Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede

****

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Children's Books and Reviews:

Cimorene is a princess who would make any feminist proud. If The Paper Bag Princess managed to avoid the temptation to bitterness and misandry, she might well have grown up to be Cimorene. Dissatisfied with her feminine lot, she persuades her father’s various retainers to teach her fencing, cooking, magic, and Latin. [...] Rather than simply complaining about the injustice of her circumstances, she rolls up her sleeves and changes them. [...] Where her sisters simper stupidly and whine when they don’t get their way, Cimorene is intelligent, innovative, hardworking, and possessed of more than her fair share of common sense. [...]

As role models go, young female readers could do a lot worse than Cimorene.

Full review available here.

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine

****

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

The curse of obedience is represented as a violation—Ella is being forced to do things, and this interferes with the autonomy that is so highly valued in modern day America (well, in America pretty much on down the line). And indeed, this independence dovetails nicely with the religious idea of ‘free will.’ How do you explain the existence of evil in the world? ‘God didn’t want a bunch of automatons; He had to leave people free to choose sin, and some of them do. What can you do?’ How about salvation? ‘God gives us a choice whether to follow Him; if He interfered with or influenced our choice, then we would be mindless slaves.’ The idea of a bunch of puppet-people walking around following orders whether they want to or not is revolting to us; free will is the only acceptable alternative. [...] 

This idea of autonomy and freedom of thought stands in striking contrast to the Biblical teaching on free will. In The Freedom of the Will (which Coyle Neal blogged about recently), theologian Jonathan Edwards argues, quite persuasively, that our ‘will’ is at the mercy of our ‘desires’—that we can only will what we want. This makes a lot of sense—I may be physically free to choose between, say, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a slug-and-cat-hair sandwich, but if there’s nothing in me that wantsthe slug-and-cat-hair sandwich, then my ‘freedom’ to choose it is of little use to me. Functionally, I am only free to choose the things that are, in some sense, desirable to me.

Full review available here.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

However, American Gods demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of religion. Not all religions are man-made. There is a God who is not made by human hands—in fact, He made man … and everything else. (Gen. 1:1; Ps. 96:4-5; John 1:1-3; I Cor. 8:5-6) [...] He doesn’t get tired (Is. 40:28), and unlike other ‘gods’, He lives eternally (Jer. 10:11-16). [...] He has power over life and death, and nothing and no one compares to Him (Deut. 34:37-39)—certainly not some man-made idol (Is. 40:12-20). In fact, the other ‘gods’, such as they are, are commanded to worship Him (Ps. 97:7, 9). 

This God is no figment of human imagination (Acts 17:29). And while He desires—and deserves—our worship, He certainly doesn’t need it (Acts 17:24-25). We can no more harm or weaken Him by withholding our worship than, well, a tiny ant can hurt our feelings by making funny faces at us. It’s absurd. He is supremely powerful, supremely self-sufficient, and, more than that, He’s supremely sovereign (Ps. 115:3). Which means that our refusal to honor Him will itself be used to bring Him more glory (Ex. 14:4). 

[...] Where Mr. Wednesday and his fellow gods are willing to steal, cheat, lie, and kill in order to win the worship they crave, God never lies (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). [...] And unlike the selfish, callous, manipulative Mr. Wednesday, God is so perfectly loving that He is love. In fact, He’s the source of love—the only reason we even know what love is is because of God (I John 4:7-19).

Full review available here.

The Once and Future King, by T.H. White

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

Camelot has come to be associated with ideas of potential, hope, and promise, but in T.H. White’s book, it’s an even more striking picture of the depravity of man. [...] 

Arthur: “I will impregnate my half sister (it’s a long story—there was witchcraft) and then ineffectually arrange for the murder of the resulting bastard child. I will also devote my life to becoming a staunch advocate for justice and no respecter of persons, except when the person in question is one of my knights, in which case I’ll totally overlook minor infractions like the slaughter of innocents. Oh, and despite Merlin’s explicit warning about my wife and BFF hooking up (and the resulting downfall of my kingdom), I will turn a blind eye to their affair and instead adopt the tried-and-true ‘La la la I can’t hear you’ approach.” 

Other knights: “We will constantly lose our tempers, go off half-cocked, and/or avenge various wrongs (real or imagined) by murdering women, bystanders, and other knights, then apologize to Arthur, who will pardon us as long as we promise not to let it happen again. Then we will totally let it happen again. Also, the only one of us who is remotely virtuous will act like a sanctimonious and self-righteous jerk who is too busy being ‘holy’ to ever actually care about another human being.” [...] 

