Gnomeo and Juliet [2011]

MPAA (G) CNS/USCCB (A-I) Nell Minow (3 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
ChicagoSunTimes (N. Minow) review

“A gnome by any other name ...”

Gnomeo and Juliet is a fun and surprisingly evocative animated movie released for Valentine’s Day weekend and yes, I’d recommend it to all kinds of people and families looking to see something in the context of this holiday. Following loosely and even amusingly commenting on the story of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it could make for a very cute date movie or one for the family to take small kids.

The story plays out somewhere in English suburbia on the adjacent lawns of a duplex townhouse, the duplex’s addresses “2B” and “Not 2B” on “Verona Street.” One of the duplex’ lawns has a “red” motiff with a beautiful tulip garden. The other garden has a “blue” motiff with a beautiful hydrangea bush as its crowning glory. Amidst the gardens are scattered collections of red and blue gnomes, who like the owners of the two flats, hate each other. How would they know of each others’ existence? Well, while people aren’t looking, the gnomes move around quite a bit and actually take care of their respective gardens. It’s just when people look at them, that’s when they freeze often with very goofy expressions on their faces and in stupid-looking positions.

Much ensues. Gnomeo (voice by James McAvoy) and Juliet (voice by Emily Blunt) actually meet when both of them were outside of their two gardens on separate adventures. On their first date, again away from either of the two’s “familiar gardens,” they meet a sad pink flamingo named Featherstone (voice by Jim Cummings) whose true love was taken away from him when the couple, which owned the garden where he and his true love were displayed, divorced and one of the divorcing spouses took the other flamingo away as part of the divorce settlement. The flamingo teaches the two gnomes a little about love and “tending a garden together.”

A particularly funny scene takes place when Gnomeo finds himself exiled (actually taken away by a slobbering bull dog) and on his way back encounters a statue of William Shakespeare (voice by Patrick Stewart). He tells the statue his story and (the statue of) Shakespeare responds saying “I know the story, let me tell you how it ends.” To which Gnomeo responds “Yuck, what’s with all the death...” Shakespeare answers “You’ll see...”

The rest of the movie is about whether this story has to end like Shakespeare ended it. To be sure, there’s a lot of fighting. One side even purchases a “Terrafirminator” lawn-mower (voice over by Hulk Hogan) to settle the issue once and for all. (The Statue of Shakespeare shakes his head, telling the audience, “See, I’m telling you ...”).

Set to a soundtrack heavy on Elton John songs, this movie isn’t for everyone. But if you like “cute” and if you liked English Lit. when you were in high school, then I do think that you’ll like this movie.


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The Roommate

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (L) Roger Ebert () Fr Dennis (3 ½ stars)

IMDb Listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1265990/
CNS/USCCB Review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/r/roommate2011.shtml
Roger Ebert’s Review -

“Says here that if he takes all his meds, he’s fine.”
“What if he doesn’t take his meds?”
“Well, I guess he wouldn’t be fine.”
– from the movie “Wag the Dog”

The Roommate is a movie that really isn’t intended for anyone over 25. It’s just that I grew-up (was a teenager/college student) in the heyday of the mad-slasher flicks of the late-70s early-80s and I’m gonna give myself a pass ;-).

And then movies like this are always fun to analyze. What makes a horror movie work? Well, Stephen King, a true master of this genre, writes in his book The Danse Macabre that the movie has to touch a nerve. That is, the movie has to tap into a fear/anxiety that exists in the society, and the greater the fear/anxiety being tapped, the more successful the movie.

We live in a time when tens of millions of people, often young people, are on psychiatric mediation for all kinds of ailments from the very serious (schizophrenia) to the less serious but often debilitating (depression) and the question/anxiety does arise: Who among these people really needs these medications (and wouldn’t be able to function safely without them)? And then what kind of dangers arise when they don’t take these meds properly? We also live in a time when there’s ever increasing pressure to get a college degree. As such, people who a generation ago could have been happy, productive citizens in the trades, doing line work at a factory and/or just being married are now being forced to go to college, where they may be honestly out of their depth. Finally, we live in a time when every year there seems to be a mass shooting at a university (Virginia Tech, N.I.U.) or one perpetrated by a troubled college student (like the recent mass shooting in Tuscon), where a common denominator has been that the perpetrator in question was average or below average at school and if there were other options might not have been going to college at all.

