baldilocks

DVD Review--Prometheus (KingShamus)

 

I admit it; I had high hopes for this flick.  Tell me this doesn't sound promising--"Ridley Scott explores the backstory of the Alien mythos, with a massive budget and big name acting talent to flesh out the sure-fire chills and thrills."  On paper, that would seem to suggest something really amazing.

Yeah, not quite.

The basic plot is not without merit.  Scientists find a map to a planet where the creators of humanity, called Engineers, are thought to live.  Even though this is basically the storyline for every single episode of "Ancient Aliens", we'll let Ridley Scott off the hook for not keeping up with History Channel's re-commitment to super-realistic not completely bat-shit insane programming.  

 

So naturally, the Weyland Corporation sends a group of unstable weirdos, emotional basketcases and a deliberately mysterious android to run a gazillion dollar mission to determine the origins of human life on Earth.  Sure.  That's how NASA does their job, right?

Then they get to the planet and of course all hell breaks loose, mostly because the people running the operation are about 50 IQ points dumber than their job titles would suggest.  Everyone in the crew is supposed to be an expert in their field.  Meanwhile, they constantly do stupid shit that gets them killed, mutated or impregnated with a freaky squid baby.

To be fair, the visuals of Prometheus are stunning.  The viewer is immersed in an environment that looks otherworldly in the best sense of the word.  Ridley Scott is an expert at making places like Iceland and Jordan's Wadi Rum look distinctly unTerra-like.

The problem is that the movie insists on being more than a silent montage of mind-blowing landscapes. The best science fiction raises questions about the nature of the human condition. Prometheus constantly raises interesting questions, builds them up and then...lets them float off into the ether.

A piece of speculative fiction also needs a level of consistency in order for the audience to remain interested.  What does the black liquid--the stuff that seems like it's central to the movie--do exactly?  It melts an Engineer's body, mutates space worms, zombiefies humans and sorta kinda in a roundabout way gets a woman pregnant with a proto-facehugger...maybe.  If the audience can't make  heads or tails out of the rules and logic of the film, it doesn't matter how meaningful the movie's questions are.

Beyond that, there are meta-issues with the film.  Prometheus was hyped as a sorta-prequel to 1979's Alien.  One of the big questions 'Promo' was supposed to answer--and like everything else in the flick it only hints at it--is the origin of the Aliens.  But is this a story that really calls out to be told?  

Let's look back at Alien for a second.  At it's heart, that film has been famously characterized as a haunted house movie in space.  Sure, there were some questions left unanswered.  Yes, there was some sexualized body-horror elements thrown into the mix.  Yet, Alien is still basically about a living killing machine tearing through a bunch of scared weak humans.  In fact, all four "Alien" movies more or less tell the same tale:  People versus an intensely scary space monster.

Now compare Alien to movies that came out in roughly the same era, the Star Wars trilogy.  Alien was a fairly simple story that knew what it was supposed to do and delivered the goods in spades.  Like Alien, the older Star Wars trilogy was an easy to understand tale done in a rousing energetic fashion.

So how did George Lucas build on the success of his first three Star Wars movies?  He focused on Darth Vader, the principle bad guy of his original trilogy, and took him from being just a bad-ass villain with a complicated past and made him into the prophesied Intergalactic Messiah of the Star Wars universe.  With the new SW prequels, George Lucas tried to weave themes of political upheaval, the death of democracy and the temptations of evil into the larger story of Darth Vader's rise and fall into the dark side.  The simple yet effective storytelling of the first movies was discarded in the new prequels in an attempt to create an epic motion picture with deep messages.  

It worked...poorly.

I'd argue that with Prometheus, Ridley Scott has made the same mistake George Lucas made with his Star Wars prequels.  Regardless of his possible reasons, Scott didn't want to make another straightforward horror movie like Alien.  For all it's gore and scary visuals, Prometheus really wants to be a philosophical meditation on the mankind's place in the universe.  However, humanity's creation story seems like an awkward fit for the Alien and it's related mythos.

Is Prometheus worth watching?  Of course. The visuals alone are worth the price of admission.  But does the film succeed by the standards it sets for itself?  Not quite.  Instead of being a true science fiction masterpiece, Prometheus is a decent movie with deep flaws.

MORE:  Greg over at The Mind Is An Unexplored Country has a few choice words for Prometheus.  

Seriously, I believe the People In Charge Of The Oscars should create a new category: Most Justifiably Ridiculed Mocked and Parodied Motion Picture. Just for this pile of cinema crud.

Oooof.  There's more there, so read the rest.

Also, he found the Honest Trailer for the Prometheus.  Funny, but definitely full of spoilers and most assuredly Not Safe For Work.

