movie: Religulous
Over the weekend I watched two very different movies that came out around the same time attempting to appeal to what some might consider to be the radical left and the radical right… although politics in reality is not that clear cut. There was first the messy, overly blunt and underly funny An American Carol. Next was the interesting, but not-quite satisfactory Religulous.
I’m not going to do a full on movie review of both pieces. Instead, I am writing this post because I really truly wish that Religulous had been made into a documentary TV series (a la 30 Days) and by a host whose purpose was to inspire conversation and debate on sensitive topics, rather than come across as a smart ass who apparently has the intelligence and the “luxury not to believe”.
Bill Maher is no Carl Sagan or Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, and while I understand that his intent was not so much to make agnosticism or atheism “look good” as it was to make religion look stupid… making someone feel angry, embarrassed, or confused is not a road to enlightenment. There is a taboo in this country about questioning matters of faith, a taboo that I think needs desperately to be broken. Not because I’m an atheist looking for converts (quite to the contrary), but because with talking comes knowledge, with knowledge understanding, and with understanding comes peace. Misinformation and myth about who believes what and why is dangerous, especially about matters so core to how we live, how we raise our children, and how we vote.
I’m hoping that someone might stumble upon this post, and make that TV series I so desire, and to make it easy, I’m laying out a list of possible episodes below. These are topics that Bill Maher touched on in Religulous that I found interesting, but he did not give satisfactory analysis to. I want two sides debating, I want passionate people and objective historians, I want real statistics and scripture passages.
1. Are Islam and the text of the Koran inherently violent?
Let’s start this controversial conversation off with a biggie. If we could theoretically replace the belief in Islam with the belief in any other religion (say Christianity) in the Middle East, would it still be a violent place? Would suicide bombers be finding passages in any other holy book that gave them inspiration for violence? Is it just a matter of politics or is it a matter of religion?
2. Can science and religion co-exist?
How do different religions reconcile modern science? How do different religions cherry pick what science to believe or not believe? We have creationists on one side trying to use science to explain religion and promote a message of “mass conspiracy” from evolution scientists. But then we have the Vatican condemning intelligent design as “bad science” and supporting evolution. Then you have people like Richard Dawkins attempting to use science to disprove God.
3. Can you be rich and religious?
There is a big disconnect in the selfless poor lifestyles of Jesus Christ (or was he poor), monks, Buddha, and many other religious figures versus the ornate churches of Catholicism and the rich and famous lifestyles of televangelists. Is there something fundamental in the text of the Bible (or any religion) that denies one the rewards of this earthly world?
4. Is God an American?
That’s not the exact question I’m asking, but I couldn’t resist the reference to Bowie. God and country, separation of church and state. Many people think it’s right, many people think it’s wrong, and it’s interesting to know why. But more interesting to me is what was intended. What did our founding fathers want and what relationship did they have with religion? And what did Jesus think about nationalism? Are there policies of the “religious right” that actual go against the teachings of Jesus? If we were truly a Christian nation, what would that mean?
5. Do you need religion to be moral?
This is one of the biggest arguments against non-believers, that religion provides the moral backbone of humanity and that if religion was not there, all would be chaos. An interesting point to argue, I know where I stand… simply put that one that does not believe in an afterlife at all is likely to value this one life on earth pretty highly. Why doesn’t the 10 Commandments include “rape” and “child abuse”? What moral codes are included in ALL religions? Which ones contradict each other? What religious codes have made it into law?
6. Can you be homosexual and religious?
What are the texts in various religions that address homosexuality? Furthermore, what is the historic context (language, culture) around these texts? How do homosexuals reconcile their belief in an organized religion such as Christianity or Islam? How do fundamentalists who are adamantly against homosexuality based on religious belief reconcile Jesus’s message of tolerance and acceptance?
7. Are we genetically programmed to believe?
Is religion fundamental to our biology? Is it good or hazardous to our health? What goes on in our brains as a result of “faith”? Are some people more biologically designed to have faith than others? There have been some interesting studies done in this area. What other activity gives us the same brain patterns as praying or faith, or are there any substitutes for true belief?
8. What is a religion and what is a cult?
This one is a very interesting one to me. There are many Christians who would believe that creationist scientists are taking it “one step too far”. There are also many Christians who would classify Mormonism as a cult. And certainly many religious people are quick to call Scientology a cult. Can one believe in talking snakes but claim other’s beliefs in space gods as too “far fetched”? What is the line that distinguishes the believable from the implausible? What makes a cult a cult? Is a cult more dangerous than other religious belief?