So the increasing commonality of psychiatric medications and the pressures to go to college form the subtexts to The Roommate.

As a slasher movie, The Roommate then follows conventions that anyone who was a teenager in the late-70s / early 80s would recognize. A "good girl," Sara (a nice biblical name) played by Minka Kelly from a "small town" in the Midwest (where "good people" live) comes to Los Angeles (the big city) to go to college. In the 1970s-80s the "good girl" would be so obvious in these movies that we, teenagers, would immediately identify her as “the Virgin” (not necessarily thinking of the Virgin Mary, though as we’ll see below, _not_ necessarily far off in her role in fending off/defeating Evil). Then there’s “the slut,” named Tracy in this movie, played by Alyson Michalka (of the TV series Hellcats), who’s promiscuous and in the 1970s-80s would end up with a harpoon put through her head or chest. There’s “the monster,” Rebecca (another biblical name actually), played by Leighton Meester (from the TV series Gossip Girl) who plays Sara’s troubled roommate. There’s the "angelic boyfriend" of the "good girl," named Steven, played by Cam Gigandet who protects the "good-girl/Virgin" for a while, but ultimately it’s up to the "good girl" to defeat "the monster." There are even an assorted number of bigger and lesser “jerks” who get punished for their sins by “the monster.”

Innovations on the conventions of the 1970s-80s “mad slasher” flick include the following:

First, The Roommate is rated PG-13 (as opposed to the “R” ratings of most of the 1970s/80s era flicks) so the “body count” in the movie is actually quite low and “the gore” is at a minimum. This is probably smart because movies like this have TEEN written all over them and it makes no sense making the movies “R-rated” and thus needlessly encouraging “rule breaking” by teens and causing moral dilemmas to parents.

Second, the “good girl” Sara is _no longer_ a virgin. In the movie, she does sleep with her "angelic boyfriend" and doesn’t particularly mind the antics of the “slutty” Tracy. Interestingly enough, another recent horror movie Drag Me to Hell actually plays on this exact point very well – should we really identify with / feel sorry for the “good girl” when she’s no longer particularly “good.” Yes, one can be “sweet” but is that really being “good?” I LOVED Drag me to Hell and consider it the best horror movie in a generation and of the caliber of Psycho and the The Exorcist, but that’s another story ... ;-). However, in The Roommate, Sara retains archtypical “good” qualities. She may put-up with/forgive Tracy’s promiscuity but she herself isn’t. She’s more or less monogamous. Her high school boyfriend dumped her, but then she’s loyal to her new "angelic" college boyfriend. She resists the come-ons of others who would hit on her. Perhaps most controversially, Sara doesn’t engage in lesbianism, portrayed briefly in the movie (PARENTS take note ...) in _decidedly deviant tones_. Actually, the mad slasher flicks of the 1970s/80s had a decidedly “conservative tone” when it came to sexual morality as well – the “slutty”/promiscuous always met bad ends.

Finally, the “monster,” Rebecca, was female. That’s actually surprising given both that the "monsters" in the 1970s/80s mad slasher flicks were generally male (Jason, Freddy Krueger, etc) and the perpetrators of the recent shootings at universities were _always male_. The monster being female, however, serves to soften the movie. Often in the past, it was understood that the “monster” had “a story” as well. I think it’s easier to identify with “the story” of a troubled female than a male. Further making “the monster” female helped provide sufficient distance between _the movie_ and the horrific _reality_ of the recent school shootings. Finally, the choice of making the monster female helped the producers of the film to keep the movie’s “body count” at a manageable level for both the PG-13 rating and audience acceptance.

The trajectory of the plot of The Roommate is straight out of the conventions of the 1970s/80s movies of its kind. After introduction to the cast of characters and giving the audience time to make moral assessments of them, the “monster” goes to work destroying the guilty. A final confrontation comes between the “the Good Girl” (in the 1970s/80s “The Virgin”) and “the Monster.” The "angelic boyfriend" is a help but ultimately it is up to the “Good Girl”/”Virgin” to defeat the "monster" herself.

