I've had a lot I've been stirring around in my preacher's stew this past week and surprised myself by writing a poem for you as my preaching for today. In the stew is this bittersweet feast of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, the anticipation of next Sunday's outrageously joyful feast of Pentecostal diversity and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus' commission to make disciples of all nations -- how are we as a nation doing as a disciple of Jesus?

Another ingredient in my preacher's stew this past week has been a preacher I just happened on on YouTube this week. You've probably never heard of him. His name is Jeremiah Wright. For some reason, there has been a lot of national attention paid to him recently, and he has taken the opportunity to tell people about black Christians in the United States, their history and their hopes.

I watched all three of the main videos of Reverend Wright and learned a lot. Sure, he has a style that's a bit more aggressive and seemingly unconciliatory than I'm usually comfortable with. Perhaps that's even traces of racism in my soul. More importantly, I thought he generalized to a fault sometimes. For example, there's his tendency to contrast blacks and whites with fairly broad stokes. But then maybe a white person like me might be inclined to feel this way. I don't want to be left out of the black experience. After all, my black Dominican brother and I don't call our concert the "Black OR White Concert" but the "Black AND White Concert: A Friendship in Song."

Reverend Wright also regularly distinguishes between Americans and the American government, which also feels a little inaccurate and unproductively "us and them" to me. I am the government. We are the government. But then what do I know about the exclusion of African Americans from their own government? Blacks haven't even been allowed to vote for long and many still have trouble doing so.

But the bottom line is that I learned a lot from Reverend Wright this past week, and I encourage you to go to YouTube and check these videos out. Most of us don't get to regularly hear a black preacher, and this is a moment of opportunity. The three main videos are Reverend Wright's talk at the National Press Club, including the Q&A, his talk to the NAACP, and his interview with Bill Moyers, that white Southern journalist with such depth and integrity. I believe it's in all three of these videos that he talks about the black and white experience of music, including, in one of the speeches, handclapping, which made me think of the awesome invitation in today's psalm: "All you peoples clap your hands." By the way, I also discovered a brief video of a Catholic priest and friend of the Reverend Wright's in Chicago, a Father Flager, a white man, who defends his friend in no uncertain terms in an interview with a young, uninformed journalist.

One other ingredient in my preacher's stew I want to mention before sharing my poem with you is a play I went to last weekend called "Lady." Lady is the name of the dog that goes hunting with three childhood friends. One is now a conservative senator, whose campaign manager was his regretful liberal friend whose son has decided to sign up for the Marines after talking with the senator. Watching these two characters, I got it better than I've ever gotten it before, the mindset of some who wanted to go to war in Iraq. "We had to do something," the senator tells his friend. "Even if it wasn't going to be the best choice, we had to do something." And his friend responds: "We should have waited. Simply waited." Of course, doing something immediately and compulsively and waiting indefinitely aren't our only options in life. But there seemed to be something profoundly true in this call to wait, especially as we wait for the coming of the Spirit.

So, with that long introduction over, here's the short poem I wrote for you:

Once there was a choir. Now that choir had a lot of different sorts or voices: sweet voices, sour voices, voices that were blue. That choir had strong voices, gentle voices, both of which were true. Some voices were angry, some were peaceful, some were filled with hope. Some voices were afraid, some were bold, some sang the whole range or scope.

And in that choir, there were many hands. That choir had hands that were downbeat clappers, hands that were upbeat clappers, and hands that clapped with their own sense of time. Some hands were syncopated, some hands raised and elated, some still clapping way past their so-called prime.

That choir also had many ears. Ears that liked to hear dissonance, ears that liked the familiarity of home, and ears that liked it loud. Some ears were open, others not so much, maybe a little proud.

Now that choir, with its many voices and many hands and many ears, was quite a crazy throng. Yet the more voices, hands, and ears that joined in, the richer and livelier their song. All belonged. None were wrong -- not completely. All were true, if not always neatly. And together they could sing anything that came along.

How could this be, you might wonder? How could they keep from endless blunder? They had a secret which everyone knew. A secret easy to forget but true. That secret, that secret was in the soul. But that secret, their secret, was out of control.

Because that secret, though strange and odd, that secret was from God. That secret was...strong and blustery. But that secret was never wrong, always trustworthy.

Did I tell you God was in that choir? That God has hands and a voice? Did I tell you God even has ears? That God sang in that choir and rejoiced?

