This blog should also be right below the video on my main page.

I took my boys and went with a couple of producer friends of mine from LA this week and we went to the pepperidne law school to view a screening of Tom Shadyac's new film " I Am". I love it. I read a lot of "christian reiviews on it where they said he was typical new age and didn't say enough about God etc. But, Tom is doing a great thing. He is using his platform to create conversation. That is what he wants. A few of us got to chat with him in an open Qand A , and it was great to hear his answers. First of all for those of you who may not know him. Tom, produced Liar, Liar, Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty, Ace Ventura pet Detective and a few others. His box office on just these was well over a billion dollars. He had the houses and the jet and pretty much everything any one could want. But, it wasn't making him happy. He also had an awful bike accident, and that left him with a disease that caused severe depression to the point of wishing for death and for a while there didn't seem to be any way out. As he recovered, he realized that he was wasting his life and his wealth so he sold most of what he had and moved to a trailer park in Malibu and rides his bike to work every day.

Now back to the story. I was intrigued because I have a camp coming up with 15000 students coming where the theme is "Connect". Pretty much all that I wanted to say personally , he covered in his film. He talked about science but about how science didn't have the anwers. He talked about how we are connected in so many way and how indeed science could prove much of that. And if you have read my other stuff you know I am thrilled by Quantuam entanglement and the spooky stuff in space that Einstein talked about. I am intrigued by how our bodies and atoms and quarks work and i stand in awe at how it is all put togther and how anyone could believer that it all came from nothing instead of something...like God.

So Shadyac has us take a close look at why we are here and what we can do about the problems that we see. No, he doesn't go into a deep heavy talk about God, but he does allow us to start a conversation about God and christianity. As some of us spoke to him it was evident that Jesus and christian principles are what guides him most right now, but yes, he feels like many of us do, which is that often times christians put themselves in a bubble and think that the only worthwhile philosophy of life is inside that bubble that we made. Giving them no room to think of Christianity or their God outside of the bubble they created themselves.

I went there hoping to figure out how to see some good stuff he did, and then to emulate it at our camps. It was a bit frustrating because he did it so well, it would be hard to emulate any of it without just showing it. Our conversation afterward led me to believe that we might get a chance to talk later and if so I can't wait to get to know this very engaging and bold man, who has taken time to create something that causes people to start a dialogue about why we are here. We all have answers that we think might be partially right, just as he does. But, we have created very few things like this film to help people start that dialogue. I am excited about what he is doing and saying so that a great dialogue can start in our circles. In other words, I applaud him for creating something that forces us to think, simply because we have a strong tendency to forget to think. I am hoping I get an inviattion to go sit down with him for a day in Malibu and just talk.

Hollywood has the ability with people like him to move people, and then send them into action to make the world different. We should be giving away our money. We should be helping the poor and helpless. We shouldn't live isolated in our ivory towers. There is a world out there. Made by a God who has a purpose for us. Tom believes that. He may not put it into exactly the same words others would but he lives by the principles because he sees the light. If "I AM" comes to your area, go see it. Tell me what you think. We don't all have to think the exact same thing to be headed in the right direction.

For more on it go to Iamthedoc.com

Here is his trailer....http://tinyurl.com/28qw45a

Tom if you read this...let's get together soon.

Lanny