THAT “THE VIRGIN” WOULD VANQUISH “THE MONSTER” IS STRAIGHT OUT OF VERY TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC MARIOLOGY, where it is the Woman (Mary) who destroys the Serpent “crushing his head with her heal” (Gen 3,15). Pretty much every single “slasher” movie of the 1970s/80s used the same formula. The formula was most clearly seen in the first Terminator movie, where the Monster (the Terminator) being a modern day incarnation of “the Dragon” of Revelation 12 sent “to destroy the future savior of the world” is vanquished in the final scene when the heroine, _carrier_ of the future savior of the world, Sarah (again with a Biblical name) crushes the head of the Terminator (who’s lost his legs (becoming like a Serpent) but still grabbing at her feet), doing so by _kicking on a mechanical press_, which does the crushing job for her.  Note, I evern wrote an article about The Marian imagery in the Terminator movie soon after finishing the Seminary.

In the case of The Roommate, the new Sara doesn’t destroy the monster by crushing her head, but vanquishes her in a manner that’s so obviously stylized/symbolic that it pays homage to the formula again, if carried out in a slightly different way. You can’t do the exact same thing over and over again ... some variation is fair, even if the same basic formula is used.

Anyway, The Roommate is a great ride. Like every successful horror movie, it helps express fears/anxieties that certainly do exist in our society today. And the movie plays out using a classic formula at least as old as the New Testament. I wouldn’t recommend the movie to young kids. Some parents will have issues with some of the sexual portrayals in the movie, though no nudity is shown. Overall, as I said at the beginning, the movie has TEEN and COLLEGE STUDENT written all over it.


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Biutiful

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB () Roger Ebert (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1164999/
CNS/USCCB review -
Roger Ebert review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110126/REVIEWS/110129983

It needs to be said at the outset that Biutiful (directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu who also directed Babel, 21 Grams and Amores Perros) is _not_ a cheerful movie. Most viewers will find it thought-provoking but very, very dark. I would not recommend it to any American viewer who has a great aversion to subtitled foreign language films or does not want to pay money for a movie that will probably/certainly depress. That being said, it is an excellent, well-crafted, well-acted, thought-provoking movie about life at the margins of a major European city, Barcelona.

The principal protagonist Uxbal (played by Javier Bardem who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the villain in No Country for Old Men), in his 40s and with a family, appears to have been the son of a Moroccan immigrant father and possibly a Spanish mother, both long deceased. Uxbal’s wife, Marambra (played by Maricel Álvarez) has an Arabic (Moroccan?) sounding name. Though left unsaid in the movie, assuming that Uxbal and Marambra are both largely assimilated adult children of Moroccan immigrants (but still carrying the legacies and wounds of the immigration/assimilation experience) greatly helps to explain the movie’s context.

Along with their two young children, Uxbal and Marambra live in a seedy part of Barcelona filled with other newer, more or less obviously illegal, immigrants. These include black West Africans who the Barcelona police relentlessly harrass and Chinese who the police leave alone but live in squalor. Uxbal and Marambra speak Spanish well (it probably should be Catalan, but in the movie they speak Spanish). However, neither of them has honest work. Uxbal serves as something of a middle-man between the North African/Chinese laborers/foremen and the Barcelona contractors who seek to hire them for work. Marambra hooks (works as a prostitute) on the side, though this is not to help support the family but rather to support her drug habit. Uxbal’s brother, Tito (played by Eduard Fernández), who doesn’t play a large role in the film but appears repeatedly throughout it, appears to have become a more “successful” (but still underworld) figure than Uxbal, running among other things a trashy Barcelona strip club.

Was “success in the underworld” the best that the three could hope for? One does not know, but the movie comes to speak forcefully about the “options” that are (or will be) available to undocumented aliens and their children in the United States, depending on how the debate in the United States turns, something _definitely_ to reflect upon.

