The Museum of Bad Art Releases New Book

The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), located in Massachusetts in the basement of a theater, has one of the best websites on the Internet. The MOBA, as you might expect, collects the worst art it can finds, sometimes by pulling paintings out of trash cans.

Right now, the museum has an interpretation contest. You have the opportunity to name a work and interpret it like an art critic, and possibly win a prize.

Every year, the MOBA has a fundraiser at which it auctions off art not quite bad enough for the museum. After the event, MOBA gives a "bad check" to the Salvation Army.

And if you want to see some of the bad art in the collection, I particularly recommend "Madonna and Child III," which "places the spiritual above the physical through careful disregard for details of the human form."

Right now, MOBA is offering a new book, The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks, which you can order here. The press release for the book is here (PDF), and reads in part:

The Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks presents a pulsating collection of more than seventy never-before-published pieces of artwork from the permanent collection of the Museum of Bad Art(MOBA). Pulled from sidewalk trash piles or acquired for less than $6.50 apiece, each work of art is truly too bad to be ignored.

“The principal principle for a work of art to be accepted,” explains Michael Frank, MOBA’s curator-in-chief, “is that it must have been created by someone who was seriously attempting to make an artistic statement—one that has gone horribly awry in either its concept or execution.”

Located in Dedham, Massachusetts, the museum is currently housed in the basement of a Boston movie theater within earshot of the men’s room. A second location is planned nearby in yet another movie theater basement with a rousing gallery opening party to take place in May. MOBA has been featured in a variety of media including CNN, Good Morning America, and many more. [more...]

Media Fair

Today was the media fair at my local parish, when people bring books and tapes (who can play tapes these days?) to sell for cheap. It's a fundraiser thing. As usually happens when books go for cheap, I endured mockery from people who think the sight of a man with a large stack of books is amusing. What the heck are cheap books for if not for the purpose of acquiring a large number of them?

This was, incidentally, the media fair of the parish of Fr. Erik Richtsteig of Orthometer fame. Snuffles and I both had books to contribute to the fair, but in a moment of typical absent-mindedness, we both forgot to contribute them. I suppose there's always next year. If only Snuffles had participated, it's likely his contributions would have been the only manga at the fair.

I managed to escape the media fair with several religious and science fiction titles, so I consider it a successful day. I am especially pleased that I got a copy of Ray Bradbury's Let's All Kill Constance. Bradbury was my all-time favorite author when I was in middle school, and I first began writing because I wanted to be able to write just like him, though I'm of the opinion that he's lost his mojo in the last couple of decades, as indicated by lackluster works such as One More for the Road and (*shudder*) From the Dust Returned, which contains exactly one good chapter. Of course, I never liked the Elliots anyway.

Though I had heard of the title previously, I was surprised upon reading the dust flap of Let's All Kill Constance to learn it is a sequel to Death Is a Lonely Business, the novel that depressed me for about three straight months in eighth grade and lowered my GPA. Now I'm uncertain if I want to read this sequel or not. If and when I do, I will certainly approach it with fear and trembling.

March Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour

On the Edge of the Redundant Sea of Redundancy?

This month's Christain Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour goes out to On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson, a work of young adult (YA) lit that appears to be getting quite positive reviews. After a long dry spell without fiction, it's nice to sit down with a book about children with mystical powers who go on an adventurous quest.

The author's official website is here.
The author's blog is here.

The blog tour is here:

Sally Apokedak
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Green
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Michael Heald
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Pamela Morrisson
John W. Otte
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Steve Rice
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Easter

Happy Easter! Christ is risen, and Marshmallow Peeps are still nasty. Over here, we're all lounging around and enjoying the end of our Lenten fast. I broke fast with a few bad comic books of no account, and am now enjoying The Importance of Being Earnest, which is just as clever and shallow as I had always hoped it would be.

We'll be back soon with some of the kind of stuff we used to do around here before Lent and Josephus got in the way, but in the meantime I want to say a few irreverent things and then a less irreverent thing.

First, on the irreverent side, I have discovered that you can tell a good deal about a person by the way he handles his Easter basket. When a young child, I knew a person, not to be identified to strangers on the Internet, who pulled the fake not-at-all-resembling-grass stuff out of his basket, shook all the candy out of it, and put the candy into a bowl for easy access. I, on the other hand, arranged the candy as decoratively as possible in the basket and then rearranged it whenever I took a piece out in order to, as long as possible, preserve the idyllic pastoral scene in which a hollow chocolate bunny and his Peeps companions benevolently watch over their nest of jelly beans and Cadbury Creme Eggs. This says a great deal about the differences in our personalities; I'm just not sure what it says exactly. One thing it says is that I don't really like eating candy all that much.

