Grit and a tough as nails approach to life were the things which were most impressive about John Wayne.  Appaloosa is a Western that recaptures some of that true grit.  The story revolves around two independent lawmen, who work for hire and their adventures in a small New Mexico town in the 1880’s.  Ed Harris and Viggo Mortenson are great as the lead actors.  Renee Zellwegger is adequate as the leading lady, but the interaction between her and Harris seems forced.  Ed Harris’ character never develops up to potential and settles for a rather static role.  It is not so much that Mr. Harris does a poor job, it is more that he does a variation on the same persona we’ve seen in almost every other Ed Harris movie. Viggo Mortenson meanwhile delivers a strong performance as Harris deputy.   The movie is paced well and and the directing job done by Harris is good.

Rated: R (Violence & Language) – The violence in the film is intense and personal.

Worldview & Values:  The redeeming qualities of the film however, are that loyalty and friendship are valued.  The movie also raises the question, where is the line between justice and vengeance?

Grade: B

Alright, this year I decided to try a New Years resolution that was all fun and games.  The goal was simple.  Read one new book and watch one movie, preferably a movie that is new to me, each week.  So now that the year is almost a third gone and I’m still on track to keep this resolution it’s time to start up this blog one more time.

Can someone please tell me what is going on in Cleveland these days?  The Cavs won’t give Lebron anyone to play with and now the Indians drop over $20 million to get Kerry Woods for 2 years?!?  What?!?  I still don’t believe this is actually true.

Not much unexpected here. We’ll go through it in order.  Look back soon for the annual bowl projections.

Rose Bowl – USC vs. Penn State

Big Ten fans should be excited to get another shot at the Pac-10.  USC’s offense looks less than spectacular, particularly the offensive line.  If you watched that UCLA game you know what I’m talking about.  Penn State’s defense is fierce and should be licking their chops at getting to Sanchez.  However, that defense for USC is a force to be reckoned with. I’ll be extremely interested to see how Penn State’s offense will respond to really getting hit in the mouth.  I anticipate a game similar to the Ohio State. Penn State game earlier this year.  Two top notch defenses going at it.  Gotta love the coaching sub-plot in this game too.  Doesn’t get more old school than Joe Pa and Pete Carrol is as California cool as they come.

Orange Bowl: Cincinatti vs. Virginia Tech

Quit rubbing your eyes.  You read it right the first time. That’s right Cincinnati is going to a BCS game.  And what’s more Brian Kelly is a good enough coach that I think he could coach them to a win too.  This is a big game for a program that is on the rise.  Kelly is a great coach who has been successful wherever he has been.  Beamer on the other hand is the third winningest active coach in college football.  Virginia Tech has survived a number of close games this year and has proved they can win nail biters.

Sugar Bowl: Utah vs. Alabama

Tough draw for Utah.  Alabama is a great team.  I love their defense.  Probably the toughtest thing I’ve seen this year.  They should have no problem slowing down Utah’s offensive attack.  I also love the way Alabam can wear down a team with their physical running game.  Utah has proved they have some toughness too.  In their best win of the year, a 13-10 nailbiter over TCU.  You have to think that ‘Bama’s defense is every bit as stiff as that TCU bunch, and that ‘Bama offense should post a few more than 10 points.

Fiesta Bowl: Texas vs. Ohio State

These two schools have met a couple times over the last few years.  A possible preview of next years national championship game.  Perhaps the biggest question will be whether Texas can get excited about playing in a game that is somewhere other than Miami.  On the other side of the field is an Ohio State team that will be looking to prove they can win a big game.  Texas is balanced on both sides of the ball.  If Texas has a hangover you have to like Ohio State’s chances of pulling the upset (something the BCS pollsters will absolutley be pulling for).

BCS National Championship Game: Florida vs. Oklahoma

I’m not writing about this joke of a game.  Oklahoma doesn’t deserve to be here.

Alright, I’ve kept quiet on the whole BCS controversy thing so far because I wanted to see how things shook out.  And now that Florida and Oklahoma are slated to play for the national championship someone needs to explain something to Texas.  How on earth you do you beat both of the Big 12 division champs, lose in the final second of the game to an 11-1 team and get left out?  SEC fans will claim the same thing happened to Auburn.  However, there is one major difference.  Auburn didn’t beat or even play either of the teams ranked ahead of them that year.  Here are just a few of the things that should change.

1) The Big 12 needs to change their tiebreaker to that of the SEC.  If three teams are tied and and all other tiebreakers are equal, BCS rankings should decide the top two and then it should go head-to-head from there.  This allows greater wait to be placed on games played either earlier in the season or head-to-head..or both in this case.

