5 Links

I was amassing a few small things at once this morning that I wanted to share, but thought I’d keep them together:

- Keeping in line with the Soviet-era video games, if you’ve never seen Russian Winnie the Pooh take a few minutes for a cross-cultural experience. The animation is simple yet very distinctive, and Winnie (who sounds a little like “Vini Pukah”) seems a lot less timid and more assertive. There are subtitles for those who need it, and the story is also familiar.

- If you’d like to try that YouTube link in a fancy new setting, Boxee has just been released for Windows. It’s been out on Mac and Linux for a while, and it’s an app that manages streaming video options. Instead of looking around for video, they’ve done a lot of the work for you. YouTube, Joost, and various independent content providers are on there — plus they’re working on Hulu and Netflix.

- Reading fiction is not a waste of time. If you’ve ever felt guilty about enjoying a fictional book instead of diving into a theological study, check out this essay posted at Breakpoint.org. My favorite quote:

“Too many Christians think we are supposed to use the arts to give people the answers. We’re not. We’re supposed to use the arts to lead them into a question. And that is just one stage in their personal journey of divine revelation. Once they have a new question, they will be on a search—consciously or subconsciously. . . The arts can definitely send people delving.”

Read the whole thing. Fiction is not the same thing as resorting to fantasy to deal with reality.

- One more thing from Breakpoint’s Blog The Point: an Opera based on the book Perelandra (The second of CS Lewis’s “Space Trilogy”) is premiering in Britain this week. I’ve never been to the Opera, but if this crosses the pond I may have to start.

- I’ve mentioned the Hayao Miyazaki film Ponyo before, and the trailer is now out. The movie comes out August 14th and will be on 800 screens. That’s not a lot in comparsion to the 3000+ premieres a lot of other films get, but it’s the largest for a movie from Miyazaki in the US yet. I recommend viewing the 1080p version on a largest screen you can find.