#theologian in chief

[anniflamma]

Since my last ask I managed to see your contribution to thunder bringer, and your version of Zeus surprised me since before you gave him white hair and a big beard.

But that version make a lot of sense actually, it really show how he's the youngest of the children of Kronos and Rhea, he's the king of the gods because of his power, not his age.

And the sadistic joy on his face as he was gone smite the crew and ship? Chief kiss that was beautiful! It make me look forward all the more to how thunder bringer in full would look like with your art style!

It's true, making Zeus look younger makes sense!

The whole thing about Zeus being the youngest and still being king is really interesting from a theological standpoint. Now I'm going to drown you with some random info XD

I have a fun idea why Zeus looks much older than his older siblings. The first reason is the most obvious one, that is the most iconic way to depict him. With floofy beard and all! But I also have another different reason too, and it's based on a historical theologian (I don't remember their name). It was an interpretation of why Zeus, the youngest one, could take the throne. We know from one of the myths that it’s because the three gods drew lots and Zeus won, which is a pretty fun reason, to be honest. But this theologian talked about the symbolism of Kronos vomiting out the older siblings. That act could represent the siblings being born again. The siblings order was something like Hades, Hestia, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and lastly Zeus. But when Kronos vomits them out, they come out in that order but backward, making Zeus the oldest and Hades the youngest.

I have some rough design drawings of Hades, and he looks much leaner and younger compared to Poseidon and Zeus. Yes, he is the oldest, but he is also the "little brother" at the same time. It’s a very weird take that has been stuck with me for a long time.

[tomorrowusa]

Jim Wallis is an anti-racist Protestant theologian. He thinks that Trump's Bible grift is just one of the Orange One's religious issues.

Donald Trump has gone from using the Bible as a prop to turning our Holy Scriptures into a commodity. Words no longer suffice for the things he says and does with the most common word for his personal, political, and presidential behavior being unprecedented. But I have some better words—religious words. I and many other faith leaders are willing to accuse Donald Trump of two more things. The first is idolatry—false worship. The White Christian Nationalism that Trump proclaims, directly names the problem. First, the most inclusive and welcoming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is made white by the marketer-in-chief of racial grievance. Second, the word Christian is distorted beyond recognition. Service, sacrifice, and love are replaced with control and domination with Trump’s religious disciples unapologetically aiming for control in their “Seven Mountain Strategy”—with right-wing Christians ruling government, business, media, education, family, arts/entertainment, and, of course, religion. And in direct contradiction to Jesus' instruction to his followers to make disciples in every nation, Trump’s faith will be nationalism, not just positively loving your own country, but asserting the power of one nation over others. [ ... ] The second word is heresy, which means drawing Christians and others away from Christ. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement deny the truest and deepest teaching of Jesus in places like his Sermon on the Mount. Trump’s worship of wealth and utter disregard for the poorest and most vulnerable brings the judgment of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel Chapter 25, “As you have done to the least of these you have done to me.” And the life of lies that Donald Trump has led and deliberately spread to the damage of our nation completely contradicts Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”

Here's the burn.

To invoke God, Mr. Trump, in the making and selling of your Bible is a very dangerous thing—not only for the soul of the nation but also for yours. You once said that you never have felt the need to ask God for forgiveness in your life. You might want to reconsider that now.

[awfullybigwardrobe44]

John Bunyan and religious OCD

Hi friends! For those of you who don’t know, the renowned Christian theologian and author John Bunyan is now understood to have had religious OCD/scrupulosity.

He got through OCD and found enormous healing through a form of ERP—it just wasn’t known by that name at the time. But the thought patterns and methods he used line up with modern-day ERP.

Here’s some articles that talk about his experiences and journey to healing.

Bunyan’s words:

“Twas my duty to stand to his Word, whether he would ever look upon me or no, or save me at the last: wherefore, thought I, the point being thus, I am for going on, and venturing my eternal state with Christ, whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven come hell; Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do, if not, I will venture all for thy name.” (4)

From Bunyan’s book “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.”

Gems from these articles:

It took a long time for Mr. Bunyan to call the experience an affliction. He’d struggled long and hard, supposing it to be a crisis of faith, a spiritual attack, or a sinful stronghold. But in doing so, he’d only dug himself deeper into the pit of a disorder which thrives on the attention given to the questions, doubts, and intrusive thoughts that it creates. He stayed stuck in the mire of OCD right up until he decided to stop treating the doubts and thoughts as worthy of his attention.  

Best of all when when the timing was right, God relieved Mr. Bunyan of his suffering and at the end of his life he was so comforted by the abiding presence of His Lord, that he became the comforter to all those who surrounded him on his death-bed.  He knew He was going home to be with his Lord.

These are just articles from the blog I learned about OCD from. The author, Mitzi VanCleve, has written a book on OCD that is fabulous. She has done tons of research and has found enormous healing, like Bunyan, using the same methods he himself used so many years ago. But needless to say, you can find other articles about Bunyan and OCD out there. I haven’t read “Grace Abounding” yet, but it’s on my list. What a blessing to know that even the Greats of the faith weren’t immune to this disorder.

[lboogie1906]

Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker (August 16, 1928 - January 23, 2018) civil rights leader, pastor, and theologian was born in Brockton, Massachusetts to John Wise and Maude Pinn Walker. He earned a BS in Chemistry and Physics from Virginia Union University. He married Theresa Ann Walker (1950). The couple had four children. He received his Master of Divinity from Virginia Union’s Graduate School of Religion.

He became the pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg. He served as president of the NAACP and as director of the state’s CORE. He founded the Petersburg Improvement Association. He became a member of SCLC. He rose in the organization, King appointed him the executive director of SCLC and King’s chief of staff.

His civil rights participation reached beyond his administrative duties. He was arrested in Birmingham for participating in a Freedom Ride. He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.

He relocated to New York City to become pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. The congregation grew from 800 to 3,000. He served as an Urban Affairs Specialist to New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. He earned a D.Min from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. He released his first of several books: Somebody’s Calling My Name: Black Sacred Music and Social Change.

He became a part of the anti-apartheid movement. He became a member of the American Committee on Africa, where he co-founded the Religious Action Network. He served as chair of the Central Harlem Local Development Corporation.

He received national recognition when Ebony magazine named him one of America’s “15 Greatest Black Preachers.” He retired as pastor of Canaan. He earned more acclaim in 2008 when he was inducted into the Civil Rights “Walk of Fame”. During the inauguration events for President Barack Obama, he received the “Keepers of the Flame” award at the African-American Church Inaugural Ball. He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and taught at the School of Theology at Virginia Union University. He was survived by his wife, Teresa; his daughter, and three sons. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[orthodoxadventure]

A new Orthodox church was formally opened in Jordan on Sunday, February 18, by His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem.

The Patriarch was joined by His Highness Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, Chief Advisor to His Majesty the King of Jordan for Religious and Cultural Affairs, for the opening of the Three Holy Hierarchs Orthodox Church, within the Orthodox Center project next to the Holy Theotokos, Life-Giving Spring Monastery in Dibeen, Jerash Governorate, reports the Jerusalem Patriarchate.

His Eminence Archbishop Christophoros of Kyriakopolis also attended the opening. He emphasized that “the church will meet the needs of young people, and will be a place for holding conferences, meeting intellectually and culturally, and serving the local community.”

He also thanked Mr. Issa Nassif Odeh, who made a generous donation to complete the construction of the church.

The new church is the first in Jordan to be named for the Three Holy Hierarchs—Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom.

The church combines traditional Jordanian geometric designs “with a Byzantine architectural spirit.”

The first Divine Liturgy will be celebrated on Friday, February 23.

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem site currently lists 40 other monasteries and churches in Jordan.

An historic Divine Liturgy was celebrated in a Byzantine-era church in Petra, Jordan, for the first time in 1,500 years last month.

[Source: OrthoChristian.com]

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Tuesday , January 23, 2024

january 9_january 23

ST. THEOPHAN THE RECLUSE, BISHOP OF TAMBOV (1894)

George Govorov, the future Saint Theophan, was born on January 10, 1815 in the village of Chernavsk in the Orlov province where his father was a priest.

At first, George attended a primary school at Liven, then a military school. From 1837-1841 he studied at the Kiev Theological Academy, and probably visited the Monastery of the Caves several times. In these surroundings, it was not surprising that he received the monastic tonsure while he was still a student. After graduation Hieromonk Theophan was appointed rector of Kiev’s church schools, and later became rector of the seminary in Novgorod. Before he retired from teaching, Father Theophan served as a professor and Assistant Inspector at the Petersburg Academy.

Saint Theophan was not completely happy with academic work, so he asked to be relieved of his duties. He was assigned to be a member of the Russian Mission in Jerusalem. After being raised to the rank of Archimandrite, he became Rector of Olnets Seminary. Soon he was assigned as the chief priest of the embassy church in Constantinople. Saint Theophan was eventually recalled to Russia to become rector of the Petersburg Academy, and supervisor of religious education in the capital’s secular schools.

On May 9, 1859 Saint Theophan was consecrated as Bishop of Tambov, where he established a diocesan school for girls. During his time in Tambov he came to love the secluded Vysha Monastery in his diocese. In 1863 he was transferred to Vladimir and remained there for three years. He also established a diocesan school for girls at Vladimir.

The holy bishop visited parishes throughout his diocese serving, preaching, restoring churches, and sharing the joys and sorrows of his flock. It was very difficult for Bishop Theophan to live in the world and become involved with vain worldly disputes. Many abused his trust, but he could not bring himself to chastise anyone. Instead, he left such unpleasant tasks to the Archpriest of his cathedral.

He was present at the uncovering of the relics of Saint Tikhon of in 1861, and this made a tremendous impression on him, for he had much in common with that saint. He had loved Saint Tikhon from early childhood, and always spoke about him with great enthusiasm. When Saint Tikhon was glorified as a saint on August 13, Bishop Theophan’s joy knew no bounds.

