PULP CATHOLICISM #041

PODCAST 72: The Descent & Doomsday [Marshall Madness]

This week Forest & Cory celebrate the works of filmmaker Neil Marshall. Forest reviews the claustrophobic monster flick The Descent, while Cory takes a trip into the post-apocalyptic with Doomsday.

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The Big Picture: BAGGAGE

Let's talk about criticism.

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Baggage

THE B-MOVIE CATECHISM: THE B-LIST: QUESTIONABLE MUSICAL MOMENTS #15 – DONNIE & MARIE: MONSTER MASH

Okay, so this clip isn’t actually from a movie, but it has Michael Landon reprising his role as the Teenage Werewolf (and singing while doing it, no less) and Don Knotts & Billy Barty belting out a rendition of the Monster Mash, so frankly, who cares where it came from? Plus, on top of all that, there’s a couple of Mormons running around dressed up as vampires. No, no, not Bella and Edward, I wouldn’t be so cruel as to do that to you. I’m talking about those other two Mormon vampires…

I’ll admit, Twilight notwithstanding, vampires and werewolves aren’t normally the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Mormons. Usually the first image that pops into someone’s head is probably that of well-dressed men riding around on bicycles and knocking on your door way too early in the morning. Alright, so there’s also polygamy and magic underwear, but to be fair, the former has been officially discontinued by the LDS and the latter is just a snarky term for one of their religious customs. For my part, I won’t cast any stones at their Mormon long-johns as long as they lay off my Catholic “magic amulets” (yes, I know and you know they’re not magic, but that’s what some people who don’t understand sacramentals call them anyway). I say, let the LDS wear whatever they want to wear.

When it comes to doctrines of faith though, well, there I suppose I’m going to have to give the Mormons a bit of a tough time simply because the differences are just too great. True, it doesn’t always seem that way on the surface, but once you dig around a bit, it becomes more obvious. For instance, back in 1994, a gathering of well known Christian theologians released a document entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together which was basically an ecumenical attempt to reach a minimum level of agreement on the basics of the Christian faith. After a lot of thoughtful debate (and the requisite amount of yelling at each other), they finally settled on the Apostles’ Creed (the one we say with the rosary) as the minimum standard for an agreed upon Christian doctrine. Oh sure, they haggled over stuff like whether or not the Creed meant “catholic church” or “Catholic Church” (those capital letters can make a big difference), but in the end they all accepted the wording.

Now the LDS weren’t a part of ECT, but some of their holy writings would seem to indicate they wouldn’t have been able to accept the group’s conclusions even if they had been. After all, according to the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, when he asked God which church he should join, he writes, “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith – History 1:19).” But apparently things have softened up a bit out in Salt Lake City these days, because most modern Mormons appear to have little trouble with the Apostle’s Creed. In a response to a fan’s question regarding the subject, Donnie Osmond claims that “If we were to insert The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in place of ‘The Holy Catholic Church’, it would define our beliefs about God and Christ very well.”

That sounds pretty good, until you get into specifics. The trouble starts almost immediately with the first words of the Creed, “I believe in God the Father…” Obviously the Mormons believe in God, that’s not the problem, but they do have an entirely different concept of who and what God is than does traditional Christianity. The LDS believe, for example, that “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s… (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22)”, a belief that stands in stark contrast to the orthodox teaching that God is pure spirit. So, everybody can say the first line of the Creed together, but they don’t really mean the same thing as they’re saying it.

But so what, right? What does it matter as long as Mormons are good people? I mean, Donnie & Marie may have been guilty of putting on a silly variety show, but offstage they seem like decent folks, so why worry about their beliefs? Well, because the kinds of differences we’re talking about actually get to the heart of the purpose of religion. You see, religion isn’t just about making good people. Any good course on ethics, even perhaps an atheist one, can manage that. Religion is about responding to God’s call “to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength” so that we may eventually “share in his own blessed life.” That would seem to indicate that a false knowledge of God might just have some pretty big consequences.

For instance, the Mormon belief that God has a physical body implies that something, somewhere, at some point in time, must have created God. If that’s true, why bother worshipping God? Why not worship the even more omnipotent thing that made him instead? Worse yet, if that larger thing is unknowable (the Mormon’s certainly haven’t said what it might be), then why bother worshipping anything at all? See, bad knowledge can lead to bad results. Now contrast that idea with the traditional understanding of God whom the Catechism describes as “the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.” Now that’s a God worthy of worship.

