SHORT FEATURE: HISTOR'S EYE - THE LOTTERY

According to the Catechism "Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement."

"A lottery is one of the aleatory contracts and is commonly defined as a distribution of prizes by lot or by chance." says the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia. "It is obviously a kind of gambling if considered from the point of view of the contributories; by the directors it is sometimes used as a means of raising money. Morally it is objectionable if carried to excess as it tends to develop the gambling spirit and distract people from earning a livelihood by honest work. However, if there is no fraud of any sort in the transaction, and if there is some sort of proportion between the price of a ticket and the value of a chance of gaining a prize, a lottery cannot be condemned as in itself immoral."

A 2005 Los Angeles Times story noted that "the big lottery numbers in Italy these days are 21 and 37: On the international clock they correspond to 9:37 p.m., the time John Paul II died. "Lotto playing is up 70 percent since the pope's death," said Shamir, who advises his clients on what numbers to pick. " At the moment the pope has taken over the calculations of the game. Everyone is betting his numbers." No word yet on if JPII has come through for anyone playing the numbers. I don't think that would count towards canonization anyway.

INTERMISSION: HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Well, it's that time of year. A time for pumpkins, for getting treats, for dressing in costumes. That's right. It's time for the annual Hallowed Be His Name Fall Festivals at your finer protestant churches! It's also that time of year we see quotes like this one from Jerold Aust of The United Church of God. "Halloween is anything but harmless. It focuses one's attention on witchcraft and demonism, which flies in the face of the holy God Almighty! When parents not only allow but also encourage their children to celebrate witches and goblins, they are teaching them that it's acceptable to deal in demonism."

There's no denying that a few people (usually teens) with an interest in the occult find some of the darker imagery accompanying Halloween especially enticing and will use it to further their obsession. But does that mean we abandon the holiday altogether? From a Catholic perspective, the answer isn't as simple as trotting out a couple of Bible verses and calling the whole thing off. (We do have that whole All Souls Day thing to take into account after all.) For anyone who hasn't made up their mind on the subject of Halloween and wants to do some quick reading on the topic, a good starting point is the Catholic Update article How Halloween Can Be Redeemed by Page McKean Zyromski. It briefly discusses the pagan origins of the celebration, the Church's efforts to Christianize the event, the Christian-tinted superstition behind trick or treating, the origins of the jack o' lantern, and the positive lessons we can draw from the holiday itself. For the Catholic, this holiday, like any other day, isn't about retreating in fear, but rather using our (properly developed) discernment to find what (if anything) exists in the event that points towards our relationship with God. So go check out the article, it's a good primer.

For our part, we here at The B-Movie Catechism would rather light a candle than curse the darkness. (Which is a good thing. Being Catholic we tend to have a lot of candles lying around.) As a service to those who would rather steer away from some of the more suspect imagery floating around out there, but are tired of the same old shepherd or prophet costumes year after year, we offer up five wardrobe suggestions based on some of the classic movies we've reviewed. They're guaranteed to be a hit while avoiding any hint of those nasty witches and devils.

EEGAH from Eegah! A perennial favorite around these parts. While Biblical literalists might at first be hesitant to wear this due to Eegah's caveman-like appearance, keep in mind that the movie suggests a possible link to the Nephilim, so you're covered. A big stick and a fake beard is all that's necessary for a truly eye-catching ensemble. Dead goats are optional.

ZORK from Deafula. While the titular star of the movie would make an interesting costume choice himself, we believe that vile henchman Zork is the true scene-stealer from Deafula. Born in an alternate universe where everyone speaks in sign language, yet cursed by God for his terrible sins to to be handless. At the end of the night you can even offer a lesson in redemption when you remove your cans.

RO-MAN XJ2 from Robot Monster. A goldfish bowl and an old fur coat (faux fur acceptable) is all you need to bring this scouge of humankind to life. God promised he would never again end the world by deluge, but that leaves an infinite (-1) number of possibilities for what could happen in the future. Theoretically, that includes extraterrestrial ape-bots. An added bonus to this costume is the ability to use your head to hold your candy.

THE REVEREND ESTUS W. PIRKLE from The Burning Hell. As noted in the review, this is a guy who (literally) scared the hell out of people in the early 70s. Part of a dying breed due to the rise of the mega-churches, this bundle of fire and brimstone can still deliver a fistful of the fear of God when necessary. For full authenticity be sure to bring along a bowl of cooked spaghetti so unwitting sinners can thrust there hands in it and experience a terrifying preview of the worms, the tormenting worms!

TARANTELLA from Mesa Of Lost Women. Attitude is everything in this get-up, ladies. While the clothing itself instills little fear, watch in awe as grown men flee in terror while you perform the deadly Dance of the Spider outside their doors. Dressed as one of Dr. Aranya's genetically mutated amazon spider-women, you too can be the living embodiment of "the wages of sins (of the flesh) is death."

That's it for this year. We hope we've been of service. Happy Happy Halloween everybody!

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU: BELLA

It's pretty obvious that the movie buzz throughout the Catholic blogosphere this week revolves around the release of Bella, a film which is not only winning awards at various festivals but apparently carries a pro-life friendly message as well. I've already mentioned previously Fr. V's glowing review of Bella over at Adam's Ale (I wonder if he got to see it again like he wanted?), but now others are beginning to chime in.

Nolan Reynolds from Rise Of The TOB shares Fr. V's high opinion of the film. "I like explosions and special effects, but I like it with a dose of meaning and a sound message. While Bella isn't the type of movie to warrant CGI or expert stunt men, it is a movie I fell in love with for its gripping story and brave theme."

Over at Arrival: The Parousian Weblog, Sarah Metzhasn't hasn't seen the movie yet, but just seems happy that the film even exists. "Whether we like it or not, movies are often more influential on people’s lives than literature is, and it is therefore time to step up and establish a current Catholic presence in the film industry."

The American Papist has a full page of Bella related goodness which not only links to his own favorable review of the film, but also to lots of non-blog sites addressing the movie and its issues.

If all this sounds a little over-hyped for your tastes, then you might prefer Barbara Nicolosi's opinion of the whole Bella-thing at Church Of The Masses. She admits she only saw the movie in rough-cut form a year ago, but isn't convinced the finished product will be any better. "I don't know what they were smoking at Toronto, but I suspect that the film was well-received there because of its occasionally charming images of a Latino family, but mainly because of the fact that Bella, regardless of what is being said about it, is ambiguous on the subject of abortion."

Now that the film is coming to screens outside of the festival circuit, I'm sure we'll be seeing more reviews popping up on Catholic blogs over the next few weeks. It's also going to be interesting to see if the producer's media blitz can garner the movie a wide release. Which brings me to this:

Apparently I'm averaging enough hits now that the viral marketers are beginning to think it's worthwhile to include me in their mailings. So, over the past two weeks I've received a couple of emails asking me to help promote small independent releases. One is Believers, a direct-to-dvd horror movie about a religious cult made by one of the Blair Witch guys. It's in the Netflix queue, so maybe I'll review it at some point. The other, as you may have guessed, is Bella. It's possible many of you out there may have received the same email, but just in case you didn't, here's the main body of it.

Hi, This is Eduardo (from Bella) and I want to ask you for your help with our release this week (Oct 26th).

Could you ask everyone you know if they could buy 100-1000 tickets for their friends, family, church, community on opening weekend to ensure Bella reaches and impacts as many people as possible?

