SHORT FEATURE: BOBBLE HEAD THEATER - DAVY LEARNS A CHRISTMAS LESSON

With all due respect to Bobble Head Barbara Bush, there's a wee bit more to Christmas than just the "coming to save us" part. The Catechism actually gives 4 reasons for God taking the time to incarnate.

1. The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God. (Okay, so it's #1)
2. The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love.
3. The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness.
4. The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature".

Well, each of those could easily take up a whole book of their own to discuss. But on that last point, the Catechism mentions this: "To become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God". Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this "marvelous exchange".

And THAT'S what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS

The trailer is classic 50s sci-fi, but it has one problem. Not enough Brain! So enjoy a few more seconds from the movie in the clip below to get your fill of Brain.

LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES

TYPICAL REVIEW

"From a critical standpoint, the film falls flat despite the filmmakers ambitious intentions. But then, how come I still find this film to be so dang entertaining?" - Mark Pollard, Kung Fu Cinema

THE PLOT

Dracula travels to China in order to establish an undead kingdom by awakening the legendary 7 Golden Vampires. Unfortunately for the Count, his old nemesis Dr. Van Helsing happens to be in town giving a lecture and is more than happy to renew his night job as monster hunter supreme. Joining forces with the heroic Hsi Ching, his vampire slaying family, and a rich Swedish adventuress, Van Helsing and his son set out to put an end to the newly risen threat. After surviving a number of assaults, both human and undead, the band of international heroes finally arrive at the vampires' temple on the night of the big ritual. Chaos erupts as the Van Helsings, the Hsis, the Swedish gal, and a small army of villagers face off against Dracula, the 7 Golden Vampires, and a legion of kung fu zombies. Not everybody lives.

THE POINT

When Christopher Lee packed away his cape and fangs for good it looked as if Hammer Studios' classy (and profitable) Dracula franchise might finally come to an end. This was bad news for the troubled Hammer which was already loosing ticket sales to the grittier more realistic horror films of the early 70s. But as we saw with Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde, when quality wasn't enough to draw people in, Hammer wasn't above resorting to exploitative gimmicks in order to fill seats. So it should come as no surprise that in 1974, following the phenomenon that was the previous year's Enter The Dragon, Hammer would take a swing (so to speak) at making an honest to goodness chopsocky flick. To Hammer's credit however, rather than churn out some half-hearted knock off on their own, they instead enlisted the aid of the undisputed emperor of Hong Kong cinema, Shaw Brothers Studios. (Everything you think you know about kung fu movies comes from the Shaws. Bad dubbing, highly choreographed fights, wire-fu, punches that sound like trees snapping, guys with long white beards; it's all Shaw.) With these two giants joining forces, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer is... who cares? Didn't you read that part up there about kung fu zombies? Kung fu zombies!!! The rest of this movie could be dipped in human waste and it would still be worth watching just for the kung fu zombies. (And I've seen movies in my lifetime which I'm pretty sure have been dipped in human waste, so I should know.) Fortunately, there are a couple of other things to like about Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires. Peter Cushing is his usual excellent self as Van Helsing, adding a touch of class to an otherwise goofy movie. The old fella even manages to take part in the fisticuffs as well as his age will allow. (Sadly, this was the only movie produced in what was supposed to be a series of globe trotting Van Helsing films. There's more entertainment in five minutes of this movie than the entirety of that 2004 Hugh Jackman debacle.) And the script, rush job that it is, still has a couple of nice surprises. Van Helsing's son Leyland and Vanessa the Swede seem tailor made to be the obligatory love interests, but instead, both fall for members of the Hsi clan. (Oh, uh, there is one Hsi sister. The movie isn't THAT surprising.) Even more shocking is the fact that by the end of the final confrontation all of the Hsi brothers, as well as Vanessa, lie dead on the battlefield.

Actually, that last bit isn't so surprising if you've watched a lot of Asian cinema, especially the films of Cheh Chang, who was basically the uncredited second director on Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires. There are rarely indestructible western style action heroes in a Cheh film. If a guy goes off on a personal campaign of righteous wrath or a crusade for the greater good in a Cheh movie, he'll probably succeed, but most likely he'll die horribly in the process. It's just one of the little cultural differences that pop up and makes this movie so much fun to watch. Another one that might catch a viewer off guard at first is based on the Chinese belief that the Earth itself rejects the unnatural presence of the living dead. Translated to film, this means you get lots of hilarious scenes of zombies hopping up and down as they come to kill you. And don't expect any suave romantic vampires here. Chinese vampires are rotting husks that in no way inspire you to offer up your neck for a hickey. They wear those golden masks for a reason.

Really, the movie would have been best served to just explore Chinese folk lore and ignore Dracula altogether. Instead, it tries to include both, and if Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires has one fatal flaw, it's that it doesn't quite manage to successfully mesh the cultural perspectives of its two producing studios. Both culture's mythologies end up getting watered down. For instance, rather than be warded off by the traditional Christian symbols like Dracula always had been, or repelled by things Chinese vampires hate like strips of paper or sticky rice (look it up), this movie's undead are reduced to Universalist Unitarians and are repelled by just about anything someone might remotely consider holy. (For some reason a vampire who would run from a Hare Krishna brandishing a copy of the "Bhagavad Gita As It Is" just seems less threatening.) Worse yet, from a movie standpoint, is the script's inability to meld Hammers ponderous gothic stylings with Shaw's kinetic pacing. The narrative instead settles for abrupt shifts back and forth between looooong passages of Hammer-style exposition and short explosive bursts of Shaw-style martial arts sequences. (I guess there was just no way to make a 50 man free-for-all scream Goth.) In effect, both studios' strengths become hobbled. As a Hammer film, it never achieves the level of horror or sense of atmosphere you find in the earlier Lee/Cushing Dracula outings; as a Shaw film, it never comes anywhere close to the inspired lunacy of movies like Chinese Super Ninjas or Mad Monkey Kung Fu. Don't get me wrong, for an oddball stand-alone movie, Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires is too weird and silly not to like. But for fans looking for more of either studio's traditional offerings, this movie will be found lacking.

