MOVIES: "CONVICTION"

What if you were someone’s only hope? What if that someone was your brother? That’s exactly the position Betty Ann Waters (the plucky Hilary Swank) found herself in in 1983, when her brother, Kenny (the amazing Sam Rockwell), was convicted of murder. Wrongly, she believed.
Based on a true story that took place in Ayer, Massachusetts, Betty Ann becomes a lawyer in order to exonerate her brother and works unceasingly for 18 years on his behalf.

This fine little drama (could it be that dramas are returning to the Cineplex?) also stars the exquisite Melissa Leo as Kenny’s arresting officer. Minnie Driver is Betty’s law school friend who gets involved, and Juliette Lewis does a truly patheticomic turn as one of Kenny’s old girlfriends. If the highest compliment you can give an actor is that their performance was a “revelation,” Juliette Lewis was a “revelation.”

Betty Ann and Kenny basically grew up wild and running in the streets, were placed in foster homes, and Kenny always found himself in trouble with the law. When he grew up, he was an easy target to pin the gruesome murder of an elderly woman on. The flashbacks of the pair as little playmate-hoodlums explain why they are “joined at the hip” in adulthood and are so fiercely devoted to each other. The filmmakers plant doubt in our minds about Kenny’s innocence, but Betty Ann never doubts her brother.

The actors pretty much nail the Boston accent, cadence and tough-but-charming attitude and swagger, especially Sam Rockwell.

Like Diane Lane in “The Perfect Storm,” and Uma Thurman in “Motherhood,” Hilary Swank is just a little too classically good-looking and refined of carriage, movement and demeanor to convince that she’s “average.” But her acting is truly in the moment and genuine. She can’t help the looks.

It’s difficult to say more about this film without giving away the ending. Was he innocent or not? Does he get out or not? You’ll have to see for yourself. The sacred trust of all movie-goers must not be broken. Remember how well audiences kept secret the ending of “Sixth Sense” and “Harry Potter” books and movies?

In the vein of “Erin Brockovich,” “A Civil Action,” and “The Hurricane,” “Conviction”’s uniqueness lies in that it is a beautiful love story of a sister and brother, of the true meaning of family, and of laying down one’s life for another.

OTHER STUFF:

--Why do I always see Hilary in my mind’s eye in that hideous backwards navy blue clingy dress she wore at the Golden Globes? I need to get over that. And I must go on record to say that I actually loved Bjork’s swan dress at the Oscars (it wasn’t a real swan). Why here? Why now? Because we’re talking about dresses.

--The little kid actors are great (I recognize the little girl from “Letters to God”). It’s scary how good today’s young actors are. Is anyone else scared?

--Kenny’s daughter is played to understated perfection by the always-enthralling Ari Graynor (from Boston!) who looks somewhat like Ke$ha.

--The music is definitely tear-jerking, but not over-the-top: flowing piano and violins.

--Martha Coakley no looka so good in this movie.

--"Massachusetts" was filmed in Michigan. Fooled me.

--Female screenwriter: Pamela Gray. Yay!

--This movie should have been PG-13 (not R)--but for the use of the “f” word. It’s just not fair.

--HD report: Hilary has natural, beautiful facial lines (Minnie Driver? Not so much—perhaps hidden by all those curls?) Could it be that Hollywood is *gasp* allowing women to age gracefully??

--DO NOT READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH 'CAUSE IT'S A BIG OLE SPOILER!!!!!!!
OK--you were warned. What if Kenny HADN'T been innocent? Would it have been OK for Betty Ann to keep loving him? I KNEW he would be innocent because we had to have a Hollywood ending and audiences are not allowed to root for murderers (unless they're mafia). Also, in an unrelated(?) matter, it seems, in real life, the murdered woman's children are upset because they weren't consulted for the movie.

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MOVIES: "THE SOCIAL NETWORK"

Is “The Social Network” all that? Yes it is. At first, I didn’t even want to see it because while it was still in the making, media pundits were poking fun at it, like: “Who cares?” “Who cares about Zuckerberg?” “Is the beginning of Facebook really a story?” But then the buzz and the box office. Evidently there is a story here.

