Category Archive

Below is an interview between two of my favorite people, Ben Stein and R.C. Sproul.  Super fun!

*Hattip to the Lovely Dana.  Again. 

I’m sitting here watching Dean Martin in The Wrecking Crew.  This has to be one of the worst movies ever.  I’m super cereal!  The plot, at least that’s the technical term for the drivel I’m forcing myself to watch, is entirely about a bunch of young, sexy women falling in lust with Mr. Martin.  They fall over him, swoon over him, commit treason, commit adultery, commit bad acting.  One even gets herself blown up. (that gave me hope for the movie, but no one else has exploded, spontaneously combusted or even gotten a paper cut.)  It seems more a morality play on the effects of smoking your arch supports.

Do I buy that these young ladies find Dean Martin irresistible?  Yeah, um, not so much.  He could sing, but I think the French made the better choice in the duo when they fell in love with Mr. Lewis.  At least he’s funny.*  Maybe it’s just the jadedness of me being me, but he’s just not all that.

I’ve found that there aren’t many movies from the 60’s that I like and that the ones I like all seem to have Yul Brenner, Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen in them.  Now, THOSE were sexy men.  I just can’t buy a bunch of babes falling all over Dean Martin.

Plus, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and A Fistful of Dollars actually had plots.

Did I mention that the soundtrack and costumes have given me a ripping headache?  I was thinking it might be preferable to stick pins in my eyes.

Anyway, blech on The Wrecking Crew.
(*I was kidding about Jerry Lewis and the French.  I don’t think he’s funny, it was a moment of self-pitying weakness that made me envy the French.)

Brokeback Mountain
Two words: gay cowboys. Nope. Not gonna do it. Love story, you say? Still, not gonna do it. Cowboys are some of the sexiest men on earth and I’m not gonna ruin my enjoyment of bullriding by visions of two boys riding off in the sunset pledging undying love to each other. Yick.

New World
One of the “accolades” for the movie convinced me before I knew anything about it. “Best historical drama since Titanic.” Since I hated Titanic enough to scream “Die, PLEASE, JUST DIE!!!!” at the “King of the World”, I can’t imagine that this one is anything less than dismal. Plus it’s staring the man whose last turn as an historical figure, Alexander, gave me intestinal cramps from the commercials alone.

Munich
Why Steven, why? Such talent and you twist it so? To equate terrorists with assassins isn’t right. Both kill, okay, that I’ll give you, and of course if the Germans hadn’t let the terrorists go in the second place, none of that revenge would have been necessary. The first place is this: a bunch of thugs taking innocent athletes hostage only to kill them with a shot to the back of the head while blindfolded and bound hasn’t got jack to do with hunting down and killing the thug who killed your countryman/woman while bound and blindfolded with a shot to the back of the head. They aren’t the same thing. All killing is not equal.

Spielberg made a big deal about making “War of the Worlds”. He said that before 9/11 he never believed that beings smart enough to develop an interstellar engine and ship would “shlep” weapons all that way. Truth is that a being smart enough to invent such things would be smart enough to know how freakin stupid it would have to be to go millions of lightyears away from the safety of the homeworld without them. Maybe they won’t be needed, but who wants to get caught with your shorts down around your tentacles. Smart aliens, and humans, know these things. Peace isn’t made by a lack of weapons alone, it is made by the judicious use of them and wise choices at the bargaining table. Anyway, Spielberg keeps getting it wrong when he moves away from science fiction and history younger than WWII. I think it’s connected to when he cried at the end of the last Star Wars.

I’m sure this list will expand.

See the trailer here.

I’m nearly ready to embarrass myself, I’m so excited for this movie to come out. Everything I’ve heard and read tells me that Walden Pictures and Disney made every logical attempt to stick to the story, Weta Workshop showed they can be faithful with the work they did on LOTR. Even the interviews of the director that I’ve read indicated that he was aware that if he mucked this story up, there would be heck to pay.

