Video Trailer for Biola Media Conference 2012

Great Conversation 1:37 minute trailer version

Great Conversation 4:40 minutes full-length version.

Narration: PETER CAREY
Score composed and performed: JAMES STONEHOUSE
Background vocals: AMY SUSAN HEARD
"Always Believe" lyrics: JANET POUND, music: JAMES STONEHOUSE
Written and edited: STAN WILLIAMS
Directed by
(in order of first appearance)
JOHN HUSTON, DANNY BOYLE, STANLEY KUBRICK, JÁN KADÁR AND ELMAR KLOS, GAVIN O'CONNOR, MARC FORSTER, LEE DANIELS, ZACK SNYDER, GABRIELE MUCCINO, TERRY GILLIAM, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, PETER CHELSOM, WILLIAM WYLER, TAYLOR HACKFORD, BRETT RATNER, PAUL HAGGIS, STEVEN SPIELBERG, GABRIEL AXEL, JOHN LEE HANCOCK, NANCY MEYERS, LUKE MATHENY, TOM HOOPER, MILOS FORMAN, ROBERT ZEMECKIS, PETER JACKSON, RON HOWARD, HAROLD RAMIS, IVAN REITMAN, HARALD ZWART, MEL GIBSON, ORSON WELLES, ALBERT & ALLEN HUGHES, MARTIN SCORSESE, RIDLEY SCOTT, DAVID MAMET, STEVE MARTIN, PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, FRANK DARABONT, CECIL B. DEMILLE, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, and GUY RITCHIE.

Steve Taylor and Monica Macer at Biola

We welcome Steve Taylor and Monica Macer to the Biola Media Conference stage on May 5, 2012 for the morning General Session of The Great Conversation in Cinema. 

STEVE TAYLOR is a filmmaker with a past. After graduating from Colorado University in Boulder, his career in music garnered him multiple Grammy nominations as a recording artist, producer and songwriter. In 1997 he founded Squint Entertainment, whose roster included Sixpence None The Richer, Chevelle, Burlap To Cashmere, Waterdeep and hip-hop collective L.A. Symphony. His debut feature film, The Second Chance, was distributed theatrically by Sony Pictures Releasing in 2006. His second feature as director/co-writer, Blue Like Jazz, is based on Donald Miller's New York Times bestselling memoir. It debuted at the South By Southwest Film Festival in March and was released theatrically in April via Roadside Attractions. Steve lives in Nashville with his wife, the artist D.L. Taylor, and their daughter Sarah.

MONICA MACER is a graduate of Vassar College, Monica started her career in theater in New York City as a playwright and director.  After moving to Los Angeles, she  worked both as an assistant at Nickelodeon Movies and as a Creative Executive with the Walt Disney Company.   After leaving Disney, Monica landed the writers assistant position on the Fox show "24." After two seasons at "24," Monica got her big break as a staff writer on the first season of the ABC hit show "LOST."  She’s also written for Fox’s "Prison Break,” NBC's "Knight Rider" and MTV's "Teen Wolf."  Most recently, she served as co-producer on this season's NBC show "The Playboy Club." Her extracurricular activities include being an entertainment mentor for KOREA CREATIVE CONTENT AGENCY and a member of the TV track faculty for Act One. On the home front, Monica is married to actor/filmmaker Sterling Macer, Jr. and they are the proud parents of daughter Dylan Soon-Marie Macer.

The Great Conversation at Biola Media Conference

UPDATE: We are glad to tell you that Gavin will not be joining us for the BMC this year, because he was offered a great gig directing an FX pilot, so he flew off to New York and is other wise gainfully occupied. We're happy for him, but will miss him at the conference.

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We are glad to announce that The Great Conversation in Cinema will be featured at the Biola Media Conference, Saturday, May 5, 2012 at the CBS Studio log in Studio City, CA. (link to Conference website T.B.S., as soon as it's up.)  Planned is an interview segment in the morning's General Session, and one in the afternoon's General Session where Stan Williams will interview leading directors and how they involve themselves in the Great conversation of humankind's search for meaning.

Gavin O'Connor

We are excited to announce that GAVIN O'CONNOR, the director and co-writer behind MIRACLE (2004), PRIDE AND GLORY (2008), and WARRIOR (2011), has confirmed his participation. You can read the earlier interview Stan Williams conducted with Gavin HERE. As other directors confirm their participation we'll add their names here.

