Showbits

A few years ago I sought out a fairly well-known book in the field of spirituality, The Celestine Prophecy. It's the story of an unemployed teacher who travels to Peru to research ancient scrolls that reveal ways to look at and walk through life that produce greater harmony. The Celestine Prophecy being a novel (which at least one person I know did not disappointingly realize until the last chapter), I had difficulty separating the philosophical concepts from the fictional elements. I'm more accustomed to receiving undisguised wisdom and enjoying fantastical narratives as two different experiences.

It's no surprise, then, that I was underwhelmed by The Celestine Prophecy's movie adaptation. Though the cast features the marvelous Hector Elizondo looking spiffy in his cardinal robes, the main characters, played by Tom Welling and Sigourney Weaver look-alikes, are just dull. John, the ex-teacher, is nothing more than a patsy for his companions and a foil for their insights. Everyone around him seems to know more than him, and they offer their superiority in little nuggets such as, "There's more to the world than you can see." It suggests an arrogance I normally associate with churches and cults. John isn't questioning of his role in life but is a victim of circumstances. Nobody becomes enlightened kicking and screaming.

Even his coming over to the dark side doesn't offer the audience much inspiration. John's enlightenment is portrayed in his ability to focus on his surroundings and adjust their contrast, seemingly by applying Photoshop filters. It's a far cry from the analogue in The Razor's Edge, which is much more wonderfully subtle and nuanced. And John's revelations occur only when he isn't doing everything in his power to be caught by local guerrillas. You'd think having been a public school teacher, he'd be savvier in war zones.

I confess I watched only most, not all, of this movie: I read the book, I know how it ends, and this version offered no original interpretation worth pursuing. In this regard, popular opinion of this film is on my side, which suggest perhaps the medium just isn't built for this kind of mind- or soul-bending. I've discovered some very dramatic, powerful, and touching films, such as Wit, but none that were outright intended to be spiritual in nature. (Indigo, Conversations With God, and What the Bleep? were all snoozers, in my opinion.) I love the topic, just not in this medium. Can someone prove me wrong?

I recently re-watched Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. While I'm a fan of Will Ferrell's comedies (I love Elf: Smiling's my favorite; and Old School: Frank the Tank, anyone?), I found Stranger Than Fiction to be my favorite of Ferrell's films. Not only because Ferrell broke out of the physical comedy realm, but for the questions that I found myself asking as I watched the movie.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS agent who finds himself the lead character in Karen Eiffel's book Death by Taxes. Throughout the movie, Crick hears his life and movements narrated in the author's voice. Early on, Crick finds out that his imminent death looms. Frightened that he may die sooner rather than later, Crick determinedly seeks to either stop the author from writing. Crick enlists literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) to help him discern what sort of story he's in.

Through a series of adventures, encounters, and a leave of absence from work, Crick learns to embrace life, play the guitar, and fall in love. Stiff-necked Crick relaxes, finding that life is more than the series of carefully planned events he'd tried to make it. He breaks his routine and finds life outside the routine.

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Have you ever looked at a situation as somebody else and come to completely opposite conclusions than you otherwise would? That's how hiphopguy23 felt watching Jesus Camp this past weekend. [See the trailer]

Jesus Camp is a documentary that takes the viewer to the misnomered Devil's Falls in North Dakota to spend a summer with young evangelicals-in-training at Kids on Fire Summer Camp. Hiphopguy23 got to see the little rugrats undergo a complete indoctrination into the world of extreme Christianity. It is a world where reading Harry Potter is akin to witchcraft. "If Harry Potter was around in the Old Testament, he would have been put to death," states camp director Becky Fischer (not to be confused with the film's directors, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady). It is a world where the simple telling of ghost stories is reviled because such stories do not honor God. In this world, hiphopguy23 learned that God does not visit churches where worshippers sit, listen to a preacher, and maybe sing a hymn or two. Apparently, God only visits churches where they are constantly Hallelujahing and speaking in tongues. Ironically, the speaking in tongues sounded an awful lot like Parseltongue from the Harry Potter series — but hiphopguy23 digresses.

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I'm a big fan of Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God books — not solely due to their content, which to a better trained eye may be unremarkable, but because these books initiated me into the realm of philosophical texts. If everyone is fortunate enough to have an eye-opening experience that teaches them there are more things in Heaven and Earth than they'd dreamt of, this was mine.

So imagine my disappointment when, ten years later, the film adaptation, released last month on DVD after a limited 2006 theatrical release, turned out to be a big yawn.

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