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Yes, my friends, the time has come once again to pick the brains of my fellow bloggers for interesting tidbits regarding the intersection of film and religion. Let’s see what’s going on out there.

First up, if you haven’t found it on your own, let me point you to AZ Catholic, a fine blog written by Kim a.k.a. The Papist MSTie. Someone want to tell me how a blog with the statement “We can find important theological lessons while watching MST3k” on it got started and I just noticed it? Anyway, according to Kim, she’s “just your average Roman Catholic who is from Arizona, and is one of the half million or so in this great state that is of Irish descent. Who is currently attending college to get an AAS in Culinary Arts, and has a border line obsession with old and/or bad movies, but especially comedies and Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Be sure to drop by and tell her hello.

After that, you might want to head over to The Art of Apologetics, but only if you haven’t seen (or have no plans to see) last year’s most critically acclaimed horror movie, Let The Right One In. Austin has watched it and taken note of some rather disturbing subtexts in the film, themes which I feel have been overlooked by most of the mainstream reviews, but which are starting to get tossed around on various movie forums. Be sure to stick around for the comments section where I make a rambling butthead of myself.

Speaking of rambling buttheads, by now you’re probably already aware of Ron Howard’s impassioned “my movie's not anti-Catholic” defense of the upcoming Angels & Demons. As expected, the Catholic blogosphere isn’t buying it. Carl Olson, over at Insight Scoop, does a fairly comprehensive Catholic fisking of Mr. Howard’s article, but if you’d also like a secular perspective on Ron’s Dan Brown movies (and your eyes don’t mind the obligatory four letter words), be sure to check out Chud.com’s reaction to a possible Da Vinci trilogy.

For something a little less jocular, pop over to the Chicago Sun-Times where Roger Ebert has posted a rather serious essay on how he believes in God. (Combined with some of his other recent posts, I’m beginning to suspect the man is either preparing an autobiography or believes he is dying. I hope for the former.) Like so many these days, Mr. Ebert finds himself too intelligent to trust in the dogmas of organized religion, but unlike too many, he’s surprisingly complimentary about many aspects of Catholicism and his own religious upbringing. Anyway, despite the fact that I obviously disagree with some of his conclusions, I’m inclined to be charitable to Roger as he’s one of the people whose work taught me to take film seriously. Plus, maybe it’s wishful thinking, but there’s something about the article that feels like he’s still seeking, and you know what Scripture says about that. AND, he mentions that his wife has a strong faith (of some sort). The prayers of a wife and mother are pretty irresistible forces Rog, just ask St. Augustine.

And if after all that you’ve got room for a little bit more, Gabriel McKee over at SF Gospel takes a quick look at a favorite of ours around here, The Day of The Triffids and finds that heroes can be real jerks sometimes.

So don’t just hang around here, start clicking, pick some brains and gain some knowledge.

Trust The Man

Crank 2: High Voltage

Here's the easiest, most trite-yet-true call any critic will make this year: If you liked (or, at least, "appreciated") "Crank," you will feel largely the same was about it's sequel. It's as simple as that. The only mandatory note of caution is that, since the first film's impact (such as it was) had a lot to do with the way it arrived as a bolt from the blue with no real warning as to just how insane and yet alarmingly well-made it was, the sequel is almost by-design going to be ever so slightly less mind-blowing because... well, this time you kinda of know what to expect. Give it credit, at least, for swinging for the fences in it's attempts to one-up it's predecessor.

For catchup's sake: "Crank" was a one-part celebration, one-part satiric deconstruction, one-part adrenaline-injection of yer basic "boy vs. the world" macho action epics; specifically the type in which it's star - British character actor turned surprise B-movie action god Jason Statham - was/is currently making his bones. It related the purported "final day" of one Chev Chelios, your basic unstoppable one-man-army hitman antihero who awoke to find himself injected with a lethal poison that will kill him unless he kept his adrenaline constantly ramped up - requiring him to use everything from pain, drugs, caffeine, sex and whatever else you could imagine to keep himself alive long enough to take revenge on his "killers." The story climaxed with what appeared to be Chelios' spectacular "death," but you know how action heroes are...

The first film had energy and style to spare, but whether or not it was meant to be anything other than "awesome" is largely in doubt. If you WERE to go looking for a sense of presentation theory, I suppose a good way to describe it would be that the film seems to imagine a theoretical "ideal audience member" for itself in the form of a mad-at-the-world teenaged boy and views itself through "his" eyes: Chelios wreaks bloody havoc through a "people and things who piss me off in L.A." obstacle course in which everyone and everything has it's worst foot forward practically begging to be throttled, and our view of it is a multimedia blitz of pounding music, gratuitous sleaze, dehumanizing caricatures of every race, gender and lifestyle to be found and a smattering of video game sound effects.

