The Michaelodian

Avatar

2009-12-28T19:03:00.002-05:00

Title: Avatar
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 162 minutes
Director: James Cameron

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

James Cameron wanted me to let you all know that, in addition to being "the king of the world", he is now also the king of Pandora. That, of course, is the name given to the moon associated with the planet Polyphemus in Mr. King of the Galaxy's new movie, Avatar. An Avatar is, of course, the binary and digital equivalent of an "AKA", which itself is just an acronymic way of saying "I can't stand on my own two feet, so I'll adopt a more exciting alter-ego".

In this rather bizarre and "meta" way, Avatar is indeed a real avatar: pretending to be its own movie, it is, in fact, a fascinating cross-cut blend of several other films, including Fernfully, Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Apocalypto, and maybe a bit of Braveheart. However, since Avatar dresses up its brazen plagiarism with some absolutely stunning and spectacular digital imagery and special effects, we'll give it a pass and probably even hand it some academy awards.

A quick synopsis, then: we Americans are a greedy, unfeeling, insensitive bunch of chunk-heads who have no appreciation whatsoever for other cultures, let alone other planets. We frequently go around with actual dollar signs flashing out of our eye sockets, and we will stop at nothing to make a lot of money very quickly. Thus, the RDA Corporation has set out on a mining expedition to Pandora, where it will blow stuff up, kill innocent life-forms, and generally make a drunken fool of itself in the quest to obtain a valuable mineral called ... wait for it ... unobtainium. Please, stop laughing, Mr. Cameron can hear you.

One of the ways the RDA Corporation intends to get this unobtanium (genus: nowaytoprocuremal) is to infiltrate the native Na'vi people using "avatars" - a human-Na'vi hybrid, specially built for the purpose, and operated by human beings using slightly upgraded The Matrix technology. Seriously, you jerks, quit laughing, this is serious art.

Jake Scully operates the lone avatar that is successful in being accepted by the Na'vi people, and this forms the basis for the movie's morality tale: once Jake gets to know and love the Na'vi (because you just know he will), will he remain loyal to the humans and help them rape the land, or will he become a traitor to his race by helping the Na'vi preserve their civilization? I'll bet you really can't guess, can you?

I liked the film, in a sort of "3 stars out of 5" way. As promised, the CGI and digital effects show was very good, and the epic battle at the end of the film was as epic-y and battle-ish as anyone could want. My point of contention is that James Cameron carved up an over-used story, threw in some seriously shameless and pedantic political propaganda, and used that as an excuse to put on a digital dog-and-pony show.

The Na'vi prance around in their skimpy outfits, with their long and braided hair, worshiping the Mother Nature Goddess Life Energy Force and living off the resources of the land - and they have a pretty catchy war-cry, to boot. You can go ahead and mentally supply the eagle-feather warbonnets and tomahawk dancing.

As the unapologetically mercenary humans prepare to go to war against the Na'vi, their actions are justified as "pre-emptive", and described as a "shock and awe" campaign. Jake complains that we humans have already killed our Mother (earth, I think, although he may have been talking about Mother Teresa), and declares that human beings must be taught that we cannot simply take land away from other civilizations in order to get what we want.

In short, as the climactic battle begins, and the war cry is sounded, the average viewer will be so fired up and emotionally provoked that he may very well leap up out of his theater seat, raise his fists into the air, and scream "DEATH TO THE HUMANS!" Presumably, he will then return to his seat and continue consuming his 885 oz. Pepsi and 50-gallon drum of popcorn, little realizing that he has just sided against his own race in favor of a fictional, digital, alien community.

I fail to understand why James Cameron chose the American people as the antagonists in this film. After all, he was writing a story line that simply needed to pit humans against aliens, but out of all the cultures and races on Planet Earth from which to choose, he selected Americans. Obviously, Mr. Cameron has not watched enough Bugs Bunny or Connery-era 007 films, or he would have known that the nationalities preferred for representing Evil Incarnate in cinema are Russians or Germans.

I can only conclude that James Cameron is himself an alien, currently operating a genetically engineered human avatar, sent here to infiltrate our planet and prepare us for the coming alien invasion by filling us with self-loathing.

Still, he's doing it with some fantastic special effects, so ... who cares? Pass the popcorn.

++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

2009 DVD Rentals in Review: Pride and Glory

2009-12-27T17:20:00.002-05:00

Dirty cops. Minority criminals. Lots of shooting and cursing. All of this and more can be yours for just two hours of your precious time. Actually, there isn't really any "more" to Pride and Glory, so this is all you get for your money.

The movie begins with a cops vs. cops football game, which was probably a bad move, because watching the game unfold just made me want to eat chips, drink beer, and fall asleep on the couch with one arm dangling to the floor, the remote control loosely gripped in my weary hand. Unfortunately, the movie never recovers from this opening blunder.

For most of the film, I felt as though I had been dropped squarely in the middle of an already-established plot line, but without the benefit of knowing any of the backstory. This left the script free to pummel me with spoonfuls of information that seemed like it was probably important, while never revealing to me what was actually going on. Thankfully, the dialog more than made up for this gap by presenting me with generous portions of well-worn cliches, including the requisite "good cop" who has some mysterious and generic "bad thing" from his past, a thing which he is still not quite over. Don't worry about what the "bad thing" is, just try to enter into the character's angst and internal struggle.

Take this basic principle and apply it to the entire movie, and you will get a pretty good idea of why Pride and Glory is a film that fails to be either proud or glorious. For most of the viewing, the movie grips the strings of the heart and pulls them violently, but never indicates what those strings are attached to, leaving the viewer with nothing but a consistent (and confusing) pulling sensation. It was as if the movie kept repeatedly inviting me to come inside for a few drinks, but never gave me a compelling reason to accept the invitation.

At about 45 minutes into the film, the body of a dead drug dealer is found, but the police are unsure "where he fits in"; a witness is questioned, but is declared to be "scattered" in her answers; then follows a funeral procession/parade played out in interminable slow-motion. I believe that it was at this point that the movie became self-aware, and started sending me encoded messages: portions of the plot don't fit it, the direction of the storyline is scattered, and yet it marches on, slowly, unceasingly, toward its morbid conclusion.

One hour into the film, I just wanted out. Most of the story's "reveals" had been unveiled, and there was nothing left to do but watch the yarn unravel, blandly.

This is All You Need

2009-07-10T12:35:00.007-04:00

John Lennon wanted me to remind you, on this God-Thanking Friday, that love really is all you need. That's it. Just love. All you need is love. Nothing else. Love. Well, ok, all you need is love, and for that pesky restraining order to get dropped. But aside from that, love is all you need - oh, and maybe a decent pick-up line or two. So, get the restraining order dropped, get a workable pick-up line to throw out there, and then love is all you need. Actually, a nice mix tape featuring Luther Vandross, Michael Bolton, Kenny G, and Aaron Neville would be nice, too.

Ok, so love, no restraining order, a pick-up line, and a good power-ballads mix tape. Get all that together, and love is ALL you need.

Nope, now that I think of it, you'll probably also need your medications to try and keep that whole Tourette's thing under control; and it wouldn't hurt at all to secure a few packs of Dentyne Shiver Mint; oh, and you need to sober up, so grab a biggie-size coffee while you're out.

But really, after the restraining order cancellation, the effective pick-up line, the mix tape, the anti-Tourette's pills, some gum, and a large coffee, LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. Period.

And a half-pound of bacon.

Actually, you know what? The bacon will suffice. Just get the bacon. Bacon is all you need.

Burger in Disguise

2009-07-09T14:34:00.006-04:00

I don't have a problem admitting that I eat fast food from time to time. It's a vice, ok? I'm not proud of it, and I have many, many other vices to choose from when I finally get over this one, so I'm not going to sweat it. It's a little like watching a train wreck, really; I have a morbid curiosity when a fast food chain adds a new item to their menu. I got snookered by the Arby's "Roastburger" (all roast, no burger!); I waited in line for the Burger King "Angry Whopper" (with time and therapy, I have almost completely settled back down); I took my chances with Wendy's "Spicy Asian Chicken" (actually, this was pretty good).

So when Burger King introduced their new Transformers-themed menu and began offering a double-stack burger with freakin' BBQ sauce, I wanted to try it. Meat, cheese, bacon, BBQ sauce, bacon, a sesame bun, bacon ... train wreck! And I marveled at the utter brilliance of the whole thing: you see, it's just like the old BK Stacker burger, except ... shhhh ... they added BBQ sauce!

With trembling lip and weak knees, I wandered into the lunch line, slowly snaking its way toward the counter, where a porcine and ample-skinned woman waited to eventually take my order. And really, I was going to order that double-stacked BBQ burger, until I saw it on the menu, heralded by the words: "The New BK Double Stackticon!" That was when it all changed for me, my friend.

I was with them until they did the goofy play-on-words thing. It's a Transformers 2 tie-in, and the bad robots in Transformers are called the "Decepticons" (oh, how I dearly wish that I could say I had no knowledge of such things). So there it is: "double-stack" plus "Decepticon" equals "burger meal cleverly re-named to sound like a childish robot toy".

I do have some sense of self-awareness and dignity, really, I do. I am a grown man. Ok, ok, the "grown" adjective is heavily disputed in my case, I see your point. But I am a man. Alright, FINE, that statement is also hotly contested by those who know of my abiding love for fine fragrances and expensive moisturizers. But I do exist - can we all agree on that? And as someone who exists (PUT YOUR HAND DOWN, WE'LL TALK AFTERWARDS, OK?!), I really could not bring myself to stand in front of another adult human being and say the words, "I would like the double stackticon, please."

Couldn't do it.

Might as well try to stand at the counter and say, with any sense of self-respect, "I'd like to order to Mickey-Rin-Ticky Dilly-Woggle Beefy-Weefy Dub-dub-Cheezer Portly Platter, but make it snappy, the mayor is waiting for me to join him on a top-secret mission to Uranus."

So I got to the counter, looked her square in the eye, and then gestured wildly at the menu sign while grunting incoherently. Oddly enough, I got my burger, and managed to preserve my dignity.

This IS Your Mother Tongue, Right?

2009-07-08T12:06:00.004-04:00

Words! Hooray!

I like words. I love words. I dream in words. I eat words for breakfast. I take words with me to the movies. I lather up, rinse, and repeat - not with words, with shampoo, but believe me, I'm either thinking of words or actually speaking words the whole time. If I could, I would marry words, then fight with words constantly for years and years, and end up going to marital counseling with words, just so we could have a stronger relationship in the end.

It hardly needs to be said, then, that I become weepy and emotionally unbalanced when I have to drive all over town at 1:30 in the morning, and can't find a single Wendy's that is still open and able to help me satisfy my sudden craving for a Baconator. Oh, and also, I become visibly upset and start fondling my Celtic cursing stone when people abuse words.

For the enrichment of all, I take the time to draw attention to a few commonly abused phrases. The purpose, of course, is not to make you, personally, feel bad for possibly having abused these phrases yourself. The purpose is to learn something new and correct old habits, so you can then put on elitist airs and begin making other people feel bad for abusing these phrases. And by "make other people feel bad for abusing the language", I obviously mean, "beat the living trough-muck out of them until they either call the police or promise to stop abusing our beloved mother tongue". Ha ha! Not really! Don't inflict physical harm on anyone after reading this, ok? Just, you know, tell the offenders that they're worse than Hitler, and leave it at that.

It begs the question - If there is no argument being had, and someone says, "well, it really begs the question", chances are pretty good that there is no question-begging going on anywhere in the near vicinity. The phrase means "you have made an assumption that has yet to be proved".

So, for example, if you're arguing with a friend about which movie to see, and he says to you, "Public Enemies is going to be a crappy movie, because Johnny Depp is a terrible actor", you may rightly respond, "that just begs the question". Your friend has assumed as fact, without proof, that Johnny Depp is a terrible actor, and has drawn a conclusion ("the movie will be bad") based on that assumption. He has begged the question. (Note: this does not apply to movies starring Seth Rogan, in which cases it is always safe to say, "This movie is going to blow chunks if only because Seth Rogan [is the star/makes a cameo/was anywhere near the set during filming]")

In most cases, when someone says, "it begs the question", what they mean is that a question has been raised. Example: "I heard Seth Rogan is making a new movie, but he's such a mammoth chewer of scenery, it really begs the question, who is still hiring him to act in movies?" Utterly true statement, but a wretched abuse of the phrase.

