THE B-MOVIE CATECHISM

COMING ATTRACTIONS: BAD DREAMS

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:09:00 +0000

Nobody requested this next review (why would they) but I’m doing it anyway. This actually started as a small Movie Of The Week post, but after I found myself still typing on it a week and a half later, I realized it was gonna have to be another long winded one (I don’t talk much, but once you get me started…). So, coming up next, it’s…

Enter video caption here

I OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Although I helped some friends with their film school projects back in the day, I've never actually had my name appear in the credits of a commercially released movie. Well, it looks like that's about to change later this year. I have now joined with 400+ other like minded individuals and happily plopped down a few bucks to pay for the digital restoration of... Manos: The Hands Of Fate.

What the... someone's ACTUALLY restoring Manos, you ask? Manos!?! Yes, and the story behind the restoration is as offbeat as the movie itself. As it turns out, cameraman and 16mm film collector Ben Solovey recently purchased a bunch of untitled reels off of eBay and upon receiving his package was startled to learn that he had, quite by accident, acquired the original 16mm work print of Manos. Now as anybody who's seen this thing on MST3K or on one of the many public domain copies floating around knows, this movie looks terrible. But as shown below, the work print is sharp and clear and has never been cropped.

DVD

WORKPRINT

Never has utter crap looked so good. If you’re interested in film restoration (or just Manos), you can check out Mr. Solovey's blog for updates on how the process is going, or you can even go to Kickstarter and make a donation to the project. While the expected costs of the restoration have already been more than covered, there's still some cool swag to be had for donors, including your name in the ‘thanks to’ portion of the credits of the upcoming DVD release. Which is where my name will be. Nay, where it SHOULD be. C'mon, we're talking about Manos here.

Now, if you’ve got more discerning tastes in the arts than I do (and you have a considerable larger amount of spare cash laying about), then you might wish to become instead a member of The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, a group dedicated to preserving the vast and unique collection of art housed in the Vatican Museums. My mother took one of the public tours there once and she said it was like walking through heaven. Anything that can bring that kind of response on this earth needs to be maintained for the good of all.

Of course, I’m aware that every so often some well meaning soul (or the occasional ignorant comedian) suggests selling off the Vatican and everything in it to feed the world. But such simplistic statements are so far removed from the reality of property values versus the costs of feeding the poor that they’re almost not worth arguing over. (Seriously, call up some real estate appraisers and ask them to come up with a value for the Vatican. When they stop laughing, let me know.) Besides, as Archbishop Onaiyekan of the African Synod once noted, while money is always needed, “Poverty in the world has to be dealt with by justice. There are other big buildings that need to be moved and sold -- all those big structures, all those unjust financial and economic structures in the world. Those are the things to move, so that the poor can survive.”

In the end, the true value of the Church, it’s “treasury” so to speak, lies in something other than its possessions. The Catechism explains, “We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church's treasury, which is ‘not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the 'treasury of the Church' is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy.’ ‘This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission in the unity of the Mystical Body."

So, to paraphrase the old commercial…

Restoring Manos, getting your name in the credits, and snagging a cool T-shirt: $25.00.

Maintaining the Vatican museums so some people can experience a little taste of heaven on earth: $500.00.

Experiencing the love of God through the prayers and good works of His people: Yep, pretty much priceless.

SHORT FEATURE: SCOOBY DOO & THE CURSE OF CRYSTAL LAKE

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:03:00 +0000

Well, it looks like we made it through yet another Friday the 13th. Given my particular viewing proclivities, you can probably guess right away the first thing that jumps to my mind on this particular date. That’s right, promiscuous teenagers getting chopped up for their transgressions by a machete wielding maniac. Yeah, yeah, I know, but what can I do? I was a teenager in the 80s, after all, and Friday The 13th movies seemed to come out about every two weeks back then. Not so much these days, though, so anybody looking for a new Jason Voorhies fix has to dig really, really deep. And sometimes there’s gold to be found. Take, for instance, this silly mash-up of actual dialog from some of the Friday The 13th movies with clips from Scooby Doo. If you’ve got any familiarity with the trappings of the slasher movie genre, this should give you a chuckle or two.

Of course, I realize that not everybody out there immediately thinks of bad movies when Friday The 13th rolls around. There’s still a lot of folks who associate the date with the idea of being cursed with bad luck if you leave the house on that day. In fact, the fear of Friday the 13th is so prevalent, psychiatrists have apparently given the condition it’s own name, paraskevidekatriaphobia. The odd thing is, nobody really seems to know where the superstition surrounding Friday the 13th actually started. It seems to be an amalgamation of traditions from various cultures throughout the ages. The Hindus, the Vikings, and the Egyptians all had trepidations about the number 13, while the notion of Friday as an unlucky day dates back at least to The Canterbury Tales. The popular combination of the day and date likely stems from Thomas W. Lawson’s 1907 novel Friday, The Thirteenth, although The Da Vinci Code makes an argument that it actually can be traced back to the Catholic Church’s eradication of the Knights Templar on that date (but since it’s Dan Brown saying so, even Wikipedia doubts the truth of that presumption). But whatever it’s origin, the superstition surrounding Friday the 13th is alive and well.

Which actually doesn’t sit too well with Christian teaching when you think about it. While Webster’s describes a superstition in general terms as “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation”, the Church is a little more specific. As defined in the Catechism, “Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.”

In effect, this means to willfully hold to a superstition is a sin against the first commandment in which God tells us, “You shall not have other gods beside me”. The old Catholic Encyclopedia goes into a bit more detail on this aspect of superstition, which it explains “is defined by St. Thomas (II-II:92:1) as ‘a vice opposed to religion by way of excess; not because in the worship of God it does more than true religion, but because it offers Divine worship to beings other than God or offers worship to God in an improper manner’. Superstition sins by excess of religion, and this differs from the vice of irreligion, which sins by defect. The theological virtue of religion stands midway between the two… There are four species of superstitions: improper worship of the true God (indebitus veri Dei cultus); idolatry; divination; vain observances, which include magic and occult arts. This division is based upon the various ways in which religion may be vitiated by excess. Worship becomes indebitus cultus when incongruous, meaningless, improper elements are added to the proper and approved performance; it becomes idolatrous when it is offered to creatures set up as divinities or endowed with divine attributes. Divination consists in the attempt to extract from creatures, by means of religious rites, a knowledge of future events or of things known to God alone. Under the head of vain observances come all those beliefs and practices which, at least by implication, attribute supernatural or preternatural powers for good or for evil to causes evidently incapable of producing the expected effects."

So given all that, it’s probably a good idea to put aside any ideas you might be holding regarding the efficacy of lucky rabbit’s feet or the misguided belief that wearing a scapular guarantees you a spot in heaven. And maybe it’s a good idea after all to ditch the whole notion of Friday the 13th as a day of bad luck and just watch bad movies instead.

That’s the excuse I’m using anyway.

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000

As the recent influx of visitors from Good News Film Reviews reminds me, I was remiss in giving the credit (or blame, take your pick) for my recent review of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls to author and critic Scott Nehring, who originally suggested I tackle Russ Meyer due to the lasting cultural influence his work has had on B-movies and popular culture. Now that I’ve gotten that review out of the way, I can finally get around to reading Scott’s book You Are What You See: Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens which I recently picked up as part of my Christmas Kindle gift card bonanza. Well, after I take a scalding shower to get the stink of Meyer off me that is.

While I’m taking care of that, feel free to check out some of the other folks around the blogosphere who have been busy digging up deeply buried meanings in the kind of fare typically found around these parts. For instance, over at Scorpion Stalking Duck, dadwithnoisykids (one of the first people on the Net to graciously notice this blog oh so many years ago) recently watched one of my childhood favorites Gorgo, and found in it not only the touching story of a prehistoric sea beast (guy in a rubber suit) who destroys London in order to retrieve her child, but maybe something pertaining to the spiritual state of Ireland as well. Meanwhile, Joe Wetterling at The Baptized Imagination reminisces on Army Of Darkness and finds an interesting connection in the movie to the new translation of the mass.

Oh, speaking of new versions of old things, Matthew Archbold of Creative Minority Report fame recoils in horror from the impending re-release of Star Wars-the Phantom Menace in 3-D and speculates on 10 more movies we don't ever want to see converted to that particular format. While not as horrified at the upcoming release of The Hobbit, Jason Dietz over at NonModern nevertheless finds some reasons why the latest trailer makes him sad. Oh well, you can’t expect Peter Jackson to please everybody. If you need more proof of that, then just take a listen to The Mrs. from DarwinCatholic as she makes what would normally be considered a heretical statement around these parts, “Giant Man-Eating Bugs Bore Me!” With a statement like that, I was ready to declare her anathema, then I realized she was just talking about Jackson’s remake of King Kong.

Blasted remakes. Aren’t there any new movies out there? Well, yes. But apparently even they are just recycling the same old garbage. At least that seems to be the conclusions of Father Steve at the Word On Fire blog, who takes notice of the recent success of The Devil Inside and can’t help but wonder if we really need another boring exorcism movie? Steven Greydanus, who’s actually sat through The Devil Inside, answers NO!