Second, still on the irreverent side, Fr. Erik, don't expect to see me at Mass in a suit again for another full year. That thing only comes out of the closet once a year, and I consider that more than enough. As an archaeologist, geek, and bachelor, I have a rep to keep up, and that means a strict dress code of grungy tee-shirts and cargo pants. Besides that, I'm given to foppishness and dandyism and always feel like I'm showing off when I dress up. Besides, that suit is huge; I got it in high school when my well-meaning mother believed I would "grow into" any clothes I acquired, not really understanding that I have to eat a good deal to keep my weight up, more than I would be able to eat in college. I was about ten pounds heavier when that suit was merely baggy. I do wish I had more shirts to go with that bow tie, though.

Third, though I'm now reading fiction again (with a vengeance), I intend to spend Easter season reading the "sequel" to Josephus. I mean, of course, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. The edition I have is the Ferrari of Eusebiuses, but it unfortunately appears to be out of print, though a paperback edition is still available (Eusebius: The Church History). This is a "sequel" because Eusebius, who chronicles the history of the Church from its origins to Constantine, quotes Josephus profusely, because Maier (in my copies) comments on both ancient historians, and because Eusebius and William Whiston (who translated our Josephus) were both Arians. So, as you see, there are strong, tenuous links between the two. Strong and tenuous. Both. At the same time.

The hardback edition of Eusebius that I have and that you will have trouble acquiring is a model of the way books ought to be bound. This is a tiny, slim volume, but it must weigh at least seven pounds due to the solidity of its cover, which appears to be Samsonite or something similar, and the heavy weight of the acid-free pages. This thing would probably survive a nuclear holocaust. Besides that, it has full-color illustrations throughout, ample commentary, and dates in the margins to keep the reader from getting lost. On top of that, it has Maier's highly readable translation (Maier, you may remember, is a successful novelist as well as an historian). It may very well be the finest translated edition of Eusebius ever created. I have one, and you don't.

Oh, and as for those Peeps, I guess it is true that eating one is kind of like the feeling you get when you break a man's mind, enslave his will, and slurp down his soul.

Jeanette Winterson Sounds Off on Literature in English Schools

Education in the UK must be almost as bad as it is here, according to an opinion piece in the Times Online.

At the heart of this nonsense is lack of belief. Literature, especially literature by foreigners, has the same status in the eyes of Labour reformers as train spotting. It is a harmless, unnecessary, slightly eccentric way to pass the time and has no relevance to the busy, self-important world of employment and money-making. [more...]

Let's Have Some Linky Love

An e-mail recently arrived to point me to a few Catholic resources for all y'all. We've got here the Aquinas and More Bookstore. I like bookstores and I like Catholic stuff, and it looks like they have good selection, so go check it out. They also have a blog, Musings from a Catholic Bookstore. It's a little disconcerting to visit this blog, I must admit, since I've never heard a bookstore muse before. It's alive! It's alive!!!

Speaking of blogs and bookstores, Polly Poppins of the blog If You Belonged Here has a post on how to pick up geeky men...that is, in the figurative sense. Weighing only ninety-eight pounds as we do, we geeky men are easy to pick up in the literal sense. Poppins's advice is as follows:

Go to the nearest bookstore. You want a bookstore, not a library. Make your way to the fiction area. Keep your eyes peeled. First good looking guy you see in the sci-fi section, grab him. That's your new boyfriend.

Unless he's wearing a size twelve wedding ring. Then that's Mr. Poppins and I advise you to stay at least ten feet away or I might have to stomp on your head. [more...]

You should also make sure it isn't me, because then think of what you'd be stuck with.

Hat tip: Moomin Light

A Couple of Links

Readers have sent me a couple of things I need to pass on to you. Peter Gardner of Martian Monastery has sent us a link to the Orthodox rite chanted in time of attack by aliens. Seems like a handy ritual to me. In particular, I like this part:

With thy mighty arm destroy the army of aliens which now besetteth us, O Mistress, as the army of Sennecherib was destroyed.

