The Haunting In Connecticut

Ghosts terrify me. Both the idea of them and the real thing. I firmly believe ("know," really) that I've encountered what I'd have to call ghosts twice in my life. The second encounter was physical (I'm quite certain that it touched me) and was sufficient to send me running into the night like a scared little toddler. This is different, btw, from me saying that I have some solid theory as to exactly "WHAT" a ghost is in a spiritual sense or otherwise; there's simply no other term to describe the phenomena I encountered on these occasions - and no other term to describe my reaction other than abject mortal terror. I am scared of ghosts like I'm scared of no other 'unreal' thing.

As such, bad ghost movies are my LEAST favorite type of bad movie, because they force me into a critical paradox: When it comes to horror movies, the question of whether or not it's "scary" is generally supposed to be an all-powerful measure which can render all other issues moot - if it "works" at scaring you, then clearly the bad acting, directing, etc. didn't "matter," right? Problem is, I'm going to be "scared" by ANY ghost movie, even a bad one, which puts me in the unpleasant position of explaining how a horror film that terrified me was still crappy regardless. So, basically, if you want a four-word review of this film: Scared me, still sucked.

We're in familiar "Amityville" territory, story-wise: A troubled family moves into an old dark house that does EVERYTHING it can to advertise itself as haunted even BEFORE they find out it's an abandoned funeral home (complete with untouched, fully-stocked morgue!) and things start going bump (preceded, of course, by an on-cue drop in the ambient noise) in the night. They need the house because it's close to the hospital where the eldest son is undergoing experimental Cancer treatments, a plot-device which does double-duty at keeping them from moving out AND explaining why people don't believe the kid's visions. Said kid, by the way, is REALLY asking for it: Following a nightmare in which he encounters a specter in the basement, he immediately decides thats where he'll keep his bed. Not the smartest move he'll make.

The "what's going on" is predictable as hell, a half-hearted grab-bag of every haunted house cliche in the book including but not limited to grave-robbing, necromancy, wronged kids, seances, ectoplasm and excuses for the employment of the old spooky-old-timey-photograph routine. For what it's worth, I can safely say the film also employs just about the stupidest excuse for getting the lights all turned out in recent memory. Virginia Madsen plays the mom, while Elias Koteas does what he can in a simply AWFUL role as a fellow cancer patient who AMAZINGLY turns out to be a ghost-busting priest. What're the odds?

CUTAWAYS

While perusing through the works of Charles Band, the producer of this week’s epic Spellcaster, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this scene from 1981’s S.O.B. in which everyone’s favorite F-Trooper Larry Storch delivers a eulogy only Tinseltown could appreciate. I thought of it because, except for perhaps the part about grossing $200 million off a single film, I imagine Band’s own eulogy will run something along the lines of this one. How so, you ask? Well, it’s the litany of questionable movie titles the overzealous guru rolls off during his tribute. It’s eerily similar to some of the very real titles you’ll find amongst the hundreds of films Band has been involved with over the past three decades, a few of which we’ve provided below. (And remember, be sure to use Larry Storch’s guru voice as you read them.)

Last Foxtrot in Burbank - The Day Time Ended – Zombiethon – Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity - Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama - Dreamaniac - Assault of the Killer Bimbos - Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death - Castle Freak - Kraa! The Sea Monster - Teenage Space Vampires - The Horrible Dr. Bones - Monsters Gone Wild! - Blood, Sweat, & Fears – Evil Bong.

As you can see, reading the titles of a Band film can sometimes be just as entertaining as watching them. (Sometimes, more so.) But that’s on purpose. In an interview from a few years back, Band noted, “a strong title, of course, has always been important and the idea of combining two words or really putting a lot of thought into the title before a picture is even written. Corman did it too so I can't claim that was my idea but I certainly focused on that a lot. Most of the films that I made, that I conceived, that I was very involved with and in some cases directed, definitely started with the title and usually a piece of artwork that made sense. Then I would work back to the script and the story and make the movie. So that little formula has worked for me.” And it does work! I’ve never even heard of The Horrible Dr. Bones until now, and though most reviews say you should eat glass instead of watching it, I still kind of want to find a copy just because it has the freakin’ name The Horrible Dr. Bones!

Now, when coming up with a good title for anything, author and speaker Dave Taylor suggests you should “focus on the single most important concept, idea, product, vendor or topic… and then ensure that appears in the title too and you'll be well on your way to creating good titles.” Christians have always had an innate sense of this principle, however, when trying to come up with titles for an omnipresent, omnipotent God, it’s been kind of hard to narrow the focus down to a single most important concept. So hard, in fact, that Holy scripture alone contains over 100 names for Jesus. By 1953, Arthur C. Clarke had bumped the total up to nine billion.

Fortunately, as Catholics, we don’t have to worry about trying to figure out just the right one. Sometime back in the fifteenth century, the Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus first made its appearance and it’s been a popular devotion ever since. Based on a number of the names which appear in scripture, this call-and-response petition to God contains the following titles for Jesus:

Lord – Christ - God the Father of Heaven - God the Son, Redeemer of the world - God the Holy Spirit - Holy Trinity, one God - Jesus, Son of the living God - splendor of the Father - brightness of eternal light -King of glory - sun of justice - Son of the Virgin Mary - most amiable - most admirable - the mighty God - Father of the world to come - angel of great counsel - most powerful - most patient - most obedient - meek and humble of heart - lover of chastity - lover of us - God of peace - author of life - example of virtues - zealous lover of souls - our God - our refuge - father of the poor - treasure of the faithful - good Shepherd - true light - eternal wisdom - infinite goodness - our way and our life - joy of Angels - King of the Patriarchs - Master of the Apostles - teacher of the Evangelists - strength of Martyrs - light of Confessors - purity of Virgins - crown of Saints – Lamb of God.

Much like Taylor advises, each of these titles concentrates on a specific important aspect of God’s nature, and each one is worthy of meditation. On occasion I pray the Litany of The Holy Name during adoration, waiting to see which one or two titles stick in my mind, and then contemplate on those. I’ve yet to come away without some small insight. Of course, it’s an old devotion, and probably not to everyone’s style, but if you’re ever stuck in a rut prayer-wise, you might want to give a Litany (this or any other) a try. You’re not likely to come away disappointed.