It was all for not - This is one of those phrases that gets heard incorrectly first, then misunderstood, then spelled incorrectly in a company-wide memo that is emailed to the entire West Region. However, since the memo was sent by the Division Executive Chair of Directives and Corpulence, everyone in the cube farm assumes the phrase was spelled correctly, and the next thing you know, the error is being perpetuated exponentially by well-meaning pencil-pushers who are trying to sound as smart as they assume their superiors are ("smartness" here being measured in units of Lexus ownership).

"Naught" means "nothing", and so the phrase "it was all for naught" means that it - whatever it is (probably a Seth Rogan movie) - was a waste of time, or did not accomplish anything. Example: "I worked long and hard on that manuscript and spent many sleepless nights, but I never got a book contract, so it was all for naught."

HOWEVER! "Naught" sounds like "not" (especially if you are possessed of that lilting, mellow nasality so common to the Michigan dialect), and so the phrase gets the stuffing kicked out of it when it appears in writing as the rather confusing, "it was all for not". I'm looking right at you, Herr Direktor.

I feel nauseous - Part of me wants to put this one to bed once and for all, but another part of me hopes that it lives on forever, so that I can continue enjoying my own private little joke inside my head. But, hey, he who laughs alone laughs creepily, so I'll let you in on the punchline: to be "nauseated" means to feel sick to your stomach; "nauseous" means causing a feeling of sickness. Thus, that rancid meat pie was nauseous, and after I ate six slices of it, I felt nauseated.

What's the joke? That so many people use the word "nauseous" in reference to themselves, i.e., "I'm nauseous", little realizing that they've just admitted to being a cause of queasiness to others. Sometimes, when someone leans up against me at the bar, reeking of cheap whiskey and stale cigarette smoke, and gurgles the phrase, "I'm so nauseous right now", I chuckle to myself and quietly agree.

Nip it in the butt - Ok, last one. The phrase is "nip it in the bud". Just ask Don Knotts. The "bud" in question refers to the bud of a flowering plant, and to "nip" said plant in the aforementioned "bud" is to stop the flowering process early, preventing it from ever reaching full bloom. The phrase "nip it in the bud" is used to describe an action intended to stop something from making progress. In my experience, any "nipping" that took place near the "butt" area, rather than the "bud" area, tended to lead to making progress rather than stopping it.

Saw it by the Road

2009-07-08T10:42:00.001-04:00

I have done a fair bit of traveling in my day ("my day", by the way, is Thursday - make a note of it). As someone who strives at all times to be a courteous and conscientious driver, I always make an attempt to be very aware of my surroundings. I believe it is part of practicing safety on the road to be aware of things: I watch the speed limit signs, I notice the mile markers, I read billboards, I try to make words out of the letters on license plates, I give my fullest attention to the person on the other end of my phone call, I hone in on that song on the radio (I'm pretty sure they used this song in that one movie (gosh, what movie was that, with the one guy, sort of old-looking but very familiar (he was in that other movie that was popular a few years ago, with George Clooney, I think (I'm pretty sure I'm thinking of Batman, one of the newer ones, not the classic (did Tim Burton direct all of those films, or just the first two that starred Michael Keaton (why the heck is Tim Burton so ve--WHOA, WAS THAT A RED LIGHT?!

A moment, please, while I clean up those orphaned parenthesisesess: )))))). There. Thank you.

As I was saying, I notice things while I'm driving, and among the many things I notice are those wonderfully random items that sometimes end up on the side of the road. How do they get there? Who put them there? And why? Probably it fell off the back of a truck, as in the case of that chunk of cork-board, or that large metal casing; or perhaps it was thrown out a window, in the case of that empty 44 oz. Taco Bell cup, or that slightly worn Spin Doctors CD.

Other items are not so easy to explain. Who put that old dusty couch on the side of the highway, for the love of Pete? Why in the name of Sam Scratch is there a discarded bookshelf and television set just past the exit ramp?

Well, to be perfectly honest, these questions don't keep me up at night. Instead, they provoke a sense of longing - a longing to see other inexplicable and curious things on the side of the road. I don't just mean random objects; I mean truly interesting road-side arrangements, of the sort that cry out for some kind of back-story. Here are just a few examples of the kinds of things I'd like to see:

- A dead raccoon, clutching Boardwalk in one hand, and Baltic Avenue in the other

- A scattering of electric toothbrushes, surrounding one half-eaten bucket of popcorn chicken from KFC

- A toilet, with a folded newspaper beside it (even better if the newspaper is open to either the obituaries, or the used RV sales section)

- A crumpled tuxedo with a pair of bowling shoes on top

- A television and VCR combo, plugged into a running generator, in the process of recording an episode of "Car Talk"

Seeing any one of those things would make my day. So enigmatic, so intriguing, so rich with meaning, if only someone would take the time t--YIKES YIKES YIKES THAT WAS DEFINITELY A RED LIGHT THAT TIME!

Riff-Refs: Voodoo Man!

2009-06-24T20:36:00.002-04:00

Just finished watching Voodoo Man from RiffTrax, the 1944 ... uh ... classic? What, exactly, makes a movie a "classic", anyway? Aren't all films from 1955 and earlier automatically categorized as "classic"? Anyway, I digress. The film is available from RiffTrax for $9.99 as a video-on-demand download (no need to bother with synchronizing an mp3 to your DVD), and definitely deserves a healthy seven out of ten stars. Lots of good Bela Lugosi mugging, and plenty of old-school "camp" to keep things funny. Click on the image above to order.

Because I think it's fun to over-geek something already geeked, I've included a few footnotes to some of the riffs more obscure references. I know, I know, a joke isn't usually funny if it has to be explained, but that's not the point here. The point is to broaden your cultural horizons, using the time-tested method of ... y'know ... watching bad movies and listening to some guys make fun of it. You know exactly what I mean.

So here goes.

Movie: Credit for "Sam Katzman" appears
Kevin: (singing) Sam is the Katzman, yeah he's the Katzmaaaan

That would be The Beatles song "Taxman" that Kevin is parodying, from their Revolver album.

Movie: Credit for "William Beaudine" appears
Bill: William Beaudine - Jethro's stage name

For the youngsters (like me), Bill is talking about Jethro Bodine, Jed Clampett's nephew in Beverly Hillbilies.

Movie: You're a stranger in this part of the country, aren't you?
Bill: In a Camus-ey way

Extra points to Bill for injecting an artsy-fartsy tip-of-the hat to French author Albert Camus, and his 1940s novel, The Stranger.

Movie: Nicholas picks up old-looking phone
Kevin: Wow, he can contact anyone in Mayberry on that

Another one for the kids. Mayberry is that wonderful, folksy little town that was home to Andy, Barney, Opie, Aunt Bee, and the rest of the cast of The Andy Griffith Show.

Movie: Toby approaches the car
Kevin: Hey, it's the ghost of Tom Joad's buddy

As Kevin remarks later, this joke is "complicated". Tom Joad is the character played by Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath, and there is a slight resemblance here.

Movie: Sign reads "Banner Motion Picture Company"
Bill: The Hulk started his own movie company

Any true comic book fan knows that The Hulk, when he's not being all green and emotional, goes by the name of Bruce Banner.

Movie: (movie producer) Skip it, I'll get one of the other boys to tackle it
Mike: Give it to that Bruckheimer kid

Yeah, Mike, why not give the new movie to Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer responsible for National Treasure, Pirates of the Caribbean, Armageddon, Top Gun, and about a bazillion other films?

Movie: Close-up shot of Bela Lugosi's face
Mike: SLEEEEEEEP!

Most MST3K fans will get this one. The "Sleeeeep!" riff was a running gag on the show for a long time, and the film in which it appears - Bela Lugosi's Bride of the Monster - was given the MST3K treatment in Season 4. I would bet money you can find clips on YouTube.

Movie: Stella! Stella!
Mike: That's how he orders his favorite, watered down hipster beer

I don't drink that beer. It always comes served in a fruity-looking glass. I am, of course, talking about Stella Artois.

Movie: We're gonna have another pretty ceremony
Mike: That's an odd way to describe a Bris

Ouch. A Bris is a Jewish circumcision ceremony.

Movie: It's a pain in the neck!
Kevin: Not to mention that I look like Charlie Bucket's Grandpa Joe

You remember Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, don't you? DON'T YOU?! You can get that film's RiffTrax commentary, too.

Movie: Dr. Marlowe picks up telephone, dials operator
Mike: Sara, get me Thelma Lou

Love the Andy Griffith Show references! That would be Barney Fife's voice that Mike is imitating, talking to Mayberry operator "Sara", trying to get in touch with his girlfriend "Thelma Lou".

Praising the Praise of Weird Al

2009-06-17T12:17:00.002-04:00

First, a heads up: Michael "Ian" "White Power" "Yay" Black has written a quick and to-the-point tribute to Weird Al (Yankovic, that is, not your neighbor, Weird Al Fletcher). You can read it here:

In Praise of Weird Al

Having done my good deed for the day, by cross-linking to the result of someone else's hard work, I will add insult to injury by simply making a few "follow up" remarks.

Weird Al only looks lame, at first glance (the shoes, the hair, the accordion, the I-probably-eat-my-own-hangnails crazy stare). In reality, he has a combination of skills only possessed by the non-lame. It's lame to take a legitimate song and just start changing the lyrics willy-nilly (like I do, whenever I sing "Happy butt-day to you" instead of "Happy birth-day to you"). But to take a verbal rat's nest like Eminem's Lose Yourself, untangle it, and put it back together as a parody song that actually adheres to the original rhyme scheme? That's the opposite of lame.

And while Weird Al's best-remembered songs are his parodies (Eat It, Fat, Like a Surgeon, etc.), he also has the non-lame talent to write his own songs. I listen to something like You Don't Love Me Anymore, and after I finish sponging up all the mouth-drool produced by laughing so hard, I think: "He could easily write a serious album of pop songs that would be as good as anything else on the market today."

Finally, let's not forget one more important element: yeah, Weird Al can do the word-rhyming thing, and yeah, he's musically talented ... but can he sing? Dr. Demento has seen a lot of musical performers come and go, but how many of them could really sing, and sing well? Weird Al actually has a really, really good voice. Serious breath control, darn good vocal range, and enough control over his tone to be able to weave in and out of various musical styles, mimicking whoever he's parodying at the moment.

The end result is not just musical parody (anyone can do that - see "Happy Butt-day", above), but musical parody that gets absorbed by high quality. That's what makes it so funny. It's so unbelievable accurate. It sounds so real.

So personally, I think Weird Al just wants us all to think he's lame. I think that when he disappears behind closed doors at night, and no one else is looking, he ditches the Hawaiian shirts, the goofy shoes, etc., and becomes this:

(If you think this entire post was one incredibly drawn-out and elaborate set-up, all for the purpose of deploying Joey Pants, then you ... obviously know me quite well)

Ye Olde Cliches

2009-06-12T11:09:00.003-04:00

A quick laugh for your Friday morning, via the Twitter community. The subject is: "First Drafts of Adages", which is, of course, based on the hilarious premise that whoever coined these cliches got it wrong the first time. Ha ha ha! Phew! Ok, here's a short list (the full list can be found here).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Follow User: Birds of a feather should take some sort of symbolic loyalty oath for the sake of their own unity.

Follow User: He who laughs longest will, by definition, be the last one laughing.

Follow User: A penny saved is almost as though you got a job working for a penny a week, and today's payday.

Follow User: You can't make an omelette. No, seriously, you're a very bad cook.

Follow User: Where there's smoke there's either fire or, on rare occasions, a smoke machine.

Follow User: "Laughter is the the best medicine (Not verified by the FDA. Laughter may cause dizziness, insomnia, diarrhea or death)"

Follow User: Giving all the fish you catch to lazy people sucks. Teach them how and then tell them to get off your lawn

Follow User: When an apple falls out of a tree it usually ends up pretty close to the tree because things fall straight down.

Follow User: He who hesitates runs the risk of getting seriously distracted, perhaps for quite a long time.

Follow User: similar excrement: alternative 24hr period.

Follow User: A stitch in time saves nine, and I am referring here to stitches.

Follow User: Who is the bell tolling for, you ask? You! Yes you! Bet you're wishing you hadn't asked now.

Down the Twitter Trail

2009-06-11T15:21:00.001-04:00

Because today is Thursday, the day of the week on which we honor the Norse thunder-god Thor, it seemed appropriate to me to say a few intelligent words about Norse mythology, the development of the Scandinavian languages, epic poetry, and archaeology. And then I thought, "screw that, let's see what's going on over at Twitter."

