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Movies with Cool Themes and Looking Ahead to 2024
26 Plays2 years ago
In this episode Jon discusses two of his favorite movies from 2023, and some of their cool themes, and how he sees reflections of God in those themes. He also reflects back on the podcast in 2023, and what Artists of the Way will have going on in 2024.
Thank you all for listening! Artists of the Way will return late January of 2024!
If you want to skip the reflections on movies and go right to what is happening with Artists of the Way go to 29:10.
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Find out more about Godspell: https://www.artistsoftheway.com/godspell.html
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Transcript
Introduction and Year-End Reflections
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome back to Artists of the Way.
00:00:07
Speaker
I'm John, the host.
00:00:10
Speaker
Today's a little bit of a different episode because as you can tell, I have no guest, which is fine.
00:00:16
Speaker
I had been trying to get a guest in and it just wasn't working and I figured let's not force it.
00:00:22
Speaker
It's Christmas.
00:00:23
Speaker
Things are busy.
00:00:24
Speaker
So I'll just do it myself.
00:00:27
Speaker
If I look a little...
00:00:29
Speaker
bleary and groggy.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's because I recorded this episode once before and I didn't like it.
00:00:34
Speaker
So I was like, I want to record something else for you guys.
00:00:37
Speaker
Because what I had was kind of meh.
00:00:40
Speaker
So we're doing this again.
00:00:43
Speaker
Don't worry, you guys aren't missing out on anything.
00:00:46
Speaker
I'm taking all the good parts from the last episode and I'm putting them in here.
00:00:50
Speaker
And I'm leaving out all the bad, awkward stuff.
00:00:52
Speaker
Um,
00:00:54
Speaker
So there was a couple things I wanted to do this episode.
00:00:56
Speaker
It's going to be our last episode of the year.
00:00:58
Speaker
I'm going to take a break through Christmas because Christmas is always very busy for my family.
00:01:03
Speaker
Christmas, we have like three birthdays.
00:01:07
Speaker
Oh gosh, four birthdays now between Christmas and like the first half of January.
00:01:13
Speaker
And then we have Christmas and New Year's and all that stuff.
00:01:16
Speaker
You guys get it.
00:01:17
Speaker
You all have families.
00:01:18
Speaker
I hope.
00:01:19
Speaker
I hope I don't have anybody listening without a family.
00:01:22
Speaker
If you do, I'm sorry.
00:01:23
Speaker
Anyways, but yeah, so there's a lot of stuff going on over Christmas.
00:01:30
Speaker
So I'm taking a break during that time.
00:01:33
Speaker
We're going to come back probably middle of January.
00:01:36
Speaker
I'm not setting a super hard deadline on that, but it will be for sure by like the third week of January.
00:01:44
Speaker
Okay.
Passion for Movies and Theater Experience
00:01:46
Speaker
Today, I just wanted to take a little bit of time and talk about a couple of my favorite movies of the year, actually, and one of the recurring themes that I saw in that, in those two movies, because I thought that would be fun to talk about.
00:02:03
Speaker
And then I also just want to chat a little bit about...
00:02:07
Speaker
cool things that have been happening with Artists of the Way this year and kind of what we're looking at next year and just some of my heart moving into the next year with Artists of the Way.
00:02:17
Speaker
So first thing I want to chat about, like I said, two of my favorite movies this year.
00:02:25
Speaker
So I love movies, if you didn't know.
00:02:28
Speaker
I used to want to go into making movies and
00:02:30
Speaker
It's a big, big passion of mine.
00:02:34
Speaker
Uh, just isn't where God took my life, but I always try and see good movies in theaters.
00:02:40
Speaker
If I can, that's important to me.
00:02:42
Speaker
I'm not always able to, I haven't been able to as much the last couple of years, um, cause of COVID and life and money and, and things like that.
00:02:52
Speaker
But I was able to get to see a few more this year, which was really cool.
Review of 'The Creator'
00:02:56
Speaker
Um,
00:02:58
Speaker
The last two that I saw really quite possibly the two that are in contender for my favorite movie of this year so far.
00:03:09
Speaker
Sorry, I might have awkward drink breaks this time because I don't have a guest to fill in the time where I would drink.
00:03:17
Speaker
But those movies were The Creator, which is a sci-fi movie by the director Gareth Edwards.
00:03:25
Speaker
he did the 2014 Godzilla movie and, uh, rogue one are the two films of his that I've seen.
00:03:31
Speaker
I know he did other smaller movies as well that I'm sure were quite good.
00:03:35
Speaker
Cause he's a very good director.
00:03:37
Speaker
Um, and the premise of the creator, it's, it's kind of a standard sci-fi robots type thing.
00:03:44
Speaker
Um, which if you're not into sci-fi bear with me, cause there, there are cool themes in this.
00:03:49
Speaker
Um, I think, I guess maybe there aren't, but I thought there were, um,
00:03:54
Speaker
But the premise is there's this dude, he was in the army.
00:03:59
Speaker
And he's basically tasked with hunting down the creator of AI.
00:04:04
Speaker
Because there's a war now between robots and humans.
00:04:07
Speaker
As you do, you know, you see a robot, you want to shoot it.
00:04:11
Speaker
And so they're doing that thing.
00:04:15
Speaker
And his journey throughout that, it plays with a lot of interesting themes, which I'll get to shortly.
00:04:21
Speaker
Basically, he ends up running into, in his quest, he finds this weapon, quote unquote, that the artificial intelligence made.
00:04:31
Speaker
And it's this, basically a child.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's a child robot.
00:04:36
Speaker
And so he has this weird ethical dilemma of like, oh, that's a kid.
00:04:39
Speaker
Are they really real?
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker
Because I've been killing a lot of these things if they're real.
00:04:46
Speaker
And so that's kind of our tension point there.
Review of 'Godzilla Minus One'
00:04:50
Speaker
And then the second one... Again, I'm sorry if you don't like sci-fi.
