Category: Film and TV

The fiasco over the "gay cowboy movie" Brokeback Mountain had me wondering what real cowboys thought about the film. As I suspected, the common answer is "Not much."

"Jim-Bob Zimmerschied is not a happy cowboy. ‘They’ve gone and killed John Wayne with this movie,’ he says angrily, beer in hand. ‘I’ve been doing this job all my life and I ain’t never met no gay cowboy. It wouldn’t be right.’

[…]

"But away from the bellicose posturing, a more subtle view emerged. Dave Miller, 48, a rancher in regulation black cowboy hat, leather waistcoat, blue jeans and boots, said: ‘It’s not the sort of movie that I’d go to see, but this is America and people can watch whatever they want.’ Nonetheless, he repeated the common refrain that he had never encountered a gay cowboy. ‘Well, not that I knew,’ he added. ‘I just don’t think our way of life is conducive to them.’ And like many others, his concern was that the film would give the wrong impression of life in the West."

My favorite reaction:

"Lee Hagel, 47, who was herding cattle there last week, had his own objections to the film. ‘They aren’t even cowboys — they’re sheep herders,’ he said witheringly. ‘You can’t just put a hat on someone and say they’re a cowboy.’"

GET THE STORY.

(NOTE: The article, although written for a mainstream newspaper, contains some crude language that may not be suitable for all readers.)

(JIMMY ADDS: JimmyAkin.Org rates the newspaper piece L for limited adult audience, articles whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.)

King Kong may have thrashed Aslan in a Google Fight, but at the box office, where it really counts, Aslan proves that he remains the King of the Beasts:

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe snatched the box office crown from King Kong during another fierce four-day holiday battle for the top spot.

"Old acquaintances met again: Less than $2 million has separated Kong and Narnia the past two weekends.

"’We edged out Kong. It’s been neck-and-neck,’" Buena Vista’s Dennis Rice said Monday. "’These are two great movies in the marketplace that are doing great business.’"

"Narnia took in an estimated $32.8 million during the Friday-through-Monday period, nudging Universal’s King Kong out of the No. 1 spot and into second with a New Year’s weekend take of $31.6 million."

GET THE STORY.

The review of Brokeback Mountain at the U.S. bishops’ Office of Film and Broadcasting has been heavily edited.

THE REVISED REVIEW IS HERE.

Most of the edits are in a positive direction. Many of Harry Forbes’ over-the-top gushy raves about the gay cowboy love story have been removed. For example, his opening remark that the movie "arrives at last" has now been snipped.

The review still gives the moral aspects of the film a back seat (not even getting to them until late in the review), but some of the deficiencies previously noted have been fixed. For example, the review’s discussion of Catholic teaching on homosexual behavior now reads:

The Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality is unambiguous. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered" and the inclination itself is “objectively disordered.” At the same time, homosexually inclined persons “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” (#2357 and #2358).

That’s a dramatic improvement over the original, which read:

As the Catholic Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and activity, Ennis and Jack’s continuing physical relationship is morally problematic.

The bottom line moral assessment of the film is better, but still a bit perplexing. It reads:

Use of the film as an advocacy vehicle to promote a morally objectionable message that homosexuality is equivalent to and as acceptable as heterosexuality does a disservice to its genuine complexity. While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true. The film creates characters of flesh and blood – not just the protagonists, but the wives, girlfriends, parents, and children — who give the film its artful substance.

However, the physicality of the men’s relationship and the film’s inherent sanctioning of their affair necessitate an O rating.

The opening statement that "use of the film as an advocacy vehicle . . . does a disservice to its genuine complexity" is perplexing. Talking about "use of the film" in the passive voice makes it sounds
like homosexual activists will be "using it" contrary to the true
"complexity" of the film. This generates a "Huh?" reaction.

As noted previously, the film sounds eminently suited to be an advocacy vehicle–and an especially dangerous and destructive one because it is made by a talented director (Ang Lee) who has imbued it with artistic qualities that enable it to better deliver its morally offensive payload to the audience.

