Movie Maven

I do wish I had a legitimate reason for not blogging these past few weeks, but the truth is I've just been ghastly lazy. I just found this story though, which is an important one for my fellow bloggers to keep up with, and just sticks ever so annoyingly in my craw:

John McCain is a buzzkill.

McCain, always known as "the cool Republican" became significantly less awesome when he proposed a new bill in the Senate stating that blogs are legally and financially responsible for whatever bit of offensive twaddle lands on their site or in their comments box. They're also required to report any users who are registered sex offenders. How a blogger is supposed to know if a commenter is a sex offender I don't know- perhaps our blogger sense tingles when we sense dangerous politicians... ahem... pedophiles hanging around our sites.

This, of course, has nothing to do with film, the chosen topic of my little internet oasis, but it's an important issue that all who work within the web need to be aware of. I'll keep you posted as other interesting legislative tidbits tread before my hawk-like eyes.

Movie Maven will be off for a week to celebrate the holidays. But I'll be back very soon to finish the, uh, four posts I have mouldering in the blogger queue. Ah well.

This lovely time of year, where we celebrate our American superority by stuffing our arteries with turkey and pie with Cool Whip, always reminds me of a touching line from the comedic quaretet Firesign Theater. I'll leave you with these words immortalizing the true meaning of Thanksgiving:

My fellow settlers! We stand here at the edge of civilization, on the banks of the Mississippi river. Lookin west, at our Destiny! What may appear to the faint-hearted as a limitless expanse of God forsaken wilderness, is in reality a golden opportunity for humble, God fearin' people like ourselves and our families and our children and the generations a-comin' to carve a new life - out of the American Indian!

Baraka
Starring: Stern looking tribal people, the Himalayas, Western destruction
Treatment written and directed by: Ron Fricke

I was recommended Baraka by a friend, who when discussing the film said it would be better viewed if my mind was, ahem, somewhat altered by inhaled illegal substances. In the end, though, the film was trippy and mind-expanding enough on its own. I have a feeling that if I'd been hitting the Mary Jane while watching this, a fuse could very well have blown.

Baraka is a Sufi word meaning "breath of life," and the maxim was a muse of sorts for Ron Fricke's legendary, dialogue-less documentary. With cinematography befitting a National Geographic magazine, Fricke captures scenes of spirituality, naturalism and destruction with luscious grandeur. There are no statements made, no interviews, no real description of where, exactly, Fricke takes us. But in the end all of these things are unnecessary. It's a film entirely about the visual, about what we as an audience feel when we view the images.

There is the auditory as well, including haunting music composed by Michael Stearns as well as strictly non-verbal sounds of the world Fricke displays. They're carefully orchestrated together, whirling into a symphony between the diegetic and non-diegetic until it's almost impossible to tell which is which. I'm still ruminating over the uber-trippy scene in which a nameless tribe chants and dances before giant stone idols somewhere in the depths of a rain forest. Through their dance they merge as if into one being, an undulating creature in complete prostration before the god they're worshipping. I've never seen anything quite like it.

There's also a heavy component of environmentalism in Baraka; breathtaking scenes of mountains and happy furry woodland creatures are interspersed with acts of human destruction: rain forests are cut down, fires rage, and, in one famous scene, harmless male chicks are thrown down a bottomless funnel (only female chicks are needed for the industrial production of eggs.) You wouldn't be entirely wrong is saying it's a little heavy-handed, but it's effective nonetheless.

In the end, the film is about our connections, both to those around us, to the world at large, and to our god, whomever or whatever that may be. One affecting shot shows a city at rush hour, time-lapsed so both people and cars race along at super-human speeds. They look like ants, it occurred to me. Then I corrected myself. We looks like ants. We are not all that significant, in the end, and while we go about our busy, falsely important lives we often lose the big picture.

You don't need to be toking to get that.

And now, a quick message from Movie Maven:

Tomorrow are the mid-term elections, which may direct the course of our country for the next two years.

Vote, dumb-ass!

This is has been a message from Movie Maven. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Quick programming note:
Ok, so I'm a liar. I promised you posts last Wednesday, and was so far unable to deliver. I am a bad Movie Maven, and you should feel free to verbally spank me in the comments box. However, I seem to have gotten a burst of blogging mojo and will do what I can to make it up to you. I'm on a TV kick lately, so don't be surprised if I begin to wax poetic about tasty little morsels like Battlestar Galactica or The Office over the next few weeks. Below is some huffy, whiny commentary about Studio 60. Enjoy!

I am so tired of reading blog posts about Studio 60 and the Sunset Strip.

Seriously I am so bored with everything to do with this show. I was an avid fan of The West Wing, and Aaron Sorkin's beautiful, shroom-induced hallucination of the executive branch. I admit it I was this close to writing in Sheen's Jed Bartlett on my 2004 election ballot, before I sobered up and remembered I vote in the swing state to end all swing states. I wept when, on the show, Bartlett announced his re-election campaign as "Brothers in Arms" played victoriously in the background. So obviously I looked forward to Studio 60, loving Sorkin, Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry, and the idea that the same wit, intelligence and social commentary could be translated to a fake sketch comedy show.

Unfortunately it looks like Sorkin was just on a bad trip. I was pretty disappointed with the couple of episodes I've seen, and honestly didn't really know what to make of it. It is funny and smart and the pacing is excellent. But the primary problem is that Sorkin's high-minded morality (some would say pretentiousness) that worked so well for government just doesn't sit as well in the world of television. Yes there is room to discuss censorship, the medium's ability to facilitate public discourse, blah blah blah, but in the end it's television and a sketch comedy show really doesn't hold that much political sway (Jon Stewart notwithstanding.) What could pass for moral authority inside a fictional Beltway just looks silly and self-righteous inside a fictional L.A.

So the show can be funny and smart, but in the end it's not that effective and hasn't really caught my eye. And I'm well aware that many online critics, from blogger Lance Mannion to Salon's Heather Havrilesky agree with me to a greater or lesser extent. They all don't really know what to make of this show, and the reviews have been decidedly mixed. So here's what I don't understand.

Why is Blogland so abuzz about it? Mannion's been live-blogging the show several times now, and every time he gives reasons why he doesn't really like it all that much. But he keeps live-blogging it, or ruminating on it between episodes. Wolcott's discussed it, as has Slate, Salon, and Shakespeare's Sister (my divine three S's.) Mind you, I'm not criticizing any of these people- God knows I have many passions close to my Movie Maven heart, and I understand very well the nature of television obsessions. But most of my obsessions are things that I enjoy watching, not things I feel ambivalent about. It would be different if it were some sort of love/hate relationship, but I don't think that's what's going on. It's like they so want to believe that Sorkin can create good TV (which he can) that they're ignoring their own instincts. My sister Shakespeare's Sister put it very well when she guest live-blogged on Mannion:

Why do I like this show? I ask the same question every week, because every week I gripe to Mr. Shakes about all the things I think are too much or too little, and everything seems to be one or the other. It's the characters I like. They're stuck inside this giant pendulum that's swinging way too wide, back and forth. But it's in rhythm...and I think its arc will narrow, and then everything will fit.

I do hope that in the end everything fits for Sorkin's show. I love him and his elitist, yet optimistic view of our so dreary state of America. But I'm not counting Studio 60's eggs before they hatch. My TV time is grossly limited, and I'm not going to waste it on a hope and a prayer.

As I have done so many times before, I wish to apologize for the absence of new posts. I'm sorry to say I've been cheating on you with a new blog- a small internship at boston.com I inexplicably snagged. You can check it out along the side (it's under the heading of More Shameless Self-Promotion,) and see both myself and two other fabulous mavens getting their blog on. It's basically a site devoted to under-paid, under-appreciated college interns, or would-be interns looking to gain advice and generally kvetch about their jobs. Subtle wit, wisdom and self-deprecation is guaranteed, or your money back.

I also promise (no lies!) that I will post a review by the end of the day today. We have many things still to accomplish, and just because I'm carrying on a torrid love affair to boost my resume, doesn't mean I still can't have a deep meaningful relationship with you.

The Last Kiss
Starring: Zach Braff, Jacinda Barrett, Rachel Bilson, Casey Affleck
Written by: Paul Haggis
Directed by: Tony Goldwyn
Official Website

Photo courtesy of Yahoo

Why is it always the man who has commitment issues?

Why does the woman always become an emotional shrew in the face of any perceived infidelity?

And why, God why, is stalker-logic (like breaking down the doors of your ex-girlfriends house, or sitting on her porch for three nights straight) considered heart-breakingly romantic?