00:04:54
Speaker
I do.
00:04:55
Speaker
I like sci-fi fantasy.
00:04:56
Speaker
But the second one is Godzilla Minus One.
00:04:59
Speaker
And I know I said this with the last movie, but if you don't like sci-fi, please, especially with this one, bear with me.
00:05:06
Speaker
Because, my gosh.
00:05:08
Speaker
Holy cow.
00:05:09
Speaker
Such a good movie.
00:05:11
Speaker
Um...
00:05:13
Speaker
It could have not had Godzilla in it, and it would have been still amazing.
00:05:19
Speaker
If you don't know any of the history of Godzilla, Godzilla was a Japanese-created monster film from the 50s, and originally it was really the...
00:05:30
Speaker
the director and some of the Japanese people kind of unpacking their fear around nuclear weapons, around having been nuked by Hiroshima, and the war and all of that.
00:05:43
Speaker
Godzilla is kind of a metaphor for all of that in the original film.
00:05:48
Speaker
And then since then, he I mean, that's not to say the original movie wasn't a B movie.
00:05:53
Speaker
It was it was a
00:05:54
Speaker
B-movie monster movie, but it had a lot of interesting themes it was playing with.
00:05:58
Speaker
And then it kind of just, you know, became a whole bunch of different stuff.
00:06:04
Speaker
Godzilla became a superhero.
00:06:05
Speaker
Godzilla fought King Kong.
00:06:08
Speaker
America did a not great reboot in the 90s.
00:06:14
Speaker
And then we have all the wonderful CGI-filled Godzilla movies today, which I really enjoy.
00:06:21
Speaker
Most of them.
00:06:21
Speaker
One of them I don't like, but...
00:06:23
Speaker
But this one is a foreign film.
00:06:26
Speaker
It's written and directed by and stars completely a Japanese cast.
00:06:32
Speaker
It's in Japanese.
00:06:33
Speaker
There's not even a dub.
00:06:34
Speaker
You have to watch it with subtitles.
00:06:37
Speaker
But it takes it back to that 1950s setting or 1940s where it's like five or so years after World War II.
00:06:47
Speaker
And what it does with its characters is fascinating.
00:06:52
Speaker
And it could have just been a story about the Japanese people after World War II and these specific characters and the trauma that they're dealing with and the way they're trying to rebuild their lives.
00:07:07
Speaker
Honestly, that is what the movie's about.
00:07:09
Speaker
It's just, and then a giant monster walks in and they have to deal with that too.
00:07:14
Speaker
But I mean, just the way that it works thematically is great.
00:07:17
Speaker
And I'll get into that in a minute.
00:07:18
Speaker
I'm going to try really, really hard not to spoil these movies.
00:07:23
Speaker
I think you should go see them if you can, especially Godzilla Minus One, because that one legitimately might be the best movie I've seen this year.
00:07:33
Speaker
There's a couple other contenders, but it was good.
00:07:36
Speaker
So I'm going to try and stay away from spoilers.
00:07:40
Speaker
But I just wanted to talk about some of the themes because I think there's some themes that would resonate with what we're talking about with being artists and Christian artists looking for the beautiful and the truthful and the good in today's world.
00:07:53
Speaker
I think these are two movies that, as far as I know, don't approach these things from a Christian perspective and yet really end up
00:08:04
Speaker
very firmly, I think, planting themselves into Christian ethics.
00:08:10
Speaker
And that was fascinating to me, watching them both back to back.
00:08:13
Speaker
I was leaving the theater with both of them, just like with so many thoughts.
00:08:20
Speaker
So the main thing that kind of unifies these two movies, and the reason I wanted to talk about both of these, is they put a lot of emphasis on...
00:08:31
Speaker
the value and worth of human life.
00:08:36
Speaker
Now, there's a caveat to that with the creator where you have to kind of suspend your disbelief a little bit in order to buy the themes of the movie and believe that robot life is also human life.
00:08:49
Speaker
I had no trouble doing that because I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars and I'm like, yeah, robots are humans and sentient and, you know,
00:08:57
Speaker
they're created in God's image too, right?
00:08:59
Speaker
So for me, that wasn't really an issue, but you do have to be able to do that in order to buy into it.
00:09:05
Speaker
And then Godzilla minus one also puts a lot of emphasis on the value and worth of a human life and the way that we tend to cheapen that today.
00:09:21
Speaker
I'll get to that in a second because I'm going to start with the creator.
Themes of War and Humanity in 'The Creator'
00:09:23
Speaker
So
00:09:26
Speaker
As I said, the creator plays with this using robots kind of as analogs for humanity.
00:09:32
Speaker
And the thing I thought was most interesting with the creator, as far as the topic of like the dignity of human life, is basically there's this event that happened and humanity then goes to war against the AI, believing the AI did this, and
00:09:52
Speaker
believing that that means AI is now basically evil and wants to destroy Earth or conquer Earth, you know.
00:10:00
Speaker
I think there's some of the light classic, oh, they're the next evolved species, so, you know, we're trying to fight against people that are stronger than us type thing.
00:10:14
Speaker
But there's not really any...
00:10:18
Speaker
humanity given to them, which is a fair assumption because they're robots.
00:10:23
Speaker
But when you go into this movie, first of all, first of all, I think across the board, the movie does a great job of humanizing all of its characters, right?
00:10:33
Speaker
There's not, that's not true.
00:10:36
Speaker
There's maybe one character where you look at and you're like, that guy is a jerk just to be a jerk.
00:10:41
Speaker
There's maybe one character in this massive ensemble.
00:10:44
Speaker
But it's a wonderful cast.
00:10:45
Speaker
Every single character
00:10:47
Speaker
on every side of this conflict, and everyone that's working with and against our protagonist in the various directions he ends up going in his journey has genuine human reasons for doing what they're doing, which is really was cool to see.