 

 

Media Personalities and The Need For Mystery (KingShamus)

Ever wonder why there doesn't seem to be a lot of genuine stars in pop culture anymore?

Well, John Nolte comes up with a pretty sharp zinger of an explanation.

Any actor who chooses to make something — anything, including their sexuality – a part of their identity, limits how the public will perceive them up on the screen. This is true for straight actors as well, especially those who have made their sexuality a big part of who they are. Beneath all that Barbie doll there might be a genuine actress, but Pam Anderson’s very public sex kitten persona limits her roles. And just to be fair and non-partisan… In his later years, it simply wouldn’t have been possible for Charlton Heston to play an anti-gun ACLU type without harming the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief. The whole idea would’ve come off as some kind of in-joke, and if that joke wasn’t meant to be part of the overall story you have something of a disaster on your hands.

Read the whole thing.  Nolte takes a few whiney gay actors down a peg or two in his piece.  Heads up, Richard Chamberlain.  "The Thorn Birds" really wasn't all that great.

Nolte touches on something very basic, but something that a lot of entertainers forget nowadays.  It's the mystery that keeps people interested in media personalities long after the person has reached their creative zenith.  Nothing sustains a career in pop culture more than some strategic obfuscation to keep the audience guessing. 

For instance, the private lives of the members of Led Zeppelin were anything but common knowledge back in the 70's.  Beyond the fact that three members were married and that they all lived in England, the public didn't have much access to Zep.  The band consciously cultivated a nearly impenetrable mystique, which kept people wondering about them.  This aura of mystery--along with the undeniable songwriting talent--helped to make Led Zeppelin a massively successful band.

Consider this little nugget about Zep: In 1975 the band released Physical Graffiti, their sixth studio album.  Members of the band gave very few interviews to support the release of their album.  There were no cameras following Jimmy Page around to document his every move.  Robert Plant didn't discuss his political affiliation or his partisan ideology.  John Paul Jones and John Bonham were likely to jokingly sneer or angrily snarl at any reporter who asked them who they voted for in the last election.  The group didn't mention the causes or charities they support.  Led Zeppelin simply let the music speak for themselves.

The results?  Physical Grafitti immediately became a massive seller.  Not only that, the group's entire back catalogue re-entered the Top 200 as well.  The tour that supported the album was incredibly lucrative as well.  Led Zeppelin had become the biggest band of the 1970's.

Distance between the musicians and their audience was critical to Led Zeppelin's success.  For actors, that sense of mystery is even more important.  A rock vocalist is basically playing himself...or at least some facet of his personality...when he writes, records or performs music.  An actor is playing a different person everytime he takes on a new role.  That means that the actor's real personality can't be so well-known that it smothers the part he's trying to play.

This is not to say that successful actors don't create personas.  However, there's a big difference between a 'type' and 'My actual self and my movie self are pretty much the same'.  Sean Penn may have been a talented actor back in the Yuri Andropov era, but any role he takes nowadays is overpowered by his off-screen leftwing douchebaggery.  The only movie persona Penn has left is the one he plays in the real world--Thumbsucking Liberal Hack/Commie Dictator Apologist/Smug Peace Creep.

To see how a real star should operate, look at Kurt Russell.  Russell is a member of the Libertarian Party, but he doesn't make a huge deal about it.  Surely the man has causes that he champions, but you don't hear him talk about them all that much.  It's common knowledge that he's in a long term relationship with Goldie Hawn, but Russell hasn't put the intimate details of his sexual history into the public record.  Consequently, there is no outsized real-world Kurt Russell that fights against the roles he takes.

Look at Russell's performance in the flawed sci-fi action flick "Soldier".  Compare that to his work in the more successful comedy "Overboard".  Both movies call for very different kinds of acting, but because Russell doesn't have a lot of off-camera drama going on, he's entirely believable as both a near mute futuristic warrior or as a charming modern day rogue.  Viewers might not connect with everything Russell does--homeboy is just as prone to the occasional cinematic dud as anybody else in show biz--but his private life never interferes with movie goers' suspension of disbelief.

The modern entertainment business can't seem to grasp the absolutely vital necessity for mystery.  Instead, the stars blab about their politics, their personal lives and their STD's at the drop of a hat.  As a result, the lack of separation between the performer and the audience has made the art small and the artists even smaller.

Note (UPDATED)

Today is a busy day but I'll be posting more later on the fear of being labeled RWW (racist while white).  Meanwhile, go read Robert Stacy McCain's take on Gone with the Wind (haha, that guy is fearless). Stacy and I talked on the phone yesterday about the fear and its origin.

