MAN-THING

TYPICAL REVIEW

"This is easily the worst comic book movie ever made, and no, I haven't forgotten about the original Punisher adaptation." - David Nusair, REEL FILM REVIEWS

THE PLOT

There's a new sheriff in town. No, really. And when we meet him on his first day at the job, he's confronting a group of eco-radicals chained to some construction equipment. It appears the local oil baron, Mr. Schist, is dredging up the sacred Indian swampland and tensions are rising. By the time Sheriff Kyle reports for duty people are already starting to go missing, including the previous sheriff he's come to replace. Who's behind these mysterious disappearances? Is it oil tycoon F. A. Schist, a man so evil he actually MWAH-HA-HAs after explaining his plans to his son? Or is it eco-terrorist Rene, a man who thinks an ankle-length black leather duster makes a logical choice for wading in swamps? Could it be those wacky Thibadeaux brothers, because everybody knows where there's a swamp, there's crazy in-bred homicidal cajuns. Or maybe it's just the monster we see kill a man in the very first scene of the film.

THE POINT

At the time I'm writing this, movies based on comic books are big business. Both Ghost Rider and 300 have just spent weeks at #1, TMNT is opening there, and the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man sequels will likely follow suit. In terms of box office draw, comics (or "graphic novels" if it makes you feel smarter) are currently the top dog. But don't despair, B-fans, there's still plenty of room for them at the bottom too.

Case in point; 2005's direct to DVD Man-Thing. Pity the poor makers of Man-Thing. They had to know they were in trouble when, in a year which saw the near universally panned comic adaptation Elektra receive a wide theatrical release, Man-Thing barely managed a premier on the Sci-Fi Channel. If you're familiar with the Sci-Fi Channel, you know it takes a lot of heat from genre fans for churning out low budget quickies like Octopus and Swarmed. But are these films really that much different from the fodder which used to fill out the second half of drive-in double bills; films like Tentacles and The Deadly Bees? Lord knows I've watched both of those, so why not give Man-Thing a try.

If you approach this movie as a Saturday matinée time killer, there is stuff to like about Man-Thing. The direction is competent and workmanlike, the acting ranges from "really trying" to "hamming it up nicely", and the swamp set looks pretty good. But if you're looking for that elusive buried treasure of a film, it's probably best to go somewhere else. The characters never rise above stereotypes, the plot holes are cave sized, and the CGI is marginal at best. The most crippling blow to Man-Thing, however, is a script so formulaic that the average viewer can predict every upcoming scene with 100% accuracy, up to and including the big climatic show down. As B-movie creature features go, Man-Thing is pretty much by the book.

And that's where this movie loses me, because whatever book the filmmakers were using, it sure as shootin' wasn't Man-Thing! You see, I was already a bonafide comic book nut by the time I entered elementary school, and along with the usual books featuring guys in spandex, I was trying out some of the odder titles on the rack. And boy was Man-Thing odd. As scripted by Steve Gerber, Man-Thing was part-horror, part-satire, and all-weird. Stories ranged from broad pop culture parodies of stuff like Star Wars to bizarre metaphysical ruminations on the nature of reality. Needless to say, none of the comic's intellectual subtext made it anywhere near this movie. Even more irritating is the characterization of the Man-Thing itself. The monster presented in the comics was fairly benign until provoked, but the creature in the movie is nothing short of a rampaging indiscriminate killer. He's Jason Voorhies covered in moss and twigs. In the end, nothing is left of the original source material other than a few names, an environmentalist storyline lifted from a single issue, and the idea of a monster in the swamp. Everything else is a complete misrepresentation of the book I enjoyed in my youth.

Poor Man-Thing. All I can say is... welcome to the club. Us religious types are used to being misrepresented; sometimes by non-believers, sometimes by other religions, and almost always by the nation's media outlets. As frustrating as it is when others get things wrong, though, it's even more so when the misinformation comes from inside our own church walls. Sadly, some people just don't know much about their own religion. And lest anyone think I'm just talking about Christianity, just take a look at the following story.

In 2002, Russell John Smith, ordained Satanist and founder of the Order of Perdition, was tracked down and arrested for molesting his own daughter. In his defense, he claimed the abuse was a legitimate part of his religious observance, no different than the black candles and goat’s head he kept in his basement. Since molestation was a part of his "theology", he shouldn't be prosecuted for simply exercising his lawful freedom of religious expression. (Oh, did I mention Smith was also a corrections officer in Virginia?) Now, despite what every marginally talented stand-up on Comedy Central would have you believe, no organized religion likes for these kinds of things to happen. It even upsets the Satanists. After the capture of Russell John Smith, the activist group Darkness Against Child Abuse (I did not make that up. Google them.) quickly denounced Smith and issued statements declaring that his actions had nothing to do with the true teachings or practices of the Church of Satan. If Smith had bothered to read his own group's charter, he would have known that "Do not harm little children." is number 9 on their list of the 11 satanic rules of the Earth. (Seriously, I’m not making this up.) Intentionally or not, he was misrepresenting his own church's "theology", and it was making the rest of the Satanists look bad. Or worse. Or bad "bad" instead of good "bad". I don't know, whatever, but you get the point.

Whenever I'm asked why the Catholic Church pushes religious education so much, these kinds of things are one of the reasons I give. Obviously, religious education alone isn't going to stop all of the misrepresentation out there, especially if it's being done on purpose, but it has to help. Cripes, even the Satanists figured that out. The Catechism states that "the movement of return to God, called conversion and repentance, entails sorrow for and abhorrence of sins committed, and the firm purpose of sinning no more in the future." No classes required. But the Catechism does go on to say that religious education "aims at bringing their conversion and faith to maturity, in response to the divine initiative and in union with an ecclesial community." In short, if you're a member of an organized religion, you have a responsibility to educate yourself on the teachings, both for your own spiritual growth and the good image of your fellow members.

And if you're a screenwriter working on an adaptation of another one of my childhood memories, would it kill you to do more with the source material than just flip through the pictures?

THE STINGER

According to figures in the 2006 Official Catholic Directory there were approximately 154,000 adult converts, 729,000 high school students, and nearly 3.5 million elementary students enrolled in parish religious education programs. To some, that number may seem excessive, but I like to think of it as nothing more than a good start.

Somewhere, the lead singer of R.E.M. feels fine

Crossover.

Few words carry as much potential weight in the Geek World. The history of fictional characters from entirely disparate "worlds" is not entirely illustrious, but the lure of the concept is just too good to let a misstep here and there dull the effect. Who would win? Who's "better" in the first place? Will this special-talent be a match for that? Will the supporting casts show up? If so, what will they make of the meeting?

Can Captain Marvel ("Shazam" version) lift the Hammer of Thor? Could even Superman not break Wolverine's unbreakable adamantium bones? Is The Predator good enough to hunt The Alien? Krueger or Vorhees, who goes the distance? Very seldom are the actual PRODUCTS that spin out of the Crossover itself among the best of either "participant's" catalogue, but that's not really the point. The point is that "it" exists at all. That it happened. So-and-so and you-know-who occupied the same space, breathed the same air, exchanged words and usually fisticuffs.

If you were a video-gamer during the 1990s, during what is now remembered as "The 16-bit Wars," the possibility of ONE hypothetical crossover in particular loomed to some degree in your imagination. No use denying it: You thought about it. Pictured it. Discussed it. Today we learn that we won't have to fantasize for much longer. This year, as a just-announced mega-release tied-in to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (aka China's official "Planet Earth, meet the new boss" coming-out party) it finally happens...

Not a joke. Not a hoax. Not an imaginary tale. Here's the official website:
http://www.sega.com/gamesite/marioandsonic/index.php

Think about this: Up until the middle of yesterday, "Halo 3" was going to be "THE Gaming Event of 2007."

COMING ATTRACTIONS: MAN-THING

If you don't mind sitting through the advertisement, you can view the trailer here.

