A Movie You Might Have Missed #64: Train to Busan

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Soo-an: Dad, you only care about yourself. That's why mommy left.

He's forgotten her birthday, he's forgotten to show up at school for her special song, but Seok Woo is going to make sure his little daughter safely gets from Seoul to Busan to visit her mother, his ex-wife. It's just their bad luck that a zombie virus breaks out while they're on the train. The passengers must fight for their families and their lives against the zombies.

We loved this basic zombie movie with the clever twist of NOT staying on a train but clearly having to BE on a train to get to Busan, where there might be a safe haven ... we hope. It was more thoughtful than the average zombie movie. (Is there such a thing as an average zombie movie these days? Oh, right, World War Z. That was very average.)

I especially appreciated the family themes as echoed through all the characters we really come to know ... from young love through fatherhood and old age. And it isn't afraid to look at how an extended struggle might turn survivors against each other as they trade common decency and humanity for personal security.

No wonder it made $85 million. A solid story, well told.

Scott and I discussed this in episode 244 of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

Starlink

Small flowers shine everywhere now on the ground and in the bushes.
Like the stars in the sky, only on earth, and during the day.
Edward B. Gordon

The holy Darcagüey

The holy Darcagüey,
portrait of a Moroccan dervish by José Tapiró y Baró, 1890

 

My heart is breaking ...

 ... for the families of Uvalde, just as it did so recently for the families of Buffalo. And as it has for all the mass shootings we have suffered.

I am praying for everyone in their grief and loss. I also pray for our politicians to get it together, stop their infighting, and implement wise measures from both sides. 

I was reminded this morning that David did not despair, despite all of the setbacks in his eventful life (some self-inflicted to be sure). We too must not despair, but must hope in the Lord and do our utmost, whether it be prayer or whatever actions we can take.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

El Patio

Taken by Traces of Texas

 I love this photo. It is not only so Texan it is so evocative of a place where I'd love to try the Tex Mex!

The Gift Counselor by Sheila M. Cronin

Do all gifts have strings attached?

Yes, believes Jonquil Bloom and she intends to prove it. She's a psychologist who uses her skills in a department store to help shoppers of all ages become good gift givers. Yet, her ten-year-old son wants a dog she won’t let him have.

Enter the handsome bachelor who is ready to settle down.

This is a tale with two purposes. 

On one hand, this is a romance story. Simply written and straight forward with the beats we expect, there are few surprises as to who will wind up with who, despite various misunderstandings along the way. It has a Catholic worldview although the Catholicism doesn't intrude overmuch. A local priest gives a homily or a bit of advice but he rarely shows up. The overall effect is sweet.

On the other hand, it is an unexpected meditation upon gift giving. That is what interested me most. Gift giving and receiving is woven on many strands of the story which gave us a lot of chances to think about it in our own lives. I especially enjoyed seeing Jonquil gently nudge people into considering what they wanted their gifts to achieve. In looking at those interactions, we have a clear view from which to consider Jonquil's own flaws in that area. She has to remove the log from her own eye before trying to help with the splinter in her neighbor's (to loosely quote Jesus).

The author has a good touch with developing characters. The heroine, Jonquil, and her son, Billy, are relatively nuanced although the others are generally all good or bad with few gray areas. Usually that's the kiss of death for me, but in this case folks like Rita, Al, Mr. Merrill, and even Miss Hamilton were allowed just enough growth to make me like them.

Although this isn't the sort of book I usually like, I couldn't put it down.

Note: This was a review copy.

Hoopoe

Hoopoe, Remo Savisaar

Doesn't this look like the craziest woodpecker in the world? I love the coloring and pattern!

A Couple of Fun Things to Keep an Eye On — Dracula Daily and Alice's Adventures

ALICE'S ADVENTURES
(both In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass)

As frequent visitors know, I love Corey Olsen's Mythgard Academy classes on fantasy and science fiction. They dive very deeply into Tolkein's Middle Earth works (including a lot that most people haven't heard of) but I  stick to the works that most people have heard of like Dune, Dracula, and Watership Down just to name a few. 