If it's that hard to try and combine two cultures in something as small as a motion picture, imagine how tricky it is for larger, more important things. Marginally successful attempts to introduce Christianity to China appear to have been made by the heretical Nestorians as far back as the 600s, followed by Catholic missionaries in the 13th and 14th centuries. Yet neither effort produced results which were long lasting. It wasn't until the Jesuit Matteo Ricci showed up in 1582 that Christianity began to gain any lasting respect and acceptance. According to the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, up until Ricci arrived, "the most difficult problem in the evangelization of China had to do with the rites or ceremonies, in use from time immemorial, to do honour to ancestors or deceased relatives and the particular tokens of respect which the educated felt bound to pay to their master, Confucius." So rather than jump straight into evangelization, Father Ricci first mastered the Chinese language and then embarked on a detailed study of Confucian teachings and traditions. Consequently, he found no conflict between the local customs and Church teachings and thus was able to introduce a Christianity which allowed any converts to keep practicing the old rites honoring Confucius and their ancestors. In effect, before engaging in any evangelization, Father Ricci first indulged in a bit of inculturation.

That seems perfectly in spirit with the Catechism where it states that "Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ, continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are "a sign of God's presence in the world," and leads to the foundation of local churches. It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people's culture." Sadly, the Catechism wasn't around during Father Ricci's time, and a consensus on what constituted proper inculturation had yet to be reached. Professor Joshua Tyler writes that "in what has come to be known as the "Rites Controversy," the Church, under Jansenist influence, determined the Confucian ancestral rite to be pagan... It was not until 1939 that the Church came around to the learned opinion of Fr. Matteo Ricci, that the Confucian ancestral rite was familial, not religious in nature, and Asian Catholics were allowed to participate in it. It has been suggested that the East might be Catholic today were it not for this error." John Paul II expressed his sadness over the whole mess in his 2001 message on the fourth centenary of Ricci's arrival in Beijing in which he apologized for the various errors and events which "placed obstacles in the Church’s path and prevented her from fully carrying out - for the benefit of the Chinese people - the mission entrusted to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ."

Which is all fine and dandy and makes a nice history lesson, but what has it got to do with anything today? On June 20, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI released a letter "To the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People's Republic of China." It was received well enough by the Chinese government to allow the vice-chairman of the Chinese state-approved Catholic Association, Liu Bainian, to issue an invitation to the Pontiff to come to China. Liu was quick to add, however, that "Beijing will never accept what the church did in Poland." Apparently, the growing religious pluralism in China, most recently among Muslims and Pentecostal Christians, is starting to annoy the Communist regime in China. An article from the Catholic News agency quotes a news release from the China Aid Association which states that "a central government-directed campaign to expel suspected foreign missionaries has been ongoing since February 2007. The groups says this is the largest expulsion since 1954, when the Chinese Communist government expelled all foreign religious workers after taking power in 1949." Since they're going through all the trouble to get rid of all the noisy protestants, the last thing the Chinese government wants right now is another papal super-hero speeding through town in his pope-mobile encouraging dissension in the ranks. But that doesn't appear to be the approach Pope Benedict XVI is taking with China.

With all due respect to the much needed humane efforts put forth by our protestant brethren in China, and a hat tip to the immediate success of their guerilla evangelization techniques (conservative estimates indicate that Protestantism in China has experienced roughly a 4,300 percent growth over the last half-century alone), the current goings-on in China sound awfully familiar to what happened with the Nestorians way back when. Isn't it within reason to think that the short term accomplishments of the Pentecostals could ultimately follow those of the first Christian missionaries into obscurity? Perhaps that's why, in his letter to the Church in China, Pope Benedict XVI writes "I realize that the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China requires time and presupposes the good will of both parties. For its part, the Holy See always remains open to negotiations, so necessary if the difficulties of the present time are to be overcome. This situation of misunderstandings and incomprehension weighs heavily, serving the interests of neither the Chinese authorities nor the Catholic Church in China. As Pope John Paul II stated, recalling what Father Matteo Ricci wrote from Beijing, "so too today the Catholic Church seeks no privilege from China and its leaders, but solely the resumption of dialogue, in order to build a relationship based upon mutual respect and deeper understanding". Let China rest assured that the Catholic Church sincerely proposes to offer, once again, humble and disinterested service in the areas of her competence, for the good of Chinese Catholics and for the good of all the inhabitants of the country."

It's quite possible that the current Pope's more measured approach to China, which some critics have seen as timid compared to the efforts of protestants, may eventually bear more fruit farther down the line. And it's quite possible that "farther" could mean generations. As frustrating as that is, the Catechism reminds us that "with regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic." As always, we're on God's time. We try to rush the combining of the two cultures and we could end up with something along the lines of Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires; a tangled mess that's got some interesting features, but is ultimately unfulfilling to either side.