Also perplexing is the statement that "the physicality of the men’s relationship and the film’s inherent sanctioning of their affair" are what necessitate an O rating.

Earlier the review cited two morally offensive grounds: (1) the homosexual nature of their relationship and (2) the fact that they commit adultery with each other after having married women.

The review goes out of its way to assert that the adultery aspect is "just as offensive from a Catholic perspective" (an assertion that is quite open to question; St. Thomas Aquinas would not concur), and so it’s no surprise to see the adultery aspect showing up in the justification for the O rating. But notice what’s changed: Previously it was noted that both homosexual behavior and the homosexual orientation itself are problematic (as are any sinful behaviors and sinful orientations–regardless of what the sin in question may be).

This has been downgraded in the final assessment to just "the physicality of the men’s relationship" making the movie morally offensive. As if it wouldn’t be offensive if the film communicated the message that it’s okay for two men to have an intense, romatic relationship as long as it doesn’t get physical?

This sounds like whoever is editing the review is still foot-dragging.

It’s not the physicality of the relationship that is the source of the problem, it’s the homosexuality of it.

At least, though, we now have an unambiguous O assigned to the film, without the finger-pointing at the Catholic News Service audience and the hinting that the film really still deserves only an L and that the OFB is being forced to assign it a rating other than what it believes the film deserves.

As you can see, not all gushy remarks about the film have been deleted. For example, there’s still the sonorous remark that in the film "the universal themes of love and loss ring true."

There’s are also the remarks that "The performances are superb" and "Australian Ledger may be the one to beat at Oscar time." The former may be true, and the latter probably is true–given Hollywood’s current tendency to reward iconoclastically morally offensive films at Oscar time (Cider House Rules [abortion], Million Dollar Baby [euthanasia], Boys Don’t Cry [transsexualism]).

It is not clear who is making these revisions, whether it is Harry Forbes or someone else. The OFB reviews do not carry bylines and the edited version of the review does not seem to appear on Catholic News Service (where Forbes’s byline was removed when the rating was changed from L to kinda-maybe-sorta O).

What is clear is that whoever did the edits has seen the film. In fact, there is new information in the review about the content of the film, including some that should have been given to the audience the first time.

The review is still flawed and still retains elements of Harry Forbes’ initial gushy rave review, but it’s a lot better than it was.

GET THE STORY.

NOTES:

• Unfortunatley, SDG only gets a brief mention in the story, but it’s nice to see him getting recognition from the MSM. (He’s also been cited by Ebert.)
• Love the NYTnoid headline: "New Cultural Approach for Conservative Christians: Reviews, Not Protests"–as if protesting movies was the only approach conservative Christians have had up till now, never having reviewed and thoughtfully interacted with and critiqued culture up to now.
• One of the other review services mentioned in the article–MovieGuide–is an exceptionally disingenuous entity. In a MASSIVE AND UNPROFESSIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST the people involved act as a publicity agency for certain movies–which have a suspicious tendency to end up with positive reviews. They also have a knee-jerk Fundamentalist approach to films whose content they don’t like (i.e., "It’s morally objecitonable so it must be artistically lousy, too"). SEE HERE FOR MORE INFO.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS . . . MST3K STYLE!

Funniest Christmas episode of any series . . . ever!

Have watched it regularly every Christmas for several years.

In the words of Crow T. Robot, "There’s no tradition like a new tradition!"

This is just a note for B5 fans who may want to know about this:

Over the next year JMS is releasing a 15-volume set of all the scripts that he wrote for the TV series Babylon 5 (which is the vast majority of the episodes of the show).

These are the productions scripts and include scenes and dialogue that were filmed but never broadcast.

There are generally seven scripts per volume, plus a lot of bonus materials. The bonus materials include newly written introductions by JMS to the scripts, talking about how they originated, what was going on with the show at the time, what production issues were encountered, etc. The bonus materials also include behind-the-scenes photos from the set and a lot of production memos that he sent out during filming talking about the design of various props, alien races, and characters who were meant to be on the show (some of whom never were–like the The Boss and mysterious Mr. Jones).

