Weekend off

Hey...

So, I'm going to be away from the state AND any reasonable web hookup for most of the weekend, so don't look for any new content until at least Monday. My return will (probably) bring with it by-now perfunctory reviews of X-Files (beware!!!) and Mummy 3.

OUTTAKES #017

Stills of the one and only Tobonga courtesy of 1957’s From Hell It Came, the greatest book of the 20th century courtesy of J. R. R. Tolkien, and all that wacky anti-theistic babbling courtesy, almost verbatim, from Prof. Richard Dawkins.

VIDEO REVIEW: Mamma Mia!

WEEKLY NEWSREEL

Good evening Mr. & Mrs. Catholic and all you other Christians at sea. Since the roller boogie started in the streets, people acting crazy, rolling to the beat. We used to hate to skate, now we can't wait! Something took our bodies out of our control, guess the boogie got us, rolling in our souls. We used to hate to skate, now we can't wait! Now off to press.

DATELINE: WHITEFISH, MONTANA – Here’s a clan of skaters at the 2008 Family Hockey Challenge inexplicably dressed as nuns. Who knows, maybe they just like to pray softly and carry a big stick. Or maybe, like so many of the younger women entering religious orders these days, they just want to wear the habit. According to a 2006 Time Magazine article “For the iPod generation, it doesn't get more radical than wearing a veil. The hijab worn by traditional Muslim women might have people talking, but it's the wimple that really turns heads. And in the U.S. today, the nuns most likely to wear that headdress are the ones young enough to have a playlist. Over the past five years, Roman Catholic communities around the country have experienced a curious phenomenon: more women, most in their 20s and 30s, are trying on that veil.” The Time piece is a couple of years old now but still worth a look. You can read it here. The Digital Nun (non-habited herself) recently contemplated this phenomenon and received some thoughtful comments, both pro and con, in her combox that are also worth reading. (And if you just have to see real skating nuns, then click here to visit the St Vinko Paulski kindergarten in Croatia.)

DATELINE: LAS VEGAS – Here we have the 0.75 foot tall Plen robot which “is powered by a 32bit ARM7 CPU @ 33MHz, has 18 movable joints, a USB RS-232C interface, and Bluetooth support. It weighs 700g and is available now in Japan at the price of $2,206.” But who cares about all of that? What really makes the Plen advanced is that it can roller skate! At least that’s probably what Father Suitbert Breiken might have thought. Father Breiken was a man who could have really used a set of wheels the day he “arrived alone in Indian Territory at Atoka in March, 1883. Realizing that no one had come to meet him, Father Suitbert, then 63 years old, walked the 70 miles from Atoka to Sacred Heart - carrying his suitcase and crossing Muddy Boggy Creek (Don’t get too excited, it wasn’t THAT Boggy Creek) and the South Canadian River along the way.” That’s interesting, you say, but what does it have to do with the Plen? Well, the Sacred Heart Benedictines, the monastic religious community Father Suitbert had arrived to join, just happens to have been founded by a guy named Father Robot. By 1901, Father Robot’s community was doing so well that he was appointed by Rome as the first Perfect Apostolic of the Indian Territory. He went on to found some 40 parishes and missions. It’s all trivia really, but how often are we here at the Newsreel going to get the chance to say that in the late 19th century the Vatican actually sent a Robot to conquer the American wild west? That’s a movie we’d pay to see.

DATELINE: PARTS UNKNOWN – And finally, here’s a monkey roller skating in a mall. There’s nothing involving religious orders in this video that we know of; we just wanted to see a monkey roller skate. Everybody loves monkeys.

And with that, we roll off into the sunset until next time. As always, in the words of the great Les Nessman, “Good evening, and may the good news be yours.”

Spot the Differences?

Could these posters be any more similar? I know it's only a teaser poster but is the best Fox Searchlight could do a week after HBO debuted its True Blood poster online? What ever happened to originality? How could they waste the opportunity to stick two babes like Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried on the poster? And when you have a movie called Jennifer's Body, wouldn't you wanna, I dunno, show off her body on the poster?? By the way, I've read Jennifer's Body and considering it was written by Oscar-winning (cough, bullshit, cough) scribe Diablo Cody, I was none too impressed. My expectations are considerably low but what do I know? I passed on Juno.