Hundreds of people have been adopting theaters (buying all the tickets for one screening time) and giving them out to friends, groups or after church.

Your help can guarantee the success of opening weekend which will lead to a broader international release and hopefully more lives will be touched and transformed by Bella.

We really need your help – we really appreciate anything you can do.

So there you go. Be sure to buy your hundred tickets before they're all gone. My own movie watching M. O. these days ensures I won't see this movie until it hits the rental shelves (I want my movie theaters back! Darn you, teenage girls with your cell phones! Darn you all to heck!) but at least I've done my small part to spread the Bella love.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: THE CRAWLING EYE

Well, it's time to start filling some reader requests. Judging by what's coming up over the next few weeks... shame, shame on all of you who have made fun of MY taste in movies.

DEAFULA

TYPICAL REVIEW

"The movie itself is all over the board; it jumps from gritty to campy to moving to comic to pretentious so often that I don't really know what to make of it." - Dave Sindelar, SciFilm

THE PLOT

Like any stereotypical preacher's kid, theology student Steve Adams is having problems, but his run a little deeper than most. Someone has drained the blood of over 20 people in town and Steve, based on his need for monthly transfusions and vague memories of biting his childhood pet in the neck, is beginning to suspect he may be the culprit. Meanwhile, to make matters worse, Steve's best friend The Detective has brought in the vampire expert from England responsible for killing Dracula in order to help capture this latest blood sucking fiend. To top it all off, Steve's father has a heart attack while Steve is off in the woods having one of his episodes. Right before Steve's father dies, however, he finally tells Steve of the strange circumstances surrounding his birth and the subsequent death of his mother. The final pieces of the puzzle, the old minister says, can be found with Amy, the midwife who mysteriously disappeared that faithful night and who has recently returned looking for Steve. Paying a visit to Amy and her handless man-servant Zork, Steve learns that his pregnant mother was seduced by Dracula himself, a union which passed the vampiric curse on to the unborn child. In an effort to free himself from his accursed fate, Steve tracks down the coffin of Dracula and pulls the stake from the vampire's heart so that he can, uh... drive a stake through his heart. Really, from there I kind of got lost. It all comes down to some confrontation between Steve and God.

THE POINT

Let's just be honest up front. When I first heard of Deafula, the only movie ever filmed entirely in American Sign Language, all I could think of was that old Monty Python skit where they put on the semaphore version of Wuthering Heights. The whole idea sounded like it was going to be an experiment bordering on bad taste with jokes made at the expense of the deaf. ("Listen to them, the children of the night." "I can't you idiot!" That kind of thing.) But when I finally ran across a copy of the near-impossible to find film I got something of a shock. The movie, filmed in glorious black & white, starts with a moody, well staged introduction to the main character. The camera pans across an empty room to a doorway where a bloody hand slowly sides up the frame followed by the haggard face of Steve appearing in the opening. His blood-drained victim lies face down in the bathroom sink. This is followed by an equally unsettling flashback to Steve's childhood where we witness him, compelled by his blood lust, to murder his beloved puppy. This is no laugh fest. We've got a real movie on our hands here, one with a serious and somber tone, made by people who know what they're doing.

And then it happens. Steve is accosted in the street by a junkie on a motorcycle who repeatedly stabs Steve while signing "money" at him. This triggers Steve's first onscreen transformation into Deafula, a leering vampire dressed in a Lugosi cape with... a big freakin' rubber nose. Seriously, it looks like one of those disguise kits from the Party Store with the glasses removed. And I start giggling, even though I'm not sure I'm supposed to because the scene doesn't appear to be going for laughs. Fortunately, after this incident, the movie starts to head back into serious territory. That is, until the inspector from England shows up. He's weird, fidgety, and has all the mannerisms of a chimp. He's constantly bobbing up and down and poking the American detective who, in obvious disgust to the Brit's very nearness, keeps signing for the man to "shut up" and go away. And I start giggling again, starting to feel a little guilty for it because I don't know if the guy's mannerisms are part of some kind of affliction. Following another serious section in which Steve learns of his birth and tracks down the mysterious Amy, we are finally introduced to Zork, a weird puckering homunculus who (I kid you not) wears cans on his hands. Now I understand his character is supposed to be handless as punishment from God, but c'mon, he's wearing tin cans! I'm so completely losing it that by the time the English detective identifies Steve as the vampire due to (wait for it) the presence of unshelled peanuts in his vomit, my ability to take any of this seriously is all but gone. The final scene, in which the newly ordained Father Steve (he's a Pisky) stands in the middle of a church signing vigorously to God for forgiveness, should be riveting. But it's just too late, far too much silliness has happened, and I can't manage the u-turn back into pathos. All I can think of as the movie ends is how many decades of the rosary I'm gonna get in confession for laughing so hard at a movie made by people with what many would consider a serious physical disability.

Thank God (seriously) I managed to find an old interview with producer Gary Holstrom in which he discussed the making of Deafula. He assures us that from the beginning "it was quickly decided that a light-horror and light-comedy feature would be the best mix." Whew, so despite the ponderous tone of much of the movie, it was supposed to have some comedic elements. (What a relief. I was not looking forward to trying to explain all of this in the confessional.) But what about that gigantic rubber nose, wasn't that going a bit too far? Holstrom says, "Light comedy. The deaf loved it, the hearing didn't." And bingo, right there I finally catch on. You see, I came to Deafula expecting just another wacky 1970s variation of Dracula (Blacula, Old Dracula, Countess Dracula, Dracula's Dog, you get the idea.), with the hook this time being a deaf vampire. But Deafula isn't that at all, it's really a movie made primarily for members of the Deaf Culture (that's deaf with a capital [D], a concept we [C]atholics should be more than comfortable with). In their book For Hearing People Only, Moore & Levitan define Deaf Culture as "a social, communal, and creative force of, by, and for Deaf people based on American Sign Language (ASL). It encompasses communication, social protocol, art, entertainment, recreation (e.g., sports, travel, and Deaf clubs), and worship." As a movie nut I'm no stranger to this idea of a Deaf Culture, I saw Children Of A Lesser God after all. But that was made for a hearing audience whereas Deafula is not. In a certain sense, Deafula is a "foreign" film for a mainstream moviegoer like myself.

Writing in the Bright Lights Film Journal, Boris Trbic notes that a "viewer can, in spite of the best intentions and abilities of the translator, miss out on the specific cultural references in a foreign language film." For example, states Mr. Trbic, "Western audiences viewing Hong Kong films about immigrants from mainland China are frequently oblivious to the social, economic, and cultural references, problems of status and identity, brought about by the distinctions between Mandarin and Cantonese." I believe it's that kind of "cultural" misunderstanding which derailed Deafula for me because I wasn't expecting it. Now of course, some of the stuff is obvious, even if you're not looking for it. The movie exists in its own alternate universe in which every persone is deaf, uses ASL, and owns TTY text devices instead of telephones or police radios. But by itself, that could still be considered just a gimmick. It's the small stuff that matters, stuff an outsider to Deaf Culture like me might not catch on the first go around. For instance, the voiceover track provided for the non-deaf is a barely-acted literal translation of the hand signs, which results in some bizarre yoda like speech patterns. ("Hearing matters not, ... Look at me. Judge me by hearing, do you?" Okay, that line's not really in the movie, but wouldn't it be cool if it was?) Really the voice track is just a courtesy to "sound sensitive" members of the audience; you're expected to be able to draw the subtleties from the body language and signs rather than the voices. The intermittent score consists almost exclusively of percussive piano pieces and bass-heavy orchestration. It's fairly bland to listen to, but if you crank up the volume, all of a sudden you can "feel" the changes in tension vibrating through your body. And there are even more subtle things going on which I stood no chance of catching until I did a little research afterwards. In particular are the scenes in which the American detective keeps turning away from the irritating English inspector. Deafculture.com tells us that "Deaf social protocol is based on Deaf people’s need to maintain good eye contact and visibility, and to make signing easier and more comfortable." So while the scenes have some intentional humor for the hearing and non-hearing alike, to the deaf they also portray the total disregard the American has for the Brit as a person. (Like I said, the guy comes across as some sort of primate. Now that I think about it, the University of Nevada did teach that chimp Washoe to use ASL in the early 70s. I'm not saying there's a connection, but, you know...) When you put it all together, there's just no way a deaf audience and a hearing audience will see this movie in the same way. They get all the jokes and I don't and that's okay. Vive la difference and all that.

