Luther at the Movies

Ach. What a year. Had I known life was so hard in the twenty-first century I would have stayed dead.

We here at Luther at the Movies have a family member seriously ill, and who will require our full attention.

And so we are putting the blog to sleep for a while. We hope you understand.

Luther (Doktor)

A nice piece by Deborah Caldwell on meeting Jerry Falwell. If you doubt what the late Baptist preacher says about his ability to turn enemies into friends, read this.

Tonsure tip for the latter article: Mere Comments.

Sound thrashing Wilson gives Hitchens re: the "sorting out of competing impulses" business.

Hitchens is also interviewed by my miserable execrable assistant's former colleague Laura Sheahen over at Beliefnet. Hitch comes off as much more amiable and reasonable in this exchange than he does in many—at least at first. Then, just as the discussion of Jesus comes round, the devil comes out to play.

—to learn that Sylvester Stallone was ingesting more than a multivitamin, his brand-name pudding, and a metric ton of horsemeat to maintain his physique!

What is your nation coming to when you can't trust a movie star to come clean about his hGH consumption! In my day, we Augustinians were so juiced, I could bench press three cardinals, a bishop, two abbots, and one costello before breakfast without retching!

For you diehard Sly fans, here's a preview snippet from the new John Rambo:




Note once again the Christian penumbra, in the spirit of Rocky Balboa.

Tonsure tip: Empire Online. (I used the YouTube version, as the link provided by Empire had some filthy naughty dirty words.)

Another one bites the dust!

Do you find his argumentation persuasive—not to the extent that you would pack your confessional bags but that you understand why he did? Or is it so much rhetorical slight of hand, playing texts off one another so that one is left with no other recourse than to cry "Ultimate Authority!" and "Development of Doctrine!" no matter how absurd the doctrines are that are developed? Is he right about justification by faith alone—or is this no more than one more attempt to prescind from what it means to be saved solely by the merits of Jesus Christ, which would preclude so much of what Rome teaches dogmatically?

I say it is time we either set up some kind of conference in which we address forthrightly these defections, or we simply set up a travel agency on the LC-MS website: "See Rome and Die."

And what if the original owners want the coins back? Ever think of that? I would be more circumspect before logging on to that eBay account . . .

A most generous and appropriately reserved statement.

Please note that Herr McCain, of Cyberbrethren fame, is now a regular blogger on the Reformed Catholicism site.

These gang blogs are becoming all the rage. I have resisted adding additional bloggers to this site, given that I am more personality than any six people, and that my ideas are pluriform in nature. In fact, were you to enter a fourth dimension of reality, I would probably already be there, cogitating and making a general ruckus.

Remember: If it is too good to be true, it is probably emanating from the federal government.

And yet, despite all the whining I hear about the postal service in this country, it actually boasts superior performance than can be claimed by comparable services in most other countries. I remember mailing a letter to Katie while making my futile pilgrimage to Rome in 1510, and only yesterday it was returned to me marked "insufficient postage"! Gee—ya think?

I just had to pass this along . . . heh heh heh heh . . .

And when are we, my Lutherans, going to have a comic book of our own? The Adventures of Martin Luther and His League of Original Evangelicals! Now that I would pay 25 cents for! (But no more; I am currently having a liquidity problem—and no, I am not speaking about my bladder!)

Poor Pam Beesly! The actress who portrays her on the high-sterical The Office has fallen down the stairs and broken her back!

We wish Ms. Fischer a speedy recovery. Isn't it bad enough that I must wait four months to find out what happened to Karen? Did Jim leave her in New York? Is she coming back to Scranton? Did they break up? O the tension! O the anticipation! And now I must worry whether Ms. Fischer will recover in time for the season premiere! Has she no conscience?! One foot in front of the other, you jackanapes! Make sure you always have a designated stair-descender!

WHAT WAS SHE DOING IN A NEW YORK BAR IN THE FIRST PLACE!? Why do these actoids not have handlers to watch over them! They have a larger duty to the community—to suppress all natural and personal desire in the cause of entertaining the masses! Between seasons they should be kept locked in a safehouse somewhere in New Mexico—and they must always remain in character!

Double-ach!

As I have always said, a sound diet is one that is at least 85% hops and sausage, the remaining 15% to be composed of foam rubber, glass, and nickel-plated shells expelled from recently discharged firearms.

Exercise should come exclusively from kicking semi-pelagians and chasing down Anabaptists.

