Golden Age of Television - LOST is One Show That Hits the Mark

It is safe to say that the entertainment industry has a multidimensional, cultural and global impact.  I say to the entertainment producers of the world, if you want to help wake up or lift up souls, give us a great film. If you want to help keep our souls awake, lifted up and reaching deeper, wider, or higher, give us a great television series.

The Golden Age of Television has traditionally been identified as beginning in the late 1940s and continuing into the mid 1960s.  However, looking over the past decade of television shows (Network, Cable, Premium), though indeed many have pushed the envelope far over the edge of what is true, good, and beautiful, it can arguably be declared that we are in a new era in The Golden Age of Television.

Many of you reading this have at least a few, if not a dozen shows over the past decade that have gripped you.  Why? Because of the shows excellence in writing, acting, and producing whose truth, beauty, and goodness have had you coming back episode by episode.  Although in general terms there is more progress needed, welcome to The Golden Age of Television!

A great film can work like a catalyst. Within 90 to 180 minutes, it can uplift a down trodden soul or spurn it into action, ranging from personal compunction (Passion of the Christ) to social reform (Films on human trafficking such as 12 Years a Slave).  However, for the most part, even a great film is here today, gone tomorrow.  The characters we come to identify with, those we loathe or fall in love with, happens somewhere within 90 to 180 minutes.

A great television series has the potential to work on us weekly, 12 to 15 or more weeks per year, and usually over 5 years and sometimes up to 8.  If the writing is well done, we are introduced to a greater depth and complexity of character development.  These characters we not only come to loathe or love, but might even try to take on certain characteristics they convey.  Now that I live in LA, I like to watch films and television shows that can give me a deeper look into this culture I now call home.  Recently, I have been tuning into the gritty, unconventional cop show, The Shield (2002-2008, Mature Audiences).  The show is in reference to the true life Rampart Division police scandal, and loosely based one of it's Strike Teams.

Though the show has certain elements folks might find offensive, how inspiring is Captain Monica Rawling (Glenn Close).  The shows writers were able to spend a whole season masterfully developing this character as a firm, courageous, yet compassionate leader who stands for the good amidst a tough and complex environment where the moral lines of good and bad are blurred daily.  I aspire and pray to have her qualities as leader.  Although, as a parish priest, I will not need to exercise those qualities exactly in the same manner she needed to - Wait, let me think...(just kidding).


New Ethos is pleased to lift up Lost (Created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lendelhof) as one of the shows that deserves the New Ethos Logo of Excellence - A show that carried an overarching spirit of the true, good, and beautiful for 7 Seasons.  It is a show that  successfully explores the complexities of the human condition while connecting it with the transcendent.


Recently, Lost's showrunners, Lendelhof and Carlton Cuse had this to say in answer to claims that the show was about people who died on a plane crash and were in purgatory:


"No, no, no. They were not dead the whole time," Cuse said...But the characters definitely survived the plane crash and really were on a very real island. At the very end of the series, though? Yep, they were all dead when they met up in heaven for the final 'church' scene." Cuse also shared that Lost was metaphorically about "people who were lost and searching for meaning and purpose in their lives."


Many TV shows set out to entertain and maybe throw in a political PSA every now and then. But how many offer the service to all humanity to help reflect on the meaning and purpose of their lives?  Lost is by far not the only show deserving of a New Ethos Logo Award of Excellence.  In this current climate of television where people are rightly frustrated and violated by the many shows that have had a clear agenda to reverse some traditional values and universal truths we so dearly embrace, I am confident to say, this is the Golden Age of Television.  There are and will be others besides Lost. Use prudence and keep your hears open to "word of mouth" and do not be afraid to check out television today (or pick up a box set, "Hulu or Netflix it" to watch when time permits).  It's worth the search to keep your soul awake, lifted up and reaching deeper, wider, and higher to the transcendent meaning and purpose of life.

God Bless you and keep you in His truth, beauty, and goodness!

