SHORT FEATURE: RICK SPRINGFIELD – DANCE THIS WORLD AWAY

Pickings are slim at the box office right now, so for Aleteia, I went back in time a few weeks to review one of this year’s likely candidates for best picture, “Gone Girl.” This movie is David Fincher at his Finchiest. In fact, I’d say the only way it could be any more Finchery would be to clone Fincher and let the two of him direct the movie at the same time.

You know, David Fincher has been making critically acclaimed feature films for so long now, there’s a good chance that some folks may have forgotten the guy also has had quite a prolific career making music videos since 1984. Working with artists such as The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Don Henley and Justin Timberlake, Fincher has garnered two Grammy Awards for Best Music Video and three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Direction. Not too shabby. But alas, not all of Fincher’s early work in the music video field was exactly award worthy…

Yeah, neither Fincher’s nor Springfield’s best. And despite the mention of “the priests of noise” and “manna falling out of the sky,” I don’t think this tune will be showing up on the Jukebox Hero Hymnal anytime soon (we did recently add “Lost and Found” by OmU and “World Falls” by The Indigo Girls, though). Still, the video for “Dance This World Away” has post-apocalyptic wastelands, surreal ballroom dancing, and kiddie shows with inappropriately frightening content. That’s the kind of stuff that’s tailor made for this blog.

Listening to the lyrics of “Dance This World Away,” it sure doesn’t sound very much like Rick is too hopeful for where this world is headed, does it?

“I see people all dressed like Nero
Fiddling while Rome burns in strife.
Personal responsibility zero
we've lost that rhythm of life.”

It sounds like ol’ Rick could use some hope that we’re all going to be alright. Fortunately, Advent is about to begin, so hope is in abundance. If you don’t believe me, then just listen to what Pope Francis had to say last year on the First Sunday of Advent…

“Today… we begin a new liturgical year; that is, a new journey of the People of God with Jesus Christ, our Shepherd… But where are we journeying? Is there a common goal? And what is this goal?… It is a universal pilgrimage toward a common goal, which in the Old Testament is Jerusalem, where the Temple of the Lord rises. For from there, from Jerusalem came the revelation of the Face of God and of his Law. Revelation found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, and he, the Word made flesh, became the ‘Temple of the Lord’: he is both guide and goal of our pilgrimage, of the pilgrimage of the entire People of God; and in his light the other peoples may also walk toward the Kingdom of justice, toward the Kingdom of peace… What a beautiful day it shall be, when weapons are dismantled in order to be transformed into tools for work! What a beautiful day that shall be! And this is possible! Let us bet on hope, on the hope for peace, and it will be possible!… The season of Advent, which we begin again today, restores this horizon of hope, a hope which does not disappoint for it is founded on God’s Word. A hope which does not disappoint, simply because the Lord never disappoints! He is faithful! He does not disappoint! Let us think about and feel this beauty.”

So cheer up Rick, there’s always hope. The world may look like a David Fincher production from time to time, but I have it on good authority that things turn out okay in the end.

PULP CATHOLICISM #096

THE B-LIST: SIX HORRIBLE HAIRSTYLES FROM THE FUTURE

I reviewed “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” for Aleteia this week and I’m sad to report that while Elizabeth Banks is back as the ineffable Effie Trinket, her wigs are not. That’s right, for reasons explained in the movie, connoisseurs of questionable coiffures will have to do without Banks’ ridiculous retro-future hairstyles.

You know, if the movies are any indication, we’re all going to look like a bunch of complete buttheads in the days to come. For some reason, Hollywood is under the impression that once the future rolls around, everyone will forget how to look in a mirror and just do whatever to their hair. Don’t believe me? Well then, just take a look at some of the most horrible hairstyles Hollywood believes are awaiting us in the days to come…

1. The Cosmic Comb Over from The Fifth Element

Sorry guys, but it looks like in the future they still haven’t discovered a cure for male pattern baldness.