Obviously one reason is that I adore these stories. This one in particular, even though the Last Battle is my favorite, this story of Aslan’s sacrifice for the cruel and petty Edmond, Lucy’s love for Aslan and Peter and Susan’s courage is wonderful, moving and beautiful. I’ve enjoyed the mental images of the trees coming to life and joining in the battle. Unlike Tolkiens Ents, these really are the spirits of the trees coming to life. The themes of sacrifice, honor, courage and humility are stirring and encouraging. I also need the visual of the havoc created by a sinful desire for just one more taste of Turkish Delight.

More than anything, though, I’m hoping that this movie turns people back to the books, as was the case with Tolkiens masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. The books are so magical and wonderfully evocative of life and it’s deeper meanings. Even if your kids can’t understand the themes, the stories are filled with creatures of legend and myth, treasure, princesses, brave knights, serious quests and heroic children.

I’d just hate for some child to miss out on Reepicheep. Or ole Puzzle. Or Hwin. Or Eustace. Or Puddleglum. But especially Reepicheep. I love Reepicheep.

This made Speilburg cry? All I could think was: How on earth did this sticky treacle make that man cry. It just wasn’t that good or that moving. There was too much to mock and frankly, the script was so awful, direction so juvenile and the plot, wait, there was a plot? It was hard not to start mocking out loud, but I truly was afraid the star wars believers there would shoot me with their laser guns.

There were too many silly things to be believed, and before you blast me, I know this is fiction, it’s just BAD fiction. Good fiction transports you away to new worlds and makes you believe that they could exist. In George Lucas’ Star Wars world there is a vast emptiness of nothing to draw you in and make you believe it could have happened. Star Trek was silly, but somehow made me believe long enough to just enjoy the entertainment. RotS just makes me mad I wasted my time.

There were some little things, like Padme’s night gown, it’s lovely, really beautiful. In fact, I had no idea it was a night gown until I saw her in bed with it still on. The problem? Beads, lots of them, strings of them across her arms. She’s pregnant and sleeping on her side wearing a dress more suited to meeting the Queen of England than catching some shuteye. All I could think was: My arm would be asleep in that, it looks uncomfortable. But often it’s the stupid little things that lend believability to unbelievable stories. Lucas fails miserably to bring his audience, me, in to the plot to care at all what happens. It’s just a series of cool but meaningless special effects that are just mildly interesting in the way that watching grass grow is mildly interesting.

Anakin’s final transformation into Darth Vader was laughable. Obi Wan and Anakin have a lightsaber duel floating on lava on a volcanic planet without any sort of heat protection and absolutely no breathing apparatus. First of all, he lost me at hello. Volcanic planet? It’s one big lava flow, and lava being notoriously treacherous for humans or anything else slightly alive, between the intense heat and toxic gases, I can’t believe that even Jedi powers can overcome the physical difficulties of dueling inches away from toxic flowing lava. So already I’m laughing. Then Anakin loses his limbs, then he catches on fire, but hey, he’s still alive enough to curse Obi Wan who just walks away. (Has no one learned that you don’t just walk away from an evil person, you must actually KILL THEM DEAD. Dang, do I have to do everything?)

The emperor shows up and collects the crispy cripple and shuttles him off to the hospital where he gets turned into the Lord Vader we all know. Now, in the hospital HE’S STILL SMOKING when they lock him into the Vader suit. What, people in that world don’t need to heal from third degree burns? How about stripping all that melted cloth off him before you attach his prosthesis? How about some skin grafts? Maybe give him a little advil? Why not just put him out first! Just pour some water on him. I’m sure Sith Lords are powerful, but still, do they not suffer from infection because of badly cleaned, or in this case uncleaned, wounds? At least put some cream on those burns, that suit will chafe.

As I watched the “battle” between the Emperor and Yoda all I could think was “They got the wrong muppet to kill this guy, give Animal a lightsaber and he would have offed him quicker than you please. That would be a fight I’d be happy to pay to see.”