But that's not the secret. Do you know it? Can you hear it? Is it dancing between your clapping hands? It's the Spirit.

That Spirit is God's. That Spirit is ours. It blows where it wills. It comes down like lovely spring showers.

But right now that Spirit is quiet. That Spirit waits. So we wait, too. While that Spirit re-creates.

Last night I saw "The Band's Visit," the Israeli movie that was loudly disqualified from Academy Award consideration for best foreign language film because just over 50% of its dialogue is in English.

Writer/director Eran Kolirin's debut feature is a grand celebration of little human moments -- funny, touching, probing. It's about an Egyptian police band that arrives in Israel to discover that no one has come to pick them up. They take a bus to the wrong town -- a desolate, lonely town -- where they spend the night with curious and bored Israeli hosts.

At the center of the story is the distinguished, middle-aged conductor of the 8-member band, played by Sasson Gabai (think Ben Kingsley), who is worried about the band's future. The much younger restaurant owner, played by Ronit Elkabetz, turns her brazen sexual charm into high gear for the evening, which unfolds in surprising ways for both of them.

Then there's the young rookie in the band, a lady's man who counsels one of the locals step by step on a date. And the assistant conductor just might find inspiration in the unlikeliest place to finally finish the concerto he's been writing for years.

Somehow, the film gets us laughing at all these characters and at the same time seeing them as real, full-blooded people. Of course, without needing to say anything, the film also explores the tensions and affections between Arabs and Israelis.

The film just opened in Los Angeles and New York, and hopefully will spread throughout our own lonely and hopeful land.

It looks like a theme for me this year is the contemplative experience: simplicity and stillness.

1. Into Great Silence. A nearly three-hour experience of monastic contemplative life, sublimely pieced together. Sounds dull to me, too. I was riveted.
2. The Pool. Set in India, a poor, 18-year-old man/boy's tentative quest for a better life. The story is so simple, the acting so natural. Even a surprise ending. And none of it maudlin.
3. The Savages. Adult brother and sister find themselves taking care of their estranged father. So funny and touching both.
4. Gone Baby Gone. A young private eye gets in over his head, procedurally and morally.
5. The Golden Door. Immigrants journey to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th C. A visual feast of the imagination.
6. The Lookout. A young man reconciles himself to a car accident in this simple, elegant character study.
7. Once. Two unavailable musicians meet, collaborate, and chastely love. An exquisite scene when he teaches her one of his songs.
8. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. A young woman helps her friend get an illegal abortion in communist Hungary. Long, contemplative takes root this thriller.
9. Happy Desert. A 15-year-old girl in Brazil falls into prostitution. Heartbreaking yet transcedent.
10. August Evening. Two undocumented workers, a middle-aged man and his daughter-in-law, stick together as they both grieve the loss of their spouses. His acceptance of life as it comes to him is deeply moving.

Other favorites from 2007: In the Valley of Ellah, Grace is Gone, A Mighty Heart, Breach, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Wristcutters: A Love Story, Snow Angels, Bug, Echo

GETTING TO SUNDANCE

We finished shooting my new film "Inside Darkness" on a Thursday night, and early the next morning I was on a plane for my annual pilgrimage to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. "Inside Darkness" is the 45-minute piece I've been working on about three presidential candidates mysteriously trapped in a room together (no, it's not a comedy). It will be shown in 2-3 minute episodes on the Internet and also distributed as a DVD with discussion questions and other extras.

The 6-day shoot ended with a creative miracle. The schedule of the theater where we shot and the schedule of one of the actors had put us behind. The last day looked like it was going to be a long one, but late in the afternoon our cinematographer, the talented and dedicated Jayson Crothers, came up with an idea for abbreviating and combining the last two scenes.

As Karen Landry, who plays the Republican incumbent, put it, the revision was elegant. She and the other actors, Scott Alan Smith and Russell Andrews, are very very good. Joe Rassulo, who very capably and enthusiastically produced with me and read my script a million times, brought them and other quite talented crew members to the project. Everyone was working for little money, relatively speaking. And we all worked very well together. What a pleasure, a great experience.

I arrived in Salt Lake City, but before heading to Sundance, John Paul and I sang our Black & White concert at the University of Utah's Catholic Newman Center. We've been singing these concerts that chart the intersection of black and white music in America. We weave the songs together with stories of our lives and our friendship as Dominican friars and priests.

