The things I have to put up with

I had some friends round on Saturday night and we were watching a film - The Grudge 2.

Apparently expecting people to turn their phones off during the film is unreasonable and controlling and I'm suffering from CDO (like "OCD" only with the letters in alphabetical order the way they should be).  Other symptoms, it seems, include putting three sweets in a line before you eat them.

Luckily I don't bear a grudge.

More Dawsons Creek?

The Romantics

Saw two films last week with a mate of mine.

First was Trance which we saw in the Savoy in Dublin.

It was one of those multi-layered films involving deception and hypnosis and confusing relationships and we saw a lot more of Rosario Dawson than we were expecting.  It wasn't bad, though I must confess to falling asleep during it which probably added to the sense of confusion.  Directed by Danny Boyle it's doing well on Rotten Tomatoes which describes it thus:

Simon (James McAvoy), a fine art auctioneer, teams up with a criminal gang to steal a Goya painting worth millions of dollars, but after suffering a blow to the head during the heist he awakens to discover he has no memory of where he hid the painting. When physical threats and torture fail to produce answers, the gang's leader Frank (Vincent Cassel) hires hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson) to delve into the darkest recesses of Simon's psyche. As Elizabeth begins to unravel Simon's broken subconscious, the lines between truth, suggestion, and deceit begin to blur.

When we got back to the house I made him watch The Romantics.  Which is a far superior picture, or as he described it "Is this more Dawsons Creek?"  The New York Post review says:

with its tart dialogue and its perfect ending, it is sensitive as well as sagacious. It’s a rare combination.

After he'd gone home I watched it again and typed out some of the dialogue as well as I could catch it to give you a flavour:

Tom (Josh Duhamel): I was a lifeguard in highschool, you remember that?

Laura (Katie Holmes): Yeah, I remember.

Tom: It was my favorite summer job.

Laura: You and every other guy in America.

Tom: I would sit in that chair itching, itching to get out, dying to get into the water. And after eight hours my shift would end and I would make a break for it. But as soon as I got into the water, the strangest thing happened. I would start to panic.

Laura: Ambivalence is a disease, you know. An actual mental illness.

Tom: That’s not funny.

Laura: Let me guess, when you were a kid you would order chocolate ice cream, then immediately wish you’d gotten vanilla?

Tom: That’s not what I’m talking about.

Laura: No, I get it. You’re torn between two women.

Tom: What I’m trying to say is… I’m afraid of the ocean.

Laura: I’ll remember that the next time I swim on your clock.

Tom: You think you have kind of a special gift for knowing what is in my heart, Laura?

Laura: No, no, I think we both do for each other.

Tom: Has it ever occurred to you that I might need a woman like Lila?

Laura: And what kind of woman is that?

Tom: I don’t know, somebody happy.

Laura: Meaning numb?

Tom: Somebody practical.

Laura: Meaning busy?

Tom: Somebody confident.

Laura: Meaning rich?

Tom: Somebody stable.

Laura: Meaning frigid?

Tom: Someone who doesn’t tear other people down to build herself back up.

Laura: In other words your polar opposite.

Tom: Yeah, yeah maybe.

Laura: Well, haven’t you heard? Opposites attract and then they bore each other to death.

Tom: You know, boring is better than maddening.

Laura: I’d rather die of excitement.

(She walks away from him)

Tom: Hey, hey, hey. (Goes after her).

Laura: (Turning around) Do you remember that paper, junior year?

Tom: Yeah, of course. ‘The Hopeless Romantics: Misconceptions of a Movement’.

Laura: Yeah. Only you could start a 50 page paper the night before.

Tom: And still get an A-minus.

Laura: Because I wrote it.

Tom: You maybe wrote half of it.

Laura: Ode to a Nightingale: A love song to inspiration.

Tom: The Romantics weren’t writing about love, they were writing about religion.

Laura: Then I’m not sure I know the difference. “Forlorn. The very word is like a bell tolling me back from thee to my sole self”. What’s the next line?

Tom: I can’t remember.

Laura: Liar.

