Rainbow: Zipman and Bobbin

Bent on destroying all laughter, Joker Geoffrey and his henchman Sourface Bungle have ransacked all the joke shops in Rainbow City. Zipman and Bobbin (the boy blunder) set out in the Zipmobile to stop them. Confronting them at their hideout, Zipman has to overcome his fears to teach the Joker the error of his ways.


Includes narration and animated scene-transitions.

Available here.
Clown hat tip: Herschel.

SPUC Evangelicals Conference 2010

With Pope Benedict XVI flying in this weekend to, among other things, go for a stroll within walking distance of my house, my mum and I evacuated from London to instead attend this year's SPUC Evangelicals (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) conference up in Derbyshire.

Hang on, that sounds like we were avoiding him. In fact, I think the opposite was true. You see, actually there is no annual SPUC Evangelicals conference. Usually it's just a blanket SPUC conference which various denominations attend, however this year the simultaneous papal visit significantly robbed the event of catholics, and hence the evangelical focus.

(I still can't quite nail down what 'evangelical' means though)



If, for me, last year's conference had been about hearing all the excellent international speakers, then this year it was about meeting so many fascinating attendees, as it seemed as though everyone present held some sort of Christian ministry occupation. Some had spent their lifetime serving in the worldwide mission field, others were involved with the UN, and still another was publishing a Christian magazine. Despite my own Christian broadcasting activities, I felt sincerely humbled.

So, a great weekend, and an inspiring one too.


Fig. 1: My mum and I taking a break from selling books! (photo: thanks Marcia!)

The Wrong Jeans

So I have this pair of second-hand jeans that I've been wearing for the last three years, and today I actually bothered to read the label.

"WOMENS".


Well, needless to say, I was one cross dresser.

A Bottle Of Bleach Can Get You Legless

Today, after bleaching the patio, I began to mow the lawn, and became aware of a prickling sensation in my ankle.

Looking down, I saw that I had a rash there, across both ankles.

Then I realised that the rash was not in fact on my skin, but on my socks.

Then I realised that the 'rash' was in fact splashes of bleach.

Then I realised that the prickling sensation was being caused by the bleach burning through the socks and into my skin.

Given how long it took me to realise my carelessness, I'm glad I hadn't mown the lawn first.

Octopussy (movie)

James Bond movies like this one make me wonder why Mike Myers even bothers.

The plot is just as outlandish as Austin Powers, the innuendo as relentless, and the comedy just as intentional. How can it be anything else when 007, with mere minutes available to him, perfectly disguises himself as a fully made-up clown in order to diffuse an atomic bomb and save civilisation from the Soviets?

Between this panto and the straight drama of entries like Licence To Kill, the ongoing Bond film series covers quite a spectrum, which perhaps contributes to its enduring wide appeal.

The action and set pieces are terrific too, thanks to the filmmakers treating such silliness with such seriousness. This is one action-adventure that constantly looks like it's just about to finish, yet each grand finale keeps giving way to yet another.

Here's hoping that Austin Powers stays this daft.

Available here.

Four Weddings And A Funeral

More fun than funny (although it's that too) Brit-flick which does exactly what it says on the title card.

Ah yes, the title - a bit ingenious that. When you've been so well primed at the outset for each of the movie's five acts, the time just flies by. After all, none of them can last much longer than 15 minutes, ensuring that each segment is fairly packed.

And more than anything else, this film is packed with characters.

Charles: "How do you do, my name is Charles."
Old man: [aghast] "Don't be ridiculous. Charles died 20 years ago."
Charles: "Must be a different Charles, I think."
Old man: [outraged] "Are you telling me I don't know my own brother!?"

With such a catalogue of crazy individuals on display, many of them only enjoying a few lines, we can only wonder just how much priceless material author Richard Curtis had to cut.

Fiona: "There's a sort of greatness to your lateness."
Charles: "Thanks, it's not achieved without real suffering."

