Yes, Virginia, there is a world without soul-destroying alien sky gods, and it is grand. I’m talking about Pandora. It’s not a real world, but for three hours it can be yours, and you can revel in it and enjoy the seething disapproval of conservative Christians at the idea of a fulfilling religion without their god.

It is chock full of spirituality – ethnic spirituality – in other words, Paganism – religion of the place and its inhabitants are truly people of the place. The people are called the Na’vi. And you find them in James Cameron’s Avatar.

It’s exciting. A people so much a part of their environment, and a spirituality so much a part of both. We can imagine that early Paganism was like this, being a religion of the place, shaped by but also shaping the people, shaped by the environment but also shaping understanding of the environment. Organic. It belongs. It belongs in a sense an imposed alien sky religion never can.

You can probably assume that the bulk of the human mercenaries working for the exploiters of the planet are Christian – or at least monotheistic – that would be logical given the balance of the world’s religion is monotheistic. But it’s not even implied. In fact, it’s never mentioned.

The spirituality reminded me of the spirituality of Dances with Wolves. It was, perhaps, even discussed a bit more in this film. The goddess of the natives is a “she” – Eywa - and if you want you can take away from the film the explanation is that the “goddess creator” thing is a spiritual understanding of a scientific explanation mentioned in the film or you can take away the opposite understanding. It doesn’t really matter because what’s important is the spirituality so beautifully expressed.

It was very refreshing. Very beautiful. Very pure. Very much the religion of a world filled with the divine.

The spirituality is so organic to the place that you are transported. And Heathens will not walk away without images of the World Tree – Yggdrasil, in their heads.

Ross Douthat’s 12/21 column in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html exemplifies the “offended” attitude. For Douthat, pantheism can never be more than a poor replacement for a real religion with a real Jesus to lift folks out of the “mundane” world.  He felt threatened by the Force too, in Star Wars. I almost responded on the 21st to Douthat’s column, but I wanted a chance to see the film for myself first.

And now I have.

By no means did all Christian reviewers condemn the movie for its non-Christian spirituality. For example, Christian Spotlight on Entertainment gives it an morality “offensive” rating http://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2009/avatar2009.html but this is for language and misuse of “God’s” name rather than the nature of the film’s spiritual message. Similarly, I have to give credit to Christianity Today’s review as well http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/reviews/2009/avatar.html

It’s also been pointed out that though Disney’s new Princess and the Frog has voodoo but no Christianity. But why should it? The argument I’ve seen raised that because the New Orleans of the era was an in your face Christian city doesn’t mean that there weren’t parts and people in New Orleans that weren’t.

Why should every movie made have a Christian theme, or even a Christian in it, as though Christians are the only people on the planet?

One reviewer  http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/18/conservative-christians-dont-crown-princess-and-the-frog/ actually has the temerity to say, “Not so much for the 1920s New Orleans of “The Princess and the Frog.” As with most of the Potter series, there’s not even a tip of the hat toward explicit traditional religion.”

Excuse me, but “traditional religion” is Paganism. It is not Christianity

Very few movies are made today about Paganism – or that even have Pagan themes. Only one recently even portrays it in a sympathetic fashion – Gladiator – and the piety of Maximus to traditional religion was roundly condemned as dangerous – it lacked Jesus after all and so could not possibly be meaningful or fulfilling.

Most movies, regardless of what conservative Christians might say, are full of Christians. Ordinary Christians going about their ordinary lives, not preaching, not witnessing, not bothering anybody but keeping their religious beliefs to themselves. Characters wear crosses around their necks; often, the central characters, one or more of them. They don’t talk about their beliefs but do they need to?

If this is somehow anti-Christian I fail to see it. But the moment any character looks even remotely non-Christian it becomes a bit deal to some of these people. Non-Christian religions should not be portrayed in a sympathetic light, apparently – only Christianity – anything else somehow equates to a Hollywood war on Christianity.

It’s madness I know, but those are the cards we have been dealt as a religious minority – listening to the majority whine because 99.99% isn’t enough – they want 100%. What these critics really want is a return to the days of Ben Hur and Spartacus, where Christianity not only gets mention, but Paganism gets denigrated in the same breath.

It isn’t a question of equal representation for them – it’s a privileging of their viewpoint they demand and a concomitant rejection of all others.

And the suggestion that the release of Avatar at this time of year could be a slap in the face to “believers”? These people need to remember this is our time of the year – a holy time for Pagan peoples across the board, and that even non-Christians are entitled to entertainment on December 25.