I’ve seen the first two volumes (which are out), and they’re actually a lot cooler than I thought from the bare description of them.

Among other things, JMS explains things that weren’t necessarily clear on screen. F’rinstance: An early season 1 episode "Infection," which dealt with a piece of organic technology from the planet Ikara that grabbed a person and turned him into an "Ikaran war machine"–as Mr. Garibaldi once termed it. This episode was one of the first filmed and is generally regarded as one of the least successful of the show’s five year run (it’s basically a man in a rubber suit monster episode),

BUT

in volume 1 on the scripts, JMS explains something that could only have been obvious in hindsight (and wasn’t obvious to me even then until he pointed it out): the Ikaran device is (a) dark and scaly with lots of pointy, insect-like leg thingies, (b) organic technology, (c) that incorporates a living being into itself, (d) seizes control of his brain for its own purposes, and (e) turns him into a form of armament.

Does that sound like anything ELSE we encounter on Babylon 5?

It’s SHADOW TECH.

The Ikarans got ahold of some left over shadow tech from the last Great War and used it to try to impose genetic and ideological purity on their planet, leading to them all being wiped out (since nobody is ever pure enough).

The tech in question was one of the things that the Shadows used to create infantry units since, as JMS points out, an army needs to control the ground as well as the sky.

So. It’s still a man in a rubber suit monster episode, but at least it’s a man in a rubber suit monster episode that fits in to the overall shadow mythology that JMS created for his universe.

The volumes also contain alternate, unfilmed versions of some scripts. For example, volume 1 contains the original, unfilmed version of the series pilot, "The Gathering," which is significantly different from the one that finally got shot.

Volume 3 (coming out in January) is set to explain why actor Michael O’Hare (Cmdr. Sinclair) was forced out of the show by The Powers That Be and the introduction of Bruce Boxleitner (and who ALMOST got his role but at the last minute didn’t).

But the really COOL thing will be volume 15, which will be given FREE (including free shipping) ONLY to those who’ve gotten the rest of the set.

What will be in volume 15?

Take it away, JMS:

"It will also [in addition addition to a bunch of other stuff]contain the Babylon 5 writers bible…the production draft of "The Gathering" as a companion to the original draft offered in volume one…and something very special."

"For over ten years, fans have asked "What would Babylon 5 have been like had Sinclair stayed?" Well, that question will be answered in this volume."

"After we finished the movie, but before we got the series going, WB asked to see a breakdown on this five-year arc thingie. So I wrote a six or seven page, single spaced outline of the ENTIRE FIVE YEARS with Sinclair still in place. The document makes for fascinating reading when compared with the series as it developed. NOT ONLY THAT, but the same document has a brief outline for A POTENTIAL BABYLON 5 SEQUEL SERIES, which would have been entitled BABYLON PRIME."

"Finally, by popular request, the nearly-legendary alternate version of the script for “The Exercise of Vital Powers” containing the Londo/G’Kar seduction scene, written in as an elaborate practical joke on the actors, will also be included.

So, if you want

GET INFO ON THE B5 SCRIPTS.

Steven Greydanus’s review of Brokeback Mountain IS UP.

As you might guess, he gives it significant marks for artistic merit (three and a half stars) but gives it a -4 moral/spirital rating (which is as bad as it can get on his scale), resulting in it having no appropriate audience and an overall recommendability of F.

He thus was able to separate the artistic craftsmanship of the film from its moral content, which is a very important distinction to make. Something can appear beautiful and even moving and still be gravely immorally.

"And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14).

That’s the thing about sin: If it wasn’t in some way attractive to people, they wouldn’t do it.

Steve also bring out a point that I had been thinking about: When a morally offensive movie has artistic merit, that makes it MORE dangerous, not less, because it is better able to draw the viewer into the immoral worldview of the film than a ham-fisted, low-quality film.

