Anyone familiar with the Batman of the comics knows that one of the Caped Crusader’s most repeated monikers is that of “The World’s Greatest Detective.” How did the Dark Knight earn this lofty appellation? Well, just watch his magnificent mind go to work solving one of The Riddler’s stumpers in this clip…

A stunning bit of analytical aptitude. But riddle me this. Could even the mental might of the Masked Manhunter discover the alleged secret Catholic messages buried within the lyrics of The 12 Days of Christmas? What’s that, you say? You’ve never heard the rumors that all those lords a-leaping and pipers piping were in fact an encoded message to help persecuted papists catechize their children in 18th century England? Well, that’s the theory which was put forth in the late 1970s by Hugh D. McKellar, a Canadian English teacher and part-time hymnologist, and later built upon by Fr. Hal Stockert in the 80s. For those without an official papal decoder ring, the hidden message is as follows:

Partridge in a pear tree = Jesus Christ

Two turtle doves = the Old and New Testaments

Three French hens = faith, hope and love

Four calling birds = the four gospels

Five golden rings = the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament

Six geese a-laying = the six days of creation.

Seven swans a-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit

Eight maids a-milking = the eight beatitudes.…

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic, and all you other Christians at sea. It’s time again for another Newsreel, brought to you as usual by the fine folks at Acts of the Apostasy, home of the 3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday and bane of liturgical puppets everywhere. Now off to press.

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We give scientists (and occasionally Notre Dame) a lot of grief here at the Newsreel, so it’s nice to be able to report they’re both up to something reasonable for a change. To start off the new year properly, The University of Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values has announced its first ever list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology. Among the concerns the center sees on the horizon for scientists and laypeople alike include the possible hacking of medical devices (boobytrapped pacemakers), driverless zipcars (the Googlemobile), the potential abuse of 3-D printing (please wait, your bomb is being queued). And because the Catechism explains that “medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.,” the center is very concerned over the possibility of human-animal hybrids. Because, you know, that never goes very well, does it…

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Oh well, at least it will probably take a while for scientists to get around to creating manimals. They’ll probably start tampering with something small first, like say insects.…

“This strange children’s film was partially directed by exploitation filmmaker Barry Mahon (The Beast That Killed Women). Santa Claus sits in Florida, sweating and dejected until some kids bring animals to help him get his sleigh out of the sand. It doesn’t quite work, but Santa tells the teens a story anyway, which is actually Mahon’s 1970 film Thumbelina, featuring Shay Gardner, also one of the beach kids here. Eventually, a man in a bunny suit gets Santa’s mission operational again, bringing Mahon’s puzzling excursion into family entertainment to a close.” – rovi’s AllMovie Guide

December 16, 2012: Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)

A sad truth of life is that there are some things which once seen can never be unseen. I personally learned this the hard way back in the early days of the Internet when I naively clicked on a link which promised to provide a picture of the woman who inspired the James Bond film Octopussy. Oh, the price of Wisdom. Thankfully, most children’s movies are usually free of any sights which might seer the unsuspecting mind. But alas, such is not the case with Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny, a movie which cruelly offers us the vision of the titular man in red rising from his sleigh which has become unceremoniously stuck on a beach somewhere in Florida, only to reveal a grotesquely large sweat stain puddled in the crotch of his suit. And the loathsome sight is unavoidable because Santa’s posterior is (inexplicably) center frame and pointed directly at the camera.…

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In case you’ve somehow missed all the hype over the past few years, December 21, 2012 marks the last day of the 13th b’ak’tun according to the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. And since the Mayans believed the previous world ended after 13 b’ak’tuns, that naturally means our current world is supposed to expire in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the Mayans didn’t leave us any clues as to how this cataclysm is supposed to take place, so we’ll just have to use our imaginations. But however it happens, I sure hope it’s something strange and unusual rather than just the typical rogue asteroid or nuclear disaster we’ve seen ad nauseum in countless Hollywood productions. No, if the Earth is actually to be destroyed rather than being saved in the final reel, I think it should be in a way that’s really weird, perhaps something similar to the doomsdays portrayed in these movies…

ROBOT MONSTER (1953)

Robot Monster was only the third movie ever reviewed here at the B-Movie Catechism (hard to believe I’ve been allowed to get away with this for almost six years now), and even way back then I took note of the completely loopy finale in which the eeevil Ro-Man destroys all life on Earth with a machine that emits soap bubbles and sparklers.