Also, Simon Owens of the interestingly named Bloggasm has noticed our post on free online books. He has a more extensive article on why Tor is offering free books and what that might mean for online publishing.

News from the Fish Bowl: Lunar Eclipse Tonight

Photo by Dazzie D

LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT

As reported by Joe Rao with MSNBC, a total lunar eclipse tonight should be visible in North America and in several other places.

Lunar eclipses are important events. Aristotle used the shape of the Earth's shadow on the moon to argue that the Earth is round.

According to Max Frisch in his novel Homo Faber, the lunar eclipse is also a sign that you're going to be severely punished by the powers that be for sleeping with your own daughter, you weirdo.

According to the above cited article, the eclipse begins at 7:01 PM Mountain Time. Adjust accordingly. Those of you on the west coast may miss part of the show. Hawaiians will miss it entirely.

Free Books Online

Who wants free books? You look like you do. That girl over in the corner looks like she does. That guy in the back who's chewing gum and talking on his cell phone isn't paying attention, but he probably wants free books, too. I know I want free books.

You may notice on our sidebar a link to science fiction texts at Project Gutenberg, which collects public domain and Creative Commons-licensed texts on the Internet. In particular, I notice they have a link to Nick Mamatas's Move Under Ground. I strongly suggest you stop reading this post and start reading that novel, seeing as how it is much better written and has the potential capability of, like, totally blowing your mind.

Cory Doctorow makes his books available on the Internet and writes in Forbes that he believes it paradoxically causes them to sell better. Doctorow also notes that science fiction is more frequently copied illegally than any other form of literature and argues that anyone well-known enough to be ripped off is probably doing alright in sales and marketing. Snuffles, who is sitting across the room, has just pointed out that, back when anime was more obscure in the U.S., fans got the word out largely by ripping off their favorite shows and movies and passing them around.

Recently, the publishers Tor and HarperCollins have announced that many of the books they sell will be publicly available on the Internet. Tor appears to be doing this in a limited fashion and demands that people who get free books also get Tor's newsletter, as reported in FantasyBookSpot. Tor's website for the free book sign-up is here.

The Huffington Post has reported that HarperCollins, too, is making books available free online in the hopes that it will encourage people to buy those books. A visit to the HarperCollins website reveals that it's true. Doesn't look as though they're demanding newsletter subscriptions, either.

So what's the point of making books available online? Well, in the case of public domain texts, the copyrights have run out and the books are fair game, but as for the others, the publishers and writers are guessing--and Doctorow suggests they're guessing correctly--that many or most people would still rather read a book on paper than on a screen, so after seeing a chapter or two of a novel they might like, they're likely to buy the physical book.

Update: Jeff Miller of The Curt Jester has just pointed me to the Baen Free Library, which has plenty of Baen titles to choose from.

A Provocative Quote

I think I know what I'll be reading when I finish Josephus. Check out this quote from pages 5 and 6 of The Jung Cult by Richard Noll, an apparently controversial book:

It is indeed paradoxical that Western spirituality in the twentieth century has been so influenced--indeed, awakened--by a man [Nietzsche] who declared the death of God and who defined himself as the Antichrist. Yet, Nietzsche's "hammer" of questions has been taken up time and again in the modern age by spiritual seekers who felt their paths were blocked by the walls of convention and dogma, and who have felt compelled to initiate unconventional acts of personal salvation out of a yearning for new nectar to satiate a very old thirst.

When we survey the spiritual landscape of the Western world a century later we find that there is wide interest in a movement that has its origins among these late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Nietzschean currents. This is the international movement centered on the transcendental ideas and the idealized personality of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and founder of the school of analytical psychology. Jung is best known today as Sigmund Freud's ungrateful disciple, breaking with his master in 1913 to go his own way and establish his own movement. The legend is additionally framed in the context of Jung's advocacy of the essential spiritual nature of human beings over the narrow, sexual view of Freud, who was by his own admission "a godless Jew." Those who read Jung and participate in the activities of the Jungian movement are often individuals seeking to increase their own sense of "spirituality."

Totally Random Stuff that Has No Place on This Blog

I haven't mentioned it, but I'm actually in the field and will be until next Thursday. But that doesn't mean I have nothing to talk about. No way.