These are just a few of the questions that plagued me throughout The Last Kiss, starring Zach Braff. Braff has been considered especially brave to play an adorable cad who loves his pregnant girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett,) but is "scared" and assuages his fears by having it off with a slutty yet naive co-ed (The OC's Rachel Bilson.) And as much as I do love Braff and his puppy-eyed vulnerability, I could not get myself into this movie. It's a cliched film in an "edgy" film's clothing; 30-year-old men are already having their mid-life crises, their eyes going all wide and fearful at the mention of marriage or buying a house. The wise old married man offers the sage advice of "Never give up hope"... even when you reasonably should. People wail and bemoan their love lives and failing marriages while Death Cab for Cutie plays gently in the background. Braff, as well as writer Paul Haggis (of Crash and Million Dollar Baby fame) and director Tony Goldwyn have been dutifully flogging their movie as "real," and "honest." But if cliches weren't true to life, they wouldn't be cliches. Their hast to be a middle ground where something "real" can be blended with something original... something like Garden State, maybe.

But the most tragic bit in this turn of events is Braff's seemingly unstoppable descent into Woody Allen-like self-absorption. It's suddenly all about Zach Braff and his music and his adorable nose. His major quandary in Last Kiss is "Hmmm, should I marry my hot girlfriend or leave her for the hot college student?" And his character is so stale and generic it becomes unclear why either woman would really want him. An adorable nose only gets you so far in life, and while Woody Allen had inexorable talent to back up his ego (at least in his heyday,) Braff's range is far more limited. And that's coming from a fan.

The film is however backed up by a decent supporting cast, including the deft Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson as Barrett's parents going through marital troubles. Casey Affleck is also striking as the buddy who's marriage is falling apart in the face of new parenthood, in a performance that's that's both subtle and memorable. But the biggest surprise is Bilson. I despised her on The OC and never thought much of her acting ability or emotional depth. But Bilson takes her slutty college girl beyond the stereotypes and really fleshes out a character that could have faded into the background. But even a good set of supporting roles can't save the film's inherent lack of originality. The movie plods along, helped admittedly by a fantastic soundtrack (I think Braff probably just attached his Ipod to the sound editing machine and let it roll.) And Braff and Barrett become so mind-numbingly dull after a while you don't even care if they get back together or not. I never thought a pregnant woman screaming hysterically at her cheating man could be boring, but there you go.

One of the most telling moments in Last Kiss is Danner's conversation about the nature of marriage. She tells her daughter "You think you know what goes into a 30-year marriage, but you don't have a clue. You don't have a clue." Besides being an astonishingly genuine moment of truth, it also says outright what The Last Kiss has demonstrated. The nature of relationships are mysterious, hard to quantify and nearly impossible to render artistically without seeming generic and 2-dimensional. This attempt to do it here was a valiant one. But, for the most part, Hollywood just doesn't have a clue.

The Science of Sleep (La Science des reves)
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat
Written and directed by: Michel Gondry
Official Website

I have no idea what happened in The Science of Sleep.

I've been staring at my computer screen for 20 minutes now, trying to come up with a coherent statement about this film, and drawing a complete and utter blank. My review, I think, can't be coherent because the movie itself isn't coherent at all. Departing from the usual narrative and plotlines, Gondry decided to rock it French New Wave style, with strange and fragmented events, a distorted sense of time and complex webs of dialogue. It's a frustrating movie to watch, indeed- one after which you leave the theater quietly, your mind positively buzzing as it tries to understand what it just saw.

It's also a fascinating, colorful work of art, one which stays with you long after you brain has abandoned its struggle for basic comprehension.

It tells the story of Stephane (Bernal,) a creative young man who was raised in Mexico but has agreed to come to France after his father's death to reconnect with his mother. He obtains a soul-killing job at a calendar design office and becomes infatuated with his next-door neighbor Stephanie (Gainsbourg.) Unfortunately Stephane's highly artistic mind also has trouble deciphering dreams from reality- sometimes he's dreaming when he thinks he's awake, and sometimes he's awake when he thinks he's dreaming. He becomes more and more confused as to what is truth and what is fantasy, risking his job and his relationships as time goes on. Bernal, a rising star for the past few years since his provocative role in Y Tu Mama Tambien, is astounding to watch. He shares both the restful, calm state of dreaming as well as the frenetic pace and sudden sense of panic of a nightmare. He also is able to exude a painful vulnerability, without losing the fact that as wonderful as Stephane may be, he can also be kind of a jerk. His addled mind hurts not just himself but those around him, and neither Bernal nor Gondry shy away from that.

We are, in a sense, meant to be just as confused as Stephane, and everything in the film serves to disorient. The dialogue shifts between English, French and Spanish, causing confusion and mixed messages. It's filled with glorious dream sequences of stop-motion animation, with cellophane clouds that float in the sky, and whole cities made from clay, cardboard and papier-mache. Stephane's dreams, which start out as fantastic, grandiose illusions, begin to look more and more like his waking life. And since we are watching through Stephane's eyes, all of the people in his life, from his love Stephanie to his mother to his horny co-worker Guy become skewed and fractured, until even we don't know what is reality and what is simply Stephane's reality. It's an astute exercise in subjectivity and although the banal meaning of "what happened" in the film becomes lost, the larger meaning of how our perception dictates our experience becomes much clearer.

It's also simply a love story, lovingly rendered and melancholy. I don't know what girl broke Michel Gondry's heart, but he understands unsure, tumultuous love better than anyone I know. It has an ambiguous ending, and an unsatisfying one in many ways, but one that's true to our reality. In our world, Gondry seems to say, nothing is certain. Only in dreams is the happy ending guaranteed.

The Descent
Starring: Shauna McDonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid
Written and Directed by: Neil Marshall
Official Website

I expected stupid, drunken, and mostly likely, half-naked teenagers.

This would be the likely cast of a bloody horror film about cave creatures. Stupid, drunken, half-naked teenagers venture into dangerous cave for a stupid, drunken, half-naked good time and are promptly ripped apart by Bat Boy from the Weekly World News. This is how most would have written it. So I went to The Descent after a colleague told me it "had a few good jumps," hoping to be scared, but not expecting to be surprised.

Turns out I was both.

Because the characters in Descent are not stupid, drunken teenagers. They instead are a bunch of British women- amateur spelunkers, friends and comrades. They gather in the woods of Appalachians to bond and help one of the group through her grief over the deaths of her husband and young daughter the year before. A surprising amount of the film is taken up with character development, and all of the women become more and more nuanced and complex- a rare thing in a genre that normally reverts all of its characters to "types."

But it's when they get lost that their real characters begin to show themselves. Some of them become heroes and Ripley-like superwomen. Some of them become cowards or reckless. And when the fearsome Bat Boys make their appearance (I'm sorry, but that's just what they look like) then you really see who they are as people.

It's a gruesome movie, but the repetitive attack scenes often make the movie lose its edge and originality (yes, spewing gore, yeah, he's eating her stomach, oh look, there's another throat being ripped out, blah blah blah.) And while the Bat Boys are terrifying as they unexpectedly pounce on the women, there's only so many times you can use that move as a scare tactic before it simply becomes cliched.

There is a pretty bad-ass scene involving a pool filled with blood though.

In the end, it is just another horror flick, but it's worth a viewing simply for the fact that it used living, breathing characters with a story. It wasn't just about blood and guts, it was also about the complexities of humanity. A little bit. Mostly blood and guts, though. Let's not get carried away.

Little Miss Sunshine
Starring: Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette
Written by: Michael Arndt
Directed by: Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris
Official Website

Photo courtesy of cinema.com

I love this movie.

In fact, I heart it.

There's just no other way to say it.

Saying that you "heart" something is far more powerful than just saying you like it. In an obnoxious, adolescent way it's how one expresses deep abiding love and affection. You can feel it deep down in your chest, an intense relatablility and intimacy. Imagine your first crush, and writing over and over on a piece of paper I (heart) so-and-so. That giggly schoolyard infatuation.

That's the kind of love I feel for Little Miss Sunshine.

A favorite of the Sundance Film Festival, it tells the story of a highly dysfunctional family determined to get Olive, their young daughter, into the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California. Included are father Richard (Greg Kinnear) a struggling motivational speaker, his long-suffering wife Sheryl (Toni Collette) their Nietzsche-obsessed teenaged son Dwayne (Paul Dano,) Sheryl's gay, suicidal brother Frank (Steve Carell) and Richard's heroin-addicted father (a sublime Alan Arkin.)

It's funny and strange, charming and absorbing, and sweet without being saccharine. Every moment, every shot of the film is captured perfectly. The cast is phenomenal, every last one of them. They play off of each other with impeccable timing, no one actor overshadowing the others. Indeed from Carell's inspired portrayal of Frank, the gay, suicidal Proust scholar, to twelve-year-old Abigail Breslin's wonderfully natural presence as Olive, everyone seems to be operating at their very best. It's the kind of smooth, unpretentious acting that's rarely seen anymore.

