DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 14, 2024

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) Secondary Shakespearean characters stumble around Hamlet's castle in an existential daze trying to figure out what they're doing, why they're doing it, and ultimately, why they exist at all. Tom Stoppard adapts and directs his own Absurdist play, so the film retains whatever philosophical faults the original work may have had, but it's undeniably a joy watching Tim Roth and Gary Oldman bang their befuddled heads against the walls of life's seeming futilities.

TIL: Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark, and apparently it’s the math. There's a running gag in the movie in which a coin flipped by Guildenstern (or maybe it was Rosencrantz) always lands on heads, even after nearly 100 tries. Well, Evelyn Lamb, Ph.D. ran the numbers and decided that you would have to flip a coin at least two octillion (that's 27 zeros) times to achieve a run in which you get that many consecutive heads. In other words, Guildenstern’s feat is statistically improbable.

Of course, Rosencrantz (or maybe it was Guildenstern) himself had some non-mathematical guesses as to what was going on including time being frozen, some kind of purgatorial punishment, or maybe just plain old miraculous divine intervention. The Catechism reminds us that miracles “are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all; they are ‘motives of credibility’ (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is ‘by no means a blind impulse of the mind’.” In short, they are occurrences which help the rational mind accept a reality which it cannot otherwise see. Given that, would nearly 100 consecutive heads on a coin flip be enough to convince you of the miraculous and to reject Absurdism?

I HAVE SOME NOTES: Continuing to jot down notes on my daily Scripture readings until  they take my pencil away.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

The City of the Dead (1960) A college student working on her thesis disappears while researching witchcraft in an uber-creepy small town. Things don't go well for those who come looking for her. The movie pretty much follows the story beats of Psycho, but with an overlay of the supernatural and, more importantly, an atmosphere as thick as the fog which permeates every frame. Highly recommended for Fall viewing, especially during the spooky season.

TIL: In November 2023, the Vatican's "City of the Dead" was finally opened to the public. This necropolis, which contains tombs dating from the first to the fourth century AD, was first unearthed in the 1940's during excavations searching for the tomb of St Peter, with more found in the late 50's during the construction of a parking garage. Along with the the suspected grave of the first Pope, the tombs also house the remains of slaves, freedmen, and various artisans of the city of Rome.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: Still jotting down random thoughts that came up during my daily Scripture readings.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

  

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the film that made Lon Chaney a bona fide superstar. Incredibly, despite its release date, this was already like the sixth or seventh film adaption of Victor Hugo's novel about a gypsy girl falsely accused of murder and the malformed bellringer who comes to her rescue. This was the first real classic interpretation of the tale, though, thanks mostly to Chaney's astounding body and soul performance as Quasimodo. Sure, Laughton arguably outdid him in 1939 and a whole generation of 90's kids swear by the Disney version, but Chaney set the standard. Of course, I could be biased, as anyone who built Aurora monster model kits as a kid will always have a soft spot for this rendition of the character.

TIL: Being somewhat accustomed to (though still irritated by) Hollywood's tendency to show the Church in the worst possible light, it's always interesting to see how many filmed versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame actually do the opposite. As with other adaptations, this one changes the antagonist of the novel, the corrupted Archdeacon Frollo, into Quasi's benign benefactor, while assigning main villain duties to a non-religious type. Alas, this change was probably a financial decision, as Hollywood at the time was facing almost one hundred separate film censorship bills in 37 states due to a string of recent scandals. What, you thought they did it because they had an actual come-to-Jesus moment?

Freeze Frames #018: Nice of this guy to sit still and pose for me. - "The restless grasshopper only finds rest in the gizzard of a bird." - African Proverb.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 6, 2024

 

Digital Man (1995) In the sketchy early days of CGI, a poor man's Robocop in possession of the nation's nuclear launch codes blows a fuse and terrorizes a small desert town full of Tremors rejects. A special ops platoon, many of whom unknown to themselves have also been transformed into cyborgs, team up with some of the local yokels to rectify the situation. This low-budget effort from the prolific Phillip J. Roth could have easily been a disposable slog, but a parade of familiar faces including the likes of Susan Tyrell, Clint Howard, Paul Gleason, and many many others keeps things moving along just enough to justify the 90 minutes.

TIL: The Church does not yet have an official position on cyborgs, however, speaking at Église Saint François-Xavier in 2019, Cardinal Robert Sarah had some things to say about things such as excessive body modification. "It is my duty to warn the West: behold the flames of barbarism threaten you! And who are these barbarians? The barbarians are those who hate human nature... the West refuses to receive, and will accept only what it constructs for itself. Transhumanism is the ultimate avatar of this movement. Because it is a gift from God, human nature itself becomes unbearable for western man." He ain't wrong.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: More scatterbrained scribblings on my daily Scripture readings.

DAILY CALL SHEET: SEPTEMBER 2, 2024

 

Dawn of the Dead (1978) Who could have guessed that a relatively low-budget indie feature about a small band of friends boarding themselves up in a shopping mall to escape the zombie apocalypse would become one of the most analyzed films in horror movie history? Come for the genre-defining gut-munching effects that made Tom Savini a household name (well, in Addams Family type houses at least) and stay for George Romero's go for the jugular critique of American consumerism.

TIL: When thinking about movie taglines it doesn't get much better than Dawn of the Dead's "When there's no more room in Hell the dead will walk the Earth." Theologically, it makes no sense as, fiery metaphors notwithstanding, Hell is just the term we use to describe the final state of those who have willfully chosen eternal separation from God. There will be resurrected bodies involved, but as with Jesus after he came back, normal physical rules don't apply to those, so there's no way Hell can get full. Still, it's a cool line, and it looks great on a one-sheet.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: Just jotting down random thoughts on my daily Scripture readings.

DAILY CALL SHEET: AUGUST 30, 2024

 

#OnThisDay in 1985 the American Ninja snuck his way into theaters. Surly rebel Joe Armstrong (of course that's his name) chooses to enlist rather than go to prison and finds himself immediately shipped off to Southeast Asia. After his new colonel's daughter is kidnapped from the army base, Joe uses his martial arts skills to kick the entire Philippines' butt. Sure, it's hardly the first of its kind and it sure as heck isn't the best, but this Cannon (of course it's them) cheese-fest looms large in the 80's ninja-craze because it's just so stupidly enjoyable.

TIL: Speaking of crazes, author William George Jordan once warned, "A fad lives its life in a few weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries; a principle, forever." Sure, the 80's ninja thing lasted for years rather than weeks, but it still ended up in the dust bin right next to all those parachute pants. Christians fall for ephemeral fads too, be it WWJD bracelets, the prayer of Jabez, or even (shudder) clown masses. They would be better served grounding themselves in the Church's dogma instead (yeah, I said it), as that's eternal.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: Still scribbling down thoughts on my daily Scripture readings.

DAILY CALL SHEET: AUGUST 25, 2024

 

One Sheet Words of Wisdom: The Spider Labyrinth. (1988) "The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest." - Friedrich Nietzsche

I HAVE SOME NOTES: More hastily penciled perspectives on my daily Scripture readings.