FilmFisher Undefended Lists of 2019

While writing for FilmFisher regularly a few years back, I contributed to a monthly feature called “Undefended,” where each writer submitted a top-five list based on a themed prompt. As you can see below, I really got into making these. With the recent relaunch of FilmFisher and its migration to Substack, I thought it would be nice to revisit my Undefended lists and put them all in one place. Here are the ones I created in 2019. Click on the list titles to see the original articles with the other contributors’ lists.

P.S.: Spider-Man and other Marvel projects, and Westerns by the Coen Brothers and others, make multiple appearances on these lists.

Best of 2018 (January 2019)

1. Best Picture: Mission: Impossible – Fallout

2. Best Director: Bob Persichetti Jr., Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

3. Best Actor: Josh Brolin, Avengers: Infinity War

4. Best Actress: Zoe Kazan, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

5. Best Screenplay: Ethan and Joel Coen, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Marriage (February 2019)

Conventional wisdom would say that most movies either end with the euphoric beginning of a marriage or begin with its bitter end. I wanted to challenge that narrative by highlighting some movies that portray marriages in the middle that are healthy and instructive:

1. William Powell and Myrna Loy’s legendary chemistry would make any of the six Thin Man films worth watching, but the third one, Another Thin Man (1939), has this added bonus: it lifts a scene right out of Chesterton’s Manalive (probably accidentally). One of the ways Nick and Nora Charles stay in love is by pretending they’ve never met before.

2. In It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), George Bailey (James Stewart) discovers that his marriage to Mary Hatch (Donna Reed), far from distracting him from his sense of mission and vocation, is actually one of the key reasons he is able to do real good in the world. [To a lesser extent—but I’d hate to leave it out—the same idea is at play in 2006’s Amazing Grace. In it William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffud) regains his resolve to fight the slave trade (and recovers his singing voice, literally at the altar) when he marries Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai). After the wedding, however, the marriage subplot largely recedes into the background, hence the bracketing of this example.]

3. In A Beautiful Mind (2001), the courtship of John and Alicia Nash (Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly) is sparked by the volatile fuel of eros, but through adversity their marriage matures and is sustained by agape.

4. In The New World (2005), John Rolfe (Christian Bale) marries Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher), even though she is still in love with Captain Smith (Colin Farrell). When Smith reappears, their commitment to each other is tested and confirmed. Ultimately it is death and not another lover that severs their bond, all too soon – yet neither of them parts with any regrets.

5. Tie: In Disney movies it is hard to find a functional nuclear family, and in superhero movies the heroes rarely ever get married or have kids. But in The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), the marriages and households of Pacha and Chicha (John Goodman and Wendie Malick) and Clint and Laura Barton (Jeremy Renner and Linda Cardellini) serve as oases of stability and joy in the midst of worlds turned upside down by self-love and self-reliance. (Surely it isn’t a coincidence that Tony Stark is a less over-the-top version of Kuzco, or that both families live in the countryside, have two young kids (a boy and a girl), and are expecting a third.)

Double Features (March 2019)

I have ordered my choices by the time gap between the films’ releases, from the shortest to the longest.

1. Ratatouille (2007) and The Wind Rises (2013) — 6 years: Legendary auteurs in animation meditate on the meaning and value of the creative life by telling the stories of craftsmen who work in non-artistic mediums. (Fun Fact: Both craftsmen are coached by imaginary personifications of their European-accented idols.)

2. A Civil Action (1998) and Amazing Grace (2006) — 8 years: A life spent and a career risked showing mercy and seeking justice can never, in the grand scheme of things, be considered wasted. (Consider this: Amazing Grace is one of the best films about Christians ever made, but the people most responsible for its excellence are probably not Christians. And A Civil Action arguably has a more compelling conversion story or moment than any movie by or about Christians.)

3. Citizen Kane (1941) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) — 21 years: Somehow two of the most towering achievements in the history of cinema are also two of cinema’s most terrifying indictments of the hollowness of human greatness. Life is hell when we try to be our own gods, let alone the gods of others.

4. Triple Feature (I had to break the rules somewhere): The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), and Where the Wild Things Are (2009) — 32 years: Our imaginary friends are among our earliest teachers. They helped us know ourselves, understand our worlds, cope with our earliest traumas, and ultimately grow up. Perhaps our imaginary friends also taught us to love our real ones, and prepared us to seek after the friend who, though invisible, is more real than anything we see.

5. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and The Truman Show (1998) — 52 years: While we pursue the American Dream of comfort and respect, what we really need is to be a part of a genuine, interdependent community, and to know the God who is both sovereign and good.

Heroes (April 2019)

5. Tie: Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (2011-2019) and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in the Mission: Impossible franchise (1996-2018—minus M:I:2). Two mythic American boy scouts who sacrifice their personal lives for the sake of what they hope is the greater good. Two men who, in their commitment to protecting the little guy, often find themselves at odds with the institutions that enlisted them for that very purpose. “I’m with you till the end of the line.”

4. Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Éowyn, Théoden, Faramir, and Aragorn (to name a few) in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Although I could have listed the entire trilogy, Return of the King particularly strikes me as a film about a host of heroes. “My friends: you bow to no one.”

3. Neville, Lupin, the Weasleys, and Snape (and many others) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II (2011). Same principle as with #4. It’s no accident I failed to put Harry on the list. It’s not that Harry isn’t heroic, but what is significant about his story is just how many people are willing to lay down their lives to help him, and how he would have utterly failed if they hadn’t. “I’m sorry. I never wanted any of you to die for me.” “Others will tell [my son] what his mother and father died for. One day, he’ll understand.”

2. The farmers and the gunslingers in The Magnificent Seven (1960). One of the gunslingers, Bernardo O’Reilly (Charles Bronson), insists he is not a hero and points to a deeper, truer version of heroism. But even he becomes a true hero in the end. “Responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists [your fathers] until finally it buries them under the ground. And there’s nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage.”

1. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) in the Spider-Man Trilogy (2002-2007). It’s not just predictable, it’s almost mandatory. I can’t think of any other film or franchise, superhero-based or otherwise, that deals with heroism so directly or profoundly. “With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Honorable Mention: The multiple Spider-Folk of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).

Summer Break Movies (June 2019)

1. High Noon (Fred Zimmermann, 1952) – Before Star Wars and superheroes, Westerns were the genre of summer. As in 12 Angry Men, it is also a blazing hot summer day, but here Gary Cooper fails to convince even one person to take his side. Figuring out why that is the case would make for a fantastic post-movie discussion.

2. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008) – The epitome of the brainy blockbuster that doesn’t skimp on thrills or on thoughtfulness. It is also a great present-day follow-up to High Noon. Make it a double feature.

3. Treasure Planet (Ron Clements and John Musker, 2003) – I associate the summers of my youth with reading adventure novels, watching epic films, traveling, and growing up. Treasure Planet takes all these things and melds them into a near-perfect package. (Ironically, the film was released in November – but that might help explain why it flopped at the box office.)

4. The Sandlot (David Mickey Evans, 1993) – This list would be incomplete without at least one baseball movie, and Sandlot is about what summer means to us when we are growing up. But if you are looking for a baseball film that is more substantial (and less given to juvenile humor), Field of Dreams or Moneyball would also do.

5. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) – The earliest definitive summer blockbuster, and still one of the best.

The Best Trailers of the Decade (July 2019)

1. Trailer, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). The Hobbit films went from being disappointing to being outright terrible, but this trailer is still a perfect encapsulation and wistful reminder of all that they could have been. Note to directors: If you can have your composer score your trailer and introduce the leitmotifs of the film, do it.

2. Trailer #1, Foxcatcher (2014). Steve Carell is terrifying.

3. Trailer, Logan (2017). I haven’t even seen this movie, but this trailer is incredible. This is how you use a song to structure your trailer and give it an emotional arc.

4. Trailer, Avengers: Endgame (2019). Sure, much of the trailer is fairly generic, but it opens and ends so well, and Marvel should be credited for how the trailer is 100% emotion and 0% plot. Thanos demanded silence, and he got it.

5. Teaser, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). When you start with a scene that riffs on Wild West showdowns and North by Northwest, use the same tagline as The Phantom Menace teaser, and end with that ominous image and that bombshell, you have figured out the secret to movie trailer alchemy.

The Best Film Music of the Decade (August 2019)

The hymn-inspired True Grit and hip-hop-infused Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse would have been on my list, but since they’ve already been claimed I’ll put two honorable mentions as my #5 and #4.

1. Hans Zimmer Double Feature: Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014).

2. Michael Giacchino: Dawn of / War for the Planet of the Apes (2014, 2017)

3. John Powell: The How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy (2010, 2014, 2019)

4. Alan Silvestri: Selections from the Marvel Symphonic Universe (2010, 2012, 2018, 2019)

5. Justin Hurwitz, et. al: La La Land (2016)

The Best Scripts of the Decade (September 2019)

1. True Grit (2010). Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on a novel by Charles Portis.

2. Moneyball (2011). Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin and story by Stan Chervin, based on a book Michael Lewis.

3. Locke (2013). Screenplay by Steven Knight.

4. The Wind Rises (2013). Screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki.

5. Arrival (2016). Screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on a short story by Ted Chiang.

Tied Honorable Mentions:

• Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). Screenplay by Joss Whedon, based on comics created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

• Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). Screenplay by Rian Johnson, based on characters created by George Lucas.

The Best Performance of the Decade (October 2019)

In chronological order:

1. Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross in True Grit (2010)

2. Andy Serkis as Caesar in The Planet of the Apes Prequel Trilogy (2011-2017)

3. Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in Marvel’s Infinity Saga (2011-2019)

4. Barkhad Abdi as Muse in Captain Phillips (2013)

5. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (2015-2019), or as Paterson in Paterson (2016)

FilmFisher Undefended Lists of 2018

While writing for FilmFisher regularly a few years back, I contributed to a monthly feature called “Undefended,” where each writer submitted a top-five list based on a themed prompt. As you can see below, I really got into making these. With the recent relaunch of FilmFisher and its migration to Substack, I thought it would be nice to revisit my Undefended lists and put them all in one place. Here are the ones I created in 2018. Click on the list titles to see the original articles with the other contributors’ lists.

P.S.: There’s a lot of Harry Potter on these lists.

Action Scenes of the 2000s (July 2018)

1. The Mines of Moria chamber fight (“They have a cave troll.”), then the chase (“to the bridge of Khazad-Dûm!”), then Balrog face-off (“You shall not pass!”) in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

2. Another three-parter, the Geonosis arena battle(s) in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), complete with monsters and men, comic relief and pathos, and every young boy’s wildest dream come true: hundreds of Jedi with lightsabers going into battle together.

3. Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and James Norrington sword-fighting on a runaway mill wheel in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006).

4. With the help of only a feather, tiger villain Tai Lung escapes from an underground prison and defeats hundreds of rhino guards in Kung Fu Panda (2008).

5. One last three-parter: Tom Cruise survives drowning, then survives a car chase and crash, then survives a motorcycle chase and crash in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).

Truths and Lies (August 2018)

1. “Mr. Carter, if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.” (Citizen Kane, 1941)

2. “Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” (Return of the Jedi, 1983)

3. “Will I lie to myself to be happy? In your case, Teddy, yes. I will.” (Memento, 2000)

4. “We have protected innocence that I’m not willing to give up.” (The Village, 2004)

5. “Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.” (The Dark Knight, 2008) / “It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth.” (The Dark Knight Rises, 2012)

Teachers (September 2018)

I hope the examples are so similar and specific you won’t mind me listing double. 5 Common Teacher Archetypes:

1. The Gifted “Chosen One” Student Turned Novice Teacher of an Unlikely Resistance: Jack Black’s Po (Kung Fu Panda 3, 2016), and Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007)

2. The Truly Awful Principal with Cruel and Unusual Punishments for Students Who Use Magic: Pam Ferris’s Trunchbull (Matilda, 1996), and Imelda Staunton’s Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007)

3. The Hapless, Lanky, and Paranoid Disney Cartoon Teacher Who Should Not Be Teaching: Lou Romano’s Bernie Kropp (The Incredibles, 2004), and Ichabod Crane (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949)

4. The Morally Ambiguous, Rough-Around-the-Edges Teacher (Complete with Peg Leg and Artificial Eye) Who Mentors the Protagonist Under False Pretenses: Brian Murray’s John Silver (Treasure Planet, 2002), and Brendan Gleeson’s Mad-Eye Moody (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2005)

5. The Whimsical Professor (with an Affinity for Magical Furniture) Played by Jim Broadbent: Professor Digory Kirke (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 2005), and Professor Horace Slughorn (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2009)

Scares (October 2018)

1. While Jonathan goes outside to move his car, Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha go to check on the window seat… (Arsenic and Old Lace, 1944)

2. After the Halloween party, Ichabod Crane rides into the forest… (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949)

3. Donovan chooses, poorly… (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1989)

4. The drums, the disappearance of Alan Parrish, and the mosquitos… (Jumanji, 1995)

5. Harry and Hermione follow Bathilda Bagshot to her house… (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, 2010)

America (November 2018)

In order of historical period:

1. John Adams miniseries (Tom Hooper, 2008)

2. Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, 2005)

3. JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)

4. Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014)

5. The Terminal (Steven Spielberg, 2004)

Time (December 2018)

1. In less than an hour and a half, a marriage begins and is severely tested, a career of public service ends in defiant bitterness, and the true character of an entire community is exposed in all its cowardice and pettiness in High Noon (1952, dir. Fred Zinnemann).

2. A time-obsessed, proudly resourceful man is humbled by three years of isolation on an island in Cast Away (2000, dir. Robert Zemeckis).

3. A man and his wife learn the secret to slowing down time, grow old together in a dream, and return to waking life as middle-aged adults, only to be haunted by the repercussions of tampering with time in Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan).

4. The audience witnesses the mundane yet beautiful moments of seven ordinary days in the life of a bus driver/poet and his artist wife in Paterson (2016, dir. Jim Jarmusch).

5. Six parables on the shortness of life and the brutal and banal suddenness of death in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018, dir. Ethan and Joel Coen).

Bonus Round: In what could have been the seventh chapter of Buster Scruggs, with a similar concept as the one found in Inception, three brothers attempt to outwit Death with his own instruments in the animated montage of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I (2010, dir. David Yates).