VIDEO REVIEW: The Dark Knight

SHORT FEATURE: A DATE TO SKATE

What’s the deal with Popeye? With that bad eye of his I can understand him missing a thing or two, but his ears are okay aren’t they? If so, didn’t he hear any of the advice they were handing out in those faraway ports when he was on shore leave? For instance, there’s that old Chinese saying that “the woman with the long feet ends up alone in a room.” And then there’s the Indian proverb that “if a girl develops long feet, she will be in trouble after marriage.” Even if those were a little too oblique for the sailor man, there should have been no mistaking the Sena of Mazambique when they put it bluntly, “Don’t marry the one with the big feet, because she is your fellow male!” Exposed to all that “wisdom”, it’s a miracle Popeye even stays in the same state with Olive, much less pursues her so relentlessly.

Or maybe it’s not a miracle. Maybe Popeye just doesn’t take to all that eastern religious talk. While it’s unclear what religion, if any, Popeye’s creator E. C. Segar adhered to, it’s definitely clear that the town he grew up in (Chester, Illinois) is crawling with Catholics and Lutherans. That, plus the fact that Popeye’s favorite saying “I yam what I yam!” sounds awfully similar to Yahweh’s “I am that I am!”, hints that maybe Mr. Strong To The Finish probably spent some time in Sunday School as a boy. In that case, he was likely already familiar with Semitic wisdom literature, the kind we find in books like Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. Those books seem to have a different take on finding the right woman, one that doesn’t involve whipping out a Brannock Device.

According to Pope John Paul II, “Although sapiential literature frequently alludes to woman's defects, it perceives in her a hidden treasure: "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord" (Prov 18:22), says the Book of Proverbs, expressing convinced appreciation of the feminine figure, a precious gift of the Lord. At the end of the same book the portrait of the ideal woman is sketched. Far from representing an unattainable model, she is a concrete image born from the experience of women of great value: "A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels..." (Prov 31:10). Sapiential literature sees in woman's fidelity to the divine covenant the culmination of her abilities and the greatest source of admiration. Indeed, although she can sometimes disappoint, woman transcends all expectations when her heart is faithful to God: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" (Prov 31:30).” Small feet are optional.

REVIEW: GENERATION KILL

If you're on the fence about watching HBO's new wartime miniseries Generation Kill, let me suggest that you give it a chance. In fact, I strongly recommend watching. I've seen all 7 of the episodes and the series definitely gets better as it goes along. The first episode is actually the hardest to get through, so if you've already sampled the first chapter, you might as well stick with it. It's true that it's nearly impossibly to distinguish the characters. I've spent more than 7 hours with the soldiers of Generation Kill and I only know a handful of the characters' names. But there is something captivating about the series. The finale is, in my opinion, the best episode, and the very last scene is a chilling montage set to a classic Johnny Cash song. I have more to say about the finale but I'll update this post later with what I took away from it. Stay frosty!

REVIEW: THE DARK KNIGHT - ***1/2

WARNING: Spoilers lie ahead. Tread carefully.

My ex-roommate rarely used his Hollywood connections to bring me anywhere cool but two weeks ago he passed along the opportunity of a lifetime… a chance to see The Dark Knight early, in glorious IMAX, with a post-screening Q+A with producers Charles Roven and Emma Thomas and co-writer/director Christopher Nolan. In short, it pretty much lived up to the hype.

Forget Tony Stark. Forget Speed Racer. Forget Prince Caspian. Forget Indiana Jones (oh wait, you already did…). Forget Carrie Bradshaw and Po the Panda and Bruce Banner and Maxwell Smart. Hell, forget about Wall-E! Because this summer belongs to one man, one myth, one legend: The Joker. Excuse me, The Joker as imagined and brought to life by the late Heath Ledger, whose remarkable performance is worthy of all the Oscar buzz and in the process, somehow makes his tragic death that much more sad. It’s true that by the end of the movie, Ledger’s Joker has become one of cinema’s most iconic bogeymen, up there with Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men.

Ledger’s performance is scary-good on its own merit but his overdose makes it all the more haunting. I hate to go off point here so early but you really can’t discuss this film without talking about Heath’s death. A lot of really famous, influential artists and performers have died recently including but not limited to Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Stan Winston and George Carlin. It’s always terrible news to hear and my condolences go out to all of their families, friends and fans, but I’m in my 20’s and those guys all meant something truly special to the generations before me. I was a fan of all of their work but it didn’t really affect me on that personal level. Heath’s death was something different.