REVIEW: Shooter

What would happen if "24" and "Fahrenheit 9-11" had a baby? The answer would probably look a lot like "Shooter," a combination political-conspiracy-thriller/action-movie that's just slightly more schizoid than even it's genre-description would imply. It's protagonist - a former Marine scout-sniper living all Jeremiah Johnson in a mountain cabin far from Big Brother's eyes with just his beers, his gun collection and loyal hunting dog to keep him company - is practically a walking right-wing cartoon fetish doll; but he finds himself the hero of a conspiracy plot - involving Big Oil, private military contractors and corrupt Red State senators - that plays out like a DailyKos rant. Imagine the "300" Spartans showing up in Seattle to protest the World Bank and you'll get a pretty good picture of what an odd animal "Shooter" becomes when viewed through the politically-aware lense it frequent asks us to apply.

Yet, it works. Partially, it's because it's wisely willing to meet each of it's seemingly-incompatible "selves" at their most gonzo (within reason) extreme (hero striding toward camera flanked by massive American Flag in slo-mo? Check! Eeeeeevil greedy-capitalist baddies cackling ghoulishly over brandy and cigars? Check!) without a hint of tiresome irony. But mostly it's because it has the good fortune to star Mark Whalberg, a natural for this kind of role if there ever was one; and to have been directed by Antoine Fuqua, the criminally underrated action specialist (think Michael Bay, but with a functional grasp of subtlety) behind "Tears of The Sun" and "Training Day."

Whalberg is Bob Lee Swagger, the aforementioned reclusive master sniper. Uneasily goaded via some patriotic nerve-touching back into service to help pre-thwart a presidential assassination (Swagger: "I don't like the President. Didn't like the last one, either."), he finds himself framed for the murder of an Ethiopian diplomat by a shadowy government/mercenary/Big-Oil conspiracy. Nearly murdered in the process and now on the run from literally the entire law enforcement community, he enlists the aid of a sympathetic FBI rookie (Michael Pena) and an old service buddy's widow (Kate Mara) and sets out to take down the conspirators personally.

Depending on your politics, you're either going to nod your head, shake your fist or shrug your shoulder's at the film's central maguffin, but whatever your reaction it'll likely be coupled with a bipartisan eyeroll at how overly-simple yet overly-convoluted it actually is. But the "what" isn't really especially important here, since this is an old-fashioned Boy Versus The World hero quest and all the twists and bumps are nakedly just there to give Whalberg's Swagger a narrative to operate in. What's important is staging inventive-but-plausible action scenes around the hero's various special skills - particularly his vaunted marksmanship and ability to turn a wholesale store shopping spree into a one-man-army arsenal - and Fuqua executes this with grand expertise. As a bit of a bonus, there's some fun with improvisational medicine (my showing's audience cheered at the revelation of Swagger's "home" substitute for anesthetic) and a standout sequence of the Marine-trained hero making mincemeat out of a crack team of hired mercenaries (come to think of it, the scene and the film could both be accuratelt described as "Rambo vs. Blackwater.")

The film hit's some missteps when it comes time to lay out the "who's" and the "what's" of it's larger premise and veers too often into speechifying and exposition. Ned Beatty has some fun as a slimeball senator, but he and the rest of the heavies finally have little else to do other than sneer at the good guys and yuk it up over how fun it is being powerful and connected. The film is eventually lacking a central "heavy" to match Whalberg outside of the vaguely-defined enemy of "The System," though at least the screenplay knows enough to acknowledge this and work it into the overall theme: "You don't get it," one character scolds Swagger late in the game, "There's no 'head' to cut off."

But it's definately a good time watching him try.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

REVIEW: TMNT (2007)

The words "improbably good," or some similar sentiment have chased around the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" franchise around for some time. It certainly describes the quality of the original independent comics the characters were birthed in, the financial success of the merchandising empire that followed, and even the not-as-dated-as-you'd-think charms of the first feature film all the way back in 1990. Now, once more, here they are again: This film, an (apparently) mid-budget CGI-animated 4th sequel to a franchise who's last tepid entry washed out of theaters over fourteen years ago... is GOOD. Improbably good. Immediately one of the better action films of 2007, an absolute must-see for current and former fans and a genuine marvel at working both as a solid "hard-PG" action offering and a delightful family adventure pic. What a lovely surprise.

There'll be a certain quaint Geek Irony should this film be the release that unseats "300" from the top of the boxoffice (prognosis: improbably good.) The Turtles made their debut as a mid-80s underground independent comic book series from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, heavily spoofing the Marvel Universe of the time and in-particular "300"-progenitor Frank Miller's ninja-saturated "Daredevil" run - the go-to "hot" book of the time. Though MOST of them didn't at first come to it in that form, almost any living member of Generations X and Y can quote you the Turtle Lore verbatim: Four turtles turned into wisecracking humanoid mutants by toxic waste, trained in the martial-arts by and named for Renaissance painters by a similarly-mutated rat named Splinter, operating out of a hidden lair in the NYC sewer system, engaged in constant stuggle with the evil ninjas of the Foot Clan under the villian Shredder. From this humble and decidedly indie-edgy origin came a syndicated cartoon series, and from that came a merchandising cash-cow the likes of which hasn't been seen since. That it occured once was incredible - that it could now occur twice doubly so.

The new film picks up an unspecified number of years after the events of the previous film (prick up you're ears, oldschool fans, you didn't misread that: This is in-continuity with that prior entries, even the 3rd if you're paying close-enough attention.) The Shredder is dead, the Foot Clan has been reduced to working as mercenaries-for-hire, and the Turtle "brotherhood" isn't what it used to be. Leader Leonardo (swords, blue mask) has been off in South America honing his ninjitsu in the jungle, surfer-dude Michaelangelo (nunchucks, orange mask) and brainiac Donatello (bo staff, purple mask) are working crummy jobs to keep busy and hothead Raphael (sais, red mask) is a brooding, introverted wreck, doning an armored disguise and sneaking out as a vigilante at night to circumvent Master Splinter's (voice of Mako, making this the late legend's last film "appearance) ban on crimefighting until Leo returns. As for the extended-family, perennial Turtle buddy April O'Neil has traded in her reporter's mic for the rare antiquities scene while her boyfriend, sports-equipment-armed vigilante Casey Jones, is wrestling with issues of "settling down."

The maguffin (or two) that gets this fractured bunch back together - and into action - again, it turns out, eventually reveals itself as a pretty interesting, unpredictably-twisty setup involving a media tycoon, an ancient battle, a group of living-statues, a gaggle of surly para-dimensional monsters and even the semi-reconstituted Foot Clan. The degree of actual story and substance is impressive, considering both the pedigree and the fact that it's really just an impetus to re-establish the "TMNT" family-dynamic, particularly the interupted-animus between Leo and Raph which boils-over into a truly excellent fight scene.

Stylistically, it keeps pretty close to the visual style of the first film, i.e. a hybrid of the original comics' intentionally Miller-esque urban grit and the more whimsical animated version. Relative newcomer studio Imagi provides the animation, which is noticeably less polished-looking than industry-standard Pixar but makes up for it with a great production design and a well-chosen sense of nostalgia for colorful "edge" of pre-Guiliani Manhattan. The character design looks GREAT for the Turtles, who've simply never looked better, and the imaginatively-designed monsters; but falters a bit in regards to the humans: April and Casey look a little TOO doll-like and cartoony, next to the paradoxically more real-looking Turtles (Karai, the Zhang Ziyi-voiced new leader of the Foot Clan, on the other hand, looks terrific and doesn't have enough screen time.) Bottom-line, though, is that they ALL look great in motion.

(FYI, Imagi's next slated project is a PG13 CGI-animated feature version of the Japanese anime "Gatchaman," remembered as "Battle of The Planets" or "G-Force" to many of you lucky folks who's folks got Cable early on. I've decided I like these cats.)