Well, that should be enough to keep everyone busy while I’m scouring myself with Brillo pads. (Man,that Meyer stuff is tough to scrape away.) See you next time.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:37:00 +0000

WARNING: ALTHOUGH WE DO OUR BEST TO STAY RELATIVELY FAMILY FRIENDLY ON THIS BLOG, THIS PARTICULAR REVIEW ISN’T ONE FOR THE KIDDIES.

ALSO, I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE TO EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

THE TAGLINE

“The world is full of them, the super-octane girls who are old at twenty. If they get to be twenty.”

THE PLOT

Determined to find success by any means necessary, the all girl psychedelic soul trio The Kelly Affair heads off to Hollywood to make it big. Things go remarkably well at first as the group is taken under the wings of record producer extraordinaire Z-Man, who changes the band’s name to The Carrie Nations and helps them make a string of hit singles. However, it all begins to go sour as the friends become entangled in a drug, alcohol, and sex fueled soap opera of labyrinthine proportions. Kelly (lead vocals and guitar) develops an infatuation with Lance Rocke, a local gigolo whose real interest lies in Kelly’s forthcoming inheritance. This so disturbs Harris (band manager and Kelly’s ex-boyfriend) that he first takes up with predatory porn star Ashley St. Ives, with whom he ultimately can’t “perform”, and then has a one night stand with the emotionally fragile Casey (bass). Now pregnant with Harris’ child and determined never to be used by a man again, Casey falsely accuses Harris of rape, reluctantly agrees to get an abortion, and becomes a lesbian. No longer able to bear it all, Harris attempts to kill himself by jumping from the rafters during the taping of a television appearance by The Carrie Nations, but he fails and only manages to turn himself into a paraplegic. Distraught by all the misfortunes which have befallen her bandmates, Petronella (drums) seeks solace in the arms of heavyweight champion Randy Black. Unfortunately, Pet’s real boyfriend Emerson catches the two in bed and, in a foolhardy attempt to defend his manhood, is run over by a car driven by the half insane pugilist. Whew. At this point, the movie is only two-thirds of the way through, and we haven’t even covered the sub-plots involving Kelly’s fashion designing aunt Susan and her slimy accountant Porter. Let’s just say it all comes to a head at a private costume party thrown by Z-Man where hearts are broken, lives are lost, and seriously WTF secrets are revealed.

THE POINT

When the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley Of The Dolls hit the big screen in 1967 it was universally panned by the critics (which in true Hollywood fashion didn’t stop it from raking in $50,000,000 at the box office, ten times its budget), none more scathing than a budding young columnist named Roger Ebert. In his review of the film Ebert wrote, “What we have here is a dirty soap opera. It is dirty because it intends to be, but it is a soap opera only by default. It tries to raise itself to the level of sophisticated pornography, but fails. And it is dirty, not because it has lots of sex in it, but because it firmly believes that sex is dirty. That makes sense. Most soap operas are aimed at audiences who are fascinated by the subject of sex, but who want it presented in a disapproving way… Some moments persist in the memory, however. The scene in which Sharon Tate does her bust exercises, and most particularly the dialog at the end of that scene, should be preserved in permanent form so future historians can see that Hollywood was not only capable of vulgarity, but was also capable of the most offensive and appalling vulgarity ever thrown up by any civilization. I can't believe that scene. I really can't.”

Having had such a vitriolic reaction to the first Valley Of The Dolls movie, you might think the last thing Mr. Ebert would ever want to see darken theater screens was a sequel. But lo and behold, when Twentieth Century Fox decided to produce a pseudo-follow up to the film in 1970, not only did Ebert agree to see it… he actually wrote the screenplay. So how in the world did that come about, you might ask? Well, in a 1998 interview with The Onion’s A.V. Club, the film’s director Russ Meyer related how he and Ebert had become friends after Ebert had written a complimentary letter regarding his work. So, after Meyer had been approached to helm the new Doll’s film, he and Ebert discussed the possibility of the film critic writing it. And when the Onion pressed Meyer on why Ebert would accept the assignment given the subject matter, Meyer responded in his typical candid fashion, “Tits. Plain and simple, [Roger] loves tits.”

Now, there’s a good reason for sharing that less than tasteful tidbit of information, but before we get to it, let’s go ahead and get something out of the way. This has always been one of the few B-Movie sites around that doesn’t rate the potential enjoyment of a motion picture based on the amount of gore it contains, the number of explosions it offers, and certainly not by how much gratuitous nudity it packs in to its runing time. Not that I’m necessarily disparaging guys like Joe Bob Briggs for their tongue-in-cheek blood, beasts, and breasts rating systems, mind you, it’s just not the way we do things around here. Who knows, maybe that’s one of the reasons this blog seems to have developed a sizable female readership. It’s probably nice for the ladies to have a place in geekdom where they don’t immediately have two targets painted on their chests every time they walk into the room. But be that as it may, the fact remains that we’re about to talk about a Russ Meyer movie, and that means we’re obliged to delve into some areas which might make some folks uncomfortable. However, since we’re all adults here, we should be able to discuss these things with at least a modicum of maturity. Agreed? Agreed.

So.

Boobies.

Sorry, sorry ladies, but when you’re talking about Russ Meyer and the women who appear in his films, there’s simply no way to get around the subject. And I mean that literally. In confined quarters, there’s probably very little room to get around these girls. Watching some of the top heavy ladies in Russ Meyer movies get up and walk, one is reminded of that old canard about bumblebees taking flight, the physics say it shouldn’t be possible, but your eyes tell you otherwise. In fact, the proportions on some of Meyer’s starlets are so ludicrous that I’m willing to bet Barbie dolls see these women and develop harmful body images. Okay, okay, I’m done. I’m sure by now some of you might be inclined to think I’m saying all this just to get a few cheap laughs, but there’s actually a point to it all. (Although, in all honesty, I’ve never been one who’s too proud to take the cheap laughs when I can get’em.) It’s all meant to illustrate, as film critic Richard Corliss wrote in Time Magazine, that “Meyer is an unregenerate sexist. Sexist the way another person is a Buddhist or foodist or nudist — for this is Meyer's profane religion, and he worships at the female breast as Paleolithic man venerated the Venus of Willendorf. And as he aged (but never, ever, matured), the breasts of his models and actresses enlarged, expanded until now, with the likes of Pandora Peaks and Eva ‘Tunde’ Howath, they look ready to explode.”

All of which probably makes Russ Meyer sound like nothing more than just some coarse vulgarian, but that isn’t entirely true (mostly true, sure, but not entirely). For one thing, he was not a pornographer in the strict sense of the word, refusing ever to film hardcore scenes because he considered them anti-erotic. And then there’s the simple fact that he was talented. “[Russ Meyer] is not the primitive or untutored artist he sometimes likes to appear to be.” claims his pal Roger Ebert. Discussing Meyer in a 1973 Film Comment essay, Ebert noted that “his method of work on a picture is all business, he is a consummate technical craftsman, he is obsessed by budgets and schedules, and his actors do not remember how 'turned on' a scene was, but how many times it was re-shot. In a genre overrun by sleazo cheapies, he is the best technician and the only artist." And, honestly, that’s not just Ebert talking up his good friend. Watching a Meyer movie, it becomes quickly evident that the man is a skilled cinematographer, having developed his chops first as a wartime photographer (some of Meyer’s impressive WWII newsreel footage is used in the film Patton), then honing them as a pin-up photographer and pioneer of underground nudie-cutie films (a term Meyer hated, preferring instead the nomenclature ‘titty-boom movies’). By the time he finally started churning out more mainstream cult movie classics such as Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill and Mudhoney in the 60s, it was evident to anyone paying attention that Meyer knew his business behind a camera. That’s why these days it’s not surprising to find his oeuvre being given retrospectives at prestigious art museums and being discussed in film schools (hey, nothing legitimizes your smut like having it taught in a classroom). “In times to come, and years to come, and into the next century” Roger Ebert would extol, “Russ Meyer's films will be seen as art in the same sense as Andy Warhol's work and Al Capp's work - popular art of a very particular and original and unique nature.”

Well, maybe. But whether that ends up being true or not, the point is that Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls had something of a pedigree (dubious as it was) going into production, boasting as it could the wordsmithing talents of one of the film industry’s soon-to-be Pulitzer Prize winning writers combined with the visual skills of its most talented not-quite-pornographer. And because of this, expectations were high that the film would deliver something other than just the typical titillation of topless shots so often tossed into B-Movies in order to get drive-in patrons all riled up. Oh, it would have those, of course, we are talking about Russ Meyer after all, but in general it was believed that the movie would provide something else as well, something along the lines of a biting social satire with comedic appeal to the masses. And if you’re to believe folks like movie critic Peter Sobczynski, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls delivered on all its promise. “The resulting film” Mr. Sobczynski wrote, “remains one of the damndest things ever made – a goofy, grisly, screw-loose combination of sex, drugs, psychedelic rock and lurid excess that still has the power to blow minds 35 years after it first appeared.”