Some critics don't like the idea of a Deaf Culture, believing it further isolates the non-hearing from the rest of society. The editors at DeafCulture.com, however, see Deaf Culture as "a positive term, indicative of pride and a communal identity" much in the same way that "each ethnic and religious group has its own culture. In the case of U.S. mainstream Protestants, the characteristics may not be sharply defined. Recent Hindu or Hmong emigrants, for example, will likely have a well-defined, all-encompassing culture—a distinct mode of dress, a distinct cuisine." Journalist Russell Shaw notes that a significant and visible Catholic subculture once existed in the U. S. during the middle of the 20th century. In fact, he surmises that "the Catholic Church in America... was on its way to becoming the dominant influence in the shaping of the nation’s culture as a whole." BUT "largely behind the scenes, the dismantling of the Catholic subculture largely responsible for the Church’s success had commenced among Catholic academics and intellectuals; it continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s—indeed, it continues to this day." The Holy See appears to agree. In March 2007, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's Secretary of State, stated that the "main objective" of Pope Benedict XVI's pontificate was "to recover the authentic Christian identity and to explain and confirm the intelligibility of the faith in the context of widespread secularism." Piping in again, Shaw adds, "Unless believing, practicing Catholics... can re-create a strong new Catholic subculture as a basis for their efforts to engage and evangelize the increasingly secularized culture surrounding them, there is virtually no chance that the larger culture will change for the better, but an excellent chance that Catholicism will further decline." (Yow, that's bleak. Sounds like Mr. Shaw could use a dose of Smile, Darn You, Smile!)

But what exactly would constitute this new Catholic subculture? Cardinal Francis George remembers what it used to be. "Catholicism as a distinctive way of life was defined by eating habits and fasting, and by days especially set aside that weren’t part of the general secular calendar. They were reminders that the church is our mediator in our relationship to God, and can enter into the horarium [calendar] that we keep, into the foods that we eat, into all the aspects of daily life, into sexual life." (See, eating fish on Fridays actually had a purpose.) So does that suggest the best way to rebuild a Catholic subculture is simply to re-emphasize all of the old traditions and rituals that have fallen into disuse since Vatican II? Well, it couldn't hurt, but just bringing back all of the old stuff probably shouldn't be the primary focus.

What should? Well, before I throw my two cents into the ring on that question, it might be helpful to look at an old 1999 survey taken by the National Catholic Reporter which yielded the following results. "The number of Catholics saying one can be a good Catholic without going to Mass rose from 70 percent in 1987 to 76 percent in 1999. The number saying one can be a good Catholic without obeying the church's teaching about birth control increased from 66 percent in 1987 to 71 percent in 1999. The number saying one can be a good Catholic without obeying the church's teaching regarding divorce and remarriage climbed from 51 percent in 1987 to 64 percent in 1999. The number saying one can be a good Catholic without getting married in the church jumped from 51 percent in 1987 to 67 percent in 1999. The number saying one can be a good Catholic without donating time or money to help the poor increased from 44 percent to 56 percent. Finally, the number saying one can be a good Catholic without obeying the church's teaching on abortion also grew from 39 percent to 53 percent. Thus, by 1999 a majority of Catholics think it is possible to be a good Catholic without abiding by church teachings in all six of these areas." Is there any reason to believe the numbers have decreased since then?

When asked about a new Catholic subculture, (possible next president of the USCCB) Cardinal George suggests that "Catholic identity, basically, is there if someone holds the Catholic faith in its integrity, understands it well enough according to age and disposition. It’s somebody who holds the faith in a sufficiently catechized way and can say, ‘I accept all of it.’ (ALL OF IT!) At the same time, he or she does that in Catholic communion, someone who has a pastor and who knows what a bishop is and who understands the relationship to the universal church, because that’s the network of visible communion established by the Lord when he asked the apostles to take up the mission." It sounds to me like the cardinal is suggesting the best way to rebuild a Catholic subculture is by first rebuilding individuals as Catholics. Being a revert to the faith, I agree.

The Catechism reminds us that "periods of renewal in the Church are also intense moments of catechesis... Catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole of the Church's life. Not only her geographical extension and numerical increase, but even more her inner growth and correspondence with God's plan depend essentially on catechesis." The resurgence of the old rituals is edifying, but the primary emphasis must always be on the teaching. And even though those survey numbers suggest that the teaching might currently be falling on a lot of deaf ears (figuratively speaking), if Deafula has anything to show us, it's that there is always a way to reach everyone. Big freakin' rubber noses, however, are optional.

THE STINGER

Regular readers of this blog might have noticed I don't use the "first person" too much when writing these reviews. But I did a lot in this one for a particular reason. Blame. If I've inadvertently insulted any deaf people out there with this review, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I'm sorry. And if I've inadvertently insulted any Catholics out there who don't meet Cardinal George's "requirements" for authenticity as noted above, well, I'm sorry for that too, but, you know... getting your butt back to mass wouldn't kill you, would it?

(Speaking of falling on deaf ears, are these things getting too long winded to read? I get a little research happy sometimes.)

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

What the...? A mere week after I reviewed the classic eco-stinker Frogs, lo and behold what should appear in GOLEM: Journal of Religion and Monsters but a student paper by Elizabeth Smith of Hendrix College on... Frogs. I readily admit that most, if not all, of the people who read and comment on my blog are smarter than me (go read their blogs and you'll agree), but I thought I had at least cornered the market on religion and bad movies. How's a poor B-Movie Catechist to compete with paragraphs like, "While on the surface Frogs appears to be nothing more than a badly written movie, several layers of significance and relevance emerge upon deeper inspection. Through the association of the frogs with the angel statues, the frogs function as divine messengers, a literal monstrum, warning us about the dangers of tampering with nature. They fulfill the same function as ancient chaos gods, aroused after interference with the divinely mandated order of the cosmos." I hope she got an A.

Speaking of people more intelligent than me, D. G. D. Davidson of The Sci-Fi Catholic quit playing in the dirt long enough to head back to the multiplex to catch the latest "I'm not Harry Potter but I sure would like some of his money" opus The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising. "The film's shortcomings and mistakes are legion." is one quote which might give you a hint as to his feelings on the movie.

Barbara Nicolosi at the Church of The Masses doesn't find quite as many mistakes with Michael Clayton, George (Return Of The Killer Tomatoes) Clooney's latest effort, but that doesn't mean she didn't find enough to give it a definite "uh, no."