Reintroducing FilmFisher

I am pleased to announce that the Christian classical film-review website FilmFisher was relaunched recently, now on Substack. Please consider subscribing!

Thanks to then-editor Timothy Lawrence, I wrote a number of reviews and articles for the site from 2018 to 2021, and a few of those pieces have been migrated over to the new site:

• An Ode to Po: Celebrating Goodness in the Kung Fu Panda Trilogy

• Avengers: Endgame

• Wonder Woman and the Bronze Serpent

Exercises Against Confirmation Bias

Recently I was reading something—or, I must confess, “skim-reading” something, which is to say not very closely or thoughtfully—and thought to myself, “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been thinking!” And then, somehow, it occurred to me almost instantly that I should be wary of and interrogate that knee-jerk response. In that moment I realized there are two mental exercises that might help against confirmation bias. I’m going to try to make a point of practicing them on myself.

First, make sure the viewpoint expressed is really the same as your own. In their book They Say/I Say, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein warn against the “closest cliché syndrome.” It’s what happens when your brain automatically sorts something unfamiliar into a familiar category, without pausing to reflect whether it truly belongs in that category. It’s like an inexperienced fruit picker putting an apricot into a bucket of peaches; after all, it looks like a peach—and it certainly doesn’t belong in the bucket of apples. This can happen both negatively and positively: I can reject something because it sounds suspiciously like something else I already disbelieve, or I can embrace something because it sounds comfortingly like something else I already believe. So, first, make sure the person writing or speaking is in fact expressing your view, and not a subtly distinct one, no matter how many similarities they share.

Second, if the viewpoint expressed is in fact your own, scrutinize it. If someone else has put your viewpoint on paper or said it out loud—and better yet, given reasons and evidence in support for it—that person has done you a great favor. You can now examine what was written or said with a degree of objectivity you wouldn’t have had if you had written or said it yourself. Now that you see the viewpoint existing independent of and outside yourself, do you like how it looks? Does it stand to reason and avoid logical fallacies? Are the supports verifiable and compelling? Did the person articulating it miss or mischaracterize anything or anyone? If there’s anything fishy about how the viewpoint is expressed, at the very least you can learn how not to defend it yourself and seek better supports. But it’s also possible that the viewpoint itself is wrong. You might be like the shopper who thought he finally found the product he always wanted, only to take it home, try it, and discover it wasn’t really what he wanted, after all, either because of a defect in the product or because it just can’t do what it purports to do. In short, is listening to or reading someone else express your viewpoint, and then scrutinizing it, giving you buyer’s remorse, or are you satisfied with your purchase? 

Ten Songs: Steven Curtis Chapman

Ten song recommendations, placed in release order, from Steven Curtis Chapman, one of the best devotional singer-songwriters in Contemporary Christian Music.

1. For the Sake of the Call (from For the Sake of the Call, 1992)

2. Speechless (from Speechless, 1999)

3. The Change (from Speechless, 1999)

4. See the Glory (from Declaration, 2001)

5. Savior (from Declaration, 2001)

6. Much of You (from All Things New, 2004)

7. Faithful (from Beauty Will Rise, 2009)

8. Magnificent Obsession (Re:Created) (from re:creation, 2011)

9. ’Til the Blue (feat. Gary LeVox) (from Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, 2019)

10. Be Still and Know (feat. Caleb Chapman) (from Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, 2019)

I'm Here and I'm Involved

While working on the previous two posts (“The Tell-Tale Textbook” and “But It’s Ours”), I was reminded of these two passages, one from W. E. B. Du Bois (from his severe yet charitable critique of Booker T. Washington), and the other from William Zinsser (quoting Mort Sahl):

“But the hushing of the criticism of honest opponents is a dangerous thing. It leads some of the best of the critics to unfortunate silence and paralysis of effort, and others to burst into speech so passionately and intemperately as to lose listeners. Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society” (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Penguin Classics, 2017, p. 37).  

“Mort Sahl, a comic, was the only person who stayed awake during the Eisenhower years, when America was under sedation and didn’t want to be disturbed. Many people regarded Sahl as a cynic, but he thought of himself as an idealist. ‘If I criticize somebody,’ he said, ‘it’s because I have higher hopes for the world, something good to replace the bad. I’m not saying what the Beat Generation says: ‘Go away because I’m not involved.’ I’m here and I’m involved’” (William Zinsser, On Writing Well, Harper Perennial, 200, p. 213).  

But It's Ours

In my last post, I had said that “I am not opposed to patriotism, but I take issue with a patriotism that comes at the expense of other nations. (You can be thankful to be an American without saying it’s better than being a Canadian or German.) More to the point, I take issue with a patriotism that’s propped up by half-truths and selective evidence.” 

What kind of patriotism do I support, then? Can patriotism be sustained without making comparisons and without ignoring shameful parts of a nation’s past or present? Yes, I think so.

When I think about my ideal form of patriotism, my mind goes to a scene from the Hungarian film A Tanú (The Witness, 1969, directed by Péter Bacsó), a satirical look at life in Hungary under communism. In one part of the film, the protagonist József Pelikán is tasked to oversee a government initiative to grow oranges. Hungary’s climate is not conducive to cultivating citrus trees, yet the government wants to try it anyway to promote national pride.

Pelikán’s team of scientists succeeds in growing a single, not-very-orange-looking orange, and the government’s top brass attend a celebration where the first-ever Hungarian orange is to be presented. Just before he is to present the literal fruit of his labor, however, Pelikán discovers that his son has eaten it. To save himself from embarrassment, Pelikán presents a lemon to the top official instead. The official bites into the lemon and is horrified by its tartness: “What is this?” Pelikán replies, deadpan: “It’s an orange. … The new Hungarian orange. It’s a little yellower, a little more sour, but it’s ours.”     

I think a healthy love of country—or for that matter, a healthy love of one’s hometown or family, one’s church or denomination, one’s alma mater or favorite sports team—finds its justification in just those three little words: “but it’s ours.” That is to say, “It may not be this, it may not be that, but it’s the one we have, and so we will love it.” I don’t think a healthy love of country can ground itself in any other claim. The patriot loves his nation (or his family or denomination or team) above all others, not because it is better than anyone else’s, and certainly not because it has no serious flaws, but simply because in his mind it is preceded by that possessive pronoun, his. With that kind of love, the patriot can be happy for others who also love their own nations simply because they are theirs, with no compulsion to argue with them. With that kind of love, the patriot can be honest and critical about his nation’s history and leadership and people, without whitewashing or excusing or needing to say, “At least we’re not as bad as that other country!” 

For the Christian, a but-it’s-ours approach to patriotism is consistent with recognizing that God has placed each of us in a particular place and time (Acts 17:26) and put each of us there for a reason (Esther 4:14, Jeremiah 29:7). The Christian citizen should say, “God could have put me somewhere else, made me a citizen of a different nation; but I’m here, so I’ll seek to be a good steward of the citizenship I have.” For the Christian, a but-it’s-ours approach to patriotism can also be a reflection of God’s steadfast, gracious love for His own nation, the church (1 Peter 2:9-10). God loves the church, not for any merit of its own, but because it is His. 