9. Is believe in the “end of times” dangerous?
Are we reaching the “end of times”? What are the signs in the various religions that not only mark an “end” to life as we know it, but are showing that we are somehow approaching that mark? Are there people within our government who believe that the end is near and how does this affect the way they govern? How does this affect people’s everyday actions? How does this affect the way they vote and raise their kids? Is the “end” making us crazy or more cautious?
10. Where does religion come from?
There is a long a detailed history of religion. It’s existed for as long as humans have existed as a way to explain the unexplainable. Religions have influenced each other throughout history… stories of flood, virgin birth, resurrection. Is the Bible an original or a collection of far more ancient stories? Or is this anecdotal proof found across the world that these types of mass events (flood) did indeed happen?
11. Are we alone in the universe?
Aliens… let’s just put it out there. Does religion make room for aliens? And if they don’t, how do you reconcile the shear odds that the universe is so vast and so ancient that there must have been or be other life out there somewhere? Then again, are there scriptures in many religions that not only make room but somewhat acknowledge “unexplained phenomenon”?
12. Will secularization hurt society?
This is a different question than the morality question. Assuming religion and non-religion have equal impact on morality… are there other ways that secularization will hurt society? For instance, can we remove religion so much from everyday society (government, schools) that we create a sort of intolerance to religion? How do you balance tolerance for all faiths against tolerance for no faith at all? Does the diversity of religions provide conflict or a necessary cultural patchwork? Are we in danger of cultural homogenization?
I will leave episode #13 in the hands of you. What question about religion or lack of religion are you dying to ask? What questions keep you awake at night?
Marta Strickland
food: colonial goose, a New Zealand dish
wine: 2004 Amisfield Pinot Noir
movie: Black Sheep
After months of delay, I am finally back to cooking my husband the themed dinners that I had promised him as part of his birthday present last summer. If I am lucky, I will conclude the 6th dinner before his birthday this year, but I’ll have to step up the pace to make that happen.
THIS MONTH: New Zealand
The main dish I made was Colonial Goose, which is not goose at all, but lamb. Early pioneers to New Zealand had a steady supply of sheep, but poultry was something of a luxury, even up until recently. To make them feel less homesick, they would stuff and roast a leg of lamb (bone removed) in a fashion similar to the way you would cook a goose. The lamb I made was roasted for several hours and stuffed with dried apricots, honey, and breadcrumbs. Delicious, and the earthiness of the food went perfect with the New Zealand Pinot Noir…
2004 Amisfield Pinot Noir
Smells like a dusty cellar, moldy, and a bit like chemicals. Faint aroma of cherries and unripe strawberries, tastes and smells very bright and clean. Almost carbonated, fresh sizzling cherry. Sooo good. mild oak. Very Pinot, both delicate and powerful. ($27)
While many know New Zealand only for their superb Sauvignon Blanc, they actually have some high altitude, cooler climate regions that are perfect terroir for Pinot Noir. The Central Otago wine region, where the Amisfield winery is located, is the most southern wine region in the entire world. The vineyards, residing at 400 meters above sea level, cling precariously to steep slopes and river gorges. It seems like Pinot is always better the more painful the growing conditions.
Finally, we had a chocolate mousse with kiwi sauce while watching our horror flick for the evening, Black Sheep. The choice was between that or The Piano, and I think we made the right choice. While kinda forgettable, the movie felt very reminiscent of early Peter Jackson horror films. It was heavy in the gore, completely over-the-top, good mindless fun. The special effects were even done by the Weta Workshop, how much more New Zealand can you get? If only we had finished off the night by snacking on some Marmite sandwiches and watching Flight of the Conchords.
wine: Peter Lehmann Clancy’s, 7 Deadly Zins 2005
movie: Antitrust
This month’s WBW (Wine Blog Wednesday) snuck up so quickly. I actually only found out about it on Monday, but the theme was so fun that I decided to go for it. This month it is all about “Comfort Wines”. The Wine Life Today blog challenges:
“Comfort Wines - choose a wine, any wine, that you love to unwind to and tell us about not only the wine but what makes the experience special and relaxing for you!”
This is exactly the type of evening I should be talked into more often!!