So let the Mormons keep their itchy underwear and their non-threatening vampires, those things are no big deal. Some of the other stuff, though, I’m afraid we’re just gonna have to keep butting heads over. The stakes (sorry, vampires, no pun intended)are a bit too high.

PODCAST SPECIAL: A Conversation About Horror with the "Erie Listener"

Jay Stevens & John Lindvay, from the Erie Reader, have a sit down chat about horror with Cory Carr, Greg Ropp & John Walkiewicz, for an installment of a new segment of the Reader called "Erie Listener".

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Tyler Perry Has Made a Christmas Movie With Larry The Cable Guy

"And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon upon him, his name was Death, and Hell followed with him." -- Revelations 6:8

Post by Tyler Perry.

In all seriousness, though - this is sort of interesting in the way that some of Perry's projects are once you stop regarding them as films and start regarding them as "found art;" or some kind of anthropological discovery. Drafting Larry The Cable Guy into this (the story: Madea tags along with a friend to surprise-visit her daughter at Christmas, where they're surprised to find said daughter has a white boyfriend with wacky redneck relatives) sound ridiculous for approximately 30 seconds, then it makes perfect sense.

Also, this (teaming with Dan Whitney aka Larry) seems to be the first time I've seen Perry acknowledge or actively court the unexpected crossover-appeal his movies have had with some more conservative white/rural audiences that typically wouldn't have "black films" on their radar. And his presence will be (literal) Christmas Present to white hipster movie-geeks who're "ironic fans" of Tyler Perry movies but might sometimes worry that they might unwittingly slip from "clever urbanite snarking at bad movies" to "clueless white person who doesn't get some idiom of black culture OMG I'M TURNING INTO MY PARENTS AND I MOVED ALL THE WAY TO WILLIAMSBURG TO PREVENT THAT NOOOOOO!"

This will be out December 13th, with another round of "HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!??" reports on it's "unexpectedly" large boxoffice take from industry news sites who still haven't grasped that there are indeed large economically-significant audiences outside their immediate readership to follow on Monday the 16th.

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

Yes, I know we did a Now Showing recently, but every time Halloween rolls around the big shots in the blogosphere can’t seem to help dipping their toes in the murky waters we splash around in on a weekly basis, so there’s lots of fun stuff to be found out there.

First up, we have our review of Ender’s Game, the much anticipated, and much protested (to the disgust of John C. Wright), adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel. Fans of the book will likely wince out how much has been left out of the story, but at least they can console themselves with the fact that the finished product doesn’t stink. But let’s face it, no matter how good the adaptation, the book will (almost) always be better. For instance, as much as I love Robert Wise’s 1963 movie The Haunting (and equally loathe the 1999 remake), nothing will ever top Shirley Jackson’s original novel The Haunting of Hill House, as Scott and Julie over at A Good Story Is Hard To Find will attest to.

Speaking of that proposed protest of Ender’s Game, early indications from the box office are that the movie will probably earn a few million more than originally projected, so it looks like all that fist raising on the Internet will have a minimal effect on its success. Regardless of how well Ender’s Game does, though, it still won’t come close to Gravity, the hands down runaway blockbuster of the season. As you might remember from our review of Gravity, we found the film visually stunning and emotionally immersive, but perhaps a bit light on philosophy. Others have not had that problem, however. Sr Helena at Hell Burns found the movie a bit more spiritual than I did, and CatholicSkywalker found it even more so. And then there’s Kathryn over at Aleteia, who dug really deep and managed to find in Gravity an allegory for botched abortions. So there you go.

Maybe people are just hungry for any hint of real spirituality in movies these days. And really, it’s hard to blame them. After all, it’s not like religion, especially Christianity, has gotten that fair a shake from Hollywood over the past few decades. As evidence, just take a look at Donald R. McClarey’s review of Dr. Peter Dans’ book Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, which chronicles the portrayal of Christians and Christianity in films made between 1905-2008. I’ll give you a hint. Starting in the 60s, it ain’t a pretty picture.

Speaking of which, I can’t imagine an uglier spectacle than Spears The Musical: The Gospel According To Britney. That’s right, some intrepid playwright is proposing a mash-up of the gospels with the pop princess’ performances. As ridiculous as the idea sounds, I’m sure it will find an audience. Liturgical dancers everywhere are probably already salivating.

I suppose we’ll just have to try and laugh that one off. If you’d rather look at something intentionally funny, however, you can always head over to Sword of Peter, where Jeff has his latest cartoon up.

And with that, I’ll stop living off of other people’s posts for the moment and try to get to work on my own stuff. Until then, see you next time.