DAILY CALL SHEET: JUNE 30, 2026

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) When the world's greatest and most secretive confectioner announces a contest in which five children will be allowed to tour his fortress of a factory and secure a lifetime supply of chocolate, the entire world succumbs to Wonka-mania trying to locate one of the elusive golden tickets. The eventual winners include the gum-chomping Violet Beauregarde, the television-obsessed Mike Teevee, the ever-omnivorous Augustus Gloop, the proto-girl boss Veruca Salt, and the impoverished paper boy Charlie Bucket. As the children and their chaperones proceed through the wonderland of Wonka's factory, their individual vices lead to avoidable disasters, which are subsequently eulogized by singing orange-skinned little people known as Oompa-Loompas. Will any children be left to claim the ultimate prize? With an outstanding eccentric performance from Gene Wilder as Wonka, some immediately hummable tunes, and an underlying somewhat-mean spirit to the proceedings, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a classic kid's morality tale in which the unvirtuous are punished and the meek inherit everything they ever wanted.

 

When Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," He wasn't referring to weak, spineless passivity. In the original Greek, the word translated in the verse as "meek" is the word "praus", which roughly means strength under control. Given that, biblical meekness is not being a doormat, it is doing good in response to evil. Meekness in the spiritual sense means showing humility and gentleness toward others, enduring trials patiently without resentment or revenge, accepting God's will without and over-abundance of muttering. In this way, meekness is a direct challenge to the worldly preference for immediate retaliation, over-assertive behavior, and crass self-promotion. Sounds nice, but meekness isn't easy. As Pope Francis noted, "Anyone can appear meek when everything is peaceful, but how does one react under pressure, if one is under attack, offended, threatened?" Meekness isn't just an idea, it's an active choice.

 

The Land Unknown (1957) Stop me if you've heard this one before. An expedition heads to Antarctica to investigate some unusually warm waters. Now, any kid who has ever gone swimming in a public pool can tell that water which suddenly gets warm is a thing to be avoided, but these guys—and obligatory gal—head towards it anyway. A mistake, as a pterosaur instantly knocks their helicopter into a vast volcanic crater where dinosaurs and man-eating plants run rampant. Yep, it's The Lost World, but with enough story elements changed so Sir Arthur Conan Doyle doesn't get a dime. Of course, since pre-production budget cuts really put a hurt on the film's special effects, Doyle probably would have avoided drawing attention to The Land Unknown as he wouldn't want his name associated with it in any way. However, for fans of this particular kind of '50s schlock, the hand puppets, magnified monitor lizards, and poverty row T-Rex costume are probably a net positive.

 

Methodist founder John Wesley was fond of variations of the term "the land unknown", using it in hymns and poems to metaphorically refer to heaven. In his eulogy, On the Death of Mr. John Matthews, Dec. 28, 1764, Wesley wrote, "Blessing, and thanks, and power, and praise, Jesus is worthy to receive, who keeps his saints throughout their days, and doth the final victory give! He hath his faithful mercies shown, to him, whose loss we now deplore, safe entered on that land unknown, to weep, and fret, and die no more." Interestingly, though he was born into Protestantism, Wesley was accused of being a secret agent of the Jesuits. The evidence against Wesley was his belief in apostolic succession, the necessity of good works and fasting, his rejection of predestination, his affirmation of the intercession of Saints, and apparently, a belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. If he could have just gotten over his Anglican-infused hatred of "popery", he might of made a fine Catholic.

DAILY CALL SHEET: JUNE 23, 2026

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) While stranded in Cairo, an out of work Bud and Lou get wind of a sacred medallion that supposedly leads to a hidden treasure within the long lost temple of Klaris. Of course, they're not the only interested parties. A ruthless business woman and the cult of Klaris wouldn't mind getting their mitts on the treasure as well. Our bumbling heroes eventually secure the medallion but, of course, Lou ends up eating it. However, a quick trip to a doctor with a fluoroscope reveals the directions, and soon, all the rivals are on their way. Little do they know, the living mummy of Klaris awaits them all. This is on the lesser end of Abbott and Costello's trip through Universal's oeuvre of classic monsters, but it's still got more than enough fun moments to keep you entertained. The three mummy bit in particular never gets old.