Some utopia you’ve got there, Arthur. Yessirree.

Full review available here.

Monsters University (2013)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

We want the truth to be that anyone can do anything, that if you just set your mind on it and work hard enough, you can achieve your dream. But that’s not the real world. We have limitations. The world is full of little boys who wanted to play basketball like Michael Jordan. Many of them worked really, really hard at it. But to date, no one has pulled it off. If we tell them that anything is possible, that they can make their dream a reality, then how do they explain their failure? After all, failure is not always a function of ‘not working hard enough’. If insurmountable limitations exist, hard work, though morally beneficial, is just a hamster wheel to nowhere. Some dreams are beyond our power to achieve. That is life. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, ‘playing basketball like Michael Jordan’ isn’t the only worthwhile goal in the world. As children, we’re drawn to extreme goals—be the best, the brightest, the first. But these kinds of tasks fall to a very few individuals, and the majority of kids (even your kids), will never be the best at anything. And that is ok. There is no shame in merely being good, being bright, loving your friends and family, and working hard, even if you never win a gold medal for any of it.

Full review available here.

Epic (2013)

**

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

In a post Occupy Wall Street world, we’re used to hearing about the 99%, used to hearing about how those rich jerks owe it to us poor schlubs of the world to help us out and spread the wealth. We hear community touted right and left, but it is a community of entitlement. Community means I deserve. I am owed. I am entitled … to a house or a car or a bigger chunk of my neighbor’s paycheck. I have rights, and heaven help anyone who tries to take them away or infringe on them in any way. Community, in America, seems to be about what we can get. 

Not so in … Leafy-town or wherever it is that the story takes place. Here, the mantra is ‘Many leaves, one tree.’ As Captain Ronin explains it, this kind of community is one of service. America, with its ‘take take take’ attitude, has the community stick by the entitlement end. Ronin and his fellow Leaf-Men, by seeking to serve others, have figured out what we are still struggling to understand.

Full review available here.

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

“In the beginning,” Nicodemus recalls, “we were ordinary street rats, stealing our daily bread and living off the efforts of man’s work.” Since that time, they have been given the gift of intelligence, received at the hands of the men of NIMH. But with that intelligence came the awareness that certain actions, even if beneficial to the actor, are wrong. As long as the rats continue to steal, they will only ever be smart rats. If they want to be something more, something nobler, they must be not merely intelligent but moral. It is not intelligence or self-awareness that makes a man, but honor and integrity and right living—using that intelligence to learn about and conform to morality. Nicodemus wants to lead the rats to a new, moral life, where they live not as the rats they were, but as the men they can be. 

Jenner, on the other hand, is more than happy to use his intelligence for his own self-interest with no regard for right, wrong, or the interests of others. He is happy to continue stealing from Farmer Fitzgibbons as long as it benefits him, and is even willing to escalate to murder if anyone stands in the way of those benefits. His intelligence thus functions as little more than a kind of elevated animal cunning, and he remains a rat. Because the intelligence of Nicodemus and his followers leads to moral knowledge, and because they submit their intelligence to conscience and in fact put it to work for conscience, they become something more than rats. They are men.

Full review available here.

Fortress of Mist (Merlin's Immortals #2), by Sigmund Brouwer

**

After successfully (and bloodlessly) taking the city of Magnus in The Orphan King, young Thomas quickly learns that keeping a kingdom can be just as much of a challenge as acquiring one. Thomas finds himself up to his neck in political maneuvering, as the King demands his assistance in the ongoing war with the Scots, and treasonous spies try to incite the neighboring lords against him. Meanwhile, Thomas is plagued by seeming visions of the lovely (and supposedly dead) Isabelle. But it is Katherine, the kind, fire-scarred girl, who Thomas most wishes to see. Both women are drawn to Thomas, and both seek Thomas's allegiance (and his inherited collection of mystical books) for a powerful force: the Druids, who control so much of the land, and those who would oppose them. Will Thomas be able to hold Magnus in the face of these challenges? Will he align himself with the Druids, who offer limitless power and immortality? Will he side with their opponents? Or will he forge a separate path?

