NO JOY IN INDY...

The Indianapolis Colts football team is a class act, and a very successful franchise. Coach Tony Dungy and QB Peyton Manning have led them to the playoffs for a record ten straight years. However, last evening in the Wild Card round of the AFC playoffs, they couldn't stop 5' 6" Darren Sproles, who ran around, over and through them to lead the San Diego Chargers to a 23-17 overtime win over the visitors from Indy. The little guy did everything but the equipment manager's job for the Chargers, and fittingly scored the winning touchdown.

It was a great game to watch, but in the end the Blue Crew and their fans are blue once again.

THURSDAY THINGAMAJIG: Political Humor (Not an oxymoron)

One of the funniest groups around is the Capitol Steps. Made up mostly of former Congressional staffers, they pick on everyone, and as they say, put the "Mock" in Democracy. Let's lighten up today and laugh a little, whaddya say?

What I'm Watching...

Mira Nair's gentle meditation about cultural disorientation is a quiet film in which nothing much happens, that is, besides the ordinary events of life. An immigrant couple in New York from India has two children. The children grow up in suburbia and become adults. Key characters work, have relationships, and die in the natural course of their lives. A rather mundane story, after all.

Nair's genius lies in two aspects of telling this simple tale. First, life through her eyes is stunningly beautiful. This film, like her others, exhibits the lush sensuality of India itself--its vivid colors, textures and sounds. Whether it is the dramatic decor of a Bengali wedding, the striking whiteness of a Hindu funeral, or the common streets, apartments and work places of New York, sights and sounds burst all around with life and vitality. The awkward and tentative lovemaking of a young couple whose marriage was arranged, or a single shot of samosas sizzling in a pan on a hot stove can evoke intense passion and yearning.

Second, her characters are genuine and reveal the depth of ordinary life experience. The three primary characters, father Ashoke (Irfan Khan), mother Ashima (Tabu), and son, Gogol (Kal Penn) all demonstrate remarkable capacity to be quiet and patient in their roles. Words like modest, graceful, gentle, thoughtful and careful describe them well. We learn the full force of ordinary events by watching them simply be real people who feel that force and don't by their acting try to persuade us how significant these things are.

The film's title and much of its subplot refers to the name "Gogol" given to the son. Nicolai Gogol was a Russian author, and it is intriguing to watch how a Russian name given to an American boy by his Indian immigrant parents helps him negotiate the tricky journey of figuring out one's cultural identity and place in the world.

What I'm Watching...

You can't make this stuff up. "Charlie Wilson's War" tells a most unlikely, yet true story that combines earnest American idealism, silly American libertinism, ingenious American can-do spirit, and ultimately, a pertinent example of American political attention deficit disorder. Good-time Charlie (Congressman Wilson) helps the underdogs (the Afghans) defeat an Evil Empire (the Soviet Union)!

The story is told briskly in broad strokes with plenty of winks and good humor. In Christianity Today, reviewer Brandon Fibbs puts it this way, "It is drama played for laughs, reality repackaged as satire, politics filtered through farce."

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams stand out in their roles complementing Tom Hanks, who plays liberal playboy congressman Charlie Wilson with the right balance of frivolity and feeling. Julia Roberts is regal as the right-wing Texas socialite who spurred Wilson on to arm the mujahideen in Afghanistan so they could defeat the Soviet army in the 1980's.

That defeat was a key step in bringing down the U.S.S.R. and ending the Cold War. Game won. If only international relations wrapped up with a final buzzer, but life goes on. What brought down the Soviets created Osama Bin Laden and invigorated Islamic fundamentalism. And here we are today.

When Pandora opened her box, evil went forth and the box became empty, except for one thing—Hope. You've got to smile to think that folks like Charlie Wilson can get religion and give us hope! If only they didn't have to open those boxes to find it.