Lie to me, Season 1

Thanks to Mellow Jammi

I Love You Man

Here's one of those movies who's screenplay seems to have come from a writer thumbing through "Us," "People" or some other worthless checkout-counter pablum, reading about pop-culture non-words like "man-date" or "man-cave" and going "A-HA!" I'm not sure if that's where "I Love You Man" came from, but that's what it plays-out like. Is it funny? Sure. But much like the non-words forming it's high-concept, nobody will remember it in a year or less.

Paul Rudd is playing a realtor named Peter who's impending marriage has inadvertently sent him into a mini-crisis - amid his consideration of a "best man," his family and friends point out that he doesn't have (has never had, really) any close male friends; certainly not a "best" one. The reasons for this are easily divined: Peter is the Perfect Boyfriend, a one-man girl-drink-mixin', chick-flick-toleratin', problem-listenin' machine who's dedication to pleasing his ladyfriends has left him without a discernable male social life. Now, the poor guy is seeing pairs of Good Buddies everywhere he looks; so he embarks on a quest to "pick up" some Y-chromosomed compatriots.

So, it's the "formula" of a romantic comedy applied to a story of platonic male friendship. There've been worse ideas. The film is at it's weakest (though still amusing) early on as it name-checks the tropes of "man-dates" and expected gags - with the hysterical exception of Thomas Lennon (your go-to-guy for ambiguous homosexuality) as an "ideal" suitor who's notion of "man-date" is significantly more literal than Peter's. The film get's to it's "point" when Peter meets slovenly uber-masculine slacker Sidney (Jason Segel) and they hit it off... to the point that it starts to cause some friction with Peter's regular fiancee-centric life.

Yes, it's another scion of "Clerks" in which a guy's rocky road to adulthood is impeded, commented-on and (maybe) helped by his wackier best bud. But it's reasonably funny, even if it won't likely be remembered as a high point in anyone's career.

Sorority Row

Prison Break, Season 4

Thanks to Mikhail Abasov

Duplicity (2009)

Most "twist" movies are thrillers, aiming to end on a "WHOA!" "Duplicity" is definately a twist-movie, but it's content to end on an modestly-upbeat "Heh." In exchange for the lack of thrills, we get a lot of very talented actors (AND Julia Roberts... ahem...) exchanging witty espionage banter that the film hopes we'll find exponentially funnier through the magic of ironic juxtaposition, i.e. all the skullduggery is between rival cosmetics tycoons.

Roberts and Clive Owen (THE go-to-guy actor when the breakdown calls for "James Bond only not") are a pair of rival spies (formerly CIA and MI6, respectively) who meet-cute again (or do they?) on opposite sides (or are they?) of the hired counter-intel teams for two New York cosmetics barons. One of the CEOs (Tom Wilkinson) is sitting on a secret miracle product (or is he?) sought by his rival (Paul Giamatti.) The pair of spies, who had a prior romantic encounter years ago (or is it ongoing?) hatch a plan to double-cross both sides and make off with the Big Money themselves. The timeline cuts back and forth between the present-plan and the past of the two leads, aiming to keep the audience guessing as to who's been on who's side and for how long.

It's all suitably breezy and well paced, and it's doing it's damndest to recreate the "sophisticated" (read: "detached") couples-sparring that informed oldschool caper/romance flicks like "The Thomas Crowne Affair" or "Charade;" but in the end it's a house of cards stacked entirely too high for the flimsy material said cards are made of... though, it must be said, it MIGHT have helped to not hinge so much of the film on the concept of Julia Roberts as a source of potent sexual power. Nice effort, though.

OOOPS. AGAIN.

Alas, client imposed deadlines have eaten up most of the past week, so there hasn’t been much time for blogging. Thanks for your patience, the show should resume shortly.

MTV Movies Blog: Who should direct the fourth 'Mission: Impossible'?

Some random AICN reader calling himself ‘supastring’ wrote in to report that Tom Cruise was on some popular program called “Smap Smap” in Japan where he revealed that he has started working on the story for a fourth film in the “Mission: Impossible” series, and that he’s been “thinking about how to stage a big action sequence in downtown Tokyo.”

Some of you might bemoan the idea of another "Mission: Impossible" film but I, for one, have always preferred Cruise’s Ethan Hunt to Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne, or any of the modern incarnations of James Bond, although to be fair, I am a Tom Cruise apologist who thinks the man is incapable of giving a flat-out bad performance.

Of course, this should be treated as just a rumor at this point but if “M:I:IV” were to happen relatively soon, we wanted to stay ahead of the development process and recommend 10 directors who might be a good fit for the series.

Now obviously it’d be cool if Steven Spielberg or James Cameron or Peter Jackson decided to do “M:I:IV” but that would NEVER happen, so they’re not on the list. Likewise, we eliminated Brian DePalma and John Woo who directed the first two installments, and while we wouldn’t oppose J.J. Abrams’ return considering his feature debut “M:I:III” was the best in the series and Paramount shouldn’t mess with a good thing, we have a feeling the studio won’t mind if Abrams is busy directing “Star Trek” sequels for the next few years. We also excluded Oliver Stone, David Fincher and Joe Carnahan, all of whom spent significant time developing “Impossible” sequels, as well as past Cruise collaborators Ben Stiller, Ed Zwick and Bryan Singer, plus directors like Gavin Hood and McG while we wait until May to see how “Wolverine” and “Terminator Salvation” turn out.

So without further ado, here’s my wishlist for “Mission: Impossible 4” directors, in alphabetical order.

1. Timur Bekmambetov – The Russian director of “Wanted” has his own distinctive style that could be just what the series is looking for. He’s currently prepping the English-language third installment of his “Night Watch” trilogy but I’m not sure he’d let that stop him from listening to Cruise’s pitch.

2. Peter Berg – The Hancock” director has really started to come into his own as a visual storyteller. I just think he has really good instincts and I like how he always seems to be challenging himself. Plus I just have a weird feeling that he and Tom would really get along.

3. Kathryn Bigelow – “The Hurt Locker” director would be a bold, brave choice who could really crank up the adrenaline. “The Hurt Locker” is the real deal and should have her in the hunt for Best Director at next year’s Oscars, after which everyone will want a piece of her.

4. Neill Blomkamp – Blomkamp directed the impressive short films “Alive in Joburg” and “Tempbot” before signing on to direct the long-gestating “Halo” movie. His debut feature, “District 9,” comes out this July and will be his first real mainstream test. Of course, if he ever has any questions, he can always ask his mentor Peter Jackson.

