Today's Mass

My friend Przemek and I went to the noon Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception today. Nothing special going on, just an ordinary time Mass.

It's been a while since I was last at the basilica, and their music program has gotten significantly better. What with the massive music improvement at the Catholics' cathedral, I have to wonder if the new archbishop hasn't had something to do with the musical and liturgical changes for the better. If so, congratulations to him. I, for one, am greatly appreciative.

There's a new (to me, at least) organist at the basilica called Jeremy Filsell who gets to play their 172-rank toy. He makes a nice noise with it, too, opening the service with Heinrich Scheidemann's "O Gott, wir danken deiner Güt" as a prelude and closing with a postlude of Virgil Fox's arrangement of Bach's "Now Thank We All Our God."

Processional and recessional hymns were solid German hymns, too, being Salzburg and Nun Danket. They did a psalm setting as a communion marching hymn with the antiphon "The hand of the Lord feeds us." Harold Darke's Service in A minor served as the Mass setting for the Kyrie, Gloria, and Agnus Dei, with Hurd's New Plainsong Mass inexplicably filling in for the Sanctus, Benedictus, Memorial Acclamation, and Great Amen (I guess they wanted the congregation to be able to sing that part instead of just listening to the choir).

The nice part of the Mass, though, was hearing the choir sing anthems for the offertory and the post-communion motet. Christopher Tye's "Praise ye the Lord, ye Children" served as the offertory, and then later they did John Tavener's "Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God," which was lovely, but unfortunately marred at the end by a very off-key soprano.

Sitting in the congregation proved to be an interesting experience. First, there was a skinny, nervous woman sitting a couple of rows behind us who apparently fancied herself quite the good singer. She was probably a choir mother or something. Her voice was one of those thin, warbly things with the backwards vibratos that usually was sharp but which went very flat on the high notes. She fashioned her own endings to the last verses of the hymns and I wasn't sure whether to gag or laugh. Second, a South American man sat in front of me who knew his service responses very well, but he had to very loudly ejaculate them considerably faster than the rest of the congregation, and I do believe he finished the Our Father before the rest of us were halfway done. Thirdly, there was an African family taking up the entire row in front of him with three little girls any one of whom could be a poster child for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I'm not sure whether the man was their father or grandfather, but the girls literally climbed all over him the entire Mass. A tall, thin teenager stood and sat there disengaged and nearly motionless except when he had to pry one of the little girls off of him. And, finally, there was a mousey young woman sitting behind us in the throes of a bad cold who sounded positively consumptive. I made sure to wash my hands as soon as I could after Mass.

Since we'd gotten there a bit early, I took a bunch of pictures of the crypt chapel on the lower level underneath the sanctuary. Click on them for a larger view.


The Chapel


Side Chapels


Entrances to the Sacristy and Confessional


Chapel Organ

Neighborhood parish report

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

—Phillipians 4:5–7 (NIV)

Thus was the gist of the prescribed Epistle (second reading) at church yesterday. These things aren't chosen a week at a time, they've been published and standardized years ago. It's purely coincidence (or divine prescience) that we got this passage today, during this time of nationwide—and international—financial instability and anxiety.

We also had a very intelligent and well-reasoned sermon by guest celebrant and preacher Melana Nelson-Amaker. She talked about "the idolatry of greed and growth" today, putting the financial crisis into simple perspective. It's a popular topic this weekend. I also heard someone on BBC talk about how continuing to privatize gain and nationalize debt was not the way to go, if we're to solve the world's money and credit problems. Anyway, the sermon was surprisingly good, it was just twice as long as I'm used to sitting through.

In fact, it was an incredibly long service, for no good reason, too, as there were no crowds of people, no holy day, and no special musical offerings; this is largely because the neighborhood parish, Trinity Episcopal, has become a black church. Historically, black churches have encouraged longer sermons and a lot more music, and many of the members of Trinity are converts to the faith, not cradle Episcopalians, so what gives the parish its own special flavor is their version of black Anglicanism and liturgical formality. And, of all the Episcopal parishes I"ve visited this year, I actually find this place pretty acceptable, because they are fairly traditional and conservative in their liturgical and musical choices, and despite their annoying friendlieness (and emptying out the pews to pass the peace with everyone in the big church), I like them a whole lot better than those confused, ultraliberal, guilty, white parishes I've seen.