Though it's clearly (and wisely) got it's eye on the new generation of potential audiences, the film is tight-packed with details and asides to reward the original fans who've come back to see if any of the magic is still there: Oldschoolers should definately keep a sharp eye on all the continuity-confirming treasures strewn about the Turtle Lair, and at my showing a single exchange hinting at whom the (hoped-for) next installment's Big-Bad might be had the 20-somethings expressing enthusiastic delight. And, dammit, there's something just-plain-good about seeing these old "friends" being pretty-much the way you remember them. It's not just a "fanboy-wank," but it DOES understand that it's dealing with a mythos that's tied heavily to the sacred memories of youth for much of it's prospective audience and it takes that "responsibility" seriously. If the Toy-Toon Generation is as incensed by the upcoming Michael Bay "Transformers" adaptation as many of them fear they'll be, look for "TMNT" to be frequently cited as "how NOT to eff these things up" Exhibit-A.

Oh, here's something ELSE you can look forward to: A whole lot of end-of-civilization carping when this "toy commercial" hits big bank with family audiences while "The Last Mimzy" belly-flops. Y'know what? YES, with it's New Age spiritual underpinings and environmental message "Mimzy" has the market cornered on good intentions compared to "TMNT's" just-for-fun/nostalgia bounciness... but "Mimzy" is still a leaden dud while "TMNT" is alive and kicking with terrific characters and grand family-friendly high-adventure.

I'll be smiling all weekend, thanks to this movie. Thank you, Imagi - but please work on rendering better human beings for "Gatchaman." Thank you, thank you, thank you writer/director Kevin Munroe, for giving me one of the good parts of grade school back again - and doing so in a full-on, legitimately great little movie. The best "Ninja Turtles" movie ever.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

REVIEW: The Hills Have Eyes 2

Boy, does this suck.

It was practically a given that this quickie sequel would have an uphill battle at proving itself without gonzo-genius Alexandre Aja at the helm, but man... This is the kind of awful, pointless follow-up you usually expect to go direct-to-DVD.

Alright, so the original isn't exactly a flat-out masterpiece, but at least it had guts (literally) and vision. It's solution to reinvigorating the stale "vactioners versus rural cannibal mutants" setup was to go over-the-top and then some. This sequel whittles down the mutants to a skeleton-crew of about four to five uniteresting hulks and tosses a crew of heavily-armed National Guard troops at them... and can't think of a single interesting thing to do for almost two hours. The first film managed a crucifixtion/incineration, a baby-in-peril and turned the family dog into an action hero before the 3rd act even got going... the best the sequel can manage is a prolonged, shockingly unimaginative rape scene. Skip it.

FINAL RATING: 1/10

THX-1138

TYPICAL REVIEW

"A pretentious regurgitation of worn-out sci-fi clichés by a novice filmmaker who had yet to find his way." -- William Arnold, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

THE PLOT

THX-1138, LUH-3417, and SEN-5241 live in a futuristic society located beneath the surface of the Earth which has outlawed all interpersonal human relationships, The machines that run everything use drugs to keep the population’s emotions under control. THX stops taking his medication, develops true feelings for his lover, and makes a run for the surface.

THE POINT

Most of the present day interest generated by THX-1138 is the fact that it was the directorial debut of George Lucas. Yes, that’s the same George Lucas who gave us both Jar Jar Binks and 1978’s Star Wars Holiday Special (And, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re either too young to know about it or you’ve been blessed by God to never have seen it.) THX-1138 is his freshman effort and it shows a little.

To be fair though, a lot of people, myself included, like this movie. The acting is decent, the writing is acceptable, and, if nothing else, it's got Donald Pleasence in it. Not to mention, for a glorified student film, it makes pretty good use of its budget. Which from the looks of things must have been about $5. This is most evident in the set design. Like so many other low budget movies, THX-1138 portrays a future that looks an awful lot like the basement of a factory or power plant. If sci-fi B-movies are any real indication, mankind has a lot of long white corridors and overhead pipes to look forward to.

Fortunately, the low budget actually adds to the impersonal feel of the society the film wants to portray. All of the rooms have very little furniture with no decorations or photos, nothing at all with a personal touch. All of the citizens are forced to shave their heads and wear the same white uniform, in effect becoming the same person. Emotional extremes, including sexual desire, are suppressed by enforced medication. And, in tried and true sci-fi fashion, the main occupation of the humans seems to be in assembling the very robotic police who keep them under control. The future world we're given in THX-1138 is one in which everything is “fair” and “equal” from a materialistic standpoint; but apparently at the cost of individual identity.

THX-1138 never really gets too specific about what brought humanity to this sad situation. There are some vague references to some above-ground disaster, but for the most part, the movie is obscure enough so that the viewer can insert whatever socio-political boogie man they feel inclined to. It does, however, take some time to point out some of the "tools" society uses to keep mankind in a controlled state. There's the government controlled commerce, of course, and the government sponsored entertainment. And of particular interest to us, there is a scene in the movie where THX steps into a phone booth to call the main control center in order to make a confession of his sins. Ah yes, organized religion is also a tool for control of the masses.

I think it's fair to say that plenty of people do view religion as nothing more than a means of social control. And, only a fool would make the claim that, over the centuries, there haven't been numerous examples of people using religion to do just that. But, that's not really the issue. Nobody intelligent makes the claim that the misuse of religion in and of itself proves religion is a bad thing. (Okay, some daytime talk show hosts do claim that, but nobody really takes them seriously but nighttime talk show hosts anyway.) No, the misuse of religion is just one more proof that some human beings will use any means whatsoever to get what they want.

The better question is whether or not there is something ingrained in organized religion itself that inherently demands the surrender of your individual identity; does organized religion demand absolute control over it's adherents. Sure, some of them like the ancient Egyptians did, but oddly enough, they're not around anymore. What about the ones that are still around, though; what about mine?

You know, if you just skim over things, it doesn't look too good. Look at the close of the 19th chapter of the gospel of Matthew, for example. The apostles are thinking about the “unfairness” of their current situation and it’s Peter who speaks up. (Who else?) "Look, Jesus" he says, "we left everything and followed you. What do we get, Lord? How about a little something for the effort?"

In his usual style, Jesus answers with a parable. It's the well known reading about the wealthy landowner who hires groups of workers at different intervals throughout the day, but still pays them all the same wages once the work is done. Which doesn't seem quite fair, either to the workers in the story who toiled since early morning, or to the apostles listening to Jesus tell the story. It really seems like Jesus is telling us that individual effort doesn't matter and we should just shut up, do as we're told, and accept what we get. Just what is it He wants us to get out of this story? It’s obvious we’re supposed to think the landowner is in the right, but how?

I think the key to the parable may actually be in the first few verses. Before the landowner ever pays anyone a single denarius, he first has to go to the marketplace and offer them work. And remember, none of these people had jobs before he showed up. He then keeps going back to collect more and more workers. In the end, the emphasis in the story is not whether everyone did the same job, but rather who responded to the call to come work at all.

And what does this have to do with control and the loss of individuality? Well, let's use an easy example. Christianity (and pretty much all of the other major religions) claims as a moral absolute that the poor be cared for. That's one of the non-negotiable things we're called to respond too. But HOW we're supposed to respond isn't given too much detail. How do we define who is poor? Do we help them through charity, enterprise, or the government? Do we give with no expectation or do we require some commitment in exchange for the aid? There's a lot of leeway given to our individual response, and that's really smart, because it ensures that somebody somewhere is covering all the bases for the task required.

I would have to say the call to respond in a unique and individual manner is one of the great strengths of Christianity and it's why people with completely opposing social philosophies can still join hands in church and call each other brother. The extinguishing of the individual would actually be one of the most crippling things the Church could ever do. It couldn't sustain the society of THX-1138 and it can't sustain ours.

THE STINGER

You know, Mr. Lucas can keep saying things in interviews like he’s a Buddhist-Methodist (whatever that is), but we can see where these ideas are coming from George. In his book, Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas, John Baxter writes “Without the… upper-middle-class Methodist values he absorbed during his upbringing…, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones series, even the more eccentric THX-1138, let alone American Graffiti, would have been very different. Indeed, they might not have existed at all.”

So don’t worry, George, when all is said and done, God still loves you. And He'll probably forgive you for that Holiday Special. As for Jar Jar, though, well, there's always Purgatory.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: THX-1138

REVIEW: The Last Mimzy

NOTE: Early review from preview-screening. The film will not be released until next week. As the advertisements have made ZERO attempt to tell people what this is at all about, some of this MAY be considered minor spoiler-territory.