Well, not really. Oh, don’t get me wrong, there are things to enjoy in Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, to be sure. For instance, it’s full of Meyer’s trademark style, a combination of brightly lit colorful shots, rapid fire editing, and overlapping dialogue which ensures that the movie never drags so much as a second during its brief running time. This technique works great during scenes such as the band’s relocation to California which is depicted through a quick cut montage of images from the movie yet to come playing underneath the voices of Kelly and Harris volleying back and forth the pros and cons of moving out west (“Gaudy, ugly.” “Gassy, classy.” “Cheap anyhow.” “Yeah, like wow!”). The sequence does much to set up the feel of the hyperkinetic forces that will soon propel the hapless band mates spiraling uncontrollably into disaster. Unfortunately, the technique begins to wear out its welcome a little bit during the near interminable number of party scenes in which the viewer is treated to quick shots of people dancing and/or coupling to the sounds of The Strawberry Alarm Clock while Z-Man blathers on in a faux Shakespearean dialect (John LaZar apparently modeled his character on Olivier’s Richard III), all of which is further intercut with Laugh-In style interchanges between the partygoers containing choice bits of dialog in which porn stars quote Sigmund Freud and transsexuals spout lines from Lewis Carroll. Yeah, the visuals keep the energy level up, but the overall impression these scenes leave is that Ebert really wanted you to know he paid attention during his literature classes in college.

Still, those who love the camp value of movies in the vein of Mommie Dearest will probably find lots to howl about in the overwrought performances given by the cast of Dolls. (At one point Z-Man warbles out, "You shall taste the black sperm of my vengeance!" with a completely straight face and a delivery that is almost right up there with Faye Dunaway’s “No wire hangers… everrrr!”) And fans of the weird will no doubt find much to savor, particularly in the use of music. Along with the many moments backed by a soap opera organ soundtrack, there’s also a scene in which a Nazi is impaled to the strains of Wagner (no matter what time period they’re set in, Meyer movies almost always find a way to kill at least one Nazi, he hates those guys) and another where one of the main characters has his head lopped off to the tune of the 20th Century Fox fanfare. Unfortunately, most of the really crazy stuff doesn’t happen until the last fifteen minutes of the movie (there be necessary spoilers ahead) during which the plot abandons all pretense of cohesion by having Z-Man rip open his ruffled shirt to reveal a pair of breasts, proving to one and all that he was a woman all along. This continuity destroying nonsense accomplished, Z-Man proceeds to massacre everyone in the house before being killed himself. Afterwards, the survivors participate in a triple wedding ceremony while a narrator opines about how everyone who lived learned a valuable lesson and everybody who died deserved it.

Now, you’d think the people who would appreciate one of the “damndest things ever made” would really go for the gonzo nuttiness of Dolls’ finale, but the ending of the movie is what usually comes under the most criticism from even the film’s most rabid defenders. And while Ebert’s writing is partly at fault, the blame for that lies mostly at Meyer’s feet. Or, to be more precise, his philosophy. You see, as David K. Frasier explains in Russ Meyer: The Life And Films, “It strikes Meyer as somehow heroic and funny to have couples making love in uncomfortably incongruous settings like trees, swamps, and deserts, as if their passion were so great that they would suffer any pain or indignity to consummate it… In Meyer’s cinema, “good” healthy sex is the operative moral imperative that ensures contentment and maintains cosmic order.” And it’s that particular viewpoint on sex which marks Russ Meyer as one of the progenitors of the period in the 1960s known as the sexual revolution. Dr. Michael Waldstein, in his introduction to Man and Woman He Created Them (a.k.a. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body) explains how “the Sexual Revolution was heralded by its advocates as a breakthrough for human development, for the freedom and happiness of the person. Wilhelm Reich, a student of Freud who saw himself at the forefront of the revolution, believed that the free availability of sexual pleasure beyond the limits imposed by the patriarchal Christian family would lead to health and happiness. It would even prevent insanity, mysticism, and war. ‘Sexual energy is the constructive biological energy of the psychological apparatus that forms the structure of human feeling and thinking. ‘Sexuality’ (physiological vagus function) is the productive vital energy, simply speaking. Its suppression leads not only to medical damage, but also quite generally to damage in the basic functions of life. The essential social expression of this damage is purposeless (irrational) action by human beings: their insanity, their mysticism, their readiness for war, etc… The core of life’s happiness is sexual happiness.”

Uh huh. Still, Meyer seemed to more or less prescribe to Reich’s views on sex, so it’s obvious why he would appear to be the perfect choice to film Ebert’s screenplay, one which was meant to lampoon anyone who “believes that sex is dirty” or who was “fascinated by the subject of sex, but who want it presented in a disapproving way.” But the catch is that in the worlds Meyer created for his movies, the joys and benefits of the sexual freedom brought about by the revolution were not for everyone. As David K. Frasier explains, “As witnessed in numerous films like Lorna and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, a rigid code of morality exists in the Meyer universe, and that code must be strictly observed if it is to function properly. ‘Normal’ heterosexual sex is the primary component of this universe. It guarantees it’s the harmony. In film after film any character who disrupts this harmony by breaking Meyer’s moral laws is punished.” And this is why many of those proponents of the sexual revolution who would otherwise praise Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls feel a little betrayed by the ending of the film. As Danny Peary, author of the much beloved Cult Movies series of books, derisively puts it, “Those people killed… are those Meyer’s considers deviants; so not only do a Nazi and a murderous transvestite die, but also a bisexual and two lesbians who haven’t really harmed anyone. Those characters who have repented their misdeeds and amoral behavior are the ones who survive. The world has been cleansed.” And as if to emphasize this very point, the final image Meyer provides us in Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls is a freeze frame on the three brides, each dressed respectively in red, white and blue in order to accentuate the conservative properly-married all-American girls their various trials have transformed them into. So, in effect, the last fifteen minutes of the film actually end up contradicting any satire of conservative mores Ebert had built into his screenplay.

Given Meyer’s stated objectives (as Ebert explained them anyway) to produce a movie that “would simultaneously be a satire, a serious melodrama, a rock musical, a comedy, a violent exploitation picture, a skin flick, and a moralistic expose of what the opening drawl called the oft-times nightmarish world of show business”, I can think of only a few reasons Meyer allowed his movie to lose focus the way it did. One is that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t as talented as he’s made out to be. But, hey, the film schools couldn’t possibly be wrong about that, could they? (Ha!) Another is that Meyer could have just been a creature of habit. Back in the early days when he was trying to distribute his burlesque-style nudies, he used the same approach as the makers of such films as Sex Madness and Marihuana: Weed With Roots In Hell, which was to present the scandalous material cocooned within a faux-moralistic storyline that was “educating and warning audiences about an otherwise forbidden subject.” So, even though Fox gave him free reign to make any movie he wanted, perhaps Meyer was just lazily relying on his old bag of tricks. But the third possible reason which comes to mind is probably the most likely. You see, when it comes right down to it, the finished product isn’t the most important concern for Meyer. In the end, he cares most about one thing, and one thing only.

Boobies.

Now I’m not talking about the actual display of bare female chests, because for a Russ Meyer movie, there is a noticeable shortage of such things in Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (though, to be fair, still probably twice as much as in any non-Meyer movie you’re likely to see). It’s a widely known fact that Meyer edited out a good portion of the nudity and simulated sex he filmed in a failed effort to appease the ratings board so, as David K. Frasier (again) points out, “While fleeting glimpses of bare breasts abound, the camera never ‘goes south’ to the pubic region, and sex scenes are edited in such a quick cut fashion that erotic tension is never permitted to build.” But despite the timidity of Dolls compared to the rest of Meyer’s oeuvre, and regardless of any artistic merit on the part of his camera work or any social critique to be found in Ebert’s screenplay, everything in the movie is ultimately subordinate to Meyer’s breast obsession. And he always admitted as such. When asked by journalist M. J. Simpson, “In terms of casting actresses, which is more important: acting ability or breast-size?”, Meyer responded candidly, “There's no question about the size of the breast. I'd be a fool to think in other terms.”

Basically, Meyer had a fetish, which in terms of sexuality Webster’s defines as “an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression.” And for the longest time, having such a condition was considered a psychological disorder. But times change, and groups like The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom are getting better at lobbying, so bowing to pressure, the American Psychiatric Association is now considering changes to their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to acknowledge that a person can be a fetishist, transvestite, sexual sadist or sexual masochist without necessarily having a disorder. Which is no surprise, really, as the intelligentsia have always been the most susceptible to enlightenment style movements such as the sexual revolution. But what is a bigger problem is that the same acquiescence to the sexual revolution has become firmly entrenched in our popular culture over the past half century. As Bradley Tuck, writing for the One To One Film Journal, points out, “[Meyer’s] archetypal well-endowed women have become a staple of magazines such as Nuts, Loaded, FHM and Bizarre. Female culture has gone in a similar direction, internalizing lap-dancing, pornography, breast implants and burlesque as sexual liberation and heralding Madonna, the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and the characters of Sex And The City as its empowered heroes… [and] female liberation has followed an equally Meyerian line. In this ‘post-feminist world’ women are to seek ‘liberation’ by becoming sex objects.” But Mr. Tuck rightly sees a problem with this. “By adopting the role of sex objects women can gain the power that comes from molding men’s desires, gaining power over men, but [also] perpetuating the oppression that keeps men and women from finding fulfillment. In one fell swoop a Midas touch is created, where all sexual subjects (both desirer and desired) are transformed into alienated subjects, dreaming of unrealistic partners and unattainable self-images.”