I'm not taking this subject lightly; as a matter of fact I am galled by it. It is insidious.

UPDATE:  I should have known that my political father, Shelby Steele, had gotten down to the root of the matter of what created this environment.

Just a cursory glance over the reviews reveals a gold mine.

The Meaning of Spike Lee's Words

Roger L. Simon says what we all could figure out about Spike Lee--especially after the latter's "plantation" remark to Clint Eastwood:

Like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, time has been passing Spike Lee by. His worldview comes from another era and he has never really sought to revise it, to open his eyes. Proof of that is that for more than a decade Spike has barely made a film any of us can remember. Compare that to Eastwood, who, although some twenty-seven years Lee’s senior, is at the top of his career, having scored big in 2003-2004 with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby.

No wonder Spike’s jealous. So what does he do? He reaches back to an era when he was more successful. He plays the old identity/race card. Now we could all laugh and say this is just another case of an (prematurely) aging artist grasping for attention, but these times are more complex than that. We don’t know which way we are going - toward a post-racial future or back to a racist past.

Rumor has it that Hollywood is one of the most racist places in the country. Though I live in LA, I don't operate in that world, so I don't know first hand whether this is so; however, even if this is true, there was a time when Lee's career flourished, perhaps peaking with 1992's Malcolm X--something which may have been a function of Denzel Washington's Oscar-nominated performance.

Spike made a successful, vaunted career by making movies about race or with race as a backdrop. He was the go-to director for such a genre and perhaps that's the problem. When he tried to branch out and away from that racial strait-jacket, it became obvious that he really isn't that great of a director.

So now Lee does what he has to do to get attention for his new project, Miracle at St. Anna, even stooping to taking cheap racial shots at the far more successful (and old, white, male, Republican) Eastwood of all people. I hope that the actors, no one I've heard of except for John Turturro, don't suffer for his stupidity and short-sightedness. That's the only reason that I might go see the movie.

Roger wonders how Lee's tactic relates to the post-racial future allegedly on the horizon. Thinking about the tenets of James Cone's and Jeremiah Wright's and Barack Obama's Black Liberation Theology, I personally wonder what the term 'post-racial' means to the proponents of that religion and to the Spike Lees of the world. Post white-racial "dominance," perhaps, would be a more descriptive term.

The question remains, however: what would replace it?

PREVIOUSLY:

"You Not Ma Daddy!"
Lee Tries to Make Eastwood's Day

"You Not Ma Daddy!" (UPDATED)

After Clint Eastwood tells Spike Lee to "shut his face" regarding the lack of black characters in Eastwood's two World War II films, Lee responds in a mature, manly fashion.

Or not.

"First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either," he told ABCNEWS.com.

"I didn't personally attack him."

Lee implied that Eastwood was a racist. Twice. I'd call those personal attacks.

Regarding that 'father' thing, I am reminded of the infamous You Tube clip of Detroit City Councilwoman Monica Conyers demonstrating her similar daddy issues.

These people can afford to pay for psychoanalysis. But I guess than one would have to be not-crazy to realize that a shrinking is needed.

I was considering going to see Lee's film when it came out. Now I'm not so sure.

UPDATED: Former Spook (no, not that kind) says that there were some extras who were black in Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers.

If Mr. Lee bothered to watch Flags, he would find black Marines in a cutaway shot early in the film, and in a historical photograph that appears during the closing credits. Saying there are no African-Americans in the film is simply incorrect.

So, why aren’t blacks featured more prominently in the film? According to Professor Latty (and USMC records), a total of 700 African-American Marines served on Iwo Jima during the battle. But her opinion piece omits an important point, those black Marines represented less than one percent of the 80,000 who fought to take the island from the Japanese.

And, because of segregation, they were delegated to support roles.

Spook also details the Bronze-Star awarded courage of a pair of black Marines (in their combat support roles) but notes that they were not a part of the unit which raised the flag at Iwo Jima.

The battalion and its subordinate companies were all white—another product of the segregated Marine Corps of World War II.

Eastwood was, of course, adhering to historical accuracy rather than PC.

But Lee has succeeded in publicizing his film--and probably in riling up those who probably don't even know that the military was segregated back then and that it was probably one of the first--if not the first--government institutions to desegregate, undoubtedly stemming from the performance of men like the afore-mentioned Marines, the Tuskegee airmen and the "Buffalo Soldiers" which will be portrayed in Lee's WWII movie. Too bad he is doing them such a disservice.

(Thanks to Phelps)

Lee Tries to Make Eastwood's Day

Director fight: Spike Lee tries to start some stuff by complaining about the dearth of black characters in Clint Eastwood's two World War Two era films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, but Clint isn't cowed.