It has worked for me and look: I am 523 1/2 years old, and I don't look a day over 327. (I do moisturize, which was a key point of contention between me and the Romanists, and the sole reason my Protestant confreres refused to attend any of the sessions at Trent. That and the fact that they were given the crummiest seats, right by the kitchen.)

Over the past couple of days, traffic to Luther at the Movies has been quite robust. I soon realized that this was due to multiple Google searches of the term "VTech Rampage"—which, if you can believe it, my Lutherans, is now a game of some sort, the "brain" child of a seriously sick Australian.

And seeing as we here at Luther at the Movies had previously published a post with the provocative title "Was a Movie to Blame for VTech Rampage?" we have been showing up in the search results, drawing curious Web searchers to our humble blog.

Welcome, one and all. To those of you unfamiliar with our crew, this link will perform the honors. (Although I am sad to say that Ms. Dellaponti is no longer with us. She was seriously injured in an exercise involving superglue, latex, and a copy of the Patrologia. Don't ask . . . I SAID DON'T ASK!)

And so, if you feel you are qualified, we are currently taking applications to fill her position. We offer no salary, no benefits, no pension, no 401(k). I am abusive, ungrateful, and supernaturally overbearing. This cannot possibly lead to a promotion, so should you stay on with us, you will probably die slumped over your milk-crate desk, the life essence having been drained from you as you performed the very same rote tasks over and over, day in and day out, year after year. Coffee is $1.89 a cup. No vacation or sick pay. Expect to be on call 24/7. No personal phone calls. No personal conversations; in fact, no speaking. No looking directly at me or anyone else. Movement should be kept to a minimum. One bathroom break per workday (and then you must use the one in Winkie's Hardware Heaven around the corner). Should you choose to leave this position for one with another company, you will receive no recommendation, only libelous calumny, no matter how fine your work performance.

We do have summer Fridays...

I would add to this analysis the genuine frustration experienced by many people who wholeheartedly seek the truth when confronted with so many contradictory "versions" of Protestant worship and theology. Even within a single denomination—who finally can say what is God's truth?

The appeal of a catechism that explains it all for you, not to mention a man in a big hat who will swat heretics with a wave of his bishop's crook, is irresistible for some.

We all are looking for our home. But it is not here. Not in Rome. Not in Canterbury. Not in Lynchburg, Virginia. Not in Constantinople. Not even in Wittenburg.

Our true home is the heavenly Jerusalem. And so we are pilgrims here. And we are called to walk with Him—and he too often takes us down dead ends, blind alleys, and forked roads. The reason: So we will trust him to lead us home, and not out of weariness be beguiled by gilded altars and towering statuary and dead languages to settle for something less in the name of "something more."

Until then, we can be consoled by His presence: in Holy Communion, in the Word, and when two or more are gathered in his name.

It may not always provide the ambience of a mighty cathedral . . . but it will do.

Tonsure tip to Herr McCain at Cyberbrethren.

No, honest. The man who brought us Jar Jar Binks thinks it's silly.

Oooh-ke-e-y-y-y-y.

Tonsure tip to Ross Douthat.

Happy Ascension Day.

And he's ELCA!

But I may start watching Law & Order again.



The latest Moore mockumentary, Sicko, comes to a Cuban movie theater near you June 29. I'm certain it will prove to be as entertaining as any manipulative, deceptive paeon to socialism can hope to be.

Kill me now. Just kill me now.

Oh wait . . . never mind.

What makes Hitchens' book pop from the stinkhole of similarly minded pop-atheist tomes is his personal experience in the trenches of sectarian violence around the world. The question he puts to his reader is: Would there be so much wretchedness—in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Africa, the Middle East, India, etc., etc.—if it were not for the absolutist claims of warring definitions of God.

Now, perhaps someone has produced this retort (although I haven't seen it), but the reason you find religion so often where you find war is because wherever this is war—there are people. And people are religious. You may as well state as your thesis that wherever you find war you find eyebrows.

"Yes, Herr Doktor, but eyebrows do not animate wars. They are not the cause of conflict and bad feeling. Eyebrows are merely accidents of human physiognomy—"

SILENCE, IMAGINARY INTERLOCUTOR! Are you telling me that facial features—such as melanin content of the skin or shape of the eyes—have never been a cause for violence, enslavement, even genocide?