What’s the hook? I think there are four: 1) Facebook has changed the face of the internet and the world. It’s just a phenom too big to ignore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLd9q88ohUs&feature=related (I always like to say that Facebook is what the internet was missing from the beginning—a kind of soul, personalization, the human touch.) 2) Like “The Revenge of the Nerds,” “The Social Network” chronicles the shift of power to the (now-called) “geeks.” Geeks who are not only off-the-charts brilliant, but understand the potential of technology and how people perceive and use it or CAN perceive and use it. 3) Like Bill Gates (an actor portrays him briefly in “The Social Network”), Zuckerberg seems to be a shrewd and ruthless young businessman who--for all his own social awkwardness--really does understand human nature. This understanding just doesn’t seem to work for him personally. 4) Understanding how people use today’s and tomorrow’s technology IS “the next big thing.” Those who cling to outmoded ways of thinking about technology will be thrown on the radiation-exuding landfills of history. The future is always about NEW IDEAS, not stasis, and the young Turks will supersede not only the old Turks, but one another in winner-take-all battles.

I kind of feel bad for the real Mark Zuckerberg. He has been thoroughly skewered in this movie. How much is true? Clearly the legal proceedings against Zuckerberg did not come out in his favor. Or maybe they did (since they were out-of-court settlements that a character tells Zuckerberg is like “paying for a parking ticket”). Zuckerberg is made to look like an ambitious, self-obsessed, controlling, scheming, misanthropic, arrogant, jealous person. And what’s worse, a double-crossing friend. But not greedy, not really. For him, money is only power, it’s only the symbol of a superior being. In the movie, Zuckerberg also finds himself to be superior due to his computer prowess, and says as much.

“The Social Network” is like a young man’s “Wall Street,” in that enterprise and entrepreneurship and VC and investors and stock holdings and forming new alliances and companies are all a great big game in the end. And it’s like “Wall Street” in the “talkie-ness” of the movie. But this is a good thing! The visuals and acting are just superb (our young actors today are pretty amazing). The music—Trent Reznor!—fittingly starts off as heavy electronica, and then mellows out and disappears into the fabric of the rest of the film.

SPOILER ALERT! But at the end, when he’s sitting on top of the world quite literally, Zuckerberg is left without the one thing he wanted most, or at least wanted as much as sitting on top of the world: Erica. What a perfect closing shot: Zuckerberg using Facebook to slowly send a friend request to her. There is little hope it will be confirmed, but he keeps hitting “refresh” over and over, waiting…. Love is the one thing that the masters and commanders of the world can’t master and command, can’t outsmart everyone else to obtain. One has to put self to the side, die to self to even really see the other person, the beloved, as “other,” not just an extension of self. One wonders if the silver-screen Zuckerberg could ever let go of self enough to develop this capacity.

In the first scene where he’s talking at his girlfriend with rapid-fire Spock-like logic, passive-aggressively accusing, attacking, needing and demeaning her all in the same breath, we wonder if Zuckerberg is a kind of savant who is just maladroit at normal social interaction. But he tips his hand too many times in the conversation, demanding that she “be supportive” and grateful because he is such a great boon to her life.

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY? The seeds are definitely there. The inciting incident (for Zuckerberg to create Facebook) is Erica breaking up with him. His second impetus to expand Facebook is his second rejection by Erica. Sean Parker (Napster) recounts later in the film how he got started himself after being jilted by a girl. As we hear the men in “The Social Network” talk, it seems everything they do is FOR “girls,” albeit mostly to use them sexually, or rather engage in mutual sexual use of each other. But it’s still about the girls.

Erica knows her own worth AND knows that if she hitches her wagon to star Z, she WILL be going places and become incredibly wealthy. But she’d rather have love.

OTHER STUFF:
--Zuckerberg created Facebook while drunk. Imagine what he could have done sober!

--Some great, weighty-in-2010-hindsight* quotes: “We’ll just email it to a few people.” “That’s my roommate!” [one girl states this with horror—making it personal--about her friend’s pic being rated for “hotness”]

--The movie is mostly long legal hearings punctuated by flashbacks. But it works.