THE QUIET EARTH (1985)

In this artsy undertaking, well meaning scientists attempt to create a world-wide energy grid, but like the dumb careless dolts movie scientists always are, they instead screw up the laws of physics and erase everyone off the planet.…

THE PLOT

“A group of intergalactic soldiers fight for their lives on an inhospitable desert planet after their spaceship crashes while transporting an extraterrestrial prisoner. When their captive stages a daring escape, the soldiers receive orders to bring it back alive at all costs. That proves to be a challenge when the creature begins hunting its captors, killing them off one by one as they strain to recapture it without using lethal force. Before long, only one soldier is left standing. He realizes that the longer he refrains from killing the alien the more likely it is he will become its next victim. Eventually, the soldier uncovers the truth about his mission, which prompts him to reassess his situation from an entirely new perspective.” – Rovi’s Allmovie Guide

THE POINT

So, just how small was the budget for Hunter Prey? Well, the fact that the advanced technological rifles carried by the soldiers are actually repainted Nerf guns should give you a pretty good idea. But you know what? They’re probably the best looking Nerf guns you’ll ever see because Hunter Prey is something of a master class in how to build a believable movie world on a budget one-third that of the typical thirty minute sitcom.…

While taking a little time off from blogging for the Thanksgiving holiday, it dawned on me that I still had a few “atheists questions of doom” to get around to addressing. So, what does a little seen low budget space opera have to do with incredulous atheists? Come back in a day or two to find out.

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Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic, and all you other Christians at sea. Welcome back to the Newsreel, brought to you once again by the fine folks at Acts of the Apostasy, home of the 3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday. This week we take yet another look into what scientists are spending all of our tax funded research dollars on. Money well spent? You be the judge. Now off to press.

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A new study published in the Journal of Sex Research entitled “Pornography Actresses: An Assessment of the Damaged Goods Hypothesis” reports some shocking conclusions. According to the researchers, “In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group,” all of this despite the fact that “women working in porn tried more drugs, had their first sexual experience at a younger age and had more sexual partners than those in the sample group.” Right. The flaw in the study, obviously, is that the positive results are based on the secular understanding of “self-esteem”, or as we like to refer to it around here, that relativistic self-centered state of mind that judges every situation on whether or not it hurts your feelings, and one which often leads to the development of narcissism and a sense of self-entitlement. And because secularized self-esteem is based on nothing but feelings, it is by nature transient and subject to change on a moment’s notice.…

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic, and all you other Christians at sea. Welcome back to the Newsreel, brought to you once again by the fine folks at Acts of the Apostasy, home of the 3 1/2 Time-Outs Tuesday. Scoentists have been keeping busy producing more studies, and we’ve been busy reading them. Now off to press.

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That unavoidable aroma of scented pinecones in the air can only mean that Thanksgiving and Christmas are rapidly approaching. And with them comes the inevitable worries of packing on a few extra pounds due to all those holiday meals. It’s not that being overweight is not considered a sin in and of itself, but some particular reasons for the condition, like say gluttony or laziness, can be, so this causes some Christians a bit of concern. Well, regular readers of this blog need not worry as researchers from the University of Westminster in the UK have determined that watching horror movies can help you lose weight. One specialist involved in the study explains that this is a result of the “release of fast acting adrenaline, produced during short bursts of intense stress (or in this case, brought on by fear), which is known to lower the appetite, increase the Basal Metabolic Rate and ultimately burn a higher level of calories.” So which films are your best bets for shedding a few inches? According to the study, the following flicks are are the top ten fat burners: 1.…