Word: beliefs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...That Pope Benedict XVI and Ayatollah Khameini of Iran can elicit such differing, intense reactions - for that matter, that even comparing the two might seem incendiary to some Catholics - is one indication how religious belief informs political and social doctrine. Some of that contentiousness has lately seeped into moviegoing. Our texts for today are two indie films, Religulous and Fireproof, that appeal to diametrically opposed audiences. I can't imagine that there'd be a person who could respond to both films the way their makers want. If these movies happen to be playing in adjacent auditoriums at the multiplex...
...Maher, who says he's not an atheist (because that implies a degree of certitude as dogmatic as religious belief) is more an atheist-leaning agnostic. But he does have the missionary spirit; he's certainly been proselytizing for Religulous. In early September he was at the Toronto Film Festival, accompanied by the movie's director, Larry Charles, who in his hat, shades and long beard looked like a hipster Muppet Dumbledore. On stage, Maher dismissed Sarah Palin, who had just given her big speech at the Republican National Convention, as a "full-fledged Jesus freak" with a medieval view...
...awards for brilliance or even competence but to sell a message. (The film is stuffed with citations from the New Testament: James 1:19, Romans 5:8 and 10:9, if you're reading at home.) For another, it has some of the charm of amateur filmmaking - a belief in itself, in pleasing and educating its core audience. In that sense, Fireproof is like Tyler Perry's psychodramas (also Georgia-based) with Christian themes and a naive vibe. Fireproof was clearly a community endeavor; the end credits thank hundreds of Albany residents for contributing food, locations and moral support...
...There exists a contingent of scholars and collectors that share the belief that a great deal of artists in China—being freed from the requirements of traditional art schools and the dictates of the state—have chosen to use their national identity, more than anything, as a selling point. To them, Yue Minjun’s smiling faces appear more Chinese-looking than is accurate; similarly, Wang Guangyi’s political pop paintings are seen as insincere and overly topical. Many Western critics, along with other Chinese artists, are bothered by the success of those...
...dealing so directly with issues of language in his work, what Xu quite ironically does is address the issue of cultural translation as well. He gives power to the belief that issues of relatability to Western audiences are not insurmountable, and in fact have cultural precedent within China. Standard Chinese is a Chinese that is at once familiar and foreign to many—there are likely hundreds of millions of Chinese who speak Chinese dialects at home or even exclusively and deal with issues of cross-cultural translation everyday...