I asked my husband to go to the wine store and choose a couple of wines he thought represented the best of our evenings in together. I tried to guess what he’d bring home, and I almost hit the nail on the head. He walked in with three bottles: McManis Petite Sirah, Peter Lehmann Clancy’s, and 7 Deadly Zins. “7 Deadly Zins?” I asked, “I would have guessed Karly Buck Ten Point Zin.” He said they were out, but he thought the 7 Deadly might be more appropriate with the comfort theme… gluttony, sloth 
So what goes good with some deep dark drinkable New World wines? Mmmm… comfort food of quality steaks and homemade macaroni and cheese. But what else? What else absolutely defines a night of comfort between cynical newlyweds enjoying their pre-children freedom? Pajamas and non-stop bad movies from the minute we get home from work… specifically a practical cult classic bad movie, Dreamcatcher, and also two delightfully terrible movies featuring some of the most unrealistic computer-based plots, The Net and Antitrust.
3 great wines, 3 terrible movies… but only one night. One ratio is going win out over the other. Two wines, one movie was the end result.
Peter Lehmann Clancy’s 2005 What a great steak wine!! It smells of alcohol, crayons and subtle fruit. Tom smells paint thinner. The taste is of red liquorice and raspberry. It has a high acidity, yet it is still smooth and not overly dry. No dark fruit, not sour. It is quite balanced and lively.
7 Deadly Zins 2005 Smells of dried cherries and salt. Tom smells gouda, no smoked sausage, yet he says it smells like a Zin? I certainly get the Zin smell and taste I have only been able to describe as “pencil lead”, very industrial. He never knows what I’m talking about there. The smell also reminds us of our honeymoon, rich Napa wines. It tastes exactly how it smells, strong cherries and raspberries with high alcohol.
Antitrust was terrible and watchable, exactly what we could hope it could be. You have Ryan Phillipe in a particularly unfortunate role as an open-source programmer who is enticed to join Microsoft… oh I mean NURV (which sounds way dumber than Microsoft). Then, you have Tim Robbins in a obviously, yet equally over-the-top impersonation of an evil evil Bill Gates who gladly kills innocent programmers to steal their code to make his rich self even richer. Mwah-hah-hah, world domination by way of this amazing technology called “Synapse” in which anyone in the world can send messages, pictures, and audio to anyone else. Oh, you mean like e-mail, or text messages, or the internet (this was 2000 after all)? No, some proprietary revolutionary poopy software called “Synapse”.
A wonderful night. We are finishing the rest of our movies and wines tonight… Dreamcatcher is just as wonderfully bad as I remember, perhaps even better (worse?).
recipe: ratatouille from the movie
I love having a new cooking challenge every week. While some of them are not worth writing about, I’m hoping that some will inspire me with some topic for my blog. For instance… I’m very excited to try out one of my new spices, juniper berries, because they are so strange. Apparently, pregnant women are not allowed to eat them? So, I’ve got to figure out what that is all about.
My first cooking challenge was to try and use some of the persimmons I snuck back in my suitcase from the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco. I had never heard of persimmons, but had seen weird orange tomatoes growing on trees in Tuscany.
After I returned someone informed me that these were the fruit known as persimmons, which taste somewhat like a milder mango to me. I baked them into a bread, but it didn’t really bring out the flavor of the fruit like it could. In retrospect, I should have smuggled more persimmons or I imagine they would taste good as part of a sweet and spicy sauce for meats, like mango habanero.
This week, I decided (based on an eggplant that needed to be used up in my fridge) to attempt to cook ratatouille. Now I have cooked ratatouille in the past, and while good, it has never been quite as delicious as the ratatouille I had while in France. I’m hoping a French cookbook I got will shed some light on their secrets. Anyway, my goal this week was not to emulate the dish I had in France, but to attempt the fancy artful ratatouille that was featured in the Disney film (pictured above).
While mine wasn’t quite as beautiful (the picture is pre-baked, so I had made no attempt to “plate” the dish), it was still a more elegant twist on a traditionally rustic dish. In fact, I wouldn’t mind trying to do a few more elegant rustic dishes, or maybe try a few more movie-inspired dishes in the future.
technorati tags: persimmons, ratatouille
website: netflix
I was browsing through our Netflix queue today. And (as you often do) I noticed movies I never remembered putting on my queue. For instance, there was this movie called Blackwoods and it was rated 1 star.
What is that and why would I put a 1-star movie on my queue? I scroll over to reveal that it is a Uwe Boll movie. Mystery solved, Uwe Boll’s unwatchable-but-can’t-turn-away train wrecks are a masochistic cinema experience that my husband and I sometimes participate in. But then I notice that the movie itself isn’t a 1 star movie, but a 2.4 star movie. Netflix has offered its “best guess” that we will rate it 1 star and is bold enough in its assumption that it decides to display its guess instead of the average customer.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. I started scanning the listings to see if there were other movies Netflix thinks I would like or dislike more than the masses. Turns out I’m going to love Motorama. Another weird assumption. I mean, Tom and I thought After Hours was weird (maybe a little too weird to be good) and I have always had a special place in my heart for the ridiculous Vampire’s Kiss featuring Nicolas Cage trying to suck the blood of pigeons with plastic vampire teeth.