So I went ahead and conducted a social networking tool test, something of a random rabbit hunt. Beginning with a follower of mine, I picked one of her followers at random; then I picked one of that person's followers; lather, rinse, and repeat five times, adding each new person to my list of people I follow. Here's what I discovered:

@lonelypancake - The Lonely Pancake lives in Flap Jack City, "all alone in a syrup hating world". I got a few chuckles out of his ... her ... its random lines, like "Please stop sipping the Haterade", and "Don't listen to waffles. Seriously. Anything a waffle tells you is full of holes." But mostly I felt a rush of deep unsettledness. Pancakes are supposed to be inanimate, for God's sake. They aren't supposed to talk, let alone tweet. I'll keep a close eye on this one. Anyway, The Lonely Pancake is being followed by ...

@ShellyKramer - Mrs. Kramer (for she is indeed married) tweets from Kansas City, which, despite my persistent lobbying, is still no closer to the state of Kansas. Shelly's bio declares "Luv MilkDuds+Beer", and quite frankly, I am certain that this is precisely what makes Shelly the successful marketing strategist that she is. Milk Duds and Beer together is almost certain to become the new Peanut Butter and Jelly, and when it happens, Shelly will be able to say with pride that she was way ahead of the curve on this one. Her love of mixing chewy-chocolate and liquid hops is probably what caught the attention of ...

@raywatson - Ray is, if his bio is to be believed at all, a big fan of photography, wine, and ... the web. Actually, his bio fearlessly identifies him as a "Web addict", which seems like the sort of thing a person would want to keep a little more hushed up. Still, to each his own, and c'est la vie, which brings me right to my next point: for some reason, Ray's tweets occasionally make use of the French language. As far as I can tell, it's deliberate, too. I'm not going to say anything more, I just hope that Ray someday understands how crippling this is to his credibility as a wine-lover. Despite his shameful use of French, however, Ray managed to get followed by ...

@ksavelyeva - Kseniya Savelyeva connects to Twitter from Toronto, Ontario, where the economic recession has ravaged the land so thoroughly that even Kseniya's name has been brutally stripped of some of its necessary vowels. It is perhaps this tragedy that caused Kseniya to openly declare herself a "Fashion Addict", which, I suppose, means that no matter how hard she tries, Kseniya cannot stop wearing clothes. Personally, I look at Kseniya's smiling face, I consider her vowel-deficient plight and her poignant addiction to clothing, and I am inspired. She keeps her tweets short, informative, and to the point, and she stays on top of the social issues. This sad victim of fashion addiction may just be the person who eventually cures me of my newspaper-reading addiction. At any rate, she certainly gives hope to her followers, among them ...

@WordGroupie - Lynnell Nixon-Knight is a "Writer type", "closet scholar", and "humor afficianado", which I take to mean that she says things, she read things, and she laughs at things. We need more of this type of person in the world, and less of the other "type" of person (you know exactly who I'm talking about). Lynnell (who had the good sense to stock her name with a few extra consonants, just in case) tweets at a different level than most, a level common to "writer types". For example: "Prestidigitation: the phenomenon of balancing my checkbook"; "Perhaps it would be kinder to call oneself a tweesearcher"; "Why do I love Jazzercize so much? In a word: Frozen Towels. (Okay, that’s two words.)" Refreshing stuff, I have to say, especially when I've had to slog my way through Ray's errant French tweets (geeeez, Ray!).

So there you have it. I'm trying to decide if there's any kind of "real life" equivalent to what I just did in the virtual realm, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that what I just did would probably be considered illegal in the "real world", or at least semi-creepy. Thank you, Twitter, for making me feel just a little uncomfortable inside (again).

Monday's Avatar

2009-06-08T10:20:00.000-04:00

When I think of Monday, I can't help but visualize its face. As the men who shot General Stonewall Jackson once said, "know thy enemy", and I don't feel like I can really know the enemy that is Monday until I can see its face ... hear its voice ... look it square in the eyes. Monday, with its pure evil; Monday, with its sinister stare; Monday, with its cold-hearted and calculated brutality.

And I hardly think I'm alone in saying that, when I see the face of Monday, it looks EXACTLY like this:

Blank-ing on Chili Dogs

2009-06-05T15:33:00.001-04:00

The year was 1982. The man with the guitar and rugged good looks was called "John Cougar" (later to be known as John Edmond Orlando "Blue Blood" Fitzgerald Ellseworth Cougar Button Mellencamp). The song was "Jack and Diane", and the lyric in question went like this:

Suckin' on chili dogs
Outside the Tastee Freeze
Diane's sittin' on Jackie's lap
He's got his hands between her knees

Now, I may admit that I'm just a little bit on the boundary's edge of "normal", so perhaps I have missed something critical, but ... do most people suck on their chili dogs? Isn't the more common method of Chili Dog Consumption better described as mowin' down, chewin' up, or even poundin' through? Or perhaps Jack and Diane were participating in the new Tastee Freeze pilot program for Chili Dog Shakes?

I suppose it could be the case that both Jack and Diane had horrendous dental hygiene, and lacked the recommended amount of teeth required to chew up some chili dogs. Maybe suckin' on those sloppy dogs was all they could do. Even so, I submit that suckin' is still the wrong verb. Even if J&D truly were in a "toothless situation", I think I would have opted for gummin' on chili dogs, mashin' up chili dogs, or slurpin' on chili dogs.

Clearly, I am going to need to spend more time thinking about this, and possibly even researching it further.

Riffing a Classic

2009-06-03T14:56:00.002-04:00

I've been watching RiffTrax for a couple of years now. I laughed till I wept as Messrs Nelson, Murphy, and Corbett (late of MST3K) added their hilarious commentary to the various red-headed stepchildren of modern cinema: Wickerman; Firewall; Transformers; Beowulf; the Star Wars prequels, etc.

But this week, the RiffTrax crew has unveiled a completely different kind of strategy: riffing on the classics. As the ad copy explains, "Sure, it's easy enough to make hay out of a bear-suited Nicholas Cage, but what really tests one's mettle is to see how he reacts when he's staring down the business end of THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE." The new campaign is being branded "RiffTrax Challenges", the plural noun ominously suggesting that there will be several classic movies subjected to the riffing treatment in the near future.

The first test case: Casablanca. I was skeptical at first. Well, ok, more than skeptical. I wept openly, threw a lot of dishes at the wall, called several radio DJs in the Bible Belt to coordinate the public torching of RiffTrax mp3s and other memorabilia, and sent Joel Hodgson a personal telegram letting him know that he has always been better than Mike Nelson. I regret those things now (except for the dish-hurling - they were dirty anyway).

The new Casablanca riff is very, very good. The riffs are consistently laugh-out-loud funny, and while I won't spoil it for you, there is an exquisite "inside joke" that is so perfectly placed, I almost snorted an entire plate of cookies out my nose (we'll talk later about why I had an entire plate of cookies in my mouth). It was fun to watch Mike, Kevin, and Bill tackle a classic of this magnitude, and they pulled it off with style; the riffing is extremely funny, yet without vandalizing the film in the process.

I'm crossing my fingers for a RiffTrax commentary on It's a Wonderful Life! next ...

Matthew McConaughey

2009-06-02T09:49:00.002-04:00

Matthew McConaughey, spokesman for the National Cattleman's Beef Association, wanted me to remind you to eat beef today. He also wanted me to remind you, in case you haven't seen his many, many movies in which he appears shirtless, that he is himself a real hunk of beef. In short, Matthew McConaughey wanted to tell you: "Eat me." That is all.

Movie Review: Up

2009-06-01T14:25:00.001-04:00

Via Twitter.

Twitter: keeping your movie reviews short and to the blessed point.

=============================

* Going to see "Up" in the only way it should be seen: with four kids 6 and under. Thank God for Valium. And stun guns.

* 10 minutes into movie, large pop is already 60 percent 2-yr-old mouth slurry. Yay, the movies!

* Funny movie. Funnier watching a theater full of small children try to keep the spring-loaded seats horizontal using bodyweight alone.

* Movie continues to amuse. 2-yr-old continues to cover Reese's Pieces in thin layer of hand/mouth drool.

* This movie is amazing on 3 pounds of Sour Patch Kids. Wonder what it's like sober?

* This is Up: Extended Potty Break Special Edition

* 2-yr-old also pretty amazing on 5 gallons of pop. Wonder what she's like sober? And by sober, I mean "not poopy".

* Dog-based sight gag at about 80 min. into film was exquisite.

* Excellent job, Pixar. 4 of 5 stars. A real tear-jerker, but lots of laughs too. Visit www.celebrationcinema.com

Of COURSE! Read the Label.

2009-05-30T15:47:00.002-04:00

I shouldn't have been surprised when Paul Blart: Mall Cop gave me a raw, itchy, skin-eating rash. I should have paid attention to the label. It was a warning sign, and I completely missed it. I will be more attentive next time to the big red flag: http://bit.ly/osr1N Hopefully this will save you from experiencing similar pain.

Be Afraid, Ok? Please?

2009-05-29T14:09:00.003-04:00

There are three things that can invade my dreams, rapidly turn them into nightmares, and cause me to wake up in a cold sweat, screaming my fool head off like a little girl (who has just been awakened from a nightmare that made her scream a lot).

Those three things are:

Wolf spiders. Eight-legged hunters with extremely good eyesight, which is to be expected, given that they have eight freakin' eyes. They will actually chase their prey, sometimes using GPS tracking and head-mounted flashlights. And did I mention they jump?! *shudder*

Clowns. Sorry, but clowns are contra-natural abominations conceived by Satan in the deepest pits of hell. If God had intended clowns to exist, He would have created albinos. Clowns are always smiling, their flaming hair rudely flaming at you in all of its threatening flamingness. They travel in groups, leaping out of cars when it suits their evil purposes. Freakish. Pure nightmare fuel.

Yes, I fear the hell out of coleslaw. "Coleslaw" is just a cutesy, made-up name for what it really is: cabbage salad. CABBAGE! Lettuce gone horribly wrong! No amount of mayonnaise can make it better, because in the end, it's still a dish that is far too friendly with vinegar. It needs to ferment before being served. And let's face it, coleslaw is just a hop, skip, and tiny jump away from sauerkraut, kim-chi, and other radio-active, cabbage-based appetizers. If you don't fear coleslaw, you're probably in the process of either a) hiring clowns for your next party, or b) sleeping with a wolf spider.

Breaking Up is Fun!

2009-05-27T22:33:00.001-04:00

Another time-wasting Twitter game for your Wednesday night. The topic: 3 Breakup Words. Presumably this meant three-word phrases that would either a) LEAD to a breakup, or b) DECLARE a breakup.

My contributions:

* You COULD diet ...

* Janet, meet Sylvia

* I went straight.

* Beer me. Now.

* I was KIDDING.

* I call do-over.

* CTRL, ALT, DELETE

* U haz "ex".

* The name's "Keanu".

* I'm studying Scientology

* Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!

* And last, but not least, an interactive tweet: http://bit.ly/150AiJ

Favorite contributions from others:

* Look! Vampires! *runs* @Under_life

* That's a wrap @ChampParker

* Be Right Back @freestylesteve

* Our anniversary's today? @Tengrain

* You're Shia LaBeouf @JoshWay

Shh! I'm Busy

2009-05-27T16:24:00.002-04:00

Please, keep the noise to a dull roar. I have several hours of catching-up to do on my scriptorium project, translating the entire corpus of Virgil's work from the original Latin into the more user-friendly Pig Latin. It's not easy. Some of these poems - limmericks, really - are absolutely filthy, and something gets lost in translation moving to the vernacular.

ulta-may oque-quay et-way ello-bay assus-pay, um-day onderet-cay urbem-way

You see my challenge here, no doubt.

As you can see from the weary look on my face, the work is tiring, but rewarding. The rope around my waist says "I'm all business", while my robe says "I know how to relax and have fun, too". But fun is for later. Back to the books I go.

Please: keep it down.

How Was Your Weekend?

2009-05-26T11:37:00.003-04:00

Wheeeeew, what a weekend! Got off work on Friday, and immediately set about the difficult (but obligatory) task of discovering how many alcoholic beverages I could consume in a 45-minute period. That was really the last thing I remember. I know there were grilled meat items involved at some point, and several silent films - there might have been some spontaneous cross-stitching and the crashing of a junior-league t-ball game, but I can't confirm.

The point is, I woke up this morning in this condition:

Yes, the Long Weekend rudely stole almost all of my clothes, hacked into me with various blunt instruments (some of which are not, technically, appropriate for "hacking into" activities), and worst of all, Long Weekend then scribbled some illegible and incoherent German super-script above my head. Well played, Long Weekend, well played. This round goes to you.