2) The BCS needs to boycott computers which give more weight to to November victories.  I understand reworking rankings later in the season based on a teams total body of work over the course of the year.  That only makes sense.  Alabama’s win over Clemson (and over Georgia for that matter) does not look as impressive now as either win did when it occured.  However, Billingsley’s computer rankings purportely simply rate a late season victory higher than an early season victory.  Under this rationale Oklahoma’s victory over Missouri will not simply be comparable, it will actually be worth more than Texas similar victory early in the year.  I wonder if there isn’t an argument to be said that beating a team for the first time is actually the hardest thing to do.  It takes away some of the teams mistique and also reveals to teams that play it later in the season how to beat it.  For instance, beating Oklahoma’s defense should be easier now than it was earlier in the season since Texas and Oklahoma have dropped more than 40 on them.

3)  Pollsters should be forced to make every ballot public.  Hidden agendas by coaches or by those who simply want to validate their pre-season rankings is ridiclous.

4) How impressive a team looks late in the yea (or any other time of year) is not the final criteria for deciding ranking.  Wins and losses are.

Either way, here’s to hoping that Florida absolutely destroys Oklahoma!  Oh, and Tim and Urban if you need any advice you know who to call.

Every Thanksgiving buffet has either a disappointing course or maybe just a disappoint dish.  Biggest personal disappointment this year was the lack of apple of pie in my Thanksgiving feast.  This simply must be rectified at Christmas.  Without further adieu let’s get on to the list of biggest disappointments in eadch of the BCS conferences.

Big East:  South Florida – This is a team that in pre-season was supposed to compete for the Big East title.  Remember this is a team that is just a year removed from a #2 national ranking and just earlier this year played in a big time early season matchup against Kansas.  Think South Florida fans aren’t happy to hear Brian Kelly’s name come up in talks at Clemson.

ACC:  Clemson - A few weeks ago we wondered if Clemson could actually go from pre-season top 10 to not even playing in a bowl.  Turns out they can’t quite pull it off.  Shame, because that would have been by far the biggest accomplishment for this team.  In hindsight some of Clemson’s struggles have been because of an ACC that had more competitve teams (or at least Jekyll/Hyde teams) than thought at the beginning of the season.  But even with that, this Clemson team had too much talent (like many in past years) and is a solid pick for our ACC big time disappointment.

Big Ten:  Wisconsin – The Big Ten honestly deserves two spots on this list.  But I think it was pretty clear that Michigan was going to have a hard time doing much this year.  However, Wisconsin’s fall is pretty inexplicable.  How does a team that was once ranked #9 blow a 19 point half-time lead to Michigan (3-9 Michigan), and then go on to self-destruct so that it’s most meaningful moment down the stretch is battling Minnesota for Paul Bunyan’s axe.  No disrespect to the axe but that’s just sad.

Pac-10: Arizona State - The Pac-10 is bad.  Really bad.  The bottom two teams in this conference are the worst two teams in the nation.  Underperforming in this conference takes some doing.  But thankfully for this article Rudy Carpenter and gang were not afraid to lose big to a mediocre SEC team in Georgia during a six game losing streak in mid-season.  Thanks to a cupcake schedule over the last three games the Sun Devils are bowl eligible but going 6-6 in the Pac-10 is good enough to put you on this ignomious list.

SEC: Georgia – Another conference that needs two spots.  Georgia opened as a pre-season #1 and somehow managed to hang around the top 10 despite a couple of embarrasing losses to Florida & Alabama.  Then to cap off a disappointing campaign Georgia managed to lose to in-state rival Georgia Tech in brutal fashion giving up over 400 yards of rushing to an ACC team.  If there was even the slightest amount of doubt in anyone’s mind about which conference was the best then it should be gone now.

Big 12: Kansas – A team that last year went to and won a BCS game found itself flirting with .500 until a win over Missouri boosted them to 7-5.  Still the defense was surprisingly bad and Kansas’ demise makes all that talk about the Big 12 North being back a little bit premature.  Things don’t look particularly promising either next year with Todd Reesing’s departure.

Independents:  Notre Dame – The Fighting Irish would have stayed off this list (despite a poor season) until last Saturday’s inexplicable loss to Syracuse.  Few things fill my heart with more cheer than seeing Notre Dame struggle in such a mighty way.

Historically Bad Seasons that We Simply Must Include:  Michigan & LSU - 9 losses for Michigan, the winingest program in all of college football is dumbfounding.  We all expected Michigan to take a step back this year.  Perhaps battling to 7-5 or even 6-6.  But no one saw Michigan’s bowl streak getting broken, or at least no one was saying it openly.  No one saw Michigan passing out footballs like candy on Halloween.  No one saw Michigan losing to both Utah, Toledo & Northwestern at home. For Michigan fans the apocalypse is now.  For Rich Rodriguez, the honeymoon is over.

We all knew that LSU winning another title was a long shot but then when Georgia looked weak we started wondering.  Turns out we shouldn’t have.  The dismissal of Ryan Perilloux set LSU back a long way but it’s been a long time since a defending national champion has struggle in the way LSU has this year.  Consider that in a down year for the SEC LSU went 3-5, losing in blowouts to Florida, Georgia & Ole Miss and then dropping close games to ‘Bama and Arkansas.  But it’s not just the losses it’s the wins that are far from impressive.  In their three SEC wins the largest margin of victory was 10 points in a win at home over Miss. St.  Even worse was the desparation comeback over Try at home late in the season.  For LSU fans next year can’t come soon enough.