At first glance, that might seem like a big leap, going from a relatively small act such as Meyer’s ogling of a woman’s bra size to the mammoth effect of producing a society crippled by total human isolation, but Tuck never claims it happened overnight. Things always start small, sometimes even with nothing more than a single lingering gaze on another’s body. Such a tiny action may seem harmless, but when you get down to it, there is no unchaste act so miniscule that it doesn’t affect how we personally view and interact with others. And once you grasp that even a lustful look can be the beginnings of objectification, is it really such a leap to see how such attitudes multiplied by the number of humans on the planet can accumulate over a period of time and eventually affect the interactions of society as a whole. That’s why Pope Paul VI wrote in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, “Everything therefore in the modern means of social communication which arouses men's baser passions and encourages low moral standards, as well as every obscenity in the written word and every form of indecency on the stage and screen, should be condemned publicly and unanimously by all those who have at heart the advance of civilization and the safeguarding of the outstanding values of the human spirit.” Not because the Church disapproved of sex or found it dirty (sorry Roger), but because she realized the harm individual disordered sexualities can wreak on us all given enough time to escalate into a movement.

Which, as Pope Paul VI warned, it has, and the societal rot has begun to set in big time because of it. But the fix is underway as well. Between September 1979 and November 1984, Pope John Paul II delivered a series of 129 lectures which collectively have become known as the Theology Of The Body. In the most simplistic terms possible, the purpose of the Pope’s TOB was to counter the objectification of human beings inherent in the sexual revolution with the deeper understanding that creation reaches its perfection in the total and mutual self giving of persons between a man and a woman. There’s a lot more to it than that, it’s a very dense work (my Kindle says I’m already 10% through it, and yet I’m still just slogging through the introduction with its meticulous overview of the philosophies of Hume, Kant & Scheler), so it’ll probably take a few generations for everything it contains to sink into the collective consciousness of Christiandom (George Weigel describes the TOB as a "kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church”). Until then, us Christians in the trenches can fight the good fight the way we always have, one individual at time, safeguarding our own chastity and trying to set an example for the proper way to look at and interact with our fellow human beings. To do otherwise would make us all just a bunch of lazy irresponsible…

Oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Starts with a B.

THE STINGER

“Your curving thighs like jewels, the product of skilled hands. Your valley, a round bowl that should never lack mixed wine. Your belly, a mound of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.” So goes the Song of Songs, one of the books the Church recognizes as the inspired word of God. But don’t make the mistake that the turgid tones of this scripture implies the Lord endorses leering. The Catechism reminds us that “sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.” And that’s why Song of Songs is not considered lustful because, even in its steamier parts, it never reduces love to mere sexual expression. Rather it presents sexuality in the context of love of the whole person as exemplified in the mutual giving of ones selves in holy matrimony. So, for all you fellas out there, don’t even think about slipping any of those racier Bible verses into your loved one’s Valentines Day card unless they’ve already got a ring on their finger. And even then you’d better be sure she knows you love the whole package, not just those two fawns.

THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #10 – THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:04:00 +0000

Remember when made for TV movies were good? Okay, maybe not good, but you know, enjoyable in a cheesy kind of way? Or at least watchable? I know, it’s been a long while, but there really was such a time in days of yore. And just in case you can’t remember those fabled days, maybe this little ditty from the made for television magnum opus The Midnight Hour will jog your memory. (And before you ask, yes, that’s Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge busting a move. Sort of.)

“I’m dead, you’re dying, everybody should try it, get dead!” You know, that sentiment kind of reminds me of that old question you occasionally hear from aggressive atheists (usually on message boards where they almost inevitably believe you’ve never heard it before), “If you REALLY believe in heaven, why aren’t you in hurry to die and get there already?” I guess it’s supposed to be one of those oh-so-hip gotcha questions that’s meant to leave a person gaped mouth and speechless, their beliefs exposed as a fraud, their faith crumbling away into dust.

Alas, I’m afraid to inform our secular friends, there are a number of good reasons we Christians don’t just do the non-believers of the world a favor and drop dead. Here’s just a few.

First off, we’re kind of busy at the moment working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. You see, just because we walk into a church every Sunday, that doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed a spot in heaven. Even St. Paul, who wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, noted in 1 Corinthians 4:4 that “I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord.” So if Paul’s resume didn’t guarantee him a get out of jail free card, I’m pretty sure the rest of us would appreciate as much time as possible to get our acts together so we have a decent shot of actually making it into the heaven we believe in.

Next, besides the monumental task of whipping our own souls into shape, we also have quite a list of duties Jesus left for us to attend to in addition to all the normal day to day stuff like raising a family and going to work. While there’s no comprehensive lists of what those duties are, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy are a pretty good primer. The seven corporal works of mercy are: To feed the hungry; To give drink to the thirsty; To clothe the naked; To harbour the harbourless; To visit the sick; To ransom the captive; To bury the dead. The seven spiritual works of mercy are: To instruct the ignorant; To counsel the doubtful; To admonish sinners; To bear wrongs patiently; To forgive offences willingly; To comfort the afflicted; To pray for the living and the dead. That’s quite a bit to do, and you kind of have to be alive to do it all.

And finally, this life was given to us by God, and as the Catechism reminds us, “We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.”

So, sorry secularists, as much as some of you might wish all of us religious types would just voluntarily kick the bucket, I’m afraid we just can’t do that. We’ve just got too dang much to take care of in the short time we’ve been alloted. Nice try though.

OOPS, I DID IT AGAIN!

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:52:00 +0000

Forgive me. What with all the little calamities that I’ve been plagued with over the past half year (look’em up in the archives, I won’t bore you with a recap), I once again completely forgot that I had promised one of my readers a review. This time around, it’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, that tragic tale of “the super-octane girls who are old at twenty. If they get to be twenty.” I might have forgotten it forever if a recent post by Simcha Fisher at the National Catholic Register hadn’t started a small argument in the comboxes about movies one should or shouldn’t watch, which in turn jogged my memory about this one. So, since a promise is a promise, I’m going to get this review done in the next week or two, although it’s likely to be one that would have been better NEVER than LATE. Anyway, here’s a reprint of the original Coming Attraction post to remind everyone what’s coming up.

In case there’s still some of you out there who weren’t aware, I take requests for reviews, many of which come in the form of challenges. Of course, that can result in something of a mixed bag. Requests have brought us everything from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians to Satisfaction to I Spit On Your Grave. That’s a pretty wide range of (questionable?) tastes. But even so, there’s still lots of different kinds of movies out there I’ve never touched on. So it was no surprise a few weeks back when an email arrived suggesting that perhaps I was playing it safe and avoiding some of the darker corners of the cult movie universe, that maybe it was time I dealt with… Russ Meyer.

Fair enough, but which one of his movies to review? Obviously, about 80% of Meyer’s oeuvre is automatically disqualified for being nothing more than soft porn. I got some standards, after all. So after going through the list, I narrowed it down to three. Now while Mudhoney contains every theme typically associated with Meyer, there’s really not much to it, so I passed. Trashmeister John Waters called Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! the best movie ever made, and it is the very definition of a cult movie, but after watching it again, I actually found it pretty tame compared to the rest of the director’s output and I don’t think that’s what the requester was going for. So that pretty much left me with Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, the first collaboration between Russ and Roger Ebert.

It goes without saying this is one review that won’t be for the kiddies. Wish me luck.

SHORT FEATURE: QUARTERFLASH – HARDEN MY HEART

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:19:00 +0000

You want to know why music videos from the 1980s were more fun than most of the ones you see being made today? Because they made absolutely no sense, that’s why. Take even the most innocuous of 80s pop ditties, like say Quarterflash’s Harden My Heart, and with enough random imagery thrown into the mix, you can turn it into a what-the-heck hallucinatory hullabaloo worthy of the Surrealists in their prime.

So, you’ve got a woman wearing a perm and a unitard running through somebody's dimly lit basement, a gentlemanly dwarf adorned with a big heavy metal hairdo, some failed cloning experiments sitting around a vanity in the middle of a quarry, a gal playing a saxophone in a warehouse with a leaky roof, and some dude wearing a tuxedo and a motorcycle helmet pointing a flamethrower at a bulldozer. Bizarre, huh? Does anyone want to take their best shot at explaining what any of these hypnogogic hijinks have to do with the words that are being sung?

Cryin' on the corner, waitin' in the rain
I swear I'll never, ever wait again
You gave me your word, but words for you are lies
Darlin' in my wildest dreams, I never thought I'd go
But it's time to let you know, oh...
I'm gonna harden my heart
I'm gonna swallow my tears
I'm gonna turn and leave you here.....

