What I Want for Christmas is Bleak and Dreary

The trailer for Children of Men really turned me off of the film. Visually, it looked fine, but the trailer seemed to hammer in the obvious, what with the Clive Owen “women stopped having babies” narration and the climax montage set to cheery pop music. It adhered to a formula mocked by such wonders as the Shining remix trailer.

And if the advertising campaign is so formulaic, it means one of two things – the film is either going to be formulaic or the film is going to be so wildly unusual that the marketing team has gone into overdrive to make it look tepid.

So I wrote off the film as a rental, if that.

But then I heard this month’s Audition podcast, which begins with this introductory speech:

Films that open during the Christmas season are traditionally either upbeat and heartwarming or mindless eye candy. On Christmas Day this year, a film will open in American theaters that has been described as dystopian, terrifying, and bleak. The film is Children of Men, starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine. Set in the year 2027, the story ushers us into a world where no babies have been born for 18 years. Some undetectable has rendered all women on the planet barren. The last generation of humans has become hopeless. Societies are torn by war, terrorism, and savagery, and suicide is a positive possibility for many. Merry Christmas.

Ok, this may reflect more on me unfavorably, but THAT TEXT sold me more than the trailer ever could.

Christmas comes at a dark and melancholy time in the year. The days are shorter, the air is colder, and, on the surface, it doesn’t seem like a good time to celebrate anything. But just as dark helps define the light, hopelessness can define hope.

I think I’m finally getting into the holiday spirit. I can't wait to read the book.

Podcasts I Like: My Favorite Podcast

There are podcasts I can’t wait to listen to. Buzz Out Loud is a podcast I start listening to about 5 seconds after I download it. Same goes for Filmspotting.

But I will say this about all of them – they’re temporal. Sure these podcasts occasionally have moments that merit revisiting (how I wish for an eventual Best of Massacre Theater CD), but none of them leave me wanting to hear the entire podcast again.

This brings me to Audition. Audition is the official podcast of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Not only is every podcast a real treat, they all can be heard over and over with little or no diminishing returns.

Here’s why – they’re not dumbed-down. These are academics or writers writing to academics, and they love talking about the high-minded and esoteric. So sometimes it takes a few listens to really understand what is being said. And once an understanding is obtained, either a counter-argument forms or a challenge is presented to your life. Either way, you are transformed on a very fundamental level by the information presented.

The most recent podcast is a perfect example of this – it covers discussions of W.H. Auden, Flannery O’Connor, and C. S. Lewis. I have a cursory reading relationship with all of these authors, but this program made me want to return to them, devour and savor each of their collected works, and then relisten to the podcast. It makes me want to write my thoughts down and send them to the interviewees, and add my own thoughts to the discussion.

In short, it makes me want to be a better person.

It reminds me of what I love about higher education - the passion for ideas and the insight that comes with intellectual discourse. If only there was a way to have experience that without experiencing the soul-sucking bureaucracy known as the Registrar’s office.

Oh wait, there is a way for this to happen. It is called listening to this podcast.