Take away religion and man will find another reason to war—whether over political ideology, money, natural resources—or eyebrows. That man's volatile nature is not ameliorated by religion—even when threatened with eternal punishment—is not an argument against the existence of a Creator but for the existence of Original Sin. Otherwise you are left as an explanation the vagaries of biochemical reactions produced by evolutionary trial and error, and how long before the professional atheists begin medicating a generation to "calm them down"?

Oh, wait, perhaps I am too late...

Well, how long before atheists begin advocating designer babies—"better" progeny—in order to secure a more sophisticated and placid future?

Oh, wait, perhaps I am late here too . . .

I commend to you this short obit by Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things.

The Reverend Falwell was different things to different people. His legacy shall be mixed. He was both a voice for the Too-Often-Silent Majority, as well as, well, just a voice, or rather a mouth.

He had this tendency to see the judgment of God in events such as September 11. This is theologically daft. God's judgment on sin came finally, irrevocably, permanently, at Calvary. There is no other judgment in history.

The nations shall be judged, yes—but at the end of history. And I promise you, my Lutherans, that judgment shall make 9/11 look like a bar fight . . .

I have two comments on last night's episode of House.

1. What happened to the poor loser who got socked in the face with the chess clock in the opening scene? Yes, he was a means to an end—i.e., the establishment of the strange condition that would drive the miserable hell-child to House's clutches—but not a word of what charges might be brought against the monster for assault, thereby increasing his suffering and our pleasure?

2. Hemochromatosis is the most common genetically transferred condition among males of northern European extraction. A simple blood test should have detected off-the-charts iron levels. A secondary test, also not uncommonly done, is for ferritin levels—stored iron, which, in someone with hemochromatosis, would also be in the danger zone. (Especially if iron had seeped into the joints and internal organs to the extent it had in the case illustrated last night.)

In other words, this condition should have been detected with a lot more ease than was demonstrated for dramatic purposes.

But give the show's writers credit for not explaining away the child's demonic disposition—no reductionist theories, no "It's all mommy's/the disease's fault" here. He is simply rotten, and deserves to be isolated in a cell somewhere, a la Hannibal Lector, where he will be given nothing to do but watch Exit to Eden over and over and over again. Yes: Rosie O'Donnell in black leather—a most fitting punishment for the little guttersnipe.

The most underrated and underappreciated show on television, The King of Queens will be sorely missed.

The snooty critics could not appreciate a working-class comedy that was not class-conscious or incessantly profane. That Kevin James, Leah Remini, and Jerry Stiller were not nominated for Emmies on a regular basis just goes to prove how daft these award shows are.

Who will forget the "Doug and Deacon get layed off" episodes, or Arthur's immortal words to his only daughter: "Birth control pills? DOES HE TOUCH YOU?!" Or the very special relationship shared between Spence and his roommate, Doug's cousin. (Remember when Arthur and Spence decide to go into business together and in a matter of hours are on the verge of bankruptcy out of sheer neurotic perseveration?)

Oh, well . . . I still have The Office and House, which redeemed itself from what was quickly becoming its culture-of-death mission statement: "The only good patient is a dead patient."

And so MSNBC.com has created a list of "10 Great Movies for Moms and Daughters to Watch Together."

Some of these are no-brainers, I mean Postcards from the Edge and Terms of Endearment and The Joy Luck Club. Right. Gotcha. But Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith?

Why not Exit Wounds or Hostel—other examples of torture? Why not Spaceballs for that matter? (Or should that be seen only with Dad?)

The explanation given by the MSNBC writers is that, in the prequels, we learn that Princess Leia was merely "following in the footsteps of her mother, Amidala."

This is what we in the medical profession call strained.

And where is Mommie Dearest?

Nevertheless: Here is a list of "Seven Films Mothers Should See With Their Sons":

1. The Jerk
2. The Krays
3. Mother
4. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
5. Psycho
6. Five Corners
7. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

Some people may ask, Why? Others may ask, Why not? And still others just drone on and on and on until you want to stick their head in a pea sheller and do your time like a man . . .

Happy Mother's Day.

I ask you to read carefully what this man has to say. We must take to heart his critique, even though most of my readers are not members of the ELCA.

With that said: I would like someone to explain to me how anyone can reconcile himself to the notion of indulgences, which remain a rank perversion of the very notion of grace. And how does he reconcile himself to prayer after prayer in which the Blessed Mother of Our Lord is held up as the intercessor between sinful men and God Almighty?

