BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE BRAIN EATERS

The Brain Eaters (1958)

• Ed Nelson,
• Alan Frost,
• Jack Hill

Strange things are happening in Riverdale, Illinois. A huge, seemingly alien structure has been found jutting out of the earth. Sent to investigate the origin of the mysterious object, Senator Walter Powers discovers that parasites from the center of the earth have infiltrated the town, taking control of the authorities and workers, making communication with the outside world impossible, and leaving the responsibility of stopping the invasion up to Powers and a small group of free individuals.

26% liked it

Unrated, 1 hr.

Director: Bruno VeSota

 

June 20, 2010: Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

The other night I had 60 minutes to spare, but rather than watch the shambling husk of Andy Rooney attempt to explain what was confusing him this week, I decided instead to spend that hour with The Brain Eaters. I’m pretty sure I made the better choice.

In case the short running time isn’t enough of a tip off, then let me assure you, The Brain Eaters is pure second-billing fodder from the bygone days of the Saturday afternoon double feature. The creature effects consist of nothing but some fuzzy lumps (eerily reminiscent of Rooney’s eyebrows) adorned with pipe cleaner antennae being pulled by strings, the  soundtrack is comprised of scratched vinyl outtakes from works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich (but credited to fictitious composer Tom Jonson because that name sounds less like a dirty Russian commie), and the hero is played by hard working B-movie and TV vet Ed Nelson (whose previous lead role was as the crab in Attack Of The Crab Monsters).

And yet, The Brain Eaters is still a watchable film. The cast is earnest, the script has some nice surprises (those characters died, really?), and there’s even a brief appearance by a young Leonard Nimoy (misspelled Nemoy in the too-expensive-to-correct opening credits) looking all Gandalfish as the spokesman for the wooly invaders. Plus, it’s got that tried and true plot element found in so many 50’s movies, the communist inspired fear of the communal hive mind and the loss of individual identity.

Now who would have thought so many aliens in the 50s would turn out to be Quietists? As explained in the Columbia Encyclopedia, Quietism is “a heretical form of religious mysticism founded by Miguel de Molinos, a 17th-century Spanish priest (and, bizarrely, something of a Nimoy lookalike).”

  

“The essence of quietism is that perfection lies in the complete passivity of the soul before God and the absorption of the individual in the divine love to the point of annihilation not only of will but of all effort or desire for effort… Molinos and his doctrines were condemned by Pope Innocent XI in 1687.”

You know, despite the Buddhist feel of Quietism, one might wonder why the Church never approved of it. After all, in this week’s reading we hear, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” On the surface, that sounds a lot like the annihilation of the self through the absorption into the divine. But as the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia explains, “The self-abandonment which Christ in the Gospel requires of us is simply the renunciation of our own interest.” It’s a discarding of the sinful attachments which get in the way of our conforming our will and reason to God without actually abdicating those faculties in the process. Unlike the Brain Eaters, God wants volunteers, not drones.

Speaking of droning, here’s Mike & The Bots with their take on Andy Rooney.

CUTAWAYS: JAWS OF SATAN

Ahhh, if only every crummy movie I’ve watched could be this unintentionally hilarious. From the first moment when Satan appears in the form of a king cobra and bashes his skull against the clearly visible pane of glass the prop crew placed between the snake and the actor (you can actually hear the thud), all the way to the final confrontation between the priest and a stuffed snake head on a stick, Jaws Of Satan is a treat for the bad effects connoisseur. And the acting is little better, as this scene amply demonstrates.

Never has a defenseless, trapped animal generated so much fear from the characters onscreen! Oh well, considering how many times I’ve been summoned home from the office to dispatch whatever poor king snake was dumb enough to trespass on our property and set off my wife’s Ophidiophobia, I suppose I can empathize just a little. You see, even though my bride understands, as the Catechism confirms, that “the account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language”, there’s still no convincing her that snakes are not the spawn of Satan who must be crushed beneath my heels, or better yet, put to the machete (as a deterrence to the other snakes to keep them from sunning themselves on our drive, you understand).

So why snakes? Couldn’t the Devil just as easily have used some other animal to carry out his actions? How about one of those squirrels who raid our bird feeder every 15 minutes? Surely one those thieving yard rats could house the spirit of Satan. Writing in Volume 2 of The Literal Meaning of Genesis, St. Augustine explains, “If someone should ask why the Devil was allowed to carry out the temptation through a serpent particularly, the authority of Scripture should be enough to suggest that it happened with some meaning intended. After all, in speaking divinely Scripture deals with a whole universe of things revealed by God corresponding in a way to this natural universe of ours which is full of the works of His hands. Not that the Devil wished to symbolize something for our instruction, but since he could not have approached man to tempt him without God’s permission, he surely could not have used any other creature in this act than the one allowed him.”

So why snakes? Well, according to an article on LiveScience, “research suggests humans have evolved an innate tendency to sense snakes - and spiders, too - and to learn to fear them… The idea is that throughout evolutionary history, humans that learned quickly to fear snakes would have been at an advantage to survive and reproduce.” If this is true, then it would make sense that the imagery of the serpent is a perfect fit, literally and figuratively, for the Devil whose snares we are to avoid at all costs. Now how do you suppose the author of Genesis knew that?