--The debauchery portrayed is reality on campuses. Run of the mill. Yawn. Just another day/night on campus. Sad. I’d say PG-15.

--Geeks like Asian girls.

--Geek-characters like Strawberry Twizzlers (or are those Red Vines?) like every other type of character in Hollywood.

--Watching smart movies makes me feel smart.

--Erica—the face that launched Facebook. Erica—the face that launched 500,000,000 friends.

--Guys write code and conduct business while girls do shots, do bong hits, dance half naked, play video games, go psycho on their boyfriends, get coke snorted off their midriffs, etc. Where IS Gloria Steinem when you need her?!

--Bill Donaghy (TOBI speaker) pointed out to me the immortal words of VJP2G: "The task of every man is the dignity of every woman." He said this is his new mantra, and I'm convinced that's it is the solution to everything, especially after seeing "The Social Network"--a great movie--but ALL the women in it are bimbos except for Erica, Zuckerberg's "the one." Men have to think of ALL women as special and worthy of dignity, not just "the one" they want to marry (even when women don't act according to their dignity and stoop to be whatever they think men want them to be--a result of original sin: "He will lord it over you, but your desire will be for him."). The divine order is that men lead. Women are whole persons without "a man," and we can affirm ourselves, but we long for men to respect us, appreciate us, tell us we're beautiful, see us as whole persons, love us as whole persons, interact with/relate to us as whole persons. If MEN did this consistently, women would auto-correct their undignified behavior because it wouldn't get them anywhere: the men wouldn't want it, ask for it, or reward it. I'll say it again: IN THE DIVINE ORDER, MEN LEAD. I don't care how politically incorrect it is to say that, it's the truth. MEN, PLEASE LEAD US WITH LOVE, because the sad truth is that many, many women will do absolutely anything for you and your attention.

--Glimmers of hope? In the movie, Zuckerberg says: "You can find 'hot, naked girls' anywhere on the internet. What people want to do is connect with each other, with their friends--it's the whole college experience." And according to the link above ("What the Hell Is Social Media?"), social networking has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the net. (Not sure how they're calculating that.)

--David Fincher sure knows how to make a movie ("Fight Club," "Benjamin Button").

--How long before we have a movie on the beginnings of Google?

--HD shows that twentysomethings have wrinkles and crow’s feet! Much more realistic. But I still like b & w and soft focus. You may say that I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.
____
*Hindsight is 20/10?

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THEOLOGY OF THE BODY--IN THE FIELD

So I'm at Mundelein Seminary, Chicago, this past weekend at a wonderful Marian Day arranged by some seminarians (http://www.materfidelium.org/) giving a talk on "The Handmaid of the Lord and the Feminine Genius." There's about 50 women attending the talk and 7 guys.

Ten minutes into my talk, this little old guy, all bent over, shuffles in with his walker (wife behind him). He turns to me and says: "You were waiting for the king." He sits in the front. I began talking about John Paul II and he calls out: "What does he know?" I ask him if he's my private heckler and he pipes down.

Next I say: "Men, why do you hold open doors for women?" Dead silence. A woman chimes in: "I think it's because they want to be chivalr--"

Me: "MEN."

Dead silence.

The ladies are bursting to fill in. Another woman raises her hand and doesn't wait for me to call on her: "I really think it's because--"

Me: "MEN."

Old guy (the king) in front: "To hold myself up." (I lose it and crumple on the podium laughing.)

Another guy in the back: "To get a better look?"

By now the ladies look very discouraged. "Well, maybe these men DON'T hold open the door for women," one offers.

Me: "John Paul II says it's because we women bear the lion's share of sexuality."
A middle-aged lady wrinkles up her nose like she has no idea what that means. Wow. Need I explain??? Yes. We are so in need of Theology of the Body (myself included). It's "Humanity 101."

Me: "Um, we have monthly cycles, we carry babies in our womb for 9 months, go through childbirth, nursing, nurturing....?"

The conclusion of my talk is that "the feminine genius" is...(drum roll)...MOTHERHOOD! (Whether physical or spiritual.) I cannot tell you the look of relief (and joy) on the women's faces. So many came up to me afterward and said: "I really know this and feel this, but it's so un-PC to talk about it!"