However, there is much more in this movie than simply its immigrant context. Fairly early in the movie, Uxbal is diagnosed with having terminal (heavily metastasized) prostate cancer. He is dying. He also has a gift of being able to talk to the recently deceased. This gift seems to give him hope in the future even if his future appears to be the grave. But he has other worries as well. The prospect of leaving his two young kids with his hooking, drug addicted, possibly bipolar wife is not a cheerful one...

But then this is something that I’ve learned long ago: Even as “large” crises play out (wars, terrorist attacks, etc), smaller ones play out as well. When I was studying in Los Angeles as a grad-student in the 1980s, the L.A. Catholic Worker community there was providing housing to a 10 year old kid and his mother from El Salvador. The 10 year old had lost his arm, but not to anything dramatic like a land mine or a granade attack. He “simply” lost it to bone cancer. One of the tragedies of the “big tragedies” that play out is that they simply add to the awfulness of the smaller ones. Imagine if you needed a paramedic in New York or watched your mother die at her bedside “simply of cancer” on 9/11 ...

Biutiful is a multi-leveled exploration into such awfulness. Uxbal’s fate seemed to have been sealed by events that took place even before he was born. Yet in the midst of a really awful life, and even an awful closing stretch to an awful life, he is still given the task of managing his way to his Calvary. And the audience is invited, perhaps, to reflect on how they would have done given the same parameters that he had to work with.

Again, this is _not_ a cheerful movie, but certainly a thought-provoking one.


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The Rite

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (3 stars) Fr. Dennis (2 ½ stars)

IMDB listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1161864/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/r/rite2011.shtml
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110126/REVIEWS/110129982
Interview with Matt Baglio author of “The Rite” -
http://catholicspotlight.com/592/transcript-of-cs125-matt-baglio-the-rite/

A couple of weeks ago, I pretty much knew that I’m going to have to go see The Rite when it came out in the theaters. I probably would have seen it anyway, since it does deal with the Catholic Church and one would have to be a far stronger man than I to resist a movie dealing with a subject like Exorcism. However, I was out with the youth group on a Sunday, said couple of weeks ago, and talk of the upcoming movie was all the rage.

I set myself up for that I suppose because over the years I’ve talked quite freely that I’ve had my own experience with exorcism while I was in the seminary in Italy. And there’s no more interested a group to talk to about such subjects than to a bunch of teenagers. They have tons of questions and when I was a teenager I ate this stuff up as well.

On my own brush with Darkness (our “old friend”) ...

Anyway, my brush with exorcism wasn’t particularly formal though _certainly memorable_ . NO it wasn’t “part of the curriculum” or anything like that. Instead, it happened during the summer after my first year in the seminary in Italy, when like most of my classmates I was encouraged to travel about Italy and visit various parishes and communities of my religious (Servite) Order in that country. At one of the places that I visited along with another seminarian from my Order, we were told fairly early during our stay that “By the way, one of the priests in our community here is designated by the local bishop to be the Exorcist for the area.” We both responded, “va bene,” taking it with some bemusement. The subject came up again the first evening of our stay when after dinner we visited our Order’s sisters living in the Convent across the street and the subject came up again. At this point, I felt obligated to ask “Is this really necessary in this town?” To which a couple of the sisters piously shaking their heads up and down responded with great sincerity “Si.”

Nothing of note happened for the next several days until one afternoon near the end of "siesta time," I went down to the rectory’s kitchen to pick-up a bottle of mineral water. The priest who was the one designated by the local bishop to perform exorcisms saw me and asked me if I could fetch the other seminarian so that we could help him move some furniture. Great, I got the other seminarian and together at the priest’s behest we lifted up and carried into his office a “lazy boy chair.” As we opened the door and brought chair into the room at the far wall stood a somewhat short and rather thin man in his 40s or 50s, dressed in an average man’s clothes (nothing fancy), who’s hands, feet and head/neck seemed very contorted and, yes, he was foaming a little at the mouth. Looking at him and thinking epilepsy, it nonetheless immediately struck me, “Oh my, a 100-150 years ago, there would have been no one on the planet who would not think that this man was possessed.”