I’d actually met Heath once while working for the NYU paper. It was a press junket for Brokeback Mountain. He was a really nice guy. He went around and shook everyone’s hand at the table and looked them in the eye and asked them their names. And whether or not he was just acting nice to be polite to us pen-pushers (after all, he was a pretty great actor), it seemed like he genuinely listened and cared. You know how sometimes when you meet people you know you’re never going to see again and you exchange names but it goes in one ear and out the other. Well Heath wasn’t like that. Imagine that, a movie star who actually cares. Anyways, he spoke about how much Brokeback Mountain meant to him and I think we all understood what a risky role it was to take. The career ramifications it could have for a leading man in Hollywood. Personally I thought it was a beautiful film and the only ramification I saw was an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Anyways, it was probably a 20-minute interview and I remember only getting one or two questions in because there were a lot of veteran sharks around the table, but it was an incredible experience because I knew from the tears on my shirt at the end of Brokeback that I’d just witnessed an incredible performance that in my mind, deserved an Oscar. (Plus, Toby Jones’ Capote was better than Philip Seymour Hoffman’s!)

This was a guy with an incredible future ahead of him, not just career-wise, but with his fiancé Michelle Williams and their daughter Matilda. I actually cried when I heard he died. I was speechless. It just didn’t make any sense. It still doesn’t. I’m just glad I got to meet him. And I’m glad he gave us The Joker to remember him by. Why so serious? Because seriously, Ledger gives an unforgettable performance that’s chiefly responsible for making The Dark Knight the best Batman film ever.

The Dark Knight starts off with the prologue we’ve all already seen by now, a stunning bank heist starring The Joker as one of his own henchmen. Now I’m not very political but I believe it was Barack Obama who recently said that being a good American is about having faith in your fellow man. Well The Joker doesn’t have faith in his fellow man. He sees the worst in everybody, including the lazy, greedy colleagues in crime whose only concern is money. The Joker is about the principle of crime. He gets pleasure from senseless debauchery. The Joker is The Man With the Plan to be sure, but for someone who wants to harness the seething rage of Gotham’s criminal element and concentrate it on something larger itself (anarchy), he sure does pride himself on having no plan at all. He just… does. And that’s the theme of The Dark Knight. What would you do if the world ran amok? Would you give in to the chaos and join it or would you fight back in the name of justice, even if it meant your life?

The actual plot of the film is a little dense so I’m not going to say much about it, but suffice to say, The Dark Knight deals with the grey area in the spectrum of justice, where black and white and the phrase “by the book” just doesn’t cut it. It’s about how a city needs its heroes, and more important, how it needs the right ones wearing the right colors. Batman is ‘The Dark Knight,’ but Gotham’s White Knight is District Attorney Harvey Dent as played by Aaron Eckhart in a nearly-as-incredible performance that will almost surely be overshadowed by Ledger’s, unfairly or not. He puts Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face to shame and let me tell you something gang, Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones ain’t too shabby an actor. To be honest, The Dark Knight is really about Harvey Dent and his fall from grace. It’s his story arc, his revenge story, his romance that we’re ultimately involved in. Batman and The Joker just provide the appropriate pushes to move his narrative along.

Now as for the title character, Christian Bale just may be the best Bruce Wayne ever, imbuing the man behind the mask with both a cocky swagger and a quiet vulnerability. Then again, Bruce’s mood swings are all part of Batman’s charm. It’s clear more he’s more comfortable as the playboy billionaire, and of all the actors to play the character on the bigscreen, he looks like he’s having the most fun without the cape. But while he’s certainly better than Val Kilmer and George Clooney, I still think Michael Keaton rocked the suit the hardest. For starters, Bale’s voice as Batman is kind of ridiculous. I don’t know how people can deny this fact. Bale is one of the greatest actors of his generation but he snarls every line in this growling baritone like he’s Bruce’s cousin, John Wayne or something. Bale is still solid in the role but even as the straight man it seems like he’s settling for triples instead of swinging for the fences.

Maybe it’s the costume that hides his expression but there’s always been something kind of cold about Bale’s Batman. I think Tobey Maguire’s done a much better job in the Spider-Man series except for that ill-advised Saturday Night Fever moment in the last one. Maybe it’s because this Batman hasn’t had a great romantic interest since Katie Holmes was the weak link of Begins and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel is more into blondes than brunettes. Either way, Ledger and Eckhart clearly overshadow Bale, although I acknowledge they get much juicier material to chew on while Bale makes good with the scraps he’s given, selling the occasional one-liner but for the most part, unable to escape being background noise in his own movie.

I guess it’s tough when you’re acting opposite Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman. Jesus, those are some of the best character actors alive. What a cast! Freeman does the same old song and dance more or less but Caine has some choice moments to work with and Oldman is fantastic as Gordon despite being saddled with a quasi-lame plot twist. His performance goes a long way toward selling the finale, which by the way, is better than the lackluster climax of Batman Begins but still leaves something to be desired. But more on the ending in a moment.