00:11:04
Speaker
It was not like, these are the good guys, these are the bad guys.
00:11:07
Speaker
There is a clear side that you're rooting for, but you also really understand where the people you're rooting against are coming from.
00:11:18
Speaker
Which is not what's happening at the start of the movie with our protagonist.
00:11:23
Speaker
And that's very interesting.
00:11:24
Speaker
He very much does not value the lives of his enemies.
00:11:30
Speaker
And that gets challenged.
00:11:32
Speaker
And the way that gets challenged is imposing the question, can you be sure that the robots that you're putting on standby, he says, I'm just putting them on standby.
00:11:43
Speaker
It's okay.
00:11:44
Speaker
Can you be sure that that's not a life that you're taking?
00:11:49
Speaker
Obviously, you know, if you want to talk about the ethics of AI and stuff, you can.
00:11:53
Speaker
But to me, what I found interesting in that was I feel like that's basically what we do to the people we disagree with a lot of times.
00:12:04
Speaker
I think it's especially easy in the digital era.
00:12:06
Speaker
And we've talked about that a little bit, right?
00:12:08
Speaker
If it's just words on a Facebook page, it's way easier to just be like, whatever, that's a Democrat, that's a Republican.
00:12:17
Speaker
That's a, you know, this, that, or the other thing.
00:12:21
Speaker
It's too early for me to come up with other things there than the easily grabbable Republican and Democrat.
00:12:30
Speaker
But it is really easy to just hide them behind the label.
00:12:34
Speaker
And that's what the protagonist in that movie does constantly.
00:12:39
Speaker
And it goes through this really interesting journey through what happens to the robots that he's fighting, as well as what happens to, or maybe not fighting all the time, because he finds this kid.
00:12:50
Speaker
What does he do with that?
00:12:52
Speaker
And then what happens to the other human soldiers in this movie?
00:12:57
Speaker
And just some really dehumanizing ways that they're treated.
00:13:02
Speaker
I think the movie really takes time to say, okay, is this how we should be operating in the world?
00:13:08
Speaker
Should we be operating with so much war?
00:13:10
Speaker
Should we be operating with such an easy, you're my enemy, I'm not going to engage with you type mindset?
00:13:19
Speaker
And I found that really interesting and affecting for me.
00:13:22
Speaker
I was kind of thinking through some of those things when I saw it too.
00:13:26
Speaker
But I think it paints that really beautifully.
00:13:29
Speaker
And then the other theme with that one that I really loved was this theme of, I think, a very Christian theme, love overcoming death and war and...
00:13:45
Speaker
the evil that man can do.
00:13:48
Speaker
And I can't get into that theme too much without spoilers.
00:13:53
Speaker
I'm going to do my best to vaguely give you an idea of that.
00:13:57
Speaker
But I mean, it was very clear that the good things that were happening were coming out of the love that people had for each other and the love actions of love.
00:14:09
Speaker
Um,
00:14:11
Speaker
And there was this unrelenting force of war throughout the movie.
00:14:16
Speaker
It felt like the war was always coming for you.
00:14:19
Speaker
You weren't safe from it, right?
00:14:21
Speaker
This is a lot of anxieties we have, I think, today.
00:14:24
Speaker
Where it seems like new things are popping up every day.
00:14:29
Speaker
And it was like, oh, you know, it was just this unrelenting force constantly going after you.
00:14:36
Speaker
And it seemed too big to really be able to get your hands on and tackle that.
00:14:40
Speaker
But there is throughout the film this beautiful, simple through line of love between what characters.
00:14:49
Speaker
I will leave you to find out if you haven't already surmised.
00:14:52
Speaker
But that love ends up winning the day.
00:14:59
Speaker
And I think it was a really beautiful way to frame...
00:15:04
Speaker
Some of the suffering that we see in the world versus what ultimately wins the day is Christ's love.
00:15:11
Speaker
And that is so powerful that it can't be stopped.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I thought that was a really optimistic, beautiful...
00:15:20
Speaker
uh, lovely theme that I feel like we don't get to see a lot of that type of theme in big budget Hollywood filmmaking today.
00:15:28
Speaker
And so I really enjoyed seeing that.
00:15:30
Speaker
I would highly recommend you check it out.
00:15:32
Speaker
It is kind of an unwieldy film.
00:15:34
Speaker
Uh, the script is a little messy and pulling all of these things together, but the characters and the performances are wonderful.
00:15:41
Speaker
And visually it is hands down the best movie I have seen all year.
00:15:47
Speaker
The visuals are spectacular.
00:15:49
Speaker
Um,
00:15:51
Speaker
The cinematography is amazing.
00:15:52
Speaker
So if you are at all a lover of framing or beautiful, well thought out visual effects, everything in that movie looks real.
00:16:02
Speaker
You can tell they took their time with it.
00:16:03
Speaker
It's wonderful.
00:16:05
Speaker
So that's the creator.
Optimism and Human Value in 'Godzilla Minus One'
00:16:08
Speaker
Now I'm going to move on to Godzilla, which I just recently saw.
00:16:11
Speaker
So that one's a little more fresh in my mind.
00:16:18
Speaker
I'm having an intellectual discussion with you guys about Godzilla.
00:16:20
Speaker
I love this.
00:16:24
Speaker
This just plays into, I love pop culture.
00:16:26
Speaker
And I know there's a lot of bad in pop culture, but really, there is a lot of good to be found as well.
00:16:34
Speaker
And I love when you can see great, beautiful, truthful, Christ-like themes in these popular films.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I love, as a creator, getting to see these rich things present.
00:16:49
Speaker
put into a crazy bombastic sci-fi or fantasy movie and getting to explore those things there.
00:16:55
Speaker
Because on the one hand, it's so much bigger than anything that we're, you know, experiencing.
00:16:59
Speaker
It's fantastical and crazy.
00:17:00
Speaker
But on the other hand, it can just be so raw and human.