I guess it's no coincidence that Curtis is best known as a six-part TV sitcom writer…

Charles: "I seem to be stuck in the wedding from Hell - ghosts of girlfriends past at every turn. Next thing I'll bump into Henrietta and the nightmare will be complete."
Henrietta: "Hello Charles."
Charles: "Hello Hen, how are you?"
[Hen bursts into tears]

There were only two characters who didn't work for me:

1. Rowan Atkinson's over-the-top performance as Father Gerald. Just too silly for a film that depends upon believability.

2. At the other end of the spectrum, Andie MacDowell's generic lead female Carrie has - oddly - no originality. Surrounded by so many more distinct personalities, she comes off as rather boring by comparison. Well, maybe that's what Hugh Grant's Charles sees in her.

Afterwards I rewound the tape to check the odd actor who I thought I'd recognised (Kenneth Griffiths!), and found myself getting drawn into it again.

Although the plot is quite simple, I guess it's the characters who make the whole thing so watchable, so it's no wonder that it's gone on to become so popular.

Available here.

THE BIBLE in the Beginning… / The Robe / Demetrius And The Gladiators

A boxset (well, sleeveset) of three Biblically inspired epics from Twentieth Century Fox…

THE BIBLE in the Beginning…


The book was better.

Alternatively, if you've ever found the Bible to be inaccessible and slow-going, then this big-budget extravaganza won't let you down.

Ooh, that's a bit of a back-handed compliment, and yet no matter how much I wanted to like this, the fact is that I spent every second waiting for it to finish.

I love the purity of the film-maker's apparent intentions - to film the entire Bible in painstakingly inoffensive detail - but this sticks so closely to the original text that it seems afraid to really interpret it. The acting, the pacing, the script, the editing… in 167 minutes we never even make it half way through Genesis.

Admittedly, such grand production standards probably had a lot more spectacle on the big screen, which of course it was somewhat robbed of by our 26" TV.

Available here.
The Robe (CinemaScope version)


An absolutely fine script, played very well by the cast, and with a momentum that just keeps on growing.

This intelligent story of how three very different people come to faith around the time of Christ's death and resurrection took a bit of getting into initially, but gradually drew me in via strong characterisation and a very well realised world.

Although the Easter story is well known, that of the early apostles is less so, however this narrative fleshes out the church of the first everyday Christians - not the famous ones - with care and thought.

I think it's even better than Ben Hur.

Available here.
Demetrius And The Gladiators


Sequel to The Robe, which throws enough challenges at the key surviving character's faith to break it.

Demetrius (Victor Mature) loses his freedom, his friends, and the woman he loves, all the while attempting to remain true to his convictions about Jesus' message of peace and non-hostility. Faced with fighting another gladiator to the death, he refuses, knowing that it will be the end of him. Faced with fighting a tiger to the death… well, he's not so sure about that one.

Eventually, despite all his experiences in the first film, he goes over to the dark side, which is great deep stuff, right up until when it conveniently turns out that his lady love was not dead after all. Really, there's no message of Jesus' hope for the hopeless in there.

For me, the highlight of perhaps both movies has to lie in Jay Robinson's bonkers portrayal of Emperor Caligula, whose paranoid delusions of godhood make him not just the villain, but surely also the comic relief. Whenever Chris Barrie plays Arnold Rimmer going mad in Red Dwarf, this must be the lunatic he's basing it on…

"Release the tigers!"

"We will proceed with the marriage of life and death!"

"Mackerel!" (I now understand his henchman to have actually been called 'Macro', but nonetheless various commands do seem to be enthusiastically issued to one 'Mackerel')

Worthy sequel, made all the more special by their rarity in this era.

Available here.

Local Christian Writers Group Meeting

Tarka The Otter

Live action wildlife stories tend to have a mesmerising effect on me.