The next day, our classmate Daniel (of the Spiritual Magic of Fr. Daniel) shuttled us to Park City for a concert at St. Mary's Catholic Church, where I stay and also preach every year during the festival. Sunday morning, we finally entered the Sundance sanctuary and saw a movie: "The Wackness," a fun and sometimes insightful comedy about a teen who trades weed for therapy (from Sir Ben Kingsley, who was there for the Q&A). John Paul headed back home to San Diego, and I was just starting...

JESUS AND HITLER

My favorite film of this year's festival is a thriller called "The Wave." It's based on the true story of a California high school's experiment in autocracy in the 1960's. The film is set in current Germany, though, where the students are especially tired of the subject of autocracy. They've been taught all their lives about the evils of Nazism and are certain that such a movement could never happen in their country again. Their upstart teacher, who would have preferred to teach the unit on anarchy, gets their attention of his bored students, though, with a participatory experiment.

Of course, it goes bad. But not without some thought-provoking benefits, including a sense of belonging and purpose for the students, especially the misfits ("Breakfast Club" meets "Fight Club"?) I'm told the true-life teacher was there for the Q&A on opening night. The true story is even less plausible than the film. In real life, the movement spread over three high schools and swept up 800 students in just five days.

To pursue the theme further, I saw a documentary called "Durakovo: Village of Fools," about a Russian village where youth go to get indoctrinated into the country's widespread Christian nationalist movement. "God, tsar, and fatherland" -- that's the motto of the village and the movement, and they want to get rid of all foreigners and Western influences.

The leader of the village is a fat man with a swimming pool, sauna, and two overworked cellphones. He's a mean and unpredictable man whose whims are obeyed with fear. Okay, so he doesn't sound so much like Jesus but more like a Hollywood producer.

This is all fascinating (and frightening -- it all sounds a little bit like Christian nationalism in the U.S.), but my fear of documentaries was also fed -- I prefer the strong story and aesthetic usually found only in fiction films.

These two films made it into my annual Sundance homily. The gospel story for the Sunday at the end of the festival, with the brothers leaving behind their fishing nets and families to follow a stranger, sounded a little bit like these movies. Is there a difference? Then there's the darkness that happens inside that room where I trap the presidential candidates in "Inside Darkness."

FATHER FIGURES

My second favorite film at the festival was "Red," with the always-powerful Brian Cox as an old man seeking an apology from the boys who killed his dog. I guess I like thought-provoking thrillers. The old man is amazingly controlled and balanced in his initial reaction. He doesn't want revenge or even jail for the boys. And even more than an apology, he seems to want the boys to learn a lesson and mature.

But one of the boys is particularly vicious (perhaps a weakness of the film -- can a kid, or anyone, be that evil?), his father isn't much better, and the old man has some hidden wounds of his own, so one thing leads to another. I was really disturbed, even sickened a bit, when a good part of the audience applauded and cheered when the old man goads the bad seed boy to attack him so that he can attack back. What was especially disturbing was that I wanted to cheer, too.

Were the filmmakers cheering as well? I'd like to think they were rather bating us, implicating us in the old man's revenge so that we would be chastened later. The old man holds the boy down and seems to be within his rights as he warns the boy to repent. But then the old man bashes the boy's head into the sidewalk. No cheering this time. Did we really see this calm, measured, upright man do that? What else might he be capable of? What might we be capable of?

My third favorite film was "Captain Abu Raed," an audience favorite and Jordan's first fiction feature in fifty years. It's a really tender and touching about another old man, an airport janitor who finds a pilot's hat in the garbage one day. When a boy in his poor neighborhood sees him wearing the hat, the boy asks the old man to tell him stories about his adventures around the world as a pilot. The old man insists he's not really a pilot, but the boy will have none of it, so eventually the old man finds himself telling stories to all the local children about his fictitious adventures as a pilot.

When one boy tries to tell the other children that the old man is a janitor, the old man invites him into the group rather than excluding him. But when the boy manages to convince the other children that the old man is a janitor and not a pilot, the other children disown the old man. However, the old man forgives the boy with gentleness and grace. "Malish," he tells the boy. "It's okay."

In fact, at great risk to himself, the old man decides it's time to act on protecting the boy from his abusive father. Besides a few performance flaws by the mostly inexperienced actors (which should have been caught by the apparently inexperienced director), the only flaw in the film is its lack of acknowledgement that the old man should have come to the rescue much sooner. Or is this lack of guidance for the audience a strength?