This may embarrass all of you, but I'm able to see what it is that brings readers to this site. Frequently, they get here from Google searches. Searches for "scificatholic," "sci-fi catholic," and "sci fi catholic" often bring readers here (um, hello, the blog is actually http://www.scificatholic.com/, so you don't really need to search, do you?). I have found people also arrive by doing image searches for Bone comic book covers, which I find bemusing, since I'm pretty sure I haven't displayed any (I like to be more casual and subtle when I violate copyrights). Naturally, people also get here by looking for reviews, especially Christian reviews, of certain books or movies. Al Capone Does My Shirts is popular, though the big essay on Bone remains the number one draw.

But once, just once, someone got to this blog by searching for "naked men pictures." Believe me, I'm as confused as you are (but not nearly as confused as that guy). Even if a search for "naked men pictures" brings up a link to The Sci Fi Catholic, which is weird enough, why would anyone click on it? I picture some dude on his computer, muttering to himself, "Man, I gotta see me some o' them naked men pictures! Oh hey look, Catholic book reviews...well, I guess I can do that instead." This may be the first time in the history of the human race that religion has distracted from sex rather than the other way around.

Though I don't know why any past searches for "naked men pictures" would bring up this blog, I am, as you can tell from this post, determined that any future searches for "naked men pictures" will bring up this blog. Naked men pictures. I mean seriously, naked men pictures.

P.S. You will notice that the image at the top of this post does not fall into the category of naked men pictures. The man in the image is fully clothed, so don't write in with complaints. There are no naked men pictures on this site, except maybe for the image adorning my discussion of Thomas Moore's "The Loves of the Angels," which is still my favorite poem, but that doesn't count because that's serious art, so it too fails to qualify for the "naked men pictures" category. Besides, those are clearly naked angels.

(And in case you're wondering, that's actually me, that's actually my bookcase, and that's actually my custom-made Indiana Jones jacket.)

Simak on Sci-Fi and D. G. D. on Fantasy

The other day, I was in a used bookstore and picked up a copy of Sf the Other Side of Realism, a collection of critical essays on science fiction, edited by Thomas D. Clareson. Inside the front is an interesting quote from Clifford D. Simak.

It has always seemed to me that if there were such a thing as "mainstream," science fiction should belong, at least marginally, to it, for everyone who writes, whatever he may write, does so within the parameters of a literary tradition that has evolved, developed, and changed through the years. And the effort to disassociate fantasy (which is pretty much an undefinable term) and science fiction (which is perhaps as much so) arises from the intricate business of arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I don't think that we should attempt to distinguish between the two, and that the writer, especially, should disregard any artificial line that exists between them. The best stories, it seems to me, are fantasies, whether they be based on solid scientific extrapolation, or on engineering concepts carried to an ultimate point, or on something else.

I have to say, "or on something else" is a bit weaselly, isn't it?

I agree with Simak, except maybe for the statement about the "best" stories being fantasies. I'm sure I've said something like that myself, but it's an opinion I've now abandoned. There are other people whose tastes don't run to fantasy, and those tastes are as legitimate as mine. I've decided I don't care for literary elitism, whether it comes from sf-fans or non-fans. Fantasy and science fiction, I am coming to believe, are merely forms of artistic expression, neither more nor less legitimate than other forms. They are useful for expressing certain things and less useful for expressing others, for which we have other art forms.

It is probably this relaxed opinion that leads me to be so opposed to the uptight attacks on fantasy often heard today from certain Christian circles, where fantasy is either opposed in its entirety or, more commonly, subjected to a rigorous set of arbitrary and self-contradictory rules purposely designed so that no authors may pass muster unless named Lewis or Tolkien.

To the people who make such rules, I say this. In this same volume, SF: The Other Side of Realism, is an essay by Lionel Stevenson, "Science Fiction as Romance." He makes mention of W. D. Howells, who insisted "that all fiction was immoral unless it was confined to the everyday behavior and language of ordinary people" (pp. 98-99). Howells's rule is strict, but it can be consistently followed. The rules of today's Christian fantasy fan, who wants to have his cake and eat it too, cannot be consistently followed. It is no good to approve Tolkien's elves and wizards in one breath and condemn Rowling's wizards and witches in the next. Either give up fantasy entirely like Howells or else accept all of fantasy's tropes. The real moral concern in a work of fantasy is the same as in any other story: it is the underpinning philosophy that the writer conveys, not the magic and other devices he uses to convey it.