When I told a seminarian about "the king" and his "queen" (easily in their 80's) he said: "Oh yeah! I've been driving them around the campus all day on a golf cart. The wife refused to sit down, but insisted on standing up and hanging off the back of the golf cart. I was so scared she was going to bounce off, I was going 2 mph the whole time!"

Old people are the spice of life.

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THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY—JP2G’s “LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY”
FR. LOYA 10-09-10[Sr. Helena’s superfluous comments in brackets]

p. 24—We are persons. Everything JP2G says is based on this. “Nobody else can want for me.” “I must be independent in my actions.”

PERSONALISM:--We are only persons because God is a Person (we are made in the image of)--a person is always worthy of love, honor, respect, dignity--inalienable--we don’t just have instinct like animals, we can choose--self-determination--the only appropriate response to persons is LOVE. We are made for LOVE—to give and receive love. Anything less than this is dehumanizing, depersonalizing--verb “to use” can be used in different ways: tool, pleasure--The opposite of love is not hate but “use.”

In his marriage prep, marriage counseling, Fr. Loya tries to help couples to examine how they’re relating to each other.

p. 34—JP2G critiques “utilitarianism”“Pleasure must be subordinate to love.” We cannot just “use” someone for our pleasure. Only love can raise pleasure to an interpersonal relationship. Use-pleasure can disguise itself as love.

In vitro fertilization (IVF)—there’s a strain of utilitarianism here that is not readily evident because the desires/objectives are sincere and good in themselves: to have and love a child. But the child is subordinated to a subjective desire of the couple and the MEANS used to create this child are unethical.We are raised in a very utilitarian culture so it’s very hard for people to see this.

Utilitarians believe that the primary good is pleasure and tries to maximize pleasure for the majority. But pleasure is accidental, it’s not the primary aim. It comes about in the process of something else, and if it’s ordered properly, it can be totally legit. We can have pleasure in bad things, too, like revenge!

Pleasure and pain are always connected with a concrete action, so it’s impossible to plan them exactly like the utilitarians want us to do. They are somewhat elusive things.
If I accept utilitarianism, I must see myself as a subject who desires maximum pleasure, and must see myself as an object who must be at the service of the pleasure of others. [It doesn’t acknowledge persons! You can divide all philosophies into those that acknowledge persons and those that don’t. If you don’t, you’re already in trouble.]

A subjective understanding of “the good” leads to egoism. Mutual use, mutual egoism can happen where two agree to use each other (thinking it’s love). But they can’t confront each with anything unpleasant or it all falls apart! “No honor among thieves”—thieves like working together to steal, but when it comes to dividing up the loot….

We can only love God because He first loves us. So even the “need” we have for God comes from him.

Follow the “gift” trail. See what’s twisted and what the real gift is there underneath it.

Q: “Do men ‘use’ more readily than women?”A: “Yes, because they are task-oriented, goal-oriented, and so begin using things as tools to the goal. They also compartmentalize in their brains and can divide a woman’s personhood from her body, for example.” [But this is not what they’re called to be/do or meant to be/do by God. Society often gives men a pass on their “use,” but it shouldn’t.]

[We have to have a sense of OURSELVES as persons first. But people today don’t think they’re that great, that man is that great. There’s a great reductionism, minimalism. So we don’t aspire to anything greater than having some basic needs met, sometimes!]

The world sees things in terms of FUNCTION and POWER.The Church sees things in terms of SIGN and SACRAMENT.

“Empty nest” syndrome—couples didn’t take care of their relationships enough! They—in a utilitarian way—united around running the household and raising the kids.

What kind of gift can you give to another person if you don’t have a sense of yourself as a person? You can’t bring two half-persons together, or expect the other to supply your personhood.

[It has to be this order! 1st—sense of yourself as a person—love thyself 2nd—marriage relationship, person to person—love your spouse3rd—parent/child relationship—love your kids]

Parents feel pressured (by other parents) today to run around and be frantically busy or they’re almost “abusing” their kids! But what does it mean to be a successful human being?