The Tell-Tale Textbook

About two months ago I was perusing a bookshelf and found a short elementary reader published by Abeka, Pensacola Christian College’s program for Christian school and homeschool curriculum. The book is titled My America: 1986 Edition and comprises a series of rudimentary civics lessons. There are sections, for example, on the symbols of the United States, a few key figures in American history, and some major American landmarks and natural wonders. While I thought the sections on freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly (pp. 6-10) are well put—reading them renewed my thankfulness for each of these freedoms—what I found both disconcerting and comical about the rest of the book is its insistence on American exceptionalism even as it keeps skirting close to undermining that insistence. The very first page says, “I think it is the best country in the world,” and a few pages later the book only slightly qualifies that claim: “Our country is not perfect, but it is still the best country in the world” (p. 4). Yet the rest of the book inadvertently sows doubts about this thesis. 

I am not opposed to patriotism, but I take issue with a patriotism that comes at the expense of other nations. (You can be thankful to be an American without saying it’s better than being a Canadian or German.) More to the point, I take issue with a patriotism that’s propped up by half-truths and selective evidence. The trouble with this textbook is that to support its argument for American superiority, it has to omit any mention of the nation’s sins against ethnic minorities, particularly against Native Americans and African Americans. No mention is made of the expulsion and decimation of indigenous tribes, or of slavery or segregation. This may be why, despite the book’s contemporary photos depicting Americans from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, all the “Great People of America” catalogued on pages 21 to 33 (the Pilgrims, George Washington, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln) are white. If Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, for example, had been included in the list of great Americans, the book might have had to mention the peculiar institution they became great for resisting. 

One could say that these issues were left out of My America because they weren’t considered age-appropriate, or that the author Judy Hull Moore wanted to leave it up to teachers or parents when to broach these sensitive subjects. But it’s impossible to tell the story of this nation honestly without giving considerable attention to these issues—and the irony is, the book betrays an awareness of this impossibility. It calls attention to the very omissions it has made, and I think even young readers would notice that something is missing. In its section on Abraham Lincoln, the book says he “led the states of the North in a war against the states of the South” (p. 31). The cause of the Civil War is entirely passed over, but any inquisitive child could be expected to wonder why such a great country would fight a bitter war within itself, and most likely would ask a teacher or parent about it. Similarly, during the section on landmarks and natural wonders, the text implies the expulsion of Native Americans not once, not twice, but three times: “We learn that Indians once lived [in the Rocky Mountains]” (p. 51); “Some Indians live on reservations” (p. 53); and “Indians used to live in Yosemite Valley” (p. 55). It’s not hard to imagine the young reader looking up and asking Mommy or Daddy or Mrs. Smith, “Why don’t they live there anymore? What’s a reservation?” Thus this little book reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” in which the narrator seems compelled to lead the police as close as possible to the hidden corpse even as he insists there’s nothing amiss. The very uncomfortable truths the text wants to side-step to prop up its claim that America is “the best country in the world,” it seems it cannot help but tacitly acknowledge.

Why do I mention any of this? Who cares what’s in a 40-year-old textbook meant for children? Initially, the book struck me as interesting because it gave me a tangible example of how American exceptionalism depends on historical amnesia. A few weeks later, though, I became aware that the current presidential administration is intent on (re)teaching American history in the same way it’s taught in Abeka’s My America. For proof, look at Section 4.a.iii of the executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” issued March 27 of this year: it directs the Secretary of the Interior “to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead”—and here the directive could be  a jacket blurb for the textbook—“focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.” Based on examples I’m seeing of how this directive is being applied, to “inappropriately disparage” includes saying anything that puts American history in an unflattering light. It would be nice if this historical revisionism were limited to children’s books from the 80’s, but we’re probably going to see a lot more of it for the time being.

Ten Songs: Propaganda (Humble Beast Era)

Ten song (or spoken word) recommendations, placed in release order, from one of my favorite hip-hop artists, Propaganda, from his time with the Humble Beast label. 

1. The City (from Art Ambidextrous, 2011)

2. Raise the Banner (from Excellent, 2012)

3. Precious Puritans (from Excellent, 2012)

4. Be Present (from Excellent, 2012)

5. You Mock Me (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

6. I Ain’t Gave Up on You Yet (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

7. Redeem (from Crimson Cord, 2014)

8. Crooked Ways (from Crooked, 2017)

9. It’s Not Working (The Truth) (from Crooked, 2017)

10. Made Straight (from Crooked, 2017)

Maybe You Shouldn’t Rely on the Audience’s First Impressions

When I began this Notebook blog two summer ago, my first post was titled “Maybe You Should Give That Film/Book/Album a Second Chance.” In it I argued that “so often, the first viewing/reading/listening is for finding out what the film/book/album is not. It isn’t until the second viewing/reading/listening that I can begin to appreciate what the film/book/album actually is.”

At the time of writing that post, the work that was at the top of my mind and prompting these reflections was Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, which I had seen in the theater a few weeks prior. I went into that film with high expectations and came out feeling somewhat disappointed. At the same time, I strongly suspected I would need to give it another try. Having recently rewatched Dead Reckoning in preparation to see its follow-up, The Final Reckoning, I can confirm that Dead Reckoning was worth the second chance, and I look forward to giving it a third and a fourth. There is more going on in that film than I could appreciate on a first viewing.

I didn’t mention Dead Reckoning or any other film or book or album in that post, since the point there was to describe the hermeneutic principle and not to argue for the merits of any particular misunderstood or underrated work. But when my friend Timothy Lawrence wrote a similar post about unreliable first impressions to inaugurate his blog, he did cite Dead Reckoning as one of his examples. So, funnily enough, we both started blogs in the summer of 2023 while mulling over how Dead Reckoning challenged us to move beyond first impressions.

Now that The Final Reckoning is out and Tim and I have both seen it, the added irony is that reflecting on this new film has prompted both of us to consider the corollary of that principle I repeated at the top. If the audience shouldn’t rely too much on its first impressions of a work, then the corollary is that the makers of that work shouldn’t rely too much on the audience’s first impressions, either.

As I wrote in my Letterboxd review of The Final Reckoning, the film’s director “Christopher McQuarrie said they made substantial changes to this film after the underwhelming responses to Dead Reckoning … I wish they had stuck to their guns, because this finale did not provide the payoff I was hoping for after all the exciting possibilities set up by its predecessor.” Now, to be consistent with the first principle, I’ll acknowledge I’ve only seen The Final Reckoning once and may yet change my mind about it. As I said already in the Letterboxd post, “It may grow on me as Dead Reckoning has.” But right now my inclination is to say that, by being too sensitive to initial audience reactions to Dead Reckoning and by being too eager to please the audience with The Final Reckoning, McQuarrie failed to carry over into The Final Reckoning the elements that made Dead Reckoning a great film. I’d add that Tim, who has seen The Final Reckoning multiple times now (and therefore is not as tied to a first impression as I still am), is of the same mind. In a recent blog post, he writes that “The Final Reckoning’s determination to be ‘for the audience’ is its greatest weakness.” (I recommend reading the whole post, “Is Art for the Artist or the Audience?”) The Final Reckoning is to some degree a failure because McQuarrie thought that Dead Reckoning failed—and that because the initial audience said so or implied as much. If McQuarrie had made The Final Reckoning closer to the way he had envisioned it before audiences reacted negatively to Dead Reckoning, it may have garnered similar negative reactions, but it might have gained a stronger chance of standing the test—or should I say reckoning—of time.