Current Reading List

Now is the time of making New Year's Resolutions, and one of my resolutions is to finally, at last, for a change, keep the "Current Reading List" updated. In case you've never seen our Current Reading List, it's over on the right, down at the bottom of the sidebar. This blog is supposed to be mostly about books, though we've been reviewing a lot of movies of late, so I like to let you all see what books we're in.

I've convinced Snuffles to add his own books to the list and keep them updated, too, though considering the unholy rate at which he can chew through manga, I won't guarantee his list will be up-to-the-minute.

Up and Coming

Very soon now, we're headed home. After we have access to all our resources again, we'll start delivering some of the things we have planned. While in the Denver airport, Snuffles read Neil Gaiman's Coraline (you may forget that Snuffles is not only an otaku but a kid lit enthusiast). I'm just about finished with William Gibson's Count Zero, which will also get a discussion.

A lot of sf/f movies have come out lately, but we simply can't hit all of them. I was getting exhausted from constantly running out to the theater before I slapped myself in the head and remembered this isn't a movie blog. Anyway, I will review National Treasure: Book of Secrets in the near future, and it's likely I'll see Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Though I intended to review it, I missed Enchanted and don't think I'm likely to make it.

It is also almost time to begin a multi-part criticism of Michael O'Brien's A Landscape With Dragons, to which both Snuffles and I look forward with relish.

Richard Mitchell on Clergymen

I'm not speaking to you right now because I'm too busy enjoying the essays in Richard Mitchell's The Leaning Tower Of Babel. Mitchell is one of those wiseacres who knows grammar and openly insults everyone who doesn't know it. Books by such people are a dirty pleasure, as you well know, for you undoubtedly have a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves on your coffee table.

If people like Mitchell took the time to write fiction of an audacity and literary quality equal to that of their essays, they could probably displace not only the gibberish-spouters who win the aplomb of elite critics but also the hacks who fill the bestseller racks.

Mitchell spends much of his time railing against psychobabble and intentionally opaque nonsense, which in some fields pass for scholarly prose. We have all at one time or another seen instances of this kind of writing. I see it coming from postmodern anthropologists. I have also heard psychobabble from English professors who want to pretend their topics of discussion are more complex and technical than they actually are. I greatly suspect that anyone who stoops to using the term "psychosexual" has nothing important to say, especially if he's talking about fairy tales.

I bring this up because at one point in this fine volume, Mitchell aims his guns at clergymen who use psychobabble to discuss religious issues, particularly (one hopes, exclusively) matters of church organization. After quoting some gibberish from one such clergyman, Mitchell gives commentary, which I now quote at some length.

Well, we don't really care how clergypersons think and write, since we are not required by law to drop money into their collection plates. But we are fascinated by the fact that Pierce's prose, both in style and content, is an exact replica of the mindless maunderings we get from our educationists, who do make off with great bundles of legalized swag. Somehow, though, it all makes sense.

After all, the schools have for decades been gradually transforming themselves into insipid and semi-secular churches, preaching the pale pieties of social adjustment instead of teaching difficult discipline. At the same time, the churches have been transforming themselves into insipid and semi-secular schools, teaching the pale pieties of social adjustment instead of preaching difficult doctrine. Both have found more profit in peer-interaction perception than in precepts, and readier rewards in guidance and relating than in stern standards. No more teacher's dirty looks, lest creativity flag, and, lest self-esteem be disenhanced, no more sinners in the hands of an angry God. The principal can say with the pastor, "My brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am a smooth man."

And smooth they are, and featureless. We never hear in their words the ring of a human voice, but merely the drone of ritual incantation in something not quite language. They are full of high sentence indeed, deferential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious, but not meticulous. They are Milton's "blind mouths." Should Socrates appear among them, proposing the examined life, or Jesus, saying, "Thou fool! This very night shall thy self-esteem be required of thee," they would be glad to interface and share concerns in a type of problem-solving variety of an arrangement, elaborating and supporting the issue and suggesting various alternatives and solutions.

They, who were to have been the salt of the earth, the zest of life's best endeavors, are become a tepid mess of pottage. Wherewith, indeed, shall they be salted? [pp. 91-92, emphasis in original]

Movie Review: The Golden Compass

Zzzzzzzzzz...

The Golden Compass, written and directed by Chris Weitz. Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Dakota Blue Richards. New Line Cinema, 2007. Rated PG-13. USCCB Rating is AII--Adults and Adolescents.