Eastwood justified his choice of actors, saying that those black troops who did take part in the battle as part of a munitions company didn't raise the flag. The battle is known by the image of US marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.

"The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go: 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate." Referring to Lee, he added: "A guy like him should shut his face."

Ouch!

Spike is promoting his own World War II film, Miracle at St. Anna, which featured the story of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division--progeny of the Buffalo Soldiers of the 19th Century Indian conflicts--the only "colored" infantry division to engage in combat during World War II. They served in Italy. (The 24th Infantry Regiment--another "colored" unit--mopped up in the Pacific. The United States Armed Forces was desegregated in 1947.)

So if Spike knows that 92nd was the only black division to fight, that they engaged only in Europe and that Clint's two films are about the war in the Pacific, then what's he whining about? Oh yeah, I forgot. It's Spike Lee.

Clint goes on.

What are you going to do, you going to tell a f*ckin' story about that?" he said. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a movie and it's 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.

"He was complaining when I did Bird (the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker). Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else."

Double Ouch!! I think Spike was making Nike commercials with Michael Jordan.

Have a seat, Spike. Or better yet--let the quality of your work do the talking.

Germans Give Cruise the Finger (Again)

During the Berlin filming of Valkrie--a biography of Count Claus von Stauffenberg, in which Tom Cruise plays Stauffenberg—eleven people (assumed to be extras) were injured

when a truck was trying to negotiate a corner in central Berlin. Eleven people fell out of the back of the vehicle and one was seriously injured, according to the police. Shooting in Wilhemstrasse, in the city's Mitte district, was called off and the injured were taken to hospital. The truck is now being examined for mechanical defects. Police have also opened an investigation into possible charges of bodily injury caused by negligence.

This isn’t the first setback for the film. The makers of Valkrie have had a hard time getting access to the historical sites in which many of the key events took place. (Stauffenberg, famous for his unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Adolph Hitler, planned the attempts and was executed for those plans in a singular location, the Bendlerblock—now the location of the German Defense Ministry and the German Resistance Memorial Center.)

Nor is it the first time that a Cruise project has run up against resistance (if you’ll pardon the pun) in the German capital city.

Three years ago, Wolfgang Thierse, the then-president of Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, denied Cruise permission to film the dome of the historic Reichstag building, where the star wanted to shoot a scene for his action thriller "Mission: Impossible III." In the end, Cruise and his film crew left Berlin for Prague.

What’s Germany’s problem with Cruise? It’s his religion.

The film has caused controversy in Germany due to Cruise's membership in the Church of $cientology, which doesn't have the status of a religion in Germany and is officially monitored by government intelligence agencies. The organization has been under increased scrutiny since it opened a new center in Berlin in January.

Hmm. In spite of the whack job that is Tom Cruise and in spite of the, shall we say, curious aspects of his religion, the German government is doing itself no favors in the public relations department with regard to its treatment of adherents of that religion. (I assume that Cruise isn't threatening to have his fellows blow anything up.) Considering the film's subject, the FRG would do well to remember how its most recent forebear treated members of another “suspect” religion.

(Thanks to Glenn; not not that one)

Movie Night

TNR said...eh, forget it.

Yesterday, Ace of Spades talked about the best movie made from a computer game (Mindsweeper). But later in the post, he asks his guests a couple of more inclusive questions:

1. Guy Movies That You Can Force A Chick To Watch Which She Might, Possibly, Somehow End Up Kinda-Sorta Liking, and

2. Movies You Should Not Even Bother Forcing A Chick To Watch Unless Two Hours Of Accusatory Silence Is Your Idea of A Really Good Time

For the most part, I’m not a chick-flick fan (with some exceptions). But then, I’m not an average chick but a military-indoctrinated chick--a retiree of the USAF/USAFR—and I would say that this fact makes a difference as to my entertainment choices. Many of us women who serve/have served in the military defy some of the stereotypes that are held (rightfully) about women. Even a great many of us women who served in the USAF—considered the least face-to-face combat-oriented of the five services--aren’t inclined to be comforted entertained *in the traditional manner* via our pop-cultural intake. I’d daresay that this fact is what made us open to joining up in the first place.

Keep that theory in mind as you note my favorite fifteen movies (alphabetical order, ignoring ‘the’ and ‘a’).

1. The Abyss (water, claustrophobia, romance and magic)
2. Aliens (Great action and possessing of some of the most enduring one-liners and dialogue in cinema.)

Pvt. Hudson (a man): Have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Pvt. Vasquez (a short-haired, tough woman): No. Have you?