2. The Mountainous Mullet from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Wow, that’s a lot of hair gel for a feral kid. Apparently the only things to survive the apocalypse will be cockroaches and hair products.

3. The Lady Logan from Space: 1999

Oh, Maya, the widow’s peak is classic vamp, so no complaints there. But let’s be honest, Wolverine sideburns on the ladies just don’t work.

4. The His & Hers Satellite Dish from Babylon 5 & Star Wars

Okay, I understand that these hairstyles are meant to communicate status and authority in their respective societies, but how is someone supposed to sleep in these things? Take it from a Catholic, if you need to visually communicate your position via your head, you’d be better off just wearing a really tall hat.

5. The “What Is This Brush You Speak Of?” from Star Trek

Look, even if your society doesn’t have plastic available to make a comb, I’m pretty sure you could run a fish bone or something through your hair after the first few leaves got tangled up in there. This isn’t fashion, it’s plain old laziness.

6. The Hasselhoff from Manborg

Well, the name speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Now look, I’m not saying you can’t wear any of these hairstyles if that’s what you desire, as the Church has no set standards for hairstyles. Sure, St. Paul makes mention in his first letter to the Corinthians that men shouldn’t have long hair (which, at that time most likely meant way past their shoulders) and women should keep their hair covered, but that wasn’t intended to be dogma. Paul was simply advising the Corinthian Christians to avoid looking like the men and women in their city who were prostituting themselves (often in pagan temples) at that time. So he wasn’t warning against a particular hairstyle for all time, but rather teaching the common sense notion that a follower of God shouldn’t take on the appearance of the ungodly. Basically, don’t send mixed signals.

So, go ahead and wear one of these horrible hairdos (or hair-donts, if you will) if that’s what you really want. Last time I checked, looking stupid wasn’t a sin.

PULP CATHOLICISM #095

SHORT FEATURE: THE TICK VS. JUSTICE

So last weekend I reviewed “Big Hero 6” for Aleteia, while this weekend I took in “Dumb and Dumber To”. Definitely a bit of disparity in the brains department when it comes to those movies, huh? But what if I told you that it was possible to combine the two, that you could have some smart superhero action AND a cast full of idiots, both at the same time? Well, look no further, for I bring you… The Tick!

Ah, Destroyo, didn’t you read in the Catechism that “corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law” is morally illicit? Just because you wear a platinum and titanium exoskeleton which tends to frighten children and cause heart attacks in the elderly doesn’t give you the right to subvert the justice system. Even the dumbest of heroes know that.

PULP CATHOLICISM #094

INTERSTELLAR

THE PLOT

In the near future, blight has eliminated almost every crop on the Earth except for corn. When former test pilot/engineer turned corn farmer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) discovers a secret branch of NASA operating near his home, he learns that even the corn will soon fail and the planet will no longer be able to sustain human life. Fortunately, some unknown entity in space has recently opened a wormhole near Saturn, allowing  NASA to send manned probes to another star system in hopes of finding a habitable world. With three of those expeditions having returned encouraging reports, NASA talks Cooper into leading a last ditch effort through the wormhole to see which one might provide a safe haven for Earth’s population. The problem is that the planets are in orbit around a black hole, and the time warping capabilities of that phenomena could mean that Cooper might not see his young children again for decades, assuming the Earth even lasts that long. Of course, once Cooper and his colleagues reach the new star system, they discover that time limits might be the least of their concerns.

THE POINT

I’m in a bit of a conundrum with “Interstellar.” As this blog usually covers movies with a little bit of age to them (moldy and dust covered might be a better description), spoilers aren’t really much of a big deal. But “Interstellar” is brand spanking new, so giving away the ending just doesn’t feel right. The problem is, if I avoid discussing the end of the film, it’s going to be really difficult to explain why I found this movie to be so darn disappointing.