5. Jan de Bont – What the hell happened to this guy? He directed two AWESOME movies in “Speed” and “Twister” and then he fell off the face of the Earth after directing “Speed 2: Cruise Control” (HA!), “ The Haunting” and “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.” On second thought, maybe he should stay away from movies with colons in their titles. But on third thought, de Bont shot “Die Hard” and “The Hunt for Red October,” plus he served as a producer on “Minority Report,” which means he has ties to Cruise, who has the power to resurrect the man's once-great career.

6. Joe Johnston – The director of “Jurassic Park III” already knows a thing or two about inheriting franchises. This fall he’ll stake his claim on “The Wolf Man” and he’s also attached to the “Captain America” movie, which could keep him off this “Mission,” but like it or not, his stock is on the rise so long as “The Wolf Man” makes a killing at the box office.

7. Justin Lin – His work on “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” brought him back for April’s “Fast and Furious,” which will test his box office metal. But if Cruise is serious about shooting in Tokyo then it couldn’t hurt for him to sit down and hear Lin’s take on the material.

8. Pierre Morel – The French filmmaker managed to turn “Ta ken’s” simple set-up into a surprise international hit. Lionsgate will soon distribute his new movie “From Paris With Love” which stars John Travolta, who might be able to put in a good word with his friend and fellow Scientologist.

9. Jonathan Mostow – The director of “Terminator: Rise of the Machines” has a lot riding on this fall’s Bruce Willis-starred “The Surrogates.” Disney obviously likes what they’ve seen since Mostow is attached to write and direct “Swiss Family Robinson” for the studio. He’s a realistic get and could be a decent catch for a new “Mission” movie. I mean, how many truly A-List directors are rushing to direct #4’s?

10. Matt Reeves –Could Abrams leave the reins of the “M:I” franchise in his longtime collaborator’s hands? Reeves is a really smart filmmaker who helped make “Cloverfield” a pop culture sensation, and while he’s currently working on the “Let the Right One In” remake and an “Invisible Man” movie, he could be an interesting if darker choice for the series.

Original Link: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/03/23/who-should-direct-the-fourth-mission-impossible-berg-biegelow-bekmambetov/

Knowing

If you're considering seeing "Knowing," (the new Nicholas Cage movie) I reccomend that you do so AND that you do so immediately without reading any reviews whatsoever. It's a solid, wholly watchable and entertaining thriller; but it's REAL pleasures are in the fact that well more than HALF of it remains magnificiently unspoiled by the trailers - meaning that you here have the rare opportunity to be genuinely gobsmacked by WHERE a major studio movie actually "goes" and "ends up." How often does that happen.

If you've seen the trailers, you know that Cage is playing a college professor who discovers a child's "drawing" of seemingly random numbers inside a 50 year-old Time Capsule recently unearthed; and shortly thereafter discovers that the numbers work out to a pattern that seems to predict the dates of the last 50 years of major disasters... and a few more to come. That's ALL anyone should know going in, if anything. If this does any kind of business this weekend, people are going to be "WTF??"ing about it at every available water cooler all week starting monday, so you might as well get in on it NOW.

WATCHMEN VIDEO REVIEW

Because YOU demanded it, because YOU wanted it, because... eh... THEY were willing to put it up, here's my full video review of the movie everyone will be lying about having seen in theatres and knowing was a classic "the whole time" about a year from now, once again courtesy of the fine folks over at The Escapist:



Once again, PLEASE visit The Escapist's actual site after watching the video. These guys are fighting the good fight, bringing REAL intellectual debate to the geek universe, and they deserve your support: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-presents/622-MovieBob-Reviews-Watchmen

CUTAWAYS

Yes, I know I just posted a clip from 1982’s Pandemonium, but really, you can never have enough Pandemonium. This scene is a take-off on the old slasher movie set-up where the promiscuous teens separate and wander off in order to have pre-marital sex. And if you read our review of Student Bodies, then you know exactly how that’s going to turn out. (Don’t worry, there’s no nudity in the clip, although there is some gratuitous goosing.) But that’s not why this clip is here. What we’re interested in (besides the baloney line, which is one of my all time favorites) is Carol Kane’s throwaway quip about the pill at the end of the scene.

Oh, that wacky birth control and its side effects! Even if you don’t buy into the potential threats of blood clots and ovarian cysts, you have to at least be concerned about the recent studies which have shown a possible link between using birth control, gaining weight, and getting irritable bowel syndrome. Forget scaring’em with cancer, if Rome wants the ladies to lay off birth control, they should just run a campaign explaining how the pill will cause them to become morbidly obese and develop uncontrollable explosive diarrhea. Then stand back and watch the sales plummet.

Well, it’s what I would do anyway, but I doubt the Vatican is going to stoop down to my level anytime soon. And there’s no reason they should. Even though science is making the Church’s position on birth control look pretty good right now, that’s not the hook Christianity hangs it hat on when it comes to things like the pill. After all, given a few more generations (assuming they’re not all aborted or contracepted out of existence), science is likely to chip away at most of the ill effects of the pill. And for those bad side effects the scientists can’t eradicate, well, they’ll probably just come up with a pill that makes you happy enough to forget about them.

No, as nice as it is when science backs her up, the fact is the Church’s argument against birth control has always been a moral and ethical one. Facing criticism over some statements he had made about condoms, the late Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo wrote in a 2003 reflection entitled Family Values vs. Safe Sex, “In order to stress that the level of protection provided by the condom against HIV/AIDS and STD’s is not sufficient, I also referred to a certain permeability suggested by the results of scientific investigations. Such concern also has to be given attention considering that the AIDS virus is 450 times smaller than the sperm cell – in addition to other risks brought about by different factors in the condom’s structure and in its actual usage… Condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS. Apart from the possibility of condoms being faulty or wrongly used they contribute to the breaking down of self-control and mutual respect… (Notice the shifting of the argument from scientific to moral grounds?) Rather than focusing merely on the aspects dealt with by the expert investigators, one has to keep in mind above all the integral good of the person, in line with the proper moral orientation, which will be necessary to provide total protection against the spread of the pandemic. With or without the threat of HIV/AIDS and STD’s, the Church has always called for education in chastity, premarital abstinence and marital fidelity, which are authentic expressions of human sexuality.” Always.