 

Legend says the Holy Family spent some time in Cairo during their flight from Herod. One spot that commemorates this visit is Saint Virgin Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church, also knowns as The Hanging Church because of its suspended nave. Cairo is also the location where the Coptic saint Simon the Tanner is claimed to have performed the moving the Mokattam Mountain. When the Muslim Caliph al-Muizz challenged the patriarch Abraham to prove the truth of the verse where Jesus claims if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move a mountain, the Holy Virgin appeared and sent Abraham to Simon, who carried out the miracle. After witnessing the mountain move, the Caliph converted to Christianity. The Catholic Church does not formally recognize or venerate St. Simon the Tanner, but does recognize the broader Coptic Orthodox Church as having valid sacraments and apostolic succession in some contexts, which is more important.

 

The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) An earthquake off the coast of California unleashes giant mollusks, though you'll have to take the movie's word for that as the monsters look more like deranged caterpillars. After a few swimmers get munched on, the Navy sends in divers who dispatch one of the creatures and retrieve a large egg, which they send to a nearby lab for study. While the military deals with a horde of mollusks making their way through the state's irrigation canals, the egg at the lab is accidentally allowed to hatch, setting loose a mollusk to menace the lead scientist and her young daughter. To be fair, the movie's title is a bit misleading as the monster only challenges a handful of swimmers and one little girl, but this is enjoyable '50s fare nonetheless. Plus, kudos to the filmmakers for actually building a full-sized giant monster to interact with the actors on set. He's pretty nifty, despite not being very mollusk-like.

 

I guess since many mollusk are such slimy little things, they don't get a lot of attention in Christian symbology. However, there are a few paintings like Carlo Crivelli’s The Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian and Francesco del Cossa’s The Annunciation which prominently feature snails. At the time these paintings were created, snails were believed to reproduce asexually, either by being fertilized by dew or just spontaneous generation. Trusting the science of his time, Dominican friar Francis of Retz wrote in Defensorium inviolatae virginitatis Mariae: “If the dew of the clear air can make the sea snail pregnant, then God in virtue can make His mother pregnant.” And that's how a simple mollusk became a popular analogy for the Virgin Birth, and by extension the Incarnation of Christ, in medieval/Renaissance religious art.

DAILY CALL SHEET: JUNE 14, 2026

Clash of the Titans (1981) Though Zeus ordered the city Argos to be destroyed by the enormous Kraken, he allowed his infant son Perseus to be taken to safety. Now a grown man and carrying magic gifts bestowed by the gods, Perseus travels to the cursed city of Joppa to win the hand of Princess Andromeda. The goddess Thetis has no intention of letting this happen, though, since her own son Calibos was going to wed Andromeda before Zeus transformed him into a hideous monster. Taking advantage of a faux pas by Andromeda's mother, who foolishly declares her daughter to be more beautiful than the goddess, Thetis orders the Kraken to be released on Joppa. Their only hope is for Perseus to obtain the only weapon on Earth that can defeat the most dreaded of Titans, the snake-covered head of the Gorgon Medusa. Harryhausen's final movie, chock full of his signature stop-motion animation, was deemed a little too old fashioned by many critics. However, movie-goers, including this one, disagreed, and made it a hit.

If you count the various minor deities, local spirits, and personifications of abstract ideas, the ancient Greeks had in excess of 3,000 gods and goddesses, many of them overseeing specific domains for which they provided patronage. This has led some critics of the Church to declare many Christian Saints as nothing more than rebranded pagan gods. This doesn't hold up, though. Saints, after all, are just humans who lived exemplary lives and are believed to be in heaven interceding on our behalf. They don't have any  divine powers of their own, as any miracles attributed to their intercession comes from God, not the Saint. Plus, it goes without saying, Saints aren't coming to Earth to father children all over the place. Now, all that's not to say the occasional devotions around particular Saints haven't absorbed old local customs, but the idea that Saints are recycled gods just doesn't work.