Soprano Marilyn Moore, the operatically-trained, voice faculty member from the Levine School of Music in D.C., provided music as a special guest singer. She did Mein glaübiges Herze, frohlocke ("My heart ever faithful") from Bach's Cantata No. 68 for the offertory anthem and, at the beginning of communion, she sang two spirituals, "Were You There" and "Let Us Bread Bread Together." Lovely voice. I also liked her clothing, a tight black skirt suit made of a black-on-black lizard print that looked quite luxe. The organist accompanied her on the piano at the chancel steps.

The rest of the music was just a little excessive, especially since the choir was not of professional calibre. For example, they did an anthem called "I Was Glad" by Albin C. Whitworth as an introit after the collect of purity. The choir sang an uncredited song (two verses of a hymn?) after the sermon. They still do the Doxology at the presentation of gifts. There was something called "the orison" (translates to a "special prayer") sung between the blessing and the dismissal. I would have been happy to have had all of these excised. For hymns, they did Rathisbon (Christ, whose glory fills the skies) as the processional, Restoration (Jesus calls us; o'er the tumult) as the gradual, "Break, Thou, the Bread of Life" and "This Is My Body" at communion, and Marion (Rejoice, ye pure in heart) as the recessional. And, in true Episcopalian fashion, they sang all of the verses, even all seven verses of the recessional hymn.

The Mass setting they use, which kicked in after the offertory, is an interesting mix. The Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei came from Schubert's Deutche Messe. The fraction anthem was Gerald Near's. I'm not sure about the Great Amen (and an altar boy rang the sanctus bells thrice during it). They did Malotte's setting of the Lord's Prayer.

They have lengthy prayers of the people and the announcement and introductions segment of the show lasted ad infinitum. Did I mention they took forever passing the peace to everyone?

Liturgically, they used a fairly conservative Rite II, though they did do the Star Trek eucharistic prayer.

Thus was the two-hour-long service. The parish is in easy walking distance of the house, so if they'd shorten things, I could deal with being a regular worshipper there, but I don't know if I'm up to two hours every Sunday.

Red Mass

Yesterday was the 55th annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in anticipation of today being the first day of term for the Supreme Court of the United States. I was privileged to be able to attend and actually got a seat in the cathedral.

Red Masses are a medieval tradition originating in Rome, Paris, and London, marking the official opening of the judicial year. They are intended to bless judges and public officials and to ask God to watch over the wise administration of justice. It's the "lawyers' Mass." I don't think I've ever before seen so many men in suits in a Catholic church!

This year's guests included the Chief Justice of the United States, four associate justices of the Supreme Court (a majority of the Supreme Court is Catholic, by the way), the Secretary of Commerce, some ambassadors, several members of Congress, and quite a large number of members of the federal judiciary. The processions also included law faculties from Catholic and Georgetown Universities dressed in academic regalia.

Eight bishops concelebrated the Mass, including the Archbishop of Washington, the Archbishop of the Military Services, the Bishop of Arlington, and the sometimes-controversial John Patrick Cardinal Foley, now Grand Master of the Equestian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The music at this Mass absolutely blew me away. The cathedral is getting good enough to think of as a musical church in the league with the Episcopalians and Anglicans!

Recently, the cathedral reorganized its music department and took on a new pastoral associate for liturgy and music, and ever since then, there has been an increasing major improvement in the musical literature being performed, and in the past couple of months, there hasn't been a single time I've sat in Mass at the cathedral and cringed, as used to happen so much in the past. Of course, this wasn't without some controversy.....the new music director is the person who was music director for the papal Mass at Nationals Park last April, who I found effective, but some accused of being "vapid." He was a friend of the new archbishop's back when he was in Pittsburgh, so I'm not surprised at all that the archbishop has replaced the music staff at St. Matthew's with his own people.