As for the rest of the cast, Katie Holmes would probably look better in IMAX but there’s no doubt that Maggie Gyllenhaal is an improvement in the thankless role of ADA Rachel Dawes. She’s much more womanly where as Katie always felt too young for Bale and lacked that combination of mature intelligence and elegant beauty needed to play Rachel. And while he’s not quite as good as Tom Wilkinson (who seems bound to add a Sir to his name soon), the habitually underrated Eric Roberts is also strong as Mob boss Salvatore Maroni. Elsewhere, Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow makes a brief, meaningless cameo that could’ve been worked in better. Lost’s Nestor Carbonell looks like he’s wearing eyeliner. Anthony Michael Hall is wasted. Colin McFarlane’s Commissioner Loeb has a nice if all-too-predictable scene opposite Oldman. Tiny Lister makes the most of his bit part as a criminal who’s tasked with a significant decision and William Fichtner is great as a bank manager.

The film also stars Joshua Harto as a conniving Wayne Enterprises staffer who learns Batman’s identity and attempts to blackmail him on the news; Chin Han as a potential business partner of Wayne’s who is really an accountant helping the Mob hide its money while fortifying his empire in China; David Dastmalchian as one of Joker’s crazy-eyed henchmen; Andy Luther as a good cop who gets a bad idea, and a couple of crooked cops to keep things interesting as we try to deduce who is on Maroni’s payroll.

Now back to that pesky ending. It’s not entirely satisfying, it feels a little rushed and as a result, it’s just a tad disappointing considering the rest of the film. The Joker is literally left hanging and the Two-Face’s arc lacks a meaningful payoff. We don’t care about his tragic fall like we should. It also complicates potential directions for the inevitable sequel to go, and while Nolan may not have compromised his artistic integrity for the sake of a sequel-tease, we’re left with questions that a sequel can’t possibly answer. I suppose the ending is true to Nolan’s original artistic intention but I feel like the villains’ fates should’ve been reversed since I can’t imagine them recasting The Joker and it would seem silly to address his fate after the fact. The ending also raises questions as to what will become of Gordon’s son, played by Nathan Gamble. While the will-he-or-won’t-he climax raises genuine suspense and creates real dramatic tension, I found myself wishing Nolan had really gone for it and killed the boy. Rachel’s death is a great twist you don’t see coming but I feel like if you’re gonna kill off the love interest that early anyway, you might as take the brutality to the max. There’s another instance where you feel the restrictions of the PG-13 rating and the studio’s insistence that the film be friendly for summer tentpole-sized audiences of all ages despite Nolan’s natural inclination towards darkness. It’s when The Joker slashes Gamble and the camera cuts away. And it’s not that we need the gore to know how vicious and fearless The Joker is, but it feels a little too Charmin’ soft. I’ve also read multiple reviews comparing The Dark Knight to Heat but the end doesn’t resonate nearly as much and it certainly had the chance to since like Hanna and McCauley, Batman and The Joker need each other. Bruce Wayne needs to see that Bat signal in the sky. He needs to feel wanted. It’s hard having a purpose when you’re already a billionaire. What’s his goal as a businessman, to accumulate more unnecessary wealth? It’s only necessary to continue funding Batman’s technology. And The Joker needs Batman because like all rebels, he’s really just looking for someone strong enough to challenge his authority. . But ultimately The Joker serves as a mirror, showing Batman and Dent who they really are and what really lurks inside their broken hearts.

Other random thoughts on the film. We’ll start with the not-so-good. The whole story feels a little padded and too dense and there are times when the screenplay becomes a little too bogged down in superfluous cop talk that adds very little to the actual story. There’s also a sonar gimmick that looks kinda cool but seems more Bond than Batman to me, and there were times I found the whole idea kind of annoying, although there’s a great visual payoff in the Batlair where Lucius Fox pulls the plug on a wall of surveillance monitors. The action sequences are all gripping stuff, although there are some moments that get lost in the shuffle, whether it be the frenetic editing or the choreography itself, most noticeably in the nightclub scene where Batman is just tossing bodies left and right but you can hardly see anything in the club.. Besides the Heat-esque opening, there’s a spectacularly staged car chase with a great moment where a SWAT vehicle gets run off the highway into the water. Cross-dressing Joker R.N. is absolutely terrifying (as are the shaky-cam video clips on the news) and the hospital scene as a whole is really well done, especially the reveal of Two-Face. The Joker’s interrogation scenes are all awesome. The Hong Kong sequence is dizzying and amazing, even better than Mission: Impossible III’s eye-opening aerial sequence thanks to a truly great escape that had our audience applauding.. To truly appreciate the epic scope of this 2 and a half-hour film, you simply must see it in IMAX. I don’t care how many shows are sold-out, just wait at the theater until your first viewing is presented in the majesty of IMAX. The brooding cinematography by Wally Pfister is gorgeous and the rousing score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer perfectly captures the mood of the film, especially toward the end.