But lest you think it's all bad out there, here's a slightly older review by Allen from (conveniently enough) It Came From Allen's Brain for the penguin hang-ten epic Surf's Up! He enjoyed the surfing, the penguins, and some of the morally positive messages the movie had to offer. But mostly I think he enjoyed the surfing. (I ran across Allen's blog as a part of the Ironic Catholic's series on Christian Humor Blogging. I imagine anyone who wanders through here already knows about The Ironic Catholic, but if you missed this series of posts, it's well worth reading. Dang, but there's a bunch of bloggers out there funnier than me too.)

And finally, although not entirely movie related, I pass along this little tidbit from TheoFantatique in which John W. Morehead puts a positive spin on the zombie version of The Last Supper. Not only are his connections to the "difficult teachings" in John Chapter 6 something I wish I had thought of, but it just goes to show there are weirder blog postings than mine out there.

Well, after that particularly humbling post all I can say is that I'll see you in a few days with my not-quite-as-smart-as-others, not-quite-as-funny-as-others, and not-quite-as-weird-as-others (okay, maybe that last one's not all the way true) review of Deafula. See you then.

SHORT FEATURE: MELIES' TALES OF TERROR

Here's a little something silent but (cartoonishly) violent from 1903.

Kind of leaves you speechless for a moment, doesn't it? Well, don't lose your head over it. Just recall the little quote from St. John Vianney in the Catechism which reminds us that we don't always need words. "My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love you, I want my heart to repeat it to you as often as I draw breath."

(Is it possible I just used a passage from the Catechism's section on the theological virtue of hope just so I could mention that the word is out Pope Benedict XVI has completed his second encyclical which appears to be a meditation on Christian hope? Hmm, could be.)

COMING ATTRACTIONS: DEAFULA

Trailer? Not a chance. It was pure luck just running across a copy of the movie itself.

So, yeah. Deafula. Coming soon.

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA

TYPICAL REVIEW

"Duke does the Dean Martin shtick (poorly, I might add) while freak-of-nature Sammy takes the Jerry Lewis role, and holy old sheep s*** is he frightening. I can't begin to describe how disturbing this guy is, you just have to see for yourself." - Scott Phillips, Film Vault

THE PLOT

Night club performers Duke and Sammy fall out of a plane (oh, if only) and wash up on the tropical island of... Cola Cola. (Seriously, kids, that's as funny as it gets. Better buckle up for a rough one.) The duo are marked for sacrifice by the local natives until Princess Nona intervenes, having falling madly in love with Duke at first site. The tribe instead holds a luau in honor of the pair during which Sammy tells jokes (Stop me if you've heard the one with the punchline "so I bit him". Oh yeah, Sammy goes there.), Duke croons a tune, and Nona's younger, but much larger, sister Saloma becomes hopelessly infatuated with Sammy. (So does a monkey later on. Who knew Sammy was such a chick magnet?) Nona suggests the boys go and see Dr. Zabor, the mad scientist who has set up shop on the other side of the island in order to perform experiments in evolution, in hopes he can help them get back to their tour. Unfortunately, it turns out that the not-so-good doctor wants Nona for himself, and so takes an immediate disliking to Duke. From there it's utter chaos as Duke is transformed into a gorilla, lab monkey Ramona competes with Saloma for Sammy's attentions, everybody runs through the same jungle set for twenty minutes, another gorilla shows up and falls in love with Duke, Dr. Zabor drinks a lot, and everyone laughs at the fat girl. By this time the movie's plot is hopelessly lost, so Zabor simply walks up and shoots Sammy in the crotch. (oh, if only) Sadly, the screenwriter must have seen the Wizard of Oz, so the movie has a "shock ending" in store for us.

THE POINT

Doppelgangers, shadow selves, evil twins, sinister goatee wearing duplicates from a mirror dimension. As long as there have been stories there have been tales of malevolent duplicates appearing in people's lives as harbingers of doom or bringers of evil. In an interview from a few years back, Jerry Lewis clone Sammy Petrillo recalled his first meeting with the popular comedian. "[Milton] Berle sent me and his agent, Herb Jaffee, in a cab over to Sherry Nevlim's hotel where Jerry Lewis was staying. Jerry was in the bathroom in his shorts shaving. And so help me, he almost cut his throat when he saw me!" (I can imagine. I had the exact same reaction while watching this movie for the first time and I'm not even Jerry Lewis.) Still, the meeting got Sammy into show business, playing Jerry's infant son in a skit on The Colgate Comedy Hour. But when Sammy hooked up with Dean Martin wannabe Duke Mitchell and began performing a carbon copy nightclub act, Jerry was displeased. And when the pair made Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, (which is a ridiculously long title to type. From now on we'll just refer to this movie as BLMABG, which coincidently is the exact sound you'll start making as you struggle to hold down your gorge while watching.) Jerry Lewis felt compelled to take action. As in legal action. As in cease and desist.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, we offer up for your viewing pleasure the one and only screen pairing of the faux-legendary Mitchell and Petrillo. We give you BLMABG. In bucket loads. Now let's be fair. It's not like all the evils of this movie rest solely on the shoulders of Duke and Sammy. This is, after all, a movie which uses stock footage... in its trailer. This is a movie where all the supposed Polynesian natives are 40 year old white guys in Hawaiian shirts. This is a movie directed by a guy known around Hollywood as William "One-Take" Beaudine. This is a movie whose only recognizable name, Lugosi, was reportedly zonked out on morphine throughout the production. This is a movie whose title was chosen by the ten year old son of the producer. (Actually, that's not such a bad thing. The original title the kid rejected was White Woman Of The Lost Jungle.) This a movie which Martin & Lewis producer Hal B. Wallis allegedly offered to buy the negative of... SO HE COULD BURN IT!

But despite all of that, BLMABG really is Duke and Sammy's movie to carry, and wow, do they fumble the ball. I'm not saying the guys are completely talentless, they're just... a little off. Duke comes across like one of those guys who gets wasted on nickel beer night and spends the rest of the evening bellowing out mediocre Sinatra karaoke while hitting on any woman he isn't related to. He's interesting for a few minutes, but you quickly start to wish he would call it a night and just go home. And as for Sammy... honestly, it just gets painful. His one-liners are the kind of stuff you find in Bazooka Joe comics. (He likes being on Cola Cola because it makes a "guy feel all pepsi!" Arrrgh, not only is it a bad joke, I'm not even sure I know what it means!) His continuous unfunny put-downs of the portly Saloma start to border on cruelty as he calls her everything from a blimp to a two-ton salami. (Sammy pronounces Saloma's name like salami, you see, because she's overweight, and salami is a food, and you get overweight by eating, and, and, ehhh....) And his impersonation of Jerry Lewis with all it's accompanying flailing about and nasally screeching (Duke-eeee!), while technically spot-on, really starts to get to you after awhile. I know a lot of people can't handle the real Jerry Lewis as it is, but when I was a kid I always thought he was kind of funny. If I had seen BLMABG as a child, though, I think this... thing... might have frightened me out of my wits. It looks like Jerry, it talks like Jerry, it moves like Jerry... but it ain't Jerry. No. It's a pod person. I'm sure of it. After all these years of watching them in movies, I believe I've finally seen one in real life. Some malevolent alien lifeform came down from outer space and took Jerry's shape while he was sleeping, but it couldn't duplicate his soul. Don't laugh, this is serious. "Look, you fools. You're in danger. Can't you see? They're after you. They're after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They're here already. YOU'RE NEXT! YOU'RE NEXT!"