(You might be able to guess why that's my favorite dialogue from that movie.)
3. The Color Purple (yes, it’s a chick-flick, but as someone said over at Ace’s, Whoopi and Oprah shined in this one; plus there’s some serious blues/gospel singing near the end which would cause many present-day praise/worship artists to just hang it up.)
4. Glory (Denzel Washington greatly deserved his Oscar here.)
5. The Godfather, parts I and II (after a few viewings, III wasn’t that bad either.)
6. The Hunt for Red October (Sean Connery was the man, in spite of his Scottish-accented Russian; additionally, there’s prospective presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s line: “Russians don’t take a dump without a plan, son.”)
7. Lord of the Rings series (enough said; favorite character as portrayed in the movies—Theoden.)
8. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (I like Russell Crowe better with a little meat on him; favorite scene, however, was when that one-armed midget, Lord Blakeney--portrayed by young Max Pirkis--capped one of his foes.)
9. Scent of a Woman (One of the few scenery chewings—by Al Pacino—that actually enhanced a movie. “God doth have a sense of humor.” However, Chris O’Donnell gave the better performance here.)
10. Serenity (Tough men, tough women, cannibalistic zombies; what's not to like? I haven’t seen the TV series, Firefly, yet, but the DVD from the first season just arrived via my Netflix account!)
11. The Shawshank Redemption (Whatever we conservatives may think about liberal Tim Robbins as far as his political views go, no one can deny that he gave an awesome performance in this one.)
12. The Silence of the Lambs (For a long time, this movie was my absolute favorite; I had read the book and, as far as the movie went, the storyline and the performances were absolutely masterful.)
13. A Soldier's Story (A little known WWII tale about an all-black unit from the then-segregated US Armed Forces featuring Denzel Washington, the late Howard Rollins of the nineties TV show In the Heat of the Night and the late Adolph Caesar, who portrayed Mister’s father in The Color Purple.)
14. The Spy Who Shagged Me (So sue me; after walking out of the theater, I told my date that it was the stupidest movie that I’d ever seen. He countered with this: “Yes, but you laughed your a** off the whole time!" True. It deserves special mention for introducing the concept of a ‘mini-me’ into the English vernacular.)
15. Star Trek (the usual; the Original Television Series, Deep Space Nine, II, IV, VI and First Contact); I even liked Insurrection, if only for this Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) line:

We're *through* running from these mutha-f*ckas b*stards.

What I just watched: Syriana (I got the message--that unseen forces are pulling the strings of world events. I just wish that the message had been more entertaining. And I don't like George Clooney with a little extra meat on him. Perhaps that's because I don't like him slim either.)

UPDATE: Next on the viewing list--Lawrence of Arabia.

UCLA Study: Who Pollutes? (Baklava)

According to a two year study released Tuesday by UCLA "the film and television industry and associated activities make a larger contribution to air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all five other sectors researched"

Although Hollywood seems environmentally conscious thanks to celebrities who lend their names to various causes, the industry created more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing, the study found.Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions."People talk of 'the industry,' but we don't think of them as an industry," said Mary Nichols, who heads the school's Institute of the Environment, which released what researchers called a "snapshot" of industry pollution. "We think of the creative side, the movie, the people, the actors -- we don't think of what it takes to produce the product."

Seems to me conservation is in order..... we should buy less of their product !Additionally, we need to have government put caps on the amount of product available to the public OR put an additional tax on their product to pay for the environmental damage that they do OR set standards on the amount of all of this that goes on:

Special effects explosions, idling vehicles, teams of workers building monumental sets

I'd say the special tax is appropriate. Make that a double tax for Steven Seagal who gave us all a speech at the end of this movie.

Movie News

Susan Sarandon is considering a role as the lead in a biographical movie of celebrated (and maligned) Gold Star mother/Iraq War protester Cindy Sheehan.

More interesting is the question of who will play the role of the late Army Specialist Casey Sheehan and how he will be characterized.

(Thanks to Pajamas Media)

Academy Awards

Pajamas Media is "liveblogging" the Academy Awards.

I haven't seen any of the nominated movies, but I am interested in seeing Crash simply because I want to find out how racist Los Angeles allegedly is.

Anecdotally, the worst racism I've ever experienced was in Chicago and in Northern California; in the latter area, I was called the n-word openly, while in uniform.

Saving Private Ryan

First of all, I suggest that, if you haven’t watched the movie in a while, watch it again. Even after a dozen viewings, it’s rough going, and that’s not even a reference to the first bloody D-Day sequences.

In the comments to the 3-D Warriors post, reader CitadelGrad disputes my recollection of the plot. Little did I know that this dispute has been a long-running one among fans of the movie.