Wisdom from the Mouths of Bakers

Last week as I was driving home from church the cooking show Milk Street Radio was playing on my local NPR station. A caller asked about a French bread he liked to bake and how to make it last longer since it would quickly grow stale. The caller said, “The pain de mie I make has a very low shelf life. What am I doing wrong?” The host Christopher Kimball’s answer struck me and I’m writing it down here not to forget it. He essentially said the caller wasn’t doing anything wrong, but was expecting this French bread to do something it was not designed to do. He was baking pain de mie the right way, but apparently if you’re baking pain de mie the right way you can’t expect it to last long. If what the man wanted was to bake a loaf of white bread with a higher shelf life, the solution wouldn’t be to adjust the recipe or his technique but to pick a different kind of white bread, one actually suited to that objective. (If you were wondering, the host recommended a Japanese milk bread.)

I’m not a baker or even much of a cook, but this answer struck me because it suggested a broad principle that would be true in many other areas of life. Sometimes the thing we are doing isn’t achieving the desired effect not because we are doing that thing wrong, or because there is anything wrong with that thing, but because we are expecting the thing to do what it isn’t designed to do. Instead we should use each thing according to its own capabilities and capacities, and recognize and appreciate the different ends each one can achieve. 

In other words, we need to respect the telos of each object, craft, and institution. Otherwise, we will be like the kid who is frustrated that his tricycle can’t fly; or the writer who struggles to capture a specific story, message, or feeling on the page because he is working within the wrong genre or form; or the newly-elected politician who can’t fulfill his campaign promises within a four-year term because deliberative democracy is necessarily slow. Tricycles are wonderful toys for toddlers, but make for terrible airplanes. Poetry can be a powerful form of communication, but it will serve well only those writers who understand how to tap into what it does best. Deliberative democracy can achieve many good things, but if someone wants to move fast and break things, maybe he should be the CEO of a tech startup instead of a politician.

We can also think about how this principle applies to relationships. Maybe that friendship, marriage, or church is actually doing fine—or as well as could be expected of fallen and finite people. Maybe you are already doing the best you can to be a good friend, spouse, or church member; maybe your friend, spouse, or fellow church member is doing likewise; maybe you aren’t failing them, and they aren’t failing you. Could your uneasiness or dissatisfaction instead stem from expecting these relationship to do for you what only God can do? Are you focused on what these relationships do not and cannot possibly give you instead of attending to and appreciating what they do?  

Mend My Rhyme, Ten Years Later

It’s surreal to think that it has already been ten years since I released Mend My Rhyme: The George Herbert Project, on April 4, 2015. In this short, seven-track album, I took eight poems by the Anglican devotional poet George Herbert (1593-1633) and set them to music, singing five of them, reading two of them, and—yes—making an attempt at rapping one them. I listened to the album again this week and was pleased to find I’m still happy with it.

The Inspiration for the Album

I had been introduced to George Herbert’s poetry in my British Literature class during my senior year of high school. Three years later, during my sophomore year of college, three things converged in Spring 2014 to give me the idea for making a tribute album. First, I had been listening to Heath McNease’s album The Weight of Glory (2012) and its “hip hop remix” The Weight of Glory: Second Edition (2013); in both versions of the album, each song is inspired by a different work by C. S. Lewis. Second, I was memorizing Herbert’s “The Pulley” to recite it, and writing an essay to analyze it, for an English composition class. Third, I had been working on an instrumental track in Apple GarageBand, just for fun. When it somehow occurred to me to wonder if “The Pulley” could be read over that instrumental, and it worked, I realized I could do a project in the style of McNease’s Lewis tribute, only this time almost all the words (I invented a chorus for “Paradise”) would be the author’s own.

Incidentally, the initial reason I became interested in Herbert’s poetry in high school was because of what Lewis had said about him. In the memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes that, while he was still an unbeliever, he found that Herbert “seemed to me to excel all the authors I had ever read in conveying the very quality of life as we actually live it from moment to moment; but the wretched fellow, instead of doing it all directly, insisted on mediating it through what I would still have called ‘the Christian mythology’. … The only non-Christians who seemed to me really to know anything were the Romantics; and a good many of them were dangerously tinged with something like religion, even at times with Christianity. The upshot of it all could nearly be expressed [as] … Christians are wrong, but all the rest are bores” (HarperOne, 2017, pp. 261–262).

The Structure of the Album

I realized that the poems I had selected from Herbert’s book The Temple generally fell into two broad thematic categories: poems about restlessness apart from God, and poems about finding rest in God. This “rest”/“restlessness” contrast is explicit in the first track, “The Pulley.” From there I discovered I could order the tracks in a fittingly poetic fashion. I hadn’t yet discovered and become obsessed with chiastic structure—but of course the structure would turn out to be very close to chiastic.

• Track 1, “The Pulley,” is about restlessness, and the poem is read (A1).

• Track 2, “Paradise,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 3, “Vanity II,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• In track 4, “Love I and II,” “Love I” is about restlessness, and is rapped, whereas “Love II” is about rest, and is sung (D).

• Track 5, “Denial,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• Track 6, “Love III,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 7, “The Dedication,” is about rest, and the poem is read (A2).   

The Artwork of the Album

I had a lot of fun working with my friend David Rhee to create the cover and liner notes booklet for the album. Because I took centuries-old poems, which Herbert would have written by hand, and turned them into very modern songs, which I produced using only digital instruments, we wanted the artwork to reflect that convergence of old and new, organic and artificial. David also wanted me to have a hand—literally—in the production of the artwork. For the cover, David put a parchment-like texture, covered with the words of the poem “Denial,” in the background, and put my handmade trace of Herbert’s portrait, enmeshed with two intersecting red bars (suggesting a cross and modern art), in the foreground. Inside the booklet, each track was given its own page. For tracks 2 through 6, we found stock images online that fit with the themes or imagery of each poem, and I traced them by hand just as I did the Herbert portrait. For track 1, “The Pulley,” we couldn’t find a good image of a pulley lowering a bucket, so I drew that from scratch. For track 7, “The Dedication,” David took a photo of my own outstretched hands for me to trace.

What I Would Do Differently

Herbert scholars and lovers of classic poetry generally may be horrified by what I’ve done with these poems, but I was relieved, on revisiting the album this week, that at least I didn’t do as much violence to the construction of the poems as I might have. My one regret in terms of respecting the source material is that the way I interpreted “Love I” and “Love II” ignores Herbert’s punctuation and line breaks. I had an underdeveloped understanding of the craft of poetry at the time of composing the tracks, but the semester I was finishing up the album I wrote another essay on Herbert, this time on “Easter Wings,” which helped me appreciate how Herbert uses line lengths and enjambment. If I had composed “Love I and II” even a few months later, I might have tried to pause a musical phrase only where there was a comma, period, or line break in the poem, so that the shape of the songs would always match the shape of the poems.   

The other things I would differently would be to not experiment so much with the stereo mix, and to not record the vocals for all the songs in a single half-day session. Granted, I was renting a recording booth and I had one chance to get it all right, but that wasn’t a good choice for my voice.