While I figure that out, let’s go ahead and talk about what’s really good about “Interstellar,” because there’s actually a lot. I probably don’t need to mention the fact that Christopher Nolan knows how to make a great looking movie. There are scenes in “Interstellar” that will stick with you long after the credits roll, from the majestic beauty of Saturn as the tiny space craft Endurance slowly sails by, to the wide expanse of the frozen atmosphere which hangs above a planet of ice. “Interstellar” is definitely a movie you’ll want to catch on the big screen if you can, preferably in IMAX (as long as you don’t mind taking out a second mortgage to buy tickets, that is).

I’m also going to lump the soundtrack in with the good stuff, although there are likely to be just as many people who will despise it as those who love it. The main thing to know is that it’s loud, so overbearing at times that the dialog is hard to hear. It’s like trying to listen to a friend at a rock concert. Plus, in one of the film’s many nods to “2001,” there’s a single chord played on the pipe organ again and again that will absolutely rattle your teeth. And yet I enjoyed the soundtrack in all it’s psuedo-Phillip Glass glory.

On the acting side of things, there’s not a single bad performances on display, which isn’t all that surprising in a movie where even the secondary characters are played by the likes of Matt Damon, Michael Caine and John Lithgow. As for the leads, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are their dependable selves, and McConaughey  holds it all together with his patented combination of intelligence and blue collar authenticity. If you were to rate your redneck McConaughey characters on a scale of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation” to “A Time To Kill,” his Cooper would definitely fall on the latter end of the scale, believable as a farmer, yet learned enough to comprehend relativity and quantum mechanics.

Well, Cooper understands it all except for those moments when the script requires him not to, thereby allowing another character to explain it to him and, by proxy, to us non-geniuses in the audience. “Interstellar” is a movie overflowing with scientific ideas so, despite lingering moments of silence (no sound in space, remember), there’s a ton of exposition over the film’s three hour running time. If you’ve been longing for a movie to replicate the incessant expounding of speculative theories found in Nolan’s “Inception,” then “Interstellar” is what you’ve been waiting for. Despite the presence of the occasional tidal wave the size of a skyscraper, “Interstellar” is a film that puts ideas above action scenes.

That sounds great, doesn’t it? As much as I’ve enjoyed recent films like “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Edge of Tomorrow,” they don’t require a lot of brain work. “Interstellar,” on the other hand, is cerebral, philosophical and ambitious in its attempt to provide a deeper experience than what’s normally found in a movie of this scale.

It just fails in the end.

Let’s see if I can explain why without ruining the whole movie. One of the things “Interstellar” seeks to accomplish, that if it had done so successfully would instantly rank the film amongst the classics, is to bridge the gap between the emotional impact of a Stephen Spielberg movie and the intellectual iciness of a Stanley Kubrick film. Now, this isn’t just second guessing on my part. It’s pretty well known that the script was originally in the hands of Spielberg, who fashioned the story which takes up the film’s first hour. This is the part that deals with establishing Cooper’s relationship with his kids, especially his daughter Murph, and sets up how devastating it’s going to be when the family is separated. Once Spielberg abandoned the project, Jonathan Nolan (the director’s brother) stepped in and added most of the second act’s ruminations on time, science and the future of humanity. The divide in the focus is pretty noticeable until the end of the third act, when Christopher Nolan tries to bring the two story threads together into a satisfying conclusion.

Frustratingly, he doesn’t quite pull it off. Nolan has often been accused by his critics of having a tin ear when it comes to emotions, and “Interstellar” does him no favors in dissuading anyone from holding that notion. The film is not completely emotionless as some of my peers have accused it of being, in fact the first hour on Earth is pretty involving. The problem is that the entire resolution of the film hangs on the love that exists between Cooper and his daughter, both as a child and an adult, and yet the idea that love conquers all falls flat. Now it shouldn’t, of course. It’s an idea that’s worked for countless of other films in the past (try and imagine Spielberg’s E.T. without it). But it doesn’t for Nolan for some reason. And at the risk of spoiling the film, I’m going to take a guess as to why that is.

