Subway God


The arrival of Criterion's latest Blu-ray disc made my day. I watched about 15 minutes of it, hopping around from chapter to chapter. I thought the regular DVD was devastating -- one of the most perfect pure-film transfers I'd ever seen; the Blu-ray, believe it or not, is a refinement.

God is just not that into you. Sometimes he/she seems to intercede, which most of us interpret as a kind of celestial rooting gesture. But he/she could just as easily watch you get flattened by a chunk of concrete and or be roasted to death inside a burning building. Not because of your number or your karma, but because it's not his/her call. It's not that God doesn't care, but that he/she is way beyond "caring." I still find it truly mind-boggling that hundreds of of millions of adults believe that that some kind of activist moral force is quietly at work. It's the biggest sucker fantasy in the history of the planet. And yet I always melt a bit when James Stewart says "oh, God, help me" near the end of The Spirit of St. Louis.
Stiller and Greenberg<< previous | next >>They Got It

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 1, 2010 at 2:01 PM

comment #1

Colin Author Profile Page says ...

I understand where you're coming from Mr. Wells, but try imagining a world w/o God and the shithole that life would be then.

Posted by Colin Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:25 PM

comment #2

BT64 Author Profile Page says ...

Do you mean a world without God, or a world without religion? Very different.

Posted by BT64 Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:30 PM

comment #3

LexG Author Profile Page says ...

There is no God.

As devoutly as any of you might "believe," so does the next guy who has a different religion. And if one of you is wrong, you've ALL got to be wrong. And you wouldn't even have those beliefs were it not for geographical location and your parents. Unless you found religion late in life by your own choosing. Yeah, funny how all the people who "find religion" are the fucked-up good-time-guys who got to spend the first portion of their life whoring, fucking, killing, boozing and drugging, but now they've "found God." Convenient how that shit works... Nice feel-good blanket to assuage guilt for prior actions, not to mention the disingenuous condescension that comes from fronting like your bullshit justification gives you some moral high ground.

Do you "remember" anything from before you were born? No? That's what happens when you die. Absolutely fucking nothing.

Posted by LexG Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:31 PM

comment #4

Colin Author Profile Page says ...

I mean the concept of God, BT, religion besides keeping everyone from having civil rights is fucking useless.

Posted by Colin Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:34 PM

comment #5

The Lord of Misrule Author Profile Page says ...

...or it *could* be a gestalt thing, sort of like that Monty Python routine about the apartment building being kept up by belief alone.

Think about it. Most of us are brought up to believe in some sort of fantasy (Santa Clause, for example) and when that falls by the wayside, many of us are left with a hole in our lives: a hole that God (or the concept thereof) fills nicely.

Am I saying that neither one exists? Not really, but as we live in a primarily monottheistic society and since there are a wide variety of mythologies surrounding said dieities...

Posted by The Lord of Misrule Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:36 PM

comment #6

Colin Author Profile Page says ...

Could just be IE, but nothing appears after the Greenberg post.

Posted by Colin Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:45 PM

comment #7

bluefugue Author Profile Page says ...

>try imagining a world w/o God and the shithole that life would be then.

I don't know particularly why a world without a god has to be a shithole. The universe seems on the whole indifferent to human happiness. Humans seek happiness out for themselves and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. That's life.

Posted by bluefugue Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 2:52 PM

comment #8

JackMP Author Profile Page says ...

Colin, maybe my imagination isn't what it used to be, so help me out here: why would the world be a "shithole" without God? Are you speaking in regards to social conditioning and basic human restraint against our most destructive impulses? In that case, I'd flip the question and ask what kind of shithole the world would be without the concept of Satan and Hell.

Posted by JackMP Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 3:09 PM

comment #9

The Quest Author Profile Page says ...

Lex, great book, written by ex-atheist, ex-legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, Lee Strobell, entitled The Case for Christ. He interviews some very cerebral individuals with long names ending in Ph.d. Compelling and hopeful read.

Posted by The Quest Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 3:18 PM

comment #10

BarryR Author Profile Page says ...

LexG, there's an astounding amount of sane and readable material to counter your opinion, but I fear you will never have the patience for it.

Posted by BarryR Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 3:41 PM

comment #11

televisiontears Author Profile Page says ...

Re Colin #1 & #4 - Totally agreed. Patton Oswalt has a great rant about this idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w

Posted by televisiontears Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 3:42 PM

comment #12

barryegan Author Profile Page says ...

I hate God as much as the next guy and am pretty stoked for the DAYS OF HEAVEN BD too, but I want the Wells review of James Murphy's GREENBERG score. (He doesn't strike me as a DFA guy-- maybe more of a Warp man. Amiright?)

Posted by barryegan Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 3:42 PM

comment #13

MechanicalShark Author Profile Page says ...