In 1866 his request to be relieved of his duties as Bishop of Vladimir was granted. He was appointed as Superior of the Vysha Monastery, but soon resigned from that position. He was permitted to live there and to celebrate services whenever he wished. He also received a pension of 1000 rubles.

As he prepared to leave his diocese, he wished to focus on his own salvation, and to concentrate on undisturbed communion with God. On July 24, 1866 he bade his diocese farewell, leaving the world for a life of reclusion, and to devote himself to writing spiritual books. Through these books, Saint Theophan has become the spiritual benefector of all Orthodox Christians. Although he sought the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Mt. 6:33), a reputation as a writer of great significance for the whole world was also added to him.

Bishop Theophan wrote many books, but received no profits from their sale. He tried to keep them as inexpensive as possible, and they quickly sold out. He wrote about topics which others before him had not fully treated, such as how to live a Christian life, how to overcome sinful habits, and how to avoid despair. He tried to explain the steps of spiritual perfection systematically, as one who had himself gone through these various steps. Some of his books include The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to It, The Path to Salvation, and Letters on the Spiritual Life. He also translated the Philokalia in five volumes, and The Sermons of Saint Simeon the New Theologian.

For the first six years in the monastery, Bishop Theophan attended all the services, including the early Liturgy. He stood still in church with his eyes closed so that he would not be distracted. He often celebrated Liturgy on Sundays and Feast Days.

Beginning in 1872, he cut off all relationships with people (except for his confessor) and no longer left his cell to attend church. He built a small chapel in his quarters and dedicated it to the Lord’s Baptism. For ten years he served there on Sundays and Feast Days. For the last eleven years of his life he served every day by himself. Sometimes he would sing, and sometimes he kept completely silent.

Whenever anyone visited him on business, Bishop Theophan would reply with as few words as possible, then immerse himself in prayer. If anyone sent him money, he would distribute it to the poor, keeping only a small portion to purchase books.

Whenever he was not occupied with writing or praying, the reclusive bishop worked at carpentry or painting icons. He received from twenty to forty letters each day, and he answered all of them. He was able to discern each writer’s spiritual condition, then give detailed answers to the questions of those who were struggling for the salvation of their souls.

His eyesight deteriorated in his latter years, but he did not curtail his work because of it. In the evening, his cell attendant would prepare everything for the bishop to serve Liturgy the next morning. After finishing the Liturgy, Bishop Theophan would knock on the wall to signal the cell attendant to serve him tea. On days when there was no fasting, he would eat lunch at 1:00 P.M. This consisted of one egg and a glass of milk. At four o’clock he would have some tea, and then no more food that day.

Bishop Theophan began to get weaker at the beginning of 1894. He was still writing on the afternoon of January 6, but when the cell attendant came to check on him at 4:30 he found that the bishop had departed to the Lord.

Saint Theophan’s body lay in the small church in his cell for three days, then three more days in the cathedral. There was no trace of corruption, however. He was laid to rest in the Kazan church of the Vysha Monastery.

Several of Saint Theophan’s books have been translated into English, and are reliable spiritual guides for Orthodox Christians of today. Saint Theophan’s gift was the ability to present the wisdom of the Fathers in terms which modern people can understand. Since he lived close to our own time, many readers find his books “more approachable” than the earlier patristic literature. He treats the life of the soul and the life of the body as a unified whole, not as two separate elements, and reveals to people the path of salvation.

SAINT THEOSEBIA, THE DEACONESS SISTER OF ST BASIL AND GREGORY OF NYSSA (385)

Saint Theosebia the Deaconess was the sister of Saints Basil the Great, Gregory, afterward Bishop of Nyssa, and Peter, Bishop of Sebaste. She was a virgin and served the Holy Church as a deaconess, caring for the sick, distributing food to vagrants, raising orphans and preparing women for holy Baptism.

When her brother, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, was in exile for three years, Saint Theosebia was with him and she shared in all the tribulations of a life of wandering. Saint Theosebia died in 385, and Saint Gregory the Theologian praised her in a eulogy.

HEBREWS 9:8-10, 15-23

8 the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. 9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience- 10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. 15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. 17 For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. 19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you." 21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. 22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. 23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

JOHN 10:9-16

9I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

[weclassybouquetfun]

Next month is the annual exhibitor showcase Cinemacon where movie studios tout their wares for the very anxious theater owners.

It has already been announced that Sony is sitting this year out, so no info on VENOM 3: THE LAST DANCE, to be released October 25, 2024.

While I assume there will be some changes to the lineup, so far it is shaping up to be:

OPENING DAY: International Day features a screening of Universal 80s series remake THE FALL GUY starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who has said in a recent interview that it is a small role) ; directed by David Leitch (BULLET TRAIN, DEADPOOL 2)

DAY ONE: WB pulls up with their presentation "The Big Picture". It will be the first Cinemacon for James Gunn in his position as Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DC Studios.

I expect a song and dance from Gunn about how awesome sauce the new DC film universe will be

I'll believe it when I see it.

Sure to tease SUPERMAN LEGACY which stars David Corenswet as the title character, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX, BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUCE

MORE STUDIO OFFERINGS

Also, FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

, the supernatural horror film THE WATCHERS, directed and written by Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night

, M. Night Shymalan's TRAP starring Josh Hartnett, ALTO KNIGHTS with Robert DeNiro playing a dual role.

Certainly don't expect anything to hear about THE BATMAN sequel other than it won't shoot until 2025. There has been no reason provided, but some say there isn't even a script, others say it was because there were no soundstages available in London to shoot this year.

DAY TWO: ANGEL STUDIOS - The outfit behind SOUND OF FREEDOM.

I suspect they will tease SIGHT starring Greg Kinnear and BONHOEFFER (aka GOD'S SPY) about German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, starring August Diehl, Flula Borg and Clarke Peters.

LIONSGATE: I suspect they will tease Guy Ritchie's THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE starring a pick-a-mix of men for all tastes - Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Henry Golding and Hero Fiennes Tiffins

; the action-thriller BOY KILLS WORLD fronted by Bill Skarsgård and costarring Sharlto Copley, Andrew Koji (who is working like mad), Famke Janssen and Isaiah Mustafa.

Surely, another Bill Skarsgård film THE CROW with fka Twigs

; THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1, which is the third film in the franchise - doing a bit of FAST AND THE FURIOUS mathing. It stars Madelaine Petsch, Froy Guittierez and Gabriel Basso

At long last the BALLERINA has pliete into the spotlight. This JOHN WICK spinoff stars Ana De Armas, with Anjelica Huston reprising her role from JOHN WICK 2. It's direct by Len Wiseman who directed the UNDERWORLD films starring his ex-wife Kate Beckinsale.

BORDERLANDS, an action-comedy based on the game, brought to the screen by Eli Roth. Starring Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Haley Bennett and Édgar Ramírez, amongst others.

and WHITE BIRD, which is in the same universe as the excellent children geared film WONDER. It was due to come out in 2023 but was pushed back due to the actors strike.

UNIVERSAL / FOCUS FEATURES: I suspect teases for Dev Patel's directorial debut MONKEY MAN. The film was originally slated to go to Netflix but Jordan Peele, under his Monkey Paw shingle, bought it and took it to Universal so it could have a theatrical release. *Granted, Netflix does a theatrical release for most of their films in certain markets, but I get Peele's rationale.

Their Monsters Universe theatrical idea didn't work, but Universal has realized there is more than one way to skin a cat. They are creating a Universal Monsters themed area at their parks and their monster/horror film ABIGAIL is a re-imaging of DRACULA'S DAUGHTER. It stars Alisha Weir, Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens and features Angus Cloud in one of his last roles.

THE FALL GUY most definitely will have a place. Same with THE BIKERIDERS (with Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Jodie Comer, Norman Reedus, Mike Faist, etc.), which was a 20th Century (Disney owned) Film, and even though it was the first major film out the gate ahead of Oscars/Golden Globes' FYC season with a screening and Q&A held in L.A., the studio purposely stalled the engine and towed it off their schedule. It will now be distributed by Focus Features in the U.S., and Universal, internationally.

Other possible teases? DESPICABLE ME 4, TWISTERS, the standalone sequel to the 90s film TWISTERS

, horror film SPEAK NO EVIL starring James McAvoy and Mackenzie Davis

, WICKED: PART ONE and Sir Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR 2 with Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal.

There will also be a surprise screening; studio unknown.

DAY THREE: PARAMOUNT: Expected: the mixed live-action and animated comedy IF starring Ryan Reynolds, written/directed and produced by John Krasinski.

A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, GLADIATOR 2 (though this is a co-production with Universal, so maybe Uni will tout it), SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3, the unending production that is MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 8,

WALT DISNEY: Possible: THE FIRST OMEN, KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

, MOANA 2, INSIDE OUT 2, DEADPOOL 3, ALIEN: ROMULUS, CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD and SNOW WHITE.

CinemaCon always closes out with their awards (which always ties into an upcoming release. Funny how that works.

So far the honourees are:

Star of the Year - Lupita Nyong'o (A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE)

Breakthrough Performer of the Year - Joseph Quinn (A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE)

CinemaCon Vanguard Award - Amy Poehler (INSIDE OUT 2)

Director of the Year - Shawn Levy (DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (August 8)

On August 8, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of St. Dominic Guzman, who helped the cause of orthodoxy in the medieval Church by founding the Order of Preachers, also known as Dominicans.

“This great saint reminds us that in the heart of the Church, a missionary fire must always burn,” Pope Benedict XVI said in a February 2010 General Audience talk on the life of St. Dominic.

In his life, the Pope said, “the search for God's glory and the salvation of souls went hand in hand.”

Born on 8 August 1170 in Caleruega, Spain, Dominic was the son of Felix Guzman and Joanna of Aza, members of the nobility.