With The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan has weaved an epic crime saga and raised the bar for superhero movies, Hats off to everyone involved in this thrilling achievement including David S. Goyer and Jonah Nolan who, forgiving my minor criticisms above, co-wrote the for-the-most-part excellent story and screenplay, respectively, but especially Heath Ledger, who will be sorely, sorely missed by many, but particularly by this film lover. R.I.P.

Watchmen Trailer

Here's the link to the Empire Online link that's been running it:
http://www.empireonline.com/video/watchmen/

YouTuber "Cybaiotron" has it up as well:



Holy

Titty-fucking

Shit

COMING ATTRACTIONS: ROLLER BOOGIE

Summer’s not quite over yet, so I think it’s about time we crawled out of the shadows, strapped on some classic quads, and headed down to the beach for a little relaxing Roller Boogie. In fact, after the grueling last two weeks I’ve had, that trailer just isn’t enough. I gotta have some more boogie! Here’s the entire opening credit sequence to this 1979 classic. Hell on wheels, baby!

ATOR: THE FIGHTING EAGLE

TAGLINE

“A magical power was destined to fight at his side.”

THE PLOT

Dakkar (Played by a guy named Dakkar; how convenient is that?), the evil high priest of the mythic Spider King, rules the land with an iron fist, but an ancient (and refreshingly specific) prophecy warns him of the birth of Ator, son of Torin, who will one day topple his empire. To prevent the high priest from killing the infant, the mysterious Griba secrets Ator away to a remote village to live with a family of farmers. Years pass and the prophecy seems forgotten until the priest’s troops disrupt the marriage of Ator to his sister Sunya (wait for it), massacring the entire village and taking Sunya as a concubine for Dakkar. Embarking on a heroic journey to rescue his beloved sister/fiance (I said wait for it) and avenge the death of his people, Ator and his bear cub Keog team up with the money-hungry Amazon Roon to battle witches, zombies, a squad of blind warriors who fight by sense of smell, and even Ator’s own shadow. But just when the high priest Dakkar has finally been dispatched and all seems well, Ator discovers the Spider King is far from a myth. Is the prophecy to remain unfulfilled or can Ator manage one final triumph and run off into the sunset with… his sister?

THE POINT

May God have mercy on director Joe D’Amato aka Aristide Massaccesi (aka Sarah Asproon aka Donna Aubert aka Stephen Benson aka Steve Benson aka Anna Bergman aka John Bird aka Alexandre Borski aka Alexandre Borsky aka James Burke aka Lee Castle aka Lynn Clark aka O.J. Clarke aka Hugo Clevers aka Joe De Mato aka Michael Di Caprio aka Dario Donati aka Raf Donato aka Romano Gastaldi aka Robert Hall aka Richard Haller aka aka Igor Horwess aka George Hudson aka Gerry Lively aka Kevin Mancuso aka A. Massaccesi aka Aristice Massaccesi aka Aristide Massaccesi aka Arizona Massachuset aka Andrea Massai aka J. Metheus aka Peter Newton aka Una Pierre aka Zak Roberts aka Tom Salima aka John Shadow aka Federico Slonisco aka Frederick Slonisco aka Fédérico Slonisco aka Dan Slonisko aka Frederick Slonisko aka Frederico Slonisko aka Frederic Slonisko aka Frederiko Slonisko aka Fred Slonisko aka Chana Lee Sun aka Chang Lee Sun aka Michael Wotruba aka only the Lord knows who else.) because he’s got his share of things to answer for.

Although the exact number of aliases used by the infamous Italian producer/director/cinematographer/etc remains unknown, those we do know of have been responsible in whole or in part for literally hundreds of films over the decades, only about half of them pornographic, but almost all of them excruciatingly bad. I’m talking Troll 2 bad. In fact, D’Amato (aka David Hills) produced Troll 2, an act which all by itself would guarantee most people time in purgatory. Not content with that, however, he actually snuck off with one of the monster suits from Troll 2 (considered by most as some of the worst special effects ever created) and used it when he directed Quest for the Mighty Sword, the fourth Ator movie. You read that right, the FOURTH Ator movie. How’s that possible, you ask, when the second movie in the series was so awful that it even taxed the endurance of Joel and the Bots on MST3K? (Servo: Yes ladies and gentlemen, thirty-five minutes into the film and we FINALLY have our first plot point!) Just what is it that makes Ator so special that he rates three sequels?

