Vegas, Casino and Evil

I live about an hour's plane trip from Vegas ... I'd guess I'm several hundred miles from it. Tucson is quite a ways to the south in Arizona, and Arizona is a big-old state.

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The scene of the Joe Pesci character being beaten to an inch of his life and then buried alive took place in, I think, a Florida sugar-cane field. I could be wrong about that, but I think at least part of that movie took place in Florida. There's something about being left for dead in a remote place that deepens the sense of isolation.

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I thought Sharon Stone did an excellent job in that movie. But I suspect her movie career days are over. "Basic Instinct 2", which she starred in and produced, can be, I think, officially labeled a "bomb." According to boxofficemojo.com, a site that tracks movie receipts, that movie has pulled only $5,851,188 in the US. The revenues from the rest of the world are in the $31M, with France and the UK being where it was most popular. From what I can deduce from the site, it's been pulled from distribution. We'll see it on DVD within a few weeks, I'm sure.

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I'm intrigued by the notion of female actors transitioning from "young/attractive" to "mature/attractive" roles. It's a hard thing to do; only a handful pull it off well. Some that come to mind: Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep. Ones that seem to be having a particularly difficult time: Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Demi Moore. Ones that I'll be interested in seeing if they can do it: Cameron Diaz.

It strikes me that it's more than just plastic surgery to maintain the look. There comes a point where no amount of plastic surgery can overcome the public perception that, "Hey, you've been around for a while ... I'm not really interested in seeing you try to act the role of a 20-something sex kitten." So there's a subtle shift from those kinds of roles to ones where there's more maturity. It can still be romantic, just not overtly sexual. That, I think, is why "Basic Instinct 2" didn't do well ... the thought of Sharon Stone, who is 46 I think, acting like some smoldering sex machine didn't appeal to many people. It was unseemly.

I don't like Susan Sarandon's politics, but I do like her acting. And I think she was very crafty in the way she started doing mother roles when she was in her late 40's. She successfully transitioned. She'll be doing roles well into her 60's and 70's. She may be American's Judith Densch.

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Lisa and I watched "40 Year Old Virgin" last night. I'm almost ashamed to admit I found it quite funny. It was potty humor, to be sure, but there's a dark part of me that likes that when it's well done and clever.

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I was listening to my man R.C. on the plane home from D.C. yesterday, and in particular I was listening to his series on God's providence -- which is one way of saying, "Why do bad things happen if God is supposed to be good?"

It is a long series, and I can't possibly due justice to the full logical argument Sproul made, but I found a couple of things interesting:

• He carefully drew the distinction between God causing something and God ordaining something. The former is by God's hand directly; the latter is by God holding his staying hand and allowing something to happen. But one thing Sproul would not compromise on was that nothing is outside God's control. The notion of God's sovereignty seems to be a fundamental theological cornerstone. I've always thought that was true ... I can't see how the framework of our understanding of God holds together if we take away even one iota of his sovereign rule over all things.
  
• He spoke of how over the ages one line of criticism has been: if God is the cause of all things, then whatever is must have come from God. Evil exists, therefore God must be the author of Evil. Sproul described how theologians over the years have addressed this by viewing Evil not as something, but rather the lack of something. God is perfectly good; Satan is without any good; therefore Satan's evilness is really defined by his lack of goodness. In one sense this is like vacuum (or darkness, or coldness), which itself is not a thing, but is rather the lack of something. This struck me as helpful. At least to me.
  

I'm entirely certain that view of things would be deeply unsatisfying to many people. It addresses the dilemma of how something bad could exist if God, who is good, created it. But it does not answer the question of why God allowed badness to enter his creation. This, I'm sure, gets the question of free will. As I've said before, I'm not smart enough to figure it all out.

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I thought you'd like to see this:

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:9-10

That's your "treat others as you'd like to be treated" rule, isn't it? I was re-reading Romans on the recent plane trips and I came across that. I immediately thought of you.