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randomposts({"version":"1.0","encoding":"UTF-8","feed":{"xmlns":"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom","xmlns$openSearch":"http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/","xmlns$blogger":"http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008","xmlns$georss":"http://www.georss.org/georss","xmlns$gd":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005","xmlns$thr":"http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0","id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917"},"updated":{"$t":"2023-07-17T04:33:59.375-05:00"},"category":[{"term":"Movies"},{"term":"Television"},{"term":"In Theaters"},{"term":"Random Movie Report"},{"term":"Frasier"},{"term":"Comics"},{"term":"Kaiju"},{"term":"Academy of the Underrated"},{"term":"Site Miscellany"},{"term":"Doctor Who"},{"term":"The Comics Page"},{"term":"Monsterthon"},{"term":"Books"},{"term":"For Your Ears Only"},{"term":"Music"},{"term":"Opening Credits"},{"term":"Random Who Report"},{"term":"Games"},{"term":"Star Wars"},{"term":"Comics Rambling"},{"term":"The Tabletop"},{"term":"Dredged from YouTube"},{"term":"My Favorite Movies"},{"term":"Wrestling"},{"term":"The Avengers"},{"term":"Stage"},{"term":"My Own Work"},{"term":"Shameless Self Promotion"},{"term":"Special Screenings"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Club Parnassus"},"subtitle":{"type":"html","$t":"Movies, books, comics, and assorted miscellany from sometimes-critic Evan Waters."},"link":[{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/posts\/default"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default?alt=json-in-script\u0026max-results=1000"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/"},{"rel":"hub","href":"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"generator":{"version":"7.00","uri":"http://www.blogger.com","$t":"Blogger"},"openSearch$totalResults":{"$t":"652"},"openSearch$startIndex":{"$t":"1"},"openSearch$itemsPerPage":{"$t":"1000"},"entry":[{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6163625646842593933"},"published":{"$t":"2015-12-25T10:25:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2015-12-25T10:25:05.503-06:00"},"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The new Star Wars is true to the series' B-movie spirit"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-CBM37UKXcaQ\/Vn1tapIrDlI\/AAAAAAAAB4s\/CuipvvsObpo\/s1600\/1-JJKathy-NO-LOGO.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-CBM37UKXcaQ\/Vn1tapIrDlI\/AAAAAAAAB4s\/CuipvvsObpo\/s400\/1-JJKathy-NO-LOGO.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EImage from StarWars.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EAs one of a select minority of people who both enjoyed the Star Wars prequel trilogy and are unafraid to say so, I was ambivalent when it was announced that George Lucas had sold the series to Disney, who planned to finally continue the story with Episodes VII through IX (at least.) On the one hand, I thought it a shame that one of the few major creator-owned properties in film was no longer so, but yet another IP in the arsenal of a major megacorporation, and I was unsure how best to continue the story after both the Sith and the Empire were thoroughly defeated.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EOn the other hand, I like movies where spaceships explode and where people fight each other with laser swords, so, yes, I had to see it at least once.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Force Awakens \u003C\/i\u003Eis also divided, telling a new story for a new generation while, at the same time, appeasing everyone who grew up on the originals and rejected the prequels with so much disdain that Lucas himself is now something of a pariah. The needs of nostalgia (and of the Disney corporation) do pull at this film, but there’s enough talent and genuine ingenuity at work for it to be a satisfying space opera in its own right.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThere is much to potentially spoil in the plot, suffice it to say that many years after the defeat of the Empire, a new and brutal First Order has arisen and taken over a portion of the galaxy. With the restored Republic unwilling to declare war, a covert Resistance is left to oppose the Order. In the midst of this Luke Skywalker has vanished, and the Resistance are searching for him. Ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), seeking information, is captured by the First Order, but his loyal droid BB-8 escapes into the deserts of the planet Jakku, a desolate world whose main industry appears to be salvaging parts from the crashed starships and vehicles left over from a battle between the Rebels and the Empire. BB-8 is recovered and befriended by Rey (Daisy Ridley), a young scavenger, who falls in with Finn (John Boyega), a former stormtrooper for the First Order who defected shortly after refusing to massacre a small village. The two manage to escape Jakku in a familiar-looking space freighter, only to run into its original occupants…\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThe fundamental question I had when dealing with a continuation of the Star Wars story was who the new villains would be. The Sith have been successfully eradicated thanks to Vader’s sacrifice and just having the Empire still around would be, to say the least, anticlimactic. \u003Ci\u003EThe Force Awakens\u003C\/i\u003E is a little vague in defining the First Order and their intentions for the galaxy, though an appropriately Nazi-esque rally on board their new superweapon at least conveys the right feeling. They quite closely resemble the Empire in fashion and interior design, even fielding Star Destroyers and TIE fighters which are only slightly different from the originals (some new designs would have been welcome, honestly.) They’re mostly led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), a sinister acolyte of the Dark Side who appears to be a big fan of Darth Vader before he went all soft- guiding him is the enigmatic Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis in voice and gesture), who makes it clear that it’s not only George Lucas who has trouble coming up with cool outer space names.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThe old guard plays a big part in the proceedings. Harrison Ford is back as Han Solo, Chewbacca’s at his side, Carrie Fisher returns to the role of Leia, and I guess it really wouldn’t be Star Wars without R2-D2 and C-3PO putting in appearances. (Threepio does have one of the film’s best lines.) At times the veterans threaten to overshadow the new cast, but the new characters all have enough time to win us over: Rey is clearly getting the main hero’s journey here with Ridley displaying the right intensity, Boyega's Finn is a likable everyman despite having been raised from childhood in a soulless military machine, and Poe Dameron is a callback to the series’ genre roots, a Buck Rogers hero who happens to be taking a supporting role in someone else’s story. (Why Oscar Isaac wasn’t an A-list star before this is mystifying.)\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EAbrams keeps the action fast paced and visually dazzling, emphasizing a red-blue color scheme which fits the iconic divide between the light and dark sides of the Force. A few parts of the story remain fuzzy, perhaps out of a desire to avoid the prequels’ criticism of being too politically focused (it’s never really clear why there’s both a Republic and Resistance, and even with an in-story explanation it feels inelegant), but for the most part the film plays by the pure cinematic logic of the Star Wars series.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EFor the most part I find myself with a large roster of small complaints (Gwendoline Christie does not get enough to do), all overshadowed by a sense that Abrams and company have gotten the basics right. If the specifics of the story are a little familiar, the specifics were never the point; Star Wars is about a rhythm and an attitude, and the film uses that style to tell an engaging story. It’s a safe film which takes time to make sure the nostalgists and hardcore fans are in its corner, but it still has something new going on. As the first of a new trilogy it could have been more self contained, but the questions it leaves us with do make for a nice cliffhanger.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EBased on characters created by George Lucas\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EWritten by Lawrence Kasdan \u0026amp; J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EDirected by J. J. Abrams\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EGrade: B+\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6163625646842593933\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6163625646842593933\u0026isPopup=true","title":"2 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6163625646842593933"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6163625646842593933"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2015\/12\/the-new-star-wars-is-true-to-series-b.html","title":"The new Star Wars is true to the series' B-movie spirit"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-CBM37UKXcaQ\/Vn1tapIrDlI\/AAAAAAAAB4s\/CuipvvsObpo\/s72-c\/1-JJKathy-NO-LOGO.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"2"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5555249073920019676"},"published":{"$t":"2015-10-24T11:44:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2015-10-24T11:44:15.125-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Audio Locke \u0026 Key Is Potent Stuff, Worth Reopening a Blog For"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/Fiction\/FREE-Locke-Key-Audiobook\/B00YI1CTVU\/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1445704937\u0026amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\" Free until Nov. 4!\" border=\"0\" height=\"279\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-j0-0s1pctDI\/Viu0uf9Y4nI\/AAAAAAAAB4Q\/OaIpK1epHv4\/s320\/Locke-and-Key.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EAmerican audio drama has been very slowly rebuilding itself ever since the massacre that was the coming of television, and over the past few years a critical mass has started to form. \u003Ci\u003ELocke \u0026amp; Key\u003C\/i\u003E is an ambitious epic, a thirteen-hour-plus adaptation of Joe Hill \u0026amp; Gabriel Rodriguez’s graphic novel featuring a massive cast and co-produced for Audible by Audio Comics and Final Rune productions. I haven’t actually read the graphic novel, so I’m forced to judge this entirely on its own merits. It can best be described as an adult take on a YA fantasy concept, using magic and the supernatural to tell the story of a family haunted by bad decisions made in the past and by the ones they keep making. Parts of it are whimsical, other parts are very sad, and the overall effect is very powerful indeed.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThe story centers on the Locke family, who move back to the town of Lovecraft, Massachusetts after the murder of father Rendell, into their ancestral home of Keyhouse. Appropriate to its name, Keyhouse holds a number of strange keys which unlock magic doors- there’s a key that turns you into a ghost, one that lets you open your head and root around, and one key that literally lets you go anywhere. But the Locke family is being chased by the same madman who killed Rendell, and he’s the servant of a dark power- one which dates back to a fatal mistake Rendell and his friends made when they were teenagers, and which the youngest child, in order to save his family, ends up setting free.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EA strong sense of trauma pervades the story. It starts with tragedy and never quite stops, even as it uses magic and fantasy to cushion the blows. Every death is given weight and consequence, and we track the psychological toll it takes on those left behind. Which isn’t to say this is an unrelenting parade of misery and despair; there’s an honest mix of emotions here, as the Locke family (notably teenagers Tyler and Kinzie) try to go about their lives and make friends and survive school, all between attacks from terrifying monsters. But the weight of tragedy is definitely felt throughout the story, and it can be quite brutal at times.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThe emotional honesty of the story is supported by some very strong voice work; even the minor parts are memorable, and while some of the more prominently advertised celebrity cast members are hard to recognize (it doesn’t help that Tatiana Maslany is most famous for being chameleonic) nobody sounds out of place. (There are even cameos by Hill and Rodriguez, as well as Hill’s dad, Stephen King.)\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EThis is a production which has to keep a lot of plates spinning, as it were, and a lot of what really impressed me about it is just how well it pulls off the inherent challenges of the material. A lot of very visual things happen, and the dialogue manages to get across what’s happening without the explanation getting too belabored. There are a few moments which are a little confusing until they’ve been resolved, and maybe one or two I still don’t fully get, but considering the sheer length of the piece that may be inevitable. The cast is also appropriately huge, and the narrative jumps from place to place frequently, but it’s never hard to keep track of that. There’s a good lush quality to the sound design, and the theme music is particularly effective.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003ELocke and Key\u003C\/i\u003E is free on \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/audible.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cspan class=\"s2\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003Eaudible.com\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E until November 4, and there’s no good reason not to pick it up. This is a big, handsomely mounted work of audio drama which is not only technically slick but emotionally intense, a satisfying and complete dark fantasy adventure about the end of childhood. I don't like to talk about the “return” of audio theater, since it never went away entirely, but a project like this says a lot about the medium’s returning health. There’s clearly plenty of fertile ground left, and many doors to open.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p2\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"p1\"\u003E\n\u003Cspan class=\"s1\"\u003EGrade: A\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5555249073920019676\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5555249073920019676\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5555249073920019676"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5555249073920019676"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2015\/10\/the-audio-locke-key-is-potent-stuff.html","title":"The Audio Locke \u0026 Key Is Potent Stuff, Worth Reopening a Blog For"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-j0-0s1pctDI\/Viu0uf9Y4nI\/AAAAAAAAB4Q\/OaIpK1epHv4\/s72-c\/Locke-and-Key.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2581169769141432208"},"published":{"$t":"2014-11-22T11:51:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-11-22T11:51:08.742-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-mNbcnySr2Y8\/VHDMjaEhFEI\/AAAAAAAAB10\/7nMfKhjSceA\/s1600\/beast_from_twenty_thousand_fathoms.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Beast from 20,000 Fathoms Poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-mNbcnySr2Y8\/VHDMjaEhFEI\/AAAAAAAAB10\/7nMfKhjSceA\/s1600\/beast_from_twenty_thousand_fathoms.jpg\" height=\"233\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe sci-fi movies of the 50s were full of monsters; aliens, insects, and dinosaurs, the latter two usually having something to do with the atomic bomb. The origin point of this unique explosion was 1953’s \u003Ci\u003EThe Beast From 20,000 Fathoms\u003C\/i\u003E, a low budget thriller which made millions off the image of a giant prehistoric reptile rampaging through the modern world. Though \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EThe Lost World\u003C\/i\u003E both featured giant monsters attacking major metropolitan areas, those sequences were climaxes following various jungle adventures; here, for apparently the first time, was a film devoted entirely to the subject of a giant monster on the loose. The film was freely adapted from a Ray Bradbury short story, which is fitting as it marks the solo debut of Bradbury’s childhood chum, stop-motion animation auteur Ray Harryhausen; while the live action of the movie sometimes flags, as an effects showcase it more than holds up.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA government project (with the uninspired codename “Operation Experiment”) is conducting nuclear bomb tests in the arctic, and the heat and radiation manage to melt a glacier containing a four-legged carnivorous Rhedosaur, which wakes from its suspended animation and immediately starts heading south. Prof. Tom Nesbitt (Paul Christian) sees the beast before it makes it to the ocean, but is unable to convince anyone else of its existence, even as ships start disappearing. Finally, with the help of paleontologist Prof. Thurgood Elson (Cecil Kellaway) and his assistant Lee (Paula Raymond), the beast is located in its ancestral grounds deep underwater in the Hudson canyon- however this expedition ends in Prof. Elson being eaten by the monster. The Rhedosaur finally surfaces in Manhattan and rampages through the city, and while the military are able to wound it with cannon fire, they soon discover that the beast’s blood contains an ancient and lethal pathogen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe makers of this film were treading into unknown territory; this was effectively a new genre, and the story which inspired the film was a short vignette about a dinosaur mistaking a fog-horn for a mating call. As a result the pacing suffers a little; a long time is spent on Tom trying to convince the authorities of the creature’s existence even after it sinks a few ships. We don’t really care, since we know it’s real and are waiting for the big rampage to begin, and it simply feels like a lot of time is being wasted in order to stretch out the film’s low budget. It doesn’t help that director Eugene Lourie’s visuals are generally flat and unimpressive, though again this may speak more to a lack of money than anything else. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne thing Lourie definitely did right, however, was letting Ray Harryhausen- working alone on a feature after assisting his idol Willis O’ Brien on \u003Ci\u003EMighty Joe Young\u003C\/i\u003E- basically do whatever he needed to do to bring the Rhedosaur to life. The Beast itself is a joy to watch, as so many of Harryhausen’s creations are; it’s a simple design, but animated with a lot of flair, and the animator does a lot more with light and shadow than is seen in the live action plates. Harryhausen also had a hand in devising the film’s climax on Coney Island, a superb setpiece involving a roller-coaster and a top marksman (Lee Van Cleef, already typecast.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMost 50s sci-fi would be defined by the atomic bomb, and Beast provides an early example of American film’s ambivalent attitude towards the subject. The bomb is directly responsible for the monster being unleashed (though the film avoids the direct metaphors that would make Godzilla so powerful), but in the end a radioactive isotope proves key to defeating it. The atomic age held both peril and promise, and throughout the decade Americans were reminded that the same force which had levelled Hiroshima and Nagasaki could also provide power and save lives with X-rays. The only real constant in films like this is that atomic energy has changed the world, though in this case the new technology digs up something very old indeed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven if \u003Ci\u003EThe Beast From 20,000 Fathoms\u003C\/i\u003E was surpassed by some of its imitators (most notably one in Japan), it remains a pretty effective thriller with strong performances and a memorable monster. It’s the rare B-movie which actually gets to explore new territory and invent new concepts, and its missteps can largely be put down to the filmmakers not knowing what would work. It’s a great showcase for Harryhausen, who would go on to even bigger things. A pity we never had a proper collaboration between him and Bradbury, though.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on “The Fog Horn” by Ray Bradbury\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Lou Morheim and Fred Freiberger\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Eugene Lourie\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u2028Grade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2581169769141432208\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2581169769141432208\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2581169769141432208"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2581169769141432208"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/11\/random-movie-report-beast-from-20000.html","title":"Random Movie Report: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-mNbcnySr2Y8\/VHDMjaEhFEI\/AAAAAAAAB10\/7nMfKhjSceA\/s72-c\/beast_from_twenty_thousand_fathoms.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3947544890273920315"},"published":{"$t":"2014-10-31T13:00:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-10-31T13:00:51.696-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Halloween Monsterthon, For Your Ears Only Edition: The War of the Worlds"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/OrsonWellesMrBruns\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The War of the Worlds at the Internet Archive\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-yFjj-Oy5gvc\/VFPNuZ5SPiI\/AAAAAAAAB1k\/4jfFCk0Z-Rw\/s1600\/war-of-the-worlds-record.gif\" height=\"320\" width=\"306\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSince the Monsterthon has unintentionally taken on a very alien character, it’s appropriate to use the holiday to commemorate the Halloween edition of the first alien invasion story of all time. The Mercury Theatre On The Air’s broadcast of \u003Ci\u003EThe War of the Worlds\u003C\/i\u003E is a thing of legend, a radio play that allegedly spooked an entire nation with its documentary realism. The furor over it helped catapult Orson Welles into the national spotlight and resulted in a lot of rules preventing radio and TV from ever being too convincing in the future. But setting all that aside, it’s just a damn good audio play, one of the great works of the medium.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter a brief prologue, the first half of the play unfolds as a series of news reports interrupting regular broadcasting, detailing first an eruption on the surface of Mars, then a strange object crashing near a farm in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. Welles voices Andrew Pearson, a scientist who heads to Grover’s Mill in time for the cylinder to begin unscrewing, revealing first the Martian invaders and their weapon, a deadly heat ray. The aliens then fan out in giant tripod machines, spewing poisonous black smoke and destroying airplanes and artillery units with their rayguns, and climactically sweeping through all of Manhattan. The second half abandons the documentary conceit, however, and presents the narration of Pearson as he tries to survive and explore Earth under the Martians.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe building of tension in the play’s first half is beautifully orchestrated. The writers specifically timed the actual attack of the Martians to begin during a musical break on Edgar Bergen’s show, which had been walloping them in the ratings. The key was to catch listeners who were just tuning in, and obviously audiences who missed the prologue and didn’t stay around long enough for the intermission and second half were the ones who started making a fuss about the Earth actually being invaded (though newspapers exaggerated the story in an attempt to warn people of the dangers of a competing format- while some people were undoubtedly fooled, it's difficult to know how many.) The gravity and intensity of the story builds segment by segment, and the producers managed to capture the sound of outdoor and other remote broadcasts in studio, which is impressive given the limited technology. The most effective sound, though, is that of the heat ray, an almost musical hum.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInevitably the play loses some momentum in its second act, with Pearson’s diary narration not being quite as convincing a device, and making most of it a monologue. But a slight slowdown is welcome after the harrowing tension of the first half, and listening to Welles deliver a monologue in his prime is never a bad thing. The protagonist’s encounter with a half-mad artilleryman does help break up the pace, though, and helps key off some of the contemporary fears Welles was taping into. When this play was broadcast, war was already engulfing Europe and the fascist threat of the Third Reich was strong; while there are echoes in the early scenes, the fear is driven home most keenly when the artilleryman begins to talk about the new society he wants to create, one without room for weakness or mercy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe play famously ends with a disclaimer by Welles, which was thought to be a response to the unexpected panic but actually appears in the original script; it’s the kind of wonderfully smug treatise the man was great at, and it’s easy to forget that he didn’t actually write the production- rather, it was a collaboration by many extremely talented people all in the name of delivering a good Halloween scare, and hopefully goosing the ratings. The original broadcast is free to stream from the Internet Archive and is available on just about every “old time radio” compilation there is, so there’s really no reason not to have experienced it. Happy Halloween.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the novel by H. G. Wells\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Howard Koch and Anne Forelock\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nProduced by John Houseman and Orson Welles\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Orson Welles\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3947544890273920315\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3947544890273920315\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3947544890273920315"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3947544890273920315"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/halloween-monsterthon-for-your-ears.html","title":"Halloween Monsterthon, For Your Ears Only Edition: The War of the Worlds"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-yFjj-Oy5gvc\/VFPNuZ5SPiI\/AAAAAAAAB1k\/4jfFCk0Z-Rw\/s72-c\/war-of-the-worlds-record.gif","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3087224222772658316"},"published":{"$t":"2014-10-30T18:35:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-10-30T18:35:06.376-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Halloween Monsterthon: Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-jOtsppHqCTQ\/VFLK2bJsgbI\/AAAAAAAAB1U\/mG2tK6fHFs0\/s1600\/goke-body-snatcher-from-hell-1968-1.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-jOtsppHqCTQ\/VFLK2bJsgbI\/AAAAAAAAB1U\/mG2tK6fHFs0\/s1600\/goke-body-snatcher-from-hell-1968-1.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"228\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScience fiction in the sixties couldn’t help but focus on the social turmoil erupting across the world, and Japanese sci-fi filmmakers did their part. While \u003Ci\u003EMatango\u003C\/i\u003E tackled social conformity, \u003Ci\u003EGoke, Body Snatcher From Hell\u003C\/i\u003E is about disintegration. Born of the chaos of wars, assassinations, and political corruption, it’s a surreal parable that makes up for in intensity what it lacks in coherence. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EChaos erupts on an airplane in flight when the crew and passengers discover an assassin on board, just before something in the sky forces the craft down into the mountains. When the gunman makes a break for it, hostage in tow, he runs across a glowing saucer that has touched down nearby, and is taken over by one of the craft’s shapeless inhabitants. He emerges a vampirish killer, stalking and picking off survivors one by one- a soldier of an invading alien race that has decided now is the perfect time to destroy humanity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film benefits from a colorful and intense style, the stark mountain setting providing a good backdrop for glowing alien weirdness. The opening scenes take place against a fiery red sky, and the aliens and their ship are marked by intense bright reds, oranges, and blues. It all contributes to a sense of genuine chaos unfolding, and the monster evokes not just classical horror in its vampire tropes, but also a sick and demonic liveliness. (One of the more memorable images of the film is that of the creature entering the hijacker through a hole in his head, the resulting wound becoming a plot point.) These aren’t the usual bloodless, passionless invaders from beyond; there’s something more primal to them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film isn’t exactly subtle in its social commentary, not that subtlety was the in-thing in those days. The passengers include a corrupt politician, the arms exporter who plies him to the extent of pimping out his wife, a young troublemaker who called in a bomb threat, and an American war widow who goes on long, hysterical tirades while the Japanese characters semi-accurately translate what she’s saying (a practice which makes one wonder just how wrong we get foreign language dialogue in our films.) It’s possible to lose track of characters, and there’s not really time to develop anyone beyond broad stereotypes, but it’s effective in a \u003Ci\u003ETwilight Zone\u003C\/i\u003E kind of way. Throughout the message is that mankind is destroying itself; that the violence of the times has summoned the agents of our extermination. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe movie builds to an absolute killer of an ending, one which perfectly encapsulates the picture’s sense of nihilistic fear. It’s the sort of thing which elevates everything that came before, and while \u003Ci\u003EGoke\u003C\/i\u003E does lose momentum at times, the payoff is more than worth it. There’s a certain merit in being this strange and unusual, and the surrealism is backed by a brutality which evokes Romero’s \u003Ci\u003ENight of the Living Dead\u003C\/i\u003E. But for all the links that can be traced, \u003Ci\u003EGoke, Body Snatcher From Hel\u003C\/i\u003El is unique, and unforgettable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Kyuzo Kobayashi and Susumu Tanaka\u003Cbr \/\u003EDIrected by Hajime Sato\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3087224222772658316\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3087224222772658316\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3087224222772658316"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3087224222772658316"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/halloween-monsterthon-goke-body.html","title":"Halloween Monsterthon: Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-jOtsppHqCTQ\/VFLK2bJsgbI\/AAAAAAAAB1U\/mG2tK6fHFs0\/s72-c\/goke-body-snatcher-from-hell-1968-1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8033196803752315198"},"published":{"$t":"2014-10-27T23:24:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-10-27T23:24:49.217-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Halloween Monsterthon: Robot Monster "},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-CLWK3k_l870\/VE8aFaye3dI\/AAAAAAAAB1E\/GChHsMyeKkc\/s1600\/robot_monster.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Robot Monster poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-CLWK3k_l870\/VE8aFaye3dI\/AAAAAAAAB1E\/GChHsMyeKkc\/s1600\/robot_monster.jpg\" height=\"320\" title=\"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms wishes to clarify that he does not appear in this film.\" width=\"125\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOften ranked among the great bad movies, \u003Ci\u003ERobot Monster\u003C\/i\u003E certainly merits the kind of bizarre attention and appreciation that’s been extended to Ed Wood’s filmography. Again we have a movie whose ambitions vastly outstrip both the filmmakers’ resources and technical skill, but which marches on regardless. It is not what one would traditionally call good, but its originality and charm- as well as the fact that it runs barely over an hour- makes it damned entertaining. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story is framed as a child’s dream; little Johnny (Gregory Moffet) takes a nap on a picnic and wakes up to a world where mankind has been all but wiped out by an alien invasion. His family- a professor (John Mylong), his wife (Selena Royale), his grown sister Alice (Claudia Barrett) and kid sister Carla (Pamela Paulson)- survived the attack of the Ro-Men and their destructive Calcinator Beam by hiding behind an electronic screen, and taking a serum that renders them immune to the monster’s death rays. The Ro-Man XJ2 (played by George Barrows and voiced by John Brown) seeks to finish off mankind, but finds himself strangely drawn to Alice. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDid I mention that Ro-Man is a giant gorilla with a space helmet for a head? This famous bit of low-budget jury-rigging creates one of the most memorable images in 50s sci-fi cinema, as a man in a bulky ape suit lumbers around Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and occasionally communicates with the Great Guidance, who is the same actor in the same gorilla suit with a slightly different helmet. Since the Ro-Men don’t have mouths, they augment all their dialogue with wild gestures. It’s hard to really imagine the Ro-Man as a one-ape invading force who managed to murder everyone on Earth except one family (and Roy, the film’s requisite strapping male lead.)\u0026nbsp; At the same time, though, it’s far more distinct a visual than simply putting an actor in a space suit (which was the plan), and it’s not like the film had much chance of being technically convincing otherwise, so the weird option was probably the best way to go.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne thing that distinguishes this movie from those surrounding it is just how unrelentingly bleak it is. This particular scenario has mankind effectively doomed, since one family and one not-relative are not enough for a species to propagate even if they weren’t being systematically hunted and killed by gorilla robots from space, and it’s just a question of how much of a fight the humans can put up on the way out. The story takes even grimmer turns before it’s over.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe screenplay for this one was written over a weekend, which probably accounts for some of the dreamier aspects of the story. There’s a brief subplot involving contact with two men at a rocket pad and an alleged garrison on board a flying “space platform” (which when shown is simply a rocket ship flying in a circle), but of course we never meet any of these people and they’re just there for Ro-Man to destroy in one scene. Since this is apparently all happening in a little boy’s imagination, the incoherence of it makes a certain amount of sense, and there’s a lot to be said of the psychological implications of him dreaming a father figure back in his life as well as an assertive alpha male type who bosses his older sister around.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENone of this is executed terribly well; beyond the bad effects (which are the sort of thing you can partly blame on a low budget), the visuals are pedestrian, the dialogue’s generally pretty bad, and none of the human characters is nearly as interesting as the tortured and confused Ro-Man himself. Money doesn’t make a movie good, but \u003Ci\u003ERobot Monster\u003C\/i\u003E clearly didn’t have enough to realize its vision and feels a little incomplete as a result.\u0026nbsp; None of its ideas ever gets developed very far, and the story feels random at times.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut it’s still pretty entertaining. Buried in all the ineptitude is a sincere little story about the indomitable human spirit, standing up in the face of extinction and even surfacing in its attackers; it’s a goofy conceit but a charming one. There are a lot of little things to enjoy here: the bickering between Ro-Man and his Great Guidance (both of whom, not having mouths, are given to gesticulate wildly when speaking), the random appearance of dinosaurs and giant lizards from older movies, and a frankly inventive score by Elmer Bernstein. It’s hard to call it legitimately good, but I feel like giving it a pass anyway.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Wyott Ordung\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Phil Tucker\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8033196803752315198\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8033196803752315198\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8033196803752315198"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8033196803752315198"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/halloween-monsterthon-robot-monster.html","title":"Halloween Monsterthon: Robot Monster "}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-CLWK3k_l870\/VE8aFaye3dI\/AAAAAAAAB1E\/GChHsMyeKkc\/s72-c\/robot_monster.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6556963267790982113"},"published":{"$t":"2014-10-17T21:07:00.006-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-10-27T23:25:11.459-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Wrestling"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"At Ringside: Wrestlemania (1985)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-xEHllcCJQNo\/VEHKviDhhrI\/AAAAAAAAB00\/GeU6x8B0ogw\/s1600\/mania1_tito.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Tito Santana vs. The Executioner\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-xEHllcCJQNo\/VEHKviDhhrI\/AAAAAAAAB00\/GeU6x8B0ogw\/s1600\/mania1_tito.jpg\" height=\"179\" title=\"The Saga Begins\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWith the 1993 WWF in a rut, I’ve decided to look at a few other events on offer on the WWE Network for the price of... uh... it’ll come to me. And really, there are few places to start better than the very first \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E, broadcast March 31, 1985 on closed circuit TV across the world. \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E wasn’t the first such special- Jim Crockett’s \u003Ci\u003EStarrcade\u003C\/i\u003E had played closed-circuit PPV since 1983- but that event was strictly regional its first few years, whereas Vince McMahon and the WWF were aiming to take their show national. But apart from its historical significance as the event that made the company what it is today, the first ‘Mania holds up well as a well-paced collection of matches, with a nervous energy that later, more assured PPVs would lack.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of the fundamental things that \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E was trying to do was to take pro wrestling mainstream; in order to make the WWF a truly national promotion, it had to appeal to at least some people who weren’t already wrestling fans. So it’s appropriate that the first ever \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E match, and its setup, act as a kind of Pro Wrestling 101. We’re introduced to The Executioner, a sinister masked man who has yet to be defeated, and to Tito Santana, a handsome and identifiable athlete. It’s a basic match with straightforward psychology- Tito hits some impressive moves to start, the Executioner starts to take over with some dirty tactics, Tito rallies, the intensity of each exchange ratchets up as the match progresses, and finally Tito slaps on a figure-four leglock to win. Good work by both men, and the match works both in that it sets the pace for the event and in that it serves as a lot of people’s first wrestling bout.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThroughout the commentary, Jesse “The Body” Ventura (future governor and all-time sexual tyrannosaurus) remarks that you can get a dead Super Bowl or World Series, but never a dead \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E. In the era where kayfabe held sway, he’s hinting at a good part of wrestling’s appeal- since the promoter controls the outcome of each fight, they can rig it so that it’s always a tense contest with plenty of drama and excitement. So it’s a bit curious that the second match is an absolute squash with the enthusiastic SD “Special Delivery” Jones being quickly slammed down and pinned by the massive King Kong Bundy. Matches like these were especially common in old pro wrestling, with colorful jobbers being quickly defeated to make someone look like a threat, but in a paid event it always feels like a cheat.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI also should mention Lord Alfred Hayes, who is on hand to provide recaps and announce upcoming matches, and who would make frequent appearances on commentary and other duties in WWF in the Eighties. Hayes delivers his lines like someone who has never been on camera before in their life, and who is only vaguely familiar with the concept. He seems to have been dragged in off the street and forced to read from cue cards with only the slightest idea of what the Hell is going on. It’s almost endearing, like watching a six year old child host the Oscars.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n“Maniac” Matt Bourne and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat cut a couple of slightly clumsy promos before their match together; neither of them are bad on the mic but it’s little stumbles like this that show there were still some things to iron out in the ascendant WWF. There’s still not a lot of story here; at this point the event itself was the story, and all the wrestlers are fighting to prove themselves on the largest possible stage. Steamboat dominates most of the match and picks up the duke, but it’s not nearly as one-sided as the last one so a step in the right direction. It’s definitely always fun to watch someone as good as Steamboat is at work, and his final flying cross body is particularly good. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe next match is a bit of a legacy- David Sammartino is the son of Bruno Sammartino, who was so popular in the original WWWF that he managed to hold onto their world title for nearly eight years in one run. Bruno is in his son’s corner for his match against then-heel Brutus Beefcake (who had yet to acquire the “Barber” moniker), who is represented by the sleazy Johnny Valentine. Beefcake and the younger Sammartino manage to put on a really solid show, a mix of grappling and faster exchanges that builds to a tense climax, but it’s all prelude to when Bruno, seeing his son attacked by Johnny Valentine, starts a fight with the manager, allowing the New York audience to pop for the legend. It ends on a double disqualification, but the Sammartinos clean house and the crowd goes nuts.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe one clunker of the night follows, an Intercontinental Championship match between champ Greg “The Hammer” Valentine (represented by a then-villainous Jimmy Hart) and perennial crowd favorite the Junkyard Dog. Valentine’s ring work can be really variable, whereas the JYD was always better known for his lovable personality and catchy theme song than any ability to actually wrestle. This one doesn’t build much momentum, but it’s over quickly, the Dog winning by countout and thus missing out on actually becoming champion. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n“Classy” Fred Blassie leads a tag team of foreign heels, Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik, against current Tag Team champions Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, managed by Captain Lou Albano. Despite some impressive aerial maneuvers by the champions, they- and the titles- fall when the Sheik uses Blassie’s cane to score a cheap pin. It’s good that at least one title changes hands on the WWF’s first nationwide show, and in the midst of Cold War mania two anti-American heels made for a good threat, even if they move a little sluggishly. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAndre the Giant and Big John Studd have an usual matchup, a challenge to see which of the two behemoths can body-slam the other first. Studd, managed by Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, has put up $15,000 dollars in cash against the friendly Giant’s career, and Andre also has to retire if the match runs to the time limit without a victor. While the match isn’t exactly a technical masterpiece it’s a fun little contest of strength with a good story element. If you know the history of the WWF you know that Andre is victorious, and it ends with him throwing the money to the crowd.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt’s important to remember that it really wasn’t clear that \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E would succeed. Down to a week before the show Vince McMahon had to do whatever he could to sell tickets and make sure people were paying to watch remotely in Shriner halls and movie theaters. (Pay-per-view technology was not yet widespread enough for wrestling to rely on it.) A big part of the marketing for \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E was done via the “Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection”, getting celebrities from music and movies involved in the WWF’s programming, and using this to get publicity on MTV and other outlets. Hence, Cyndi Lauper appeared with Captain Lou Albano and, under his tutleage, became the manager for Wendi Richter, throwing herself into the role with an admirable enthusiasm.\u0026nbsp; Richter is looking to win back the Women’s Championship from Leilani Kai, who is managed by the Fabulous Moolah, a legendary figure in the history of women’s wrestling despite being both a horrible wrestler and a pretty terrible person. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFortunately both women actually in the ring know what they’re doing, and the match is pretty entertaining. There’s a lot of submission moves chained together along with some flipping around, and given that we’ve mostly been watching big man matches it’s a good change of pace. The end is a little botched, with Richter a little less than convincing as she reverses a pin for the victory and the title, but it’s quickly forgotten as Cyndi beats up Moolah and celebrates with the new champ. Women’s wrestling didn’t have a regular berth in this period of WWF history, so it’s nice to see it have as prominent a place here as it does.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhich brings us to the main event. It is, interestingly enough, a non-title bout, meaning the WWF Heavyweight Championship was not defended at \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E. Instead, it’s another celebrity match, as champ and growing media phenomenon Hulk Hogan teams up with Mr. T (his \u003Ci\u003ERocky III\u003C\/i\u003E co-star, though the two sadly never shared any scenes) to take on the dastardly Rowdy Roddy Piper and his partner, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff. Piper also has at ringside his henchman Cowboy Bob Orton (father of Apex Predator Randy), who spent much of this time claiming to be out of action due to a broken arm so that he could hit people with the cast. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEven before the match begins it’s all about the showmanship, as Guest Timekeeper Liberace dances with the Rockettes in the middle of the ring. For all the times that the WWF would go to the celebrity well in the future, putting America’s favorite gay uncle center stage probably says the most about how broadly Vince McMahon was casting his net. Of course, dedicated sports fans probably responded more to the entrance of the Guest Referee, Muhammad Ali, who gets a standing ovation from the MSG crowd. But Liberace brought his own bell, and rings it to start us off.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere’s no two ways around it- the match is a mess. There’s a solid minute of staredowns and both men in the ring tagging out before finally somebody slaps someone. It quickly becomes utter chaos, brawling outside and inside the ring with little regard for who legally should be where. And yet it is hugely entertaining. Whereas something like \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania IX\u003C\/i\u003E’s tag team semi-main falls apart quickly due to poor structuring and endless posturing, here the participants work the crowd and keep things moving. Eventually Bob Orton dives from the top rope in an effort to hurt Hogan, but ends up knocking Orndorff down, letting Hogan get the pin and the victory. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere are about ten minutes of post-game recap following before Ventura and Gorilla Monsoon sign off, and it was probably good to give the audience time to process everything. \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E is aptly named; it’s a crazed affair which relies on pure showmanship and enthusiasm to get us to overlook some amateurish qualities. It’s never dull, and there’s a lot of charm in seeing the WWF work out the kinks. There was no guarantee that \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E- and the great experiment it represented in taking wrestling national- would work at all, and some of that pressure and uncertainty comes through in the final product. While it’s interesting to watch as a time capsule, \u003Ci\u003EWrestlemania\u003C\/i\u003E’s $9.99 worth is in confirming that Vince McMahon seems to do his best work when his back’s against the wall.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6556963267790982113\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6556963267790982113\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6556963267790982113"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6556963267790982113"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/10\/at-ringside-wrestlemania-1985.html","title":"At Ringside: Wrestlemania (1985)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-xEHllcCJQNo\/VEHKviDhhrI\/AAAAAAAAB00\/GeU6x8B0ogw\/s72-c\/mania1_tito.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1934146020521475720"},"published":{"$t":"2014-08-23T12:19:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-08-23T12:19:15.592-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Wrestling"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"At Ringside: King of the Ring 1993"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-G6qBVCETWfk\/U_jLNV1LcMI\/AAAAAAAAB0k\/CntEUUm_0vs\/s1600\/kor1993logo.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"King of the Ring logo\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-G6qBVCETWfk\/U_jLNV1LcMI\/AAAAAAAAB0k\/CntEUUm_0vs\/s1600\/kor1993logo.jpg\" height=\"245\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTournaments in wrestling are a tricky thing. Drag them out too long and an audience loses interest; do everything in one night and you have wrestlers working multiple matches in a row, with a greater risk of injury and of the audience being bored by the redundancy. “King of the Ring” was a WWF\/WWE tradition for many years, but in the very first KotR pay-per-view from 1993, the titular tournament isn’t even the most memorable part. Hulk Hogan, around whom the WWF’s success had been built since before Wrestlemania, was on his way out, and so this otherwise average wrestling event marks the passing of an era. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe King of the Ring tournament actually began before the PPV in an attempt to speed things along, with preliminary matches taking place on WWF’s various TV shows. Here at Dayton, Ohio, the field has been narrowed down to eight competitors. The first contest is a Royal Rumble rematch, pitting former champion Bret “Hitman” Hart- the victim of much booking chicanery at Wrestlemania IX- against Razor Ramon. It’s a fast but appropriately brutal reprise of their former PPV encounter, and it sets the pattern for the event- since we’re going to see a lot of repeat performances and a lot of matches overall, they’re mostly going to be short. Bret turns an attempted suplex into a pin to advance. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe next match pitches Kansas City’s own Mr. Hughes, a scowling suited heel, against Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect is very fast, Mr. Hughes is not, and the match is mostly the former jumping around and selling the latter’s moves. When Perfect starts to make a comeback, Hughes pulls out his secret weapon- the Undertaker’s urn. The Undertaker himself is nowhere to be seen, but Hughes uses it as a blunt object against Perfect, and is disqualified for his troubles. Probably not the best use of resources there.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOur next match pits superpatriot Hacksaw Jim Duggan, whose affable personality almost makes up for his inability to wrestle, against Bam Bam Bigelow, a guy I’m still unreasonably prejudiced against because of his \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lAGaZwVAzFs\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehilarious theme music\u003C\/a\u003E. This match isn’t particularly good, but it’s a short affair as both guys show off their big moves and Bigelow gets the win. Unremarkable but I like the result, since though Bigelow has not had the best run in what I’ve seen so far, he clearly has some talent.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe first round closes out with Lex Luger as The Narcissist battling the still undefeated Tatanka, and it’s the most grueling to date at 15 minutes, running out the time limit and resulting in a draw. A finish like this kind of had to happen, but the fact that it had to happen points to a problem: Tatanka couldn’t lose, but they weren’t going to do anything with that. He wasn’t moving up the card or winning titles, and in a tournament he can either win the whole shebang (which is not what they wanted) or endanger the one push he has. The issue is amplified by the Narcissist’s presence, as he too was someone they wanted to push but not someone they were pushing right to the top. Lex’s gig as the Narcissist would come to an abrupt end soon, but that’s a story for another PPV.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo for a semifinal, while Bam Bam Bigelow gets a bye, we have Mr. Perfect battling Bret Hart. An initial interview plays off the tension and respect the two babyfaces have going on, but once the match begins it’s clear Perfect is playing the baddie, getting more desperate as the action goes on. The pace of the match veers between long rest holds and some very fast exchanges and leaps, but there’s an excellent sense of mounting brutality, as befits two very talented ring technicians. The ending is rather novel as well, with Bret Hart reversing Mr. Perfect’s cradle to win- modern WWE and a lot of wrestling overall has a problem with relying too heavily on the participants exchanging their trademark finishing moves, so it’s always good to see the formula changed up. A very good fight. Perfect acts a little bitchy at the end but shakes Hart’s hand, his job of being the temporary heel performed. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe next match is what would be the main event in more or less any other PPV, with Yokozuna getting his rematch with Hulk Hogan for the WWF title. This isn’t the best match of the night, but it’s the most significant by far. The actual fight is pretty good, as Hogan sells Yokozuna’s strength and sheer size; he’s confounded by his inability to knock down or lift the Japanese giant. After a few near-falls, and Hogan almost passing out from a hold, the champion hulks out and delivers three big boots to Yokozuna to finally knock him over, and a legdrop results... in a near-fall. Realizing he has to do more, Hogan starts signaling to the crowd that he’s gonna try and bodyslam Yokozuna like he did to the one-ton Andre the Giant in front of a million screaming Hulkamaniacs at the Pontiac Silverdome. Just then, a photographer standing at ringside accidentally blinds Hogan with his flash, enabling Yokozuna to knock Hogan down and hit a legdrop of his own for a count of three. Yokozuna is once again the WWF Champion, and Hogan is down worse than he’s ever been. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis was Hogan’s last televised match in the WWF before quitting. In classic wrestling fashion he goes out on his back, albeit in a tainted finish which probably didn’t help Yokozuna’s push. There’s something really odd about the way it plays out- the photographer whose faithful flashbulb decides the match (apparently played by manager Harvey Whippleman) is wearing an oversized fake beard, and the bulb itself explodes with such prop-like flair that it seems like this has to be an angle. It seems for all intents and purposes that someone deliberately set out to blind Hogan and hand the match and the belt to Yokozuna, but since Hogan was leaving, nothing ever comes of it.\u0026nbsp; (All of this also makes Hogan’s showboating at Wrestlemania IX all the more galling, since he put himself over at the expense of not one but two performers who actually intended to stay.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAll behind-the-scenes drama aside it’s an effective moment. Heenan declares Hulkamania dead (and it would be, at least until Hogan signed with the competition at WCW), there are shots of sad children and devastated Hulkamaniacs in the audience, there’s a legitimate sense of a sea change in the WWF. On the one hand, this was something that probably needed to happen, due to Hogan's relentless hogging of the spotlight; on the other, his departure led to years of floundering and near-bankruptcy for the promotion. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter some hullaballoo with Shawn Michaels introducing his bodyguard Diesel, we get an eight man tag team extravaganza. On the face side are the Steiner Brothers and Bart and Billy Gunn, the Smoking Guns. The baddies are Money Inc. (still champions), and the Headshrinkers. Despite the large crowd it’s a pretty quick match, not bad, but unremarkable. Billy Gunn puts Dibiasie in an inside cradle to win, but due to the unusual set-up the titles aren’t up for grabs. Money Inc. continue to evade justice.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EShawn Michaels defends the Intercontintental Championship (which he lost on Raw then won back at a house show) against blonde Hawaiian giant Crush. Shawn is escorted by his new bodyguard, Diesel, who ambushes the challenger outside the ring and beats on him a bit. However, he doesn’t figure in the match’s finish, in which Crush is distracted by Doink the Clown and his double long enough for Shawn to deliver some sweet chin music. Crush shows some personality in the ring, though Michaels seems to be doing most of the work, overselling the challenger’s moves and throwing himself around the ring. Whoever deserves more of the credit, however, it’s a good match.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhich brings us to the main event, Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Bret Hart for the King of the Ring. This is a brawl for most of it, with a fresh Bigelow beating on a weary but resilient Hart. The headbutt seems to be Bam Bam’s preferred mode of attack, and he has the advantage for most of it, but Luna Vachon- she of the gravel voice and varicose head- feels the need to help him along by hitting Hart with a steel chair outside the ring. Why is she even involved? It's not clear. Luna remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Bam Bam executes a diving headbutt for a clean 1-2-3 count, but then a referee who saw Luna’s attack argues with the ref in the ring, and we hear Howard Finkel announce that “THIS MATCH MUST CONTINUE.” I’ve heard these words before in mid-90s WWF material, and it’s always a sign that they weren’t quite sure how to finish things. The fight goes on for a bit more, still good, still grueling, and then Hart wraps up Bigelow in a victory roll for a much-needed win.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe actual finale of the show has Bret’s coronation interrupted by the self-proclaimed King of Wrestling, Jerry Lawler. The former Memphis champion was working heel in the WWF and he shows up to complain that he’s the real king- which prompts the audience to start heckling him with chants of “Burger King”, and I hope WWF got some good sponsorship money from that because they were gonna need it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt’s an odd choice to end the PPV with Lawler beating down Hart, but this was sort of an odd show. It’s not bad, especially by comparison to the disastrous event that preceded it, but uneven match quality and some half-assed finishes keep it from being particularly good either. It does have one really memorable development, in Hogan’s last big defeat and the establishment of Yokozuna as an intimidating heel champion, and the latter would dominate WWF programming for a time while they searched for a new guy to put on the top. This, as it turns out, would take a while.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1934146020521475720\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1934146020521475720\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1934146020521475720"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1934146020521475720"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/08\/at-ringside-king-of-ring-1993.html","title":"At Ringside: King of the Ring 1993"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-G6qBVCETWfk\/U_jLNV1LcMI\/AAAAAAAAB0k\/CntEUUm_0vs\/s72-c\/kor1993logo.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5728282056340567418"},"published":{"$t":"2014-07-29T10:49:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-07-29T10:49:59.858-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.18: Bad Dog"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ypItSOPu15I\/U9fCPuBdGmI\/AAAAAAAAB0U\/LguCVGE_GXs\/s1600\/5-18.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Bulldog strikes a heroic pose\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ypItSOPu15I\/U9fCPuBdGmI\/AAAAAAAAB0U\/LguCVGE_GXs\/s1600\/5-18.jpg\" height=\"230\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: My life suddenly seems long, measured in muffins.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter a couple of undercooked episodes, Season 5 returns to form with \"Bad Dog\", which as its title suggests revolves around the exploits of Bob \"Bulldog\" Briscoe. Of all the show's major character, Bulldog is probably the biggest contrast to Frasier himself. Martin is a slob and a curmudgeon, but he shares his son's strong ethical sense; Roz is more worldly, but she's his closest friend. Bulldog, at least much of the time, is just a jerk; he has his moments of decency (especially later on), but for the most part he pops up because he makes a good adversary, without the scruples that restrict the rest of the group.\u0026nbsp; \"Bad Dog\" shows him at his most shameless, presenting a formidable challenge to Frasier's ideas about human decency, and wraps this around the SeaBees, the writers' annual opportunity to mock the awards shows which have been so very good to them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen a man shows up with a gun to Cafe Nervosa, seemingly with ill intent, Bulldog is seen throwing coffee on the assailant and spinning a pregnant Roz out of danger. He's instantly feted as a hero by the people of Seattle, and he's selected to win a special humanitarian award at the upcoming Seabees. But Frasier saw a little more than everyone else; Bulldog thought somebody else was the gunman, hid behind Roz, and accidentally spilled coffee on the real culprit. Frasier believes that Bulldog's guilty conscience will eventually force him to confess, but is continually flustered by his refusal to do so. However, Frasier is acting as M.C. for the Seabees and presenting Bulldog's award, so he hopes to use the opportunity to push him over the brink.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a certain naiveté in Fraiser's position here. Bulldog has always been shameless in his behavior, and Frasier expecting him to behave differently just because this situation is more shameful is almost hard to believe. We're expecting Bulldog to take full advantage of his temporary hero status, and so he does, which sounds like it would be boring in its predictability. But the story's driving force is the conflict between the two characters. When Frasier's high-minded convictions meet Bulldog's absolute lack thereof, it's the irresistible force against the immovable object, and while it's funny that Frasier gets flustered, we want to see Bulldog's wrongdoing meet with its proper comeuppance. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI haven't written enough about Dan Butler on this show, although by this point he was now one of the main cast. As the show's most overtly unlikable character, Bulldog is a tough role to play, and Butler often has to walk a thin line in order to keep him amusing rather than irritating. Butler brings a kind of nervous energy to the role that suggests that Bulldog is always overcompensating for something; he's the guy who has to prove himself to everyone in the room. So not only does it make sense that Bulldog milks his hero status for all the sex and adulation it can bring him, we anticipate that he's being set up for a fall. A guy like him simply can't fool everyone for that long; Bulldog isn't just hiding his specific shameful actions at the Cafe, but his true nature. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Seabees aren't as prominent in this episode as they are in other seasons, and in theory they could have been removed with only a few alterations needed to the major plot. But the awards show setup does give some of the other characters a few moments to shine; Niles has an amusing subplot wherein his own pride at an awards nomination is deflated when he realizes he's been relegated to the technical awards (which are kept offscreen, though we can imagine the squalor.) Roz, meanwhile, struggles with finding a formal maternity dress, leading to a couple of moments I felt slightly guilty for laughing at. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier gets a kind of victory in the end, when Martin tricks Bulldog into repeating his earlier human shield tactic with his own mother; it doesn't really prove him right about the greater point, since Bulldog would happily have kept up the lie as long as possible, but sometimes you just have to take the win. The whole story proves right an assertion Martin made back in 2.14- some people just stink. If Frasier's faith in humanity is shaken a little, he can at least take comfort in the fact that the truth eventually gets out, one way or another. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Suzanne Martin\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired April 7, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ERoz: I'm fine. It's just that my hair is huge and my dress is a joke.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: No, nonsense, Roz. You look divine.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: No, I look\u003C\/i\u003E like \u003Ci\u003EDivine.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5728282056340567418\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5728282056340567418\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5728282056340567418"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5728282056340567418"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/frasierquest-518-bad-dog.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.18: Bad Dog"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ypItSOPu15I\/U9fCPuBdGmI\/AAAAAAAAB0U\/LguCVGE_GXs\/s72-c\/5-18.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-38963793902024688"},"published":{"$t":"2014-07-21T00:30:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-07-21T00:30:37.363-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-uqDjJgmUvso\/U8ykgugYsNI\/AAAAAAAAB0E\/qC1Hc__NFkw\/s1600\/godzilla_vs_mechagodzilla_1993_poster_02.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-uqDjJgmUvso\/U8ykgugYsNI\/AAAAAAAAB0E\/qC1Hc__NFkw\/s1600\/godzilla_vs_mechagodzilla_1993_poster_02.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"226\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/wrongsideoftheart.com\/\"\u003EWrongSideoftheArt.com\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's easy to see why \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II\u003C\/i\u003E is\u0026nbsp; a fan favorite. Not only is it probably the slickest and most technically accomplished of the Heisei Godzilla films, it's also the only film in the franchise to not only pit Godzilla against humanity, but to make humanity the villain. Sure, in the original \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla\u003C\/i\u003E he's a kind of punishment for our use of nuclear weapons, and \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Hedorah \u003C\/i\u003Eis about manmade industrial pollution, but in stories like that the audience is expected to empathize with the humans struggling to overcome their own folly, because we are dealing with Major Problems that all of us must reckon with. Here, humanity just makes some bad decisions with the monsters as the injured parties, so we can finally stop pretending and cheer for some miniature cities to get squashed. Sometimes we just have it coming.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film begins with the unveiling of Mechagodzilla, built as part of a UN initiative against Godzilla (called the UNGCC, or G-Force.) It's a terrifying beast indeed, with titanium skin and a plasma grenade weapon capable of absorbing Godzilla's radioactive blast and firing the energy back at him. Kazuma Aoki (Masahiro Takashima) is G-Force's newest recruit, a goofy \"dinosaur fan\" (fixated on pteranadons) who was previously doing maintenance on Garuda, a now-obsolete flying attack vehicle now languishing in storage. As he is trained to become part of the team piloting Mechagodzilla, a band of paleontologists discovers a giant egg on a remote island near Russia, and also its guardian- the mutant pterosaur Rodan. Godzilla shows up to fight with Rodan, and the humans abscond with the egg. When the egg hatches, however, what emerges is a miniature Godzillasaur, who bonds with the first person it sees, a young paleontologist named Asuza (Ryoko Sano). Godzilla returns to Japan, seemingly drawn to the younger member of his speeches, and the UNGCC decides to use the little monster as bait to lure their target to his final destruction at Mechagodzilla's hands.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETakao Okawara returns as director, on surer footing this time. While \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth\u003C\/i\u003E looked a little slapdash, \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II\u003C\/i\u003E feels polished and majestic. Colors are muted and earthy, and there's a real sense of power given to the prehistoric titans the film centers on, as well as the modern titan sent against them. Helping things is some superb musical work by composer Akira Ifukube; Mechagodzilla's theme is particularly beautiful and sinister, and Little Godzilla's birth is heralded by a strange, haunting lullaby. The film's slick look echoes Air Force epics like \u003Ci\u003ETop Gun\u003C\/i\u003E, but for once doesn't borrow too directly. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf the movie has a stumbling point, it's in its human characters; Aoki is sometimes grating, especially when rather insistently romancing Asuza, who herself is a little too breathy and childlike to be credible. There are also some very wooden English-speaking actors (added in an attempt to give the film an international feel), and at times the Mechagodzilla crew communicate in English as well, and while the Japanese audience got subtitles for those scenes, we don't, even though we often still need them. (There's a scene in a lecture hall that was unintelligble to me until I saw a dubbed version. I dare you to figure it out on your own.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film's redesign of Mechagodzilla is a triumph in and of itself- a much more drastic overhaul than what was done to King Ghidorah or Mothra, which makes the robotic kaiju resemble a suit of plate armor as much as anything. The bulky design means SFX director Koichi Kawakita has to rely more on exchanges of laser beams and fire breath than physical confrontation (Kawakita reportedly disliked the pro-wrestling aspect of old school kaiju fights anyway), so the action sequences are a little stiff, but the battles are still impressive. Rodan is also looking good, though his transformation into a bright red fire-breathing incarnation can't help but look a little gaudy. Still, these are some of the best effects of the Heisei series, without any of the cost-cutting of other installments.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI'm not sure this is the best of the Heisei movies, but it's one of the most confident- an atmospheric and tonally provocative thriller that does a lot to establish Godzilla as a crusading force of nature. He is not benevolent, but he takes care of his own, and that's the kind of brooding antiheroism that nerds tend to eat up. A conflict of real life vs. artificial life, the story shows us Godzilla punishing mankind for our arrogance without making us feel too bad about it. If not truly subversive, \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Mechagodzilla\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ci\u003EII\u003C\/i\u003E is at least resolute enough in its convictions to make for a convincingly important and majestic battle of titans. A high point of the era.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Wataru Mimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Takao Okawara\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/38963793902024688\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=38963793902024688\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/38963793902024688"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/38963793902024688"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/random-movie-report-godzilla-vs.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-uqDjJgmUvso\/U8ykgugYsNI\/AAAAAAAAB0E\/qC1Hc__NFkw\/s72-c\/godzilla_vs_mechagodzilla_1993_poster_02.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1536874596105662745"},"published":{"$t":"2014-06-30T23:09:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-06-30T23:09:50.203-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Games"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"The Tabletop"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Tabletop: How D\u0026D Fifth Edition Can Be Truly Modular (Or Something Like That)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ntDSC_3tJ0g\/U7IzMpndGHI\/AAAAAAAABzs\/oGqVcaCTJKs\/s1600\/ph-barroom-brawl.jpeg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The edition wars summed up in one image.\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ntDSC_3tJ0g\/U7IzMpndGHI\/AAAAAAAABzs\/oGqVcaCTJKs\/s1600\/ph-barroom-brawl.jpeg\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI've been looking at the previews for the fifth edition of \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E, and was worried that I was starting to get truly edition-warriory about the whole thing. The more and more the gaming press and the developers themselves treat Fourth Edition as the redheaded stepchild of the family, the more I've been inclined to see it as a misunderstood masterpiece, the \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E to Pathfinder's \u003Ci\u003EBig Bang Theory\u003C\/i\u003E. I've been increasingly skeptical of every single teaser being released, and while there is some material here that bears watching, it was the newer, more lethal monster entries that pushed me beyond skepticism, past dismissal, and into some weird academic thinkspace. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat I noticed was that the Ogre, a monster given a \"Challenge\" rating of 2- theoretically indicating that it's a good challenge for a 2nd-level party- was in fact capable of turning second-level player characters into paste with one good hit. This struck me as excessively lethal, but people on various fora were quick to point out that it was a fair challenge if the players thought outside the box and did some actual strategy before confronting the beast. This is, after all, supposed to be a grittier game than the high-powered heroic fantasy of 4th or even 3rd edition, closer to the old school where life at low levels is very cheap but chargen is fast so death isn't that big a deal. At least I think that's the idea. And here's the rub.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFifth Edition has been caught in the position of trying to be all things to all players, of trying to appeal to fans of old-school D\u0026amp;D, early AD\u0026amp;D, 3e\/Pathfinder, 4e, you name it, in the hopes of creating an ur-D\u0026amp;D capable of propelling revenue into the sacred \"core brand\" territory inhabited by \u003Ci\u003EMagic: the Gathering\u003C\/i\u003E. It promised to do this via modularity, the pitch being that the rules would be presented in such a way that you could easily swap around various modules that would make it more tactical, less tactical, more complex, more magic-heavy, less magic-heavy, etc. Every gaming group would have its own selection of modules, easily tailoring the game to their standards. What we're seeing first is just the core, you'll be able to change everything.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs time has passed, skepticism has grown around this claim. We haven't really seen any full modules, or explanations of what makes this modular structure different from just having optional rules- which have been present in nearly every edition of D\u0026amp;D- and everyone's starting to wonder if the team are really as committed to this idea as they were two years ago. I'm not sure they are, but what I'm starting to see is how they can be if they so choose. It's not about the edition wars, in the sense of making the game look more like 4th edition or 3rd edition or the Red Box. It's about the underlying assumptions of design and play, and making those clearer to the players. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe original \u003Ci\u003EDungeons \u0026amp; Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E was designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson based on the assumptions of their own gaming group up in Wisconsin. Through early releases you can see tweaks and additions to the rules based on what this relatively small crowd of players was doing. They asked for different weapons to do different amounts of damage, and they got it; they asked to play elves and dwarves, and Gygax let them after grumbling a bit. The rules were thus built around a very specific play experience, one in which open combat was basically a sign that you had done something wrong. The rules reward you sneaking by the monsters and grabbing their treasure far more than they do cutting them down in a swarm of blades and fireballs. They reward cautious exploration over boldly charging forward. It's a valid style of play, sometimes referred to as \"Subterranean Fantasy Fucking Vietnam\", and it reaches its apotheosis in adventures like the \u003Ci\u003ETomb of Horrors\u003C\/i\u003E, where the best way to prevail is to never touch anything with your own hands.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut of course, the game was not just played by one community of hobbyists in Wisconsin. It sold millions and became the cornerstone of the new hobby of roleplaying games, and attracted groups with very different preferences and playstyles. In later editions of Basic and Advanced D\u0026amp;D, the game would expand, trying to accommodate these different approaches. And inevitably there were those who wanted to kick in the door, slaughter orcs, and then take their stuff. There were those who wanted to enact epic fantasy sagas and rescue princesses or save kingdoms, those who wanted to simulate the workings of a fantasy kingdom, and so on. There's \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/forum.rpg.net\/showthread.php?668828-Theory-Flavors-of-D-amp-D\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ean excellent thread at RPG.net\u003C\/a\u003E which sums things up better than four solid decades of edition warring ever could.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo the rules for \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E have been pulled in every which way, but the problem is not so much that the game has changed, or that people aren't playing the same game. It's more that the game, in its status as the definitive fantasy RPG, is so rarely clear about what it is. And this is the key ingredient of modular design that the new edition's designers, so far, haven't talked about- transparency.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-UrY9LdYL5Gk\/U7Iz_zp1DaI\/AAAAAAAABz0\/YHEGsygkWoo\/s1600\/Paranoia_XP.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Modularity is Mandatory\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-UrY9LdYL5Gk\/U7Iz_zp1DaI\/AAAAAAAABz0\/YHEGsygkWoo\/s1600\/Paranoia_XP.png\" height=\"320\" width=\"244\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn wondering whether a truly \"modular\" RPG was possible, I suddenly remembered that there is, actually, an excellent example. \u003Ci\u003EParanoia XP\u003C\/i\u003E was released by Mongoose Publishing ten years ago (they have since had to retitle it to avoid the wrath of Microsoft), an update of the legendary darkly comic dystopian RPG that for years had PCs accusing each other of being Commie Mutant Traitors, actually committing acts of treason, and dying in such quantities that giving everyone six clones might just get them halfway through a given adventure. One of the great things about that book is that it actively sought to reconcile the disparate playstyles that had already cropped up in the game's history. It presented throughout the rules and supplements three major styles of play- \"Straight\", \"Classic\", and \"Zap!\"- attuned to, respectively, semi-serious dark future intrigues, healthy combinations of deception and violence, and finally wacky slapstick chaos. The game line had been many things over the years, and there were adventures, rules variants, and GM advice explicitly tuned to these three categories. Even with the Mongoose team's noted distaste for the wacky puns and parodies of late-period \u003Ci\u003EParanoia\u003C\/i\u003E, they didn't leave fans of that approach out in the cold.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo the new \u003Ci\u003EDungeons \u0026amp; Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E has to actually lay all this out on the table- talk about the different ways people play it and the best way the rules can be used to those ends. The rumored \"tactical module\" shouldn't just incorporate grid-based movement for the sake of grid-based movement, but to enable large setpiece combats with characters making meaningful decisions each round. There should be obvious dials to make the game more or less lethal, to actually change the fundamental workings of the game, and there should be clear explanations of how it all works.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCan Wizards of the Coast do this? I think so. Will they? That's another matter. We won't know until November, when they release the Dungeon Master's Guide, which is supposed to actually have all the advanced modules and rules-hacking advice. I'm not exactly holding my breath; so far what we've seen is incredibly opaque, trying to evoke an ineffable \"feel\" of D\u0026amp;D without getting into any nuts and bolts. In the meantime 4e books are still pretty easy to get, as well as alternate systems ranging from old school retroclones to more progressive entries like \u003Ci\u003EDungeon World\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E13th Age\u003C\/i\u003E. And I suppose there is that Pathfinder thingy. I'm not really excited for the Fifth Edition, but I am willing to allow for the possibility that it can work. It just has to be more versatile and more transparent than any edition of the game has ever been. That's not too hard, right? "},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1536874596105662745\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1536874596105662745\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1536874596105662745"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1536874596105662745"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/06\/the-tabletop-how-d-fifth-edition-can-be.html","title":"The Tabletop: How D\u0026D Fifth Edition Can Be Truly Modular (Or Something Like That)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ntDSC_3tJ0g\/U7IzMpndGHI\/AAAAAAAABzs\/oGqVcaCTJKs\/s72-c\/ph-barroom-brawl.jpeg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-658460855316787381"},"published":{"$t":"2014-06-23T10:38:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-06-23T10:38:31.299-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-W2V8hHS5ftE\/U6hISduErWI\/AAAAAAAABzY\/1nSvSEyso24\/s1600\/gvsmposter1.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Japanese poster for Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-W2V8hHS5ftE\/U6hISduErWI\/AAAAAAAABzY\/1nSvSEyso24\/s1600\/gvsmposter1.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"228\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe most commercially successful entry of the Heisei Godzilla series, \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth\u003C\/i\u003E is also its weakest; not a bad movie, but less than the sum of its parts. Once again, Toho went to Godzilla's past and resurrected one of his most durable foes, reinventing the giant flying insect as a mystical Earth god(dess?) engaged in an eternal struggle to protect the planet. With Takao Okawara taking over the director's spot, the film feels a little unsteady, but does manage to introduce a few new things in amongst references to classic kaiju films and American blockbusters. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAn asteroid hits Earth in the Pacific Ocean, kicking up storms, landslides, and further disturbing an ecosystem already made fragile by manmade pollution. International artifact thief and adventurer Takuya Fajita (Tetsuya Bessho) is enlisted by his ex-wife Masako (Satomi Kobayashi) to investigate disturbances at Infant Island, where it turns out storms have uncovered a giant egg. Meanwhile, the melting of polar ice releases the insectoid monster Battra, who rampages across Japan. Two tiny fairies, the Cosmos, explain that Battra and Mothra are both the guardians of an ancient race that destroyed itself long before the rise of man, and that environmental catastrophes have brought the monsters back to life. Godzilla rises from the deep to attack the egg, which hatches, releasing Mothra, and soon the benevolent insect is battling both its dark counterpart and the King of Monsters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIf the film has a fundamental problem it's that the story is not really clear on its narrative drive. There's some kind of environmental disaster at hand, but that's mostly just a pretext for Mothra and Battra to show up. Godzilla looks like the main antagonist for a while, but is swallowed up by a lava flow and stays offscreen for a while as the plot takes a side-tour into the abduction of the Cosmos by a salaryman eager to impress his bosses. When that gets resolved, Godzilla and Battra appear again, but the climactic throwdown suffers a little from the prior lack of focus. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Heisei series had an odd tendency to directly riff on popular American movie imagery; just as M-11 in \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. King Ghidorah\u003C\/i\u003E was a less intimidating Terminator, our protagonist is basically Indiana Jones (fedora included), and there are two major setpieces involving his cliffhanging adventures. While there's some tie-in to the film's environmental themes, with Takuya as a thief plundering the world's past to enrich himself, the faux-Spielberg scenes come off as clumsy and tedious, especially an overlong sequence on a rope bridge.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI can't help but feel that the direction is partly to blame. This was Okawara's second film and he lacks Kazuki Omori's visual flair; he would go on to do better work in the series, but here he's clearly learning the ropes. The photography is mostly uninspired and the pacing is slack. But then Omori, who wrote the script, also shares in the blame, because as said above, the story never develops a central focus. Lip service is paid to environmentalism and corporate greed (the latter having been such a major factor in Mothra's Showa-era outings), but the metaphor isn't quite there.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut hey, we're watching this for the kaiju, right? While an early battle between Godzilla and Battra on the ocean floor doesn't quite work (owing to a bubble screen overlay that really obscures the action), the monster action is solid, with Battra impressing both in design- all gnarled and black, with glowing red eyes- and character, turning out to be a little more complex than the force of pure evil we expect. Mothra's update is solid, even if his (or her) butterfly form looks a little bit like a plush toy. (Toho officially calls Mothra a \"he\", but the monster has always coded feminine as a kind of Earth mother goddess.) Godzilla's design is tweaked a bit from the last movie, but only in a way the true kaiju nerd will even notice.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOverall there's just enough visual sparkle and flair to make this a passable monster romp. We get a genuinely cool new monster, some good effects setpieces, and the introduction of magic and mysticism into the Heisei series. It just feels a little dumbed down compared to the surprising ambition of Biollante and King Ghidorah, focused on delivering what it thinks the audience expects. To be sure, it got results, and Mothra would end up with her own trilogy after Godzilla packed it in; you can easily see the giant bug's appeal, and it doesn't seem entirely fair to complain about sparkle over substance in a movie where giant flying insects battle a radioactive dinosaur. It's just that we've already seen the series capable of better.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Kazuki Omori\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Takao Okawara\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/658460855316787381\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=658460855316787381\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/658460855316787381"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/658460855316787381"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/06\/random-movie-report-godzilla-and-mothra.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-W2V8hHS5ftE\/U6hISduErWI\/AAAAAAAABzY\/1nSvSEyso24\/s72-c\/gvsmposter1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2466020427862968322"},"published":{"$t":"2014-05-31T23:20:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-05-31T23:20:35.489-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: The Manster"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-yskMi8xI508\/U4qpq8pr2ZI\/AAAAAAAABzE\/jz_WLV2cO9Y\/s1600\/manster-cover.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Manster DVD cover\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-yskMi8xI508\/U4qpq8pr2ZI\/AAAAAAAABzE\/jz_WLV2cO9Y\/s1600\/manster-cover.png\" height=\"320\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story of Jekyll and Hyde is one of the classic horror tales, one of hubris and the inescapable animalistic nature lurking in the calmest of men. There have been many attempts at this material, but only one quite so bold as to set the whole thing in Japan and posit Mr. Hyde as a second head growing out of Jekyll's shoulders. Hence \u003Ci\u003EThe Manster\u003C\/i\u003E, a gleefully insane, sometimes weirdly adult, and generally not-ineffective take on the classic story. Of the many monster movies pervading American drive-ins and matinees in the late 50s, this has a distinctive character, which carries it through its slower moments.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDr. Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura) is a scientist working on bizarre evolutionary experiments with human beings- the last one of which got out and murdered quite a few people before being killed, leaving him in need of a new subject. Enter reporter Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), wrapping up his time in Japan with a visit to Suzuki, who is quickly hypnotized and injected with something sinister. He doesn't turn into a ravenous beast right away, of course- no, first he just gets sleazier, flirting with the Doctor's lovely assistant (Toyoko Takechi) and enjoying the local sake bars and communal baths, all while neglecting Linda, his wife back home (Jane Hylton). She eventually shows up with friend in tow to try and figure out what's gotten into Larry, but he soon has bigger problems to deal with, as by night, it seems he's been stalking the streets of the village and terrorizing innocent women. And to top things off he now has an eyeball on his shoulder. That can't be good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's a weird sexual undercurrent to this movie that seems atypical for the time. Censorship standards for movies were very slowly loosening in the late Fifties and exploitation producers raced to see just what they could get away with staging, and while there's nothing explicitly R-rated in this movie, there's enough obscured nudity and implied adultery to make it clear that Suzuki is trying to bring out the primitive animal in Larry. The violence is also bloodier than it would have been a few years earlier, and the lurid atmosphere helps give the story a certain power. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf course there's an element of sinister Orientalism here, with Japan being a source of bestial temptations to our white protagonist, but of course most of the victims are Japanese as well and the picture was actually shot on location as a Japanese-American coproduction. It's possible this is an outgrowth of the success of \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla, King of the Monsters\u003C\/i\u003E and its imitators, with American producers seeking to give their monster stories a new flavor. To be sure, the locations give the picture a distinct visual style, enhanced by noir-esque photography. If nothing else it helps to hold our interest before Larry starts growing a second head and the story gets really crazy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAbout that, yeah, the story takes a very odd turn in its last act (one that at least partly inspired the \"evil twin\" subplot in Sam Raimi's \u003Ci\u003EArmy of Darkness\u003C\/i\u003E), with Larry's bestial half starting to emerge as a separate creature in a way that anticipates the gory body horrors of the 80s. For all this the wrap-up is pretty typical of the genre, but the ride there is interesting at least. \u003Ci\u003EThe Manster\u003C\/i\u003E doesn't fully explore its story potential but it pushes at the borders of the genre in ways that make it memorable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by George Breakston\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Walt Sheldon\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by George Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2466020427862968322\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2466020427862968322\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2466020427862968322"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2466020427862968322"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/random-movie-report-manster.html","title":"Random Movie Report: The Manster"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-yskMi8xI508\/U4qpq8pr2ZI\/AAAAAAAABzE\/jz_WLV2cO9Y\/s72-c\/manster-cover.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-64639398888354744"},"published":{"$t":"2014-05-31T00:54:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-05-31T00:54:37.606-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5aKo31bLUtY\/U4luIjmW_gI\/AAAAAAAABy0\/L0RqGuN4zjc\/s1600\/godzillavskg.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5aKo31bLUtY\/U4luIjmW_gI\/AAAAAAAABy0\/L0RqGuN4zjc\/s1600\/godzillavskg.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"173\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn some ways \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. King Ghidorah\u003C\/i\u003E is a return to tradition for the series. After \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Biollante\u003C\/i\u003E failed at the box office, Toho decided that their next Godzilla movie needed to pit the monster against a classic enemy with name recognition of his own; hence, four-time Godzilla opponent King Ghidorah returned to continue the pair's epic rivalry. But this is pretty much where tradition ends, as King Ghidorah is one of the most radical and unusual entries in the series, featuring geopolitical subtext, a downright loopy take on time travel, and a surprisingly long dearth of Godzilla himself. It's the Godzilla film that got mentioned on \u003Ci\u003EThe McLaughlin Group\u003C\/i\u003E, and watching it is like taking a trip back to a time when Japan seemed poised to conquer the world.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA flying saucer appears over Japan, eventually landing and disgorging three emissaries from the future. They claim to be here to prevent Japan's destruction at the hands of Godzilla, and enlist the aid of Teresawa (Kosuke Toyohara), a writer who has been investigating Godzilla's origins and believe he began life as a Godzillasaur discovered on Lagos Island by Japanese soldiers near the end of World War II. The time travellers travel with Terasawa and others back to the fateful last days of the war, where the Godzillasaurus actually helps save a doomed Japanese platoon before being gravely wounded by American naval fire. The time travelers move the dinosaur from the island to a place farther north in the ocean, ensuring that it won't be mutated by future nuclear testing- however, they leave behind three \"dorats\", cuddly winged creatures. When the team returns to the future, Godzilla has disappeared, but the dorats have become the three-headed dragon King Ghidorah. The time travelers, as it turns out, have actually been out to conquer Japan in the present to prevent it from becoming an overwhelming empire in the future; Ghidorah is under their control, and will bring the country to its knees. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETime travel works weirdly in this one, which is fair enough given that it doesn't actually exist. When the \"Futurians\" (that's what they're officially called) prevent Godzilla from coming into existence, everyone back in 1992 still remembers him; it's not so much that he never existed, but is rather replaced. It's an odd approach to time travel, one I haven't seen elsewhere, and to the film's detriment this is never quite explained. However, since time travel doesn't actually exist, there's no reason it can't act this way and the presentation of it is consistent. It's a little bit awkward but I'll allow it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe really interesting stuff going on in this movie involves its take on nationalism. Made at a time when Japan's economic expansion seemed potentially unlimited, \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. King Ghidorah\u003C\/i\u003E came in for criticism for its apparent anti-American stance, hence appearing on John McLaughlin's panel show and not getting an American release until 1998. To be sure, the evil Futurians are Americans (except for the Japanese Emi Kano, who turns out to be not so bad), there's a long sequence of a fairly sympathetic Godzillasaurus battling American troops, and for a while it looks like it's drawing a clear parallel- Godzilla is Japan and Godzilla is the hero this time, so Japan is good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut then it turns on you. When Godzilla is finally revived it's due to a Japanese corporation happening to have nuclear-armed submarines prowling around in international waters, and because modern nukes are so much more powerful than what was being deployed in 1954, the monster is larger, meaner, and more destructive, a greater threat to Japan's future than King Ghidorah. He becomes a symbol of Japan's excess, no more clearly demonstrated than in a scene where he comes face to face with one of the soldiers who saved him, a man now head of that same company. in many ways the film critiques the idea of a dominant Japan (which would not be a problem for much longer anyway) and of nationalism as a whole.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJust as idiosyncratic is the film's structure. Godzilla shows up briefly under the main title in a kind of flash-forward (or flashback- the time travel business is tricky), and then stays offscreen for over an hour while the plot to eliminate him from history plays out. We do see a sort of appearance in the Godzillasaurus, complete with a theme by Akira Ifukube that's almost but not quite the classic Godzilla march, but true city smashing action has to wait for a while. Once Godzilla shows up, the picture turns into a pure kaiju rampage, intensified by the addition of the cybernetic Mecha-King Ghidorah. The film's effects are as ambitious as everything else in it, and they're not consistently successful as a result- the Terminator-esque android M-11 (Robert Scott Field) is handled especially oddly, with no less than three separate and wildly different-looking camera tricks used to portray his super-speed. But there are some quite impressive effects shots as well, such as a view of Godzilla's spines crashing into a hotel room. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's a messy film but an engaging one as well, a kaiju film that deals with knotty issues of patriotism and economic exploitation, and doesn't give easy answers. It does this while still working as a Godzilla movie, albeit one that holds off on delivering the goods until the final third. Kazuki Omori clearly had some big ideas for the Godzilla franchise, and while he never directed another kaiju film, he left an indelible mark on the series.