I say this because although they tend to look terribly dull at the outset, they do have a way of quickly drawing me in. Maybe it's because such fictions contain such a powerful edge of real life running through them, combining the best elements from both in a way that neither style can ever hope to accomplish on its own.

Bearing this in mind, my mum and dad's VHS copy of 1979's Tarka The Otter surprised me this morning, simply because it failed to hook me in for such a long time. Tarka's initial environment is such a cold harsh place, so far away from the comfortable living room in which I was sitting, that I didn't much want to go spend time there.

When, gallingly orphaned, Tarka presently leaves his childhood tree trunk to go and seek his fortune, in terms of cosiness his new locations aren't much of an improvement. I know, I just wasn't empathising here. Typical comfort zone human, me.

Yet as the authors progressively drew whatever parallels they could find between the life story of an otter and the average homo sapien, I had to admit that I was starting to root for the watery little fella, even if he was turning out to be a bit of a hothead.

Despite everything I've said so far, this believable narrative ultimately becomes hindered by the more traditional human actors, who keep popping up every few scenes to snap us out of the realistic documentary feel and into the plain scripted fiction of films again. A little improvisation here might have cushioned the blow.

The final sequence - in which Tarka is being hounded across the countryside by, uh, hounds - just goes on forever, and as a result is riveting. It all makes the ambiguous conclusion infuriating, and yet as a result also one that I don't think I'll forget in a hurry.

Every so often a movie makes me feel sad inside, and if I'm honest, those are often the ones that have really done their job.

All the same, I've never quite understood why we willingly pay money for people to make us feel down.

Available here.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Just to be clear, this is the fourth film in the series, which as such should have been called Batman Forever. Batman Forever, which introduced Robin, should have been called Batman & Robin. Instead, they are the other way around.

Yes, of course that's ridiculous, but then so are the other 124 minutes of this - Joel Schumacher's widely derided live-action cartoon.

Thanks to such silliness, this movie seems to be considered the non-synoptic one of the series, and yet it's really only continuing the trend of previous entries.

Once more, there are plenty of good gags in here - prime examples including Alfred's (Michael Gough) closing punchline, and anything Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) says - however despite these belly-laughs, I actually don't think it's funny enough. I mean it's all very well for Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) to deliver a monologue out loud to herself to telegraph how intentionally campy the whole style is, but that's just not the same thing as including a few actual jokes in there.

Some of the big action sequences, though mightily impressive, fail to carry much tension either. Again, some more of that daftness would have given me a reason to watch, just as stronger characterisation might have made me care more about the outcome.

Speaking of which, Chris O'Donnell returns as Robin, but maybe wishes that he hadn't, as his tortured journey in the last film is replaced here by shallow youthful lust. Eurgh.

Given that hotheaded young Robin is still settling in at Wayne Manor, this film appears to follow straight on from its predecessor, which might be fine, but for the revelation that Bruce Wayne has suddenly been in a steady relationship for over a year. Which means that, in the preceding film, when we saw him getting together with Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), it now turns out that he was actually cheating on poor Julie Madison (Elle Macpherson).

Speaking of the title character, as I suppose we should briefly, George Clooney plays a quite different version of Bruce Wayne to Michael Keaton's earlier take, but effortlessly gets away with it. However neither his employment in the title role, nor his A-list status, proves quite enough to secure him top billing on the film, which once again goes to the guest villain. Still wrong.

The film's triumphs however lie in its ubiquitous one-liners, enormous action sequences, and clever ideas. If Gotham's outrageous architecture doesn't do it for you, then maybe the notion of giant mirrors revolving the planet and lining up with each other will. Sure, someone falls into a vat of chemicals again, and a ridiculous number of people get frozen and thawed out to little ill-effect, but I guess we viewers just have to dumb-down to the film-makers' level on that one.

Batman And Robin is good escapist fun, and when watched as such doesn't disappoint. If you were hoping for another serious entry in this series, then as you know that ship sailed with Batman Returns.