THE STINGER

China and Catholicism already have some common talking points. As Professor Joshua Tyler notes, while Confucius himself "denied the existence of the spirits, he affirmed the importance of ceremonial propriety in the orientation of man toward the good." The Confucian concept of "li" (variously translated as "etiquette," "ceremony," "rite," "ritual," or "propriety") proscribed "a precise following of the rubrics without the slightest deviation in the ancestral rite... The Confucian understanding of "li" went beyond the ancestral rite to include ceremonial music and human relationships as well. It is obvious where Confucius would stand in the liturgical battles of the past four decades; he would be on the side of those who want Gregorian Chant and Palestrina, not folk guitars, at Mass." Confucius might say, "Bite me, OCP!"

(Whew. Another long rambling post that started out as one thing, turned into another, and had to be retyped. I don't see how the rest of you manage to blog on a regular basis.)

SHORT FEATURE: PARTY IN MY TUMMY

Like a lot of other bloggers, the Thanksgiving holiday (and the obligatory pre-holiday work rush) is slowing up my posting just a bit. I'll get the next review up over the weekend. Until then, here's a short feature celebrating good meals everywhere. (Is it just me or does this little guy look a whole lot like The Green Slime?)

All together now...

Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts which we are about to receive
from your bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mensae coelestis participes faciat nos, Rex aeternae gloriae. Amen.
May the King of everlasting glory make us partakers of the heavenly table. Amen.

Ad coenam vitae aeternae perducat nos, Rex aeternae gloriae. Amen.
May the King of everlasting glory lead us to the banquet of life eternal. Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

WEEKLY NEWSREEL

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic and all you other Christians at sea. Our efforts to provide you with the best of the B-news brings us this week to China. On a serious note, we would be remiss not to mention the precarious situation for Catholics in China, and so we ask for your prayers for our oppressed brethren there. That being said, our intrepid reporters have also ferreted out a number of other less notable stories which contain the essential B-elements you the reader have come to expect from The Newsreel. Now off to press.

DATELINE: LAKE KANASI - ANCIENT CHINESE SECRET, HUH?

Over the past few decades tens of thousands of people have flocked to a small isolated lake in the Xinjiang Province in hopes of spotting Kanasi Huguai, the Chinese version of the Loch Ness Monster. According to the Associated Press, an explanation for the creature might already have been found back in 1980 when a group of 150 scientific experts studying the lake "discovered dozens of huge red fish, each 30-50 feet long and weighing more than four tons, living in the lake." Yet, despite the facts, "throughout summer, up to 4,000 tourists a day flock here... "Everyone in the country has heard of it," a visitor surnamed Zhou says. "It may be a rich fairy tale but the scenery is so beautiful - plus there's this mysterious creature. How can we not come?" We don't know, Mr. Zhou. Perhaps it's because while you're floating around looking for a ficiticious creature you could possibly be mangled or killed by the very real "dozens of huge red fish, each 30-50 feet long and weighing more than four tons!" You might wish to exercise a little Prudence, Mr. Zhou, one of the four cardinal virtues listed in the Catechism. As it is noted, "the prudent man looks where he is going."

DATELINE: HONG KONG - WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL... AND HOPEFULLY SOME MEDICAL ATTENTION

The Catechism also notes that Prudence "is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it." That's something to keep in mind as we peruse this story from Reuters. It would seem that "Hong Kong people hoping to cure their asthma through the age-old remedy of a dish of crocodile meat could instead come down with sore throats, constipation, nosebleeds and insomnia." While these symptoms might sound like nothing more than the common side effects of Nexium or Lunesta, they are in fact the result of something quite non-FDA approved. "Hong Kong's Consumer Council tested 24 samples of crocodile meat from dried seafood shops across the territory and found that 16 were fake, constituted instead from dried lizard or snake." Ugh. Don't blame the customers, gentle readers, it probably all tastes like chicken lo mein going down.

DATELINE: GUANGZHOU - GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER

At least the folks in the previous story bothered to eat. The Beijing News reports that a "30-year-old man fainted at a cybercafe in the city of Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days... Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe." If nobody was going to pass this guy some spring rolls, they might at least have suggested he practice a little of the cardinal virtue of Prudence, which the Catechism considers "right reason in action." Confucius said, "I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue."

That's it for this week's Chinese Newsreel. We know you'll be hungry for more very soon. Until then, in the words of the legendary Les Nessman, "Good evening, and may the good news be yours."

SHORT FEATURE: UGOKIE KO RI NO TATEHIKI

As long as we're on our way to China to see what Dracula is up to, we may as well stop off in Japan and check on the supernatural shenanigans there. 1933's The Fox Vs The Raccoon features a battle of the shape-shifters as an intruding Kitsune, disguised as a gun toting samurai, runs afoul of a family of Tanukis. The Moon seems pleased at the outcome.

Fr. Robert J. Carr writes "Do you ever think of yourself engaged in spiritual warfare? Often times those words bring up thoughts of exorcisms and heads turning around three hundred sixty degrees. However, in reality fighting temptation and living the gospel are themselves forms of spiritual warfare. Therefore, believe it or not we actually engage in this battle everyday. Further, do not forget that the prize is the most precious treasure we possess, human souls. Our own and those of others."

"For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." - Ephesians 6:12

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

The holidays aren't quite here yet, so the wretched Fall movie season continues in the theaters. It's slim pickings as far as new releases are concerned. The only person who seems to have gone out to see a movie is Barbara Nicolosi over at Church of the Masses who caught a showing of Dan In Real Life. She goes easy on this one as she's likely still punch-drunk from the beating she received over not liking Bella.

Snuffles from the Sci-Fi Catholic decided to stay home and find something good to rent. And it seems he found what he was looking for in Katsuhiro Otomo's Steamboy, a film he believes is "a decent introduction to the wacky sub-genre" of steampunk and a little thought provoking as well.