Don’t answer questions for people! Just help people examine the words within the questions!
Why does the Church “go into the bedroom”? Because that’s where God is! AND that’s where all the problems of the world start because it’s so fundamental! It’s the fundamental place of love and life.

Justice—a person’s “due” is always to be treated as an object of love.

Same Sex Attraction (SSA)—is based on need and use because of the intrinsic disorder where the person struggling with SSA is trying first of all to become the complete male or female person that they are, so that they CAN be a gift to “the other.” But it can translate itself into a sexual expression (which goes nowhere). Men DO draw strength from each other’s masculinity (male bonding, etc.) because men are socialized externally, from things outside themselves. [Female SSA operates differently. See book: “The Heart of Female Same-Sex Attraction” by Hallman]

[Sr. Helena had to take over the techie operations here so there will be a gap in notes.]

Fr. Loya’s parting warning: Prudes and sexual libertarians both deny God’s saving power when it comes to lust. Father says that overbearing Catholic families who control and squelch their children are in danger of creating another [sub]sexual revolution that will rebel against this. He sees kids going hogwild for the first time when away from parents, eloping, etc. In confession, he says that these super-Catholic kids who know their faith inside and out are having huge sexual problems because they are completely unintegrated in their sexuality. [I have heard a lot of these stories, too. Yikes!]

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THEOLOGY OF THE BODY

Dr. Janet Smith------------Dawn Eden-----------Dr. Pia de Solenni

Dr. Janet Smith answers Dawn Eden's thesis on Christopher West: http://t.co/Gm7AwPN

Dr. Pia Solenni answers Dawn Eden's thesis on Christopher West:
http://piadesolenni.com/janet-smith-weighs-in-on-dawn-edens-critique-of-christopher-west/

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MOVIES: WALL STREET--MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

This is an excellent movie. A lush, talkative New York film, done up in an older dramatic realism style (that I miss) which caters to a longer attention span. Lengthy conversations—that are not boring or verbose but rather absolutely necessary and organic—demand the very finest acting from the very fine cast. Each actor nails their part. Shia LaBeouf (Jake Moore) is winning, and those of us who feel nostalgia for Michael Douglas (boy does he look like his father now), are so happy to see him shining once more--larger than life despite his real-life cancer--one of our best American actors. In fact, the mix of young talent (LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan) with seasoned stars (the great Frank Langella, Susan Sarandon) is a rare delicacy we should be hungry for more of! There is one small scene of Jake with his mother (Sarandon) that just screamed Oscar! What I’m trying to say is that we haven’t seen dialogue like this in a while that actually imitates real life—people speaking quickly and naturally, interrupting each other, and filled with logical, yet unexpected emotional reactions. What a concept! Definitely a film for grown-ups. Reminded me of Robert Altman’s work, except nothing seems ad-libbed. Today’s visual effects/sound blended with old-school masterful timing and pacing makes “Wall Street 2” a sensory delight. (With absolutely NO explosions! Yay!)

This sequel to 1987’s classic “Wall Street” segues smoothly. This achievement is probably due to the fact that Oliver Stone got to make his own sequel (not everyone does)! Stone’s father worked on Wall Street, and Stone captures the financial world so well. Gordon “Greed is good” Gekko has been released from prison, and things have certainly heated up at his old playground. 2010 couldn’t be a riper time for another look at how the money markets (dysfunctionally) operate. Gekko sums up what has changed since his absence: “Now greed is also legal.”

Gekko’s estranged daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), is marrying Jake. Gekko is using Jake to reconnect with his daughter, and Jake—although a trader with a conscience—is out for vengeance against whoever destroyed his mentor’s (Frank Langella) company and life, and is using Gekko to that end. Gekko and Winnie both warn Jake that he is acting an awful lot like Gekko used to. But has Gekko actually changed? Do people like Gekko change?