Steve also points out that there are NO sympathetic heterosexual male characters in the film. Homosexual males can get sympathy, and so can heterosexual females, but not heterosexual males. He writes:

The film allows its sexually omnivorous protagonists to be morally ambiguous, and its straight women can be likable or sympathetic. Yet essentially every straight male character in the film is not only unsympathetic, but unsympathetic precisely in his embodiment of masculinity.

In the end, in its easygoing, nonpolemical way, Brokeback Mountain is nothing less than a critique not just of heterosexism but of masculinity itself, and thereby of human nature as male and female. It’s a jaundiced portrait of maleness in crisis — a crisis extending not only to the sexual identities of the two central characters, but also to the validity of manhood as exemplified by every other male character in the film. It may be the most profoundly anti-western western ever made, not only post-modern and post-heroic, but post-Christian and post-human.

GET THE REVIEW.

I wanted to touch back on something that I meant to mention regarding the non-retraction retraction issued by Catholic News Service regarding its erroneous ranking of Brokeback Mountain as an "L" film ("limited audiences") rather than an "O" film ("morally offensive").

Here is the text of what they wrote:

Editor’s Note: "Brokeback Mountain," originally rated L (limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling), has been reclassified O — morally offensive. This has been done because the serious weight of the L rating — which restricts films in that category to those who can assess, from a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie — is, unfortunately, misunderstood by many. Because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear the church’s — or the USCCB’s — position on homosexuality is ambiguous, the classification has been revised specifically to address its moral content.

The part in red is how the L rating is normally explained, and it’s fine. That’s what the L rating means.

But the part in blue is a misinterpretation of the L rating that reveals something interesting.

Note that in blue the editor says that L restricts films "to those who can assess, from a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie."

If that’s what L means then y’know what? EVERY movie should be rated L.

NOBODY should be watching a movie if he is unable to correctly assess the moral issues raised by it. If you’re going to get suckered into thinking something immoral in a movie is really moral then you SHOULDN’T be watching that film.

I don’t care whether it’s The Incredibles or Silence of the Lambs. If you can’t accurately handle the moral issues a film raises–whatever those may be–then that film is not for you.

This reinterpretation of the L rating completely steamrollers the need for all other ratings–including O. I mean, if you’re a moral theologian and can correctly "assess, form a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie" and that’s a sufficient reason NOT to give it an O then guess what: No films need to be given an O since SOMEBODY (at least the film critic who would have otherwise given them an O, and if not him then the pope) will be able to assess the moral issues they raise.

So ALL films really should have an L.

Clearly this is not what is meant by the ratings system or there would be no other ratings. No A-I, A-II, A-III, or O.

The conventional (in red) description of what L means is correct: These are films that have a limited audience because they contain material that many adults would find troubling.

"Many adults would find troubling" is a different criterion than "morally offensive according to the teaching of the Church." There are a lot of things that many adults would find troubling that aren’t in themselves morally offensive. Showing gruesome murders, for example, is troubling to many, but the mere showing of them isn’t morally offensive as long as the film contains a moral structure that doesn’t ENDORSE the gruesome murders.

Same goes for showing immoral heterosexual and homosexual relationships. That can be troubling for many adults, but it isn’t morally offensive if the film doesn’t ENDORSE these relationships.

So if a film shows evil but does not endorse it, that’s reason to go L.

But if it shows evil AND endorses it then that’s reason to go O.

One of the things presupposed by the distinction between the L and the O rating is that L films are NOT morally offensive. If they were then they should get an O.

As I’ve pointed out before, if the central theme of a movie is morally offensive (e.g., an endorsed-by-the-film homosexual relationship that is what the film is all about–or an endorsed-by-the-film extramarital heterosexual one that is what the film is all about) then the film is morally offensive. (And if the central theme of a movie being morally offensive doesn’t qualify it as a morally offensive picture then I’d like to know what on earth COULD.)

It doesn’t matter whatever aristic merits the film may have in presenting its central theme. If the central theme is morally offensive then those artistic merits simply serve to help the film in delivering an immoral payload to the audience. They’re sugar for the poison pill, and there is all the more reason to slap an O on it so that the faithful can be warned.