A MIDDLE EASTERN SUMMIT ON A SUMMIT IN THE MIDDLE OF UTAH

"Under the Bombs" is another good Middle Eastern film, this one from Lebanon. Just four days after the official ending of Israel's bombing of Lebanon two summers ago, while the bombs were still dropping, they started shooting this improvised fictional story of a mother looking for her little boy during the bombing. The improvisation led to a more episodic, less dramatically and engaging structure, but it also led to an immediacy and to an authentic intimacy between the mother and her taxi driver. The mother was played with force and depth by Nada Abou Farhat, who has a striking, unadorned beauty.

I didn't get to see "The Strangers," an Israeli film that lots of people told me was a favorite of theirs. It's a story about a Palestinian and Israeli meeting on the subway in Germany and falling in love. It was shot during the actual World Cup to lend the film a feeling of authenticity. It got very real when Israel's bombing of Lebanon began, and the writer/director decided to continue the film with the lovers trying to insulate themselves from the war by escaping to Paris.

The writer/directors of all these two films and "Captain Abu Raed" were on a Middle Eastern panel that included the directors of "Be Like Others" (in Iran, homosexual relationships are banned, so many gays and lesbians tragically become transsexuals), "Slingshot Hip Hop" (Palestinian hip hop artists), "Dinner with the President" (the filmmakers' request of dinner with Pakistani president Musharraf is granted), and "Recycle" (a Muslim scholar and his boys collect cardboard in Zarqa, Jordan, where the infamous terrorist al Zarqawi grew up).

I saw this last one and was disappointed. When will I learn not to expect a good story from a documentary? This was just too elliptical for me. What is the filmmaker trying to say about terrorism, Islam, and poverty?

The greatest thing about the panel was that these people were all on it together, Israeli included.

BLACK IN THE U.S.A.

Quite a few films involved the black experience in the United States. My favorite of these was "Sugar," made by the same people who did "Half Nelson," the Ryan Gosling movie that was my favorite film anywhere in 2006. "Sugar" is about a 20-year-old man from the Dominican Republic who comes to the United States to try to work his way up the minor league ranks to the big leagues. I wasn't thrilled about the baseball theme, but I liked "Half Nelson" so much and a ticket was available, I decided to give it a try.

Apparently, the baseball stuff was quite authentic as movies go. What was really compelling was the way the system devours these young players and their dreams, a system depicted not as malicious or even particularly greedy. It's a bit jarring and somewhat anticlimactic, yet refreshing, when the movie becomes about something other than the young man's baseball ambitions.

I also liked "Ballast" very much. It's set in the Mississippi Delta and is about a young boy, his mother, and his uncle trying to figure out what each other means to them after the boy's father kills himself. Non-actors do a pretty good job in this understated, quiet, slow, and simple film without any music.

"Trouble the Waters" won the documentary jury prize. It's a very informative, sometimes maddening, and ultimately uplifting view of the post-Katrina struggle of a young black woman, Kim Rivers, and her husband using the crisis to move beyond drug dealing and self-concern despite lack of government help. She had just bought a video camera for $20 before Katrina and caught the absurd and shameful story of her and her husband among those without transportation out before the hurricane hit.

Her grandmother was left behind in the hospital and died, and her brother and his prison mates were abandoned by the guards. The directors stumbled upon Kim and her footage after being thrown out of the local National Guard headquarters, where they had planned on shooting a film about the Guard returning from Iraq to destroyed homes.

Kim's upbeat but in-your-face attitude grew on me until I watched with awe and admiration as she rapped along to a recording about self-empowerment. Then I realized it was her that was on the recording.

As important and disturbing as Kim's hurricane footage is, it needed to be trimmed more. Also, the story was a bit disjointed. I think its jury prize was less about the movie and more about kicking the government in the rear for still not rebuilding the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Then again, I'm the guy who lacks respect for documentaries.

"North Starr" shouldn't even have been accepted into Sundance -- it's littered with homemade philosophy from one of the characters, unevenly played by the writer/director, and hampered by an implausible climax. Yet I don't regret watching it -- it has some very evocative themes and images. It's about a black rapper who escapes from Houston to a redneck town, where he is greeted with love and hate. The highlight was the music, especially when the main character raps, accompanied by a white country band.