Few things are rougher to have to appraise than poor films with admirable intentions, and "The Last Mimzy" is precisely such a film. I can't think of many things I'd like to champion more than a serious, thought-provoking science fiction film for a family audience, and that's definately what "Mimzy" sets out to be... unfortunately, we all know what they say about good intentions and the paving of certain roads.

The film is inspired by "Mimsy Were the Borogroves," a 1943 theoretical-mathematics-based scifi short story by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, which was in turn inspired by a line of "nonsense verse" by Lewis Carroll in one of the "Alice" stories. The story was considered remarkably ahead of it's time in it's own time, and even now it's central workings are right up there with "2001" and "Pi" in the pantheon of "stuff you wouldn't expect to be the basis for a movie."

Trouble is, this all that good stuff is imported from a short story, and the manual-inflation going on to pad the goings-on out to feature length are awkward and obvious, as-is the imposition of a narrative that... er.. "borrows" (to be charitable) liberally from a lot of other similar movies ("War Games," "D.A.R.R.Y.L.," "E.T.," and "Project X" especially ought to take a quick inventory of their belongings.) Also contributing to the stumble is the haphazard insertion of "edgy" buzz-topics to define the good guys (New Age psuedo-Buddhism, environmentalism, technophobia) and the bad guys (Homeland Security, Patriot Act, etc.,) in terms of current-events, attempted so poorly that it's almost physically jarring. The end-result wants to be the sleek, 21st Century "E.T." but instead shambles around like the mutant offspring of "The Secret" and "Mac & Me."

The story itself concerns two siblings, a gradeschool-age boy and his genius toddler sister, who discover a "toybox" full of strange objects that imbue them with strange powers: He turns into a mathematics genius who can talk to spiders and freehand-doodle ancient Tibetan geometry drawings he's never seen himself, while she gains telekinetic mind powers and bonds with the "toybox's" sole recognizable occupant: A stuffed bunny named "Mimzy" who "speaks" to her in a strange electronic language and offers explanations for events at plot-convenient intervals. Short version (the film more-or-less lays this out at the beginning, so not a spoiler): Humanity screwed up something feirce in the future, and "Mimzy's" are cuddly reverse-"Terminators" sent back to the past in order to do... something... that'll put things right and lead to shiny-happy utopia.

You'd think that would be enough for one movie, but for some reason somebody decided that the film needed nearly a solid first hour of red-herrings and half-formed ideas that don't go anywhere plus two extra sets of characters to spread things out. Enter Rainn Wilson (from the American "Office") as the kids' "hip" eco-minded science teacher, his palm-reading New Age wife (Kathryn Hahn) and Michael Clarke Duncan as a Homeland Security (bum bum BUUUUUUMMMM!) agent who steps in to muck things up when Mimzy and friends innadvertently cause a statewide EMP blackout.

Not a bad set of performers for ultimately-extraneous characters, but it comes across just a little too clearly as an ad-on. For what it's worth, Wilson and Hahn's jokey interplay at least makes their characters the most enjoyable good-natured ribbing of the granola set at least until Emma Thompson goes another round as "Harry Potter's" Sybil Trelawney; while unfortunately Duncan's subplot can't shake off the fact that he's only there so that the film can (with embarassing shamelessness) rip-off the "sad part" of "E.T." nearly scene-for-scene.

Adding to the trouble is that the film is largely unpleasant to watch, often garishly photographed and staged in clunky-looking compositions. The director is Bob Shaye, longtime New Line Cinema boss-man who's lst behind the camera credit was 1990's forgetable "Book of Love." The story of how he opted to do this one himself is probably more interesting than the movie.

Everyone's heart was in the right place on this one, but the end result is going to confound the crap out of the kiddies and bore the stuffing out of the adults. Count me out if there's a Next Mimzy.

FINAL RATING: 3/10

THE DUNWICH HORROR

TYPICAL REVIEW

"This is a horror movie, right?" – Andrew Borntreger, BADMOVIES.ORG

THE PLOT

Creepy Wilbur Whateley shows up at Miskatonic University to check out a copy of the legendary Necronomicon, a book of rituals designed to bring horrific alien gods back to Earth. (Hey, doesn’t every library have one?) To perform the final rites, he requires the unwilling assistance of virginal Nancy Wagner. Only Dr. Henry Armitage stands in the way of his foul schemes. Did we mention Wilbur has a hideously deformed half-demon twin brother slinking around?

THE POINT

I think it's safe to say most people are letdown when their favorite author’s books are translated to movies, and horror fans are no exception. Alas, for the devoted fans of H. P. Lovecraft, the bitter taste of disappointment is probably stronger than most. If you want to see despair, just ask a Lovecraft fan to name all of the really good screen adaptations of a Lovecraft story. Most likely, he will be able to count them all on one hand... after he cuts a couple of fingers off in despondency. Having died in 1937, Lovecraft himself was spared the viewing of the wretched adaptations of his stories hit the big screen. We aren't so lucky. Take The Dunwich Horror, for example.

Where Lovecraft wrote stories about people slowly going mad over the realization that their perception of reality was utterly wrong, this movie presents us with a freaky white guy sporting an afro trying to summon a fake rubber monster to destroy the world. (Of course, to be honest, that kind of description really is irresistible bait to bad-movie fans like myself.) And the hairstyles in this movie are just the start of the weirdness. You also get the requisite psychedelic effects accompanied by crazed cultish hippies. You get bizarre editing where a character who was terrified in one scene is quietly undisturbed in the next. And, inexplicably, you get Sandra Dee as the main protagonist Nancy in what I can only guess was supposed to be her big departure roll from her days as Gidget. It's all good old fashioned early 70s rubbish.

But what really, really gets to you in The Dunwich Horror is just how dimwitted the character of Nancy is. She’s one of those movie characters who is so blind to the bad decisions she is making that even the audience starts yelling at her to quit being such a numbskull. Okay, you could almost forgive her for immediately falling for the creepiest guy on campus. Lots of women make poor choices in men. You can maybe even forgive her overlooking Wilbur's preoccupation with Armageddon. My own wife ignores my movie collection for the most part. But about the third time Nancy passes out after drinking Wilbur’s tea, you would think she might start to catch on that something sinister is in the works. Hey, Nancy baby, you think there might be something in that cup other than lemon, huh? By the end of the movie, you just don't feel that much sympathy when Nancy ends up on the old sacrificial altar.

That kind of irrational behavior isn’t completely unrealistic, I suppose. There will always be people who refuse to recognize or admit that they are making bad choices. They’re so individualistic, so focused only on themselves and what they desire, that they simply just won’t listen to anyone else. And as for listening to God? Puhlease!!!

Listening to God. That's kind of a loaded phrase, isn't it? Throughout the history of religion the idea of hearing the voice of God has meant everything from the prayerful understanding of an event to reading the signs in a steaming pile of entrails. For the majority of Christians, however, the primary way in which God’s Holy Spirit speaks to us is through our conscience. The Catechism refers to Conscience as a “voice ever calling [man] to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil” and adds that “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience”.

This would suggest that failure to see conscience as the voice of God can lead to serious problems. But, we have to accept the fact that as human beings, we will try to find ways not to hear that voice. And that's twice as likely if that voice happens to be saying something we don’t want to hear. (Some medicine does taste bad no matter how good it is for us.) But God, being God and all, saw that coming and provided us with plenty of backups. And one of the most important of those backups is Community. If we won’t listen to God directly, He’ll use the people around us to get us the message. If we find ourselves in a situation where a lot of people are coming to us with concerns over some of our actions, maybe it’s time to step back and make sure we’re not ignoring the calls of our own conscience before we’re too far gone. Or at least before we're strapped to an altar as a sacrifice to some bad special effects.