Fr. Don Woznicki

12 Years a Slave - A Cry for Human Solidarity

I know a film has great potential to meaningfully impact its audience when I leave the viewing experience with (and even hours later hold) a bit of a pit in my stomach.  12 Years a Slave (TYAS) did just that, as images, characters, and words were impressed on my heart about the sad chapter in our nations history about the slave trade in pre-Civil War times. Sean Bobbitt, who also photographed director Steve McQueen’s previous movies, “Hunger” and “Shame,” delivers the evocative imagery that forcefully portrays the barbarity and twisted logic that fueled the idea of slavery in America, the land of the “Free and the Brave.”

The film is based on a book Solomon Northup published in 1853 about his own personal ordeal as a slave for 12 years.  What is astonishing about this film is that it opens with Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a gifted black violinist living as a FREEMAN in 1841 Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with his wife and children in a charming upscale home.  Like with modern day human trafficking tactics, Northrup is invited by two white performers to join them on a lucrative circus tour with his musical talent. It was a trap, however, and Northup was kidnapped and given a new identity, Platt Hamilton, and accused of being a runaway Georgia slave. Northup is sold to William Ford of Louisiana (Benedict Cumberbatch), a saint compared to other slave owners in the film. But after clashing with an overseer on Ford’s sugarcane plantation, Northrup is sent to the cotton estate of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a sadistic and manipulating man who is fixated on his young slave mistress Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o).

John P. McCarthy in his film review for TYAS in America Magazine says it well, “The film astonishes because it is so wrenching yet unsentimental, so devastating yet sober, so harrowing yet beautiful. But be forewarned: even knowing that Solomon’s odyssey ends eventually, it is hard to find joy in this unsettling work.” [America Magazine – Film Reviews, “Multiple Restraints”, October 21, 2013].

The epic television mini-series, The Color Purple (1985) was ground breaking in unveiling the reality of being an African-American slave in the deep-south.

TYAS is ground breaking in how it will draw the viewer into experiencing and feeling (uncompromisingly) an African American’s journey (already a free man, living in dignity and honor with a family in Northern United States) that descends into a hellish world of human slavery in the “Deep South.” TYAS helps the viewer to enter into the nightmare of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse people suffered in our very own nation due to skin color.  I call it the “Passion of the Christ” film of slave movies where all you can say after the massive human rights abuses is “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

But hopefully TYAS will helps us as a nation to reflect deeper into our own hearts about the reality of discrimination and human abuse of African Americans and their emotional and psychological pain that may still exist today in the United States.  Although we may have an African American in the White House, and our nation has come along way since the 1960s when Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Washington D.C., racial discrimination is alive and well.  There are still generational scars and healing needed between races and within society that still needs to take place.  This film can help deepen the empathy and compassion that is needed for the African American race, an important factor for progress in this area.

There is one scene when Epps talks about the parable of the faithful and unfaithful servant from Luke 12:35-48. The unfaithful servant is “beaten with many stripes” in that passage, and Epps warns his slaves he will whip any disobedient slave with many lashes, just like Scripture says.

What Epps, and the movie, leaves out is Verse 45, which says that the unfaithful servant “begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk.” Of course, it is Epps who actually does these bad things, so, as a Christian, he is the unfaithful servant of Jesus Christ, not Solomon or the other slaves.

TYAS’s value goes further also than the roots of racial discrimination of African Americans.  TYAS had me reflecting on how human beings of all races deal with others in a discriminatory way simply because they are different than they are, whether it be gender, politics, religion, or just demographically.

Brad Pitt has a cameo as the abolitionist carpenter Samuel Bass. Before predicting a day of reckoning for the nation and slaveholders, he asks Epps, “In the eyes of God what’s the difference between white and black?”

This echoes what St. Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Malick’s To the Wonder, a Wonderful Mystical Reflection on Everyone’s Vocation to Love

Pope John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Artists that one of the great dignities of artists is their ability to reveal an “echo of the mystery of God’s creation.” In Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life, it was God’s Divine Providence along side the problem of evil.  In To the Wonder, it is the mystery of love.

Expect a similar look and feel to The Tree of life, absent of a conventional narrative. In The Tree of Life, Malick used a stunning “discovery channel type” sequence to unveil the mystery of God’s creation. In To the Wonder, he utilizes a poetic style to open the viewer’s mind, imagination, and heart to reveal the depths of true love’s mystery.  Be ready to go well beneath the surface of most “love stories.” It’s worth it!