00:17:03
Speaker
And that is what Godzilla is.
00:17:06
Speaker
I just saw it like two days ago.
00:17:08
Speaker
So that's why I'm kind of in geek out mode with it.
00:17:12
Speaker
But
00:17:13
Speaker
So I mentioned the premise is it's bringing it back to World War II.
00:17:16
Speaker
Let's go back, baby.
00:17:17
Speaker
That time was great.
00:17:18
Speaker
It wasn't great.
00:17:20
Speaker
But that was where Godzilla originally originated from.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so I was very interested in this idea of bringing Godzilla back to its roots and using it as like a horror monster and seeing, okay, what's it going to, what's the anxiety of that going to be?
00:17:36
Speaker
And again, I was just struck by how profoundly optimistic a movie this was.
00:17:43
Speaker
I just think I'm used to when we're getting rich artistic movies, it means they're probably going to be cynical in some way or at least melancholy.
00:17:55
Speaker
And this movie was so incredibly optimistic.
00:17:59
Speaker
I was like, wow, I was very impressed.
00:18:02
Speaker
So again, I'm going to try and avoid spoilers as much as I can.
00:18:05
Speaker
I'm going to give you the basic framework of what we're dealing with character wise.
00:18:12
Speaker
So again, if you want to go into this movie, only off of my recommendation, which I am heartily giving, then, you know, and want to know nothing, then, you know, maybe jump to, I'll put a time code in there when I'm talking more about other not movie things.
00:18:30
Speaker
So the premise, it's World War II, and our main character is a kamikaze pilot who, at the start of the film, I don't think this is a spoiler because it's the first thing you see, he lands his plane and is saying that there's something wrong with it, even though there's not.
00:18:52
Speaker
So he is avoiding his duty of suicide, essentially.
00:18:57
Speaker
It's a very heavy topic.
00:19:00
Speaker
And this is the thematic core of this movie.
00:19:06
Speaker
Things happen.
00:19:08
Speaker
He ends up not quite performing his duty.
00:19:13
Speaker
And you're never really clear about, okay, is that... Does the film think that's good or not?
00:19:18
Speaker
You're not 100% clear until the end.
00:19:21
Speaker
But he ends up not performing his duty.
00:19:28
Speaker
of crashing his plane and kind of sacrificing his life for his country.
00:19:37
Speaker
And that then becomes something that he has to work through through this whole film.
00:19:45
Speaker
And the question that he has to deal with is constantly, was that okay for me to do?
00:19:54
Speaker
And the inherent...
00:19:57
Speaker
The inherent answer for him, based out of his culture, kind of the honor-shame culture in Japan, the way the government kind of viewed its people, at least the way the film frames it, was, no, that was not okay.
00:20:09
Speaker
How dare you try and preserve your life in that way?
00:20:13
Speaker
You were told that this was what your life was for, and you stepped away from your duty.
00:20:19
Speaker
That is his self-narrative.
00:20:23
Speaker
When he returns home, he ends up finding this woman who has adopted this child.
00:20:31
Speaker
And she doesn't have anywhere to go either.
00:20:34
Speaker
And so the three of them end up kind of rebuilding their life together.
00:20:39
Speaker
And then Godzilla shows up.
00:20:41
Speaker
Right?
00:20:42
Speaker
I'm telling you, this is a raw, beautiful look at humans and the value of human life.
00:20:52
Speaker
And...
00:20:54
Speaker
What that all means.
00:20:56
Speaker
And it's all in the trappings of a Godzilla movie.
00:21:01
Speaker
So I'm just pulling up my thoughts again because I'm trying to stay somewhat orderly.
00:21:10
Speaker
The basic track of the movie...
00:21:13
Speaker
is to learn that life is valuable.
00:21:17
Speaker
Every moment and every scene works around this theme of does the life we have have worth or no?
00:21:27
Speaker
And I was just so struck by that.
00:21:29
Speaker
I was moved to tears multiple times because this film constantly reaffirms the value and dignity of human life.
00:21:44
Speaker
every single time.
00:21:45
Speaker
And I thought that was fascinating because again, kind of like the creator, you have this giant relentless force, which in this case is a giant irradiated dinosaur called Godzilla.
00:21:59
Speaker
But you have this giant force of nature that does not care about human life in any way.
00:22:06
Speaker
It does not care about the individual people that you're seeing.
00:22:10
Speaker
in this film.
00:22:12
Speaker
And you feel small.
00:22:14
Speaker
And this monster is devastating.
00:22:18
Speaker
Like the way they captured it is wonderful and terrifying.
00:22:22
Speaker
I was on the edge of my seat, literally.
00:22:24
Speaker
I was like gripping Shay's hand throughout the entire third act of the movie.
00:22:30
Speaker
And during our, oh my gosh, our first big encounter with Godzilla.
00:22:36
Speaker
as this gigantic, irradiated, terrifying thing is a terrifying encounter.
00:22:43
Speaker
And you feel the smallness of humanity in the face of the horribleness of evil and the fall.
00:22:52
Speaker
And it was terrifying.
00:22:54
Speaker
But in the midst of this giant, unbeatable, terrifying, lifeless-looking thing, its eyes are terrifying.
00:23:03
Speaker
Totally lifeless.
00:23:07
Speaker
It sends chills down my spine.
00:23:09
Speaker
But in the midst of this, the film is constantly saying, no, human life is worth everything.
00:23:22
Speaker
Which is, of course, what Christ said.
00:23:23
Speaker
Human life was worth his death and resurrection that he could give us the opportunity of salvation.
00:23:32
Speaker
It's such a pro-life movie.
00:23:33
Speaker
I don't want to go too much more into it.
00:23:35
Speaker
I could.
00:23:37
Speaker
But everything else I would want to talk about would have to talk about the third act and would have to talk about spoilers.
00:23:45
Speaker
But it is, the film is just this wonderful war between the main character's guilt and...
