Oceans, Crazy Heart and Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

FILM REVIEW

Oceans (G) is Disney’s latest nature film, following last year’s Earth. Like its predecessor, this one uses the latest in photographic technology to show amazing footage of the teeming complexity of life on our planet. It also points out that while we humans depend on the oceans for life, we are destroying this abundant, lively and life-giving environment.—Gordon Houser

DVD REVIEW

In Crazy Heart (R) Jeff Bridges impressively and effectively plays an alcoholic country singer, “Bad Blake,” whose life changes when he falls for a young, single mother and her son. The film shows the amazing talent that sometimes comes from addicted and unhealthy individuals. It also acknowledges that the path to healing often requires the help of someone else.—Anna Groff

BOOK REVIEWS

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (Eerdmans, 2009, $18) reflects on what it means to be good stewards of language, “to retrieve words from the kinds of misuse, abuse and distortion to which they’ve been subjected of late, and to invigorate them for use as bearers of truth and as instruments of love.” McEntyre sees the complex beauty of language and describes our “culture of lies,” where “argument turns into banter, analysis into fatuous assertion.” She delineates 12 strategies for being good stewards of language. This is an important book, particularly for pastors, who are called to care for words and tell the truth.—gh