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and Directed by Kazuki Omori\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/64639398888354744\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=64639398888354744\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/64639398888354744"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/64639398888354744"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/random-movie-report-godzilla-vs-king.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5aKo31bLUtY\/U4luIjmW_gI\/AAAAAAAABy0\/L0RqGuN4zjc\/s72-c\/godzillavskg.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4420478832307871255"},"published":{"$t":"2014-05-23T12:38:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-05-23T12:38:04.635-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Godzilla (2014)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3R6O-5tAPr4\/U3-FGOSQhrI\/AAAAAAAAByg\/DiAci9guSAs\/s1600\/godzilla_ver4.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Godzilla poster\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3R6O-5tAPr4\/U3-FGOSQhrI\/AAAAAAAAByg\/DiAci9guSAs\/s1600\/godzilla_ver4.jpg\" height=\"320\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EGodzilla\u003C\/i\u003E is a film that feels well overdue. There was, of course, one past attempt at making an American take on the character, and while \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/academy-of-underrated-godzilla-1998.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EI'll always have a soft spot for it\u003C\/a\u003E, the filmmakers basically dodged a lot of the inherent challenge by making their monster less grandiose, less powerful, and theoretically more plausible as a result. After that didn't quite work, Toho brought back the \"proper\" Godzilla for a series of films that, while sometimes good, never had much of a reason for being other than reasserting tradition. Godzilla has been dormant for ten years, falling out of favor even in his native Japan, and so making a true, traditional Godzilla film for American audiences used to seeing him as a camp figure seemed like a long shot. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGareth Edwards, director of Monsters, is at the helm for what turns out to be a slow, methodical burn of a monster movie. Godzilla eases the audience into the concept of a giant radioactive dinosaur who fights other giant radioactive monsters, knocking over skyscrapers in the process. People have complained that the King of the Monsters doesn't get enough screentime, and to be sure there's a lot of teasing involved, but the payoff is worth it. It's both a fantastic reintroduction to the kaiju eiga genre, and a film about reckoning with forces greater than ourselves. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFord Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) lost his mother to a nuclear plant disaster in Japan when he was a little boy, and has spent most of his life estranged from his father (Bryan Cranston), who is convinced a cover-up took place. Convinced by his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) to come to his father's side after he's arrested for trespassing at the still-restricted accident site, Ford ventures into the ruins with him only to witness the emergence of a strange prehistoric insect (called a Muto) feeding off the radiation. The creature destroys the government's installation and heads east, while Ford is dragged along with a research team headed by the obsessive Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe). The Muto's journey attracts the attention of another prehistoric beast, the \"apex predator\" Godzilla who emerges to confront the new challenger to his supremacy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn a move reminiscent of \u003Ci\u003EJurassic Park\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003EJaws\u003C\/i\u003E, the filmmakers spend a long time building up to Godzilla's first proper appearance, and are almost as stingy with the spindly Muto. Perversely, there are a few points where the film shows us what is clearly the beginning of a fight between the monsters, and quickly cuts away. Part of this is a showman's trick, keeping the audience wanting more and making sure you save your best stuff for last. However, I also get the feeling that, rather than throw the audience in the deep end of insane kaiju action as \u003Ci\u003EPacific Rim\u003C\/i\u003E did, \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla\u003C\/i\u003E is slowly acclimating the audience to its absurdity. We're given realistic scenes of human response to disaster, of families separated and people fleeing for their lives, and the monsters are shown from ground level, often through windows or on screens. Though the film isn't as bleak as the original \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla\u003C\/i\u003E, it retains that classic's serious approach to the subject matter, and the naturalistic approach makes the absurdity, when it happens, all the more convincing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis gradual approach does mean we spend a lot more time than we probably expected to with the film's human characters, though way less with Bryan Cranston. Ford Brody is something of a generic character, a little flat, and Taylor-Johnson doesn't do a whole lot with the part. I'm not sure there was a lot for him to do, however, and the simplicity is something of the point. As little screen time as the monsters take up, the movie is basically about them; nearly every scene with the human characters ends up revolving around the monsters and their effect on the world around them. This is a film where gods walk the Earth, and for the most part we can only stay out of their way.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGodzilla himself is beautifully realized, a great hulk of a beast standing in defiance of modern cinema's trend towards fast and sleek monsters. When we finally see the monsters fight each other, it's with a perfect brutality and intensity. And in the film's dark, smoky climax, a remarkable kinship is drawn between Godzilla and the humans scampering at his feet, and there is the hopeful implication that we're not totally helpless in the tide of larger forces. The film's story does rewrite Godzilla's origins so as not to connect him so closely with the atom bomb, but there is still the implication that our use of nuclear power has drawn terrible things out from the depths.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn many ways this is not the Godzilla film I expected, but it does its job very well regardless. Though it starts cautiously, keeping the monsters and their clashes offscreen for some time, but by the end it fearlessly embraces one of the most outlandish elements of the character's history. I have quibbles, the dialogue could use some punching up, but what's important is that the filmmakers have made Godzilla's comeback a meaningful one. This is a film clearly made with genuine love and dedication, and it has given the King of Monsters a new lease on life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by David Callaham\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Max Borenstein\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Gareth Edwards\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4420478832307871255\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4420478832307871255\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4420478832307871255"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4420478832307871255"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/in-theaters-godzilla-2014.html","title":"In Theaters: Godzilla (2014)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-3R6O-5tAPr4\/U3-FGOSQhrI\/AAAAAAAAByg\/DiAci9guSAs\/s72-c\/godzilla_ver4.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3488738653224427678"},"published":{"$t":"2014-04-30T23:43:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-04-30T23:43:11.072-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Wrestling"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"At Ringside: Wrestlemania IX"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-UDHO4_QF4eQ\/U2HQEoCNSDI\/AAAAAAAAByQ\/bV6FiB1A6b8\/s1600\/WM9_010.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"CAESAR'S PALACE! LAS VEGAS! NEVADA!\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-UDHO4_QF4eQ\/U2HQEoCNSDI\/AAAAAAAAByQ\/bV6FiB1A6b8\/s1600\/WM9_010.jpg\" height=\"179\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWell, I knew what I was getting into. Wrestlemania IX probably has the worst reputation in the history of wrestling's most prestigious event, and it certainly represents the WWF at its most confused. 1993 was not a good year for either of the Big Two wrestling promotions, and the WWF's problem was trying to transition to new stars and storylines while still cashing in on what remained of the star power of the Eighties, specifically their slowly-departing star Hulk Hogan. While just about any wrestling PPV is a grab bag of matches reflecting current storylines and star positions, Wrestlemania IX is especially messy, full of cheap finishes and unsatisfying matches. A gaudy purple-and-yellow spectacle broadcast from outside Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, this one just never builds any momentum.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut first, a word on the presentation. Since they were holding the event at Caesar's Palace in an open ampitheatre, the WWF decided that this Wrestlemania would have a Roman theme. All the non-wrestling personalities on display (and several stage hands) are in togas, commentator Randy Savage is accompanied by vestal virgins, Bobby \"The Brain\" Heenan rides in backwards on a camel, and ring announcer Howard Finkel is now Finkus Maximus. Even Caesar and Cleopatra make another appearance to kick off the games. All this I like. There's a sense of fantasy and old fashioned hullaballoo to it, and it's an early step by the promotion towards the kind of crazy presentation their top events have now. If nothing else you get the sense that the live crowd probably enjoyed themselves.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt begins reasonably enough, with a fast-paced if unspectacular title bout between Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels and challenger Tatanka, a Native American on an undefeated streak. Sensational Sherri Martell has firmly turned against Shawn by now and is in Tatanka's corner, so Michaels brings his own valet, the gravel-voiced punk Luna Vachon. Here WWF ran into an odd booking situation- they wanted to keep the belt on Michaels, but weren't ready to end Tatanka's streak, so the latter technically wins via DQ so that the title doesn't change hands. A bit of a cheap finish, which wouldn't be the worst thing except as a harbinger of what's to come. Also there's a long post-match segment where Vachon attacks Martell backstage, and this too is a sign.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUp next, the Steiner Brothers take on the Headshrinkers, Fatu and Samu, racially insensitive descendants of the Wild Samoans.\u0026nbsp; As in the Royal Rumble, Scott Steiner spends most of the match as the face in peril- however, the Headshrinkers' moves are mostly limited to punches and headbutts. It's a sluggish match in general, and the lack of any story context doesn't help. Even the Frankensteiner at the end is botched, so yeah, the whole thing does not end well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe next bout is at least interesting. Doink, the evil clown described as being out to make children cry, has been feuding with the \"Big Hawaiian\" Crush, and it comes to a head here in Las Vegas. Doink is the kind of cartoonish character that could only have worked in the pre-Attitude era, and I like the horror-movie music he enters to. Crush, on the other hand, is… well, Crush. A generic muscular babyface whose only distinction is being rather large (which doesn't mean much in the WWF), he never demonstrated much personality in the segments building to this match. As for the match itself, it starts with Crush attacking Doink as the latter enters, and works as a normal fight for a while. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd then another Doink shows up and clobbers Crush from behind, allowing- well, the other Doink to pin him for the win. It's an interesting finish, but then there's a long and largely pointless sequence of another ref trying to convince the match referee that there was a second Doink, but the double has disappeared. Bobby Heenan on commentary even argues that it was an \"illusion\". Nothing comes of this post-match segment; it's just filler.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe next match pits Razor Ramon against Bob Backlund. These two could potentially give us a really good show, but before you know it Ramon rolls up Backlund for a three count. I have no idea why this match is as short as it is, whether it was time crunch or health-related or whatever, but it's pointless except as a way for Ramon to regain a little heat after losing his title shot. In short there's nothing here that couldn't have been accomplished on an episode of Raw.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd that brings us to the first main event. Even though Brett Hart vs. Yokozuna for the WWF Championship is the actual main event, it doesn't have Hulk Hogan in it, so the other main event is the Hulkster teaming with Brutus \"The Barber\" Beefcake- returned from a fairly horrific real-life facial injury and wearing a hideous protective mask- to take on the WWF Tag Team Champions, Ted Di Biase and evil taxman Irwin R. Schyster, the team of Money, Inc. (And the political ramifications of a millionaire and a tax collector being on the same side are complex to say the least.) Hulk and Beefcake, with manager Jimmy Hart in their corner, are billed as the Mega Maniacs.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe match is basically a disaster. A lot of wrestling heels play chickenshit, trying to stay out of the ring and out of the path of the babyface trying to righteously beat them up; they appeal to the referee or to their opponent and do anything possible to avoid a serious exchange. This is an old tradition but it's best used in moderation. The Mega-Maniacs vs. Money Inc. battle is a series of ref arguments, distractions, bumps, and just about anything that will prevent a reasonable flow of action in the ring. It's chaotic and confused, and once again, we're denied a clean finish, with Money Inc. given the win by disqualification.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut of course it doesn't stop there! To save face Hogan and Beefcake manage to get a hold of IRS' briefcase (with which IRS had been assaulting the face of the still-recovering Beefcake) and distribute the money inside to the crowd as Hogan's music plays. (Throwing money to the crowd is sort of an old-school wrestling trick, not seen much these days because large amounts of cash typically aren't brought into the ring. More's the pity.) He has to be the winner even when he loses. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYou may have noticed a couple of trends so far. One is a dearth of clean finishes, especially for Wrestlemania which is often used to settle feuds and bring stories to a conclusion. The second is a fixation on long, bland post-match segments which generally try to steer the viewer in the direction of a proper reaction, as here when we're supposed to end the match on a high note even though the bad guys won. These elements drag the pay-per-view down more than the quality of wrestling ever could- it's not just that we're seeing poor matches, but matches which fail to provide proper payoffs.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELex Luger, the Narcissist, heads to the ring, escorted by showgirls in bikinis who help set up some mirrors for him to pose in front of. His opponent is Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig, fresh from his retirement of Ric Flair on Monday Night Raw. The two proceed to have what is probably the best match of the night. It's straightforward, traditional wrestling with clear exchanges and near-falls, and I'm probably overrating it some because it's the only properly paced match of the night. Luger gets a dirty win, pinning Perfect despite the latter having his feet on the ropes. After the bell, Luger attacks Mr. Perfect, and the beatdown continues backstage with Shawn Michaels helping the Narcissist. An oasis of relatively decent work in the middle of a lot of crap.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd now we're on to the worst match of the evening, the Undertaker's faceoff against the Giant Gonzales. Gonzales is accompanied to the ring by his manager Harvey Whippleman, while Undertaker is accompanied by a turkey vulture. I'll let you decide who got the better end of the deal. As at the Rumble, Gonzales is wearing a muscle suit with patches of hair to cover inappropriate places; however, owing to the heat of Las Vegas (presumably), the actual patches of fur are replaced with drawn-on fur. For whatever reason, whoever did this opted not to cover the giant's rear end, so even more than before we get the impression that Undertaker is battling a giant naked man. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGonzales has not learned to wrestle in the time since we last saw him; he's slow, he telegraphs everything, it's basically bad stage fighting. The Undertaker does his best to make it look like a fight, even if he's sort of slow too. But then Harvey throws his theoretically inhuman monster giant a chloroformed rag with which to attack the Undertaker. The referee sees this, takes a few seconds, and finally disqualifies the Giant. So even the Undertaker's streak is tainted by Wrestlemania IX's indecisive nonsense.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere naturally follows a long epilogue wherein Gonzales starts attacking refs, a guy in a toga with a stretcher shows up to help them off stage, and finally the Undertaker re-emerges to attack Giant again and drive him away. This takes so goddamn long.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBefore the main event, we see Hulk Hogan. Giving a promo for a match he's not in. This is not a good sign. It wasn't apparent in his match, but Hogan has a really ugly eye injury that makes this segment really hard to watch. When asked his prediction for the upcoming battle between the Canadian champion Bret Hart and the Japanese challenger, sumo wrestler Yokozuna, Hogan predicts the belt will stay right here in the USA. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt the time, amusing. In retrospect, ominous.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYes, it's Hart vs. Yokozuna for the gold, and this is actually, for the most part, not bad. It's hard to evaluate a wrestler like Yokozuna fairly, because of course he isn't going to be especially agile. He's slow, but he's convincingly powerful. Hart plays a very good strategy, slowly chipping away at the big man, making it look like a real uphill struggle. After a long battle, Hart finally gets Yokozuna knocked over and applies the sharpshooter to his gargantuan legs. It looks like the WWF title is secure, when Mr. Fuji, Yokozuna's manager, throws a handful of salt into Hart's face, completely incapacitating him, letting Yokozuna get a quick roll-up and a victory, becoming the new WWF champion.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's a bit of a cheap finish, not handled as well as it could have been. Yokozuna does kind of mess up the final pin, and Hart oversells the salt as not merely blinding him but somehow knocking him out cold. Still, not too bad as a capper to the evening.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut oh no, we're not done. Hulk Hogan rushes in again to rescue his buddy Hart, and this pisses off Mr. Fuji something fierce. He demands a match between Hogan and Yokozuna right the Hell now, and when Hogan initially refuses, he puts up his new champion's belt. Hart tells Hogan to go for it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYokozuna grabs Hogan, and Mr. Fuji makes to throw the salt again, but Hogan ducks just in time, meaning that Yokozuna gets blinded and incapacitated again. Hogan hits a leg drop and covers Yokozuna for the pin. Yokozuna's short reign is over, and Hulk Hogan is the new WWF champion. Again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's well known among wrestling fans that Hulk Hogan is the kind of wrestler who pushes himself at the expense of anyone else, and during his initial run with the WWF he had plenty of creative control to make sure this happened. It's understandable to some extent- it can be a pretty cutthroat industry, and protecting your spot is the kind of basic office politics everyone has heard of.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut it's amazing just how shameless this is. Hogan managed to muscle himself into winning the WWF title one more time, at the expense of two wrestlers that the WWF was trying to promote as part of a new generation. In a match he wasn't even in. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd the capper? We're just one more PPV away from Hogan leaving the company altogether. Though I'm not sure of the exact timeline, by the time Wrestlemania IX was booked it should have been obvious that Hogan was eyeing the exit. But he had to exit on his terms, of course. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWrestling pay-per-views tend to be uneven at their best- there's simply so much going on that consistency is hard to maintain- but Wrestlemania IX is oddly reliable in how it falls apart, regularly avoiding clean finishes or even terribly good wrestling. Hogan's ego-tripping would be bad enough on its own, but when an entire show seems to be built around frustrating non-resolutions to ongoing angles, the results are pretty much dire top to bottom. A waste of Jim Ross and some wonderfully ridiculous art design.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: D+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3488738653224427678\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3488738653224427678\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3488738653224427678"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3488738653224427678"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/at-ringside-wrestlemania-ix.html","title":"At Ringside: Wrestlemania IX"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-UDHO4_QF4eQ\/U2HQEoCNSDI\/AAAAAAAAByQ\/bV6FiB1A6b8\/s72-c\/WM9_010.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7039815739038113467"},"published":{"$t":"2014-04-20T10:17:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-04-20T10:17:27.828-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.17: The Perfect Guy"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0FMQ_aiF3Qs\/U1PiJ4kn9gI\/AAAAAAAAByE\/L87wiMwmu3I\/s1600\/5-17.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Billy Campbell as Dr. Clint Webber\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0FMQ_aiF3Qs\/U1PiJ4kn9gI\/AAAAAAAAByE\/L87wiMwmu3I\/s1600\/5-17.jpg\" height=\"246\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Oh, I am not jealous.\u0026nbsp; Yes, the man is handsome, but I'm sure there are a number of areas in which I am his superior.\u0026nbsp; You know, let's not forget that good looks can be a mixed blessing.\u0026nbsp; People just roll out the red carpet for you but that robs you of any incentive to develop other qualities. After a while you're left an aging narcissist bent at the water's edge, realizing those lines in the pond aren't ripples, they're wrinkles.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: Amazing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Thank you, dad, I rather like that one myself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: That guy could be a movie star!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's been a while, I know. Sorry about that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"The Perfect Guy\" is one of those episodes with not a lot to write about, even in comparison to \"Beware of Greeks\" (which at least offered a change of scenery.) It's not bad, but it feels underdeveloped, one of those scripts a show has to go with because there isn't time to do something better. We do get a fun performance from Bill Campbell, though, and another look at Frasier's own insecurities- not to mention a brutal exposé of the gourmet dog food racket.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a new voice at KACL, that of Dr. Clint Webber (Campbell), who's hosting a medical show. He's handsome, brilliant, and really just the nicest guy. Roz gets all twitterpated just talking to him, as do the other women at the station, much to Frasier's chagrin as he was just getting flirty with Sharon (Lindsay Price.) He searches desperately for something with which to one-up the new arrival, but is continually flummoxed. Where he knows opera, Clint has Jose Carrera for a godfather; where he played a little squash, Clint is a former champion. At a certain point it becomes less about being better than Clint than about finding something wrong with the new guy. Meanwhile, Martin goes and gets Eddie hooked on gourmet dog food which is only available from one shop in town, where he had, at the start of the half hour, insulted the snooty owner (Francois Giroday) and been banned from the store. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter several farces in a row, the story for this one is disarmingly simple. It's entirely about Frasier trying to find some flaw in a flawless man, and even given the limitations of a half hour sitcom format, it feels like more could have been done here. Clint, being a one-off, isn't given a lot of room to develop as a character, but then that's the problem with being \"perfect\". Campbell (formerly the Rocketeer) does his best with the material, though, and plays it at the right level of plausibility.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat being said, the story is less about Clint than Frasier. He's doing what he normally does, obsessing over things he can't control. He's partly driven by his conviction that Clint can't be better than him in every single way. But there is at least some sense of Clint being a threat; Sharon is clearly impressed by him, and when Clint does a guest spot on Frasier's show he ends up giving better advice to the first guest caller we've heard in a LONG time. The stakes are pretty low but there's just enough of a conflict to move things along.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe upscale grocery subplot is pretty basic as well- a lot of it revolves around Martin's, and later Daphne's, disbelief that places this pricey actually exist. There's not a whole lot of material there, but Giroday gives a memorable turn without going too over the top. Generally there's a sense that the actors are carrying the material this week, but it's a testament to their ability that it works. More notable is a scene where the effeminate Gil \"comes out\" as straight, revealing he has a wife, in what would be the start of a running gag with surprisingly long legs.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"The Perfect Guy\" ends abruptly, with Frasier getting an unusual win; not only does he discover Clint's fatal flaw (he's totally tone deaf and doesn't know it), he exposes it to all of his coworkers. There's something unsatisfying about the resolution, and the sparse feel applies to the episode overall; there's just enough material here for 22 minutes of reasonably diverting television, but it's nowhere near as satisfying as the show's best installments. It's not so much a failure as an inevitable result of the demands of a full television season; sometimes a story or script isn't great, but it's functional, and serves to feed the beast. \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E was not immune to the pressures of network TV, but here it handles them with just enough charm and grace to get by.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGuest Caller: Jill Clayburgh as Marie\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Rob Greenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired March 24, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EClint: Who's as lovely as a chicken beak?\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E[Transciption via KACL780.net]\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7039815739038113467\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7039815739038113467\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7039815739038113467"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7039815739038113467"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/frasierquest-517-perfect-guy.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.17: The Perfect Guy"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0FMQ_aiF3Qs\/U1PiJ4kn9gI\/AAAAAAAAByE\/L87wiMwmu3I\/s72-c\/5-17.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7563042931302514042"},"published":{"$t":"2014-04-19T14:52:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-04-19T14:52:28.809-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Wrestling"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"At Ringside: WWF Royal Rumble, 1993"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-z6nzu0tKZYw\/U1LTJxpBusI\/AAAAAAAABxw\/3RoH4UzOxQc\/s1600\/rr_1993_l.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Bret Hart and Razor Ramon in the ring.\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-z6nzu0tKZYw\/U1LTJxpBusI\/AAAAAAAABxw\/3RoH4UzOxQc\/s1600\/rr_1993_l.jpg\" height=\"179\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhile the WWE Network- the wrestling company's online streaming service- is mostly being sold on access to the company's live PPVs at a fraction of what buying them all would normally cost, for many wrestling fans the real value is in the service's extensive backlog of old wrestling shows and pay-per-views. For me it's an opportunity to explore a history I've mostly read about, and there are a lot of potential access points. I chose to start with 1993, because that's when the company's now-flagship show Monday Night Raw began airing, and that's a decent bridge between PPVs.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn any case the Royal Rumble is always a good starting point. Timed to get people's attention around the end of football season, the WWF\/E's January pay-per-view is constructed as a way to set up characters and stories for Wrestlemania in the spring, and the title match itself is key to that. A battle royal with wrestlers entering in regular intervals and eliminated by going over the top rope, the Royal Rumble gives quick introductions to a good portion of the roster and lets us see who's a big deal and who is… not so much. It's almost always good because the concept itself is so inherently strong, and even though 1993 saw the WWF a little unsure of where it was going, the '93 Royal Rumble has more than enough to recommend it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe fun begins with the Steiner Brothers, Rick and Scott, battling the Beverly Brothers, Beau and Blake. I actually had to watch this match a couple of times because I didn't remember it much the first time around, which shouldn't speak well for it, but it's actually pretty good. There's not much story to it, other than the Steiners being pushed further up the card, but the Beverlys are strong heels who pull all the standard tricks without hurting the pace of the match. And of course the Steiners are both good workers, with Scott playing the babyface in peril for most of it. (It's genuinely odd to see the future Big Booty Daddy in this role.) It ends with a genuinely ugly Frankensteiner that I hope didn't land as stiffly as it looked, but anyway the good guys win. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor a match with a little more story to it, you get Shawn Michaels, the Heartbreak Kid, defending the Intercontinental Title against his ex-partner Marty Jannetty. The two had been a big success as the Rockers, but Michaels decided he needed to strike out on his own and superkicked Marty through a window, so war it is. Both men are talented examples of the \"New Generation\" Vince McMahon was starting to promote in lieu of Hulk Hogan \u0026amp; Friends, but there's a third element in \"Sensational\" Sherri, the group's valet, now torn in her allegiances. (Though she still sings Shawn's entrance theme. Terribly.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe match itself is showy and fun, even if the finish mars it- Sherri attempts to intervene to help Marty but ends up hitting him instead, letting Shawn get the pin. Michaels winning is clearly not a bad decision- he would be a major player over the next few years, and was a bright spot in the WWF's worst periods- but it's something of a cheap finish, more about Sherri than the combatants. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe then get to the show's only outright stinker of a match, featuring big man Bam Bam Bigelow (whose theme music amusingly has him shouting \"Bam! Bam! Bam!\" throughout) vs. the Big Boss Man. There is no story whatsoever to this match, except that Bam Bam was returning from an injury and Boss Man was on his way out. It's two big guys very slowly punching each other and executing basic maneuvers, something of a McMahon signature piece, and while this sort of thing can be done well, in this case nobody's putting in the effort. So, yeah, Bam Bam wins and his hilarious theme music starts playing again. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFortunately the worst match on the card is followed by easily the best one, with Bret Hart defending the WWF Championship against Razor Ramon (a.k.a. Scott Hall pretending to be Al Pacino in Scarface.) Hart was well established as a fighting champion before this, defending his title against all comers, while Ramon was tearing through jobbers on Superstars and the newly-launched Monday Night Raw. They're a great contrast in terms of appearance and personality, Hart the reasonably-proportioned technician and Ramon the giant brawler. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's also a very good flow in the match, with Hart targeting Ramon's legs (the better to set up a Sharpshooter) while Ramon focuses on Hart's ribs. Hart is methodical, Ramon is vicious. Hart ultimately retains, but Razor is kept strong throughout. Scott Hall would make a big impact both here and in WCW, but his career was essentially brought to a halt by excessive drinking, and matches like this make you realize just how much of a shame that was. (Though, thankfully, he seems to finally be getting the help he needs, thanks to Diamond Dallas Page of all people.) The match maybe stops short of greatness, but it's the highlight of the night.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBetween main events, we're given a breather as announcer, manager, and general no-goodnik Bobby \"The Brain\" Heenan- he who sent Andre the Giant against Hulk Hogan- departs the table to unveil his latest client, the Narcissist, Lex Luger. The blond muscleman (originally called Narcissus but changed because, I'm not sure actually) poses and flexes in front of several mirrors, while Heenan gets really into describing how gorgeous and powerful he is. Vince McMahon probably loved this segment, and Heenan deserves credit for selling it as thoroughly as he does. It's interesting to consider how short-lived this gimmick would be for Luger, but that's getting into future events. It's a short and harmless fluff piece. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnother personal appearance, this time by \"Julius Caesar\", serves as an extended ad for Wrestlemania IX, which would be held at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and thus employ a gaudy Roman theme. And while Wrestlemania IX would end up basically a disaster, I really enjoy the goofy fantasy element as it's used here. More time filler, but I'll allow it. It's basically the retro version of the WWE's current practice of plugging their next PPV in the middle of the one they're showing you. Caesar reminds us all that the winner of the Rumble will compete in the main event at Wrestlemania, and bids the games begin. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd with that the Royal Rumble proper starts. Ric Flair, last year's winner, enters first, followed by veteran Bob Backlund. Flair actually gets to look pretty good considering he was about to leave the WWF, and his eventual elimination at the hands of Mr. Perfect helps play into the Loser Leaves Town match on the following Raw that was his farewell. Backlund, meanwhile, hangs in for a very long time, likely helping guide the others. In addition to those two there's a good variety of combatants; they're mostly on the obscure side, but the advantage of classic WWF's comic-book style is that everyone is distinct, if only because of their hideous, hideous outfits. (I'm especially fond of Damien Demento's downright Gigeresque shoulder piece.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe match is dragged down, however, by another bit of 'Mania setup, when Giant Gonzales, a towering lunk of a man wearing an airbrushed muscle suit with patches of fur to protect his dignity, enters the ring despite not being in the match and eliminates the Undertaker. This leads to a long, protracted sequence of Gonzales very slowly attacking the Dead Man, setting up their Wrestlemania match. It's clear even from this brief taste that the man cannot really wrestle; he lumbers around stiffly and grimaces, and the whole thing is an unwelcome interruption to a match that was actually going well. Eventually the giant leaves and the actual fight starts again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe last two men in the ring end up being Macho Man Randy Savage and Yokozuna, a massive sumo wrestler who at this point was not only undefeated, but claimed to have never been knocked off his feet. After taking a couple of body splashes in the corner, Savage manages to knock Yokozuna down to the mat, then forgets what kind of match this is and goes for a pin. Yokozuna somehow kicks out with enough force to send Macho Man stumbling back over the top rope, and the match is over.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's a disappointingly abrupt finish, but it establishes the power of Yokozuna as he heads into the main event at Wrestlemania. I tend to prefer it when the Rumble is used to elevate someone who isn't already a main eventer, whether the push works or not. Yokozuna may not be as intimidating as he was; back in 1993 America was still pretty firmly convinced that Japan was going to take over the world with inexpensive cars, and without that xenophobia he loses a little something, but he's still a mountainous sumo wrestler with a mean attitude. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's definitely more good than bad in the 1993 Royal Rumble, even as the WWF as a whole was having trouble figuring out where it wanted to go. You can definitely see signs of this; the tone is almost sedate by pro wrestling standards, without the intensity that really good pacing can bring to an event. But the wrestling is solid, the commentary is enthusiastic, and the jobbers are colorful. It works particularly well as the setup for Wrestlemania, but… we'll get to that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7563042931302514042\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7563042931302514042\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7563042931302514042"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7563042931302514042"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/at-ringside-wwf-royal-rumble-1993.html","title":"At Ringside: WWF Royal Rumble, 1993"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-z6nzu0tKZYw\/U1LTJxpBusI\/AAAAAAAABxw\/3RoH4UzOxQc\/s72-c\/rr_1993_l.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5558575620121095478"},"published":{"$t":"2014-03-30T01:58:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-03-30T01:58:33.575-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Lego Movie"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dc4rlEXWpSo\/UzfAGUvRjhI\/AAAAAAAABxc\/cfZ-53n8s4U\/s1600\/lego_movie_ver9.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dc4rlEXWpSo\/UzfAGUvRjhI\/AAAAAAAABxc\/cfZ-53n8s4U\/s1600\/lego_movie_ver9.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIf something called \u003Ci\u003EThe Lego Movie\u003C\/i\u003E were going to work on anyone, it probably would work on me. I had a tubful of those damned bricks as a kid, and to this day, they exert a certain hold- it's hard NOT to start building something with them, and harder still to keep that construction from growing increasingly elaborate, until of course I realize I need even more of the bricks to round out my concept. I think they may actually create some kind of chemical dependency. But I was wary when seeing these generic toys made into a movie; it could either work really well or come off as the most cynical, calculated exercise imaginable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt works. Oh man, does it work. The makers of \u003Ci\u003ECloudy With A Chance of Meatballs\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E21 Jump Street\u003C\/i\u003E would be the ones to make such an unlikely concept sing, and they bring to this colorful brickfest a fittingly anarchic sense of humor, melded with a sincere and kind of sophisticated message about human creative potential. It's a film that gives us a peppy song called \"Everything is Awesome\" first satirically, then enthusiastically, a film that deflates the myth of the Chosen Hero of Destiny before building it up all over again, and a film full of surprises. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EChris Pratt is the voice of Emmett, a solid Lego citizen of a solid and orderly Lego city in which everyone is encouraged to fit in under the wise and beneficent rule of President Business (Will Farrell). He watches the #1 TV show (\"Where Are My Pants?\" for those curious), listens to the top song (the aforementioned \"Everything is Awesome\"), buys overpriced coffee, and helps his fellow construction workers clear away strange old buildings in favor of an orderly metropolis. One night, however, he meets the strange rebel Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), fuses with something called the Piece of Resistance, and finds himself the Chosen One, destined to halt the evil Business' plan to destroy the world, with the assistance of the Lego multiverse's master builders, including the masterful wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), Benny the Spaceman (Charlie Day), the sparkly Princess UniKitty (Alison Brie), and of course, Batman (Will Arnett). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story is positioned primarily as a clash between order and freedom. Lord Business' plan is to use the Kragle- apparently a tube of glue- to freeze the inhabitants of the Lego universe in place, all in perfect poses within buildings and vehicles built according to the instructions. The master builders, on the other hand, are imaginative and versatile thinkers who can see every brick and piece as new possibilities. Emmett is used to following the rules, though, and teaching him to think of said possibilities is a slow process. It's a conflict that echoes criticisms of the Lego line itself as it moved towards sets with seemingly more specialized pieces (though any respectable toy store should still sell those big tubs.) The film doesn't advocate pure chaos, though- Emmett's skill at following directions does come in handy, and we see at least one case of the master builders' inability to collaborate causing problems. It's a conflicted world in need of harmony.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film gets a bit more daring in its handling of the \"chosen one\" theme. The idea that heroes are inherently special and destined to do great things has come in for a fair amount of criticism in recent years, not entirely undeserved, and at many points the film forces us to consider the idea that Emmett may not really be anything special at all. Rather than deconstruct prophecies and the heroic ideal altogether, though, the movie offers a more democratic solution, and couches it within a plot twist that's genuinely stunning both for how surprising it is and for how well it works.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a very loose, Mad Magazine kind of feel to \u003Ci\u003EThe Lego Movie\u003C\/i\u003E; it's a very busy film, full of throwaway jokes and nods both to pop culture and Lego history. The relentless pace of the jokes means that most of them hit, and the ones that don't are gone anyway. Parts of the film are clearly targeted at people who grew up with Lego- Benny, with his cracked helmet, faded insignia and obsession with building spaceships, will especially speak to viewers of a certain age- while others are more universal in appeal. The film's voice casting is frankly remarkable- in addition to the above, we have Liam Neeson as a cop and Lord Business' enforcer, Nick Offerman as a pirate, and an all-too-brief appearance by Cobie Smulders as Wonder Woman. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film was computer animated but manages to look like really good stop motion, and a lot of the simple joy of the film is in its wash of shapes and colors, bricks flying about freely and being quickly repurposed. Many of the film's best visual gags are simply in how the pieces are used to represent things. In many ways this is a movie serving as a toy commercial, but as dreadful as that would normally be, I'm willing to allow it now. When a movie is this sincere, this clever, this inspiring, and this good, I can live with the advertising.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBesides, I don't exactly need much of an excuse to start buying blocks again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten for the screen and Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5558575620121095478\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5558575620121095478\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5558575620121095478"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5558575620121095478"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/03\/in-theaters-lego-movie.html","title":"In Theaters: The Lego Movie"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dc4rlEXWpSo\/UzfAGUvRjhI\/AAAAAAAABxc\/cfZ-53n8s4U\/s72-c\/lego_movie_ver9.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5092587731192877597"},"published":{"$t":"2014-03-25T00:57:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-03-25T00:57:28.266-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Books"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Bookshelf: The Beach House by James Patterson \u0026 Peter De Jonge"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/--1e5QiHFqIQ\/UzEaXEyBPbI\/AAAAAAAABxM\/IUv7RWg0ka0\/s1600\/BeachHouse.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/--1e5QiHFqIQ\/UzEaXEyBPbI\/AAAAAAAABxM\/IUv7RWg0ka0\/s1600\/BeachHouse.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"189\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhen I was given this book, I saw an opportunity to take a look at modern thriller fiction, which is something I don't normally pay much attention to. James Patterson is one of those writers whose books you see everywhere, and he makes no secret of relying on co-authors to deliver the apparent hundreds of titles expected of him per year. Far be it from me to look down on popular fiction; there is an art to a good page-turner, to making the reader feel they just have to see what happens next. \u003Ci\u003EThe Beach House\u003C\/i\u003E isn't a complete letdown on this front, to be sure, but it's a toothless experience, a conspiracy thriller which avoids visceral bite in favor of vague class-awareness posturing. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe book begins with the murder of Peter Mullen, a young man working as a valet for a party at the titular beach house in East Hampton. His body is thrown in the ocean and his death ruled a suicide, but his brother Jack, an attorney, refuses to believe it. He's convinced the wealthy Neubauer family, who owned the place, are covering something up, and tries to rally the rest of the non-insanely-wealthy townsfolk to find out what it is. Of course the Neubauers are powerful enough to obstruct investigations, buy off or intimidate witnesses, get people fired, and much, much worse. Jack puts his career on the line trying to discover the truth, and eventually finds he has to go outside the law to get justice.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's a strong enough hook. The authors aren't exactly subtle when it comes to working the angles of class conflict and the unlimited powers of the 1%. The Mullen family are true working-class salt of the earth folk, and so are most of the people in East Hampton, and much of the story is them being pushed around and increasingly ground into the dirt by the Neubauers and friends. Frankly, it starts to get repetitive after a while, without much progress into the mystery. A good thriller depends on the slow unravelling of the plot, either showing the audience more of the story or pretending to do so. What revelations do take place aren't earth-shattering enough to justify the slow drip. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPart of the problem may simply be the prose. Books like this don't sell themselves on their master wordcraft, but one should probably still expect a certain intensity or punch to the writing in a thriller. This is mostly just dull and functional, not helped by the generic personality of the first person narrator whom the book occasionally just abandons anyway for the sake of a few vignettes focused on a shadowy \"fixer\". Too often the book tries to go for the heartstrings when it should be punching us in the gut, trying to evoke working class sympathy instead of terrifying us. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDespite these problems I will say I kept reading, and was curious as to how it turned out. But any chance I might give the book a pass as a page-turner evaporated with the climax, which quickly becomes too ridiculous even for the standards of cheap summer reading. It's not just that the set-up strains credulity, which it does, but it attempts to draw itself out over such a long period of time as to kill all the tension. There's a really intense and brutal scene buried in the last several chapters (this is one of those books which drops chapter breaks every two pages), but it's spread out over several days with time for a sex scene, an abortive chase, even a positive shout-out to Geraldo Rivera of all people.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt may be inevitable that a book like \u003Ci\u003EThe Beach House\u003C\/i\u003E ends up bland. Patterson and his various writing partners (who according to some do most of the work) are part of a machine plugging out these things in absurd numbers. To be sure, many of the things that drag the book down for me are part of that successful formula; ultra-sharp delineation between the heroes and villains, bare and functional writing, and a glowing sense of assurance that of course the hero will win. I can accept these things in their proper place, but in \u003Ci\u003EThe Beach House\u003C\/i\u003E they're tension killers, and the book's attempt at populist appeal seems desperate, pandering. There's an art to writing good popular fiction, arguably one that is not given the scrutiny it deserves. When we let our standards get too lax, dull reads result. