to convince her to come back with him, because nothing is the same without her.

The night of the performance follows and ends as it should in a Disney musical, everyone getting what they deserve and learning their lessons. And while celebrating at graduation, everyone joins in singing “Why can’t the rest of my life be like my High School Musical, who says we have to let it go?” And the curtain falls, with Troy, Gabriella, Ryan, Sharpay, Chad and Taylor doing the signature High School Musical jump.

Two of the biggest things people have had against HSM is that it’s a musical and that it’s just so darn happy. And my response to that has always been, “well? What’s wrong with that?” Now I’m one of those people who wishes life were a musical, where people randomly broke out into song (in perfect harmony) and everyone danced together (and knew all the steps). And my pastor always talks about “now I have a verse!” so here are some of mine -

Exodus 20:20-21 – “Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: ‘Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.’”

Ezra 3:11 – “And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.” And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the LORD.”

2 Samuel 16:14 - “And David danced before the LORD with all his might.”

Psalm 108:1 – “I will sing and make melody with all my being!”

Psalm 147:7 - “Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre!”

Psalm 149:3-4 - “Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre! For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.”

Ephesians 5:18-20 - “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So, in this final installment, I would encourage you to give High School Musical a chance (any of the three), and to see how God has put this joy of music and song into our everyday life from creation to today, and in so many different forms – spanning from the most “primitive” of jungle rhythms to the most complex rhapsody ever composed for an orchestra – and that you can glorify God in it.

Apparently, Tyler Durden is the greatest film character of all time, according to a recent poll.

Durden, the enigmatic revolutionary figure played by Brad Pitt in the David Fincher directed Fight Club, beat out the Godfather, Han Solo and even Darth Vader for the top spot. Not bad for a film with mixed reviews and disappointing box office. The cult classic has apparently picked up steam since being released in 1999. The story popped up in several places including the Internet Movie Database and Hollywood Scoop, which lists the top ten.

What does our affection and resonance with Tyler Durden say about our culture? What does it say about you? The whole list makes for fascinating rumination on our view of heroes, anti-heroes, and our love of villains. Brew some coffee and go deep with this one folks. For our old review of Fight Club, click here.

Bottle Rocket, the first film from Wes Anderson, of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums fame, is my favorite film of all-time. I’ve seen it close to 100 times, but still have a hard time putting my finger on exactly what it is, and exactly why I’m drawn to it so much.

When people ask about my film interests, my joke response is that I generally watch “pretentious” films. I like documentaries, foreign films, slow films. I go out of my way to patronize theatres with only one screen. Also, in that last sentence, I wrote “theatre” instead of “theater”. The fact is, although I do try to avoid pretense, I like arty films, and despite the art crowd’s love of everything Anderson has made after Bottle Rocket, it’s this one, his least “arty”, that moves me the most. It is often chalked up as just another indie comedy, and a promising debut from a director who bloomed later on. I disagree.

Bottle Rocket tells a fairly simple story. Three friends in their mid-twenties, Dignan (Owen Wilson), Anthony (Luke Wilson), and Bob (Robert Musgrave), are trying to figure out what they want in life. Anthony is a lonely romantic, Bob a lifelong “little brother” that wants to prove to his brother that he’s a man, and Dignan is a born leader and eternal optimist with criminal aspirations.

Because Dignan is such a leader, and has a tangible goal, he enlists Anthony and Bob to rob a strip mall bookstore, in order to prove his mettle to Mr. Henry (James Caan), a local small-time crime boss who fired Dignan from his front operation, a landscaping company called The Lawn Wranglers. Having pulled off their small heist, the gang goes on the lam, and stays in an out-of-the-way motel for a while. In the span of a few days, Anthony falls in love with a Paraguayan housekeeper named Inez (Lumi Cavazos), Dignan gets in a bar fight, and Bob leaves in the middle of the night to take care of a family emergency.

Once the chaos of the first job is sorted out, Mr. Henry tasks Dignan with planning and carrying out a much bigger job, and when the plan becomes a reality, the friends have to decide if they’re cut out for a life of crime. Since this is a comedy, wacky antics ensue.

As a Christian in my mid-twenties, I’ve spent much of the last 5 years deciding what I want in life, trying to discern what God has planned for me, prioritizing things in order to get where I think I should be, and working towards my goals. I get lazy, too, but I relate to what these man-boys are going through, and respect Dignan’s drive and ambition. He shows Anthony his 75-year plan in the first 10 minutes of the movie, which includes bullet points for 20 years down the road like “Go legitimate w/Mr. Henry” and “The Robin Hood Principle”, so it’s obvious that to him, crime is a way to get to a place where he can do good things to help others.