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

I have not seen the TV spots and trailers for Jack the Giant Slayer, but I’m told that they were … not good. Allow me to assure you that the movie is nowhere near as bad as the marketing would apparently suggest. In fact, it’s actually quite good. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Sure, it’s chock full of laughably CGI’d giants and a soundtrack that desperately wants to be mistaken for The Lord of the Rings, but it’s fun, darn it! There are some good one-liners along the way, the action sequences are fairly creative, and the casting is above-average for this sort of flick. Nicholas Hoult has grown up quite a bit since I last saw him in About a Boy (2002), and his wide-eyed, dreamy vibe is a good fit for the head-in-the-clouds Jack (who spends most of the film clad in what looks suspiciously like a hoodie, tee shirt, and jeans). Eleanor Tomlinson is likewise a good fit for Princess Isabelle—appropriately spunky, lovely enough to warrant Jack’s immediate infatuation, and intelligent enough to know an unlikely hero when she sees one. Ian McShane sheds his bad-guy persona in favor of an old-fashioned but genuinely affectionate father (though I admit it’s rather jarring to hear him deliver any line that’s not punctuated by pungent profanity). Bill Nighy does excellent voice work as Fallon, the leader of the giants (though I wish the CGI team had made more use of his face, and not just his voice). Stanley Tucci is positively delicious as the eeeevil Lord Roderick—though he should really shave the beard so as to maximize his mustache-twirling potential. But for my money, the real star of the picture is Ewan McGregor as the sprightly and stalwart captain of the guard, Elmont. He exudes that quintessentially British brand of courage, all bright cheerfulness and unshakable loyalty and unflappable sangfroid. I can’t remember Ewan McGregor ever being so likable. He was a delight to watch—and I’m not usually a big Ewan McGregor fan.

Full review available here.

The Mummy (1932)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

The narrative here, like that of many monster stories, is at its heart a romantic one: Once upon a time, Priest Imhotep loved Princess Ankh-es-en-amon. When death separated them, Imhotep was so desperate to be with her again that he acted in deliberate rebellion against the gods he previously served by stealing the Scroll of Thoth in order to bring Ankh-es-en-amon back to life so they could be together. He chose human love over faith. 

Imhotep was caught in the act and, as punishment for his transgression, he was buried alive in complete mummy regalia. Now, having been accidentally resurrected by the nitwitted archaeologist’s assistant, Imhotep picks up where he left off, searching for his long lost love, whose soul apparently resides in her modern day ancestor, the young Helen Grosvenor. Along the way, Imhotep is perfectly willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. His ‘love’ for Ankh-es-en-amon results in disrespect—and violence—toward others. 

Then, it turns out that the final step in his long-planned reunion with Ankh-es-en-amon is Helen’s death—only by killing the body where the soul of Ankh-es-en-amon dwells can she be freed to be with Imhotep forever. This plan doesn’t seem to go over too well with Helen (or, it is implied, Ankh-es-en-amon), but that doesn’t stop Imhotep. What she wants doesn’t matter. His ‘love’ for Ankh-es-en-amon overrides all other considerations. He ‘loves’ her so much that he is willing to kill her—against her will—to be with her.

Full review available here.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

But that’s not how the world really works. I am not the hero. That role has already been filled. The whole universe and everyone in it from the dawn of time to the end of ages are merely bit players in a story about Someone Else. My life matters because of what it says about Him. He’s the main character. He did the saving. My contribution was, well, getting myself into a big, rotten, stinking mess. His contribution was reaching down into the mire to save my sorry soul. Every teensy bit of progress I’ve experienced in my life is the result of His work. He fights sin in my life; my efforts are the palest imitation of His effectual acts. I’m not the hero. I’m not an ‘actor’. Heck, I’m not even a supporting actor—best case scenario, I’m an uncredited extra. If I were to be nominated for an Oscar for my performance, it would be for something like ‘Woman at restaurant’ or ‘Girl carrying books.’ I’m so far from being the center of the story that it’s laughable.

Full review available here.

The Top Shelf: Best Reads of 2012 Edition

As 2012 draws to a close, the interwebs are flooded with year-end lists: the best-dressed, the worst-dressed, the best and worst movies, the most memorable moments, etc. I am not in a position to offer an opinion on the best books of 2012, since I don't keep up with the latest publications, but I did make my own list--the best books I read in 2012, broken up by genre--which was recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost. Here's an excerpt:

Best Romance: A Long Fatal Love Chase, by Louisa May Alcott 

Did you know that Louisa May Alcott, she of the quaintly wholesome Little Women, also wrote insanely outlandish romance novels? Well, she did, and they are awesome. A Long Fatal Love Chase is full of improbably named villains with nefarious intentions and a lovely heroine whose flight from said villain takes her from yacht to convent to mental institution, through an assortment of disguises, forbidden love, and daring escapes. In short, it is flat out bonkers, and I loved every minute of it. 