THE STINGER

You have to pay attention when you read theological treaties like the Catechism. Take a second glance at that earlier quote about conscience and you'll see the term "certain judgment". In 2001, The Reverend Arthur Allen Jr, the head pastor of a self-founded non-denominational church, was arrested for child abuse. Quoting the Old Testament as justification, Allen and members of his congregation routinely held down children and beat them with sticks and belts. "If you're going to give (children) a meaningful lesson," Allen said, "give them a meaningful lesson.” Now, there were probably a lot of people in Robert Allen’s congregation who felt a twitch in their conscience as he beat these children in front of an altar, but only a paltry few eventually came forward to the authorities. The others had apparently become so dependent on Allen’s overbearing personality that they were willing to suppress their own individual judgment. To avoid heading down that path, it’s a good idea to put a little effort into making sure our conscience is well informed. Yes, as Christians we listen out for the voice of God, but a little bit of study can only help us understand the words when they come.

REVIEW: Dead Silence

As the writer/director/actor team of the money-printing "Saw" franchise, Leigh Whannell and James Wan can by now write their own ticket as far as the horror genre goes. Encouragingly, "Dead Silence," the duo's first non-"Saw" re-teaming is nearly a complete 180 in terms of tone and style; eschewing the previous franchise's post-industrial grit and Nu-Metal aura for lilting eeriness and old-school gothic dread that owes more than a little to early Stephen King. These are no one-trick ponies.

A lot is written these days about how the rising generation of popular filmmakers ground their frame of reference to much in other movies. While there's some merit to this criticism, it ignores the flip-side: Some genres, Horror especially, thrive on injections of fresh, er.. blood. And when trying to keep things fresh, a profound familiarity with what's already gone stale can be a good start on the way to something great. With "Dead Silence," Wan and Whannell have elected to try and re-energize one of modern horror's most irritating cliches: The practice of earning a cheap delay-scare by dropping out the ambient noise on the soundtrack moments before the "BOO!" and the big jump-chord. Amazingly, they've found a way to take this worn-out aural shortcut and make it a functioning part of the actual story: "Dead Silence's" central big-bad is a sound-hating spectre who's presence is signaled - both to the audience and to the characters - by the sudden cessation of all ambient noise. And it works! I'm in awe. What will they do for an encore, give a plausible explanation for all occurances of spring-loaded-cats?

The aforementioned spectre is the ghost of Mary Shaw, a Depression-era (or maybe post-WWII.. the actual time settings here are a little vauge) ventriloquist spinster who was murdered in an act of vigilante vengeance when she became suspected of kidnapping and murdering a local youngster who'd heckled a performance featuring her and one of her 101 wooden-dummy "children." She manifests in relative-proximity to her more-mobile-than-you'd-expect dolls, stalking the descendants of those responsible for her death. If you scream when you see her, she rips out your tongue and can then mimic your voice to mess with others.

Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) a onetime resident of the rather Silent Hill-ish blighted town at the epicenter of Mary Shaw's curse, finds his wife similarly mutilated after recieving a mysterious package containing Doll #57 ("Billy,") and heads home to get some answers about the mystery and how it connects to his (of course) wealthy and emotionally-distant father (Bob Gunton!) with a suspicious homicide detective (Donnie Whalberg) in tow.

To be honest, there's just a bit too much going on here; as though Wan and Whannell had several dozen different "angels" to take on making a scary ventriloquism movie and finally opted to just put them all into one movie. As a result, it's a little hard to pin down exactly what Mary Shaw is or isn't capable of. A great deal of setup is given to her behavior and burial requests, but the actual mechanics of things are fairly broad: At times she's a zombie, others a ghost. At times the dolls seem to be moving on their own, "Chucky"-style, other times they mainly exist as harbingers for their master. And I'm still not really clear on the how or why of Shaw returning to "life" as a being of such considerable supernatual powers in the first place.

But those are trifles, really, against the simple fact that the movie is a finely-made ghost story. The film is pulling gags and concepts from all over the horror landscape, yes, but at least it's being wise in it's cherry-picking: There's just enough eeriness, gothic murk, modern gore and old-fashioned jumps to make a well-rounded horror entry that's suitably scary and carries a substantial degree of mood - even if it does ultimately hurt for lack of a strong central presence of evil like Tobin Bell's "Jigsaw" of the "Saw" franchise (keep an eye peeled for Jigsaw's own puppet-pal among Shaw's collection.)

The bottom line is: It's a good spook-show, which is more than can be asked for most of it's ilk these days.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

COMING ATTRACTIONS: THE DUNWICH HORROR

And if you just have to see the trailer, you can watch it right here.

Iran doesn't like "300"

Iran is angry. Yeah, I know, "Iran?? Angry??? Are... are you sure?" Who'd a thunk, eh?

Now, "angry" is pretty much the default operating system for Iran, yes. Moreso lately than usual. They're angry that they don't control more of the Middle East. They're angry that there's a war in Iraq that they aren't benefitting from as much as they might otherwise be. They're angry that various world powers are uniting under the theme of NOT letting them obtain a nuclear weapon. And, as always, they're angry that neither they nor their ideological allies in Palestine have succeeded in wiping the Jews out of existance.

You'd think that'd be enough to be angry about for a nation of 70 Million people. But, apparently, no. Apparently with a major war looming right next door and their own President essentially begging to be attacked, Iran has still found time to work itself into a hysterical lather the type of which the Muslim World typically reserves only for newspaper cartoons and a women with a visible nose-bridge over the movie "300." So says a Time magazine corespondent in Tehran: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1598886,00.html?cnn=yes

Iran's problem? Well, the film's snarling villians are Persians, and what's left of the once-mighty Persian Empire and it's once-proud Persian People we now call Iran. Ironically, more Americans now know this BECAUSE Iran brought it up than probably ever knew it while going to see "300."

This was bound to happen, and wouldn't really be something I'd call newsworthy (again: Iranian anger is not news, in the same way that a wet fish is not news) save for the kind of special hilarity it provides with quotes like these:

"Everywhere else I went, from the dentist to the flower shop, Iranians buzzed with resentment at the film's depictions of Persians, adamant that the movie was secretly funded by the U.S. government to prepare Americans for going to war against Iran. "Otherwise why now, if not to turn their people against us?"

I wonder if it's even worth trying to explain to Iran that that isn't the way things actually work here. Or, even better, that what they're imagining is unfathomable in the current political climate: "Hollywood" and the regime that currently occupies the White House and Pentagon tend to view one-another in terms of lions-vs.-hyenas: natural born enemies. Of course, it doesn't HELP that the expected wacko-contingent of the political "right" has been jumping up and down aiming to claim the film as "theirs" since before it came out, while the wacko-contingent of the "left" is slinging around their favorite insta-slams of "racism" and "imperialism."

On the scale of such things, this isn't quite as tragically-amusing as when Britian got angry about looking bad in "The Patriot," if only because there was never the chance that Britian would fire off a missile or two over it. Still... you have to wonder if this can safely be called a case of a nation having it's priorities obscenely out of alignment, and I mean even for Iran.

IMPULSE

TYPICAL REVIEW

"The film wastes its predictable but promising premise and quickly degenerates into virtual absurdity." – THE TIME OUT FILM GUIDE

THE PLOT

Somewhere out in Cowtown, USA the government is storing hazardous waste material which manages to leak its way into the local milk supply. After a few weeks of guzzling this goo, the local citizenry begin to lose their ability to control their impulses, acting on the first thought that comes into their minds. This is bad news, both for the locals and the visiting married couple who just happen to be in town that week.

THE POINT

IMPULSE is another one of those movies where you end up thinking, “What a great idea. How could they have messed it up so badly?”

Think about the premise for a minute. An entire community exposed to a strange chemical suddenly and totally begins to disregard all the established social rules of our culture and starts to act on those first impulses we normally suppress. How do you take an idea like that and turn it into an hour and a half bore-fest?