The acting and superb direction is matched by a wonderful script, with both fantastic one-liners and enchanting banter between the family members. But it's also refreshingly honest. Olive asks Frank if he likes boys and not girls. When Frank says yes, she simply says, "That's silly." No illuminating insights, no "wise beyond her years." She thinks the idea is silly and she says so.

Like a real kid would.

I wish I could speak more about the "dark humor" but I don't want to risk giving anything away. Needless to say, you'll be shocked and delighted and all that. But the interesting bit is that it's tinged with real sadness. Darkly funny things don't just happen in Little Miss Sunshine just to be shocking or edgy or whatever. They want us to feel that sadness. But they want us to laugh too.

The plot may be twisted and darkly humorous, but at the end of the day it's really a little film about the bonds of family. A group of people who've found refuge from the world with each other. The most iconic image, of course, are the members of the family pushing their yellow VW bus, which has broken down and will only run after getting a head start, and then jumping into the van after it gets going. It's hilarious, of course, watching them run after the ludicrous vehicle, especially Carell, who does the best funny sprint since Tom Cruise in, well, in every movie Tom Cruise has had to run in. But the inherent sweetness of it also comes through- they are a bunch of misfits, pushing their slightly shoddy lives up the road together, and then jumping in as a group to whatever end befalls them.

I am a girl with broad tastes in film, and there are many films, in many different genres and levels of talent that I can honestly say I liked. What can I say? I'm a flirt.

But there are very few that I heart. And I heart this movie. I'm infatuated. So go see it. I can guarantee you'll be crushing too.

Snakes on a Plane
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, muthafucka!
Written by: John Heffernan and Sebastian Gutierrez
Directed by: David R. Ellis
Official Website
MySpace Page

*Caution: Many spoilers, primarily about what body parts are eaten and/or bitten by snakes. Also, just so you know, there is a happy ending. Try to act surprised.

It was a Friday night, a tad chilly for August, when five friends and I gathered to see it. After a hearty, pseudo-French spread of Au Bon Pain sandwiches and Diet Pepsi, we made our trek across the spooky wasteland of the Boston Fens, dodging broken glass, goose excrement, and stoned Northeastern co-eds. Fenway was aglow that night with the fated Red Sox/Yankees double-header, and as we passed onto Yawkey Way we were greeted with drunken, heraldic cries of "Go Sox!" and "Yankees Suck!"

But we were not here to deride the Yankees with venomous, Guinness-soaked tongues. No, our pilgrimage led us instead to the AMC Fenway theater, the air infused with popcorn butter and throbbing anticipation. Ticket stubs in hand, we walked to our screen.

We could hear them before we entered. The din of a determined mob, fueled by adrenaline and vodka hidden in Dasani bottles. They hooted, they threw popcorn, they laughed and cheered and hissed and shouted vile obscenities. But over it all, we could hear the slow, but powerful chant, a raging plea for what we had all come here to witness:

Snakes! Snakes! Snakes! Snakes!

So began my experience with Snakes on a Plane, the most anticipated movie of the summer, the darling of film bloggers and MySpace users everywhere, and the most entertaining bit of trash I've seen in a very, very long time.

So here's the "plot," as it is: Surfer Dude catches evil Asian Mobster (you can tell he's evil by the flashy white suit coat) killing a prosecutor in Hawaii. Asian Mobster puts out a hit on Surfer Dude, who is narrowly rescued from a Death Squad by Samuel L. Jackson. Samuel L. puts Surfer Dude on a plane to L.A. so Surfer Dude can testify against Asian Mobster and put Asian Mobster away for good. What Samuel L. doesn't know is that Asian Mobster has put a whole bunch of poisonous snakes on Surfer Dude's plane and has sprayed the Aloha leis with this pheromone that will make the snakes extra super-horny and go crazy and kill everyone. Plane takes off, snakes are released by an explosive, snakes... get extra super-horny and go crazy and kill everyone.

And there ya go.

But did you really want to know the plot of Snakes on a Plane? Of course not! All you want to know is how much blood, oozing pus, raunchy plane sex and hilarious one-liners David Ellis could fit into a two-hour movie. The answer is, um, a lot. Jesus, a lot. I mean the first two people killed are a couple smoking pot and joining the mile-high club in the bathroom. The snake bites the girl's naked breast. There's blood spurting everywhere. Later, another snake castrates a man. And another eats the Snobby British Passenger's head. And the audience roars in appreciation.

Because, of course, they had to die.

Samuel L., obviously, is the best thing in it. He becomes almost a parody of himself, a hard-assed, seasoned FBI agent. No non-sense around Samuel L., or he'll tear you a new one. Two new ones if you really piss him off. He's joined by ER-alum Julianna Margulies as Spunky Stewardess (the other flight attendant I've code named Slutty Stewardess), David Koechner as Horndog Pilot, and the inimitable Kenan Thompson as Fat Passenger with Courage. All are wonderfully bad, and I'm pretty sure they all meant to be. It's a return to those golden days of B-Movie Hollywood, a time of large, radioactive ants and UFOs made out of pie plates. Lines are delivered with complete dead-pan- one of my favorite moments has Horndog Pilot talking about keeping the plane from "going down faster than a Thai hooker." And Samuel L.'s inspirational speeches, as well as Surfer Dude and Fat Passenger's emergence as heroes are hysterically earnest, with all tongues placed squarely in cheek.

In the end, though, this film must be watched with an audience. Preferably a drunken audience, with lots of frat boys and people who aren't above hissing at pivotal moments, and hollering "Muthafucka!" every time Samuel L. appears on the screen. Because Snakes on a Plane isn't a movie; it's an event. It reminds us that in the end, movies are a communal experience- they're about having a good time with friends and strangers alike.

In fact, the worse the movie got, the louder we chanted. And the better we liked it.

So, darlings, hold your breath, pay that wretched $10 the box offices are gouging you out of nowadays, and see Snakes on a Plane. On a weekend. At night. With a large audience, in a multiplex, with the good stadium seating and those handy cupholders. And when the time comes, scatter your inhibitions to the wind, and chant along with the others for the one thing that in your primitive lizard brain you know you want to see:

Snakes, snakes, snakes.....

Apologies again for abandoning you all with such callous disregard. Movie Maven has a busy weekend ahead of her (birthday celebrations, plus moving in the wee hours of the morning this Saturday, ugh ugh ugh) and will return to her regularly scheduled programming Tuesday, August 22nd. I promise. Really, I do.

Superman Returns
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth
Written by: Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Official Website

I've always been more of a Batman girl. Superman was a little too clean-cut for me, too All-American boy, too morally unambiguous. But when I heard that Bryan Singer, the genius behind X-Men 1 and 2 was directing the new Superman, and that divine scenery-chewer Kevin Spacey was playing nemesis Lex Luthor, I knew this was something I had to see.

Superman Returns seems to pick up where the second Superman left off, with Clark Kent (Brandon Routh) going off in search of his home world. He returns much as he originally arrived- crashing in a meteor on his parents' farm in Iowa. He re-connects with his aging mother (a wonderful and under-used Eva Marie-Saint) before heading back to Metropolis in search of his old job and unrequited love, Lois Lane. But alas, Lois now has a son and a juicy live-in boyfriend, is still oblivious to Clark's identity and consistently out of reach. Plus Lex Luthor's planning to take over most of the United States by growing krypton-infused ice, so Superman's got a lot on his plate.

So what to make of it? Well, first off, I have a theory that newcomer Brandon Routh is actually a CGI. This is not a statement on his performance (which was nuanced and indeed very human) but due to the fact that in two and a half hours of watching him I could not detect a single flaw on his entire body. He is so perfect he looks inhuman, he looks... well, alien. He's also a dead ringer for the dearly departed Christopher Reeve, a fact I'm sure was not lost on the casting director. His performance likewise is based on Reeve's, and he is never more charming than as Clark Kent, fooling the world with glasses and stooped shoulders, and pining after his love who in turn has eyes only for his alter-ego.

The pining actually takes up quite a bit of the film (Singer actually called it his first romance film) and yet somehow it didn't annoy me. Perhaps it was Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, thoroughly undetestable (unusual for Kate Bosworth,) balancing Lane's femininity and toughness with the skill of a tight-rope walker. Or perhaps it was James Marston as her live-in boyfriend, who they managed to not turn into a bad guy to make the love triangle easier. Or perhaps it's because that's what Superman is partly about, what has helped spur his legendary status and love by fan-boys everywhere. It's about a guy that desperately wants to fit in and can't. A being that has such love for humanity but can't find his own place within the spectrum. Besides the obvious Messiah reference, on a much simpler level it's just about plain old loneliness.
But enough of this deep philosophy- Kevin Spacey wants to take over vast amounts of real estate!! Real estate, you ask? Isn't that a little, well, lame? Yes, unfortunately it is a little lame, but Spacey does the best he can, which is pretty damn good, and infuses his performance as the Q-balled nemesis with a sly humor and grace. Add Parker Posey as his ditzy girlfriend Kitty Kowalski and suddenly the plot isn't nearly as important as watching these two glide over their scenes together.