It’s easy to see that this isn’t the best plan out there, and Anthony knows that after the bookstore job. “Your 75-year plan doesn’t seem to be working,” he despondently tells a jubilant Dignan. “The only thing I’ve learned so far is that crime does not pay.” Dignan, ever the optimist, replies, “Gee man, that’s not the greatest attitude in the world to have. I don’t think we get anywhere by complaining, guys.” We all have goals, but God’s plan is bigger, and part of that plan is to change our heart and make us want to serve him more each day. Dignan is a silly reminder that the ends don’t justify the means, and we can’t cut corners with sin.

Whatever our goals are, we just have to work, and work hard, and you don’t have to be an adult to understand that. At the beginning of the movie, Anthony, who’s just returned from a mental hospital, tells his young sister Grace that he went there because of exhaustion. “Exhaustion?” she scoffs. “How could you be exhausted? You haven’t worked a day in your life.” Shell-shocked from the exchange, Anthony tells Dignan, who promptly protects his friend from thinking too much about the words of an eight-year old. “What has she ever accomplished with her life that’s so great, man? Nothing. Nothing.”

Ultimately, I don’t love Bottle Rocket for any deep spiritual themes or moral lessons. In fact, I’d guess that the most relevant Bible verses are probably almost all verses in Proverbs about fools. I love Bottle Rocket because it’s a breezy and unpretentious comedy about friendship, growing up, and figuring out what you want out of life. It’s shot fairly straightforwardly, and flows effortlessly, as if all the director had to do was press record. Obviously, this is a very difficult feat to accomplish, especially for a first-time director. Aesthetically, it’s far more simple than Anderson’s other films, which put more and more emphasis on visual style with each successive film, culminating in his heartless diorama The Life Aquatic (his follow-up The Darjeeling Limited reined that in well, and ended up being a very fine film, with a trio of brothers that reminded me a lot of the Bottle Rocket gang).

The performances by all the actors, including Luke and Owen Wilson, all feel natural. Nobody was a star, and with the modest budget and story it’s doubtful that anyone figured this was a ticket to stardom. Owen Wilson, who wrote the script with director and roommate Wes Anderson, had never even planned to act in the movie, since he considered himself to be a writer. The fact that he’s an A-list actor now is basically an accident. Bottle Rocket, however, is no accident. It’s a unique, thoughtful, and funny debut from a brilliant director that deserves just as much acclaim as Anderson’s later films, if not more. I for one would love to see Anderson make another film without his usual bag of tricks. For now, I’m content with picking up the long-awaited Criterion special edition and watching it another hundred times.

In hiring staff, Mars Hill Church considers three key areas:

1. Calling. Is the applicant a Christian, called by Jesus to serve God’s Kingdom through the mission of Mars Hill Church?
2. Character. Does the applicant model humility, repentance, worship, biblical integrity, spiritual maturity, and the qualifications for church leadership, as defined throughout Scripture (particularly 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1)?
3. Competency. Does the applicant possess the experience and skills necessary to succeed at the level and capacity that the job demands?

In some cases, like the Director of Technology position, the role is very specific and quite demanding. Therefore, though we anticipate interviewing many people from within our church, we want to share this job opportunity with our online audience. Who knows what God might provide…the right applicant could already be a part of our cyberland tribe.

If you’re interested, email apply[at]marshillchurch dot org.

Read more about Mars Hill leadership and organization.

Last week, Zondervan purchased The City and plans to make it available to churches throughout the world. On Thursday I sent out a letter to the Mars Hill Church congregation (PDF) to announce the news and explain some of the details. In addition, Zondervan distributed a press release that has been published by many news outlets, including MarketWatch and Yahoo! Finance.

At Mars Hill, we’re excited that The City now belongs to somebody who will be able to improve this useful resource for the benefit of the greater church.

Visit OnTheCity.org for more information about the vision and purpose of The City.

Apparently David Kirkpatrick thinks that “the story” is in serious danger. I think he’s glossing over the past and afraid of the future.

A recent New York Times Article reports that M.I.T. is setting up a media lab to “examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.”