Or maybe not.

Maybe Sammy really was just some guy who looked eerily similar to Jerry Lewis and found a way to make a buck off of it. But he was such a good counterfeit that Lewis himself got a little concerned that there might be some confusion. Again, recalling their first meeting, Sammy claims that Jerry "said something to the effect of, "Don't sign any checks and tell people you're Jerry Lewis!" He wasn't being funny. He was being serious." It seems Jerry had little faith in his contemporaries to be able to judge who was the real deal and who was not. So little in fact, that he was willing to wage an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against Duke and Sammy just to keep them out of the public eye.

Okay, so maybe Jerry was guilty of a little overkill, but can you really blame him for not trusting the masses to be discerning? BLMABG was, after all, released in 1952. The war was over, the soldiers were home, and the economy was booming in order to meet their demands. In his book The Victorians author John Gardiner suggests that the mass-production era this boom ushered in resulted in a lack of discrimination on the part of consumers in regards to the "goodness" of any particular something. As long as their desires were met in an economical and efficient way, quality and authenticity were optional. At a fundamental level, the 1950s jump started what philosopher Charles Taylor referred to as the Malaise of Modernity, the inevitable cultural slide into a "soft relativism" in which the good or bad of something was irrelevant as long as you had the ability to choose between them. And the really bad news, as Gardiner put it, was that "the culture of consumerism, mass entertainment, and moral relativism was here to stay." And growing. Need proof?

In October of 2004 Zachary Stein and Theo L. Dawson-Tunik of Developmental Testing Service, LLC conducted a "study of relativism in the moral reasoning of 122 schoolboys, 72 of whom were interviewed in the 1950s and early 1960s and 50 of whom were interviewed in the 1990s." The paper concludes that "respondents from the 1990s were more than 4 times more likely to express uncertainty, almost 4 times more likely to make relativistic references to belief or opinion, and 10 times more likely to express the notion that one can speak only for oneself. If these findings are robust—and additional research is required before we can feel confident in making this assertion—there has been a major shift in the moral thinking of American youth... Consequently, a radical form of relativism—which holds that any opinion is as good as any other—is increasingly becoming the default philosophy of American adolescence." Wow. Everything is equal, nothing is bad. Doesn't that sound cool? It's a shame there's a big but attached to it.

Buried in the report is first this sentence, "The value of relativism seems ambiguous. It leads towards tolerance, learning and diversity, on the one hand, and conflict, fragmentation, and confusion, on the other." and later on this one, "we see uncertainty in attempts to articulate and explain some of the most basic and fundamental moral intuitions - inarticulacy concerning the very normativity of the moral ought. This kind of deep moral uncertainty and inarticulacy is a bedfellow of subjective relativism and seems to follow logically from its premises." The Catch 22 to all these equally viable choices found in relativism, apparently, is the accompanying inability to actually make a choice. I guess relativism isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In his 2005 inaugural address Pope Benedict XVI stated that "Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of educating is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own "ego"." It seems the Holy Father has had relativism in his sights since day one. But how to combat it when, as noted earlier, it appears to be the primary philosophy of a good chunk of the world's population. We got a little hint in last week's review of Frogs in which we noted the Pontiff's hope that environmental concerns will be instrumental in reigniting an interest in natural law theory. "The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history" states the Catechism, "it subsists under the flux of ideas and customs and supports their progress. The rules that express it remain substantially valid. Even when it is rejected in its very principles, it cannot be destroyed or removed from the heart of man. It always rises again in the life of individuals and societies."

And if Benedict gets his way, then now is the time for natural law theory to reemerge into the limelight. Two weeks ago in an address to the International Theological Commission, the Pope said "the consciences of all men and women of good will must be mobilized, both lay people and followers of religions other than Christianity, so that together they may make an effective commitment to creating... the conditions necessary for a full awareness of the inalienable value of natural moral law." To that effect, the Catholic News Service reports, he's had members of the commission "working on a document on the foundations of natural moral law and, specifically, on how those principles form the basis of a "universal ethic" that can be recognized and shared by all peoples of all religions."

Why bother? "Despite its naturalistic stance," wrote theologian Carl F. H. Henry. "modernity seeks, unavailingly, to find some semblance of transcendent anchorage, or metaphysical linkage, however vague, that will escape complete subjectivism or relativism in ethics." And if we can convince a modern world uninterested in religion that what it is seeking can be found in a natural law, and that such a thing exists, then those who follow it to its logical conclusion will find the very real possibility that God exists too. "The natural law is written and engraved in the soul of each and every man, because it is human reason ordaining him to do good and forbidding him to sin" wrote Pope Leo XIII, "but this command of human reason would not have the force of law if it were not the voice and interpreter of a higher reason to which our spirit and our freedom must be submitted."

For my small contribution to the fight against relativism, I bring to the table a little movie we call BLMABG. It's bad. It's objectively bad. "I thought it was so bad" said associate producer Herman Cohen, "I didn't even want my name on it." It was so bad that Jerry Lewis, who wasn't even in it, sued because he thought it hurt his good name. Go ahead and watch it yourself. Guess what? You'll think it's bad. Finding those little absolutes we can all agree on, that's where to start.

THE STINGER

According to the biography page on Jerry Lewis' official website, "1977 marked the year that the highest honor ever bestowed upon an entertainer, would recognize the tireless efforts Jerry Lewis has displayed since 1949, in his fight against Muscular Dystrophy. "Jerry Lewis is a man for all seasons, all people, all times. His name has, in the hearts of millions, become synonymous with peace, love and brotherhood." With those words, Congressman Les Aspin of Wisconsin concluded his nomination of Jerry Lewis for the Nobel Peace Prize." For some reason many people were shocked when Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Sounds to me like they've had a thing for comedians for a long time.

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

The purgatory that is the Fall movie season continues in megaplexes everywhere, but there are still a few things to go see if you look hard enough.

Fr. V over at Adam's Ale got a chance to see Toronto Film Festival favorite Bella and was so impressed that he's looking for some folks in Cleveland "to get together again for eats, a movie, and discussion" just so he can see it again when it opens wide on October 26th. The movie has no monsters, but it does have Eduardo Verastegui, the Brad Pitt of Latin America, which is almost the same thing isn't it? (Actually, I here this one is pretty good.)

Speaking of Brad Pit, um... the Brad Pitt of the United States, khall356 from Some Have Hats has a few words to say about Mr. Pitt's latest opus, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. (A movie undoubtedly named by the same long-winded guy who titles all of the Vatican's official documents.) It seems khall356 was enjoying himself until one scene which "was just wrong in as many ways as a thing can be wrong." But you'll have to go there to find out what it was.

Just in case you think khall356 is overreacting a bit, be sure to check out Barbara Nicolosi's review of The Assassination of blah blah blah at Church of the Masses where she runs into the same brick wall. Barbara notes, "As my friend said, "They just demolished the fourth wall with a nuclear weapon." Terrible, stupid, distracting call."

Once you've had your fill of all that art house goodness, head on home and pop some guilty pleasures into the DVD player. Archistrategos from Ecce Ego, Quia Vocasti Me offers up another viewing of Mosura tai Gojira, better known here in the states as Mothra against Godzilla. (If one of your artsy friends calls and wants to know what you're watching, you can always give them the Japanese name and they'll think you've got the Sundance channel on or something.) In a really cool geek-out moment, Archistrategos recognizes the language sung by the miniature Mothra twins (if you're reading this blog, you know exactly what I'm talking about) and translates the words for us.