Jack Perry from Cantànima also raided the rental shelves and offers up a slew of three-sentence movie reviews covering everything from Hitch to Bridge to Terabithia.

John W. Morehead's from TheoFantastique also found a new DVD while browsing the shelves of his local video store. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that, along with the usual flesh munching fun, the new zombie comedy Fido "provides material for other areas of social and theological reflection as it looks at death and the funeral industry."

Patrick Archbold at Creative Minority Report digs deep into the bottom of the barrel and takes another look at Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. (See, there are still some Catholics out there into self flagellation.) While watching, he finds some eerie similarities between Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Vulcan cult leader Sybok. Hey, anything's better than thinking about why God needs a spaceship.

If you enjoy those kind of cinmatic musings, be sure to hop over to Strange Culture where RC hosted a Film + Faith blog-a-thon. Not only will you find a link back to my own review of Frogs (which takes care of the strange part, I suppose), but you'll find links to a wide variety of post covering such topics as Christ imagery in The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly and the use of Buddhism in the Tina Turner biopic What's Love Got To Do With It? (There are a lot of links on the page, many of which I haven't checked out yet. You might want mom or dad to click first to see if they're okay.)

And finally, be sure to stop by The Hermeneutic of Continuity and add your voice to Fr. Tim Finigan's open letter to Mel Gibson. The good father desperately pleads with the aging road warrior to produce a brilliant film on the life of St Edmund Campion as an antidote to the cinematic poison that was Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

There. That should keep everyone busy until the holidays roll around and some decent movies begin to roll into theaters. In theory. See you then.

FILM CLUB: CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA

The polls are in and enough people seem interested in this idea to give it a shot. That being said, welcome to the introductory episode of the B-Movie Catechism's monthly film club. I've chosen this month's movie at random, but as always, suggestions are welcome. Without further ado, we present for your (possible) viewing pleasure...

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA (1961) "When a Caribbean Island is engulfed by a revolution, one unscrupulous American mobster, Renzo Capeto plans to clean up with a get-rich-quick scheme. His diabolical plan is to provide refuge for the loyalists, and the contents of the government coffers, on his boat. He would then murder his passenger and escape with a fortune. Planning to blame their deaths on a mythical sea monster, no one is more surprised than Renzo, when the real monster appears with its own agenda."

The guidelines for participating are simple:

1. Watch the movie (at least as much of it as you can take). The entire film can be viewed in it's entirety above or you can watch it at Google Video which has a full screen option. The movie can also be downloaded for free from The Internet Archive in a number of formats. (Don't worry, it's in the public domain, so Thou Shalt Not Steal doesn't come into play.) If at all possible, try to keep any future movie suggestions limited to what's available through these same sources.

2. Sometime before the end of the month send me an email at eegahinc@gmail.com with a short paragraph or two commenting on the film, preferably including any ideas it may have brought to mind regarding religion or a related topic.

3. By the end of the third week I'll assemble all the comments, along with the usual plot synopsis and such, and post the results. Everybody is welcome to cross-post any and all comments on their own blogs, just remember to kindly link back to whomever's comments you use. (A link back here would be nice also.)

4. And please remember this is an exercise of your God given free will. No one is to hold The B-Movie Catechism responsible for any mental anguish resulting from viewing the selection of the month.

That's all there is to it. So grab some popcorn, lower the lights, and enjoy this month's film club selection.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES

"Hey, you got your Hammer Studios all over my bad kung fu movie!" "No, you got your bad kung fu movie all over my Hammer Studios!" Yes, it's two great tastes in one bite as we fill a couple more reader requests. The poster to the left is for the original American release which came out under the title "The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula". The trailer is not available online, but the short clip below should more than suffice.

HEAD

TYPICAL REVIEW

"Hey hey, these Monkees,
they don't monkey around, they
have something to say." - Ginohn's Haiku Movie Reviews

THE PLOT

Not applicable. Seriously.

THE POINT

Have you ever wanted to see: The Monkees commit suicide by jumping off a bridge... twice? Mickey Dolenz use a tank to blow up a vending machine? Davy Jones get beaten to a bloody pulp by World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston? Mike Nesmith insult a cripple AND Christmas in the same breath? Peter Tork undergo mental anguish over punching a transvestite in the face? The Monkess debate philosophy inside a vacuum cleaner? A 50 foot tall Victor Mature knock the Monkees into space with a golf club. A cop do a two-step routine in a public restroom? Annette Funicello, Teri Garr, Toni Basil, Jack Nicholson, Frank Zappa, and a talking cow all in the same movie? Well, with Head, you get all of the above (plus some) strung together in a plotless montage of surreal vignettes set to the tune of psychedelic Monkees songs.

Now the bizarrely random structure and content of Head might give you the impression that the film makers did WAY too many drugs in the 60s. And if you think that... you would be absolutely right. In an interview at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival the director of Head, Bob Rafelson, "claims he was partly influenced by the French New Wave. "I liked that complete disrespect for the film itself, that violation of the celluloid – the idea of handling it roughly and not aiming for perfect lighting." But, he acknowledges, it wasn't only Godard who inspired him: a healthy consumption of acid also helped the creative process." He then goes on to tell how he and an out-of-work Jack Nicholson holed up in Harry Dean Stanton's basement and worked on the script. Hmm... French aesthetics, LSD, Nicholson, and a dark room. That at least explains the film's non-linear structure and stream-of-conscious storytelling. It doesn't help the narrative itself make one bit of sense, but it does explain why it was told the way it was.