His mother would eventually be beatified by the Church, as would his brother Manes who became a Dominican.

The family's oldest son Antonio also became a priest.

Dominic received his early education from his uncle, who was a priest, before entering the University of Palencia where he studied for ten years.

In one notable incident from this period, he sold his entire collection of rare books to provide for the relief of the poor in the city.

After his ordination to the priesthood, Dominic was asked by Bishop Diego of Osma to participate in local church reforms.

He spent nine years in Osma, pursuing a life of intense prayer, before being called to accompany the bishop on a piece of business for King Alfonso IX of Castile in 1203.

While traveling in France with the bishop, Dominic observed the bad effects of the Albigensian heresy, which had taken hold in southern France during the preceding century.

The sect revived an earlier heresy, Manicheanism, which condemned the material world as an evil realm not created by God.

Dreading the spread of heresy, Dominic began to think about founding a religious order to promote the truth.

In 1204, he and Bishop Diego were sent by Pope Innocent III to assist in the effort against the Albigensians, which eventually involved both military force and theological persuasion.

In France, Dominic engaged in doctrinal debates and set up a convent whose rule would eventually become a template for the life of female Dominicans.

He continued his preaching mission from 1208 to 1215, during the intensification of the military effort against the Albigensians.

In 1214, Dominic's extreme physical asceticism caused him to fall into a coma, during which the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to him and instructed him to promote the prayer of the Rosary.

Its focus on the incarnation and life of Christ directly countered the Albigensian attitude towards matter as evil.

During that same year, Dominic returned to Tolouse and obtained the bishop's approval of his plan for an order dedicated to preaching.

He and a group of followers gained local recognition as a religious congregation, and Dominic accompanied Tolouse's bishop to Rome for an ecumenical council in 1215.

The council stressed the Church's need for better preaching but also set up a barrier to the institution of new religious orders.

Dominic, however, obtained papal approval for his plan in 1216 and was named as the Pope's chief theologian.

The Order of Preachers expanded in Europe with papal help in 1218.

The founder spent the last several years of his life building up the order and continuing his preaching missions, during which he is said to have converted some 100,000 people.

After several weeks of illness, Dominic died in Italy on 6 August 1221.

He was canonized by Pope Gregory IX on 13 July 1234.

He is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientists.

He and his order are traditionally credited with spreading and popularizing the rosary.

The country Dominican Republic and its capital Santo Domingo are named after Saint Dominic.

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Richard van Bleeck - Portrait of Sir John Holt - ca. 1700

oil on canvas, height: 124.5 cm (49 in) Edit this at Wikidata; width: 99.7 cm (39.2 in)

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

Sir John Holt (23 December 1642 – 5 March 1710) was an English lawyer who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 17 April 1689 to his death. He is frequently credited with playing a major role in ending the prosecution of witches in English law.

Historian John Callow argues in his 2022 book, The Last Witches of England, that sceptical jurists, especially Holt, had already largely stopped convictions for witchcraft under English law even before the Witchcraft Act 1735 finally concluded such prosecutions. Callow particularly credits Holt with great courage in doing so in the face of religious pressure, mob violence, and popular superstitious belief in witchcraft.

The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2. c. 5) was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment.

It thus marks the end point of the witch trials in the Early Modern period for Great Britain and the beginning of the "modern legal history of witchcraft", repealing the earlier Witchcraft Acts which were originally based in an intolerance toward practitioners of magic but became mired in contested Christian doctrine and superstitious witch-phobia. Instead of assuming as the earlier laws did that witches were real and had real magical power derived from pacts with Satan, the new law assumed that there were no real witches, no one had real magic power and those claiming such powers were cheaters extorting money from gullible people.

The law was reverting to the view of the primitive and the medieval Church, expressed from at least the 8th century, at the Council of Paderborn, but contested by witch-phobic Dominican Inquisitors beginning in the mid 15th century, with some success in forwarding a new doctrine among the popes, as seen in the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484), but with far less success among the bishops. Thus the Act of 1735 reflected the general trend in Europe, where after a peak around 1600, and a series of outbursts in the late 17th century, witch-trials quickly subsided after 1700. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne in 1727.

In the early modern period, witch trials were seen between 1400 and 1782, where around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. These trials occurred primarily in Europe, and were particularly severe in some parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Some witch-hunts would last for years, and some sources estimate 100,000 trials occurred. Groundwork on the concept of witchcraft (a person's collaboration with the devil through the use of magic) was developed by Christian theologians as early as the 13th century. However, prosecutions for the practice of witchcraft reached a high point only from 1560 to 1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, with some regions burning at the stake those who were convicted, of whom roughly 80% were women, mostly over the age of 40.

Richard van Bleeck (1670–1733) was a Dutch Golden Age painter.

[a-queer-seminarian]

Violence is not Black people's primary response to white supremacy, but self-defense is important for Black dignity. The ever-present violence of white supremacy — psychic, physical, and spiritual — in the Black community should be the chief concern of white Americans. Reconciliation is a white responsibility. Whites don't like the words Black Power and Black Theology. I couldn't care less about what they liked or didn't. As Carmichael said, "For once Black people are going to use the words they want to use, not just the words whites want to hear." I wasn't writing to please whites. I was writing to empower the wounded spirits of Blacks who were trying to stay in the church and also struggle for justice as they embraced their blackness in America.

- James Cone in his final book, Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of a Black Theologian (2018)

[lenbryant]

O Alabama!

(LATimes) Column: Alabama’s highest court declared frozen embryos people. The U.S. Supreme Court is to blame

Tom Parker, now Alabama’s chief justice, announcing his campaign for the position.

(Jamie Martin / Associated Press)

The Alabama Supreme Court’s breathtakingly arrogant, slapdash and pernicious opinion conferring personhood on newly formed embryos vividly illustrates the consequences of another reckless decision: the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe vs. Wade.

The Alabama court held last week that fertilized ova cryogenically preserved for couples having difficulty conceiving are legally and morally equivalent to newborn babies and, for that matter, 20-year-old adults. According to the court, all are human beings protected under Alabama law to precisely the same extent.

The decision clears the way for wrongful death lawsuits brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed by a patient who wandered into an in vitro fertilization clinic through an unsecured entrance, picked up several frozen fertilized eggs and, shocked by their cryogenic temperature, immediately dropped them on the floor. Reversing the trial court, the Alabama Supreme Court held that this conduct could be subject to a wrongful death claim, rendering it indistinguishable from, say, the death of a 2-year-old negligently left in a sweltering car.

Astonishingly, the sole focus of the court’s analysis was whether Alabama’s wrongful death law encompasses “extrauterine children — that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.” The court did not even attempt to wrestle with the distinction between a just-fertilized egg — what biologists call a blastocyst, a ball of up to a few hundred cells measuring a fraction of a millimeter in diameter — and a fully formed child born at term.

It’s customary to note the parade of horribles that could be occasioned by such an extreme decision. But here the parade has already begun.

Alabama’s largest hospital announced Wednesday that it would no longer offer would-be parents in vitro fertilization procedures due to the substantial threat of criminal liability for mishandling fertilized eggs. Other providers followed suitThursday. Medical personnel who try to help couples conceive have been suddenly recast by the courts as potential murderers.

The immediate consequences don’t end there. Women who use intrauterine devices or morning-after pills, which can affect fertilized eggs, are in the eyes of Alabama law rank baby killers.

The court’s supposed legal opinion in fact rests on the tenet that life begins at conception, a matter of religious faith to which only a small minority of the country subscribes.

Chief Justice Tom Parker’s concurring opinion employs quotations and teachings from Scripture as if they had the legal force of the Bill of Rights. Passages from Genesis and Exodus, various theological tracts, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards take their place alongside the writings of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Neil M. Gorsuch. All are marshaled in support of the view that “God made every person in his image… and human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

But apart from the wrath of God, there is no attempt to rationalize the legal equation of a frozen, formless collection of cells with a living person. The court simply assumes it away with the syllogistic reasoning that Alabama’s statutory law specifies that human life includes “unborn” life.

Such ham-handedness undermines the entire opinion. The critical question for the state is not whether an embryo of any particular age can be said to be, in some sense, alive; it’s whether it is a human being deserving of the rights and protections accorded to all of us, which is a far broader and more complicated designation.

A stadium full of theologians, philosophers, ethicists and politicians couldn’t come up with an authoritative answer to that question. And in the absence of such an answer, how can the state impinge so deeply on the liberty of women and aspiring parents?

It’s in that sense that the Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion can be traced directly to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The idea of shoving this tendentious religious tract down Americans’ throats would have been a nonstarter under Roe vs. Wade, which asserted the constitutional liberty interests of women against an overreaching, moralistic state.

Post-Dobbs, those rights are featherweight. The outrage belongs with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ill reasoning and grotesque overreach.

Nor is Alabama the only state purporting to enshrine the fundamentally religious position that human life begins at conception in law. Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma issued similar proclamations in the wake of Dobbs.

The Alabama Supreme Court takes this malign presumption to its logical end, stripping every American in its jurisdiction of the right to make their own decisions on a matter of the highest moral and practical import. That’s the antithesis of liberty.

Harry Litman is the host of the “Talking Feds” podcast. @harrylitman

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

William Beveridge, a theologian from the 19th century, said these words near the end of his life: “The older I grow – and I now stand upon the brink of eternity – the more comes back to me the first sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, and to enjoy him…

[husheduphistory]

Lena Clarke: The Mail, Murder, and Madness of West Palm Beach

It was a Monday evening, August 1st 1921, and Orlando Police Chief E.S. Vestal had an interesting story presented to him. The woman seated in front of his desk was Lena Clarke and she was insisting someone needed to go to a hotel downtown, specifically to room number eighty-seven, and arrest the thief inside. She identified the criminal as Fred Miltimore, and she promised if they went they would find him there. After making a phone call and verifying who she was, there was no reason for Chief Vestal to not believe her. When he sent the officers out he had no way of knowing what was about to unravel.