Well first you hire Graham Baker to direct it. He was the man who gave us great cinematic treats like OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT and the unbelievable BORN TO RIDE, a WWII motorcycle movie starring John Stamos from TV’s Full House. Then you throw in a script that is slow, slow, slooooooow. I’m not kidding; there is a breathtaking scene in this movie that lasts nearly seven minutes in which a character… walks through town. If you ever wanted to know exactly how long seven minutes can feel, then by all means, watch IMPULSE. In fairness, the script does give some half-hearted attempts at bringing the idea to life (a man decides to relieve himself on a car, a doctor performs some impromptu euthanasia, etc.), but it all comes off as a just a little bit too... tame. I'm not advocating that the film should have been 90 minutes of unadulterated debauchery, but just imagine handing this premise and a decent budget to the likes of Ken Russell or John Waters and you can see why the film is frustrating.

Another thing that is equally frustrating about this movie, especially to someone with a religious bent, is that not one single character exhibits a "good" action as their first impulse. Did none of these people pay attention in Sunday School? Based on the setting in the movie, there had to at least be a small Methodist or Lutheran church somewhere in town, and the last time I checked neither of those denominations were preaching "Hate Thy Neighbor". I mean, come on, if you've got seven minutes of screen time to devote to a walking scene, you can spare a few seconds to show someone acting on an altruistic impulse.

In his Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon defines Love simply as the act of willing good to someone else. If that’s true, then a God-like love is not about feeling okay about someone else, or even liking them for that matter. As the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it, Christian love “is at times intensely emotional, and frequently reacts on our sensory faculties, still it properly resides in the rational will.” In short, love in the Christian sense is a conscious choice. And when Jesus bluntly states in Matthew 22, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.", it's probably a pretty good indication that we need to try and make it our first choice. Even if we're stuck in a bad movie.

THE STINGER

Viewing love as a choice rather than a feeling can be difficult to swallow because most people act in such a way that makes it pretty hard to “will good” for them. And, let's face it, it's likely that we even act "unlovable" ourselves sometimes. Hard to believe, I know, but true. This is probably why we've been given the responsibility to "choose" love rather than "feel" love, because even at our worst, God loves us and wants "good" for us for our own sake. Can we really call ourselves Christians and do any less for the sake of others?

COMING ATTRACTIONS: IMPULSE

You can view the trailer here but, be warned, you'll probably have to sit through an ad first.

REVIEW: 300

A small word of caution to any readers whom it may apply to: If you are yourself or are the concerned friend of a high school athlete with ANY games scheduled against one of the gazillion opposing teams in the U.S. called "The Spartans" at any time while "300" is still playing in theaters, please heed the following advice: Watch the hell out!

Yes, once again we dive into the "Braveheart"-birthed subgenre of epics that can be accurately refered to as Loose-History For Varsity Football Dudes and Frat Boys, with Zack Snyder's ambitious "300" jockeying to unseat current-champ "Gladiator" as the default favorite "historical" movie of your local Atomic Wedgie Distributor. This doesn't make it a bad film, not by any stretch, though it does aid in approaching the movie on the proper terms.

The film is a very literal translation of Frank Miller's 1998 graphic-novel, itself a "cool-parts-only-and-cooler-parts-added" retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae (300 Spartan soldiers under King Leonidas versus a thousands-strong multinational horde under the Persian god-king Xerxes for those a little rusty on their Western Civ.) Most historical epics, for better or worse, aim to examine the deeper concepts of legendary events, or tie them to modern paralells, but you'll find little of such here: This is a story of Sparta as the Spartans would've wanted it told. It casts it's Greek heroes in the idealized (and profoundly homoeroticized) terms in which they cast themselves, and likewise Xerxes army appears as a clashing collective of beastial exotica that indeed captures the ghoulish identity ancient Greece assigned to her foes. The Spartans appear as expertly-oiled bodybuilder specimens who go to war naked save for their crimson capes and leather Chippendales speedos; while the enemy is either ugly, malformed or outright monstrous - at least two of the "heavies" are almost literal ogres, while Xerxes himself is a towering, peircing-adorned giant with a digitally-distorted voice.

On the one hand, historians will have something resembling a point when they meekly point out that Xerxes armies probably didn't include a Jabba-esque executioner with giant claw-shaped blades replacing his forearms. But it seems to me a slippery slope to hold such gratuity against a film who's area of history involves a clash between two civilizations so alien to modern audiences that even a "straight" retelling would have all the relateability of an unsubtitled clash between Aliens and Predators.

The nigh-extraterrestrial nature of the onscreen presentation is also helpful in allowing the action to be appreciated on it's own merits: A sampling of any pool of reviews will reveal that critics are already too eager to read political subtexts into a film that's more concerned with making every spear-to-the-gut kill cooler than the last, but I for one am not finding many such reviews worth taking very seriously. "Conservative" critics are largely making fools of themselves trying to cast King Leonidas (Gerard Butler, late of "Phantom of The Opera") as some kind of Bush avatar, while their mirror-mirror dopplegangers on the "Left" are throwing a White Guilt hissy-fit over the fact that all the good guys are caucasian Greeks while the baddies are mostly, well.. not.

This is neither the time, the place nor the material for that kind of introspection - Greek Mythology doesn't really "do" subtext. Thermopylae is here framed in the terms of the East vs. West clash of Grecian reason and Persian "mysticism and tyranny" that have been it's default portrayal in verse, prose and portrait since it occured, and given the end result there's nothing wrong with that: The film is "about" exactly what's up on the screen: Balletic scenes of combat, loving-photographed spears thrusting through enemy torsos, gruesome enemies and thundering declarative narration. It's a film of manly men doing manly things, and depending on your reading of that description you're either going to regard it as High Camp, Holy Writ or some feverish hybrid of the two.

Created almost-entirely using green-screen "sets" and copious CGI, the film is painterly in the most literal sense: Every shot is practically a post card in motion, meticulously composed down to the last drop of spewing digital bloodspray. Every shot of the Spartan's in combat is designed to linger on the striking visual of their battle poses, every sword-stroke and heroic leap looking like the result of a life of practice. Every shot of the Persians is a chance to show off the creativity of the makeup, costuming and armory crew. When Leonidas consults an Oracle, it appears in the form of a nubile girl doing a peyote-fueled cheese-cloth striptease. If there's a "cool" way to behead, stab or slash an enemy using Spartan weaponry, you can bet Snyder and company have incorporated it; along with providing one of the better motion picture realizations of how a Spartan Phalanx likely worked.

When you come right down to it, "300" is essentially a single battle scene blown up to the level of a Wagnerian opera. And, as such, it's a tremendously successful achievement. It's not the transcendantly-excellent work that was "Sin City," the previous high-style Frank Miller adaptation, but it neither wants or needs to be. It's a brawl, writ-large and fully committed to building up it's audience's lust for digitally-stylized bloodshed and then leaving them more than satisfied. This kind of thing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but approach it with and open mind and reasonable expectations and you're likely to at least come away having experienced something altogether fresh.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

ROBOT MONSTER

TYPICAL REVIEW

"OK, it's cheesy, it's stupid, it's cheap, it’s nearly inept, but, by golly, it's a hoot to watch." - Bob Bloom, JOURNAL AND COURIER (LAFAYETTE, IN)

THE PLOT

It’s the end of the world as we know it. Ro-Man XJ2, invader from space, has eliminated almost everyone on Earth with his Calcinator Death Rays. A small band of people have managed to survive but Ro-Man is still on the prowl and there's dangerous stock footage of giant man-eating lizards to contend with. Will humanity survive or will Ro-Men rule the Earth?

THE POINT

Anybody out there with a good friend who is also a film-major knows they will eventually get the call to appear in one or more school projects. And because it is still school, the productions can sometimes veer towards the noncommercial and bizarre. I have fond memories of the time I was asked to wear a gigantic squirrel costume lovingly hand sewn by the director's mother. They did their best to make the rig comfortable, but the mystery fur it was made from was blazing hot inside; the four foot long, two foot wide tail that hung precariously from my wire shoulder harness was unwieldy and heavy; and the fur covered paper-mache head had zero visibility and refused to turn when I did. In short, I looked ridiculous.

I only mention that experience because, even with the $5 budget my friend had for costuming, I still looked more believable than Ro-Man. Even if you’ve never seen Robot Monster, you’ve probably seen an image of Ro-Man. He’s become the poster child of cheapo 1950’s sci-fi. That’s him in the picture up above. Yes, that is indeed a gorilla costume topped by a diving helmet with TV antennas glued to it; pure B-Movie goodness.