No, to have even a remote chance of understanding what Head is about, you have to first know a little bit about the Monkees themselves. So, for those who might be unfamiliar with the group, a very brief refresher course in Monkees history is in order. In 1966 (the same year Batman starring Adam West debuted), hoping to cash in on Beatlemania, NBC hired four British kids of varying musical talent to portray a fictitious pop quartet on TV. In conjunction with the show, albums were released featuring The Monkees singing songs written by some of the finest pop music composers of the time with studio musicians handling the playing. The Monkees were an instant hit, becoming so successful so quickly that a real life concert tour was thrown together to drag even more profit out of the concept (Holy High School Musical, Caped Crusader!). But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank. Stung by criticism that they were phonies (The Pre-Fab Four was one of the more popular insults thrown their way.), the Monkees became determined to prove they were the real deal. To the protest of the producers, the boys began insisting they be allowed to play their own instruments on tour and write their own songs for the albums. By the end of the second season, the infighting over creative control of the show and the music brought the whole thing to a messy end. In an effort to squeeze a few last dollars out of the group, the studio tossed some pocket change at the Monkees and allowed them to make a movie. Why not, it had worked when they did the same thing with the Batman series, hadn't it?

But The Monkess had no intention of making a big screen version of their TV show. Under the hazy guidance of Rafelson and Nicholson (who would team up again two years later for the Best Picture nominated Five Easy Pieces), Head was instead an avant-garde assault pitting the perceived image of the Monkees as a pre-fabricated product against their aspirations to be true artists. Sometimes this message was obvious. To hammer home the point that they saw themselves as prisoners of public perception, every fifth scene in the movie has The Monkees being captured and physically placed into some kind of large box or container with no visible exit. (Holy Non-Subtlety, Batman!) But along with the obvious, audiences were also treated to unsettling abstract imagery like scenes of screaming Monkees fans intercut with documetary footage of the execution of Viet Cong guerilla Nguyễn Văn Lém while the Monkees chanted in voiceover, "You say we're manufactured, to that we all agree, So make your choice and we'll rejoice in never being free. Hey hey, we are The Monkees, we've said it all before, The money's in, we're made of tin, we're here to give you more." (Drugs, remember.) The producers were expecting an 80-minute sit-com and instead were handed a feature length deconstructivist music video. Not unexpectedly, the studio freaked and withdrew most of their advertising, the teeny-boppers were totally confused, and the movie bombed. The French loved it though. Your own reaction to Head will likely depend on whether you consider this kind of thing art or just self-important overindulgence.

Determining whether or not something is art can be tricky these days. Prof. Kendall Walton, writing in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, seems to suggest that it isn't possible to do it at all. He writes that "it is not at all clear that these words – ‘What is art?’ – express anything like a single question, to which competing answers are given, or whether philosophers proposing answers are even engaged in the same debate…. The sheer variety of proposed definitions should give us pause." (Sorry. Give me a moment. That kind of psycho-babble always brings a sentimental tear to my eye as I remember my old art school days.) Leo Tolstoy on the other hand, who actually created some art, was a little more decisive when he wrote "Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings, and also experience them." Reducing that argument to a basic formula, Tolstoy seems to be saying that expression + communication = art. (Under Leo's definition my 5 year old creates loud wailing art every time I tell him no.) So you can see the problem. How do you conclusively decide whether or not something is art when we have definitions ranging from "It's useless to try and call anything art" to "just about everything is art". At the end of the day we seem to be stuck in the same boat as Gelett Burgess when he gave his famous quote, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like." When it comes to art it seems everyone has to set their own individual standards, It's all subjective.

But does the same lack of objective standards apply to art specifically designed for religious purposes, especially that to be used in liturgy? It starts to look like the answer is yes if you give only a cursory glance to the November 16, 2000 document released by the USCCB entitled Built of Living Stones: Art, Architecture, and Worship. In the section entitled Components of True and Worthy Art the bishops give us this statement, "While personal tastes will differ, parish committees should utilize the criteria of quality and appropriateness in evaluating art for worship. Quality is perceived only by contemplation, by standing back from things and really trying to see them, trying to let them speak to the beholder. Quality is evident in the honesty and genuineness of the materials that are used, the nobility of the form embodied in them, the love and care that goes into the creation of a work of art, and the personal stamp of the artist whose special gift produces a harmonious whole, a well crafted work." (I understand that those of you who never attended art school and received a daily dose of phrases like "really try to see a thing" and "honesty of materials" are now feeling compelled to place your index finger between your lips and make that blubblubblubblub noise. Please stop, it's distracting.) "There is no standard pattern for church art" the bishops continue, "nor should art and architectural styles from any particular time or culture be imposed arbitrarily upon another community." So it would seem anything goes when it comes to religious art. But that statement is immediately followed by a toss away sentence that could be easy to overlook. "Nonetheless, the patrimony of sacred art and architecture provides a standard by which a parish can judge the worthiness of contemporary forms and styles." Ah, So there is a standard. Unfortunately, the bishops give little to no detail (outside of the aforementioned artspeak) in the rest of the document as to what that standard entails. For that, we have to look for clues elsewhere.

Gertrude Grace Sill, in the introduction to her book A Handbook of Symbols in Christian Art, appears to be addressing just such a patrimonial standard. "In addition to creating impressive environments and beautiful objects, a major purpose of Christian art was to instruct, to inspire, and to solidify Christian faith. From it's inception this art was didactic. It's purpose was to teach Christian lessons to a largely illiterate public, through precise and literal visual images." In theory, today's population should be a wee bit more literate than our forefathers were. But does that mean sacred art has lost it's calling to be a teaching tool? The Catechism doesn't seem to think so. Liturgy, it says, is "the privileged place for catechizing the People of God. Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity." Addressing sacred art as a part of liturgy, the Catechism states that "arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing... Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God." So if we take the bishops' suggestion of using a patrimonial standard for sacred art, then that standard would seem to include not only such "artsy" requirements as inner truth and honesty of materials, but also how well the artwork fulfills its vocation as a teaching tool.