The film opens with Marina (Olga Kurylenk) spinning and dancing through a Parisian park while her voice over prayerfully expresses with heartfelt emotion her new found love with Neil (Ben Affleck), “I open my eyes, New born” to the beautiful WONDER OF LOVE!  The scene quickly moves to Marina and Neil at Mont St. Michel, on an island off the Normandy coast.  They frolic around the picturesque, secluded and peaceful surroundings of the Mont and then inside the empty Catholic Church that sits atop the Mont.  The lovers venture through the church, gazing at the vaulted ceilings, the stone altar and the baptismal font and into its inner courtyards.

This opening sequence is no random imagery; rather it grounds the whole exploration of the mystery of love, particularly the love shared between Marina and Neil, in the transcendent and haunting Divine Love.  Could not newly found love between a man and woman that seems to spring forth from nothing be called anything else but a Divine Miracle?  It is this type of love that can only have God as its creative and mysterious source.  In fact, the name of this film is a dead give away of what Malick is trying to communicate.  In Marina's words, "We climbed the steps to the wonder."  The island and church, nicknamed "the wonder" is a powerful symbol of Christ like love (“agape love”) where Christ (The Bridegroom) is totally committed to His Bride (the Church).  He even gave His life for her.  How romantic is our God! [Eph. 5:25] “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her.”

There are other reasons Malick brilliantly anchors the cinematic poem with Mont St. Michel, a metaphor of the fortress of Divine Love.  The tides in the area change quickly (as Malick captures) and have been described by Victor Hugo as "à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop" or "as swiftly as a galloping horse."  The tides set the stage for a challenging and chaotic reality in Neil and Marina’s search for a true and sustained love – emotions and passions of love quickly rush in and out of relationships with the force of a galloping horse.  Something else is more defining and essential for a true and sustained love. St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “My heart is restless until its rests in you, Lord.”  Malick gets to the core of this.  Marina and her daughter Tatiana follow Neil from romantic Paris back to his home in a sterile Oklahoma suburb.  Soon after the emotional and fantastical high of Paris and settling into Oklahoma, we soon begin to realize that though Marina and Neil are head over heels in Love, yet they are not married.  There is something missing in their love that leads to emptiness throughout the film between Marina and Neil.  Neil’s heart is not fully committed to Marina.  Even Tatiana senses it.

We are also shown what seems to be a flashback of Neil in a relationship with another woman, Jane (Rachel McAdams).  Malick reveals a defect in Neil’s heart that keeps him, or anyone, from experiencing the depths of true committed love.  A Jane voiceover says, “I trust you.”  It is evident that Jane wants to get married to Neil.  Further Jane asks, “Will you pray with me” but Neil responds, “I have no faith.”  If God (agape love) is not at the center of married love, it will be difficult to sustain and grow in commitment.  Soon, the viewer sees the love shared between Jane and Neil break apart as he begins to glance longingly at other women, and like with Marina, forever keeping his options open and uncommitted and turning love (in Jane's VO) into "nothing but pleasure, lust."

Malick interjects Fr. Quintana (Javier Bardem), a priest in the Oklahoma town, as a sentinel like figure to keep the viewer oriented through the changing tides of love that Neil and Marina experience.  The viewer hears a Fr. Quintana homily on committed love, “A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church, and give his life for her.”

Fr. Quintana is also shown to be human through a crisis with his own vocation to the priesthood, a vocation that is essentially a call to a committed loving relationship with God through serving His people. In his voiceover he says,  "I thirst" (for God) but worries that the "stream is dried up." He further confesses to God, "Everywhere you are present. And still I can't see you. You're within me, around me, and I have no experience of you. Not as I once did. Why don't I hold onto what I've found? My heart is cold. Hard.” 