New York Times has a good review of the movie here looking at it from yet another perspective:  Editorial Observer

I got hold of a copy of Outlander (2008) in the Blockbuster “2 for $20″ bin the other day. This film apparently came out with limited release, so I had never had an opportunity to see it at the theater, and for the longest time I was completely unaware of its existence. According to Wikipedia, Outlander “had a wide release on January 23, 2009 at 81 theaters and grossed $59,581 at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend. As of January 27, 2009 the film grossed $72,096 at the U.S. box office and $3,668,658 at the box office worldwide.” It comes packaged as a “Blockbuster Exclusive” and I’ve had mixed success with these.

But what attracted me to it were 1) Vikings, 2) the cast, and 3) aliens…and in that order. There are few enough films made with Vikings in them so I have an instant desire to watch any of them to see what the filmmaker has done. In this case, it’s to take another twist of the Beowulf story, but interjecting an alien hero (John Caviezel) into the Beowulf role (Karl Urban was originally slated for the part) and an alien monster he happens to be mortal enemies with into the Grendel role. Also in the cast is the lovely Sophia Myles as Freya (not the goddess) who you’ll have seen in Underworld as a bitchy vampire, Ron Perlman (Hellboy), and John Hurt as King Rothgar (without the “H”).

We’re not talking Lord of the Rings here, but Outlander is a good film. It is similar to Beowulf but like 13th Warrior and Sturla Gunnarsson’s Beowulf and Grendel (2005) offers some interesting twists. In Gunnarsson’s film, it is the sins of Hrothgar himself that bring Grendel’s wrath down upon his people. In Outlander, it is the sins of the Beowulf character, Caviezel’s Kainan. It also works because it offers us enough back-story to make sense of Kainan’s motivations – not to mention the monster’s, here called a Moorwen.

The acting is good. The script is not brilliant but it is also good. That comes as no surprise to me because the writer, Howard McCain, also wrote the screenplay to 2009’s Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. The cinematography is better than I expected and the scenery is gorgeous. According to Wikipedia, filming was done at Halifax and Nine Mile River, Nova Scotia, as well as at the Bay of Islands, Newfoundland, “which was found by a production designer who looked at photos of Newfoundland’s west coast after rejecting scouted locations New Zealand and British Columbia. The bay possessed an inlet that simulated part of a fjord for the film.”

The set was very nicely done. An actual village was built, complete with long houses and a hall and a nice big vat of frothing mead. They even built a real Viking ship, which was, I think, a nice touch. This was not a budget sci-fi film. Some attempt, at least, was made to present 8th century Norse life in a realistic manner. There is even a Christian priest who declaims against the gods and is insulted in turn and whose fate will bring a smile to your face, guaranteed (If you remember 1981’s Dragonslayer, you will know what I mean).

I had a few bones to pick with some of the things said by the Vikings about fate, that all is decided by the gods, but Freya had a nice line: “If you truly believe that you write the tale of your life, then the end is up to you.” Which, I think, captures the essence of Beowulf and the Viking spirit perfectly.

All in all, I recommend Outlander and I feel the $10 spent on it was not at all wasted.

I wanted to point people to my new editorial piece on CenterLeft.info: Re-Inaugurating the Enlightenment. It’s brief, but it’s how I feel.

I haven’t finished my next post on this blog, which has to do with places of Heathen sacrifice. These pieces are more than simple opinion but require a deal of research. I hope to have it up in the next day or so.

I escaped yesterday to see a movie, Gran Torino. I highly recommend it. I’ll give it 5 out of 5. It is definitely one of the better films I’ve seen this year, and that was despite the theater turning on the A/C partway through (though it was about 10 degrees outside at the time).

I watched the inauguration today. I hope you all had a chance to see a bit of it as well. Inspired, I decided to start a new blog, called Restitutor Orbis, which means “Restorer of the World.” I think Obama already deserved this as he has restored the most precious commodity of all: Hope.

My purpose in starting this new blog is mostly personal, to journal the events of the Obama presidency for my 4-year-old son, so that someday he can look back and read about the years that will so strongly impact the rest of his life.

My goal is to simply make a daily post, reflecting on the news of the day, much as I would in a diary or journal. But this way I can include maps, photographs, etc, which will highlight the events of the next four (hopefully eight) years.

Here is a toast to Hope!