Heck if I know. I guess because anytime someone dresses a muscle-bound goof in a loincloth and has him fight some paper-maché monsters with his (ahem) mighty sword, dummies like me are gonna come running to buy a ticket. What, I didn’t mention the paper-maché monster already? Oh yeah, the all-powerful terrifying Spider King; it turns out to be an immobile lump of vaguely spider-shaped cardboard standing in front of a web made from clothesline with its front legs moving up and down via perfectly visible wires. It’s defeated when Ator shines a light in its face, a light reflected from the shield he won after fighting a shadow. Not a CGI created shadow, not an animated shadow, not even a guy in a black suit trying to pass as a shadow, but an honest to goodness shadow on the wall obviously made by some schmoe standing in front of a flood light just off camera. Of course, to get to the shadow, Ator and Roon must first pass the blind master warriors who fight their opponents using their sense of smell. That’s no problem, however, as our heroes cleverly manage to slip by the masters by rubbing flowers all over themselves to disguise their scent. Apparently the masters can smell human beings well enough, but can’t seem to catch a whiff of the walking shrubbery wandering through their heretofore plantless smithy. Look, I know I’m going through the film backwards here, but I thought I would give it a shot since it didn’t make any more sense when I started from the beginning.

Ah yes, the beginning. (Sigh) Alright, let’s just get it over with. The sister thing… yeah. After an extended prologue, the movie proper opens with Ator in turmoil over his feelings for his sister. What was D’Amato thinking when he came up with that? (Did I forget to mention he wrote this too?) Okay, it is true that Ator and Sunya aren’t blood relatives, but when we first meet them as young adults declaring their love for one another, THEY don’t know that. And when Ator approaches his father to discuss the possibility of marrying his sister the way some of their ancient ancestors used too, he still doesn’t know. And upon hearing of Ator’s unrequited desires, rather than express shock or at least immediately blurt out the truth, the father’s first response is to declare that Ator has made him the happiest parent in the world. Now, seeing as how this is a PG rated film, I’d like to give the movie some credit here and write these opening scenes off as nothing more than a dash of classical Greek dramatic irony in which the audience knows something about the circumstances that the main character does not. But since we’re dealing with D’Amato (aka the guy who made Porno Holocaust)there’s just something about all of this that feels a little slimy.

Hey, it’s a natural reaction. “When incest occurs, it is not only violating a cultural taboo, it is crossing ancient neurological wiring for avoidance," says Jonathan Turner, professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside in an interview with ABC News. In fact, in his book “Face to Face: Toward a Sociological Theory of Interpersonal Behavior," Turner claims that this "neurological wiring" against incest is an evolutionary imperative that has existed for tens of thousands of years, that on some subconscious level we’re all hardwired to find incest repulsive. (Almost as if it were part of some, oh, I don’t know, natural law or something.) But even if the professor is right and this gut reaction is inherent, it shouldn’t kick in over this situation should it? After all, since Ator is adopted, his and Sunya’s relationship isn’t really incest is it?

Biologically speaking, no, because there’s no consanguinity involved, no relationship based on descent from a common ancestor. (So while Ator and Sunya might eventually churn out some freakishly big-haired children, it won't be because of the genetic consequences of inbreeding.) But most jurisdictional bodies don't rely on just chromosomes when drafting laws against incest, they also usually include provisions regarding familial relationships based on affinity, kinship by marriage. And it's here that our pair might run into some road blocks, especially if they choose to settle down in a country which has been exposed to the book of Leviticus (aka the tedious book of Jewish ritual laws most people stall out on during their attempts to read through the whole Bible.) As Calum M. Carmichael explains in his book Law, Legend, and Incest and in the Bible, “The Levitical rules, with the addition of rules from Roman law in some instances, became the law governing in­cestuous relations in those countries where the church's writ ran large. For centuries not only were the rules of Leviticus 18 and 20 in force but also a great many others that were derived from them. One reason for the expansion was that later authorities judged the Levitical lists to be only a limited set of examples of the marital and sexual relationships that should be banned.”

And I’ll give you one guess as to which “authority” happens to have some of the most expanded rules around regarding incest. Right the first time. But to find out just how restrictive the Church is in this matter we have to dig a little deeper than the Catechism, which does condemn incest, but doesn’t get too overly detailed on what exactly constitutes the act. No, for that, I'm afraid we have to delve into The Code of Canon Law. (aka the tedious book of Catholic ecclesiastical law most people stall out on during their attempts to explore Church doctrine.) And it's amongst the various rulings on sexual no-nos that we find Canon 1094 which states that "those who are related in the direct line or in the second degree of the collateral line by a legal relationship arising from adoption cannot contract marriage together validly." So, while the marriage of Ator and Sunya seemingly gets a free pass in the heathen paper-maché spider worshipping kingdom they live in, from a Catholic standpoint it definitely COULD be considered incest.