And what was all the excitement about going to the Wookie homeworld. It’s not like anything happened there that was slightly interesting. All you find out is that Chewbacca is an old dog. That’s it. Whatever.

All in all, I give it an F. Lucas wasted four movies and some incredible actors to pile up 8 hours of trash. How do you make Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor look like no-talent high school actors? How in the world do you take the edge out of Samuel L. Jackson? The dialog was so weird, stodgy, stilted and silly, just plain old silly, as to render it laughable. The original Star Wars (ANH) was fun and incredible and a blast, the Empire Strikes Back (TESB) was equally fun. Then it all fell apart into sappy stupid vacuous nothingness, like the emptiness of space. TESB was, by the way, the only one of the movies that Lucas did not direct, and that only one he had help in writing, it is by far the best of the lot. That’s very telling, and very interesting. George Lucas has a vision, and it could have been a fun one, but he let his navel gazing pride get in the way of making great movies. He should have gotten help, outside eyes to assist him, someone unafraid of saying “Midiclorians? That’s stupid and doesn’t flow with what came before.” and “Another Senate scene? Gimme action, fast and furious! Common, let the Wookies really fight!” I wanted to shout “The Empire has no clothes!!” It started with the Ewoks. Stupid teddy bears, just too cute.

This movie, and the previous junk, Episodes 1, 2 and 6, all lacked the kind of character development that draws an audience in to want to come back. The plot, writing and direction were ponderous in the way that a legless hippo trying to wriggle it’s way ashore in wet season mud is ponderous, and trite. I didn’t care at all about any of them. Frankly I missed the Death Star blowing up planets willy nilly, that was fun stuff. I wanted to Emperor to win, he at least was interesting to watch. Just like at the tedious end of Titanic, I wanted to shout “DIE, please, just die!!!” Thankfully, this franchise will die and be resurrected no more. I think it could only have been worse if Ben Affleck had played Obi Wan. (Now, if I could just convince the Rolling Stones to stop touring, my work here will be finished.)

There is one consolation, and it is a small one, M&M’s came out with dark chocolate M&M’s. Wait, see, the Emperor did win. SWEET!

*At the theater were some Star Wars geeks, people dressed up like the characters. The best part of the whole experience was getting an ironic chuckle because the guy in the vader suit was shorter than everyone else. I mean like 5′2″, shorter than me. Oh, and the other guy in the vader suit was using his lightsaber as a tapstick for a blind person. I nearly snotted soda out my nose. That was funny.

This was a funny movie. Aside from a graphic rectal exam scene I could’ve lived my entire life without seeing, I can’t complain about anything I saw. It was also very informative. The doctor’s visits alone should be transcribed and become required reading for parents taking their children to any fast food joint.

See this movie. Much better than the other famous “documentary” film from 2004. Cool extras too, for sure see the fry thing. Wow.

(For the ladies, look away when he is in the doctors office in the beginning of the movie.)

Grade - B

Language, some everyday sort of cussing.

The results of his blood tests alone are very revealing. Prepare to gag. You will never eat another McFry.

This will be short.

I hoped since I saw the second Matrix that the third would end this way:

Neo dies.

Fade to black.

An alarm goes off, you hear groans. A messy bedroom comes into focus. From the bed, one teen moves to slap the alarm off. Another teen groans from a chair in the corner. Light is streaming in through the blinds. You see a “Wild Stallions” hand-made poster on the wall.

Ted’s head pops up from the bed.

“Dude, I had the most EXCELLENT dream. Where did you get that smack?”

Bill groans.

Fade to black.

End Credits begin to roll.

THAT would have been a great ending to the Matrix trilogy.

Ratings:

Overall - F

The rest of it doesn’t matter. Just don’t do it. Run.

I’ll try to post movie reviews as I see a movie. Not because you care what I think, but because now that I have a blog, I can. Some movies I’ll see in the theater, most I won’t. I refuse to spend $8.50+ on stupid movies. Some movies I won’t spend any money on because I can’t stand the actors in the movie. Tom Cruise is one of those actors. I watched the Last Samurai last night with Dad because he really wanted to see it with me. So, I offer my review below, which is really more commentary. If you haven’t seen the movie, forgive me, I didn’t revisit the plot.