Unlike Batman Begins, or even X-Men, Superman Returns is not a re-imagining or re-inventing of the Superman mythos, but a glorious act of homage to both the comic books and the first two films. Old footage of Marlon Brando as Superman's father Jor-El is used in one scene (Brando, still fantastic, even from the grave.) One gorgeous shot of Superman gently setting down a car that had spun out of control is a mimic of the original comic book's first cover. And John Williams' original score is played against a thoroughly retro opening credits scene. Done with less skilled hands than Singer's this would have come off as cheesy. As it was, it sent shivers down my spine.

I'm still more of a Batman girl, but Superman Returns helped me better understand the appeal of a home grown Iowa boy who found he could fly. He's the grand-daddy of iconic images, the 20th century version of the pantheon of Greek gods. Singer, his writers, and even Routh understood this concept, which above all is what made the movie successful. It's a tribute to a symbol. An ode to the man in red and blue.

*A few minor content changes since first posting- oh the magic of the edit button!

I am a bad Movie Maven. Recent pleasant distractions have kept me from you, my faithful public, and my keyboard has since grown rusty from abandonment. I swear to you, I have four summer flicks in the post queue and a whole rolodex of witty and insightful remarks to share and will do so very soon. Whilst I get my blogging ducks in a row, feel free to peruse my blogroll and take in the heartfelt prose of far more talented people than me. Enjoy!

A supreme oddity found courtesy of our good friends over at Wonkette:

Apparently a downloading website Movie Ministry (their tagline is "See the Truth," making it sound either like a thrilling John Grisham adaptation or something involving Al Gore) has produced a series of films dedicated to using modern pop culture to teach about Jesus. The latest? A film based around the new Pirates of the Caribbean:

"DOWNLOAD NOW! Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest may look like a mindless popcorn flick, but sprinkled throughout this summer blockbuster are nagging questions about the value of the human soul and demonstrations of the many ways in which those souls become imperiled. The movie represents a great opportunity to ask about the state of people's souls."

It's called Who Owns Yer Soul, Matey?

Who Owns Yer Soul.

Matey.

I'm sorry, but there's just an inherent ridiculousness to using Depp's effeminate, Keith Richards-inspired Jack Sparrow to talk about God. There's also a sense of desperation in having to use what is a mindless popcorn flick as a platform for spiritual awakening. Things of this nature should be left to Bible study, open dialogue with religious leaders and animated talking vegetables. Leave the pirates out of it.

And for God's sake, never say matey again. I'm not joking.

An Inconvenient Truth
Starring: Al Gore
Written by: Al Gore
Directed by: Davis Guggenheim
Official Website

Photo courtesy of Film Threat

I needed to assuage my liberal guilt.

The best way to do this of course is not by, you know, actually doing anything, but watching other people doing something and agreeing with them heartily. That's what I do. I don't do things. I watch other people do things, and then write about what I watched them doing. This is usually about as active as I can get.

With this philosophy in mind I went to see An Inconvenient Truth last weekend. Both hailed by critics and booed by the right-wingers, I was pretty sure I would enjoy it. Plus I admired its brilliant marketing campaign, which touted the film as a disaster movie a la The Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon, and was called "the most terrifying movie you will ever see."

But while there were some truly unsettling and even frightening moments in An Inconvenient Truth, I didn't exactly run from the theatre screaming. I think there were probably too many graphs involved for that. What An Inconvenient Truth is, is a highly informative and captivating lesson in environmental science, courtesy of Al Gore. Basically a taped session of his "slide show," as Gore endearingly calls it, the movie puts forward the evidence surrounding global warming, discounts the theory's critics and provides a practical, unhysterical view of what will happen to our planet if we continue to slowly poison it.

Gore is at his most genial (dare I say charismatic?) using Matt Groening cartoons and badly done CGI polar bears to illustrate some of his points. But he is also deadly serious, weaving this story of the not-so-distant future with a sense of urgency that hasn't been expressed before. He showed what New York City would look like if the polar ice caps melted and the ocean's level rose (the World Trade Center Memorial site would be completely submerged, a truly disturbing symbol Gore doesn't shy away from.) He flipped through one photo after another of mountain ranges and glaciers slowly melting from the late 1970s until they are practically nothing. "By 2050," he says bluntly, "there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro."

I wouldn't call Inconvenient Truth a documentary, necessarily- in many ways it reminds me distantly of the movies I was shown in high school science class. People have argued that it's skewed, but that's entirely missing the point. Gore's argument is that his slide show- and likewise this film- can't be skewed because all scientific evidence (not some or most but all) points to global warming as a human-induced process that is rapidly changing our climate and world. Graph after graph of the distinct rise in temperature, emissions, and climate events like hurricanes can't lie. Gore isn't skewing the truth, because for him (as well as the vast majority of scientists) the truth can't be skewed.

Go see An Inconvenient Truth. The critics are right that it is an important film and actually a lot more entertaining and captivating than a lot of people would believe. But most importantly, see it because in the end it's not a movie that terrifies. At least not by the end. Because Gore, at the end, has hope for the future. His main point is that this is a fixable problem, that every single person can help to slow. By making global warming our fault, he is also showing that what we began we can cease. We can all do something, not just watch others doing it and agree with them. We have power over our world.

I've been disappointed in TV lately.

This is of course usual for summer, a period that becomes an endless circulation of pointless reality shows and sit-coms half-heartedly begun and then abandoned around mid-July. And there are few things actually worth watching on network TV anymore, in general. It was a fairly good season in '05-06, with The Office flourishing and Battlestar Galactica somehow managing to thrive in the wasteland of the Friday night lineup. The Daily Show is always a keeper, and The Colbert Report on afterwards has become a fantastic platform for Stephen Colbert's limitless talent. Law and Order: CI seems to have taken up the cop show slack that the original L&O has dropped in the last season after the still-painful death of Jerry Orbach/Lenny Briscoe. And though The Sopranos ended on a irritatingly boring note, it's still a revelation of the modern televised drama.

But most of these shows have left for summer vacation, forcing TV execs to fill the void. Summer programming for the most part has always seemed awkward, a little cheap, and thrown together. I'm not a reality show kind of girl (Project Runway being the exception- oh, how I loves the Santino) and if I have to sit through one more cop/sexy lawyer show I am most definitely going to hurl. Yes, it is a long, hot, barren summer in TV land.

Except for Deadwood.

An oasis in the desert of summer programming, Deadwood (Sundays, 9 p.m. HBO) has quenched my thirst for entertaining and thought-provoking television. Masterfully crafted for the past three years by creator and writer David Milch, the show about the infamous South Dakota town set during the Gold Rush takes the traditions and cliches of the western for a ride. The best factor by far is the dialogue, which is a mingling of undulating Shakespearean-inspired prose and unadulterated profanity. It's a sweeping epic of a show, with a massive, talented cast and fascinating historical sub-plots. Deadwood was created to show the development, and so-called civilization, of America in a microcosm.

For those unfamiliar with the history of Deadwood, it was mining camp in the South Dakota territory, a filthy, lawless place run by a handful of power brokers. The most powerful of these was Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) owner and proprietor of The Gem saloon and whorehouse. The entire cast of characters (which over the years has included Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, and Seth Bullock,) are wonderful, rich and intriguing, but it is McShane as Swearengen that captures the show and makes it what it is. He's one of the most well-defined, and complex characters I've ever seen, capable both of grotesque brutality and unbelievable mercy. He is funny and terrifying, intelligent but capable of making very serious mistakes in his business dealings. But most interestingly of all, Swearengen becomes integral to the evolution of the camp into a real town and its subsequent annexation to the United States. He does this determinedly, even though he knows it means the end of his reign as the leader of the camp. He is willing, even glad, to relinquish his authority to help make Deadwood what it could be. His affection for the camp, and his hopes for its future parallel those of the founding fathers, albeit he accomplishes his goals by slitting a lot of throats.

This season sees a threat to his plan, when historical mining mogul George Hearst comes to town with a thought to bend Deadwood and its leaders to his will. The first episode "Tell Your God to Ready for Blood" banged onto the screen, featuring a shoot-out in The Gem, Bullock beating the slimy E.B. Farnum to a bloody pulp and a shaky conspiracy between Bullock and Swearengen against Hearst. I've never seen an episode I haven't enjoyed, but this season is shaping up to be one of the most interesting and captivating I've ever seen.

And probably with good reason. Because HBO hasn't renewed it.