But it doesn’t HAVE to be, not in every single instance. And this is where even good Catholics get tripped up sometime, because it comes down to understanding what can and can’t be changed in Catholic teaching. In brief, and with a big hat tip to author David Currie, it goes like this. (1) The Deposit of Faith –These are the teachings the Apostles handed down in Scripture and oral teachings. Change this and God will hammer you. (2) Dogma – Those concepts developed from the Deposit which the Church has declared to be absolutely true. These can be further understood and developed as time goes on, but never changed. The Nicene Creed would fall into this category. (3) Doctrine – All of the teachings of the Church (including Dogma). Catholics are expected to believe in all doctrines while they are propagated, but those doctrines which are not dogma can actually change over time as understanding increases. Limbo is (arguably) a non-dogmatic doctrine. (4) Disciplines – These are rules of conduct which faithful Catholics are expected to follow in their everyday lives. They are designed, as John Paul II put it, to “create such an order in the Church that, while giving primacy to love, grace, and charisms, it at the same time renders their entire development easier.” Disciplines can be altered, excepted, or even dismissed by the Church if she finds it appropriate. Surprisingly to most people, the celibate priesthood goes here. (5) Devotions – Non-mandatory actions carried out by individual Catholics to enhance their faith. Saying the rosary is a good example of this.

Fortunately for Ator and Sunya, the code in Canon Law which affects their situation falls into the area of Discipline, and as such, could possibly be appealed. In fact, Ator is actually a good role model for Catholics in this situation. He doesn’t just say, “I want to marry my sister so to heck with the rules I’m gonna do what I want!” Instead, he goes to the proper authority and makes his case for an exception and it’s granted. Good for him. But since this code, and many others, are malleable, it does raise the question of why not just get rid of them. Well, in the case of Canon 1094, it’s because the world still needs it. You see, while there are still plenty of governmental incest laws in place, the social taboo against the act is slowly losing its hold in popular culture. For the last few decades we’ve had people like Wardell Pomeroy, co-author of the original Kinsey reports, saying things in public like "It is time to admit that incest need not be a perversion or a symptom of mental illness. Incest between children and adults can sometimes be beneficial." And those kinds of pronouncements are having an affect. A 2001 special study by the House of Representatives showed “incest” to be the 30th most popular search term on file sharing networks frequented by teens. That’s still lagging behind the typical porn people search for on the Internet, but it’s far enough up the list to be disturbing. It’s all part of a growing movement to weaken and abolish laws governing consensual incest.

Unfortunately, as National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg (a good Jewish boy probably quite familiar with Leviticus) suggests, “the "wholesale" problem with lifting the legal and social censure against incest is that it would sexualize family relationships and hasten the transformation of our children into sexual beings, robbing them what few years of innocent childhood kids get today… In today's society, where sex pours in from the popular culture like rain through a poorly thatched hut, the last thing kids need is to see their siblings as sexual creatures.” Lessening the taboos against incest right now would effectively be another step towards allowing families to slip away from being “the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society” which God intended them to be, and into being just another training ground for today’s hook-up culture. There may come a day when the Disciplines regarding affinity-based incest are reduced or removed altogether, but now seems like the wrong time. Who knows, maybe even director/writer D’Amato reached this conclusion too. When Ator Part 2 (aka Ator The Invincible aka Ator The Blade Master aka Cave Dwellers; man, even his movies have aliases) rolled around two years later, the character of Sunya was nowhere to be found.

THE STINGER

I’m gone for a couple of weeks and return with an extra long diatribe on the necessity of Canon Law. If I have any readers left after this it’ll be a miracle.

New "OverThinker" episode

FYI, a new episode is up at the "OverThinker" blog:
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2008/07/episode-ten-not-review-of-gta-iv.html

And don't think I'm completely slacking off, new content and reviews for this site on the way shortly. Seriously this time.

PLEASE STAND BY

A work related emergency came up at the end of last week which will unfortunately demand most of my time this week. (Until my family gains the ability to eat the Internet I guess I’m stuck with taking care of things outside the Matrix in order to keep food on the table.) We hope to have the doors open again by the weekend. Thank you for your patience.

No refunds.