I have lots of questions that I need to do a lot more research on to be able to address any of the historical aspects of this film accurately, my comments are only on what I saw and not from any specific knowledge of the times.

Tom Cruise’s Character

I will say the following: it is common Hollywood practice to use the wrong, sinful and shameful treatment of the Indians at the hands of white America to illustrate the ongoing corruption of the United States specifically and the west generally. Hollywood returns to this point often. Not that I would ever ever ever approve or condone what was done to the Indians. We broke treaties and our word too frequently. We massacred, stole, raped and burned and it was wrong. The thing is, this is always used to illustrate is that Christians and our culture are bad and “peaceful” eastern-like spiritual cultures are good. That contrast is strong in the movie. The only movie I’ve seen a balance of good/bad is The Last of the Mohicans, I’ve tried to read the book and just never got through it for lots of silly reasons. So, all that to say, his character’s attendance at a massacre is unexeptional. Attendance at an Indian massacre is mandatory for all sympathetic fictional male characters from the old west Oh, and they have to cry a lot.

My other questions are about Japan and the events in the movie. Was that the same emperor who ruled over Japan during WWII? If so, and if that movie is even slightly historically correct and there ever was a character like Captain Algren, he helped set the stage for the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Thanks.) I wondered if that broken trade agreement between America and Japan led to encouraging and reinforcing the xenophobia of Japan. Their war crimes, like the Rape of Nanking, the horrors in the islands, the death marches, the prison camps, the torture, the “comfort women” in Korea, etc etc etc, are directly attributable to that character flaw. (The Japanese have still not even admitted that what they did was wrong. They still visit and honor the tombs of men whose list of war crimes is as long as any from Hitler, Amin and Milosevic. Stalin still leads that pack.)

I just questioned where all that nationalism was leading, where the impressionable emperor got influenced. Not that I think all Americans or all of American culture is great, in a lot of ways I certainly don’t, but in a lot of ways I do. I do wonder if the introduction of Christianity that always came with trade agreements and the missionaries that went along with them would have had a taming effect on the xenophobia of the Japanese. It certainly did a lot to temper and prepare the church for what happened in China during the Boxer Rebellion and then after during Mao’s reign of terror.

Then there is the question of cultural evils like honor suicide, saving face, etc. But that’s another discussion.

Beautiful movie, very moving, full of anti-Judeo-Christian rhetoric and Tom Cruise. I give it the following grades, not that you care, but because I can.

Overall: C-

Lovely to Look at: A (sets, scenery and costumes were fantastic to look at. )

Skin/Sexual Content: B- (No skin, some tension, one short kiss )

World View: F (Can I go lower?)

Cool Battle Scenes: B (these were fun)

Tom Cruise: B (Since he always plays himself only different, this is a better than average performance. He cries a lot and doesn’t look perfect so that’s helpful, big dark circles under his eyes, greasy hair help to sell it. Still he is essentially Tom Cruise.)

Okay, one last word on Mr. Cruise: I heard a radio interview with him and the local hollywood bootlicking disc jockeys while he was shilling for this movie. He rambled on and on about how he loved making a movie about such an honorable culture with such amazing values. (I’m screaming at my radio - WHAT ABOUT NANKING??? WHAT ABOUT THE DEATH MARCHES? WHAT ABOUT PEARL HARBOR?? WHAT HONOR????) Then the bootlicking kicked into high gear and the DJ schmoozed about Cruise being honorable, then Cruise started yammering on about how he’s always tried to live his life honorably and with values. (Now I’m screaming - WHAT ABOUT NICOLE AND YOUR KIDS??? IS ADULTERY HONORABLE??? WHAT ABOUT YOUR FIRST WIFE?????? ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!) And so, I can not in all good conscience pay to see a movie with this “actor” in it. I don’t listen to those dj’s anymore either.