You Love Him More Than I Do

There is a scene somewhere in the second half of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life in which Fani Jägerstätter is praying for her husband, Franz, who is in prison and facing execution. Fani tells God, “You love him more than I do.” It is a moment of recognition that, if Franz should die for his faithfulness to God, it will not be because God abandoned him.

I don’t know if this line originated with Malick or if it came from his reading the real Franz and Fani’s letters. But in the past eleven months since I last watched the film, this statement, “You love him more than I do,” has been a comfort and help to me. 

The idea seems so obvious. If I am finite and God is infinite, He has an exponentially greater capacity for loving others than I do. Moreover, if am a sinner and God is holy, His love is pure and it is far wiser and more constant than mine. 

And yet, the idea that God loves my loved ones more than I do is hard to accept in practice. It is more intuitive to me, in my pride and from my limited frame of reference, to think that I know what would be the most loving thing to do for so-and-so—and for some reason God doesn’t see what I see and is failing to love so-and-so in that way. It also comes more naturally to me, when I don’t know what would be the most loving thing to do for so-and-so, to despair and think there is no remedy as he or she wanders in error or sinks deeper into suffering. I assume that if the situation is beyond me, it’s beyond God as well. I’ve also realized that I tend to think that if I don’t do something for so-and-so or pray to God and his or her behalf, so-and-so’s plight will escape God’s notice or fall further and further down His priority list. God is so busy managing the cosmos, after all, and if I don’t help him out with some of his minor administrative tasks, or if I don’t keep spamming his inbox with petitions, He may never get around to loving so-and-so in the way I think so-and-so needs to be loved. Indeed, I take for granted that if so-and-so’s sufferings increase, or if so-and-so departs from the faith or never receives the faith to begin with, I will be at fault because I did not love so-and-so enough to intervene in action and intercede in prayer at the most crucial moments. It sounds ridiculous to think this way once I say it loud, but this is how my mind works.      

“You love him more than I do” is an antidote to this way of thinking that, even though it purports to be about my love for others, is really more about propping up my skewed sense of my own importance.

First, it has made a difference in how I pray. Several times in the past eleven months, when my heart has ached over the situation of a loved one and how little I can do to help or don’t know where to start, God has graciously brought it to mind that He loves that person more than I do. If my heart, with its weak, imperfect love, aches for them, how much more is His heart, with its strong, perfect love, intensely moved for them—and not only moved, but moving to do something for them, even if I can’t see or understand it? If He is as all-powerful and all-wise as He is all-good, then can’t I trust Him to love them with that fierce, faithful, all-surpassing love of His in a way that will be truly best for them? When I remember this, it relieves me of the false burden of thinking I need to convince God to care about so-and-so or figure out for Him (presumptuous thought!) a strategic plan of response. Instead, when I don’t know what else to ask, I can pray, as Fani does in the film, “Lord, you love this person more than I do.” When I acknowledge that truth before God, I release the person into God’s care—or rather, acknowledge that the person was always in God’s care, not mine—and find myself more at peace.

Second, more recently I’ve realized that “You love him more than I do” is a counter to my over-scrupulosity and my paranoia about the possible effects of my actions or inaction, or what Faith Chang identifies as a Christian variation on perfectionism. In Chapter 7 of her helpful book Peace Over Perfection (The Good Book Company, 2024), Chang writes about how perfectionism can keep us from trusting God’s providence. Earlier I mentioned my fear that “I will be at fault because I did not love so-and-so enough to intervene in action and intercede in prayer at the most crucial moments.” Now, it is true that people bear responsibility for others, including their souls, but Chang reminds us that, “though Scripture affirms both human responsibility and God’s providence as equally real, they are not equal in influence. The Christian’s future is not ultimately determined by her own power to always know and do what is right but by the gracious providence of God” (p. 119). That’s good news! If it weren’t so, we would all be doomed—and doomed to doom others by our shortcomings and failures to love them well enough. Chang goes on to say that “it is the love of God for those I love which anchors me when I’m tossed around by regret and fear—his love and his power to accomplish his perfect will, in spite of my weaknesses” (p. 124). Thus, when I trust that God’s love for others is greater than mine, I can still take responsibility for loving them as well as I can, but I can do so without suffering under the debilitating presumption that my failure to love them could separate them from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). 

When I was reading this chapter a few weeks ago, the phrase “the love of God for those I love” immediately reminded me of Fani’s prayer in A Hidden Life. In fact, at the end of the chapter Chang includes “A Prayer for When You Fear Missing the Way (and for All That’s Left Undone),” which includes this almost-identical statement: “You love these dear ones more than I do” (p. 130). I wonder if Chang has seen the film. Either way, she confirms the liberating power of acknowledging this simple yet profound truth.

Ten Songs: Jon Foreman

Ten song recommendations, placed in release order, from the solo work of one of my favorite artists, Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman. 

1. Southbound Train (from Fall, 2007)  

2. Learning How to Die (from Winter, 2008)

3. A Mirror Is Harder to Hold (from Summer, 2008)

4. Instead of a Show (from Summer, 2008)

5. Terminal (from The Wonderlands: Sunlight, 2015)

6. Ghost Machine (from The Wonderlands: Shadows, 2015)

7. Your Love Is Enough (from The Wonderlands: Shadows, 2015)

8. Inner Peace (from The Wonderlands: Darkness, 2015) 

9. Side by Side (from Departures, 2021)

10. Antidote (from In Bloom, 2024)

Introducing Rearview Mirror

I just launched a Substack called Rearview Mirror, which I will be using to post a monthly recap of everything I published online the previous month (articles, Notebook posts, Jedi Archives posts, Letterboxd reviews, etc.). The debut post can be viewed here. For a streamlined way to keep up with all my work across the web, or to show your support, please subscribe to Rearview Mirror.

New Article: 32 Books for 32 Years

When I published the article “31 Albums for 31 Years” in August, I wrote that “Here’s hoping there will be a ‘31 Books for 31 Years’ article soon, and not a ‘32 Books for 32 Years’ article later!’” Oh well.

A P.S. on Letterboxd

In my last post, I explained the rating system I use when reviewing movies on Letterboxd, which I referred to as “Facebook for Film Buffs.” On that note, it’s worth noting and expressing my appreciation for how unlike Letterboxd is from Facebook and other social media platforms.

What with the recurring temptations to compare my circumstances to that of others or get angry at someone’s half-baked or insensitively-worded opinion, I’ve found checking Facebook to be spiritually hazardous. But checking Letterboxd does not tend to upset my mood if I’m having a good day or worsen my mood if I’m not. Sure, every once in a while I will read a film review on Letterboxd that bothers me, but that’s much better than getting depressed or worked up almost every time I check Facebook. I also have more control over what appears in my feed on Letterboxd than I do on Facebook. It helps that, whereas Facebook has become overrun with advertisements and the algorithm favors the “friends” who post the most, Letterboxd doesn’t disable my ad-blocking browser extension and I only follow a few other users. It also helps that I don’t know personally most of the users I follow: if I should decide to unfollow one of them, it’s less emotionally taxing to do so than to “unfriend” someone. 