We set the chair down near the rather contorted man and led him toward the chair. I remember that he was too stiff to sit down in the chair, so I and the other seminarian just gently knocked him over into it. In the room were, I, the other seminarian, our order’s priest who was the designated exorcist for the diocese, the man who was tormented/possessed and the man’s sobbing wife holding the two’s wedding picture. The priest asked that the other seminarian and I just hold the man by the shoulders so that he wouldn’t leave or fall out of the chair. We began to pray the Rosary.

What I most remember here, and why I continue to repeat the story 15 years after it happened, was that during the Rosary, whenever we got to the point in the Hail Mary when we’d say of Mary “blessed are you among women...,” the man would start flailing about with great force in the chair (that’s when we most needed to hold him down then) screaming “No cursed are you among women!” and then continue screaming for the rest of that Hail Mary about what kind of a _slut_ Mary was. until we got to the end of the Hail Mary and the whole cycle would repeat itself. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women...” “NO CURSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN ...” And this continued for the duration of the Rosary (about 10-15 minutes). Then at the end of the Rosary, the priest pulled out his crucifix and the holy water. He also held in his hand with the crucifix the nice wedding picture that the man’s wife had brought with her. The priest then started to reproach the tormented man. “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to your wife? Can’t you see that she’s crying?” He shot holy water on the man a few times. Each time he did that, the man again flailed in his chair. Again, we had to hold him down. Then suddenly there was a clear break. Suddenly the stiffness the man’s body melted completely away and the man crumpled back into the chair and he began to speak meekly saying that he was aware of everything that was around him before but that he could not do anything about it.

So there it was. Did I experience basically an epileptic seizure, something like it or something more? Again, 100-150 years ago there would be no doubt. Today there would be. In my week remaining at that community, I asked a whole lot of questions, took down lots of notes and (as a “good seminarian”) journaled away about all of this to try to make sense of it. One of the strangest, most memorable phone calls that I ever made was to my dad later that afternoon. “Guess what I was part of today dad ...?” To this day, I smile thinking about what it must have been for my dad to receive such a phone call that day from his son staying a continent away...

The priest who was designated as the exorcist did not work alone. He had an assistant, a young lay woman who was getting an advanced degree in psychology. He also told me that he took absolutely _no one_ who was not referred to him by the local psychiatric authorities. The man in question, had apparently been tormented in this way for about 10 years. He had episodes like this only a few times a year and otherwise was happy and active parishioner at the parish where we were. Again, did I see an attack of epilepsy or something similar? I don’t know though I suspect that to be at least partially the case. What I _do_ know is that everything in the praying over this man that I saw was designed to gradually calm the person down. (This was very different from the movies I’ve seen on the subject). The man’s wife was there with their wedding picture. The Priest was there symboling to an Italian mind “Order in the midst of apparent Chaos” seeking to assure the man that no matter how it may seem at the time “the world had not gone to Hell.” We prayed the Rosary, which the man would have known from childhood. Yes, the priest did admonish him at the end, and did cast holy water on him. But the words he used were far less dramatic than seen in either The Exorist or in this new movie The Rite. (Though the Rite did, for instance, note that exorcism is _not_ a one time thing, that the person tormented apparently has repeated episodes over a period of time extending into years. This was just like in the case of the man who I saw in Italy on that day).

So why all this about my own experience here? Because I want to make it clear that I do take the subject seriously. A very good interview with Matt Baglio, who wrote the book The Rite on which the movie is based can be found online on Catholic Spotlight. Whatever else one may say about the subject, I find that interview credible. I would encourage people to check during the coming weeks for articles written on the subject and on the movie in Catholic press: National Catholic Reporter, Our Sunday Visitor, EWTN.

Back to the Movie ...