The Valley of Gwangi (1969) Entrepreneurial cowgirl T.J. hopes to save her failing rodeo with a new act named El Diablo, a toy-sized horse from the supposedly extinct species Eohippus. Unfortunately, instead of generating excitement, the locals believe El Diablo to be cursed and try to return the tiny animal to its place of origin. Attempting to retrieve their headliner, T.J. and her men follow behind, only to discover El Diablo was not the only prehistoric creature still thriving in the hidden valley. Breaking out the lassos, the courageous cowherds manage to snag an Allosaurus whom they christen Gwangi and advertise as the rodeo's next attraction. However, Gwangi's debut doesn't quite go as they hoped. Look, if you can't get behind cowboys vs. dinosaurs with special effects by Ray Harryhausen, I don't know if there's any hope for you. 

Many early cowboys in what is now the Southwest United States were vaqueros who brought their ranching and herding skills along with them. They also brought their Catholic religion in the form of Spanish missions and settlements. It was through such missions that Sister Blandina Segale did her most notable work. She helped establish Catholic schools, co-founded hospitals, built orphanages, and worked against injustices to Native Americans. Of course, her best known story is the one in which she nursed a member of Billy the Kid's gang back to health and convinced the notorious outlaw not to seek revenge against the doctors who had refused the man treatment. A movie based on her journals, At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, came out in 2025. It doesn't have dinosaurs in it, though, so you'll have to look for reviews of it somewhere else.

DAILY CALL SHEET: JUNE 9, 2024

Bubba Ho-tep (2002) Weary of the limelight, Elvis temporarily trades places with one of his impersonators, but when said impersonator dies on the toilet and his personal documents are destroyed in a fire, Elvis is trapped in obscurity and eventually ends up admitted to a Texas nursing home. There, The King meets John F. Kennedy who, following his supposed assassination, was forced by Lyndon Johnson to have his skin died black before being secluded away from the public. When thieves steal an ancient Egyptian mummy and lose it near the nursing home, Elvis and JFK must team up to stop the reanimated creature, now dressed as a cowboy, from feeding on the lifeforce of the home's occupants. That kind of insane setup is tailor-made for director Don Coscarelli, the man who brought us Phantasm. It's not just about the weirdness, though. Thanks to some subtle performances from Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis, there's actually some thoughtful reflection on aging and fame thrown into the mix.

While not as extensive as the number of hospitals it runs, the Catholic Church does operate numerous nursing homes and senior care facilities around the world where they offer not only healthcare, but options for daily Mass, prayer, sacraments, and chaplain services. Care for the elderly flows directly from the Fourth Commandment to honor our parents—and by extension any parental figures— as well as Jesus' command to love our neighbors. As the Catechism notes, we are called to provide the elderly with “material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress.” It's good to remember, however, that when performing these duties, we are not to see the elderly as burdens, but as persons with inherent worth, wisdom, and a continuing mission in family, Church, and society.

UFO: Target Earth (1974) After intercepting a strange phone call, an instructor at a Florida university—who used to be kept awake by the light emanating from UFOs as a boy—looks up a local psychic who can sense extraterrestrial energy. The two putter around town a bit before heading to a nearby army base to interview a general, which doesn't seem to advance the plot very much. Eventually they end up camping at a lake where the psychic is possibly possessed by aliens and the instructor learns he may be the savior of all mankind. I guess. With the bad lighting, meandering plot, and distracting visible boom mikes, it's not always easy to tell what's going on. What is absolutely not going on, though, is UFOs, as none whatsoever appear in this movie.

To try and give itself some gravitas, the film ends by quoting Revelation 5:9, which in the KLV goes, "“Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." The verse is one of a series that celebrate the universal scope of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. It's a part of the Church's understanding of soteriology (doctrine of salvation) in which Christ’s death is not merely exemplary but truly redemptive, effective for those who respond in faith, and oriented toward forming a priestly people who will reign with Him. In other words, it has nothing to do with UFOs. Which, when you think about it, is pretty par for the course of this movie.

DAILY CALL SHEET: JUNE 3, 2026

Alien from the Deep (1989) Do-gooder Jane and her cameraman are sent by Greenpeace to a tropical island where they hope to gather video evidence that the evil corporation E-Chem is illegally dumping radioactive waste into an active volcano. The cameraman is captured and tortured, but Jane escapes into the forest with the aid of a friendly snake venom farmer. As if Jane's situation wasn't complicated enough, a biomechanical alien—a 12-foot marionette with a ridiculously large crab claw—suddenly emerges from the nearby lake looking to munch on E-Chem's toxic sludge, and it will pinch anyone to death who gets in its way. The movie's burdened with an extremely padded runtime, even for an Antonio Margheriti flick, but the last 10 or 15 minutes are pretty fun if you stick around for them.