Oh, and if all that sounds eerily familiar to the words Pope Benedict XVI used when recently discussing condom usage in Africa, don’t be surprised. Reporting on the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to the pontificate, the Heartland Journal had this to say. “The cardinals who seek Cardinal Ratzinger’s election are the most preoccupied. The most active is Cardinal Lopez Trujillo”. I’m pretty sure they knew each other.

SHORT FEATURE: MISSION: MAGIC (OPENING THEME)

You know, with acts like Marilyn Manson or Gorgoroth, you know what you’re getting into. Cacophonous, confrontational music, packaged in an over the top theatrical brand of Satanic imagery designed to make sad 13 year old boys feel mysterious, threatening, and cool. (Over generalizing? perhaps.) But as this week’s movie, Spellcaster, proves, even the more genteel rockers like Adam Ant occasionally dabbled in devilish doings, bringing Beelzebub to the unsuspecting masses. Perhaps the most heinous example of this is the 1973 cartoon series Mission: Magic in which a cartoon version of Rick Springfield, along with the insidious witch Ms. Tickle, spent each Saturday morning indoctrinating children into the ways of evil… cajoling them to join their dark army of evil Candarian demons so they might conquer this land and take over each and every soul of the living, enslaving all mankind so they might chew on their tiny brains and bathe in their hot boiling blood....!!!

Sorry, I slipped into Evil Dead: The Musical territory for a minute. In actuality, Mission: Magic was a semi-educational show prefiguring The Magic School Bus in which Rick, Ms. Tickle and her students travelled through a magic chalk board to study history and solve mysteries. At the end of the show Rick would perform a pop ditty explaining the moral of the story. So if there was any indoctrination going on at all, it was through introducing kids to whatever social issues were all the rage amongst pop singers dyring the early 70’s. You know, teaching them activism, environmentalism, feminism… cajoling them to join their dark army of evil Candarian demons so they might conquer this land and take over each and every soul of the living, enslaving all mankind so they might chew on their tiny brains and bathe in their hot boiling blood....!!!

Sorry, I slipped into U. S. Congress territory for a minute. (Over generalizing? Perhaps.) Interestingly enough, the Catechism places the practicing of magic and the idolatry of the state under the same general heading of “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me” without worrying whether your intentions are to summon up satan or just get out the vote. As the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia explains it, “Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God.” Anything we put before God, even basic desires like security from external threat and internal stability, can become an idol. Michael D. Guinan, O.F.M. believes the recognition of our own idols is one the primary benefits we can reap from the period of Lenten fasting. “Jesus, in the wilderness, was also tempted about food; unlike Israel, he kept his faith in God. What of us? As strongly as we may say that we want—and really intend—to follow God, many forces remain, within and without, to pull us away and push us toward idols. It is always the most legitimate needs (e.g., food, water, defense, internal order) which can become the most seductive idols.”

UPDATE:

Scott W. over at Romish Grafitti decides to trump my post on Mission: Magic with his own collection of clips from Free To Be... You And Me. He doesn't just trump me, he goes all in and demolishes me. Rick Springfield is just no match against the combined might of Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas. Frightening stuff, but a great post on indoctrination of the young. Check it out.

The Big Bang Theory

Thanks to Ruslan Lobachev

CUTAWAYS

You don’t need to have seen Brian De Palma’s Carrie before watching this clip from 1982’s Pandemonium, but it’s ten times better if you have. You know, I’m sure some of us go overboard sometimes, but for the most part we Christian parents try do our best to raise our kids right. Really, we do. Still, at some point, its time for the kids to leave the nest and start making their own decisions. God help us all. Seriously.

It’s like the Catechism says, “As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or that of the family… [however] obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children.” You can almost hear the little moppets cheering from here, can’t you? But wait, there’s more! Obedience to parents may end, says the Catechism, but “not so respect, which is always owed to them. This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”

In the end, it’s worth the effort. Even if we didn’t have that eternal life thing going for us, there would still be some benefits to raising kids in a religious home. A 2007 study by Mississippi State University showed that, despite what we often see depicted in the movies, kids from religious households tend to be better behaved and adjusted than other children. Based on the study, sociologist John Bartkowski gives three reasons religion can be good for kids. “First, religious networks provide social support to parents and this can improve their parenting skills. Children who are brought into such networks and hear parental messages reinforced by other adults may also take more to heart the messages that they get in the home… Secondly, the types of values and norms that circulate in religious congregations tend to be self-sacrificing and pro-family… Finally, religious organizations imbue parenting with sacred meaning and significance.”

So keep up the good work, religious parents. We can’t stop’em all from showing their dirty pillows in public, but we’ve got a better chance than those godless heathens.

Hayter's Letter

"Watchmen" co-screenwriter (from a draft or two back) and sometime video game voice actor David Hayter had an "open letter" to film fans that's been making the rounds, you can read a good full copy over on AICN: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40409

Basically, he's asking not only Watchmen fans but also detractors, mixed-feelers and even not-carers to go see it (again) this weekend. His reasoning is sound: Hollywood math is all about how hard you drop in the 2nd weekend, and if "Watchmen" takes a Jonas Bros. level tumble in IT'S 2nd weekend the verdict will be in: Only "fanboys" care, you can't make money JUST off them, next time cut it to a PG13, get Beyonce' working on a theme song and hire Bret Ratner. I'm with Hayter on this one - a movie this uncompromising NEEDS to be seen as a success, to encourage more like it to be made.

If you have ANY inclination to see this again, do it today or saturday. Take friends. Spend 7 to 10 bucks, and help make the movie world a better place.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: SPELLCASTER

Coming up next, as requested by Scott W. over at Romish Internet Graffiti, is Spellcaster, a low, low budget treat from that long ago age known as 1992 featuring everybody’s favorite New Wave poster boy, Adam Ant. Alas, this is one of those direct-to-video goodies which has yet to see release on DVD. That means no trailer, no movie poster, no nothing except a picture of the video box I nabbed off someone’s listing on e-bay. Still, I hate to send you away empty handed. Until I can come up with some suitable stills or video clips from the movie itself, here’s Adam working at his at job with The Ants bemoaning deep meaning philosophies and cajoling you to throw your safety overboard and join his insect nation.

CHERRY 2000

THE TAGLINE

“In The Year 2017, A Good Woman Is Hard To Find. A Cherry 2000 Is Even Harder.”