As a movie, The Rite is “Hollywoodized,” though perhaps less so (or in a different way) than in the case of The Exorcist. Another movie that various critics have recommended (which I have not seen) that is considered “more true to life” than either is The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I think that the performances in The Rite are excellent, certainly by Anthony Hopkins (playing Fr. Lucas Travent a Welsh exorcist living in Italy) as well as the lead by Colin O’Donoghue (playing a sceptical seminarian by the name of Michael Kovak sent to Rome by his rector after Michael reveals that he's thinking of leaving the seminary just before his ordination), as is that of Alice Barga (playing a journalist in the movie named Angeline who's seeking to write a story about the subject).

The movie is rated PG-13 ostensibly to allow teenagers to go see it. Again, teens tend to be fascinated about subjects such as this. I do think that the PG-13 designation is appropriate in that I WOULD NOT see much value in young kids seeing this movie as it may needlessly terrify them. I would also discourage anyone, young or old, from going to see this movie, who is squeamish about this kind of subject.

I say this because I do believe that the most important lesson to learn from a story such as this is simply one of humility. It’s a reminder that, yes, we don’t know everything, and that a having healthy respect for that which we do not know is not a bad thing. But if one already lives with such humility and respect for what one does not know, then there wouldn’t be a screaming need to see this movie.

For I do believe that it’s when we start to pretend that we know everything, that we’re “little gods” that we tend to get ourselves into trouble, whether the matter is a “big thing” or a bunch of “little ones.”

On the other hand, if you like this sort of stuff, go see the movie. It’s a great ride. And again, it is based on truth. Read Matt Baglio’s interview.


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No Strings Attached [2011]

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (2 stars) Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1411238/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/n/nostrings2011.shtml
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110119/REVIEWS/110119982


"Wouldn’t it be nice ..." – Beach Boys

No Strings Attached is a fantasy, a daydream, a “thought experiment” asking the age old question “Is it possible to get away with having sex without consequences (that is, ‘with no strings attached’)?”

And I don’t think I’m exactly “ruining the ending” here in revealing that after having a good deal of fun with this transgressive day dream, the movie brings its characters (and the audience) safely to back to the conclusion that, “No, it’s not possible.” What a surprise (and what a relief ;-)

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s _a whole lot of transgression_ in this picture.

The Catholic Church teaches that there is always a procreative dimension and a unitive (relational) dimension to sex (see CCC #2366).

The whole premise of NSA’s version of this age-old “daydream” depends on contraception. Here the Church, acting _exactly_ as a “Good Mother” should, reminds her children (in as much as they willing/able to hear) that contraception (to say nothing of disease prevention) is _never_ fool-proof. Why isn’t it fool-proof? For the same reason that humanity destroyed two space shuttles, poisoned ½ of Byelorussia with Chernobyl and watched with horror the wreck of BP’s Deep Oil Horizon spew untold millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last year. People make mistakes. Now add hormones marinated with alcohol, and “you just try landing a space shuttle, while ...” So the Church _exactly_ as a Good Mother tells its kids, “Don’t get involved with anyone ‘in that way’ unless you could see yourself having a kid with that person and then if you can see that why not just get married then” (See CCC #2360-61 and CMT below). So there ;-).

The daydream played out in this picture assumes that no babies will be created and no diseases spread. But then _it’s a daydream_, not a legal disclaimer on a medicine bottle, after all ;-).

Then as something of a fairly important and arguably propagandistic sidebar, the movie also presents a milieu in which there is no longer any difference between homosexual and heterosexual sex, that it’s all the same as long as the parties are willing.

Now this is a youth oriented movie and I’ve been told by many people of all ages that the younger people are the more accepting of homosexuality and that issues with homosexuality are by-and-large “hangups of older people.”

Referring above to the basic teaching of the Church on sex that it has a procreative and unitive (relational) dimension, it’s probably safe to say that the Church will probably never look at homosexual and heterosexual sex as “being the same" (see CCC #2357). However, the Church, again as a Good Mother, _has believed her children_ when they say that they have clear homosexual inclinations, and she has declared that she wants homosexuals to be happy (see CCC #2358). To be honest, she has not figured out yet how exactly to do that. The status of Catholic teaching on this matter is reflected in CCC #2359.

