Look Again...

The first time I watched Citizen Kane I cut it off after 15 minutes; the second time I watched it I was mesmerized, and today I consider it my all-time favorite movie. Some of you maybe be wondering why I liked it the second time. Others may be asking why I would even attempt it a second time. After all if I tried it once, why even attempt it again?

Maybe it was the reputation that surrounded the movie or the references to it that appeared in other movies and television shows, but something prompted me to want to see it again, to challenge my first impression of it. And because of revisiting it I was greatly rewarded.

Rediscovery is an amazing thing. It conquers that little bit of resistance within us, that slight touch of arrogance that we did not know existed and open our eyes and understanding in fresh, unexpected ways. It’s looking at a painting a second time and seeing colors we missed initially, or trying an entrée and tasting flavors we did not taste the first time.

Rediscovery is seeing something new in the world even if you’ve seen the same thing before.

Here’s another example from a movie: After another viewing of Citizen Kane and adding it to the top of my movie list I watched another well-reputed film called The Third Man that reunited Citizen Kane stars Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. I pushed play on the VCR and had my expectations challenged. First, the theme music was… well, silly. It sounded like strange carnival music, whatever that sounds like. After a few minutes I realized that Mr. Cotten—not Mr. Welles—was the star of the film. Then the film is halfway over before Orson appeared on screen. Finally, the film ended, but with an unsatisfactory conclusion. Yep, another “classic” did not live up to its hype.

Several months passed before I attempted a “Citizen Kane.” Again, something inside me said watch it again. This time I had the experience of knowing that sometimes a movie gets better with a second viewing. The second time I realized how the zither (the instrument that in my ignorance sounded like something from a carnival) added the perfect touch to the feel of the story and of the intriguing cinematography that carries us through post war Vienna (I later discovered the song itself was well-known). Then I realized that Joseph Cotten is perfect as Holly Martins, a writer not of prolific literature or political treatises, but of pulp Westerns. So much is said about the elusive “third man” that when Orson Welles finally appears as the insidious Harry Lime with that sly eye and twisted smile we realize Holly Martins is in over his head. After the mysterious events unfold we come to the haunting end of the film as Martins leaves the city of Vienna, a throwback to his arrival at the beginning. The Third Man is a great film.

And it’s even better the third time around.

However, some things do not improve upon rediscovery. For another movie example, there is the big-screen movie remake of one of my favorite TV shows as a kid, Lost in Space. I sat in the theater and the action began immediately as the film opened with a dogfight in space. Add a few cameos from the original series, a nod to the original Jupiter 2 spacecraft, state-of-the-art special effects, and an updated interpretation of the characters and story, and you have one happy movie-goer. The revamped theme song over the end credits added the perfect touch. I walked out of the theater loving Lost in Space.

I saw it at home on DVD about a year or so later. Maybe it was the smaller screen, maybe it was that I knew the outcome of the movie, maybe it was flaws that went unnoticed upon the initial viewing, but I did not enjoy Lost in Space when I rediscovered it. When I played it a third time I stopped it in the middle of the movie. Today Lost in Space is one of my least favorite movies, if it can indeed be in a list with the words “favorite” and “movies.”

Many of our original impressions can be credited to expectations. How do I think this food will taste? What is the artist’s style like? Will the movie be good with this actor? But we should be prepared to have our expectations challenged. We should let the wondrous things within this world reveal themselves to us, and often we must let that happen a second, or even a third, time. Sometimes more. When we hear something we do not agree with sometimes we should ask ourselves why does someone else believe it, what are the points they consider valid. Atticus Finch called it “walking around in someone else’s skin.” Sometimes we can see something new in something we’ve seen before by reexamining it, by reevaluating it, by rediscovering it. A 20-year-old should not think like a child; a 40-year-old should not think like a 20-year-old; years of experience should shape our understanding of the world around us.

But sometimes we become too comfortable, too complacent. We stagnate and cease to move forward with our lives, and then wonder why we are in the situations we find ourselves. We often feel trapped, isolated, alone, or confined. Why? Maybe because there is something more to the world we live in than we noticed the first time, mysteries waiting to be revealed. Maybe, to reference another movie, “there’s something there that wasn’t there before.”

Let us not be consumed by arrogance and/or ignorance. We may not like or agree with what we rediscover, but at least we will have made the journey, and that is what discovery is all about, knowing something we did not know the first time. Keep searching, keeping looking. Keep moving. There’s something there waiting to be discovered.

Fuqua's Finest

Brooklyn’s Finest debuted at the #8 spot on March 5, 2010. The next week it remained at the #8 spot. The third week of its release it dropped out of the Top 10 as the slots were filled with Alice in Wonderland, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Bounty Hunter, Repo Men, She’s Out of My League, and still, Avatar. This is a travesty. I saw Brooklyn’s Finest three days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it.

The film is directed by Antoine Fuqua, who directed 2001’s Training Day, which garnered an Academy Award for Denzel Washington. In the nine years since Mr. Fuqua has, regrettably, given us some lackluster movies such as Tears of the Sun, King Arthur and Shooter. Only Mr. Fuqua can say why he made these movies after the success of Training Day. But Brooklyn’s Finest is on a level all by itself. It is Antoine Fuqua’s best movie to date, and in my humble opinion, is better than any movie playing in American theaters. Before I discuss what Brooklyn’s Finest is, let me take a few moments to say what it is not. The film is not another rehash of cops and drug dealers, a violent urban drama about how good guys have nothing while bad guys have everything. It goes beyond that and takes no easy way out.