Which leaves us with a very good question. What kind of artwork teaches the best? The answer may be pretty simple. Mexican poet Octavio Paz is quoted as saying, "What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism." And he was right, we've reached a point where a large amount of art is unintelligible without an accompanying artist's thesis (which art school will happily teach you to write) to explain what the darned thing is all about. I would suggest that the best art, for which teaching is a part of its function, is art which requires the least amount of explaining. Liturgical art should not require a resident art critic to help the people understand what it is trying to communicate. This still leaves a lot of room for individual expression in a piece of religious artwork. There have been literally thousands of interpretations of the Virgin Mary through the centuries, some of them quite modern. The key is that we recognize it's Mary.

THE STINGER

Obviously, all of the above applies to religious art in the context of liturgy. If, in your private devotion, you find it useful to have a lump of clay with a nail through it (representing Jesus) encased in a big tear-shaped globule of blue glass (representing the Blessed Virgin) sitting on your desk, go for it, knock yourself out. Just keep it out of our sanctuaries, please.

POLL: MONTHLY FILM CLUB

Now that I've managed to scrape up a handful of regular readers, I was wondering if anyone would be interested in taking part in a monthly film club? Basically we would choose some appropriate upcoming flick off of basic cable (Sci-Fi Channel, TCM, etc.) or even something streamed over the internet (either way, no money would be involved) and everyone could write a short paragraph or two on it (preferably with a religious or philosophical slant). Everyone could e-mail me their comments and at the end of the month I would assemble it all into a single post. Does this sound interesting to anyone out there?

UPDATE: It's been pointed out to me that a number of readers might not have cable. (Some don't have televisions.) There are a number of sites which stream public domain movies from the 40s and 50s with more than enough titles to keep things going until we get sick of it. That might also ensure less objectionable content.

For those who subscribe to the blog through feed readers, there is a poll below which might not show up on certain readers. I know it doesn't on my Google Reader.

WEEKLY NEWSREEL

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. Catholic and all you other Christians at sea. We here in the Newsreel offices took a small hiatus from the celebrity gossip circuit because, quite frankly, how much Tom Cruise can you really take without going mad? (For if you stare long enough into the Abyss, and all that, you know?) Now that we're back, we're going to shift our focus a bit and cover instead some of the news stories that will never make the front pages, the B-News if you will. And what better way is there to start than with a barrel full of monkey stories? Now off to press.

DATELINE: SPOKANE, WASHINGTON - MONKEY SAW, MONKEY DID

The Associated Press sadly informs us that "Washoe, a female chimpanzee said to be the first non-human to acquire human language, has died at the age of 42 at Central Washington University. Washoe, who first learned some American Sign Language in a research project in Nevada, had been living on CWU's Ellensburg campus since 1980. Critics contended Washoe and some other primates learned to imitate sign language, but not true language skills." You might remember that Washoe recently received a mention in our review of Deafula, so this is indeed sad news around our offices. But this isn't necessarily the end. Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. reminds us that it is likely "pets, as pets, do not go to Heaven. But animals and such like beings may be said to be brought to Heaven because, after the Last Day, they can serve as part of the joys of Heaven." So Godspeed, Washoe, mayhap we shall meet again somewhere in the infinite.

APOCALYPSE ALERT! - DATELINE: ST. CLAIRSVILLE, OHIO - ROAD MONKEYS INDEED

The Last Judgement. The Catechism reminds us that "Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming." There will be signs, of course. Matthew 24:7-8 says "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes from place to place. All these are the beginning of the labor pains." But we see those every day. It's the little stuff you watch out for. Calling upon our years of movie watching experience, The Weekly Newsreel vows to keep a vigilant eye open for any small signs that might indicate the end is near.

In that vein comes this sobering news from the Associated Press. "A pickup truck pulling a trailer carrying 53 lab monkeys rear-ended a minivan and skidded off the freeway, police said. The monkeys were not hurt... The monkeys, mostly Rhesus and African Green monkeys, were bound for a Maryland laboratory, but did not appear to pose a health risk." Sure. Like we haven't seen this movie before? We here at The B-Movie Catechism have already dusted off our zombie contingency plan (slightly modified to compensate for the fast-moving variety spawned by 28 Days Later type monkey viruses) and suggest that our faithful readers do so as well.

DATELINE: THE WORLD - BY ALL MEANS, GO MAKE A MONKEY OUT OF YOURSELF

Just in case the monkey apocalypse takes a while to get going, however, keep in mind that National Gorilla Suit Day is rapidly approaching (January 31). You might have noticed, as evidenced by our reviews of Robot Monster and Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, the B-Movie Catechism is quite fond of Gorilla suits and is in full support of this annual celebration. According to the official website, nationalgorillasuitday.com, the holiday "was invented by "Mad's Maddest Artist" (i.e., the weirdest of all the cartoonists in Mad Magazine), Don Martin...and maybe also by E. Solomon Rosenblum, a writer who collaborated with him on the 1964 paperback book, Don Martin Bounces Back!" Gifts are not mandatory, but gorilla suits are, so get yours now before supplies are gone. For daily mass attendees, however, please be advised not to wear them to church. The Catechism reminds us (of what should be freakin' common sense) that "bodily demeanor (gestures, clothing) ought to convey the respect, solemnity, and joy of this moment when Christ becomes our guest." One should be able to safely assume that this applies not only to those in gorilla suits, but also to all of the assorted clowns, mimes, transvestites, and low-ride jeans wearing skanks who have populated our pews as of late.