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5092587731192877597\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5092587731192877597\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5092587731192877597"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5092587731192877597"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/03\/the-bookshelf-beach-house-by-james.html","title":"The Bookshelf: The Beach House by James Patterson \u0026 Peter De Jonge"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/--1e5QiHFqIQ\/UzEaXEyBPbI\/AAAAAAAABxM\/IUv7RWg0ka0\/s72-c\/BeachHouse.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4655494940773499328"},"published":{"$t":"2014-02-21T14:00:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-02-21T14:00:55.940-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Wolf of Wall Street"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-JxOAk0_S-EU\/Uwev_1t8BxI\/AAAAAAAABw8\/Ifc22clNHu4\/s1600\/wolf_of_wall_street_ver3.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-JxOAk0_S-EU\/Uwev_1t8BxI\/AAAAAAAABw8\/Ifc22clNHu4\/s1600\/wolf_of_wall_street_ver3.jpg\" height=\"320\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster, as usual, from IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EThe Wolf of Wall Street\u003C\/i\u003E has been accused of glamorizing the life of Jordan Belfort, a broker who made millions on bad and often fradulent stock deals before being caught and serving a minor sentence in a minimum security prison. And to be sure, it's a very decadent experience, full of sex, wild parties, and frankly absurd displays of opulence for opulence's sake. The mood, however, is not quite aspirational, and not quite cautionary, but something intense, insane, and energetic. Martin Scorcese's work is almost always animated by a kind of mania, and in this case it's ideally suited to confronting the mindset that has dominated the financial world for so long.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELeonardo DiCaprio plays Belfort, who began his financial career shortly before the 1987 stock market crash wiped out the company he had just been hired at. Belfort ends up at a slightly less ritzy firm selling penny stocks- stocks not big enough to be listed on the major exchanges- to the poor and easily misled. He decides to strike out on his own, and starts assembling a team which uses the same aggressive sales techniques to get the rich- and apparently just as easily misled- to invest in similarly shady stocks. Belfort becomes insanely rich, and becomes addicted to, well, a lot of things- sex, cocaine, quaaludes, alcohol, ridiculously extravagant purchases, the lot. He dumps his first wife Teresa (Cristin Milloti) for a model named Naomi (Margot Robbie), but they quickly become estranged as well as he starts to disappear into decadence. Instead, his major partner in all this is Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), who despite a meek exterior has even larger appetites and a clumsier way of indulging himself. The richer they get, the harder it is to handle all the money they have, especially since they're not necessarily supposed to have all of it. And there's an FBI man, Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who knows something is going wrong here, but has a long way to go putting it all together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMuch like war, economic gluttony is something that's hard to portray without making it look at least somewhat exciting. Everyone wants to have the good life, and it may not help that we never directly see anyone whose lives were ruined by Belfort's shady dealings. But Scorcese (who fought drug addiction in his own life) creates a sense of vomitous excess easily, adding an oppressive atmosphere to go along with the script's black comedy. It becomes clear that there's a compulsion in Belfort and Azoff and their cohorts' behavior, and underneath it all there's a desire to degrade both others and themselves. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe really surprising thing about the film is just how funny it is. For much of its running time the film is an utterly pitch-black comedy, showing both the absurdity of the characters' depravity and the desperation they have to hang on to their privilege. A sequence with Belfort on a particularly strong dose of quaaludes allows DiCaprio to engage in a level of slapstick I never knew he was capable of. The casting itself provides a few chuckles, notably Jean Dujardin as an unethical Swiss banker and Joanna Lumley as Naomi's aunt who volunteers to be a mule. It's mostly DiCaprio and Hill's show, but with a solid ensemble behind them. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBeing based on a true story does limit the film somewhat dramatically. Belfort never quite felt the full sting of the law, and most of the film is a series of narrow escapes that can be frustrating if you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's the eternal question of just how sympathetic a character has to be for us to follow them as a protagonist- or, in the absence of sympathy, how compelling they must be. We may not like Jordan Belfort but we can be amazed that it's possible to do what he did and get away with it for so long.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBelfort and Azoff weren't directly involved in the financial shenanigans that precipitated the most recent financial collapse and recession, but the film provides a stunning insight into how those sorts of things happen. We see just how absurd and unreal life can become when money flows freely, bringing with it sex, drugs, and the desire to throw little people onto velcro dartboards. I'm sure there will be those audience members who see this as something to emulate, but some people can't be helped.\u0026nbsp; For the rest of us it's an entertaining and disquieting experience, a provocative look into a world that has way too much power over our own. We laugh because it would be far too depressing otherwise.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the book by Jordan Belfort\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Terence Winter\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Martin Scorcese\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4655494940773499328\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4655494940773499328\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4655494940773499328"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4655494940773499328"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/02\/in-theaters-wolf-of-wall-street.html","title":"In Theaters: The Wolf of Wall Street"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-JxOAk0_S-EU\/Uwev_1t8BxI\/AAAAAAAABw8\/Ifc22clNHu4\/s72-c\/wolf_of_wall_street_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8034243072432854156"},"published":{"$t":"2014-01-30T23:17:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-01-30T23:17:15.723-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: Terror of the Autons"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-uzikESDJKyc\/UusxS4GKNjI\/AAAAAAAABws\/bvwF2fFeXjY\/s1600\/TerroroftheAutons.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Terror of the Autons DVD cover\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-uzikESDJKyc\/UusxS4GKNjI\/AAAAAAAABws\/bvwF2fFeXjY\/s320\/TerroroftheAutons.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere are only a few \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E stories which are really direct sequels, but \"Terror of the Autons\" occupies an interesting space. It's a reprise of \"Spearhead from Space\", the third Doctor's inaugural story, not just in reintroducing that story's villains, but also in accomplishing another tweak to the show's format. It gives the Doctor an adversary, the Master, an evil Time Lord who's just about his intellectual equal. That alone guarantees its significance, even if the story sometimes plays like a dry run for the season to follow; it ends up being fairly effective, but takes a while to get to its payoff. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Doctor (Jon Pertwee), still trapped on Earth and working for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, is paired with a new assistant after the (offscreen) departure of Liz Shaw. Jo Grant (Katy Manning) is young, perky, and kind of silly, but she's determined to help. In the meantime the Master (Roger Delgado) has landed on Earth, and with his power of hypnosis has managed to steal a meteorite containing the essence of the Nestene Consciousness, the intelligence that tried to conquer the planet with an army of living plastic drones.\u0026nbsp; The Master hypnotizes his way into a local plastics factory, sets up shop, and kills most of the senior staff with an assortment of killer plastic novelties, including a living troll doll and a plastic lounger that inflates to suffocate its occupant. His plans is to help the Nestenenes conquer the Earth and in the process, hopefully kill his old enemy, the Doctor.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is a story with a somewhat controversial reputation, at least at the time it was broadcast. Much of the story involves The Master's killer plastic creations, all of which hit a little too close to home for younger viewers- killer dolls and suffocating novelty flowers were a stretch too far, even if the story doesn't actually show much of the titular Auton terror. It's in the story's mixture of the innocuous and the deadly that it's the most effective, but many of the complaints seemed, in the end, to stem from the fact that Doctor Who had, up to this point, been considered a children's show and was starting to leave that initial audience behind. Out of context the Auton attacks are scarcely more terrifying than the average episode of The Avengers, but there is something wonderfully effective about the faceless Autons who abduct the Doctor and Jo in the guise of policemen, as well as the ones \"disguised\" with oversize novelty mascot heads passing out fatal flowers in market squares across the country. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJo Grant has something of a mixed first outing. The sad reality, of course, is that Liz Shaw was written off (without even a goodbye scene) because the people making the show were having trouble writing for a companion who was nearly as clever as the Doctor, and needed a sillier, more naive female character who could ask the Doctor to explain everything and get herself in trouble. In the course of the first episode Jo manages to get hypnotized by the Master and nearly destroy Unit HQ with a bomb, and her record doesn't improve much from there- Katy Manning is nicely enthusiastic but the character has yet to establish herself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Master, on the other hand, doesn't take long to prove his worth. While he and the Doctor have history together, there's something amusing about the fact that the Master treats his attempted conquest of the Earth as part of a long game of oneupsmanship; even his attempt to kill his nemesis is less the settling of an ancient grudge and more the ultimate last word. But just because the Master is being unbelievably petty doesn't mean he isn't ruthless or clever, and Roger Delgado gives the character more than enough presence to be a perfect Moriarty figure. It helps that he also has a strong theme as a controller, someone who forces his will upon others, and leading an army of plastic men helps establish what kind of bad guy this is. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nVisually and dramatically the story is a bit lightweight, never really establishing the deadliness of the Autons as they had been in their first appearance. At times the whole thing plays more like a low-key Avengers episode than an alien invasion saga, and though a certain mundanity was always a peril of UNIT stories, here it feels like things have specifically been stripped down so as to focus on the introduction of the Master, who would, in a further twist on an already changed format, be the major villain for every story in the season (and who would be a major presence throughout the Pertwee era until Delgado's untimely death.) This may be why the Autons returned in the first place- a familiar villain from the prior season wouldn't need much explanation or exposition. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo while not a classic in its own right, \"Terror of the Autons\" lays the groundwork for a further spin on the Doctor Who formula. Time has diminished some of its shock value, with the result that it seems to take a while to get going, but it's worth it just to see the Doctor face off against his evil opposite; the rogue wanderer confronting a would-be tyrant. Pertwee and Delgado only get to interact for a few scenes, but it's the start of something special. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8034243072432854156\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8034243072432854156\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8034243072432854156"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8034243072432854156"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2014\/01\/random-who-report-terror-of-autons.html","title":"Random Who Report: Terror of the Autons"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-uzikESDJKyc\/UusxS4GKNjI\/AAAAAAAABws\/bvwF2fFeXjY\/s72-c\/TerroroftheAutons.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2607165919886266826"},"published":{"$t":"2013-12-31T19:03:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-31T19:03:46.210-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Opening Credits"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Opening Credits Sequence Theater: Dead Ringers"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ciframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gbZzpXMfwvE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\n\n(Why is there still no soundtrack album goddamnit.)"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2607165919886266826\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2607165919886266826\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2607165919886266826"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2607165919886266826"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/12\/opening-credits-sequence-theater-dead.html","title":"Opening Credits Sequence Theater: Dead Ringers"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8924152370683153622"},"published":{"$t":"2013-12-31T18:13:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-31T18:13:38.840-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0kBqWmtegDU\/UsNdcaMcupI\/AAAAAAAABwc\/rlsilTNr6xI\/s1600\/secret_life_of_walter_mitty_ver8.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Walter Mitty poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0kBqWmtegDU\/UsNdcaMcupI\/AAAAAAAABwc\/rlsilTNr6xI\/s320\/secret_life_of_walter_mitty_ver8.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty\u003C\/i\u003E is probably not a great film. It has a number of flaws, and signs of compromises made in the name of box office appeal. But there's something remarkable about it. It's often beautiful, meditative, and disarmingly sincere. It really isn't much of an adaptation of the short story and at many times seems to drift away from the very premise, but since fidelity to the source material and actual quality are two completely separate things, the worst that happens is the film gets a little unfocused. It has all the signs of the familiar Oscar-bait feel good picture, but its true atmosphere is more relaxed. And there's the very real danger that the conventional elements of the film, as well as its nature as an adaptation, will overshadow its very real and very odd strengths.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMitty (as played by Ben Stiller) spends much of his life dreaming about possible adventures and action movie heroics, in between working at Life Magazine's photo archives. His primary interest, though, is his lovely co-worker Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig), whose attention he's been trying to get without seeming too interested. However, the magazine is about to cease print publication, and the negative for the picture that's supposed to be their final cover has gone missing. The only way to track it down is to contact the photographer, old-fashioned adventurer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), who is… well, off the map. Fueled by a desire to make his life interesting, and a need to stave off the inquiries of his new boss (a perfectly cast Adam Scott), Walter heads off in search of O'Connell across Greenland, Iceland, and places further away.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo this is a very loose adaptation of the original story (the point of which, of course, is that Walter's adventures stay in his head), and this is the main obstacle the film faces with skeptical critics and everyone who has read the story. Thankfully for director Stiller and scripter Steven Conrad I have not, and more importantly, fidelity to a source is entirely orthagonal to film quality. If a film is well written, acted, shot, paced, etc., should we love it less because of its relation to another work of art which shares the same title? Even the familiar refrain of \"Why did they even bother buying the rights\" means little to me- they buy rights because original films are harder to market, and in any case if a company wants to throw money at authors and their estates for no good reason that's none of my business.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven considering the film in a vacuum, however, it does seem a little odd to establish a character who leads a boring life and fantasizes about a better one, and to very quickly send him on a real-life adventure which removes much of the need to fantasize. The dream sequences in the film are superb, evoking the clichés of Hollywood action spectaculars and even having the subtle signifier of richer color saturation, but they start to trail off rather abruptly when Walter's actual journey begins. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat saves the film is that the real-life sequences have a power of their own. There is something vividly real and intense about Walter's travel to the frozen North, with subtle CG effects and the occasional fantasy enhancing gorgeous real-world imagery. The film is just plain beautifully photographed and features a lovely soundtrack, and there's a lot to be said for the picture as a purely sensory experience. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere is perhaps something predictable in the film embracing messages of going out and finding yourself and seizing the day and so on, but Stiller keeps the schmaltz reasonably in check. Kristen Wiig continues to prove that when given an actual character (as opposed to the one-note recurring roles she had on SNL), she's a splendid actress, and there's something very real and subtle about the characters' relationship even if the literal plot makes sure to check off a few clichés. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's something just appealingly rare about this film- we've seen this story before, but not quite like this. As a director Ben Stiller is interested in images and the way we define ourselves in relation to them (his films before then have involved video dating, cable repairmen, and modeling), and in \u003Ci\u003EWalter Mitty\u003C\/i\u003E he gives us a portrait of a man who has been surrounded by images which make him want to live a better life than he does. And he… may eventually realize that. Sentimental, maybe, but I refuse to consider that as any less valid than a story about the darker sides of human nature. I'm not entirely sure why I like this film so much. But I think there is something special here.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the short story by James Thurber\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Steve Conrad\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Ben Stiller\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8924152370683153622\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8924152370683153622\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8924152370683153622"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8924152370683153622"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/12\/in-theaters-secret-life-of-walter-mitty.html","title":"In Theaters: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-0kBqWmtegDU\/UsNdcaMcupI\/AAAAAAAABwc\/rlsilTNr6xI\/s72-c\/secret_life_of_walter_mitty_ver8.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4464052471441657424"},"published":{"$t":"2013-12-31T17:39:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-31T17:39:37.806-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.16: Beware of Greeks"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-whRq9_bsipE\/UsNVO6AkPFI\/AAAAAAAABwM\/jWN_2h7wyGU\/s1600\/Ep111.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"I have a feeling the screencaps are going to get rougher from here on out.\" border=\"0\" height=\"212\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-whRq9_bsipE\/UsNVO6AkPFI\/AAAAAAAABwM\/jWN_2h7wyGU\/s320\/Ep111.jpg\" title=\"Niles, Aunt Zora, and Frasier\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: I'd like to venture an opinion here.\u0026nbsp; I know this doesn't exactly concern me, but I feel very strongly about this. I like zither music, and I always have!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E[She goes to her room.\u0026nbsp; Silence for a moment.]\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: And we're back! \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(From KACL780.net)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESitcoms introduce us to families and groups of friends, but inevitably they leave people out. It's a fair bet that if a show runs long enough, we're going to meet long lost cousins who didn't exist before because the writers didn't need them to exist. \"Beware of Greeks\" basically posits an entire bough of the Crane family tree who we've never seen, all to get Patti LuPone to do a Greek accent and threaten people with violence. It's a silly contrivance and the whole episode is basically an odd excursion into a parallel universe, but it is amusing enough for the duration.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier gets a surprise visit from his heretofore-unmentioned cousin Nikos (Joseph Will), who is getting married and wants him and his family to attend the wedding. Martin would love to see his brother Walt (John Mahon) again, but his wife Zora (LuPone) harbors a grudge against Frasier for persuading Nikos to forsake medical school in pursuit of his true passion, street juggling. To get the family back into Zora's good graces, Frasier promises not to meddle, but when he sees that Nikos' fiancee is primarily interested in mortifying her parents, and that Nikos himself is still nursing feelings for a fellow street performer, he can't help but bend the terms of his agreement.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe've never met any of these people before, and in fact there's a bit of a continuity cheat here; Martin specifically told Niles and Frasier that he never had a brother way back in the first season. (Then again, considering Martin is supposed to be a dead research scientist according to \u003Ci\u003ECheers\u003C\/i\u003E, we can assume many things change over time.) When a sitcom does something this left field it's hard to avoid wondering if the writers aren't starting to run low on ideas, and there's something weirdly self-contained about the whole affair, as though we know none of these people will be on the show again. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut the contrivance offers a few pleasures, not the least of which is LuPone. Her character is over-the-top, but in a way that's theatrical enough that it fits with the show's overall tone. There's something of a Greek stereotype in this, the fiery hot-tempered Mediterranean woman, but LuPone's performance is good enough to make that aspect worth overlooking. The exotic setting adds some visual interest to the whole affair, with most of the episode set in Zora's restaurant. There's also an amusing subplot involving cousin Yvonne (Lori Harmon), a downright Amazonian- or at least Russ Meyerian- figure with an obsessive crush on Niles. There's a lot to be said for the playful pageantry of the episode overall, even if it feels inconsequential even for a sitcom episode.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt its core the episode is a test of Frasier's ethics, which puts him back at the center of things after a few episodes. He's forced to weigh his promises against his innate desire to do the right thing, and it helps the episode as a whole that the final encounter between Nikos and his lost love Crystal (Heide Karp) is very sweet. The inevitable breakup between him and fiancee Mary Anne (Valerie Dillman) is predicated on her only being interested in him for his ability to annoy her parents, so we don't feel too bad about that. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"Beware of Greeks\" is a fall back to the territory of the conventional sitcom, where in-laws and distant cousins can be introduced and forgotten about in the same episode all in the name of creating a funny half-hour. It's not necessarily a bad approach to the genre, even if it's one that continuity-savvy audiences have grown acutely aware- and wary- of. It's hard to argue that the episode doesn't, at the very least, represent a substantial step down from the heights of the last three installments. But it's not exactly bad television either. It's a silly side-step into classical comedy, and offers some pleasant sights and sounds along the way.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by David Lloyd\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired March 17, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles: Do you have a death wish?\u0026nbsp; She'll eat you alive!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Oh, I'm not afraid of her!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Everyone is!\u0026nbsp; Have you forgotten the family legend that when Hitler invaded Greece she joined the partisans just so she could strangle Nazis?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: I have never believed that.\u0026nbsp; She would have to have been five years old at the time!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Well, that's why the legend says they were strangled with jump ropes.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4464052471441657424\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4464052471441657424\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4464052471441657424"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4464052471441657424"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/12\/frasierquest-516-beware-of-greeks.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.16: Beware of Greeks"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-whRq9_bsipE\/UsNVO6AkPFI\/AAAAAAAABwM\/jWN_2h7wyGU\/s72-c\/Ep111.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1097468934468780524"},"published":{"$t":"2013-12-22T12:25:00.006-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-12-22T12:25:39.163-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Ie2urOQbUns\/UrcuWyY9gmI\/AAAAAAAABv8\/xRynXjwMUjQ\/s1600\/hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Hobbit poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Ie2urOQbUns\/UrcuWyY9gmI\/AAAAAAAABv8\/xRynXjwMUjQ\/s320\/hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's hard to separate one's feelings about \u003Ci\u003EThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug\u003C\/i\u003E from one's opinion on Peter Jackson and company's entire approach to the trilogy. Much more than the \u003Ci\u003ELord of the Rings\u003C\/i\u003E films, this is a radical rehaul of the source material, expanding upon it in such a way that the focus and tone fundamentally changes. There are downsides to this approach, on display in \u003Ci\u003EDesolation of Smaug\u003C\/i\u003E as in the first film; an inevitable sense of bloat, a story that feels stretched and oddly contorted, characters getting lost in the cutaways. But even if the whole thing comes off a little indulgent and undisciplined, there's still a lot to be entertained by, from elven cities and dark foreboding secrets to a terrifying dragon with the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch. It's just a little bit tighter and better focused than its predecessor as well, and its changes to the source material start to pay off in interesting ways. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBilbo (Martin Freeman), Thorin (Richard Armitage) and company are still on the way to the Lonely Mountain, first passing through the disorienting and spider-infested mess of Mirkwood Forest before running afoul of a group of extremely territorial wood elves. Bilbo, still in possession of a magic ring of invisibility (which will go on to cause a lot of trouble), evades capture, and sets about working on an escape to Laketown under the mountain. Meanwhile, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) continues, with Radagast (Sylvester McCoy), to investigate the dark force growing at Dol Gudur, where he discovers an ancient and powerful enemy raising an army. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are also a few subplots, some from the book and some original, the latter revolving around the newly invented character of Tauriel (Evangeline Lily), an elvish guard captain who gets caught up in the longstanding emnity between her people and the dwarves, which cannot help but make things awkward when she finds herself striking up something like a romance with Kili (Aidan Turner); the character's presence may be forced but LIly is quite charming and the writing gives her a sense of purpose beyond rounding out the demographics. More in line with the book, though given more detail, is the story of the greedy, corrupt Master of Laketown (played by Stephen Fry), who has been wreaking all sorts of petty oppression on the poverty-stricken city while helping himself to the finest luxuries. This part of the story takes some interesting turns, because while the noble town guardsman Bard (Luke Evans) initially helps shelter the dwarves from the Master's prying eyes, he comes to fear what the return of the King under the Mountain truly means.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut never mind all that, what about the dragon? Smaug is a real beauty, toothsome and serpentine and voiced by Cumberbatch with just the right level of contempt for everything else in existence. He is first seen rising out of his hoard of gold and filling the room, and the design is classic old high fantasy which strikes a good balance between his monstrousness and the fact that he's an intelligent character. We also get to see him confront the dwarves in a way that the book never managed, which means lots of fun running around old mines and dodging fireballs. Yeah, there's a bit of a D\u0026amp;D feel to it all, but why would I ever complain about that?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is slightly trimmer than its predecessor but still a little bloated. It definitely overdoses on orc fights, at least in the early section where a trip down a river turns into an increasingly elaborate melee that, while it has some memorable moments, overstays its welcome. A number of minor plots go on a beat too long, and while there is a sense that it's setting things up to pay off later, we haven't gotten to the payoff just yet so it's still asking for patience. Still it does assuage us with some rather lovely production design and a continuing jovial and unpretentious tone. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo \u003Ci\u003EThe Desolation of Smaug\u003C\/i\u003E delivers a little more than its predecessor, not enough to become a truly great film but enough to keep us on the hook. It ends at just the right place, and there's a greater sense of storytelling momentum. It even has a few surprises, placing it a cut above most fantasy pictures. It looks like this trilogy as a whole is just plain going to fall short of the wondrous things Jackson and company accomplished with \u003Ci\u003EThe Lord of the Rings\u003C\/i\u003E, but it has its own messy charm, like the dwarves themselves.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Guillermo del Toro\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Peter Jackson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\/A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1097468934468780524\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1097468934468780524\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1097468934468780524"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1097468934468780524"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/12\/in-theaters-hobbit-desolation-of-smaug.html","title":"In Theaters: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Ie2urOQbUns\/UrcuWyY9gmI\/AAAAAAAABv8\/xRynXjwMUjQ\/s72-c\/hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7252134280848167843"},"published":{"$t":"2013-11-30T21:00:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-11-30T21:00:23.819-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Doctor Who at 50: The Sword of Orion"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfinish.com\/releases\/v\/sword-of-orion-642\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"CD cover and link to Big Finish\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/--plPQAp76Os\/Upqly77DSZI\/AAAAAAAABvs\/34I-pmLRSsc\/s320\/swordorion.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhile the Big Finish Audios have frequently played with the boundaries of the traditional \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E story, both in order to better serve the audio medium and experiment with storytelling in general, they're still aiming for the same basic giddy thrill that the TV show inspires. \"The Sword of Orion\" gives us a traditional Cyberman story, a siege by a relentless force of silver giants with overtones of cosmic war that are never fully defined. The story has a few rough patches, which might be explained by excessive adherence to tradition, but the results are suitably atmospheric, and it's good to see McGann's Doctor face off against some classic villains.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Doctor (Paul McGann) and Charley (India Fisher) have a problem. Ramsey, the Vortisaur they have been looking after since the events of last story, is too ill to return to the wilds of the time-space vortex, and neither of them know about the proper care and feeding of Vortisaurs. So they head to a bazaar in the middle of a space station, where the TARDIS ends up loaded onto a space barge, forcing them to follow along with a crew of low-rent spacehands (and one very disciplined captain) out to salvage what they can from a giant derelict space cruiser. However, it turns out to be a Cyber-warship with several living Cybermen on board, reawakening just in time to try and take over the crew.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn keeping with a tradition of Cyber-epics, the actual Cyberman reawakening and attack does not take place until halfway through the serial; there's a crazed rogue running about as foreshadowing, but most of the first half is spent establishing the characters and their world, a desperate group of people on the fringe of civilization. There's nothing special to this setup- it's largely the Firefly\/Traveller tradition of tramp freighter commerce- but it's well drawn and a suitable backdrop for an invasion of emotionless, bloodless drones who are, paradoxically, motivated by the same desire to survive.\u0026nbsp; By acting as both writer and director of this installment, Nicholas Briggs manages to realize a consistently believable environment with nothing standing out as particularly awkward.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBrigg's involvement, according to Big Finish's page at least, extends as far as the music, an excellent evocation of the oppressive, dissonant metallic marches of \"The Moonbase\" and \"Tomb of the Cybermen.\" In their first real appearance since their job as cannon fodder in the TV story \"Silver Nemesis\", the Cybermen come off as a legitimate and chilling threat, able to quickly enslave crewmembers and send Cybermats to sabotage ships' systems. The idea that audio plays can afford unlimited special effects, while not \u003Ci\u003Estrictly \u003C\/i\u003Etrue, is reinforced by this story not being limited in the number of costumes that can be built or how they can show people spacewalking between ships- the Cybermen are simply an overwhelming force, possibly moreso than they've ever been.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story's slow pacing does bring about one major problem, there, in that a central plot twist is not revealed until the fourth and final chapter, meaning all of the information needed to put it in context has to be delivered just then. The story is a bit longer than usual, coming in at over two hours, and this is readily apparent in the final episode which drags more than it should considering how the rest of it has moved. It's an interesting story in itself but might have been better presented over the course of the main plot. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe selling point of this story is really seeing- or at least hearing- Paul McGann's Doctor battle the Cybermen, something he didn't get the chance to do on screen due to the vagaries of American television. To this extent Briggs really delivers, with a solid storyline and a genuinely atmospheric production. It doesn't do much more than this, but it's good enough just as a traditional monster story that a lack of ambition isn't much of a problem. \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E need not always be formulaic, but there's a certain ritual value to the familiar, at least when it's done properly. In this case the magic works, and that's enough. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten and Directed by Nicholas Briggs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7252134280848167843\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7252134280848167843\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7252134280848167843"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7252134280848167843"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/11\/doctor-who-at-50-sword-of-orion.html","title":"Doctor Who at 50: The Sword of Orion"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/--plPQAp76Os\/Upqly77DSZI\/AAAAAAAABvs\/34I-pmLRSsc\/s72-c\/swordorion.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7281812131529726746"},"published":{"$t":"2013-11-27T11:03:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-11-27T11:03:15.691-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Doctor Who at 50: The Day of the Doctor"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kcSQBwDJ0V0\/UpYleawiw9I\/AAAAAAAABvc\/dQBKsTAsqrw\/s1600\/Poster_Day-of-the-Doctor.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Day of the Doctor poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kcSQBwDJ0V0\/UpYleawiw9I\/AAAAAAAABvc\/dQBKsTAsqrw\/s320\/Poster_Day-of-the-Doctor.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWrestling fans have a term called \"marking out\". A \"mark\", historically, was someone who thought pro wrestling was real and unscripted. Nowadays everyone knows how things are set up (except for the kids), and those of us who still watch do so without any illusions. But once in a great while, things are so well put together and so convincingly played that some instinctive part of you forgets it's all a show. For a brief period you are the mark. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"The Day of the Doctor\" got me to mark out just a bit, and because of that I can't be as objective as I'd like in reviewing it. Part of it is that the 50th anniversary special did something I had kind of been hoping the series would do, so I have to separate out my fannish satisfaction at seeing things go The Way They Ought To. But it is rare for something to work so well that I stop thinking about how well it's working and start thinking about whether the good guys will win this time. \"Day of the Doctor\" accomplishes something special, and it's worth looking into how.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENeedless to say there will be spoilers.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's interesting to consider the misdirection involved in this story. After some early glimpses of the last day of the Time War, the great unimaginable conflict that threatened to burn the universe, the story settles down a bit and tells a smaller tale of the Earth being invaded by aliens. Shapeshifting Zygons are out to colonize Earth and have been manipulating everyone from Elizabeth I to the staff of UNIT, the world's anti-alien intelligence taskforce which of course keeps the Doctor on its payroll. The enigmatic War Doctor (John Hurt) is looking in on these events- the future for him- via a time fissure, and goes in to meet his future, back-to-just-Doctor selves, and for a while it seems like the special will be about how the Doctor has been shaped and changed by his past experience, his decision to destroy Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and the guilt that has followed him ever since.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut then they change the game. The current Doctor looks at his companion Clara (who is finally starting to establish her personality after a season of being a plot point) and realizes she- and we, the audience- cannot see him press the button that would destroy not just the corrupt Time Lords, but billions of innocent Gallifreyan children. He cannot do what \"has to be done\" when we, the audience, see up close what that is. So he and the other Doctors reject the idea that it has to be done- the narrative device of the hero doing something horrid because there is no other way.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe've seen scenes like this in miniature on the show, of the Doctor faced with impossible situations and coming up with seemingly miraculous solutions and saving just about everyone. But rarely has the situation seemed so very impossible as here, and the struggle so worthy of the task. When I sat down to watch \"The Day of the Doctor\" I didn't even consider the salvation of the Time Lords on the table. But when the Doctors decided that they needed to undo their past bad act- or make it that it had never happened- I was drawn in. I no longer cared about the narrative presentation. I wanted to see how they pulled this off, if they could pull it off. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd they did. It was a worthy struggle involving every single one of them, past and future. (Well, every one of them until Peter Capaldi leaves and they find an excuse to keep the show going.) To be sure, in the course of 70 minutes \"Day of the Doctor\" had to do what the new series often does, and sacrifice the fine detail of airtight plotting at the altars of spectacle, theme, and even character. But the big genius solution is foreshadowed beautifully by an early scene involving a dungeon door and a sonic screwdriver that would need hundreds of years to figure out how to open it, and similar handwaves always seem to have a thematic reason to them. It's clear that the technical specifics of how the solution works are less important than the Doctor's decision not to be the kind of person who makes the Hard Choices that some writers insist are necessary (and which I view as a concession to the kind of moral screwiness that has become so popular since the War on Terror started.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo Gallifrey's back. Well, it's around, somewhere, lost but intact. The Doctor is now an exile as he was in the beginning, this time trying to find his home. I could not be happier. I understood the Time War, when it was introduced with the show's revival, was a necessary sweeping clean of the show's rather complex trappings, a way of reducing it back to a time traveller, a ship, and a companion. It served its purpose, and we got some good stories out of the Doctor's guilt and trauma. But after a while the portrayal of the Doctor as the last of his kind, the Lonely God with the tragic past, felt played out. It was an arc that ran its course. For the Doctor to finally shed his guilt and to have a new purpose in the universe is a wonderful change to the status quo, and to my mind the presence of the Time Lords- even when they're offscreen- lends a certain kind of ineffable grandeur to the universe of \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E. It's a strange, big universe where anything is possible. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd so, as I left the theater where I watched the BBC America simulcast on Saturday, my major thought was not \"that was a good story\" or \"Steven Moffatt seems to have the show back on track, I was worried with last season's finale\", but \"He did it. The Doctor did it.\" It's silly for an adult to think such things. But for a television show to make an adult think such things, even for a moment, is a great accomplishment. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo yeah, I think \"The Day of the Doctor\" was pretty damn good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7281812131529726746\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7281812131529726746\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7281812131529726746"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7281812131529726746"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/11\/doctor-who-at-50-day-of-doctor.html","title":"Doctor Who at 50: The Day of the Doctor"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kcSQBwDJ0V0\/UpYleawiw9I\/AAAAAAAABvc\/dQBKsTAsqrw\/s72-c\/Poster_Day-of-the-Doctor.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1357721114443957905"},"published":{"$t":"2013-11-23T02:44:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-11-23T02:44:01.603-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Doctor Who At 50: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ApJ6tfoyAY8\/UpBqdaqoBjI\/AAAAAAAABvM\/jY4u08OFsSU\/s1600\/DalekInvasion.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Dalek Invasion of Earth DVD cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ApJ6tfoyAY8\/UpBqdaqoBjI\/AAAAAAAABvM\/jY4u08OFsSU\/s320\/DalekInvasion.jpg\" width=\"227\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E survived because of the Daleks. True, it reinvented itself many times over and insinuated itself as a British institution, but before any of that, the only reason the show made it past year one is that audiences went crazy over a bunch of genocidal salt shakers. When the show's second season began, a sequel to \"The Daleks\" was inevitable, but Terry Nation commendably improves on his own work to deliver one of the best stories of William Hartnell's run, a postapocalyptic epic which cements the Daleks as classic villains. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt seems at first as though the Doctor (Hartnell) has succeeded in his quest to return Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) to their proper time and place, when the TARDIS materializes on the banks of the River Thames. But something's not quite right- it's deathly quiet, Battersea Power Station is shut down, and there are signs warning against dumping bodies into the river. It turns out they've landed nearly two hundred years into the future, and the Daleks have successfully invaded the Earth, making mankind into slave laborers and steadily wiping out pockets of resistance. Barbara and Susan (Carole Ann Ford) fall in with a group of freedom fighters, including the handsome David (Peter Fraser) whom the Doctor's granddaughter takes a liking to. The Doctor and Ian, meanwhile, end up prisoners of the Daleks, slated to join the legions of Robomen the Daleks have created to be slavedrivers. In attempting to free the Earth, the Doctor must find out why the Daleks are here in the first place, and what they're doing in a mining complex at Bedfordshire.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn their first outing, the Daleks were tied to their time and place in a most literal fashion- as mutated survivors of an atomic war, they literally could not leave their metal city, dependent both on its levels of radiation and the static electricity conducted through its floors. They were the last remnants of their kind, almost pathetic in their desire to finish the war that destroyed their humanity. In order for them to make a return appearance, Terry Nation not only had to add in some business about broadcast power to explain their mobility on Earth, but effectively recast them as expansionist conquerors capable of hurling meteorites and germ bombs onto a planet to subdue it. These are really the Daleks the Doctor would fight from then on, and the Nazi allegory that lurks unsubtly in the background of the genocidal monsters is emphasized here by visual echoes of the Battle of Britain. (There's even a faint touch of the Holocaust in the Robomen, who are literally worked to death by their masters.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story's evocation of a brutal war-torn England is both shocking and strangely convincing, considering how much of it features obvious photo backdrops and flying saucers suspended from strings. Everyone looks appropriately unwashed and grizzled, everyone's at least slightly on edge, and there's excellent use of what London location shooting they were able to do, putting the Daleks and signs of their destruction right on the viewers' doorstep. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPerhaps the most effective thing about the story is that it's as much about how the humans handle the invasion as about the Daleks themselves. Kids were given more than enough scenes of the pepperpot monsters to tide them over, but we also get a wide sample of mankind's response to being conquered. We have the resistance fighters, who are brave but know they're in a desperate struggle; we have one greedy bastard who trades what resources he can scrounge up for gold and jewelry (though why is not entirely clear, there being no markets to trade precious metals on), and a pair of women in the forest who gladly rat out refugees to the Daleks. There's a real sense of desperation which helps the story stand out despite a number of familiar serial conventions.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story is also significant as the source of the series' first major cast change, with Carole Ann Ford's Susan leaving the TARDIS crew. While many of the show's companion departures were rushed or last minute, Susan's farewell is given an appropriate build up and a touching finale. One advantage of a six part story is that everyone is given something to do, and the regular ensemble gets some splendid moments, especially when Barbara stalls for time with the Daleks by conflating details of an impending revolt with references to the Boston Tea Party, Hannibal, and the American Civil War. There's some inevitable pointless milling around in sewers and backwoods, but it never quite loses momentum.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo \"The Dalek Invasion of Earth\" is an important story in the show's history for a number of reasons. It makes the first major change to the show's cast and does so very well, it sets up the Daleks to easily return to menace the TARDIS crew again and again, and it provides some iconic imagery of the classic monsters dominating London just as they dominated the imagination of so many schoolchildren. It's still a compelling watch, no matter how dated the effects are, an example of \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who'\u003C\/i\u003Es unique and often undefinable power.