DeVon Franklin, Columbia executive, is the keynote speaker. 

You can read about this blog's  mission here.

On the Role of Cinema in The Great Conversation

An Interview with Henry Russell, Ph.D.
by Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D.

Henry Russell

Henry Russell, Ph.D. is a classics educator, headmaster of St. Augustine’s Homeschool Enrichment Program (founded with his wife Crystal), and president of the SS Peter and Paul Educational Foundation. He is known particularly for The Catholic Shakespeare Audio Series. His writings have been published in various journals.

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STAN WILLIAMS: What do you make of this idea that narrative cinema can participate in The Great Conversation.

HENRY RUSSELL: Well, film is primarily a visual and auditory medium. It can’t easily handle the complexity of philosophical ideas that words allow. So, film demands that the director and producers spend enough time with the ideas to understand them, and then pick which ideas to make the movie around. Filmmakers have to know which 10% of a book to make into a movie. The selection process probably needs to be more collaborative. Because what will happen is that one person, who knows the ideas really well, selects the book’s topic, and the director in exasperation says, “Good, God! How am I going to visualize that?” Consequently, directors default to the ideas that are easiest to visualize. And, as a result society experiences this discontinuity between a good book and an important film.

STAN WILLIAMS: Is there an example in modern cinema?

HENRY RUSSELL: Sure. Peter Jackson in THE LORD OF THE RINGS (TLOTR) had generally no idea what major ideas Tolkien was getting at, such as the patient certainty of Aragorn and his complete confidence in his destiny. The film’s portrayal of Aragorn is one of a man with an identity crisis. Another thing Jackson misses is the power of words. When said relatively slowly and cumulatively, words can change the human heart, and define eventually what is true.  Literature, unlike philosophy and theology, functions by the accumulation of words. Like chipping away at a stone, a little bit at a time. But a film functions by large scale visual declarations. In the TLOTR books the telling of tales to each other is a big deal. But that doesn’t communicate easily to film. When characters talk all the time you lose the line of action that drives the film.

STAN WILLIAMS: Because you’re telling not showing.

HENRY RUSSELL: Yes, but it’s the telling that is how people function.

THE KITE RUNNER

Dir: MARC FORSTER
Writers: DAVID BENIOFF (SP), and
Khaled Hosseini (N)

AMIR: Khalid Abdalla (adult), Zekeria Ebrahimi (young)
HASSAN: Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada
BABA: Homayoun Ershadi
SORAYA: Atossa Leoni
RAHIM KHAN: Shaun Toub
ASSEF: Abdul Salam Yusoufzai (adult), Elham Ehsas (young)
GENERAL TAHERI: Abdul Qadir Farookh
SOHRAB: Ali Danish Bakhtyari (Hassan's son)
ZAMAN: Mohamad Amin Rahimi (Orphanage Director)


IMBD's KITE RUNNER

(It was late when I posted this, so please advise of typos.)

Synopsis 

Amir, Baba and winning kite.

It's 1978 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A crazy place with humans trying to find dignity in the midst of hell. A puppet Communist government thinks it's in power. But the Islamic Mullah's really control the the people through intimidation. At the same time the Afghan guerrilla Mujahideen movement is born. The Russians invade the next year. When the Afghans defeat Russia in 1989 killing 40,000-50,000 Soviets, with help from U.S. shoulder fired rockets,  there is more fighting.

In 1992 there are elections under a tenuous run Mujahideen Islamic State. More fighting. In 1994 the Taliban with their version of extreme Islamic fundamentalism (believe or die, or die because we don't like you -- tyranny) they make rubble out of Kabul. There is Pakistani and Iranian interference. More fighting. Mass killings by the Taliban, and the Hazaras sect is massacred.

God tries to slow the Taliban down by bringing Earthquakes to the country that kill tens of thousands. But the Taliban tries to out-do God. Osama bin Laden makes plans from within Afghanistan, attacks the U.S. (NY and Washington), setting up the U.S. attack in 2001. This is a very crazy place, and the reason many didn't want the U.S. to get involved, even to stop the Taliban --who  seem to have been infected with the same demons that possessed the Nazis.

