PULP CATHOLICISM #022

PODCAST 53: Monsters & The Burning

This week Forest shares his thoughts on a hidden Netflix gem, Monsters, while Cory reviews the early '80s slasher film The Burning.

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STILL VOICES #022

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

The most expensive zombie movie ever made AND a film about monsters going to college? Oh yeah, it was my kind of weekend. You can find out what I thought of World War Z and Monsters University over at Aleteia.

For whatever reason, despite it’s $200 million budget and the presence of two time sexiest man alive Brad Pitt, not a lot of Catholic reviewers out there seem to have gone to see World War Z. Or maybe they just don’t want to admit it. Monsters University, on the other hand (or claw, as the case may be), has a lot of fans. Among them are Catholic Skywalker, who also enjoyed it, and Jeffrey Overstreet, who takes the time to respond to Timothy Wainwright’s questionable concerns at Christianity Today that Monsters University may be dangerous for children to watch because monsters should be portrayed as evil, not lovable.

Meanwhile, over at Crisis Magazine, Sean Fitzpatrick appears to still be chaffing over last week’s release of Man Of Steel (which I still maintain is a good film), so much so that it’s caused him to take a critical look at the modern mythology of movie heroes. In a similar vein, Barbara Nicolosi, another non-fan of the latest Superman movie (I’m starting to feel lonely out here), has some ideas about why we don’t care about certain characters in modern movies.

If all that negative talk about what’s playing at the local cinema has you discouraged about the idea of plunking down money at the ticket booth, maybe you could rent something instead. That’s what the Happy Catholic did recently to somewhat pleasant results. She’s seems particularly taken, as have been so many others, with binge watching Doctor Who. I’m curious to see if she has the same reaction LarryD did once she reaches the later episodes where the gay marriage propaganda kicks in. After Larry had the audacity to express his displeasure at that development, some of the shows fans chimed in with some less than charitable comments.

You know what would be a good antidote to all that negativity, a short movie about seeking vocations made by nuns. And what do you know, The Daughters of St. Paul just happen to be trying to make one with a little help from SpiritJuice Studios. There’s still a few days to make a contribution over at indiegogo if you’d like.

And with that, we’ll leave you till next time. Happy reading.

More New June Titles (2013)

A few more noteworthy titles that showed up on Instant this month:

Chasing Ice (2012)

A sobering, provocative documentary that follows nature photographer James Balog's on-camera quest to document how unnervingly fast the world's glaciers are melting and what this implies for the planet's future. Not simply an environmentalist polemic trumpeting the latest global-warming theories to mollify the already converted, Chasing Ice is an adventure story and travelogue about one man challenged by the elements, his own hardheaded determination, and the breakdown of his increasingly fragile body while seeking empirical evidence for what many of us already suspected but which until now had never been witnessed. The time-lapse images of enormous glaciers receding and shrinking into muddy splotches are horrifying and heartbreaking, but also beautiful and miraculous, especially once you've seen the struggle it took to achieve them. Balog's art and sacrifice may have worn him down physically�like one of his own compromised ice floes�but with any luck enough people will see his amazing work and be inspired to act. Or at the very least question their views. The evidence is here. All you have to do is look.

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PULP CATHOLICISM #021

PODCAST 52: Birdemic: Shock & Terror [Anniversary Edition]

This week the gang celebrate their first year of podcasting with a "film" they recently watched during their first ever Netflix Movie Night. It's the "so bad it just might be good" stinker starring Tippi Hedren, Birdemic: Shock & Terror.

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NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU: THE UP-UP-AND AWAY EDITION

Gee, I wonder what I reviewed for Aleteia this week? Probably some small independent drama about transsexual Muslim immigrants trying to run a health food store in the deep south, right? Sorry, I’m afraid not, although the movie I saw did have an immigrant in it. Yes, like half the country, I took in Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel, the latest interpretation of that hero of heroes, Superman. The short review, I really, really liked it.

Which puts me in the minority as far as critics are concerned. As of this writing, Man of Steel has an 8.3 rating on IMDB, but only around 55% at both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. That means general audiences loved it, while most critics loathed it, including Steven D. Greydanus, who is the big kid on the block right now when it comes to Catholic film reviewers. You can read his scathing review here where he lays out his case. Needless to say I disagree with a lot (though not all) of what he says. More in line with my thoughts was Rebecca Cusey at Tinsel, who found Snyder’s Man Of Steel to be just the right hero for today’s moviegoers.

Oh well, you can’t please everybody. And even if you don’t like a film, there’s always the fun of discussing how you would make it better. In preparation for Man Of Steel, CatholicSkywalker decided to take a look back at one of the biggest wince inducing moments in cinema, Superman IV The Quest For Piece, and give fixing it the old college try. For what it’s worth, Superman IV received a Metacritic rating of 22%, so at least Man Of Steel is viewed more fondly by critics than that disaster was.