THE PLOT

Unable to cope with the malfunction of his beloved robot girlfriend and unwilling to put up with the legal wrangling required to hook up with a real woman, futuristic yuppie Sam Treadwell travels outside the safety of the big city to hire a tracker in order to find a replacement Cherry 2000. Much to Sam’s consternation, the best available non-homicidal tracker comes in the form of E. Johnson, a very real  woman who finds his attachment to an artificial lover both comical and pathetic. Sam’s real trouble, however, is that the only possible location for a Cherry 2000 lies on the other side of The Zone, a desert wasteland ruled over by the insane warlord Lester and his band of killer suburbanites. After a series of close calls with Lester, Sam and Edith finally locate what they’ve been searching for, but the only escape route left to them will force Sam to choose between the robot he swore he wanted and the real woman he might just possibly have fallen in love with.

THE POINT

Let’s just get it out of the way, okay. Yes, this is a movie about one guy’s desperate search to score a new sex gynoid after he loses his in a tragic dishwasher accident. But come on, is the idea really that shocking? After all, fembots have been around since the very beginning of stories. Most sources cite the first mention of mechanical women as Homer's Iliad in which Hephaestus, god of fire, goes about his work assisted by, as the Rieu translation puts it, "golden maidservants hastened to help their master. They looked like real women and could not only speak and use their limbs but were endowed with intelligence and trained in handwork by the immortal gods." The story actually containing the first use of the word robot was Karel Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) which ends with a male and female robot falling in love and becoming the new Adam & Eve for a devastated Earth. And as for the movies, well, their first artificial person was, of course, a woman, the malevolent Hel (named after the Norse goddess of death) who attempts to use sex and debauchery to lead the men of Metropolis to destruction. No matter the media, men just can’t seem to tell stories about mechanized beings for too long before they feel compelled to put them in a Maidenform.

The question Cherry 2000 wants us to ask is… why? Why, when over 49% of the human population consists of real live females, do guys feel the need to create and mate with fake ones? And we know Cherry 2000 wants us to ask this question because, well, it tells us to… about every ten minutes… all the way to the end of the movie. Whether it’s his friends badgering him to have contractually consensual casual sex with real women, E. Johnson’s incessant scorn over what she’s been hired to find, or Six Fingered Jake’s (Yeah, this is one of those movies where characters have names like Six Fingered Jake) utter failure to understand how there can be romance with a robot, Sam Treadwell spends most of the running length of Cherry 2000 being confronted with the question of his choice of girlfriends. The fact that the movie never gets around to answering the question as forthrightly as it asks it is beside the point. Let’s at least give it some credit just for asking.

Actually, Cherry 2000 is one of those fun goofy post-apocalyptic tales that throws out all kinds of little details, but leaves it up to you to figure out what they mean. (If they do mean anything. This is still Cherry 2000, not a Bergman film.) Some things seem designed to tell us something about the world the story takes place in, such as the fact that the chief industry appears to be refurbishing old electronics like toaster ovens. Oddly enough, however, there still seems to be the resources available to keep producing new models of sexbots such as the blatantly school-girlish Bambi 14 or the homo-erotic Handyman/Cowboy robot available in the lobby of the hotel Sam stays at. What’s that about? And some things appear to be there just for fun, like the hotel clerk’s live cat which she keeps inside a sealed water cooler bottle on her desk. How did it get in there? Where does it go to the bathroom? The answers are left to our imagination. And then there are some things…

Well, there are some things in the movie that just don’t seem to exist for any other reason other than the fact that the people who made it wanted them to be there. I’m thinking in particular of the main action set piece of the film. Somewhere near the middle of the movie Sam and Edith arrive at the Colorado River, and even though there are clearly visible routes which they could cross, Edith claims the only way is to have the car picked up by one of those magnetic cranes and have it swung across the gorge. Why not? And, of course, when our heroes are only half way across, Lester’s goons show up and start shooting at them. With rocket launchers. Why not? It’s okay, though, because not only do Lester’s guys miss every… single… time, but Edith just happens to have a rocket launcher of her own. And hers is bigger. So big, in fact, that at one point she manages to destroy an entire butte with a single shot. Why not? Finally you get to the point of the whole scene, which is to have this cherry red (naturally) Mustang suspended over Hoover Dam with Melanie Griffith’s stunt double standing on the roof while surface-to-air missiles shoot all over the place. And just to add an exclamation point, they let it freefall about twenty feet while stunt-Melanie bounces around on the trunk. It’s a really, really cool non-CGI piece of work that makes absolutely no sense, but is part of the whole reason you watch movies like this in the first place. So why is the crane there? Who cares. Why not?

But I digress. Most of that stuff is window dressing to the main themes Cherry 2000’s wants you to consider. (Although it’s hard to quit thinking about that cat. Is it neutered? Does it spray in there?) And now, just a mere 22 years after Cherry 2000 was released, those themes are more relevant than ever. In the past few years we’ve seen a spate of fembots popping up around the world, everything from Osaka University’s creepily human-like Actroids to Sega’s recently released 15-inch tall (yet more busty than Barbie) robotic 'girlfriend' dubbed EMA. In fact, humanoid robots have come far enough along that Dr. David Levy, in his recently released book Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships,  feels confident in predicting the future of human-robot interaction with a specificity that would make Nostradamus’ head spin. "My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots… If you went back 100 years, if you proposed the idea that men would be marrying men, you'd be locked up in the loony bin. And it was only in the second half of the 20th century that you had the U.S. federal government repealing laws in about 12 states that said marriage across racial boundaries was illegal. That's how much the nature of marriage has changed. I think the nature of marriage in the future is that it will be what we want it to be. If you and your partner decide to be married, you decide what the bounds are, what its purpose is to you.”