I am not on any other social media platforms, but I feel reasonably confident in guessing that Letterboxd doesn’t feed into self-aggrandizing performativity like Instagram does, into political polarization like Twitter/X does, or into the diminishment of attention-spans like TikTok does. Maybe some Letterboxd users are bent on amassing followers by any means necessary, and no doubt some vitriolic users and comment sections should be avoided. Maybe there are some users who restlessly flit from page to page for hours on end without reading any of the longer, more substantive pieces of amateur criticism. But I don’t think the platform’s very architecture incentivizes these behaviors, as is the case elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to have the same addictive properties and character-deforming tendencies.  

Maybe the reason Letterboxd works so well as a social media platform is that it is about only one, and one very specific, thing: movies. People join the site because they love to watch movies, to read and write about them, and to share and find recommendations. There is no other reason to create an account. On other platforms, a user is more likely to be tempted to use his account to promote himself or his pet causes. But Letterboxd doesn’t work as well for crafting a public persona or building a brand. It doesn’t turn the user’s attention back on himself, but to something outside himself. 

Of course, the temptation that C. S. Lewis describes in The Great Divorce, to love what you have to say about something rather than love the thing itself, may be ever-present for anyone who engages in film criticism, online or anywhere. And Letterboxd does have serious flaws. But  they aren’t the same flaws as the ones that have made the other major social media platforms so destructive for individuals and our social fabric.

How I Rate Films

Five years ago, in the beginning of 2020, I started using a rubric when rating films on Letterboxd. I had been using this “Facebook for Film Buffs” website for logging and reviewing films for a few years already, but I became dissatisfied by the lack of precision and consistency in my star ratings. For example, two films could each receive four stars from me but for different or even conflicting reasons. So I created a rubric that takes into account each of the driving factors I consider when evaluating a film. It was an experiment at first, but five years of using it has proven its usefulness and reliability. I haven’t made any changes since I instituted the rubric in February 2020, except that one year later I added “Excellent Films” alongside “Favorite Films” as an alternate designation for five-star films—because not all the films I consider excellent are my most favorite, and not all my favorite films are the most excellent.

The rating system has four categories: Content, Craft, Rewatchability, and Recommendability. The first two categories are more objective and have to do with artistic quality. The second two are more subjective and have to do with whether or not I think the film worth dwelling on or commending to others. This way I can recognize a film for being well-made while registering my strong disliking for it, and I can celebrate a film I love even while acknowledging its flaws.

The Rubric:

CONTENT
5 points: A masterclass in screenwriting/storytelling
4 points: Accomplished screenwriting/storytelling
3 points: Skilled screenwriting/storytelling
2 points: Competent screenwriting/storytelling
1 point: Incompetent screenwriting/storytelling

CRAFT
5 points: A masterclass in filmmaking
4 points: Accomplished filmmaking
3 points: Skilled filmmaking
2 points: Competent filmmaking
1 point: Incompetent filmmaking

REWATCHABILITY
5 points: Film friend
4 points: I want to watch it again
3 points: I am open to watching it again
2 points: I am unlikely to watch it again
1 point: I won’t watch it again
0 points: I regret watching it at all

RECOMMENDABILITY
5 points: Strongly recommended
4 points: Recommended
3 points: Recommended with reservations
2 points: Ambivalent
1 point: Not recommended
0 points: Do not watch!

The Rating Scale:

The points from each category are added up, divided by four, and rounded up to the nearest whole or half star rating. To each star rating, I’ve attached a representative adjective (or two, in the case of five-star films) that I think fairly describes virtually all the films to receive that rating.  

19–20 Points = 5 Stars = Favorite/Essential Films
17–18 Points = 4.5 Stars = Excellent Films
15–16 Points = 4 Stars = Great Films
13–14 Points = 3.5 Stars = Good Films
11–12 Points = 3 Stars = Decent Films
9–10 Points = 2.5 Stars = Passable Films
7–8 Points = 2 Stars = Mediocre Films
5–6 Points = 1.5 Stars = Failed Films
3–4 Points = 1 Star = Bad Films
2 Points = 0.5 Star = Terrible Films

The Rationale: 

When evaluating Content, I am thinking about the narrative: plot, pacing, character development, dialogue, theme, and the moral vision or lack thereof implied by all of these. I think the best films in this category, what I call “Masterclasses in Screenwriting/Storytelling” (which I keep a running list of here), would be great picks for studying how to create narratives for the screen, stage, or page.

When evaluating Craft, I am thinking about all the big and little things the cast and crew are doing to realize the narrative through visual and auditory means: casting and acting, production design, cinematography, editing, music, sound design, and special effects. I think the best films in this category, what I call “Masterclasses in Filmmaking” (which I keep a running list of here), would be great picks for studying what these various arts can accomplish when used to their fullest potential.

I keep the Content and Craft categories separate, because a great script could be given less-than-great execution, and the beauties of an excellently-produced film can often make up for deficiencies in the storytelling.

I don’t give 0s in the Content or Craft categories, because even incompetently written or incompetently produced films evidence some talent behind them. How else would the project have seen the light of day and come to my attention, let alone persuaded me to give it a try? Having made some films myself and knowing how many skillsets and resources and how much perseverance and tenacity it requires to finish one, I’ll give any film some credit just for existing.

When evaluating Rewatchability, I am thinking about how much time I would want to spend with the film in the future. Is this a film I want to revisit? Is it one I can see myself rewatching many times? Here I am not only considering how much I enjoy the film but the shaping influence it could have on me: would that influence more likely be for good or for ill? I think the best films in this category, what I call “Film Friends” (which I keep a running list of here), are the ones that have had the most positive influence on me so far and the ones I want to keep having the strongest influence on me. (I got the term “Film Friends” from reading an article by my friend Timothy Lawrence.)

When evaluating Recommendability, I am thinking about how readily and enthusiastically I would encourage someone else to watch it. With so many films that one could benefit from watching, so many films that one could be harmed by watching, and so many films that, if nothing else, could be a waste of one’s time, I think I have a responsibility to others to make careful distinctions between levels of recommendation and levels of non-recommendation. I think the best films in this category, designated as “Strongly Recommended” films (which I keep a running list of here), are the ones I could most heartily encourage almost anyone to watch, provided it is appropriate to the person’s age or tastes.

I keep the Rewatchability and Recommendability categories separate, because there are some films I love for particularly anecdotal reasons and therefore others may not find the same value in them, and there are some films that I think everyone who values great filmmaking should see but I don’t have as personal a connection to them. 

It’s possible for a film to be so awful I would give it 0s in the Rewatchability and Recommendability categories, but in the past five years the worst scores I’ve given have been a few 1s. This is either because I’m too forgiving and hate being harsh; or it’s because I can reliably predict which films I would most regret watching and would most emphatically urge others not to watch, and so I won’t watch them to confirm my suspicions; probably it’s both.

Fun Facts:

• From the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2024, I rated 357 films with this rubric. 

• The score I assigned the most in those five years was 16 points (which translates to four stars), given to 69 films. The next most common score was 14 points (which translates to three-and-a-half stars), given to 49 films. This tells me my scoring system is well calibrated. I think there would be a problem—either with my system or with my critical disposition—if most films scored either very high, very low, or around the median.

• To date, the lowest score I have given to any film using this rubric is four points to Spider-Man: No Way Home. In contrast I have given a perfect score of 20 points to 31 films—not a few, but not many. I call the films that score fives in all four categories “The Essentials” (and keep a running list of them here).

