Eric's Eddyfications

The Big Idea at work

Many people ask how this whole Big Idea thing works with communicating the same Big Idea to adults, students and kids. Well, this past weekend we had a really good example of how it works, particularly for the adults and kids large group services. I thought I'd share. Here is the video we showed to adults on the topic of a "Lost World" - and the need to tell the lost about church, and invite them. We called it "Baptism by the Water Cooler."

And now, here is the video for Kids' City, on the same topic, "Lost", and virtually the same video sketch, though shot differently with different actors. We called it "Baptism by the Drinking Fountain."

Make sense? That's one example of how the Big Idea works... What do you think?

The last Oscar blog

Okay. So let me just say this about Al Gore and Global Warming. Al Gore has an Oscar. Which one is the statue again? Jerry Seinfeld did stand up before he got it, which was at least funny.

Did Clint Eastwood just decide to blow off the teleprompter? At the end of his unintelligible intro to Morricone, he finally babbled "I should have worn my glasses."

Enrico Morricone starts accepting his lifetime achievement award in what is I think Italian, and then Clint Eastwood pretends to interpret. Semi-convincingly. Still not reading from the teleprompter. I'm feeling any moment this telecast could get hijjacked by these two and we'd be here for four more hours. Also, Enrico Morricone is doing an awesome impression of an Italian Buck Henry. I think it proves how much grass Clint Eastwood kicks. The guy can interpret Italian on the spot.

The Dreamgirls medley was great. You know, it's funny to me. Every time I think that the theatre is finally dead and buried, it keeps cropping up in other mediums. The only problem with the number is that they brought out an actual choir, which you can't do after having used the choir to make fun during the opening number moment. Someone throw the yellow flag.

And will Anna Nicole make the RIP reel for her work in film? No, I guess it would be too awkward to have her name follow that of Robert Altman's...

Martin Scorsese wins, a big shock what with having the three amigos introduce the category. And then The Departed wins best picture.

It's only fitting that The Departed won, since NewThing launched Reunion Church this year... Everyone break out the Boston accent and have yourself a tea party! Hope you won your Oscar pool...

Oscars blogging part two

Let's see... should we have Leonardo and Algore do comedy on the Oscars? Is that an actual good idea? It started so promising with Will Farrell and all, and now I'd even take back what I said about Ellen to have that part of my life back...

And speaking of comedy, how great is it to hear the voice of Helen Mirren say the complete title to the film "Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Seriously, did anyone think this film would get anywhere NEAR the Oscars when it came out?

I realize that there is a shortage of work for actors, but do we really need a fashion show for the costume design that includes actors in costume pretending to be the real actors? I don't need Eddie Murphy pretending to be Eddie Murphy, much less some other poor soul...

TOM CRUISE SIGHTING!!!! Wait a minute, I thought he shaved his head and was in rehab this week... I can't keep straight my "crazy entertainer" roladex...

Ellen gets Steven Spielberg to take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood for her myspace page. Nice.

See, now Robert Downey Jr. can make fun of his craziness, why can't Tom Cruise?

Okay, Ellen won me over on the dancers by saying "They're naked!" after being captured by them during the "snakes on a plane" bit.

Oh, SNAP! Jennifer Hudson is an Oscar Winner. And you wonder why people want to appear on American Idol! The opportunities are seemingly endless...

Okay, hour two is in the can. More to come...

Blogging at the Oscars

I know you were wondering, and without any further ado... Here's my moment to moment reaction to the Oscars as they happened:

The first film montage was sort of funny. Ellen DeGeneres was funny too, but she pretty much is doing all the same "hey I don't have any pressure, you guys must be nervous" kind of schtick. So not particularly original. I liked it when the choir broke out, though I thought it was both ironic and sad that Hollywood saw no irony in having a gospel choir worshipping them...

Will Farrell and Jack Black and John C. Reilly: Genius. My favorite line was John's "I chosed to be in both 'Boogie' and 'Talledega' Nights..."

The sound effects choir was cool. I think. These moments are odd, but at least they move fast.

Good for Alan Arkin. His role in Little Miss Sunshine was too good and too short.

Okay, not sure that the dance troupe is going to work for me. It is just not that exciting to me to see a bunch of "dancers" hide behind a scrim and pretend to be penguins.

James Taylor was singing from Cars and I took a nap. More to come later...

music movies

VH1 has an interesting article today about movies that are biopics of musicians, and the ones that are coming up, and that will all surely be nominated for Academy Awards, because wow it's so amazing that Jamie Foxx acted so blind in Ray...

Not on the list of upcoming films: Prince. Which makes me wonder, what A-list actor would be recruited to play Prince in the movie?

Granger Film Festival

Check out the finalists and winners from the Granger Film Festival, films and videos from churches that were submitted in the following categories:

1. Message Series Trailer

2. Message Illustration

3. Event Spotlights (used to promote before or highlight after)

And to answer the obvious question, no, we can't possibly get it together here at CCC to enter one of these festivals... maybe someday... in the meantime, we've got some favorites, and then, if you're really crazy, you can subscribe to my own personal youtube channel, where you can automatically receive notices of the most current CCC posts of wacky videos...

Let me know what you think about the videos from the film festival - favorites? any duds?

Hope for a Favorite Artist

Okay - here's the thing.

I'm a huge Steve Taylor fan. His Christian Music in the 80s single-handedly changed my life and gave me a new perspective on how to be a Christian, and how to laugh, and how to enjoy great music. But I'm late to the party on watching his film The Second Chance, which was released in February. Now it's on DVD, and so with the kids and Kristi out of town this weekend, I curled up to the TV and watched the movie that I was hoping might be good. I knew it probably wouldn't be, but I still had a glimmer of hope.

There were two problems: First time writer/director Steve Taylor, and first time actor Michael W. Smith.

