In honor of Patriots Day Weekend, I’m watching and reviewing movies set and/or filmed in my hometown, Boston, Massachusetts.
Title: Spotlight Release Date: November 6, 2015 Director: Tom McCarthy Production Company: Participant Media | First Look Media | Anonymous Content | Rocklin/Faust Productions | Spotlight Film Summary/Review:
The Spotlight unit at The Boston Globe – Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) – were a group of investigative journalists who did in depth research and writing on a specific topic. Prompted by new managing editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), an outsider who doesn’t follow how things are supposed to “work” in Boston, they Spotlight team follows up on the arrest of Catholic priest John Geoghan for sexually assaulting children. They learn that there are at least 90 priests in the Archdiocese of Boston who have molested children and that Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston (Len Cariou) knew about them and moved them around to other parishes to cover up their crimes.
The movie is procedural in style, very much like All the President’s Men, as the journalists interview survivors, challenge lawyers, and look for evidence in public records. The dialogue and the acting are very strong with the ensemble cast also including John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, and Billy Crudup. The events depicted in this story happened a few years after I moved to Boston and remind me of the shocking revelations of the extent of the crimes. I’m also reminded that Geoghan was assigned to the church around the corner from my current residence back in the 1970s.
In the decades since this scandal broke we’ve learned that other institutions besides the Catholic Church have covered up for unspeakable crimes betraying a general rot that comes with power. We’ve also seen the resources put towards investigative journalism dwindle which makes me worried for the future.
Happy New Year! Today I’ll be sharing my reviews of a binge watch of recent films (released within the past 18 months or so)!
Title: Yes, God, Yes Release Date: July 24, 2020 Director: Karen Maine Production Company: Maiden Voyage | RT Features | Highland Film Group Summary/Review:
Natalia Dyer stars a teenager, Alice, who attends a conservative Catholic school in small town Iowa in the early 2000s. Her sexuality begins to emerge through tentative cybersex chats and masturbation. At the same time, Alice becomes the center of a school-wide scandal for allegedly “tossing the salad” of a boy in her class, even though she doesn’t know what that phrase means.
The better part of the film is set at a four-day Catholic youth retreat that Alice attends with several classmates, including her best friend and the boy she’s rumored to have performed sex acts with (and his girlfriend!). Over the course of the weekend Alice witnesses other retreatants, the older teen retreat leaders, and even the priest involved in deviant sex acts, exposing their hypocrisy. At the conclusion of the retreat Alice gives a dramatic speech on how everyone is hiding things and how they should treat one another with respect as Jesus wanted.
While the subject of repressed teenage sexuality and how religious people often make life confusing and guilt-ridden for teens curious about their sexuality is a worthy one, I kind of feel this movie missed the mark. The religious figures in the film were mainly broad stereotypes and Alice’s dramatic speech just felt cheesy. Dyer’s performance was good overall, and Wolfgang Novogratz and Alisha Boe deserve kudos for perfectly capturing the enthusiasm of teen retreat leaders. The best scene is when Alice runs away from camp and ends up in a gay bar where she has a heart-to-heart with the bar’s owner Gina (Susan Blackwell), but it’s too little, too late to save the movie.
Title: Into Great Silence Release Date: 2005 Director: Philip Gröning Production Company: Zeitgeist Films Summary/Review:
A German film crew documents the quotidian lives of the Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. If you plan to watch this documentary, buckle up, because it is nearly three hours with limited dialogue, and most of that is chant song (I confess that I watched in pieces over three days). Despite the title, sound is not absent from this movie, but ambient sound is accentuated. Footsteps, creaking boards, raindrops, crackling fire, and movement of a shovel or a brush as the monks go about their daily prayers and chores make a minor cacophony. I found myself cranking up the volume to allow these sounds to roll around me.
The visuals of the movie are also spectacular especially the views of the Alps across the seasons and the architecture of the old monastery. The stillness of the camera during most shots is reminiscent of the films of Yasujirō Ozu (Tokyo Story, Floating Weeds). There is also a lot of repetition in this film, from the biblical verses shown on screen from time to time, as well as in shots (views of the valley, a door ajar, long corridors, a cloth blowing in the wind). All this reflects the rhythms of the monk’s daily routine.