Still, positive or negative, one thing all reviewers seem to agree on about Man Of Steel is the inescapable religious references that accompany any Superman story. Before Man Of Steel even came out, Peter T. Chattaway at FilmChat was discussing the inevitable comparisons between Kal-El and Jesus. For Snyder’s take on the character, however, the allusions aren’t just there under the surface, they’re quite purposefully front and center. Seeing a potential buck to be made from the crowds who poured into films like The Passion Of The Christ and Facing The Giants, it appears Warner Bros is actively marketing the film to preachers around the country. I wonder if Supes will make any appearances in homilies this weekend? Let me know if you hear any.

And let me know what you thought of the film if you saw it. Given the subjective nature of film reviewing, I could always be wrong.

But I’m not this time.

I Like Coppola in June, How About You?

A number of new and notable titles snuck onto Instant this month. Among those are a handful of films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, an important filmmaker by any standard and one who obviously needs no introduction. What makes these titles worth noting is that they join Tucker (also reviewed) and The Conversation to form a solid collection of the director's least heralded, but most interesting, work. The one exception is the indispensable Apocalypse Now (1979), second only to The Godfathers I and II in the director's ouevre and arguably the greatest war film ever made--even if calling it merely a war film fails to account for its greatness as a film, period. There's simply no movie that better depicts the darker corners of man's soul, particularly as filtered through the psychedelic fog that permeated the conflict in Vietnam. With its basis in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the film elegantly channels a literary sensibility into one that's uniquely cinematic, creating a dramatic and powerful journey upriver that's as much existential meditation as war drama.

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PULP CATHOLICISM #020

PODCAST 51: Carnosaur 3 & The Dinosaur Project [Dino Edition]

This week Forest continues & completes his Carnosaur retrospective with Carnosaur 3. Cory partakes in the dino-fun with The Dinosaur Project.

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TINSELTOWN TESTAMENTS

PSALMS 139: 13, 14a

Douay-Rheims Version: “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast protected me from my mother's womb. I will praise thee, for thou art fearfully magnified: wonderful are thy works.”

Revised Standard Version: “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works!”

New American Bible: “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works!”

Raising Arizona: “These were the happy days, the salad days as they say, and Ed felt that having a critter was the next logical step. It was all she thought about. Her point was that there was too much love and beauty for just the two of us and every day we kept a child out of the world was a day he might later regret having missed.”

THE B-LIST: 8 MEMORABLE MASKS FROM HORROR MOVIES

For Aleteia this week, I reviewed The Purge, a potentially nice little siege movie that quickly became weighted down by an over-bloated sense of self-importance. Still, the idea that the government would legalize all crime for a 12 hour period once a year was an interesting, if ultimately unworkable, one. Now if you’ve seen the ads for The Purge, you probably couldn’t help but notice this imagery:

Yep, it seems like many of those who take part in The Purge have chosen to adopt the age old custom of donning a mask while stalking their victims. As soon as the masquerading murderers made their appearance, I couldn’t help but give a quick thought to some of the more memorable masked killers who preceded them. Now everybody knows the biggies, guys like Jason Voorhies, Michael Myers, and Ghostface. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find plenty of fearsome facades to give you the creeps.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

Thanks to the popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical and it’s instantly recognizable visuals, most people forget about the granddaddy of all mask wearing movie maniacs, Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera. Yes, what was underneath was worse than the disguise itself, but the mask is still a weird bit of imagery and an obvious ancestor of the disguises worn in movies like The Strangers and The Purge.

ALICE SWEET ALICE

Another branch in The Purge’s family tree would have to be the bizarre little girl mask worn by the killer from Alice Sweet Alice, the feature film debut of Brooke Shields and the only movie I can think of (thankfully) to feature the murder of a priest during communion. Obviously not the most Catholic friendly movie around.

MOTEL HELL

If you thought Saw invented the disturbing pig head mask, think again. Everybody’s favorite cannibalistic siblings, Farmer Vincent and his sister Ida, were hamming it up decades before JIgsaw carved his way into cinemas.

CURTAINS

I’m pretty sure there’s an entire generation of HBO viewers out there who were given the heebie jeebies by The Hag after catching Curtains on one of its many late night airings. Simple, but effective.

NIGHTBREED

While all the supposed monsters in Nightbreed were hanging out underneath the cemetery, the real one was creeping around the suburbs in this freakish little get-up. I have to say, this mask completely ruined the animated feature “9” for me, because I kept expecting at any moment for one of the little ragdoll people to whip out a blade and gut someone.

DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW

Probably one of the most fondly remembered made-for-television horror movies ever made. The man behind the scarecrow mask was more avenging angel than psycho killer, but that didn’t make his appearnce any less eerie.