The story focuses on three different cops and the toll that wearing the badge has on their lives. Ethan Hawke is Sal, a narcotics officer with five children and a pregnant wife expecting twins. Their house has wood mold, which threatens the life and lungs of his family, but Sal—a devoted Catholic—cannot even afford back rent, much less a new home to provide for the health of his wife and children. He is tempted beyond temptation to keep some of the drug money he and his team find on their raids. Sal redefines desperate.

Richard Gere plays Eddie, a 22-year veteran street cop, who only has seven days left on the force, and he can’t wait. He rationalizes his time not in years or even weeks, but in days. As he says, a day of robbery, a day of beatings, a day of rape; the cop has 22 years of days. Seven days never seemed so long. The first scene we have of Eddie is morning, when he wakes on his unsheeted mattress and no pillow; he sits up, waits, grabs a revolver, puts it in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Click. One more day on the streets of Brooklyn.

Don Cheadle is Tango, a cop so deep undercover that he has befriended both sides of the warring local drug gangs including Caz (Wesley Snipes), a dealer he met in prison years earlier while doing another undercover job. But Caz saved his life in prison, and Tango feels obliged to keep Caz safe on the streets. But Tango’s bosses want Caz, and if they get him Tango gets a promotion, a substantial raise and a desk job off the streets of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn’s Finest is a violent urban drama, but what separates it from the seemingly endless clones that fill video rental shelves is that nothing is glorified—including the drug dealers—and each character must make moral choices that are not easy. Sal is confronted with the fact that drug money gets caught up in the legal system and doesn't go to the cops who stopped it, who need it, who don’t make enough as public servants to provide for a family. Eddie does his job without thanks, and two decades of confronting the violence of the streets—more than 7,000 days worth—takes its toll physically and emotionally. Tango is torn between doing what is legally right and what is morally right. And by the end of the movie, all three of these cops will end up in the same apartment building in the middle of the night.

Most movies barely have one character as complex as the main characters in this film. This movie offers no easy answers; it does not try to answer them, and in my opinion that’s what makes the film appealing. The movie is exceptional on every level: Acting by Hawke, Gere, Cheadle and Snipes; the screenplay by Michael C. Martin and Fuqua’s direction. In fact, I was reminded several times of Crash (which also featured a wonderful performance by Cheadle), and that film won three Academy Awards including Best Picture of 2006. Brooklyn’s Finest will have been out on DVD several months by the time the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominate films and crew for the “Oscars.” Hopefully, they will remember this one.

How to Have a Successful Marriage (God's Way)

Marriage According to Ephesians 5:22-33

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands love this verse. And because translators inserted chapters and verse numbers, certain parts of Scripture are easy to quote, especially when discussing a topic. Sadly, it’s easy to build a teaching or a doctrine and then use one of these handy number breaks as reference. But this entire section was written as one part regarding marriage within the body of believers. The first three verses apply to wives. Let’s examine them and see what the Holy Spirit was leading Paul to say.

Wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. Why? Because the husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. And He is the Savior of the body. Let’s examine it this way:

Husband = head of wife
Christ = head of church

There is a parallel at work here. The relationship between man and wife on earth is similar to the relationship between God and believers. This should not be too surprising since Jesus explained the commandments like this:

Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 29-31)

First of all, love God. Once you love God, then you can have the conduit open to love your neighbor, those here on earth.

Understanding this structure is crucial to maintaining a Godly marriage. This instruction was for married believers. A man loves God. He has a spiritual relationship with God and is a follower of Jesus Christ. He is obligated to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now he can love his fellow human beings. He meets a woman who loves God. She, too, has a spiritual relationship with God and follows Jesus Christ. She loves God with her heart, soul, mind, and strength. She loves her fellow human beings and meets the man. These two have their relationships with God; now, they can live by His Word together, and His plan is that she submits to her husband as she has to God. This is only part of His plan.


25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

At first glance this may not seem like much of a commandment. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Usually the last part of a sentence is what resonates in our mind, and most men usually say “Of course I would give my life for my wife,” but we forget the first part of the sentence, the reason why giving our lives is even suggested: “Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church…”

How much did Christ love the church? Sure, He gave His life, but much more than that. His entire ministry, His life was for the believers. Everything he did or said was for the glory of God to the people on earth. He wanted people to know who He was, who God was, that they were loved even to the point of death. The last line of verse 25 reminds us that Christ “gave Himself for her.” He gave His life, His entire life on this planet for everyone on it. That’s love. Life until the point of death. Sometimes we think how easy it would be to die for God or our wives, but are we willing to live for God… and our wives? That’s what husbands are commanded to do.

The parallels continue in verses 25-29 as we see the relationship between man and wife, and Christ and believers; (1) that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, (2) that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but (3) that she should be holy and without blemish.

The husband’s job is help sanctify and purify his wife through the cleansing power of the word just like Jesus. The husband should present her without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing that would defile her. He is to help her stay holy before himself and God.

This is the duty of the husband, to live for God and for our wives just like Jesus lived to fulfill the Father’s wish and for his believers. You want to buy a bass boat? How will that benefit your wife? You want to buy a big screen television? What would be the advantage for your wife? You want to stay out a little late with some friends? How will that affect your wife? The role of the husband is to be a servant for the sake of the wife. And if the wife submits to him, he will succeed.

This is God’s plan. Genesis 2:18 says “And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” But the man is also to be a helper to the woman. By loving God we can love each other. When husbands and wives love each other—and submit to their respective roles—we draw closer to God.

The end of Ephesians chapter five, which quotes from Genesis chapter two, sums up the two roles of husband and wife, and why believers should adhere to God’s plan:

30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.