The problem at the heart (no pun intended) of “Interstellar” is that it doesn’t really understand transcendence. As explained in Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, transcendence is “surpassing excellence, which may be either relative or absolute. It is relative when the excellence surpasses some objects below it, as human nature transcends the irrational creation. It is absolute when the excellence surpasses in being and activity all other beings. Only God is absolutely transcendent; in being because he alone is infinite and perfect Being who cannot change; in activity because he alone has existence of himself as uncreated First Cause on whom all creatures depend for their least operation.”

The math is simple. God = absolute transcendence, God = love, therefore love = absolute transcendence. Nolan’s movie requires that love be absolutely transcendent for the ending to work, which is fine, but his script takes God out of the equation. I can’t explain how without spoiling the whole shebang, but trust me, once you see it, you’ll know it does. In short, Nolan removes what is absolutely transcendent about love, which leaves nothing behind but the feelings we have for one another. And I’m sorry, but the expression, “my feelings of affection conquers all” just doesn’t cut it.

That’s the problem with secular humanistic exercises like “Interstellar.” They can do ideas, they can do philosophy, they can do morals. And “Interstellar” does all of those things extremely well, as good as any movie you’ll see this year. But they can’t do transcendence because they don’t truly understand it. And that’s why “Interstellar” is a fantastic movie right up until the end… when it isn’t.

THE STINGER

While I can fault “Interstellar” for not grasping transcendence, I can’t really beat it up too much for failing to bridge the gap between Stephen Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick. After all, Spielberg himself tried it himself with “A.I.,” and we all know how that turned out.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: INTERSTELLAR

Okay, so with a gazillion dollar budget, “Interstellar” doesn’t come close to qualifying as a B-Movie, but it does desperately want to obtain cult status. I‘ll explain in my review, coming up in the next couple of days.

PULP CATHOLICISM #093

NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU

Well, it was a pretty busy week, at least everywhere but here. Over at Aleteia, I reviewed both “America The Beautiful 3,” a new documentary detailing the over-sexualization of our youth in our culture, and “St. Vincent,” a lightweight but enjoyable comedy boosted by a grumpy old Bill Murray. Meanwhile, at The Jukebox Hero Hymnal, I’ve added quite a few selections since the last time I linked there, diverse tracks such as “Try Again” by Big Star, “The Four Horsemen” by Aphrodite’s Child, “Holy Ghost” by Low and “40” by U2.

If you enjoy what I’m doing over at The Jukebox Hero Hymanl, then you might want to stop by God and the Machine where Thomas L. McDonald has recently been taking a listen to some Dark Country Songs For October.

Speaking of October, as always happens, the Halloween season brought a plethora of posts from around the blogosphere dealing with the kinds of stuff you usually find here. For instance, back over at Aleteia, Dr. Eugene Gan interviews a couple of former students from the Franciscan University of Steubenville about their upcoming sci-fi flick, “Shock Value.”

It’s going to be a while before “Shock Value” comes out, though, so until then, why not catch up on some of the classics. And what could be more classic than everybody’s favorite man made monster? That’s what Foxfier from The American Catholic thinks anyway as she takes a look at Frankenstein’s Monster, Then and Now. And just in case you’ve never gotten around to actually reading Mary Shelley’s book, Enbrethiliel at Shredded Cheddar is conducting a read through.

For those interested in a more modern classic, there’s Julia’ Yost’s take on “The Exorcist” and the fear of children over at First Things. Yeah, you heard right, First Things. See, everybody gets in on the act around Halloween.

But even The Exorcist is old stuff to today’s younger generations. They’ve got their own new classics that come to mind during this season. Jason Dietz from Non-Modern recognizes this and has a few words to say regarding What's Really Scary About "Saw."

If all of those “classics” are a bit too much for some of you more genteel readers, there’s always Catholic Skywalker’s Top 5 Movies to Watch on (or slightly after as the case may be) Halloween, a collection more interested in fun than in frights.