Deadwood is not a show to view idly. You cannot fold laundry or do your homework while you watch it. You have to sit and take it in, like a fine meal, focusing on each line, partly because of its innate beauty, and partly because it can sometimes be heinously confusing. So it is either abandoned for lighter, more accessible fare, or (in my case) it becomes an obsession, viewed several times throughout the week, scanned and analyzed and discussed with other true believers. Symbols and mundane details are picked apart with the intensity others reserve for Scripture or poetry. Characters are mourned in their deaths. Swearengen is worshipped as a demi-god. These are Deadwood people. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough of them.

Milch asked for four seasons in which to tell his story. He had a very specific plan, and an image of the time-frame he wanted for his show. But falling viewership combined with more money spent on another sweeping epic, Rome, has caused HBO to re-prioritize. The execs have given the go-ahead for an two two-hour film "episodes" completing the series, but it's just not the same. So while the tedium of Entourage and the truly ghastly Lucky Louie continue unabated, smart programming has once again been trumped for ratings. This is less common on the network, since it's based on subscriptions, but they still need viewers, and the large base audience just isn't there.

Of course since this was announced, Blogland and near-neighbor MessageBoardistan became riotous with protesters rising up against The Man to save the show. To no avail, probably, but if you'd like to join the resistance against the George Hearsts of HBO, visit savedeadwood.net or The Huffington Post, which are rallying supporters.

Deadwood will soon pass away to television heaven, though I have a sneaking suspicion that DVD sales might cause the tyrants at HBO to re-think their original decision. But until then, we can all have shot of whiskey every Sunday, as we watch a show about America in the making, toasting to Al Swearengen with a grand "Huzzah."

Photo courtesy of: St Petersburg Times

The Mighty Peking Man (Xing Xing Wang) (1977)
Starring: Danny Lee, Evelyne Kraft
Written by: Kuang Ni
Directed by: Meng-Hwa Ho

Photo from shaolinchamber.com

I have been overwhelmed cinema-wise lately: Netflix has been bombarding me, as has Blockbuster Online, which I have joined free for one month, and tends to send its movies en masse. Friends have been lending me western, sci fi and drama staples, that I "just have to see" and Deadwood, the best show on television has returned for its final season (a post on that coming as soon as I can get my act together.) Not to mention the blockbuster season is upon us, with all sorts of fun, interesting and stupid things to see in theatres.

Unfortunately, this boon of information has coincided with a writer's block the size of the Berlin Wall. I sit in front of my laptop (or desktop in the case of when I'm at the Real Job) and tap my fingers across the keyboards, hoping against hope that perhaps the clacking sound will jog my sluggish imagination. I don't like using writer's block as an excuse for not doing work, but I don't know what else could be the cause.

But apparently humidity has done the trick. It's a wretched 90-something degrees in Boston right now, with a humidity factor of one hundred million percent. So after a weekend of dirty Boston beaches and laying on my bed in boxers and a tank top trying to move as little as possible, my brain has clicked somewhat back into place, and my fingers are typing merrily away.

While in the heat-induced trance in my un-airconditioned apartment, I needed something that didn't require the workings of too many brain cells. The Roommate and I flipped about the cable until landing on IFC, and the hysterically bad Mighty Peking Man, a frightfully dubbed rip-off of King Kong.

So here's the deal: this giant ape-man, right, he's, like totally freaking out all the villagers around the Himalayas, he's all "Oooohh, I'm Peking Man, I'm so mighty, I'm gonna eat you and stomp on your house!" So all the humans around him are like, well screw this, let's get some bad-ass kids to come show Peking Man what for. So they get this anthropologist named Johnny (Danny Lee) who's all messed up because his girl cheated on him with his brother, and needs to get away. So he agrees to go to the Himalayas and capture Peking Man with a group of trappers. It's all awesome, because they run into some rampaging elephants (which are really just meandering elephants they sped up on the film to look all... rampageous) and climbing the Himalayas is really really hard, and Johnny runs away because he's fragile or something. He gets lost, and they all give him up for dead, when he finds this jungle chick in a skimpy animal hide bra (Evelyne Kraft) who has been there since her parent's plane crashed when she was a little girl. She calls herself Ah Wei, but Johnny keeps calling her Samantha for some reason (probably just the crappy dubbing.) Anywho, Ah Wei/Samantha has a repore with Peking Man, saves Johnny's ass and they fall in wild jungle love. But Johnny, he wants to, like, civilize her and stuff, but she, like, can't be tamed, you know? So Peking Man takes them back to the city, but other people who want to put him on display capture him, and Johnny doesn't care because he's got his hot jungle wench. I stopped paying attention for a while after that, but basically the ape-man is put on display, he sees the evil promoter attempting to rape Ah Wei/Samantha, freaks out and starts trashing the city. He does get up on a tall building and is shot at by planes, but I think he actually dies in a fire. Ah Wei/Samantha almost dies too but Johnny saves her. The End.

It's not so much the derivative aspect of this movie that makes it so lovable- it's the fact that it has absolutely no sense of humor about itself. This was made in a time and place before spoofs and ironic remakes, a time of supreme cinematic innocence. We are not expected to laugh at the immovable, emotionless face of the guy in the ape-man costume, we are supposed to feel heartfelt sympathy. Passionate sadness for the tragic creature. When Peking Man picks up Ah Wei/Samantha (as she strikes one of several provocative poses in the beast's claws. like she's vogueing for Cosmo) we are only supposed to see their primitive friendship and doomed love. It's sweet.

So as summer hits with its derivative films and remakes, its monsters and hot chicks in slut-tastic jungle wear, be sure not to forget the monsters and slutty jungle chicks of summers past. When we lived in a kinder, gentler time of animal-hide underwear and multitudes of fleeing Asian extras. Long live Mighty Peking Man.

The Omen
Starring: Julia Stiles, Liev Schreiber, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Mia Farrow
Written by: David Seltzer
Directed by: John Moore
Official Website

Photo by: 20th Century Fox

I'll start by saying that I was pretty sure this movie was going to suck. All the reviews were indicative, and the director was the guy who did Flight of the Phoenix. But I went to see it (not on 6/6/06, unfortunately it was sold out) hoping that it would be scary. Really scary. I can handle a bad horror movie if it frightens me. I hadn't been sufficiently scared by a contemporary film in a long time, and I was jonesing for that sense of unease, for the feel of my heartbeat fueled with adrenaline, a good gasp and jump. I wanted to sleep badly that night. I saw the original Omen when I was 10 or 11 and I still remember it fondly as one of the most frightening films I'd ever seen. I am a fear junkie and I was hoping for a fix.

Too bad it just kind of sucked.

This movie was not scary. I couldn't believe it. It was like it wasn't even trying. There were a couple moderately good jumps- choppily edited visuals of Damien in a scary mask, holding a rope, predictable but still effective. But the rest is hideously dull and flat. Damien's father and a reporter (David Thewlis) go to a cemetary populated with upside-down crosses and a giant black dog attacks them. Oooohh, subtle. Julia Stiles, besides looking far too young for the role as Damien's mother, is wooden and stilted, a far cry from Lee Remick's nuanced and brittle portrayal in the original. Even Schreiber, who's usually consistently good is beaten down with bad dialogue. The movie klunks along with predictability, like a badly oiled machine. It seemed like Moore had maybe seen the original Omen a few years ago on HBO and had a vague sense of how it was supposed to go. It had all the plot, to be sure, but none of the atmosphere, or sense of unease of the first.

The worst part, of course, is the actor who plays Damien. Child actors are difficult in the best of situations. Apparently the director chose not to tell Davey-Fitzpatrick that he was supposed to be playing the son of the devil- I'm not being glib either, they really didn't tell him. They apparently didn't want to "freak him out" (a perfectly legitimate thing when dealing with a six-year-old) but how is the poor kid supposed to play somebody evil when he doesn't know that he's supposed to be evil? Suddenly it's very clear why Damien never really looked "evil-" he just looked kind of sullen and frustrated. Less antichrist and more "a bully stole my tricycle."

The two who actually manage to pull their weight are Thewlis as reporter Keith Jennings and Mia Farrow, playing the satanist nanny Mrs. Baylock. They both liven up the joint and bring a surprising amount if nuance to their limited roles (and both of them bite the dust in fabulously nasty ways.) But they are the exception, not the rule.

The Ring Two. The Haunting. The Grudge. All sucked. All were re-makes or adaptations. But they were all scary, primarily because they managed to catch the subtle facets of horror. They had timing and a profound sense of what images truly keep us up at night. The Omen had none of this- only a trudging sense of obligation to re-make a perfectly fine film. Not to expand upon the ideas within it, or tell the story with a different perspective, but to make money and capitalize on a fortuitous date.

There are only so many ways Damien can frown.