Read other reviews here.

When you fight over something with which you're unfamiliar, you run the risk of fighting over nothing. Such is the case with The Golden Compass, which recently sent Catholic bloggers into a tizzy. But the movie doesn't deserve the attention. It barely deserves this review. I've read the novel, yet even I couldn't figure out what was going on in this film.

Here's my best attempt at a summary: in an alternate universe much like ours but with more CGI, people's souls manifest as talking animal companions called daemons. Ruling over this otherworld is an oppressive hierarchy known as the Magisterium, which is guilty of the unforgivable sin of (horrors!) telling people what to do. In other words, it's a sort of government with vaguely religious overtones. That's all we learn about it, except that it's supposed to be evil.

Living for no known reason at Oxford University is a young ragamuffin named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) and her daemon Pantalaimon (voiced by Freddie Highmore). Lyra's "uncle," Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) has come to the college to speak about his research in the far north, where he has been studying a mysterious particle known as "dust." Don't ask what dust is; you'll certainly never learn the answer from this film, and if the movie trilogy follows the books closely, you won't get a satisfactory answer from the sequels, either. One way or the other, agents of the Magisterium consider study of dust heretical (yet they study it themselves, so go figure) and want to get Asriel out of the way. Though they could presumably arrest him since the Magisterium more-or-less owns the planet, they decide it would be more prudent to--cackle, cackle!--poison his wine! But that fails, of course, and Asriel escapes their clutches.

The slippery Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) shows up and decides to take Lyra on a trip up north. It then turns out that Coulter is head of the Oblation Board, which has been kidnapping children for no clear reason. For an equally unclear reason, Lyra joins up with a group of seagoing Gyptians, and for no reason at all, they head north to some pristine sets made of fiberglass rocks and fake snow.

Meanwhile, Asriel has also headed north, apparently without guides or supplies, and gets captured by the Magisterium. Fortunately, he escapes their clutches and...wait, didn't we do this already?

Anyway, to cut this short, Lyra teams up with a talking armored polar bear (voiced by Ian McKellen) and a Texan dirigible pilot (Sam Elliot) and heads, um, north. She finds the Magisterium's evil lab where they are--cackle, cackle!--cutting away children's daemons to keep them from growing into adults. (Why? Who knows?) There's a big fight at the end involving some witches, some Gyptians, and some Magisterium agents, and then the movie really falls apart.

As I've said before, The His Dark Materials Trilogy is a big disappointment. Though the series starts strong with a beautifully realized alternate world in The Golden Compass, it swiftly goes downhill as Pullman stops worldbuilding and starts preaching. The novels promise, among other things, that young Lyra will commit a new Original Sin, that Lord Asriel will gather the fallen angels to wage a new war in Heaven, and that Will (who appears in book 2, The Subtle Knife) will kill God with a magic knife that can cut anything. The anticlimactic fulfillment of each of these promises is a crushing disappointment. His Dark Materials begins by promising to be one of the greatest fantasy series ever written, but it ends as an incoherent and inartistic mess.

But the movie is a different story. The first novel is quite strong, but this first film is quite weak, and that does not bode well for the sequels, which will be based on inferior source material.

This movie features good actors and good sets. The CGI never overwhelms the imagery. The daemons look good, though the armored bears look fake. The music by Alexandre Desplat is atrocious, but the directing by Chris Weitz is competent. Dakota Blue Richards, in particular, acts with skill beyond her years and proves a perfect choice for the bold, charming, and tomboyish heroine Lyra; as a result of her performance, Lyra is more three-dimensional here than she is in the novels, where she remains consistently, bemusingly, and frustratingly uninterested in the larger happenings around her. All the materials for a good film are present and accounted for, but the movie falls flat anyway, mostly because of the script.

Everything in this movie is rushed. Lyra moves from Oxford to Mrs. Coulter's apartment to a Gyptian ship to the frozen north with the speed of a bouncing superball. Characters, especially villains, are thrown at us with little introduction. The Magisterium is a one-dimensional conglomerate of moustache-twirling villains with no raison d'être. An evil armored bear who usurps a kingdom is equally motiveless, and the subplot involving him has no relevance to the larger story.