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Terry Nation\u003Cbr \/\u003EProduced by Verity Lambert\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Richard Martin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1357721114443957905\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1357721114443957905\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1357721114443957905"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1357721114443957905"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/11\/doctor-who-at-50-dalek-invasion-of.html","title":"Doctor Who At 50: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ApJ6tfoyAY8\/UpBqdaqoBjI\/AAAAAAAABvM\/jY4u08OFsSU\/s72-c\/DalekInvasion.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-278407540667721655"},"published":{"$t":"2013-11-16T22:21:00.005-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-11-16T22:21:53.227-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Doctor Who at 50: Storm Warning"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfinish.com\/releases\/v\/storm-warning-641\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Storm Warning cover and Big Finish link\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-myO_WmjFN5k\/UohD18n2ugI\/AAAAAAAABu8\/jI98NXe5-S4\/s1600\/StormWarning.jpg\" title=\"Click here to buy it from Big Finish Productions!\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne sour note in \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E's long history is that Paul McGann's star turn as the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 TV movie was essentially a one-off (at least until very recently)- when the show finally did return, it was nine years later and time for a new Doctor.\u0026nbsp; Even the film's harshest critics tended to have nothing but praise for McGann's performance, and it took the fellows at Big Finish to let us see (or hear) what he was capable of in the long term. \u003Ci\u003EStorm Warning\u003C\/i\u003E marked McGann's debut with the BF audio series, and it's still one of the best jumping on points they have, an adventure that not only tells a thrilling story and introduces a new companion, but shows off just what a Doctor Who story can be without the constraints of a visual effects budget.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Doctor follows a bunch of temporal scavengers through the time-space vortex an onto a British airship, the R101, making its ill-fated voyage across Europe. (For those who don't know, and I didn't at first, the R101 was essentially Britain's equivalent of the Hindenburg.) On board the ship is Charley Pollard (India Fisher), free-spirited adventuress and stowaway, as well as British Minister of the Air Lord Tamworth (Gareth Thomas), the designer Lt. Col. Frayling (Nicholas Pegg), Tamworth's valet Rathbone (Barnaby Edwards), and a mysterious passenger in a diving suit. When the Doctor meets the passengers- and helps chase off a confused Vortisaur- he soon discovers the passenger's true identity, as the R101 makes an unscheduled rendezvous with a flying saucer, for a diplomatic meeting between humanity and the alien Triskele.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's here that the story gets really interesting. The Triskele (who are all voiced by Helen Goldwyn, with various modulating effects) are a strictly regimented society built along three roles- the Engineers who build, the Lawgiver who dictates, and the Uncreators, the soldiers and destructive forces of the race, currently held in chains. It's a fascinating and delicate balance that can't last for very long, and much of the story is an exploration of this alternate culture, something Doctor Who rarely has the time to do outside of the novels. There's a certain parallel between the construction of the Triskele society and Freud's theory of the subconscious, but it's not confined to a psychological reading; we're left to work out the themes for ourselves.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's remarkable how well the story conveys some of its central images, notably the tour of the Triskele spaceship, which actually rearranges itself around the stationary triskelion the passengers inhabit. True, at the very start of the story McGann has to deliver some labored descriptions of things he can see to nobody in particular (since it's important that he's on his own), but in later scenes the exposition is much more natural and the increasingly conceptual nature of the story lets them avoid having to do much physical description- when the Doctor and the boarding party are surrounded by increasingly unruly Uncreators, it doesn't really matter what they look like.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMcGann didn't miss a beat in the five year gap between the TV movie and this audio. He's an actor with a very strong grasp on the character of the Doctor, portraying the eighth incarnation as an idealistic, wide-eyed explorer, someone whose knowledge and experience doesn't blunt his enthusiasm. India Fisher makes an excellent match as Charley, someone who's already started adventuring on her own and so doesn't have to think very hard about following the Doctor. But the plot of the story and of the doomed R101 voyage sets up an interesting character arc, setting up the Eighth Doctor's audio adventures to be more than isolated fill-ins. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI've recommended \u003Ci\u003EStorm Warning\u003C\/i\u003E as a good first audio for people new to Big Finish's material, and I'm not the only one; it's an excellent season premiere for the series McGann should have gotten years earlier. Beyond that, it does some fascinating things with its medium and embraces audio theater's strength when it comes to rapidly shifting realities. The story is thoughtful, the acting superb, and overall there's just not much wrong with it. If you want to know why so many people were over the moon when \"Night of the Doctor\" was posted, this is a good place to start.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Alan Barnes\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Gary Russell\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/278407540667721655\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=278407540667721655\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/278407540667721655"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/278407540667721655"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/11\/doctor-who-at-50-storm-warning.html","title":"Doctor Who at 50: Storm Warning"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-myO_WmjFN5k\/UohD18n2ugI\/AAAAAAAABu8\/jI98NXe5-S4\/s72-c\/StormWarning.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-985946179423508068"},"published":{"$t":"2013-10-31T19:07:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-10-31T19:07:49.945-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Mini-Monsterthon: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m2RetUWpvnU\/UnLwiqOWyaI\/AAAAAAAABuc\/HEnU7nPesoY\/s1600\/hellraiser_iii.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m2RetUWpvnU\/UnLwiqOWyaI\/AAAAAAAABuc\/HEnU7nPesoY\/s320\/hellraiser_iii.jpg\" width=\"208\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI normally try to close out these marathons with something really good, but that's not entirely necessary. Even bad movies have their appeal, and though \u003Ci\u003EHellraiser III: Hell on Earth\u003C\/i\u003E is pretty much the precise point where the franchise jumped the tracks and started to speed downhill, it ends up doing so with a certain idiotic panache. To its credit it does actually build from some of the story developments of \u003Ci\u003EHellbound: Hellraiser II\u003C\/i\u003E, but it blows its potential with a dull buildup followed by a ridiculous payoff.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs of the end of the last movie, head pleasure demon Pinhead (Doug Bradley) had been deposed from his place in Hell and effectively killed, only to end up in a strange pillar that arose from a bloodsoaked bed. (This made a little more sense at the time. A little.) The pillar has been sold as a statue to J. P. Monroe (Kevin Bernhardt), local sleazebag and owner of The Boiler Room, a yuppie S\u0026amp;M nightclub that is every bit as ridiculous as you think it is. A bored aspiring reporter named Joanne (Terry Farrell) witnesses the grisly fate of someone who got too close to the statue, and befriends a witness, strung-out party girl Terri (Paula Marshall). Pinhead starts to manifest through the statue after one of Monroe's girlfriends falls afoul of it, and offers Monroe the standard pleasures beyond imagination if he helps him get free. But it ends up being Terri who sets Pinhead loose, and unbound by the rules and restraints his human identity used to give him, he goes on a rampage of destruction, first through the nightclub, then unleashing some new demon lieutenants (Cenobites in the series mythology) to terrorize the city of wherever this is.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs I mentioned earlier, the buildup to Pinhead being let loose is very slow, which isn't necessarily a horrible thing (consider the slow burn of the original \u003Ci\u003EHellraiser\u003C\/i\u003E). But the story seems to be dragging itself out for the sole purpose of filling time, and there's no actual sense of tension building- things are just taking forever to happen. This first half is not without its strong points- the friendship between Joanne and Terri is actually pretty well-built and a solid character dynamic (spoiler alert: the movie discards this more or less completely.) And the actual story is, at this point, still somewhat interesting, putting the familiar temptation of the Cenobites in a new context. But by this point, the flat direction and slack pacing have us wishing the movie would start going somewhere.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat wish turns out to be a bit of a Monkey's Paw, with the second half of the movie being devoted to what can best be described as Stupid Cenobite Tricks. Pinhead's massacre of the Boiler Room patrons is nothing short of hilarious, with a ton of flashy gimmick kills that Freddy Krueger would roll his eyes at. (At one point a man seems to actively reach out and grab a hook flying through midair, as you would.) And then the new Cenobites are unveiled, and let me tell you, standards have slipped. While prior Cenobite designs played on images of self-mutilation and going to extremes in pursuit of pleasures, the characters here are designed on the principle of combining people with random objects in a way that anticipates the \u003Ci\u003EVenture Bros.\u003C\/i\u003E's \"Pleasure Toast\" spoof of the franchise. One of the characters is a news cameraman, so naturally he has a camera put in his head. Another is a DJ, so his head has a bunch of CDs in it and he shoots CDs at people. There's also a guy who literally throws a thermos full of gasoline on two police officers before igniting it (and one of the officers helpfully shrieks \"That's gasoline!\" in case we were confused), and I think this was a bartender originally but how are we supposed to keep track? There are a lot of pyrotechnics and flashy effects that are given no context- not in a scary, \"Things are happening we can't understand\" way, but in a sloppy theme park stunt show way. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne good point for this movie- and probably the only thing that fans of the franchise might consider checking it out for- is that we see a bit more of Pinhead's human half, the WWI soldier who escaped from his trauma into twisted hedonism until he finally came across the fateful Lament Configuration. Bradley gets to do some very good acting in his normal voice and sans facial acupuncture, and the idea of Pinhead's old soul and the puzzle box acting as moral anchors is, as I said, a good one. It's just surrounded by a lot of stupid shit.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd yet I don't hate this movie. I'm sure I would have had I seen it at the time, expecting or at least hoping for a good sequel. With the distance of time, however, it's kind of charming in its brainlessness. The part of the movie that's full of horrible gimmicky gore effects and unconvincing action setpieces is a solid antidote to the tedium of the first half, and if you like your horror movies trashy, this fits the bill. Halloween's a night for laughter as much as screams, anyway.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on characters created by Clive Barker\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Peter Atkins and Tony Randel\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Peter Atkins\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Anthony Hickox\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/985946179423508068\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=985946179423508068\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/985946179423508068"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/985946179423508068"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/10\/mini-monsterthon-hellraiser-iii-hell-on.html","title":"Mini-Monsterthon: Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m2RetUWpvnU\/UnLwiqOWyaI\/AAAAAAAABuc\/HEnU7nPesoY\/s72-c\/hellraiser_iii.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1104133934032888547"},"published":{"$t":"2013-10-31T18:10:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-10-31T18:10:21.243-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Mini-Monsterthon: Child's Play"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8q8AHguj3n4\/UnLjHrQFSUI\/AAAAAAAABuM\/kF5rZE3fRto\/s1600\/childs_play.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8q8AHguj3n4\/UnLjHrQFSUI\/AAAAAAAABuM\/kF5rZE3fRto\/s320\/childs_play.jpg\" width=\"213\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nChucky is an anomaly among movie slashers, and not just because he's battery operated. The killer doll with a foul mouth came in at the tail end of the 80s slasher craze, and the original Child's Play doesn't follow most of the familiar clichés of the genre. Instead of taking a small group of gullible people, throwing them in an enclosed space and killing them one at a time, Child's Play actually tells a fairly ambitious story mixing the supernatural and psychological, and putting a lot of effort and effects money towards selling the illusion of an evil My Buddy toy. It's fairly restrained and reasonably slick, and if it backs away from exploring the satiric possibilities of its premise, it manages to spin a good yarn anyway.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELittle Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) wants nothing more for his birthday than a Good Guy doll that moves and talks and happens to cost around $100. His mom Karen (Catherine Hicks) is widowed and working hard to support her kid and can't quite scrape together the cash, but a friend of hers tips her off to a shady street dealer with one for sale at a discount.\u0026nbsp; Andy is happy and things are going well until Karen works a late shift one night and comes home to find the babysitter pushed out the window of their high rise city apartment. The authorities suspect someone very short and wearing something like Andy's shoes, but the kid's not the problem. It turns out the doll, named \"Chucky\" is possessed by the spirit of Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), the recently deceased Lakeshore Strangler who is out to take his revenge on all the people responsible for his death, and anyone else who pisses him off. Now Karen just has to convince the police that their murderer at large is made of plastic.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film doesn't exactly make much of a secret about what's happening- if nothing else, the opening shoot-out and supernatural pyrotechnics in a toy store are indicators that the doll has an unusual pedigree- but the reveal is a gradual one. We're teased with the doll occasionally moving when it shouldn't, shots of something blurry in the distance, point of view shots, etc. Even now, knowing in retrospect that this is an entire franchise about a psychotic toy, the film's slow buildup is to its benefit, actually making Chucky somewhat of a credible menace before we see him moving around in all his animatronic glory. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven after Chucky reveals himself to Karen, though, the film doesn't degenerate into typical slasher fare. Instead it keeps a few balls in the air, from the voodoo practitioner who let Charles in on the spell that allowed him to live after death, to Chucky settling his debts, to Karen trying to persuade people that neither she nor her son are insane. The story continues to develop in interesting ways up until the climactic scenes, ensuring that things never drag. The effects for Chucky, even in this earliest outing, are pretty convincing- it helps that he's supposed to be a little stiff and doll-like, being an actual doll, and this covers up some of the weaknesses of this style of puppeteering. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn early scenes, the film manages some clever satire of the Saturday morning toy commercial cartoon craze of the Eighties, with young Andy wearing his Good Guy jammies, pouring Good Guy cereal, and being just on time to see a commercial for the new Good Guy dolls. (The Good Guys themselves are a spoof on the My Buddy toys of the time.) But of course Chucky's problems are all his own, and the film drops this thread pretty quickly, which is disappointing. Still, the art team on this movie must have had quite a good time creating an entire gaudy multicolored franchise as a backdrop for a horror movie.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EChild's Play\u003C\/i\u003E is another example of the horror genre in transition, too early for the Gothic horror revival but showing a slickness and level of restraint in reaction to the crude killfests that kicked off the decade. It's a solid story backed up by good effects and some terrific voicework by Dourif, and if it doesn't quite live up to all of its potential, it still sits comfortably ahead of the curve. It's easy for us to separate icons of cinematic horror from the actual movies they were in, but Chucky's first outing is an effective one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Don Mancini\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Don Mancini, John Lafia, and Tom Holland\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Tom Holland\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1104133934032888547\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1104133934032888547\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1104133934032888547"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1104133934032888547"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/10\/mini-monsterthon-childs-play.html","title":"Mini-Monsterthon: Child's Play"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-8q8AHguj3n4\/UnLjHrQFSUI\/AAAAAAAABuM\/kF5rZE3fRto\/s72-c\/childs_play.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8750685576750009464"},"published":{"$t":"2013-10-29T23:44:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-10-29T23:44:31.883-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Mini-Monsterthon: Night of the Creeps"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-eGJJFal7i6w\/UnCOHdKULsI\/AAAAAAAABt8\/lvcxRjd5j0Q\/s1600\/night_of_the_creeps_ver1.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-eGJJFal7i6w\/UnCOHdKULsI\/AAAAAAAABt8\/lvcxRjd5j0Q\/s320\/night_of_the_creeps_ver1.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBlending comedy and horror is something filmmakers have done a lot, but it's always fraught with peril. Unless you're outright spoofing the genre, you have to balance the tone and make sure the audience doesn't get whiplash, and too often a horror comedy (or comedic horror film, or whatever) will turn into a bland mush without the courage of either conviction. \u003Ci\u003ENight of the Creeps\u003C\/i\u003E stays on the lighter side of the equation for about 90% of the time, throws in just enough drama to keep things interesting, and the resulting mixture is fairly pleasant. There are a few amateur touches and some problems with the story, but it's definitely one of the good B-movies. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA strange canister is ejected from an alien spacecraft and lands on Earth in 1959, disgorging a worm creature that burrows itself into the head of a local college student. Local scientists put the student on ice, until years later, when freshmen Chris (Jason Lively) and J.C. (Steve Marshall) accidentally thaw him out when trying to pull a prank to get into the college's most exclusive fraternity, so that the former can get closer to sorority dreamgirl Cynthia Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow.) The unfrozen student, now a host for alien brain worms, soon dies explosively and releases many of the sluglike creatures, which hide around campus and slowly start infecting people, just in time for the big dance.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a very silly film, which is established when the first scenes of the films show babylike aliens shooting rayguns at each other in a half-scale corridor. The 50s sequences are shot mostly in black and white, there are references to that immortal alien-undead classic \u003Ci\u003EPlan Nine from Outer Space\u003C\/i\u003E, and Cynthia Cronenberg isn't the only character named after a prominent genre director. J.C., a nice amiable paraplegic, provides some gentle comic relief, and the Beta fraternity is straight out of Animal House (or one of its many ripoffs.) By 1986, the initial wave of slasher films had played itself out, and there was a move towards different, more inventive kinds of horror, including the comical. \u003Ci\u003ENight of the Creeps\u003C\/i\u003E checks off a few of the required cliches, including gratuitous sex and violence, but doesn't overdose on either- there's a certain comic restraint that makes it agreeable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film isn't entirely a comedy, and its detours into more serious horror have mixed results. There's a lengthy subplot involving Tom Atkins as a detective obsessed with a serial killer who axed his estranged girlfriend on that fateful night in 1959, and it's never clear how seriously we're supposed to take all this, and though it's relevant to the overall story it feels like a subplot that's been grafted on. More successful is a scene involving one character's enslavement by the creatures and their strange, heartfelt goodbye as the alien mind takes over. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe best moments of the film are when it's focusing on delivering full creature feature mayhem in all its implausibility. It's never really scary, but it's lively and inventive, with one sequence in particular anticipating Peter Jackson's \u003Ci\u003EBrain Dead\u003C\/i\u003E. The climax revolves around an attack on the sorority house by zombified fraternity brothers, which leads to the classic line, \"The good news is, your dates are here. The bad news is, they're dead.\" It's that kind of movie.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENight of the Creeps\u003C\/i\u003E isn't the most memorable of horror comedies but it's successful at negotiating the balance between the two genres, and that's a rare accomplishment in and of itself. It's got a solid if occasionally oddly constructed story, some interesting visuals, and an overall good-natured vibe that makes one inclined to forgive its shortcomings. It's a solid addition to any seasonal horror marathon, warts and all.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and Directed by Fred Dekker\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8750685576750009464\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8750685576750009464\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8750685576750009464"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8750685576750009464"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/10\/mini-monsterthon-night-of-creeps.html","title":"Mini-Monsterthon: Night of the Creeps"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-eGJJFal7i6w\/UnCOHdKULsI\/AAAAAAAABt8\/lvcxRjd5j0Q\/s72-c\/night_of_the_creeps_ver1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1985286167739332881"},"published":{"$t":"2013-10-26T01:50:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-10-26T01:50:24.007-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Gravity"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-84iI2tYhClU\/Umtl4FRpikI\/AAAAAAAABtU\/4WMWy_MJFoY\/s1600\/gravity.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Gravity poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-84iI2tYhClU\/Umtl4FRpikI\/AAAAAAAABtU\/4WMWy_MJFoY\/s320\/gravity.jpg\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI'm writing this review under a bit of a time crunch, partly because I want to jump ahead to Halloween stuff but also because \u003Ci\u003EGravity\u003C\/i\u003E is a film that needs to be caught while it's in theaters, and while it's playing in 3-D on a good large screen. The movie is a rare event, a roadshow spectacle, and that makes it a little hard to judge. The common thinking that if a movie is so dependent on visual splendor that it needs to be seen in the best circumstances to have its full impact, it can't be that good. But the impact \u003Ci\u003EGravity\u003C\/i\u003E has is so powerful that it feels unfair to downgrade it for its exclusivity. I of course expected great things when the director of \u003Ci\u003EChildren of Men\u003C\/i\u003E tackled science fiction (or something like it) again, but had my doubts as to how to sustain the story of two people lost in the void of space. But the film's conceptual simplicity is its great strength, resulting in a disciplined, tense, and beautiful experience, one which shows just how difficult it can be to cling to our lives. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERyan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a scientist on her first space shuttle mission, helping install new hardware on the Hubble space telescope, when an attempt by the Russians to destroy a wandering satellite results in a fast-moving storm of debris moving around low Earth orbit. In the ensuing chaos, the shuttle is destroyed, and Stone, caught outside, begins drifting out into space, while the only other survivor, the veteran Kowalski (George Clooney) manages to tether her as they set out towards the ISS. Oxygen supplies are dwindling, and though the debris has passed for now, Ryan and Kowalski still have to contend with the brutal physics of a zero-gravity environment and an increasingly narrow number of ways to get back to Earth.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat stands out alongside the film's beauty is its conceptual purity. We never leave Ryan's side; exposition about the Russian satellite situation is relayed via communications from Houston, and when those are cut off, we're as alone as she is. There are no flashbacks to flesh out character backstory, and scenes often flow into each other without obvious transitions, such that the film seems to unfold in real time. It doesn't, but the appearance of such creates an immediacy that heightens the suspense of the picture. We're allowed some breathing room- Cuarón isn't a total sadist- but we never reach a feeling of status quo, either. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWith this focus- and a running time just over ninety minutes- comes some very efficient visual storytelling. The director uses the freedom of a zero-gravity environment to create some remarkable setpieces and hair-raising sequences. There are no sloppy cuts or poorly chosen angles to obscure the action; we can see what's going wrong in often agonizing detail. It's real white-knuckle \u003Ci\u003EWages of Fear \u003C\/i\u003Estuff, but balanced out by incredible visual beauty and a sense of humanity to the admittedly briefly-sketched characters. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Earth is always looming in the background, dazzling us and the astronauts with its splendor. It's almost teasing, but their proximity strengthens their resolve to get home. Through conversations between the survivors we learn that Ryan is in mourning for a daughter who died suddenly from a simple, mundane accident, and that a certain despair haunts her. She is, in effect, being kept apart from the world by her own emotions as well as physical circumstance, and there are also images of birth and pre-birth adding to the film's subtext. It would be very easy for this to become excessive, hamfisted symbolism, but Cuarón has a way with this kind of imagery and makes it seem more than just a clever script contrivance.\u0026nbsp; It helps that Sandra Bullock gives what has to be the best performance of her career, managing some very wide swings of emotion in a way that's organic and believable. George Clooney's character doesn't go on quite the same journey, maintaining an astronaut's straightfaced resolve, but he's extremely well cast and as charming as ever. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn some ways the film recalls the message of \u003Ci\u003EChildren of Men\u003C\/i\u003E, that life can be horrible but is no less amazing for it, and must be fought for as hard as possible. It's much more focused, of course, and perhaps suffers some for lack of time to really draw its characters as vividly as possible, but it's a prime piece of hard science fiction nonetheless. It's hard to say how much of its impact will remain once it's left theaters, but perhaps in this day and age there's something to be said for creating an experience you have to go out of your way to see. \u003Ci\u003EGravity\u003C\/i\u003E is an intense and immediate experience, and that's the sort of thing movies are best at.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Jonás and Alfonso Cuarón (with uncredited rewrites by George Clooney)\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Alfonso Cuarón\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1985286167739332881\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1985286167739332881\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1985286167739332881"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1985286167739332881"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/10\/in-theaters-gravity.html","title":"In Theaters: Gravity"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-84iI2tYhClU\/Umtl4FRpikI\/AAAAAAAABtU\/4WMWy_MJFoY\/s72-c\/gravity.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8029466801234407403"},"published":{"$t":"2013-10-19T17:27:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-10-19T17:27:01.195-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.15: Room Service"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HtRWA04of-U\/UmMG5ZZ5tAI\/AAAAAAAABtE\/SQRPik7AL_o\/s1600\/Ep110.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Lilith and Niles, the morning after\" border=\"0\" height=\"239\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HtRWA04of-U\/UmMG5ZZ5tAI\/AAAAAAAABtE\/SQRPik7AL_o\/s320\/Ep110.jpg\" title=\"In a way, this was inevitable.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ELilith: Stan was a contractor we had hired to extend our master bedroom.\u0026nbsp; It's ironic, isn't it - no sooner do I get the closet of my dreams than my husband comes out of it. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThree straight classics in a row is rare for any show, even one as good and long-lived as \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E. \"Room Service\" is, again, an example of bedroom farce, but not quite as pure a genre riff as \"Ski Lodge\". Instead it's there to move along some character relationships and get even further mileage out of the story of Lilith Sternin, the one woman Frasier can never keep out of his life. At least here he makes some emotional progress.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELilith shows up in town, ostensibly for a psychology conference, but she quickly confesses to Frasier that the real reason she's in town is that her husband, Brian, left her for another man. Frasier and Niles take her to the conference anyway, but Frasier isn't sure he'll be able to trust himself when she's dressed to the nines- Niles keeps him away from her, but ends up in bed with her the next morning. They're both hungover and regretful, but any awkwardness they feel is nothing compared to the outright panic that sets in when Frasier arrives at her hotel room, ready to give himself to her.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is an episode that throws us a few curves, and I'm not just talking about Lilith's party dress. The first act makes it seem the episode will focus entirely on Frasier's inability to resist his ex-wife's ample charms now that they're both single again. Niles is only there as the voice of reason, and while TV viewers who saw the promo for this episode probably knew what to expect,\u0026nbsp; the episode itself admirably doesn't give anything away. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd there's something weirdly satisfying about this development. It's something Niles and Lilith will instantly try to forget ever happened, of course, but just the awkwardness isn't what makes it entertaining. Part of it may simply be that we haven't seen them interact this much before- Lilith's episodes tend to be about her relationship with Frasier, and everyone else just hides. But here, two smart, sympathetic characters, both capable of acting professional and capable of not doing so, suddenly are thrown into a situation that will take all their intelligence and professionalism to successfully navigate without things getting too weird. They're almost a cute couple, but the two are clear enough on their long term incompatibility that we don't have to worry about how that would work out. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe episode also brings us to a certain closure regarding Frasier's relationship with Lilith. There was never any real danger of the two getting back together- Bebe Neuwirth's devotion to the stage is too- strong- but previous episodes established an on-again off-again pattern for their relationship which made it difficult for Frasier to fully close the book on that chapter of his life. It'd be easy to take Frasier's declaration that he's finally over her as only being sincere in the moment, but it seems to hold up, and it's nicely tied in with the brothers' early discussion about finding disturbing images to temper Frasier's desire. There's something very real about the resolution too, in Frasier's declaration that things aren't all right, but eventually will be. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is an episode that delivers all the standard door-slammings and poorly chosen hiding places you expect from the genre (as well as a strong performance by John Ducey as a waiter who quickly learns not to say anything), but doesn't allow those aspects to overwhelm the real human feelings at the heart of the story. It's about people making foolish decisions (partly enabled by tequila shooters) and having to live with the results, but also benefiting some from the experience. It's that bit of deeper consideration that really gives \"Room Service\" its staying power, turning a just plain funny episode into a comedy classic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGuest Caller: Halle Berry as Betsy\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Ken Levine \u0026amp; David Isaacs\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired March 3, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles: If you ask me, you are both off the mark.\u0026nbsp; Last night was about two people, ruled by very powerful superegos - tortured by them, who found a chance - however misguided - to break through and rediscover their ids together.\u0026nbsp; Call me an old softie, but that's how I see it.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8029466801234407403\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8029466801234407403\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8029466801234407403"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8029466801234407403"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/10\/frasierquest-515-room-service.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.15: Room Service"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HtRWA04of-U\/UmMG5ZZ5tAI\/AAAAAAAABtE\/SQRPik7AL_o\/s72-c\/Ep110.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3512097114152513684"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-30T23:47:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-30T23:47:40.336-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"For Your Ears Only: Hordes of the Things"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-xgQGwbUBEqk\/UkpToevdr3I\/AAAAAAAABsk\/EWunAqyvOHM\/s1600\/Hordes.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-xgQGwbUBEqk\/UkpToevdr3I\/AAAAAAAABsk\/EWunAqyvOHM\/s1600\/Hordes.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThanks to the rise of nerd and gamer culture (and that can be a mixed blessing, believe you me), fantasy spoofs are pretty easy to find these days. They vary widely both in quality and in approaches to the material, but they all reflect the increasingly mainstream position the genre enjoys in pop culture. So it's interesting to uncover a relatively early attempt at lampooning high fantasy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHordes of the Things was broadcast in 1980, in a period of animated Tolkien adaptations, the early \u003Ci\u003EDungeons \u0026amp; Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E craze, \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E and its imitators, and perhaps most significantly, the highly popular, acclaimed science fiction comedy series \u003Ci\u003EThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy\u003C\/i\u003E. Hordes is by no means a retread of Douglas Adams' masterpiece, but it's hard to imagine that BBC Radio didn't have it in mind when commissioning this four-part adventure from Andrew Marshall and John Lloyd. (And both were produced by Geoffrey Perkins.) It's not nearly as groundbreaking, but it is a decent collection of jokes deflating the seriousness and pomposity of the millions of epic adventures adorning bookstore shelves then and now.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe realm of Middlesea has been largely taken over by The Evil One and his titular legions of terrifying monsters. Only the peaceful kingdom of Albion remains, besieged on all sides. But while the King (Paul Eddington) fiddles with diplomacy and Crown Prince Veganin (Simon Callow) boldly rides around not accomplishing much, the wizard Radox the Green (Frank Middlemass) has uncovered a prophecy of a great hero who will sound the Summon Trumpet to bring other heroes to face off the armies of darkness. Said hero appears to be the lowly Agar (Christian Rodska), a woodcutter with a minotaur companion (Martha Knight), but he's not sure he's cut out to save the kingdom.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBeing a series of four half-hour episodes, one might expect \u003Ci\u003EHordes\u003C\/i\u003E to focus on telling a single story and resolving it within the limited time allotted, but this doesn't seem to have been the writers' main priority. Instead the action keeps jumping back and forth between various groups of characters, from the King's foolish attempts at appeasement, to Veganin's crusades, to Radox getting involved with wizard business and trying to suss out the full version of the prophecy. Because so much is jammed in, none of it develops very much.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo what we basically have is a series of comic vignettes, in which various fantasy tropes are lampooned. It's not unsuccessful on this level. There aren't that many truly hilarious or laugh out loud moments (or at least there weren't for me, your mileage may vary, etc.), but there is a pleasant atmosphere of silliness underlying even the really corny jokes. Without much time to develop character or concepts, we're stuck with music hall banter, but that's the sort of thing that Muppet Shows are made of so I really can't complain.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe humor tends to stick to surface-level riffing on the absurdity of fantasy concepts: attempting cultural relations with foul beasts of unrelenting evil, harpies worrying about their looks, that sort of thing. It's a little disappointing but also to be expected from a comedy about a genre that had, as of yet, not been extensively mined for laughs. (We were still a few years off from numerous pun-laden fantasy novels, or for that matter Discworld.) At times it even works. The enthusiasm of the performers (with Patrick Magee on narrating duty) is commendable, Callow standing out for sheer loud bravura.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESince it's not much of a coherent narrative, what sticks out in Hordes of the Things are the individual moments. There's a confrontation with a monster that kills with a gaze that's remarkably well handled, considering that it's radio, and an especially clever twist to another monster threat. There's nothing that sticks out as particularly sour, either. If the ending is a bit of a messy, \u003Ci\u003EGoon Show\u003C\/i\u003E fadeout, that's about as much as the story can justify. I wish it were more memorable, but I can't deny it works as what it sets out to be, a light holiday trifle taking some reasonably clever swings at a popular genre. It may be the definition of inessential, but it's a distinctly agreeable experience.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by APR Marshall and JHW Lloyd\u003Cbr \/\u003EProduced by Geoffrey Perkins\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3512097114152513684\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3512097114152513684\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3512097114152513684"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3512097114152513684"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/for-your-ears-only-hordes-of-things.html","title":"For Your Ears Only: Hordes of the Things"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-xgQGwbUBEqk\/UkpToevdr3I\/AAAAAAAABsk\/EWunAqyvOHM\/s72-c\/Hordes.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-586527098008763257"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-22T10:19:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-22T10:19:46.878-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"For Your Ears Only: Doctor Who: Excelis Dawns"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfinish.com\/releases\/v\/doctor-who-excelis-dawns-370\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Excelis Dawns cover\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-njSDEJWhKAc\/Uj8JBcxFRCI\/AAAAAAAABsQ\/J1oJKkfvedw\/s1600\/excelis_dawns_cover_large.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bigfinish.com\/releases\/v\/doctor-who-excelis-dawns-370\" target=\"_blank\"\u003EAvailable for download at BigFinish.com\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E Big Finish audios most often aim to capture the feeling of the TV show, and that's just fine. In aping the episode structures and traditional story beats Who fans are familiar with, the audio dramas tend to explore the cinematic possibilities of the medium, seeking to convey action and thrills without visual aid, and they often succeed. But \u003Ci\u003EExcelis Dawns\u003C\/i\u003E is a break from the cliffhanger approach. The first part of a three-story triptych covering the history of a planet over three eons and three different Doctors, this Fifth Doctor story takes a somewhat calmer approach, focusing on the audio debut of the previously book-only character Iris Wildthyme as well as the establishment of at least one character who will be key to the entire trilogy. (Hint: it's the familiar face in the armor.) It's not always successful but it does some interesting things with the format, and that's always worth paying attention to.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSet during a very brief interval in one story when the Doctor (Peter Davison) went off adventuring sans his regular companions, Excelis Dawns finds him on the planet of Artaris, a foreboding world currently going through its own medieval period. Also on Artaris is Iris Wildthyme (Katy Manning), a hard-drinking and hard-living dilettante Time Lady who has joined a convent in what she firmly feels is an attempt to absolve herself of her sinful past (though she's a little unclear as to how she ended up there.) The nuns are working for Lord Grayvorn (wonderfully played by Anthony Stewart Head), a local warlord who is out searching for a mysterious relic, and is accompanied by none other than the Doctor. The nuns seem to have worked out where the relic is, so the Doctor, Iris, Grayvorn, and Sister Jolene (Posy Miller) set out (in Iris' double-decker TARDIS) for the wilds outside the city of Excelis, into a forest and swamp inhabited by an entire tribe of zombies. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWith Iris Wildthyme, the makers of this piece are taking a substantial risk. It's easy to imagine a character like this becoming very irritating, very quickly; she's a broad, theatrical type, someone who dominates scenes and storylines, and the term \"Mary Sue\" often gets thrown around in these sorts of situations (though arguably so often that it's lost most of its meaning.) But Iris is just well drawn enough, with actual flaws instead of excuses for spotlight focus, that her eccentric ramblings never become annoying. In fact she is actually just as charming as she's meant to be, helped along no doubt by Manning's thoroughly believable performance. She makes an excellent foil for the Doctor, being something of the same nature but more of a hedonist than an explorer. Iris manages to demonstrate why she so easily earned her own series of audio adventures alongside an existing book line, without stealing the Doctor's thunder.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe play is surprisingly light on incident. There are no cliffhangers, per se- it's billed as a \"two part story\" but that's largely because it takes place over 2 CDs, but even that break isn't about putting all the characters in immediate danger or revealing a new monster, it's more a natural pause in the action. But despite this the story doesn't drag; it establishes a good, casual, adventurous pace and breezes through it, buoyed by some strong characterization for the Doctor (who has been thinking a bit on matters supernatural after Adric's death), Iris, and their temporary companions. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EExcelis Dawns\u003C\/i\u003E is caught somewhere between forming the first chapter in a larger story and being a complete adventure in itself. Certainly it's packaged and sold on its own, as with other Big Finish multi-story epics, and it does end with the immediate conflicts resolved. But a number of plot threads are clearly left dangling for subsequent chapters, and the climax is inevitably underwhelming. The whole thing feels a little less gripping than it should be, which is a problem if the intention is to get us buying the next two installments. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut it's definitely pleasant. The world it creates is interesting, the cast is strong, and it's a lot of fun to listen to the Doctor tangling with a Time Lady who's just as eccentric and stubborn. It's definitely a good thing that \u003Ci\u003EBig Finish\u003C\/i\u003E have experimented with the formatting and story structures of their \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E audios rather than sticking to what's familiar to viewers of the TV show. I'll have to listen to more to see if this experiment is really a success, but it's definitely a solid start.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Paul Magrs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Gary Russell\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/586527098008763257\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=586527098008763257\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/586527098008763257"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/586527098008763257"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/for-your-ears-only-doctor-who-excelis.html","title":"For Your Ears Only: Doctor Who: Excelis Dawns"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-njSDEJWhKAc\/Uj8JBcxFRCI\/AAAAAAAABsQ\/J1oJKkfvedw\/s72-c\/excelis_dawns_cover_large.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7986904514116489602"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-09T13:02:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-09T13:02:01.430-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Things to Come"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-O6-nHRhbS2k\/Ui4MSM9exZI\/AAAAAAAABsA\/DIaFNEl1yKM\/s1600\/things_to_come.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Things to Come Poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-O6-nHRhbS2k\/Ui4MSM9exZI\/AAAAAAAABsA\/DIaFNEl1yKM\/s320\/things_to_come.jpg\" width=\"209\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs odd as it seems now, for most of the last century of filmmaking, science fiction was a subject the studios didn't give much attention to. When Alexander Korda produced \u003Ci\u003EThings to Come\u003C\/i\u003E (recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Criterion after years of public domain dupes), it was a rare attempt at making an A-level motion picture with the future as its subject, something that had not been attempted since \u003Ci\u003EMetropolis\u003C\/i\u003E ten years ago. As spectacle, \u003Ci\u003EThings to Come\u003C\/i\u003E is just as impressive; however, saddled with the burden of adapting H. G. Wells' didactic future history, it runs into some dramatic shortcomings. But even at its preachiest and most nakedly political, the film is a rich visual symphony, a tour de force for director William Cameron Menzies, and an affirmation of a seemingly naive optimism that is often in too short a supply.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe begin in modern-day London on Christmas and the eve of war. John Cabal (Raymond Massey), a passionate visionary, sees the danger of a war that could end mankind, but most everyone else is convinced it'll be yet another scrape between nations that's quickly resolved. Instead the conflict, against an unnamed enemy in Europe, drags on for decades, slowly bringing down civilization- a process accelerated when biological warfare creates a deadly \"wandering sickness\" that turns its sufferers into zombielike sleepwalkers who pass their illness onto others. To survive, towns adopt policies of shooting \"walkers\" on sight and fall under the control of petty military dictators, like The Boss (Ralph Richardson), ruler of what apparently used to be London. A much older Cabal journeys to the city as a representative of Wings Over the World, a secret society of technocrats determined to unify what's left of humanity in an orderly and progressive new civilization. The Boss will have none of that and imprisons Cabal, only for him and his army to be subdued by Wings Over the World and their newest invention, a powerful sleeping gas. Cabal leads his fellow scientists in building a better world, and by the year 2036, people live underground in massive cities with seemingly all their needs taken care of while nature reigns unspoiled overhead. Here, Cabal's descendent Oswald (also Massey) clashes with a reactionary sculptor (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) over plans to conquer space with an orbiter shot out of a giant \"Space Gun\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe characters aren't really that important, and the film establishes this pretty quickly. Cabal exists to articulate Wells' vision of the ideal progressive approach to society, making a lot of speeches to this effect; Massey bristled at some of the dialogue he had to read but it never shows onscreen. Another recurring character, Passworthy (Edward Chapman) articulates a humbler attitude, ultimately wrong but not unsympathetic. Individual decisions rarely guide the narrative; war comes whether anyone wants it or not, and by the time Cabal comes to the ruined city, his secret society has already done most of the heavy lifting needed to tame the brigands. The characters are there to show the attitudes of the time as we are swept along a hundred years into the future. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe heavy lifting is instead done by montage, and this is where Menzies excels. From the opening, where images of Christmas cheer are foregrounded against pronouncements of imminent war, we get a sense of moving alongside history. This is quickly followed by the bombing of London, an eerily prescient and harrowing scene of carnage and destruction that had to have unsettled British audiences well aware of the dangers on their doorstep. The war, dragging on through decades, is itself increasingly alien, with shots of futuristic tanks rolling across ruined fields. By contrast the building of the great city of the future is revealed in a downright exhilarating procession of mighty machines boring deep into the Earth, and scientists and engineers putting together new wonders.\u0026nbsp; The look of \"Everytown\" is Art Deco with a hint of ancient Greece, and its massive pavilion is an indelible image. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor most of its running time, the film's blend of stirring industrial imagery and philosophical dialogue actually works pretty well- it's an episodic picture, but the ideas are gripping and still somewhat provocative in an age when we've come to distrust unfettered scientific advancement. But the film's final act in Everytown is where the preaching gets too heavy and the story suffers for it. The sculptor, Theotocopulos, is too much of a cipher compared to the believably brutish Boss. He doesn't oppose the Space Gun for religious reasons or some kind of superstition, or even a pragmatic objection to the danger involved to the people who will test it- instead he seems opposed to progress in general, and while this often seems to be the case with many people who oppose a particular social or technological advance, they usually try to find some stronger justification than just being tired of things changing. The sculptor is clearly meant to stand in for the many people who do cite religion or political ideology or other concerns in opposition to advancement, but without such a focus he and his rebellion are uninspiring, and ultimately, there is little danger in the final confrontation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn many ways the film is summed up by its final exchange, horrifically on-the-nose but possessing both ethereal beauty and a genuine passion for its argument. If Wells had lost the knack for sewing together a compelling yarn (and utopias of his such as this were the inspiration for Huxley to critique naive futurism in \u003Ci\u003EBrave New World\u003C\/i\u003E), the filmmakers are still able to find the animating passion behind his lectures, and articulate it through the power of the moving image to realize our wildest and most hopeless imaginings. It's not a patch on \u003Ci\u003EMetropolis\u003C\/i\u003E, and its failure at the box office ensured the big studios would regard science fiction as an insignificant niche for at least another decade, but \u003Ci\u003EThings to Come\u003C\/i\u003E still stands apart, bold and impassioned and beautifully crafted. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on \"The Shape of Things to Come\" by H. G. Wells\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by H. G. Wells\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by William Cameron Menzies\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7986904514116489602\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7986904514116489602\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7986904514116489602"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7986904514116489602"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/random-movie-report-things-to-come.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Things to Come"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-O6-nHRhbS2k\/Ui4MSM9exZI\/AAAAAAAABsA\/DIaFNEl1yKM\/s72-c\/things_to_come.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6915858248895561648"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-06T08:35:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-06T08:35:18.018-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The World's End"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-gIj8D59IksE\/UinZpe5pRYI\/AAAAAAAABrw\/gnISLPqN2-Y\/s1600\/worlds_end_ver4.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"World's End poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-gIj8D59IksE\/UinZpe5pRYI\/AAAAAAAABrw\/gnISLPqN2-Y\/s320\/worlds_end_ver4.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt may have taken six years, but Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have finally finished the \"Cornetto\" trilogy. After red zombie horror\/romance and a yellow \u003Ci\u003Egiallo\u003C\/i\u003E mystery, we reach blue, which is apparently the color of… well, that would be telling. Well I guess it is sort of melancholy, and \u003Ci\u003EThe World's End\u003C\/i\u003E is a film primarily about middle age and the fact that you can never go home again. Though more an ensemble piece than a buddy picture, the film is still dominated by Pegg and Nick Frost, giving performances that flip their normal dynamic, and the results are not only extremely funny but dramatically compelling. It's a film about the inevitability of change and how that can be the most terrifying thing of all.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGary King (Pegg) is an alcoholic who has just quit rehab and who now dwells on one night of his life- June 22, 1990, when he and his friends, having just finished school, attempted a massive pub crawl known as the \"Golden Mile\"- 12 pints in 12 pubs in their nondescript backend town. They never made it that far, and now, he wants to gather the old gang and do it properly. But the old gang are now mature adults, and his former best friend Andy (Frost) has quit drinking. He gets them to come along anyway, but the old town isn't what it used to be- the pubs have all been bought out and homogenized, and nobody recognizes them from the old days. But before the night can come to a premature end, Gary gets into a scrap with a local youth and discovers that something very strange is going on.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat that is, I feel I shouldn't say entirely. A lot of the fun of the film is in how it unfolds, working entirely well as a story of the bitter dregs of nostalgia, and then shifting gears so abruptly we don't know what to expect next. It never really abandons the earlier themes, but the tone becomes more manic and intense. The science fiction aspects of the story seem to owe a lot to Douglas Adams, Nigel Kneale, and a little bit of \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E, but as with Pegg and Wright's earlier genre pastiches, it's solid enough in itself that it would work as a story without the jokes. It's nowhere near the masterful plot construction of \u003Ci\u003EHot Fuzz\u003C\/i\u003E, but there are solid premises and structures underneath that allow the film to move quickly from mood to mood without it feeling awkward or unnatural. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is much more of an ensemble piece than the previous Cornetto films, though Pegg and Frost's characters are at the center. A decent amount of time is given to Paddy Considine as Steven Prince, a man who has been nursing an unresolved crush on one of his friend's sisters (who is played charmingly low key by Rosamund Pike.) Eddie Marsan as Peter does well as a man with an outwardly content life who is still haunted by the bullying he received as a teenager (though his bully doesn't seem to remember any of it.) There are a number of amusing cameos and familiar faces and voices, but Pegg probably impresses the most playing a walking disaster of a human being, and it's impressive to see Frost stretch himself as well. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is a film with a lot of desperation in it, and it could easily have gone awry. We don't necessarily like Gary King, but we know people like him, and he's just outwardly glib and funny enough that his horrible character flaws are tolerable on-screen. It does help that there's some hilarious banter in the script, with loads of small throwaway gags (such as Gary's belief that King Arthur fought the Battle of Hastings.) The filmmakers are smart enough to limit his emotional development to what's attainable, and leave the romance subplot for someone else entirely. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAn important accomplishment is that the film manages to come up with a very solid rationale for why the pub crawl continues even after plainly unnatural things start happening- at least, it's solid enough to match with Gary's bullheaded devotion to reliving the one night everything seemed to go right for him. This means that things don't get properly horrific until they absolutely have to, and even then it's just in time for another big surprise. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film's messiness ends up being both a hindrance and a strength. If it lacks \u003Ci\u003EHot Fuzz\u003C\/i\u003E's elegance, the results do have a vivid drunken intensity and a sense of spiraling chaos. Trying to rank or debate the relative merits of the three films gets difficult, so I'll simply say that this is on a level with the first two; all three do a great job of fusing genre homage, satire of British social mores, and stories of individual growth. Wright and Pegg are by no means done collaborating (I'm still waiting on \u003Ci\u003EDon't\u003C\/i\u003E, guys), but the thematic Cornetto cycle has reached a suitably Earth-shattering conclusion. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Simon Pegg \u0026amp; Edgar Wright\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Edgar Wright\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6915858248895561648\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6915858248895561648\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6915858248895561648"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6915858248895561648"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/in-theaters-worlds-end.html","title":"In Theaters: The World's End"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-gIj8D59IksE\/UinZpe5pRYI\/AAAAAAAABrw\/gnISLPqN2-Y\/s72-c\/worlds_end_ver4.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1669316440046182173"},"published":{"$t":"2013-09-01T09:55:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-09-09T12:53:13.060-05:00"},"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Why There Were No Posts in August"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-TjQUT8qn_Ug\/UiNVIkzZYxI\/AAAAAAAABrY\/6C4vM5jU6nU\/s1600\/justice-league-inter.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-TjQUT8qn_Ug\/UiNVIkzZYxI\/AAAAAAAABrY\/6C4vM5jU6nU\/s320\/justice-league-inter.jpg\" width=\"205\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-rgSEpMUGm-w\/UiNVOe8XgkI\/AAAAAAAABrg\/_tw1FNKBzmE\/s1600\/labeling-boxes-for-moving.jpeg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"294\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-rgSEpMUGm-w\/UiNVOe8XgkI\/AAAAAAAABrg\/_tw1FNKBzmE\/s320\/labeling-boxes-for-moving.jpeg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nI hope you will understand.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne thing that happened in the meantime was that my Amazon Associates program was abruptly terminated. There's some foo-fer-ah between Amazon and the state of Missouri, which is now charging sales tax on Amazon transactions, so they've suspended Missouri memberships. This is no great loss, as I only once or twice saw an actual payout. In the meantime I get to make the blog less cluttered. I may attempt some kind of monetization in the future but it's not a priority. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1669316440046182173\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1669316440046182173\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1669316440046182173"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1669316440046182173"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/09\/why-there-were-no-posts-in-august.html","title":"Why There Were No Posts in August"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-TjQUT8qn_Ug\/UiNVIkzZYxI\/AAAAAAAABrY\/6C4vM5jU6nU\/s72-c\/justice-league-inter.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4509686070403134820"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-27T10:28:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-07-27T10:28:06.451-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.14: The Ski Lodge"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-xftIfHS0-10\/UfPmWQxw_dI\/AAAAAAAABp8\/Y2K-HZU_QT4\/s1600\/Ep109.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier, Niles, Daphne, Annie, and Guy\" border=\"0\" height=\"235\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-xftIfHS0-10\/UfPmWQxw_dI\/AAAAAAAABp8\/Y2K-HZU_QT4\/s320\/Ep109.jpg\" title=\"The victims.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: Oh, sounds like heaven!\u0026nbsp; Skiing all weekend, then warming up with a nice hot rum drink, curled up under a blanket in front of a roaring fire...\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: I can feel the steam rising off my toddy already.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's all about the set-up. \"Ski Lodge\" is \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E's purest riff on the bedroom farce, making direct reference to French playwright Georges Feydeau in one of its title captions and placing most of the action in the titular lodge, the kind of cozy space that could easily fit on a theater stage and has enough rooms for doors to constantly be slamming open and closed. Characters run around in robes and underwear, show up in the wrong beds, all that's really missing is a vicar stopping by. It's a welcome dose of pure comedy after last episode's poignant goodbye, and it also expands on the first question raised by Niles and Maris' final split. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz wins a ski weekend at a private lodge in a church raffle she was badgered into entering, but she can't make full use of it in her condition, and Frasier convinces her to trade the package for a big-screen TV. Frasier invites the whole family, and Daphne brings along her friend Annie (Cynthia Lamontagne), a buxom model. They're joined by Guy (James Patrick Stuart), a French ski instructor. Niles wants to use the weekend to tell Daphne how he feels, Annie is hot for Niles, Frasier wants Annie, Daphne wants Guy, and Guy… also is hot for Niles. (Martin, his ears stuffed up from a cold, mishears things and plays the role of unintentional mischief maker.) A few rounds of hot buttered rum later, and perhaps inevitably, disaster ensues.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom the summary, it's clear that this episode needs to take a certain amount of time establishing everything before it all goes to Hell. It doesn't actually take a lot to establish each character's interest in another- one scene at a window at the end of Act One manages to sum it all up, and it's even repeated after the break for anyone who came in midway- but it's also necessary to build the comic tension by playing out the overtures and preliminaries as much as can be afforded in the confines of a half-hour time slot. Add to that the playing out of the farce proper and it's clear the writers faced a lot of challengers getting this one to be as tight as it is.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E once again embraces the sitcom's classical and theatrical roots by playing full into genre conventions seemingly as old as theater itself. Martin, in his observationally impaired state, steers people wrong and gets everyone sufficiently drunk so as to make mistakes. At the same time, he's above it all, innocent and blissfully unaffected by the proceedings- a kind of holy fool. Perhaps no \u003Ci\u003EFrasier \u003C\/i\u003Eset has looked as, well, set-like as the lodge interior, with everyone's doors in full view of the camera so we know that everyone is going to the wrong place. The rhythm is dead-on; when watching a good farce, we recognize and acknowledge the contrivance necessary to get everyone in trouble, because we're swept along with the tide of their passions and delusions. If we paused we might feel sorry for them, and while many episodes of \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E have dealt in awkward embarrassment humor, the end product here is more a cathartic train wreck in which everyone is brought equally low.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe regular cast is in great form, so it's to the credit of Lamontagne and Stuart that they're able to keep up. Neither is using their natural accent and it shows (though this didn't prevent Lamontagne from playing a Brit again on \u003Ci\u003EBuffy, the Vampire Slayer\u003C\/i\u003E), but Lamontagne captures a recognizable blowsiness that's both natural and totally appropriate for the proceedings, and Stuart's Guy is charming enough that you kinda wish he'd stick around. The episode wouldn't work if any of the main participants rang false, dependent as it is on passions careening out of control.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe show's best farces are each a lesson in how the genre works, and this may be the purest example. While the issue of how Niles will handle his attraction to Daphne now that he's a free man is left up in the air (and the obligatory end reveal carefully keeps this particular secret hidden), there's no doubt that the subplot is in a different place now. In the end it's hard to think about such serious matters, when the real question is how will everyone spend the rest of their weekend.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Joe Keenan\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired February 24, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Let me see if I've got this straight. All the lust coursing through this lodge tonight, all the hormones virtually ricocheting off the walls, and no one... was chasing me? \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4509686070403134820\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4509686070403134820\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4509686070403134820"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4509686070403134820"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/frasierquest-514-ski-lodge.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.14: The Ski Lodge"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-xftIfHS0-10\/UfPmWQxw_dI\/AAAAAAAABp8\/Y2K-HZU_QT4\/s72-c\/Ep109.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8657142119335275265"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-17T08:28:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-07-17T08:28:35.028-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Pacific Rim"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-BTo3DNg0IL0\/UeabgoOtOFI\/AAAAAAAABps\/PK-1RnaBhKE\/s1600\/pacific_rim_ver3.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Pacific Rim movie poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-BTo3DNg0IL0\/UeabgoOtOFI\/AAAAAAAABps\/PK-1RnaBhKE\/s320\/pacific_rim_ver3.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EPacific Rim\u003C\/i\u003E is a rare kind of spectacle. A Westernized fusion of kaiju eiga and mecha shows, not based on any existing IP, Guillermo del Toro's latest feels like some kind of weird nerd indulgence, something that shouldn't have gotten through the Hollywood assembly line but for a few vague resemblances to the \u003Ci\u003ETransformers\u003C\/i\u003E series. The movie is a toybox, packed full of nifty sights and sounds and concepts, but what really makes it sing is that del Toro and co-writer Travis Beacham not only take their concept seriously and sincerely, but make sure there's a heart beating at its center. A film this dense and chaotic may be easy to write off as a jumble of special effects, but on closer examination it's a lot more finely crafted than that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA dimensional rift opens near the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, disgorging giant alien monsters which are quickly dubbed \u003Ci\u003Ekaiju\u003C\/i\u003E. The beasts start attacking major cities, killing and destroying with no apparent purpose. The world governments get together and deploy Jaegers (the name is German for \"hunter\"), giant robots piloted by psychically linked pairs of fighters who quickly become celebrities as they beat back the kaiju menace. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam), co-pilot of the American mech \"Gipsy Danger\", watches and mentally shares in his brother's horrible death during a stormy kaiju battle, and the Jaeger program falls out of favor as politicians seek less expensive means of defense against a seemingly endless stream of monstrous invaders.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYears later, Becket is recruited back into a black-market-funded Jaeger program by its leader, Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), and is paired up with Japanese protege Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) as Pentecost plans an assault to close the rift once and for all. Meanwhile, kaiju biologist Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and his mathematician comrade Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) perform some daring investigations of the nature of the kaiju, and race to find information that may become vital to winning humanity's years-long war.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs one might expect, the film's quirky storyline doesn't leave a lot of room for in-depth characterization, and for a while it seems like it is just going to be action setpieces linked by however much plot is needed to justify them. Slowly and surely, however, patterns emerge; we see the Jaeger pilots and the bonds they have to form in order to work together in the field, we see \"Newt\" (as the doctor is called) seek to connect with the mind of his enemy, and it becomes clear that this is a picture about forming connections and the importance of being able to rely on others. Even as Becket does the heroic journey thing, we see him supported and how that support is essential for anyone to have a chance.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELike the kaiju films of old (and their TV counterparts, the army of costumed-hero sentai shows), \u003Ci\u003EPacific Rim\u003C\/i\u003E isn't content to stop its reality bending with a few monsters and robots. We get to see a bit of how the world has been shaped by these invasions, transformed into a place both oppressive and weirdly beautiful. We see people living in the \"Bone Slums\" built around the corpse of a long-deceased kaiju, with a temple in its skull; a black market in kaiju remains headed by the sinister Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman); Americans living on rations and queueing for jobs building supposedly kaiju-proof walls that, well, aren't. The style of the film is exaggerated, vivid, colorful, but stays far away from camp. It's actually an impressive tonal balancing act that Del Toro pulls off, but behind it is his skill at creating convincing fantastic worlds both large and small.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe action is as densely packed as the story, putting everything on the field in terms of scope while also maintaining a sense of \u003Ci\u003Eweight\u003C\/i\u003E that can be incredibly difficult for CGI slugfests. The kaiju-Jaeger fights are rough and tumble affairs, grueling hardcore matches which are both amusing in their blunt energy and genuinely suspenseful. While most of the action takes place at night, waist-deep in water, often with debris splashing around, Del Toro makes use of brightly colored lighting and tight, disciplined editing to create some truly impressive exchanges. He enjoys moving from the very large to the very small, sometimes as a visual gag, other times simply as a reminder of what's at stake. Some of the kaiju designs kind of run together, but then they have reasons for resembling one another that play into the plot. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is simply a film with many pleasures, from the thrills of ultimate monster-robot fighting, to Day and Gorman sniping at each other, to Idris Elba inspiring the troops. And his publicized rallying cry, \"Today we are canceling the apocalypse!\", could serve as a motto for the film as a whole, rejecting wholesale the visions of doom that are far more common at the multiplex, from \u003Ci\u003EHunger Games \u003C\/i\u003Edystopia to superhero deconstructions. While everyone else assumes the end is nigh, \u003Ci\u003EPacific Rim\u003C\/i\u003E insists we can stop it. The film's struggle at the domestic box office may endanger future sequels (and make Hollywood still warier of trying to start brand new franchises rather than exploit existing intellectual property), but the film satiates the appetite on its own; it holds nothing back. We may not see its like again in the near future, so get there while you can.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Travis Beacham\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Guillermo del Toro\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8657142119335275265\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8657142119335275265\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8657142119335275265"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8657142119335275265"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/in-theaters-pacific-rim.html","title":"In Theaters: Pacific Rim"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-BTo3DNg0IL0\/UeabgoOtOFI\/AAAAAAAABps\/PK-1RnaBhKE\/s72-c\/pacific_rim_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2421875974295828858"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-13T15:10:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-07-13T15:10:34.426-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Television Postseason Postmortem: The Tuesday Night Massacre"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dxv0e93as_E\/UeFqGXjTSnI\/AAAAAAAABpM\/RNWaj9psQDU\/s1600\/penny_hartz_7162.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Penny Hartz, contemplative\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dxv0e93as_E\/UeFqGXjTSnI\/AAAAAAAABpM\/RNWaj9psQDU\/s1600\/penny_hartz_7162.jpg\" title=\"You made Penny sad! Are you happy now, America?\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis season on television bore witness to an utterly brutal and heartrending slaughter, and in this case, The Rains of Castamere barely figured. No, this little massacre took place on Tuesday night, as two great networks scheduled evenings of hip, quirky comedies aimed at the hip childless consumers so prized by advertisers, either not seeing that the overlap in demographics would inevitably cause massive casualties or feeling so confident in their schedules that they didn't care. Every year sees cancellations, and there were plenty this season, but I want to focus on these three, partly because for me they were this year's most painful final bows, but also because I think there are some unsettling ramifications for the future. The Golden Age of Television isn't over yet, but winter may be coming.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n3.\u003Ci\u003EDon't Trust the B____ in Apt. 23\u003C\/i\u003E. This one ranks as the least sad because, in retrospect, it was clearly never going to last too long. At least not on ABC, a network which more or less sticks to the middle of the road, often with good results. Hence this raunchy, cartoonish, darkly funny and yet weirdly sincere story of an unlikely friendship was not likely to last, and became one of the first casualties of what we will refer to as the Tuesday Night Massacre. It was a burst of color and creativity in an all-too-humdrum world, and it danced away as swiftly and mysteriously as it arrived. Let us treasure the memory forever, and hope that showrunner Nahnatchka Khan gets another shot soon, that Krysten Ritter ends up back on TV as quickly as she can, and that Dreama Walker's next big part is not \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1971352\/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ea disturbing examination of our obedience to authority\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n2. \u003Ci\u003EBen and Kate\u003C\/i\u003E. It's not entirely clear what did this in- whether it was competition, poor marketing, a lack of critical buzz, or perhaps people confused it with Royal Wedding coverage. In any case the axe fell swiftly, despite the sweetness of Dakota Johnson or Lucy Punch's wonderful sardonicism. It was perhaps too brief a run to become too attached, but it's sad to see something this good-hearted be shut down so early. Someday Fox will learn patience, but it is not this day.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n1. \u003Ci\u003EHappy Endings\u003C\/i\u003E. And here's where the gloves come off, because not only is this one solely on the American viewing public as a whole, it says something very troubling, and also, seriously, what the HELL people. This was not a difficult program. There were no elaborate storylines, no metatextual analyses of genre structures, this was aimed firmly at the Friends crowd and followed in the ancient tradition of just loading in as many funny jokes as the writers could think of, performed by an astonishing comic ensemble which seemingly emerged from nowhere. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd I think what happened was that it was too funny. Much like CBS and the Zucker\/Abrams\/Zucker production \u003Ci\u003EPolice Squad!\u003C\/i\u003E (which later saw new life as the inspiration for the \u003Ci\u003ENaked Gun\u003C\/i\u003E films), this was not a show to leave on in the background while doing the dishes or folding laundry. The sheer density of jokes and wordplay and childish shenanigans demanded an audience's full attention and they're just not willing to give it. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHence the worrying implications. Comedy writers now must face the strange burden of not being too good at their jobs- whenever they get on a roll, they must walk it back, throw in a few obvious breaks and deliver punchlines like they're landing a jumbo jet. Not only is quality not a necessary or sufficient component for ratings, it may, at some extremes, be a detriment. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt least that's the theory. Maybe it's a freak anomaly of scheduling. But for a straightforward funny show featuring funny jokes both verbal and physical, performed by attractive and capable performers, to fail this significantly is not a good sign. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn the midst of carnage, there are miracles. \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E not only held on for yet another season, thanks to what we must now refer to as NBC's ongoing tire fire of a schedule, but after prodding from its cast hired back showrunner Dan Harmon. \u003Ci\u003EHannibal\u003C\/i\u003E emerged late in the season as a brilliantly designed and meticulously shot study of psychopathy disguised as a crime procedural, and survived thanks to a rather ingenious financing plan by which the network was paying a small fraction of the show's overall cost. \u003Ci\u003EThe Neighbors\u003C\/i\u003E started with a gimmicky premise, played it with absolute conviction, and emerged as something goofily engaging. The good times are far from over.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut I'm starting to check my watch.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-9pmuM68fsi4\/UeG0FkFzbcI\/AAAAAAAABpc\/HkBgTDE_-sk\/s1600\/housekerkovich.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" edit=\"House Kerkovich banner\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-9pmuM68fsi4\/UeG0FkFzbcI\/AAAAAAAABpc\/HkBgTDE_-sk\/s320\/housekerkovich.jpg\" title=\"The North remembers\" width=\"219\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2421875974295828858\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2421875974295828858\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2421875974295828858"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2421875974295828858"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/television-postseason-postmortem.html","title":"Television Postseason Postmortem: The Tuesday Night Massacre"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dxv0e93as_E\/UeFqGXjTSnI\/AAAAAAAABpM\/RNWaj9psQDU\/s72-c\/penny_hartz_7162.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1704108204741000089"},"published":{"$t":"2013-07-01T17:14:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-07-01T17:14:29.916-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Comics"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Man of Steel"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m61LMudq4Jg\/UdH-gKuof_I\/AAAAAAAABo8\/nFM0k3wXO40\/s755\/man_of_steel_ver3.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Man of Steel poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m61LMudq4Jg\/UdH-gKuof_I\/AAAAAAAABo8\/nFM0k3wXO40\/s320\/man_of_steel_ver3.jpg\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI really have to wonder who it was in the Warner Bros.\/DC hierarchy that looked at \u003Ci\u003ESuperman Returns\u003C\/i\u003E and decided the big problem was it wasn't solemn enough. I know I'm in something of a minority concerning my very positive opinion of Bryan Singer's take on the comic book legend by way of Richard Donner, but I was still willing to give a fair chance to Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan's reboot. \u003Ci\u003EMan of Steel\u003C\/i\u003E is a very reverent and sincere try at placing the original comic book superhero in the pantheon of modern superhero movies, an ambitious retelling of the title character's beginnings and ascent to legendary status which takes some controversial liberties in the name of keeping things fresh, but what brings it down is not its emphasis on violent spectacle nor its changes to the character. No, the problem is the sheer weight of the plot, which crushes warmth, humor, and characterization underfoot while trying to tell the story of an alien finding his essential humanity. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe begin on the planet Krypton, an advanced civilization on a dying world, having mined out most of its own planetary core for energy. Scientist Jor-El (Russel Crowe) has a plan to save the Kryptonian race, but is interrupted when General Zod (Michael Shannon) stages a violent coup. Before the planet can implode on itself, Jor-El and his wife send their only son off to a distant star system, along with the technology that could revive the Kryptonian people. On the strange world of Earth, young Kal-El (eventually played by Henry Cavill) develops superhuman powers and, after being raised by the kindly Kents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), sets out to help save lives and make the world a better place. However, around the time he figures this out, Zod and his retinue show up, having escaped Krypton's demise and having learned of Jor-El's plans. They present an ultimatum to Earth to hand over Kal-El, who promptly gives himself up, along with intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who has discovered perhaps more than she should about this mysterious superman. Zod and company plan to use reclaimed Kryptonian technology to turn Earth into a mirror of their lost planet, but this process would of course kill everyone currently living there, so Kal-El just won't have that. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere is a lot of controversy regarding some things Superman does late in the picture, and in general the film is unafraid to make changes to the familiar legend, and present us a Clark Kent who truly feels alienated and apart from the people of Earth whom he nonetheless feels compelled to protect, a Clark Kent who is still building his moral code. We're clearly meant to leave some of our preconceptions of who Superman is at the door, and generally speaking I see no problem with this. However, the specific approach the filmmakers take with \u003Ci\u003EMan of Steel\u003C\/i\u003E does open them up to certain problems- namely, that in focusing on an alienated and isolated Clark, the film denies both him and us the kind of interactions that would really form a bond not only between characters, but between the picture and the audience. It's telling that we see more of young Clark being all-too-realistically bullied in school than we see him receiving the support of his parents- the scenes are well executed in and of themselves but they contribute to a sour vibe.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a very dour, humorless film- approximately half an hour or so elapses before the first thing happens which could be regarded as funny, and while nobody said all superhero movies need comic relief, it's never clear why the film has to take itself as seriously as it does. Almost every scene is handled by Snyder as a Big Dramatic Moment, with very little space to breathe in between, but it's in most films' less dramatic moments that humor and intimacy and life seep in. The film's not entirely lacking in these subtleties, but part of the problem is just how needlessly complicated the story is- between matrices and planetary engines and space weapons, the characters have to spend most of their time delivering exposition, and rarely get the opportunity to display emotions other than \"tense\". \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt really doesn't help that the ensemble is as overstuffed as it is. We have both Harry Lenick and Christopher Melioni as your hard driven military types, Jor-El constantly showing up and jockeying for time with Superman's adoptive parents, a nerdy scientist (Richard Schiff) who seems to be there because movies like this have scientist types hanging around, Laurence Fishburne acting very stern as Perry White, Michael Kelly as a fellow reporter who is apparently important, an intern (Rebecca Buller) who is cute and that's pretty much it, Zod's entire retinue of Kryptonian fascists, the list goes on. With the script so heavily devoted to naked plot delivery nobody gets much time to be fleshed out, and you get the distinct feeling that these characters either had a lot more purpose in an earlier draft or are simply there to be under contract for the sequel. It's a problem that writer David S. Goyer specifically didn't have in his work on Nolan's Batman trilogy, so I'm not sure what happened but I suspect Warner Bros. just couldn't keep their filthy mitts off. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo be sure, some of the action scenes are fairly impressive, even if we spend a curiously long time watching people run in terror from collapsing buildings and dig each other out of rubble while Superman's busy fighting a kind of robot thing on the other side of the world because the script has gotten that complicated. The art design of Krypton is also impressive, even if it suggests a culture so diseased that Kal-El really shouldn't mourn its passing. (Which makes the conflict between his human and alien identities rather one-sided.) Snyder does break out the shaky handheld camera a bit too often for my tastes but it's not fatal to any of the proceedings, just a little distracting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI can't bring myself to forgive a film which takes Amy Adams, a charming and talented actress who projects energy and warmth almost effortlessly, casts her in the iconic role of everyone's favorite stop-at-nothing reporter, and sticks her for most of the film reading dry exposition or reacting worriedly to things. Similarly, I'm pretty sure Henry Cavill has a handle on the character of Superman, but he only gets to show it in fits and bursts, as in when he learns to fly for the first time or calmly informs the military that he's playing along with the whole \"captivity\" thing for their own comfort. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a movie in which a lot of very good individual parts fail to make much of a strong, affecting whole. It seems to fall apart not due to laziness or carelessness but simply losing sight of basic human connections, which is death to a picture that's supposed to be about an alien choosing humanity over his own kind. You can see what the filmmakers are aiming for, but a leaden joylessness keeps the picture from ever making that essential connection. The picture's a hit, so apparently just putting in more explosions was enough, but I honestly hope that for the sequel, the filmmakers take a breath and remember the little things that make our heroes larger than life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on a character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by David S. Goyer\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Zack Snyder\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1704108204741000089\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1704108204741000089\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1704108204741000089"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1704108204741000089"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/07\/in-theaters-man-of-steel.html","title":"In Theaters: Man of Steel"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-m61LMudq4Jg\/UdH-gKuof_I\/AAAAAAAABo8\/nFM0k3wXO40\/s72-c\/man_of_steel_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8527829660609979479"},"published":{"$t":"2013-06-30T12:50:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-06-30T12:50:34.139-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.13: The Maris Counselor"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W94_2HZqzCc\/UdBvm8_InfI\/AAAAAAAABos\/sbdGAVxC7q4\/s848\/Ep108.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"239\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W94_2HZqzCc\/UdBvm8_InfI\/AAAAAAAABos\/sbdGAVxC7q4\/s320\/Ep108.jpg\" title=\"Now batting 0 for 3, the Cranes...\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ENiles: Fifteen years with Maris, I end up in bed with her lover.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe shoe finally drops. In a way this was an episode that people had been waiting for, for many years. I don't think anyone believed that Niles and Maris would stay together by this point; it was a relationship that was fundamentally broken, and after a while it was just no fun to see Niles suffer. So \"The Maris Counsellor\" is only mostly sad, a bittersweet picture of the end of a relationship that, however toxic, still meant a lot to a person we care about. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs it starts, things are looking up. Niles and Maris are seeing Dr. Schenkman (Bob Dishy), and he's apparently really caused some major breakthroughs. Niles has realized in therapy that he needs to be more spontaneous, and goes to surprise Maris with a romantic bedroom scene. However, he ends up sharing the bed with Dr. Schenkman, who as it turns out is having an affair with Mrs. Crane. Niles is devastated, and sobs his way through a group therapy session he leads with Frasier. Though he briefly holds out hope that Maris is just undergoing transference (a common psychological phenomenon, or so we're told), but he soon decides that this is the last of the last straws and that he and Maris are finished.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's no avoiding the sadness of this. The viewers have never been given any reason to love, like, or tolerate Maris, but we do like Niles and his pain is more than enough to hurt us. And yet much of this episode is as light as anything they've ever done, and specifically the scenes that should be the most immediately painful, that of Niles discovering Dr. Schenkman in Maris' bed and his meltdown in the group therapy session afterwards, are the funniest instead. The former is a beautiful silent farce, playing heavily on David Hyde Pierce's willingness to look ridiculous- the sight of him spreading flowers like a foppish satyr is unforgettable. The hurting can wait; we the viewers need to be assured that as bad as it is, it's not the end of the world. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course it's not, though- we never did like Maris very much, after all. Niles is better off free of her, and the true arc of the episode is him coming to that realization. For much of the last season or so, we saw things starting to thaw between them- therapy agreed to, anniversaries celebrated, trysts arranged- and it seems clear in retrospect that it was all leading up to this, starting with Niles at his most optimistic about the marriage's future so that he could get the final shock that convinces him that it can never be. It's significant that Daphne is absent for most of the episode, and the only reference to Niles' attraction to her is at one remove- it wouldn't be appropriate for him to be thinking about that, but of course, we in the audience are (and were at the time) thinking about the possibilities.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERunning alongside the main plot is a story involving Martin's flirtation with an (unseen) younger woman in the building- who as it happens is just trying to set him up with her senile mother. It's essentially set up so that at the end we can have all three Crane boys unlucky in love, comparing their scars (and we don't need a reminder of Frasier's scars this episode. We've seen plenty.) The ending is sad, but captures an eternal, futile optimism as well. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne of the things that distinguishes Frasier among sitcoms is that it could pull off unfunny moments like this. Just because a show is called a comedy doesn't mean it can't handle sadness, and the sophistication of this show doesn't prevent it from being emotionally earnest when it needs to. \"The Maris Counsellor conflates farce and tragedy, and in the end is a moving and accurate portrait of not only the pain of lost love but the giddy, fearful freedom. Niles has lost a lot, but also gained something.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGuest Callers (They're back!): John Waters as Roger, Rob Reiner as Bill, and Bess Myerson as Mary\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by David Lloyd\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman \u003Cbr \/\u003EAired February 3, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles:\u0026nbsp; You see, every Friday evening Maris spends an hour meditating in her spirituality gardens.\u0026nbsp; Invariably she comes inside randy as a stoat.\u0026nbsp; Well tonight, she's going to find me, waiting in her bed, as randy as a...nother stoat.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8527829660609979479\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8527829660609979479\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8527829660609979479"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8527829660609979479"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/frasierquest-513-maris-counselor.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.13: The Maris Counselor"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-W94_2HZqzCc\/UdBvm8_InfI\/AAAAAAAABos\/sbdGAVxC7q4\/s72-c\/Ep108.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3144845270699654965"},"published":{"$t":"2013-06-04T22:49:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-06-04T22:49:03.397-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Games"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"The Tabletop"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Tabletop: On the Oncoming Demise of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DVqwmVzYcUI\/Ua6zOpvAS9I\/AAAAAAAABoM\/y8fObjMN7PM\/s1600\/dnd5.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Two iconic characters running from a boulder\" border=\"0\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DVqwmVzYcUI\/Ua6zOpvAS9I\/AAAAAAAABoM\/y8fObjMN7PM\/s320\/dnd5.jpg\" title=\"I know the feeling.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs time goes by and columns like \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/dnd\/Article.aspx?x=dnd\/4ll\/20130527\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ethis\u003C\/a\u003E come out, it's becoming more and more obvious that the next edition of \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E, called \"D\u0026amp;D Next\", will in fact be the first edition designed entirely by fear. While previous revisions to the rules set were done in the spirit of expanding, modernizing and generally improving the performance of a system that, by virtue of being the most widely played RPG in the world, had its quirks and eccentricities put to the test, this is an edition in full retreat, an effective apology on behalf of Wizards of the Coast for trying too hard to do something innovative and interesting with the system last time. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENow, let's make something clear- I think that while \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E 4th Edition was by no means perfect, and had its own quirks and eccentricities that needed some tuning up, I think it was also far and away the most well-designed and transparent of rules sets for the venerated game to date. Its designers had a strong and clear vision of how to make the rules enable the kind of high fantasy adventure D\u0026amp;D always promised, solving several long-standing balance problems and giving more useful tools to the novice DM than had existed before.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIts great sin was that in trying to cut to the core of what \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E was all about, it cut a lot of the periphery- Vancian spellcasting, nine alignments, fighters whose main function was to stand in place and swing their sword at the enemy, etc. It added new and scary things like Dragonborn and inspirational healing and a cosmology designed to fuel conflict, and above all, a powers system that gave fighters and thieves and wizards alike lists of distinct tactical abilities that gave them options in every combat, according to a set of roles that built on historical distinctions between meat-shield fighters, blaster mages, and backstabbing rogues. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe won't be seeing any of that in D\u0026amp;D Next; despite promises of a \"modular\" game that will support all styles of play, over a year into Wizards' gigantic open playtest we have yet to see anything resembling the slightest sop to fans of Fourth Edition. The powers are gone, stripped away, in the process reopening the issue they had rather conclusively solved- that of class balance, where at later levels of gameplay the sword-swinging fighter was regularly outshone by spellcasters who could stop time, fly, summon friendly monsters, open locks, or in other ways duplicate and obviate the need for any parties. The \"Caster Supremacy\" phenomenon was common enough that Gygax and Arneson were working on solutions to it back in the day, but with 4e's separation of roles and functions, and division of spells into ones that could be cast on-the-fly and more elaborate rituals, it looked like the problem had finally been licked.