Many film critics have read into this crisis of Fr. Quintana as a dreadful lowliness attributed to priestly celibacy – but given the context of the film, they totally miss the point here in Malick’s depth and insight into the mystery of true love.  Yes, Fr. Quintana appears lonely, but not for a woman.  His loneliness is rooted in feeling disconnected from God while he struggles with the challenges and demands of his calling to totally commit his life to the Bride (The Church).  Husbands and wives, though physically intimate, can also feel just as lonely when disconnected from each other and without agape love at the center of their marriage vocation.

Consequent scenes show Marina is unhappy because Neil, though still in love with her, is not totally engaged - He is not committed to her, let alone willing to give his life for her.  Marina returns to Paris only to wrestle with a restless heart and return again to Neil in Oklahoma.  But since the obstacle in Neil’s heart is never removed, their relationship goes from bad to worse (ugly arguments, violent outburst, Marina’s unfaithfulness).

Fr. Quitana says in another homily, “Love is not a feeling. It’s a command.  You shall love whether you like it or not. Even if you feel your love has dried up.  Maybe it’s being transformed into something higher.”  We finally see the beauty of this transformation of Neil’s heart.  After he punishes Marina with emotional abandonment for her unfaithfulness, he finally empathizes with her pain and kneels in front of her in a scene that not only forgives but asks for forgiveness as well.

The film’s true depth and sophistication on the mystery of true committed love (whether it be in marriage, a religious vocation, or otherwise), becomes strikingly apparent as Fr. Quintana is depicted achieving a spiritual epiphany. In his priestly calling to agape love, he comforts a succession of suffering people — the old, the anguished, the addicted, the crippled, the sick, and the dying — he recites a devotion of St. Patrick: "Christ be with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ in me. Christ beneath me. Christ above me. Christ on my right. Christ on my left. Christ in the heart." The sequence reaches its climax with the recitation of a prayer by Cardinal Newman (one that was also prayed daily by Mother Teresa's Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity): "Flood our souls with your spirit and life so completely that our lives may only be a reflection of yours. Shine through us. Show us how to seek you. We were made to see you."

In the wondrous joy of romantic love, in self-giving sacrifice, in our suffering and the suffering of others, in the charity we offer to those in pain, in the resplendent beauty of the natural world – the mystery of true love is found.  In To the Wonder, Malick reveals another echo of God’s mysterious relationship with humanity.  We are made for life everlasting with God and God’s love for us is always present all around us.  He is totally committed to us! If we just open the eyes of our hearts to see.  Could it be that Malick is developing as one the great mystic theologians of our time?

There is so much depth to this film.  It most likely will not be popular because it takes work.  However, the more you reflect on this film, like in prayer, the more it will reveal itself to you.  This is what makes this Malick film so meaningful and timeless and beautiful – and why New Ethos gives it its Logo Award of Excellence!

Tree of Life: New Ethos Award for Excellence in Entertainment

Not Your Ordinary Hollywood Film - It’s Magnificently Extraordinary

If you are looking for that ordinary Hollywood screen experience, you know, grabbing a bag of popcorn, a pop (I am from Chicago) and venturing into a dark theater to escape from your cares and worries, with Tree of Life, you will have an extraordinary experience. You might find yourself at film’s end still with that full bag of popcorn/pop, sitting in awe, because you just encountered something (or should I say, someone) extraordinary – that which is much more fulfilling and thirst quenching. In the words of St. Ambrose, "That than which nothing greater can be thought." Director Terrence Malick gets us close to thinking about and feeling “That” which in fact accompanies, consoles, and strengthens us through our cares, worries, and grief.

Tree of Life is not your ordinary escapist form of Hollywood entertainment; rather as part of our earthly journey, it is a meditation and an encounter with Divine Love. Nor is Tree of Life your ordinary propaganda “Christian” film. Flannery O’Connor wrote, “You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.” Tree of Life communicates to us a metaphysical experience because a story with conventional plots and characters arcs would be inadequate. Tree of Life’s dialogue is essentially prayer, its soundtrack is a soaring and triumphal celestial symphony, and its silent sequences (if you are patient enough to listen) speak volumes to the depths of the human heart.