Honorable Mention: A Modern Mephistopheles, by Louisa May Alcott

Full post available here.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

***

From 1943 to 1949, Disney's animated 'feature films' were not, in fact, full length movies, but were instead 'package films'--a collection of shorter films. There was a war on, after all, and many of the animators and creative minds behind Disney were otherwise engaged--producing training and propaganda films. In fact, the first few 'package films' were themselves a form of propaganda: Saludos Amigos (1943, Disney characters go to South America and have adventures) and The Three Caballeros (1945, Donald Duck receives various presents from Latin American friends) were designed to foster goodwill with South America and counteract the Nazi influences there. The rest of the package films weren't directly related to the war effort, but WWII left a significant creative drain in its wake, resulting in a lot of half-finished storylines, which were then cobbled together to make feature length films--Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Melody Time (1948). The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was the last in this series.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

***

In this fairly creative update of the classic Jules Verne story, Brendan Fraser is Trevor, kid brother of the long-missing Max, a vulcanologist who disappeared years before. Now Trevor is following in his brother's footsteps--or he would be, if the university wasn't cutting his funding and converting his lab into storage. Fortunately, Max's wife shows up to drop off 13-year-old Sean (Josh Hutcherson, long before Katniss Everdeen broke his heart) for a visit, and delivering a box of Max's old belongings. Tucked alongside the old baseball mitt and yo-yo is a heavily annotated copy of A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Trevor soon realizes that Max used it as a field journal to record his findings, and that current volcanic conditions are a perfect match for those recorded in the journal around the time of Max's disappearance--including a long-dormant site in Iceland. So of course, the boys head off to follow in Max's footsteps. With the help of a (conveniently attractive) mountain guide named Hannah--herself the daughter of a vulcanologist--Trevor and Sean trudge up Sneffels and soon find that maybe Verne's story isn't science fiction after all ...

Cloud Atlas (2012)

****

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

For the Wachowkis, the unifying theme of the stories is a sense of community and human connectedness. I was struck, however, by the portrayal of injustice as a universal experience. In each story, an injustice is being committed, and in each story, the characters involved must decide how to respond to that injustice. Some characters choose selfishness; others engage with circumstances in an attempt to bring about justice. So the fabricant/clone, when confronted with the horrible fate inflicted en masse on others like herself, chooses to take a stand in defense of those whom society as deemed ‘less than human’ and thus undeserving of basic human rights, or even life itself. This decision proves costly, yet the film clearly embraces the sacrifice of self for the pursuit of justice as honorable and right. This idea of self-sacrifice for the sake of justice recurs across several story lines—a young lawyer helps an escaped slave; a freedom fighter saves a helpless girl; a man risks his life to help the daughter of a friend; a woman risks her life for truth and to save thousands, perhaps millions; and a man undertakes a dangerous journey in exchange for a cure for a sick girl. In two of the story lines, this theme is rather muddled, as the victim and the savior are the same person, and, in one story, the perceived solution to the injustice is apparently self-salvation through suicide. 

Regardless of whether we agree with the means used to combat injustice—or even with the filmmakers’ characterization of certain events and actions as unjust—this experience of injustice makes an excellent theme, for it is common to all. If there is any universal constant in a fallen world, it is injustice.

Full review available here.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

From the minds of geek favorite Joss Whedon and frequent Whedon (and Abrams) collaborator Drew Goddard comes this delightfully comedic (yet nonetheless horrific) send-up of the slasher genre. Whedon, fed up with the modern trend toward ‘torture porn’, describes this film as a ‘loving hate letter’ to the horror genre. The Cabin in the Woods is equal parts thrilling, horrifying, smart, gross, hilarious, visually impressive, and incisive. [...] 

Longtime Whedon fans will be pleased to see actors Amy Acker (Angel, Dollhouse) and Fran Kranz (Dollhouse) on the big screen—Kranz in particular is a joy to watch as a perpetually stoned and, as it turns out, justifiably paranoid pothead. For me, however, the high point of the film was Bradley Whitford, who won my heart in the hilarious-but-short-lived (and, for reasons unclear to me, still unavailable on DVD) series The Good Guys, and who is utterly delightful here as a callous, arrogant technician at the forefront of the assault on the unfortunate college students.