00:23:51
Speaker
And belief that he should have died.
00:23:54
Speaker
And that if he had died, maybe everything would be better.
00:23:56
Speaker
Maybe a giant dinosaur wouldn't be smashing buildings.
00:24:01
Speaker
And another narrative that says your life matters.
00:24:07
Speaker
It absolutely matters.
00:24:09
Speaker
One of my favorite lines.
00:24:11
Speaker
Favorite lines.
00:24:14
Speaker
Which is not a spoiler.
00:24:17
Speaker
It's not from our main character.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's from two side characters.
00:24:20
Speaker
One who had been in the war and one who hadn't.
00:24:22
Speaker
And it's kind of really idolizes people who are in the Navy or in the Air Force.
00:24:26
Speaker
He's adorable.
00:24:27
Speaker
Every time he sees a soldier or something, he's just like, oh my gosh, you were in the war.
00:24:32
Speaker
You're so cool.
00:24:35
Speaker
And this guy really wants to fight Godzilla.
00:24:39
Speaker
And this beautiful line is said,
00:24:43
Speaker
It is an honor.
00:24:45
Speaker
No, not an honor.
00:24:48
Speaker
Not being in the war is something to be proud of.
00:24:52
Speaker
Not having to fight that is something to be proud of.
00:24:54
Speaker
And that was such a profound narrative that was very anti-everything we're fed as Americans.
00:25:03
Speaker
Not to say I don't respect the people who have given their lives for our country to have the freedoms they do.
00:25:09
Speaker
I do.
00:25:10
Speaker
I respect people that have gone into the military and any branch of the armed forces.
00:25:17
Speaker
I know that that's a sacrifice, and I really respect that sacrifice.
00:25:22
Speaker
But I thought that's a beautiful thing to say.
00:25:27
Speaker
That's something to be proud of.
00:25:28
Speaker
Because ultimately, when we look at...
00:25:31
Speaker
right the track god has us on he doesn't have us on track for a war that's not the future kingdom we're promised he's going to come and he will handily defeat satan and crush him under his feet and put an end to everything right but and this was something i struggled with as a as a young kid growing up who wanted to be handed a sword and go fight bad guys but
00:25:58
Speaker
The war is not something we're necessarily going to partake in.
00:26:01
Speaker
Everything that the Bible says seems to describe us rising up from the dead and seeing God going and ending war himself single-handedly.
00:26:11
Speaker
Christ coming from the clouds with a sword coming out of his mouth, looking super awesome.
00:26:17
Speaker
And we're going to do nothing.
00:26:20
Speaker
We just get to receive the gift of peace.
00:26:26
Speaker
And we get to receive the future and eternity.
00:26:30
Speaker
And that's mind-boggling to me.
00:26:33
Speaker
And that is what these characters are trying to do in this film for this young man.
00:26:37
Speaker
And it's beautiful and lovely and so reaffirming of human life that it's worth... Human life is for more than just cannon fodder to throw at our problems.
00:26:47
Speaker
Every human is worth...
00:26:50
Speaker
caring about.
00:26:52
Speaker
And neither of the movies know why.
00:26:54
Speaker
We know why.
00:26:55
Speaker
Because we are made in the image of God, right?
00:26:58
Speaker
We reflect his personhood.
00:27:06
Speaker
And because of that, we have inherent worth.
00:27:08
Speaker
And we have inherent worth because we're loved by God.
00:27:11
Speaker
Neither of those films know that.
00:27:14
Speaker
I don't think.
00:27:15
Speaker
I don't think either of the directors know that.
00:27:16
Speaker
Maybe I'm wrong.
00:27:17
Speaker
But my goodness, do they preach it.
00:27:19
Speaker
My goodness, does that theme just permeate both of these films.
00:27:28
Speaker
And I thought that was really, really wonderful.
00:27:33
Speaker
These themes of fear and war and love, love and human dignity come out on top.
00:27:39
Speaker
And of course, they come out on top, because those are core to who God is.
00:27:43
Speaker
He loves, he is love, and he loves us humans.
00:27:48
Speaker
I thought that was really lovely.
00:27:50
Speaker
Um,
00:27:52
Speaker
And it does, both of them do a great job of contrasting those with our fallen nature as humans.
00:28:01
Speaker
And kind of everything that we could fear.
00:28:06
Speaker
So I just wanted to share those thoughts with you guys.
00:28:09
Speaker
Give you some interesting thematic things to chew on.
00:28:12
Speaker
And a couple recommendations for you.
00:28:14
Speaker
If you can handle sci-fi violence, the creator is a little bit more grisly.
00:28:24
Speaker
Other than one scene, Godzilla Minus One is pretty not grisly, but Godzilla Minus One is way more emotionally raw and true to life, I think.
00:28:35
Speaker
There's times where I forgot completely about the monster and I was just watching these people rebuild.
00:28:41
Speaker
But my gosh, a beautiful movie.
00:28:43
Speaker
I highly recommend both of them.
00:28:48
Speaker
Water break.
00:28:49
Speaker
So we're going to move now to kind of talking about Artists of the Way.
00:28:55
Speaker
If you guys have any thoughts about anything with the movies that I talked about or any questions, comment or shoot me a message.
00:29:01
Speaker
I'd love to chat with you guys about them because I love talking about movie themes.
00:29:06
Speaker
It's like one of my favorite things to do.
00:29:10
Speaker
So the other thing I was thinking about in this end of year podcast is just...
00:29:17
Speaker
A couple different things.
00:29:19
Speaker
Over the last couple months have really been reflecting on you guys, the people who listen to these episodes.
00:29:27
Speaker
We have about 40 to 50 people that listen every episode.
00:29:31
Speaker
That's mind boggling to me.
00:29:34
Speaker
But it's such a privilege to be able to create this and put this out and give it to you and have people that are consistently listening and that benefit
Listener Appreciation and Podcast Reflection
00:29:44
Speaker
from this.