If blood and guts are problem, however, then “The Walking Dead” has more than enough to go around this season. Cari Donaldson is continuing her episode by episode recap of the hit series over at Clan Donaldson. Why not drop by and read her less than stellar reaction to this past week’s Bethisode, “Slabtown”.

And finally, just for fun, head on over to Acts of the Apostasy where LarryD gets into the spirit of the Day of the Dead and offers up a catalog of customized coffins sure to make you do a double take.

Alright, that should be plenty to keep you busy reading for awhile. We’ll see you next time.

HOLY HORRORS FOR HALLOWEEN II: THE DEVIL RIDES OUT

Well, non-blog life unexpectedly threw me a loop, so the last movie in this year’s Holy Horrors For Halloween film festival is a few days late, but maybe some of you are still in the mood for some old fashioned thrills and chills.

“Adapted by Richard Matheson from a novel by Dennis Wheatley, The Devil Rides Out admirably adopts a restrained approach to its horrific material. Christopher Lee plays a French nobleman, Duc De Richeleau, who is worried sick over the bizarre behavior of his friend Simon (Patrick Mower). Richeleau has every reason to be concerned: unless drastic measures are taken, Simon will lose his soul to Satan within three days. Two black masses are performed (one a bizarre Felliniesque orgy), but neither satiate the Devil's appetite. As the story races to its climax, it looks as though Richeleau's own niece (Rosalyn Landor) will have to be sacrificed. The film's best moments belong to Charles Gray, playing the charming, hypnotic leader of the devil cult which holds Simon in its thrall. The Devil Rides Out was released in the U.S. as The Devil's Bride.” ~ rovi’s AllMovie Guide

“I'm leaving. I shall not be back… but something will.” – Mocata

“Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for [someone] to devour.” – 1 Peter 5:8, NABRE

Sadly, my first introduction to author Dennis Wheatley was the 1976 motion picture, “To The Devil A Daughter,” the movie which effectively brought to an end the original Hammer Films studio. Yes, it was that bad. In fact, Wheatley himself was so displeased with what he saw on screen, that he afterwards denied film rights to any more of his novels. And that’s a shame, because there were a lot of them.

Though his name doesn’t come up too often these days, Dennis Wheatley was once one of the most widely read authors in the world, publishing over 70 books and selling over 50 million copies. He wrote in a variety of genres, including a series of spy novels which would inspire Ian Fleming to create James Bond, but it was his books about the world of Satanism which would bring Wheatley his widest audience. It was also just such subject matter that kept his writings from being adapted to the big screen until the late 1960s, the British censors not being too keen on devil worship. But Christopher Lee was a friend and a fan of Wheatley’s, and in 1968, Hammer’s biggest star finally convinced the studio to film an adaptation of “The Devil Rides Out.”

Without a doubt, the results of Hammer’s first foray into the world of Satanism is markedly different from their later swan song. In fact, “The Devil Rides Out” is often counted among the best of Hammer’s horrors and for pretty good reasons. Chiefly among them  is Christopher Lee, who is at his finest as the no-nonsense Duc De Richeleau, a man whose faith and arcane knowledge make him a match for most anything this side of Moloch.

Richeleau just gets the job done. When he shows up to help rescue Simon from a cult of devil worshippers and the mesmerized young man seems reluctant to leave, Richeleau simply punches him in the face and carts the unconscious Simon to safety. Richeleau’s coat pockets always seem to be full of an assortment of crosses and bottles of holy water just in case some minor demon suddenly appears, which they inevitably do. And when a helpful ghost shows up to offer aid, Richeleau first makes it acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, just to make sure it is who it says it is. None of those nasty spirits who hang around Ouija boards will ever get the drop on Richeleau.

Of course, what’s a good hero without a worthy villain? Fortunately, Charles Gray (yes, the criminologist from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) as Mocata, the high priest of the satanic cult which is trying to entrap the souls of Richeleau’s friends, is up to the task. He’s all charm and smiles no matter the situation, be it seizing control of people’s minds, leading a black mass/orgy in the middle of the woods, or summoning creatures from the pits of Hell to murder his enemies.

