U23D (2008)

U23D (Owens, Pellington 2007) is the brainchild of an amazing group of photographers based in LA called 3ality. From what I read on Wikipedia, they are the sons of Art Modell, some dude who owned a NFL team. They decided to create an inexpensive way to shoot NFL games in a stereo format, and came up with their new process. Since the filming process was designed primarily with live events in mind, attempting to capture the energy of a live concert was a natural fit.

The film succeeds on many levels, but, due to the subject material and presentation style, it never really moves from escapist spectacle to art. Bono, the self-proclaimed savior of all manor of downtrodden peoples chose an Argentinian audience to the be subject of the film, as they are the closest to the energy he found in Ireland, and, presumable, the easiest for him to whip into a quasi-political furor. Never one to miss a chance to use a stage as a soap-box, he spends more time screaming for world peace, and (I'm not kidding) donning a headband that he had apparently drawn various religious symbols on with a magic marker, than he does just performing his music. Bono! It's pop music! Get some perspective.

The majority of the film is shot in a very straight-forward style; consisting primarily of cuts. During a few of the band's more experimental songs, the directors chose to include some overlays, and even some computer generated effects in the film's climatic song. The editing is tight, and doesn't insult the audience by sticking to tempo-based montage editing (always cutting on a beat), and plays around with the sequences. This is a smart choice considering the frenetic content of the concert footage coupled with the "3D" stereo presentation might lead some of the more faint-of-heart to start bazooka barfing.

A review of a stereo film isn't complete without mentioning the presentation. The stereo effect really is surprisingly good. The theater I saw this in (the AMC in Times Square, NYC) had a really-well tuned system and used passive polarized glasses instead of the more expensive and light reducing "shutter lenses" some IMAX theaters use. The effect was compelling and really helped imerse the audience in the concert experience. The directors smartly didn't draw attention to the "3D" element of the film, choosing to concentrate on faithfully reproducing the feel of the concert. The only issues I saw with their technique was when the footage was shot with extremely wide angle lenses. When this happened, the eye separation came out of alignment at the edges of the picture and you could see ghosting.

The audio of the film was probably the most impressive feature. IMAX uses 6 muxxed audio channels that stream from a hard drive synchronized by a pulse track on the film (when digital projectors are used I have no idea) then, in the more high-end IMAX theaters, the 6 muxxed channels are run into a spacial imager that further alters and diverts the audio. The effect is a an amazingly true-to-life mix, with multiple sound stages. Another really smart creative decision was to shelf the instruments in a live performance style, instead of compressing and doing all kinds of studio trickery, again they stayed truthful to the event they were trying to capture.

All in all, it's worth a viewing. Since most of us don't have IMAX theaters in our homes, I imagine the only way someone will see it as it was intended is to catch it in the theater before it's gone. However, if we all did have some way of playing it back in the comfort and considerably cheaper option of our home, I would easily say it's a renter.

The Future Of Food

Jon, First off, I would like to thank you for your love of movies and for inviting me to post on your site! Second, I'd like to point out, not that you won't be able to tell, I'm not the most elegant writer/reviewer. My memory is bad about details, so I’ll probably be the guy that tells you how it made me feel, or how it convicted me more than a formal review of events that went on in the film. Never the less, here goes!

The Future of Food convicted me on all fronts. The movie basically starts out on the idea that food has been genetically changed... wait a minute...listen… I'm not going to give details… I'm just not good enough to do that. Here's what I can say...the company that makes Roundup (Monsanto) has cornered the market on weed killer and seeds for crops. They have genetically engineered seeds that prevent Roundup from killing the plants. With that said they have patented their seeds. And farmers have to buy licensing to use their seeds. The company strictly enforces their patent and product by having people out on the fields all across the US checking to make sure farmers are using their own seed, or have license to use their seed. The problem with that is, seeds get pollinated by nature... so if Joe the farmer across the street is using a Roundup company seed and it blows over the street and starts growing in my field, I can get sued... and they do sue... I believe they said they have sued 9000 farmers in the United States for not having their license to grow their seed.

The Second part of the movie goes into how seeds, insects and animals are genetically engineered and it is a SCARY process. They invade cells with viruses like e coli and other stuff, then basically morph genes together to make a product. None of this stuff has been tested long term. There are so many unknowns, but we're eating it on a daily basis. My theory has LONG been that we are getting sicker and sicker from allergies from what we are doing to the environment and this includes crops and livestock. The FDA has been ordered, it says in the movie to pretty much stay out of the business of regulating these genetically modified crops.

Anyway, the thing about this movie is: it is a MUST see... I don't think we can go on like this, we’re ruining whole cultures... and the best way we can protest is to start buying organically grown from local farmers or super markets. Take away the demand for this cheater way of growing crops and ruining whole species of plants.

