The first listen to any Brian Wilson record (I insist on using that retro term, even though what I am listening to is technically a CD) is a singular, momentous experience for which one sits down, full concentration, quiet please, and a self-surrender into the world he creates by sound. I confess there is no parallel music experience to it in my audio biography that so captures my complete attention and reverence.

Brian is on record as citing Bach, Gershwin, and Phil Spector as his mentors—and what do they have common? The so-called the “wall of sound,” but, specifically, for Brian, the wall of harmonies he has infused into anything he creates or “reimagines”; this is what is distinctively transformative and enrapturing in his music.

Whether his own creation (“Smile”) or one reimagined (“Lucky Old Sun”), each work christens its own audience with new musical meanings and greater reflection on its enacting as an event—not just a “listen.” I haven’t paid enough attention to Bach (and won’t have time today or tomorrow or anytime soon); I do appreciate what I know of the genius of George Gershwin; and I grew up impressed by the musical landscapes invented by Spector (“You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” cannot be topped in over the top production)—but all things considered, I’d rather be listening to Brian on any given day.

On any given day, Brian Wilson’s reimagining of any kind of music would be worth our time to consider. And the plan is for Brian’s second task to be a “reimagining” of Disney’s catalogue of children’s songs (here’s hoping they leave out “It’s a Small World,” but maybe Brian’s magic would even work on this). But for the moment, Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is plenty to ponder and enjoy.

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The Pseudobook Review readership may know that my musical tastes tend towards the folksy side of the indie spectrum, but probably doesn’t know that when I’m alone in my car I scan the airwaves for a mainstream country station. I don’t own many country albums that aren’t by Garth Brooks, but I’ve always felt at home with the fiddles and slide guitars and drawled out vocals. And every once in a while I hear a track on the radio that gets me curious.

This time it was the title track from the new Dierks Bentley album: Up on the Ridge. The locomotive strumming, swaggered picking, and easy rolling vocals carried my right past my exit and as far away from town as I could get. I made a mental note to check out more of the album, but forgot until I was blindsided by “Love Grows Wild”. At the words “Oh I think it don’t need a lot, it just grows on what it’s got” I tried to calm myself down. Surely the rest of the album would let me down. I took the plunge, purchased the album, and again was blown clear out of town.

I’ve since been listening to Dierks and a phenomenal supporting cast on my morning runs, on my drive to work, and anytime I can find an excuse to get in my car and turn up the Ipod. Do you need a ride to the airport? I hope you like Dierks Bentley! Can I give you a lift to the store, Dad? Why don’t I just run that bill down to the post office and stick it in the mail there. And my windows will be down; anyone walking down the street will “hear the banjos ringing through the air” as Dierks sings on “Fiddlin’ Around”, “there’ll be mandolins and guitars everywhere/ Now don’t you want to be there!”

Sure I could lounge around my bedroom and play it over my speakers, but it’s not that type of music. This album literally moves me, it propels me forward into the wilderness, into my relationships, into church, and onto The Pseudobook Review to proclaim my newfound motions. “Down in the Mine” and “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) are haunting histories, “Bad Angel” and “Bottle to the Bottom” are thoughtful, bordering on metaphysical, songs of personal struggles, and “Draw Me a Map” is simply a genuine love song. There is even a brilliantly bluegrassy cover of “Pride (In The Name of Love)”! There is so much on there that I will certainly move to and be moved by Up on the Ridge for the rest of the summer, likely longer. Will you join me?

Before watching this movie, I’d never heard of Sophie Scholl. She was one of the remarkable young leaders of the White Rose movement, which urged non-violent resistance to the Third Reich in the last years of the war that Germany was now losing.

She was caught distributing leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans, in February, 1943, jailed, interrogated, tried, and executed by guillotine, all within a few days, unjustly, brutally, swiftly, breathlessly. This 2005 film depicts the heroism and determination of a small band of students and their willingness to put their lives in jeopardy for the sake of their fellow citizens, including the dispossessed, the mentally ill, and the Jewish people still alive within their borders.

What is remarkable about the film is its open and authentic evocation of Sophie’s Protestant faith as the motivation and foundation of her stand. She is a devout Lutheran. Once she is detained and then subjected to the repeated interrogation of the Gestapo, her faith grows and you are enthralled as her voice becomes bolder and bolder. This is faith in context, faith in action. The tone in the movie is neither condescending nor ironical toward Sophie’s faith. Her prayers, her defiance in the face of the demigoguery and madness all about her, is presented organically and natural. It is who she is.

But now I can be condescending and ironical—but not about this movie, or Sophie. I am glad this was not made by Christian auteurs with an evangelical “interest” in the movie. The “witness” in the movie that they surely would aim to exploit would tower above the storytelling in a way that destroys its power. Sophie’s death compels us not to look only at her prayers and last words, but at her whole life, lived in integrity and by principle.

The scriptwriter, Fred Breinersdorfer, and director, Marc Rothemund, clearly stand in awe of Sophie, and well they should. As the movie unfolds and as we get to know Sophie, the true drama is in the Nazi’s perplexity at why this young woman has such deep conviction, and reverence for life. Has she not been well-schooled by the Nazi re-education efforts? Has she not the basic pride of the good German to see all the order and compliance the Fuerher has brought to the Fatherland?