Did I somehow miss the dwarf and the bulldozer in those lyrics? I don’t think so. In fact, reading through them, they seem like pretty standard break-up song material. Well, except for maybe the “harden my heart” line, as not too many people use that old phrase these days. But we all know what it means, right? After all, the image of the hardening of hearts appears quite a lot in the Bible, even showing up in the very first reading of the very first Sunday of this Church year (Year B) in a passage from Isaiah 63 where it says, “You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever. Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Seems simple enough. Hardening our hearts is basically when we willfully shut out and ignore anything or anyone we don’t want to be influenced by. It can be positive, such as hardening our hearts to the lies of a deceitful lover, or it can be negative, such as hardening our hearts to the call of God on our conscience. So, nothing weird about the hardening of hearts, right?

But what about those times in the Bible where it states that God hardened someone's heart? Pharaoh, the Egyptians, Sihon, the kings in North Canaan, and even the whole nation of Israel, they all had their hearts hardened by the Lord at some point. In fact, Paul pretty much states outright in Romans 9:18 that God “has mercy upon whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills.” Which on the surface makes about as much sense as a 1980s video, because it sure makes it sound like God is usurping people’s free will and causing them to act in ways that will endanger their souls. I mean, how can you accept the word of the Lord if He hardens your heart so that you refuse to listen to it? Not only does that seem patently unfair, it pretty much contradicts the nature of our relationship with God as revealed elsewhere in the Bible.

And that’s just one of the examples, folks, of why we can’t just parachute Bibles into non-Christian countries and expect the so-called “perspicuity of scripture” to reveal the true meaning of the texts to those reading them. Scripture is not intended to stand alone without guidance. In this particular instance, some expertise in ancient Hebrew is needed in order to figure out what’s actually going on in these verses. In the book An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax By Waltke & O'Connor, we learn that those passages which speak of God hardening someone’s heart are utilizing the Hiphil verb form of the phrase rather than the Piel verb form. Which means that… um… well, it’s probably best to let the book explain what that means…

“Ernst Jenni, beginning with the assumption that the two morphologically distinct stems have different semantic values, undertook an exhaustive study of the Piel, focusing on the Piel and Hiphil stems of the same verbal root in similar contexts. According to Jenni, the Piel signifies to bring about a state, and the Hiphil, to cause an event. His distinction involves two contrasting ideas: state versus event, and to bring about versus to cause actively. According to Jenni, the differences between Piel and Hiphil can be understood by appealing to deep differences: the Piel is analogous to a nominal clause, the Hiphil to a verbal clause. Though both stems involve causation, the factitive-resultative Piel generally has to do with the bringing about of a state or condition, and the causative Hiphil with the causing of an event. The Piel can often be translated by an adjectival construction: an adjective (with stative verbs), a passive past participle (with fientive verbs). Superficially considered, the relationship between subject and object in both Piel and Hiphil stems is often that of a transitive making or causing which proceeds from the subject to the object. The object, however, experiences this action quite differently in the two stems. With the Piel, the object is transposed passively into a new state or condition. Philosophers would refer to this transposition as "accidental" because the object makes no contribution to the verbal notion. With the Hiphil, however, the object participates in the event expressed by the verbal root.”

Or to bring it down to sound byte level, the use of the Hiphil verb form in the original Hebrew implies that God created the situations in which hearts COULD be hardened, but those whose hearts WERE hardened had to make the choice to go along with it. With that being the case, it’s understandable in the reading from Isaiah why the Israelites seem to be asking God to please stop them from doing that very thing. So you see, it all does make sense in the end.

In the Bible anyway. Now if only someone could publish a book explaining 1980s music videos, because I’d really like to know the significance of the unitard and the flamethrower in Harden My Heart.

STILL VOICES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:47:00 +0000

CUTAWAYS – I BOUGHT A VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:31:00 +0000

The first best thing about I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is that it really truly is titled I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle, that’s not a typo. The second best thing about I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is that it really truly is about a vampire motorcycle, one that sucks blood out of people’s necks and doesn’t like crosses or garlic. But the third best thing about I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle is the priest who shows up about midway into the film. Perhaps you might recognize him?

Okay, so his name might not come to you right away as he’s missing all of his distinctive gold plating, but if you close your eyes and listen to the voice, you can just about hear him advising you on the astronomically impossible odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field. That’s right, kids, it’s C-3PO himself, Anthony Daniels. Now you know what he was up to in between trilogies.

Truthfully, with a title like I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle, the movie is a lot more enjoyable than it has any right to be, managing to tread the fine line between humor and horror pretty well. And as a bonus for us Catholics, the priest character turns out to be a decent guy who performs his duties happily, has no crisis of faith, and even makes it to the end of the picture alive (minus a few fingers, but still, he makes it, so I’m not complaining). Weird, huh? The only explanation I can think of is that the movie wasn’t made in Hollywood, so the filmmakers didn’t realize they were supposed to depict priests as creepy and despicable as possible.

“We can’t underestimate the power of media like television and movies to shape our impressions of clergy.” explains priest and psychologist Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, author of the book Why Priests Are Happy. “Once, there were movies like Bing Crosby in Going My Way and the Bells of St. Mary’s, which were angelic portrayals of priests. But I don’t think those really were helpful, either. Now, we’ve gone from those kinds of depictions of priests to downright negative portrayals—if not mocking. You almost never see a healthy, happy Catholic priest in the media these days. Does that affect the priesthood? Well, it doesn’t help. And, I don’t think that we should return to the Bing Crosby image. That places the priest on an angelic pedestal that’s unrealistic. Then, if a crisis hits like the one that rocked us in recent years, then people are shocked and crushed. But this popular image, today, of dysfunctional, lonely depressed priests—well, that’s not accurate overall.”

Besides the news that our priests aren’t all maladjusted deviants, another nice thing about Rossetti’s study is that while it concentrates on the priesthood, it contains conclusions that can be useful to all the rest of us. For instance, Rossetti’s research suggests that as a priest’s time in private prayer increases up to and over an hour per day, they become less emotionally exhausted, less depressed, less likely to be lonely, less likely to be obese, and they deal with stress in less dysfunctional ways. And it goes without saying that they experience a stronger relationship to God. So if an hour of prayer a day can work such wonders for priests, it seems reasonable to think it could do the same for us as well, doesn’t it? Just tossing ideas out there.

OUTTAKES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 06:18:00 +0000

*Patrick Madrid’s “In Search Of The Great Apostasy”

**The Crescat has company.

STILL VOICES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:43:00 +0000

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Looking for something to do in between trick or treating and celebrating All Saints Day? Well, why not catch up on some Halloween reading? After all, this is the time of year all the big boys and girls blog about the same stuff we do here all year round. Best to take advantage of it while you can.

First up, Taylor Marshall from the Caterbury Tales offers up his Top Ten Suggestions to Have a Catholic Halloween. I couldn’t help but chuckle when he suggests refraining from passing out religious literature instead of candy. Methinks perhaps that Mr. Marshall once fell victim to those well meaning, but ultimately insane, Chick tracts just as I once did. You can be sure that happened to Fr. Joe from Southern Fried Catholicism, who while discussing the surprisingly holy origins of Halloween, recollects the popular ‘Judgment Houses” many protestant churches put up in the 90s. But you know, rather than ponder too long on what some nut jobs gave done the holiday, why not stop by The Crescat’s place and consider The Virtue of Halloween instead (it’s worth it just to see the homemade costume of KISS’ Paul Stanley she wore as a child). But whatever way you choose to approach Halloween bemoans Danielle Bean at Crisis Magazine, please don’t mommify it! “The Church doesn’t ignore pain, fear, evil, and death.” she notes, and neither should we.

Now as you might expect us to around these parts, we spend the evening watching scary movies. And we’re hardly the only ones. Even a non-horror fan like Red Cardigan from And Sometimes Tea manages to step out of her comfort zone during this time of year and surprisingly finds some enjoyment in The Walking Dead (at least the parts she keeps her eyes open during). It’s all enough to make Paul Jarzembowski from Spirtual Popcorn wonder just what can scary movies teach us? There’s something to them, that’s for sure. Take for instance Fr. Dennis Kriz, OSM, who on his personal blog manages to find some Marian Imagery in the Terminator, or the Curt Jester, who while musing on those bygone days before his conversion, questions to what extent his atheism led to his love of movies involving horror and supernaturalism.

Well, it’s time to carve some Jack O’ Lanterns and get the boy suited up for trick or treating, so I’ll be going now. If you still need some more reading material, The Happy Catholic has some good links of her own worth exploring this All Hallows Eve. Stay safe everyone, hope none of you get a Chick tract this year. Or any Mary Janes. Man I always hated getting a bag full of those when I was a kid.

HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN V

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:57:00 +0000

As long time readers know, it’s just wouldn’t be Halloween around here if we didn’t offer our yearly cheap and easy to make costume suggestions based on some of the movies we’ve discussed over the past twelve months. We do this to help out those folks who might feel that the fare found on store shelves is either too demonic to wear to their local Protestant fall festival, or too risqué to walk around in at their Catholic parish’s Halloween carnival. Of course, we realize that what is and is not considered risqué changes with the times. If you don’t want to take our word for it, just check out Business Insider’s history of slutty Halloween costumes (because nothing says business reporting like an article about slutty Halloween costumes).

Costumed cuties exposing their shoulders in 1930. Harlots.