In typical Oliver Stone fashion, there’s lots of big, intense thinking-out-loud going on about mega-issues, all the way back to…wait for it…the Cambrian Explosion! The connection? Bubbles. Where do these pesky bubbles come from? Then he launches into, or rather situates the question of humanity (and therefore ethics) in a Darwinian framework, leaving a slight possibility for “design” rather than “chance.” I feel a rant coming on!!! I am soooo sick and tired of almost every single newspaper/magazine article referencing evolution! They could be talking about potato chips and suddenly there’s some desperate attempt to connect to a bigger picture (not a bad impulse) and an attempt to posit the theory of everything right there on the spot and all it winds up being is a very minimalistic, impoverished view of blind nature blindly leading us. Yuck! Where are the Victorians when you need them? The Victorians with their reading of science as the grand divine order of which we are the crown with our magnificent works of art and ability to appreciate the BEAUTY in nature and the ability to CREATE BEAUTY modeled on nature which they did and thank God their truly beautiful works of art and textile and architecture are still extant. End of rant.

To his credit, Stone sincerely makes more than one heavy-handed reference to marriage and children being the only thing that really matters, not the money. And in the end, as Gekko explains how Wall Street really works (including housing bubbles, “moral hazard,” bail-outs, “too big to fail,” insider trading, you-name-the-buzzword), it’s not really about the money but the games between people (which I have long thought to be the case), and he doesn’t say it, but the game is really about power. How much more power can I acquire than the next guy, the next company, the next bank, just because I can, because I figured out how to do it (legally or illegally), and figured out also how not to get caught, and I have the guts to actually do it no matter who goes down because of it, even if it’s the whole country, the whole world? It’s kind of like the mob, where the only loyalties are not to friends or even kin, but just to the self left standing.

The ending is not a downer, but I didn’t buy it. “Wall Street 2” didn’t end with a bang but a whimper after such a great story, set-up and slow build. It looked very, very rushed up. In fact, the ending was so simplistic that it didn’t even really make sense, lots of threads hanging, inconclusions, dangling participles (and not the kind that are MEANT to be there, or are priming us for “Wall Street 3”). Pity.

OTHER STUFF:

--If you haven’t seen the old “Wall Street,” do. It’s not an absolute requirement for appreciating “Wall Street 2,” but it helps.

--There are some great lines, too. “Are you an idealist or a capitalist?” “Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.”

--Lots of good Big Questions are proposed.

--The time-line is a little confusing. Toward the beginning of the film, the date “2008” pops up, and then there are a few stock market crashes. Fictional?

--Stone seems to be warning us that the next crash will be the crash to end all crashes. The End. This is how the world ends. Fictional?

--Stone puts his mug in the film more than once. Muy distracting!!!

--Instrumental soundtrack nicely understated and sparse. A few songs-with-lyrics from the 60’s fit aptly.

--There was no physical drama, chases, escapes, hunts, etc. The drama was all in the human interplay. Well done.

--Wholesale rudeness in my theater. Dude in front of me with bright iPhone surfing for an apartment. His phone “booping” the whole time. (He was big and scary looking or I would have said something to him.) Old lady runs to back of theater to answer her phone. From the back of the theater. Where I’m sitting. (She was little and frail looking or I would have said something to her.)

--Prominently in the film, Winnie has a news website called http://www.frozentruth.com/ . Knowing Stone is a leftie activist (remember his recent film tribute to Hugo Chavez: “South of the Border”?), I checked out the website to see if it was some real thing that Stone wanted us to go to. Um, no.

A WORD ABOUT THE PREVIEWS:

--Yet ANOTHER Boston film is coming out about boxing starring Mark Wahlberg and Amy Adams.

--They are using Channing Tatum solely as beefcake in an upcoming rom-com. This is a great tragedy. The guy can really ACT, and my hope for him is that he could even start filling the “Russell Crowe roles” that only Russell Crowe can seem to fill.

--THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: In the same rom-com, a male character asks how he knows if he’s in love with a particular girl. Buddy says: If you only use a condom with all the OTHER girls. Pathetically sad, but do you hear the ring of truth here?

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MOVIES: "RUST"

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Corbin Bernsen (Yes! Sean's father on "Psych"!) about his new movie, "Rust," releasing on DVD October 5.