I have a friend who, if it's even possible, is a bigger TV and film addict than I am. So one rainy day last weekend, I meandered over to said friend's house for a day of being completely useless and sedentary. As we flipped through the cable, which is normally rather trashy of a Saturday afternoon, we landed on the ABC Family channel and Love Don't Cost a Thing, starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian.

Can you think of a bigger waste of time? We were overjoyed and made merciless fun of the dialogue, filming (which had a weird shaky-cam effect that is really more appropriate for an intense documentary than a beach dance scene) and Steve Harvey, the poor bastard, who played Cannon's father. Basically the plot is Cannon is a geek who pays Milian $1,500 to be his friend for a few weeks so he'll become cool. There are coordinated dance numbers, which makes it worth a viewing for me, and we watched happily until this line:

Cannon: "I'm with her now."
Milian: "Her? (Snorts derisively) She's given more rides than Greyhound."
Cannon: "Yeah, but at least I didn't have to pay $1500 for a ticket."

At this point my addict friend sits up and screams "Oh my God! I know this movie! Have you ever seen Can't Buy Me Love?" I admitted shamefully that I had never even heard of it. We popped it in immediately (well, right after a hysterical viewing of Real World/Road Rules Challenge,) and I hadn't realized how incomplete my life had been before this movie. Patrick Dempsey as skinny lawn boy with floppy hair pays cheerleader Amanda Peterson to be his girlfriend for two weeks to make him popular. Cheerleader plays it tough, but she's got a sensitive side too, and in the midst falls in love with nerdy Dempsey. But Dempsey's had a taste of popularity, and (oh shame!) loses both his friends and the girl. But all will be well, for the floppy-headed Dempsey learns his lesson, gets his old friends, frightens the school bully and gets the girl.

In effect, it is the same movie.

There are montage sequences and 80's power chords and (huzzah!) coordinated dance numbers. But the whole reason for the movie's existence is Dempsey's truly fabulous performance as Ronald Miller, 80's lawn-boy geek extraordinaire. He becomes popular purely by accident, and never really stops being a geek. Cannon, by contrast, is simply a playa-in-waiting, one who exhibits two extremes of personality, and simply chooses the good one.

But let's not get technical. After all, we are talking about a movie with Nick Cannon and Christina Milian.

All the best lines in Love Don't Cost a Thing are simply stolen from Can't Buy Me Love. Besides the Greyhound lines (which are indeed identical Amanda Peterson's dialogue) there's an entire poem recited word-for-word from the original script and a couple of other exchanges that are hauntingly familiar.

It's kind of like they took the script, and added in a "dawg," "playa," or "shorty" every time there was a gap in the dialogue. Classy.

We are in an age of perpetual remakes, adaptations and general lazy screenwriting. From the painstaking rip-offs of Japanese horror to the remake of Superman, due out soon, it's hard to find a movie that hasn't been recycled from something else. Some are good and some are bad, but this example takes the cake. So here's your homework assignment: watch Can't Buy Me Love and then Love Don't Cost a Thing, and view the degeneration of filmmaking at work. Or, if you disagree, let me know.

Patrick Dempsey says don't be frontin'. Someone should have told Nick Cannon.

X-Men: The Last Stand
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, Ian McKellan
Written by: Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn
Directed by: Brett Ratner
Official Website

Photo courtesy of: Slide 2

In the hectic atmosphere that is Movie Maven's existence, I didn't get a chance to wish you a Happy Summer Movie Season!! All semblance of budgeting my money and time at the theaters has gone out the window with the prospect of air conditioning and watching some seriously cool shit blow up. While I suppose my unofficial entre into Summer '06 came with The Da Vinci Code, I decided to celebrate the vacation from school and Oscar films with X-Men 3.

The first two installments of the series have been my favorite comic book movies to date. Bryan Singer, who directed X-Men 1 and 2 really tapped into the universal themes established in the comics, and the link to issues today: racism and government control, the ambiguousness of evil, etc. It was less about the plot and more about introducing whole, real people into a fictional crisis on the world stage. Singer had a poetry and rhythm in his work, a beauty and darkness that stayed with you long after you saw the movie. The special effects were impressive not just because of their noise and flash, but also their ingenuity (one part I always have in my mind is when Magneto (Ian McKellan,) who can manipulate metals, sucked all the iron out of a guard's bloodstream and used the iron as a method of escape from his prison in X-Men 2.) The X-Men flicks were always big, loud movies, but there was a method to it. I always had a sense that Singer and his crew handled the story and characters with care and affection.

I didn't get that sense with the third, this one directed by Brett Ratner. The story centers around a "cure" to mutant power that's been developed and is now available to the anyone who wishes it. Some think it's awesome, some think it's an attempt at mutant genocide. And then the fun begins. If in adept hands, this would be a terrific jumping-off point for serious discussion, but Ratner apparently is no Singer. Ratner doesn't handle the story so much as inflate it, stuffing it full of sub-plots, exploding cars and tons of extraneous mutants until it heaves and begs for Pepto Bismol. He doesn't love and develop his characters so much as introduce them and then leave them hanging off the proverbial cliff. There's just too much stuff. For example, he introduces Angel (the delectable Ben Foster,) a boy with wings. One of the truly memorable scenes in the film is in the beginning where a 10-year-old Angel is in bathroom of his home, desperately cutting off his own wings with a saw, a look of pure terror in his eyes. After this one would think Angel would be featured. Perhaps have some sort of extended dialogue with other characters. Some development of who he is as a man. But no, the poor lad is relegated to jumping out of a building, his CGI wings flapping behind him, and, in one scene, saving his mutant-phobic father from death as his lab is destroyed. That's all she wrote. So a truly impressive beginning dwindles and melts away in the face of blowing up some seriously cool shit.

Now if this was just benign summer fun, I would not gripe so much. But as an X-Men fan, Ratner and screenwriters Kinberg and Penn did something completely unforgivable in my eyes.

They made Phoenix into a sub-plot.

Phoenix, for those who are not as dorky as I am, is a pure, undiluted manifestation of the powers of the telekinetic Jean Grey (Famke Janssen.) She's not evil, per se, but is pure emotional and supernatural energy, rendering her unstable and incapable of reason. For many comic book aficionados, this plot-line borders on scripture- it's the grand-daddy of X-Men literature.

The problem with it in this movie is not that they oversimplified it (though they did) or completely changed the way in which she operated (though they did that too) but that they didn't consider it worthy for a main plot. She comes back, she looks evil and kills a lot of people, including several main characters. The end. Her coming is wrapped up in the war between mutant and "homo-sapiens" (as Magneto derisively calls them,) and in the end the movie is about the war and not Phoenix. While I admire the directorial bravery in having her kill off the people she did, there was simply not enough of her story to make any kind of coherent sense. Plus it's just disrespectful.

I would still call X-Men worth a viewing, though I think a rental from Blockbuster would suffice in lieu of spending your ten dollars on Surround Sound and cup-holders. It was a disappointing end to a rather wonderful series, but Hugh Jackman is still bad-ass, Patrick Stewart is still dignified and smart, and Ian McKellan still has gravitas to spare. The director may have sucked the life out of the plot, but these three still manage to emerge from the bloated film intact.

Plus some really cool shit blows up.

In the absence of "having seen any good movies lately" I am relegated to the task of digging up some coherent movie news. I would have given various vital body parts to be able to report on Cannes, but unfortunately I was forced to forgo the French paradise for the dizzying natural beauty and star-power of, er, Toledo, Ohio.

While about my rounds of merciless celebrity gossip and box office numbers, I stopped by Neddie Jingo's, a blogger of whom I am quite fond. Neddie Jingo, as you will see by clicking on the link, has a habit of referring to Mrs. Jingo affectionately as Wonder Woman. This sparked in my memory a reference I had heard to a possible Wonder Woman movie coming out. I hastened to IMDb for confirmation, and lo, there it be in all its glory!! In pre-production, and helmed by none other than my darling Joss Whedon himself! From reports derived from various comic book geek websites, Whedon is currently writing the script for the movie and is set to direct. The question on everyone's mind, of course, is who will play the Amazon princess-warrior, and the forums are abuzz with names, both plausible and ludicrous. A favorite of mine, of course, is Lucy Lawless, but I think she might be a little old for the gig. People have mentioned the usual lolli-pop headed trolls, Mischa Barton, Rachel Bilson, as well as Lindsay Lohan as other possibles. I heard a very funny story in which Kate Beckinsale was asked if she was set to play WW- she laughed hysterically and said, "I think Wonder Woman's supposed to be quite tall."

But the name that keeps popping into my head hasn't really been mentioned: Gina Torres.

Torres is actually a Joss whedon favorite- she premiered on his brilliant-but-cancelled show Firefly as co-captain Zoe, and later played the role in his film version of the series, Serenity. She's also appeared on Angel as a malevolent demi-god. Can you imagine anyone better?