Darin Christian

Ben-Hur (1959)

MGM's 11-Academy-Award-Winning Ben-Hur (1959) is actually a remake of the silent film, Ben-Hur (1925), also produced by MGM Studios. Both of these movies are based Lew Wallace's historical novel by the same name, which was first published in 1880. According to the novel's introduction in Oxford World's Classics, "[Ben-Hur] was a phenomenal best-seller; it soon surpassed Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) as the best-selling American novel and retained this distinction until the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind" (vii).

The story of how the novel came to be is amazing in itself, but our focus here is the 1959 film portrayal of Ben-Hur. The Hollywood epics of the 1950s and 1960s, like Ben-Hur, Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and Spartacus, were a golden age of historic, epic films. Wide screen, vivid technicolor, gorgeous costuming, orchestral scores, and the creme de la creme of the day's actors--these are what made these Hollywood epics great, and why people like me are still watching them today.

But the significance of Ben-Hur for me is not its epic qualities, but rather is heartfelt, profoundly human story. (I feel the same way about Dr. Zhivago--I will have to write a review on that film as well.) I particularly liked the interaction between Jesus, whose face is never shown on screen, with Ben-Hur. As the story of Jesus as told in the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) unfolds in the background, the main action traces Ben-Hur's story.

Ben-Hur's friendship with Messala, a high-ranking Roman Official who put in charge of Ben-Hur's Judean homeland, ends bitterly when Ben-Hur refuses to help Messala "subdue" Judea. In vengenace, Messala seizes an opportunity to have Ben-Hur, his sister, and his mother arrested. Ben-Hur is sentenced to row in the galley; what's come of his mother and sister he does not know.

Here is Ben-Hur's first encounter with Jesus. As he walks, enchained, toward his future of slave labor in the galley, he is faint with thirst. When they arrive at a town, the Roman soldier allows the woman at the well to give drinks to the prisoners--except, "not that one." As Ben-Hur watches other prisoners drink, and feels his own tongue swelling and cracking from thirst, an unfamiliar man takes a cup of water and holds it up to Ben-Hur's lips. "I said, 'not that one!'" the soldier yells. But when the soldier walks over to stare down this unfamiliar man, he is stopped in the tracks. There's an authority about this man that he has never encountered before. The soldier walks away, his tail between his legs.

Through a propitious (and I would say providential) event, Ben-Hur gets on the good side of Roman general Quintus Arrius. A series of events puts Ben-Hur in the position to seek revenge against Messala. His long time love interest, Esther (played by a demure Haya Harareet), is horrified by Ben-Hur's quench for revenge and says to him, "You've become Messala."

Meanwhile, Jesus has given his famous "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew chs 5-7), and one of the wise men a la Matthew 2:1-12, depicted at the very beginning of the film, runs into Ben-Hur and tells him that Jesus preaches forgiveness. Intsead of seeking revenge against Messala, he encourages Ben-Hur to leave room for God's vengeance.

But Ben-Hur doesn't listen, and seeks to exact vengeance against Messala in the annual chariot race in Rome. In perhaps the most famous scene of the film, Ben-Hur avoids Messala's chariot, which is rigged with wheel-shredding spikes, and defeats him. In the process, Ben-Hur's chariot disrupts Messala's and causes Messala to crash, mortally wounding him. Ben-Hur has vengeance at last! But his soul is left unsatisfied.

The final scenes of the film portray Jesus' crucifixion at Golgotha ("the place of the skull" in Aramaic). Ben-Hur has brought his mother and sister, who had bocame diseased during their long prison confinment, to Jerusaelm in order to ask Jesus to heal them. It is too late. By the time they get there Jesus has been sentenced to death and is carrying the cross up to Golgotha. Ben-Hur sees Jesus' straining under the weight of the cross, and attempts to give him a drink of water; but Roman guards knock Ben-Hur out of the way. Jesus has to bear his suffering alone. As Jesus is crucified, something powerful is happening--the sky goes as dark as moonless night, thunder rumbles, and the earth is shook. Jesus' healing power is unleashed--for Ben-Hur's mother and sister, and for Ben-Hur's heart, which up to this point has been poisoned with hate for Messala. The film ends with a long shot of the empty crosses on Golgotha with a shepherd nearby, tending his sheep.

I guess this is more of a plot summary than a review! But this retelling of the plot highlights the skillful interaction of Ben-Hur's story with the story of Jesus. The way that the gospel of Jesus Christ (which, in a word, is "By his stripes we are healed," Isaiah 53:5) impacts Ben-Hur's life is illustrative for how the gospel impacts our lives today. Perhaps you, like Ben-Hur, have been given living water by Jesus Christ, and have been changed, such that you desire to give back.