Still, even with changing social mores, we think the costumes we have to offer this year will meet just about anyone’s minimum standards of decency. Not standards of good taste or intelligence, mind you, just decency.

First up, we have what has to be the infinite loop of Halloween costumes, SAM SMITH from ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES. In the movie, Sam was a master of disguise who was so good that he even managed to infiltrate the enemy camp by masquerading as a tomato. So, basically, if you choose this costume, you would be disguising yourself as a master of disguise disguised as a tomato. Got that? And all you would need is one of those Dept of Corrections orange trash bags, some leaves, and a pair of green leggings. And what better costume for Christians as we’re often called to take on many guises in order to get God’s work done on this world of ours? As St. Paul wrote in I Corinthians, “To the Jews I became like a Jew to win over Jews; to those under the law I became like one under the law—though I myself am not under the law—to win over those under the law. To those outside the law I became like one outside the law—though I am not outside God’s law but within the law of Christ—to win over those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, to win over the weak. I have become all things to all, to save at least some. All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it… So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved.”

If being a tomato just doesn’t grab you but you still like the costume within a costume idea, then how about giving PAUL as CTHULHU from THE LAST LOVECRAFT: RELIC OF CTHULHU a try. Just print out and laminate the head of H.P.’s most popular elder squid thingy, grab some old swimming pool noodles to use as tentacles, and you’re ready for trick or treating. The neat thing about Paul is that while he still lives in his mother’s basement, is totally useless in a fight, and probably smells like the dollar menu at McDonald’s, the two main characters in the movie can’t accomplish a thing without him because he’s the only one who took time to memorize Lovecraft’s works so he’d know what to do if Shoggoth showed up. Christians should keep that in mind. As Fr. John Hardon wrote, “The seed of God's revealed truth has been sown into our hearts at Baptism. But that was only the beginning. We must do everything in our power to grasp the meaning of what we believe. Otherwise the devil will come along and steal the faith from our hearts. There has never been a substitute for understanding our Christian religion. There is no substitute today. But now, this understanding is absolutely imperative. The world in which we live is hell-bent on stealing from our hearts what we believe. That is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church is such a providential Godsend.” The Catechism is free online. Read it.

You know, our first two costumes are fine for individuals, but since this is a Catholic site, we recognize the possibility that some of our readers might have a whole brood of younglings to deck out for Halloween. If that’s the case for you, then the CHILDREN OF THE CORN should be a no-brainer. And the best thing is, If your family dresses very conservatively, you may already have all the clothing you will need to outfit the little buggers. If not, no biggie, just go borrow some from the local Pentecostals. Then all you need to do is pick up a few ears of corn from the grocery store, hand the kids some old gardening tools, and you’re ready to go. Now to get the most enjoyment you can out of these costumes, be sure to find the nearest neighborhood where there’s a large concentration of new atheists and send your mob of kids marching down the middle of the street waving their corn and utensils about while yelling “Outsiders!!!” at the top of their lungs. Hey, this is what cowards like Richard Dawkins are telling everybody you’re training your kids to be like anyway, you may as well have some fun with it.

Speaking of being hated, we come finally to what may be the most horrifying costume we’ve ever suggested. Yes, it’s NUKIE from, what else, NUKIE. Now, to wear this costume you will have to go through the trouble of making a paper mache head that looks a bit like Yoda after he fell into a wood chipper. But after that, all you’ll need to do is go roll around in some mud (or if you’re brave, a septic tank) and you’re good to go, although for the full effect, you might want to rub some Vaseline under your nose so it looks like you have an unending nasal drip. Whatever options you choose, the end result is guaranteed to make you the most hated trick or treater on the block. There’s a good chance any home on whose door you knock will actually egg you. If that happens, just consider it good training for the Christian life. Remember, Jesus said that “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” So we weren’t exactly promised a life of endless yucks as followers of Christ. And if you know your Church history, people like Dawkins are nothing new. There will always be someone who hates us for our beliefs. But if we’ve had a true conversion in our hearts, and we bolster that faith with a continued study of the reasoning behind it, we can weather the hatred and be all of the things others need us to be as God deals with them. At last that’s how it works on our good days.

And that’s about it for this year. So everybody suit up, get out there, and have some fun. Happy Happy Halloween everyone!

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: NUKIE

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Nukie (1993)

A benevolent alien arrives in a sparcely populated African country to search for his brother who has been captured by a secret U.S. government agency. Two African boys help "Nukie" trek across Africa as U.S. government agents seek to head him off and prevent what they believe to be an extraterrestrial invasion.

12% want to see it

PG, 1 hr. 39 min.

Director: Sian Odendal, Sias Odendal

October 23, 2011: Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

When the weekly readings start off with the words “Thus says the LORD: You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt,” you can pretty much guess the subject matter of the movie I’ve got in store for you this week. But if you’re expecting Alien Nation or District 9, well, you just haven’t been reading this blog long enough. Oh no, I’ve got something much, much more painful in store. What I’ve got for you is Nukie… and it’s possible you may never forgive me for that.

Nukie is the touching story of two small aliens that kind of look like ET (if ET resembled a monkey sculpted from human excrement) who become stranded on Earth and struggle to reunite. This is problematic because Miko has been captured by the evil American Space Foundation (an organization I strongly suspect is modeled after NASA, mostly because every time they show these guys getting out of cars, the doors have the NASA logo stenciled on them), while Nukie gets stuck in the middle of nowhere Africa hiding from a bunch of ritual sacrifice practicing tribesman, a sympathetic nun (Glynis Johns, hoping nobody remembers her as the mother from Mary Poppins), and a ~~NASA~~ Space Foundation helicopter pilot (Steve Railsback, hoping somebody, anybody, will remember him as Charles Manson from Helter Skelter).

On the surface that might sound like a decent setup for an entertaining movie, but trust me, it’s not. For those foolhardy enough to watch it (go ahead, I dare you, it’s on YouTube), Nukie will hurt you. The pain starts right away as Miko is tortured by the ~~NASA~~ Space Foundation scientists while he continuously screeches out NUUUUUKIEEEEE!!! again and again and again and… you get the point. Anyway, simultaneously, Nukie is plodding all over Africa incessantly screeching out MIIIIIKOOOO!!! again and again and again and… all the while failing to wipe his constantly running nose, not even once. (I’m serious. Picture a walking turd with a sinus infection. That’s Nukie.) About all Nukie does manage to accomplish is to talk to some baboons (who talk back!), terrorize a local tribe by causing an earthquake, and spend way too much screen time calling out for the ground to swallow him up and end his miserable lonely existence (which, at one point, it does). It’s all made completely unbearable by the fact that five minutes into the film, you realize absolutely nothing that happens during the course of the movie is necessary because the aliens have the power to turn into balls of energy and fly off into space anytime they want to. But apparently that slipped their minds until the very end of the movie, because neither alien ever does it. Instead, Nukie just teleports around the jungle until the natives reject Christianity (no, really) while Miko uses his powers to escape his prison cell, only to sit in the very next room teaching the ~~NASA~~ Space Foundation mainframe how to have feelings. I suppose it just goes to show that if you’re going to assume the physical form of feces, you’re likely to end up with s@#% for brains.

To make matters even worse (if that’s possible by this point), Nukie leaves you with the distinct impression that it’s trying really hard to say something serious about the United States. I don’t know quite what, but… something. You see, all Nukie knows about Miko’s location is that he is being held captive by America, whom both Nukie and the two tribal children he has befriended mistakenly believe to be an individual person. So basically Nukie spends the length of the film looking for this guy America so he can find out why he’s treating everyone so badly. It all leads to a really bizarre scene near the end of the film where we see Nukie writhing around on the ground after being riddled with harpoons from a spear gun and one of the children curled up dying from a snake bite (wow, they just don’t make kids movies like they used to). Faced with all this carnage, the remaining child shakes his fists at the sky and bellows out, “America! AMERRRRICA! Help us!” (It’s true. May I be struck with leprosy if I’m making this stuff up.)

Look, I’m not even gonna pretend to know what the South African filmmakers had in mind with all this. Is it anti-American? Pro-American? Do they even know where America is? Whatever the specifics, the broad insinuation appears to be that we Americans don’t treat those from outside our country as best as we could, not even when they literally land right on our doorsteps. Now, how much truth there is in that criticism is arguable, but in general, Christians should view any degree of antagonism towards “aliens” as a thing to be avoided. The Catechism explains that “The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him. Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.”

Like with many areas involving Catholic social teaching, what the Catechism does here is lay out a guiding philosophy for immigration issues, but leaves the specific methodology of carrying it out to our individual consciences. We can legitimately support or oppose various legislations, even taking an opposite side of the argument from the guy sitting next to us in the pew, as long as our solution adheres to the general ethical guidelines regarding the fundamental rights of the human person and charity towards strangers. For instance, the USCCB is currently throwing its weight behind the DREAM act legislation and makes their case for supporting it at this site. And since the bishops do represent the teaching authority of the Church, it’s not a bad idea to check out what they have to say about the issue. But since the DREAM act is a specific legislation, individual Catholics can still oppose it in good conscience as long as they are doing so for the consideration of the “common good for which they are responsible” and not just out of fear or hatred for the “aliens” it is meant to benefit.