Anyway, obviously, this was a special event service, but the cathedral does a number of those throughout the year, so with a music staff that has questionable taste, it could still be disastrous. I'm hopeful for what the new team is and will be doing.

The Washington Symphonic Brass and the cathedral organist provided about ten minutes of baroque-sounding prelude music, then the choir sang a five-minute anthem by Anthony Piccolo called "O Come Let Us Sing unto the Lord" as an introit. Prior to all of that, though, those of us who had been seated in the cathedral an hour early had heard the choir rehearsing until about five minutes before the prelude started.


Choir rehearsing before the service.
The empty pews were for people who would process in.

The altar party wasn't quite ready when the introit was over, so after a minute or two of silence, the organist filled in a bit for a couple of minutes until they'd gotten all those judges and bishops out on the steps organized. Finally they gave the signal, and the organ, brass, tympani, choir, and congregation started in with Ralph Vaughn-Williams' arrangement of Old Hundredth "All people that on earth do dwell."

Next four costumed Knights of Columbus brought in the American and D.C. flags, and everyone sang the national anthem. Some woman back in the congregation decided to grace us with her high note, too.

After that, the Mass proceeded fairly normally. Mass setting was the Proulx A Community Mass with brass accompaniment, and Gregorian chant Latin versions of the Gloria (responsorial, from Missa de Angelis) and Agnus Dei (Mass XVIII). At the end of Mass, they sang "America the Beautiful" as the Supreme Court was escorted out by the bishops (the CJ went with the archbishop and Mrs. CJ was with Cardinal Foley). Then for the formal recessional hymn, they sang Thaxted (O Spirit all embracing), one of my very favorite hymn tunes, in a lovely setting with brass and tympani.

In addition to the introit, the choir sang Palestrina's Veni Creator Spirtus for the offertory and a beautiful performance of Friedell's "Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether."

Cardinal Foley gave an 11-minute homily. Rather than ascending the pulpit or even standing at the ambo, he sat in a chair placed in front of the high altar. During the rest of the Mass, instead of concelebrating at the altar he had his own prie dieu on the side.

Mass lasted about 90 minutes, but we'd been in the church at least 45 minutes before that, so it was a long morning. It was a zoo leaving; the Secret Service was everywhere and the people coming in for the 11:30 Mass were standing outside on the steps waiting for our service to get over. Here are some pics:


Secret Service guards the car of one of the justices.


Archbishop Woerl and Cardinal Foley

New Year's Greetings

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

For all of my Jewish readers, may you have a happy and sweet new year.

Apples and honey for all!

Sunday night Mass

There was actually some pleasant music at Mass at St. Matthew's tonight. Shocked? I was. Usually, the 5:30 Mass is something to be endured, but I actually enjoyed it tonight.

As a communion motet, the guitar/piano band and choir did an a capella "Love Bade Me Welcome," by David Hurd, and it was absolutely lovely. It's very contemporary music; David Hurd is a living (b 1950) African-American composer teaching and working in New York City. Of course, he's technically Episcopalian....none of that nasty St. Louis Jesuit stuff for him....but his works are perfectly appropriate for Catholic liturgy, as well. Now that I know the choir can sing, I wish they'd do stuff like this at the offertory, too.

The homily sort of raised some eyebrows today. I didn't know the celebrant/homilist tonight....some early middle-aged priest I'd not seen before. His homily was based on the Gospel reading for the day. Now, since I know most of my readers don't go to church, at least not regularly, and most aren't Catholic, let me quote you today's Gospel:

"What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, 'Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.' He said in reply, 'I will not,' but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, 'Yes, sir,' but did not go. Which of the two did his father's will?" They answered, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. When John came to you in the way of righteousness, you did not believe him; but tax collectors and prostitutes did. Yet even when you saw that, you did not later change your minds and believe him.