Near the end of the film there’s a scene where the monks go snowshoeing and for once have the opportunity to chat, laugh, and slide downhill in the snow. I expect this movie is not for everyone, but I found it very beautifully done and perfect for Holy Week. And while these monks spend a lot of time in isolation, I also found myself wondering how the monks (and really people in any type of intentional community) are handling the COVID-19 pandemic right now.
I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge by watching and reviewing some of my favorite movies of all time that I haven’t watched in a long time. This post contains SPOILERS!
Title: Heaven Help Us Release Date: February 8, 1985 Director: Michael Dinner Production Company: HBO Pictures | Silver Screen Partners Synopsis:
After the death of his parents, teenager Michael Dunn (Andrew McCarthy) is sent to live with his grandparents in Brooklyn. He’s enrolled at an all-boys Catholic high school, St. Basil’s, run by an order of monks (his grandmother hopes he will go into the priesthood). He falls into a crowd of oddballs including Caesar (Malcolm Danare), a nerd who is dismissive of everyone else’s lower intelligence, and Ed Rooney (Kevin Dillon), a bully who is repeating the year at school. Michael is shocked by the severe strictness of the school, especially Brother Constance (Jay Patterson), a teacher who routinely uses corporal punishment and humiliation on the students.
Michael also meets Danni (Mary Stuart Masterson), a girl who has dropped out of public school to run her father’s soda shop across the street from St. Basil’s. It’s revealed over the course of the movie that her father is suffering from severe mental health issues and unable to run it himself. Michael and Danni start off awkwardly but begin to date in one of the sweetest teen romances ever depicted on screen.
Over the course of a few months of the school year, Michael, Caesar, Rooney and others (including the weird kid who can’t stop masturbating) play pranks, go to confession, see Pope Paul VI’s procession in Manhattan, have a dance with students from the girls’ school (after a lecture on lust by a priest played by Wallace Shawn in a hilarious bit part), and they repeatedly get in trouble. Things come to a head in a violent confrontation with Brother Constance and a surprise twist at the finale.
Three characters I haven’t mentioned in this synopsis add flavor to the story. First is Michael’s little sister Boo (Jennifer Dundas) who is obsessed with death and burial. She seems quirky at first but in a really touching scene with Michael she expresses her fear of losing him the way they lost their parents. It’s a small but beautiful scene that shows how children internalize trauma. The next is Brother Timothy (John Heard), a new teacher who joins the staff at the same time Michael arrives and is a “cool” young monk, who smokes and trades baseball cards with the kids, and acts as an adviser to Michael. He’s kind of the personification of Vatican II reforms in the movie. Finally, there’s Donald Sutherland in a terrific performance as Brother Thadeus, the strict but ultimately fair headmaster of St. Basil’s
When Did I First See This Movie?:
I watched this movie when it was shown on cable tv in the mid-1980s. Growing up Catholic in a New York City suburb with parents who were teenagers in New York at the time this movie is set it was a no-brainer that I would watch and enjoy this movie. It was fun to get a look back at the “bad old days” of the Catholic church with Latin masses and corporal punishment.
In retrospect, the 20 years between the time the movie is set and the time it was released doesn’t seem all that long. In fact, the first English mass was held in the United States in late 1964, so this movie isn’t even set during the Latin mass period. Still, both New York City and the Catholic church seemed to change quite a bit in those 20 short years.
What Did I Remember?:
I hadn’t watched this movie since the 1980s but it was surprisingly fresh in my mind.
What Did I Forget?:
I didn’t forget things so much as see them in a different light from an adult perspective. For example, that kid who masturbates is a funny gag when you’re a kid, but as an adult it seems like a serious problem that should be addressed before he commits a sex offense on someone. Similarly, Brother Constance was always a mean teacher, but now I see him as a total monster who’s comeuppance should’ve had more severe legal repercussions. The movie also takes on a different feel in the aftermath of clergy sex abuse revelations that were allowed to persist due to many of the same factors of a corrupt system of power that we see in the film.