TERROR TRAIN

A Groucho masked serial killer? You bet your life! Maybe not the scariest disguise on the list, but certainly memorable. Just ask Jamie Lee Curtis, who had to try and hide from this guy while stuck on a moving train. The secret word for such situations? HELP!

DONNIE DARKO

Okay, so Frank The Bunny wasn’t actually a killer himself, but he did his best to convince Donnie to become one, so that has to count for something. Plus, that mask is just creepy.

I could keep going, but that should be plenty to give faces to your bad dreams for awhile. Maybe we’ll do a sequel to this post when the inevitable Purge 2 comes out.

Now some folks who watched The Purge have questioned why its participants would bother to wear masks in the first place since the law as outlined in the movie plainly states that no crime committed during the 12 hours of the national cleansing will be prosecuted. Why wear a disguise to hide one’s identity when it doesn’t matter if someone knows who you are? Part of it, of course, is the creep factor. Killers wear masks in horror movies to scare people. But trying to view The Purge through the lens of the real world, there could be another possible reason for adopting a disguise while out killing your fellow man, legally or not.

According to Elena Bezzubova, M.D., Ph.D. in an article for Psychology Today, masks “appear to be parts of the broad depersonalization spectrum - a continuum of changed identities. Depersonalization presents elements of ‘a dialogue with what feels like my mask.’ The self looks at the self, as if an outside other. ‘I feel as if all I do is not my real actions but just a masquerade.’ ‘I know that my face looks as it looks all the time. But it feels to me like a mask.’ Masquerade comes as a safe opportunity to play with different sides of one's own identity.”

If we take what Dr. Bezzubova postulates as the truth, then that may point to a reason The Purgers, as well as some other masked killers in the movies, might choose to wear a disguise even when they don’t have to. It depersonalizes the experience. It allows them to say to themselves, “That other creature committed those horrible acts, not me. That monster was just someone I put on for an evening.” And maybe that’s what makes masked killers a bit more frightening in movies, because the victims (and we viewers as well) can sense the disconnect from humanity the killers experience once they don their disguise. Masks offer less opportunity for empathy or mercy.

That’s why, even in circumstances completely opposite to such things as murder, like say moments of charity, the Church suggests we follow the example of Jesus and keep as little as possible between ourselves and the recipients of our actions. In a Christmas radio message entitled The Depersonalization of Man, Pope Pius XII had this to say of our Lord. “He was happy in bending compassionately over the wounds of humanity and the tattered rags of poverty. He was not satisfied with proclaiming the law of justice and charity, nor with condemning with withering anathemas the hardhearted, the inhuman, the selfish; nor with the warning that the final sentence of the Last Day will have as the norm of its judgment the exercise of charity as the proof of the love of God. But He spent Himself personally in order to help, to heal, to feed. Certainly he did not ask whether, and to what extent, the misfortune before Him happened because the political and economic order of His time was defective or lacking. He was not indifferent to that. On the contrary, He is the Lord of the world and its order. But just as His action as Savior was personal, so He wished to meet life’s other misfortunes with a love that was personal.”

This isn’t to say one should never provide charity through third party organizations. That would be silly and impractical in today’s world. But when the opportunity arrives to do something personally, we should take advantage of it before passing it on to someone else. Even a good thing like charity can become an impersonal mask if we’re not careful.

GIVEAWAY: The Purge - In Theaters Now

Universal Pictures and the New Founders of America have asked us to help celebrate this years Purge by making a quiz available below to all of Slaughter Film's wonderful minions. Test your knowledge to see whether or not you have what it takes to survive The Purge.

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PULP CATHOLICISM #019

PODCAST 50: Carnosaur 2 & Hostel

This week Forest continues his Carnosaur retrospective as he shares his thoughts on Carnosaur 2. Cory goes in a different direction, kicking off the summer travel season with Hostel.

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THINGS TO COME: ANTI-CHRISTIAN FILM FESTIVAL

With all the real (and often deadly) persecution of Christians going on in places like Asia and the Middle east right now, it seems almost trivial to complain about a bynch of stupid movies mocking my religion. But, you know, there sure seems to be a lot of them coming out soon.

The easiest to stomach is probably going to be This Is The End in which a number of fairly well known actors play themselves attending a party at James Franco’s house at the exact moment the biblical apocalypse breaks out.

You know, I might end up seeing this one eventually. It’s kind of hard to resist the idea of watching all these hipster-generation comedians get knocked off in horrible ways. Did you notice, though, just how many Jewish comedians they crammed into this movie? Is that why Seth Rogen thinks he and his pals aren’t going to make the cut during the end times, or is it just that they’ve been up to something naughty in between movies we don’t know about? Whatever the reason, I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell him that most Christians don’t believe in all that pre-tribulational rapture business anyway? Probably not. Thanks to all those televangelists who littered the airwaves throughout the 80s and 90s, most of the religious illiterates out there are still under the illusion that all Christians sleep with a copy of Left Behind underneath their pillow. That’s probably the reason we’re soon to be subjected to the ignorance that is… Rapture-Palooza.

