DAILY CALL SHEET: OCTOBER 17, 2025

Alice in Wonderland (1903) While drowsing in her garden, Alice spots a giant white rabbit and follows him down a hole. There, with the aid of a magic fan, she is able to pass through a small door to Wonderland. Once inside, she tries to befriend a dog, meets a baby that turns into a pig, and attends the Mad Hatter's tea party. Eventually, Alice ticks off the Queen and has to escape being executed. It's amazing all the things you can get done in a few minutes when you put your mind to it. This first ever film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's beloved book is heavily abridged, originally running 12 minutes, but now just 9 in the only existing, heavily damaged copy available for viewing. Though all the scratches and artifacting give the film a bit of a David Lynch feel, overall, it's a little pedestrian by modern standards. Even so, it's enough to get the point across until you can watch longer, weirder versions.

TIL: Those of a certain age might remember Reader's Digest Condensed Books, a surprisingly popular series of hardcover anthologies published from 1950 to 1997. Each edition typically featured 2–5 abridged (or "condensed") versions of bestselling novels, allowing readers to whiz through a book without committing to the full-length work. Don't want to wade through the entirety of War and Remembrance or East of Eden but still want to get the basics of the story? Not to worry, Reader's Digest has you covered. It's most daring abridgement was probably in 1982 when the company released the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the Bible, which reduces the size of the Old Testament by about 50% and the New Testament by 25%. This makes for brisker reading but, obviously, is utter crap if you want to make sure you get all the nuances of the book's complex theology. Still, if it gets you started on the journey, go for it.

Unknown Island (1948) A fortune-seeker talks his rich fiancée into chartering a trip to an island where dinosaurs supposedly still thrive. Along for the journey are a lecherous drunken captain, a semi-drunken first mate, a heroic seaman who starts off the movie in a drunken stupor, and a ship full of racially ambiguous stereotypes who probably had to get drunk to play these parts. Once on the island, things go awry as the motley crew cross paths with a bunch of dinosaurs that look like low-budget prototypes for those inflatable T-Rex costumes, and a guy in a gorilla suit that we're meant to believe is a giant sloth. More or less taking the island part of King Kong and making it the whole movie, this no-budget quickie is easy viewing for those who find old films with shoddy effects charming. 

TIL: Back in the 6th century, St. Brendan the Navigator undertook a seven-year voyage that legends say took him to a number of unknown islands. There was an isle of crystal pillars (icebergs, maybe), a "paradise of birds" inhabited by singing avian saints, and a moving island that turned out to be a whale's back. The most astonishing was a gem-covered island inhabited by ageless saints with whom he spent 40 days praying and feasting. After Brendan's departure, the island vanished into a mysterious fog. As late as the 16th century, sailors in the area still reported seeing this island appear and disappear. However, whether the tales are entirely factual or not, the unknown islands encountered by St. Brendan have come to symbolize the spiritual trials and divine wonders to be experienced on the Christian journey.

DAILY CALL SHEET: OCTOBER 11, 2025

 

Silver Bullet (1985) Every full moon, a series of brutal murders rocks a small town in rural Maine, and neither the sheriff nor the local vigilantes seem to be able to do anything to put a stop to what they assume is just some maniac. Only a young paraplegic and his older sister seem to have an inkling of what the killer really is, and once they figure out the identity of the cursed culprit, they call on their alcoholic uncle Gary Busey to help defeat the beast. Deep inside, you know it’s not technically a good movie, but it’s got Corey Haim in a tricked-out wheelchair, Canada's favorite Anne of Green Gables, and Gary Busey playing Gary Busey, all battling a werewolf who's not above using a baseball bat to break some skulls. How can you not enjoy it?

TIL: One questions the wisdom of parents who leave their children in the care of alcoholic uncle Gary Busey, but any port in a storm, I guess. Actually, the Catechism notes that the Fourth Commandment ("Honor your father and mother") extends beyond the parents to the entire "household of faith." Relatives are supposed to share in the family's mission to build up one another spiritually and practically, complementing parents without supplanting them. As St. John Paul II wrote in Familiaris Consortio, "All members of the family, each according to his or her own gift, have the grace and responsibility of building, day by day, the communion of persons, making the family a school of deeper humanity."

Now Showing at a Blog Near You: This week for Aleteia I take a look at a tale of baseball and miracles. My review of Soul on Fire.

DAILY CALL SHEET: OCTOBER 4, 2025

The Amazing Colossal Man. (1957 ) Lt. Colonel Glenn Manning saves a pilot who has crash landed in a bomb testing site, but gets a heaping dose of radiation for his efforts. The good news is that Glenn's burns begin to miraculously heal. The bad news is that's because he's slowly expanding to giant size. The really bad news is that his heart isn't growing at the same rate and will eventually explode from the stress. The worst news is that his mind can't handle what's happening, causing Glenn to go on a psychotic rampage in Las Vegas, which wouldn't be that odd of an occurrence in Sin City except for the fact that Glenn is 50-feet tall at the time. There's lot to enjoy in this Bert I. Gordon flick, not the least of which is that the title character, with his bald head and giant diaper, comes across as nothing less than a Kong-sized baby throwing a temper tantrum.