I don’t just disagree with the article because Peter Guber disses Transformers. I disagree with their limited framework for storytelling and their insistence that any of them or their compatriots have new ideas. David Kirkpatrick says their “mission is not small. “The idea, as we move forward with 21st-century storytelling, is to try to keep meaning alive”. I think he’s missing the deeper meaning of storytelling.

First of all, Hollywood never had any new ideas. I dealt with the folly of “original storytelling” in a previous post entitled Man in a Hole – Who Throws the Rope. Moreover, audiences and the moneymen have had negative impacts on cinematic storytelling since the early days; for a great example, albeit exaggerated, see a decent little film about the making of Citizen Kane called RKO 281.

The article naturally rips on franchises; “A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.”

There is nothing new under the sun, but the theaters are experimenting with other forms of storytelling developing with television and other mediums. Ongoing storylines are providing plenty of compelling stories with astounding narrative and lots of unexpected twists and turns. As I write this, The Shield is only one episode away from completing one of the greatest dramatic series on television with an ongoing narrative of intertwined lives seemingly headed for inevitable destruction. The notion that a great piece of cinema in the movie theater can’t or shouldn’t follow this format, or that an audience can’t maintain a cohesive storyline simply because the next episode takes two years instead of seven days, underestimates the audience and perhaps reveals a medium bias. Likewise, there have been adapted books and pulp stories since film’s inception, so modern vehicles like Potter and Narnia are nothing new either. 

Are there bad films? Surely. Does the glut of cinematic offerings cloud the issue? Yes, but Kirkpatrick and Guber are pointing fingers in the wrong places. I agree with Ken Brecher of the Sundance Institute: ““Storytelling is flourishing in the world at a level I can’t even begin to understand”.

Lastly, as a Christian I believe that all of life is a grand metanarrative, and all the stories and lives that permeate our existence are merely chapters. My life is a chapter, Hamlet is a chapter, David Kirkpatrick is a chapter, and Spider-man is a chapter. They are all pieces of a larger whole, real and fictional pieces reflecting or distorting a larger truth. The beginnings, middles, and ends are ultimately all middle, and in the end only one storyteller gets to say Alpha and Omega.

This week’s Changed by Jesus testimony comes from Jake, who attends the Ballard campus. He shares how Jesus took him from being religious and disconnected to having real community and finding his worth in Christ.

Haiti Jesus — Changed by Jesus #21

I find it funny how I viewed myself before I met Christ. I thought I was a good person and I tried to live a highly moral life (like being the only person not drinking at the high school party, selecting 9am classes in college, and saying no to NSync Tickets). I thought as long as no one really got to know me they would think I was a pretty cool guy. At the very least I couldn’t disappoint them if they found out I wasn’t. So, I kept everyone at a distance: friends, classmates, and co-workers. I actually joined a Bible study to get the good “spiritual feeling” but as soon as people wanted to know more about me, I found myself making up ways to be busy so that eventually I could no longer attend. I kept everyone out, including Jesus.

In 2004 I was itching for a spiritual high, so I went on a mission trip to Haiti. It was there that Jesus broke me down and introduced himself to me–personally–through a group of Haitian Christians. They didn’t own much and were lucky if they could enjoy a daily meal, but they were genuine, real, and loving. What I saw in them was Jesus, and one night with a group of us around a fire, I invited Jesus in. He showed me how silly I had been to think that people would see me as ‘cool’ if they didn’t know me. He showed me how I had taken the gifts he gave me and buried them. He showed me how I am one part of a larger body, and the joy of being a member in that body.

Since then Jesus has brought many others into my life. I have been blessed with my amazing wife Amy, who would not be in my life had it not been for his grace. I have repaired relationships with my family, I have cultivated friendships with others in my community group, and I have begun to use the gifts God has given me, in part by serving at Mars Hill. I have an exciting journey ahead and am glad that I have Jesus leading the way.

Answer: The Old Testament forbids this but the New Testament does not. It is likely a ceremonial aspect of the Old Covenant that is no longer in effect today, though the moral aspect of the Old Covenant is. Therefore, you are allowed to operate with conscience. Some wives don’t mind the mess and just put a towel down, saying they feel more pleasure during this time; other wives find it gross or painful since they are sensitive at this time. So, lovingly arrive at a mutual agreement. If you choose not to, you can find other ways to pleasure each other during this time without completely neglecting your spouse.