Football coaches are known to say foolish things.  Bud Light has made a killing off them doing it.  Journalists live for it.  Bloggers salivate for it.  And what’s astounding is that they just keep doing it.  Urban Meyer provides the latest example.  Apparently, while suffering from some nasty heat stroke in Florida over the Summer Meyer claimed that his star quarterback, Tim Tebow “is the greatest player of our era.”  Hmm…Urban, you may want to leave it to the press to make such claims about your quarterback.

Don’t get me wrong, Tebow is a phenomenal player, certainly one of the great players in college football.  But calling Tim Tebow the greatest player of our era is just moronic.  Maybe Urban forgot that people played college football before he lef the safe confines of the Mountain West and came to the real world of the SEC.

Supporters will doubtless point to Tebow’s having “won” a national championship his freshman year and then the Heisman his sophmore and now is right back in the thick of both races this year.  And yes, not many quarterbacks can say that.  However, last time I checked some guy named Chris Leak actually played a pretty decent amount of quarterback the year the Gators won the title and giving all the credit to Tebow is frankly not fair at all.  Second, if you’re looking for winning resumes there was this guy up at USC a couple years ago who was a pretty good college quarterback…what was his name…oh, yeah Leinart.  Matt Leinart.  He won a Heisman and two national championships in three years of starting at quarterback.  And if it hadn’t been for his own teammate (Reggie Bush) beating him out in the Heisman he might have had a second one of those.  But probably not because some guy named Vince Young probably would have won the Heisman.  Speaking of which VY also kept Leinart  from having a third national championship. All this to say that while Tebow is certainly in rarified air we probably shouldn’t put him on Mount Olympus.

Also, the past two years can be viewed in a negative light as well.  Tebow really wasn’t the centerpiece of that 06 Gator team.  In fact as starting quarterback Tebow has yet to win an SEC title or national championship.  Tebow also has yet to have a legacy defining win.  There has been no fourth quarter comeback, no hotly contested game where Tebow willed his team to victory.  I don’t doubt for a second that Tebow can do it (probably will do it this year against Alabama and possibly against a Big 12 foe in the NC).  But he hasn’t yet.

At the end of the day you can’t help but wonder about a coach who over off season makes such a claim about one of his players.  Could give us some insight as to how a team as talented as Florida could do something as inexplicable as lose at home to Ole Miss.  Urban, you should probably spend a little more time in the shade next Summer, buddy.

Alright, I’m pretty used to seeing stupid things up on ESPN, but this one kinda blew me away.  How do you honestly rank Florida #1 and look yourself square in the face every morning and say you’re a decent human being?  Sure Florida might be playing the best ball in the country right now but let’s not forget that little loss at home to Ole Miss.  Losses aren’t like speeding tickets, which thankfully for some of us go off your record.  No, Florida, that little loss to Old Miss is there to stay.  Every Florida fan should be grateful t for the amnesiac memories of 99% of human voters.

The Icarus Hunt is not good literature.  It is not even particularly good storytelling.  It is stereotypical in every way, full of stock characters, repeating scenes, intricate and fanciful set-ups, cheesy and over-the-top humor.  Yet for all that The Icarus Hunt manages to play itself off as a fun read, a blockbuster kind of action flick that certainly will not garner any Oscar acclaim but will manage to rake in a fair profit during the Summer.  Perhaps it is just the stark contrast from theology textbooks to dime store fiction in a sci-fi setting but there was something mischievously fun about staying up an extra fifteen minutes to unwind through reading a book that will in no way educate or enhance your literary appreciation but if you are willing to laugh at it (and The Icarus Hunt laughs at itself) will very likely entertain you.

Writing Quality – D+

Entertainment Factor – B+

Overall Grade -  C+

Virtually all students of American history are well acquainted with the major historical characters and events of the Civil War. Those more advanced can likely delineate sociological and economic factors that caused America’s bloodiest and deadliest war ever. What Mark Noll manages to do in this well written piece is explore a facet of the Civil War that is predominantly bypassed by most historians, that is the role of Christianity in the Civil War and the affect of the Civil War upon Christianity in America. Noll highlights three crises that occurred in theology because of the Civil War; a theological crisis, a crisis over providence and a crisis of the relationship of the church and the state.

Noll’s assessment is both fair, thought provoking and extremely thorough. His scholarship is first rate and his writing concise, albeit slightly dry and in places rather difficult to follow. This difficulty is caused by the entire book being drawn from a series of lectures delivered by Noll at Penn State University in April of 2003. For Christians who enjoy historical study and theological reflection this book will be a delight.

Grade:  A

Mark Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, 199 pages, The University of North Carolina Press, $29.95