TIL: Speaking of growing, John Collins writes in Our Sunday Visitor, "In our contemporary culture 'spiritual growth' is a term that has become not only ambiguous but annoyingly vague. Used in various ways by people of different faiths (and sometimes by people of no faith), this is a term that conjures up a multitude of images: Eastern meditation, vision quests in California, a variety of New Age explorations and all the rest. … Ultimately, as Catholics, we must realize that if we wish to grow spiritually, we cannot follow the paths or the ideas of others religions. … For the Catholic, spiritual growth can be nothing but a continual turning to Christ. In this we come to understand an astonishing truth, that spiritual growth is really a growth in relationship, a constant deepening of our relationship with Christ."

Good Boy (2025) Against the advice of just about everyone he knows, an ill young man named Todd moves into his grandfather's abandoned home in the middle of nowhere. Todd dismisses warnings that the place is haunted, but his faithful retriever Indy isn't so sure, especially once an ominous dark shape only the dog can see starts to emerge from the house's dark corners. Can Indy be a good enough boy to save his beloved master from whatever's coming for them, or is it already too late? Unfortunately, the movie lets slip what's really going on about half way through the film, but the visual approach of telling the story entirely from the dog's perspective is so well done (and ultimately emotional) that you'll want to stick with it to the end.

TIL: One of the consequences of the ancient Jewish purity laws is that dogs aren't portrayed all that well in the Bible. Most of the verses in which they appear paint puppies as generally filthy scavengers fit only to serve as metaphors for moral or spiritual uncleanness. An interesting exception is the book of Tobit, in which a random pooch shows up to travel with Tobias and the angel Raphael. The dog's presence is never explained, leaving theologians to speculate he's there as a symbol of unwavering companionship and steadfastness in the face of adversity, mirroring the loyalty of Tobias and Raphael to God despite their trials. Whatever the reason, Tobias' adopted doggie is the rare good boy in the Bible and deserves a nice scratch behind the ears.

DAILY CALL SHEET: OCTOBER 2, 2025

Gas-s-s-s, or if you prefer the onscreen title, Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It (1970) After a hastily scribbled military unleashes a lab-created gas that kills everyone on the planet over the age of 25, hippies, bikers, and football players inherit the Earth. Looking for something more groovy than post-apocalyptic Dallas, flower children Coel and Cilla hit the road for a series of perplexing psychedelic adventures. As the pair cross America, they meet a motorcycle-riding Edgar Allan Poe, giant papier-mâché heads of JFK and MLK, and God, but even the Almighty isn't able to help the film make any sense at all.

TIL: No, the hippie peace symbol is not a broken inverted cross as some have suggested. It's actually the letters N and D superimposed on each other and was created in 1958 by British artist and designer Gerald Holtom as a symbol for the nuclear disarmament movement. As a symbol, the cross obviously has its own meanings. It started showing up prominently in Christian art around the 3rd Century as the religion began to move out of the shadows. At that time, it was seen as a sign of victory over death and evil, a meaning it still carries to this day. However, by the medieval period, its superimposed lines became to be seen as a representation of the intersection of divinity (the vertical line) and the world (horizontal line).

Invasion U.S.A. (1985) A force of Latin American guerrillas led by Soviet agent Richard Lynch start making noise along the Florida coast. Unable to handle the situation themselves, the government asks retired CIA operative Chuck Norris to look into the matter, but he's not interested, at least not until the bad guys kill his best friend. He's barely had time to get involved, though, before hundreds of guerrillas descend on the suburbs of Miami where they wreck a subdivision and shopping mall. This really upsets Chuck, which, as we all know, doesn't bode well for the guerillas. Objectively bad by any critical standard, but that's irrelevant as this flick, more than any other, is the likely birthplace of all those Chuck Norris memes.

TIL: When it comes to evaluating any form of warfare, including guerrilla tactics, the Church's framework, as always, rests on Just War principles. Guerrilla warfare often risks violating the principles of proportionality (the harm caused must not outweigh the good achieved) and discrimination (combatants must distinguish between military targets and civilians, avoiding indiscriminate violence). Guerrilla campaigns that employ such methods, especially of the type seen in Invasion U.S.A. where there is the intentional targeting of civilians in populated areas, are deemed immoral. Resistance movements such as those employed against the Nazis in WWII, however, might be defensible as long as they meet Just War criteria.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 22, 2025

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster (1965) Believe it or not, Mars needs women, again. This time around it's because an atomic war killed all the females on Mars except for the planet's Princess, and one woman can only be expected to do so much. On their way to steal all of Earth's female breeding stock, the Martians, buttheads that they are, decide to shoot down a Terran android astronaut named Frank and then melt half his face off. Afterwards, while the now disfigured Frank terrorizes Puerto Rico and picks a fight with a messed up mutant, the Martians look for girls in bikinis. Sure, it ain't great, but you can't say it skimps on the ingredients one looks for in a Saturday B-movie matinee.