I know what you're thinking- wah?? A black Wonder Woman? Well, why not? Last I checked the Amazonians were a race all their own- they didn't hold with the preconceptions of race within the world of Man. So they'd have no problem with an African-American woman being their divine princess who wields a golden lasso.

According to Whedon, whoever gets the gig will be playing it OSWW- Old School Wonder Woman. "I can tell you that the film will be about introducing you to Wonder Woman," he said to Empire Online last March. "She'll be wearing the outfit and there will be the bracelets, the golden lasso and Greek gods." While comic book purists will be happy with that, what I really want Whedon to keep is the sense of fun and irony that Lynda Carter instilled in her portrayal of the Amazon. There was a whimsical sense of humor that emanated from the 70's era TV show and if Whedon can keep that going, I think it'll be a fabulous addition to the summer movie line-up of 2007 or 2008.

...yes, you read that correctly.

Seven different actors, in fact, will play the folk icon in a biopic entitled I'm Not There, according to Yahoo News. Each actor will take on different facets of his life and personality. Others who have reportedly signed on include Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Richard Gere (Blanchett is to play Dylan during his 'androgynous' stage, natch.)

The movie will be directed by Todd Haynes, formerly of Velvet Goldmine, a biopic of David Bowie.

So how fabulous is this entire concept? Mainly I find it fabulous because of the risk involved- this is one of those projects that will either work splendidly and make gobs and gobs of money, or will flop horribly and messily like a fish on a line. I haven't seen Velvet Goldmine, but I have seen another Haynes flick Far From Heaven with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, which was beautifully done and haunted me for days afterward. So I'm hopeful that the Dylan impersonators will be in good hands. I'm a little surprised Dylan even consented to a film about his life, judging from his hermit-like personality. Most writers call him an "enigma," which is how they refer to any public figure who doesn't constantly shill for them. Even in his recent forays into public life- his radio show on satellite radio, his documentary with Martin Scorcese, his autobiography Chronicles: Volume 1, as well as rare TV interviews- still leave him very much a mystery. Dylan has a truly spectacular knack for allowing the musician to be in the spotlight, while the man himself stays in the shadows. What this will mean for the content of the movie remains to be seen, but you can bet I'll be first in line on opening day.

The Notorious Bettie Page
Starring: Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Lily Taylor, Sarah Paulson
Written by: Mary Harron and Guinevere Taylor
Directed by: Mary Harron
Official Website

When I went to see The Notorious Bettie Page, I began to think about light. It is not something one normally thinks about for long lengths of time, unless one is a Director of Photography, but this lovely, simple film was drenched in it.

It moves back and forth between black and white and a luscious technicolor, all the while putting Mol in a halo light- very similar to what they did for actresses in films during Page's reign as the pin-up queen (primarily the 1950s.) The whole atmosphere becomes like the flipping of an old photo album. This is synchronized with the plot, which does not show any of Bettie Page's experiences in-depth, but flips through them too, to see a beautiful overview of a highly singular life. There's a refreshing unpretentiousness to Harron's film, something pure and tame (ironic, considering the material.)

For those who don't know, Bettie Page was a model, of the swimsuit category, the nude category, and, most notorious of all, the bondage variety. The film chronicles her life from her childhood in Kentucky, to her move to New York City and beginnings in the modeling world. Mol as Page is simply fantastic. Page was a plucky girl, taking everything that happened to her in stride. It's obvious that her past played a role in her modeling and entrance into pornography. She was molested by her father as a child, and was gang-raped when she was a young woman- both events are apparent, but not shown, exhibiting a restraint that's uncommon in today's filmmakers. Her relationships and her career were all affected by this, but they are not dwelled upon, as it's apparent that Page herself didn't dwell on them. She moves to New York City, and finds the Klaw siblings (touchingly portrayed by Chris Bauer and Lily Taylor) who introduce her to the wonders of bondage modeling.

The modeling scenes are both hilarious and even kind of sweet. It didn't seem to register with Page what bondage really is. At one point a director asks her what she thinks God thinks of her work. "Everybody has a talent," she says. "Mine is posing. If what I do makes people happy and doesn't hurt anyone, isn't that what God wants?" Indeed, early bondage films and photos were tame compared to what can be uploaded today (it usually involved riding crops and girls in giant black corsets with high heels- one can see worse on cable TV any day of the week.) But this primitive form of modern bondage attracted the ire of several men in the Senate, including then senator Estes Kefauver (played by David Strathairn, fresh from his glorious turn in Good Night, And Good Luck.) In the end, Page is made to wait for hours at the Capital Building to testify at a pornography hearing, only to find, as usual, that the men in the room will make the decisions about what is decent, with no input from her.

America has always had a rather twisted view of sexuality, alternately being titillated by it, and trying desperately to pretend it isn't there. Bettie Page was a symbol for that paradox- everyone said they despised it, but the truth is somebody out there was buying. Page was the cheerful, unknowing contradiction of all the 50s stood for, something that comes across perfectly in the movie without Mol (or Harron) having to beat you over the head about it. It's a glorious little film, one well worth having a look at.

The Da Vinci Code
Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan
Written by: Akiva Goldsman
Directed by: Ron Howard
Official Website

Photo by cinematical.com

WARNING: I have scattered spoilers throughout this post with reckless disregard for people's feelings. If you have not read the book or seen the movie and still give a damn, skip this post.

A thousand apologies for my regrettable absence. I've been struggling with two movies I saw last weekend- Da Vinci, and The Notorious Bettie Page (review on that delightful little muffin to come soon.) An unfortunate case of writer's block had me in its stubborn grasp, and I have just now been able to break free.

But I digress...

No doubt all of you have read the harrowing reviews of the film- or at least heard about them. It's boring, it's ludicrous, it's pompous, it's flat. The reviews have been written with a certain manic glee- they're not just panning the movie, they're beating it over the head with a two-by-four, throwing it against a wall and kicking it until it lies cold and limp on the floor.

But it's what the reviewers are not saying that's really interesting. They're completely ignoring the real problem with the movie. The camera-work is not extraordinary, but up to par. The music is fine, the plot developments are coherent enough. The settings are often very beautiful. And the performances are actually quite good. Ian McKellan is especially wonderful, very funny and gets the movie going at a good clip. Alfred Molina does a fine stint as a creepy Cardinal And Paul Bettany can play a murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk like nobody's business.

Do you see the problem yet?

I'll say that again: "murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk." That's the problem. The content, the plot, the entire book upon which the movie is based on, is STUPID! I don't know how else to put it- it's stupid! S-T-O-O-P-I-D! Make an anagram out of that, bitches!

And the monk's just the beginning. The symbologist (if that's an actual word) meets up with the cryptologist at the Louvre where the cryptologist's grandfather has just been murdered. They go on a wild, mad-cap chase, involving the "murderous, self-flagellating, Albino monk," go to an extremely weird Swiss bank with blue lights and conveyer belts with boxes with clues inside to find the Holy Grail. Which is not actually a cup, by the way. It's a person. Or a secret. Or a sarcophagus. Or something. One of the main characters ends up being the direct descendant of Jesus Christ, and there's a shoot-out and the corrupt policeman sees the error of his ways and there's this really cool thing buried under the pyramid in front of the Louvre.

See my point? The movie is slow, because the plot is so convoluted it needed to be explained ad nauseum to make any sort of sense at all. And when you think it's about to end, it's not, because Dan Brown, and likewise Ron Howard, can't let anything be a mystery in this story. Nothing can be left to our imagination. Every last damn gritty detail must be laid before our feet. And explained. Preferably twice.

In many ways I actually prefer the movie to the book, much in the same way I prefer the Lord of the Rings movies to the actual literature. In a movie, all of Dan Brown's ravings and endless, badly-worded descriptions can be bypassed. Do I need and 20-page account of what the Mona Lisa's smile looks like? Nope, cause I got the real thing right in front of me. Do I require a sermon about the Church's supposed cover-up of the truth about Christ. Nuh-uh, cause Ian McKellan can say the same damn thing is about two minutes. All adaptations must be compressed for time. Most of the time, this means that something important gets lost in the transference. This time, all it means is that Brown's stilted, wearying literary fat has been trimmed away, for leaner, sexier storytelling.

But there's only so much trimming one can do without becoming unintelligible, and I still stumbled out of the movie feeling like I'd been watching Tom Hanks' greasy hair for about nine hours. It's very unfortunate. I like the themes that both the book and the movie address. The question of faith, the corruption of a legitimate religious institution by fanatics, the fight over who or what Christ was and what that has to do with the message he tried to give us. And, in the end, the subjectivity of history. All of these are wonderful things to write a book about. And make a movie about.

I only wish it had been written by someone else.