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut despite promises that fighters will eventually in some future playtest packet get unique abilities and that balance is important, the designers have in general opted for a casual, \"feelings\"-based approach to game design in which balance and mechanical rigor are less important than the game looking like everyone's nostalgic memories of what \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E ought to be. It's quite possible that this is just a public stance, and that behind the scenes they're sweating all the details they should, but so far nothing released inspires that kind of confidence.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo be sure, the Next edition looks to at least be simpler than D\u0026amp;D has been in some time, and I consider that an absolute plus- I had enough fun with a 3.5 campaign that lasted a few years, but by the end I was ready to throw the AC penalties and encumbrance limits and synergy bonuses and feats upon feats into some kind of metaphorical dumpster. 4e cut some of the cruft but retained more than it should have, so Next's goal of a simple core game that can be added to with modules is an admirable one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHowever, the core contains so many wonky assumptions- from an uncharacteristically simulationist view of Hit Points to an assumption that magic items will be in the game but not affect the mechanics at all- that it's going to be hard to fine-tune. Fourth Edition is not the easiest game to house rule but it's at least transparent and clean enough to make clear how changing one rule will affect others (and it's so close to being an effect-based system that reskinning is a relative breeze.) The promise of a modular game that you can easily make into your preferred D\u0026amp;D seems to be one that, if it was possible to begin with, has slipped from the designers' grasp.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course nobody's going to come and take people's Fourth Edition books away, even if the premature announcement of D\u0026amp;D Next seems to have killed the product line for good. But there's something to mourn when a good game line is ended not because actual improvements came along but because a vitriolic portion of the fanbase raged against every change and every innovation until they got their way. At the very least it sets a bad precedent.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's hard not to blame Paizo Publishing for some of this; I can't blame them for doing what they needed to survive as a game company, by creating \u003Ci\u003EPathfinder \u003C\/i\u003Eas an in-print rules support for their 3.5 modules when the new edition's licenses proved too restrictive. But in failing to really fix the problems of 3.5 and actively selling themselves as \"the real D\u0026amp;D\" they have created the perception that things like Caster Supremacy are just the way things have to be, that too much balance is a bad thing (imagine a film buff saying the same thing about, say, good editing), and that the game was always meant as a believable simulation of a world where people are limited by the laws of physics, unless they can cast spells. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EPathfinder\u003C\/i\u003E definitely gave D\u0026amp;D a run for its money, and eventually began to outsell it when support for Fourth Edition began to dry up, so this may all simply be a case of majority rules. There's no evidence that Fourth Edition was ever unprofitable or anything but an objective success, but the rush of the Next designers, and seemingly most of the games industry and what we laughably call games \"journalism\", to bury the edition and never to praise it may mean it will forever bear a stained and tattered reputation, the game that went too far, tried too hard to level the playing field and give everyone opportunities to shine. (Already I've seen many people treating it like some kind of Harrison Bergeron nightmare scenario, and discussing \"player entitlement\" and \"magical tea parties\" like they're attacking the welfare state. It's not so much politics as it is a macho bullshit belief that being in a tough game builds character, as if we aren't all pretending to be elves while sitting in comfort at kitchen tables.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's just a damn shame, is all, the same as when \u003Ci\u003EBrazil\u003C\/i\u003E failed at the box office or \u003Ci\u003EDon't Trust the B in Apartment 23\u003C\/i\u003E was cancelled. Some gamers seem to take the position that we should just bend to the majority but I say that if we're going to view RPGs as anything like a viable artistic medium (and if nothing else the existence of Paranoia is sufficient argument for doing so), we should push for more risk-taking and less pandering to the masses. Fourth Edition was Dylan going electric, dammit, it was a great push forward for a flagship game line that too often was content to lag behind what everyone else was doing when the act of its creation was so audacious it brought an entire new form into being.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI'm not asking for \u003Ci\u003ED\u0026amp;D Next\u003C\/i\u003E to be a minor update of its predecessor- I can live without AEDU power schedules and Paragon Paths and all those goddamned Feats still- but what it should take is a strong, driving vision of design, the principle that things like balance and transparency and fairness are important, and that sweating the small stuff is something the designers need to be doing, not the players. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI can't say how much of a commercial success D\u0026amp;D Next is going to be. The rumor is that Next is Wizards' big bold play to make D\u0026amp;D big enough that Hasbro will treat it as a Core Brand on the level of \u003Ci\u003EMagic: the Gathering\u003C\/i\u003E (which, it should be noted, has never walked back changes to its rules solely to appease the old-time players.) I doubt it will be that huge, if only because reverse marketing rarely works. But who knows?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat I do know is we'll be losing something really good- a beautiful, tightly designed system that wasn't afraid to kill a few sacred cows for the sake of more clearly articulating the spirit of adventure and heroic daring that \u003Ci\u003EDungeons and Dragons\u003C\/i\u003E is theoretically about. I don't want to become a bitter edition warrior raging against the march of time, but I don't want something this good buried under fanboy rage forever. \u003Ci\u003EFourth Edition\u003C\/i\u003E is unlikely to get its own version of \u003Ci\u003EPathfinder\u003C\/i\u003E, due to not being released under the Open Game License, but since game rules cannot truly be copyrighted- well, let's face it, ever since Dan Harmon was hired back on \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E it's become clear that anything can happen. Maybe I'll design my own 4th-inspired fantasy heartbreaker if I ever go insane.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the meantime, would it be too much to ask that the designers of \u003Ci\u003ED\u0026amp;D Next\u003C\/i\u003E start actually wowing us? So far there's been very little steak and even less sizzle."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3144845270699654965\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3144845270699654965\u0026isPopup=true","title":"2 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3144845270699654965"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3144845270699654965"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/the-tabletop-on-oncoming-demise-of.html","title":"The Tabletop: On the Oncoming Demise of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DVqwmVzYcUI\/Ua6zOpvAS9I\/AAAAAAAABoM\/y8fObjMN7PM\/s72-c\/dnd5.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"2"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-424772414721634580"},"published":{"$t":"2013-05-31T23:58:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-05-31T23:58:20.292-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Great Gatsby"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XeW0Tt56QL8\/Ual_DOfhc5I\/AAAAAAAABn8\/hFtqomo5NaQ\/s1600\/great_gatsby_ver15.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XeW0Tt56QL8\/Ual_DOfhc5I\/AAAAAAAABn8\/hFtqomo5NaQ\/s320\/great_gatsby_ver15.jpg\" width=\"213\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe worst thing I can find to say about Baz Luhrmann's film version of \u003Ci\u003EThe Great Gatsby\u003C\/i\u003E is that it's not as good as the book. It's the best adaptation we're likely to get, though, and that's because it engages with its source material rather than reveres it. The theoretical blasphemy of adding 3-D, hyperkinetic cinematography, loads of CGI, and Jay-Z to a richly nuanced critique of Jazz Age decadence turns out to be just the thing to make the story work in another medium, and the real surprise is that this approach doesn't drown out the book's tricky subtleties. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's original work, it's both cynical and deeply moving, a tragic sort of love story which sees the futility of dreams as something to admire.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story is mostly unchanged from the novel, but given a framing device- Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is in treatment for a number of nervous disorders, and is advised to write down some of the experiences that brought him such mental distress. So he relates the tale of moving to the neighborhood of West Egg, next to reclusive millionaire Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Nobody quite knows Gatsby's past or where his money comes from, but it turns out he and Nick were in the Great War together, and he soon becomes privy to Jay's secret- he's in love with Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), a lost sweetheart now married to Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) and living right across the bay. Jay gets Nick to arrange a meeting between the two, and an affair begins anew, but inevitably, something attained is not as grand as the dream of having it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELuhrmann, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Craig Pearce, takes an appropriately expressionist approach with the material; rather than recreate the precise, and now charmingly quaint, details of the Jazz Age, the film aims to convey the emotional experience of an age of excess and decadence through saturated colors, a blend of modern music (with a soundtrack produced by Jay-Z) with the occasional diegetic bit of jazz or organ playing, and all sorts of flashy visual tricks. In truth it's hard to say just how much of the wild parties and high-speed joyrides are an exaggeration; the film has fewer outright breaks with reality than \u003Ci\u003EMoulin Rouge\u003C\/i\u003E, and the feeling is less one of camp than of getting across just how profoundly messed up the times were.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat's remarkable is that in all this excess, the small quiet moments still stand out. Gatsby's reunion with Daisy in Nick's humble cottage, the three running around Gatsby's mansion during a thunderstorm, and a tense confrontation in a hotel room all manage to be intense and startlingly real. That the film's sets and setpieces aren't realistic doesn't prevent the film from creating its own reality, one with its own emotional pull. The film still has time for the subtleties of Fitzgerald's text, as well as its less subtle images (the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg are appropriately ominous); granted, it takes a bit of a shortcut by having Nick narrate much of the text, but given that so much of the novel's strength is in its prose the filmmakers can't be blamed for wanting to retain it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA lot of the credit for making the film's subtler moments work goes to the cast. DiCaprio has, over the past decade or so, grown into the range necessary to play Gatsby both as a charismatic playboy and a desperate, ultimately naive man; Mulligan's inherent charisma is such that we can still sympathize with Daisy even as she shows signs of not being the woman Gatsby imagined. Particularly ingenious is the casting of Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker; a relative newcomer, Debicki not only captures the look but also the attitude of the sort of social butterfly who can never pay enough attention to really care about something. The film's soundtrack deserves praise as well; the blending of period and modern music is really quite expert, the original score is memorable, and there's a Lana Del Rey song that, as on the nose as it is, manages to be haunting. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere just isn't much to be said against this film, beyond nitpicking how it chooses to make cinematic one of the most respected literary works of all time. Luhrmann and company have done right by the book, but not in a timid, reverential way- they've made it into something that works as a movie, that plays on the emotions of the story rather than the surface of it. It's easy to dismiss films like this as all gloss and no substance, but the truth is that style informs substance, and vice versa. \u003Ci\u003EThe Great Gatsby\u003C\/i\u003E is the first genuinely great movie I've seen this year, and it represents the kind of risk taking I like to see.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Baz Luhrmann\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/424772414721634580\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=424772414721634580\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/424772414721634580"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/424772414721634580"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/in-theaters-great-gatsby.html","title":"In Theaters: The Great Gatsby"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XeW0Tt56QL8\/Ual_DOfhc5I\/AAAAAAAABn8\/hFtqomo5NaQ\/s72-c\/great_gatsby_ver15.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8117433175364788961"},"published":{"$t":"2013-05-28T08:57:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-05-28T08:57:47.447-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Star Trek Into Darkness"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-kzcyygg3Bpc\/UaS3R7mZrEI\/AAAAAAAABns\/nIKb24RiXmw\/s1600\/star_trek_into_darkness_ver4.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Star Trek poster via IMPAwards.com\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-kzcyygg3Bpc\/UaS3R7mZrEI\/AAAAAAAABns\/nIKb24RiXmw\/s320\/star_trek_into_darkness_ver4.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI'm always up for a good spaceship movie, so it's been a long wait for the sequel to J. J. Abrams' \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek\u003C\/i\u003E. I went into \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek Into Darkness\u003C\/i\u003E with some misgivings, some about rumored callbacks to the franchise's past (and more on that later), some about how early trailers made it seem as though most of the film took place on Earth in large piles of rubble. The film's obtuse marketing campaign has done it no favors, but not only have Abrams and company managed to craft an enjoyable space saga which delivers most of the things one expects from the genre, they've also managed to touch on the long-neglected \"big ideas\" of the Trek franchise, marrying some pointed social commentary with an affirmation of what Trek's core values ought to be. It's not really deep, but it is smart enough to be fun.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere will be spoilers below.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo sooner has Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) embarked on a modest survey mission than he has saved an entire alien race from extinction and broken Starfleet's sacred Prime Directive in the process. His command is taken away from him and he's back serving under Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) just as a mysterious terrorist named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) launches an attack on the Federation. Pike is killed in an assault on Starfleet Headquarters, and Admiral Marcus (Peter goddamn Weller) sends Kirk, Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the gang on a mission to the edge of Klingon space, where Harrison appears to be holed up. Their orders are to strike his hideout from a distance, but the Enterprise crew doesn't approve of executing someone without trial, so instead they undertake a dangerous mission to capture Harrison alive and uncover the motive behind his devastating attack.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film admittedly starts off on my good side with its opening of wild adventures on a weird alien planet- it's relatively short, but it establishes that just because this is going to be a \"darker\" story doesn't mean it'll all be grit and debris. Indeed it gets closer to what I consider to be the feel of \"classic\" Trek than the first movie did, without sacrificing a renewed emphasis on action and adventure. We have a mission into deep space and to the hostile world of the Klingons, we have intrigues on Earth that help show off the society of the far future, and in a true rarity, we actually confront one of Trek's fundamental contradictions- the fact that Starfleet, while not a military organization, looks and acts a lot like one. Kirk's major quest, alongside learning some personal responsibility, is to prevent it from sliding into the kind of fearful pre-emptive remote-striking overwhelming-force-deploying military industrial complex that, well, we have now. It's a canny evocation of current issues and also an insistence that we can have a better society.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBetween the weighty thematic elements, the personal journeys, and of course the elaborate action sequences, the film's literal plot suffers a little- it's not incomprehensible or as objectively hole-ridden as the first film (where the writer's strike literally prevented anyone from doing further rewrites) but it is loopy as hell. The film moves so fast that there's not always room to develop its ideas, and it ends up throwing out a lot of things in a short period of time. On the upside it never lets up, on the downside it's a little hard to keep up with. Of course there is action and humor and a shot of Alice Eve in her underwear and other distractions, so it's easy to get swept along.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe characters are as strong as in the first film, and again just about everyone gets a moment to shine- there's a real commitment to keeping this an ensemble piece despite Kirk and Spock taking the lead. Cumberbatch is an amazing presence, almost enough to make you overlook the fact that he's a pasty white guy in a role originally played by a Latino. More on that later. Eve, as Dr. Carol Marcus, gets to be more than eye candy and has a few memorable scenes. The film's action sequences are well-polished and matched with a strong visual design sense; things rarely blur together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd now spoilers. John Harrison is actually Khan, and the film is a twist on both \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan\u003C\/i\u003E and the original series episode \"Space Seed\", with Khan's revival being integral to Starfleet's black ops projects. I was skeptical about this for a while (especially given the whitewashing inherent in the casting, Khan being Indian), though for the most part the film puts these familiar elements in a new and more interesting context. Then, unfortunately, the picture decides to recreate a few key scenes from \u003Ci\u003EWrath of Khan\u003C\/i\u003E in a way that, while thematically fitting, still feels too close a copy. It probably plays better for people who have never seen the earlier film, but I wish they had stretched a little further. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EStar Trek Into Darkness\u003C\/i\u003E still comes close to greatness, if nothing else for its handling of some rather complex ideas. Star Trek portrays a society that advocates equality and progressive values through gunboat diplomacy, a Starfleet that is explicitly not a military organization but sends heavily armed vessels out to colonize and to fight evil aliens and to not do a very good job of staying away from primitive cultures. It's always been a weird kind of aspiration, that we can still explore and expand and assert vaguely liberal values without running into the nasty icky questions of cultural relativism, unintentional exploitation, or unintended consequences. And despite its title, \u003Ci\u003EInto Darkness\u003C\/i\u003E honestly believes in the dream. Kirk and company come to stand explicitly for the ideals of Gene Roddenberry's creation, rejecting the inhumanity we are told is necessary for safety. It believes we can explore without becoming imperialists, that we can stand up for our values without forcing them on others, and that we can at long last move past the darkness in our own culture. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek Into Darkness\u003C\/i\u003E is still mostly a fun action movie, full of color and energy and good humor, as Abrams has pulled off before. But even if the filmmakers are a bit too literal with their callbacks to the past, they manage to take the best of what Trek was and package it into something modern audiences will be willing to swallow. It offers a lot of hope for the series moving forward, even if it is closely wed to its past.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on \"Star Trek\" created by Gene Roddenberry\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, \u0026amp; Damon Lindelof\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by J. J. Abrams\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A- \u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8117433175364788961\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8117433175364788961\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8117433175364788961"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8117433175364788961"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/in-theaters-star-trek-into-darkness.html","title":"In Theaters: Star Trek Into Darkness"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-kzcyygg3Bpc\/UaS3R7mZrEI\/AAAAAAAABns\/nIKb24RiXmw\/s72-c\/star_trek_into_darkness_ver4.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4388558786593469258"},"published":{"$t":"2013-05-25T00:13:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-05-28T08:58:00.809-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.12: The Zoo Story"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-cpM5s4Foftk\/UaBILLaHExI\/AAAAAAAABnc\/-srYoyzrvDs\/s1600\/Ep107.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Roz and Bebe\" border=\"0\" height=\"244\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-cpM5s4Foftk\/UaBILLaHExI\/AAAAAAAABnc\/-srYoyzrvDs\/s320\/Ep107.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EBebe: When there's a dirty job to be done, you can't go wrong with a Mormon!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAfter two episodes that didn't offer much to chew on, it's good to run into one this densely packed. \"Zoo Story\" gives us the glorious return of Bebe Glaser after her sad but inevitable firing, and gives us agents in conflict, a horny and desperate Niles, and one very angry bird. It may be the best Bebe episode, and it helps define her story as Frasier's eternal temptress, the vulgar showbusiness goddess who will stop at nothing to ensnare him.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nContract negotiations are coming up at KACL, and Bebe starts making overtures that she can help get Frasier a good deal if he'll take her on again. But Frasier is determined to find an ethical agent to represent him, despite everyone advising him that an ethical agent is not a thing that, you know, exists. But Frasier finds Ben (Robert Stanton), agent, scout leader, choir singer, and toymaker for disadvantaged children, among many other sterling roles. Ben gets an idea for Frasier to promote both himself and the Mercer Island Zoo, by having them name a new crane after him. But the bird goes berserk and Frasier starts to have other doubts about Ben's ability to promote him, which prompts Bebe- already representing Roz and using her baby to make money- to swoop in. Not helping Frasier is Niles, who is thinking about caving to Maris' latest demands in the hopes of getting some, but who has pledged to hold to Frasier's advice about sticking to principles- unless of course he breaks first.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf all the recurring characters on this show, Bebe is the one for whom most of her appearances form a kind of story arc. Nearly every time we see Frasier and Bebe there's something different about their relationship, and this time it's the teasing of their reconciliation. This lets Bebe play the temptress again, but also to deliver a challenge to Frasier's ethics. Frasier's ethical dilemmas are a reliable source of conflict, and Bebe externalizes it by actually being the devil on his shoulder. In this case they're not even debating one particular unethical act, just the general idea of having an agent who will stop at nothing to promote your interests. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat makes this really funny is the fact that everyone is encouraging Frasier to give in. Even Roz, who was specifically screwed over by Bebe, goes over to her side because, hey, she gets things done. Everyone else has internalized the idea that there's no such thing as a \"good\" agent. And Roz and Niles both want the freedom to indulge themselves, adding some decent subplots to flesh out the story. Niles is back to levels of randiness he hasn't displayed since \"Look Before You Leap\", and there's a wonderful background gag- after asking a waitress to nibble on a biscotti provocatively, he can be seen in one shot holding it up to Roz. Everyone else is giving into sleaze, why not Frasier?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBen gives Frasier little reason to stay on the side of good. The titular zoo is not actually that central to the story (the one quibble I have with the plot is that having a bird named after you attack people, while embarrassing, isn't really a career killer); it's merely a symbol for good intentions going astray, and Ben's real weakness comes when word arrives that the station's hired a ruthless negotiator, \"The Hammer\". Ben's primary concern appears to be the Hammer's uncouth language, and it's clear he doesn't have much of a plan to prevent slashed salaries. It's hard for a half-hour sitcom to present the delicate nuances of the bargaining process, so we can't really diagnose Ben's major problem, but he's clearly out of his league.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo what does that, and Frasier's reunion with the Satanic Bebe, end up saying? Is the moral of the story that some jobs just need to be done by sleazy, horrible people? Or does the compromise the two make in allowing her to conceal her skullduggery reflect a need for moderation on both sides? Or is this, in the end, just a bunch of stuff that happened? Maybe all these tensions are for the best, because it's in contradiction and incongruity that humor lies. By refusing to make a firm stand on the ethical issues of contract negotiation, \"Zoo Story\" lets us laugh at an oversexed Niles, a justifiably unscrupulous Roz, a bird attacking people and later choking to death on a jawbreaker, and of course, Kelsey Grammer and Harriet Sansom Harris trading brutal barbs with aplomb. There's a lot of meat to this episode, just don't ask where it all comes from.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Joe Keenan\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired January 20, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EBebe: Frasier, we have to talk.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Are you aware that you are in the men's room?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBebe: Oh, please, if I paid attention to signs with little pictures on them… I'd never get a parking space. \u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4388558786593469258\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4388558786593469258\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4388558786593469258"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4388558786593469258"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/frasierquest-512-zoo-story.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.12: The Zoo Story"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-cpM5s4Foftk\/UaBILLaHExI\/AAAAAAAABnc\/-srYoyzrvDs\/s72-c\/Ep107.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6487734151854091346"},"published":{"$t":"2013-05-19T12:56:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-05-19T12:56:25.785-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: The Living Skeleton"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B008Y5OXDI\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B008Y5OXDI\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Living Skeleton cover and link to box set on Amazon\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-xgkzI95Yu0E\/UZkRkbXjY-I\/AAAAAAAABnQ\/j_3YacALUcQ\/s320\/LivingSkeleton.jpg\" title=\"Part of an Eclipse box set\" width=\"226\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJapanese horror films were still finding their way in the late Sixties, not having fully formed all of the conventions that we now associate with the geographical subgenre. \u003Ci\u003EThe Living Skeleton\u003C\/i\u003E is a unique chiller which benefits from this uncertainty. It has elements of American horror cinema combined with those of Japanese ghost stories, with some pulpy crime and horror trash thrown in for good measure. The results are somewhat inconsistent but benefit from a great atmosphere and a genuine sense of unpredictability.\u0026nbsp; There's something wonderfully vivid and organic to how the story develops, like a living thing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film opens with a brutal act of piracy and murder, as several of the crew of a shipping vessel not only mutiny to steal its cargo of gold bullion, but murder everyone else on board, notably the ship's doctor and his new bride Yoriko (Kikko Matsuoka). Back in Japan, the woman's twin sister Saeko is living with a Christian priest (Masumi Okada) whom she treats as an adoptive father, and going out with a young bartender named Mochizuki (Yasunori Irikawa). She's aware of her sister's death at sea, but when diving she and Mochizuki come across a graveyard of floating skeletons, and discover a floating derelict which seems to be the lost ship in question. Soon after Saeko starts having visions of the murder and its perpetrators, and starts to disappear for weeks on end. The murderers, meanwhile, begin seeing visions of the woman they killed, and are killed one by one in bizarre ways. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYou may think you know where the story is going at this point, but rest assured there are plenty of surprises, some of which are completely out of left field in a way that normally violates several rules of storytelling. This sort of thing is normally kind of insulting, but there's a mad logic and conviction underlying where the story goes. We're pulled along by a desire to see the murderers pay for their crime, but at the same time there's something horrifying about the vengeance itself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film has a rich atmosphere accentuated by great black-and-white widescreen cinematography. The choice to have Saeko living with a Christian priest- Christianity still being a minority in Japan- seems like a nod to the iconography of American horror, but also ties in to some of the more unusual twisty elements of the story. At times it seems to be satirizing the religion, but it's hard to say for sure what the major subtext is. In any case, it adds to a deep bench of spooky imagery, as do various unexplained bats flying everywhere. Granted, the bats look rather fake, as do some of the shots of the floating skeletons, but there's still something horrific in the sight even if it's not entirely convincing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Living Skeleton\u003C\/i\u003E is an inconsistent experience, but a notable one nonetheless. I'd be tempted to dismiss its many plot twists and random cool shots as cheap tricks and the sign of a cynical production, but it never feels like that. Its weirdness is instead sincere, and the themes of revenge and justice, however simple, provide a beating heart for the story. There may not be a literal living skeleton in this movie, but in a spiritual sense it delivers on the promise of its title.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Kyuzo Kobayashi and Kikuma Shimoiizaka \u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Hiroshi Matsuno\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6487734151854091346\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6487734151854091346\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6487734151854091346"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6487734151854091346"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/random-movie-report-living-skeleton.html","title":"Random Movie Report: The Living Skeleton"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-xgkzI95Yu0E\/UZkRkbXjY-I\/AAAAAAAABnQ\/j_3YacALUcQ\/s72-c\/LivingSkeleton.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5677499521779219723"},"published":{"$t":"2013-04-29T11:14:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-04-29T11:14:06.099-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Site Miscellany"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"At Long Last The Best Movies of 2012"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6WkywPnYZ9U\/UX6bdrMCGaI\/AAAAAAAABmk\/0aNdMDoJt-k\/s1600\/cloud-atlas-war.jpeg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Scene from Cloud Atlast\" border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6WkywPnYZ9U\/UX6bdrMCGaI\/AAAAAAAABmk\/0aNdMDoJt-k\/s320\/cloud-atlas-war.jpeg\" title=\"Finding a representative still from this movie is not easy.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n2012 was a movie year so complicated I'm only just now getting around to it. A lot of very good films came out, to the extent that I wondered if I was being overly generous in my grading (something a critic, amateur or not, really needs to not fuss over.) But at the same time there are a couple of worrying trends that make me worry about the modern movie audience just a little. Still, the state of the industry isn't something to panic over just yet. Here's my Top 10.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E1. \u003Ci\u003ECloud Atlas\u003C\/i\u003E. The most ambitious and least cynical film since, well, the last time the Wachowskis went behind the camera. The siblings and Tom Twyker weave together radically different stories with the natural language of film editing, harmonizing them and affirming a message that every action we take echoes in time for good or ill. A worthy successor to Griffith's Intolerance nearly a century after the fact.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E2. \u003Ci\u003EMoonrise Kingdom\u003C\/i\u003E. Wes Anderson's gift for creating fantastic and richly populated comic worlds goes nicely with a wistful look at the awkwardness of young love. Simply charming, a warm and lovely story told with just enough of an edge, and a little craziness. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E3. \u003Ci\u003EDjango Unchained\u003C\/i\u003E. The horrific legacy of American chattel slavery, served as a sleazy revenge fable. Probably not the most sensitive portrayal of its subject, but it conveys the ugly truth of one of America's worst chapters even as it plays loose with the facts. Perverse and hugely satisfying.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E4. \u003Ci\u003ELooper\u003C\/i\u003E. A smart, tightly written sci-fi tale that earns a lot of trust by frankly admitting that the exact mechanics of time travel aren't going to be clearly explained. It's primarily a study in fate and predeterminism, and the moral problems raised by foreknowledge, and the execution blends strong action with good character building and two excellent performances by Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E5. \u003Ci\u003EPrometheus\u003C\/i\u003E. Manages the neat trick of evoking a Golden Age sense of wonder and thrill of exploration, while at the same time pointing up the dangers of discovering primal knowledge and the irrational arrogance that can manifest. Yeah, the characters don't always make optimal decisions, but that's arguably the point and the film does a fine job engaging with the mindset that leads to such folly. My enthusiasm for this film is only bolstered by my impatience with fussing over its tactical shortcomings.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E6. \u003Ci\u003EParaNorman\u003C\/i\u003E. It starts breezily and unassumingly enough with a kid seeing ghosts everywhere, builds to a fun comic horror riff, and then builds even further to climactic scenes that are genuinely dramatically powerful in a way you don't expect. It's possible I'm letting the end of the film disproportionately elevate my opinion of the whole, but then it just wouldn't work if it didn't earn it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E7. \u003Ci\u003EKiller Joe\u003C\/i\u003E. William Friedkin proves he has lost none of his edge over time, again collaborating with Tracy Letts and this time creating a grimly hilarious fiasco story which repeatedly crosses the line of good taste. The cast is amazing, the humor is disarming, and while it's hard to say just what this story is telling us about the human condition, it leaves you shaken nonetheless. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E8. \u003Ci\u003EBrave\u003C\/i\u003E. Some critics took Pixar's latest to task for being too conventional, but I can't argue with the execution. It's simply charming, a comic fable about a relationship between mother and daughter, with warm visuals, appealing characters and some very nice voice acting, notably by Kelly MacDonald as Merida.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E9. \u003Ci\u003EBeasts of the Southern Wild\u003C\/i\u003E. A rich and intense experience, another world existing inside ours- issues can be raised about the responsible portrayal of poverty stricken communities, but the story is told so relentlessly from the perspective of Hush Puppy that a certain unreliability is assumed. We are living the girl's experience, and the filmmakers conjure indelible images and a sense of reckless, dangerous joy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E10. \u003Ci\u003ESkyfall\u003C\/i\u003E. The Bond series yet again found itself having to reconsider its place in our pop culture landscape, and the resulting self-examination makes for one of the best entries in the series. A tense, vivid spy thriller which manages to deliver the traditional thrills alongside a sense of an era's slow passage. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBarely missing the cut: \u003Ci\u003EChronicle\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EDredd\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ECabin in the Woods\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EThe Dark Knight Rises\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003ELincoln\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003EBest Opening Credits Sequence: \u003Ci\u003ESkyfall\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Most Underrated Movie of the Year: \u003Ci\u003EJohn Carter\u003C\/i\u003E \/ \u003Ci\u003EBattleship\u003C\/i\u003E \/ \u003Ci\u003EAbraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter\u003C\/i\u003E (THREE WAY TIE!)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd this is where I get off on a rant, because the failure of these films with the general public points to something worrying.\u0026nbsp; To be fair, John Carter didn't have much of a chance, due to an obtuse ad campaign designed by the director himself, but the knowledge that it was likely to flop became reason enough for many to dismiss it out of hand. A warm, sincere, wide-eyed pulp adventure film seemed antiquated, obsolete before anyone laid eyes on it, and more is the pity. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EBattleship\u003C\/i\u003E was just plain a well made action adventure film which happened to be based on a board game. Again, this alone was reason for everyone to dismiss it before and after the fact; critics didn't even want to engage with it on a sincere level and audiences thought themselves above it. It doesn't seem fair, though, considering how Peter Berg essentially beats Michael Bay at his own game, creating a high-tech sci-fi effects-driven spectacle with vibrant action sequences, surprisingly engaging characters, and a subtext about missed communication and culture clash that sailed right over the heads of people who are supposed to take film seriously. Good movie, bad show by the film community.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EAbraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter\u003C\/i\u003E was similarly much smarter than it looked, but since it didn't look smart critics and audiences didn't bother paying attention. In a way it anticipates Tarantino's slave-revenge epic by blatantly arguing for the parasitic inhumanity of the Confederacy, denying nearly a solid century of Southern apologism by the film industry. Again, there is also humanity and some sweetness, a remarkable lead performance, and some utterly brilliant action. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELook, how many times do people have to be told not to judge a book by its cover? Sure, nobody has the money or time to see every film that is released and we filter our selections accordingly, but it's one thing to let something slip by and another to actively dismiss it for superficial reasons. Whether something is a board game, has a gimmicky title, or is positively drenched in flop sweat shouldn't matter. Quality shines through.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5677499521779219723\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5677499521779219723\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5677499521779219723"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5677499521779219723"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/04\/at-long-last-best-movies-of-2012.html","title":"At Long Last The Best Movies of 2012"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6WkywPnYZ9U\/UX6bdrMCGaI\/AAAAAAAABmk\/0aNdMDoJt-k\/s72-c\/cloud-atlas-war.jpeg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3734675816332661676"},"published":{"$t":"2013-04-13T11:07:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-04-13T11:07:44.696-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Dredd"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005LAII80\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005LAII80\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Dredd cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-V0chMcCCCBw\/UWmBExMi38I\/AAAAAAAABmU\/hboYk8i9bqQ\/s320\/dredd.jpg\" title=\"By not seeing this movie when it was out, we have all been judged and found wanting.\" width=\"273\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn a year full of overlooked films, \u003Ci\u003EDredd\u003C\/i\u003E is an especially dear casualty. As an attempt to finally do cinematic justice to a British comics legend, it's an unqualified success, but nobody saw it (myself included) and the potential for an entire series of films about everyone's favorite fascist brute force weapon remains unrealized. Perhaps the spectre of the bloated 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle looms too large over the franchise, though frankly I'd be surprised if that many people remembered it. \u003Ci\u003EDredd \u003C\/i\u003Eis a leaner beast, its low budget guiding the filmmakers into a straightforward raid story that, as it unfolds, allows for some pointed but subtle commentary and moments that are downright mystical. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the future, most of the world is scorched and radioactive- a Cursed Earth which the people hide from in Mega Cities, sprawling urban megalopolises dominated by giant housing blocks which exist as small arcologies. Crime is rampant, and fighting it is a task largely delegated to the Judges, elite police officers empowered to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is a legendarily ruthless and incorruptible judge, assigned to monitor would-be Judge Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thrilby), whose relative lack of ruthlessness is made up for by her psychic abilities. The two are called to one of the blocks to investigate a gangland slaying, and find that the entire monolithic structure is under the control of \"Ma-ma\" (Lena Headley), a gang leader who is the sole distributor of SloMo, a drug that turns the user's world into a slow, glittering spectacle. When Dredd and Cassandra find a witness to the murders, Ma-ma puts the building on lockdown, trapping everyone inside. She instructs the civilians to shut their doors and not help anyone, and then she sends her death squads out on the hunt.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's an admirable simplicity in the premise; rather than try and delve into all the messy parts of the setting created over years in the pages of \u003Ci\u003E2000 A.D.\u003C\/i\u003E, the movie pares it down to the Aristotelian unities- one day, one place, one case to solve. But the simplicity is deceptive; this single conflict exposes the workings of a desperate society, allowing just enough time for the people of the block to come into focus as men and women caught in the middle of a war. It honestly recalls much of Kurosawa's \u003Ci\u003ESeven Samurai\u003C\/i\u003E, in that the people of Mega City One see little difference between the gangs and the judges, two armies in a war that's destroying their homes. Anderson's psychic powers allow the audience to get a few closer looks at the people in this war, and every bit of collateral damage stings a little.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat's remarkable is that the film manages to balance these ambiguities with a genuine desire to see the good guys win. Dredd himself was subject to several shifts in the comic pages- the great irony of the character is that he was conceived as a satire of British police brutality, but the same juvenile readers who had no respect for real cops started rooting for Dredd, and there are many stories in which his rigid adherence to the law is viewed as positive in comparison to the corruption surrounding him. The film recognizes this scope, and Urban's Dredd, while never truly warm or accessible, is also not repulsive. He's not a sadist- he doesn't revel in the brute enforcement of the law, he just does it. Anderson is your classic idealist put to the test, but Thrilby's performance is a potential breakthrough (or rather it would be one if anyone had seen the goddamn film) and turns a typical good cop\/bad cop dynamic into something genuinely compelling. It helps that when all is said and done, the drug dealers are clearly a bit worse than Dredd and Anderson, and we want to see them brought down even as we recognize the damage and death the pursuit of this goal causes. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is also just a really good action film, smartly directed and with some incredible use of space. Despite taking place almost entirely in a gray brutalist slum arcology, the movie looks gorgeous, and there's a particularly memorable sequence involving a set of gatling guns that demonstrates just how far Ma-ma will go to protect her racket. There are a few sequences where we see the effects of SloMo, and they're gorgeous (I really regret not seeing this film in 3-D.) Similarly stylish are Anderson's psychic forays, appropriately disorienting without being irritatingly so. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EDredd\u003C\/i\u003E is hopefully destined for a cult following, because it's as successful an adaptation of the comic character as one could hope for. It's spare but satisfying, which is probably for the best as I can't imagine anyone else tackling the material in movie form for at least another twenty years. I'd like to be proven wrong, but the work stands alone quite beautifully.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on characters created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Alex Garland\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pete Travis\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3734675816332661676\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3734675816332661676\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3734675816332661676"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3734675816332661676"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/04\/random-movie-report-dredd.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Dredd"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-V0chMcCCCBw\/UWmBExMi38I\/AAAAAAAABmU\/hboYk8i9bqQ\/s72-c\/dredd.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2251404366017427352"},"published":{"$t":"2013-04-08T14:55:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-04-08T14:55:56.542-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"RIP Roger Ebert"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dz_eWcJz1Ek\/UWMgUfoKEvI\/AAAAAAAABmE\/sYrM8FeQNqk\/s1600\/ebert.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"210\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dz_eWcJz1Ek\/UWMgUfoKEvI\/AAAAAAAABmE\/sYrM8FeQNqk\/s320\/ebert.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\nThe death of Roger Ebert is something just about anyone who loves film has cause to mourn. He was a fundamental part of the landscape of film and film criticism, and though his passing follows a long illness and much contemplation about life, death, and how best to approach both. I'm not so good with the heavy stuff, so I'll stick to a short appreciation of the man's work and how important it's been.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe thing that strikes me the most about Ebert is that he gave every movie a fair chance. He never seemed to go into a movie expecting to hate it; whenever he brought out the poison pen, there was a sense of disappointment. He loved all kinds of movies and while he had his biases, he was always willing to overcome them. His distaste for 3-D didn't prevent him from noting when the technique was used well in \u003Ci\u003EAvatar\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EHugo\u003C\/i\u003E, or \u003Ci\u003ECave of Forgotten Dreams\u003C\/i\u003E; he would decry a film like \u003Ci\u003EI Spit on Your Grave\u003C\/i\u003E for reprehensible exploitation, but find artistic value in the similarly unpleasant \u003Ci\u003ELast House on the Left\u003C\/i\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne of the most important points he made was that a movie is not good because of what it is about but how it is about it. Through his decades-long career Ebert reviewed just about anything the Chicago Sun Times had a mind to send him to; we never saw Pauline Kael or John Simon weigh in on \u003Ci\u003EInfra Man\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla 1985\u003C\/i\u003E, but somebody had to. There were many, many times I disagreed with his opinions, and people would bring up questionable deviance from the consensus as though star ratings were the true measure of a critic's worth, but he engaged with film as both trash and art, and everything in between.