And just because I truly love the imagery in many of the old silent movies, Daniel Mitsui at The Lion and The Cardinal has posted some image caps from F.W. Murnau's 1926 classic Faust. They truly do not make them like this anymore. Mr. Mitsui vehemently agrees, "Since then, the cinema has been a blight upon culture, producing nothing valuable enough to justify its existence." So, it's safe to assume he's probably not a reader of this blog, huh?

That's just as well, as it's hard to imagine any movie here would convince him to change his opinion anyway. Certainly not what we're reviewing in a few days. See you then.

SHORT FEATURE: MARY-KATE AND ASHLEY CONQUER THE BED BUGS

Hmm, we seem to be having double vision this week.

Since I found it necessary to make mention of some of poor Mary-Kate's personal problems in the most recent Newsreel, let's even the tables a bit by letting her and her sister Ashley be the heroes this time around. Here's a little something from one of the NYC Flicker Super 8 Festivals. Although I'm fairly certain the animator considered the inclusion of praying to Jesus as nothing more than a punchline, he might be pretty surprised how close to the truth he actually is. Fr. Thomas D. Williams reminds us that "we may not feel it right away, but all experienced pray-ers know, that God answers every prayer we utter. True, he does so in his own time and in his own way, but that is part of the adventure of living a personal relationship with your Creator." You just never know in what unexpected (sometimes even bizarre) ways prayers will be answered.

Of course, waiting for the answer can be the hard part. Father Joel Sember, one of a pair of identical twins recently ordained to the priesthood, remarks that, "My generation is in a bit of a hurry and expect things to be instant. And so we might say a few words to God, listen for 30 seconds and say, 'Well, I guess he's not talking to me.' But God works very slowly. ... He'll wait and let us talk. And wait until we're good and finished before he'll respond."

WEEKLY NEWSREEL

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic, and all you other Christians at sea. Under the banner of "today's gossip is tomorrow's Bible study", the Newsreel has always taken a sarcastically humorous look at the craziness surrounding the world of celebrity culture. But not everything s funny. Now off to press.

Back in August, the Newsreel reported on an accident which occurred during the filming of Tom Cruise's latest work in progress Valkyrie in which a number of extras were injured. Although the courts eventually ruled that the extras themselves were at fault, the Newsreel took issue with the German government's handling of the press release which amounted to "nobody of any importance was harmed in the incident." We are more impressed with Warner Brothers recent response to another incident, as reported by Variety, in which a special effects technician was killed while working on the upcoming Batman: The Dark Knight. "The studio said producers, cast and crew "are deeply saddened by this tragedy and their hearts and prayers go out to the family and loved ones of the deceased." To that we can only add our own prayers for the technician himself, "In company with Christ, Who died and now lives, may he rejoice in Your kingdom, where all our tears are wiped away."

The accident itself appears to have been a freak occurrence rather than a result of reckless behavior, but when combined with a completely unrelated story, it caused us here at the Newsreel to pause and think. Buried in the Hollywood After Dark section of the National Enquirer website is a small snippet which reads in it's entirety, "We found Mary-Kate Olsen celebrating her new legal drinking age status by downing glass after glass of champagne with a group of pals at Hyde Sept. 19. MK was chain-smoking at her table." It is public knowledge that Ms. Olsen has spent time in rehab for anorexia nervosa and a rumored drug problem, but the question arises, why did we need to know about her recent night out? Obviously we at the Newsreel can never condone excesses or self-abuse, but we have to wonder what kind of stresses are unduly placed on celebrities who can't even spend an evening out without some paparazzi sitting at the next table with a notepad and camera counting their drinks and waiting for a mistake to happen.

The Catechism reminds us that "the means of social communication (especially the mass media) can give rise to a certain passivity among users, making them less than vigilant consumers of what is said or shown. Users should practice moderation and discipline in their approach to the mass media." Without question, we at The B-Movie Catechism are inveterate consumers of mass media. But we always strive to keep our entertainment in its proper place and prospective. Let us say that someone like Whoopi Goldberg says something stupid in a public forum. This is fair game to comment on. But if she says it at a dinner table with friends, then we as consumers have no right to have the conversation taped and played back to us just to feed our desire for more celebrity news. As in the case of Ms. Olsen, doing so may even pressure a person to sin further. Do we even need to provide a quote from the Catechism here? As for the story involving the death of the technician, while this particular incident turned out to be an accident, we must be vigilant as consumers that our desire to view ever more dangerous stunts and breath-taking images do not pressure those in the entertainment industry to overstep their training and risk their own health and safety. Even in our casual viewing we must not become passive in our awareness of the temporal and spiritual consequences of our actions.

We're not too often given to screeds here at the Newsreel, so we thank everyone for their forbearance. Assuming that we've ever been funny to begin with, we promise to be so again next time. For now, we'll end as always with the words of the great Les Nessman. Good evening, and may the good news be yours.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA

INTERMISSION: BANANAS OF REVENGE

"Run for your lives, children! RUN!"

Knoxville, TN is only about 3 1/2 hours away, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine a small group of Spirit of Vatican 2 parishioners forming a convoy of VW vans and Toyota Priuses (or maybe even just hitching a ride in order to further conserve fossil fuel consumption) for the purpose of traveling down here and picketing outside my theater. It appears that their EcoChurch Director Che' Lovell (or perhaps his evil doppelganger) is currently scripting a play with the hopes of getting it produced on the stage, or maybe even someday as a movie. (You never know, I hear the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos is always on the lookout for fresh talent.) And it appears the SOViers were hoping to convince me into reviewing the work in progress.

Of course, I tried to explain that The B-Movie Catechism is a film-centric blog, but they started going on about the suppression of the freedom of self expression and my being a slave to the fascist media machine which (except for a few wise and brave actors) continues to propagandize "outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society" and how my resistance, though passive, was nonetheless mean, hurtful and a reflection of "the violence inherent in the system." (Some of this sounded oddly familiar.) So I thought, what the heck, even though you don't get to take popcorn inside the auditorium, it's still in a theater, right? (Popcorn causes cancer this week anyway, so who needs it.) Let's go and take a peek at ACT I of BANANAS OF REVENGE. (WARNING: This review contains some spoilers. You might want to go read the first act yourself before continuing.)

SCENE: A banana plantation in Guyana or someplace like that really hot.
TIME: Right now except night

[TOM CRUISE and JEANNE GARAFOLA on stage]
[Enter the JOHN TRAVOLTA]

Well right away I couldn't help but notice the cast. I'm not sure how Che' managed to get so much celebrity firepower on such a minuscule budget. Garafolo will do anything for the least bit attention, but as for Cruise and Travolta, well, I guess brain of H Robert Williams could have called in some favors from the scientologists. (They probably still owe the world penance for Battlefield Earth.) Anyway, the play starts with Travolta as the cruel plantation owner oppressing his workers.

GARAFOLA: Don’t you care about anyone but yourself?
TRAVOLTA: No. Now I need to go and give money to republicans so they can help me by making laws which suppress women and indigenous peoples.