By all accounts Lena Marietta Thankful Clarke was a completely normal and highly intelligent child. Born in Vermont in 1886 to a well-known theologian, she, her two sisters, and brother moved around frequently until settling in West Palm Beach, Florida. The family was very successful and Lena, who began reading books on philosophy at the age of six, went on to volunteer her time working with the Red Cross, helping at her local church, and selling war bonds. As they grew older one sister became the West Palm Beach City Librarian, the other opened the first flower shop in Orlando, and her brother had a successful career working for the West Palm Beach post office for eight years until leaving in 1918. 1920 should have been a happy time for the family, but the end of the year marked the turning point in the life of Lena Clarke when her brother unexpectedly died.

After leaving the post office in 1918 due to severe hearing loss, her brother took to becoming an amateur taxidermist and a snake collector, losing his life two years into this new pursuit after being bitten by a coral snake on Christmas morning 1920. The loss would have been shocking to everyone, including his former coworkers at the post office. From 1911 to 1913 Clarke’s brother not only worked there, he was also the postmaster and when his predecessor left the job in 1920 the local businesses began to look to the familiar name of Clarke to fill the roll. Lena had already been working at the post office as an assistant, but a petition was written up for her to be appointed the new postmaster for West Palm Beach and soon thereafter thirty-five-year-old Lena Clarke had the job.

Lena Marietta Thankful Clarke. Image via findagrave.com.

Managing the workings of the post office presented many different tasks and  challenges including handling all the mail and postage, war bonds, and money orders, all of which meant there was always a large amount of cash circulating in and out of the building. On July 26th 1921 it seemed it was business as usual when Clarke had two registered mail sacks full of cash sent off to the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, but when the sacks arrived in Atlanta and were opened, there was no cash to be found. Instead of the money, between $31,000 and $42,000 depending on varying accounts, the bank found mail order catalogs cut down to the size of dollar bills. Today’s equivalent of almost half a million dollars was missing.

Understandably, Clarke was one of the first people questioned about the disappearance of the money. After all, she was the postmaster of the West Palm Beach post office where the shipment originated from but she insisted she had no idea what had happened to the money. She went home that night and resumed her life until the following week when she hired a driver to take her to Orlando where she checked into room eighty-seven of the San Juan Hotel.  

What exactly transpired in the hotel is only known to Lena Clarke and Fred Miltimore, but the version of events that Police Chief Vestal was hearing was as strange as it was simple. Lena checked into the hotel under a fake name and met with Miltimore, a former coworker who once worked as a postal worker with Lena and was now the owner of a restaurant in Orlando. She claimed that she suspected her former coworker of the theft of the money that left her post office on the way to Atlanta the previous week and she confronted him about the crime. This was all interesting but Vestal had one very important question, if he sent officers there how did she know Miltimore would still be in the room and not on the run after their confrontation. Clarke told them she knew he would still be there, because she drugged him with morphine before coming to the police station. When officers arrived at room eighty-seven they did in fact find Miltimore, but he was dead with a bullet to the chest and a gun laying beside him.

When the officers returned to the station Clarke was still there and she was immediately questioned about the dead man in her hotel room. At first she denied that she shot him but she eventually admitted to the killing, claiming that it was Miltimore who stole the money from her post office and that he was going to frame her for the crime so she simply did what she had to do and shot him. Within days Clarke was in jail and charged with first degree murder.

Headline about the murder of Fred Miltimore frpm the Chicago Daily Tribune. Image via newspapers.com

Due to her job and family Lena Clarke was a well-known figure in West Palm Beach but when she was jailed for murder the only thing that soared higher than the shock was her popularity. Her jail cell became more of a sanctuary, and she decorated it herself with some of the many flowers, gifts, and mail she received while in prison. She was even permitted to paint her cell as she pleased and was given a small typewriter to pursue her writing ambitions, eventually taking up poetry and writing her autobiography that she sold through local newspapers for twenty-five cents each. But, for every person sending her flowers there was also a critic and newspapers took to printing cruel commentary on her appearance:

“Lena Mary Thankful Clarke, if you please, is a queer combination —a bundle of contradictions. In personal appearance and dress she is far from attractive. Her figure is heavy and uncorseted and her clothes smack of the backwoods.

Her shoes are generally without heels and her stockings of cotton. Her skin is very fine in texture but covered with large, disfiguring freckles. Miss Clarke’s only assets in appearance are her hair, which is decidedly Titian and naturally wavy, and her eyes, deep blue in color and absolutely straight and unwavering in their gaze.”

Headline about Lena Clarke writing poetry in prison from the New York Times. Image via palmbeachpast.org.

Despite the criticism she seemed to be rather calm and comfortable for an alleged cold-blooded murderer, but that part of her story changed. Lena recanted her confession, now claiming she never told the police that she was involved in the death of Fred Miltimore and that in reality she was so worried about the missing money that she at one point considered taking her own life. The stress of the situation was so bad that she said she could not remember exactly what transpired between the two the night of the murder. And what of that missing money? That story also changed multiple times. After her initial confession Lena later told Chief Vestal that in 1918 while she was working as an assistant to the postmaster there was a shortage of $38,000. She claimed she had always suspected Miltimore and feared he would somehow blame her for the theft in order to ruin her chance at one day becoming the new postmaster. She then told Chief Vestal that this recent theft of money was her fault, that it was done to cover the lingering debt from the 1918 money that she suspected Miltimore of taking. Somehow, this very convoluted story led up to her being in a hotel room with Miltimore, confronting him about the initial crime and begging him to sign a statement that he was in fact responsible for the 1918 theft which he refused to do before ending up dead. In another version of events given later while she was behind bars, Lena reportedly stated that this recent theft was a standalone crime and that yes money was stolen in 1918 but a man named Joseph Elwell loaned her enough money to cover up the loss. There were some major problems with this story, one being that Elwell could not be questioned because he had been shot and killed in New York City in 1920. Another issue is that the missing money that was replaced in the mail sacks with cut up catalogs a week before the Miltimore murder was traced directly back to Lena and her bank accounts.

The story of a man named Joseph Elwell helping Lena at some point was interesting to the police, not because of Elwell personally, but because it supported a theory of theirs. During the investigation multiple people tried desperately to find “who else” was involved in the crime for a simple reason, they could not believe that Lena had forged this plan and committed murder on her own because they felt very strongly that this could not have been carried out by a woman. Multiple leads were followed trying to rope a male accomplice into Miltimore’s murder but eventually they had to admit there was no evidence. Whatever transpired in room eighty-seven of the San Juan Hotel was committed by Lena and Lena alone.   

Newspaper article showing Lena Clarke and Fred Miltimore. Image via newspapers.com.

The trial of Lena Clarke was bound to be unusual, but what unfolded in the courtroom was outright baffling. Lena’s family came together and hired multiple law firms for their daughter and their defense of insanity was hard to argue with once Lena herself spoke. As she took the stand she placed an item down in front of her, a crystal ball, and she began to tell her bizarre story. In this lifetime, yes, she was Lena Clarke but this was not her first time here, according to her this was her thirteenth life here on Earth.

Those seated in the courtroom listened as Lena gazed into her crystal ball and described in detail her twelve previous lives including when she was the goddess Isis in ancient Egypt, the lifetime that ended when she was eaten by lions, the time where she was friends with Shakespeare and inspired the character of Ophelia, and of course her first life where she was present in the Garden of Eden alongside Adam and Eve when the universe was created. This may have been her thirteenth life, but she also knew it was going to be an eventful one. She already knew she was going to be found not guilty because next for her was serving as the Vice President of the United States before becoming President after the death of the head of the Socialist party President Eugene V. Debs. The subject of Lena’s sanity was part of many conversations about the crime and many, including Miltimore’s daughter, expressed the belief that Lena was “subject to hereditary insanity.”

In order to clear out the thick speculation, three psychiatrists were brought into the case to professionally evaluate Lena’s sanity. They were split on their decisions. Two believed she truly was insane, the third believed that she did know right from wrong when she chose to end Miltimore’s life. It only took the jury three hours to decide. On December 3rd 1921 Lena Clarke was found not guilty of first degree murder by reason of insanity and was to be committed to the Florida State Mental Hospital at Chattahoochee. Upon hearing her fate Lena was distraught, stating “I would rather be hung and buried here than go to Chattahoochee.”

Lena entered the Florida State Mental Hospital, but she did not have to mourn her fate for long, in less than two years she was released and she moved back home to West Palm Beach with her sister Maude and their mother. The remainder of Lena’s life passed by quietly. She did work for her church and the Red Cross with her name appearing in various newspaper articles about relief efforts in the 1940s and 1950s and she continued writing poetry and various works on church history. Her name, once emblazoned on newsprint next to words like “murder” and “insanity” remained largely out of the spotlight. She kept to herself, taught Sunday School, and continued to live with family members before passing away in 1967 at the age of eighty-one years old.

Today Lena Clarke lays at rest next to her sister in the Woodlawn Cemetery of West Palm Beach, Florida.

*****************************************************

Sources:

Bisbee daily review. [volume] (Bisbee, Ariz.), 14 Aug. 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024827/1921-08-14/ed-1/seq-7/>

Kleinberg, Eliot. “Florida History: The Story of West Palm Beach’s Murderous Postmistress.” The Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Post, 9 Jan. 2022, www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2022/01/09/lena-clarke-mysterious-murderous-postmistress-west-palm-beach/9084494002/.

Morrow, Jason Lucky. The Murdering Postal Woman, Lena Clarke, 1921, Historical Crime Detective, www.historicalcrimedetective.com/the-murdering-postal-woman-lena-clarke-1921/.

