DAILY CALL SHEET: JANUARY 30, 2025

Matinee (1993) Looking to capitalize on the dread generated by the Cuban missile crisis, master showman Lawrence Woolsey brings his latest celluloid extravaganza, Mant!, to a small Florida town. While teen drama and atomic paranoia run rampant around him, Woolsey prepares for the film's premier by setting up a number of gimmicks. These include having an actor dressed as the movie's half-man/half-ant monster terrorize ticket buyers and setting up large speakers to shake the auditorium, a gag he has dubbed Rumble-Rama. Once the lights go down, havoc erupts. This light hearted love letter to B-movies is a joy for film fanatics and John Goodman's performance as the William Castle wannabe will make you love him even more than you already do.

TIL: Writing in Crisis Magazine, Ronald J. Rychlak relates how, during the Cuban missile crisis, JFK sent a message to Pope John XXIII imploring him to help. The Pontiff responded with a radio address and letter published in newspapers all over the world, including Pravda, in which he begged for peace. Rychlak notes, "With his plea, Pope John XXIII had given Khrushchev a way out. By withdrawing now, he would be seen as a man of peace, not a coward." This, along with the U.S. and Russia agreeing to withdraw missiles form strategic locations, managed to calm things down. As Rychlak explains, "Pope John’s role in the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis is often overlooked, but it was very important. It also helped move the world in a positive direction."

The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) Overexposure to a variety of household chemicals causes suburban homemaker Pat Kramer to begin diminishing in size. This not only turns Pat into an overnight celebrity (a commercial product if you will), but also brings her to the attention of a cabal of mad scientists who want to shrink the world. They kidnap the now doll-sized Pat for experimentation, but she manages to find an unlikely ally in one of those super-intelligent gorillas mad scientists always have locked up in their labs. This early effort from Joel Schumacher featuring Lily Tomlin's comic take on the classic tale abandons metaphysics for satire of consumerism. The result is no gut-buster, but still makes for good family fun.

TIL: In his encyclical Centesimus Annus, St. Pope John Paul II noted that capitalism is the preferable economic system because, in theory, it encourages producers of goods to be attentive to the needs of others in order to be successful. However, he does warn that capitalism can lead to consumerism, a way of living in which people make consumer goods the source of their identity and the goal toward which their lives are oriented. As Fr. Richard John Neuhaus put it, "Consumerism is, quite precisely, the consuming of life by the things consumed." Or put another way, as we see in the movie's visual metaphor, consumerism eventually shrinks one's personhood until, finally, it simply disappears forever.