Answer: Yes, but you should make sure your spouse is in agreement with this. Pray through your frustration so you are responding with compassion and patience toward her. You should likely be present as she experiments with her body so that you can learn from observing how she touches herself. You should also discover your own body and teach her what you like too. Also, reading through Douglas E. Rosenau’s A Celebration of Sex together can be educating and helpful for both of you as you work toward a long-term, satisfying life of intimacy.

Answer: Yes. Providing this act does not replace normal intercourse and does not decrease your oneness, then it may be helpful. Some couples have cited a number of particular reasons why this may be helpful. One husband and his wife do not have intercourse during her menstrual cycle and so she cares for him during that time with a helping hand. Upon occasion, though, she cannot bring him to climax and so he will do so while fondling her breasts so that the two of them are still participating. Some people report that their spouse simply has no idea how to stimulate their genitals and so they stimulate their own genitals in front of their spouse to teach them what they enjoy so that their spouse can then satisfy them. Still other spouses report that during heavy petting and/or deep massage they prefer to stimulate their own genitals while their spouse stimulates other erotic zones and they enjoy the simultaneous sexual stimuli from many places on their body. Refer to Answer #15, then explore freely.

Answer: Yes. The combination may physically heighten the degree of pleasure. For example, many wives cannot climax from normal intercourse but can climax from stimulation of their clitoris, which is not a point of contact during normal sexual intercourse. This can be pleasurable for both spouses, considering that most men are visual and this could be a display of visual generosity for him.

“The movie’s in theme is… in favor of saying, the most mundane things, the most mundane concerns, are destroying beauty, and they’re destroying spirituality, and they’re destroying ideas, and they’re destroying magic… It’s a film about how we can forget anything sublime when we are worried about the most boring, mundane, and frankly, forgettable things” – Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy II audio commentary

Although hopes are often low for sequels, the second installments of many comic-book franchises have really been delivering in recent years. These films have added complex social themes (X2: X-men United), been co-written by a Pulitzer-winning author ( Spiderman 2), and generated Oscar buzz (The Dark Knight). Add to this list of sophomore successes Hellboy II: the Golden Army, a visually gorgeous and emotionally engaging sequel to 2004’s Hellboy.

The Hellboy series is an adaptation of Mike Mignola’s comic series about a demon who is adopted by Americans and grows up to work for a secret government agency that fights paranormal threats. Hellboy’s on-screen character is quirky: emotionally adolescent and sarcastic, with a soft spot for kittens and a Right Hand of Doom. The film starts with a young Hellboy being told a childhood story about the Golden Army, an indestructible mechanical force created by goblins for the elves during a war with humans. The decimation of the humans was so terrible that the King of the Elves became remorseful and made a truce, retiring the Golden Army to dormancy and dividing the crown that controlled the army. The story then resumes in the present, with the elf king’s son, Prince Nuada, seeking to reunite the pieces of the crown to raise the Golden Army and destroy humanity for their irresponsible destruction of the earth and their selfishness. As the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) pursues Nuada, various character plots are developed. Hellboy has relationship troubles with his pyrokinetic girlfriend (Liz Sherman) over his immaturity. Cerebral BPRD member Abe Sapien becomes a fool for love over Nuada’s sister, Princess Nuala. And tensions develop over the addition of an autocratic new team leader, ectoplasmic Johann Krauss. At the climax, the team and Hellboy confront Prince Nuada over control of the army and the fate of humankind.

Hellboy II is an exciting and enjoyable film. It starts off grabbing your attention, having an advantage over the first film of not needing to exposit Hellboy’s remarkably silly origin story (Hellboy was summoned to Earth by Rasputin for the Nazis). Hellboy II is not perfect; there’s a slightly out-of-place (though funny) bromantic scene with Hellboy and Abe singing Barry Manilow, and the film seems to border on preachiness about mankind’s impact on the environment (though del Toro claims that his intention was not to comment on environmentalism). But these are all just minor missteps. The film is dense with visuals, action, and character development. The scenes are stunning, as we have come to expect from director Guillermo del Toro. Scenes I especially enjoyed re-watching on the DVD included the animated opening sequence in which the story of the Golden Army is told as well as a later scene in which Hellboy meets the Angel of Death. The film also has elaborate action sequences that are stepped up a notch from the first movie. In particular, Prince Nuada’s elegant swordsmanship stands out among the movie’s action visuals.