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You know, all this talk of snakes has reminded me that it’s Summer Camp season, so I thought I’d throw in a bonus clip to remind all you kids to behave and listen to your counselors. Like they used to tell us at the Church Of The Nazarene camp I attended, “Don’t you boys and girls try and slip off into the woods together because (literally and figuratively) there’s snakes out there!”

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE SORCERERS

The Sorcerers (1967)

• 

• Boris Karloff,
• Catherine Lacey,
• Ian Ogilvy

The great hypnotist Professor Montserrat has developed a technique for controlling the minds, and sharing the sensations, of his subjects. He and his wife Estelle test the technique on Mike Roscoe, and enjoy 'being' the younger man. But Estelle soon grows to love the power of controlling Roscoe, and the vicarious pleasures that provides. How far will she go, and can the Professor restrain her in time?

67% liked it

Unrated, 1 hr. 27 min.

Director: Michael Reeves

 

June 13, 2010: Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)

Who could have imagined that the same Karloff whose mere visage once caused people to faint back in 1931 would find himself in 1967 getting his butt kicked by an old woman? A pretty mean old woman to be sure, but still.

Not to fret, though, the Uncanny one knew exactly what he was doing. You see, even though the scenery of The Sorcerers is full of bohemian backstreets, mod miniskirts, and swinging songstresses, the movie still plays like a classic thirties thriller with Karloff, as usual, providing the humanity. His Professor Montserrat has good intentions, hoping his discovery will allow the disabled to experience life through the minds of others. It’s just that his wife really wants to experience a new fur coat. And then a motorcycle ride. And then to kill. Kill. KILL! (You know, you would think since the couple are both roughly the age of Methuselah that Boris might have realized his wife was a sociopath BEFORE allowing her to sit in the driver’s seat of someone else’s brain.)

Maybe it’s things like this which caused the Church to take such a dim view of hypnotists over the decades. The old 1941 Baltimore Catechism, noted that “Another practice very dangerous to faith and morals is the use of mesmerism or hypnotism, because it is liable to sinful abuses, for it deprives a person for a time of the control of his reason and will and places his body and mind entirely in the power of another.” But the Church always recognizes advances in medicine, so by the the 1968 edition of the Jone-Adelman Moral Theology (once the indispensable “how to” book for priests) we find that the restrictions on hypnotism had eased up, albeit still with a pants load of qualifiers. “Hypnotism is not a sin against the worship due to God as long as it is not associated with superstitious intention or a pantheistic philosophy of life. It is often forbidden by reason of its being dangerous to health and morals. Hence, for the lawfulness of hypnotic practices these conditions must be verified: a serious reason must be had (e.g., to cure certain ills), other unobjectionable means must not be available; furthermore, a thoroughly skilled and morally reliable hypnotist must conduct the hypnotizing; if possible it ought to be done in the presence of witnesses, and finally, none of the participants may have superstitious intentions,… patients with the use of reason must consent to such treatments.”

Given all that, it’s better, whenever possible, to go the route of the ‘sinful woman’ in this week’s reading from Luke who surrenders herself completely to the Lord in order to cure her ills. As St. Gregory The Great explains, once she offered her will to God, all the profane uses of her body were turned to good as well. “For her eyes which once coveted after earthly things, she was now wearing out with penitential weeping. She once displayed her hair for the setting off of her face, she now wiped her tears with her hair… She once uttered proud things with her mouth, but kissing the feet of the Lord, she impressed her lips on the footsteps of her Redeemer. She once used ointment for the perfume of her body; what she had unworthily applied to herself, she now laudably offered to God… As many enjoyments as she had in herself, so many offerings did she devise out of herself. She converts the number of her faults into the same number of virtues, that as much of her might wholly serve God in her penitence, as had despised God in her sin.”

Okay, so chances are that type of surrender isn’t always going to be as graceful as the scene St. Gregory paints, but you have to admit it sure sounds preferable to getting strapped in a chair while a guy who looks a lot like Frankenstein’s monster shines a light in your face and tells you everything is going to be okay.

(And, yes, I completely threw my 500 word limit out the window. I just didn’t have the heart to shortcut St. Gregory. But since the average reading rate is between 200 - 250 words per minute, I still only killed about 3 minutes of your time.)

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: CANNIBAL GIRLS

Cannibal Girls (1973)

• Andrea Martin,
• Allan Price,
• Eugene Levy

Second City TV regulars Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin star in this Canadian horror spoof as a couple on a romantic holiday who settle into a quaint little bed-and-breakfast run by a trio of flesh-eating ladies who fancy them for tomorrow's menu. This is a pretty tame affair considering the subject matter, dishing up rather skimpy portions of both horror and humor. The only source of entertainment -- sadly missing from video prints -- comes from the addition of a warning bell ("When the bell rings, close your eyes if you're squeamish!") to alert urpy filmgoers to upcoming gore scenes. The film is also notable as the directorial debut of Ivan Reitman -- who kept a hand in the horror genre for a few years (producing David Cronenberg's They Came from Within and Rabid) before breaking out with high-concept comedy hits in the 1980's, then returning again to horror satire (albeit with a Hollywood mega-budget) for Ghostbusters. – All Movie Guide

46% liked it

R, 1 hr. 23 min.