Smitty only had two expressions: scowl, and stoic. I'm not sure that I saw him smile the whole movie. He was "natural" enough for the screen, but really... doesn't have the chops. He should stick to music.. or wait - I'm not really a fan of that either.

But Steve... Steve Taylor should totally stick to music. Poetry, lyric writing is where Steve has his voice. There were flashes of that in this film, but not very much. The story was so predictable - White rich suburb church pastor forced to go to poor black sister church, and guess what - he learns a little something about himself. He's a racist jerk who needs Jesus. And, somehow, the black guy in all his anger and vitriol doesn't really have to change all that much, he just needs to have all the other guys figure it out.

The one thing I appreciated was the PG-13 rating. There were gangbangers who pointed guns, swore - heck, even the pastors swore. That may not seem like a big deal, but for the Christianese, I'm sure that was a big big risk - there must have been a "gasp heard around the world" in Nashville when this premiered.

But in the end, not even edgy diaolgue could bring this story out of the obvious. At the end of the movie, the three pastors decide to get on the roof and protest the tearing down of the black church. And I could feel the credits starting to roll. And I'm thinking to myself, "self: what in the heck is going to happen next? They're up on the roof - the wrecking ball, the cops, the mayor - everyone there is ready to tear it down - so what happens? Do they stay on the roof FOREVER? Do they get arrested? Does someone fall to their death or at least major bone fracture?"

Nope - none of those questions get answered, and that moment alone was the closest the film came to actual conflict, and they didn't go there. They rolled the credits and sang a happy MWS song. Unfortunate.

But I did have hope, and I had to try it. Sometimes, you gotta watch the Steve Taylor film - or listen to the last Petra CD. Or maybe not ever. Again.

I'm sure that if he gets a second chance to make another film, I'll watch it. Maybe it'll be more like Cash Cow. That would be fun. But Since I Gave Up Hope, I Feel a Lot Better...

A Star Wars Confessional

I must admit. I must confess. Now is the time to come clean once and for all.

I am a total Star Wars nerd.

Now, there are always degrees with this sort of thing. I don't own everything ever made with a Star Wars logo on it, and I didn't see the prequels over and over again (at least, more than twice in the theatres...). But when this article came across the wire, about how Lucas plans to release the "original" and "untainted-by-90s-digital-effects" trilogy on DVD... well...

I got very excited.

There, I said it. Back to regular blogging, which is never in any way, shape or form, nerdy.

Random “in the moment” Oscar thoughts

And now, I am proud to present some random Oscar thoughts as I take in the 78th annual awards show. How do I know it's the 78th? They feel compelled to plaster the numbers over every nook and cranny of the stage, for one thing. But I haved started my list without numbering. Alas, here now is the random list.

1. So the new version of the “orchestra starts when you’ve talked too long” is a constant underscoring of the award winning speeches. So now the second you start talking, you feel like your time is up. Clever, but certainly not subtle.
2. Ben Stiller pretending to be in green-screen land proves that when you start something, you have to finish it – take it all the way baby, all the way to the envelope.
3. Will Ferrell and Steve Carell actually use a subtle form of comedy with a makeup joke – I’m pretty sure they barely adlibbed…
4. Jon Stuart is very very funny. And the “paid for” ads spoof was hilarious.
5. Lauren Bacall is too old to be asked to depend on a teleprompter. That was uncomfortable…
6. JLo looked like she borrowed some of Will Ferrell’s comic makeup on her whole face. Seriously. Not good.
7. After the racism/oppression montage, Jon Stuart saying “and none of those issues were ever a problem again.” – Comedy.
8. Jon Stewart, at the top of the show, quoted the Eddyfications by calling Brokeback the "elephant in the room" - I knew he read it!
9. How does a Robert Altman montage happen without clips from Popeye?!?!?!
10. The song "It's Hard out here for a Pimp" so much material, so little time... first of all, it gets beeped like three seconds into it - and then there's the pseudo-dance play acting about pimp life on the streets - because you know, watching rappers just rapping would be too boring - like watching a violinist sitting in a chair playing five songs in a row... That choreography makes Paula Adbul look like a genius for "opposites attract" - and then the last note - sending American Idol tremors with her "PIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMP" note. And then... it WON, and the voiceover guy still has to say "this is the first academy award for..."... Getting beeped in the thank you speech, right next to "Thank you Jesus..."
11. Jennifer Garner almost slipping on the proverbial banana peel...
12. Chris Penn gets my nomination as "guy you didn't know had died" in the memorial montage.

I’ve been Tivo’ing and started about an hour past start time – when I catch up, I’m going to bed – you have to be able to skip the parts that are too painful to watch live. Like the gripping action of a solo violinist sitting onstage. How many times that they use the same crane shot to try and make it interesting?

addendum: I caught up right before the announcement of best writers, director and picture - so I'll probably stay up. I still have to take out the trash too. I know you were curious.

If you only hear ONE Brokeback Mountain joke this year...

Okay, I know that VH1's Best Week Ever has declared a moratorium on Brokeback Mountain jokes. And I agree with them - it has to stop. But if you'll allow me to place an exclamation point on the joke so that it ends with a broken back, please feel free to watch "Brokeback to the Future", clearly the best and most hysterical utilization of the age old "pretend that their gay" joke. Of course, don't click if you don't want to go "there." There's nothing profane, just lots of entertaining innuendo.

My favorite part? That Crispin Glover makes it into the "fake" credits.

It should be over this Sunday after the Oscars. I wonder how Jon Stuart is going to handle the dilemma? I mean, he can't really go there too much as a comedian, if he is half the respectable comedian that I think he is. On the other hand, it's like a big pink elephant in the room - how do you not point at it and make fun of its pinkness...constantly?