Reverend's Reviews: Papa Don't Preach

As a professional preacher, I could appreciate The Catechism Cataclysm to some degree as a satiric take on storytelling in both religious and secular circles. Sorry to say, that's about as far as my appreciation goes. This horror-comedy with cult aspirations opens today in Los Angeles, having premiered earlier this year as an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival.

Steve Little (The Ugly Truth) stars as a thoroughly obnoxious Catholic priest, Fr. Billy. His bishop and pastor send him off on a sabbatical after Fr. Billy tells one inappropriate parable too many to his parishioners. Fr. Billy decides to take an extensive canoe trip, but not before tracking down his high-school musical idol, Robbie (Robert Longstreet, who can also be seen currently in the excellent Take Shelter), and bribing him into coming along for the ride.

Before this Catholic campfire story run amok draws to a close, a bible is dropped into a diarrhea-filled toilet, Fr. Billy and Robbie cross paths with a pair of wacky Asian girls and their sinister driver, and someone's head explodes. Fr. Billy, however, learns valuable lessons in effective preaching.

I once had an assistant priest named Fr. Billy, and I once had a man as uncomfortably close to me on his knees during confession as depicted in one scene of The Catechism Cataclysm. That's where any similarities to reality end. The movie has a film school vibe to it even though writer-director Todd Rohal and his producers and actors are fairly accomplished. Perhaps most detrimentally, it only runs 81 minutes but feels much longer.

The Catechism Cataclysm could potentially catch on as a midnight movie event, with attendees wearing Fr. Billy's signature clergy shirt and bike helmet. God knows, stranger things have happened.

Reverend's Rating: C-

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Preview: AFI Fest 2011

The trailer for Clint Eastwood's latest epic, J. Edgar, shows Leonardo DiCaprio as the equally respected and reviled founder of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, holding the hand of his #2 and confidante, Clyde Tolson (handsome Armie Hammer), in the backseat of their limousine. While historical evidence of a long-rumored romance between the two men is scant, the new film clearly entertains the rumors. The truth may be revealed in Hollywood tonight, when J. Edgar has its world premiere during the opening night gala for AFI Fest 2011, presented by Audi. It will open in theaters nationwide on November 11.

J. Edgar won't be the first movie to at least allude to questions about Hoover's sexuality. In 1991, Oliver Stone's JFK featured Tommy Lee Jones giving a mincingly-gay performance as Clay Shaw (a.k.a. Clay Bertrand), a New Orleans businessman accused of taking part in a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy that involved Hoover's FBI and the CIA. The film also alleged that a ring of early-1960's call boys existed to discreetly serve political power players, including Hoover.

The new movie was written by openly gay screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Academy Award for his excellent script of 2008's Milk. Black has been a busy boy lately, having also penned the stage play 8, about the continuing battle in California over marriage equality. 8 had its world premiere in September at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre. In a recent Out magazine interview, Black said of his work on J. Edgar: "To the conservative right, Hoover was a hero. Of course, in the gay community, you hear he was gay and a cross-dresser. I was curious about where the truth lies. Here is a guy who was arguably the most powerful man in the United States in the 20th century... The truth was often more heartbreaking, more horrible than what people think."

Judi Dench, as Hoover's seemingly manipulative mother, and Naomi Watts also headline the film's all-star cast. DiCaprio may seem an unusual choice to play the title character, even with prosthetic make-up. Black defended the casting, saying "Hoover was a pretty good-looking guy in 1919! He was very fit... they called him 'Speedy.' It's not a huge stretch."

What is known about Hoover's relationship with Tolson is that the unmarried Hoover named the man he described as his "alter ego" as recipient of his estate upon Hoover's death in 1972. Tolson also received the American flag that draped the casket at the end of Hoover's funeral, and is now buried near Hoover at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC. Whether Eastwood and Black's J. Edgar reveals anything more remains to be seen. Still, it may emerge as one of the biggest gay-interest movies of 2011, if only due to the pairing of photogenic DiCaprio and Hammer.

Now in its 25th year, the AFI Fest annually spotlights several GLBT-interest films and/or filmmakers. Other screenings in this vein between now and November 10 will include the world premiere of With Every Heartbeat (a.k.a. Kyss Mig or Kiss Me), a lovely, sincere domestic drama from Sweden about two women (one of them engaged to a man) who unexpectedly fall in love with each other during a family gathering; an evening with gay auteur Pedro Almodovar, this year's guest artistic director, which will include a screening of his Law of Desire as well as conversation with Almodovar and a yet-to-be-revealed "special guest" (could it be Antonio Banderas?); and Wim Wenders' 3D dance spectacle Pina.

Though I'm not a fan of its source material, I am looking forward to the fest's screening of Carnage. Based on the excessive, inexplicably acclaimed play God of Carnage, the usually-restrained Roman Polanski directs a dream cast (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly) in the film. I'm also excited about the Los Angeles premieres of We Need to Talk About Kevin, starring GLBT fave Tilda Swinton as mother to a sociopathic son, and Lars von Trier's apocalyptic Melancholia. Watch for my reviews of these awards contenders in my festival wrap-up report here next week.

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Reverend's Reviews: Horrorscope

From the three magi who visited little baby Jesus to Miss Cleo and her contemporary ilk, astrology has fascinated human beings for millennia. 75% of newspapers run a daily horoscope column and 29% of Americans say they believe in astrology, according to statistics cited in the new rom-com 5 Star Day. The film opens theatrically in Los Angeles today after serving as the closing night film of last week's Beverly Hills Film, New Media & TV Festival.

Easy-on-the-eyes rising star Cam Gigandet (Twilight, Burlesque) plays his first lead role as Jake, a Berkeley philosophy student who sets out to document the fallacy of trusting in horoscopes. Jake becomes disillusioned after his birthday message promising a "5 star day" proves decidedly inaccurate: he loses his job, catches his girlfriend cheating on him, has his car stolen and must evacuate his apartment, which floods following a water break. Happy birthday!

To support his thesis, Jake identifies three other people who were born within five minutes of himself in the same Chicago hospital. He tracks each of them down across the US and interviews them about their birthday experiences to see if all four shared similar misfortune. The first he meets is Sarah Reynolds (Jena Malone, now nicely grown up), a bartender with a young daughter and a druggie ex-boyfriend. Jake's interest in Sarah quickly becomes more than academic.

5 Star Day, written and directed by Danny Buday, has its charms but is more often than not overly talky and serious. The screenplay crams way too many philosophical lessons learned, many of them cliches, into its final ten minutes. A lighter touch on Buday's part would have likely made the film more entertaining as well as more endearing. Gigandet carries the film well on his shapely shoulders, and it is beautifully lit and shot.

Given the enduring appeal of astrology, 5 Star Day may well find an appreciative audience despite its shortcomings.

Reverend's Rating: C+

Review by Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and the Blade California.

Monthly Wallpaper - November 2011: Steven Spielberg

With not one but two eagerly-awaited films (The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn and War Horse) coming out later this year, this month's Movie Dearest Calendar Wallpaper salutes their creator, Academy Award-winning director and producer Steven Spielberg.

From such certified cinematic classics as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler's List to more recent favorites like Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, November will be filled with all the fantasy, adventure and drama of the films of Spielberg.

Just click on the picture above to enlarge it to its 1024 x 768 size, then right click your mouse and select "Set as Background", and you're all set. If you want, you can also save it to your computer and set it up from there, or modify the size in your own photo-editing program if needed.