Available here.
(with thanks to Herschel)

Related reviews:
Batman (1989)
Batman Returns
Batman Forever

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

A GROUNDBREAKING MANIFESTO ON THE MEANING OF LIFE

This book will help you understand why you are alive and God's amazing plan for you - both here and now, and for eternity. Rick Warren will guide you through a personal 40-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for?

The blurb obviously worked.


I first read the famous 40-day Bible-study to discover one's purpose in life after purchasing it from the late lamented Matamata Christian Bookshop in March 2004, and duly gave it the stipulated 40 days in which to prove itself.

By the end, I'd found it to be a keen advocate for Christian culture in the early 21st century, which is perhaps a little at loggerheads with its repeated criticisms of that very same thing. Several chapters fit in a line about how so many Christians today have got it wrong.

For many people, worship is just a synonym for music. They say, "At our church we have the worship first, and then the teaching." This is a big misunderstanding. [p.65]

Surely any popular definition of a word is correct?

Today many equate being emotionally moved by music as being moved by the Spirit, but these are not the same. [p.102]

Christians often differ on the most appropriate or authentic way to express praise to God, but these arguments usually just reflect personality and background differences. [p.102]

Sadly, many Christians use the church but don't love it. [p.132]

Many Sunday school classes and small groups are stuck in superficiality and have no clue as to what it's like to experience genuine fellowship. [p.139]

Today many assume that spiritual maturity is measured by the amount of biblical information and doctrine you know. [p.183]

In one of his most misunderstood statements Jesus said, "I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings."{Luke 16:9 NIV} Jesus did not mean for you to "buy" friends with money. [p.302]

Boy, I'm glad I'm not one of those bozos. Hang on, is anybody?

If this world-weary tone didn't already make for reluctant enough consideration, I also found the prose's habit of swapping between the first, second and third person to feel a bit pre-judgemental on occasion too.

Your unspoken life metaphor influences your life more than you realize. [p.42]

If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. [p.66]

The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, "Who's going to meet my needs?" and starts asking, "Whose needs can I meet?" Do you ever ask that question? [p.231 - emphases in original]

To all excuses God will respond, "Sorry, wrong answer. I created, saved, and called you and commanded you to live a life of service. What part did you not understand?" [p.232 - emphasis in original]

Unity is the soul of fellowship. Destroy it, and you rip the heart out of Christ's Body. [p.160]

All right, that was a hypothetical 'you', wasn't it?

So rereading this book again over seven years later, I was curious to discover if any developments in my own faith would become evident in my reactions to it.

For example, last time I began it with a reading partner in order to daily discuss each chapter's contents. These days I know I've become quite solitary, so this time it's been just me and God.

Also, this time I've read it all out loud. I do that sometimes with books.

One thing that hasn't changed though is that, both times through, I've found sections of the book to be quite challenging, comforting, encouraging, and inspiring.

In many religions, the people considered to be the most spiritually mature and holy are those who isolate themselves from others in mountaintop monasteries, uninfected by contact with other people. But this is a gross misunderstanding. Spiritual maturity is not a solitary, individual pursuit! You cannot grow to Christlikeness in isolation. You must be around other people and interact with them. You need to be a part of a church and community. [p.176]

Pain is the fuel of passion - it energizes us with an intensity to change that we don't normally possess. C. S. Lewis said, "Pain is God's megaphone." It is God's way of arousing us from spiritual lethargy. Your problems are not punishment; they are wake-up calls from a loving God. [p.98]

God gives us different passions so that everything he wants done in the world will get done. [p.293]

In fact, there have been several sections that I have marked this time with an approving asterisk, to return to again later. This demonstrates one thing about my reading style which has increased over the past seven years - my tendency to make notes.