But I'll see you in July, and then we'll settle the score.

Behind the Mask ...

2009-05-26T11:17:00.003-04:00

The long weekend is over (at least, for you - I'm pushing mine until my boss notices that I'm not there, and then I'll plead ignorance), which means that there is a new kind of clear AND present danger today: days of the week, masquerading as other days of the week.

Oh, sure, the calendar may say it's Tuesday today, but I'm not buying it. Take a closer look:

There, under the mask, an evil Monday lurks. Do not be fooled by the mask. It might look like Tuesday, but underneath its flashy red robe it carries deadlines missed, overdue hours needing to be logged, and weekly "sync-up" meetings which will be sprung like traps throughout the day today.

Be warned, and plan accordingly. Tuesday is indeed here, but as a grossly deformed, two-headed turtle. Yes, a turtle:

Please take every precaution and stay safe today. Wear garlic if you have to.

+++++++++++++++++++++

**UPDATE**

See?! This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about! Would you people please be careful? This two-headed Monday/Tuesday thing ("thing", remember, equals either "two-headed turtle" or "guy in mask") is not messing around here. From Josh Fruhlinger (of the hilarious Comics Curmudgeon site), via Twitter:

"Monday holiday + Tuesday morning trash pickup = oops." (link)

This is not a game. How many more people must suffer?

Important Reminder About Science

2009-05-20T15:27:00.002-04:00

Robert Langdon arrests Science and takes it away

Author Dan Brown wanted me to remind you again of the central message of Angels & Demons, which is that Science is Evil. Please don't ever, ever forget this. If you do, you may end up with an anti-matter bomb exploding right in your face. Secondary, but equally important, remember that the Illuminati is everywhere. Be highly suspicious of anyone who is overly interested in mathematics, astronomy, technology, ambigrams, or "symbology". Also try to avoid light.

Dan Brown thanks you.

Angels & Demons

2009-05-20T15:16:00.001-04:00

* Opening credits rolling, already weeping @ the sheer beauty of the angelic AND demonic

* Science creates the anti-matter bomb, way more dangerous than the nuclear bomb. This just proves that science is evil.

* Illuminati = mathematicians, scientists, astronomers. So basically, nerds.

* Illuminati = scientists. Also Illuminati = murdering kidnappers, in this movie. So again, science is evil.

* So far, droplets of showing, boatloads of telling.

* Tom Hanks is doing a great job as Nicholas Cage, the Guy Who Solves All the Riddles Before the Audience Cares

* Seriously, these riddles need more time to capture audience interest, before being so quickly solved & discarded

* Do I really have to listen to a preachy speech on Science & Religion delivered by ... Ewan Mac?! Obi Wan?!

* Havent seen this much Cardinal ass-kicking since the 1985 world series.

* Guy 2 rows down has a Blackberry, which probably means he is Illuminati. Going 2 kill him just in case.

* Idiots. That's the FIRST place I would have looked for the bomb.

* A plot twist bound up in a loophole in an obscure Church document. Riveting.

* Oh, Movie. You want me to believe the Church is evil. But you already convinced me that Science is evil. Silly Movie.

* Ok. Good book, too hard to cram into film. Solid effort, though. 3 of 5 stars.

* Mandatory plug: go visit www.celebrationcinema.com

Of Angels and Not-Angels

2009-05-18T13:22:00.000-04:00

I'm going to see Angels & Demons. Against all better judgment, and in spite of the fact that they did not cast Monica Bellucci as Vittoria Vetra, I have to know how badly Ron Howard bastardized the book. I liked the book. It was a page-turner. But after what happened to Da Vinci, I'm understandably afraid.

Go to twitter.com/iquerydef for real-time review updates.

Facebook Stalking

2009-02-18T20:46:00.002-05:00

facebook stalking

Looking at someone's facebook profile and reading their recent news and wall posts. Monitoring another person's facebook life

Source: Urban Dictionary

If you're going to do it, better make sure you can't be found out.

Losing Love in Pseuo-Poe

2009-01-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

There was no reason in the world not to kill her, I must confess. Her constant littering of the hallways with dropped sentence fragments, the participles left dangling from her lips, the millions of infinitives she so carelessly split ... in the end, there was no other choice. So I chained her to a wall in the basement of our house on Amontillado Drive, and began the laborious process of immurement.

Later, in the upstairs sitting room, before a fire that cackled more than it crackled, I was visited by a dark and ominous metaphor. Shaped like a raven, the symbolism spoke to me, not in the comforting words of absolutism, but in ambiguities and uncertainties. I would have given anything to hear a solid "Nevermore!", but the most this raven could offer was a non-committal "Perhaps", and "It may be". It was so typical, I reflected ... so very "raven".

Why couldn't I at least be visited by a flying fowl hell-bent on giving an inflexible answer, instead of this, the Magic 8-Ball of birds? We argued for the better part of the evening, as I slogged my way through his torrent of non-answers: "Ask again later", "It may be so", "Reply hazy", and "Cannot tell".

It finally occurred to me why this was happening. Perhaps if my ex-lover had been called "Lenore", the raven would have something with which to rhyme, and maybe I would have received the coveted "Nevermore!"

Instead, I settled for a woman called "Nadine", and this left my haunting visitor with very few options:

Quoth the raven, "Caffeine."

Quoth the raven, "Marine."

Quoth the raven, "Saline."

Quoth the raven, "Sun-screen."

I'm not sorry for what followed. But even now, to this day, I sometimes think that I can hear the dead bird's heart, quietly thump-thumping away beneath the floorboards.

What ARE You Singing?

2009-01-16T12:01:00.001-05:00

Here's a fun article by Vicki Santillano about eight famous songs that are badly misunderstood, the lyrics having been brutally wrenched from their context and happily sung by the hoi polloi who are blissfully ignorant of what the songs mean.

My favorite example was "Every Breath You Take", by The Police:

How many people foolishly chose this song for their first dance as newlyweds? I’m not sure why this song is misinterpreted so universally as a love song. Do people listen to lyrics? If someone says to you, “Every game you play, every night you stay, I’ll be watching you,” wouldn’t you be more than a little creeped out? I guess that’s the power of Sting—even his stalker anthems are considered romantic.

Read the whole article here.

I will add just one more example to her list: "No One's Gonna Love You", by Band of Horses. The repeated anthem, "No one's gonna love you more than I do", along with lines like "anything to make you smile", make it sound like a tender tribute to The One You Love. But when you listen to the other lyrics, "we are the ever-living ghost of what once was", or "the whole thing is tumbling down", you realize that the refrain - "No one's gonna love you more than I do" - is actually a sad goodbye to a love now lost, and the singer's conviction that his significant other will never find a love like his.

Live Streaming Consciousness

2009-01-12T21:26:00.002-05:00

My Life Coach is so weird, but she's sooooo cute when she stops taking her meds. She's helped me through a lot of hard times with her complete dedication to Life Coaching me, always helping me see the bigger picture, aways forcing me to take a deeper look at ME and how un-Coached my Life is, and whenever I start to feel like life is getting to be WAY too much, I just picture her, making that heart symbol with her hand - EAYAH!

And then I go back to eating my own hair and touching people I don't know.

Please Finance My Poverty

2009-01-12T21:16:00.001-05:00

Seen on an actual billboard, right here in the headquarters of Grand Rapids:

"Affordable Bankruptcy."

Followed by a phone number.

Hm.

Sounds like the ending to a bad joke.

"My family is so poor ... "

"How poor are they?"

"They're so poor, they can't even afford bankruptcy!"

[peals of completely forced and unwarranted laughter here]

I love this city.

Kreep Beats Kraut

2009-01-09T12:05:00.002-05:00

The results are in: Benjamin "The Bradley" "Pitt-bull" Button has soundly defeated Claus "Thomas" "Waiting for Xenu" "Cruise-man" von Stauffenberg at the box office.

A short clip of the fight, captured by a hidden camera, is circulating around the Internet:

Congratulations, Sir Button. Of all the cases in the world, yours is decidedly the curious ... -er ... couriousest ... most curiousified.

Bangkok [insert verb] Dangerous

2009-01-08T16:39:00.003-05:00

Title: Bangkok Dangerous
MPAA: R
Runtime: 99 minutes
Director: Oxide Pang Chun

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I think I am not entirely alone when I say that I often question the direction my life has taken, and that perhaps, just maybe, I should have been an assassin-for-hire. I think everyone has that thought at some point in their life. And so, when I watch a movie like Bangkok Dangerous, I can't help but live out my little fantasy in some small way ... the fantasy, that is, of eating an entire box of Cocoa Puffs, drowning in a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. I'm sure this brazen act of self-indulgence influenced the way I later felt about Bangkok Dangerous.

Nicolas Cage plays Joe Assassin, while a Pygmy Three-toed Sloth plays Mr. Cage's hair. Joe, from what I can tell during the first 15 minutes of the film, specializes in Super-Duper Easy Kills, such as the kind that involve offing a high-profile prisoner who, for some reason, is being interrogated in an upper-floor tiny room with a GIGANTIC window, which is across the street from several tall buildings featuring corporate names like The Sniper's Nest (I am JOKING, of course ... the real name was The Sniper's NestCoTechDex). Joe is also extremely adept at knocking off young, fidgeting, nervous errand runners who come to drop off his salary.

Unfortunately, even though Joe runs the gauntlet of an incredibly high number of shoot-out scenes (more shoot-outs, in fact, than Shoot Out), no one manages to kill the pygmy sloth, and so Joe escapes the movie with his offensive hair completely unharmed.

The crux of the story is that Joe is on his "last job", which means two things: 1) he wants to get out of the killing business, and 2) there is no way he can survive this film, at least, not if the script is going to play by the rules. A life-long assassin cannot simply retire and go on to live a peaceful life on an island somewhere; he has to die, whether it be in a gun fight, a knife fight, a fist fight, or simply getting hit by a bus.

However! This is a Nicolas Cage movie, and there is absolutely no guarantee that it's going to play by the established rules of story-telling, so it's anyone's guess how this movie will end. All I know is that his hair doesn't die.

This "last job" of Joe's is a four-for-one; he needs to bump off four targets identified by his Bangkokian client. We get to watch him drive around and look hard at things for a long time, occasionally delivering lines in his iconic, monotone mumble: "We'd better get out of here ... something's not right", "This food is hot ... really hot", "I'll find a way in ... you just stay here." There's not enough Pepsi Max in the world to elevate this guy's heartbeat.

Meanwhile, as the movie unfolds, we will get to watch the veteran, battle-hardened, steel-faced, unfeeling killer undergo an unprompted transformation which, inexplicably, causes him to take a young protege under his wing and fall in love with a Bangkokette who speaks in sign-languge.

(FOR DISCUSSION: When a Thai woman speaks in sign-language, can an American man understand it? If her words are different from our words, will her signs be different from our signs? If not, will her signing come with a thick, impossible-to-understand accent?)

I learned one extremely important life lesson from the final shoot-out scene: if you need to dodge a bullet which has just been fired at you from close-range, just duck. You won't get hit. Seems odd, I know, but trust me - I saw it with my own eyes, several times, so I'm pretty sure it will work.

Please send more Cocoa Puffs and Ben & Jerry's. Oh, and if anyone can come up with a convincing story behind the name Bangkok Dangerous, feel free to throw in. Email themichaelodian at gmail.

Pineapple Express Anti-Itch Cream

2009-01-07T18:44:00.005-05:00

Title: Pineapple Express
MPAA: R
Runtime: 111 minutes
Director: David Gordon Green

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

Ok, try this plot on for size: Dale is a stoner. Dale's dealer, Saul, is also a stoner. Dale witnesses a murder. The murderer is the guy two levels above Saul in the Drug Lord Corporate Hierarchy, and he knows Dale saw the crime. There! That should be enough to support a solid two-hour movie, right? I mean, all we have to do here is have the bad drug dudes chase the good drug dudes around for 100+ minutes, and we now have an empty framework in which to stuff as much stupidity as possible. It will be hilarious! Especially if we cast Seth Rogan as Dale, cast James Franco as Saul, and let Judd Apatow have a hand in writing the story!

It's a rare thing to walk away from a movie feeling actual, palpable annoyance and anger. But, congratulations, Pineapple Express, you did it. You found a way to turn Seth Rogan into even more of a rash-causing irritant. Stoners are, all by themselves, quite irksome in real life; I had a few stoner friends in the days of yore ("yore" is a specific period of time, less than "e'er" but more than "hence"), and they usually ended up being a nuisance, in the way that only a human being with a non-functioning brain and a strong desire for Twinkies can be.