I'm really trying not to hate The Da Vinci Code yet. I'm really, really trying. I'm seeing it tonight, and I'm really trying to keep an open mind.

Yet I can't help but feel a little savage glee at the recent reviews of the film at the Cannes Film Festival. Among other things, it's called "talky," and "boring," and The Hot Blog cited a "clusterfuck of attention seekers wanting to be proclaimed The First to Pan Da Vinci!" It's almost startling the voracity at which the reviewers turned on their media darling, like wolves on a weak member of the pack.

I did hear one positive review. Half asleep at a friends house, I watched a very surreal episode of Entertainment Tonight with botoxed, speed-freak Mary Hart at the Cannes. After taking about an hour to talk about what dress she was wearing and how much her necklace is worth, she went to the movie and said afterward (quote) "I have just one word for it- WOW!"

I really am trying to keep an open mind. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the word I'm going to think of after the movie won't be "wow." Just a hunch.

People don't understand the concept of a guilty pleasure. Most label chocolate, or grande mochas from Starbucks as their guilty pleasure. Some say television or Lindsay Lohan. I had one guy tell me his guilty pleasure was Harry Potter.

But these are not true guilty pleasures. First of all, they are all extremely popular things, which many people love and adore. A true guilty pleasure should be relatively unpopular, or at least unpopular in the sense that people don't like to talk about it. It must be specific: television, for example is too broad. There are loads of fabulous and reasonable things to watch on TV. Well, maybe not loads, but at least two or three. And the guilty pleasure must be something indulged in rarely. If you're scarfing down Hershey kisses every day of your life, it's not a guilty pleasure, it's your diet.

Plus the whole point of a guilty pleasure is the guilt. If you're telling everyone you meet that you really like grande mochas from Starbucks, how guilty do you truly feel about it? You're paying lip service to the guilt: I'm on a diet, I know this is bad for me, but it's so good, oh I'm being so bad, etc. etc. But true, deep guilt is not voiced aloud, or at least not voiced regularly. No- a true guilty pleasure has to be genuinely embarrassing.

So, after that long and particularly patronizing introduction, I find I have a confession to make. I know this will probably come back to haunt me, but what the hell, I don't know most of you in real life anyway.

I have a guilty pleasure. It's name is Passions

Passions. You know you know it- the soap opera on NBC, modeled a little off the earlier soap Dark Shadows. Every day at 2 pm for the past six years or so it's been on. It involves the natives of a small New England town called Harmony (one's not quite sure what state it's in, kind of like The Simpsons.) Besides traditional soap opera fare (murders, amnesia, forbidden love, children who go away to boarding school and come back one month later as adults) it also has a bizarre spiritual/mystical component, which weaves in and out of the plotline as necessary. There's a witch, for example, named Tabitha, played by veteran British actress Juliet Mills, looking like she's having the time of her life. When the show first began, Tabitha had a living doll named Timmy, who became a real boy, but then was killed, and then she got pregnant by Julian Crane of the Crane empire and had Andora who's a witch, but she has a conscience and is a hopeless romantic and just wants her half-brother Fox to be happy with Kay, but Kay still loves Miguel, who right now is having a thing with a mermaid, and....

um, never mind.

The plot is relentlessly complex, and yet one can leave it for months to go to school, come back to it in the summer and know within ten minutes what's going on. They basically tell the entire back story in their dialogue. Like, "I can't believe Whitney's in Rome! We need to find her before she gets hurt or runs into Chad, her half-brother who she had a relationship with before she knew they were related and fostered an illegitimate child with him. Now she's gone crazy and thinks that monk is God, and is doing his nefarious bidding."

The best plotlines on Passions always have to do with the Cranes- the family that runs Harmony and has amassed a huge amount of wealth and influence from what appears to be a fish cannery. One of the best lines I ever heard on Passions was from Sheridan, talking about her father Alistair Crane, the evil patriarch of the Crane Empire. "You don't understand," she says. "He's so powerful. He could bring down governments with a single phone call."

That's right. A fish monger can bring down governments with a single phone call. He doesn't even need a second call to confirm it.

He knows it's done.

I don't know how this show has survived. Perhaps it's mainly due to people like myself who know its absolute crap and yet cannot look away. It's like a freak show- we are repulsed and yet amazed. We know we're wasting one hour of our lives we could be spending doing meaningful work. We could be working on a painting. Helping the poor. Teaching inner city children how to read. Finish that book about global warming we've been meaning to get to. But we don't care. We sit. And watch.

We watch with friends and loved ones and giggle like schoolgirls at how bad we are. We make fun of the show, of the acting, the writing, the production values. And yet there's something in its complete vanity and emptiness that we find comforting. We indulge in its cheerful, airheaded nature for an hour, before having to wander back to the painstaking muck of everyday life.

Now that, my friends, is a guilty pleasure.

(Photo courtesy of Passions website- see above)

The ads are everywhere. On the TV promos, pounding instrumentals accompany shots of the Louvre glowing ominously in the distance, Tom Hanks with bad hair and Paul Bettany skulking in the shadows of some sort of crypt. I hear mentions of it on the lips of passers-by. It is referenced at gatherings and dinner parties that I attend. I read newspaper articles devoted to the subject, watch as network news shows are forced to shill for the thing by their parent company.

It's everywhere.

It's a conspiracy.

I read The Da Vinci Code after a recommendation by several people who had similar literary tastes as myself. I read. And I read. And I read. Through pages upon pages of description of the Louvre, to the lurid details of self-mutilation, through the preposterous conspiracy theory and irritatingly condescending tone of author Dan Brown. I read and I read. I read through being offended as a Catholic... Well, not really. I'm not a very good Catholic, and I was offended mainly because if someone's going to knock my faith they better have the decency to do it with talent. But still! I finally got through the whole thing, after putting it down on several occasions in favor of more entertaining fare. It boggled my mind how such a convoluted and ridiculous novel managed to garner so much attention and love. All I could hear was the whiny high-pitched voice that I imagine Dan Brown having. "Ooh, look at me!" Brown says. "I'm Dan Brown. I'm the smartest little boy in the whole world! I know sooo much about cryptology! Eat it up, you sheep!"

I hated the book with a fiery passion that is unmatched by any other I have known.

And yet I want to see the movie.

I know what this is. It's the peer pressure of adulthood- a marketing war being waged on so many fronts you can't hide from it. I'm blasted with promos in surround sound at my local theatre. I see them at home. Articles, pseudo-news stories, word-of-mouth, interviews with talk-show hosts... It cannot be escaped. Especially not by me, a self-professed media whore who gobbles up every morsel of marketing like subliminal creme brulee. If drug dealers had this kind of PR I'd be snorting, injecting and smoking everything I could lay my hands on. I admit it. I am a sheep. It's the only explanation for why I have a burning desire to see a film adapted from a novel I hated. With a lead actor I don't like all that much. With a director I don't like all that much.

So what to do? I could give in to my unholy, media-created desires, see the movie, take it for what it is. Many adaptations are completely different from the book they're adapting, and it would be interesting how the script diverts from the original text. I can sometimes enjoy Tom Hanks' company and I'm quite a big Paul Bettany and Audrey Tautau fan, not to mention Ian McKellan and Alfred Molina, all of whom are in the film. At the very least it would make excellent fodder for a post. But I also want to resist the temptation, to stand up and say no, I will not go to a movie just because the whole world is telling me to. I can think for myself, thank you very much, and I have limited funds which I can spend on better things. Food. New clothes. Diamond-studded collars for my dog. I could see a different movie, a better one. Hell, even M:I:3 has Philip Seymour Hoffman in it! And I could go to bed knowing that I'd resisted the marketing, I'd refused to sit through two hours of Dan Brown's ego-tastic extravaganza.

Oh, who am I kidding? Baaaaahhhh.

Thanks to Whedonesque and SMRT-TV.com for this hilarious "Modest Proposal" about a Law and Order set in space. Plus the oh-so-dreamy Adam Baldwin is on the graphic. What more do you need?

One of my final projects for Online Journalism class (from whence this blog was spawned) was to create a multimedia package using photos and audio. I did mine on the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, which you may remember from earlier postings. Here's the link to the finished product, in case you're interested. I do apologize for my voice in the introduction- I believe I recording the narration in my apartment bathroom at 2 o'clock in the morning the night before audio was due, while The Roommates slept soundly in the room beyond. Anyway, creative director Ned Hinkle is far more pleasant to listen to. Here again is the link.

I also apologize for my absence for the past few days. Mother Maven and my dear Auntie Mame picked me up from Beantown on Tuesday for a few days of gallivanting in the city. I am now returned safely to the bosom of my family and friends for a little holiday and will continue to blog regularly from the Toledo Bureau of Movie Maven. Alas, The Heartland of America offers far less interesting films, but I shall do my very best.