The movie opens with a quotation from the book of Job: “where were you when I founded the earth…while the morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38). Malick’s film opens with a couple, the O’Briens (played by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain), who have been informed that their 19 year old son has died.  They begin to experience a Job-like confusion and crisis: It begs the question, “Why God have you done this to them?”

How does Malick seem to answer that and a few other other transcendent questions that haunt every human soul? He presents to us a glimpse into the grandeur of the cosmos. He also gives us a view into the human lives of the O’Brien’s, years before the tragic news, a family of 5 (3 boys), living in 1950s Waco, Texas, and how those lives interrelate within the universal drama of creation. The father, Mr. O’Brien (played exceptional well by Brad Pitt, a father too) is represented as the human response through nature: strong, conflictual, hard-edged, and violent. The mother, Mrs. O’Brien (also an exceptional performance by Jessica Chastain), represents the response through grace: gentle, loving, and forgiving. And young Jack (Hunter McCracken)/Adult Jack (Sean Penn) represents the struggle, not to choose one way over the other, but to reconcile the two with each other – as young Jack says in this most profound line from the film, “Father, Mother, always you wrestle inside me.” Is that not a reality of the personal drama of every human person - namely, how we reconcile nature and grace?

Some early reviewers have criticized Mailck for basically not getting to the point with his long nature scenes (one is at least 15 minutes long). But when one browses through an art gallery and stumbles upon something profoundly magnificent, do they quickly want to move on, or sit in its truth, beauty, and goodness? Do not our souls thirst for savoring that which penetrates to the depth of our souls, rather than just fast “soul-food service” which just selfishly fattens one’s belly of fleeting sensual pleasure? Does not God give us a lengthy Psalm on his creative majesty in scriptures, for one, Ps. 145? I recommend meditating on this passage from Romans in response to the criticisms of Malick’s lengthy “Discovery Channel” sequences [Rom. 1:20] – “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.” Maybe in Malick’s view, there are just too many excuses today dismissing God’s loving Providential Design above all things.

NEW ETHOS EXCELLENCE AWARD

Overall, a New Ethos branding on quality entertainment weds beauty and grace, strength and sublimity to perfection of technique. Tree of life has done that.

The New Ethos Perspective on quality entertainment is not just awarding entertainment because it’s “great Catholic” or even “Christian” content while sacrificing the artistic value, because then it’s essentially propaganda and where is the truth, beauty, and goodness in that?  St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “A work of art is good in itself (not in its utilitarian value).” The New Ethos award criteria accounts for a sense of mystery, characterized by faith, hope, and love, combined with a sense of manner. In other words, New Ethos looks for films that do not sacrifice “technique” for the sake of the message.

The New Ethos ”perspective of faith” is more an expression of man’s ultimate concern rather than identifying it with Judaism, Christianity, or with “going to church.” It is a perspective of film that is always reaching for the universal transcendent value of things inside, outside, above and beyond the world of the seen and unseen.

The New Ethos “perspective of hope” is always fresh, innovative, and open to the depths of reality and the possibilities of the mystery of all being. It is a perspective that is always new in any age.

The New Ethos “perspective of love” views a successful journey or story as one that exemplifies serving and sacrificing oneself for the good of another. It is a love that suffers for the sake of the good of another and desires that they be touched by the immutable and eternal transcendent values of truth, beauty, and goodness.

“We have not discovered the true beauty of any work of art until we have brought to light its eternal implications, which may be present even apart from the intentions of the work's creator."

-Flannery O’Connor

Tree of Life meets all New Ethos criteria with magnificence and it is why it is awarded the New Ethos Logo of excellence for truth, beauty, and goodness in entertainment. Hurray for Hollywood! Hurray for Terrence Malick! And Hurray for “That than which nothing greater can be thought!”

In 1987, The late Pope John Paul II, speaking to the entertainment industry in Los Angeles said entertainment media can be a principal agent for uniting the human race through truth, beauty, and goodness. Well, I look forward to seeing this film with my friends from other faith traditions. When was the last time you heard of a priest, rabbi, and eman going to the movies together (other than in a joke)?  In the Tree of Life, there is something profoundly common we can share and rejoice in.  St. Bonaventure wrote, “Not simply to be a knower but a lover of truth, beauty, and goodness.” 

