HE’S BACK. HE’S BIGGER THAN EVER. AND HE WANTS YOUR ETERNAL SOUL.

Being a bad movie fan with an Internet connection can lead you to some weird places. For instance, trying to pull up information on one of Robert Altman’s worst films, O. C. & Stiggs, led me to track down a couple of old issues of National Lampoon (should have known better) which in turn brought me to this ALMOST appropriate for the season movie poster satire…

You know, it’s really not that irreverent if you look at it as a parody of Hollywood’s thought process rather than as another lame poke at religion. But I do have to say, putting Keith Richards in the role of “The Damned” seems like a bit of lazy typecasting. He can also play a pirate, after all.

Still, even this bit of silliness can serve as a reminder that, as the Catechism makes clear, “When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming.” And while He probably won’t return as a Godzilla sized behemoth (Although, that would be freakin’ cool!), it’s bound to be pretty spectacular. Or will be, as long as we spend a little time this Advent contemplating whether or not we’re ready for it. Better get to it. IT”S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK!

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE GONG SHOW MOVIE

The Gong Show Movie (1980)

• Chuck Barris,
• Robin Altman,
• Mabel King

During the 1970s, the Gong Show was a game/talent show phenomenon. With equal measures of parody, camp and pure lowest-common denominator exploitation, it presented a bizarre assortment of talented and untalented contestants (for example, the musician who played his trumpet with his bellybutton) making their bid for stardom, and a ridiculous prize of $516.32, while three rambunctious minor celebrity judges looked on offering scores for acts they liked, or instantly stopping showing disapproval by pounding furiously on a large Chinese gong. The co-creator, producer and acid-witted but smarmy daytime host of this tawdry kitsch pastiche was Chuck Barris (AKA "Chuckie Baby"). This attempt at a serious drama chronicles a day in his hectic life as he tries to prepare a new episode of his crazy show. As he deals with a seemingly unending string of increasingly freaky acts, the pressure begins to get to the sensitive, caring (as portrayed in the film) Barris and by the day's end he becomes a true lunatic. – AllMovie Guide

41% liked it

Unrated, 1 hr. 29 min.

Director: Chuck Barris

 

December 12, 2010: Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Anybody familiar with Chuck Barris’ psuedo-autobiography Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind knows the famed television producer plays fast and loose with the boundaries between fantasy and reality. But back in 1980, people didn’t know quite what to make of Chuckie Baby’s satirical experiments in scrambling fact and fiction. Composed of actual outtakes from the TV show (too risqué for broadcast by 70s standards, but hardly eyebrow raising in today’s “look at me, aren’t I shocking” era of desperate celebrities) combined with vignettes of Barris slowly suffering a nervous breakdown due to the show’s intrusion into his private life, the Gong Show Movie feels like the mutant offspring of an episode of Jackass genetically spliced together with a Robert Altman film. So it’s no surprise that The Gong Show Movie was an instant flop.

And yet, for all its self-indulgent floppiness, something still rings a bit true when Barris, finally overwhelmed by the chaotic world he’s created for himself, flees by himself to the dunes of Morocco looking for meaning. In fact, this week’s gospel portrays the people of Jesus’ time doing the exact same thing, prompting the Christ to point blank ask them, “What did you go out to the desert to see?”

The Venerable Charles de Foucauld answers the question this way: “One has to pass through the desert, spending time there, if one is to receive the grace of God. It is there that we empty ourselves, getting rid of everything that is not God, and completely emptying this little house of our souls to leave all the room to God alone. The Hebrews travelled through the desert, Moses lived there before he received his mission, Saint Paul and Saint John Chrysostom were also made ready in the desert… It is a time of grace, a period during which all souls who want to bear fruit necessarily have to pass. They need this silence, recollection and forgetfulness of all created things in the midst of which God establishes his reign and forms a spirit of interiority within them: life in intimacy with God, conversation of the soul with God in faith, hope and love.”

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons the Church offers up so much desert imagery smack dab in the middle of wintery Advent. During the oft-stressful noisy build-up to Christmas, maybe we all need a reminder to withdraw (if only mentally) every now and then so we can empty ourselves and commune with God. Of course, just like in the movie, all the stuff we’ve withdrawn from will eventually show up to call us back into the chaos. Maybe not in the form of The Unknown Comic, Gene Gene The Dancing Machine, and whatever that guy with tow heads was supposed to be like it did for Chuckie Baby, but it’ll show up, you can guarantee it. Only thanks to our little desert jaunts, maybe, just maybe, we’ll be better prepared to handle it.

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE WORM EATERS

The Worm Eaters (1977)

• Herb Robins,
• Lindsay Armstrong Black,
• Joseph Sacket

Schlockmeister Ted V. Mikels (The Corpse Grinders) produced this dreadful gross-out comedy featuring lots of bad actors consuming live worms onscreen. After the bouncy title rendition of "Nobody likes me/Everybody hates me/Guess I'll go eat worms," the viewer meets Herman Umgar (Herb Robins, who directed and scripted from Nancy Kapner's story), a worm-breeder with a club foot and a German accent. Umgar sneaks a worm-filled cake into a little girl's birthday party, causing the grossed-out guests to run around in sped-up comic style. Umgar's father was killed by his partner, the mayor's father, in 1939, but Umgar actually owns half the town and the mayor is determined to have the worm-breeder committed and take the town for himself. The first worm is eaten in a plate of spaghetti by a woman named Heidi, who turns into a half-worm mutant from the waist down for no apparent reason. Soon, Umgar has several mutants in a wire pen, gobbling like turkeys. The local lake turns red, and then three fishermen show up in Umgar's bedroom, explaining that they are part-worm and "live in peace under the red tide." They came to find mutant worm-women, and Umgar promises to make mates for them while attempting to maintain his land claim. By the time Umgar is force-fed a whole mouthful of worms and the mutants lead an attack on the mayor, the joke has worn off. – AllMovie Guide

14% want to see it

PG, 1 hr. 34 min.