Despite my docuphobia, a handful of "black in America" documentaries are calling out to me from the festival lineup: "Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North" (the filmmaker and nine members of her extended family -- she invited 200 -- journey from Ghana to Cuba to uncover the shame of their being from our country's largest slave-trading family), "The Order of Myths" (the director's film about Mardi Gras in Mobile becomes an expose of the persistent segregation of the celebration, with the current white queen being from the family that enslaved the family of the current black queen), "Made in America" (the deep roots of South Central L.A.'s poverty and gangs), "The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins" (white feminist Vanessa Beecroft adopts black Sudanese twins and controversially uses them in her performance art), and "The Black List" (portraits of 20 contemporary influential African Americans).

TWO OTHER FAVORITES

"Frozen River" won the jury prize for dramatic feature. It's a simple, straightforward story with a great premise (a white woman joins a young Mohawk woman in human smuggling in order to get enough cash to buy a new trailer for her family to live in), fascinating location and cultural context (a Mohawk reservation and its environs in the dead of winter on the Canadian border), and a very strong lead performance (Melissa Leo).

Further drama comes from the young Mohawk woman's desire to get her baby back from her mother-in-law. The actor who played this character was weak, and the visual element of the film was weak as well, so I'm surprised that it won the big prize. Still, it was a solid little movie.

"Sleep Dealer" won both screenwriting awards, the general award and the special science-related award. The special effects sometimes showed their low budget, but the futuristic story was very involving and insightful -- another thought-provoking thriller. In Oaxaca, Mexico, a young man's homemade radio surveillance rig gets him in trouble with the American high-tech, militarized company that owns the water supply (one of the documentaries at Sundance, "Flow," reveals plans for the privatization of water supplies).

The young man escapes to Tijuana to earn money for his poor family. There, he is literally plugged in as a virtual "node" worker for a construction site somewhere across the border -- talk about outsourcing. Meanwhile, his new girlfriend uses her own node implants to upload and sell on the Internet her new memories of her boyfriend. And a certain buyer is especially interested...

TWO NOTABLES

A couple movies that didn't make it my top tier are especially noteworthy, the first one another Internet movie of sorts. I sent to see "Downloading Nancy" because it stars the great Maria Bello, but I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. She plays a neglected housewife who cuts herself and searches the Internet for a man to abuse her.

The subject matter and lack of any traditional "redemptive" progression (no one here is trying to get better) made for difficult viewing. I thought about following those who walked out (did I want to put myself through this?) but was glad I stayed for the hints of tenderness that finally came.

I would never have sought out the documentary (it's a documentary) "Man on Wire," but I had a ticket to the first award winner screening of the last day. Now this was a documentary with a story. And even a little style. Philippe Petit is the French tightrope walker who crossed between the World Trade Center towers in the '70s, and the movie plays out like a kind of heist movie, using re-enactments to show how he and his team managed to sneak to the top of the towers and prepare the rigging for the walk.

The heist element gives way at times, though, especially at the climax, to the poetic and surprisingly moving footage and still photos of his art, accompanied by Eric Satie's beautiful and melancholy music -- so very French. Petit was at earlier screenings and was asked if he had any phobias. Spiders.

THE WAIT-LIST SUBCULTURE

Each year, tickets have been harder to come by in advance and I've gotten more and more relaxed about it. This year, I went to Sundance without any tickets and without even reading about the movies.

On Monday morning, I did think to go to the main box office, where each morning they release some tickets for the day to some of the previously "sold out films," having determined by tarot cards and deep prayer the approximate number of passholders and entourage members will show up at the screenings. I showed up at 8:00 a.m. for the 8:30 opening time, whereas some people had camped out in the lobby for the night, but I actually got quite lucky. I was even able to pick up some tickets for the rest of the week to films that had never sold out to begin with.

But my bread and butter is the wait-list line. Sure, John Paul and I waited three hours for a movie the first day and didn't even get again. But it only happened to me once more the whole week. Besides, the wait-list line is a great place to meet people. I met lots of great people this year. It's funny, too, how you often run into the same people again (and sometime again). It's fun to get to know the volunteers, who stay at the same venue for the entire festival, and often from year to year.

I almost panicked at one point when I realized having a few tickets already was going to keep me from the wait-list line for a small part of the week -- what would I do with myself? What do the upper classes of Sundance do, the people with tickets or even, gulp, passes?