Speaking of which, if “The Devil Rides Out” has one obvious flaw, it’s the quality of the creature effects. While some things look okay, such as the goat-headed Satan who drops by one of Mocata’s dark liturgies, others like the giant tarantula or the bat-winged mount of the Angel of Death barely rise above what you might find in a typical episode of “Lost In Space.” Still, the budgetary limitations are no deal killer. Like Richeleau, they get the job done.

The highlight of the movie is the extended battle which takes place over the course of a single night. Knowing that Mocata intends to kill them before sunrise, Richeleau and his friends lounge about inside a protective circle they’ve drawn on the floor, sipping wine and discussing the reality of the situation while they await whatever horrors Mocata is sending against them. One by one, various entities appear to test the foursome with all the tricks the Devil has at his disposal. They must survive fear, doubt, temptation, lies and, of course, bodily harm. Though the others come close to succumbing, Richeleau himself never wavers, driving back and banishing each new threat. I’m as enamored of Lee’s portrayals of villains as the next guy, but watching Lee fend off fiend after fiend really made me wish he had taken a few more turns as the hero. It’s easy to see why Lee had wanted to make this movie for so long.

The interesting thing is, just as Hammer and other studios were giving in and starting to make movies about devil worshiping Satanists, Satanism in the real world was actually undergoing efforts to remove the devil. The original form of Satanism, worship of the being known as Satan, goes all the way back to biblical times. By St. Matthew’s account, Ol’ Scratch even took a shot at getting Jesus to bend a knee to him…

“Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, and he said to him, ‘All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.’ At this, Jesus said to him, ‘Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’” Matthew 4:8-10, NABRE

Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. describes this kind of cultic Satanism as an effort “to obtain benefits for oneself or others from the devil. But the devil may also be invoked in order to obtain, if you please, not exactly benefits but harm, injury for someone against whom, well I, have ill feeling and whom I want somehow to injure or if possible to destroy.”

Obviously, if you watch the news, you know that such devil worshiping cults are still around. But more often than not, the majority of Satanists you run into these days are of a different stripe. This new style of Satanism really began to take root in 1969, shortly after the release of “The Devil Rides Out,” when former carny and nightclub performer Anton Lavey published “The Satanic Bible,” a hodge podge of essays and rituals meant to reimagine Satanism as an atheistic philosophy.

As noted on the homepage of the Church of Satan, Lavey’s Satanic Bible made the claim that “Man—using his brain—invented all the Gods, doing so because many of our species cannot accept or control their personal egos, feeling compelled to conjure up one or a multiplicity of characters who can act without hindrance or guilt upon whims and desires. All Gods are thus externalized forms, magnified projections of the true nature of their creators, personifying aspects of the universe or personal temperaments which many of their followers find to be troubling. Worshipping any God is thus worshipping by proxy those who invented that God. Since the Satanist understands that all Gods are fiction, instead of bending a knee in worship to—or seeking friendship or unity with—such mythical entities, he places himself at the center of his own subjective universe as his own highest value.  We Satanists are thus our own ‘Gods,’ and as beneficent ‘deities’ we can offer love to those who deserve it and deliver our wrath (within reasonable limits) upon those who seek to cause us—or that which we cherish—harm.”

So now, thanks to Lavey and his pals, we’ve got theistic Satanists and atheistic Satanists, plus some other splinter groups of Satanists who can’t quite make up their mind either way. But while such distinctions may be important from a nitpicking standpoint, it really makes little difference when considering the big picture. When discussing the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” the Catechism explains that “Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc.” This means that in terms of idolatry, all forms of Satanism are basically the same thing.

Still, from a public relations standpoint, you have to give the atheistic Satanists their due. Pure self aggrandizement is unflattering, but it has to sound a lot better to the general public than human sacrifice and summoning demons. But don’t let the shiny new package fool you. Idolatry is idolatry no matter what form it comes in. The Duc De Richeleau would surely see through such deceptions. So should we.