I finally got a chance to see the 2005 Sturla Gunnarsson film Beowulf and Grendel. I’ll keep the spoilers to a minimum, but overall, it was a good film, a “good butt” movie as my brother would say, and a 7 on the 0-10 scale. It was a little disjointed in places and I am not sure if that was from poor editing or a sign that Gunnarsson was not certain at all times where he was going with the film. The dialog was good and the actors excellent, particularly Gerard Butler and Sarah Polley, and of course, my favorite, Stellan Skarsgård as King Hrothgar. The screenplay was generally true to the saga, though of course it had to “fill out” the story or it would have made for a 20 minute film. The general attitude of the filmmakers were that the original story was a Pagan story that some Christian monk had written down and gotten all wrong. I think that is a fair assumption to make, and their treatment in particular of Heathen religion was fair and sympathetic. They showed the king’s mead hall being blooded by a gothi (ON goði) a Heathen priest, and if anyone came across looking foolish it was Saint Brendan, the missionary who washes up on shore and sings the praises of his God to Hrothgar, who asks, “Is he any good with trolls?” The attitude of Beowulf towards Brendan is suitably disdainful (watching a baptism in a river he says, “They swim because they are afraid”) and happily he never makes the mistake of conversion. Hrothgar, in true pragmatic Norse fashion, ends up wearing both a hammer and a cross “because you never know” but that, at least, seems to have some historical foundation. Finally, the scenery was truly breathtaking. Filmed in Iceland instead of Denmark (to which place the screenwriter, Andrew Rai Berzins, professed never to have been) it presents us with a stark, beautiful world. If it is not the forests and moors of Denmark, it is at least visually stunning and a lovely backdrop to such a story. One final note on detail that I particularly enjoyed: In LOTR when they built the set for Meduseld, Jackson was hailed for finding such a remote, beautiful spot at the mercy of the elements, but all of Beowulf and Grendel seemed to be filmed at such a spot. Moreover, the interior of the mead hall was really the interior of the mead hall, whereas in LOTR the interior scenes of Meduseld were filmed on a soundstage as the exterior set was a hollow shell used, if I recall correctly, for storage. This lent an unparalleled sense of realism to the scenes filmed in Hrothgar’s hall. It is really the wind battering at the walls, and they are really in that cold, drafty place sheltered (barely) from the elements and certainly to no greater degree than Norsemen on a similar spot would have been fifteen hundred years ago. I applaud Gunnarsson for this decision. And I applaud Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the Heathen high priest of the Heathen community in Iceland for an excellent soundtrack.

I am going to do a rare movie review, simply because I enjoyed the movie so much. The film in question is 300, and the subject is the stand of the Spartans at Thermopylae against the invading Persians. The critics, as so often happens, hate it. The people, as also so often happens in these cases, love it. The film had sold out the night before, and the theater was packed the night we went. It was #1 at the box office its opening weekend.

The movie is not a historical piece, being based on a graphic novel. It’s not Alexander. But that does not mean that it any less historically accurate than movies like Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven, which take a kernal of actual events and build a fictional tale around them. Here we have Leonidas, the King of Sparta, a historical character. Much of what surrounds him is fictional but this is nothing new or unusual in Hollywood. It is not a failing, or if it is, it is a failing not limited to this film. I found myself loving everything the critics hate about it, including the sepia tones, the bombast, the violence. It is difficult to conceive of a film about a battle that is not violent and that seems a strange criticism to make.

At any rate, I include here the summary of the NY Times review simply to demonstrate that the movie criticism business is a strange one in that it has the less creative, the less talented, critiquing the work of the more talented and creative. I’m not sure what critics are looking for in movies; I can only say its seldom what I’m looking for, which is entertainment. This is a movie I’ll see again, given the chance, and when it comes out on DVD, I’ll be among the first to own it. Heck, I even want the soundtrack.

300
2007-US-Action/Adventure, Drama
N.Y. Times Review by A. O. Scott
REVIEW SUMMARY
“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. Adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it offers up a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s. The basic story is a good deal older. It’s all about the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, which unfolded at a narrow pass on the coast of Greece whose name translates as Hot Gates. Zack Snyder’s first film, a remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” showed wit as well as technical dexterity. While some of that filmmaking acumen is evident here, the script for “300,” which he wrote with Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon, is weighed down by the lumbering portentousness of the original book, whose arresting images are themselves undermined by the kind of pomposity that frequently mistakes itself for genius. — A. O. Scott, The New York Times