Ticketing and other tips:

Step One: Register online in the fall. The only deal on passes is possibly the Adrenaline Pass, which allows the intrepid to see any movie that starts AFTER 10 P.M. and the first screening at each theater in the morning (usually 8:30 or 9:00). The package deals are pretty expensive, too, and a lot of luck is involved in getting tickets to the movies you really want to see. I like to register online in the fall to get randomly assigned a time slot for getting back online to choose individual tickets. But nowadays you're not even guaranteed a time slot, and even if you get one, the tickets will have been picked over by then. So it makes sense to register -- just don't sweat it or get your hopes up.

Step Two: If you're up, check out the box office one or more mornings during the festival for the new tickets released as I described above. They release tickets for the first screenings of the next day as well. At least one year, a woman had an underground ticket exchange going outside the box office.

Step Three: The wait-list line. In addition to the high success rate if you get there early and the joy of meeting other wait-listers, the wait-list line allows you to choose movies that you've been hearing or reading about since the festival started. The best way to start up a conversation with someone in line or on the bus (or at the cold bus stop) is by asking a person if they've seen something especially good yet. Besides, it's hard to digest that catalogue ahead of time. And those hyperbolic, high-falutin' film descriptions sometimes don't even give you a good feel for the tone of the film.

Wait-list tickets are only $10 instead of $15. If you get really lucky, someone will come up and hand you their tickets, especially if you're at the front of the line. Keep your eyes open, too, for people selling their tickets. The best place for this is also at the front of the wait-list line. If you're really intense and you're with someone, you can even decide ahead of time, so that you don't miss your opportunity, whether you're going to accept or buy just one ticket if it's offered, leaving the other person to wait and wonder. Also, if you both get in, is it more important to sit together if possible than to get a good seat?

They hand out wait-list numbers two hours before the screening (one hour before the first screenings of the day). Then you can get out of line and relax until a half hour before the show, when you get back in line in your original order. This year, they insisted you would lose your privileged place in line if you were late for this half-hour call. If you want to be at the front of the line (which very occasionally still won't get you a seat), show up when the previous show starts, usually three hours before your screening. But don't bother coming before that because there won't be anywhere to line up.

It's easier to get into the first screenings of the day and the screenings midweek. Also, the last day, when they show all the award-winning movies (all the important people are gone by then). It can also pay off to wait at the larger theaters like Eccles and the Racquet Club.

If you get into a movie, you might consider coming out of the movie and, after the next movie starts, getting in line for the movie after that -- relax, buy some chili or a sandwich, chat people up, or, if you're weird like me, lie on the floor for a few Z's. Very occasionally you can come out of a movie and get into the very next one. Also, free and frequent shuttles will take you to the other venues.

If you want to stay for the Q&A (one of they great joys of film festivals, especially at Sundance, where the highly-talented and often famous writers, directors, actors, etc. are most likely to show up), figure on about 45 minutes from the time the closing credits end to the time you arrive at a new venue.

With each successive screening of a film (there are four), there are fewer people from the film available for Q&A, but usually the director will at least be there, except sometimes on the last day. The premiere screenings are especially fun, although wait-listing is harder for those, especially for the movies with pre-festival "buzz." I like to sit close and on the side where the microphone is, so that I'll be able to see people for the Q&A.

There's also the fringe festivals that have popped up around Sundance. Slamdance is the biggy, hosted at Treasure Mountain Inn a block up Main from the Egyptian Theater. Slamdance can be hard to get tickets for, but you can walk in at the other festivals.

Tromadance is a mainstay and usually takes place at a bar at the bottom of Main. The Park City Film Music Festival and sometimes other festivals and special screenings (sometimes free) take place in the mall across the street from the Egyptian. The last couple years Lisa Thompson from the Filmmakers Alliance (a great L.A. group I've joined) has put together CinemaSlam at this same venue.

There are also a couple official Sundance venues, the Filmmaker Lodge and New Frontiers, with free panels. Get there an hour early if possible.

Relax and take what and who comes your way. It's all good on the mountain.

One of the brothers, our Dominican province's director of development, recently told us that, as he asks people to contribute to our "Lighting the Way" campaign to pay for our new philosophy and theology school in Berkeley, he prays to St. Andrew. Andrew, of course, is the one who apparently had the misfortune of having to ask that poor little boy to give up his bread and fish so Jesus could feed the thousands.

Then again, Andrew was giving this boy a grand opportunity: he participates in Jesus' great sign of God's power and abundance. Jesus gave Andrew the opportunity to participate as well, by doing the asking. And the boy and Andrew are both famous for it.