It's a rather dense passage. The priest tried to illuminate it by concentrating on the second son. "If it looks good and sounds good, it must be good, right?" he said. He went on to tell us how we should look carefully at things with such flash, and, from the tenor of his commentary, everyone immediately thought of the upcoming presidential election.

In other more interesting things, the Mass setting this evening was Marty Haugen's Mass of Remembrance, except they did the Gloria from David Haas's Mass of Light responsorially. Hymms were King's Weston (At the Name of Jesus) for the processional and Hymn to Joy for the recessional. Alleged congregational hymns that were sung only by cantor and choir were Psalm 137 with the antiphon "Let my tongue be silent" for the offertory and "God Is Love" from the Gather hymnal for communion marching music.

Because the Metro system was so messed up this weekend, I ended up being late to Mass (the bus I wanted arrived very late, and when it got there, another bus of the very same route number was right behind it), so I had to sit in one of the side chapels. That gave me the chance, though, to study the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where they have a tabernacle for the Reserved Sacrament.

I've mentioned before that the architecture and art at St. Matthew's are of Byzantine design, so mosaics are very common. The chapel has a small altar upon which the tabernacle rests, and a mosaic behind it depicts a couple of Jesus's disciples. The mosaic there is so artfully done, though, that it actually looks three-dimensional, as if there were two statues of disciples, instead of them being two-dimensional mosaics. I snapped a picture after Mass. It doesn't do the "statues" justice, but you can see the artistry.

Lady days

We Episcopalian Anglo-Catholics have a history of continuing Catholic reverence for Mary, mother of Jesus, though typically we tend not to mention her much as the BVM (the Blessed Virgin Mary)....I'm not sure if that's because it sounds too "Romish" or if theologically we don't teach that Mary maintained her virginity after the birth of Jesus as do the Papists. One of the old traditions of the English church, though, is that instead of referring to the BVM, we refer to "Our Lady." Feast days and solemnities referring to Our Lady are called "Lady Days."

In the modern United States and in England, those Anglo-Catholics who choose to practice Mariolatry on a level approaching that of the Catholics particularly revere Our Lady of Walsingham, and the shrine in Walsingham, England, where Our Lady allegedly appeared in 1061 is a frequent site of Anglican pilgrimage. St. Paul's K Street here in Washington has an entire principal chapel altar dedicated as a shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham, and I noticed on my recent New York trip that there is a Walsingham shrine at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, too.

The Anglican church recognizes Our Lady of Walsingham on October 15, but the Roman Catholic Church recognizes Walsingham on September 24.

So, Wednesday the 24th, I was in St. Stephen Martyr R.C. Church and lit my Lady candle. While I was there, I saw the sun shining through the stained glass in the baptistry in a particularly attractive way, so I snapped a photo.

Big Apple Church Report

During my recent trip to New York City, I tried to hit some of the churches with internationally renowned choirs for the occasional service.

Naturally, our first stop was St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, the place with the fabulous men and boys choir, on Friday afternoon. Alas, it turns out they now only do weekday Evensongs Tuesdays through Thursdays, so there was nothing going on on Friday.

I probably should have gone on down to Trinity Wall Street. I have to say that it was very interesting being in New York this past Thursday and Friday during all the financial "market adjustments" and the conversion of all the i-bankers to run of the mill commercial bankers or to just the land of the unemployed.

Picked up a program for Sunday..... they were planning to sing Bruckner's Os justi meditabitur sapientiam for the offertory and Elgar's Ave verum Corpus at communion, with Rheinberger's Cantus Missae as the Mass setting.

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Saturday afternoon we went to "Smokey Mary's" a/k/a the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Times Square, where Ian and I listened to Evening Prayer being read. We left before Mass, though, because, like Evening Prayer, not only was nothing being sung, there was not a whisp of incense to be smelled!

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Sunday whilst Ian worshipped with St. Mattress, I made it up to midtown to the famous St. Patrick's Cathedral, reputed to be the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in North America. It's a stunningly beautiful place! The architecture is neogothic with great height and intricate tracery, designed by James Renwick.