And yet, more and more Lutherans, not to mention other Protestants, don their water wings and cross the river Tiber. (I have been to Rome; I can only hope the river is cleaner now...)

I was alerted to this event by a post on a Romanist site.

What must we do to stop the bleeding? Only one thing: Preach the gospel of unmerited love, grace, justification—and sanctification; administer the sacraments; bring Christ to a fallen world.

Our Lord asks for no more. And even if we remain a tiny minority, even within the so-called Lutheran world, so long as we are faithful to our calling, that is enough.

"I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal."

"Only 7,000, Lord? It's a big world!"

Obviously, that was enough.

*Special thanks to Mr. W. Allen for the reference.

Ooooh, I'm all goose-bumpy!

But where is the invective? You cannot debate these issues without repeated, nauseating invective! Otherwise, you're just doing a tango. I want blood! I want screams of psychic pain and holy terror! I want the wretching of the wretched, the gasping of the ghastly, the hemorrhaging of the heretical! I would also like a box of Mallomars . . .

I would not object so much to these efforts if the same courtesy were extended to the undead. Why a helping hand to terrestrial border jumpers but nothing for those of us transmigrators? Just because our internal organs have disintegrated into a fine powder is no excuse for discrimination and name-calling! Do you know how hard it is to get a decent health plan when there is a bird's nest where your liver used to be?

Oh the trouble I had when I first made my way back to the land of the living (if you can call this living). I immediately sought succor in a Lutheran Church on Lexington Ave. in Manhattan upon arrival here in three-dimension-la-la-ville and, because of my extremely moldy garb and the stench of death about me, was told I would have to leave because I was "bringing everyone down."

Me? The King of Fun! Down?! Who was the first man in Europe to make a papal-shaped pinata for the kiddies? Who invented the party game "Dunk the Dominican"? Who is in the process of securing sole copyright to a new board game, the object of which is to chase as many Anabaptists out of your town as you can within the prescribed time limits!

Down?! Who was voted "The Most Up Magisterial Reformer of 1540"?! Who was the first named on every nun's wedding-guest list?

I'll give them down...

Wait until they get a load of Noah's Arkland, scheduled to open Summer 2008 on Mount Ararat. But I wouldn't pet the unicorns if I were you . . .

So Ms. Eden will be in the moving pictures. A documentary, yes, but still presumably moving. She deserves credit for her courage, as she will no doubt be banned from the Upper West Side of Manhattan for quite some time, which means no Zabar's.

I too hope to make it to the big screen one day, in The Wonders of Me. Directed by Me. Screenplay by Me. Photographed by Me. Of Me. Doing Me Things, like harrassing semipelagians and rousing indulgence peddlers from their beds of heresy!

It will star Me. And Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Philip Melanchthon and Dina Meyer as Katie. Possibly Jerry Stiller as Elector Frederick and Jason Alexander as Pope Leo X.

It will, of course, be shot in LuluScope.

—of Kings, that is . . .

I kid you not. Ach! Let's assume he's a delightful lad—but COME ON, PEOPLE!

Yes, can we please press into service Douglas Wilson or Alvin Plantinga or Alister McGrath or David Hart or any number of Lutherans, from Wolfhart Pannenberg to Robert Jenson—anyone who wasn't associated with those fukakta Left Behind movies! Let us be clear here: the Rapture rap is to serious theology what a fortune cookie is to an MRI!

I must lie down. Bring me my Hot Pockets . . . I must have my Hot Pockets . . .

Get This: Not Wilson or Hart or McGrath, but Al Sharpton took on Christopher Hitchens. While I am decidedly not a fan of Mr. Sharpton's modus operandi—you know, he didn't fare too badly . . .

UPDATE: And so Wilson contra Hitchens was not merely pie in the sky, but is taking place as we speak! Hurrah!

Sequel-Landia.

Which is not to say that Gekko and his protege, now presumably out of prison and enjoying a second career in a cheesy hit sitcom, might not provide some compelling social commentary, given all the busts in the post-boom economic landscape.

But why do I have a feeling this will prove as potent a follow-up as Basic Instinct 2: Why Is She Sitting Like That?

Last night I listened to the testimony of one Patty Bonds, sister of Reformed Baptist apologist James White, on Marcus Grodi's Journey Home program. She related a sad and painful tale of abuse and abandonment as she saw her fundamentalist faith shatter, along with her marriage, followed by a slow turn to Rome, where she is now ensconced in a lay apostolate.