LexG, usually you're intensely crazy and bizzare, but on this, you're absolutely right. Frankly, I'm glad there's no god. I'd be terrified if I knew there was, because then there would be an intelligent being allowing all this shit to happen. There's no logical way there could be an all-loving, benevolent god, as the evidence from the Bible itself, and most other spiritual texts doesn't really bear that out. So, at best god is incomprehensible and beyond understanding, and at worst the ultimate monster. If I did believe in a god, I would have to be anti-god. But I have a greater understanding, that there are a series of unassailable laws that govern how the universe works. That is the closest thing we have to a god, but it's not intelligent or sentient, it's just a system.
All we really have is each other, and if we don't love and respect one another, we have nothing.

Posted by MechanicalShark Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 4:06 PM

comment #14

LexG Author Profile Page says ...

HITCHENS POWER.

Even if I can allow that maybe there IS a God, I'm not going to waste one single, solitary second more of my life giving a shit about it. I'm going to run on the assumption that this is our one and only shot. I was raised with the POISON of religion and it's massively responsible for my guilt, depression, sexual dysfunctions, neuroses and self-loathing, all the shit you get taught when you're told round the clock that you will BURN IN HELL for every human impulse.

If you guys want to float around on some gay-ass cloud playing a harp with virgins and eunechs, have the fuck at it. I don't even know WHY that idea is tempting or appealing to religious people... an afterlife with no pussy and alchohol? (And, yes, I'm sure that's probably a Kinison or Hicks or Oswalt bit somewhere, so not trying to massacre it or rip it off, but the only HEAVEN I'd ever want to hear about would involve massive metric amounts of vag.)

Posted by LexG Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 4:09 PM

comment #15

Circumvrent Author Profile Page says ...

If you guys want to float around on some gay-ass cloud playing a harp with virgins and eunechs, have the fuck at it. I don't even know WHY that idea is tempting or appealing to religious people... an afterlife with no pussy...

Lex doesn't believe in God because he's found Heaven here on Earth.

Posted by Circumvrent Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 4:38 PM

comment #16

Monument Author Profile Page says ...

"And you wouldn't even have those beliefs were it not for geographical location and your parents."

Lex, your atheistic beliefs are very likely the result of your geographic location and possibly parentage. Is your geographic location or intellect superior than those born in predominantly religious societies? Either way that is an extremely arrogant and elitist opinion.

Posted by Monument Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 4:39 PM

comment #17

bondjamesbond Author Profile Page says ...

This is all pretty much like a fish telling you there's no such thing as water.

Posted by bondjamesbond Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 5:42 PM

comment #18

BarryR Author Profile Page says ...

Okay, LexG, I understand you better now. Believe me, the threat of burning in hell is not a helpful doctrine. I have plenty of complaints about organized religion that can cause an attitude as yours. But that attitude evokes a fantastically distorted view of what religion etc. is all about. Others somehow have escaped such ill effects and cultivate a spirituality that's hardly poisonous.

Posted by BarryR Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 5:49 PM

comment #19

twinb Author Profile Page says ...

Lex, your comment made me laugh. Even at my most religious, I never enjoyed church and that seems to be what the heaven of the bible is, just an extended church service with few of the joys of life. You can't even look down or watch over your living loved ones because surely that would cause pain and there is no pain in heaven. And that's just it, heaven isn't so much about what is there but what's not there... pain, sorrow and the eternal flames of hell.

If god is there and he cares, is aware, has the answers, etc., why can't he be more evident? Why does he have to play this faith game? If the stakes are truly heaven and hell for all of eternity aren't we worth at least one waking, personal visit (with a third-party witness) so that we know he's real and he loves us and that we should devote our lives to him? We shouldn't have to search for him in the emotional swell of a gospel song or burnt potato chips.

Posted by twinb Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 6:26 PM

comment #20

Carl Kolchak Author Profile Page says ...

When I hear people talking about an afterlife, or God, or whatever, and they do it in the terms that a six or seven year old child might....floating on clouds, playing harps, endless church services, etc. its no wonder they can't take it seriously, but why does that have to define the subject? How about using some imagination and trying to imagine something that is goes way beyond the siliness that much of organized religion talks about? Just because its mysterious and unknowable from our perspective doesn't mean that it might not be perfectly logical and "scientific". If you read some of the cutting edge quantum physics literature some of the stuff that it suggests is no weirder than what is currently imagined by those with a spiritual point of view.

Posted by Carl Kolchak Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 6:59 PM

Posted by longrunner Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 7:32 PM

comment #22

jeremylandes Author Profile Page says ...

