Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

First off, in case I forgot to mention this last week, I highly recommend the film Hotel Rwanda starring Don Cheadle as the Hutu hotel manager who, by using every personal connection and skill and resource he'd ever had or could lay hands on, somehow managed to keep over 1200 Tutsis from being murdered during the genocide in 1994. [None of what I just said should count as a spoiler for the movie, since it's all part of the public record and news accounts about that shameful period in our world history, which most of us are old enough to remember.] See this film at your earliest opportunity, and be sure to have at least a couple of tissues somewhere handy when you do.

Then, having finally accepted that I probably wasn't going to do any work yesterday afternoon, after I finished leading worship, I gave myself the entire afternoon to go see The Incredibles and a second viewing of Phantom of the Opera (without the intense bladder pressure which had somewhat distracted me during my first viewing in December!).

I can only be thankful that The Incredibles was still playing in at least one local multiplex when I finally got around to seeing it, because not seeing that film on the big screen would have been a sad omission on my part. I loved it! I couldn't believe how enjoyable and intelligent and funny and well-done that movie was! Brilliant! ( cut for spoilerish discussion of movie villain )

Even with watching the closing credits to the end, I still had almost 15 minutes between the end of The Incredibles and the 3:45 PM start of the previews before the next showing of Phantom, so I had plenty of time to redeem my voucher for a free small popcorn (my reward for accumulating 40 points on my 'club' card) in the lobby and make sure that, in fact, I didn't have any pressing need to use the bathroom before the next film started.

Seeing Phantom again made me realize that I must have been much more distracted by my urgent need to use the restroom during almost the entire movie the first time I saw it than I'd thought, because how else could I have missed so many things? ( spoilerish possible fan-wank about the end of the movie )

Okay, enough procrastination for today. Back to work.

But first, one final obsessive-type question about an earlier guilty-pleasure movie starring Gerard Butler, namely Dracula 2000. ( Cut for anyone who hasn't seen the film but might want to someday )

Oh, well -- even if my world isn't the real world, and I'm remembering things that never happened, it's still a very nice place to visit, now and then!

I admit it, the main reason why I'm posting this now is so that I'll have an excuse to trot out this new icon (which was created by the talented and generous cdaae), 'cause it's pretty.

But I have been meaning to draw attention to a book that might be of interest to other scholars and contemplators of all things meta: The Myth of the American Superhero, by John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI: 2002).

The following quotes from the very beginning of the book should suggest why I'm finding it rather intriguing and pertinent to my research interests: ( cut to avoid boring most people )