The first thing I noticed walking up to the cathedral were throngs of people on the sidewalks and an unexpected police presence all around the cathedral and with both cars and vans parked out front. There was no scheduled appearance by the cardinal archbishop of New York, any Vatican dignitaries, or any particularly famous worshippers, so I don't know why they would have so many, obvious, police guards around. Once I got into the cathedral, I was surprised to see not only more policemen inside the building, but the cathedral ushers were running around with earpieces and those curly cords like the Secret Service guys wear here in D.C. I guess being a Catholic Church is a high risk operation these days.

I'd gotten to church early enough I was able to get a seat near the center aisle in the first archway just west of the crossing, usually a good place to hear the musical balance. At St. Patrick's, the choir sings from the loft in the balcony and the entire organ appears to be back there as well. In actuality, there is a chancel organ in the north side of the chancel, but the gallery and chancel organs are essentially unified into one huge instrument with five manuals, 177 ranks, and over 35,000 pipes, all by George Kilgen and Son, I believe.



Rather than resting on the high altar or on a retable behind it, the office lights were tall candlesticks resting on the floor parallel to the ends of the altar, rather than being stretched across the length of the altar. This custom probably dates from the 1980s, when a new high altar was fashioned farther west of the old high altar to be "closer to the people" (more bad post-Vatican II decisions), and the old altar remains in back beneath an incredibly elaborate solid bronze baldachin. There were two large floral arrangements behind the high altar, but I had the distinct impression that they were old and wilting.



The music and liturgy at St. Patrick's are refreshingly good. My only criticism is that they mike and amplify their choir, and it detracts from the beauty of their music.

The Mass setting for the day was Schubert's Deutsche Messe, all sung by the choir and congregation with the exception of the Sanctus; the Sanctus and Benedictus were from Fauré's Messe (his Mass, not the more familiar Requiem) and were sung solely by the choir. They did Melchior Vulpius's Gospel Alleluia setting. And, contrary to the bad habits of the cathedral and parishes of the Archdiocese of Washington, the Gloria was sung straight through by the entire congregation, rather than being sung responsorially by cantor and congregation.

The choir sang Benjamin Britten's "Jubilate Deo" as the offertory and Dupré's "O Salutaris" as a communion motet. The choir and cantor (a tenor) were clad in burgundy albs with gold metallic trim on the sleeve cuffs and a large Chi Rho cross on the chests. Hymns for the day included Lobe den Herren for the processional, both Rendez à Dieu and Pescador (the latter in Spanish) after the communion motet, and In Babilone for the recessional. One odd thing I noticed had to do with the processional hymn. The choir and altar party processed in from the sacristy down the south aisle to the narthex whilst the congregation sang the three printed verses of the processional hymn. The organist played a bit of an interlude as the choir and altar party congregated in the narthex, before beginning the hymn a second time, during which time the choir went to the loft and the altar party processed up the center aisle. By the time everyone was in place and the celebrant had quickly incensed the altar, they'd sung all three verses again, plus the first verse a third time. I don't know why they did it that way; I don't know why they didn't sing any of the other verses of the hymn.

The organ prelude and postlude were both by Paul Creston, the former being "Prayer" and the latter "Prelude," both played by the cathedral principal organist.

The cardinal's throne is in the photo to the left.

The Monsignor Rector was both celebrant and homilist.

I found the homily intriguing. To appreciate what the priest was saying, one needs to understand the fundamental differences between Catholicism and Protestantism and their concepts of salvation and the afterlife. As a matter of fact, the entire Protestant Reformation centered around this issue. Catholics believe that people are "saved" and reach heavenly glory by faith (in the Lord Jesus Christ) and by good works. Protestants, on the other hand, believe that people get to heaven by faith in Jesus alone. Catholics also believe that people who have the requisite faith but insufficient good works to counteract their sinful acts on earth must spend some time in a place called Purgatory to purge themselves of sin before heading on up to the heavenly streets of gold; Protestants completely reject the concept of Purgatory and have the faithful asleep in the Lord until the Day of Resurrection and Judgment, when the Elect go straight to Heaven.