Why do I believe the Battle of Guadacanal took place?
Because I saw movie footage full of corpses and heard a narrator talking about the film's origin. Never been there and don't feel a need to go.
Why do I believe the sun doesn't revolve around my head and the moon doesn't follow me around wherever I go?
Because people older than me consistently told me it did not, and I've matured enough to believe the universe doesn't owe me anything. I owe.
Why do I believe in one, loving god I cannot see with my eyes or touch with my hands?
Because because because because because...because of the wonderful things He does (consistently). Like answering prayer by placing this young man, David Malick (see link), into my family and sparing his life from RSV this weekend--providing intelligence to other extraordinary human physicians at the hospital I'm writing from. Why did my son contract RSV in the first place? I'm not someone who thinks he has all the answers. Just confident enough to inhale deeply today with my next breath believing oxygen will flow into lungs that I believe were "created" by someone much more intelligent than me. I don't believe that any mortal being I've seen has more intelligence than a human, and I've never heard of a regular human taking credit for creating the species. Therefore, I conclude that someone more intelligent than a human created the lungs, tongues, brains, vaginas, and planets in this particular sphere of existence. I call that being "God" and consider so much of this world "good." I don't trust my son's health to a force named evolution--instead, I trust intelligence. I believe we all want/need to worship something--for some, it's the power of movies. For me, it's someone I can't see whom movies like Days of Heaven or The New World reveals.

Posted by jeremylandes Author Profile Page at March 1, 2010 8:53 PM

comment #23

Etnies Author Profile Page says ...

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Posted by Etnies Author Profile Page at March 2, 2010 1:09 AM

comment #24

LexG Author Profile Page says ...

Religion sucks 31 flavors of sack, but DAYS OF HEAVEN is a TOTAL masterpiece, if not quite up to Badlands, which is a work of wholesale genius; I get that smart "film Catholic" types have to worship at the altar of DOH, and I love it, I'm the biggest Gere fan on the planet, love the score, the cinematography, mostly love Malick....

But at the end of the day?

BADLANDS has violence, Days of Heaven does not.

As ALWAYS, violence is the crucial element of a masterpiece, and something as relatively quaint as Days of Heaven will always come up short. It's basically like comparing Natural Born Killers to Nell.

Posted by LexG Author Profile Page at March 2, 2010 1:47 AM

comment #25

... Author Profile Page says ...

yes, LexG - glad to see you didn't end yourself the other thread.

I like the Hitch's fuck decorum and straight at it alpha-male polemics too, and it's sweet to savor the man handing religious types their ass; but your, and his (to a lesser degree), brand of anti-theism is a naive kind of tic-tac-toe thrusting a-la the kid Lucius in GLADIATOR: "there, there, there, and I've got you!" etc. Check it out:

Lex> but now they've "found God." Convenient how that shit works...

So you say it's cynicism; but then you say it's also to:

"assuage guilt for prior actions"

The guilt there in the first place acknowledges an absolute version of good and evil - and so (by extension) God. I don't think you intended it to happen like that...

Anyway, go on your tip-toes when trying to bash the bishops because:

Historically, the Religious have been some of the most fervent lobbyists for Secularism (Secularism was an idea invented by the Religious don't forget); and as for hot-shit criticism immolating congregation and pious better-than-thous alike, look no further than people like Kirkegaard, T.Aquinas, Jesus of Nazareth etc. They were all believers Lex.

Moving on...

Where you're immaculately unmistaken, though, is Badlands. Above all the other stuff - M.Sheen pulls that denim jacket off better than any faux-rugged-man GAP ad since Kiefer with the rolled up sleeves and snapping turtle mouth (covered in hobo grizzle). That's, young Sheen is, the kind of cool fucker you need your internet personality to fantasize being Lex. Not Sam Worthington. The warrior-poet type ideal fits the schtick better; and can handle the Brando in Island of Dr.Moreau type of fucked up vis-a-vis the lunacy you cook up when it comes to "things I'd have K-Stew do at my house."

Posted by ... Author Profile Page at March 2, 2010 11:21 AM

comment #26

bmcintire Author Profile Page says ...

I just watched the last half of DAYS OF HEAVEN on TCM-HD last night and can't wait for the Blu-Ray to arrive. And Lex, there may not be BADLANDS-level violence in this one, but there is at least a little bit toward the end.
The marathon continued with FRANCES, TOOTSIE and LITTLE BIG HORN (a great night of programming on the best station on Earth!). I have to say that LITTLE BIG HORN was a huge let-down, however. The transfer looked very B-level (not a very tight focus and what looked to have been sourced from a WORK PRINT for Christ's sake), but the night scenes were horrendously awful. Some of the worst I have ever seen broadcast. I shudder to think what must have happened to the original negative of this title.

Posted by bmcintire Author Profile Page at March 2, 2010 1:01 PM

comment #27

shahriar khan Author Profile Page says ...

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