That's it for this week, dear readers. Remember that while an infinite number of monkeys hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time might eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, this page of ramblings was produced by one hairless ape over the course of one day. Be charitable in your judgement. Until next time, in the words of the great Les Nessman, "Have a good evening, and may the Good News be yours."

SHORT FEATURE: LANCELOT LINK AND THE EVOLUTION REVOLUTION

Before we get to the singing Monkees, let's have a little bit of... singing monkeys. A planet where apes evolved from rock musicians?!? Yeah, actually, that seems like a logical step up the evolutionary ladder. (All apologies to Scott at Cordelia's Shoes. I couldn't resist.)

The Catechism notes that "the composition and singing of inspired psalms, often accompanied by musical instruments, were already closely linked to the liturgical celebrations of the Old Covenant. The Church continues and develops this tradition." But is all change a proper development? Is all modernization an evolution, or can it be a step backward?

Fr. Dwight Longnecker, an Anglican convert, writes "It seems to me that the underlying problem with the contemporary hymns is an almost universal lack of understanding in the modern American Catholic Church about what Mass is in the first place. If it is a gathering of friendly Christian people around the table of fellowship in order to get strength and encouragement from one another as we all think about Jesus, why then the contemporary hymns fit the bill very nicely, but then, so would quite a few snippets of music I can think of like--"My favorite things" from The Sound of Music. However, if the Mass is meant to take us to the threshold of heaven; if it is meant to be a glimpse of glory and a participation in the worship of the spheres of heaven itself, why then the sentimental, sweet and comforting songs just won't do. They wont' do not because they are bad or untrue, but because they are not good and true enough. Worship that takes us to the threshold of glory needs to be, well...glorious."

Yeah, I know. It's the same old rant. But after my monthly dose of "I Am The Bread Of Life" I just had to let off some steam.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: HEAD

Hey, hey, it's the Monkees! One of the very first reader requests we ever received. Can't figure out what to make of the trailer? Not a problem, I'm still not sure what kind of review to make out out of the whole film.

THE CRAWLING EYE

TYPICAL REVIEW

"This is a movie that all lovers of intelligent genre cinema should seek out, and its flaws are easily overlooked." - Dr. Mality, Sci-Film

THE PLOT

"It's such a steep climb; Up the mountain's south side; It has a cloud that acts in such peculiar ways. - Accident count rising; A young girl prophesizing; To protect their race, they'll seize her mind. - At this altitude, it's freezing; Aliens control human beings; No one has lived to tell; Who's seen the crawling eye? - These evil demon eyes; Under cloud cover hide; They have great tentacles to tear apart their prey. - All these men are dying; Crawling eye decapitizing; Fiends without a face attack mankind - At this altitude, it's freezing; Aliens control human beings; No one has lived to tell; Who's seen the crawling eye?" - Lyrics to The Crawling Eye by The Misfits

(Yes, I know, decapitizing isn't a real word. You were expecting Shakespeare from The Misfits?)

THE POINT

41 years passed between the 1958 release of The Crawling Eye and the recording of The Misfits' 1999 tune which used it's plot for the lyrics shown above. But it's not like everyone's favorite horror-punk pioneers were treading on unfamiliar territory. Before being translated to film, the story that would become The Crawling Eye was actually broadcast in Britain in the form of a TV serial under the title The Trollenberg Terror. Under it's new name The Crawling Eye (Americans am dum, us need exploitative title to sell tickets and popcorn) the film version hung around on double bills at theaters and drive-ins before finally making the leap to American television in the 60s. From that point on it played endlessly on Saturday afternoon creature-features around the country for the next two decades. And just as the last of the local horror hosts were laying their shows to final rest, Mystery Science Theater 3000 came along and used The Crawling Eye for it's cable debut in 1989. Even Spielberg jumped aboard the bandwagon in the mid 90s when his cartoon Freakazoid parodied the movie for a full episode. Safe to say, by the time The Misfits got around to it at the turn of the millennium, The Crawling Eye was well-traveled ground.

And if you've never seen The Crawling Eye before, don't worry. Pop it in the DVD player and you'll feel in familiar territory too. After a mountain climber is beheaded by something hidden in the clouds (Mysterious set-up. Check.), the movie quickly introduces a disparate group of people who've come to the isolated village of Trollenberg. (Remote setting. Check.) We've got the hard-drinking hard-smoking American investigator, his old friend the funny little scientist, a determined young reporter, a beautiful clairvoyant accompanied by her big sister, and a motley assemblage of red-shirts destined to be Eye fodder. (Recognizable types. Check. This cast of characters was as familiar to 1950's sci-fi fans as hordes of empty-headed repulsive teenagers are to today's audience.) The clouds quickly cut off any escape routes and the things enshrouded in the mist begin picking off people one at a time, sometimes raising them as zombies. As the film nears it conclusion, the attacks escalate and the usual stuff happens. (Final siege. Check. John Carpenter confirms in an interview with Dark Horizon that this movie was an influence on The Fog.) The survivors hold up in the funny little scientist's fortress, the American saves the day with molotov cocktails and napalm (Americans am dum, us solve problems by blowing things up), and the determined young reporter gets his story and a new girl to boot. It's cliched (This is no place for a woman!), it has a couple of plot holes (Who knew Britain had the authority to bomb the Alps?), and most of the effects are sub-sub-par (Look, Ma, it's a pipe cleaner attacking an action figure!). We've seen it all before.