00:29:44
Speaker
I'm so moved by that.
00:29:47
Speaker
I really am.
00:29:49
Speaker
And I, first of all, thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving like an hour of your life every couple of weeks to these conversations that I'm putting out.
00:30:01
Speaker
Um,
00:30:03
Speaker
I really am just so grateful that God decided to use this in some way.
00:30:12
Speaker
I wanted to do it for a couple years, and it's beautiful that it's kind of found a niche and that there's people that are benefiting from it in the ways that I hoped that they would.
00:30:23
Speaker
That's been really meaningful to me.
00:30:26
Speaker
And also, thank you to all of the guests that have been on.
00:30:32
Speaker
We're at, I think this is our 16th episode.
00:30:35
Speaker
So for these last 16 ones, especially the ones that didn't know me, that were kind of taking a chance on this new podcast just because they thought the things that were being tackled in it were worthwhile and valuable.
00:30:48
Speaker
So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
00:30:51
Speaker
That really, that matters a lot to me.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
As I've been reflecting on the community and where Artists of the Way is going to go in 2024, I feel like God's been laying some things on my heart.
00:31:05
Speaker
And so I want to kind of share those with you and kind of tell you what we're going towards coming up here.
00:31:14
Speaker
He has made it very clear to me that in this next year, the kind of
00:31:22
Speaker
artistic, I guess, vocational thing he wants me focusing on is artists of the way.
00:31:27
Speaker
Um, like that's, that's the side project that I feel like he's inaugurating.
00:31:32
Speaker
So I'm carving out some more time in my life to put more time into this, which I'm really excited about.
00:31:38
Speaker
Some of that is from necessity because as you know, I've been talking about it a lot the last couple months.
00:31:45
Speaker
We're doing Godspell next year.
00:31:46
Speaker
So that necessarily is going to take up some more time in my life.
00:31:51
Speaker
Um,
00:31:53
Speaker
But on top of that, there's just some other things I've been chewing on with the podcast, with Artists of the Way, really, as an organization that I want to do next year.
00:32:05
Speaker
A lot of that has to do with my heart for community.
00:32:09
Speaker
I talked about this a little bit in the opening episode, but...
00:32:13
Speaker
One of the things that was really important to me about Artists of the Way, and as I was thinking about whatever Artists of the Way was going to be, was the idea of community and church-like community.
00:32:23
Speaker
One of the competing names for this, which if you look on our Instagram, it's still the username for it, was Artists Ecclesia.
00:32:31
Speaker
Ecclesia, if you don't know, excuse me, my voice is getting a little, little gravelly.
00:32:37
Speaker
It's early in the morning.
00:32:38
Speaker
I'm just getting a cool like country film protagonist voice.
00:32:42
Speaker
We're going to talk like this for the rest of the episode.
00:32:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:47
Speaker
Reign it in, John.
00:32:48
Speaker
Going to take a quick drink of water here.
00:32:54
Speaker
Okay, so Ecclesia is the word in the Bible that we now translate as church.
00:33:03
Speaker
When I was thinking about everything that Artists of the Way was going to be, Ecclesia kept coming back to mind, and I was doing a study on Ecclesia.
00:33:11
Speaker
My wife and I were trying to figure out what church we were going to, what exactly that was supposed to look like.
00:33:15
Speaker
I was thinking about it for a lot of different reasons.
00:33:18
Speaker
Um...
00:33:19
Speaker
So I did a deep study on Ecclesia every time it appears in the Bible, what it's talking about.
00:33:25
Speaker
And I did a word study on it.
00:33:26
Speaker
And Ecclesia doesn't actually mean church.
00:33:30
Speaker
It means community or gathering.
00:33:33
Speaker
Specifically, it means gathering.
00:33:34
Speaker
But a lot of times it can refer to community.
00:33:38
Speaker
And I, for a while, one of the soapboxes I can get on is that the church needs to get back to that very universal view Christ had of Ecclesia, of his gathering, of his people.
00:33:54
Speaker
I'm very much a fan of the heart behind the ecumenical movement, and
00:34:01
Speaker
and like the idea of a united church.
00:34:04
Speaker
If I could see the unification of the church to be the one church that Christ inaugurated, I would love that.
00:34:15
Speaker
For us to finally live up to his prayer to Christ, or to God.
00:34:21
Speaker
He's not praying to himself.
00:34:22
Speaker
In a way he kind of is.
00:34:24
Speaker
Trinity's confusing.
00:34:26
Speaker
But his prayer to God that
00:34:28
Speaker
We as the church would be one as he and the Father are one.
00:34:32
Speaker
That's really near and dear to my heart.
00:34:35
Speaker
I don't think I'm going to see the unification of the church in my lifetime, but it would be awesome if I did.
00:34:42
Speaker
But an area where I have seen that really beautifully is in the arts.
00:34:47
Speaker
There's something about having a story to tell
00:34:51
Speaker
that has allowed people from all different denominations, from very different doctrinal leanings, to be able to put those aside and say, okay, we can find unity in the fact that we believe that Jesus is Lord and that he came to save us from our sins, defeated death for us, and has secured eternity for us.
00:35:10
Speaker
We're going to surround on that and tell this story we think is important.
00:35:15
Speaker
I have seen art, especially theater, but art, do that in a way I haven't really seen anything else do.
00:35:23
Speaker
Not to say that can't happen.
00:35:25
Speaker
I just haven't really seen it anywhere else than in art.
00:35:29
Speaker
But my gosh, I've seen it a lot in art.
00:35:33
Speaker
So that is just for me a very core important thing that art is something wherein the church can come together to tell stories to reflect God's beauty and truth to the world and co work together as the body of Christ as the one church.
00:35:53
Speaker
Maybe that would lead to the unification of the church.
00:35:55
Speaker
I don't think it probably will.