So, which way should you feel about something like the DREAM act? HA! Like you’re really gonna get an answer here. Immigration is one of those issues that requires a lot of thought, and God (no matter what the current crop of uninformed atheists would have us believe) expects us to put the big brains He gave us to the task. Always keeping the guidelines above in the forefront, consider the issue, pray about it, and make up your mind.

As for Nukie though, just take my word for it and avoid the wretched thing. It’s just what Nukie looks like, a big heaping pile of crap.

THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #9 – WILLIAM SHATNER PERFORMS BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:46:00 +0000

Because some site is bound to inflict this on you anyway, it may as well be here in our dark little corner of the blogosphere where it belongs…

Well, at least now we know what happens when geeks drop acid. I know that picking just one weird thing out of this freak show seems futile, but there is one extra confusing moment in the video for me. At about the 3:40 mark, the correct lyric should read “Bismillah!”, but the onscreen subtitles declare “It’s my law!” Why?

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, but it’s what I had on short notice), “Basmala, or Bismillah, is an Arabic noun used as a collective name for the whole of the recurring Islamic phrase bismillahi r-rahmani r-rahimi. It is sometimes translated as ‘In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful’. This phrase is recited before each sura, except for the ninth; according to others it constitutes the first verse of 113 suras/chapters of the Qur'an, and is used in a number of contexts by Muslims. It is recited several times as part of daily prayers, and is usually the first phrase in the preamble of the constitutions of Islamic countries. It also forms the start of many dedication inscriptions on gravestones, buildings, and works of art, which go on to name the deceased or the donor.”

So, considering Bismallah is a Muslim exclamation, were the lyrics changed so as not to offend Muslims? Doubtful. I sure don’t remember anyone declaring a fatwa on Freddie Mercury when he first sang the song all those years ago. So it could just be that Shatner’s getting old and couldn’t understand the words Queen was singing in the first place. Or maybe (and this is a long shot) the Jewish Shatner is uncomfortable using a Muslim term. Now, I doubt that’s the case, but wouldn’t it be something if it were? After all, people can get a little wonky when you start bringing religions together.

If you want to experience just how wonky, try reading paragraph 841 of the Catechism to one of your more stringent evangelical friends. That’s the passage which says, “The Church's relationship with the Muslims: ‘The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.’ Now I can’t tell you how many protestant websites there are which takes this paragraph as proof, PROOF I TELL YOU, that Catholics are not Christians. Because after all, Muslims worship God (Allah) but don’t recognize the trinity, so if the Church teaches that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God, then Catholics must worship God (Allah) and not recognize the trinity, so Catholics must not worship the same God as other Christians, ergo Catholics are not Christians. And they put this kind of stuff on their websites with a straight face.

Sigh. Sometimes, there’s just nothing so dangerous as a Christian with a highlighter. Paragraph 841 of the Catechism by itself does read a little iffy when taken by itself. But if you keep reading, paragraphs 846 and 847 not only leave little doubt where the Church stands on Jesus, but puts paragraph 841 in its proper context. "All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is His Body....They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." So you see, paragraph 841 is NOT ecumenism gone wild. By itself it just recognizes that Islam (not without errors) stems from the same Abrahamic tradition that the Church herself does. And when combined with the surrounding paragraphs, it hints at the way God may save folks who are not “fully incorporated into the society of the Church” because they never knew “that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary".

All this whole section of the Catechism basically does is recognize that since Islam helps foster a belief in one God, Muslims who are truly and innocently ignorant of Christ (another post for another time) can still be saved by the singular grace of God. This whole notion of “baptism of desire” goes all the way back to the Bible. It’s what St. Paul was getting at when he stood up at Areopagus in Acts 17 and said, “You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.” So really, if you’ve got a problem with paragraph 841 of the Catechism, you’ve got a problem with the teachings of the apostles. All I can say to that is put down the highlighter and back away from it. Everyone will be better off in the end.

Now, with that cleared up… can anyone please tell me what’s going on in this Shatner video? Please?

STILL VOICES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:41:00 +0000

OH, THE HORROR

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:54:00 +0000

Is everybody else as excited as I am? Tonight’s the night! It’s the return of everybody’s favorite primetime gut munching zombie show… THE WALKEN DEAD!

What? Oh. It’s The Walking Dead? Well, that’s pretty good, too, even if it could use more cowbell.

Man, we love October around here. It’s that time of the year when we hardly have to crank up the DVD player because all the channels are so jam packed with horror and sci-fi goodies. It’s also the time of year somebody has to remind the world that not only can Christians watch a lot of this stuff (a lot, not all), but that we might just have a better grasp of the subject material. This year it’s author Brian Godawa who’s taking a shot at it over at Speculative Faith with his series of post on An Apologetic Of Horror. Take a peak if you have the time. After the show, of course.

INTERMISSION

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of content, folks. A couple of nights ago my wife’s step-father passed away, so while she helps her mother with arrangements, I’ll be doing double duty here at home. Prayers for Jack’s eternal rest would be gratefully appreciated even though, in all honesty, he was hardly the kind of person who would have accepted the validity of such things while he was alive. Like so many others, Jack renounced any belief in God decades ago after watching his first wife lose an an agonizing battle with lung cancer. He just refused to accept that a God could exist who would allow such suffering in the world. There are many valid theological reasons for why life is this way of course, but as those who have experienced such events knows, that knowledge alone can often be of little comfort. Jack, unfortunately, was one of those who could never overcome the bitterness of his loss to ever consider the possibility of such reasons, much less accept the peace of God awaiting those who’ve had to go through such things.

As so often happens, the lack of faith of the deceased has resulted in a kind of pallor settling over everything. Now I don’t mean to paint with a broad brush as I’m sure there are peaceful, even joyous, atheist funerals out there somewhere. But I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen one personally. That being said, however, I know this much. I believe in a God who died on a cross, crying out in despair at His own overwhelming feelings of forsaken abandonment. That’s a God who knows intimately what Jack was going through those many years ago when his fist wife died. And as He’s a God of infinite mercy, I can have the hope that He’ll take that into account when Jack stands before him. And because of that, I absolutely do pray for Jack, no matter that he would have scoffed at such a thing. And if you’ve read this far and have got the time, would you mind sending one his way yourself. God bless.

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:48:00 +0000

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)

One of the first films ever to be designed specifically to become a cult movie, this silly low-budget comedy has tomatoes growing to giant size and terrorizing screaming '70s types. It's really bad on purpose, with awful effects and a dumb script, in hopes of luring fans of campy old movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space. There's a fun Jaws parody as the tomatoes attack a swimmer and a cute bit involving a military meeting in a small office with a very large table, but overall it fails to generate many laughs. The problem is that the films which this one attempts to mock -- mainly bad 1950s sci-fi pictures -- have a cult following because they are funny unintentionally, and are beloved for reasons which this somewhat cynical effort completely misses. It has its moments, granted, but it just tries too hard. – Rovi

38% liked it

PG, 1 hr. 27 min.

Director: John De Bello

October 2, 2011: Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

So, after 4 1/2 years of trudging through bad movies, we’re finally getting around to Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Really, you have to wonder what took so long. After all, this may not be the kind of movie which appeals to the more serious (too serious?) movie reviewers such as the one above from Rovi, but Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes is tailor made for sites like this. I mean, c’mon, any movie that has a couple of old, obviously unprofessional, actors sitting on a sofa deadpanning dialog like…

Jess: "Look at the giant tomato, Martha."
Martha: "I didn't know they grow'd them so big, Jess."
Jess: "I wonder where he's going. (pause) He got little Timmy."
Martha: "Poor Timmy."
Jess: "He et him all up."

…is more than welcome around here.

And it’s not just the horrible line readings that make Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes so endearing to bad movie fans like myself. There’s goofy characters like the master of disguise who successfully infiltrates enemy territory by dressing as a tomato (only to blow his cover by asking for some ketchup). There’s musical numbers with all the quality of a grade school play such as the mind numbingly bad pop opus "Puberty Love" (sung, if you want to call it that, by Matt Cameron, future drummer for Soundgarden and Pearl Jam). There’s the telltale signs of guerilla filmmaking such as the scene in which the film crew inadvertently crashed their rented helicopter and rewrote the script to include the accident because, on their budget, who could afford to waste a good disaster (no one was injured, but watch the actors playing the policemen in the foreground realize what’s happening and begin to freak out). And the whole shebang ends with a free for all tomato stomping bonanza that includes most of the cast and crew, some guys dressed like the Marx Brothers, a whole gaggle of kids fresh off the street, and inexplicably, the San Diego Chicken.

Now, if all that’s not enough to convince you that there’s no way to take a movie like this as a serious piece of work (much less review it as such), then just remember… it’s about a bunch of tomatoes… who kill people. Of course the movie is bad. Who cares if they made it that way on purpose, or just pretended they did after the fact. It’s about killer fruit. Who in their right mind would take a story about a bunch of tomatoes seriously? Now, grapes, that’s a different matter altogether. If the story had been about grapes, then we might have something serious on our hands. Grapes can be real trouble.