You don’t say? Well, we’re not quite there yet, but obviously, what passed as a post-apocalyptic future back in 1987 when Cherry 2000 was made is pretty much just around the corner now. Which does raises some questions. (Besides all of the cat related ones like where do the hairballs go? I have a few cats, so I KNOW there has to be hairballs. Do you turn the jar upside down and shake it?) The chief one which comes to mind is… so what? What’s so wrong with the idea of human robot-marriage? After all, Levy claims it’s simply a natural extension of the human tendency to form attachments to things (animals, machines, whatever) and then anthropomorphise them in our own image. But that doesn’t seem reason enough. After all, a 2007 AP-AOL poll claims that 37% of car owners believe their cars have personalities, 20% even name them, but except for the (mercifully) isolated incident, you don’t see too many people trying to have sex with or marry them. Well, since the movie ultimately disapproves of the practice, maybe the movie can provide some answers as to why it shouldn’t be allowed.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple as, much like the cat in the bottle situation, what brought about Sam’s preference for robotic romance isn’t overly explained in Cherry 2000. But there are some clues sprinkled throughout the film, and they’re found primarily in the encounters Sam has with various women over the course of the story. Right off the bat, the first lady we meet is the titular (not a dirty word) Cherry herself who is not introduced as a sexbot, but rather as Sam’s dutiful wife/girlfriend waiting for him as he arrives home after a hard day. They greet, make small talk, have dinner, discuss work, all the things you would expect couples to do. The movie gives no hint that Cherry is anything but flesh and blood until the pair get romantic in the kitchen and a leaky dishwasher shorts her circuits. (We’re all adults here. Go ahead and ask how something designed for, um, intimate encounters blows a fuse when some water gets on it. Then explain it to me.) The point is, the movie goes to great lengths to show that Sam sees Cherry as more of a person rather than just some motorized sex doll. (20 years before Lars And The Real Girl. Take that, art films!)

In fact, if it were just about sex, Cherry wouldn’t be necessary at all. There are plenty of other sexbots available on the market. Heck, the Bambi 14 schoolgirl model even comes with a cat. (Although, oddly enough, not one in a jar.) And, as we see when Sam is forced by his workmates to spend an evening at a local night club, casual sex with real women is also readily available. Well, at least as long as a person is willing to put up with attorneys. See, in the future of Cherry 2000, lawyers sit at every table negotiating legal contracts between potential hook-ups. Everything is included in the paperwork from number of coital occurence to wake-up time. Everything, that is, except the slightest hint of personal connection between the two parties. “Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes” the Catechism tells us, and that’s more than evident in the society Sam lives in. With sex basically reduced to a bartered leisure time activity, the men and women in Sam’s world appear totally isolated from one another. Or as Pope Benedict XVI put it, “When, therefore, men or women pretend to be autonomous or totally self-sufficient, they risk being closed up in a self-realization that considers the overcoming of every natural, social or religious bond as a conquest of freedom, but which in fact reduces them to an oppressive solitude.” A person could almost be tempted to celebrate Sam’s search for something deeper, even if it is with a robot.

Except that’s not quite what he’s doing. As we learn when Sam runs into his old girlfriend Ginger out in The Zone “married” to the movie’s main villain, Sam has tried relationships with real women before. In fact, it was Sam’s own emotional detachment which drove Ginger to flee to The Zone and become involved with Lester in the first place. Seeking a more traditional lifestyle than what was being offered in the big city, Ginger was naturally drawn to the society created by Lester in the wasteland, a place where everybody dresses like members of a 1950’s country club, wives and children are doted on, and the family eats dinner together every night on the patio. Sure, Lester and his men also happen to be murdering psychopaths, but, hey, no husband is perfect, right? The point being, Sam had a chance to build a relationship with a real woman and chose not to.

You see, Sam wasn’t just rejecting casual sex, that in itself could almost be considered noble. Instead, Sam was also ultimately rejecting meaningful sex. As the Catechism reminds us, “Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion… The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.” Because of Cherry’s artificial nature, there could never really be any true communion or self-giving on her part, only what Levy’s book refers to as a kind of pre-programmed “reciprocal liking”. And since Cherry’s programming was going to force her to say and do the things Sam wanted anyway, Sam basically had to give nothing of himself at all. Or to put it bluntly, the whole relationship with Cherry was about Sam and Sam only. The best evidence of this in the movie is the mini-disc containing Cherry’s files which Sam carries with him at all times and occasionally plays back so he can hear her voice tell him how wonderful, loving, strong, and virile he is. The first time Edith hears Sam listening to this, her expression tells us she understands quite well what a self-centered pathetic tool he is. And so do we.

In the very first book of the Bible, it states matter of factly that “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” and that upon seeing woman, man cried out "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Unfortunately, it took a long time for the ancients to begin to realize all of the implications in those verses, to realize that, as Pope John Paul II writing in the Apostolic Letter “Mulieris Dignitatem” pointed out, “Being a person in the image and likeness of God thus also involves existing in a relationship, in relation to the other "I". This is a prelude to the definitive self-revelation of the Triune God: a living unity in the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” In fact, they were so slow in coming to that understanding that women in Old Testament times were often stuck in cultures where they were little more than property. Sort of like Cherry, forced to give, but seldom to receive in return.

By the time Jesus came around, He was having none of it. “It is universally admitted” Pope John Paul II contends, “even by people with a critical attitude towards the Christian message - that in the eyes of his contemporaries Christ became a promoter of women's true dignity and of the vocation corresponding to this dignity. At times this caused wonder, surprise, often to the point of scandal: "They marveled that he was talking with a woman" (Jn 4:27), because this behavior differed from that of his contemporaries.” And following the example of Jesus, Christianity, and therefore western civilization, has slowly (if not always successfully) moved ever closer to the ideal of true communion between the sexes. But as the recent American Religious Identification Survey noted, more and more people are abandoning their religious beliefs, apparently oblivious to what is being thrown out the door along with them. And that is perhaps why we now find ourselves on the brink of a society where the silly future portrayed in Cherry 2000 may become the sad reality envision in Levy’s book. And we can’t say we weren’t warned because Pope John Paul II saw it coming twenty years ago when he produced “Mulieris Dignitatem”. “The awareness that in marriage there is mutual "subjection of the spouses out of reverence for Christ", and not just that of the wife to the husband” he wrote, “must gradually establish itself in hearts, consciences, behavior and customs. This is a call which from that time onwards, does not cease to challenge succeeding generations; it is a call which people have to accept ever anew.”

THE STINGER

Sadly, none of this explains the cat.

The Office

WATCHMEN

You've read enough essays on this by now. Here's my take (seen twice) in semi-bullet list form.

SPOILERS FOLLOW. BIG ONES. I'M NOT KIDDING.