Pedersen, Ginger. “Going Postal, 1920s Style - The Strnage Case of Lena Clarke.” Going Postal, 1920s Style – The Strange Case of Lena Clarke, Palm Beach Past, 30 July 2021, palmbeachpast.org/2021/07/going-postal-1920s-style-the-strange-case-of-lena-clarke/.

Schiefer, Christine, and Em Schulz. A Haunted Road Atlas: Sinister Stops, Dangerous Destinations, and True Crime Tales. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2023.

The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]), 08 Aug. 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1921-08-08/ed-1/seq-3/>

[anastpaul]

Saint of the Day – 11 March – Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem (c550-c638) Bishop, Father of the Church

Saint of the Day – 11 March – Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem (c550-c638) Bishop of Jerusalem from 634 until his death, Father of the Church. Before rising to the primacy of the See of Jerusalem, he was a Monk, Theologian and Philosopher, who was the chief protagonist for orthodox teaching in the doctrinal controversy on the essential nature of Jesus. He was a well-travelled and honoured Teacher of…

[nedraggett]

My impossible mission!

Greetings, hello. So, today I reveal a truth: it has been almost thirty years since the first one and yet all this time I have not seen any one of the Mission: Impossible movies. Not a one. Honestly I think this is neither here nor there since everybody has any number of things you’re ‘supposed’ to be paying attention to in art/life/culture but that’s the point, everyone of us comes at that question differently. In my case, it’s a combination of my never really following actors across careers – a film interests me for other reasons and the last time I saw Cruise in a first-run anything was, I’m pretty sure, Interview With The Vampire back in 1994 – and the fact that I was generally “Hm so it’s a bunch of spy movies but he does his own stunts I hear?” which still wasn’t enough.

But time went on and I kept hearing more and more people go “No wait these are actually really good, even if he is insane.” (Insert reasons why insane here, I’m sure we all know them.) So with this new one about out and noticing they were all on Paramount+ anyway (of course I subscribe, Star Trek and Drag Race, c’mon), I figured “Well let me buy a cheap ticket to see this new one on Wednesday and meantime let me actually watch all these older ones.” Which I have done very quickly over the past week and now I share honest-to-god fresh thoughts about the first six for you here [EDIT: plus the new one -- obviously, spoilers will abound]. My summaries follow, and they’re absolutely and totally accurate. Totally.

Mission: Impossible – But Not As We Know It: It’s 1996 and gosh darn it people sure are excited about email and early Zip drives! More on that in a bit. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt playing a smugfuck, but when Jon Voight is your boss sometimes things rub off. They all go to Prague to live the life of post Cold War slackers and get free food at embassy parties, but after various objections most of them are killed while trying to be leet haxorz and the like, so Ethan grabs some sushi to go before another bunch of slackers can hunt him down for his haircut, but not before telling him that they’re sure he is a bad guy who sold out and sold them out. Sure hope this issue doesn’t end up being a constant in Ethan’s career, that would be very frustrating! Ethan remembers something about god and how Emmanuelle Beart is hot (understandable, really) so that leads him to first use a janky Usenet client, then an impossibly showy and memory-eating email program, and then to tell everything to Vanessa Redgrave because why wouldn’t you tell everything to Vanessa Redgrave. After asking Ving Rhames to be an imposing funny guy and Jean Reno to be stubbly, they realize they desperately need the copy of Minesweeper stored at Langley but kept in a way that mostly results in death, which they avoid aside from a rat. But best to keep your knives strapped more closely to yourselves next time, that can cause problems! Jon Voight turns out to be Not Dead but basically argues to Ethan that French people are evil and corrupt which is why they all work for him because he too is evil and corrupt, as one becomes in his stage of his career working 30 years for the state. (Wait, I’ve worked almost thirty years for A state, hold on here.) Anyway, this is a geopolitical argument Ethan objects to, for he has a good heart, and also knows something about bibles placed by the Gideons, so it’s wise to be a theologian. So now it’s time to get on the Chunnel train, get a wind machine to the face, and then after the bad people all die, arrest Vanessa Redgrave. Rude! Time to settle into a nice long nap on a plane, except Ethan remembers too late that maybe the free flight he got on IMF Airlines had some strings attached. Back to the grind! (Real talk: obviously what at the time was controversial as such – ditching all the old characters except a recast Phelps and then reveals him to be the chief asshole this time – was secretly genius, enabling both film and eventual series to keep what was transferably iconic – disguises, handwavey tech, “Your mission should you choose” setups, general skullduggery, heists and breakin schemes, credit sequences showcasing moments from the plot itself and of course the two core Lalo Schifrin themes – and drop everything else. Honestly the quietest of all the films in ways and I will credit de Palma for that, because having everything fuck up at the start and then play the afterechoes out makes Hunt, who after all is being introduced as a character here, seem unsure at times as much as he ramps up plans; the whole London hideout sequence is a good example before we hit the train at the end. Best action sequence: even though it’s anything but fast motion, it’s pretty obviously the CIA breakin, barely any dialogue, tension ratchet to the max and the clearest callback to the original series’s inspiration, Topkapi. Uncredited role: Emilio Estevez, who gets some sharp metal to the face! Wait until President Bartlet hears about that! End theme: U2’s rhythm section when they all thought they were DJs, and they make the theme 4/4 instead of 5/4 so they should be the targets of Ethan’s next mission. Rating: 3.5 out of 5 water condensation drops.)

Mission: Impossible 2 – Slow-Motion Birds: Ethan Hunt decides crawling all over big rocks that will kill him with the help of gravity is a logically relaxing way to spend a day off, but before he can get to El Capitan and film a documentary his new sunglasses talk to him because he was supposedly in a plane that crashed earlier. But surprise! It’s Dougray Scott playing Mr. We’re Quite Alike Really You And I wanting to steal some dread disease to sell to the highest bidder so everyone can probably die including himself if he’s not careful, showing that once again maybe the IMF’s real problem is a bad hiring and HR process, something that will continue to crop up. So Ethan goes to Spain to atmospherically find a required recruit and it pretty quickly turns out that both Mr. We’re Quite Alike and Ethan have a thing for skilled and notorious thief Thandiwe Newton because come on, who across the gender and sexuality spectrum WOULDN’T have a thing for Thandiwe Newton. After that it is determined that Ethan’s hair, jacket and sunglasses means he’s required to go to where The Matrix was filmed and hit all the tourist spots, including horse races where it is vitally important to track down Brendan Gleeson and tell him that acting in In Bruges will be an excellent idea. Ving Rhames and another guy pause from telling sheep dip jokes in the Outback to conclude that escaping by kangaroo is just a myth and Mr. We’re Quite Alike must be confounded before he does bad stuff, and that this all involves breaking into a building and sneaking around while avoiding dying miserably, as opposed to just opening the front door and pretending they’re looking for the toilet. Can’t they be more practical? However, Mr. We’re Quite Alike has already inhabited Ethan’s mindset and face a few times and knows his every move, so Thandiwe decides she’s had enough of both bros and injects herself with something Ethan should have just gotten rid of more quickly but he was dicking around. Typical. Mr. We’re Quite Alike turns out to be a day trader and really wants some cash so he can invest in Beanie Babies, so Ethan and friends break into a special secret place and blow shit up and swap faces and run around, to Mr. We’re Quite Alike’s nettlement. Eventually a bunch of assholes die in cars, on bridges and riding motorcycles, sometimes all at once, leaving Ethan and Mr. We’re Quite Alike to almost but not exactly kill each other until one of them finally does, Thandiwe is convinced that cliff-diving is best done in Acapulco, and eventually Ethan and Thandiwe go hang out so they can look at the Opera House and why the fuck did the universe keep us from having them be the power couple for the rest of the films to follow, come on now. (Real talk: the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom of the series, I guess? Pretty obviously John Woo making a John Woo film and that’s why the birds, the fights, two evenly matched types in the end and so forth. But really, isn’t it kinda obvious – especially given the disguise/swapped personality motifs – that Dougray Scott should have been replaced with Woo veteran Nic Cage? The final showdown alone would probably still be talked about if it was Cage in maniac mode, he probably would have wanted to actually ride some of the bullets he shot and they would have made it work, I just know it. And, let’s face it, Cruise and Newton have a screen chemistry that WORKS. Best action sequence: the end insanity is admittedly great but I do especially like the building breakin and then subsequent fuckup, it’s simultaneously almost what you expect and ‘are you kidding me right now,’ which is key, really. Uncredited role: Anthony Hopkins as a black turtleneck sex cult guru pretending to be an IMF leader, because why wouldn’t he be. End theme: I had seriously almost forgotten that probably one of the most important things in the history of recorded music – Metallica’s freakout about Napster that brought the concept of file-sharing to the mainstream and essentially fully transmogrified the business for the literal next century – was due to their ‘are we nu-metal now?’ contribution to the end, talk about an aural beauty mark. Rating: 2.5 out of 5 physics-defying kicks because while it’s still great and all, in fucking up things with Thandiwe Newton’s experience of filming, the M:I machine lost the perfect foil and the chance to fully go into a Hollywood action equivalent to Lupin III with her as a Fujiko Mine for the rest of the series, nothing against Rebecca Ferguson you understand. Or I guess Michelle Monaghan but SPEAKING OF WHICH…)