In addition to Stoners, Seth Rogan is also an aggravating screen presence, all by himself. This is hard to comprehend, I realize, what with his usual wanton spewing forth for 90 minutes of that pinch-throated, hoarse, growl-yelling that he insists on calling "acting", but which usually just ends up sounding like a sore-throated Kermit the Frog after a 48-hour weekend of chain smoking and doing whiskey shots.

Put these two ingredients together - Stoners' antics and Seth Rogan - and you have Pineapple Express, a movie that belongs to that rare class of films known as the Most Likely to Have You Praying for a Reservoir Dogs Ending category.

I fail to see the humor in watching two grown men bungle around on screen, trying to get a caterpillar high by blowing marijuana smoke at it, discussing the possibility of hanging out to look at "crazy stuff" on the Internet, draining their car battery by falling asleep for several hours with the car radio on, attempting to flush a full-size portable phone handset down the toilet, and any number of other similarly retarded pursuits. This is not even to mention the repeated instances of typically stupid Stoner Philosophical Statements uttered by various characters, which I suppose, are supposed to have me in stitches precisely because of their inanity. For example, Seth Rogan would like me understand that there are really two karmic options for future reincarnation: you can either be an evil person, and come back as an anal bead, or you can be a good person, and come back as Jude Law.

HA HA HA! Pardon me while I spasm uncontrollably with laughter and become temporarily incapable of typing! HA HA! Anal bead! Jude Law! Wooooooo-heeeee!

Next point: car-chase scenes, even if they do include a lot of things getting smashed up, and even if they do feature several sustained minutes of James Franco and Seth Rogan delivering their best panicked, frightened screams ("DO SOMETHING!", "AHHHHHHHHHHH!", "LOOK OUT!", etc., ad nauseam), are not automatically funny. I promise. It may not even be entertaining at all, especially if it involves the aforementioned this-is-supposed-to-be-funny-because-we're-so-panicky screaming sequence. (Have we learned nothing from the Macaulay Culkin Movie Blight of 1990 and 1992?)

But a movie such as this cannot survive on inane humor and faux-danger alone, right? So the writers decided to also include the element of Human Relationships: we get to see Dale and Saul go through something of a lover's spat, which (we hope!) will be reconciled before the movie ends. Except ... it's asking a lot to want the audience to even care. Saul is a drug dealer, Dale is a stoner, and they've known each other for all of two months. The writers could have done the utterly unthinkable and unconventional, actually killed off these two main characters, and I would have raved about their creative genius in keeping the audience on their toes. I also would have saluted the decision to have any Seth Rogan character die on screen.

Yes, it's a rare thing to actually be irked by the time a movie ends, but just as one grows irritable when a stoner friend comes over and refuses to leave for two hours, while eating all of the carb-based food in your pantry, so also does one find oneself wishing that this movie would just, please, please, go away and bother somebody else until it's sober again.

If you like "humor" so devoid of intelligence it crosses below "potty humor" and into the Void, if you like movies that feature sled-loads of F-bombs (yes, sadly, even uttered by young kids), if you are, in short, a stoner yourself, then I have the perfect movie for you ... The Wizard of Oz (you'll have to supply your own F-bombs). Don't ever see this movie.

Mad Enough to EAT!

2009-01-07T15:22:00.001-05:00

Burger King (aka Hungry Jacks) has unleashed a new horror upon the world:

And you just know they are deadly serious about the levels of all-out rage contained in each and every furious bite of this new burger, because the voice-work was done by a man earnestly impersonating an Australian accent, and Australians are known the world over for their fierce tempers. Just take Arnold Schwarzengger, who angrily said, "Hasta la vista, baby!", and then blew stuff up! Don't try to tell me that Australians aren't a mean bunch! (Note: I just realized, when correcting today's cross-word puzzle, that Arnold Schwarzengger is Austrian, not Australian, which explains why the rest of this puzzle wasn't coming together - but I think I've made my point, regardless)

So I went to Taco Bell first, because of their high level of commitment to making absolutely, positively sure that, come hell or high water, they will screw up my order. Feeling sufficiently angry, I was ready to come face-to-face with the Angry Whopper. I won't lie to you: I told the helpful (in the sense of "breathing") BK associate to go ahead and make it a double Angry Whopper. I guess I was feeling cocky. I assume, then, that my burger was taken into a back room and subjected to several minutes of merciless provocation and "Your Mom"-based harassment, in order to make it doubly angry, because I didn't actually get my combo meal in hand until some 15 minutes later.

But when I finally bit into that tormented, enraged clump of reheated meat, bread, condiments, etc., everything came to a head. Yes, there were some heated words exchanged, and I know I said some things I didn't mean, but after we'd both had a chance to cool down a bit, Angry Whopper and I were able to work things out and just agree to disagree. We still aren't best buddies or anything like that, and I'm probably going to "forget" to call Angry Whopper the next time I'm going to hang out with a group of friends, but I think we've at least reached a level of understanding where we can bump into each other at choir practice and still say "hi" from across the room - and really mean it.

The lesson? Try to make sure your next combo meal is free of acrimony. Praemonitus praemunitus.

Righteous ... yawn ... Kill

2009-01-07T14:05:00.006-05:00

Title: Righteous Kill
MPAA: R
Runtime: 101 minutes
Director: Jon Avnet

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

New on DVD this week! A very stale story, supported by a clunky script, and subjected to an hour and forty-five minutes of attempted resuscitation by two very talented (if also very old) actors.

I know, I know - I really haven't narrowed the field of possibilities, have I?

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino play "Turk" and "Rooster" in Righteous Kill, the story of two cops - partners, of course - on the trail of a Vigilante Justice Killer with a rather high body-count, who may or may not be either Turk or Rooster. Please, don't laugh, I'm not making this up. John "Lispy" Leguizamo and Donnie "Get Me the Hell Out of this Saw Contract" Wahlberg play Detectives Riley and Perez, who are also on the trail of this serial killer, and who are more than a little suspicious that their "perp" (a police slang word meaning, "the perp") is himself a police officer.

Hilarious high-jinks ensue, followed by crazy antics, and a good deal of wacky horseplay throughout.

Not really. I just wanted to see what it would be like to actually write a sentence like that.

The dialog in this film is quite funny, but unintentionally so. For example, consider this actual sample, taken from a scene in which Lt. Hingis (played by the ample-necked Brian Dennehy) confronts Turk with the fact that the evidence is beginning to point in a Turk-ward direction:

Turk: Am I a suspect here, Lieutenant?

Lt. Hingis: No. But these bodies are starting to smell ... a lot of it is drifting in your direction.

Turk: Drifting? Or being pushed?

I'm not sure exactly what imagery writer Russell Gewirtz was trying to conjure up here, but the idea of decaying body-funk being pushed in any particular direction is disturbing. I can see the notion of an odor wafting or drifting one way or another, but being pushed? This will require a great deal of further reflection and, possibly, continued research.

The one line in the film that actually made me laugh out loud (or "had me ROTFLMAO", to use the current popular parlance) was delivered by that great orator and respected thespian, 50 Cent (not his real name, of course - his real name is Half Dollar):

Det. Riley: Do we have a deal or not?

Spider: Yeah ... but [if] your boy come in here and go Hannibal Lecter on my ass, I want Jody [edited]ing Foster comin' through the door!

Perhaps you had to be there.

There is a half-hearted attempt at a plot twist near the end, but unfortunately the script spends so much time blatantly telegraphing the punch that when it finally lands, it's already yesterday's news (unless you are eat-an-entire-pound-of-Fritos high, in which case, this movie - as well as anything you watch on QVC afterwards - will be extremely profound and entertaining).

De Niro is as good as he can be, given the circumstances, but I was very disappointed that Pacino didn't give his usual eccentric performance. It might have redeemed this movie somewhat if he had treated the audience to at least one good eye-bulging, red-faced, oddly punctuated tirade lightly seasoned with some well-worn cliches.

Save this one for when your only other option is Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and even then, it's probably best to just roll over and take a nap.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-01-06T13:12:00.003-05:00

Title: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 159 minutes
Director: David Fincher

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the story of two people, Benjamin and Daisy, who are headed in completely opposite directions - chronologically speaking. Daisy was born a normal baby girl, whose body gets older with each passing day until she eventually grows up to be Cate Blanchett, at which time she must give shelter and gifts to Frodo and his companions, and also try to steal the Crystal Skull from Indiana Jones; Benjamin, on the other hand, was born an old man, whose body gets younger with each passing day until he eventually turns into Brad Pitt, a transformation which causes him to be immediately struck by a car, killed, and possessed by the Grim Reaper until he falls in love with Claire Forlani. This, as best as I can tell, is Benjamin's "curious case", although it is quite possible that I am incorrect, and that the truly curious case to which the movie alludes is Brad Pitt's unsettling resemblance to Robert Redford - a resemblance which is conclusively demonstrated below:

Please keep in mind that this movie is not to be confused with the story of one man's bizarre habit of conducting post-reconnaissance on banks he has already robbed (i.e., The Curious Casings of Benjamin Button), or with the story of an interior designer who insists on installing hinged, swinging window sashes so that they always opened inward instead of outward (i.e., The Curious Casements of Benjamin Button).

Benjamin Button is the focal point of the story, of course, because it's his name that is in the movie's title, but as I said, the story is really about Benjamin and Daisy, and the ways in which their paths intersect throughout their lives. The movie begins, in fact, with Daisy on her death bed, helping to re-tell Benjamin's story through a series of journal entries and memories. In other words, the movie steps up right from the bell-clang and delivers a serious roundhouse kick of Somber right to the side of your head, followed by several left jabs of Poignant Sorrow to your nose - and it doesn't stop whaling away for nearly three hours. I think there are more death scenes in this movie than in the entirety of Quentin Tarantino's body of work.

This is part of the reason why I disliked this film. It was top-heavy with melancholy wistfulness, but without ever delivering anything of substance, so that the viewer ultimately walks away from the film with a rather empty feeling. On top of that, the nature of the plot - an old-young man who falls in love with child, hooks up with her when their counter-aging meets in the middle, and ends as a young-old man in love with an old woman - was just a wee bit creepy. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post said in her review that "at its weakest 'Benjamin Button' hews too closely to [Forest] Gumpian schmaltz and easy sentiment", and she is correct. I will up the ante just slightly: Benjamin Button, with its "schmaltz" and uncomfortable creep-factor, is the love-child of Forest Gump and Harold and Maude.

On the plus side, the visual effects were pleasing; Brad Pitt does a very good job of playing a child stuck in an old man's body, keeping the childish mannerisms, facial expressions, and speech patterns very realistic; and the recurring "struck by lightning" gag (I will say no more) is good for a few laughs throughout the movie. However, the movie also loses points immediately for a) treating the audience to a gratuitous shot of Old Man Rump (which, for some reason, is expected to be immediately funny), and b) having a child blurt out the F-dash-dash-dash word (which is never funny, unless it is Samuel L. Jackson delivering the line).

I left the movie with several vaguely unsettling feelings. It was an entertaining film, in the same sense that watching a bearded midget woman with four legs juggle upside-down would be entertaining. Interesting, yes, but with just a bit too much Nightmare Kindling thrown in. And with the heavy undercurrent of unsubstantiated nostalgia running throughout the film, the end result was a feeling of resigned sadness (with a sprinkle of "ewww" on top).

If you do go to see the movie, make sure you have a Forest Gump chaser close at hand to help cleanse the palate.

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

Burn After Reading, Before Throwing Away, During a Tantrum

2009-01-05T12:20:00.002-05:00

Title: Burn After Reading
MPAA: R
Runtime: 96 minutes
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

When I review movies, I always like to start out with some kind of synopsis (from two Greek words, "syno", meaning "arbitrarily concise", and "psis", meaning "stuff I made up"). I won't lie to you: I watched Burn After Reading almost four days ago, and I have been sitting in front of my computer ever since, hands on the keyboard, trying to think of some way to summarize the plot. I'm getting very hungry, and the lack of sleep is starting to cause hallucinations (for example, I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, and it appeared as though there was no "twist" at the end of the movie, which is impossible), so this is the synopsis I'm willing to go with:

"Burn After Reading is a movie. There are a crap-load of characters, all of whom will remind you of someone you know. Stuff happens to these characters. Then more stuff happens. Then there are so many freaking sub-plots crawling up out of the floor, the drain, the base-boards, and the vents, all vying for primary status and attempting to kill off the other sub-plots, and just when you're about to call in the exterminator because you can't keep track of what's going on, somehow one of the sub-plots emerges as the Dominant, which then viciously slaughters and consumes the others, and quietly returns to the hole from whence it came."