Andrew is the one who gave his brother Simon Peter the opportunity to follow Jesus. After spending the day with Jesus, the first thing Andrew did was find his brother and tell him that they found the Messiah.

This is our calling, too -- to give others the opportunity to follow Jesus. How can they follow unless they are asked?

Our director of development told us about Andrew because he and our provincial are encouraging us once again -- giving us the opportunity -- to invite people to support our new school. And we have so many other ministries to invite people to participate in through donations, prayers, and other means.

In fact, we are currently inviting people to support our Mud Puddle Films ministry that I currently direct, to help make our next movie happen. I suppose I should dare to ask, to invite: we've got $25,000 and need only $5,000 more. Perhaps you'll feel called to contribute to this ministry, our new school, or one of our many other important ministries.

Meanwhile, here we are at the eucharist, where we contribute what little we have, where we simpy -- but fully and lavishly -- give ourselves, and Jesus feeds us with his very self, the love of God.

The movie "Into Great Silence" is a gentle wind of grace that is blowing through festivals and theaters across the world. I watched it on Holy Saturday and found myself immersed in nearly three hours of riveting silence. No story, no dialogue, no main characters, no dramatic twists and turns. The movie isn't about anything. It's not even about the contemplative Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps. Rather, this movie is an actual sharing in their contemplative experience. It's a bold, foolish, and lavish "waste" of time with the one who delights in our very being. The woman anxiously filing her fingernails behind me during the previews finally stopped once the movie began, and I doubt she was thinking of her fingernails afterwards except perhaps in gratitude for their divinely-sustained imperfection. For a breathtaking preview, more information, and a local screening schedule, go to www.zeitgeistfilms.com.

"Into Great Silence" embodies the kind of contemplative outreach that I'm trying to do with Mud Puddle Films. Our lavishly four-part cycle of feature-length films, "Last Notes red green blue or black," is an indirectly similar attempt to offer a contemplative experience to general audiences.

Go see "Into Great Silence." Rather, experience it. Take a nap first. Prepare your bladder. And have a bite to eat before rather than distract yourself and others with the activity and noise of popcorn. Afterwards, you can talk with each other about your favorite moments in the film, your own experience of contemplative prayer, and the many hindrances and invitations to silence in your life. Or better, you can arrange regular times to sit in God's silence, alone or with each other. Take this invitation into the great silence, and return to the silence whenever possible, especially during this Easter season of mystery and joy.

I couldn't do just ten. Although it wasn't the greatest year in movies, the first five are outstanding, and there are quite a few that are very good, some of which had limited or no theatrical release.

A+
Half Nelson (Ryan Gosling is a god -- if you have the stomach for it, also see him in The Believers, about a Jewish neo-Nazi)



A
Little Children (Kate Winslet is a god, too)
CSA: Confederate States of America (what if the South had won? -- terribly and terribly funny)
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (edited to great effect)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (neo-realist black humor from Hungary)



B+
Down in the Valley, Brick (modern day high school film noir), Sophie Scholl, War Tapes (3 American soldiers in Iraq videotape themselves), Forgiven, Wristcutters: A Love Story (as funny and dark as it sounds), Neo Ned (a neo-Nazi man gets together with a black woman who thinks she's Hitler), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Khazakstan (okay, perhaps he's unfair to some of these folks, but he didn't put words into their mouths and the satire is frightening and important), Marie Antoinette (not her best, but Sophia Coppola is a master of mood)

B
Infamous (almost as good as Capote), Stranded, Volver (not Almodovar’s best, but Penelope Cruz singing Volver is heaven), Kukumi, Paradise Now, The Last King of Scotland, For Your Consideration (I for one wasn't disappointed, and the end is tragic and funny at the same time), Princesas, No. 2, Quinceaneros

On the last day of the festival, they show all the award-winning movies. I had tickets to the directing award and the dramatic award. Jeffrey Blitz, who did the spelling bee documentary a few years ago, won best director for Rocket Science, which he also wrote. He must have been inspired by his previous movie because this one's about a stutterer who, at the invitation of a pretty and supremely confident girl, joins the high school debate team. It's funny and kept me guessing all the way through.

