October 1, 2010

A friend of mine has just written to me, telling me that I've been too hard on Hollywood. While I don't know it that's really possible, her corrective impulse comes at just the time J.J. Abrams is finishing up shooting scenes for a movie in our fair town, Weirton, WV. And since I've been thinking about this event, too, perhaps the whole confluence is a knock from the Holy Spirit. So I dive in.

I was amazed at the size of the operation. Paramount set up a base camp two blocks from us, in a lot by the park, and when Linda and I drove through we saw about ten tractor trailers in neat rows. They were shooting up in a convenient mart lot, and there were two more up there. And since I was covering the paper route for my limping son, I had to drive around the ensuing jam, finding two more trailers on a side road. The people seemed very nice, and they did such a nice job with everything (no surprise since movies--if you don't count scripts--are so well made these days). It's been fun to walk downtown, see how they've altered stores, added 70s gifts, a date specific used car lot.

But the thing that got me was that the whole enterprise is such a heady thing. All that money, effort, time, and, scope--as well as the exhileration involved in the creative process. It would take a great deal of humility to deal with that. More than I have, no doubt.

God bless Hollywood.

Which reminds me, Dr. Mark Adderley from Wyoming Catholic sent me his new book: THE HAWK AND THE HUNTRESS. Very nice, Catholic in Arthurian dress. It's very good. I think it will be released in November. If you like action, romance, and a great take on sub-Roman Britain, do get it.


JMJ