Laβ es uns beendigt.*

Es ist einfach für dich. Viel einfach.

Sorry, Marine, but I think that “Steamboat Willie” (Jörg Stadler) and the German who shoots Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) are the same person. The German, however, who kills Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) is a different person. Recall that Corporal Upham (the translator; Jeremy Davies) could have saved Private Mellish. The latter even calls out to Upham several times, during Mellish’s battle with the German. Upham, however, cowers just around the corner on the stairs. After the German takes Mellish out with a knife to the heart, he saunters down the stairs past the still-cowering Upham, deeming—correctly—that Upham is no threat to him.

Just as the German reaches the bottom of the stairs, there is a full-on close-up of him as he looks around to see if the coast is clear. Different actor (probably Erich Redman, billed as German #1); smaller nose, no dimples, unlike Mr. Stadler.

Near the end of the movie, five Germans are the on the attack as Upham observes them--hidden, but close. His recognition of “Steamboat Willie” is obvious and, as it turns out, it is Willie who takes out Captain Miller. Upham sense of outrage overcomes his fear and he confronts the entire squad, forcing them to cease-fire and surrender.

Ich kenne den Soldaten.

Ich kenne den Mann.

Upham!

Upham takes Willie out with one bullet, then allows the others to escape.

Haut ab!

VERSCHWINDET!!

Even if the man Upham shot had not been Willie, but had been Mellish’s killer, the assertion still stands, however, that Upham committed a war crime: one cheered by movie-goers nearly the world over. And why? Because no real blood was shed. It was all make-believe.

(Cast information courtesy of the ever-handy Internet Movie Database)

ADDENDUM: I would like to thank CitadelGrad, however, for forcing me to watch the movie again. The difference of opinion was minor. It needs to be seen again and held up against the context of real-world events. Additionally, and again, very minor, I enjoy doing movie reviews.

*Not sure which verb was used: beenden or beendigen. Blame it on my deteriorating German. (Native Germans can feel free to give corrections.)

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Brown Shirts? I’ve got your Brown Shirts right here.

(Jun. 25) -- The highly anticipated film, Fahrenheit 9/11, came with more than just controversy at one Las Vegas movie theatre. Moviegoer, Richard Streeter, was one of the many who made his way to a theatre to see what the hype was about. After viewing the film, he was greeted outside the theatre by members of the Las Vegas MoveOn.org.

The group was handing out leaflets on the importance of the film. Streeter voiced his view on the movie, "I made the comment, apples and oranges -- Kerry, Bush -- one's no better than the other. You really ain't got much of a choice. This guy comes up to me and says, 'Oh yeah?' " Streeter was then spat on by the same man.

He attempted to call police to report the incident when he was told not to, "A guy standing next to him said why don't you drop it. I said, 'No, I'm calling the police. I'm exercising my right as a citizen, I've been assaulted.' "

But the horror kept on growing for Streeter as he walked to his car on the phone with police, "This guy turns, and totally by surprise takes his hand and bam! It was a big guy. Shoved me onto the ground, I hit my head." A police report has been filed.

Crime: insufficient respect shown for the Party.

It will get uglier. I'm sure of it.

(Thanks to D.C. Thornton)

The Cooler

Okay I’m not busy now.

I hope I never have to see William H. Macy’s pale, narrow-but-jiggly naked boo-tay in a film—or in any other venue—ever again. (My male movie-watching companion shielded his eyes against the offense. He didn’t, however, shield his eyes against the nakedness of the pretty girl. I love men!)

Otherwise, this was an enjoyable take on the stereotypical nerd-gets-the-girl and hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold genres. Weird, yes; quirky, yes, but you come away from it saying, “okay, I liked that strange movie.”

Any turn of Macy’s (Fargo) tends to be an odd one, due to his unconventional looks (for an actor): dull and drab; not ugly, per se, but ordinary, like your doorman. Okay, he’s even more ordinary-looking than that: like a homeless guy. But undoubtedly, such a fantastic actor isn’t homeless.

In The Cooler, Macy plays Bernie Lootz, a gambler’s jinx, who is employed by ruthless, old-school Las Vegas casino owner, Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin). Bernie walks by a craps table and the gambler rolls seven. He walks by a black-jack table and the gambler is busted. Bernie is all kinds of bad luck walking, even for himself. He is frumpy and shabby; his hair is stringy, poorly cut and dirty-looking. He lives a lonely life in a hotel room, in which his sleep is constantly interrupted by patrons in heat, their activities heard through the thin walls while he sleeps alone. He’s a loser.