Mission: Impossible 3 – Conventional Heterosexual Matrimony: *pulls Rainer Wolfcastle pose and shouts to the sky* “ABRAAAAAAAAAAMS!” Jesus Christ. Okay no, it’s not a disaster really but good Christ almighty. Anyway, fine: flashforward aside where we all realize “Wait can’t we just watch Philip Seymour Hoffman kill people instead?”, Ethan Hunt realizes that settling down in a polite suburb with the world’s most polite and fake-laughy engagement party happening is a really dull way to spend any more time so he goes to the local drug store and asks Billy Crudup “PLEASE get me the fuck out of here, what was I thinking.” Billy Crudup obliges but needs to let him know that he will be dealing with puzzlebox bullshit at the end of it all but such is Ethan’s desperation that Crudup says “Fine, you and Ving go rescue Felicity with the help of Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers” and before Ethan can say “Isn’t that a little on the nose for the mid-2000s” it’s off to Berlin and Felicity’s head exploding a bit, ah well. Laurence Fishburne in his floating across franchises role as Mr. Authority gets mad but Billy Crudup says nice things so obviously Billy’s the real bad guy and what do you know, turns out later he is! Doesn’t Ethan get briefed on this stuff? Anyway, newcomer Simon Pegg, having noted that Ving’s got a pretty sweet deal going, decides to join the early retirement plan on offer, though he’s still working up the ranks by creating Myspace profiles. Ultimately Philip Seymour Hoffman is just too damn charismatic and good an actor so logically he must be captured. Ethan and Rhys-Meyers need to play stereotypical Italians in traffic, to the point where I was surprised their disguise was as DHL guys rather than singing pizza delivery dudes or something, and then they and Maggie and Ving avoid stealing all the Pope’s secrets and the lists of child abusers he’s protecting or whatever in favor of an instant makeover, because it’s all Spy Eye for the M:I around here. Sadly everyone finds out that Virginia is not for lovers, unless you love blowing up bridges, and Ethan gets suspected of being bad again. He definitely has a real problem with that issue, he should talk to somebody about it, like Billy Crudup, and then he runs away because he’s good at that for sure. Anyway Michelle Monaghan got kidnapped, shanghaied if you will, so Ethan laughs politely at Hoffman’s little joke and notes that diving off a tall Chinese building is really fun at night, especially with the help of an automatic pitching machine. Sadly he eventually gets himself kidnapped and outacted by Hoffman demonstrating that he demands better of his minions, leaving Eddie Marsan to go “Wait, am I in this movie?” and Crudup to try and explain that W’s foreign policy is Good, Actually, which Ethan is not pleased with. Pegg helps Ethan run around a lot, alas Hoffman discovers that the laws of physics means he is not in fact an immovable object, and Monaghan saves Ethan with the power of love, because it makes one man weep but another man sing. (Real talk: fucking Abrams, thank god he just retreated to producing and occasional “I have an idea” stuff for the series after this because otherwise the rest of this watch would be a slog. Yes, he can make a solid entertainment at times, he’s done it more than once, but more than anything else in this series this REALLY felt like an extended TV episode of something, not even just Alias. It didn’t help that Michael Giacchino’s music added a lot of sap in the solo-piano moments that are waaaaaaay of their time and place, and I’m mildly surprised a cover of “Hallelujah” didn’t happen at some point. Still the machine itself functioned and while it was still going to need some improvements, I guess it started to figure exactly what M:I as continuing star vehicle needed to be – it’s weird to realize that this IS indeed the only George W. era film of the bunch and it sure does feel like his second term on any number of levels. Also, thank god there were delays on production because Simon Pegg’s role was originally cast with Ricky Fucking Gervais, and I don’t care if Pegg’s not quite your thing because imagine if we had THAT gurning fucking mug to deal with in the rest of the series. Best action sequence: thankfully the whole deal in Rome is pretty engaging, and we get the delightful moment of Philip Seymour Hoffman literally having to act as Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and thus climbing around and doing shit, the film is honestly worth it for that, and RIP to him once more. But honorable mention to the counterintuitive move of not showing anything inside the Shanghai skyscraper once Ethan gets in. Uncredited role: nobody this time but yeah that WAS Aaron Paul wasn’t it. End theme: WOW speaking of mid-2000s, a Kanye track with Twista and Keyshia Cole? Perhaps they realized after this that just going with random cuts and otherwise sticking with the score in the actual end credits was the solution. Rating: 2 out of 5 confused Greg Grunbergs.)

Mission: Impossible 4 – I Climb Thing: Hmm, a movie set in Hungary, Russia, Dubai AND Mumbai? Why this won’t be a problematic watch in 2023! In a surely not symbolic move at all, Sawyer from Lost runs out of a building into the street and is immediately killed by Lea Seydoux. I like this movie already! Ethan Hunt meantime is prepping mentally for a nude fight scene with Viggo Mortensen at some point but is interrupted by Paula Patton and Simon Pegg going “WOULD YOU JUST” so he concludes Dean Martin is just the thing for a prison riot. (Seems like it.) Turns out Paula is sad about Sawyer, but before anyone can ask her to take a psych eval, they are asked to break into the Kremlin for thievery reasons, the concept of ‘too much too soon’ having escaped the IMF. Sadly our Big Bad just beat them to the punch and then proceeds to blow up a big chunk of the Kremlin, which rather irritates the Russian government, leading Ethan to excuse himself before facing a full medical exam without anesthetic and with certain instruments. An actual IMF Secretary explains some more things to Ethan but puts himself in the line of a bullet completely by accident, isn’t that the way! Jeremy Renner insists it wasn’t him because he would use a bow and arrow but Ethan isn’t amused and everyone meets up to go over the fact that they’re now disavowed and without resources except for a train car that would supply most modern governments and the ability to end up in Dubai just like that, very handy. There’s a big shady deal going down but it had nothing to do with the Qatar World Cup bid, whatever do you mean, they’re over there. Regardless, Ethan seeks to make sure Sepp Blatter doesn’t immediately get the launch codes to destroy the DOJ Anti-Corruption Unit, but not before he shows everyone how a real man washes hotel windows. Everyone then seeks to double cross everyone else, which only makes sense, though Lea sadly has irritated Paula some and thoughts are exchanged, except Jeremy goes “Ah fuck it” and uses a gun even though it’s very uncivilized. Ethan runs after a bad guy who is another bad guy, then they go talk to another bad guy who is a good guy who acts like a bad guy to deal with a good bad guy. Heads spinning, they fly to Mumbai and finally Ethan gets to be James Bond! Or at least wear a tux. Dudes get negged, other dudes die, cars drive, people run around, and the bad guy persuades a Russian sub to destroy San Francisco, which causes me consternation I admit. Happily Ethan really has honed his ‘I just need one second, really’ approach, so only the Transamerica building is nicked, but the missile lands right in the water where my sis and her whaleboat rowing crew often practice and that would have been tragic! Hey fuck you Ethan Hunt, do better next time! (Real talk: okay, whatever groundwork Abrams sorta laid down obviously gets perfected here, Brad Bird and team just make this thing sing, something indicated by returning to a version the opening credits style of the show and the first movie, and while the fine tuning of the ensemble wasn’t quite there yet it was much closer than it was, while the full sense of “Oh wait, Tom Cruise really MIGHT actually die” as a marketing hook was now absolutely in place. A quietly genius move NOT to have the chief villain be a big presence, instead someone always just about slipping from their grasp up until the end; meantime, having everything constantly trip them up – even after the Kremlin/Secretary thing, the mask machine breaks down, everyone arrives at the Burj too early, etc. etc. – allows for more thinking on the fly instead of just being a well-oiled machine. While there were plenty of typical comedy moments here and there in a formulaic ‘gotta break tension’ way in the first three films, I honestly believe it’s Cruise’s “No SHIT” moment in the Burj which points the way to the rest of the series knowing how to make comedy actually work from there on in. There’s just enough distance to maybe be able to place it as a mid-Obama era film now in retrospect but it still feels like we’re in the actual sense of these films knowing what they are at last based on where everything would go, as opposed to the formative years. In essence, this was the point in my watch where I went “Oh I get it now” in full, and the fact that the movies started rolling out more regularly, however driven by Cruise going “Wait I’m not getting any younger,” makes total sense. Best action sequence: Dubai obv., part climbing madness, part caper, part shootout and part “Can a man actually outrun a sandstorm?” Uncredited roles: Tom Hollander going “If Hopkins can do it so can I” and Ving Rhames and Michelle Monaghan going “Uh we’re still here, thanks.” Rating: 4.5 out of 5 insufficiently charged climbing gloves.)