- I don't know if it's better than "Dark Knight." I FEEL that it is, but that could be shock-of-the-new. I DO know that it's "part of the problem" that the first thing to compare this to is another superhero movie instead of filmmaking in general, but that's another discussion. I CAN say with certainty that it's a more exciting, vital, interesting, "alive" film than "Knight" by leaps and bounds. Don't get me wrong, TDK still ought've been nominated for an Oscar and still ought've won in that case, but next to this it looks (even moreso) almost overly safe and - at worst - terrified of it's own shadow. It goes to dark-"ish" places for a "genre" film, but only after a methodical removal of as many 'Batman' elements as can possibly be removed while still having it BE Batman... an understandable reaction to the excesses of the Schumacher era that, none the less, can sometimes create the feeling that the film is trying to gently lead a frightened non-geek audience (and critics) safely through the darks woods ("Shh! Shh! It's okay, it's okay. You're soooo brave. See? It barely looks like a Bat costume at all. S'ok. S'ok. See? It's a crime-thriller. You're not really watching one of those awful superhero movies. That's my brave, brave boy.") "Watchmen," on the other hand, is proud as HELL of it's otherworldliness and has it's colors flying right off the damn bat: "FUCK YEAH! THAT GUY IS BLUE, NAKED AND FIFTY FEET TALL, AND WE'RE NOT EVEN GONNA TELL YOU WHY FOR ANOTHER HOUR! CAN'T WRAP YOUR HEAD AROUND THAT? TOO FUCKIN' BAD! "JONAS BROTHERS" IS PLAYIN' ACROSS THE HALL, PROBABLY MORE YOUR SPEED. THE REST OF US HAVE A MOVIE TO WATCH!" And I ADORE it for that.

- The "new-ish" ending works. Period. Not only does it fit better in a practical sense into a singular film that can't functionally follow an entire "other" whodunnit that doesn't directly involve any of the main cast, but it strengthens the characters involved by adding an extra dimension of personal betrayal - Ozy doesn't just use and hurt his former teammates in his scheme, he uses the public's already-established fear and hatred of superheroes to his advantage. It's a textbook-perfect lesson in proper adaptation: You don't fabricate from thin air, you use what's already there in a different way.

- Also regarding the ending and adaptation - it's interesting to see the way a different medium imposes different needs and expectations. It's one thing for the book's Nite Owl to simpy, give up, "sell out" and let us down by surrendering to Ozy's victory; as a drawing-and-text open to wider interpretation it's possible to view him as a pathetic, vaugely-amusing schlub for whom this final flaccid innaction is just another addition to the MOUNTAIN of evidence that he never had any real business trying to be superhero... for THAT Nite Owl to get in a cathartic "screw you!" whack at Ozy would be a betrayal. BUT as a flesh and blood (onscreen) human who's actual voice and expressions TELL US that he's a decent guy, and let us see the real pain he has trying to relate to Laurie outside of his costume? Yes. It's right and proper that THIS Nite Owl would take a shot and want to have SOME semblance of a final say.

- This is NOT an inaccessible film for non-fans or even non-geeks. Not by a longshot. You don't need to have read this comic or ANY comic to "get into" this movie. All you need is an open mind free of genre-bias and a willingness to let a film explain itself slowly and not all-at-once. It doesn't require any more familiarity with the source than any decent historical film or biography. If you could follow "Milk" without ever having been to Casto Street, you can follow this.

- It's funny, though... For all the talk of it "confusing" non-fans the only two things that I can imagine would give the uninitiated pause don't seem to bother many people, particularly the critics who're otherwise soooo sure this is for-fans-only: The film never bothers to explain how or why Rorscharch's mask works like it does, nor where the hell Ozymandias got Bubastis (the big purple kitty,) but it doesn't seem to "bug" anyone but me. I think this might be where Zack Snyder's over-criticized stylization helps out: It's a realistic film, but he bathes it in a gloss of comic book hyperrealism that I imagine innoculates it against a lot of "wait... the hell did he get THAT!?" that might be present in a more "verite" approach.

- Incidentally, i.e. Zack Snyder: It's settled. He's a genuine talent. A REAL visionary with the kind of eye for pop-art-AS-ART that we haven't seen emerge since the early films of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. I NEED to see him tackle an original film now - one that isn't an adaptation or remake. His vaunted skill at fidelity still betrays a real artist with a clear vision of his own - I want to see it unleashed. He's proved his mettel. That said, let's be clear: "Watchmen" is his FIRST genuinely excellent film. "Dawn of The Dead" and "300" are both fun but ultimately empty exercises - no deeper meaning, no real humanity, just money shoots and mood (especially "Dawn," the prettiest NOTHING THERE zombie movie outside of Resident Evil.)

- Also on Snyder: Guy is a diabolical GENIUS at subconscious audience-manipulation. Watch how the leering, objectifying, dehumanizing cheesecake closeups on Carla Gugino's breasts and ass give way to the leering, objectifying, dehumanizing gaze of The Comedian, who seems to be "thinkin' what we're thinkin', eh boys?"... right up until he beats her up and sexually assaults her; thus implicating the whole audience (or at least 90% of the men and 60-70% of the women) in her objectification and near-rape. That's ballsy, evil and effective. See also: EVERY shot of the NYC skyline has the (still-standing since it's 1985) WTC towers unmistakably visible - an image almost no one can see without thinking of 9-11 on some level. This happens almost a dozen times, a dozen nudging whispers of "remember that?" to the audience, all to make sure it's right up near the front of the brain for the 3rd act's "9-11 times inifinity" money-shot. Yikes. The man has chops.

- Regarding Jackie Earl Haley, aka "Rorscharch" - I FUCKIN' TOLD YOU SO. Could he have BEEN more perfect in this? At my second showing - the "regular audience" screening, NOT the fan-filled midnight show - the crowd burst into applause at "You're locked in here with ME!!!" They'll be throwing cash and "charismatic scary dude" roles at him like no actor since Anthony Hopkins post-"Silence," and he deserves it.

- Regarding Dr. Manhattan's penis: Grow up.

CUTAWAYS

“Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum”, literally “'With love for mankind and hatred of sins”, but usually tossed around these days as “Hate the sin, love the sinner”. That old phrase from St. Augustine is what comes to mind when I see this scene (my favorite actually) from National Lampoon’s Class Reunion (1982). I just find the response to poor possessed Delores here so darn charitable. “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” says the Catechism. “Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues… The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion.”