I wouldn’t say that either of us LOVE those movies, but they are certainly interesting enough for us to want to view them. And at the same time, while we loath Uwe Boll and his critic-punching pompous German-loophole ways, we want to be the first to know when that horrible man puts out another horrible piece of trash.
So while it is interesting that Netflix has called attention to some out of the normal movie going activity we participate in, it has no way to grasp the subtlety of our movie watching tastes. But, how could it? How could Netflix know that we love The Butterfly Effect for being purely retarded, but at the same time highly watchable, and yet would probably never be interested in another Ashton Kutcher vehicle? How could Netflix know that we can’t stand Garden State (sorry Roxy) because of Zach Braff’s pushy voice-of-your-generation “these songs will change your life” soundtrack and so-quirky-she’s-cute Natalie Portman performance, but that most of the time we like character driven indies and Natalie Portman? How could Netflix know that we’d rather watch movies that are so bad that they are good (The Core), rather than movies that are mediocre (Running with Scissors)?
It can’t, which is why the straight forward rating system is innately flawed. I was actually pretty upset when the AV Club decided to move to one, as I found their reviews more meaningful without the letter grade. And now that they rely on the rating more often, I have a hard time telling if the new Lindsay Lohan vehicle is something I should pay money to see (while sneaking wine into the theater), rent, or avoid. Will any rating scale ever indicate the subtle difference between the sliding scale of “so bad its good”, “so bad it hurts”, “oh god… its trying to be self-aware of its badness”, and “so bad it is unwatchable, boring, and I had to turn it off”?
technorati tags: netflix queue, uwe boll, bad movies
movie: Ratatouille
Pixar couldn’t have put out a better movie at a better time. It’s a seriously fun and sweet movie about a foodie rat who dreams of being a master chef in Paris. I didn’t think it could be done, but they found a way to make me even more in love with Paris, its wines, its cheeses, its food, by using a main character that gushes about it all in such an inspiring way.
But setting aside my personal interest in the subject matter, the movie is seriously fantastic. The animation is ridiculous. Every time Pixar comes out with a new movie, you just can’t help but think that it is the closest computer animation has ever looked to reality, that it just can’t get any better than that. The next thing you know they blow your mind all over again. From the slight scratches on the copper pots to the semi-translucent shine on the red onions to the reflective waters of the Seine, the textures of the inanimate objects are dreamily real. They are so detailed and true to life while still giving off a sense of beauty in their simplicity… it’s just an onion after all. The best animation comes from the main character, whose fur and whiskers are so tactile on screen that I can feel what a Remy toy would be like in my hands.
And with all good Pixar films, the story is cute, funny, and tear-inducing at all the right moments.
What I didn’t expect was such an inspired look into why a little rat could fall so in love with the art of cooking. They illustrate so well the idea of enjoying the subtleties of flavor profiles and the magic that occurs when you combine them into a dish. It’s a symphony, flavors complimenting each other in new and exciting ways. It reminds me of all the reasons I love wine and I love pairing it with food, at least “in theory”. For unlike Remy, I don’t think I am or ever can be a “supertaster“. And for that reason, I found myself with a bittersweet love for the main character, for ultimately, I am jealous.
But I am not alone. Not everyone in the world can be a supertaster (I’m pretty sure I’d fail the orange ice cream test, unless I knew the three flavors I was picking from). And when I sit down every night and try and search for the elusive flavors in a wine, it’s like trying to remember a dream after you have awakened… the feeling slowly slips away the more and more I concentrate and try to describe it. In the end, do I really need to know that what I was tasting was boysenberry with a hint of cocoa and cedar to enjoy a delicious wine? Probably not, but I’m certainly envious of the people that can.
technorati tags: Supertaster, Ratatouille
movie: Creepshow 3
Creepshow II featured such talents behind it as Stephen King and George Romero. Naturally, Creepshow III (a good 20 years in the making) would be a straight to video sequel featuring the talents behind Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, another straight to video sequel many decades in the making that has been described as “a disgrace to Romero’s name and the series.” Creepshow II featured such memorable segments as “The Raft“, King’s short story about a group of college kids who go swimming in a lake only to get surrounded and eventually devoured by an abstract deadly monster substance. Creepshow III features such amazing segments as:
In the words of another IMDB user, “So horrible, it made me angry.”
technorati tags: creepshow, bad movies
RECENT WINES