In the sequel, Chelios is "saved" from his death by a gang of Chinese Triad organ-thieves who want to steal his demonstrably-unkillable heart for mysterious purposes. Outfitted with an artificial heart that requires constant replenishment of electricity, Chev is once again off-and-running across the City of Angels to punch his way to retrieving his "property," stopping only long enough to electrocute himself in whatever oddball way can be found to keep on kicking. Along with the Triads and a rival Latino gang with it's own agenda to fight and Bai Ling as what is either the most offensive Asian female character in modern film history OR a bloody-brilliant satire of stereotypical Asian female roles in Hollywood movies, just about every minor character who survived the first film (and some who didn't) are back for another round as well.

It's not really a complicated thing, guys: Either you WANT to see likable action lead "Double Dragon" his way through nightmare visions of the day-to-day annoyances of sharing urbania with the rest of humanity with an almost Troma-level disregard for basic decency visualized in a manner so impressionistic it borders on the outright surreality one might expect from a Michel Gondry or Jan Svankmajer piece (at least one fight scene briefly morphs into a 100% different genre and visual style that's destined to make it a "no, really!" classic) or you DON'T.

One thing I CAN offer in it's favor is that, for all it's "fuck-everyone-and-everything" bluster it's consistently hard to figure which targets filmmakers Neveldine and Taylor aim to skewer and which they aim to (in their own way) celebrate: At one point, a big-bossomed stripper participating (topless) in a gun battle takes a nonlethal bullet to the chest and, rather than blood, we're treated to the sight (and sound) of liquid silicon erupting from her punctured implants... on the other hand, Chelios' eventual backup is an army of musclebound, leather-clad African American gay/S&M bikers who arrive on-scene in a thunderingly-heroic manner usual reserved for literal cavalry. If nothing else, it's a genuinely peculiar blend of screw-the-world misanthropy and quasi-progressive caricature-subversion. There's certainly nothing else quite like it out there right now.

Let's Watch the "Wolverine" trailer...

"The Escapist" has seen fit to give me another spot, this time going through the "Wolverine" trailer a'la the Zapruder Film. Enjoy!



After watching, check out the ACTUAL site too:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-presents/684-MovieBob-Reviews-Wolverine-Trailer

OUTTAKES #028

 

Further proof there’s something seriously wrong with me, but what can I say, the scene fit perfectly. And despite the tedious political trappings, I believe this topic falls well within the range of catechesis. You know, they probably don’t want my help after this, but if you feel inclined to, go check out NDResponse and Notre Dame Scandal anyway. Prayers would be most helpful.

Dragonball: Evolution

Wow, what a dud. Badly-acted, inanely-scripted, edited into oblivion and heavily reliant on special effects that wouldn't pass muster in the kind of 2nd tier Hong Kong (or Bollywood, for that matter) cash-in in otherwise best resembles; this would be a shoo-in for a lot of year-end "worst" lists save for the fact that no one but hardcore "Dragonball" fans will take much notice of it now OR remember it a week from now. It's not just a bad movie - it's a dull, lifeless one.

Let's be clear, though: There's ABSOLUTELY no reason for anyone to see this unless they're already a devotee of Akira Toriyama's seminal manga/anime franchise... and even then it can only possibly be of interest as a curiousity item for fans who feel like watching the unwieldy result of trying to rework Toriyama's offbeat scifi-fantasy spoof of Chinese mythology and martial-arts manga into the framework of an American superhero movie - primarily "Spider-Man."

The original "Dragonball" applied a gonzo sheen to the ancient Classical Chinese novel "Journey to the West." Taking place in a vaugely futuristic world of magic, monsters and kung-fu; it followed the friends and associates of gadget-girl Bulma and Goku - a hyperactive feral child with superhuman fighting skills, mysterious powers and a dubious origin - on their quest to collect seven lost "Dragonballs" with which one can summon a dragon and make a wish. The new film keeps that basic outline but moves the premise to a world dissapointingly closer to our own, reimagines Goku as a power-concealing undercover nerd in High School a'la Peter Parker and bumps eventual-baddie Piccolo to the forefront early on.

The "international" cast does what it can in what amounts to another fundamentally-empty Fox cheapie hoping to cash-in on a name brand. James Marsters comes off the best under heavy makeup as Piccolo, while Chow Yun Fat (seriously?) looks like he's having fun as lecherous martial arts teacher Master Roshi and Emmy Rossum deftly approximates anime sex-appeal in a ridiculous hairdo. Justin Chatwin as Goku is very nearly the least interesting male lead since Robert Pattinson in "Twilight."

Skip it.

Le Prix A Payer