As the subtitle of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si'—on care for our common home—suggests, the Church is all for environmental protection in the name of stewardship of the planet. However, the Church is not too fond of radical environmentalism when it prioritizes nature over human dignity, promotes anti-human or population-control ideas, or uses tactics that conflict with Catholic ethics. So, how does that apply to Jane's bosses, Greenpeace? Alas, one of the organization's co-founders, Patrick Moore, testified before Congress that he left the group because it shifted from protecting people and the environment to treating humans as the enemies of the Earth and a cancer on the planet. If true, that doesn't really sound like it keeps to the spirit of Laudato si'.

 

Night of the Big Heat (1967) It might be wintertime, but the small English island of Fara seems to be in the middle of an unexplainable heat wave. As if that weren't uncomfortable enough for local innkeeper and author Jeff, the new secretary he just hired sight-unseen turns out to be his former mistress Angela, the very woman he and his wife moved to Fara to escape. Amidst this domestic drama, the grueling temperature begins to drive everyone on the island nuts, especially once people begin turning up burned to death. As things reach a literal boiling point, a mysterious scientist shows up claiming the heat is a result of an ongoing alien invasion. There's nothing spectacular here, but if you're going to try and make a pseudo-Hammer film, then hiring Terence Fisher to direct and Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to star is the way to do it.

 

Scorching heat appears as one of the final judgements of God in the 16th chapter of the book of Revelation where it states, "The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch men with fire; men were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory." Given the symbolic nature of the passage, the Church does not have an official single interpretation. Instead, rather than definitively say the verses depict some past or future event, many Catholic scholars focus on the themes of God’s definitive judgment on the unrepentant while assuring the faithful of ultimate victory in Christ.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 30, 2026

 

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992) A few days after the events of the first film, the remaining children of Gatlin are all adopted by the adults in a nearby town. Sure, the kids massacred their real parents, but they're probably fine now, right? No, they are not, as they immediately head to the cornfields to worship He Who Walks Behind The Rows. When a reporter and his son show up to do a story on what happened in Gatlin, the rebellious boy is quickly lured into the cult by one of the turn the tide? girls. As new murders begin to occur, the reporter is at a loss as to how to get his son away from the crazy corn-worshipers. Fortunately, there's one of those handy Native Americans around who always knew everything there was to know in movies of that time. But will even his secret knowledge be enough to turn the tide? Given the number of sequels that followed, this is, in fact, not the final sacrifice. Instead, it's mostly a sillier rehash of the already silly first movie.

 

Is it really that hard to figure out your new friends are in a corn-worshiping murder cult? St. John Bosco, patron saint of youth and founder of the Salesians, warned , "Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous snake. If you keep good companions, I can assure you that you will one day rejoice with the blessed in Heaven; whereas if you keep with those who are bad, you will become bad yourself, and you will be in danger of losing your soul… Avoid bad companions, those who blaspheme and steal and do not fear God... Receive the sacraments often; be devoted to the Blessed Virgin; consider bad books worse than the plague; avoid bad companions even more than poisonous snakes." It's interesting to note Bosco included bad books in his warnings against having evil companions. He meant it, though, adding, "No poison is more fatal to youth than bad literature."

Now Showing At A Blog Near Your: For Aleteia this week, I take a look at Pressure, the mostly true story of how one weather forecast nearly derailed D-Day.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 23, 2026

Crimes of the Future (2022) At some point in the not too far off future, biotechnology has advanced to the point that most humans no longer feel sensations like hurt or discomfort. These advances have also kickstarted evolutionary changes in the human body, which for some reason doesn't sit well with the government. To help crack down on illegal evolution, the National Organ Registry goes to performance artist Tenser to help infiltrate the evolutionist underground. Tenser, you see, suffers from Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, which causes him to grow extraneous organs and makes him one of the rare individuals to feel pain. Because of this, people pay to watch Tenser undergo surgery to remove his extra organs while still awake. This gives Tenser cred with the underground, so they accept him into their ranks. The thing is, Tenser starts to accept them as well. What's Tenser to do; turn the underground in, or join the cause? David Cronenberg's return to weirdness isn't up there with his best, but his fans will find much to appreciate.

