Silver Surfer as Christ Figure June 17, 2007
Posted by Steve in : The City, Movies, The Cultural Conversation , add a comment
Just got home from seeing the latest summer blockbuster, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer that has been brought to the big screen by Stan Lee and 20th Century Fox. It was an excellent movie with incredible special effects and a strong Christ figure in the Silver Surfer. The good story line comes from the comic books (although no face for Galactus?). The cinemaphotography was superb. This blockbuster is supposed to have done nearly $60 million this opening weekend. It will be interesting to see how it does. As of Sunday night, it had more than 4, 700 ratings and an average fan rating of “B” at Yahoo Movies. What do you think?
Wikipedia tells us that “the Silver Surfer is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero created in 1966 by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby. They created a character, Norrin Radd, who was a young astronomer of the planet Zenn-La. In order to save his homeworld from destruction by a fearsome cosmic entity known as Galactus, Norrin made a bargain with the being, pledging himself to serve as its herald. Imbued in return with a small portion of Galactus’ Power Cosmic,[1] Norrin acquired great powers, a silvery appearance, and a surfboard-like vehicle — all modeled after a childhood fantasy of his. Known from then on as the Silver Surfer, Norrin began to roam the cosmos searching for new planets for Galactus to consume. When his travels finally took him to Earth, the Surfer came face to face with the Fantastic Four, a team of powerful superheroes that helped him to rediscover his nobility of spirit. Betraying Galactus, the Surfer saved Earth but was punished in return with everlasting exile there.[2]
Writer/editor Stan Lee, Kirby’s “Fantastic Four” collaborator, loved the character. “I felt that he had to represent more than the typical comic-book hero,” he wrote later. Lee gave the Surfer his own book (without Kirby) and made the character a noble philosopher and Christ figure, trapped on Earth, suffering for mankind’s sins, even doing battle with a Satan stand-in called Mephisto.
Check it out!
24: Changing the Way America Watches TV December 14, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Weblog , add a comment
I am a HUGE 24 and Keifer Sutherland fan and can’t wait for the sixth season to get underway in January. There is a great post by Aaron at watching-24.com commenting on how the serialized nature of 24 has changed TV from the “need to have it all wrapped up in a bow in 60 minutes” television of the 80’s and 90’s. I agree…while I am still a little at a loss as to what is going on in the current Lost show, I love 24 and the weekly heart-pounding excitement (as well as Heroes). Here’s the gist of Aaron’s argument:
Back in 2001 the first season of 24 premiered. It was a modest hit. Then the DVD came out which started selling like mad. In an interview with IGN in 2002 Kiefer said that the DVD sales, for 24, in the UK actually knocked Lord of The Rings out of first place, something totally unheard of in the TV/DVD world.
People were beginning to catch onto the fact that they’d have to watch every week religiously to understand everything that was going on. Overall the viewing public was becoming smarter and keener to what was going on. It seemed that FOX had finally found out that an audience in mass proportions, could stomach a show like 24. The second season of 24 was a huge hit sky rocketing from the 8.60 million viewers the first season was able to pull in, to an 11.73 million viewers. 24 was beginning to shape a phenomenon that we only really got a glimpse of this year. After 24’s success ABC premiered Lost in 2004 garnering huge praise from critics and audiences alike. Serial dramas were off and running……
…..24 has become an icon in television viewing. The television world has become serialized due in large part to 24’s success. I really think that 24 changed the way we view TV. Networks are realizing that we as a viewing audience can follow a show from week to week, season to season without becoming lost. We don’t need everything spelled out for us in one episode. In consequence the networks have had to up the ante and give us higher quality more complex shows. 24’s success has truly been instrumental in altering the TV world.
Nativity Story: No Ordinary Joe December 1, 2006
Posted by Steve in : Weblog, Movies , 1 comment so far
The Nativity Story See trailer
Opens Today, Dec 1
Rated: PG (some violence)
Running Time: 1:42
Principal Cast:
Mary - Keisha Castle-Hughes
Joseph - Oscar Isaac
Anna - Hiam Abbass
Joaquim - Shaun Toub
King Herod - Ciaran Hinds
Elizabeth - Shohreh Aghdashloo
Today, we took our whole staff to see The Nativity Story, starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary and Oscar Isaac as Joseph. My instant review is that it is faithful to the Biblical story, given that there is not a lot of scriptural text to work with in making the film. I agreed with Peter Chattaway of Christianity Today who said ” Castle-Hughes was a bit of a blank”.
Overall, I felt the strongest character was Joseph, who faced a cultural uncomfortable situation, (pregnant fiancée), yet continually showed us that he would do the right thing and make the right decision, in leading and guiding his family. In this film, Joseph is freed to show us the struggles that he faced – no whitewashing of the strain he felt in his home village and the sense of betrayal by Mary. Yet he shows us a sense of humor on the journey.
I think this was brilliantly filmed in Morocco, Italy, Nazareth and France and served as an authentic story-telling of the Nativity story when the God of the universe stepped into our reality and allowed His son to be born of a human mother.