By all appearances she is now happy and at peace.

But she asked a very interesting question—or, rather, put an interesting question to a caller who inquired about the "true church." She advised asking interested Protestant parties to read the early Church Fathers and compare the church as the Fathers describe it with any Protestant church today. Ms. Bonds was convinced that the Prots would not fare well by comparison.

What was interesting was that the caller identified herself as a Lutheran. I am convinced that the Lutheran church, above all churches, would mimic closely early church worship: baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (with only a spare and biblical Eucharistic blessing), confession of faults, prayers of thanksgiving (but no prayers to dead men for dead men), and what appears to be a congregational polity ("Elect, therefore, for yourselves Bishops and Deacons worthy of the Lord," Didache, Ch. 15).

So take Ms. Bonds up on her challenge: Study the Didache or other early accounts of Christian worship and see which communion best transmits the simple traditions—the Lutheran, or the Roman with its centuries of devotional accretions and heretical doctrines, such as that of indulgences.

I have taken to watching many of these Romanist programs on EWTN, which feature many energetic converts. As I have always been a shining example of irenic ecumenical dialogue, I will continue to reach out in a civilized and discrete manner to all Romanists in order to disabuse them of their errors, while also showing Protestants and Evangelicals that not all that is said of Rome is true. For example, the idea that the pope grows horns after making his blood pact with the devil has been proved to be a falsehood. The blood pact with Satan, taken upon accession to the papal throne, does not necessarily issue in physical deformity. So let us put that lie to bed once and for all.

At this rate, if the webhead stays in release just two months, or 61 days, he will gross a little over $3 billion—not counting Spidey merchandising crappola!

And I will see none of it, despite getting up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning and suffering the chaos wrought by packs of mewling, puking, whining cretins hanging from the rafters and spitting out peanut M&Ms across the freshly installed stadium seating at the Atlas Park Regal Theaters for the 9:15 a.m. showing!

Ach!

That sound you heard was the Anglican Communion going cr-r-r-r-a-a-a-c-k!

A sad, sad business. Many believers of goodwill are suffering much heartache as the church they love sinks into the huggah-muggah of competing theologies, political powerplays, and a genuine disregard for their own confessional authority (such as it is--given the unsettled history of the Elizabethan Settlement, were the Thirty-nine Articles ever regarded as more than just the Thirty-nine Suggestions?)

While that spiritual pigmy and mass murderer Henry VIII was no friend of mine (or vicey-versey), this is no time to boast: Let he who is without silliness . . .

Update: Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria writes "Dear Rowan" letter...

Perhaps it is about time for me to introduce such goodies on the LATM blogsite.

How about a T-shirt with a red slash through the word "JACKANAPES"? Or a sweatshirt that reads "SILENCE, IMAGINARY INTERLOCUTOR!" Or "KICK A SEMIPELAGIAN TODAY—YOU'LL FEEL BETTER"? Or "MARTIN LUTHER: RIGHT SINCE 1517"?

Ach, it sounds like more work than it's worth, and I'll probably only get stiffed on the royalties—AGAIN!

"If you want forgiveness, get religion," Peter Parker tells a rival (and unscrupulous) photograph at the Daily Bugle.

But it is Spider-Man who gets religion—and learns that Darth Vader is his father (or something very similar).

Yes, the Spider-Man has a dark side—and don't all superheroes, especially when you have run out of story lines. He also has a wider selection of villains this time around: Gremlin Jr. (James Franco); his rival for the staff position on the Bugle turned evil nemesis (Topher Grace); and, the real star of the gee-whiz CGI show, The Sandman, created when escaped convict Flint Marko tumbles into some nuclear waste and develops the single worst case of eczema in recorded dermatological history.

So: is the negative criticism warranted? This script is a mess, and could afford to lose at least 45 minutes, which is how long it takes before you actually discover there is a story and not just more hemming and hawing over will he or won't he finally pop the question to Mary Jane Whatserface, played by a devotee of maryjane, the loverly Kirsten Dunst.

And when a film becomes excessively self-referential, basking in its own commercial success, you know it is time to pull the plug on this franchise.

But once Spidey 3 gets down to the nitty-gritty, by which I mean more than the sand in Spider-Man's shorts after tussling with Marko, you will enjoy a truly morally inspiring piece of entertainment, in which Evil is depicted as not only a condition of the heart—which can be fostered by rationalizations or foiled by the power of forgiveness—but as something outside oneself that can literally possess you, and which only the tintinnabulation of church bells seems able to eradicate.