 

As Pope St. John Paul II noted in a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, "Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical [Humani Generis], new knowledge has led to the recognition that the theory of evolution is more than a hypothesis... The convergence... of the results of lines of work conducted independently of one another constitutes by itself a significant argument in favor of the theory." Evolution is, in fact, taught without reservation in Catholic schools and universities as a likely part of God's natural order. But what about the notion that we might still be evolving? There's no official statement on that idea, but since microevolution has always been a part of the overall theory, it's probably safe to assume the Church would accept the idea of continuing evolution to some degree as long as it is understood within a framework that includes God's creative role and His special creation of the soul.

Now Showing at a Blog Near You: For Aleteia this week, I hang out with The Sheep Detectives. No movie about a bunch of sheep trying to solve a murder has any right being this good. Definitely in my top five of the year so far.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 22, 2026

Chiller (1985) Millionaire industrialist Miles Creighton isn't too fond about dying, so he arranges to have himself cryogenically frozen. After about ten years, though, the machine he's in malfunctions and Miles must be revived. Fortunately, during Miles' long nap, they've invented a procedure to fix his fatal condition. Unfortunately, they can't do anything about Miles' missing soul, which apparently didn't exit the freezer with him. Now a conscienceless monster, Miles sets about purposely ruining the lives of his employees by jettisoning anyone he feels is hampering profits. He also commits a few murders on the side. It's a Wes Craven made-for-TV film, so the movie is probably trying to say something about the perceived heartlessness of Reagan-era capitalism, but nothing Craven does can save this movie from being a complete bore.

Since the Church opposes the creation of human persons outside of the conjugal love of a husband and wife, the cryogenic freezing of embryos is right out. But what about the freezing of adults in hopes of reviving them later? Well, Justo Aznar, director of the Bioethics Observatory of the Catholic University of Valencia, notes that current cryogenic technology would kill a living person, so the person being frozen is required to be dead before the procedure takes place. Obviously, the killing part is right out. As for the preserving of the corpse for later, that goes against the Church's teachings on the proper handling of the body after death. Finally, there's the fact that the soul leaves the body after death, returning only for the final resurrection. So, the whole procedure is a pipe dream to begin with. Based on that, it's safe to assume the Church opposes cryogenics.

Dust Devil (1992) As a traditional Namibian healer named Joe warns us of Dust Devils, demons who materialize from the desert winds and roam the highways looking to kill those who have given up on life, we join one such creature as he burns down a woman's house and dumps her corpse in the back of a car. The Dust Devil then hitches a ride with his next intended victim, Wendy Robinson, a forlorn woman who has just left her husband after being falsely accused of infidelity. However, after Wendy overcomes her despair and decides against ending her own life, the Dust Devil decides to just hang out with her for a while rather than doing the thing he usually does. Meanwhile, thanks to the trail of bodies the Dust Devil has left behind, the police are now tracking him, aided by Joe and his magic stick. Richard Stanley's follow-up to his cult favorite Hardware is just as stylish and moody as its predecessor, coming across a little like if Sergio Leone had made a horror movie. It's ridiculously hard to find, but worth it if you can.

Aquinas was no fan of despair because it basically arises from the false belief that God is withholding his grace. Interestingly, despair seems to be a favorite tactic of the devil when it comes to attacking Saints. For example, St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote how she endured intense temptations to despair, especially when she was near death, feeling like heaven was nothing but a "night of nothingness" and that her faith was illusory. For 50 years, as her letters noted, St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was deeply tempted by feelings of spiritual desolation and abandonment. She spoke of feeling “forsaken,” like Jesus on the Cross, and feared becoming “a Judas to Jesus.” Heck, St. John of the Cross wrote a whole book about his struggles, Dark Night of the Soul, in which he describes those times when God seemingly removes consolations, leading to aridity, confusion, and a sense of abandonment. However, as he explained, such times can lead to a deeper union with God because it's during them when the soul must walk by faith alone.