She cannot be diminished by attention to her faith, only further enobled and graced by it. In her defense of herself, her family, her leafleting, she is called upon directly to defend the dignity of all humanity, all life, and does so on the basis that we are made in God’s image. She directly address the courtroom, shaming them, damning them by her stalwart defense of liberty, and life. Her valediction to the court room is chilling: “Where we stand today, you will stand soon.”

I urge you to Netflix this film. I have not given anything away. I have only pointed you to a courageous Christian whose story is compellingly told in thoroughly engrossing terms, simply, poignantly, bracingly. It’s subtitled in English, and Sophie’s words will haunt for you a long time.

Her last words: “How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

NOTE: There may be insignificant spoilers.

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RIP, Robert Culp

You may have missed this. Or, like thousands of others, didn’t recognize the name from the obit. He’s been chiefly remembered recently for his friendship with Bill Cosby and their joint pioneering efforts to break racial barriers in network TV in the mid 1960s. They did so through the espionage send-up I SPY. This series, in the heyday of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the James Bond craze, stood out as a high concept drama (spy’s cover: world-class tennis player and his sidekick, a tennis practice partner and “valet”—thus making the world safe for Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, 17 years later) featuring a remarkable actor. By whom I mean Robert Culp. I remember him even more for the best written and acted episode of the late, lamented The Outer Limits: Demon With a Glass Hand, not surprisingly written by the great S/F writer, Harlan Ellison. Here mankind’s fate rests on Trent, a man without memory or direction, the consequences of which slowly unfold to a great climax. (Thrillingly so to this then 12 year old.) Later, he starred as the “handler” of a hero whose powers derive from the magical suit he wears in the satirical Greatest American Hero, Culp now past his leading man days. (One hopes his lasting imprint is not his role as Patricia Heaton’s father in Everybody Loves Raymond.) Culp’s genius was portraying an outwardly cynical man with a noble heart, delivering classy, stony repartee with subtlety and wit to his enemies and his friends, all the while placing the proper emphasis on moving the drama forward in a way that David Mamet would approve. Like David Janssen, they don’t make them like Bob Culp anymore.

How to Train Your Dragon

This is good visual story telling, plain and simple, escaping what could have been a very desultory treatment of dragonhood with crisp and endearing dialogue and scene-setting that yields eventually to an ever better climax. Simply put, unlike Disneyesque films, this one has a happy ending that has a cost from which its audience is not shielded (especially those around six). Quite scary most of the way, it’s the one film lately I wish I’d seen in3D first. Others have said it surpasses Avatar in depicting the grandeur of flight and I now can imagine how and why.

Justified

This FX “modern Western” drama is probably getting a bit over hyped after its debut and the two subsequent episodes. Still, as based upon one Elmore Leonard short story, its characterization and dialogue further inspired by his total output, Justified is an infectious character study of a U. S. Marshal who is forced to return to his Harlan County, KY, home against his own preferences. He’s “the angriest man” his ex-wife has ever known, but is portrayed with grace and determination by Timothy Olyphant, late of Deadwood and Hitman, and as the evil genius of Die Hard 4. The title refers to the constant struggle of a good man to rectify wrong through the judicious use of violence without succumbing to its siren seductiveness, tempted to solve all problems with a gun. He believe its use is “justified,” and his work is “justified,” and, in one session with a convicted criminal, even the Biblical notion of justification is broached. At the same time, there is humor both in the exchanges between Olyphant’s Raylan Givens and his prey, and within the very circumstances in which he is placed, though always with the ominous undercurrent of reluctant gunplay breaking out. Is Kentucky really like this? One could only hope. In any event, the show it most reminds me of is James Garner’s The Rockford Files. The difference is the body count, most of which arrived before the show started for Jim Rockford, whereas, in Justified, you have to keep track of it until the final scene.

Caprica

I am not going to say too much about this, lest I rob you of the joy of discovery as you immerse yourself in this engrossing secondary world, created primarily from the imagination of Jane Espenson, who collaborates with Joss Whedon an awful lot, to the benefit of both. Ostensibly a prequel to SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica, which I have never watched, Caprica is the world before the future invasion by evil Cylons, who are human/robotic hybrids. In the first 8 episodes, all available for watching at the SyFy site, you become immediately acquainted with a strange echo of our own civilization’s intoxication with virtual reality, and what it would be like if a murderous genius had at his disposal the technology to bridge (i.e., embody) the gap between the virtual and the real. When I read a synopsis of this, I gave it little chance of being interesting, let alone riveting. But it is, and the reason lies in the care with which producers have enveloped the Caprican world with authenticity and what C. S. Lewis called “realism of presentation.” The set designers as well as the costumers have taken as their premise this question: what if this series were being conceived and brought into being not by a science-fiction saturated generation of movie makers, but by a band of suddenly awakened 1950’s smoking, hat-wearing, Rip Van Winkles charged with fusing (1) their last set of memories of what Western humanity were like before their suspended animation with (2) a vision of a futuristic society imperiled by apparent monotheistic polymathic terrorists who use analog tech to defy the hypertech society that lives more and more of their lives vicariously? That’s Caprica—to be enjoyed as much for how its plot unfolds as of what it comprises. And even that’s way above the level of seriousness and engagement of typical network fare.

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