WARRIOR - CAGED SPIRITS

Director: GAVIN O'CONNOR

Writers: GAVIN O'CONNOR (screenplay), Cliff Dorfman (screenplay, story)

Starring

Tom Conlon - TOM HARDY

Brendan Conlon - JOEL EDGERTON

Paddy Conlon - NICK NOLTE

Tess Conlon - JENIFOR MORRISON

Frank Campana - FRANK GRILLO

Release Date: September 9, 2011

LIONSGATE

RATING: PG-13 for fight sequences and language.

[This is mostly a review of the film. I'll do a little moral premise analysis at the end.]

Synopsis
Tommy Colon and Brendan Conlon are estranged brothers who end up fighting each other inside a cage for the Mixed Martial Arts championship popular with ex-marines. At first punch and bruise (and there are a lot of them in this movie) it appears to be just another pugilistic movie filled with gratuitous violence designed to entertain the battered minds of a bitter disenfranchised generation. And it may be all that — but only in part. For this story is a gripping, won’t-let-you-go study of what it means to fight for noble causes, what it means to love, forgive, and find redemption.

Haunted by a tragic past, Marine Tommy Conlon (Hardy) returns home for the first time in fourteen years to enlist the help of Paddy, his father (Nick Nolte). Tommy wants Paddy, a recovering alcoholic who’s returned to his Catholic faith, to help him train for Sparta, the biggest winner-takes-all event in mixed martial arts (MMA) history – with a $5 million purse. A former wrestling prodigy, Tommy blazes a path toward the championship with quick, frightening knockouts. Meanwhile, his brother, Brendan (Edgerton), an ex-MMA fighter-turned high school physics teacher, returns to the ring in a desperate bid to save his family from financial ruin (the bank is ready to foreclose on their house). To the ringside crowd and the sports commentators (played by themselves), Tommy is a mystery fighter that came out of nowhere while Brendan is an over-the-hill fighter who is expected to be dispatched in the first round.

But what the experts don’t know is what’s driving the two men. Neither are fighting for glory, money, or egos — but something much more important — the redemption of their lives, which is complicated by a father they both despise for abusing their mother so badly that she ran for her life from him years earlier. “Pop” has now been sober for 1,000 days, has returned in a meaningful way to his Christian faith, and agrees to coach the deeply bitter Tommy even though ringside Paddy roots for Brendan. In the end, the two brothers must confront each other and the forces that originally pulled them apart in the MMA finals. The climax is perhaps one of the most unforgettable in the history of cinema.

The uniqueness of the story is that neither Tommy nor Brendan

MACHINE GUN PREACHERS vs. "Christian Movies"

by Brian Godawa

Relativity Media
Directed by Marc Forster
Written by Jason Keller

From the opening scene of a Sudanese village pillaged by LRA terrorists who force children to kill their parents, to the closing credit monologue of the real life Sam Childers’ plea to rescue the kidnapped Sudanese orphans by any means necessary, Machine Gun Preacher packs a punch to the gut of our moral conscience. And it does so with a nuanced spiritual and moral reasoning that challenges our American couch potato activism that prides itself in political debates over moral action. Oh, and did I say it involves Jesus?

MACHINE GUN PREACHER (IMDB) is based on the true story of Sam Childers, a drug addicted motorcycle riding criminal who “gets saved by Jesus” and goes to help rescue the orphans of Sudan from kidnapping, enslavement, torture and murder by rebel terrorists.

The story begins with an unrepentant Sam being released from prison, telling the Guards to go “F” themselves. What “poor” Sam learns is that his faithful wife has become a Christian, quit her stripping job, and leads a respectable God fearing life raising their daughter. And now she wants Sam to come to church. That pisses Sam off big time and launches him on a self-destructive raging crime spree of drugs, robbery, and violence. But he is brought to the end of himself, becomes a Christian, is baptized, and gets a respectable job in construction. This ain’t your low key Tender Mercies.

One day, Sam hears about a church mission project  building churches in Uganda. He takes off to see how he can help. What he discovers is an evil world more wicked than he realized. Joseph Kony’s terrorist group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), crosses from Uganda into Sudan and burns down villages, kills adults, tortures those who speak out, and forces children to be soldiers in his terrorist group. The result is myriads of orphans without much help from anyone to protect them.