There Something more powerful than the creation of the universe that exists around us – As Jessica Chastain (Mrs. O’Brien) says in the film, “Unless you have loved, your life will flash by.”

-Fr. Don Woznicki, Founder, New Ethos

Linkin Park Catalyzes Thought Over the Tree of Good and Evil

There are not a few pessimists and critics of Hollywood (the music industry in particular), that just can't find anything good that comes from this industry. Sometimes, just the fact that certain films or movies don't have a cross or smiling happy people on the cover is reason to say it's from "Satan."

In the spirit of Jesus in the healing parables, especially the blind, I say to those with such attitudes of the entertainment industry to "open your eyes (and your ears)" and see how God really can speak to us through artists like Linkin Park. Ok, so maybe not too many old testament prophets had black discs embedded in their earlobes, but then again, many prophets were known to do "silly" things like Ezekiel who would lay on his side for over 300 days or cut up his beard and throw it in fire to make a point - namely, that the people of God need wake up and follow HIs ways else face destruction.

Linkin Park deserve much praise for this current work that is not afraid to lead humanity into the depths of the tough transcendental questions that enrich our state of being.

Mike Shinoda had this to say in the making of their "Catalyst" music video which set out to convey often-contradictory themes: power and grace, destruction and salvation, ugliness and beauty.

"The concept to the video: It kind of comes from the idea of, like, if you could imagine when nuclear fission was invented, or a moment in time when something can be used for positive or negative," Shinoda said. "Something can be beautiful or it can be destructive. Or even, you know, if you've ever seen a dangerous fire from far away, it's devastating up close, but from far away, it can be beautiful. Those are the kind of themes that run throughout the album, and they're also themes that you see in the video."

In essence, Linkin Park's music video "Catalyst", consciously or not, is a most profound and artistic expression of the Tree of Knowledge (Good and Evil) found in the Book of Genesis (chapter 2). God has given humanity the most wonderful gift to share in His creativity. The Tree (Which becomes an occasion for man to turn away from God) represents man's ability to know and choose between the good or the bad use of those wonderful God given things. Our free will ultimately becomes our grace or detriment in choosing to love God or not - its our choice that will lead personally and in some cases, collectively, to salvation or destruction.

New Ethos applauds artists who reach for an overarching spirit of truth, beauty, and goodness in their work. We believe one need not necessarily go to "religious" music genre to find it - Linkin Park is a testament to that in a most profound and powerful way - AND GOD BLESS US EVERYONE! - Fr. Don Woznicki +

What's Up With Mel? and LiLo? and HeMo?: Requiem For a Dream

There has been many looks of bewilderment, head scratching, and disappointment within the world of the “Passion of the Christ” pilgrims over the recent behavior of Mel Gibson – many saw him as the “next coming” of a Hollywood Savior, and now are left with “grinding and gnashing of teeth.” Given my past encounter with Mel during the promotion of “The Film”, not a few have asked me “What’s up with Mel?”

Well, for one, he is an ADDICT and also a CELEBRITY, which are almost synonymous terms – This contributes to Mel, and many celebrities, being vulnerable to what I call, The "REQUIEM FOR A DREAM" Effect - a chilling reality that can hit everyone, not just celebrities, who are spiritually sick in some way. Additionally, for Mel, he is also suffering from being the MAIN INSTRUMENT for one of the most powerful films in entertainment history that has brought (and will continue to bring) many to (or back to) Jesus Christ.