To be sure, she’d _probably_ counsel her children “who aren’t sure about their inclinations” to “not do anything they may regret” because as with _anything_ in the sexual arena, actions do have consequences, often unforeseen. Among them, honestly, 30 years from now, it might not be nearly as "cool" or transgressive to play in this area and unless one was more or less sure about one's orientation beforehand, one may find it difficult to explain to loved ones many years later why one dabbled in this area before. This may not be a problem 30 years from now. Then again, it may be. So Good Mother Church counsels above all, please, please be careful, because ultimately she does want you to be happy (see CCC #2358-59).

Very good, so these are _two areas_ (contraception, homosexuality) that the Catholic Church would have real problems with this movie (see the CNS/USCCB review)

Surprisingly though (or perhaps not so surprisingly) in the last area, that exploring the “relational dimension” of sexuality, Hollywood (the maker of this movie) and Good Mother Church are in happy agreement. Here _both_ agree that it’s ultimately _impossible_ to engage in sex without it provoking feeling toward the other person, that there is _no such a thing_, even on a relational level, as “sex without consequences.”

And it shouldn’t really be too surprising that Hollywood would come to this conclusion. Even if Hollywood’s industry is based on “dreaming,” its dreaming ultimately comes from the human heart, and its movies are made by and then presented to human beings. (This is actually exactly where the Church wishes to be as well. See GS #1). So there is ultimately a “sappiness” to Hollywood's productions that Good Mother Church would both understand and appreciate.

No Strings Attached is a fun movie. It winks far more than it shows (as one would expect of a movie with actors of such caliber as Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher). It’s made in a story-telling tradition that dates back to Shakespeare (“A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream”, “Loves Labor’s Lost,” and “All’s well that Ends Well”) and even back to the Bible’s Song of Songs (which is a series of bronze-age bubble-gum love poems which don’t exactly focus on the “procreative dimension of sexuality” either but glory in the feeling of being in love).

Yes, kids, certainly, _don’t_ do any of what's shown in this movie at home. It's _just a story_, a fantasy, a daydream. (And I don’t see _any_ reason why a kid or a young teen should see this movie).

But to those college-aged adults and above who will go see the movie (and laugh along with the story), it should become clear as day as you watch that “the day dream” doesn’t work, that there’s no such a thing as “sex without consequences," and that it’s ultimately impossible to have sex with someone you don’t come to love. Either that, or one or the other is going to get hurt. And since this _is_ a Hollywood production “it all ends well.”


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The Dilemma

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (L) Mike Phillips (2 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578275/
CNS/USCCB review - http://www.usccb.org/movies/d/dilemma2011.shtml
Mike Phillips Review -
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-13/entertainment/sc-mov-0111-dilemma-20110113_1_dilemma-vaughn-and-co-star-character

Kudos to writer Alan Loeb, director Ron Howard, and the principal actors in The Dilemma for presenting couples with the complexities of a true marital dilemma to be discussed for some time among friends.

Note to parents: There is no obvious reason to rate this movie “R.” So in that sense, “PG-13" is appropriate. However, the subject matter (infidelity, probable divorce) may not be all that useful to a child/young teen, especially since I don’t believe that the movie’s resolution is particularly good (see the end).

The setup to the story:

Vince Vaughn and Kevin James play Ronny and Nick, two late 30-something to 40-something buddies who met in College and are now partners in a tiny electro-mechanical engineering startup in Chicago. But they have big plans. They pitch to Chrysler a way to make to make an electrical car feel and sound like late-1960s GTO. Chrysler is interested. Now they just have to prove to Chrysler that they can do it.

But Ronny’s and Nick’s lives (and friendship) extend beyond their work. Nick’s married to Geneva (played by Winona Ryder) who knew the two in college and Ronny has been dating/living together for some time with Geneva’s friend Beth (played by Jennifer Connelly). At the beginning of the movie, Geneva tells Ronny that he’s going have to propose to Beth soon because (1) otherwise Beth is going eventually leave him and (2) she (Geneva) has no more friends to offer him, that Ronny’s exhausted her/Nick’s rolodex of friends/potential dates.