• At the time of writing this post, I have 56 films listed as “Masterclasses in Screenwriting/Storytelling,” 77 films listed as “Masterclasses in Filmmaking,” 52 films listed as “Film Friends,” and 68 films listed as “Strongly Recommended.” This indicates, rightly, that I am most picky about what films I embrace as friends and the most broad-minded in how I judge something to be a masterclass in filmmaking. It must be because I am a writer and a literature scholar that I am more picky about what scripts I call masterclasses than I am picky about which films I can strongly recommend. The record of the past five years shows that my first desire for a film is that it be good for me; my second is that it tell a good story exceedingly well; my third is that it be good for others; and my fourth desire for a film is that it be made with excellence all around.

Some Thoughts on Burnout

How intent should Christians be on avoiding burnout? How do we balance Christ’s call to come to Him so He can give us rest from our labors (Matthew 11:28) with His other call to pick up our crosses to follow Him even unto death (Matthew 16:24)? 

This summer my pastor shared with me a Facebook post from another pastor who wrote that, with all the discourse about “soul care, sabbath’ing, and rest,” he is seeing a trend of younger pastors shrinking from the typical demands and sacrifices of ministry. The post made me wonder how many people may be using the fear of burnout as an excuse to not commit themselves to costly and exhausting acts of service. 

Not long after my pastor told me about that Facebook post, I read a blog post by Tim Challies (whose book Do More Better has been immensely helpful for my productivity) about how, despite how long and how hard he’s tried, he has never found a cure for his struggle to stay asleep. This reminded me of people I know (or know of) who have experienced chronic fatigue. But life goes on, and the people God has placed under our care still need whatever time and energy and attention we can give them. For some of us, at least, sleeplessness might be one of those Paulian thorns that reveal God’s power and all-sufficient grace through our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

These two posts put me in mind of something I had read a decade earlier in Kevin DeYoung’s Crazy Busy: “One of the reasons we struggle so mightily with busyness is because we do not expect to struggle” (Crossway, 2013, p. 103). When we expect or demand that our lives not be so busy, it makes the feelings of being overwhelmed worse. This, too, raises the question of whether we just need to accept tiredness as an unavoidable side effect of doing good work.

I think there’s truth in all this. If I had written this post in August when I first had the idea for it, I might have left the matter there. But then I went through a semester when I was at risk of burnout myself—until I lowered my expectations for what I could accomplish this semester and the next—and meanwhile I observed the ominous warning signs of burnout in a close friend. These experiences lead me to conclude that we do need to guard against burnout as much as we can, while also resisting the temptations to sloth and self-preservation. 

What that pastor posted on Facebook, warning against under-exertion, is a timely, needed corrective, but even he acknowledges that burnout exists and is harmful. And I suspect—because of what I know of my own predilections and of the many hard-working, driven people I’m surrounded by—that there are still many people out there who need to be warned against over-exertion. Some people who are scared at the thought of burning out may not even be close to it themselves, but those who are on the point of burning out risk far more than a season of exhaustion. I’m not thinking only of the risks of depression, of hospitalization, of needing years-long recovery, or of never fully recovering. The overworked also risk hurting those they are trying to help. As Christopher Ash warns in Zeal without Burnout, “The problem is that we do not sacrifice alone. It may sound heroic, even romantic, to burn out for Jesus. The reality is that others are implicated in our crashes. A spouse, children, ministry colleagues, prayer partners and faithful friends, all are drawn in to supporting us and propping us up when we collapse” (The Good Book Company, 2016, p. 24). Ash goes on to quote a pastor who is a volunteer firefighter: burnout is “a form of heroic suicide that is counterproductive because you’re now no longer effective in fighting fire and the resources that were dedicated to fighting the fire are not dedicated to saving you” (25). Moreover, as David Murray warns in Reset (Crossway, 2017), burnout can precede major moral lapses. His book opens with the warning, “Slow your pace, or you’ll never finish the race.”

Challies is right that God may withhold the gift of deep and thoroughly restorative sleep, but he also clarifies that we still have a responsibility to seek it. He writes, “I have decided I ought to receive this as God’s will—as a reality to be accepted rather than resented.” At the same time, “That doesn’t mean I won’t keep praying and won’t keep trying—praying for sleep and trying to get better at it. That doesn’t mean I won’t try the next herbal concoction someone recommends as the one that changed their life.” God can still use us when we are sleep-deprived, but Scripture, scientific studies, and street smarts all attest that He designed us to be at our best when we get good sleep. As Ash and Murray each argue in their respective books on burnout, to act as if God didn’t create us to be finite and sleep-dependent is dangerous hubris. So we should do what we can to sleep well, and above all trust God: trust Him to use sleep as He designed it, to restore us, and trust Him to sustain us even when good sleep eludes us. “Either way,” Challies concludes, “it falls to me to trust that he loves, that he cares, and that he knows best.”

I don’t need to nuance or counterbalance what DeYoung wrote, either, because he did so himself in that same chapter of Crazy Busy that’s haunted me so long. I remembered his startling diagnosis that “You Suffer More because You Don’t Expect to Suffer at All” and forgot the careful qualifications he placed around it. He writes, “This may seem a strange way to (almost) end a book on busyness. But keep in mind that this is the last of seven diagnoses, not the only one. … There’s a reason this chapter is not the only chapter in the book” (101). Even as DeYoung is concerned that “We simply don’t think of our busyness as even a possible part of our cross to bear” (103), he also reiterates that we need “rest, rhythm, death to pride, acceptance of our own finitude, and trust in the providence of God” (102). My takeaway from DeYoung is the same as the one I get from Challies: I should do what I can to rest in the midst of my work, and hold on to God’s goodness when that rest isn’t enough and the work won’t ease up. 

DeYoung is right to ask, “If we love others, how can we not be busy and burdened at least some of the time?” (105). So, to return to my opening question, we should be intent on avoiding burnout, but not on avoiding sacrifice. But as soon as I say that, I must also add that we should just as vigilantly guard against the martyr complex. DeYoung quotes John the Baptist: “I freely confess I am not the Christ” (48; see John 1:20). Neither are we! The questions we should be asking are: What are these sacrifices for, really? Will they be worth it? Are they actually for God and others, or are they for propping up our own egos? Or as DeYoung puts it, “Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?” (39). And do our sacrifices—of time, of sleep—proceed from unbelief in God’s redemptive involvement in all things and a proud self-reliance, or do they proceed from a bold confidence that God will use the seeds that fall into the ground and die to bring forth new life (John 12:24)?

Five Favorite Christmas Albums

A few months ago I published an article here on my website about my 31 favorite albums. In making that list, I excluded favorite Christmas albums from consideration, so here are 5 of them.

Behold the Lamb of God [20th Anniversary Edition] (2019) — Andrew Peterson et al. 

Christmas (1989) — Michael W. Smith

Christmas Portrait: The Special Edition (1984) — Carpenters  (Note: The Carpenters did multiple Christmas albums. This one is a amalgamation of selections from 1978’s Christmas Portrait and 1984’s An Old-Fashioned Christmas.)

 The Christmas Sessions (2005) — MercyMe

The Light Came Down (2016) — Josh Garrels