00:35:56
Speaker
I don't think it'd be cool if we could just get all the denominations together and be like, let's all do paint by numbers and then we'll be happy and unified.
00:36:04
Speaker
I don't think that would ever happen.
00:36:07
Speaker
But I do hope that the church sometime can find unity in the fact that we're all telling the story of Christ.
00:36:15
Speaker
God become man to save us.
00:36:18
Speaker
Because that's the story we tell every day.
00:36:20
Speaker
Or should tell every day.
00:36:22
Speaker
through our lives through the way we live.
00:36:26
Speaker
So anyways, I was looking at this artistic community.
00:36:31
Speaker
And I was like, I kind of want to create something that can be
00:36:38
Speaker
A hub, I guess, that's almost too ambitious, but just a place where people can come for resources and for fellowship, to fellowship with each other, to encourage each other, to disciple each other, to help each other grow artistically and spiritually.
00:36:57
Speaker
And the podcast has already had a role in doing some of that with some different people I've talked to, which has been wonderful and beautiful and shocking to me, but I've been very grateful for.
00:37:09
Speaker
But going into the next year, that's something I have a keen eye on.
00:37:14
Speaker
So I want to be able to foster a little bit more the spaces for you as the audience who listens to this podcast, as the community that's really around this podcast,
00:37:25
Speaker
around artists of the way to be able to go to and engage and, um, ask questions and talk to each other and talk to me.
00:37:34
Speaker
I want to hear what you guys' thoughts are on episodes.
00:37:37
Speaker
I want to hear if you guys have questions or further insights.
00:37:40
Speaker
I, for every hour of conversation I have on a topic, there could be countless hours more because there's so many other viewpoints, so many other, um,
00:37:52
Speaker
things that we just haven't considered.
00:37:56
Speaker
So outside of Godspell and regular podcast episodes, I'm going to be putting time into trying to create something that's easy for you guys to use.
00:38:10
Speaker
It's not going to be like a social media and I'm not like coding anything.
00:38:13
Speaker
I'm going to utilize things that already exist, but I want to be able to foster that space and
00:38:20
Speaker
for creative flourishing and spiritual fellowship and discipleship.
00:38:30
Speaker
One of the ways that I'm looking at doing this is using the platform Patreon, which Houston Coley talked about a little bit in our episode with him.
00:38:37
Speaker
And that was what kind of got me thinking about how it could be used as a community tool.
00:38:43
Speaker
But Artists of the Way is going to be
00:38:45
Speaker
looking into getting a Patreon going in January.
00:38:49
Speaker
If you don't know what Patreon is, let me explain it to you because there is a little bit more than just that it can be a space for community because it is.
00:38:59
Speaker
That's not necessarily what it's designed for, but I think it could be really helpful for that.
00:39:04
Speaker
And I'm looking forward to experimenting with it and seeing how that works and if that works and if you guys enjoy that.
00:39:11
Speaker
But Patreon basically is an online platform.
00:39:15
Speaker
that is there for people to be able to create things and put them out for their audience.
00:39:22
Speaker
And then we can set up different tiers basically of where people can subscribe.
00:39:31
Speaker
That's the word.
00:39:32
Speaker
I described this one so much better on the last podcast.
00:39:35
Speaker
But basically, the idea behind it is the old classic patronage of artists, where, I mean, we saw this a lot with the church, the church would have a patron art would know would be the patron to an artist, they would pay them, the artist would get to make their art, and also make some things that the church wanted them to make.
00:39:54
Speaker
And I think it was a great system that we should go back to.
00:39:56
Speaker
But Patreon is kind of about that.
00:39:58
Speaker
And so
00:40:00
Speaker
My goal with the Patreon, and I'm going to talk more about this in January because I'm in very pretty early phases about praying about it and planning it out.
00:40:08
Speaker
But I want to launch it early next year.
Future Plans: Patreon and Community Engagement
00:40:11
Speaker
The goal is that one, it can be an easy go to space for community where podcasts will be going out there.
00:40:18
Speaker
Any of my like weekly musings that are in the newsletter will go out there as well.
00:40:24
Speaker
I'll maybe post on there.
00:40:26
Speaker
I would like to get a conversation going on there that you can come and continue discussing with each other and with me things from the episodes.
00:40:36
Speaker
And then I also want to utilize it to help cover some of the costs of the podcast because the podcast costs about $50 a month.
00:40:46
Speaker
Overall, $50 to $60 a month overall to be able to put on in the way that I'm doing it.
00:40:52
Speaker
I probably could cut some costs if I wanted to, but the funds all go to, I think, creating a high quality podcast and quality is important to me.
00:41:05
Speaker
So I want to make sure this is as good an experience for you guys as well.
00:41:08
Speaker
So I'm going to be setting up some payment tiers as well.
00:41:13
Speaker
To be able to get into the community side of things, that's going to be free.
00:41:19
Speaker
Like that won't have a cost to it.
00:41:21
Speaker
And then I'll have like $5, $10, $15 tiers.
00:41:24
Speaker
They're not going to be huge.
00:41:26
Speaker
Um,
00:41:28
Speaker
with different things available for each one.
00:41:31
Speaker
So I'm hoping to be able to produce some more artists of the way things I might do some things like this, where if you enjoyed listening to my unfiltered thoughts about these movies, um,
00:41:44
Speaker
I have unfiltered thoughts about art all the time and thoughts about how you can see the beauty of God in things that the artist maybe didn't intend for that to be there.
00:41:54
Speaker
And, you know, I play video games and watch movies and watch shows and read books all the time.
00:42:00
Speaker
So some things might be things like this where it's kind of unfiltered thoughts.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
Some of it might be getting the opportunity to contribute to an episode or suggest episode ideas.
00:42:11
Speaker
Things like that would be things that would come along with you being a Patreon subscriber who gives money to the podcast to be able to keep going.
00:42:26
Speaker
Not that it's at risk of stopping.