Director: Ivan Reitman

June 6, 2010: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Year C)

Despite the names involved, Cannibal Girls is mostly remembered as the film which proved once and for all that Canada could produce cheap drive-in schlock just as well as the next country. The only difference with Canuxploitation is that along with the occasional spurt of stage blood and brief gratuitous nudity, you also get scene after scene of Martin and Levy (the latter sporting a glorious 70s white boy afro) spouting dialogue which the credits assure us “was developed by the cast from an original story.” (Some call it Improv, we call it making crap up while the camera is rolling.)

Truthfully, most people find Cannibal Girls a bit dull (3.7/10 on Imdb), but for those with an affinity for the meandering pace of early 70s cinema, this one’s a decent enough time killer. In fact, once you realize the whole town is in cahoots with the cannibalistic cult, the film actually develops a kind of cut rate Lovecraftian vibe. (If H. P. had been a rural Canadian redneck raised on back bacon, that is.) And if all else fails, you can always fast forward to any scene featuring Ronald Ulrich as the maniacal cape-wearing cult leader and Bunker as the deformed henchman… Bunker, as they tend to liven things up.

Maybe the problem is that the movie’s premise, a community which achieves eternal life through the consumption of body and blood, just doesn’t resonate with people anymore. Not even in church. In a 2008 survey conducted by Georgetown University, it was found that only 57% of American Catholics believe in the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, which means they reject what the Catechism, quoting St Ignatius of Antioch, describes as “the medicine of immortality.”

The catch is that 91% of those who attend mass at least once a week do still believe in the real presence, so it falls on them (us) to bring that “medicine” to the rest of the world. “More than just statically receiving the incarnate Logos” Pope Benedict XVI explained in Deus Caritas Est, “we enter into the very dynamic of his self-giving… The Eucharistic mystery thus gives rise to a service of charity towards neighbor, which "consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God, an encounter which has become a communion of will, affecting even my feelings.”

So as we study this week’s readings for the Feast of Corpus Christi, let’s reflect on living the Eucharist outside the walls of the church building and join in with the Cannibal Girls as they recite their favorite chant, “Within me, and without me, I honor the blood which gives me life.” Just don’t, you know, cook and eat anyone afterwards.

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: DÜNYAYI KURTARAN ADAM (TURKISH STAR WARS)

Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam aka The Man Who Saves the World aka Turkish Star Wars (1982)

• 
• 

• Cüneyt Arkin,
• Aytekin Akkaya,
• Füsun Uçar
•   Two space cadets crash-land on a desert planet, where an evil wizard seeks the ultimate power to take over the world. Although the movie borrows some background footage from Star Wars, the plot is mostly unrelated. -Imdb

69% liked it

Unrated, 1 hr. 31 min.

Director: Çetin Inanç

 

May 30, 2010: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity (Year C)

Artsy-fartsy types aren’t the only ones with a fondness for foreign films, we B-Movie guys like them too . But when speaking the universal language of low budgets, sometimes our subtitles get short shrift. Take the opening voice-over for Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam which read:

"Our world which had been formed into matter from rays and energy five billion years ago; got fragmented into dust clouds under the influence of laser rays in the galaxy age. Who was this enemy? In which galaxy was he? All humans used one single weapon against this danger. They started to resist with a crust which was welded with human brain and willpower. A coating which was formed by compressed human brain molecules was protecting the earth."

What does that even mean? And why is it being said while the theme from Raiders Of The Lost Ark plays over scenes from Star Wars? And what does it have to do with the cardboard robots, guys in Muppet suits, and roman gladiators who populate the film?

You know, who cares? This is the Mecca of bad Muslim films. A pastiche of pirated material from American blockbusters (Queen’s Flash Gordon score is oddly fitting), pre-school pageant level special effects, and metaphysical religious ramblings one can only pray makes sense in the original Turkish (otherwise, those people are all nuts), Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam reaches levels of surreality that ‘art’ films can only dream of. And besides, when you’re confronted with a scene like the infamous training montage in which the heroes tie boulders to their legs and beat up a mountain, does it matter if some of the language is incomprehensible? All that’s important is that you get what you need from the film… a good laugh.

We don’t usually think about laughs on Trinity Sunday. After all, it’s one of the few celebrations devoted strictly to a doctrine rather than a person or event, so it’s really easy to get bogged down in theological geek-speak trying to figure out how the whole one God in three persons thing is supposed to work. That’s why, when the tech talk gets too deep, it’s nice to turn to that old saying of Meister Eckhart’s:

“When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit.”

Eckhart, who could be a little cryptic himself sometimes, manages to deftly bypass the jargon and reminds us of what we need to get from the doctrine, that the Trinity serves as a model for all our relationships, personal and communal. As Pope Benedict XVI puts it, “Love alone makes us happy, because we live in relation, and we live to love and to be loved... as in the life of the Most Holy Trinity, plurality is repaired in unity, where everything is pleasure and joy.”