Note, incidentally, the elitist attitude of the non-retraction retraction: We who are the cognoscenti and are able to "assess" the moral issues raised by Brokeback Mountain are able to "handle it" and so it is only an L, but because of complaints from the masses, who are too ill-informed to "assess" the moral issues it raises, we’ve got to slap an O on it even though that’s not what it really deserves.

So the non-retraction retraction is not just resentful (blaming the audience) and disingenuous (appearing to classify something as morally offensive but indicating that it really isn’t) and hypocritical (giving something a  rating that one doesn’t believe it deserves), it’s also elitist (viewing the audience as too stupid to handle the truth).

A reader writes:

Jimmy-

For the first time in a long time I checked the USCCB film suitability rating for "Lion …" and was really disappointed to see that it received an "A-II — adults and adolescents" rating." The review is at http://www.usccb.org/movies/c/thechroniclesofnarnialionwitchwardrobe.shtml .

The two germane paragraphs are:

The climactic battle may be too intense for young children, as may be scenes involving a pack of vicious wolves serving as Jadis’ henchmen. Hardest of all to watch is Aslan’s atoning sacrifice, surrounded by hellish legions seemingly conjured from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. His apparent "defeat" is trumpeted by Jadis’ victory cry, "So much for love." Some parents may feel it inappropriately upsetting for a "family film," but Lewis himself argued that it was proper not to shield children from knowledge that they are "born into a world of death, violence, wounds, adventure, heroism and cowardice, good and evil."

and

The film contains some battlefield violence, intense scenes of child peril and menace, and several frightening sequences. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested.

I contrast that with Steve Greydanus’ rating of "Kids & up – discernment required" at http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/2641 .

At any rate, I don’t know whether to be glad or not that few people apparently read and heeded the warning (as evidenced by the strong opening weekend box office, http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=media&storyID=nN11596039).

I was wondering

   1. if you you know anything about the film review office / effort of the USCCB?

Yes, I do.

   2. who actually does the reviews?

It changes over time, but generally by laypeople who have been hired to work for the office. Currently duties are divided between a pair of gentlemen named Harry Forbes and David DiCerto, who wrote the Narnia review, which can be seen HERE along with his byline. (When the reviews appear on CNS you generally get the byline of the person doing it. The OFB site, though, does’t use bylines.)

3. how strong is the authority of the Bishop’s office behind these guidance efforts?

The film reviews do not engage the Church’s Magisterium, nor are they legislative acts, so they do not have doctrinal or judicial "authority."

They are opinions written at the bishops’ behest by laypeople who have been hired to bring a Catholic sensibility to film criticism and who have done well enough that they have been able to continue in their positions–which is to say, the bishops would like to provide these as a helpful service, but they’re not going to invest any kind of "authority" in them.

No Catholic is obligated to agree with these reviews, nor the ratings assigned to the movies, and the bishops don’t intend that. They’re just a service in hopes of being helpful.

For my own part, I have been impressed with how well the ratings were done a number of years ago when I was doing film criticism, though more recently I think they’ve had a significant number of incorrect ratings (or that was my impression the last time I paid attention to the ratings; I haven’t really hung out on their site of late and things may have improved.)

One thing to note about the lower end of the OFB scale is that it has a design flaw separating the A-I (general patronage) and A-II (adults and adolescents) ratings. Because there is no middle rating or qualifier here, if the movie would be disturbing to a significant number of kids then that makes it hard for them to give it an A-I rating and there is pressure for them to put it in the A-II category. The way the rating system is set up, there is no way for them to say "This would be okay for some pre-adolescents but not for others."

That’s an especial problem because there is just a world of difference between a five year old movie goer and an eleven of twelve year old movie goer. Also, children of the same age can be very different in their readiness to see particular movies due to maters of temprament and movie viewing experience.

The same thing happens at the jump from A-II (adults and adolescents) to A-III (adults). There’s no way to say "This is okay for some adolescents but not others."