Don't just read this book. Interact with it. Underline it. Write your own thoughts in the margins. Make it your book. Personalize it! [p.10]

Whew! This time I didn't start scribbling until I'd got a few chapters in, and found that there were already notes in there, apparently from my younger self, and one other unknown individual.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that all those positive asterisks are easily outnumbered by my recent disapproving crosses and astounded exclamation marks.

Basically, the key change here is that while I think all of my notes last time had been to mark points that I'd found helpful, this time I was more often highlighting fails.

Mainly because, these days, I actually check-out and read all the Bible references.

That's no small order with this book, containing as it does maybe 1,200 of them. (source: the ever helpful back cover again)

Granted, many of them are the same quotations (eg. chapter 17 cites Romans 12:5 three times in succession), and I didn't always have access to the correct translation, but I found this was all a really good opportunity to practice finding my way about in the good book. Well, around the last quarter of it anyway, as the majority of quotes seemed to come from the New Testament. A few of them turned out to not be Bible references after all, as of course is the way with most endnotes.

However, these endnotes are also where I found the book's arguments to repeatedly collapse. The instances in which its citations are out of context, unsupportive of the point being made, open to interpretation, or just plain erroneous, are too disappointingly numerous to catalogue in full here, but I will offer a few examples:

Out of context:

If perfection was a requirement for friendship with God, we would never be able to be his friends. Fortunately, because of God's grace, Jesus is still the "friend of sinners."1 [p.92-93]

The endnote there refers to Jesus' critical words in Matthew 11:19, which I'll quote from the NIV:

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners".' But wisdom is proved right by her actions.''

Uh, those hypothetical people meant those things as insults, right?

You may have been unaware that God holds you responsible for the unbelievers who live around you. The Bible says, "You must warn them so they may live. If you don't speak out to warn the wicked to stop their evil ways, they will die in their sin. But I will hold you responsible for their death." [p.283]

Actually that's God addressing Ezekiel about the Israelites to whom he is to prophesy. (Ezekiel 3:18 NCV)

Unsupportive of the point being made:

God's Word is the spiritual nourishment you must have to fulfil your purpose. The Bible is called our milk, bread, solid food, and sweet desert.7 [p. 186]

That endnote cites four verses, which I'll quote here again from the NIV:

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

- 1 Peter 2:2

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

- Matthew 4:4

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

- 1 Corinthians 3:2

How sweet are your words to my taste,
sweeter than honey to my mouth!

- Psalm 119:103

The Bible says that all people, not just believers, possess part of the image of God; that is why murder and abortion are wrong.2 [p.172]

The endnotes, again taken from the NIV:

This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.

- Genesis 6:9

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

- Psalm 139:13-16

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.

- James 3:9

Whew - maybe they should have just gone with that final one? I think that first quote must be a typo, and indeed there are a few others of those to be found too. (eg. chapter 35 endnote 22 is actually Hebrews 4:15, not verse 1, but I digress)

Open to interpretation:

His faith was strong in the midst of pain: "God may kill me, but still I will trust him." [p.112]

The actual quote - from Job 13:15 in the CEV - has its own footnote containing an alternative translation: Or "God will surely kill me; I have lost all hope."

Jesus regarded this recognition of our need as being "poor in spirit." It's the number one attitude he blesses. [p.273]

To clarify, in the cited Bible reference (Matthew 5:3), the "poor in spirit" beatitude is indeed the first one to be stated.

Your mission is so significant that Jesus repeated it five times, in five different ways, in five different books of the Bible. [p.282]

That's the great commission being discussed there, which I thought was just one event, related by several different authors.

Jacob was a manipulator who spent his life scheming and then running from the consequences. One night he wrestled with God and said, "I'm not letting go until you bless me." God said, "All right," but then he grabbed Jacob's thigh and dislocated his hip. What is the significance of that?