"You always have a choice," Spidey tells one antagonist. And while the pelagianism is laid on hot and heavy, given the preponderance of vile messages sent out to kids these days, a reminder that you can always choose to do the right thing, and that there is a very real difference between justice and vengeance, is worth a pass on the theology exam and a few extra theses for a social conscience.

Again, the romantic dribble becomes ponderous, but the last 45 minutes of stupendous special effects and the lessons taught about moral discipline and the value of friendship are well worth the initial tedium.

And so I give Spider-Man 80 Theses.

"But Herr Doktor, your movie-ratings scheme does not allow for 80 theses—only 75 or 85—"

Silence, imaginary interlocutor! Was Luther made for the ratings or the ratings made for Luther? This fell between goodish and good, so shut your pie hole and have another Sno-Cap. Or have another Sno-Cap and then shut your pie hole. Whatever you do, do it quietly!

And so a writer of mediocre gifts named Clifford Irving decides he will scam McGraw-Hill and Life magazine out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by convincing them that the reclusive and paranoid billionaire Howard Hughes had contacted him and wishes to write his autobiography, with Irving as exclusive amenuensis.

With money-grubbing fact-checking buddy Dick Susskind in tow, Irving steals files from the Pentagon, forges documents, and just generally lies lies lies to everyone in pursuit of fame, fortune, and the perfect convertible.

This is the era of Watergate, and so mendacity is in the air—but little did I know that the fake autobiography of Howard Hughes was, in its own way, what in fact triggered the scandal!

Fun, fascinating, and repellant, The Hoax is a story of American ingenuity gone haywire.

Richard Gere gives probably the best performance of his life as a man for whom truth is something you barter for power. Alfred Molina is his usual buggy self as the manipulative and manipulated friend with just a speckle of conscience. And Marcia Gay Harden, best remembered (at least by me) as the long-suffering spouse of dribble king Jackson Pollock, is quite pathetic as Irving's, well, long-suffering spouse.

In the end, Irving the con artist, who feeds off a man's life and reputation, gets a wholesale lesson in how some people attain their level of success and power. And it ain't because they're too scared to come out and play.

I give The Hoax a hefty 90 Theses.

And now: Off to see Spidey-3!

If Tyra Banks had not made the list, I would have shot myself. (Well, maybe not shot myself, but I would have punched myself really, really hard.)

I am also pleased to see that Lisa Randall, string theorist from Harvard University, has made the final cut. I too have a theory about string: It is long and thin and easy to wind into balls. There—and without an advanced degree in any of the hard sciences! (Theology is a medium science, unlike psychology, which is a soft science, or economics, which is a mushy, drippy science.)

A very revealing Beliefnet interview.

Q: How much money are you looking to raise [for the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace]?
A: I say $7 billion would get a real good start.

A good start, yes...

But my favorite line: "Well, I was raised Presbyterian..."

That explains so much, and yet so little. Who did kill Laura Palmer? And why does the midget laugh? And why is Naomi Watts making that funny face in Mulholland Drive?

I LOVE Helen Mirren!

And I have nothing to wear! Ach!

I wonder if she would sign my copy of Diana: Her True Story? Maybe not . . .

And where exactly is Virginia? I mean in relation to me. Where I am right now. I'm facing left.

O joy of joys! O delight of delights! After all these years, there is finally in release a director's cut of . . . Payback—the Mel Gibson masterwork that was mercilessly butchered by The Man!

"Surely you must be kidding, Herr Doktor!"

OF COURSE, I'M KIDDING! (and don't call me Shirley)

WHO GIVES A RAT'S TUTTI-FRUTTI ABOUT WHAT WAS LEFT ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR FROM PAYBACK? Unless it was a script and a director—who exactly is the audience for this thing? (Although, it made a not unrespectable $81 million in its initial domestic release.)

Ach—maybe I'm just getting old. (ALL RIGHT, VERY OLD!)

What is next: Casper: The Director's Cut, wherein we are given an alternate ending where Casper turns out to be one of Satan's minions, and his flesh and blood companions are taken kicking and screaming to the fires of Gehenna (and Christina Ricci is finally given her just deserts for years and years of listless performances in stench-ridden independent drivel)?

How about the very special edition of The OH in Ohio, in which the audience does not slit its collective wrists just to be granted release from its agony?