THE "REQUIEM FOR A DREAM" EFFECT

I cannot help but think about Darren Aronofsky’s film “Requiem For a Dream” (2000) in how addiction is playing out in the lives of Mel, (alcoholism, and who knows what else); LiLo (cocaine, and who knows what else); and Heidi Montag (HeMo) [Plastic Surgery]. One of the best films ever done on addiction RFD is one the the most true, artistic, yet shocking and nightmarish films I had ever seen back in 2000 and still remains that way today. That is why it is so good. After the credits began to roll with that erie score, most of the audience didn't move from their seats. If they experienced what I did, I felt like I had just been through one of the worst nightmares of my life and when the lights came up, I was just glad not to really be part of it. RFD stars Ellen Burstyn in her Academy Award Nomination for Best Actress (Sara); Jared Leto (Harry); Jennifer Connelly (Marion); and Marion Wayans (Tyrone). Each is obsessed with a dream that feeds off narcissistic tendencies, stemming from a past trauma or childhood deficiency. For Harry and Tyrone, it’s a plan to get off “hards knocks” and form a get rich quick business through drug dealing. For Marion, her dream is to be respected for her beauty and dignity as a woman of the fashion industry and who desires to be loved and cherished by a loving husband. For Sara, who has lost her husband and lives a lonely life, her dream is to be able to fit into a beautiful red dress to appear on a popular game show that will gain her attention and show her friends that she and her family have become something. In each case, heroine or diet pills (in Marion's case) feed the dream only to enslave them in a nightmare of addiction, destroying themselves to achieve the dream. Anybody caught in an addiction must see RFD (Trailer below).

THE NARCISSISM FACTOR

Dr. Drew Pinsky recently teamed with other researchers to conduct the first-ever study of narcissism among celebrities. In the process, they discovered that a high proportion of stars suffer from traits associated with clinical narcissism—including vanity, exhibitionism, entitlement, exploitativeness, self-sufficiency, authority, and superiority. These personality disorders stem from trying to compensate for something that is missing in their lives. They want to feel grand on the outside, to be famous, but instead feel small on the inside. These traits have their roots in self-hatred and ultimately in childhood disconnection or trauma. Many celebrities are actually narcissists before becoming celebs, and in fact, need to become a celebrity – and if they are not well grounded spiritually to do battle, it is uncontrolled narcissism that will eventually consume them in their own "Requiem For A Dream." So it should be no surprise we see and hear many celebs falling into self-destructuve behavior. I believe the worse thing we can do is ridicule them when actually they are really sick inside - Maybe a wake up call is in order, like watching RFD!

THE ADDICTION & CELEBRITY FACTOR

This factor is something that really needs our respect in order to understand why we keep reading about the likes of Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and recently LiLo (Lindsay Lohan) and "HeMo" (Heidi Montag). Let’s face it, celebrities are just more vulnerable to addiction. Your not going to see much interest in a reality TV show called “Hairdresser Rehab” as you do “Celebrity Rehab” if it wasn’t for the reality that celebrities are just more prone. And God bless Dr. Drew Pinsky (Vh1 Celebrity Rehab; SoberHouse; Sex Rehab) for putting together shows that actually could do something meaningful, not only in a celebrity’s life, but for all who struggle with addictions.

It’s easy for the vast majority of the public to look in on celebrities and envy them, and then be quick to judge and “Dutch pile” on them when they fall. It is as if "celebrityness" (which they can’t have) must go punished for them to feel better in their mundane world. I believe we must better understand why celebrities are more prone to addictions and then we will be less quick to judge and more ready to pray for those who one could argue are given the gift of “celebrityness” (if offered for Gods greater Glory). So why is it that celebrities are more prone to addiction? Dr. Drew Pinsky ( Dr. Drew website) is of the opinion that Hollywood has a higher percentage of drug addiction per capita than the rest of the population. He has examined the root causes of celebrity addiction and offers the following reasons behind its rise and why Hollywood is one of the toughest places to get clean.

1st - ACCESSS. "It’s everywhere", says Dr. Drew. "When you’re rich and famous you don’t have to look for drugs or alcohol. You turn around and people are handing you things, whether or not you want it. Whether they think you want it or not, they want to get next to you and the only way they know how to do that is by offering you something you may not have. In most cases, it’s a line of coke, a pill, a drink or two."

2nd - ENABLING ENTOURAGE. "Celebrities travel with a buffer of friends and hangers on", says Dr. Drew. "Supposedly it’s to make their lives easier, but it also serves to make addiction easier to maintain. Unlike the rest of us whose friends ditch when we start acting like idiots and self destructing or at least turn to us and tell us that we’re messing up, an entourage groupie enjoys his or her proximity to the spotlight and if the celebrity isn’t partying, then nobody’s partying."