God touched Jacob's strength (the thigh muscle is the strongest in the body) and turned it into a weakness. From that day forward, Jacob walked with a limp so he could never run away again. [p.277]

It's only implied that the wrestler was God, who actually dislocated Jacob's hip before he was asked for the blessing, not in response to it. (Genesis 32:24-32, actually not referenced in this book) I don't know where the thoughts in that final sentence come from. I'll file that in the same folder as page 71's intriguing It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. (which has no reference either)

Which segues into…

Erroneous:

That is why on six different occasions Paul used his testimony to share the gospel instead of quoting Scripture. [p.291]

The corresponding endnote cites Acts 22 to 26 to support this, within which Paul only uses his testimony twice.

In the author's defence, he does seem at least partially aware of some of the risk he's running:

I have footnoted over a thousand Scriptures used in this book for you to study in their context. Please read appendix 3, which explains why this book uses so many different translations and paraphrases. To keep these chapters to a size for daily reading, I was unable to explain the fascinating context of most of the verses used. But the Bible is intended to be studied by paragraphs, chapters, and even entire books. [p.307]

Also, part of that very appendix states:

My model for this is Jesus and how he and the apostles quoted the Old Testament. They often just quoted a phrase to make a point. [p.325]

Good words.

However, maybe it's just me, but I do come with the presumption that citations of scripture in a Christian book are made to support the prose, rather than a combination of that and further reading.

And then, I'm sorry, there are all the problems that I had with the book's own text, at least some of which I had last time too.

Self-evident contradictions:

Worship must be based on the truth of Scripture, not our opinions about God. [p.101]

Decide that regardless of culture, tradition, reason, or emotion, you choose the Bible as your final authority. [p.187]

We don't realize how truly unique each of us is. [p.244]

DNA molecules can unite in an infinite number of ways. The number is 10 to the 2,400,000,000th power. [p.244]

I once heard the suggestion that you develop your life purpose statement based on what you would like other people to say about you at your funeral. Imagine your perfect eulogy, then build your statement on that. Frankly, that's a bad plan. [p.317]
There is no greater epitaph than that statement! Imagine it chiseled on your tombstone: That you served God's purpose in your generation. My prayer is that people will be able to say that about me when I die. [p.318]

And finally, a few statements that I'm afraid I just flatly disagreed with:

Surrendered people obey God's word, even if it doesn't make sense. [p.80]

Every possible emotion is catalogued in the Psalms. [p.94]

What had Jesus been doing for thirty years that gave God so much pleasure? The Bible says nothing about those hidden years except for a single phrase in Luke 2:51… [p.96]

Children only think of themselves; grown-ups think of others. [p.299]

You haven't really studied the Bible unless you've written your thoughts down on paper or computer. [p.189]

In summary, I think The Purpose Driven Life is well worth reading, considering, and healthily disagreeing with where appropriate. Pacing it over 40 days is certainly a good idea if planning to validate all those quotes!

So, finally, after 40 days, twice, with over seven years in-between, just what is my purpose in life?

Still working on it. In fact, in some ways I think I feel more alive not knowing.

:)

Available here.

God Does Play Favourites

So tonight I'm on my way to Tesco with my mum to buy myself two fudge-flavoured Frijj drinks (my favourite) in their temporary two-for-one offer, when I see a tramp sitting outside. I think I've seen him there before, so I suppose that I really ought to ask him if there's anything that I can get for him from Tesco.

This is, of course, not going to happen.

Once inside the shop, I wonder if I should perhaps get him a bar of chocolate or something, since I'm getting one of them for my mum anyway. However, I reason that this would be a case of my giving him what I wanted to give, rather than what he wanted to receive.

This is, of course, not going to happen either.

Then I realise that one of the two favourite fudge-flavoured Frijj drinks that I'm getting under Tesco's temporary two-for-one offer is, of course, free.

So after making the purchase, as I pass him again outside, I questioningly flash at him the favourite fudge-flavoured Frijj drink that I've got for free in Tesco's temporary two-for-one offer, and his face lights up, so I give it to him.

And he gasps at me, "How did you know? These are my favourite!"