REVIEW: Wall*E

Pixar has always been sort of like the homeschooled Asian kid in a spelling bee: They're so fucking good at what they do you sometimes wish they'd slip up JUST so you can know they're human. Pixar just kept making masterpiece after masterpiece, and people - myself included - started to wonder if it wouldn't be "nice" to see them blow it ONCE just to see what that would look like… and then they made a wretched piece of shit called CARS - the 2nd worst talking-automobile movie of the century. Talk about a monkey's paw moment, eh? "Okay guys, you're human after all. That's nice… but please don't ever suck again, okay?"

Fortunately, Ratatouille was a welcome return to form and now we have Wall*E; so far the best American film of 2008 and… dare I say it? Maybe one of the best science fiction films EVER. That ain't me fishing for a blurb, kids, I'm serious. We're talking 2001, Metropolis, E.T., Day the Earth Stood Still here. It's THAT FUCKING GOOD.

Having managed to literally cover the planet in garbage, we're informed that the entire human race took off for a five-year space-vacation during which time an army of robots called Wall*Es were supposed to clean the place up. As we open, it's clearly been A LOT longer than five years and only one Wall*E remains. He's still dutifully collecting and stacking trash, but at some point he started developing a personality. He collects shiny trinkets, watches a Betamax tape of "Hello Dolly" to memorization and… well, he's lonely as all hell. So when a mysterious girl robot named Eve shows up, he's immediately smitten and makes impressing her his new prime-directive.

This first half of the film is, as you've heard, amazing filmmaking. No dialogue save for a few of the robot's limited beeping, it's all told by gesture and physical-acting by two profoundly non-human characters. We're basically watching the "romance" blossoming between what are essentially a baby garbage-truck and big flying Ipod… and it's sweet and moving as all HELL, that's filmmaking right there.

Eve, however, is no ordinary robot - she's a probe, sent by a still-spacebound humanity to seek signs of flora and fauna on Earth… and when Wall*E inadvertently helps her accomplish this, they wind up wisked into outer space where Wall*E and we learn what's become of humanity it what it now seems has been 700 YEARS away from home.

A lot has been said now about the second half of the film, and it's supposedly "radical" environmental message. The "new" humanity, we learn, have been living in a mechanically-automated utopia for so long they've de-evolved into a species of perpetual giant babies, robbed both of the capacity and desire for self-reliance. There's no missing the broad satiric swipes at couch-culture and Wal-Mart, but that's where the much-ballyhooed "edge" ends and why I'm calling BULLSHIT on the so-called "conservative" culture-critics who've opened fire on the film.

Guys, really: There's not ONE mention of oil, carbon footprints, fossil fuels or global warming. None. The big "eco-disaster" is LITTERING. Are you really going to seriously tell me that "don't litter" is now an unacceptably partisan message for a CHILDREN'S FILM? For fuck's sake, it's not even really about consumer goods or corporate greed - the humans are enslaved by their own unwitting sloth, having lived for generations in a system of cradle-to-grave automated care with no demand to fend for themselves - it's about rejecting utopia for self-sufficiency - so-called "right-wingers?" THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE YOU'RE DAMN WHOLE IDEOLOGY!!!

Honestly, at first I was bracing to be disappointed by this second half. The ads have done such a good job keeping things secret, I was thinking it might be possible that the humans would be the BAD GUYS of the film - perhaps with sinister plans for Eve and Wall*E would have to thwart them and maybe it'd end with Wall*E blasting these useless fleshbags out of the sky and heading back to repopulate Earth with his lady. I mean, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of humanity from day to day, you may have noticed. THAT'S an ending I wanna see in a cartoon.

But it became clear pretty quickly that that wasn't where they were going. Nope, as it turns out Pixar has an optimistic view of humanity, and imagines that the incremental anarchy Wall*E's mere presence fosters on the starship can serve to wake up their dormant spirit and drive them to reach for their own potential. One character is so captivated by a few crumbs of DIRT from Wall*E's wheels that he googles his way through human history and is eventually seized by the desire to become a farmer. Wall*E just wants to win the girl, but fate - and Pixar - have cast him as nothing less than the inadvertent savior of the entire human race.

And y'know what? IT WORKS! And I was right there with it! As the blimp-shaped descendants of humankind slowly regain the concepts of conversation, contact, love and individuality… the film's secondary story (we're still ALWAYS first-and-foremost with Wall*E and his quest to rescue Eve) becomes the kind of celebration of humanity rising to the occasion that you usually only get from old war movies. This is a film that genuinely believes that WE are as inherently good and capable as Wall*E is, and while it was running I was really feeling the vibe.

So, yeah, there's a blurb for ya: "WALL*E! It's so good it made me STOP hating my fellow man for a whole 90 minutes!"

FINAL RATING: 10/10