Director: Herb Robins

 

December 5, 2010: Second Sunday of Advent Year A

Well, okay, it’s got a few good lines (“That’s the sound of worms. I’d know it anywhere.”), a catchy theme song (future film scorer David Newman’s "You'll End Up Eating Worms"), and even a few cult-worthy WTF scenes (Umgar dancing ecstatically through a field of flowers with his favorite worm in his hands). But let’s face it, this is a movie entitled The Worm Eaters, and ultimately your enjoyment of it is going to hinge on whether or not you find entertainment value in watching people eat worms. Worms in cake, worms in ice cream, worms in hot dogs, worms in… well, you get the idea.

Now, having been born with my fair share of Y chromosomes, I don’t mind a bit of juvenile gross-out humor now and then. In fact, I can watch Monty Python’s vomit filled Mr. Creosote sketch time and time again and find it funnier every single time. But The Worm Eaters, with its endless extreme close ups of wide open mouths stuffed full of wiggling invertebrates just doesn’t do it for me.

Maybe that’s why, out of all the deep theological stuff in this week’s readings, my simple mind got hung up on the seemingly throwaway fact that John The Baptist liked to chow down on locusts. Why did we even need to know that? Was Matthew just taking a cheap shot and trying to make us gag before moving on to the more serious matters? Probably not. Since the book of Matthew isn’t very much of a side-splitter, it’s more likely that the reference to Mr. The Baptist’s diet was a kind of short hand meant to tell us something about the character of John.

But what? Well, besides the fact that he had a strong stomach, John’s culinary habits combined with his camel hair wardrobe lets us know he was one of the Nazarites, a sect of Jews whose lifestyle was designed to show they were set apart from others and consecrated to God. In addition to that, a number of the early Church fathers saw John’s choice of locusts as having symbolic meaning. Origen opined that John “was eating locusts because the people were being nourished by a word that traveled high aloft in the air and had not yet passed over the earth.”  St. Peter Chrysologus suggested  that the Baptist’s menu reflected his message of “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” “Locusts intended for sinners worthy of chastisement” he wrote, “are rightly considered to be food for repentance, so that bounding from the place of sin to the place of repentance the sinner may fly to heaven on the wings of forgiveness.”

Whatever the reason may be, practical or poetic, it’s nice to know the mention of John’s creepy crawly cuisine was more than just a case of Mathew trying to make us wince in disgust. I can’t really say the same for The Worm Eaters.

THINGS TO COME: MEGA SHARK VS. CROCOSAURUS

Okay, so Mega Shark was no Sharktopus, but who could be really? That’s why we were more than content to spend 90 minutes with the old boy as he threw down with Giant Octopus and Deborah Gibson. And now, he’s coming back, this time to combat the awesome combination of Crocosaurus and… Urkel.

Now I was never much of an Urkel fan. In fact, I recently showed my 8 year old a clip from Family Matters and he ran from the room completely disturbed. But I’m willing to cut Jaleel White some slack because (1) he’s still managing to get work despite having played Urkel for a decade, and (2) this just looks like more of the same brainless goofy fun as its predecessors. I can’t wait!

But I have to, don’t I. At least for a few more weeks. Kind of reminds me of something else, something that’s right on the tip of my tongue. Oh, what could it be now? I don’t know, maybe…

ADVENT!?!

Pope Benedict XVI knows how it is. During his recent reflection on Advent, the Pontiff remarked that "Expectation and awaiting represent a dimension that touches our entire individual, family and social existence… Expectation is present in many situations, from the smallest and most insignificant to the most important… a couple expecting a child; awaiting a relative or friend who comes to visit us from far way… the expectation of the result of some decisive examination… in personal relations the expectation of meeting the loved one.” He didn’t mention anxiously awaiting on the release of a ridiculously bad movie, but it’s gotta be in there right?

Well, maybe… but he did go on to meditate that “we could say that man is alive so long as he expects, so long as hope remains alive his heart. And man can be recognized by his expectations: our moral and spiritual 'stature' may be measured by what our hopes are… in this time of preparation for Christmas each of us may ask ourselves: what do I expect?… And this same question can be posed at the level of the family, the community, the nation. What do we expect together? What unites our aspirations, what brings us together?"

Hmm, if man can be recognized by his expectations, I wonder just what it says about me that I so often look forward to dreck like Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus? Maybe it’s that if I hope, therefore I am, as the Pope seems to be saying, then even the littlest of anticipations matter, existing as a pale, yet real, reflection of the expectation for something much larger and better, like the things we learn to wait for during Advent. Maybe.

Or maybe I just have bad taste. I suppose that’s possible too.