Oh, con artist thy name is marketing director!

As for the reaction from the former colonies (New York in particular) . . . even good would be pushing it.

We will see. Ohh, we will see . . .

And by A.I., I don't mean that über-dopey movie by the otherwise gifted Steven Spielberg.

I mean the award thingees themselves. They look like malformed elephants, or blind space creatures.

But it is nevertheless considered a great honor to win one.

New York cleaned up. And Beliefnet.com, for which my miserable execrable assistant used to work, beat out ESPN.com and Slate.com for General Excellence Online. Congratulations to Steve Waldman, Elizabeth Sams, and the rest of the Bnet crew. It's been a long, hard haul.

I am stunned to learn that anyone reads Rolling Stone anymore, never mind celebrates it. That it is considered superior to The New Yorker, admittedly a shadow of its former classy self, is definitely debatable.

But to give so many awards to magazines with "New York" in the title may have been pushing the generosity of the participants beyond reasonable limits.

Whenever he made his appearance on a sitcom, I knew it was going to be one notch funnier.

Understated, goofy, and—yes—clueless, Mr. Poston was from an old school of comedy, which, when the last of its graduates—Bob Newhart, say—passes from the scene, will be torn down to make room for Borat.

That is not progress.

The Onion's A/V Club has a very amusing list of movies clearly intended to be the first installment of an ongoing franchise of endless sequels—but which tanked, either at the box office, in the critics' pages, or in the hearts of the stars themselves. (Dick Tracy, if I remember, made a bit of cash—but can you imagine Warren Beatty being relied upon to churn out film after film in anything like a timely manner?)

Of all of these selections, Buckaroo Banzai was the most creative, and Master and Commander the best film of the lot, period.

Now we should see a list of films that spawned a franchise but that shouldn't have. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I will be interested in hearing what Pacino and Duvall have to say about the man, both having worked with him.

It is a shame he squandered his considerable talent late in life, in mediocre fare and court appearances. From what I have read, Mr. Brando simply didn't take acting very seriously, and only money or political engagement could pry him away from island life.

Can you imagine a 70-year-old Brando treading the "boards" one last time? What would an orchestra seat have gone for—$1,000? $10,000? What play would have pulled him back to the stage? Perhaps he would have played Edna Turnblad in the musical Hairspray . . .

So one day a Spider-Man may be more than a comic-book and Big Screen superhero. What is next? Will someone invent a formula for invisibility, super-bendiness, auto-combustion, and rock-hard superskin, thus making the Fantastic Four a reality as well?

I prefer simple super-pleasures. For example, Batman: All you need is a subterannean hangout, a cool car, some black tights, and a wicked neurosis and you're set to go. And the Green Hornet? A fedora and a Chinese sidekick. How about Mystery Men? Any high school geek with a pocket protector is in business.

Then there is Noho Man, my personal favorite. He just sits on a bench North of Houston Street and whines about high rents. No latex boots or Spandex suit required.

A new book by American journalist Michael Zielenziger—Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation—is a portrait of modern Japan that is quite enlightening, not to mention depressing.

The culture is collapsing from within, as more and more Japanese withdraw from society, rarely if ever leaving home—or even their bedrooms. Japanese are withdrawing from marriage, from childrearing, and from personal responsibility.

A nation that emphasizes what the group wants, what the group thinks, what the group demands is producing citizens incapable of functioning except on automatic. Without a spiritual tradition that impresses upon them the absolutely unique value and inviolability of the individual, Japanese experience a pressure to conform that is paralyzing, and the shame that follows perceived failure is overwhelming.

Depression is widespread—yet no one talks about it, because there remains a stigma; admit that you are suffering from depression and you are admitting that you are weak and unable to keep up. And so, without a medical or spiritual outlet, with no one to talk to and little experience expressing one's feeling, suicide is epidemic, especially among men, where the rate is 36.5 per 100,000, or roughly twice the American rate.

(Interesting to note: It was a Lutheran pastor in Japan, Yukio Saito, who developed the nation's first suicide hotline back in 1971. Needless—and sad—to say, he is still going strong.)

Zielenziger goes on to compare Japanese culture, economic development, and political structure with neighbor South Korea, and discovers that the two countries are worlds apart. South Korea embraced not only Western-style technological development and modernization, but many Koreans also followed Westerners in their Christian faith, producing a very different set of values, expectations—and personalities!

