When John was a little boy, his mother shooed the kids out the back of the house while she showed it to potential buyers. One afternoon he was charged to keep his younger brother and sisters in line while a particularly great prospect came by. John used his new pocketknife to whittle a spear. His younger brother Tim wanted a chance throwing the spear, but John convinced him that playing spear-boy, retrieving big brother’s throws, would be just as fun.

It was fun for several minutes, until John grew tired of seeing how far he could throw and aimed instead for how high he could throw. He forgot, however, to warn Tim that he was throwing up, and, as Tim raced to where the spear should land, it struck him on the head. He ran to and fro, hollerin’, the spear flopping back and forth like a bobblehead on a taxicab dashboard.

John tried to shush him and yanked out the spear himself, but the sisters heard, the mother heard, and seven stitches, one “barely noticeable” scar, and thirty years later, John’s brother has “completely forgiven” him.

The point is — story is everything. As soon as that good brother finished his story and moved on to some doctrinal explication of (forgiveness?) (choosing the right?) (listening to promptings of the Holy Ghost?), the audience as a whole sat back, turned to chat (quietly) to their neighbors, and started thinking about all the things that needed doing as soon as church was over.

My other point is, go see the movie Australia. I’m a big Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge) fan anyway, and even if you didn’t enjoy those, you will enjoy Australia. It’s got romance, adventure, Hugh Jackman, lovely music, gorgeous lush lighting and scenery, Nicole Kidman, and HUGH JACKMAN.

And, it’s got story.

As the Drover says, all of your possessions can be taken from you, and in the end, all that you really own is your story. Australia is a great story, not least because it encourages me to find, tell, write, rewrite, discover, share, never give up on, fight for, defend, live my story.

Jane

p.s. Happy Thanksgiving. I hope, if you’ve read this website for any length of time, that you know what I’m thankful for. If you have no idea, then I’ve done a very poor job of expressing what is in my heart. (And if I haven’t said it before, I AM THANKFUL for readers who stop by for a little part of my story).

But we needed a break from the emotionally draining business of intense (yet civil) Instant Message fighting discussion.

So what did we do? Took the kids to the dollar theater where we all enjoyed the magnum of giddy nonsense that is . . .

Mamma Mia! (spoiler alert!)

I thought Dick would be mad that I tricked him into taking four females to a musical about . . . hmmm . . . about . . . a wedding, sex with multiple partners, consequences, regrets, boy toys, homosexuality, single parenthood, responsibility, love that survives in the unlikeliest of circumstances, and following one’s dreams.

Maybe it wasn’t such a fluffy movie after all.

Maybe it was . . . hmmm. I’m not really sure whether to be appalled or applauding. It sure was gorgeous — all set in Greece with the white-stuccoed rocks and that blue! sky. Meryl Streep, who I’m realizing is quite amazing.

And it turns out that Dick has quite evolved, affectionate feelings for the music of ABBA, enough so that I’ll be uploading my ABBA Gold CD to our iTunes library tomorrow (if I can find it).

But one thing did bother me:

Why is Sophie (the daughter) choosing between:

1) marriage/settling down/babies

and

2) seeing the world/following her dream/freedom?

when the movie rests on the premise that what Donna (the mother) chose was:

3) seeing the world/following her dream/accidental baby/settling down.

Why is everyone so happy and relieved that Sophie chooses the freedom of travelling the world with a man who remains her boyfriend rather than her husband? Because as long as they’re not married she won’t get pregnant? Do Hollywood types forget how babies are made between the opening scenes and the fadeout? Are Hollywood types really that dumb? (Really?)

And why is marriage the bad guy here?

Marriage doesn’t tie you to a place or a dream or a baby.

Marriage ties you to a person. And if you tie yourself to the right person (even if he is a big fat jerk sometimes), marriage can take you to Japan and Harlem and The Bronx and Iceland and England and Cairo and Florida and Utah.

Marriage ties you to the dreams you build with your favorite person on earth. And even when he is your LEAST FAVORITE person on earth, you remember that the dreams that you have built together are worth working and fighting and sacrificing for.

Marriage can’t even produce a baby (sex does that, my poor, dumb Hollywood types). And it is love that ties you to a baby, whether you’re married or not. And once that baby is here, all the places and dreams and freedoms suddenly seem a little less important.

Until the day that baby starts talking and discovers what a great reaction she can get from saying “I hate you” all day long for seven weeks straight.

Then freedom starts to look more enticing again. And then, hopefully, that person you tied yourself to ten years ago? He offers to watch the kids all weekend so you can get away for a break from your job of 24/7 mothering.

And suddenly you realize that you don’t really want to go anywhere.

You just wanted to know that you could.

Jane

Passage to Zarahemla, a new movie in the Mormon genre directed by Chris Heimerdinger, author of Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, has a plot with an intriguing idea. Placing a modern person back in Nephite (50 BC) times reminds me of movies like Back to the Future and other time-travel epics.

But unfortunately the movie falls short of ever delivering on this intrigue because we never see Zarahemla at all. All you see is literally the “passage to” Zaramhemla. The passage is a spot in the woods in Leeds, Utah, where a lone Nephite guards a path he thinks Lamanites will use to invade Zarahemla.

Much of the anticipation of the protagonist stumbling into an ancient city, into Nephite homes and other Zarahemla environs, is never realized.

That said, the movie has its moments. We see the slow conversion of the main protagonist from a situation of unbelief to someone whose heart is softened. We see a Nephite literally speaking from the dust. The sci-fi portal, where characters pass from one world to another, always gets my attention.

But overall, it’s definitely a B movie produced with a low budget. The Nephite and Lamanite costumes look like they’re borrowed from a Manti pageant (as one character in the movie even suggests). The female protagonist wears frumpy Eighties clothing that are anything but California cool. I can live with these shortcomings, but the caricatures of the Nephites and Lamanites are tiring.

(I think Dick is not the authority on female fashion that he would like to think he is. Probably her clothing is the latest thing, only, we are not up on that).

Is it possible for a Mormon movie to portray a Nephite with real depth of character? The Lamanites are just one notch above barbaric cannibals. Each party is fixed in a single, predictable mindset.

Overall, despite so-so dialogue and feeling cheated of a glimpse of the filmmakers’ vision of Zarahemla, the movie kept my attention on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

(I would also point out that the gleeful use of violence while shrinking from even the mildest of epithets made the characterization highly problematic. As if it’s fine that gang members like to shoot people but would never befoul their mouths with a profanity. Not that I want to hear swearing, mind you, necessarily, just that such an imposed cinematic value system is odd and contrived.)

(I know, sorry, this was Dick’s review. But I had thoughts. And then I had to share them.)