Mission: Impossible 5 – Fasten Your Nonexistent Seatbelts: Ethan Hunt suddenly realizes he doesn’t need to check any luggage and happily just makes the last seat on a flight out, though sadly there’s no real time for any drinks service. Annoyed, he decides to leave with their cocktail mixes, for which he is thanked. Suitably relaxed, he goes to a London record store to pickup a Crosley turntable for his Record Store Day purchases, accidentally resulting in the backing up of a bunch of pressings for starving younger bands. As it happens, Ian Curtis is there already looking for a particular bootleg pressing of early demos by Warsaw, so when Ethan scratches the last remaining copy Ian makes his feelings known, adding “All you agents beware.” Lady Jessica almost gets a chance to use the gom jabbar on Ethan but various Sardaukar claim precedence, making Jessica realize that Ethan is perhaps actually the Kwisatz Haderach instead. In Washington, wouldn’t you know it, Ethan’s being accused of being a contrary asshole AGAIN, doesn’t his union step up for him? OG Jack Ryan says the IMF fucks around too much instead of doing proper agent stuff like getting on a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic while Jeremy Renner desperately hopes he won’t be asked about his side gig with the Bourne group. Simon Pegg has had enough of his regular performance reviews and agrees that he needs to relax but confuses a Vienetta with Vienna, but Ethan doesn’t mind and promises him some Phish Food later. Lady Jessica, having been told by the Bene Gesserit to stop fucking around with the Face Dancers and vice versa, complicates matters as do two random Teutons but the show must go on, except the explosive climax is unplanned. Ving Rhames and Renner are too old for this kind of shit but they’re off to Morocco where Ethan really really wants to finally ride a sandworm. Lady Jessica tells Ethan that fear may be the mind-killer but that Ian Curtis desperately wants the master tape for Unknown Pleasures kept in one of the secret Fremen water storage tanks. Everyone proceeds to betray and/or chase everyone else, a perfect excuse for eventually remaking Easy Rider at 200 mph. Thankfully Simon Pegg made a DAT copy but the master tape itself is erased, leading Ian Curtis to swear revenge on behalf of Martin Hannett, kidnapping Pegg and forcing him to listen to muddy Crawling Chaos bootlegs and thus requiring Ethan to deal with the UK Prime Minister as ultimate keeper of all Factory records, except the movie came out a couple of weeks after the Brexit vote so most would have just given up David Cameron to him anyway. Ethan taunts Ian Curtis by driving up the prices of OG vinyl pressings of “Transmission” on eBay as he and Lady Jessica force him to go to the center of the city where all roads meet, looking for them. In the end Ian Curtis is lured into a third stage Guild Navigator’s breathing chamber on Lady Jessica’s suggestion and is captured, as the confusion in his eyes says it all. (Real talk: the Christopher McQuarrie years begin and pretty much all the pieces are about in place now in terms of a core ensemble with moments of variety after; if Bird set the template and tempo for where it all should go then McQuarrie had a perfect handle on how to make all the implicit nonsense make perfect sense in the moment, all while once again finding new ways to kill Tom Cruise or nearly so. One of the best signs came early: the opening credit sequence is now truly a ‘greatest hits’ series of clips of what we’re about to see as per past show and first movie practice, quick, immediate, gives away nothing, sets expectations up. Rebecca Ferguson absolutely brought some necessary energy as well, she and Cruise clearly click in a ‘yeah our characters could fuck’ sense that Newton absolutely had with Cruise and Monaghan just doesn’t (even though it’s clearly shown in 3 that they’re the only characters that did, go figure!). Sean Harris as our chief baddie and implicit Blofeld to Hunt’s Bond is another sharp move, a classic cold English villain who you absolutely want to see get fucked up more than once. Alec Baldwin mostly grouses but hey. Best action sequence: oh Casablanca easy, from the planning the raid on the storage facility to the end of the motorcycle chase, barely any pauses, the whole thing’s a marvel. Rating: 4.5 out of 5 lathe-cut terrorist messages.)

Mission: Impossible 6: Free Mustache Rides – Ethan Hunt is trying to enjoy a nice relaxing dream but Ian Curtis keeps telling him “This is the way, step inside,” and it’s not helping. Ethan is told that three pawnshop balls have been repainted and are being auctioned to the highest bidder, which just shows you how tough the economy continues to be. Sadly the usual exchange of niceties between him and his crew and a generic arms dealer turns out to be an issue due to a bunch of raincoat-wearing Curtis followers insisting there’s a third Joy Division album somewhere. After Ving Rhames skins Wolf Blitzer alive and stuffs Simon Pegg into his pelt, they fool the Norwegian Unabomber and it’s off to Pari–no wait a minute, Angela Bassett employs her low voice against Jack Ryan’s rasp and insists that for the balance between the Big Two that Superman come along, since Jeremy Renner is somewhere upstate checking out on a family that mysteriously dissolved. This Superman, using the cover name Mr. I’m Obviously Going To Betray You, seems more Bizarro-like when he leaps out of a plane and reenacts that one The Dark Knight Rises image with the lightning but Ethan demonstrates that there’s more than one way to crash a party. Working their way through a crowd of pleasures and wayward distractions trying to find Vanessa Redgrave’s daughter Vanessa Kirby of the House of Vanessa, Superman explains he’s trying for a Tom of Finland look but a bunch of French bros laugh in the bathroom and ask when he’s going to the Kingsman auditions and things get complicated. Luckily Lady Jessica is back, and wants to know if Ethan’s just trying to fold space again. Turns out Kirby is in deep cover as amoral blonde Princess Margaret and everyone’s trying to kill her, we can’t have that! She tells Ethan and Superman they have about twenty four hours to spring Ian Curtis if they want the pawnshop balls, and while Ethan realized he wanted time this puts things in perspective. Happily everyone is distracted just right except when they aren’t and a bunch of French people on all sides of the law are angry, time to go! Ian Curtis gets sprung by Simon Pegg, who asks him to sign the Sordide Sentimentale single since they are in France and all, while Lady Jessica shows that Fremen needle guns are good but lasguns might have been better. Logically since everyone’s in Paris they go to London, presumably inside the train this time. OG Jack Ryan is irritated and everyone leaves but Superman confronts Ian Curtis and says “I tried, please believe me, I’m doing the best that I can!” Whoops! Turns out Simon Pegg wanted Superman’s autograph too, but the Curtis fanatics break in after a further triple double dog dare cross and ol’ Jack is left stuck to a flagpole by his tongue, but thank you for your service. Ethan gets his jogging in for the day but Superman flies off to say he stands for truth, justice and the American way but he means the Zack Snyder version so he’s just going to kill everyone instead. Time to crawl around Kashmir before this happens and Michelle Monaghan is there! She’s doing good things! She’d like to catch up over coffee but Ethan notes that he has to pick up his DoorDash delivery assignment within fifteen minutes or he’ll lose his star ratings. Grabbing a helicopter to chase down Superman, who has a competitive route, he leaves Lady Jessica and Simon Pegg to fight Ian Curtis, who complains that the noose around the place is cheap irony, while Michele chats with Ving a bit while adding “Should that be ticking?” Various Things Happen but in the end Ethan remembers “Oh hold on I DO climb rocks don’t I” and taunts Superman by quoting Blues Traveler’s “Hook” at him, which shows he is no better than Benjamin Bratt in Poker Face, the fiend. Still, all three sections of the team simultaneously score Taylor Swift tickets, the world is saved from a fakeout ending, Ian Curtis is left to be a middle-aged man with the weight on his shoulders, Michelle gives Ethan her blessing to apparently make suggestive crysknife jokes to Lady Jessica, and everyone’s happy forever! [Editor’s note: this was later shown to be false.] (Real talk: I really do get what everyone was saying now about how, in a real upending of expectations when it comes to open-ended franchises starting big and petering out, Fallout might well have been the best of the movies to that point. It felt like everyone had everything absolutely down by now, from McQuarrie to the stunt teams to the actors, all the comic moments landed even better than in the last one and those were pretty solid, and for the first time points of continuity from the previous film all have an impact, whether it be the performances of Harris, Baldwin and Ferguson in particular or things like returning composer Lorne Balfe’s musical score, which is easily some of the best of the whole sequence and for once shows a composer working to contrast the Schifrin themes rather than simply shade and riff on them – the various well-employed fakeout/dream sequence sections get soundtracked with this melancholy and ominous chill, a solid move. Hell, even the call back to the rock climbing of M:I 2 made sense because it didn’t have to be explained at all, and it settled the Monaghan arc too in a way that was both obvious for plot mechanics and strangely sweet. Though I kept expecting her new guy to be an Apostle undercover, which was probably the point. Henry Cavill and Kirby were both perfect additions to the overall pool in turn, and the point a friend of mine made the other day that this movie feels the starkest of the bunch – like there’s a tiny group of people at the forefront and all the huge city populations around them are distanced and serene – is apt. Best action sequence: honestly this almost felt like a response film to Mad Max: Fury Road because it barely seemed like it broke for anything. For once the ending felt absolutely earned rather than a ‘we gotta end it because the script is over’ necessity but the actual best sequence is probably the Paris crash/chase/crash etc. deal, though shout out to the bathroom fight as the first near wordless sequence since the CIA breakin in the original movie. Rating: 5 out of 5 Cavill sleeve tugs.)

[EDIT: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE NEWEST MOVIE YET, STOP READING HERE, Y’KNOW?]