I pointed out that this scene might be more hard hitting if Travolta was in his get-up from the movie adaptation of the stage adaptation of the movie Hairspray, but Che' mockingly informed me that no Republican would be caught dead cross-dressing (except inside the offices of the FBI or possibly in a public restroom stall) and no LGBT person could ever conceivably be an oppressor. Fine, it's his play. The character's then spend an inordinate amount of time talking about some political stuff I didn't quite get until they discover a book which contains all the truth they need to free themselves. I perked up at this point, thinking this might be a Bible, but then I realized I've never read a translation of Holy Scripture which included words like Bourgeoisie or Proletariat.

[Re-Enter JOHN TRAVOLTA with SEAN PENN and DANNY GLOVER. GLOVER has his hands tied behind his back]

PENN: This menial laborer person is causing trouble. I caught him handing out things people read.
TRAVOLTA: Hit him.
[PENN punches GLOVER in stomach]

Shows what I know. I thought Glover was getting too old for this s***. It's the introduction of Penn that really interests me though. I've always held a begrudging respect for Penn. Any man who can marry Madonna and escape without putting a bullet through his own skull has more than proved his intestinal fortitude to me. Sure, he lost his mind in the process, but that just adds an extra raw edge to any performance he gives. Just see how convincing he can be; it really looks like he's punching Glover in the gut, hard. I suggested this would be a great point in which to have Mel Gibson rush in and save Glover, but for some reason the mention of that name nearly caused a riot to break out, so I had to take it back. Meanwhile, back on the stage, the play continues with long sections of expository dialog about oppression and the ownership of goods. Penn sees the error of his ways and punches Travolta in the nose, somehow killing him in the process. (Again, I thought the death scene would have been twice as dramatic played in drag, but nobody's listening to me.) Following that, there's lots more talk about who owns the bananas. It might be a good time to point out that the Catechism tells us, "Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it and to thank him, as Christian families do when saying grace at meals." (Why do I get the inescapable feeling you'll find my use of the Catechism oppressive?) The play continues.

GLOVER: It is the dawn of a new day. The sun is yellow like the bananas. It is a banana dawn. All over the world people are waking up and they will see the banana sun.
GARAFOLA: The fascists will be looking for the bananas and they won’t find them!
GLOVER: But the bananas are bananas of revenge. And so they will have to eat the bananas and the bananas they eat won’t taste very good except to us.

Finally, I started to get excited. You see, based on the title of the play, I had been expecting an epic along the lines of the motion picture classic Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Except with bananas. How great would that have been? The sequel Return Of The Killer Tomatoes even starred George Clooney, so there was some hope he might return to his roots in the little known fruit-horror genre and bless us with a cameo. But to my dismay, Act I abruptly ends at this point. No mayhem, no mad scientists, no guys dressed in big banana suits terrorizing the countryside. There's none of that here. This is more like Waiting For Godot, with fresh fruit.

I'm sorry Che'. It's not that I mind morals embedded in my entertainment. Remember that eloquent speech Peter Graves gives at the end of It Conquered The World. "He learned almost too late that man is a feeling creature... and because of it, the greatest in the universe. He learned too late for himself that men have to find their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can't be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. And when men seek such perfection... they find only death... fire... loss... disillusionment... the end of everything that's gone forward." (I'm tearing up just thinking about it.) But he delivered that speech only after fighting to the death with an upside-down giant carrot with fangs. I understand this is only a work in progress, but if you're going to win me over, Act II needs to be less Godfather II and more Troll 2.

Maybe I'm just the wrong person to ask to review high-brow theatrical productions. D. G. D. Davidson over at The Sci-Fi Catholic is much more intellectual than I am, and I understand that he's under pressure also to review the play. Maybe he'll do your work justice. Until then, just in case you're too upset, I'm going to brush up on how to defend myself against a man armed with a banana.

FROGS

TYPICAL REVIEW

"If you’re a huge fan of cheesy ‘Nature vs. Man’ flicks, this one is for you. For anyone looking for something not featuring tons of slimy reptiles and amphibians, look elsewhere." - Scott Weinberg, Apollo Movie Guide

THE PLOT

Rugged outdoorsy photographer Pickett Smith is cruising in his (non-gas powered) canoe taking snapshots of swamp animals and leaky pipes for an unnamed ecology magazine. (Ya think maybe this is our hero?) Before Pickett knows what is going on, he is capsized by a (obnoxiously loud gas-powered) speedboat driven by two of the Crockett siblings whose family just happens to own the waters the photographer has been exploring. Pickett is fished out and taken to the Crockett island estate where the über-dysfunctional family is gathering for their annual 4th of July (oh, the dripping irony) celebration. As Pickett is something of an ecology expert, he is almost immediately grilled by the Crockett's about the increasing number of abnormally large frogs on the island. Pickett suggests that nature might be in revolt due to all of the pollutants and pesticides mankind is dumping on it. (Wow, right on the first guess. He really is an expert.) Jason, the Crockett patriarch, calls shenanigans however because he knows from Sunday School that man has dominion over the animals. The argument becomes moot when the phones go dead and various groups of wildlife begin systematically picking off family members and guests, all under the watchful guidance of the frogs. The dwindling group of survivors only hope is to escape the island and make it back to the mainland. Or is it?

THE POINT

And lo, as the moon entered the seventh house, mankind took a moment of rest and looked at all which it had created and beheld that it was... dirty. Oh sure, conservationists may have been around since the 19th century, but it was in the mid-60s with books like Silent Spring and The Population Bomb that the environmental movement proper really kicked into high gear. But if you had to pick a banner year for environmentalism, at least in regards to pop culture currency, it would have to be 1971. In that single year we saw the founding of both Greenpeace and Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, the very first Earth Day, and most important of all, that famous Keep America Beautiful commercial showing a Native American shedding a single tear over a ravaged polluted landscape. (I dare you to find a child from the seventies who didn't see that thing hundreds of times. We may not have known about any of that other stuff, but we darn well knew our country had become a garbage dump.) With environmental concerns at the forefront of the public consciousness it was only (dare I say it) natural that Hollywood would cash in. So in 1972 we got Frogs.

Boy did we get frogs. Over 600 of the slimy non-CGI things if the trivia is to be trusted. Not to mention the hordes of snakes, spiders, lizards, turtles, and various other critters which descend on the Crockett household. (The only thing missing are the worms, the tormenting w... see, I knew that would stick in my head.) And they're all shot beautifully. That's undeniably one of the first things you notice about this movie. It's like someone forgot to tell cinematographer Mario Tosi (Carrie, Sybil) this was just some cheesy drive-in flick. Frogs was released as a double feature with Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster for crying out loud and yet this guy takes the time to churn out National Geographic quality images. (I suppose the director was impressed too as this movie contains more images of creatures sitting around doing nothing than a whole day's worth of Animal Planet programming.) In hind sight, this film didn't really deserve his efforts. Or that of the actors for that matter. Sam Elliot and the gang really seem to believe in the movie's "message" and put their heart into the proceedings. The standout actor is, no surprisee, B-movie great Ray Milland as the domineering bigoted sexist industrialist wild-game hunter who believes his fortune gives him carte blanche to do as he pleases with both people and the world they live in. Nicely underplayed by Milland, Jason Crockett is a living, breathing Pandora's Box of what was considered eeevil in the early 70s. (There's probably even something symbolic in his being crippled and confined to a wheelchair, but I just can't make myself think too hard about Frogs in order to figure it out.) Everybody seems to have come to this movie with the intention of making a truly good film.

