"For Greater Glory" - McClatchy said 'No' Vancouver says 'GO!'
A Facebook Page has been set up to collect commitments from people to attend a proposed screening of the film "For Greater Glory" in Vancouver, BC. The distributor requires a commitment of 600 attendees to screen it, and there are only 300 who have committed to attend so far.
What has made Vancouver Catholics apparently decide "no" in advance, and with such extreme prejudice against this film? Do we trust the judgment of the lockstep consensus media so much about the infancy of Catholic filmmaking in the 21st century, we don't want to judge for ourselves? It's almost like we expect a film that dares to tackle a Catholic subject to be The Avengers or something. How many other big-budget Hollywood style films depicting an atheist government's attack on Catholic peasants do we think are being released this year? A lot of us spend more in a Starbucks visit than we would seeing this film and rewarding such audacious braveness in the filmmakers.
If you feel uncomfortable about seeing a film like this, imagine how the producers felt about making it, especially after it was all done and nobody wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole lest it have coodies, and none of their cool friends would return their calls anymore because now they are "like that."
Isn't making a film like this an expression of religious freedom? Don't we want to keep such expressions legal? Would helping to do that not be worth the price of a movie ticket to us?
ATTENTION VANCOUVER:
The McClatchey-Tribune News Service, ever faithful to their roots, never misses a chance to spit at the Catholic Church. Don't buy it from them. See the movie instead, and make up your own mind.
The media so awfully and consistently distorts everything about our Catholic faith. This big-budget film presents a clear picture of the reality of a largely ignored war against Catholics that was waged in 20th century Mexico. Who would want to not see a film about this?
The typical Mainstream Content Kings Network(tm) film reviewers of course, uniformly employ the 'YouTube Heresy' that Fr. Barron identifies as ecclesial angelism - essentially the presumption that anyone claiming a connection of any sort with the Catholic Church -- who is not a holy angel of God, who happens to live on the earth with everyone else -- demonstrates by their mere fallen nature the utter depravity of everything Catholic.
Interesting here is how the reviewer APPLIES ecclesial angelism to find not only the Catholic Church, well, just generally wrong; but to find the filmmakers wrong; and especially the dolts who bought all the tickets wrong. I mean really, they are the cause of the whole problem, aren't they? What is wrong with you people? Don't you know going to a film that seriously examines a serious anti-Catholic crackdown by a modern mechanized army could just encourage other filmmakers to explore equally dramatic topics from Catholic history. There are some viewpoints that are not allowed in the Mainstream Content Kings Network(tm) rules and regs. Otherwise they might not all suddenly disappear with their uncomfortable ideas. And especially their unperfectness. Ooooh, don't you just hate the unperfectness? Doesn't being Catholic ipso facto mean that you claim to be a perfected being, free of all flaws, which is impossible, which inherently makes them all frauds.
Such is the calculus of moral relativism, applied to the problem of "how can I use a movie review to express my True Feelings about everything Catholic?"
What a bore, really.
They of course forget we are in fact a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. These reviewers tend to be a little weak on catechesis, and think we are supposed to assist them in their evangelical mission against Catholicism by mildly and reasonably retaining the towels stuffed into our mouths at all times, so as to retain "freedom of worship".
It comes from ALL SIDES, folks. It's like water flowing into a yard full of pebbles. Gets in everywhere it can.
If you've only read the secular media's reviews of this film, such as this screed, seeded en masse as a "rip'n'read" filler piece throughout the McClatchy newspaper chain in the US and around the world through these outlets and no doubt more:
Chicago Tribune, Courier Mail (Australia), Dallas Morning News, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Houston Chronicle, Journal News (Westchester, NY), Los Angeles Times, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, Ottawa Citizen, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Winston-Salem Journal
If you've read a review in any of these papers, or many others that they in turn feed, you've probably seen this hissy phrase from the review:
"...church backers can be expected to attempt a little cinematic pushback..."
There are over a hundred thousand Catholics in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. I'm sure many more than 300 of those use Facebook. The way more films like this will be made and seen is if people go to see it. Do you know people in Vancouver who would want to see this film? Then let them know we can. If we really want to.
Or we can keep letting people like this reviewer, unchallenged by our actions, print lovely blanket castigations like this, from the same review:
"But they need to make better, less laughably propagandistic movies about recent instances of Catholic martyrdom."
And there it is. What fun, huh?
Of course, this reviewer would probably consider me to be a heretic against the Secret Mainstream Content Kings Network(tm) club, for giving the public -- especially any Catholics in the public -- the grave scandal of suggesting anyone desire a screening of a film about a Catholic war that he didn't like.
I suppose the reviewer is saying we're so stupid we don't even know how to run our own private little churchy clubs, I guess, or something, maybe.
Feel familiar? Yeah, me too. That freedom of worship box is pretty small.
And to commercial mainstream film reviewers, who could be getting their marching orders about how to report on all things Catholic from their editorial boards, THAT would be the ultimate sin.