Mission Impossible 7: And Under The Polar Cap Bind Them -- Somewhere in the Arctic a Russian submarine attempts to reenact The Hunt For Red October except nobody told them that they’d be playing the part of the actual sub that was blown up, a minor detail. This is less important than our introduction to the newest ensemble cast member, back after a lengthy retirement, Sauron! Sauron, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give him a round of applause. Ethan Hunt is in Amsterdam chilling so logically he’s got the munchies, only to be told that Lady Jessica hijacked a spice shipment and the Guild is pissed. Near Sietch Tabr, Lady Jessica busies herself with speeding up the irrigation process with some fresh fertilizer, but Ethan suggests letting it lie fallow for a bit. At ComicCon, Hall H is full of bloggers trying to figure out how to use typewriters while backstage there’s an argument about if they can do anything now that the strike’s on. Ethan asks everyone to pardon his stinkbomb but meantime deals with the guy who was chasing after him back in the first movie. He’s his boss now, time for wacky hijinks! It’s straight back to Dune with Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, only for them to realize that they can’t escape ComicCon no matter how hard they try because Deathstroke, Mantis AND Agent Carter are all there stealing and/or stalking them and each other, not to mention the members of an official US antimasking squad who seem bitter that not everyone agrees with the science they really did study themselves. Turns out Mantis isn’t interested in feelings so much as other people feeling dead, which Deathstroke approves of, while Agent Carter has fallen prey to kleptomania, it’s one of those days! Off to Italy where, when in Rome, Ethan does what the Romans do and becomes an impossibly polished and fashionable lawyer just like that, while Deathstroke shows that it’s always vital to carry out research. Agent Carter is narrowly sprung from her plan to simultaneously enter all the national competitions for next year’s Eurovision all at once, but then pretty much every moving vehicle in the city and the occupants and riders therein decide that she and Ethan will jaywalk no more. A typical day in Rome, granted, but their sweet ride seems a little sour while Mantis is very annoyed someone cut her antennae off and wants to explain this with weapons. Agent Carter decides to check in on whatever Hank Pym is doing these days but Lady Jessica is back, having had a refreshing time on Caladan. Turns out Princess Margaret is throwing a big party in Venice so who wouldn’t go there next, and she’s invited everyone! Ethan, Lady Jessica, Agent Carter, Deathstroke, why even Mantis is there but she’s dressed as Harley Quinn and the ComicCon crew doesn’t know what to think. Sauron shows up as well demanding the smallest of things, a mere trifle, and Deathstroke reveals he’s actually the Witchking of Angmar and would like to help kill everyone, but Ethan realizes that the DJ is driving him nuts and he needs some fresh air, a touch the antimaskers still don’t get. Harley Mantis insists it’s actually an Adam Ant tribute but Ethan argues she seems more My Chemical Romance, but sadly Lady Jessica gets stabbed with a Morgul-blade. Ving needs to update his antivirus software while Agent Carter decides that maybe this bunch isn’t as Hydra-ridden as SHIELD. An attempt to combine Murder On The Orient Express with a gender-flipped The Prince and the Pauper proceeds to play out, while Ethan insists to Simon Pegg that he has a totally legit FastPass for the newest Disney ride, though he’s still arguing some of the details as he goes. Wait, a fight on top of a train again, at least there’s no tunnel this timAAAAADUCKDOWNQUICK! The Witchking rues the day magic was invented, Ethan and Agent Carter are relieved that Mantis appreciates a good turn done, and elsewhere Sauron wonders if a tower would be a better hiding spot. Tune in next week year for more! (Real talk: so having taken all the other films in in a rush I did wonder how exactly the pacing would work for this one as a two-part story, and I think they handled it pretty smartly; it’s not as high a peak as McQuarrie’s two previous efforts but it doesn’t have to be as a result. Instead of the near wall-to-wall rush of the past two, there’s a much more deliberate pace here, which oddly enough (but, if the original plan of this being the capping off of the series holds, logically as well) is one of several callbacks to the original film throughout. Henry Czerny as Kittridge most obviously, also all the sleight of hand stuff, and easily most notably Ilsa Faust’s death, the first time a team member (as such) has died since said first film. There’s one other interesting move where, for the first time in the entire series, we get a sense of what Ethan Hunt was like before the IMF -- it’s all fairly tropey, but by not exploring that at all until now it actually feels like an earned moment. My sense of what’s happening is that this is the big setup and the concluding film will be full-on action madness, and the tinges of haunted chill in the last one have a stronger resonance here -- the introductory sequence for Hunt is pretty damn bleak for a start, and after Faust’s death you get a sense of everyone going through the motions for a bit, not as actors, but as people hit with a sudden loss would do, and the film takes a little time to understandably breathe. The absolutely killer sense of how to make comedy work continues: the entire Rome chase scene is just as amazing as that as it is straight action, while the capping insane stunt as teased in the trailers, Hunt going off the cliff, is also the culmination of a ridiculously perfect dialogue between Cruise and Pegg, and I literally laughed at how the stunt ended, all while the tension in the train scenes was building up. And yet, none of it undercuts the action, the sense of time running out -- indeed, so good was all that that when the cliff setting first appeared I was actually surprised by it, even though it was so heavily featured beforehand as noted. I joke about Sauron but seriously, not only is the Entity just one big eye, and also a bit of a One Ring type thing too, the whole setup where instead of letting other governments control Ethan will set out to destroy it is VERY Lord of the Rings, so I think it’s more key to all this than might be guessed. But oddly enough, perhaps, I will argue there’s a specific Bond film you all should go back and check out -- the first one I ever saw, and Roger Moore’s best tougher turn wih the character, 1981′s For Your Eyes Only. That too notably has a Macguffin centered on advanced tech on a wrecked ship, there’s a car chase with a very unsuitable car early on, and how the film ends feels not dissimilar to where this likely will be leading in the conclusion next year. Just a hunch! When it comes to newer cast members, Pom Klementieff is mostly a wordless killer and whether or not you buy the end twist as such, hey, but she does a good enough job, while Esai Morales -- been great to see more of him recently, he did a solid supporting turn in The Master Gardener earlier this year, and he has one of the most underrated speaking voices in acting -- is just a coolly commanding bad guy in the right mode, solid casting and I think better as a more grizzled and equal figure to Hunt than Nicholas Hoult would have been, as was first the case. Hayley Atwell pretty obviously is the main get and you do get a sense of a calm spark with Cruise but, given the film’s plot, no more than that for now, and she holds her own as someone who clearly has done a lot of shit but quickly realizes she’s dealing with a whole new level of it. While I’m a touch suspicious that there’s a feeling of rotating actresses and in out with Rebecca Ferguson’s departure after this -- I will absolutely miss her but I’m glad we had enough of her as we did -- that comment I made back in my M:I 2 review about how Thandiwe Newton could have made the series of a hell of a Lupin III riff? Well here we are with another accomplished career criminal and hell the Rome car chase is centered around a yellow Fiat 500, what more of a nod could you have! Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis pretty clearly feel escaped from a more typical buddy cop setup but it doesn’t break anything, and I do like the office politics grouchiness from Whigham about the IMF ‘clowns.’ Meantime kinda great to see Kirby get to do the playing-someone-playing-someone-else big turn this time, and I’m totally thrilled to see she’ll be back in part two, she’s a fun elegant chaos factor character. Best action sequence: you know, I’m not entirely sure! Again I think the actual best ones we’re going to get in part two so it felt a hair held back at points, but the Rome chase sequence was both amazing and funny as noted, the alley fight with Pom K. pretty brutal if relatively quick, and the train tension/chase/fight/bomb buildup to wrap it up was a smart spot to end on. Rating: 4 out of 5 cigarette lighters.)

In sum and speaking regularly: so yeah, whatever impulse Cruise, producers and everyone else had early on and whatever their thoughts were about how it might go, basically finding the sweet spot between the James Bond model and the Jack Ryan technophilia was a clear stroke of commercial genius, and rather than being beholden to an original show’s requirements/feel they blew everything up to make it their own while never truly abandoning the idea that people will happily shell out for damn good capers writ large. The Schrifin themes absolutely help anchor everything; the main theme is so perfectly balanced between being playful and being intense that on top of being an instant earworm it always conveys the sense that we’re here to be entertained first and foremost. It’s the Bond theme factor certainly and just as powerful. Ethan Hunt is barely a shell of a character, more just a creature as monomaniacal at succeeding in his job as Cruise himself is, so it’s a symbiotic fit. In terms of Hollywood action franchises he’s now played this character in more movies than any of the Bond or the Ryan actors, or Willis as McClane or Stallone as Rambo or Schwarznegger as the Terminator etc, and is as much a superhero as anything in DC/Marvel but, not seen to be as ‘class’ as Bond and actually stumbling and limping at times, retains just enough of humanity, even if more like an alien in a human costume, which would be appropriate. There’s enough ‘are we the bad guys?’ moments going around that you can feel duly critical about the IMF (and implicitly ‘Western interests’ if you will) but of course the story and the perceived audience never wants them to be REALLY bad, it’s all those other ones trying to fuck up Ethan that are the problem. Ving Rhames is the comfortable set of shoes for everything, and that Luther seems to have more of a life than Ethan is so not surprising; Simon Pegg turned out to be a perfect accidental X factor, the ‘goofy’ guy who isn’t a hateable comic relief type; once they finally realized they absolutely needed someone like Rebecca Ferguson too and then cast her, the rest was gravy; transitioning from her to Hayley Atwell brings a different energy but keeps a solid dynamic that I think will hold into the next film. And then after? Guess we’ll see!

[sparkbeast20]

The connection between demons’ names and the seven capital sins came from the classification of demons by Peter Binsfeld, a German Catholic bishop and theologian, as well as a prominent witch hunter of his time, though some of the classification came from the Bible, but not all of them.

Lucifer has always been associated with Pride, as evident in the Bible.

And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. [Isaias 14:13-14]

Mammon is with Greed, also from the Bible.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon. [Matthew 6:24] with “mammon” means riches or worldly interest.

Leviathan also appears in the Bible, but as a beast and a symbol of the people of God’s enemies. His connection with Envy comes at a later time.

The names Satan appears in the Bible, described by Christian writers and saints as wrathful against God, envious of human race who still receives mercy from God. As wrathful as he is, he’s a cunning enemy who calculate carefully to ruin every soul.

Some argues Satan to be the same as Lucifer, some argues they are two different demons. But I present to you the opinion of St. Gregory the Great. He argues that Satan is rather a designate of office of the accuser of human race. Satan is a shared name between demons, or at least high-ranking ones. So Lucifer is Satan, Mammon is also Satan, Asmodeus is also Satan, Beelzebub is also Satan, etc.

Asmodeus also appears in the Bible, in the book of Tobit. He is hostile to a young woman named Sarah and kills her seven husbands, on their wedding night, before they have the chance to consummate their wedding. Asmodeus is described “the worst of demons (Tobit 3:8). The Archangel Raphael also appears in the story. In the end, he chases Asmodeus to Egypt. From the story, Asmodeus became the symbol of a demon who ruins marriages. One of the easiest way to ruin marriages is adultery. And adultery usually comes from lust, so there you have it, he’s the demon of lust.

Beelzebub appears in the Bible with the name Baal, a Canaanite god, the symbol of idolatry. But one story does mention him with, explicitly, the name “Beelzebub”. It’s the story where the Pharisees accuses Jesus “The man drives out devils only through Beelzebul, the chief of the devils.” (Matt. 12:24). Based on “chief of the devils”, many argue he’s the same demon with Satan, or Lucifer. His connection with Gluttony also comes at later times. Though, if I remember correctly, Beelzebub and his sin used to top the list as #1.

The last one, Belphegor, different from others, the only one to come from a later time, I heard they incorporated another Canaanite god’s name to make the demon’s name.

I guess that's where they got Raphael and Asmo's connection. And the inspiration to they're dynamic in the past.

I'm surprise to know that about Satan's real life written counter part.