What Makes This Movie Great?:
If you break it down to its essence, Heaven Help Us is a series of vignettes soaked in Baby Boomer nostalgia. But it is so much better than that. I think the strong cast of actors really makes all these characters feel real rather than archetypes. A lot of the younger actors would go on to longer careers so you’re really seeing them come into their own here. Also, as I noted above with the scene of Michael and Boo, there are a number of great, well-directed and well-written scenes that economically capture moments of great humanity.
What Doesn’t Hold Up?:
Rooney is a bully and sexually aggressive with women and initially an antagonist to Michael, but eventually they become friends. I think Dillon does a good job of giving Rooney some depth, but overall I think the movie wants to think of his behavior as funny and overlook how harmful it is.
Also, at the end of the movie, there’s an American Graffiti style epilogue where Rooney narrates what happened to all the characters. It feels out of tune with the rest of the movie and ultimately unnecessary.
Is It a Classic?:
Objectively this movie falls short of being a movie classic, but subjectively it will always be one of my favorites.
Rating: ****
Five more all-time favorite movies starting with H:
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
High Fidelity (2000)
Hoop Dreams (1994)
Hope and Glory (1987)
What is your favorite movie starting with H? What do you guess will be my movie for I? (Hint: it has characters named Bert and Ernie). Let me know in the comments!
Catchy tunes have been used to sell things since the early days of radio. This episode also offers a good deep dive into the phenomena of earworms and how to defeat them.
I’ve long been fascinated by the great number of significant events that happened in Boston around 1918-1919. This episode is an interview with Skip Desjardins who wrote a book about what in just September 1918.
Drinking straws have been in the news lately as they’re being banned for being a pollutant. This episode explores the origin of straws, their beneficial purposes, and possible alternatives to straws.
Yes, a double dose of 99 P.I. this week! This episode discusses blepharoplasty, a controversial cosmetic surgery which makes the eyes of people of Asian descent look more “Western.”
Paper dolls are a toy that has fallen out of popularity with children, but there are sizable communities of adults who collect and design paper dolls, and a surprising connection with queer identity.
Author: Robert McClory Title:As It Was in the Beginning Publication Info: New York : Crossroad Pub., c2007. ISBN: 9780824524197
Books by the same author: Faithful Dissenters Summary/Review: McClory boldly declares that democratization is coming to the Catholic Church, and soon, something not readily evident by the Church hierarchy’s growing conservatism in the past 3 to 4 decades. His patient and hopeful thesis is built on a well-researched historical record of changing structures within the Church that have always returned to consensus fidelium. Examples range from the efforts of the people to support the teachings of the Council of Nicea against bishops who campaigned for a contrary teaching to reform of the 20th century evident in the Second Vatican Council. McClory illustrates a possible future in which the laity is included in a way that seems not just hopeful, but even possible. Favorite Passages:
If modernity stressed reason, the church stressed faith. If modernity stressed human progress, the church stressed original sin. If modernity stressed freedom of thought, the church stressed the binding nature of its dogmas. If modernity stressed democracy, the church stressed authority. This stress-filled stalemate was to perdure for the better part of four hundred years. If there had been even a small opening for discussion and dialogue between these two rivals, I think the church might well have served as a helpful brake on the runaway exuberance of modernity that led to riots, wars, and mass executions, of which the French Revolution is one well-known example. By the same token, some discussion and dialogue between the two sides might have helped the church realize that many Enlightenment insights were not fundamentally different from some of its own foundational values. – p. 118-19
Author: Philip S. Kaufman Title:Why you can disagree– and remain a faithful Catholic Publication Info: Bloomington, IN : Meyer-Stone Books, c1989. ISBN: 0940989239 Summary/Review:
A provocative title but a well-researched and informed look at many of the issues that divide the Catholic Church hierarchy and many of the faithful today. Kaufman explores the development of conscience among the people of the church over the centuries and how it has always been valued when regarding moral questions. The idea of infallibility in teachings of the church has always had to consider the sense of the faithful (sensus fidelium) something that has not been considered or reached in many of the controversial issues of today. These issues include birth control, divorce & remarriage, and democracy within the church. Kaufman addresses each of these issues in detail exploring Biblical and traditional takes on the issues and how they’ve changed over time. This is a good book to get an informed look at issues affecting the Church today and realizing that they’re not always as simple or clear-cut as they’ve been presented. Favorite Passages:
The list of moral questions on which authoritative teaching has changed is long. Defenders of a call for absolute obedience to all such teaching often hold that the doctrines taught were correct for their own time and circumstances, but that changed conditions and further enlightenment led to the formulation of new positions. But such a justification can hardly be applied to Pope St. Gregory the Great’s condemnation of pleasure in marital intercourse, Innocent IV’s teaching on witches and the use of torture in judicial interrogations, or Pius IX’s condemnation of the proposition “that freedom of conscience and of worship is the proper right of each man, and that this should be proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society. – p. 21
It is often argued that scandal will be given by a relaxation of current practice [regarding divorce & remarriage]. If available statistics are any indication, lack of compassion toward people in great suffering and need gives even greater scandal. It is a question of who is being scandalized. Should our concern be only for those who will not accept change in church teaching? What of the scandal of those who ask: Is it moral in the face of so much suffering by so many millions of the church’s own members to maintain a discipline with such a weak biblical, historical, and doctrinal foundation? – p. 115
Since God does not govern the church directly, however, but through human beings, it is legitimate and necessary to ask what type of government comes closest to realizing the New Testament ideal. I doubt that autocracy, in which the educated, privileged few teach and control the uneducated masses, the so-called simple faithful, ever realized that ideal. Autocracy is particularly inappropriate in the modern world. The form of church government that accords best with the gospel spirit is democracy. – p. 119
In honor of this special day let’s revisit one of my favorite posts.
While most kids look forward to Christmas, when I was a child, St. Patrick’s Day (along with Thanksgiving) was one of my favorite days of the year. It was a big day in my family usually involving going to the parade in New York and seeing family and friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Then there was the music, the stories of St. Patrick, the history of Ireland and the Irish in America. Growing up in a town where the dominant population was Ital … Read More
Author: Kate Dugan and Jennifer Owens Title: From the Pews in the Back Publication Info: Collegeville, Minn. : Liturgical Press, c2009. ISBN: 9780814632581
Summary/Review:
This excellent collection of essays allows young women to focus on their lives and identity in the Catholic faith (Full disclosure: I know Jen Owens from when we both part of the same church community in Boston). 29 women share their stories which are rich and diverse despite many of them coming from similar backgrounds (all but one of the writers are “cradle Catholics”). They reflect on growing up Catholic, putting their faith into service and social justice, the call to vocation, and the importance of liturgy, the sacraments and Catholic identity. They also tell how they deal with the conflict of the official Church teachings on things like women’s ordination and sexuality and how they’ve dealt with questions of faith and doubt. This is a beautiful and powerful work and really left me thirsting for more.
Favorite Passages:
The thing about Catholic school, about growing up Catholic, is that it prioritizes the sacred, the ceremonious, the ability to create something holy out of otherwise profane time. What we are taught as easily as biology, as matter-of-factly as mathematics, is a sense of wonder, that there is a transcendent and overarching God at play, that love is what propels the universe. – p. 39, Sarah Keller
Ironically, I am almost grateful to a church for inadvertently shaping me into a strong-willed feminist. By simultaneously encouraging me to use all of my gifts and then barring me, and many other women, from doing so, the church provides exactly the right blend of factors to motivate me to action. – p. 143, Kate Henley Averett.
Recommended books: The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas, The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day, and Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican: A Vision for Progressive Catholicism by Rosemary Radford Ruether. Rating: ****
Author: Rosemary Radford Ruether Title: Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican Publication Info: New York : New Press, c2008 ISBN: 978-1-59558-406-9
Summary/Review:
This short “manifesto-style” book is a call for a more authentic experience of church in the Catholic tradition. The author – a scholar, activist, and feminist theologian – compiles a half-dozen essays that tell her life story, explore the experiences of women in Catholicism, critique the inconsistencies of the post-Vatican II papacy, and set forth an alternate vision to the Vatican’s paradigm. The book is uneven and a lot of the essays could and should be explicated into a longer work, but this book serves well as an introduction to progressive Catholicism.
Recommended books: Faithful Dissenters: Stories of Men and Women Who Loved and Changed the Church by Robert McClory and Why I Am a Catholic by Garry Wills. Rating: ***
Panorama of the Mountains 