Then Natalie Belisario (Maria Bello) comes into his life. His “friend,” Shelley, pays Natalie to become Bernie’s girlfriend, and that she does. Skip through the gratuitous sex scenes and suddenly Bernie’s got the world on a string. His pallor disappears. His hair is clean and stylishly coiffed; his suit, modern and well cut. And he smiles, making him moderately attractive.

Unfortunately for Shelley, however, getting Bernie lucky has also reversed his jinx factor. Now he walks by a gambler and, suddenly, the house is busted. Shelley tries to get Natalie to dump Bernie, but Natalie has fallen in love with him and refuses. Ugly, violent hi-jinks ensue.

Alec Baldwin has taken to playing himself of late—slimy, unsavory sorts—and he does it well. Not the handsome, brave Jack Ryan of The Hunt for Red October is he here by a long shot. I had never heard of Maria Bello before, but I was very impressed with her tough/tender role in this good movie.

(Moral commentary: why do people in movies have to have sex *before* they fall in love? /moral commentary)

(Also, I feel uncomfortably like a peeper watching sex scenes in movies, but I’ve always been that way, even before I was up on my moral high-horse. :-)

The ending is gory and good. If you’re like me, you’ll be asking your companion, “what the heck just happened?” Hopefully, your companion is paying better attention than you are.

Three and half (out of five) snaps up.™

The King Has Returned

Today I went to the Magic Johnson Theater (obviously) on MLK Blvd. in LA to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The attendance for this showing was sparse. I guess not many Rings fans in the area are willing to skip work for it. That suited me just fine, since lines and crowds strain my already tenuous hold on sanity.

It was the first time in many a year that I have gone to see a movie on its opening day and now I remember why VHS tapes and DVDs are so popular. Sitting in a movie theater that long is not pleasant.

However, I’m saving the rest of my shekels for the extendo version. Even at nearly four hours in length, there was still a lot left out of this one, and, IMO, leaving out these necessary pieces of film—a couple of which are in the preview--turns a classic into merely an excellent film.

I’ll save a detailed review for next week, however I can't resist just a little bit of opining.

• Best Character: Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin)
• Best backstory: Smeagol/Gollum (Andy Serkis)
• More scary that before: the Nazgûl ( no, not those Nazgûl)
• Purtier than before—not an attractive quality in a man: Legolas (Orlando Bloom)
• Best scenery: Minas Tirith
• Second best scenery: open plain surrounding Edoras
• Most heartbreaking scene: Faramir's (David Wenham) confrontation with Denethor (John Noble)

Gimli Dwarfs Aragorn

The sun is rising.

Long ago—okay, not that long ago--on a post far away, someone chided me for calling the nine Democrat candidates for president the Nazgûl. Well I guess I can’t start calling them the nine dwarves now (warning: Return of the King spoilers for the few mortals who haven't read the books):

Perhaps the most passionate observations came from John Rhys-Davies, who plays the dwarf Gimli and voices Treebeard the Ent. Focusing on the necessity of defending civilization in times of crisis, Rhys-Davies took the media to task for failing to appreciate the preciousness of Western civilization, and warned of the potential consequences of rising Muslim extremism and the increasingly Islamic face of Europe.

“I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged,” said Rhys-Davies, “and if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me.”

Pointing a finger at the media, Rhys-Davies went on, “What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is… The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.”

Ouch! Read the rest of it. I wonder if Rhys-Davies and known moonbat Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) were rolling in the New Zealand dirt on the Lord of the Rings sets. My money would have been on the old guy.

Bring on the weekend of ROTK!

(Thanks to LGF)

Lord of the Moonbats

Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.

Actor Viggo Mortensen knows that, for his role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he has mostly a captive audience. Most Ring lovers, having seen and loved the first two installments, are not likely to miss the finale, especially having viewed the absolutely cool and exciting trailer. Those of us who might have been inclined to boycott the trilogy in light of Mr. Mortensen’s previous idiotarian remarks on the Charlie Rose Show regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom, had already been wowed by The Fellowship of the Ring and unable to resist seeing The Two Towers. Mr. Mortensen likely knows this and feels comfortable that The Return of the King won’t be Dixie Chicked. So he knew that he could go participate in today’s moonbat fest in DC--check out the re-broadcast on C-SPAN today at 5PM PST--without fearing that ROTK’s box office would suffer from it too grievously.

So be it. I will certainly be one of the first to see ROTK. However, I hope Mr. Mortensen has made a hefty sum for his terrific turns as the decidedly non-idiotarian Aragorn, son of Arathorn, soon to be King Elessar. I hope that he invests his money for his future and makes enough to live on. After the release of the ROTK DVD, I suspect that many are done lining Mr. Mortensen’s pockets.