The big winner, dramatic jury, was Padre Nuestro, a United States film noted for being in Spanish. A young Mexican thug steals an immigrant youth's letter of introduction to the father he's never met. The thug pretends to be the son while the real son looks for the father. All three main characters have plenty to dislike about them, which distanced me a bit from the film emotionally. Also, the thug was played by a weak actor, who is a star in Mexico. Still, I was fairly engrossed. Writer-director Christopher Zalla explained that this isn't an "immigrant" movie, that he wanted to show these characters as real, multi-dimensional people. One man in the audience said he rather found the characters' often unsympathetic portrayal to be a put-down to immigrants. I'd have to side with the latter's view.

So the award-winning movies weren't my favorite. I saw 17 movies, all pretty good, and they didn't make my top 10:

1) The Pool (18-year-old boy in India dreams of a simple life)
2) Snow Angels (divorce and tragedy in a small town)
3) Teeth (h.s. girl's anatomical uniqueness is empowering; scary, funny, thought-provoking; award-winning performance by actress Jess Weixler)
4) Grace is Gone (the always natural John Cusack can't bring himself to tell his daughters their mother died in Iraq)
5) Ezra (France/Nigeria; child soldier recounts his experience to a truth and reconciliation commission)
6) Expired (Emily Watson falls for a difficult man, both humorously and frighteningly played by Jason Patric)
7) Little Chenier (Park City Film Music Festival; young man looks out for his younger, mentally disabled brother in rough Cajun country)
8) Eagle vs. Shark (New Zealand; young woman chases a self-absorbed nerd -- Napolean Dynamite meets Little Miss Sunshine)
9) Joshua (Vera Farmiga's son may be evil)
10) Broken English (Parker Posey looks for a man but needs to find herself)

There are a slew of Sundance 2007 films I still want to see:
Drained
Enemies of Happiness
Fay Grim
For the Bible Tells Me So
Interview
Waitress
Good Life
The Ten
Adrift in Manhattan
Away From Her
Banished
Black Snake Moan
Delirious
Hounddog
Legacy
Longford
Manda Bala
The Nines
The Savages
Save Me
Smiley Face
Four Sheets to the Wind
The Good Life
Starting Out in the Evening
Blame it on Fidel
Once
An American Crime
King of California
Angel-A
The Go-Getter
Red Road

Enjoyed a slow morning before getting in line for Waitress, written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered just after finding out her film was going to Sundance. 40 years old, with a husband and 2-year-old, Shelly broke onto the indie scene together with filmmaker Hal Hartley, starring in his first two films, The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. She came to be a significant presence in independent filmmaking, as an actor, writer, and director. They say she directed with a really clear vision, knowing just what she wanted. Waitress star Keri Russell says that often actors who direct aren't intimidated by what they think is a mysterious art and can speak directly to the actors: "Don't do that thing you do with your hands."

I found most of my address book on my computer and last night found some of my new addresses in the garbage, so I fixed my address book again. Then lost it all again. And I didn't get into the film. They were even turning away ticket holders. This happens occasionally because they can only guess how many passholders will come -- they can go to any movie they want. Hard to complain, though. This was the first time this year waiting didn't pan out for me. I also ran into Grant, my Canadian Sundance friend who works at the library theater each year for the festival. Plus I got to eat the Prospector Square soup for the first time this year.

I headed over to the library theater at 2:30 to wait for the 8:30 show, sort of, and I didn't even know what the film was going to be. The Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema was scheduled, but they wouldn't know who the winner would be until minutes before the start time. I found wireless access inside the actual library and once again fixed my address book. I think I understand finally not only the necessity of backing up constantly but also the proper way to do the backup. When I got kicked out of the library at 6:00, I noticed that the waitlist line for the 8:30 movie wasn't long, so I waited for a number.

Once I got my number, I went over to the 7:00 awards ceremony for the Park City Film Music Festival, thinking I probably wouldn't make it back for the film. But at 7:30, they still hadn't started, so I decided to go back to the movie. How could I go a day at Sundance without seeing at least one movie? But before I went, Leslie, the director of the Film Music Festival, informed me that Last Notes red won a Silver Medal for Excellence in Film Music! And the Cajun film I liked, Little Chenier, won the audience award.

While waiting to get our waitlist tickets, and waiting to hear what movie we were going to see, I chatted up my Canadian friend Grant, who was finally able to announce that the Jury Prize winner for World Cinema was Sweet Mud from Israel, written and directed by Adama Meshugaat. It's about a 12-year-old boy growing up on a kibbutz in 1974 (precisely how old I was in '74). The film had some really simple and fun moments, especially in the first part, but by the end it felt unfocused to me. And unfairly judgmental of the kibbutz.