Ro-Men, giant grasshoppers, astro-zombies, nuclear mutants; you name it; back in the 50’s they were going to kill us, all of us. Just because they lack the budget of Titanic or Armageddon, these types of “end of the world” films can still be considered part of the larger genre known as “disaster movies” and they’ve been around since the beginning of cinema. Thanks in large part to the Cold War, they really began to be produced in large numbers in the years following World War II. After fading a little in the 60’s, they came back strong after the Vietnam War and have stuck around ever since. These days you can count on at least two or three good old fashioned “end of the world” movies every year.

It's important to note the timing of these apocalypse flicks. Although you would expect the exact opposite, Hollywood tends to churn out a higher number of disaster movies during times of national stress or emergency. And Hollywood wouldn’t do it if people weren’t willing to shell out some money to see it. The best guess I’ve heard as to why this is so is that these movies are not just about facing disaster, but surviving it. As one critic points out, “Old people and pregnant women are rescued, children are lifted from the rubble, and love affairs blossom.” The aliens of Independence Day’ may blow up the White House and Ro-Man may blow soap bubbles (Watch the movie, I’m not kidding), but the movies themselves end up offering a positive message.

Take the United States Council of Catholic Bishop’s review of the “end of the world” spectacular “The Day After Tomorrow” for example. It states that “Sadly, in a film dealing with tragedy on a worldwide scale, references to God or spirituality are noticeably absent, apart from a few scattered verbal afterthoughts. However, buried beneath the blockbuster budget and apocalyptic visuals is a message about familial love, selfless heroism and the indomitable spirit of man.” In short, through perseverance, belief and the right moral choices, the human race has the ability to be saved.

Sadly, for the last remaining humans in Robot Monster, they're not up to the task. They're so crippled by their own bickering, indecisiveness, condescension, and selfish desires, that they never really stand a chance. By the end of the movie, only one small boy is left to watch as Ro-Man destroys the Earth with soap bubbles and sparklers. Bummer.

THE STINGER

Natural Evil is the term theologians apply to the suffering caused by things like natural disasters or disease; things not typically related to human choice. Which leads to the inevitable question of why would a loving God create a world in which there is Natural Evil in the first place? One train of theological thought is, if there were no possibility of natural disasters or diseases, if we existed in some kind of Wonderland in which everything we needed or wanted was taken care of without any risk or effort on our part, it might not really be the best thing for us. Realistically, if we lived in that kind of utopia, would we ever worry about anything other than our own immediate pleasure? With human beings being the self-serving creatures they are, maybe it’s just not possible to create a world in which no suffering exists and still have people choose the things that make them grow spiritually. It would appear that, by giving his creations free will, God has voluntarily limited His own omnipotence. Sure, He could easily step in and end all suffering on Earth, but the cost would be our freedom of choice. And without choice, how could we grow into the people God wants us to be?

Captain America

Most of the rest of the world, I now know, found out about this on the news throughout the day. I woke up and barely made it to work on time, then directly from work to the comic shop so... hadn't heard a thing. I knew #25 would be a "big" issue, being the first Cap story post-"Civil War." But I didn't figure on this. Yeah, signs had been there for a bit, 20/20 hindsight and all, but in the actual reading this came as a complete shock to me (I had half-expected it DURING "CW"... but right after??) It's a cracking great issue, yes, and coupled with the past year's worth of stories about the character this may be the most "satisfying" comic book death since Captain Marvel... but, still... Wow. Ton of bricks.

And, yes, I did cry.

"O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead."

-- Walt Whitman ("O Captain! My Captain.") 1891

"So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,

Dying to be born a fighter,

But to die again, once more."

-- Gen. George S. Patton ("Through a Glass, Darkly.") 1922

COMING ATTRACTIONS: ROBOT MONSTER

Continuing to retcon in trailers for old posts.

A Cold Day In Hell

That distinct sense you had over the weekend that they were ice-skating in Hell wasn't your imagination: Anne Coulter finally pulled a stunt so crass that Conservatives are lining up to kick her out of the clubhouse, once and for all.

The problem arose when Coulter got up to do her signature verbal flaying of Democrat presidential candidates at The American Conservative Union Political Action Conference. It was televised, a sampling of potential Republican presidential nominees were present, and then this happened:

Coulter on John Edwards: She'd like to have said something about him, but "apparently you have to go into rehab if you use to word faggot."

So... a psuedo-pundit flamethrower who's entire schtick is to say vile, shocking things so that they can be opened up for discussion through the back door uses the anti-gay equivalent of "nigger," and "Conservatives" react by...

...um... actually acknowledging that it was a big deal? Really? The same "conservatives" who rally behind the openly anti-gay president? The same "conservatives" propping up the so-called "gay marriage ammendment?" What the HELL is going on here? Did I wake up in some alternate universe where political types act honorably? Has the Republican Party realized that being the party that's "down" with hating homosexuals is a long-term losing prospect?

Here's right-wing movie blog "Libertas" doing the right thing:
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=4506

Over at the similarly firmly-conservative Hugh Hewitt site:
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/380bdbbd-8f01-45cb-8dd8-d1370aa6f1b2

And most-importantly, all three "top" GOP candidates - Mitt Romney, John McCain (who wasn't at the event) and Rudy Guiliani - all denounced her:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/us/politics/04coulter.html?ex=1330664400&en=29da3997b1d639ef&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

This isn't about hate crimes laws or any such nonsense. Coulter is free to say whatever damn fool thing she wants to. But it's also the right of others to distance themselves from her words if they find them offensive, and the right of the Conservative "movement" to kick her to the curb if they feel she is no longer helping them with this stuff.

This is the sight of the Political Party acting like a responsible movement of mature, tasteful adults. Hopefully we can look forward to more like it... but I doubt it.

REVIEW: Zodiac (2007)

How do you make a movie about the hunt for a famous serial killer when the hunt never really ended and the killer was never really caught? Especially when almost every piece of evidence seems to contradict every other piece, multiple "favorite" suspects are still tossed around and the whole mess is so knotted up and convoluted that there remains a very good possibility that the so-called "Zodiac" may have been almost-entirely a creation of hype and hysteria?

If you're David Fincher, a vanguard of the so-called "MTV School" of directors who's earlier films (chiefly "Se7en" and "Fight Club") are already pointed to as revered classics by fans and stylistic excess by critics, the answer seems to be: You pull back. You slow down. You set yourself a leisurely (but in no way "relaxed") running time of just-under 3 hours. You focus on what IS knowable: The evidence. The statements. The contradictions. The suspicions. The history of the period. You ground your narrative in the exploits of three different real-life people - a detective, a journalist, a cartoonist - known to have undertaken three different forms of investigation into the case. You set up as your theme the psychological and personal toll the unsolvability of the case takes on them.

Oh, you also make the first real contender for the best movie of 2007.

For the uninitiated, Zodiac was (and may still be) the most media-involved/driven serial murder case since Jack The Ripper. From the late-60s to the mid-70s someone calling himself The Zodiac began sending letters to the publishers of San Fransisco area newspapers, taking credit for a series of seemingly-isolated local shootings and stabbings and offering details and (eventually) bloody evidence as proof; along with crytpic secret-message cyphers and a self-chosen "logo" that turned the event into a media frenzy. Soon enough he was claiming credit for murders he may likely have not even committed, murders were being claimed on his behalf, and eventually it seemed as though the police were trying to catch not a man, but a force of nature as real yet imperceptible as the wind - and about as difficult to capture. To this day, the case remains unsolved; one of the most notorious "cold cases" ever.

Fincher's film approaches the task of a police procedural which by necessity-of-facts must actually be ALL about procedure through the paralell stories of three men: David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) a police detective who's assignment to a single killing ends up turning him into law-enforcement's "face" in the Zodiac killings, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) a San Fransisco Chronicle crime reporter who chases the Zodiac story for the glory and finds himself perhaps too close, and Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) a Chronicle cartoonist who's at first mainly involved because his skill at cypher-cracking finally gets him invited to the "big kids table" (or, rather, the local watering hole) with the "real" reporters but eventually became the most obsessed Zodiac-hunter of all; penning the two highly-regarded books on which the film is based.