The real strength of this film is the characters’ personal story arcs. Each of the main characters must make a major decision that will change his or her future. Some are fairly standard (e.g., uptight Kraus must learn to loosen up) while others are surprisingly moving for an action film. It is touching and amusing to see Abe Sapien lose all composure as he is smitten with Princess Nuala and has no idea how to deal with his feelings for her. Even the villain, Prince Nuada, is a sympathetic and tragic character. The audience feels the pain of his outrage over the destruction of the earth and irresponsibility of humankind, even as we hope for the thwarting of his attempt to destroy humanity. The central character story, however, is Hellboy’s decision as to whether or not he will, in essence, grow up. We learn early in the film that Liz is pregnant. She does not tell Hellboy, instead pressing him first for evidence that he will become a responsible man who would make a good father and long-term partner. Late in the film, the interaction of the couple is moving, particularly when Hellboy realizes that he is taking on the mantle of his own father.

Although the audience might be inclined to compare Hellboy II to del Toro’s previous commercial action films (Mimic, Blade II), the development of Hellboy’s character in this film is emotionally more a sequel to his gothic fantasy-drama films. In the audio commentary, del Toro says (several times) that this is among the favorites of his own movies, along with Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. Thematically, I find Hellboy II similar to Pan’s Labyrinth, but also Cronos. In these earlier films, central themes address the bond between the child and adult, the mother in Pan’s Labyrinth and the grandfather in Cronos. Even when the adult cannot protect the child, the unconditional love between the two nurtures and inspires courage in the child amidst chaos and fear. In the audio commentary of Cronos, del Toro reports modeling the child-grandfather relationship on his own relationship with his grandmother. A personal tenderness is evident in both films. In Hellboy II, we see the next step: moving past one’s own childhood and immaturity to take on the mantle of nurturer and protector.

This movie, as much of popular culture, falls short of God’s (and thus the Christian’s) ideal, particularly establishing family within the bond of marriage (Genesis 2:24). However, the struggles presented are poignant from the perspective of living in a fallen world. Like Hellboy, will we remain in a protracted spiritual and relational adolescence or take on the struggles our own Heavenly Father has given to us (1 Corinthians 13:11)? How deeply do we love others, not just those closest to us, and what are we willing to give for this love (John 15:13)? In this sense, Hellboy II is more than just an action movie, it is a film about people and the deep emotions that create connectedness. On the other hand, the romantic relationships tend toward idolatry as more than one character is willing to sacrifice the entire world to save a loved one. Del Toro intends these decisions to represent flawed, “human” choices. Indeed, as we love deeply, we must be vigilant for the risk that we will worship the gift (the beloved) and not the giver (our Heavenly Father) (e.g., Matthew 10:37).

The film also touches upon a transcendent theme of lost contact with things that are spiritual and beautiful. Connecting with personal love is only part of this issue. Hellboy II shows a re-enchanted world; that is, a mundane modern world in which the spiritual and magical have reemerged. We see these trends in our own society, through people who state they are “spiritual” but not religious, increased interest in the occult, and even angel worship. Our world is hungry for the supernatural and for eternal, magical beauty. Del Toro states in the commentary that he intended for the audience to contemplate what humans are sacrificing- that is, the spiritual, beautiful, and natural things of the world- to support our mundane, banal daily routines. As Christians, we reject occult spirituality (Acts 19:19-20), but should definitely consider to what extent our daily routines supplant our connection with the beauty of our Heavenly Father and our role as good stewards of His creation. If a comic-book movie can summon beauty and meaning, how much more can the word of God and the love of Christ change our hearts, if we lift our eyes from the mundane and seek Him?

Answer: Nude images of your spouse are redeemed images and, providing your spouse is agreeable to this arrangement, you are free to operate by conscience. Practically, we would urge you to be extremely cautious to not allow any other people to see those photos in order to ensure protection of your marital privacy. Since the purpose of sexual activity is oneness, your option is both creative and permissible because you are being as intimate as you can be when distance separates you. However, if either of you has a history of pornography, or if either of you becomes dependent on the images to perform, then this might not be helpful for the marriage and building oneness.

Answer:

1. Can you masturbate without lusting (Job 31:1)?
2. Can you masturbate in a way that builds oneness with your spouse, bringing you together more intimately through the act (Gen. 2:24)?
3. Can you masturbate without experiencing shame (Gen. 2:24)?
4. Can you masturbate with a clear conscience (Titus 1:15)?
5. Can you masturbate without capitulating to the cravings of your sinful desires and thoughts (Eph. 2:3)?
6. Does your spouse know and approve (1 Cor. 7:4)?