There you have it. A perfectly accurate synopsis that somehow manages not to squeak out even the slightest whiff of a plot spoiler. You can worship me later.

The point is, the Coen Brothers are amazing. And Burn After Reading is so multi-layered, with so many cross-threads and connecting points in its convoluted story, you will be applauding when the Brothers Coen manage to pull it all together in the end (please make sure you are alone - it can be embarrassing to start spontaneously applauding in public). If you know anything about the Coen Brothers' corpus of cinematic literature (Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Miller's Crossing, No Country for Old Men, etc.), then you know what to expect here - although, with some slight variations.

The Coen films are usually a bit on the dark side, and Burn is no exception, although it somehow feels a bit more polished than other Coen films. Not by much, just a bit. You can expect dialog that is unbelievably real, you can expect scenes to linger over real-life details (the Coen Brothers don't do "sound-byte" scenes), you can expect some top-notch performances, you can expect a wee bit of gore and violence, and you can expect to laugh out loud at some of the story's incredible situations and the way the characters deal with those situations.

John Malkovich is great in this film (as the washed up CIA agent who needs new direction), because he is allowed to be Malkovich; the movie cries out for some seriously over-the-top Malkovich-ing, and no one does a better John Malkovich than John Malkovich. George Clooney is hilarious as the paranoid womanizer - his facial expressions and inflection are, at times, cartoonishly funny. J.K. Simmons (you know him as J. Jonah Jameson, editor extraordinaire, in the Spiderman movies) has a bit role as the CIA Superior that affords him maybe three or four scenes, which is a shame - his performance is probably the show-stealer. Brad Pitt is also in his element as the slightly off-his-nut and flighty gym trainer, turning in some surprisingly funny moments.

Now then. I've praised Burn for its pleasantly complex story, its very believable realism, and the performances put in by the quite talented cast. But the Coen Brothers are always, always going to be comparable to British beer: it's strong, it's dark, it makes you burp, it can give you nightmares, it's very hearty and substantive, but if you're used to draining pop-top cans of Carbonated American Horse Urine (an image not at all intended to conjure up associations with the Clydesdales that are the well-known mascot of a certain American brewing company), then the British beer is going to seem harsh and bitter. The Coen Brothers take some getting used to (I recommend popping a few antacids before you start the film).

I'm not sure if it's because the Coen Brothers aren't afraid to show humanity on film, and humanity is (let's face it) pretty ugly sometimes, or if it's because the Coen Brothers like to inject a few radical and extreme elements into their stories to keep audiences on their toes (call it "shock factor"), but their movies can be a bit off-putting at times. As good as Burn is, it has a lot of crude language, a few quick injections of rather gruesome violence, and some sexual content that features ... well ... I can't say it out loud, so I'll just wink and clear my throat loudly, and then say, Don't go Inside Larry and Don's Optometry supply Store, ok? OK?! (If you still don't get it, I can draw you a picture)

Still ... if you've been suffering through "comedies" like Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Step Brothers, The Love Guru, and You Don't Mess with the Zohan, then I think Burn After Reading will be a welcome breath of fresh air. Lots of good stuff here, and if you watch it with a group of other people, there will be plenty of topics for discussion after the film (not the least of which will be, "Gosh, Brad Pitt seemed really natural in that role ... do you think he's a Poofter?").

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Valkyrie

2009-01-03T20:23:00.001-05:00

Title: Valkyrie
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: Bryan Singer

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

What is a Valkyrie? Being committed to accuracy and factual truth, even if it takes hours of painstaking research, I looked up "Valkyrie" on Wikipedia. I realize that someone may object: Wikipedia is a free-for-all encyclopedia, written by laymen and untrained amateurs who have no special training in the subjects they address - anyone can write anything on any subject they want, even if it's not true. To that objection, I would point out: yes, anyone can make up anything they like and post it as "fact" at Wikipedia, but since it is a free-for-all encyclopedia, anyone else is free to come along and edit the factual errors of others, replacing them with other made-up stuff.

Wikipedia tells us with absolute certainty, until someone edits the entry, that a "Valkyrie" is a mythical goddess figure from Norse mythology. The valkyries choose who will live or die in battle, and they take the fallen heroes to their glory in the afterlife. They also appear to enjoy riding a lot, based on the title of the famous Wagner piece from his opera, Die Walküre. The piece is instantly recognizable to the culturally well-rounded, by which I mean, of course, anyone who has watched Bugs Bunny cartoons.

But this post is, as far as I can tell from the title, a review of the movie Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise and bunch of other guys whose faces will have you distracted for the entire movie, thinking, "What movie did I just see him in?!" (the answer, in order, is Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Batman Begins).

As the movie begins, we find Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) writing in a diary, giving voice to his sincere feeling that he has had it up to here with Hitler and the Nazis - which is rather unfortunate, since Stauffenberg is, technically, a high-ranking officer in the German army. Even this would not be so difficult a problem, if not also for the rather inconvenient fact that World War II is in full swing, which puts Stauffenberg in a bit of a pickle.

Luckily, he is then horribly maimed in battle, which gives him a reason to decide, "Ah, the hell with it, I think I'll assassinate Hitler and save Germany." And Stauffenberg's plot would probably have succeeded, except that Valkyrie just opened in theaters on Christmas Day of 2008, while Steven Spielberg's epic film Schindler's List, in which Germany loses the war and Hitler kills himself, has been a wildly popular movie since the early 1990s - so Stauffenberg was doomed to fail.

The movie runs for an even two hours, the first hour being dedicated to the planning and plotting of the assassination, and the last hour showing how the first hour was a complete waste of time. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a little more build-up in the beginning; by the time we meet Stauffenberg, he has already resolved his internal crisis of where he stands - he must oppose Hitler in order to truly serve the Germany he loves. It would have been nice to see what led him to that conclusion. If The Matrix: Reloaded and Spiderman 3 could run over the two-hour limit, surely a decent historical movie like Valkyrie could be given a little more room to explore its subject.

The movie title, by the way, comes from the name of the emergency military operation that Stauffenberg hoped to trigger after he bumped Der Führer. Operation Valkyrie gave power to the German Reserve Army in the event of Hitler's death and subsequent revolt of the people living in occupied countries; Stauffenberg revised the military operation to also include the arrest of S.S. and Gestapo leaders.

In a pivotal scene in the movie, Stauffenberg and his family are hiding in their bomb shelter during an air raid, while a record player upstairs is cranking out Wagner's Die Walküre. The theme phrase from "Ride of the Valkyries" hits Stauffenberg's ears, and gives him the idea to use Operation Valkyrie as the foundation of his plot. I think it goes without saying that Stauffenberg would have succeeded in his plans if, instead of listening to Wagner's opera, he had been listening to Queen's We Will Rock You.

All in all, it was a very good movie. Lots of high drama and suspense, despite the fact that you know darn well how its going to end, before the movie even begins (this is known as the "Titanic Syndrome"). None of the actors used put-on German accents, a directorial decision that I applaud with unusual intensity. I don't know if I could have sat through a two-hour movie that featured Tom Cruise slushing his way through a faux German dialect.

And the message, as I understood it, is inspirational: not all heroes succeed, because success is not the measure of a hero; the measure of a hero is the determination to do what is right, even if it means you lose everything. Stauffenberg and those who stood with him will be honored by having their story told through this movie, which highlights the fact that not every German citizen was a Hitler groupie.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some ripping good yarns to post at Wikipedia.

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

Eagle Eye (hold the Cherry)

2009-01-03T13:16:00.007-05:00

Title: Eagle Eye
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 118 minutes
Director: DJ Caruso

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Hey. Psst!!! Quick, over here! I want to say a few things about this new-on-DVD movie, Eagle Eye, but I have to be short and to the point - THEY are watching. You know who I mean ... THEY. The ones who killed JFK and covered it up; the ones who know the truth about Area 52 (yeah, that's right, they only want you to think it's called "Area 51" - don't be so naive my friend); the ones who arranged the sinking of the Titanic (the movie, that is, not the actual boat); the VERY SAME "they" who are probably, right this moment, adjusting the browning level on your toaster by just a fraction of a percent, so that you will be vaguely aware in the morning that something about your breakfast is slightly off, though you will be unsure of exactly what it is, and this will cause you to go about the rest of your day with a nagging sense of unsettledness about life in general.

Yes, THEY are watching. And THEY are observing us right now, so again, I must be brief, and I must speak in very guarded and coded language about this movie, because THEY will be very angry if I say anything critical about it.

Jerry Shaw is the central character, MAGNIFICENTLY played by the hyper-active, fidgety, and stammeringly WONDERFUL Shia LaBeouf (literally, "I am terrified of the beef"). Jerry and his female counterpart, Rachel (Michelle Monaghan), run around the countryside in a frantic and nervous fashion, taking orders from a cell phone.

Actually, to be more exact, they receive their instructions from a female voice over a cell phone, and this female voice is the voice of THEM, which I believe to be ultimately traceable to and identifiable with ahdhakwe ad;h2hge2 jfkhgip8ef nahg83 ad;gy8hajfhdjvnn.

As is appropriate for a techno-thriller of this sort, THEY keep tabs on and communicate with Jerry and Rachel through every technological means possible: street-level video cameras, GPS devices, cell phones (even ones belonging to other people), computer usage, the drive-through speaker at Wendy's, digital marquee signs, computer-controlled traffic lights, and Facebook application requests ("You have one Be a Pawn in Our National Conspiracy or We're Going to Kill Your Family request pending"). Perhaps the most chilling scene in the entire movie is when THEY remotely seize control of Jerry's iPhone and force him to watch countless hours of M. Night Shyamalan films. (You don't find that terrifying? Have you ever actually watched a Shyamalan film after you already know what the "twist" is going to be?!)

There is plenty of running around, driving real fast, blowing stuff up, motor-mouthing (thanks to Mr. The Beef, whose most memorable lines are, as usual, "No, waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait!!!" and "Come on, movemovemovemovemovemovemovemove!!!"), and crashing through glass. Side characters are brought in by the box-load, and then quickly killed off by THEM before you get a chance to become attached (or even care), in order to keep you, the audience, fully aware of how suspenseful and thrilling this movie is. IT IS THE MOST MASTERFULLY SCRIPTED AND EXECUTED STORYLINE I HAVE EVER SEEN. My honest, absolutely blunt and un-filtered opinion about this film is that it 73hjdfb ay fgelabfd y f89a e k fa;hd faggdad95.

The carrot at the end of the stick, so to speak, is the mystery of what exactly is the plot. You keep watching the film because you want to know certain fundamental things: Who is it that is ordering Jerry and Rachel around? Are Jerry and Rachel ultimately being used by the Good Guys or the Bad Guys? What is it that THEY are ultimately trying to accomplish through Jerry and Rachel's involvement? Is Big Brother really this powerful? Who in their right mind, having a surname of "LaBeouf", would name their son "Shia", and then encourage him to get his name up in lights?

Yes, much of this film is implausible (NO IT ISN'T! THEY ARE ALL-POWERFUL!), so get ready to suspend disbelief for a while. That comes with the territory, I guess, and that's why we watch movies in the first place, I think. We like a bit of "no way" to break up the predictability. However, when all the shooting, jumping, stammering, running, sweating, yelling, and techno-terrorizing is over, the grand finale is going to strike you as somehow ... familiar. Even "borrowed". Perhaps even "plagiarized from another movie or movies". (EXCEPT THAT THIS MOVIE IS ENTIRELY ORIGINAL AND BRILLIANT, AND ALL OTHER FILMS PALE IN COMPARISON)

In other words, I enjoyed the film while it was happening, even if I did shake my head a few times and laugh, and when it was all over I rolled my eyes and said, "Ok, that was entertaining, but seriously, HOW WILL I EVER FIND ANOTHER MOVIE THAT COMES CLOSE TO THIS MOVIE'S PERFECTION?" So go for it - it's a cheap rental, and you'll probably have some fun watching it, despite the fact that Shia LaBeouf is, technically, in the film.

The Tale of Despereaux

2008-12-29T12:44:00.004-05:00

Title: The Tale of Despereaux
MPAA: G
Runtime: 100 minutes
Director: Sam Fell, Robert Stevenhagen

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Despereaux is a classic story about ... about ... actually, I have no idea what this story was about. Despite its "classic" feel, despite the way it presented itself as something familiar, there was not a whole lot of core here.