And yet, oddly enough, The Crawling Eye is not a bad movie. The credit for this has to go to the film's fairly tight script written by Jimmy Sangster. He was the man who penned Hammer's revival of Dracula and Frankenstein among other things, and he's in fine form here as well. Atypical for a B-movie of this period, there are no wasted moments, no unnecessary padding. Every scene either advances the story, or adds background to the characters. (A neat touch is the hinted at previous encounter with the aliens which ended with a bloodbath for our side.) Sangster beefs up the early attacks by allowing the psychic girl to "see" them as they occur. She relays the goings on frantically while the rest of the cast scrambles to communicate with those in danger before it's too late. It has the net effect of layering tension onto scenes which could have come across as mundane since the killings happen mostly off screen. Sangster, more than aware of the movie's budget, also wisely keeps the monsters hidden until the near end. (Actually, despite the mostly wretched effects, the first appearance of The Crawling Eye is kind of impressive for the five bucks it must have cost. It's pulsating vein-encrusted mass leering through a shattered doorway gives off some definite Lovecraftian vibes.) Instead, the script calls for the actors to carry the burden of building the suspense, which works in this case because the actors in the movie are actually capable. Well tread ground or not, The Crawling Eye ends up being, despite it's flaws, a smart low budget thriller worth a viewing. (Which doesn't mean rush right out and rent it. If big crawling eyes don't do it for you, no amount of brains is going to make up for it.)

Don't just take my word for it. Trolling around the Internet looking at other B-sites which have reviewed this movie you'll find the same thing time after time. Even for those reviewers who've seen the movie before, once they sit down and take another look at the latest release of The Crawling Eye, most of them find it to be pretty good. In fact, for many of them, there's a recognizable pattern. They saw it as a small child and were kind of scared by the Eye. They saw it later, usually on MST3K, and laughed at the cheesiness of it all. And now they've viewed the restored version and can appreciate what an intelligent little sci-fi tale it is. This kind of thing happens again and again when watching movies (or reading books, listening to a song, etc.) for a second or third time. In her book Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering, Wendy Lesser recalls having the same experience while rewatching Hitchcock's Vertigo. "I have never seen it without noticing or feeling something new." she says, "It is a movie that never goes dead on me." Lesser's book of essays recounts her experience of approaching anew works she hadn't read or seen since she was a young woman, an experience that often left her surprised at the themes and ideas she had missed the first time around. "The idea that a simple rereading could also be a new reading struck me with the force of a revelation. It meant that something old wasn't necessarily outdated, used up, or overly familiar."

That's good news for mass attendees. According to Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas "if a Catholic were to read no Scripture beyond the texts used for Sunday Mass over the three-year period, that person would have been exposed to more than seven thousand verses of the Bible." Of course, Not all the Bible is included in the Lectionary, there just isn't time. But according to Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D. "if one includes all the Masses for weekdays, rituals, votives, the propers and commons of saints, and special needs and occasions, the Lectionary for Mass now covers much of the NT (about 90% of the Gospels, 55% of the rest: Acts, Epistles, Revelation), but still very little of the OT (slightly over 13%), but this is understandable, given how much longer the OT is." That's a lot of Bible verses. And since the Lectionary readings repeat in a three year cycle (two years for the weekday readings), this means the average Catholic (at least the 25% who bother to attend mass regularly) will likely be exposed to the same passage of Scripture at least ten to fifteen times over a lifetime.

That much exposure to the same reading over and over could easily lead to boredom and inattention if a person assumes they've heard it all before, that it's all too familiar. (Especially us Americans who am dum and think us need something new and exciting every five minutes!) The problem with that attitude, as Lisa Marie Contini writes at Catholic.net is that "familiarity, unfortunately, spawns complacency. Complacency becomes manifest through irreverence." And in her opinion, "since many American Catholics do not recognize irreverence as sin, they also fail to see its spiritual consequences. It is primarily the behavior of Catholics within their churches that demonstrates the depth of their faith to non-Catholics as well as to their fellow Catholics whose faith may be lacking." The notion that our own indifference to something like the weekly Lectionary readings might adversely affect the spiritual life of others is something to consider seriously the next time we feel like flipping through the bulletin or sending a text message during the readings at mass.

"The Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body." The Catechism tells us, "To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words." And that means being attentive on the tenth go around as much as we were on the first time. As Ms. Lesser points out in her essays, "The first time you read a book, you might imagine that you are getting out of it precisely what the author put into it... But as you engage in this rereading, you can sense that there are at least two readers, the older one and the younger one. You know there are two because you can feel them responding differently to the book." Tess Lewis of The Hudson Review carries the idea even further. "Books, unlike paintings, must be apprehended sequentially, line by line, rather than instantaneously. Therefore, we can only begin to understand a novel as thoroughly as a work of the visual arts on the second, third, or even fourth reading." And that's the attitude we should bring to the weekly readings at mass. If it takes a third or fourth viewing of something as goofy as The Crawling Eye to finally recognize the substance it contains, is it that much of a leap to expect it may actually take ten or fifteen times to fully comprehend the multiple layers contained in a passage of Scripture? Put down the bulletin and back away from the cell phone, there's still some meaning left to be found in those same old readings.

THE STINGER

There's also a practical reason for continuously repeating the same scriptures in the liturgy. According to a 1999 survey conducted by Barna Research, only about 1/3 of Christian adults read from the Bible on their own even once a week. That's not good considering St. Jerome once said that "Not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ." And there's proof. A newly published survey of 1,000 Americans by Kelton Research shows that more people can name the ingredients of a Big Mac than could name all of the Ten Commandments. Cripes! Only 60% could even come up with "You shall not kill"! If the cholesterol doesn't doom us, then the ignorance surely will.