One by one, we watch as all three men are consumed by their connection to Zodiac. Avery, already a self-destructive drunk and cocaine early-adopter, leaps into the fray for the glory and finds himself drained all the quicker: Threatened by name in a Zodiac letter, inspiring local journalists to don "I'm Not Avery" buttons, he sinks into his own abyss like only Robert Downey Jr. can - embodying a man who seems to throw his life away on Zodiac because Zodiac was the most opportune thing to throw it away on at the time.

Inspector Toschi, on the other hand, just wants to find the guy and be done with it. He didn't bargain on having to chase down something thats more like a ghost than a man. One moment he's with the first team on the scene of what looks like a simple robbery/homicide, the next moment "Zodiac" is ritualistically knifing a couple in the park dressed up like a C-list supervillian in a black hood and a chest-logo jumpsuit. The world is spinning out of control with a killer who may not even fully "exist" at the wheel, and everyone is ready to blame him. At one point, Toschi is horrified to find himself watching the big new movie, "Dirty Harry," and realizing that the film is (and really was) a fanciful vision of "super-cop" taking down a Zodiac-style madman singlehandedly. This, he acknowledges, is a sign that he's already lost: The movies already making "what-if?" fantasies out of it.

And then there's Graysmith. At first, he's just thrilled that his skill with puzzles and codes makes the other reporters and editors notice him. Watch how forlorn he looks, gazing longingly into the smoky bar where all the "big guys" head after work without ever inviting him... and then how elated he is later when Avery asks him to come along as discuss Zodiac. Soon the case overtakes and defines him, even as it becomes less and less clear what if anything he's actually contributing: "The cartoonist who's investigating Zodiac" is his whole identity, and we watch as that identity enamors him to a nice girl (Chloe Sevigny) only to eventually pervade and ruin their marriage.

Through this we come to understand, maybe a little better than the real Graysmith may like, why it had to be him who probably came the closest to identifying and naming the "real" Zodiac: Outside of the case, Toschi had his future and his wife; Avery had his chosen descent into alchoholic oblivion... but if not Zodiac, what was Graysmith's purpose, all that time? In an amazing scene in the 3rd Act - which chiefly concerns Graysmith's year's-later marathon of independent detective work that led to the book and what it's author believes is the likeliest suspect for - Graysmith confronts a next-to-last step witness and nearly breaks down when they fail to give the name he was sure they'd give. He begins to plead, insisting that they just say the damn name... and it becomes apparent that he's beginning to not even care if he gets the right ending, so long as it's finally an ending.

There's a temptation when one is making one of these "period" detective stories, especially when the period pre-dates the seismic shift that led to our "digital" world, to dwell on the quaint romance of the era; especially when all that procedure and evidence hunting and good ol' fashioned gumshoe work is literally all one has to construct a movie out of. Indeed, Fincher hits all the stylistic and mood notes he needs to: He "gets" the aura of clacking typewriters, shuffling papers and thin haze of cigarette smoke that defines every interior of the time, the muted earth tones and pastels of 70s urban interior-design and the expectedly-classy arrangement of era-appropriate classic songs pulse at the margins of the soundtrack like a chorus unto themselves - Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" has never seemed so eerie.

But Fincher and the film are also up to throwing a curveball on the period-detail side, undercutting the romanticism of the trappings with a rising drumbeat of hindsight critique: The film effectively does for the trendy romanticism of analog-era police work what "Letters From Iwo Jima" did for the romanticism of the Japanese WWII honor-culture; going behind the details to strip away the mythos. Sure, it's nostalgiac to look back on the days when cracking the case was about file-hunting, smoky meetings, worn-out shoes and the rush to find a phone in time... but "Zodiac" also effortlessly reminds us of what a pain in the ass it must've been, too. In one tour-de-force piece of editing, the film lets us watch as multiple police bereaus try to coordinate their investigations, none of them on the same page and some clearly not interested in ever being so. It's almost astounding to be reminded that a mere two decades ago something as vital as handwriting or fingerprint analysis was still accomplished by taking sample pages to the offices of an aged scholar and his magnifying glass.

I can't imagine many audiences being able to watch it and not be overwhelmed by the unstated but undeniable notion of how "easy" it would seem to be to catch this creature in our age of DNA, digital analysis and "C.S.I." In the theater I sat near a group of young women (older teens, I'd guess) and during the first drawn-out murder sequence one of them was heard to ask "why don't they call someone!?," only to audibly gasp a moment later upon realizing the problem with her question. It almost seems to suggest that Zodiac "himself" could only ever have existed under these conditions, rising from the darkness just at the point when society was starting to move faster than it's ability to transfer information.

"Zodiac" is a long, dark and deliberate movie; but it's also riveting, fascinating and crammed with great performances and richly-textured direction. It's the best new movie you can see in theatres, right now. Highly, highly reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

MINI-REVIEWS

THE ASTRONAUT FARMER:
With a fixed eye on Preston Sturges/Norman Rockwell Americana and a plot that can accurately be described as"Field of Dreams" meets "The World's Fastest Indian" meets "Apollo 13," this debut "mainstream" confection from the quirky Polish Brothers seems to have as it's ultimate goal a comfy DVD future as a perennial Father's Day gift. In those respects it succeeds, but it also works a lot better than it's cutesy-poo premise - a would-be NASA man turned Texas rancher/dad builds a rocket in his barn to try and make the trip on his own, enlisting his wife and moppets as "mission control" and defying a concerned government - might lead you to believe. Billy Bob Thornton feels authentic in the lead, walking the line between dreamer and nutcase just deftly enough that we can sympathize with those who point out how insane his plan seems; think "The Rookie" as-directed by the Coen Brothers. Little too long and over-complicated in the middle, but it's heart is in the right place.
FINAL RATING: 7/10

THE NUMBER 23:
Great atmosphere, nicely darkened turn by Jim Carrey, solid casting all around, looks and feels great, well paced by Joel Schumacher. Just one widdle-iddle thing... Hollywood? May I have you're attention, please? Listen to me carefully: STOP. USING. THIS. TWIST!!!! NOBODY IS SURPRISED BY THIS ANYMORE! IT'S THE FIRST THING WE THINK OF NOW! KNOCK IT OFF! Ahem. Also, no character in any movie ever should be named "Fingerling." Otherwise, not so bad at all.
FINAL RATING: 6/10

RENO 911: MIAMI:
Some semi-improv "mockumentary" sketch comedy bits are just begging to be expanded into the comic breathing room of a feature film. See: "Borat." Others CAN work as features, but don't really need the room and can come off a little awkwardly. See: This. But see it anyway, because even though there's bits here that just don't work, like some generic ribbing of "Scarface" worship, it's still every bit as funny as the cult-hit Comedy Central spoof of "Cops"-style reality-police shows it's based on. The dysfunctional Reno cops head for a Police convention in Miami and wind up defending the town on their own when a bioterror attack quarrantines every other cop in the area. Much hilarity ensues, thanks to the comfy and talented cast plus a smile-inducing lineup of cameos including Danny DeVito, Patton Oswalt and a certain action star who's appearance I wouldn't want to spoil.
FINAL RATING: 7/10

Oscars 2006

Wuzza... Oscars? Oh, yeah... (Sorry, been knee-deep in "Twilight Princess" for a few days.)

Martin Scorsese won an Oscar, finally. And the movie won, too: A hard-nosed, no-bullshit, full-bore crime "genre flick" snags Best Picture versus a big, bloated Message Movie and a Sundance family pic. AND "Dreamgirls" LOST a whole mess of awards. In other words, the good guys won, the bad guys lost.

Also: Ellen? Great host. Funny. Should come back next year. One of those tasty-good "Dreamgirls" losses? Statue went to Melissa Etheridge instead. And so, for the fourth or fifth time today I say: "Thank God for the lesbians!"