As promised, Chris Weitz has removed the most obvious religious elements, and as I predicted, this was an unwise move. In the novel, the villains are members of a Church that has been gradually recovering from the chaos caused by Pope John Calvin, who moved the papacy to Geneva and dissolved it. The Oblation Board under Mrs. Coulter, working more-or-less independently, believes it can destroy Original Sin by cutting away children's daemons before they reach adulthood, a horrific process that either kills the children subjected to it or turns them into mindless zombies. Lord Asriel is a hero almost as evil as the villains, willing to murder children in order to open a gateway into an alternate universe where he can begin his monomaniacal quest to find God and slay him. It is a grand, imaginative beginning for a fantasy epic.

Absolutely none of this comes across in the movie. The Magisterium "tells people what to do," and the heroes are people who "don't like to be told what to do." Instead of a bold act of blasphemy, the movie is more like a wimpy plea for anarchy.

As for what you're all wondering about, yes, the Magisterium is still clearly a religious organization. Its members wear clerical outfits and its buildings sometimes feature Christian icons. Because of the reduction of the religious themes, the Church the movie attacks is even more of a strawman than the Church Pullman attacks. In the novels, the Church is at least concerned with sin, something the Church is concerned with in real life, though why the Church would think it could eliminate sin by preventing children from reaching adulthood is something only Philip Pullman knows. In the movie, the Church wants to eliminate free will, but according to actual Church teaching, free will is something sacred, a dogma, something the Church has fiercely defended. The idea that the Church would be interested in a medical operation to remove free will is simply silly.

When Philip Pullman took aim at Christianity, he missed, but at least his gun was pointed in the general direction. Weitz doesn't even know what he's supposed to be aiming at. Gutted of its central themes, this film has no point. Stripped of Pullman's lavish worldbuilding, it's not even good eyecandy. It belongs in the same round file we have put the other fantasy films that have appeared in the wake of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises.

The Sci Fi Catholic's Rating for The Golden Compass:

Myth Level: Medium (a half-hearted attempt at an imaginative epic)

Quality: Medium-Low (yet another high-budget film destroyed by its own script)

Ethics/Religion: Medium-Low (pointless anticlerical elements)

Up In the Air...with Santa

I'm headed to the field tomorrow, so that means the blog may get dicey for a little while. I'm not sure what the situation is this time around, but I'll post when I can.

In the meanwhile, because I don't know what my near future plans are, I invite you to check out Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a classic of bad science fiction and our theme for this upcoming holiday season. I'm unveiling it early because I don't know my schedule for the immediate future, but I'll talk about it when I get the chance.

The movie is public domain, so you can watch it on Google Video here.

And don't forget the quirky and highly enjoyable novelization, coincidentally entitled Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, by Lou Harry. The novel comes with a DVD of the movie so you can share the badness with the whole family. Looooong-time readers of the blog will remember that I reviewed the novel back when the blog was still ugly and had a different title, and Lou Harry even dropped by to comment!

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is also one of the most famous episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. We'll be discussing this send-up and talking about the dreamy possibilities of a remake of this great film.

And as always, don't forget to--

Keep Mass in Christmas!

Holy Heroes!! Blog Gets Facelift

The group religion-in-comics blog on which I sometimes co-author, Holy Heroes!!, has recently had a facelift, giving it a brand new look. Also, Elliot has posted a blurb on the book Up, Up, and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Simcha Weinstein. Looks mighty interesting!

Upcoming Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour

There's no new info today because I'm spending my free time working on my novel. It's a fantasy involving all the things I love about fantasy, so it's got talking dinosaurs, virgin warrior princesses, beefy men in loincloths, and all kinds of other fun things.

If you haven't already, check out yesterday's movie review.

Note that the shameless sidebar has a new widget offering you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to vote for this blog on Fuelmyblog. I think you can vote repeatedly, possibly bringing new readers to the blog, if you happen to care.

Also, don't forget that Monday, June 18 to Wednesday, June 20 is the Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour. Because of circumstances beyond our control, we've been able to do little during past tours besides post links, but this month, I have a lengthy book review and a few short essays based on Sharon Hinck's novel, The Restorer, which is the featured book this month. I'll post the review on Monday morning so it will be up early for the tour. I have to go into the field on Tuesday, but chances are good(?) that I'll have Internet access, so I'll put up an essay on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. You won't want to miss it!

Upcoming Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour

This month's blog tour is set for this Monday to Wednesday, and this month's feature novel is Sharon Hinck's The Restorer