Yes, you saw right, Craig Robinson is in both of those films. I guess he’s trying to carve out his own little niche as the go-to person for bad tribulation movies. Or dig his career an early grave, take your pick. Like most of the country, I think I’ll be skipping Rapture-Palooza. Jokes about my religion I can take, but only if they’re funny. And nothing about Rapture-Palooza looks funny.

Or course, if you’d prefer a movie that avoids jokes altogether and just have your religion lambasted in a dead serious manner, there’s always the upcoming release of The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh.

I’ve gotta say, visually, this film looks pretty good, and there’s nothing blatantly anti-religious in the trailer. However, in a piece about the film on NPR, the movie’s writer/director Rodrigo Gudiño (the editor of Rue Morgue Magazine in his directorial debut) had a few choice things to say about Catholicism.

VOICEOVER: As Leon confronts his childhood fears, he never turns to religion or faith for guidance. He looks to reason and science. So the film becomes an atheist's take on Catholic horror.

GUDINO: The protagonist is someone who has rejected the religion of his mother, and has done so as a Western rationalist. And in fact, that's really the only way he could come to terms with some of those things, unless he was going to admit that maybe his mother was right.

VOICEOVER: In Rodrigo Gudino's film, it's not the devil that's scary.

RODRIGO GUDINO: I wanted to get away from that, present a religious horror film where the religious horror is religion itself.

In subsequent interviews, Gudino has backtracked a little on these comments, stating that the problem isn’t necessarily religion but rather its misuse. I guess we’ll see which viewpoint holds sway once the film comes out and we get a look at it. Of course, either way, nothing will change NPR’s snide (and demonstrably false) assumption that turning to faith means turning away from reason. But that’s the narrative these days, isn’t it, especially if you’re to believe the premise behind the upcoming documentary, The Unbelievers.

Dawkins. Hasn’t this guy damaged the credibility of atheists enough? Still, from the looks of the documentary, he’s apparently still something of a rock star amongst New Atheists. I mean, look at some of the names he pulled in for this thing.

Quite the (snicker) brain trust, isn’t it? I mean, Hawking is a great scientist (if lousy philosopher) and Penn Jillette has always come across as pretty intelligent and fair in his criticisms (and occasional defense) of religion, but the rest? Yes, please, have Sarah Silverman and Cameron Diaz explain to me the fallacies of my faith. I can hardly wait for what will surely be a fount of reason!

Why bother paying attention to all this rubbish? Well, if you buy into the notion that trends in movies are a reflection of prevailing social attitudes, then you have to question what it means when there’s such a hefty slate of anti-Christian films on the horizon. Admittedly, half of them are played for laughs, and ridicule isn’t quite the same as persecution, but still. With such overt antagonism towards Christianity becoming increasingly socially acceptable (and perhaps even worse, marketable), how many generations away are we from real persecution in the United States?

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

After a break last weekend, I’m back up and running at Aleteia. Or maybe limping along would be a better description as sitting through After Earth was a bit of a slog. You probably won’t hear this too often, but I really think it would have been much better if it had been made as a SyFy movie.

You know, imagining how a movie SHOULD have been made is a favorite pastime among moviephiles. For instance, Catholic Skywalker has come up with 10 ways to fix Superman Returns and make it into a good movie. They’re all pretty good, although I don’t agree that they should have tweaked the backstory of Lois’ son. I think they should have dumped the idea altogether. Sorry, but my Superman would never be a deadbeat dad.

Hey, speaking of stuff that could be on the SyFy channel, Theater of the Word’s Kevin O'Brien has a post up at Waiting for Godot to Leave detailing his new video project, Father Dangerous - Bionic Priest! According to the description, Father Dangerous: Bionic Priest is a feature-length action/comedy web series about sacrifice, love, and punching evil in the face. Am I envious that I didn’t come up with this idea first? Of course not! Not at all. Not one… little… bit. Sigh.

Oh well, I guess I can’t whine too much about not making films myself since I voluntarily bailed out of the entertainment industry shortly after graduating college. It’s really not a business for everyone. Jeremy Haynes discusses this very thing for Aleteia, touching on his “calling” to work on television and some of the inevitable low points that have come with following it.

But enough of that serious stuff. You come here for bad movies, and bad movies are what you’re going to get. Just hop on over to Romish Graffiti where Scott W. will happily explain to you why Death Race 2 is better than The Hunger Games. 

And I can’t think of a better way than that to leave you until next time. See you then.