Tom: Anybody can make a big romantic gesture, all right? The question is: What happens after? Do you remember? Do you remember what you said to me that night?

Laura: Yeah, I remember everything.

Tom: So, what’d you say?

Laura: I said it was the perfect night.

Tom: You said it was the perfect night.

Laura: So?

Tom: So? How do I top that?

Laura: We had so much fun.

Tom: We had so much fun.

Laura: So what’s the problem with that?

Tom: The problem is, every time we had one of these amazing nights, I would wake up the next morning in a freaking panic. So why don’t we just spare each other a mundane life of crushing disappointment, and just do it with somebody else.

Laura: That is the weakest excuse I have ever heard. Just say you are in love with Lila.

Tom: Say what? Want me to say that I want to marry you? That I’m gonna spend the next 50 years regretting this very moment?

Laura: You inspired me.

Tom: You inspired me too.

Laura: Then we were supposed to be together.

Tom: I know.

Laura: I’m gonna go and I’m gonna tell everyone that you’re ok.

Tom: But I’m not. I’m not ok.

Laura: You chose this. (She walks away)

Lost in Oblivion and The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Reading the last book in a very good five part series by Anthony Horowitz.  It's Oblivion, part of the Power of Five series.  Have read the first four books in a very short time - love finding good series that are all already written and published - and where the series isn't monumentally long - please, no Discworld or Wheel of Time.

Anthony Horowitz is a good writer of childen's books - creator of the Alex Rider series.  And far removed from children's fiction he writes for Midsomer Murders and Foyle's War.

The Power of Five books are very apocalyptic.  Set in the world as we know it, only with the addition of the super evil Old Ones (not to be confused with the sort of Auld Wans we find in Ireland) and five children with extraordinary powers.  The narrative moves at a cracking pace.  Recommended reading from about ten upwards.

For Mother's Day - yes, my yankee friends, it was this Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, not the second Sunday in May - the kids bought my wife, inter alia, a DVD of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which we watched this evening.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Those who know me will know it's my sort of film - teenage angst, with characters who talk a lot in full paragraphs.  The profound thought from the movie is:

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

which made me think of Sunday's gospel, the Prodigal Son and the difficultly people can have in accepting the love of God in their lives.  We miss the love and grace that He offers because we think we don't deserve it.  Of course we don't deserve it - that's not the point with God.  If we got what we deserved it wouldn't be God.

Certainly wouldn't be Emma Watson either I suspect.

Doctor Who invented natural family planning or how I was momentarily confused by the Zenit Headline

The Zenit story is here.

October Baby and The Magdalene Sisters

Off to see October Baby at the St Genesius Film Club this evening (7pm at the Knights of Columbanus, Ely Place, Dublin 2 - all welcome, donations only).  It's about a girl who's adopted discovering she survived an abortion and her journey to find her mother.  I hope it's more than pro-life propoganda.  Because for propoganda to work it has to have some genuine artistic worth, well maybe that's overstating it.  It doesn't have to be good, but it has to be watchable, interesting.

Like for example (don't shoot me here), The Magdalene Sisters.  It's a tremendous piece of propoganda because it's a powerful film, well acted, strong characters and a plot that really moves you along.  And as we now know from the Mc Aleese Report, almost totally untrue.  But it has so established itself in people's minds that we think of it when we think Magdalene laundries - the beatings, births, sexual humiliation, money grabbing etc.  When we want a picture for our blogs we use one from the film. 

The Irish Times had  a very weak article yesterday "Are Factual Inaccuracies in Movies Justified in Highlighting Issues?"  Of course for the Irish Times the answer in this case is yes. 

Campaigners believe the role such movies played in highlighting the issue justified any artistic embellishment, and this view is shared by Louise Lowe, director of the award-winning play Laundry, who says The Magdalene Sisters “served an important function at the time”.