I sense there may be some doubt. Well, if that’s the case, perhaps you should take a peek at this week’s first reading if you need a little more convincing. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah tells us about his friend who owned a vineyard. “He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes.” Wild grapes! Everybody run for the hills! I’m telling you, Isaiah is one of the big names in the Bible, and if he’s worried about wild grapes, then the rest of us should be as well. I’m serious, we should all…

Huh? What’s that? Pope Benedict XVI had a slightly different take on this passage? Well, let’s see what he had to say. "[This story] speaks above all of the goodness of God's creation and of the greatness of the election with which he seeks and loves us. But it also speaks about the history that occurred later, man's failure. God had planted choice vines and yet they yielded wild grapes. What are the wild grapes? The good grapes that God expected, says the prophet, would have consisted in justice and uprightness. Wild grapes on the contrary are violence, the shedding of blood and oppression, which make people groan under the yoke of injustice… what appears first of all is the accusation of the violation of social justice, contempt for man by man. Deep down, however, one sees that with contempt for the Torah, for the law given by God, there is contempt for God himself; there is only a desire to enjoy power itself… We want to be the sole owners in the first person. We want to possess the world and our own life in an unlimited manner. God annoys us or we make of him a simple devout phrase or deny him altogether, eradicating him from public life, so that in this way he no longer has any meaning at all. Tolerance that only admits God as a private opinion, but that denies him the public domain, the reality of the world and of our life, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. Whenever man becomes the only owner of the world and proprietor of himself there can be no justice.”

So, um, apparently that whole wild grapes thing is a metaphor for mankind’s tendency to reject God’s plan and try to run the world all by themselves? Well, as the Pope points out, that always ends up in a disaster. Much, much worse than killer fruit. Seriously.

THINGS TO COME: THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 02:51:00 +0000

With movies like Warrior and Machine Gun Preacher hogging all the attention around the Christian blogosphere right now, it would be easy to overlook some of the really low budget religious themed offerings popping up on the festival circuits right now. For instance, there’s Kevin Smith’s Red State which, truth be told, just sounds too stupid to even talk about. But there’s also Todd Rohal's The Catechism Cataclysm, which creeps into limited release on October 19th and VOD one week later. I have to admit, the title sounds promising, but with a theme song entitled “GOD WILL F*** YOU UP”, I’ve got my doubts.

Basically, The Catechism Cataclysm tells the tale of the world’s most infantile priest who, after being forcefully sent on leave, tracks down the loser he used to idolize in high school and convinces him to go on a canoe trip. Buddy comedy mayhem ensues for awhile until two Japanese girls named Tom and Huck show up with their mute pal Jim and things start to go really, really weird.

Look, I like priest comedies as much as the next Catholic. Even some of the ones that are purposely antagonistic towards my religion, like Father Ted, can have some funny moments. So I don’t want to dismiss this movie right away. But when you’ve got folks like Steven Rea from the Philadelphia Inquirer saying things like “It seems hopelessly without a point - unless the point has something to do with dropping a Bible into a dirty toilet.” and Leslie Stonebraker of the New York Press musing that “rather than use this premise as a set up for bible satire, the film relies on diarrhea jokes and uninspired buddy-bonding to carry us through an ill-plotted tale of damnation and redemption” then, well… let’s just say I’m not optimistic. Oh well, at least Bless Me Father is streaming on Netflix.

STILL VOICES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 04:15:00 +0000

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE LAST LOVECRAFT: RELIC OF CTHULHU

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:41:00 +0000

The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (2011)

Jeff is an ordinary guy that is stuck at a dead end job with a boring life, but when a strange old man gives him an Ancient relic and tells him that he is the last bloodline of H.P. Lovecraft, He and his friend Charlie embark on an adventure to protect the relic piece from falling into the hands of the Starspawn and his minions that wish to reunite the relic and release Cthulhu back into the world.

54% want to see it

Unrated

Director: Henry Saine

September 18, 2011: Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

What with flicks like The Dunwich Horror and Dagon, we’re certainly no strangers to Lovecraft inspired movies here at the B-Movie Catechism. But Lovecraft inspired comedies? Yeah, not so much. I suppose that’s because tales of near omnipotent cosmic aliens whose very existence causes madness and mutations in those who perceive them just doesn’t seem like the kind of material designed to induce belly laughs. But you know what, The Last Lovecraft manages to pull it off for the most part. It does so, like a number of recent movies, by taking the template of Sean of the Dead and replacing certain superficial elements while keeping the overall tone. So, instead of Sean’s circle of underachieving working class Londoners, Last Lovecraft gives you a handful of underachieving aging comic book fanboys. And instead of zombies, you get fishmen. Gooey fishmen. Suckered fishmen. Hapless half-breed gill-slitted fishmen. Lots and lots of fishmen.

Now, it’s true that The Last Lovecraft never quite generates the same level of emotional investment in the characters that Sean of the Dead does, but the humor mostly makes up for it. If you’re at all familiar with H. P.’s mythos, then you’ll probably find plenty to smile about. There’s the cliff notes style animated history of the elder gods versus the dinosaurs, the sequence in which the boys train to battle Cthulhu using swimming pool noodles as tentacles, and, of course, the reclusive Captain Olaf, who lives in an RV in the middle of the desert (because there’s no water around) and beguiles strangers with his charming tales of “whole heapings of fish rape”. But even if you’re not up to speed on the entire Lovecraft library, you can still laugh at the all too real stuff such as the portly comic book freak in his XXL “my other pet is a shoggoth” t-shirt who tries to flee from the fishmen only to run out of breath after about 20 yards.

Okay, so that last one sounds a little mean, but it’s all in self-deprecating fun. The movie actually lovingly plays up to the fantasy of every comic book geek in the world… the chance to defeat a great evil and save the world. In that aspect, the movie leans more towards August Derleth’s interpretation of the Cthulhu mythos than it does to H. P. Lovecraft’s original vision, at least according to the various works cited on the Cthulhu Wiki. “Common themes in Lovecraft's fiction are the insignificance of humanity in the universe and the search for knowledge ending in disaster. Humans are often subject to powerful beings and other cosmic forces, but these forces are not so much malevolent as they are indifferent toward humanity. Lovecraft called this viewpoint Cosmicism, a doctrine which holds that humankind's religious beliefs are a mere conceit and that ultimately humanity is alone and defenseless in an uncaring universe.” In contrast, “Derleth had his own take on the mythos and tried to make it conform to his own Catholic values and dualism. Instead of a universe of meaninglessness and chaos, Derleth's mythos is a struggle of good versus evil… Derleth further distorted Lovecraft's vision by concocting a parallel to the Christian narrative of Satan warring against Heaven, pairing the devils of Lovecraft's mythos (the Old Ones) against a race of benevolent Elder Gods with humanity's fate hanging in the balance.”

Well, whether Mr. Derleth distorted or (gasp) improved on Lovecraft’s Yog-Sothothism is an argument I’ll leave to the frothing fanboys, but the comparing and contrasting of the two approaches is telling in some respects. You see, a lot of the horror in Lovecraft hinges on the sheer alien nature of the old ones and the inability of the human mind to comprehend them. What you don’t understand will drive you mad. But things don’t quite work that way when you overlay Christianity on top of it all. And it’s not because religion offers answers to everything. You see, while the Catechism makes it explicitly clear that God “calls man to seek him, to know him”, this week’s first reading reminds us that our knowledge of God has its limits. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” In a certain sense, excepting what small portion of Himself He’s reveals through Christ and The Holy Spirit, the eternally omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, Christian God who exists both inside and outside of time and space is just as ungraspable and alien to the human mind as any fictional elder god poor old Lovecraft’s fevered little brain could ever cook up.

The difference is that while Cthulhu and his pals, consistent with Lovecraft’s real life atheistic worldview, couldn’t give a rat’s ass about humanity and see us only in utilitarian terms, the vast unimaginable creative force behind the universe that is God knows each and every one of us individually. And while that’s scary in its own right, especially if you’re up to something He doesn’t like, it’s also comforting because, as this week’s responsorial Psalm points out, “The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works. The Lord is near to all who call upon him.” So go ahead and keep searching for God, keep trying to grasp what little of himself He has revealed to us, even if there’s no way in this life you’ll comprehend but a fraction of it all. Trust me, the amount of peace and love you’ll find in that little bit is more than enough to bring about a continuous tentacle-free transformation in your life. Really, given the benefits, the only madness in searching for God is not searching at all.

THEY’RE BAAAAACK!

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:52:00 +0000

It’s time again for the annual Catholic Cannonball Awards (or as we like to call them around here, the no-chance-in-hell-of-winning awards) over at the Crescat. Looks like this year we’ve been nominated for Best Under Appreciated Blog (not true, but thanks anyway) and Best Bat Shit Crazy Blog (not sure about the best, but I concede the rest). Hop on over if you have the time and vote for someone. Oh, I think you can vote daily, so be sure to visit more than once and spread some love around.

STILL VOICES

noreply@blogger.com (EegahInc) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:44:00 +0000

This one’s in honor of yesterday’s release of… Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace. Seriously, it’s great, you should watch it immediately. And it absolutely won’t tick you off like some high priced super fantastical special edition Blu-Rays I can think of.