Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.

Transformers 2


We saw Transformers 2 last night. It lived up to all my expectations. People (critics) who complain about Transformers movies forget that the movies are based on action figures – and Revenge of the Fallen replicates just about ever Transformer battle my imagination ever produced when playing with the toys. There’s a slight spoiler in the third paragraph – don’t read it if you don’t want to.

The plot was a bit bumbling – it really was just a vehicle for bringing the vehicles together into gravity defying alien robot Wrestlemania. Some of the fights copied the WWE’s playbook – there were submission moves, power moves… it was awesome. If wrestling involved robots I’d get cable TV and watch every week. It felt a bit like watching a National Treasure movie just with awesome robots. Really awesome robots.

The basic plot (without spoilers) involves the reluctant “messiah” Sam having the typical “central character doesn’t want to undertake the task they’ve been pre-ordained to perform” identity crisis – popular since Gethsemane. If I wanted to Christianise this review I’d say isn’t it great that there’s such a powerful allegory – Sam even “dies” at one point only to meet the Robot gods in heaven and be flung back to earth. There’s a bit of messianic confusion because Optimus Prime also dies and is resurrected.

Go see it though – you won’t be disappointed the explosions are bigger and there are more robots and more robot fights than the first one (and a few laughs along the way). I gave it an 8/10 because I’m capable of ignoring the stuff that critics look for in awesome robot carnage fests.

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (Final Theatrical Trailer) from Bay Films/Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.

June 26, 2009

Piper on movies

John Piper has an interesting take on consumption of culture – particularly trivial culture – similar to Philip Jensen’s thoughts that I posted a while back, and quite different to Mark Driscoll’s. Mark Driscoll should get a comission from Tivo he talks about it so much… Piper says he doesn’t watch TV because it’s trivial – but if he does he takes the following position…

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

This is one of those points where I come down on the Driscoll side of the equation – I think understanding culture involves understanding what people are filling their minds with. But I tend to feel the same way as Piper. Violence and swearing don’t really bother my Christian sensibilities.

June 26, 2009

Smells like mean spirit

An atheist blogger has suggested a new product line… Richard Dawkins cologne. Its odour is no doubt offensive to Christians everywhere.

June 26, 2009

A bunch of links – June 25, 2009

June 25, 2009

Word word locator…

Ever wondered how often and where a particular word occurs in the Bible? Well, here’s a nice little webapp that lets you track down every reference to any word. Pretty awesome stuff. Here’s an example of the results searching for “faith”. There’s a nice guide for why you might use this here.

June 25, 2009

Church Planting Conference

Dad is speaking at this Moore College conference today. I was surprised to learn that. I thought he was just attending. I only realised that he was speaking because Nigel Fortesque is liveblogging it on Twitter and kept writing things @philcampbell – only, the Phil Campbell on Twitter is not my father. He’ll no doubt be very confused with the series of messages arriving in his Twitter inbox.

That amused me.

The conference looks interesting – and I’ll be following along.

June 25, 2009

Open letter to people who make “urgent” requests

Dear “Urgent” requester,

I understand that you want me to do something urgently but the fact that you write “urgent” on an unsolicited email does not (unless you are my boss or you are responsible for a significant amount of my funding) – make your request urgent.

If you send it to me between 4.30pm and 5pm when I am watching the clock I will be likely to treat it with the contempt it deserves.

Perhaps if the job is so urgent it is your planning process that needs timely revision.

That is all.

June 25, 2009

Open letter to Queensland

Dear Queensland,

Poking fun at people from outside the state because of the result of a football game they had no control over is not clever. It’s not really funny either – unless you’re a funny person.

I did not play football for New South Wales last night. Neither did 6,889,983 other New South Welshmen… ignoring that part of that population statistic are migratory Queenslanders. Nor would I have picked 70% of the chosen players to represent me on the Rugby League field.

To pick on me because of that result is ludicrous. It’s also pretty close to the dictionary definition of racism:

1. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

Just something to think about next time you insult me on the basis of having been born interstate.