We're not talking about the standard changes to biographies that film producers take for cinematic effect, where several incidents are combined, or even several characters merged.  If the only result of The Magdalene Sisters had been sympathy and concern for the women who endured harsh conditions, including being deprived of their freedoms, then perhaps it would be justified.  But one of the main results of the film is hatred of the Catholic Church and in particular the religious sisters who ran the laundries.  For the Irish Times that's an added bonus.  You can still this in the reviews -
Film 4:  "A damning indictment of the Catholic Church that lingers in the mind long after if ends. Angry, compassionate but never hysterical, this a true cinematic achievement."; 
Time Out:  "You may never look at a nun the same way again."


The interesting words from that quote are that the film "served an important function at the time".  Funnily enough the same line used by defenders of the laundries themselves.

For more - go read the ever excellent if atheist Brendan O'Neill at the Daily Telegraph - "Catholic-bashers have embellished the truth about abuse in Catholic institutions. It's time to put the record straight"

How many times...

.... watching Pride and Prejudice again is one too many?

I know some people (women) think Keira Knightley is not a great actress (jealousy) but I consider her an excellent Elizabeth Bennet.

I think it's time to read some Austen again.  It's been quite a while.  I've just finished The Kill Order and feel the need for something a little more life affirming.  Why are so many books for teenagers and young adults apocalyptic?  There's the Hunger Games, the Dead (Charlie Higson), the Gone series and loads more really. I suppose when we were younger we read lots of comics that were about the War, and then later 2000A.D.

Bingley's just proposed to Jane and poor Lizzy is being happy for her and not realising her chance will come in the morning.

There's no sense dwelling on our losses. We just keep on lighting the lights and following the formalities.

A quick post as it's getting late and a bit tired after the Rally for Life and a trip through the National Museum (not sure about the display of bog bodies - time they were reburied respectfully somewhere I reckon) and my first ever visit to the Natural History Museum (Dead Zoo) which I thought was fantastic.  No more expensive trips to the Zoo for us - this was far better!

So episcopal appointments - three in the last few weeks.  Clearly the idea of reorganising the dioceses and combining some smaller ones seems to be off the agenda (or is it, afterall Limerick, Cloyne and Armagh are big dioceses - maybe we'll know more when Clonfert or Killala become vacant).

What can we tell from the selection?

Well none of them is from the diocese to which he has been appointed.  I would say that's significant, particularly as appointing Eamon Martin to Armagh leaves Derry without an obvious candidate.  Donal Mc Keown anyone?

They're young, 51, 52 and 60.  So these are no interim appointments - this is it for 15-25 years (Ed: of course they could be being put in place with a diocesan reorganisation in mind - Cloyne with Kerry or Cork?).

They aren't remotely radical, at least on the face of it.  A canon from Kerry, a dogma professor from Maynooth and president of a diocesan college.  Looks very much like business as usual, only hopefully not tainted by the child abuse crisis.  And speaking of which, Noel Treanor's spat last year with Ian Elliot, head of the child protection office, seems to have scuppered his chance for Armagh.  It was interesting that Eamon Martin mentioned Elliot in his first interview.

Of course a problem remains, like Norman Bates's mother in the cellar, is Cardinal Brady.  I doubt he'll go too quickly or quietly and even if he does, he'll remain the cardinal.  And that means that should the Holy Father go to his reward in the next six years it will be Cardinal Brady voting.  Which means that every news story connected with the Pope will have a reference to Cardinal Brady's pa
st history, for the anti-Catholic media the gift that keeps on giving.

This is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.

Went to see a great film last night, Judgment at Nuremberg.  Some great performances, from Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland and many others.  It's about one of the later trials, after the leading Nazis were convicted and executed.  It was a trial of judges, of men who allowed themselves, or chose, to deny the natural law and their own humanity, in passing judgments against entirely innocent people.  Some day I hope to see some of our own supreme court tried in a similar way.  Until then watch this scene below, the delivery of the judgment, not just of the four men, but of all those Germans who contributed to and supported the Nazi regime, by cooperation, by silence, by cowardice.  Watch it and ask yourselves how we can allow one innocent unborn child to be destroyed.

HAYWOOD: Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.

ERNST JANNING: Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, you must believe it!
HAYWOOD: Herr Janning, it "came to that" the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.