00:42:28
Speaker
I just want to make it a little more sustainable for myself and my family.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:33
Speaker
So, but the thing I'm really excited about that is not getting money.
00:42:37
Speaker
It's really the community aspect.
00:42:39
Speaker
I'm excited at the opportunity to be able to expand our community and grow that and hopefully engage with you guys more because I genuinely really, I've gotten to talk to some of you guys and that's great, but I want to know what you guys' thoughts are about these conversations that I'm having because I know that they're out there and I know that there's
00:42:58
Speaker
People that listen and then are like, oh, I want to talk to people about this, but I can't.
00:43:03
Speaker
And so I want to be able to not just have conversations with people on the air, if you will, that I put out towards you guys.
00:43:11
Speaker
I want to actually...
00:43:13
Speaker
I want to foster discussion between all of us.
00:43:16
Speaker
That's a goal of mine.
00:43:18
Speaker
So that, outside of God's Belt, is probably the biggest thing that we're looking at in 2024 for Artists of the Way.
00:43:25
Speaker
We are also going to be doing some kind of acting, either acting class or acting workshop.
00:43:32
Speaker
I did an acting class this past year that I taught.
00:43:37
Speaker
which had like 20 some students.
00:43:39
Speaker
It was a huge class.
00:43:40
Speaker
Huge thanks to my assistant teacher, Lorna Torres, because my head would have exploded if she was not there helping me with this giant class.
00:43:47
Speaker
Um,
00:43:49
Speaker
that was really cool.
00:43:50
Speaker
I really enjoyed that.
00:43:51
Speaker
I'd been wanting to lead an acting class for some time and it went quite well and I've heard good things about it and I've had quite a few people expressing interest in another acting class.
00:44:01
Speaker
I don't know what time we're going to have around Godspell, but my goal is either to host another class like the one I did last year, which was an eight-week class in the summer, or to do a couple different workshops that
00:44:19
Speaker
like all-day workshops where we can really hit it hard and learn some things.
00:44:24
Speaker
Theater education is very important to me.
00:44:26
Speaker
I care a lot about the craft of acting.
00:44:30
Speaker
And in Grand Rapids especially, we have a really strong theater community.
00:44:34
Speaker
So I think we deserve some solid, great professional education.
00:44:38
Speaker
Not that there aren't other resources out there, but I really care about being able to dive deep into the heavy...
00:44:50
Speaker
deep side of acting because people can handle that.
00:44:52
Speaker
And, and I want us to explore that a little bit more.
00:44:55
Speaker
So that's kind of, um, really, I think all we're looking at next year, um, Godspell, which I'm super excited about if you haven't yet and would like to donate.
00:45:09
Speaker
Um, we're about a thousand shy of getting to a third, which was my goal for the end of the year.
00:45:13
Speaker
If that doesn't happen, that's okay.
00:45:15
Speaker
Fish and loaves.
00:45:16
Speaker
I'm offering this all up to God.
00:45:18
Speaker
Um,
00:45:19
Speaker
But I thought one third was a fun buzzword, but we are up to a quarter.
00:45:23
Speaker
So that's great.
00:45:24
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:25
Speaker
Truly, thank you so much to everybody who's given to that.
00:45:28
Speaker
I've been blown away by the support for that.
00:45:30
Speaker
I'm so absolutely thrilled about that.
00:45:35
Speaker
godspell more podcasts i've got a whole list of guests that i'm gonna invite on the podcast next year we're gonna have some podcasts about godspell chatting with our creative team once we have a cast we're gonna have that uh discussions i want to do uh if i'm able to this i want to do like a round table about playing jesus with whoever we get as jesus and myself um and then uh tyler sutner who played jesus in the singer
00:46:00
Speaker
and maybe Rich Garnott, who played him in the story.
00:46:03
Speaker
I would love to just unpack the experience of playing Jesus with some people.
00:46:07
Speaker
We'll see if that happens or not.
00:46:09
Speaker
So lots of exciting conversations coming you guys' way.
00:46:14
Speaker
And then the Patreon, with hopefully some expanded community and expanded things.
00:46:19
Speaker
I'm trying to avoid the word content because I don't like the word content.
00:46:24
Speaker
But more stuff for you guys to be able to take in from Artists of the Way.
00:46:30
Speaker
And then acting class as well.
00:46:32
Speaker
Hopefully, maybe.
00:46:33
Speaker
We'll see.
00:46:35
Speaker
That's the goal.
00:46:36
Speaker
Just have to make it, figure it out with the schedule.
00:46:39
Speaker
So thank you guys so much for listening.
00:46:41
Speaker
Thank you for listening for the past six months.
00:46:45
Speaker
I can't wait for 2024.
00:46:46
Speaker
I'm so excited to see what God wants to do with Artists of the Way moving forward.
00:46:51
Speaker
And ultimately, all of this is for him.
00:46:53
Speaker
It's submitted to him.
00:46:55
Speaker
And I can't wait to see where he wants to take it.
00:46:58
Speaker
So thank you all.
00:47:00
Speaker
My prayers are with you all.
00:47:02
Speaker
I'm keeping you in my prayers as artists and as Christians.
00:47:08
Speaker
I pray that God really blesses you this Advent season, this Christmas, that you just be able to joy.
00:47:16
Speaker
in the arrival of Christ, in his coming, as we celebrate his birth, what he came to do for us, and as we look ahead now in our second advent to his second coming, when everything will be made right.
00:47:31
Speaker
I pray that that's just a beautiful, lovely time that you all have a Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year because I'm not going to see you guys till the next year.
00:47:39
Speaker
So I'm going to do the classic dad joke and I'm going to say, see you guys next year.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, hope you have a great rest of the year.
00:47:47
Speaker
That God blesses you as you grow in your art, grow in him.
00:47:52
Speaker
That you just have a beautiful, beautiful Advent and beautiful Christmas.
00:47:56
Speaker
God bless.