DAILY CALL SHEET: AUGUST 14, 2026

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) The title character isn't just a fashion photographer, she's an artist. You can tell because she stages all of her fashion shoots to look like the scenes of violent crimes and accidents. It's art! Still, even though it brings her financial success, Laura's eerie aesthetic does have some drawbacks. Not only does she receive a fair amount of criticism for glamorizing violence, but when Laura begins to have visions of murders that turn out to be real, the police initially shrug her off as just some attention seeking weirdo. However, the more evident it becomes that Laura is actually experiencing the slayings through the eyes of the killer, the authorities become convinced they can use her to catch the guilty party. That's the good news. The bad news is that the culprit may be one of the men in Laura's life, and they can all get to her before the police can. Screenwriter John Carpenter, who wrote the initial draft of this before Halloween, turns in a fairly decent American version of a giallo (though he publicly decries the rewrites the studio did without his input) and the cast of Academy Award winners is far above what you usually get in these kind of flicks.

 

I doubt this movie's premise is what Henry David Thoreau meant when he wrote, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” It is a sentiment that Pope Francis agreed with, though. In a 2016 General Audience, the Pontiff noted, "In the Bible we see that God himself must employ mercy in order to bear the lamentings of his people. For example, in the Book of Exodus the people become truly unbearable… But God had patience and thus he taught Moses and also the people this essential dimension of faith. Therefore a first question arises spontaneously: do we ever conduct an examination of conscience in order to see if we too, at times, might be annoying to others? It’s easy to point a finger against the faults and shortcomings of others, but we must learn to put ourselves in their shoes." Or, see the world through their eyes, as the poet put it.

 

Monster a Go-Go! (1960) The space capsule carrying astronaut Frank Douglas crashes to Earth and soon an eight-foot tall radioactive monster is terrorizing the countryside. At least that's what the narrator tells us. In fact, the narrator has to tell us a lot of things because the movie sure as heck doesn't show them. It can't, because a lot of the movie is leftover footage from a previous uncompleted film. For instance, we're assured by the narrator that the teenage girl on screen is watching Frank kill her boyfriend, but we have to take his word for it. And apparently Frank is in the back of a truck slowly killing the driver by radiation poisoning, but we just have to take the narrator's word for it. The whole movie is like this, so if you enjoy being told and not shown, this is the flick for you. And yes, this is the infamous movie in which a phone rings, but since the filmmakers seemingly couldn't afford foley, the sound we here is just someone making "ring-ring" sounds with their lips.

 

One of the nice things about Christianity is that it's structurally a show, don't just tell religion. God doesn't merely sit on high proclaiming rules and demanding we love one another. Instead, He incarnated in flesh and lived amongst us, showing how love works in real life. Sure, Jesus preached, but He also healed the sick, talked with the sinners, drove out demons, and lived a life of service to others. And, when it was time for His death, he left behind a Church with visible, tangible sacraments to continue the work. That's why the New Testament spends so much time harping on the fruits of one's labors, because we'll ultimately be judged on a lot more than just what we confessed with our lips. Christianity isn't just a set of ideas that one assents to. It is a life that one is invited to inhabit.