(Thanks to Ith for the Return of the King trailer)

And Now For Something Completely Different

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

“ I think we might have made a mistake leaving the Shire, Pippin.”

(Note: For those who haven’t read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there may be a spoiler or two regarding the upcoming Return of the King. Fair warning and all that.)

Not meaning to usurp the province of my fellow Luo, established film critic Frank Ochieng (no relation; it’s a fairly common surname in Kenya), I’d like to submit a humble (hah!) review for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Now I realize that I’m on the late freight, having just seen it this weekend upon receiving the VHS and the DVD for my birthday, and I realize that there are likely a gazillion reviews of the film floating around the Internet, but, indulge me.

The Two Towers is a great movie for us fantasy fans. Having only discovered Tolkien’s trilogy since The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I feel as if I have a new toy. After the release of the first movie, I didn’t see it right away. Like any good geek, I like to do my homework, so I bought all of the books, including The Hobbit. (IMO, one cannot appreciate a movie made from a book without reading the book first.) I read all four of them in less than two months and recently started on The Silmarillion—though that one is slow going. You can’t love and appreciate what a character TFOTR’s Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) is unless you’ve read The Hobbit.

“Rohan is mine!”

As I said to Ith in a conversation about this movie, I appreciate a clear-cut story about good and evil. No “why do they hate us” BS in a Tolkien tome. Just get in there, get it done and kill them before they kill you. And get rid of that Ring already!

The Good:

•Théoden’s (Bernard Hill) exorcism: Watching Théoden’s face change from that of a dissipated old man to one of a mature, yet vital man was wonderful.
“Your leechcraft would have had me crawling around on all fours like a beast!” (I had to hear that line twice. That last word sounded like the other b-word on the first pass.)

•The Ents throw down: A girl from LA knows a good riot when she sees one.

Face acting:

• Legolas (Orlando Bloom) is ready to bust an arrow into Éomer (Karl Urban) when the latter mentions
cutting off Gimli’s (John Rhys-Davies) head. Legolas’ eyes say it all. “You would die before your
stroke fell!”

• More Legolas: His joy is obvious at seeing Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) alive again and is nicely
punctuated by an off-hand remark. “You look terrible.”

• Aragorn: His still-disbelieving face and clenched teeth were great when the resurrected Gandalf (Ian McKellan) reveals himself to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli: “You fell!”

The Fugly:

•Gríma Wormtongue: Théoden had to be possessed to listen to anyone this hideous. When Gríma (Brad Dourif) makes his play for Éowyn (Miranda Otto), over her cousin Théodred’s (Paris Howe Strewe)deathbed, I almost hurled. When he pulled his hand back from her face, I half expected there to be a green slime mark left there. And a particular Gríma line to Éomer is relevant to today’s real-life events. “Can you not see? Your uncle is wearied by your malcontent, your war-mongering.” Take that, peaceniks; from fifty years ago! (Brad Dourif plays some great nutcases. I remember him from some episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, in which he plays a Betazoid who also happened to be a sociopathic killer. Trek fans will understand what a contradiction that is.)

•The Orcs: The two orcs that want to eat Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) are two of the most hilarious critters to grace a fantasy film. When the orcs and the uruks make a late meal of the first orc, I had to put down my Labor Day BBQ, however. There’s a nice homage to the movie Deliverance when the second orc almost has Merry for dinner. “Call for help! Squeal! No one’s gonna save you now!”

•Smeagol/Gollum (based on Andy Serkis): Yikes! This pathetic special-effects creature stole the flick. He/it had the sort of attraction/repulsion feature that made you want to fast-forward through his scenes and, paradoxically, made you unable to do so. “Nice Hobbit!”

Speaking of Deliverance:

•The elf men, with the exception of Elrond (Hugo Weaving), are just too purty for words. Legolas and Haldir (Craig Parker) are prettier than Arwen (Liv Tyler). I like my guys more manly-looking, like Aragorn, (though, having seen Viggo Mortensen shaven, I’d have to say that some guys shouldn’t shave).

The Okay and the Nitpicks:

•Again with the dwarf-tossing: Gimli’s comic relief wasn't too annoying, but it kind of broke that fourth wall.

•Samwise’ (Sean Astin) British accent occasionally sounded like it came from the Southland (that’s Southern California to the uninitiated).

•Where da Spider at? Shelob, who was present at the end of the novel version, isn’t in the film version. I hope we get to see that lovely lady in Return of the King.

Thanks for reading.

(Cast info from the Internet Movie Database)

UPDATE: Quotes continuously corrected.