Category: Film and TV

Okay, so they were having a bonfire in Poland on April 2 (which happens to be the anniversary of JP2’s death) and a guy snapped pictures of the flames and later, after looking at the pictures back home, decided that one looks like John Paul II and must be some kind of manifestation from beyond the grave and Vatican TV does a story on it, complete with an endorsement from a Polish priest saying that’s what it is.

This is the kind of story that Vatican TV really shouldn’t do.

Even if they ran the story with all kinds of disclaimers, those disclaimers won’t make it through into the popular media. The mere fact that Vatican News Service is carrying this story will be taken as indicating that the Vatican supports this interpretation of the bondfire image.

This is bad because it strains credulity enough to have saintly images appearing in tortillas an pieces of toast and on the sides of buildings. Finding one in an image of something as dynamic and as constantly-changing-in-shape as fire is completely beyond the bounds. If you take enough pictures of any bonfire, you’ll be able to find such images in it.

And then there is the fact that fire isn’t exactly the most . . . er . . . traditional symbol of what it’s like in heaven. I mean, if you want a message that JP2 is in heaven rather than . . . one of the hotter regions . . . is a bonfire the best place for such a message?

This is just superstition, and the Vatican News Service abetted it, wittingly or unwittingly.

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

I have never seen an episode of ABC TV’s The View.

Until Rosie O’Donnell got in trouble on it, I hadn’t even heard of the program, though it’s apparently been on for more than ten years.

From reading about the show and seeing clips of it, I have, however, come to hold a very low opinion of it.

What I have seen and read about the show leads me to the conclusion that it is shallow and bubble-headed and frequently shameful, embarrassing, and even disgusting. In other words, it swings between the two extremes of insipid, inconsequential fluff, often with prurient undertones, to completely idiotic attempts to take on serious subjects by a group of commentators who don’t have the first clue what they’re talking about.

Since the commentators are also all women, the show is clearly aimed at a female audience, and if I were a woman, I’d be insulted that ABC thinks this is the kind of junk that I’d be interested in.

The show also seems to deliberately stir up controversy in order to attract ratings by hiring sick puppies like Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg (note that it’s Barbara Walters in the clip who first introduces a disgusting suggestion, which Goldberg then amplifies and makes even worse; there’s plenty of sick puppyism to go around on this show).

So it comes as no surprise that, if this pack of intellectual mendicants (not in the good sense, in which Dominicans are intellectual mendicants) were to choose to take on the subject of Archbishop Raymond Burke’s statement that he would deny Rudy Giuliani Holy Communion that they’d make more errors than you could shake a stick at.

And they did.

Reading the following transcript of part of yesterday’s show (which sure sounds authentic, though I haven’t been able to verify that yet, so caveat emptor,though I have partial confirmation from another source) is like playing one of those "How many things can you find wrong in this picture?" games.

Man, is it painful!

ABC–and its owner, the Disney corporation–should be ashamed of itself that it’s putting out this kind of offensive and brainless twaddle.

Since the hosts of The View obviously don’t have a clue, ABC should get one and cancel the show.

Transcript below the fold (CHT to the reader who e-mailed).

Continue reading “The Nattering Nabobs of Know-Nothingism”

CHT to the reader who e-mailed!

In the mail today (well, yesterday by when you read this), I got the direct-to-DVD movie Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, which is the first in a planned series of new Babylon 5 stories on DVD.

It’s 72 minutes long and consists of two stories that occur simultaneously and interlock to some degree.

I won’t give major spoilers here, but here are a few brief comments.

Both stories are set in 2271, ten years after the events of the first Babylon 5 TV series finished. The first story focuses on Captain Lochley, who is still in command of Babylon 5,and the second focuses on John Sheridan, who is still president of the Interstellar Alliance. Also skulking around is Galen the technomage, but these three are the only regular characters featured in the movie (other past cast members are planned to appear in future DVDs).

The CGI in the video is much improved over where it was ten years ago, when B5 was on the air (basically, CGI was at the stage that video games are now; this DVD may give you an idea of where video games will be in a few years).

The two stories are focused on questions (which is normal for how Joe Straczynski writes). The Lochley story focuses on a theological question, and the Sheridan story focuses on a moral one. (Actually, they both have moral questions, but the first is predicated on a theological question in addition.)

Br. Theo and the other Dominicans apparently aren’t on Babylon 5 any more, so they aren’t there to help Lochley wrestle with the theological issue that is thrust forward. (Oh, BTW, the pope is a man again.) Early on in this story there is a conversation which, when I heard it, I thought, "Joe’s atheism is showing through." I thought it was an interesting conversation, but I was still disappointed. I did suspect, though, that he might be setting us up for a larger issue, and that was true in spades!  I won’t say where this goes, but this has to be the most intensely theological thing that Straczynski has done on the show, and it ends in a way that is definitely respectful of religion.

The moral question at the heart of the Sheridan story is a variant of one that has been hashed over quite a number of times in science fiction, but it’s still a well-told tale with a nice resolution.

