An allegory...

... representing ... ah... I'm not yet sure what. I've never before thought of a movie as "mysterious" -- but that was my strongest impression of "Gerry". Other adjectives include dark, frightening, slow, repetitive, slow, haunting, luminous, odd, preposterous, challenging ... Obviously (to this discriminating viewer!) the surface story isn't really the point. But while puzzling over deeper meanings, I enjoyed stunning desert vistas (a killer app for HDTV... I would presume) and breathtaking music (Arvo Part's "Alina"; that's actually how I learned of this movie). Parts of it reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi; but it's much more demanding of the viewer. Funny, its ratings at both imdb and amazon are right in the middle -- half of viewers think it's among the best movies ever, and the other half found it an insulting waste of time. (Kind of like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.)

Logs, Hogs, & Dogs

All that time spent building the montage to your left from this image and that one in The GIMP..! Neither the image nor the title (above) were polished or -ah- subtle; but each got a laugh in my talk at Crave this afternoon (on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, of course). We considered Jesus' fairly one-sided words about judgmentalism (he never gives an out, an "on the other hand" message to relieve the tension); and we reflected on how we deal with people different from ourselves in their temperament, theology, politics, age, culture, etc. We wrote on wood planks the things that blinded / impeded us, ... then nailed the two pieces together to form a cross. (A bit too "clever" perhaps, but I thought of it a couple days ago & couldn't resist.) Jenny provided a perfect Celtic music mix - barely there if you weren't paying attention, stunning if you were. Now if only we could persuade more people to come.