 

I was delighted to see the newest series covering a surprising selection, both of Lewis Carroll's Alice books. However, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both acknowledged debts to and love of these books, so it makes sense that Mythgard Academy would dive in sooner or later.

Listen here.

 

DRACULA DAILY 

Get the classic novel Dracula delivered to your email inbox, as it happens.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel - it’s made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings - and every part of it has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 10. So: Dracula Daily will post a newsletter each day that something happens to the characters, in the same timeline that it happens to them.

I've read Dracula so many times that I practically have it memorized. But I know it can be intimidating what with being an older book, a classic, about vampires, and suchlike. 

This is the easy way to try it — via email, in small digestible chunks - as it happens to the characters. Sign up here.

 

The Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body.

 Oh my gosh, this is super long but so easy to read and so good! It was in the Office of Readings for Wednesday, May 18 and instantly got marked for my quote journal.

From the Letter to Diognetus

The Christian in the world

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives. They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.

Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonour, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

Garden Path

Garden Path, Edward B. Gordon

Holy moly — the archbishop of San Francisco bars Nancy Pelosi from Holy Communion over abortion advocacy

“I must make a public declaration that [Pelosi] is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance. I have accordingly sent her a Notification to this effect, which I have now made public,” Cordileone wrote in a letter released Friday.

This is from The Pillar where you may read more and where there is a link to Cordileone's letter to Pelosi.

In reference to those wondering about denying Communion, The Pillar adds this context:

In 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained to U.S. bishops that:

Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church's teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

“When ‘these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,’ and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, ‘the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.’”

This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgment on the person's subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person's public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.

Essentially, though it probably doesn't  feel that way at this moment, this is Nancy Pelosi's opportunity to deeply examine her faith and whether she truly believes that very faith which she so often professes publicly. It is also a way to stop her creating confusion and scandal about Catholic teachings.

Yellow-Glazed Brush Holder

Yellow-glazed brush-holder, "Chen Guo Zhi" mark;
Jingdezhen Daoguang reign, (1821-50)

I love it when common place items have decorative, artistic touches. I wish that more of our world had such touches.

Well Said: God and religion

It is a great mistake to think that God is chiefly interested in religion.

William Temple

A Thoughtful, Well Written Piece on the Word on Fire Controversy

 Darwin Catholic is always worth reading and never more than in this piece where he looks at what happened with WOF and how it would have been handled in the secular workplaces he's worked for. I'd only heard a little about this and it seemed to be an employee's personal life problem rather than a workplace problem. Which is something that Darwin points out. However, he looks at this from a lot of angles and it is well considered. Here's a bit and then you can go read the whole thing.

The second thing that struck me is that everyone involved seems to have an implicit belief that Catholic organizations should insist on hiring and maintaining only employees who hit some specific standard of personal moral behavior.

It's interesting that this is the substance of an attack on WOF which is generally coming from the left. After all, we're used to a certain sort of Catholic organization controversy where an institution fires an employee for failing to live up to Catholic sexual teachings and more progressive Catholics object that this is unmerciful.

Perhaps what confuses the situation in this case is that the discussion of Gloor's dismissal is being framed as if it were an accusation of either workplace sexual misconduct or clerical sexual abuse. However, the alleged misconduct apparently did not occur in the workplace or with a co-worker, and Gloor is most certainly not a cleric.

Worth a Thousand Words: X

X
by Karin Jurick

A glass ceiling projecting patterns and shadows on the floor while a young woman sketches in the Sculpture Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Say a prayer, not an editorial

Crater didn't know why the captain wanted him to say a prayer, but he gave it some thought and said, "Dear Lord, I didn't know Tilly, but I hope You'll take her into heaven. She messed up here at the last but that doesn't matter now, not to her and maybe not to You either."

"I said say a prayer, not write an editorial," Teller growled.