It's a shame the premise is so ridiculous. Let's face it, unless they're 40 stories tall and smashing up Tokyo, things like frogs, turtles, and lizards just aren't that threatening. How are you supposed to get all that worked up over critters you see in the bushes outside your house every day? I'll grant that the filmmakers used unusually large versions of these animals, (don't get me started on the countless species shown which have no business being in Florida) but at the end of the day it's still just a bunch of garden pests. The script tries to get around this fact by having most of the cast accidentally disable themselves in some contrived manner, thereby allowing the slow moving animals to stage their assaults. (Really, what choice do you have when you're story calls for someone to be killed by turtles?) But about the fourth or fifth time some halfwit falls in a hole or gets stuck in the mud, the continuous rolling of your eyes starts to get uncomfortable. I mean, c'mon! There's actually a scene where some schlub falls to the ground and a bunch of spiders start dropping Spanish Moss on him (don't ask) AND he gets too tangled up to get away. This movie isn't so much about "when animals attack" as it is "when animals host the Darwin Awards".

The other irritating thing about the movie (well, if you're still bothering to take it even half seriously) is that it never properly explains the motivation behind the animals' actions, especially considering a lot of these creatures should be eating each other rather than planning joint attacks on humans. And why on Earth are the frogs in charge anyway? According to C. C. Abbott's article The Intelligence of Batrachians from Science Magazine, frogs are "exceedingly stupid", so is there some other guiding force behind it all, maybe some kind of Gaia thing? Who knows? Pickett offers up his theory that it's all somehow retribution for man's abuse of nature, which everyone immediately accepts with no questions, but nothing shown in the movie ever really verifies this. For all we viewers know, this whole thing could actually be Plan 10 from outer space. (Hey, just because Plan 9 failed miserably doesn't mean they won't try again. Keep watching the skies!)

Frogs was released 35 years ago and (from my layman's perspective anyway) arguments over, and explanations for, what's going on in the environment don't seem to have gotten any more clear than they were back then. From VP Al Gore and his camp we're told that global climate change "is a true planetary emergency. Two thousand scientists, in a hundred countries, working for more than twenty years in the most elaborate and well-organized scientific collaboration in the history of humankind, have forged an exceptionally strong consensus that all the nations on Earth must work together to solve the crisis of global warming." On the other side we get dissenters like MIT scientist Richard Lindzen who tell us that "alarmist predictions of more hurricanes, the catastrophic rise in sea levels, the melting of the global poles and even the plunge into another ice age are not scientifically supported." Somebody (besides just me, i mean) is confused. Perhaps author Thomas Storck is right when he reminds us that "Satan promotes error in pairs, so that there will always be two warring camps, both zealously championing positions that are flawed, and both keenly aware of what is wrong with their opponent's point of view, but blind to what is wrong with their own. And in the modern world, too often Satan has managed to divide Catholics between these two camps. The only remedy, the only means by which we can escape this bitter but sterile secular warfare, is by obtaining an understanding of what the Church really teaches."

Fine. We've already noted in our last short feature where the Catechism plainly states that as Christians we have some responsibility towards the environment. The International Theological Commission, writing in Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, puts it this way, "Christian theology speaks of man as the master of a household to whom God has confided care of all his goods (cf. Mt 24:45)." Which is just a nice way of saying we're in charge of taking good care of the place until the owner gets home. So if we were in the movie Frogs, we'd be on Pickett's side, right? But the Catechism also reminds us that "everyone has the right of economic initiative; everyone should make legitimate use of his talents to contribute to the abundance that will benefit all and to harvest the just fruits of his labor." But doesn't that mean we would be on the side of the Crocketts whose main concern was using our resources to expand economic development? Well, either we've run into an apparent contradiction (again) in Church teaching, or it looks like the Catechism expects us to work out how to accomplish both things simultaneously. Be not afraid, though. As Pope Benedict XVI reminds us, the "passion for synthesis is the spirit of Catholicism, always seeking both/and solutions."

It would be extremely helpful if we could whip out a nice WWJD moment here, but unfortunately it's not that simple. About the only time Jesus makes explicit mention of the environment is to compare the local garbage dump to Hell. Nowhere does he organize a protest to have Gehenna cleaned up or shut down, nor does he say it's necessary for the economy. The International Theological Commission sadly admits that "in the end, we must note that theology will not be able to provide us with a technical recipe for the resolution of the ecological crisis". In short, the Bible isn't going to tell us what the acceptable level of greenhouse gas emissions is or whether or not we should reuse our plastic grocery bags. "It is not the role of the Pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political structuring and organization of social life." the Catechism reminds us, "This task is part of the vocation of the lay faithful, acting on their own initiative with their fellow citizens." We're meant to exercise our own intelligence in determining who's telling us the truth about environmental issues and whose policies will best address the issues at hand. That's just good citizenship.

But that doesn't mean we leave the policy debates entirely in the hands of the secular world. At a recent talk to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Pope Bendeict XVI stated that there were "three specific challenges facing our world, challenges which I believe can only be met through a firm commitment to that greater justice which is inspired by charity." One challenge involved ensuring that human beings be seen "as persons, male and female, created in God's image and endowed with an inviolable dignity." (Things like abortion would fall under this category.) The second involved ensuring that "those spiritual goods which are properly human expand and multiply when communicated." (He was specifically addressing increasing the opportunities for education.) But surprisingly the third challenge he mentioned was the environment.

"In meeting the challenges of environmental protection and sustainable development" the Pope said, "we are called to promote and 'safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic "human ecology"'. In other words, what we have specifically as Christians is a duty to preserve the ethical framework within the environmental debate. Translated into specifics, this means Catholics are expected to do their best (as voters, legislators, businesspeople, etc.) to ensure such things as never allowing environmental concerns to overshadow the value of the human person (no creepy population control experiments), never dismissing environmental concerns in the name of progress or the free market (no devastating the natural resources of third world countries for a better bottom line at home), and no placing our immediate lifestyles over the concerns of future generations (maybe we should reuse plastic grocery bags, they do make okay cat pan liners). Our religion asks of us what it should, that we apply its basic principles to the broader issues at hand.

The funny thing is, as noted by some of the above examples, once you start applying Christian ethics to the environmental debate, it doesn't take long to figure out that, at some point, we're going to be at odds with every politcal or secular philosophy out there. And this, I believe, is the deeper point and the reason why the Pope included the environment as one of the primary challenges of our time. Along with a handful of other issues, environmentalism is one of the key areas where the Christian religion has the opportunity to distinguish itself from all other philosophies as a consistent, well reasoned, ethical approach to finding solutions for today's problems. As hard as it is to believe, the debate that surfaced decades ago in convoluted crapfest "message" movies like Frogs actually has the potential to become one of the defining issues for this generation of Christians.

THE STINGER

Of course, Benedict XVI wouldn't be much of a Pope if he didn't find some way to work a little evangelization into the whole thing. A recent article in the National Catholic Reporter speculates that "Benedict sees in the modern environmental movement the most promising route for recovery of the natural law tradition. What today's rising ecological awareness presumes is that there are limits inscribed in nature beyond which humanity trespasses at its own peril. Without any particular reference to religion, the secular world today is arriving at its own version of natural law theory. Building upon that momentum, and directing it beyond environmental matters to questions of individual and social morality, is what Benedict seems to mean by a "secular path" to formation of conscience." A lot of critics have suggested that the modern environmental movement is turning into a kind of "secular religion", and they're probably right. But what this article is proposing is that the Pope is reaching out to the environmentalists and saying, "Hey, what you're searching for, what you're trying to formulate, it's already here in the same old place it's always been." Ain't that always the case?