Not that it was a bad movie. The animation was great. The voice acting was well-placed. The story was ... well, it was there.

Perhaps a simple plot summary would help: the kingdom of Dor loves soup, rain, and light (I think). But when a rat-based accident ruins the annual soup festival - and ruins it in a way that isn't entirely appropriate for a small children's movie - soup is outlawed, and rats are outlawed, and somehow this leads to the cessation of both light and rain. Throw in a superfluous dose of Slave Girl Who Wants to be Princess and Who Also Has a Father She Never Knew But Will Know by the End of the Movie, and you have something of the plot.

I think the point of Despereaux was that people make mistakes, people get hurt, and people act in hurtful ways because of their own hurt, but forgiveness is more powerful than any of that. Also, if you don't eat soup, then it will never rain again, and you will never see the sun for as long as you live.

Now, looking back on those last two paragraphs, you must be asking yourself: what the hell does this have to do with all those previews I saw, the ones with the extra-large-eared mouse who has no fear of anything? Exactly. Somehow or other, Despereaux, the big-eared mouse with loads of courage, is the spaghetti noodle that holds the whole plot together. And that's just great, until you realize that you don't really need Despereaux to hold the plot together at all, because the storyline is convoluted enough and already too top-heavy with characters (the king, the princess, the chef, the chef's completely unexplainable Vegetable Demon who helps him with the cooking, the servant girl, the servant girl's father, the rat who doesn't act like a rat, the Rat King).

But why not? Throw in a mouse, who is not a rat, but who is also not a mouse in his heart, and yet still is not a man either. He'll hold the whole story together.

The geography is similarly confused, I might add. With names like "Despereaux", "Antoinette", and "Andre" being tossed around like, I don't know, something that gets tossed around a lot, you'd think we were basically in France. But you would be wrong, and that's why I'm writing this review, and you are not. No, we are not in France, or anyplace else that might be considered predominately French, because we also have a "Roscuro", a "Boldo", a "Pietro", and the aforementioned Veggie Demon, who insists on using unmistakably Italian phrases. Aha! But that's not all! We also have the servant girl and her father, the jailer, who call themselves "Miggery" and "Gregory", and who speak in what is immediately identifiable as honest-to-god Bowe-bell Cockney.

What gives, Movie? Where are we? What story is this? Why do we have a mouse with a French name who invites (loose) comparison to Don Quixote, a princess who calls herself Princess Pea, a chef called Andre whose obsession with the perfect soup would have in itself been enough for a good plot-line, but whose connection with rats and mice nearly cries out for negative comparison with Ratatouille?

At least the animation was good. And while the plots and subplots and sub-subplots seem to be more numerous than the rats and mice that support them, and while the whole thing holds together like a Jenga tower at the end of the game, your kids probably won't notice this. They'll watch the action, they'll cheer for the big-eared Despereaux, they'll hate the Rat King (or whatever the hell his official title is - probably something equally incongruous, like Grand Dragon Rat), they'll love the princess, and so on and so on.

I have also heard that the book was, as is so often the case, better than the film, and much more coherent. I plan on picking up a copy immediately. We'll see if the written version has any extra substance that might have helped the movie make more sense.

So it was an "ok" movie. My kids liked it (especially when Despereaux used his big ears to fly, not that you should in any way think of Dumbo when this happens). It was generally familiar, and for that reason, comfortable. Hey, it beats The Day the Earth Never Was in Any Actual Danger of Standing Still.

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

Look!

2008-12-19T15:41:00.001-05:00

It's been a long couple of days. I was just on my way back from purchasing a half-gallon of eggnog and some shredded beef jerky, when I was abducted by masked men and taken to a secret location. Upon threat of being forced to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua, I was made to referee a staring contest between actress Zooey Deschanel and actor John Turturro.

The contest ended in a draw, with both celebrities being immediately contracted to star in Steven Spielberg's upcoming epic film, Looking.

With some therapy, I hope to recover.

And T-Shirts Too!

2008-12-16T01:39:00.002-05:00

Also now available from CafePress and The Michaelodian:

The Lincoln shirt is slightly higher quality material, and runs for $19.99, while the Churchill shirt is a "value t-shirt" and runs for $14.99).

I've got mine.

Love Wins?

2008-12-16T00:44:00.005-05:00

Because sometimes you just need to say "Look, enough is enough already," The Michaelodian proudly hesitatingly unapologetically indifferently presents:

Whether with the coffee mug ($14.99) or with the bumper sticker ($5.50), make a statement of your own - not all platitudes are universally true.

Items are available now through CafePress.

Three DVDs ... Ready? Go!

2008-12-15T23:13:00.002-05:00

If you are at all like me, you often find yourself sitting at home on a weekend night, staring at a 20-foot tall stack of slightly worn Tom Clancy novels and thinking, "Nah, I've read all four of those books already." So you say to yourself (out loud, and in broken French, for some reason), "I think I'd like to see a movie."

You then, of course, fire up any number of BitTorrent clients you have loaded onto your computer, and download whatever pirated movies you want to watch at that given moment.

Ha ha! Of course, I am kidding! You would never dream of doing anything illegal, and since downloading pirated movies is illegal, you are far more likely to sign in to your NetFlix account, select a handful of movies you would like to watch, and move them to the top of your queue. It is at this point that you realize that NetFlix, as good a service as it is (go to hell, Blockbuster Total Access), still has an average movie delivery turnaround time of 2-3 days, and by the time those movies arrive the weekend will be over.

Still wishing to watch a movie or two right now, you would probably (again, if you are like me) jump in the car and drive on over to your local video rental store (not Blockbuster) and just shell out the $8.73 for a couple of new releases off the shelf.

However, this is all predicated on the presupposition that you are like me, which I can almost guarantee you are not. For starters, you do not have a 20-foot tall stack of Tom Clancy novels that comprises precisely four books; you have a 48-foot tall stack consisting of only three books, and they are by Clive Cussler. Also, you don't even know what a BitTorrent client is.

Which is why you are precisely the kind of person who would purchase the DVDs directly, well in advance of the weekend upon which you wished to view them. And, knowing this about you as I do, I came prepared with three recommendations:

Wanted

There is no man on this planet (and barely any women, for that matter) who doesn't sometimes (read: "every 17 minutes") fantasize about Angelina Jolie's snarling smile and deep dark eyes, and in Wanted, she adds to this fantasy by carrying firearms.

If you haven't seen it, the movie is about a secret fraternity of assassins whose targets are carefully and methodically selected by ... giggle ... by ... snicker ... HAHAHA! Ok, seriously, I can't tell you how the assassination targets are selected, because it would be a major plot-spoiler, which, in this case, would be less like spoiling a plot and more like telling the punch-line before the joke is finished. I'll give you a hint, though: it would have been more believable if the fraternity had been choosing their targets by spinning a large, multi-colored Wheel 'O' Death, complete with blinking lights and annoying beeping noises.

This weakness aside, the movie still clips along at good speed, keeps the adrenaline pumping, and lets the viewer step vicariously into the Everyman role so ably played by James McAvoy, wherein a virtual Nobody suddenly becomes a very powerful and important Somebody. If that's not enough to entice you, Angelina also gives the viewer a long look at her dripping wet, tattooed backside about halfway into the film. Granted, her derriere is difficult to differentiate from her lips, and the role of her rumpus may very well have been stunt-doubled by her copious kisser, but I digress (and so does she).

Prince Caspian

The second volume in C.S. Lewis's marvelous Narnia series comes to life on screen with Prince Caspian. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy return to the magical land of Narnia because they have been summoned by the young prince. With the help of the dwarves, centaurs, mice, et al, the children and the prince have to defeat Caspian's evil uncle Miraz, who has usurped the Narnian throne. It's good entertainment, just don't over-analyze it.

And finally ...

The Dark Knight

The summer blockbuster comes to DVD. Taking its cue from Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", Heath Ledger plays a young squire with a talent for jousting, who disguises himself as his dead master and -- no, I'm sorry, that's wrong. I'm thinking of the 2001 film, A Knight's Tale.

Christian Bale plays a wounded hero given a second shot at life by a mysterious millionaire, a chance to fight crime and corruption with the help of a technologically-advanced vehicle named "KITT", and together with -- uh, nope, that's wrong too. I have this confused with the 1982 television series Knight Rider.

At any rate, this here Dark Knight masterpiece thingy, surely the Holy Grail of all movies ever made or ever to be made, runs for a solid two-and-a-half hours - so if nothing else, it's got a good bang-to-buck ratio. Plus, once you've finished watching it and - 152 minutes later - suddenly need a nicotine fix, you can go to the convenience store for a pack of Kool lights, and when the clerk can't find them on the shelf, you can grab him by the collar and repeatedly smash his head into the front window while yelling "WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE ARE THEY?" (I often do this to Google Maps, in fact, when trying to find all of the McDonald's locations closest to my residence).

If you do end up buying The Dark Knight Rider Tale, or even if you already own it, you should also consider purchasing this hilarious audio commentary on the film, produced by the crew at RiffTrax. The jokes come fast and furious, making fun of Batman's costume (part of which seems to include the inexplicable and affected Deep Gravel Voice), The Joker's insanity, the scenery, the sound effects, Nick Nolte and Gary Busey (who seem to get burned in every RiffTrax commentary), and pretty much everything else in the film. It's very well done, and my sides hurt from laughing for nearly 152 minutes straight.

Ok? So points to take away: read a little more Tom Clancy, never ever give Blockbuster your business, purchase these DVDs and the Dark Knight audio commentary, and above all else, find out what a BitTorrent client is/does/smells like (hint: they might be responsible for choosing assassination targets).

Yo! What?!

2008-12-15T16:30:00.003-05:00

A brief follow-up to the previous review of Nothing Like the Holidays, just long enough to highlight what I believe will inevitably become the movie catch-phrase of the holiday season. Johnny (Luis Guzman) has just rudely meddled in Jesse's (Freddy "Rodriguez" Rodriguez) love life, pelting him with a flurry of unsolicited advice of the kind that only a gay Latino man could possibly give (even more so a gay Latino man of Guzman's size). As Jesse turns and walks away in disgust, Johnny yells out:

"Hey Jesse, man, yo! What?!"

Sheer, sheer poetry.

Nothing Like the Holidays

2008-12-15T16:18:00.002-05:00

Title: Nothing Like the Holidays
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 140 minutes
Director: Alfredo De Villa

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Pour yourself a stiff egg-nog and Cuervo, because we're going to spend Christmas with the Rodriguez clan. This Puerto Rican family living in Chicago's west side has enough dysfunction to make sure everyone gets a healthy serving, and by the time the last character has vented his or her Hispanic spleen, you and I will be trading out the egg-nog for harder stuff. This movie backs up the truck and unloads crate after crate of Awkward, whole skids of Uncomfortable, and a few 50-gallon drums of High-Strung Agitation. And that's just the first half of the film.

This family has it all: a shell-shocked younger brother just back from the war, mainlining high-octane Survivor's Remorse; a drifting and rootless sister struggling to break into a film career; an "ethnically intense" meddling mother whose mission appears to be racial stereotype preservation; and a Bodega-owning father who just wants to see his family together, and to pass on his family business to one of his sons.

Unfortunately, the free-for-all engagement of the various family disputes, and the outing of numerous historical skeletons hitherto safely hidden in their proper closets, is so terrifyingly realistic and palpable that the average viewer will probably feel like he is intruding on what should be private conversations. To put it succinctly: you will want to work up a few fake coughs, check your watch, make some kind of polite excuse, and gracefully take your leave of the movie. Unless, of course, you are the kind of morbid and sadistic viewer whose idea of a good time is watching people work through their dysfunctions in a holiday setting; in which case, grab another bag of lightly salted Self-Abuse and strap yourself in. You'll be here a while.

A few things that I learned from this movie:

- It is, in fact, quite possible to make Luiz Guzman (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love) even more irritating than he normally is. Simply cast him as a gay character, add a lisp to his already barely-comprehensible line delivery, and augment his super-charged Latino flamboyance with an even more gaudy homosexual style

- John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, The Take, The Happening) still has an incredibly abundant face, and he isn't afraid to point it at you without remorse

- Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, The Da Vinci Code) should never, ever be allowed to appear on screen in his underwear

- The same goes for Mr. Leguizamo

In the end, the Rodriguez family manages to work everything out, but they do in a fashion about as predictable and stale as ... (note to self: think up a clever analogy with which to end this review).