That is all.

Regards,

Nathan Campbell,
Townsville

June 25, 2009

A bunch of links – June 24, 2009

June 24, 2009

Hover Craft

Wow. You know how the lava lamp was a category breaker when it came to home/cubicle lighting… well perhaps you didn’t… but now you do. This stands to have the same effect on home/cubicle decorating. Levitating stuff. Your stuff. Hovering.

As long as your object weighs less than four ounces (100 grams) it’ll float on this platform – complete with spotlight.

Now that’s awesome. And it’s hard to believe it could get better. But it does. How about this floating record player… (it’s conceptual, the other one will be retailing by the end of the year).

The 100+ word description:

The record player uses a carrier and dock outfitted with a magnetic and auto-calibrating control system which carries the LP into thin air as it is playing music. a self-running record player shaped in the form of a red sphere, contains a needle, amplifier and speaker, spins around the record, bringing the music to life. the sphere that plays the vinyl was technically influenced by the ‘vinyl killer’, currently the world’s smallest LP player that has a built-in motor, amplifier and speaker.

Simple colors and shapes express a kind of astronomical movement between the object and space.

The levitation is managed electronically. once turning the player on, you can manage the elevation levels through the touch sensors on the front side of the base unit.”

The one word description: Awesome.

June 24, 2009

Critic critique

Some of my friends are movie buffs. The annoying and condescendingly superior type. I like them. But they are movie snobs. I imagine I come across the same way when I’m talking about coffee or bagging out U2.

Critics are never happy. Well not until everything is 100% correct. This annoys me in every aspect of life except coffee (and when I’m bagging out U2). I find it particularly annoying when it comes to movies and reading movie reviews. Movies, in my mind (and this touches on the recent Wonderland discussion) are about entertainment and appreciation of execution. Both don’t have to be perfect for me to walk out of a movie feeling like I got my moneys worth. When both are perfect – ala the Godfather 1 – it’s a more satisfying experience obviously… but here are two examples of the problem…

An SMH review of Transformers 2…
“Michael Bay thinks that movies are a sandbox and, to some extent, they are. The trick is to create something meaningful from the tools in the sandbox. The first film did that; the second is a sandy imitation.”

Here’s the problem with this review – Transformers is a movie based on a series of action figures. It’s made primarily for an audience of males who like having stuff blown up. By all accounts Transformers 2 has bigger, better explosions with bigger and better fights between the alien robots. Reviews that take plot and stuff like that into account are missing the point. Nobody cares. It’s going to make bucket loads of money.

Point Two is just a continuation of my conversation with Ben… he said that Tim Burton should relinquish some control of his movies in order to produce compelling visual spectacles with nice Burtonesque aesthetics.

I like to think of Tim Burton’s movies as a vehicle for his aesthetics – and I’m happy to enjoy them even if the plot makes no sense. Like in Mars Attacks.

June 24, 2009

Image etiquette

This link appeared in my shared items a while ago. It was in the grey area between funny enough to post and too obscure for everybody to care. But I feel like posting it now – after reading this thread on Ben’s blog.

Using other people’s images on your site is a grey area. Images are bandwidth hogs – and bandwidth is expensive. I tend to only use other people’s images (hotlinked) if I’m promoting their product or service with my post.

But this series of emails is just too funny not to be brought up at this point in the debate.


June 24, 2009

Things that brighten my day #1

Arguments about trivial things with a worthy opponent.

June 24, 2009

A bunch of links – June 23, 2009

June 23, 2009

Blocktastic

I’ve written about Pacman, I’ve written about Rubiks Cubes, I’ve written about Super Mario Bros, and I’ve written about art. That’s a lot of topics to converge in a single post. But I’ve done it. Well, more correctly, somebody else has – I’m just here to show you the fruits of their labour. Art made from Rubiks Cubes… not just art… geek art. I would have thought a Tetris inspired design would be appropriate – but perhaps too easy…

June 23, 2009