Wink's Movie Blog

The oft-buzzed about (and tentatively titled) Songs of Ascent, reportedly U2's most directly worshipful album yet, is apparently on the fast track, says their manager. "I would expect a new U2 album sooner than anybody thinks," Paul McGuinness told the Irish Times. "I would guess early 2011 before the next leg of the American tour which starts in May." The Irish Times reported that McGuinness says the album will likely include "Mercy" and "Every Breaking Wave," which the band has been playing at its recent shows. "Mercy" (see the video below this post) includes these lyrics:

Love has come again / I am gone again Love is the end of history / The enemy of misery Love has come again / I am gone again Love is justice, a charity / Love brings with it a clarity Love has come again / I'm alive again I am alive, baby I'm born again and again And again, and again and again and again

Bono has described "Every Breaking Wave" (video, lyrics) as a "surging anthem," and says it will be the first single off the new album. Another possible song on the album, according to @U2, is "North Star" (lyrics), a song from the How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sessions which included a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. (In an interview with CCM, Smith described the song as a tribute to the unwavering faith of Johnny Cash.) Read more about more possible songs on the album here. In a recent interview with Australia's The Age, Bono said that the new album -- the first of three albums they're working on -- is being produced by Danger Mouse, the alias for American production ace Brian Burton (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz). "We have about 12 songs with him," Bono said. "At the moment that looks like the album we will put out next because it's just happening so easily." Bono said the next album after that will be a "club" record featuring Lady Gaga collaborator RedOne, Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.I.Am, and French superstar David Guetta. He also said that he and guitarist The Edge are trying to convince their bandmates Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. on recording an album based on the 20 songs the two have written for a Spider-Man musical that opens on Broadway next month. "We haven't convinced the rest of the band to do that yet," Bono told The Age. "Larry definitely has a raised eyebrow." Here's the video for "Mercy":

Anna Broadway, a guest blogger at Her.meneutics, CT's women's blog, explains why she won't boycott Mel Gibson's movies despite the recent spate of scandals and less-than-flattering news about the actor/director -- the creator behind The Passion of The Christ. "Gibson’s rant is not the main issue here," Broadway writes. "The issue is, what do our opinions of him and those like him — and our decisions of whether to support or shun them — say about our beliefs about humanity? If it were the case that The Passion were a praiseworthy film, and that Gibson were a racist, violent man, need acknowledging the one fact entail denial of the other? It shouldn’t." Click here to read the entire post.

When Hilde Back (at right), a Holocaust survivor who fled to Sweden, where she became a preschool teacher, decided to sponsor a child in Africa, she had no idea how far her money would go. She knew it would probably help one child -- in this case, Chris Mburu of Kenya -- to get better nutrition and education. Turns out that it went a LOT further than that. A Small Act, premiering at 8 p.m. Eastern on July 12 on HBO, tells the story from Mburu's perspective -- how Back's sponsorship helped him to not only get a good education in Kenya, but to go on to Harvard Law School and later become a human rights advocate for the United Nations, dedicating his life to fighting for "the least of these." In an effort to "give back," Mburu (left) establishes the Hilde Back Education Fund to sponsor some of the brightest and most disadvantaged of Kenya's next generation. Secondary school can cost less than $10 a week in Kenya, but even that amount is out of reach for many families. In A Small Act, three gifted students compete for a scholarship that may be the only chance they have of continuing their schooling and changing their lives. Meanwhile, Back is completely unaware of what has happened to the young boy she once sponsored. So Mburu tracks down the now 80-year-old in Sweden, and brings her to Kenya to see all the good that she has done. It's a wonderful little film that nicely illustrates what our own small acts can accomplish. Director Jennifer Arnold, who attended the University of Nairobi, says she wanted to tell a story that would "inspire audiences to do their own 'small acts.' There are huge stakes for these kids, who are literally fighting for their lives. . . . These kids may one day impact people across the world as Chris Mburu has, and Hilde Back before him." As Back says, "If you do something good, it can spread in circles, like rings on the water." Though there's little to no spiritual perspective (the organization through which Back sponsored Mburu wasn't faith-based), it's quite inspiring. And when one thinks of the difference that can be made through such Christian NGOs as World Vision, Compassion, and Food for the Hungry, it's easy to see why child sponsorship can literally change the world. Learn more about the film here, and see the trailer below: A SMALL ACT Trailer 2010 from Jennifer Arnold on Vimeo.

Gerard Butler, last seen onscreen in The Bounty Hunter) will be hunting a bounty of another kind in an upcoming film that begins shooting this month: Machine Gun Preacher, the true story of Sam Childers. Childers, allegedly a Christian preacher, literally lives up to the film's title by carrying a machine gun into Sudan to rescue young children from that nation's war atrocities -- including rape, murder, and forcing them to become child soldiers. Childers, author of Another Man’s War: The True Story of One Man’s Battle to Save Children in the Sudan, told The Christian Post last year, "I don’t condone violence at all . . . but at the same time I don’t believe that children should be raped, murdered, or cut up. I would have to ask the American people that you take a person that cuts up a child, or kill a child, or rape a child, if you catch a person doing that do you think that person would just stop if you just say stop? Or do you think you are going to have to fight that person? You would definitely need to fight that person or else they are going to kill you. "I look at it as a self-defense and I look at it as I’m helping God’s children. I’m not a person out to murder. But at the same time these people need to be stopped. "As far as a pastor with a gun, what would you call David? What would you call all the prophets in the Bible that were soldiers?"