TIL: Who taught the Martians women exist only for sex and you can just snatch them up when it's time to breed? Guess the Martian sexual revolution was a complete failure too, huh? The Church teaches that sex has a dual purpose: procreation yes, but also union. As Pope Paul VI pointed out, the unitive purpose of sex is emphasized as a means of fostering love, intimacy, and mutual self-giving (between spouses within the sacrament of marriage, of course). Going further, Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body notes that sex can be a physical sign of the “communion of persons,” mirroring the love within the Trinity and expressing the spouses’ commitment to each other. Do better, Martians.

Goldfinger (1964) Supremely evil bullion dealer Auric Goldfinger is up to something no good involving Fort Knox and Her Majesty's Secret Service wants Agent 007 to find out what it is. Armed with his usual assortment of gadgets, Bond tussles with dapper henchman Oddjob, attempts to charm mercenary pilot Pussy Galore, and tries to avoid getting cut in half with a laser. All in all, it's just another day on the job for the world's top super spy. Though it's pretty close, Goldfinger likely isn't the best of the classic James Bond movies, but when it comes to highlighting the expected tropes (catchy theme song, questionably named Bond girls, over the top archvillains, etc.), Goldfinger is the standard.

TIL: It's always weird how a piece of metal could become so valuable to mankind, but here we are. In fact, gold seems to always had meaning to various cultures beyond just wealth. For the ancient Egyptians, it represented the flesh of gods like Ra. The Incas, Mesopotamians, and ancient Chinese all used it in their rituals as well. Even the Jews and Christians recognized its symbolic value as a representation of God's divine nature, holiness, and eternal glory. The Ark of the Covenant was overlaid with gold, the Temple was covered in it, and Heaven was described as a city with streets made from the stuff. It's still an earthly thing though, so Psalm 119 is sure to remind us to love God's commandments more than the finest gold.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 12, 2025

 

The Long Walk (2025) Sometime after a civil war has caused the U.S. to slip into fascism and economic collapse, teenaged boys from across the country volunteer for an annual state-sponsored competition in which participants must walk at a predetermined pace without stopping or face immediate execution. The last one still walking (and therefore alive) is the winner, who is then showered with wealth and celebrated as a symbol of dogged American determination. This grueling take on Stephen King's allegory about the sacrifice of youth to endless wars and the rat race in general is one of the better adaptations of the author's work in some time. However, a character decision at the very end of the movie, likely written to reflect the filmmakers' own bleak world view, is completely misguided and nearly ruins the whole thing.

TIL: Unlike The Hunger Games, in which teens are forced to participate, those who take part in The Long Walk voluntarily submit their names for inclusion in hopes of escaping impoverishment. This leads to one of the many interesting philosophical discussions in the film (it is a movie entirely about people walking and talking after all) in which some of the boys wonder if their participation makes them just as guilty as those in power who sponsor the contest. Despite the mitigating circumstances of abject poverty, the Church might say yes. As the Catechism notes, one cannot cooperate with an intrinsically evil act without sufficient proportionate reason. By participating in a death-driven game, one risks causing scandal (leading others to sin or weakening their moral resolve) and undermining the Church’s witness to life.

Now Showing at a Blog Near You: For Aleteia this week I take a look at 'Triumph of the Heart', one of the few faith-focused films I can honestly recommend for everyone. This imaginative take on the last days of Maximilian Kolbe is very well done.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 6, 2025

 

Dr. Strange (1978) Extra-dimensional sorceress Morgan Le Fay possesses a young lady named Clea and orders her to kill Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, Tom. Weakened by his near death at Clea's hands, the wizened wizard looks for a potential successor, and surprisingly finds him in Clea's psychiatrist, Stephen Strange. Le Fay knows she must take out this new threat, but she also finds Strange's porn-stache and white man's afro oddly appealing. Will Strange succumb to Le Fay's wiles or face her in battle on the astral plane. A must-see for comics fans in the 70s desperate for live-action fare, but let's not kid ourselves, there's good reason this pilot movie never went to series.

TIL: It's pretty clear in Church teaching that magic in the real world can never be used for good, even if the goal is well intentioned like trying to cure an illness or help a loved one. This is because magic is an effort to gain power apart from God by attempting to control or manipulate hidden forces. And, since these forces are outside of God, they can open a person to demonic influence or deception, not something to be recommended. Ah, but what about things like prayer and sacramentals (holy water, blessings, medals, etc.), why aren't they considered magic? Simply because any supernatural help that might come from their use is entirely at the discretion of God and not through human mastery.

Now Showing at a Blog Near You: Review: My latest for Aleteia takes a look at Light of the World, the new animated feature which gives a glimpse into the ministry of Jesus through the eyes of John, the youngest Apostle.