So Ronny takes the advice and begins working on preparing a perfect proposal to Beth. That's perhaps fitting as he was the “salesman” in Ronny-Nick's business partnership while Nick was the brains. Great. However, a huge problem soon presents itself. While Ronny is putting together this “perfect proposal,” he discovers to his horror that Geneva is cheating on Nick. The rest of the movie is about answering the question: What to do now?

I honestly do applaud the film-makers’ effort at presenting the complexities of the situation. Ronny and Nick are business partners, they’ve made a bid, they have a contract, they simply have to follow through. Then _everybody_ in the picture has their own demons, their own pasts, their own insecurities, and yes, their own truths. Everyone. Honestly, welcome to the world that we priests see in the Confessional.

On the story’s conclusion (definite SPOILER ALERT)

So how to sort it out? Here, I do sincerely believe that the movie fails. After beautifully exposing the situation in its complexity, the “resolution” feels remarkably a like blind fall-back to a _safe_ but arbitrary “consensus driven orthodoxy” with the inevitable "witch burning" at the end.

But then this is a story told by Hollywood, where first there is no sin, and then when it can no longer be denied, there is no forgiveness. And this is where the Church used to be great. Because in the Confessional (and the invitation given to the penitent to extend it outside), there always was/(is?) both – both sin but above all forgiveness.

How will those three continue with life knowing that they (metaphorically) burned their decades-long friend Geneva at the stake? Probably quite well. But it is _unjust_, it sucks and our Gospel is, in fact, far kinder than that.


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The King's Speech

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (4 stars) Fr. Dennis (3 stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504320/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.usccb.org/movies/k/kingsspeech2010.shtml
Roger Ebert’s review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101215/REVIEWS/101219985

The King’s Speech is a movie that will appeal to Anglophiles and fans of 1920s-40s period-pieces. True to the “period piece” genre, both the sets and the costuming are excellent and the story evokes themes of struggling with personal limitations and even sibling rivalry that make the story compelling beyond the regular audiences of such films.

The performances of the principal actors are also outstanding. Colin Firth, playing the lead role as King George VI has already won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Drama. He’s a shoe-in to be nominated for Best Actor for the Oscars (as well as the British Academy Awars) and in a year with not too many noteworthy will probably win both. Helena Bonham Carter who plays King George’s wife Elizabeth is also a shoe-in for a nomination for Best Supporting Actress and Geoffrey Rush also stands to at least be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in his role as Lionel Logue, King George’s Australian born speech therapist.

The more blue-collar / proletarian among us may find a movie such as this irritating. However, it reminds us that even someone of such high stature has personal challenges to overcome and family squabbles. It has long been noted that marriages of recovering alcoholics fail often _after_ the alcoholic stops drinking with the long suffering spouse of the alcoholic finding him/herself disoriented by the change in family dynamic. Something similar is portrayed here with George’s older brother Edward feeling threatened by George’s decision to try to deal with his debilitating stammer that had previously made him utterly unsuitable to become King. Yet part of George's motivation to try to "get better" was the realization that Edward had his own obvious issues (a relationship American two time divorcee Wallis Simpson) that threatened his ability to remain as King. And this was at a time when it was becoming clear that a Second World War was approaching and Britain would be in need of a King fully capable of fulfilling his duties.

I liked the picture as I’m sure most who see it. I also left wondering whether the cast of the film was able to have an audience and even chat with the current Queen Elizabeth II about the progress of the film as the film was about her parents when she and her sister Margaret were but small children. If I were Colin Firth or Helena Bonham Carter, I would have hoped for such an opportunity to talk with the Queen about how it was growing up with her parents at the time.

All in all, though not a huge fan of these kind of movies, I would recommend The King's Speech and especially for those who face handicaps or other such personal challenges in their lives. The example of King George’s struggle with stuttering can certainly be inspiring to all.

Finally, a note to parents: I'm somewhat puzzled at the movie's "R" rating (apparently for some profanity). While I don't think that hearing the future King of England say "bugger" a few times or even the "f" word should disqualify children or young teens from seeing the movie, I don't think that the movie would be particularly appealing to children or most young teens. It'd think it'd be "kinda boring" for them (though for adults it's just fine ;-)


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