Sometimes the reviews will assign a rating but clarify it in the review itself (e.g., we’re ranking it this way but it would also be okay for mature members of the next age group down) to try to get around the design flaw.

The MPAA gets around the children’s age problem by having G, PG, and PG-13, with the first meaning it’s okay for everyone, PG-13 meaning recommended for adults & adolescents, and PG meaning okay for some younger children but needing parental guidance.

Steve Greydanus does something simliar by having kids, kids with discernment (meaning: parents need to exercise discernment about whether a movie is suitable for the kid because it won’t be suitable for all kids), and teens, which are roughly equivalent (in theory) to G, PG, and PG-13 (though Steve might quibble with those rough identifications).

The OFB, though, just has the two rankings A-I and A-II for everybody under 18, and that creates some awkwardness when ranking movies like this.

The reader continues:

Btw, speaking with a friend of mine with younger kids (Paul Masek http://www.stlyouth.org/blogs/paul who started and runs www.reapteam.org, they do nearly 200 retreats a year for middle to high-school kids as part of the St. Louis Archdiocese), our non-scientific sampling after Mass had all of their kids really pumped after seeing the movie, and they talked about their fairly timid  six or seven year old cousin who was not only not frightened, but called this "his favorite movie ever".

Wouldn’t surprise me at all.

You ever get the feeling when watching a television show that the writers might as well have a Greek chorus descend at the end to announce the theme of the episode, just in case they haven’t yet gotten their message across? I had that feeling when watching Cold Case this past Sunday.

The story revolved around a teenage couple who found themselves pregnant. It’s 1988 and by the end of the school year the teenage dad will have been mowed down in a hit-and-run and the teenage mom will have tossed the baby in the trash. In 2005, the child — a healthy white newborn girl born under conditions that would have brought national media coverage and a legion of prospective adoptive parents who somehow was unadoptable and spent the past seventeen years in foster care — will be approached by someone claiming to have been her "real" dad. So the hunt is on for this guy and for whoever ran over the other young man seventeen years earlier.

In the process of solving the story we find that the couple first turned to a school nurse about the possibility of an abortion.  Nurse Virtue turned out to be a pro-life wacko who believes in “punishing” anyone involved with abortion. On the side, she’s a promiscuous hypocrite who has been making time with a married math teacher whose marriage is in trouble because he and his wife cannot conceive children. No matter that a school nurse is statistically more likely to be willing to ferry the girl to Planned Parenthood than to run over those who provide or consider abortion. She’s a source for a few well-placed jabs at “nut job” anti-abortionists. The show will end by showing Nurse Virtue avidly reading a sexy romance novel.

We also find out that the teen mom was molested by the track coach. He pushes the teen dad to seek the abortion — and is even willing to provide the funds for the abortion — so that the kid will be free to pursue a track scholarship, but seventeen years later it is the track coach molester who has been stalking the teen girl he believes is his. Uhm, yeah.

To top it all, the killer turns out to be the math teacher whose hopes to adopt the baby were dashed when the teen dad told him that he could not bear to give up “his girls.” Enraged, the prospective adoptive parent ran down the “heroic” dad who “valiantly” decided to forego adoption for marriage and an instant family with a young woman whom he believed had been sleeping around and whose child might not be his.

So, where was the Greek chorus chanting “Abortion is our friend”? Maybe it wasn’t in the budget.

Immediately after this Very Special Episode of Cold Case was the opening night of CBS’s miniseries Pope John Paul II, which was advertised as papally blessed by Benedict XVI. That night’s episode was so incredibly good that I can’t wait for tonight’s conclusion and I would buy a DVD of the movie in a heartbeat. It certainly deserved a papal blessing.

One of my favorite parts of the movie, so far, was a vignette in that evening’s episode of a young Father Wojtyla counseling his students on the importance of sexual responsibility. The message he gave was completely and totally Catholic and amazing to hear on primetime network TV….

Especially considering the Coincidence of the Cold Case episode that preceded it.