First of all, the story of "Rust" is probably the most unique story of the genesis of a movie EVER. http://www.rustmovie.com/ Do you remember several years ago that guy in Montreal who wanted to see how far he could get bartering online? He started with a large red paper clip and wound up snagging a house. Well...that house was bartered away for A PART IN A CORBIN BERNSEN HOLLYWOOD MOVIE. It involves a collector's item KISS snowglobe, so it gets a little complicated, but here's the kicker: it was actually the WHOLE TOWN of Kipling, Saskatchewan, CANADA, (population 1,100) who bartered the house. Therefore, Corbin decided that the whole town had to have, and star in, a movie of their own. And that's exactly what "Rust" is.

"Rust" is a term used to describe a crop blight, but also what's happening in the life of an ex-minister, Jimmy, returning home after a long absence. There's a developmentally-challenged adult in town, Travis, who gets blamed for a tragic fire (this actor totally steals the whole show). Nothing is making sense in Jimmy's life, and there are hard-hitting questions from the past to be dealt with, all swirling around the ever-present underpinnings of the classic problem of evil--as persistent as permafrost. The long shots of snow--although beautiful--speak to the deep freeze in Jimmy's soul. He is surrounded by a warm, rooted community who nevertheless have dark flaws of their own. The town needs a light, but Jimmy is too immersed in his own dark night to be that beacon for them just yet.

There are some interesting relationships, explored in an original way in the film, such as Jimmy's empathetic sister, the old minister Jimmy goes to to hash out his problems, Travis--his buddy from youth.

The actors are so natural and raw that it's a welcome respite from anything polished. Canadians are truth-tellers any way, so the unvarnished "performances" are doubly authentic.

The tagline is "Sometimes losing the path...is the only way back," but I prefer a line from the film: "It's not ours to question the plays, but to play the game. God has his plan." And there's more where that came from, but you'll have to watch the movie.

Here's my interview with Corbin (after telling him what a fan of "Psych" I am!):

SrH: Since "Rust" has a such a unique backstory, did you think of taking film to do a "making of"?

C: Funny you should ask! Yes, we did, and yes, we're going to do a documentary.
[So Sr. Budinski later TEXTED CORBIN a title idea: "How about 'The Town That Made a Movie'?" Corbin replied: "Not bad." (Do NOT ask me for his cell phone number.)]

SrH: Why did you write THIS story for THIS town?
C: It's semi-autobiographical. My father passed away, and I've been on my own journey with that.

SrH: So, at the end of the film when the words come on the screen: "For Father," it's for your Dad? [I actually didn't get that feeling when I saw the film, it felt to me more like God the Father.]
C: It's open to interpretation. [Corbin also has four boys of his own.]

SrH: How has Jimmy's struggle and the words of wisdom in the film played out in your own life? What religion are you and where are you from?
C: I was raised Christian Scientist in Los Angeles. I'm not what I would call "practicing anything," but I've always known God was there, all my young adult life. There's always been a sense of role-play in my life. I didn't go to church, but I always communicated clearly with God, for example, running marathons--you get closer to things, but just not in an organized sense. See what's going on now. The country is so divided. But everyone's trying to get to God. I believe God has a plan for me, not MY plan, clearly. With this movie, I want to bring more people into the discussion, the philosophical discussion. It used to be commonplace for people to go to church on Sunday, but now we're going to the store to buy large screen TVs. But with the economic downturn, people are having to live more simply, maybe return to God.

I don't identify as a particular denomination, but I don't want to sound like I'm sitting on a fence. I'll leave it up to others to say what I am. A "Christian"? I just want to follow the journey.

Kipling is real people, a real town, real issues, real community--not a Hollywood veneer.

I always see the good, the silver lining, I always believe there is good around the corner, a rose around the corner. I love flowers. Children born with tiny fingers. Each thread is a part of a larger blanket of God's grace. Even the most devout Evangelical Christian doesn't see the whole picture. We can never be close enough to God, to light. In the weirdest, darkest times of my life, there has always been a rose. After the freeze, there will always be a thaw. I hate to say that there's a "message" to this film--I think of it as a kind of primitive folk art, but if there would be a message, it would be simply this: HAVE FAITH. HAVE FAITH.

"Rust" will be available October 5 from Christian retailers, Walmart, Amazon, Netflix and others.

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