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

Pass it On

2008-12-15T11:06:00.006-05:00

Alcohol Abuse.

We shall fight them pretty damn near anywhere in this drunken condition.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2008-12-14T20:04:00.008-05:00

Title: The Day the Earth Stood Still
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 110 minutes
Director: Scott Derrickson

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

As I write this review, I am amply surrounded by several hundred recently-purchased leafy green plants, numerous containers of fresh dirt, a variety of small and furry animals, and a handful of large aquarii aquarae aquariumses fish tanks containing various forms of sea creatures.

In short, this movie has changed my life.

Gone are the days when I would routinely host medium-to-large sized dinner parties, with seven-course meals featuring (only in part, mind you) Spotted Owl breast sauteed in Humpback Whale fat and presented in lightly-baked dolphin skin wrap, Polar Bear tenderloin garnished with Aleutian Shield Fern leaves, and Ozark Bat pancreas seasoned with crushed Gowen Cypress Root, all served on genuine Desert Tortoise shell plateware, and tiny forks carved of genuine Asian Elephant tusk ivory (Bengal White Tiger claw toothpicks are available, should you need to remove any of the fern leaves from between your teeth).

Yes, my former behaviors must change, because, according to The Day the Earth Stood Still, we (by which I mean "you", since I've changed my habits) are killing the earth, and the aliens are fed up with us (I still mean "you") over the whole thing. In fact, we (again, "you") have to die, so bad has the situation degenerated. It's the only way to save the planet.

Actually, I take it all back. The Day the Earth Stood Still (TDtESS) is a horribly mistitled movie, because at no point during the film is the earth ever in danger of standing still. The earth's people are threatened with destruction, yes, but there is not so much as a whisper of a threat that the planet will cease its motion.

TDtESS confirms what most of us suspected: Keanu Reeves is not of this planet. Mr. Reeves turns in his usual lethargic performance, emptying entire clips of expressionless dialog and stone-faced stars right into the audience's chest. Appropriately, the lion's share of his scripted lines contain no more than three-to-four words at a time ("I have to go", "Drive there", "I can't tell you", "It won't", and so forth), which makes for a perfect marriage of actor and script.

The incredibly-talented Jaden Smith plays the role of Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment, filling every conceivable gap in which the plot might have lacked a whiny, bratty, disrespectful pre-teen character to hurl defiant expressions. His performance is so stunningly realistic that you will undoubtedly fantasize about grabbing the scruff of his cocky little neck and slapping him without ceasing.

The real action of the film takes place in a few critically-placed on-screen dialogs that brim with philosophical utterances, one of which finally presents itself as the movie's unforgettable tag-line: "at the precipice, we change." This is made all the more hilarious by the fact that the key conversation in which this axiom appears takes place between Keanu Reeves and (wait for it) John Cleese. I dare you to find two characters less likely to engage in scholastic debate. A more realistic dialog between these two cast members might go something like this:

Reeves: "I don't understand."

Cleese: "Oh, come off it, you stupid git! I wish to complain about this parrot, what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique."

Reeves: "I'm sorry."

Cleese: "Yes, sorry! Sorry, everyone! I do get carried away sometimes! Now, listen closely and please try to understand before one of us dies, it's really quite simple: my hovercraft is full of eels."

Reeves: "Whoa."

Cleese: "Right. Stop this, it's gotten completely silly. And now for something completely different ..."

In summary: Hollywood once again wishes us to know that we are all a bunch of self-absorbed and reckless cretins, whose most readily-identifiable characteristic is our lack of any sort of self-preservation instinct (your ticket stub to TDtESS will suffice as proof). We are a threat to this planet, although no one is exactly sure how or what to do about it. What is certain, however, is that if we do not clean up our collective act, some alien race out there in the cosmos is bound to send Keanu Reeves our way, and then ... well, God help us all.

This scenario, of course, assumes that David Scarpa (screenplay) is correct, and M. Night Shyteyerself is wrong; otherwise, don't bother worrying about an impending invasion of the alien police to protect the planet from its inhabitants, because the plants themselves will rise up and kill us all before it ever gets that bad.

+++++++++++

This review was made possible in part by the generosity of Celebration Cinemas in Grand Rapids, MI. Feel like taking in a movie tonight? Celebration has a broad selection of films, stadium-style seating, a clean environment, and best of all, they never show commercials after the advertised showtime. Visit Celebration Cinemas online.

I Hurl My Shoes at You, Sir

2008-12-14T15:47:00.005-05:00

In the Iraqi culture, it is the equivalent of flipping the bird (source: a particularly intense, NyQuil-induced hallucination). And for one angry reporter, it was the perfect gesture for the moment at hand:

The President later spoke of his "shockification" and "disappointary" over having foot-wear chucked at him in public.

Conspiracy Theorists are working overtime at this very moment to prove that there were, in fact, two Tossers involved in the execution of the attack. Evidence to support this theory includes the anomaly that the two shoes were later found to be dissimilar in style, color, and measurement. "There's just no way this was the work of a lone shoe-chucker", explains un-notable author and conspiracy buff Clyde Longstretch. "The shoes were thrown at too close of an interval for any one person to have thrown them both, and the flight trajectory of the airborne foot-wear indicates that each missile originated at two different places in the room", he continued.

The Iraqi reporter who perpetrated the attack blamed nerves and lack of sleep for his less-than accurate aim, and swore that, if given the chance again in the future, he would be sure to throw a series of keffiyehs first in order to create a diversion, before moving to the heavier artillery.

M. Night Shouldanevermadethisfilm

2008-12-14T00:02:00.001-05:00

Title: The Happening
MPAA: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

M. Night Shyamalan (first name: "Mid") has offered the viewing public a sled-load of steaming crap-cakes, and I would like to offer him a heartfelt "bite me." His latest offering, The Happening, is misleadingly titled; it probably should have been called The Not Happening, Ever. Better yet, it should have been called The Waiting, because that's what the viewer spends most of this film doing: waiting for something to (please, please, dear God) happen.

Let me see if I can summarize the plot, as I understood it by the end of the film:

- In Central Park, people are acting weird - in fact, they're killing themselves (probably in a desperate attempt to get out of being in this movie)
- Obviously, then, something seems to be happening, but no one is sure what it is
- Mark Wahlberg is a science teacher, who has a math teacher with a very large face for a friend, and together they intend to find out what is happening
- Incidents of Escape-the-Movie-by-Suicide begin to spread to the surrounding areas: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island, etc.
- Mark Wahlberg does a lot of traveling with his wife, trying to escape from the movie. He also whines a lot while doing it.
- More suicides - really graphic, outlandish, sensational suicides, the details of which are not spared the audience in the slightest by the increasingly-weird M. Night Shyamalan
- Mark Wahlberg continues whining, running, and looking confused and helpless
- Vast amounts of film are wasted on scenes of discussion, in which various theories concerning the happening are explored at length
- More Wahlbergian whining and running, as the suicide rate skyrockets (my theory: the more Marky-Mark sniffles and hyperventilates, the less his traveling companions desire to live, and thus they throw themselves under running lawn mowers, shoot themselves, leap off of buildings, and so forth)
- Wahlberg and his space-eyed wife meet a freaky old farm lady, who must shoulder the very large burden of providing all of the suspense for the film
- The film ends with thinly-disguised commercial probably paid for by Greenpeace

Over the years, we've all come to expect the Shyamalian last-minute plot twists: The Sixth Sense (he's dead?!), Unbreakable (ahhh, he's the villain!), Signs (she wasn't losing her mind, she was predicting the future!), The Village (they're highly-cloistered freaks?! That's the explanation?!). Even Lady in the Water had its redeeming qualities, keeping the audience guessing about which character fit where in the puzzle of the fairy-tale's dramatis personae. The twist came when the script revealed that no one fit in quite where you expected.

But with The Happening, there is none of this. The mystery of the source of the ever-spreading suicides is basically revealed less than halfway into the film, and no plot twist comes along at the end to turn the viewer's world upside down and create that lovely feeling of disorientation. It just ... ends. With a lame save-the-planet lecture, no less.

So here's what you should do: send me the $7.50 you were going to spend on your ticket to see this film, and I'll give you the same content and message in a fraction of the time (so you can get right back to doing more important things, like finding ingenious uses for all that congealed bacon grease you've been saving in a coffee can under the sink). Here it is:

- Recycle
- Respect the Ozone
- Reduce your carbon footprint
- Stop chopping down trees
- Save the planet

There. And you didn't even have to put up with Mark Wahlberg whining and crying at you for 90 minutes. You can thank me later.

UPDATED

This movie was really, really bad. I saw the movie in the theater months ago, and I still have bruises. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to announce the arrival of the one thing that might stand a chance against this steaming pile of ... well, you get my drift. I am referring, of course, to the RiffTrax audio commentary on The Never Did Manage to Actually Happen.

Get your mp3 download today, and be sure to add "Why're you eyeing my lemon drink?" to your arsenal of bad movie catch-phrases.

The Day the Script Writers Stopped

2008-12-13T22:32:00.000-05:00

Title: The Day the Earth Stopped
MPAA: Unrated
Runtime: 90 minutes
Director: C. Thomas Howell

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

The Day the Earth Stopped (The Asylum Home Entertainment, 2008) should not be confused with the similarly named The Day the Earth Stood Still. The latter film describes the day in which the earth ceased to move, whereas the former film describes the day in which the earth just ... stopped. I'm not sure exactly what it stopped doing; that's anyone's guess.

The plot is beautifully simple. Aliens invade the earth with the intention of destroying it, because this little planet of ours poses some generic, unspecified threat to the universe. The aliens, of course, land in the United States of America. Not China, not Germany, not Africa, or any other number of equally logical choices - no, the aliens always ultimately center on the USA.

Ah, but wait! There is a plot twist! One of the aliens, who takes the flaming hot form of Sinead McCafferty (Days of Our Lives, Street Racer), has been sent as a kind of ambassador, to discover if there is indeed value in human life. If the Vaguely Employed as an Officer of Some Government Agency hero-type guy can convince the sensitive alien ambassador that humanity has value, then the attack will be called off. Apparently, this highly-advanced alien race (which can read minds, restore life, and harness the power of Life Force in general) sucks at reconnaissance, and determined to destroy the planet without doing the necessary initial leg-work.

In other words, the aliens want to destroy earth (by making it "stop") because earth has become a cosmic threat; however, if the earthlings can show that there's something warm and gooey in the center of this thing called Human Existence, then the aliens will continue allowing the earth to drain its sweaty, sebaceous, epidermal secretions into the Universal Hot-tub.

I thought it made great sense.

The only thing that stops in this movie is the script. There are incredibly long spans of time in which nothing is said, no dialog is spoken, and Spielbergian levels of looking are achieved. I treated these moments as wonderfully welcome periods of relief, and learned to look forward to them.

Let me just cut to the moral message of the movie and spare you the time you would otherwise waste watching this movie: stop being a threat to the other planets, ok, Earth? We need to live in harmony with each other, yes, but also with the entire cosmos. What it is we might possibly be doing wrong on this front isn't exactly clear, since we've never actually made contact with alien life, but rest assured: when whatever we're doing wrong gets to be too much for the rest of the universe to put up with, The Alien Police will certainly let us know, and will probably kill us all. Don't say you weren't warned.

(PS - Sinead McCafferty grants the audience an extended and completely gratuitous view of her pillowy, large, be-nippled breasts, and she is courteous enough to do so before the viewer gets even three minutes into the film. Depending on your POV, this either semi-redeems the movie, or only tarnishes it further. Again, you've been warned.)

Gather 'Round, Children

2008-12-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

I have to admit, I'm an old-film junkie. Especially the black-n-white comedies. I love Hal Roach's The Little Rascals, Abbot and Costello routines still make me laugh, and the slapstick of Laurel and Hardy will never grow old.

Except when it's aimed at kids. In that context, for some reason, people in the early part of the 20th century thought it would be entertaining to show children things that could make Satan himself a little bit uncomfortable.

I would give an example, but it would be too horrifying. Suffice it to say that I recently watched Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland, and now I will probably not sleep for four more days. I can't. The terrifying images are burned into my (now) gun-shy memory, which, like an abused child, now flinches whenever someone reaches out to give it a hug.

What's that you say? You absolutely must have an example? Very well, but don't come shivering back here for emotional comfort when your inner child whizzes your sense of security and wholeness down his pant-leg after viewing this clip.

Watch below, if you must. The things that start happening at about 5:50 into the film clip are enough to sustain several weeks of soak-your-bed-with-sweat nightmares.