Now, Monsignor's homily was a pretty straightforward illumination of the morning's Gospel reading, about Jesus's parable of the rich man who hires workers for his vineyard at different times during the day, and at the end of the day, pays every worker equally, whether he worked one hour or ten. It's supposed to be an illustration of God's bountiful mercy, encouraging people to make conversions late in life and even on their deathbeds. But here is where the homily got interesting: what if Jeffrey Dahmer or Osama bin Laden make sincere deathbed conversions and confessions and receive absolution?

Will we meet them in heaven?

That's a hard question for us Christians to face, usually much harder for Protestants who have no Purgatory as a "punitive" purifying buffer than for Catholics.

I can certainly hear the holier-than-thou crowd puffing up their chests and exclaiming about the absurdity of such a hypothetical, but I can also hear the words of our Lord Jesus telling us to judge not lest we be judged. I, for one, am certainly no angel, so I guess I'll have to leave open the window of opportunity for some very interesting bunkmates in Heaven.


Me, preparing for Heaven

Churchy pic via Facebook

St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, in between subway rumbles (the place with the great choir of men and boys) (blurry cause it was taken with the little Blackberry camera).

Alas, they do not do Evensong on Friday afternoons.

Ideas for contemporary Catholic services

My friend Linda, a retired organist, found this clip for me on YouTube. If they did this sort of music at Mass at "contemporary Catholic music" parishes, I might actually like it! Of course, this particular piece was written by a Lutheran, but at least it gets at the spirit of what we need. LOL. Do listen for at least 30 seconds.

Are this summer's movies anti-Catholic?

This month I actually got twice to the movie theaters to see new releases, in fact, the first and only movies I've seen in 2008. The lucky productions getting my theater going dollars were The X Files: I Want to Believe and Brideshead Revisited. It just so happens that I am intimately acquainted with the stories behind both of these movie plots, so I can see more in the scripts than many people.

In retrospect, what particularly struck me was the viciously nasty anti-Catholic tone of both movies.

It seems an eternity since The X Files was on television every Sunday night. I watched it religiously, even in its very first season. As the characters developed over the years, we knew that Agent Mulder was an agnostic Protestant and Agent Scully was a devout Catholic. Then we get to this movie, where we find neither as agents anymore, with Mulder in hiding and Scully working as a physician in a Catholic charity hospital. The movie, much like the shows, had two simultaneous plots, both dealing with the Catholic Church.

The major plotline for the movie involves the kidnapping of an FBI agent and what turns out to be a series of murders. A defrocked pedophile Catholic priest claims to have visions regarding the investigation, and appears quite unsympathetically throughout the movie. Dialogue from multiple characters snipes not only at the former priest but also at the Church (are we tired of pedophile priest jokes yet?), and Scully is particularly disrespectful. The secondary plot line involves a child patient of Scully's with some rare, most likely fatal disease, with no known cure. The hospital's administration, led by a particularly sour priest, wants to shuffle the boy off to a hospice-type facility for palliative care, but Scully somehow chooses to defy them and treat the boy with some highly experimental stem cell therapy (stem cell therapy, since it deals with cells from unborn fetuses, is vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church). There are a lot of unlikely scenarios in the plot and it just doesn't quite work when viewed as a free-standing work apart from the culture and tradition of the series.

Then we get to Brideshead Revisited, based on the 1944 novel by former popular British writer Evelyn Waugh. This happens to be one of the very very few novels I've ever read twice, I have seen multiple times the faithful 1981 BBC/Granada six-episode, twelve-hour mini-series, and I worked with many of my students to analyze the work in their papers on early 20th century British novelists. So, being so familiar with the twelve-hour treatment of the novel, I found myself spinning trying to keep up with the instant two-hour long movie. The screenplay writers took so many liberties with the story line, I took the novel with me to brunch today to reread it so I could refresh my memory.