The gillie jumped in. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, blessed be the Lord thy God who loves thee still. Amen and good-bye.

Teller stared at the gillie, then said, "Well, at least that thing's got some sense."

Homer Hickam, Crater

The Convent School and The Tower of Las Damas

This was originally published in June 2013. However I love the paintings so much and treasure the memory of the show so much that I am sharing it again, 9 years later. Thursday nights at the museum are still free and it remains relatively unknown.

Martín Rico y Ortega (Spanish, 1833-1908), The School Patio, 1871

We saw this charming painting last night at one of Dallas's best kept secrets, the Meadows Museum at SMU. They are hosting "Impressions of Europe: 19th-Century Vistas by Martin Rico.

I'd never heard of this artist but Thursday nights are free and Tom and I made a date of it. It was really enjoyable, just the right size for an evening's art appreciation to take you out of the everyday world.

Of course, this blog post can't possibly convey the charm of the actual painting, where one is free to examine it closely, seeing the textures and expressions the artist included.

Here is another painting, just to try to lure any Dallasites to the exhibit before it closes on July 7.

Martín Rico y Ortega (Spanish, 1833-1908),
The Tower of Las Damas at the Alhambra, Granada, 1871.

It is not man who goes to God, but God who comes to man.

Almost all religions center around the problem of expiation; they arise out of man's knowledge of his guilt before God and signify the attempt to remove this feeling of guilt through conciliatory actions offered up to God. The expiatory activity by which men hope to conciliate the divinity and to put him in a gracious mood stands at the heart of the history of religion.

In the New Testament the situation is almost completely reversed, It is not man who goes to God with a compensatory gift, but God who comes to man, in order to give to him. He restores disturbed right on the initiative of his own power to love, by making unjust man just again, the dead living again, through his own creative mercy. His righteousness is grace; it is active righteousness, which sets crooked man right, that is, bends him straight, makes him correct. Here we stand before the twist that Christianity put into the history of religion. the New Testament does not say that men conciliate God, as we really ought to expect, since, after all, it is they who have failed, not God. It says, on the contrary, that "in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself." This is truly something new, something unheard of—the starting point of Christian existence and the center of New Testament theology of the cross. God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled, he goes to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the Incarnation, of the cross.

Accordingly, in the New Testament the cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below. It stands there, not as the work of expiation that mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of the foolish love of God's that gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man; it is his approach to us, not the other way about. With this twist in the idea of expiation, and thus in the whole axis of religion, worship, too, man's whole existence, acquires in Christianity a new direction.

Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

I remember saying that Introduction to Christianity was a terrible name for this book by the cardinal who became Pope Benedict. It was no introduction at all as I think of it which would be gentle and easy to understand. However, it was good. Very good. As this sample shows. I need to reread it.

Keepin' It Cool

Keepin' It Cool
"Anana swims in her 60F chilled water to beat the 95F heat."
taken by Valerie, ucumari photography
Some rights reserved

A Movie You Might Have Missed #63: The Captain's Paradise

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Capt. Henry St. James [referring to his two wives]: That, Rico, is my solution to man's happiness on Earth. Two happy women, each in their way perfect, and in between the company of men, the clash of intellects to stimulate the mind.

Mediterranean ferryboat captain Henry St James (Alec Guiness) has things well organized – a loving and very English wife Maud (Celia Johnson) in Gibraltar, and the loving if rather more hot-blooded Mistress, Nita (Yvonne de Carlo), in Tangiers. A perfect life. As long as neither woman decides to follow him to the other port.

A surprisingly feminist movie ... though in our times we often feel we invented feminism which in itself is not a very worthy attitude. In a way, this is a wonderful bookend to How to Murder Your Wife. Both treat women as something which must be controlled in order to preserve man's peaceful life. Of course, what both films show us is that women are not things, but people. And people can't be easily controlled. With hilarious results.

Thoroughly enjoyable and my favorite so far of the Alec Guiness comedies we've been watching.