Every Friday, the Preaching Today Blog takes a look at the week that was - what people are watching, reading, listening to, and learning about?
Top Five Movies
1. Tropic Thunder (R)
2. The House Bunny (PG-13)
5. Death Race (R)
4. The Dark Knight (PG-13)
5. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (PG)
Notables: After spending the last two weeks exhausting you all with my thoughts on the layered messages of Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder (click here and here), I think I'll keep things short. I do this for two reasons: (1) to give you, dear reader, a breather, and (2) because I have absolutely no desire to explore the "layered messages" of a movie about a Playboy bunny trying to help a group of nerdy girls become the most popular sorority on their college campus (The House Bunny) or a movie about a group of prison inmates forced to race each other in deadly cars (Death Race). Citizen Kane, they ain't. I would bet the two newbies are all sex, all violence. So, in light of a lighter week in the world of cinema, I can really only steer you in the direction of a few intriguing articles about The Dark Knight: Colin Hansen's "Hero Worship" and Skye Jethani's "The Dark Blight."
Top Five Books (according to USA Today research)
1. Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer
2. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
3. New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer
4. Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Shack, by William P. Young
Notables: It's getting awfully hard to be creative in this section of the roundup. At some point the Meyer craze has got to die down, right? Maybe not. Around the time the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, surrenders the top spot of virtually every bestseller list, a movie version of Twilight, the first book in the series, will be released. November 21, to be exact. Fans are already feverishly dissecting anything they can - posters, movie stills, and flashes of behind-the-scenes footage. My advice? Do not plan on going to the movies that weekend. In fact, you should do all your Christmas shopping then. No one will be in the stores. As for the one book willing to do battle with teenage girls, vampires, and werewolves - The Shack - Bob Hyatt, contributor to Preaching Today and Out of Ur recently got to sit down with the author, William P. Young. Click here to read Hyatt's brief reflections on Young (seems like Young is a nice, thoughtful fellow - a.k.a. quite different from the caricature many are painting of him). To read Hyatt's thoughts on the book itself, click here. Like Meyer, Young is not going away. Contrary to what some in the evangelical world are worked up about, maybe he shouldn't. It certainly seems like the book is opening up a lot of wonderful dialogue about topics ranging from suffering to parenting to the Trinity - and that the book's author is a fellow, all-together-orthodox brother.
Top Five Albums
1. A Little Bit Longer, Jonas Brothers
2. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock
3. The Illusion of Progress, Staind
4. Mama Mia!, Soundtrack
5. Raw Footage, Ice Cube
You can spot the holdovers from last week (Jonas Brothers, ABBA, and Kid Rock). Ice Cube has a new one. He's still making music? I thought he was only making movies now. Huh! The Illusion of Progress is the sixth studio album from the alternative metal group Staind. Yes, I'm spelling their name correctly. They happened to choose to spell it incorrectly. I happened upon a funny quote from the band: "We went into the studio with the mindset of making our heaviest record yet, but the record that came out has flavors of Pink Floyd and straight-up blues." Really? Is that different from what you aimed for? Pink Floyd - I'd say those dudes are pretty heavy. The blues? Yep - usually pretty heavy. In fact, most of the song titles indicate they achieved exactly what they set out to do initially: "This Is It," "The Way I Am," "Save Me," "Pardon Me," "Lost Along The Way," "Raining Again," "Rainy Day Parade," and "Nothing Left To Say." Between this top five list and the one you're about to read, it seems like most of society is fit to be tied.
Top Five Digital Downloads
1. "Whatever You Like," T.I.
2. "Disturbia," Rihanna
3. "Forever," Chris Brown
4. "I Kissed a Girl," Katy Perry
5. "Dangerous," Kardinal Offishall (featuring Akon)
Notables: Get this: T.I.'s song jumped from #71 to #1 in one week. That's a Billboard record. So I did a little digging to see what all the hubbub was about. By all means, feel free to NOT do any digging. It's not the most wholesome song in the litter. Just take a moment to read the title again, and you can probably guess what it's about. It's a throw-all-sexual-caution-to-the-wind song - sort of like Chris Brown, Katy Perry, and Akon's tunes. I can sum up the lyrics to songs 1, 3, 4, and 5 in one line: "I'm going to do whatever I want, to whoever I want, whenever I want, and for however long I want." Even Rihanna's tune isn't entirely unrelated. It's just that she opts for vicious revenge and not sexual promiscuity. Maybe everyone likes these tunes "because they have a good beat, and we can dance to it!" But lyrics are lyrics and they're blasting into the brains of millions. I'm no prude - I listen to almost all secular music myself - but all this stuff seems to do is fuel sexual narcissism and profound selfishness.
Top Five Web Searches (according to Google Trends)
*Exercise caution when searching; some topics may be inappropriate.
1. charles babington
2. robert paxton
3. tea leoni
4. david duchovny
5. winged cat
Notables: Charles Babington is getting a lot of attention for his criticism of Obama's acceptance speech last night. His take: Obama spared the details and opted for attacking McCain. From a political standpoint, I'm not going to touch this thing with a ten-foot pole. Looking at it from a vantage point that hovers somewhere above party lines, you have to admit that last night was an incredibly moving thing to behold - exactly forty years after King's "I have a dream" speech. Red, blue, or purple, we all have to agree that we took in a pretty epic moment last night.
Robert Paxton was once the president of Iowa Central Community College. He recently resigned when a rather incriminating photo of him drinking with college students was released. He tried his best to argue his actions shouldn't count against him because they were part of his private life, not his professional life. Didn't Paxton realize, though, that in the age of cell phone cameras, blogs, YouTube, and a media that is constantly frothing at the mouth for scandal, nothing is private anymore? The lesson is a significant one - always has been: people are always watching, always waiting.
I would steer clear of the Tea Leoni and David Duchovny items - though it's a sign of the times, to some degree. Both are Hollywood actors who happen to be married. Duchovny recently checked himself into a rehab center for sexual addiction.
As for the "winged cat" item, it seems a cat in China has sprouted fur-covered wings. Check it out. The cat does, in fact, have wings. That's pretty cool and all, but the placement is a little odd. The owners argue the wings have grown from the cat's back. By my eye, it looks like they're located more toward the cat's rear - which doesn't seem too promising for effective flying.
Posted by Brian Lowery at 9:00 AM on August 29, 2008