I highly recommend Shutting Out the Sun. It is a necessary reminder of what a life without Christ can become—not the liberating experience of mutual cooperation and endless progress, but a deep, dark, and empty well of endless expectations and futile pursuits. In short, a descent into hell.

or Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Christopher Hitchens is one more pop-atheist blowhard, to be sure, and his "critique" of religious faith will no doubt prove as devastating to religion in America as Robert Ingersoll's proved to be. (You remember him, surely. No? Oh well . . .)

But you must admit, the man is a breezy, entertaining writer. And it never hurts to know what your enemies really think of you, just so you're prepared with a witty riposte when slammed at a cocktail party.

And never let it be said that we Lutherans are humorless! Why, we have no qualms about laughing at others who are laughing at us!

This is Part II, by the way, of a three-part screed. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Hitchens takes on Mermanism in Part III. While I have found mermans to be quite sweet, and decidedly good citizens, their religion is quite daft (with all due respect, given your American right to believe as you please). Imagine: Believing that God is half man, half fish! What kind of nonsense is that!

Give Hitchens credit for taking on the Mohammedans, too, no punches pulled—including in the very provocative title of the book. Too often such atheists mask their fear and loathing of other religions by beating up on Christians exclusively.

"But Herr Luther, why give this man the time of day? Why give him the satisfaction of reading his work or promoting his name? Don't you risk exposing weak faith to the corrosive—"

SILENCE, IMAGINARY INTERLOCUTOR! Weak faith will be undermined by a bad head cold and a tax audit. Strong faith has nothing to fear from the Hitchenseseses of the world. And what is strong faith but one that looks to the Cross, where all human resources were abandoned, exhausted, and Our Lord could only cry out to the Father—as must we. What is to fear from some jackanapes' magical thinking (where everything is explained, and explained away—including the human mind—by simply stating that it took a very long time to develop) in the face of Easter Sunday!

Also consider this from Slate.com. Now religion is all in your head—actually, your brain. I see that Slate No Heart Faith of any kind, but they're big on MRIs. What happens when the MRI shows something inoperable? What illusion will the Slatesters turn to? The one who raised Jairus' daughter, perhaps?

I am willing to venture the unprecedented opinion that those staged in the two Bourne pictures together constitute the greatest car chase of all time. Of course, you can't vote for both Bourne pictures, and so I am sorry for wasting your time.

Tonsure tip to Titus One Nine.

The much-deserved winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year, The Lives of Others is a most moving and riveting look at life in East Germany pre–Wall Fall.

The year is 1984 (when else?) and an apparatchik of the state secret police—the Stasi—thoroughly bugs the home of a celebrated playwright (Sebastian Koch), thought until now to be quite loyal to the German Democratic Republic and its socialist ideology. But Herr Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) believes his loyalty is weak, even feined, and becomes determined to get the goods on yet another untrustworthy "artist."

What Herr Wiesler does not anticipate is falling in love with Christa-Maria, the playwright's actress lover (Martina Gedeck). Wiesler realizes that if he accurately records all that his eavesdropping reveals, including a plan by the playwright finally to stop playing the company man and publish in the pages of the West German Der Spiegel an expose of the horrendous suicide rate among East Germans, the writer will be whisked away and Christa-Maria will fall into the hands of the repulsive Minister Hempf (Thomas Thieme).

Mühe is a marvel to watch as his early Teutonic rigidity and sense of duty to Party and Nation melts under the influence of his fixation with the actress. Torn between his feelings and his job description (not to mention his own freedom), Herr Wiesler must make some hard decisions in a totalitarian regime that does not appreciate individuals making decisions for themselves at all.

This fine motion picture just reminds me what treasures my beloved Germany could have produced for the world had their once-vibrant industry not been waylaid by that Austrian slophead and, later, his vile rivals on the Left. I am just grateful those respective nightmares are over. And I most definitely recommend that you run out and see this potent reminder of what "progress" once looked like.

I give The Lives of Others 90 Theses. (I withhold five theses because, while director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has done a fine job of telling his story and guiding his cast, his visual style, while intending to capture the bleakness and banality of mass conformity, borders on the pedestrian and dull.)

Nota Bene: After you watch this, consider renting again Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation—a nice double-bill that would make!

At least he won't dance.

This is an outrage! What is next? Potato chips made with shoe leather? Gummi bears made with industrial adhesive? My berri tartelettes made with wood shavings and Kleenex?

Thanks to my good friend