In the "new" version, the entire story has been rewritten to focus on the Catholic faith of the family, giving it sinister and evil overtones, and having it ruin the lives and happiness of its adherents. Meanwhile, Teresa Marchmain (played by Emma Thompson) has become a vindictive and overbearing matriarch in the name of Catholicity, which is totally different from her character in the novel, and the narrator of the story, Charles Ryder, has become a staunch atheist who actively works against the family's Catholic superstitions and practices, again contrary to his novel character (in the novel, there's even a line where someone refers to him as an atheist, and he corrects them, saying he's agnostic, plus, he would have been way too polite to have acted in such ways).

So, what's the deal with all the negative treatment of the Church?

Anyway, let me give a brief analysis of the movies.

The X Files was both satisfying and disappointing. It was little more than a two-part TV episode, and an episode with a weak plot line, at that. Because of the length of time since the television show was in original release, the writers seemed compelled to use a whole lot of expository dialogue to explain the backstory, some of which was rather annoying (like when Skinner made his first appearance on screen, Scully says, "It's Assistant Director of the FBI Walter Skinner!" as if Mulder didn't know who he was). The writing was poor and plot elements weren't connected. The overall series story arc really isn't going in a good direction. The editing felt choppy (and as if much of the important plot development was left on the cutting room floor). The cinematography at times lacked focus while at other times it moved in a way that gave me a headache. The musical score was pretty hideous. But, at the same time, it was The X Files and Mulder and Scully were back together again. With a better storyline and writing staff, I'd be willing to go see another movie. Recommendation? If you're an X Files fan, go see it, you'll enjoy it well enough. If you're not already an established fan, it's okay, and it's certainly better than a lot of the trash movies out this summer.

Meanwhile, Brideshead is a beautiful movie, reminiscent of the Merchant-Ivory type movies. I've heard Emma Thompson has gotten some supporting actress Oscar buzz.

In the past, my alma mater Oxford University (where much of the novel is set) did not allow film crews at the university, so "Oxbridge"-type movies set at Oxford (Chariots of Fire, Oxford Blues, the Brideshead mini-series, et al.) were actually filmed at rival newcomer Cambridge University. I was very pleased to see this movie was actually filmed on location in Oxford, as it brought back many memories. I also thought it highly interesting that they chose to go to Castle Howard as the location site for the scenes of the fictional "Brideshead Castle," the same location where they shot the mini-series. Consequently, all the sets (as well as costumes) were beautiful.

Naturally, adapting a full-length novel to a modern two-hour movie time frame requires a lot of cutting and rearrangement. I realize this. This version, though, I found to take a few too many liberties not only with the plot but with the characters. I've mentioned Lady Marchmain; Rex Mottram's character was so changed, his now-minor character was a particularly nasty cad and opportunist; Anthony Blanche has become a cameo role with biting lines not in the novel.

Casting was also a bit of a problem. The novel spans twenty years, from the time Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) and Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) meet as 19-year-old undergraduates at Oxford, to a point about ten or twelve years after that for Charles and Julia's affair, to Charles' time as a 39-year-old Army officer in World War II. The movie appears to have shortened the intervals so the actors ultimately end up playing their real-life ages. Because of how so much of the story was truncated and compressed, more than half of the movie is devoted to the time when Charles and Sebastian are 19, yet the actors were much too old to convincingly play teenagers, with Goode at 30 and Whishaw at 28. I think I would have found younger actors, especially since—Goode's intensely clear and bright blue eyes notwithstanding—neither of these actors gave particularly memorable performances.

I've been looking for an intelligent, literary person who's never read this novel or seen the mini-series so I can have him or her watch this movie and then tell me how it works for them. If this description fits any of you, go see it and then write a comment. Meanwhile, for Waugh or Brideshead fans, you'll want to go see this movie just because it's Waugh and Oxford and Castle Howard and your unrepentant anglophilia.