As I’ve said, this movie is smart, fun, and totally worth checking out; but be warned, it is a horror flick. Awful, gory, disturbing things happen to each and every one of the college students (among others), so if you’re squeamish and/or prefer to avoid excessively violent films, then this is likely not the movie for you. That being said, I do think the film provides some (likely unintentional) commentary on the gospel.

Full review available here.

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:

For Lovecraft, the world is a horrible place, full of hidden knowledge and dark forces. The human race stands on the brink of disaster, and the only thing keeping us all from panic and despair is ignorance of our true circumstances. [...] 

For Christians, there is a kernel of truth hidden among the nihilistic weeds of Lovecraft’s worldview. We know that there is a powerful enemy set on the destruction and domination of mankind. [...] “His craft and power are great, / and, armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal.”  [...] If we truly understood our predicament, we would cower in hopeless terror before the forces of darkness, as millions before us have done.

Lovecraft is not wrong about our situation. He sees something that we all too often miss. He understands the problem—we are opposed by ancient, malevolent beings who want nothing more than to completely enslave and obliterate the human race, and we are powerless to defend ourselves. 

But for Christians, that’s not the end of the story. Not by a long shot.

Full review available here.

Inkheart (2008)

**

When Mo Folchart reads aloud, books come alive. No, really. If he reads about treasure, treasure appears. If he reads about a bloodthirsty villain, look out--a bloodthirsty villain just might pop up and knock you on the head. This talent is, as you can imagine, quite valuable to certain unpleasant people--people who are determined to make the most of Mo's gift. But there's a problem. Well, two problems. First, Mo can't control what comes out of the book. If he's reading Ali Baba's adventures in 1001 Arabian Nights, for example, you might wind up with treasure. You might also wind up with one or more of the forty thieves, or with more sand than you know what to do with. The second problem is even worse: for everything that comes out of a book, something from the real world must go in. Mo discovered this terrible side-effect years before, when he was reading aloud to his daughter Meggie . . . and his wife Teresa disappeared from sight. Turns out she was sucked into the book he was reading: Inkheart. Mo's determined to read her back out again, but he's having a devil of a time locating a copy of the book. And no wonder--the villain Capricorn, accidentally read out by Mo, has been methodically tracking down and destroying all the copies of the book he can find. Meanwhile, carnival performer Dustfinger, also read out by Mo, is desperate to be read back into the story where he belongs. With the assistance of Mo's book-loving great aunt Elinor, Mo and Meggie (and occasionally Dustfinger) must find a way to vanquish Capricorn and put everything (and everyone) back where it belongs.

This movie really should have been better than it was.

Mossflower, by Brian Jacques

****

Things have come to a pretty pass in the once-idyllic Mossflower Wood. The cruel (and unstable) wildcat Tsarmina rules over the land from her fortress Kotir, and the woodlanders are forced to turn over more and more of their food to feed Tsarmina's armies. Any resistance is immediately--and mercilessly--punished. And anyway, what chance do a bunch of mice and hedgehogs have against the hordes of weasels, ferrets, rats, and stoats . . . to say nothing of their wicked leader, Tsarmina? Then one day, a young mouse wanders into Mossflower Wood. But this isn't just any mouse--this is Martin the Warrior, veteran fighter from the North. With the assistance of a roguish mouse thief, a good-hearted mole, a misplaced shrew leader, a band of rather obstreperous hares, and a warlike old badger--to say nothing of Mossflower's own crackerjack troops of squirrel archers, fighting otters, and digging moles--Martin takes on the tyrant of Kotir, and he's determined to drive her and hers out of Mossflower and win freedom for the woodlanders . . . or die trying.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

***

Hellboy (a.k.a. 'Red') and the B.P.R.D. are back for another installment--this time facing off against the elf prince Nuada, who is hell-bent (heh) on reviving the long-dormant 'Golden Army', a horde of indestructible mechanical soldiers built by goblin blacksmiths long ago. The Golden Army is more than capable of wiping out the human race, but is held in check by the longstanding truce between men (who agreed to keep to the cities) and elves (who retained control of the forest). But times have changed, and the humans aren't living up to their side of the bargain, and Prince Nuada has had enough. Hellboy--with an assist from his pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz, the amphibious humanoid Abe Sapiens, ectoplasmic medium Johann Krauss, and Nuada's twin sister Nuala--must keep Nuada from collecting the three pieces of the ancient crown that, once united, will reactivate the Golden Army. Meanwhile, Liz has to make some tough decisions about her future . . . and Red's.