Now there may be someone out there who thinks just because Delores sold her soul to Satan, grew horns, and dribbled some pea soup, that we could bypass the charitable response in this instance if we felt so inclined. Don’t you believe it. As Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Encyclopedia reminds us, we Catholics don’t do situational ethics. “Because the Christian ethic binds in conscience, it requires that moral agents act in a certain way. Situation ethics does not recognize there to be a powerful enough authority to assert that human beings act in accordance with the dictates of a properly formed conscience.” Christianity, on the other hand, recognizes that authority, in spades! So be sure to remember that the next time your local hellspawn comes around. And who knows, every now and then, just like we see in this clip, your response to them might just get some surprising results.

Guess what I just got back from?

Bob's Journal: Friday, March 6th 2009.

Stupid dog in the hallway today. Every day. Scratched at door. Woke me up. Gave him snausage. Still awake too early. The suburbs are afraid of me. I've seen their true face.

Work bad. People rude. Foul-smelling. Stupid. They'll look up and cry "can I get a price check on this?" And I'll whisper, "No."

Saw "Watchmen." Midnight show. Gorgeous theatre out in the boonies. Overflow house. Fans in costumes. One girl dressed as Silhouette. Astonishing figure. Breasts you could call as evidence before God as to why humanity deserves to avoid Judgement Day for another few decades. Five to one prediction in reality she's a bookstore clerk or a grade-school art teacher. Dresses modestly neo-hippie. No clue how hot she actually is. Surrounded by army of mostly-male, similarly-dispositioned friends who'd leap swords-drawn into the abyss at her command but are too timid to ever actually make the romantic advance they've been plotting-out in their heads since the day each met her; a condition she does not acknowledge either out of naivete' or sadism. Second option more appealing.

Movie excellent. One-ups "Dark Knight" by being darker, meaner, sexier, deeper AND by proving that you CAN do all that without throwing out the color and the otherworldliness. PG-13 Batman movie terrified that a Lazarus Pit might blunt it's "realism" suddenly seems almost cowardly in face of R-rated Watchmen movie that sends a blue man-god to Mars AND has roles for actors playing Nixon, Annie Liebowitz and Pat Buchanan. Malin Ackerman finally good in something. Jackie Earl Haley a revalation. Does the impossible. Makes you regret that Rorschach ever puts his mask back on, once you see how great a facial/physical performance he gives when relieved of it. Will be approached for every "creepy guy" role for forseeable future. Has probably ALREADY been offered Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare remake. Jeffrey Dean Morgan terrific. Expect to see lots of dark-humored couples going as Comedian and Silk Specter I this Halloween. New ending (content-swapped ending, really) works, though could stand to be bloodier. Subtley set up via background details to kick anyone not "ready" for it square in the fucking gut. You'll know what I mean when you see the "money shot." Shot of Silhouette in opening credits sequence one of best things I've ever seen. "Conservative" critics will hate the whole film for that one shot. People need to get the fuck over Dr. Manhattan's junk. You can see his penis clearly in-frame maybe three or four times, otherwise it's BARELY visible since he's all blue, glowy and semi-transparent. You'd think people had never seen a dick before. I christen Zack Snyder: "Michael Bay But With Actual TALENT." Earns lifetime benefit-of-doubt otherwise only afforded to Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson and Paul Verhoeven.

Bed now. Tired. See movie again tommorow. NEED to see how plays to regular Friday night movie crowd that doesn't know every twist that's coming. Also see in morning some point. Want to see horrified (or elated?) reactions of younger audiences brought by ignorant parents. Need sleep. Never compromise. Even in face of unemployment.

NOW WHERE DID I PUT THAT?

For those of you who enjoy using my state of the art index system to the right (and by state of the art, I mean “alphabetized”), Blogrolling looks to be back online after a few months downtime and the indexes have finally been updated. For those who prefer the tags at the bottom of the posts, I’ll keep those too. The B-Movie Catechism, making sure you can navigate through your weekly dose of Catholicism mixed with crappy movies in every way possible.

South Park

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/166179

Seeing "Watchmen" tommorow night

Seeing Watchmen midnight show Thursday Midnight. Fingers crossed that A.) it's good and that B.) IF it's good, the non-geek public responds similarly to Dark Knight. Probably not on that second one, given that it's bound to be both a downer and a heavy-thinker, but you never know. I'd LOVE to see it become a major hit, just to see what kind of effect it would have on the genre and action-filmmaking in general.

Oh, Also...

Incidentally, no one NEEDS to go see "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" - it's AWFUL - but you might want to just so you can watch a movie literally come apart at the seams. It's pretty remarkable in that regard. It started out as part of an ambitious project to do a series of "origin" movies for various Street Fighter characters and then bring them together in a single massive "Street Fighter" movie for a climax; but that plan was seemingly jettisoned midway through and they were left to cobble what they'd already signed into a low-budget action vehicle for Kristin Kreuk with various characters running around with the names and "Mark I" costumes of Street Fighter bit-players.

For the fans: Neil McDonough and Michael Clarke Duncan are M. Bison and Balrog, Robin Shou (Liu Kang from the "Mortal Kombat" movies) is Gen and Chris Klein is Charlie Nash (the "Charlie" who's murder Guile is supposed to be investigating.) Vega turns up approximately twice, lamely. It's a weirdly schizoid adaptation, on the one hand trying to "Dark Knight-ize" the franchise by eschewing the game costumes and grounding the main backstory amid a ghetto-gentrification real estate swindle in Bangkok; but on the other hand Gen teaches Chun-Li to throw magical fireballs and Bison gets a REALLY icky origin story to explain super powers... that he never actually uses. FWIW, Nash survives the movie, presumably saving his death for the never-to-be-filmmed "Legend of Guile" movie. Quick mention at the end of a "Street Fighter Tournament" that Mrs. Li ought to investigate, and a "Ryu somebody."

The screenwriter on this was Justin Marks, currently just about the hottest writer in Hollywood apparently owing to his ability to turn out functional scripts for "fanboy" properties at a good clip thanks to a near-encyclopedic knowledge of - and legitimate enthusiasm-for - the material (he's also behind the initial scripts for the planned "He-Man," "Supermax" aka "Green Arrow in Prison" and "Voltron" movies.) For what it's worth, he DOES seem to have a knack for building a working narrative out of the largely-incidental backstories of properties like this. Whether or not his stuff can lead to GOOD movies remains to be seen, though I'll note that THIS one would've at least been campy fun if they'd been allowed to wear their game costumes.

Oh!, and here's the newest OverThinker:
http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/2009/03/episode-twenty-open-letter-to-nintendo.html

OUTTAKES #027

The Underdog Knight