3rd - (A reason why we need to give celebrities a break, for they are just like us - human) - THE SAME PROBLEMS AS THE REST OF US - Breakups with lovers and spouses, pressures at work, bad behavior, not enough attention at home, problems with parents, family histories of addiction, mental and psychological problem, the death of people close to them. "There really isn’t a reason that a celebrity picks up or maintains an addiction that someone without his or her fame hasn’t also experienced", says Dr. Drew. Given this information, is Mel much different than any other addict whose disease hurls all kinds of vile at its victim?

4th - WHAT THEY HAVE THAT WE DON’T, namely THE SPOTLIGHT. Dr. Drew says that sometimes it takes a really embarrassing moment, a video taken at the wrong time that goes viral online, some photos courtesy of the paparazzi, a career threat to get a celebrity to not only recognize that they have a problem but that this problem is serious enough to need treatment. "Think about some of the situations you’ve been in the last six months. Would you want a camera to have caught the details of any of those little episodes? Imagine if it had been in everyone’s inbox the next day when you went into work. Would that be enough to convince you that you needed to get some help?" Dr. Drew, we can only hope and pray that the general public recognizes that Mel needs serious help with his addiction(s) rather than more TMZ.com and Radar Online "therapy."

BACK TO MEL: "GOD'S INSTRUMENT' FACTOR

Are we really surprised of the recent news? From the time of “The Film’s” release, it is basic Christianity 101 that Mel would be (church lady please) "Satan's target", given this scripture [Eph. 6:12]: “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities, with the powers, with the rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens." So are we surprised that Mel has become victim, even more so than the pope, to (church lady again please) “Satan” who lashed out in a full out counter attack, a blitzkrieg?! And Satan is trying his best to strike up a symphony of his destructive work that will eventually play off the narcissistic lives of the likes of Mel, Lilo, and HeMo – this symphony is called, "Requiem For a Dream.”

FOR OUR CELEBRITIES: THE PRAYER FACTOR

All in all, I say, hang in there with Mel (LiLo and HeMo). What we are seeing played out before our very eyes (“and ears”) is Mel and scores of other celebrities in the throes of a spiritual battle - a battle for their life. Massive chaos has taken nest in their world and is inflicting severe damage and maybe some heavy causalities (such as in Mel's case with Oksana and the baby, his family, the Jewish and some ethnic communities). Granted, we can’t just "play off" all the damage, that Mel or other celebrity addicts have done, as “the devil made me do it” (for Mel, LiLo, and even HeMO will need to take responsibility for their actions for justice sake). What they do need more than anything though, rather than our judgment, is prayerful support. The very least, these celebrities are a cross section of addicted America and just remind us of those we love who are in the same boat. However, to be a celebrity, if truly given as a gift from God rather than sought out for some narcissistic desire, will come with a responsibility to spread truth, beauty, and goodness in our culture in a most powerful way - And here is where we don't envy but pray for them and support them where we can. They are human beings caught in a spiritual ambush from none other than (church lady please) “Satan.” It is very likely celebrities are a prime target to spiritual attacks, because of their high potential to have a positive impact on our culture. The devil, whose word in Latin is diabolos, means “to scatter, divide.” Ultimately, the devil, who is a liar and a murderer, is trying to create chaos in people's lives and eventually kill the soul - A Requiem For A Dream. Mel, Lilo and HeMo are just more vulnerable to this "death" because of their narcissistic tendencies combined with the "celebrity factor."

Given all this, our prayers should include a thanksgiving for celebrities, especially those who are willing not to hide their problems and addictions, for they give us a glimpse of the greater human struggle that goes on within all of us – We are all addicts (in some degree of another), for we are all addicts to sin. We all have issues of narcissism that need to be addressed. Thank you to some of those celebrities and Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab for helping wake us up from our "requiems to a dream" - to take responsibility for our lives with the gifts God has given us to bring truth, beauty, and goodness into our world where ever we can, and getting the help we need when (church lady please) "Satan" has gotten his tail into things.