There are weak spots in the writing (e.g., the climax of the Lochley story is too talky and Sheridan says some things to an ISN reporter that no president trying to foster interplanetary relations would say to a reporter in a million years–BTW the reporter is Teryl Rothery or "Dr. Janet Frazier" from SG-1), as there often are with JMS’s writing, but the overall is interesting, entertaining, and it will definitely please the majority of B5 fans. (You can never please all fans, of any series, no matter what you do.)

There are also a lot of nice individual lines (JMS specializes in those), and a number of nice little touches that will please fans who know the background of the series.

GET THE STORIES.

NOTE: Please do not give significant spoilers in the combox (or I’ll delete them). In the future, after folks have had a chance to watch the DVD, I may come back to this and discuss the theological and moral questions the stories pose.

P.S. The featurettes are very nice. The memorial tributes to Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs are touching, and the Straczynski Diaries are hilarious.

THIS COULD BE EITHER CUTE OR REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Michael Moore is, well, not my favorite person.

BUT I WAS STUNNED TO READ THIS ACCOUNT OF HOW HE GOES ABOUT HIS FILMMAKING.

That’s the question being asked by David Boaz over at TCS Daily.

He notes that there have, actually, been some anti-Communist movies, but not nearly as many as there have been anti-Nazi movies, and the Communists killed far more people than the Nazis, thus creating innumerable dramatic human situations that could be illuminated through film.

I’ve got two thoughts on why there haven’t been as many anti-Communist movies:

1) Hollywood tends to the left of the political spectrum. It’s cultural/political ethos is socialistic to begin with, and there is less of a desire on filmmakers’ parts to go after Communists than people (like Nazis) that they perceive to be on the opposite end of the political spectrum (though, in actuality, the Nazi party was the National Socialist party).

2) The Cold War never got hot. What made Naziism so riveting and enduring an evil in film is the fact that a whole generation of Americans went off to fight it. Communism was a looming menace, but since we and the Russians (or the Chinese) never squared off in an actual world war, that looming menace never turned into the generation-defining experience that World War II was. If Stalin massacred more civilians than Hitler did (let’s suppose; I haven’t checked the numbers), we never had to fight Stalin, and that kept him from becoming an archtypal villain equivalent to Hitler in cultural stature. (Though he has clearly been the first runner-up in that category.)

So those are my theories.

What’re yours?

It’s true!

GET THE STORY!

NOTE: Fortunately, it seems to be white kryptonite, which is only deadly to plants, so our planet’s Kryptonian defender seems to be safe. . . . for the moment!

Every few years one network or another has a period when they’re doing really entertaining cartoons. Back in the ’90s, Nickelodeon had such a run when they were first doing Rugrats (before they got stale) and Doug. Then it was kind of slim pickins until they came up with SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly Oddparents (though Hey, Arnold! and The Wild Thornberrys could be good).

Kids WB (back when they were around) also had such a run with Animaniacs, Pinky & the Brain, Freakazoid, and Earthworm Jim.

And Cartoon Network had one with Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Ed, Edd, n Eddy.

I don’t know what it is, but these runs of good cartoons always seem to peter out after a couple three years and then you just have to wait until someone else starts doing good TV animation again.

Filling the gap between such little golden ages is, of course, why God created DVDs, but man hasn’t been doing his part up to now: The vast majority of these cartoons have never been released on DVD! (Yet another crime against the humanities!)

I was delighted to learn, therefore, that though it’s not yet out on DVD the first season of Johnny Bravo has been released on iTunes!

WOO-HOO!

I downloaded it immediately.

My guess is that they’re testing the waters to see how well it does before possibly putting it out on DVD–or at least expanding the number of whole-season releases of Cartoon Network’s classic toons.

For those who may not know, Johnny Bravo is the biggest, dumbest, most narcissistic, body-building blond Elvis-clone that the world has ever seen.

The first season of the show also includes the immortal episode "Bravo Doobie Doo," in which Johnny meets the Mystery Inc. gang from Scooby Doo, and we get a double-franchise satire.

There are some really funny bits in that one.

A favorite moment: Velma’s glasses are knocked off in a chase scene, and she’s groping around on the floor for them saying, "My glasses! My glasses! I CAN’T SEE without my glasses!" then the camera pans over and we see that Johnny’s ever-present shades have been knocked off, too, and he’s crying, "My glasses! My glasses! I CAN’T BE SEEN without my glasses!"

Classic!

Amazing what you can do with the passive voice.

I just hope they release the rest of the series.

I can’t wait to watch the episode where Johnny runs for mayor against a ham sandwich and the ham sandwich is ahead in the polls.

A reader writes:

I wanted to share this
movie I made. Its a family film, 5 minutes in length and was my first
attempt for "On The lot" by Steven Spielberg. My oldest son loved filming
it, so if you have a chance take a look. Its a general audience film. Thanks
again and God Bless.

I did indeed take a look at the fim, and thought folks (especially parents!) would get a big kick out of it. I’d love to embed it here on the blog, but unfortunately Mr. Spielberg doesn’t seem to have gotten with the YouTube generation yet, so . . .

 

HERE’S THE LINK.