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoger Ebert's life was cut short, but he got a lot out of it and never lost his enthusiasm for life even as he pondered the end of it. His optimism was inspiring, and may have been part of why he went into every film with the hope that it would amaze him. That's an attitude worth holding onto.\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2251404366017427352\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2251404366017427352\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2251404366017427352"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2251404366017427352"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/04\/rip-roger-ebert.html","title":"RIP Roger Ebert"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Dz_eWcJz1Ek\/UWMgUfoKEvI\/AAAAAAAABmE\/sYrM8FeQNqk\/s72-c\/ebert.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7791992608659267697"},"published":{"$t":"2013-03-31T23:49:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-03-31T23:49:46.236-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Opening Credits"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Closing Credits Theatre: Dune"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YRzVFlZxBv4\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7791992608659267697\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7791992608659267697\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7791992608659267697"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7791992608659267697"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/closing-credits-theatre-dune.html","title":"Closing Credits Theatre: Dune"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/YRzVFlZxBv4\/default.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5376588011219456184"},"published":{"$t":"2013-03-30T12:44:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-03-30T12:48:03.853-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Highlander 2: Renegade Version"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00AGKHBZ6\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00AGKHBZ6\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-PzOC0kOjxrc\/UVcex_YFdlI\/AAAAAAAABl0\/kTRGWa7eLhU\/s320\/Highlander2.jpg\" width=\"253\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt was always going to be difficult to make a \u003Ci\u003EHighlander\u003C\/i\u003E sequel. \u003Ci\u003EHighlander\u003C\/i\u003E has always been a really great idea for an action movie franchise, but the film's very premise works against it- if it's about immortals battling each other through the ages until only one is left, what do you do when there is, in fact, only one? How do you start up the conflict again without invalidating everything that happened already, and worse, just repeating what's already taken place? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe makers of \u003Ci\u003EHighlander 2\u003C\/i\u003E were entrusted to find the answers to these questions, and the search drove them mad. \u003Ci\u003EHighlander 2: The Quickening \u003C\/i\u003Eis the product of their insanity, a work both stylish and inept, audacious and cliché-ridden, so intensely stupid it wraps around to a kind of brilliance, but the brilliance of a character in a Lovecraft story after witnessing the nuclear chaos at the center of reality.\u0026nbsp; This review is based on the so-called \"Renegade Version\", a Director's Cut that tried to restore some semblance of sanity (the original cut was essentially finished by the film's insurance company), mainly by undoing a controversial plot point, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't help much.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo. The story. Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) is, as far as he knows, the last Immortal, a race of beings exiled to our time from some time in the distant past after a failed revolution against the evil general Katana (Michael Ironside.) (In the original cut the Immortals were aliens exiled from the planet Zeist, which did not so much contradict the first movie as take a lateral move into things nobody who watched the first movie would ever conclude.) Having won the prize, Connor is letting himself age peacefully, while the near-future world around him wilts under a powerful electromagnetic shield designed to block out the UV rays of the sun after the ozone layer finally gave up the ghost. A number of rebels, led by Louise Marcus (Virginia Madsen) believe that the ozone layer has repaired itself and are trying to uncover the truth while the evil Shield Corporation, led by John C. McGinley because of course it is, is milking their monopoly over the protection of the Earth for all that it's worth. After sending a couple of inept psycho assassins after MacLeod- which has no effect other than making him Immortal again- Katana decides to travel to the dystopian future and kill the Highlander himself. MacLeod uses his psychic link with his departed mentor Ramirez to call him back from the dead, and teams up with Louise to try and uncover the truth behind the shield. While dealing with the whole pesky Immortal dictator from the past.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nApparently what happened was this: the film was shot entirely on location in Argentina, at a time when Argentina's economy suddenly ran into some massive inflation, hence sending the film over budget. The insurers, taking it upon themselves to make sure the movie was finished, went above and beyond their call of duty and decided that they needed to guarantee a return on their investment by tweaking the film to what they believed would be most profitable- hence, aliens. But it's really hard to say what the filmmakers' original vision was, or if it made any more sense. There are so many plot elements jammed together that it's hard to tease out a coherent concept, and one can pick out the influences easily: a bit of \u003Ci\u003EBlade Runner\u003C\/i\u003E cyberpunk here, some attempted \u003Ci\u003ERobocop\u003C\/i\u003E-level satire there (complete with a corporate espionage plotline), and of course many rehashes of \u003Ci\u003EHighlander\u003C\/i\u003E's best parts, from bringing back Sean Connery simply because such a thing was technically possible to once again having the main villain joyfully chew scenery while rampaging through a depraved present (Ironside is basically playing Clancy Brown's part but with a different name and backstory, though it's hard to complain too much).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nYou can sense that we've passed the point of no return when Louise attempts to talk out the premise of the film in its revamped state and, in so doing, points out how needlessly complicated it has become. The original film never gave much of an explanation of where the Immortals came from or why they were destined to fight, but there was at least a certain mythological poetry to the idea. This new story of Immortals from one world battling here with their powers being switched on and off depending on who's on what side of the line plays more like one of the later \u003Ci\u003EFinal Fantasy\u003C\/i\u003E plots. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film occasionally tries for serious dramatics, but everything is played too broadly and stupidly for that to work. The Shield Corporation is your generic evil megacorp (and Connor apparently helped build the shield, so it's not clear how he let it fall into the hands of yuppie vermin.) Ramirez' return is arbitrary and his role in the plot is largely nonsensical. There's never much of a sense of Connor actually being threatened by either Katana or his freakish punk henchmen, and the shield itself is supposed to have become this horrible thing that ruins people's lives, but there's no indication of what precisely the problem is except things being darker most of the time (when the lighting department remembers.) Mystic powers are introduced and thrown around with no real foreshadowing or explanation, action sequences are thrown together from a grab bag of visual concepts without rhyme, reason, or rhythm, and there are lots of minor editing glitches and technical missteps that suggest that at some point everyone gave up and just tried to finish the job so they could go home. (I still can't tell you what city most of the action is supposed to take place in. New York? Detroit? London? Prague?)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut it's the increasing level of stupidity and laziness which somehow makes the film fascinating. Once you accept that there's never going to be any good explanation for why any given thing is happening, it provides a certain rush, a thrill of legitimately not knowing what the Hell this film is up to. A woman runs after a runaway baby carriage on a speeding train with a calm, casual jog. Katana uses modern slang and is conversant in pop culture references despite being from another pla- I mean, the Distant Past. John C. McGinley is even more unctuous and sleazy than you would expect him to play it. Connery appears to just be playing himself, at one point making gay jokes to an actor playing Hamlet and at another hitting on a random woman sitting next to him on a plane. There's a tailor in one scene who sells the Hell out of the two or three lines he has been given. Connor's initial old age wheezing is hilariously unconvincing. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBasically nothing about this movie coheres at all, which makes its excess almost charming. It's almost pure cinema in that it's little more than a series of images. It's easy to see why the film is so hated, to the extent that subsequent entries in the franchise ignore it entirely. But it's honestly an experience I have to recommend everyone have at least once. There is no better way to appreciate the challenge and the power of film as a narrative medium than to sit through a movie which struggles to string together individual scenes. You really do have to see it to believe it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on characters created by Gregory Widen\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by Brian Clemens and William Panzer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Peter Bellwood\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Russell Mulcahy\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: C-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5376588011219456184\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5376588011219456184\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5376588011219456184"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5376588011219456184"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/random-movie-report-highlander-2.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Highlander 2: Renegade Version"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-PzOC0kOjxrc\/UVcex_YFdlI\/AAAAAAAABl0\/kTRGWa7eLhU\/s72-c\/Highlander2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4253602831120820110"},"published":{"$t":"2013-03-21T23:55:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-03-21T23:55:31.949-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.11: Ain't Nobody's Business if \"I Do\""},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-CitfD34CUoM\/UUvjx7wAE9I\/AAAAAAAABlk\/EFlnWaOP9hM\/s1600\/Ep106.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Sherry says goodbye\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-CitfD34CUoM\/UUvjx7wAE9I\/AAAAAAAABlk\/EFlnWaOP9hM\/s320\/Ep106.jpg\" title=\"Or don't, as the case may be\" \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ENiles: An engagement ring?\u0026nbsp; Dad must be about to ask Sherry to marry him.\u0026nbsp; Do you know what that means?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Yes, we're going to hear what Mendelssohn's \"Wedding March\" sounds like on the banjo!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd it's the end of the road, for one character anyway. When \"Ain't Nobody's Business if 'I Do'\" aired, I don't think anyone really expected that Sherry would be a permanent fixture on the cast, but her departure is laced with more poignancy than expected. Sometimes sitcom relationships end on funny notes, and sometimes it's a little harder than that. This episode isn't short on comedy, but it treats the end of a long relationship as something worth mourning.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDaphne discovers an engagement ring in Martin's underwear drawer, and comes to the logical conclusion that he's about to pop the question to his longtime girlfriend. She shares her discovery with the Crane boys, and they're naturally less than thrilled at the prospect of Sherry becoming their new mom. Niles takes it a little far and hires a private detective (Tucker Smallwood) to look into Sherry's past to see if there's anything really worth worrying about, and while Frasier is apprehensive, the fact that Sherry has been married five times before is something he feels Dad should know. This of course leads to the inevitable Crane family argument.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story retreads the familiar ground of Martin's sons having problems with his girlfriend, which may be one of the reasons this is the last Sherry episode. The writers may have figured that after all this time they had done all that could be done with the character, though of course Marsha Mason's availability is just as likely to have been an issue. In any case, it's an end that comes organically; Martin wants to find someone to marry again, and Sherry just doesn't want to go through that. It's the sort of final meeting that nobody wants but which seems inevitable. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSince none of this is funny, the humor has to revolve around Frasier and Niles being their usual selves. They don't really dictate the direction of the plot at all; Martin already knows about Sherry's prior marriages, so all they're doing is pissing him off. But they serve a narrative purpose, bringing up the subject of Sherry's past husbands so that the audience knows about that in advance of it being the reason she and Marty have to call it quits. It's a nice bit of plot legerdemain, steering us towards an unexpected conclusion without seeming obvious or contrived. And of course there's the whole business with Frasier embarrassing himself by still thinking Dad is about to propose to her as they're breaking up, but since the episode's not about him the sting fades quickly, and he ends up commiserating and watching basketball with his dad. (The fact that Jordan was still playing when this aired makes me feel very old indeed.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat's interesting is just how focused this episode is on this storyline. Rare for this far in the series, there are no real subplots, and Daphne and Roz both only get about a scene apiece. It's not an entirely serious episode, with a lot of screentime spent on the \"detective\" plot which succeeds in making the Crane brothers look like nosy idiots. But knowing in retrospect what happens puts a pall over things, and so this episode isn't the most fun to revisit. (It's worth noting it also carries the show's weirdest end bumper, a sight gag based on a prop- a fish-shaped hors d'oeuvre display stand for a party Martin is hosting- that you'll barely notice in the episode proper.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStill, it's a good send-off for Sherry, which she deserved; it's possible her presence would have gotten old as a regular, but Mason does an excellent job in the part, and at the end we get a strong picture of what Martin Crane wants out of his autumn years. It's a bittersweet goodbye which, in a way, foreshadows a much bigger change about to happen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Jay Kogen\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired January 13, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: Sherry's never exactly liked me.\u0026nbsp; You don't think she'll try to make your father get rid of me, do you?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Oh, Daphne, of course not.\u0026nbsp; He'd be lost without you.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;Niles: Yes, and even if by some chance that were to happen, Daphne, I could always use you. I, I would know of a position you could take ...services that you could perform. I would know of an opening...\u0026nbsp; [takes up the check] This is on me.\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4253602831120820110\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4253602831120820110\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4253602831120820110"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4253602831120820110"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/frasierquest-511-aint-nobodys-business.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.11: Ain't Nobody's Business if \"I Do\""}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-CitfD34CUoM\/UUvjx7wAE9I\/AAAAAAAABlk\/EFlnWaOP9hM\/s72-c\/Ep106.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3662494885025980146"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-28T23:55:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-02-28T23:57:09.846-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Academy of the Underrated: Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (1984 release)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005J7K964\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005J7K964\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Lyo-R79VOdE\/UTBCpcx7l1I\/AAAAAAAABlU\/zNQ24io-Wyk\/s320\/MoroderMetropolis.jpg\" width=\"253\" alt=\"Blu Ray cover and Amazon link\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNow you may think that I've gone a little crazy. Everyone loves \u003Ci\u003EMetropolis\u003C\/i\u003E, and what's more, I've already reviewed it! But this one needs some context. Composer and producer Giorgio Moroder released a partial restoration of this beloved silent film in 1984, at a time when the only other version was the bastardized US cut. To attract people to theaters, especially the kids who would normally have no interest in silent movies, he released it with a modern electronic rock score similar to the work he did for \u003Ci\u003EScarface\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EFlashdance\u003C\/i\u003E, etc., and featuring a number of familiar stars like Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, and Bonnie Tyler. Critics welcomed the new footage but scorned the music, and it's long been lambasted as an unnecessary modernizing touch on a timeless classic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo I'm going to bat for it. I may be incredibly biased, since this was the way I first saw the film, but even then I knew the rock score was a sore point. But it works, and the reason it works is because the film itself is so timeless. It goes just as well with an electronic rock score as it does with its original orchestral accompaniment, and though it's been rendered a curiosity by the discovery of the complete version, it has its own aesthetic appeal.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe plot is more or less the same- a futuristic city divided between elite surface-dwellers and downtrodden workers inhabiting subterranean slums. When Maria (Brigitte Helm) brings a group of worker children to the surface gardens, she catches the eye of Jon Fredersen (Gustav Fröhlich), son of the city master Freder (Alfred Abel), and he follows her back into the depths, where he sees firsthand the cruelty inflicted on the workers. Setting out to make things right, he poses as a worker and finds Maria again, as she hosts sermons counselling the workers that a mediating savior will come. But Freder and the mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) also have set eyes on Maria, and under the former's instructions, the scientist kidnaps her and gives his soulless Robotrix the girl's face. The false Maria sows discord among the workers, finally inciting them to revolt and destroy the machines they serve- but they don't realize that doing so will destroy their homes, and their children.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBecause a lot of footage was still missing, Moroder searched through photo archives and script materials (including the collection of the film's No. 1 fan, Forrest J. Ackerman), and created a number of bridging scenes using stills and captions. This is the first reconstruction to mention Rotwang's wife Hel, though it leaves out the fact that Rotwang deliberately sends the robot to start a riot and destroy the city as revenge for his wife's death. Oddly enough this is the shortest running of the many versions of the film, because Moroder replaced the dialogue intertitles with subtitles (which does leave out a couple of the more creative title cards). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe result is a movie that really speeds along, and the almost wall-to-wall music score- punctuated with the occasional sound effect- enhances the momentum. The best music in the film is that which is purely orchestral (or rather, part orchestra, part electronica). The main theme is a pulsing, ominous beat accompanied by a sweeping melody which hints at the heroic struggle to come, and Moroder makes some choices which are wonderfully non-obvious; Rotwang's pursuit of Maria is rendered more terrifying by a strangely giddy backing track which suggests the inventor's perverse glee. But the single most effective passage is that which accompanies the False Maria's dance before the elite at Yoshiwara, Metropolis' house of sin. (Unfortunately, these latter two are not available on the film's soundtrack album, and none of the music on the album sounds exactly like it did in the film, due to Moroder's maddening penchant for remixing.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe vocal performances are a little less consistent- inevitably some of the lyrics are obvious, and the Pat Benatar ballad \"Here's My Heart\" is too cliché. On the other hand there are some interesting and offbeat entries too, most specifically Cycle V's \"Blood From A Stone\", the mechanical anthem for the workers. Bonnie Tyler was unfortunately recovering from vocal surgery when she performed \"Here She Comes\" but her raspy lyrics do have a certain charm.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDespite all the concessions made to modern audiences, this is still very obviously Metropolis, and for years, decades even, it was the best version on the market. (Even when it was off the market, after going out of print on VHS and not hitting DVD until 2011.) Some of the touches- notably the color tinting- aren't out of place for what silent filmmakers were experimenting with, and absolutely none of it compromises the film's spirit or its message. And the music, sounding as science-fiction-y as most of the electronic scores of the era, enhances both the movie's futuristic and gothic sensibilities. I may even prefer it to the original score composed for the movie, even if this version of the film is not quite as satisfying as the full one. So Moroder's \u003Ci\u003EMetropolis\u003C\/i\u003E will always have a place in my heart, and hopefully one in film history, as a work that did a lot to reintroduce silent film to audiences who had never given it a look. It's not the best version, but it has charms of its own.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn conclusion I would like to apologize to all the deaf people who wasted their time reading this.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Thea Von Harbou\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Fritz Lang\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3662494885025980146\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3662494885025980146\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3662494885025980146"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3662494885025980146"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/academy-of-underrated-giorgio-moroders.html","title":"Academy of the Underrated: Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis (1984 release)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-Lyo-R79VOdE\/UTBCpcx7l1I\/AAAAAAAABlU\/zNQ24io-Wyk\/s72-c\/MoroderMetropolis.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4462514354870715690"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-26T11:32:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-02-26T11:32:28.108-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Megalon"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0088FS1DC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0088FS1DC\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-YY5hfjmWzdk\/USzxKTAyR9I\/AAAAAAAABk8\/mkGAs_DVs10\/s320\/Godzilla-Vs-Megalon.jpg\" title=\"Warning: Nothing this cool happens in the actual movie.\" width=\"209\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEvery series has its nadir, and after a few years of falling budgets and a lack of interest, something had to give for Godzilla and company. \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Megalon\u003C\/i\u003E is doubly an embarrassment for Toho, being not only its worst entry in the Godzilla series, but also one of its most widely seen abroad. It's arguable that this junky, cheaply made drag is responsible for most of the English-speaking world's perception of Godzilla films as campy trash. The poor thing never really had a chance, and while its ubiquity gives it a certain nostalgic charm for those of us (un)fortunate enough to have seen it as children, said charm wears off pretty quickly.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAn underground nuclear test causes earthquakes halfway around the globe, draining a lake dry in Japan and angering the underwater kingdom of Seatopia. Inventor Goro Ibuki (Katsuhiko Sasaki), who lives with his son Rokuro (Hiroyuki Kawase) and swinging bachelor friend Hiroshi (Yutaka Hayashi), has been working on a grinning multicolored robot named Jet Jaguar (for reasons nobody has ever been able to explain.) Seatopian agents break into his lab and take control of Jet Jaguar, intending to use him as a guide for their subterranean monster Megalon, whom they plan to use to destroy the surface dwellers. Eventually Goro and company manage to regain control of Jet Jaguar, and send him to Monster Island to fetch Godzilla in hopes of stopping Megalon's rampage. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's not a lot of Godzilla in this movie, largely because it was never supposed to be a Godzilla movie to start with. In fact the impetus for the whole thing was a design contest for children, with Toho letting the youngsters brainstorm their newest henshin superhero to compete with Ultraman and the like. Knowing he was designed by a kid makes the rainbow-colored perpetually-grinning Jet Jaguar a little more understandable, though one wonders which entries didn't win. The film was supposed to be a vehicle for the new hero, but Godzilla was basically thrown in for star power. So he has a couple of short appearances early on, but it's not until the final battle that we get the kaiju action we were promised. Godzilla films often don't give a lot of screen time to their star attraction, but that's just the beginning of this film's problems anyway.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a strangely desolate movie, seeing as it's supposed to be a colorful romp for kids. The lack of money translates to a small cast, a limited number of sets, and even a significant lack of extras in many scenes. Goro, Roku-san, and Hiroshi live in their own little world, and the only other non-Seatopians are two truck drivers, a couple of random military personnel, and various fleeing townsfolk appearing via stock footage from other kaiju movies. It's almost as though the picture takes place in some post-apocalyptic wasteland. The visuals have a sickly, washed-out look even on the restored DVD, the music relies heavily on fuzz-tone guitar and a theme for Godzilla that sounds like the horn section had a few before recording, and the preponderance of grainy recycled footage contributes to a downright ugly aesthetic.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs with \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Gigan\u003C\/i\u003E, the film does at least take care to make its final battle tense, with some nice reversals, but it doesn't overcome how shabbily made everything is. Godzilla has been redesigned to look like an adorable puppy dog, while Megalon is an interesting design rendered in a junky way. There's a strange atmosphere to the picture and a certain kitschy charm that's hard to entirely deny, it's just mixed in with a lot of boring stuff.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe sad thing is this was, for a long time, one of the most easily seen and prominent of Godzilla films in America. It premiered on television, cut to under an hour and hosted by John Belushi in a Godzilla suit, and Toho neglected it enough that many distributors got the idea that it was public domain. Low quality VHS copies flooded the market (as well as a notoriously bad DVD long since vanished), the film appeared on \u003Ci\u003EMystery Science Theater 3000\u003C\/i\u003E, and nobody knows how many people first saw Godzilla in the context of a cheap, slipshod children's movie. (To be sure, it was one of the first Godzilla films I ever saw and the first I owned on home video, so the damage was not irreparable.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn any case, it's now on a decent DVD, with rumors of a Blu-Ray release, and I'm glad it's getting a proper treatment even if I don't think it's a very good film at all. It's significant as the nadir of the Godzilla series, though; after this film's poor performance, Toho made sure to invest a little more care into their next Godzilla movie. Sometimes to get better you have to hit rock bottom.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Shinichi Sekizawa and Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and Directed by Jun Fukuda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: D+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4462514354870715690\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4462514354870715690\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4462514354870715690"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4462514354870715690"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/random-movie-report-godzilla-vs-megalon.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Megalon"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-YY5hfjmWzdk\/USzxKTAyR9I\/AAAAAAAABk8\/mkGAs_DVs10\/s72-c\/Godzilla-Vs-Megalon.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3180658536929474069"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-19T10:13:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-02-19T10:13:30.948-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Gigan"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0002V7OEC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0002V7OEC\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-17h1yo3KNxA\/USOj21oU6LI\/AAAAAAAABkk\/aouyqKc8jxY\/s320\/Gigan.jpg\" title=\"Another one that's out of print and fairly pricey.\" width=\"224\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFollowing the heady surrealism of \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Hedorah\u003C\/i\u003E, Toho decided they needed to get back to tradition and make a movie that was just about giant monsters destroying cities and beating each other up. So seasoned kaiju director Jun Fukuda took the helm for \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Gigan\u003C\/i\u003E, a big sci-fi brawl in which Godzilla and a friend face down space monsters like they did in the Sixties. But the Japanese film industry was a darker and less friendly place for such things, and \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. Gigan\u003C\/i\u003E suffers some of the worst effects of Toho's austerity. Cheapness leads to shortcuts, which blend with a few significant story problems to make a film that really is only for the fans. It has a few neat and quirky ideas, though, and introduces one of the franchise's most memorable villains.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe hero of this installment is Gengo Kotaka (Hiroshi Ishikawa), a manga illustrator specializing in monster designs. Work is sparse, so his comely agent (Yuriko Hishimi) gets him a meeting with the developers of World Children's Land, a monster theme park featuring as its centerpiece a life-size Godzilla tower. The Children's Land group aren't just out for money- they want to build a model community and bring \"perfect peace\" to the world. But Gengo runs across a girl, Machiko (Tomoko Umeda), looking for her brother Takashi with the help of her hairy hippie friend Shosaku (Minoru Takashima). Takashi (Kunio Murai) is being held prisoner in the Godzilla tower, because as it turns out, the Children's Land builders are actually aliens using the park as a base of operations for a large-scale invasion of Earth, spearheaded by the cyborg space monster Gigan, with the help of King Ghidorah. In the midst of their investigating, Gengo and his pals play one of the aliens' control tapes, which helpfully alerts Godzilla and his buddy Angilas over on Monster Island that something funny's going on. The two monsters make their way to Japan just in time for a giant tag-team battle against the space invaders and their alien masters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis story doesn't make a lot of sense even by the fairly loose standards of kaiju movies. The aliens seem to specifically want to get Godzilla and Angilas involved specifically to destroy them on the way to conquering the world, and while they mention some of the other denizens of Monster Island they don't seem very concerned about them. Maybe they're really counting on the strategy of getting Godzilla face to face with the Godzilla Tower (which has a breath weapon of its own), which would also explain why they feel the need to mask their invasion of the Earth with the whole theme park utopia thing to begin with (and why they need to legitimize the operation by hiring non-alien personnel). Obviously this is a kids' movie, but this is arguably a sign that the screenwriters for the franchise were starting to slack a little. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is aiming to be a mostly mindless action spectacle, with four monsters including two old classics (Angilas did get a nice new costume for Destroy All Monsters so they wanted to make use of it, and everyone loves King Ghidorah.) Unfortunately, this is where the production runs right smack dab up against the fact that Toho did not have a lot of money to spare on monster epics anymore. Thus Jun Fukuda is forced to go overboard in the use of footage from previous Godzilla adventures. They're generally easy to pick out, as the film quality will deteriorate, the sky will change color, and some of the monsters will look a little different- there's even a completely unintentional cameo from Mothra, who can't help but appear in a few frames lifted from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. Even the music is 100% recycled material, with the filmmakers rummaging through Akira Ifukube's greatest hits. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat new material there is has some merit, though. Gigan's funky design is instantly memorable and he comes off as a convincingly dangerous fighter, with cruel blades for hands and a buzzsaw in his stomach. The revelation of the aliens' true natures is handled ghoulishly enough, and while the non-kaiju intrigues go on for quite a bit in order to pad out the film, they're at least colorful and offbeat- as are a few scenes where the monsters very briefly \"speak\" to each other. And all recycling aside, the climax of the picture is a truly grueling monster rumble that looks like a genuinely tough fight for our heroes. The grim atmosphere is strangely helped by the dilapidated states of the suits- you can see, at points, rubber scales hanging off Godzilla's hide, the result of too many squibs. Of course, it too drags on a bit, and the pacing is a problem overall.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGodzilla vs. Gigan\u003C\/i\u003E is ultimately not a very good movie, succumbing to a sort of institutional bleakness, a mood that at Toho the party was over. For the dedicated kaiju fan it offers a few fun bits, but even they may be fatigued as the fights wear on and the stock footage continues to roll. But I can't really dislike this movie too much either, because it does try its best to deliver what fans of the series want under difficult circumstances, and isn't entirely unsuccessful either. It seems about as good as it could have been, in a series that increasingly had less and less to work with. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jun Fukuda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3180658536929474069\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3180658536929474069\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3180658536929474069"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3180658536929474069"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/random-movie-report-godzilla-vs-gigan.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Godzilla vs. Gigan"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-17h1yo3KNxA\/USOj21oU6LI\/AAAAAAAABkk\/aouyqKc8jxY\/s72-c\/Gigan.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3821150145050803147"},"published":{"$t":"2013-02-12T15:54:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-02-12T15:54:36.872-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Cosmopolis"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B009T3AHDE\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B009T3AHDE\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Cosmopolis poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-E4GA8W__pr4\/URq5tOKtl-I\/AAAAAAAABkM\/MtTIicl8qkA\/s320\/cosmopolis.jpg\" width=\"235\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nYou can count on David Cronenberg to deliver a very pleasant kind of discomfort. There's a frission underlying just about every film he's made, a sense of things that are not right and will probably never be right, but it's as alluring as it is disturbing- it's tempting to see what happens. \u003Ci\u003ECosmopolis \u003C\/i\u003Ehas its flaws but it manages a wonderful feeling that everything is about to spin out of control, and in its deliberate pacing and stubborn lack of realism it ranks with the filmmaker's adaptations of \u003Ci\u003ENaked Lunch\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003ECrash\u003C\/i\u003E (the good version). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERobert Pattinson, he of the sparkling undead craze, plays Wall Street billionaire Eric Packer, who has decided he wants a haircut, and he wants it from a place on the other side of Manhattan. Normally do-able, but between the President visiting town and a protest march, it looks like a long trek. But Packer has a high-tech limousine waiting to ferry him, complete with enough computing power to run the business from the backseat, which is important because his company is making a big bet against Chinese currency. It's bound to fall with various market pressures, but it isn't, and Packer risks losing his shirt, but he keeps calm- eerily so, even as he rides through increasingly chaotic and dangerous situations, including a threat on his life. The movie follows him through every leg of the journey, and as Packer's situation worsens, he doesn't seem to mind.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe have the problem of an inherently unsympathetic protagonist. Packer is the very picture of yuppie vulture scum, and no attempt is made to give him any really redeeming factors. A sympathetic protagonist is not as necessary as we like to think, but we start out at a distance as we wonder why, particularly, we should care what happens to him. But slowly we see how precarious his situation is, and though part of the allure is seeing a big man potentially take a fall, we also start to wonder what's going on inside his head. He's very cool and collected and his motivations are often hard to read, and the film adds to the emotional distance by having nearly everyone speak in unnaturally intellectual phrasing. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat the film lacks in intimacy, though, it makes up for in a palpable atmosphere of discomfort and uncertainty. It starts subtly, but by the time Packer speaks with a theory specialist played by Samantha Morton about abstract concepts of technology and economy while a full-scale anti-capitalist riot rages on around them, it's clear that things are only going to get worse and that the hermetic control Packer seeks is under constant siege. The familiar cool technological atmosphere of Cronenberg's films always has chaos waiting to erupt under the surface, and it's this tension that provides the film's driving force even as it denies us other connections.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's hard to tell from this film whether Robert Pattinson is truly a good actor underneath the mask of Edward Cullen or if he's just really nicely cast to type as a dead-eyed urbanite who has become bored with life. Whatever, it works. Kevin Durand is nicely memorable as Packer's chief of security, and the great Paul Giamatti makes a fine appearance in the film's climactic scenes, even if they drag a little after the buildup. Sarah Gadon plays Packer's wife, an intellectual heiress who promises to keep him above water financially no matter what happens, and while she's not bad their scenes together are probably the film's weakest, simply because it's easy to see things just aren't working out between them at all. That's the point, but it didn't need multiple scenes to convey.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are enough problems with \u003Ci\u003ECosmopolis\u003C\/i\u003E that I hesitate to rank it too highly, but at the same time there's a lot going on underneath the hood. I'm forced into the same position I was several years ago by Terry Gilliam's \u003Ci\u003ETideland\u003C\/i\u003E; I'm not sure how much of the film is great, how much I get because I'm on the filmmaker's wavelength already, and how much I'm just taken aback by how audaciously off-putting it is. But if I have to simplify enough for a grade, \u003Ci\u003ECosmopolis\u003C\/i\u003E clearly means to be a cold but intense experience and at that it succeeds. It says a lot about the chaotic state of current society without being too focused on tearing down the establishment, and if it seems a little schematic at times it still evokes a feeling of dread. So thumbs up, it's got a nice beat, but you may not want to dance to it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the novel by Don DeLillo\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and Directed by David Cronenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3821150145050803147\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3821150145050803147\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3821150145050803147"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3821150145050803147"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/02\/random-movie-report-cosmopolis.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Cosmopolis"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-E4GA8W__pr4\/URq5tOKtl-I\/AAAAAAAABkM\/MtTIicl8qkA\/s72-c\/cosmopolis.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5119563066595657198"},"published":{"$t":"2013-01-31T15:43:00.007-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-01-31T15:43:52.903-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: The Twonky"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-0h9ZTtxxn8k\/UQrlUujNK-I\/AAAAAAAABj0\/_-CFHsriqBc\/s1600\/twonkyposter.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-0h9ZTtxxn8k\/UQrlUujNK-I\/AAAAAAAABj0\/_-CFHsriqBc\/s320\/twonkyposter.jpg\" width=\"217\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nArch Oboler had good reason to resent television. As everyone knows, American radio networks more or less abandoned radio theater when TV came along, transferring all their talent and money to the boob tube once they realized how big it was going to be. Oboler, a star writer for \u003Ci\u003ELights Out!\u003C\/i\u003E, didn't make the transition to television easily but found it impossible to go back to what he did best, as the networks began to discard radio drama. So Oboler looked to film, and decided to take a stab at the medium which had caused him so much pain. \u003Ci\u003EThe Twonky\u003C\/i\u003E is a weird little satire that's all the more fascinating because it doesn't quite gel. Oddly enough it's not the transition to film that trips Oboler up; instead, the story has fundamental flaws that you'd expect he'd be able to overcome.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHans Conried stars as Kerry West, a college professor whose wife is going out of town for a while, leaving him with a gift- a brand new television set. Unimpressed by the meager offerings of broadcasters in 1952, Conried sets the machine aside and tries to work- only for the TV to come to life and impose its services as a robotic helpmate. The strange machine can light the Professor's cigarettes, square away trash, even duplicate $5 bills. But it's an insistent beast, distracting West whenever he tries to read anything enlightening or creative, or compose lectures on art as individual expression. West enlists the help of the school coach Trout (Billy Lynn), and eventually they work out that the machine is possessed by an alien intelligence, probably from some kind of machine-world where individuality and liberty have been stamped out and replaced with soulless servitude. How they work this out is never fully explained, but in any case Kerry's troubles deepen, as the Twonky gains the ability to hypnotize people and turn them into drones, and resists any attempt at being moved.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a really good premise here, with the original story composed by two science fiction writers, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (both using the joint psuedonym of Lewis Padgett.) But for some reason the picture struggles to come up with anything really exciting for the characters to do. Part of the problem is that Kerry West never trusts the thing to start with; instead of being suckered in by the insidious lure of the idiot box, the protagonist is merely proven right about what he already assumed, and never has to undergo any significant change. There's a scene set during one of his classes that shows he's being subtly influenced, but it seems to play in isolation with everything else. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film stumbles into a number of blind alleys, including an unnecessary and exceedingly confusing plot about a seductive woman who shows up on West's doorstep and turns out to be a bill collector, and there's no sense of forward momentum. It's never particularly funny either, lacking for obvious jokes but never generating a consistent sense of absurdity either- it seems like we're supposed to laugh simply because things are a little off-kilter. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI will credit the picture for using Conreid as a protagonist; he's an engaging, animated presence wherever he appears and this is no different. What energy the movie has is largely down to him, even if he can't carry it across the finish line. There's an element of the Red Scare in the idea of the television as a force for conformity and mechanization, fears which were common to postwar society, and even though we don't see any of the TV's programming, it's easy to see how its actions serve as a metaphor for what the filmmakers think it does- it's a very McLuhanesque approach to the idea.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere just isn't a lot of entertainment value in this movie, but in its portrait of a culture being changed there's at least a significant amount of historical interest. It's odd how a storyteller like Oboler could produce something so inert, though- it would be one thing if the film were merely static or visually uninteresting due to his inexperience with the medium, but instead he makes a lot of rookie mistakes. (The film's lack of a substantial budget was likely an issue, but surely shouldn't have been this crippling.) Sadly it's little more than a curiosity, though we can at least credit it with being the \u003Ci\u003EVideodrome\u003C\/i\u003E of its day.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Lewis Padgett\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten for the Screen and Directed by Arch Oboler\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5119563066595657198\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5119563066595657198\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5119563066595657198"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5119563066595657198"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/01\/random-movie-report-twonky.html","title":"Random Movie Report: The Twonky"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-0h9ZTtxxn8k\/UQrlUujNK-I\/AAAAAAAABj0\/_-CFHsriqBc\/s72-c\/twonkyposter.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6779654507713993623"},"published":{"$t":"2013-01-28T00:32:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-01-28T00:32:06.936-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report: Tarantula!"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005ETANC2\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005ETANC2\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Tarantula DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-GsTP-PGf9YU\/UQYa0K-m47I\/AAAAAAAABjc\/5-8iLQXnXAU\/s1600\/tarantula.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSpiders are creepy, and big spiders creepier still, so they tend to make great movie monsters. Sure, you lose the portion of the audience which has actual arachnophobia, but you can't make an omelet, etc. After \u003Ci\u003EThem!\u003C\/i\u003E introduced the concept of giant insects spawned by radiation, a film about a giant spider was inevitable, but Jack Arnold's \u003Ci\u003ETarantula!\u003C\/i\u003E, to its credit, isn't just a ripoff. It's got an original, kinda goofy storyline, and while it sometimes stretches plausibility even by the standards of a movie about a giant spider, it captures contemporary paranoia about atomic science pretty well, and delivers some very memorable moments. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film begins with the discovery of a deformed dead man outside of Desert Rock, Arizona, a small town whose only distinction is that it has its own atomic research lab on the outskirts. The lead researcher, Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) identifies the body as that of one of his partners, who apparently suffered from acromegaly, which transformed him inside and out until his organs didn't work anymore. But as it turns out there's nothing natural about what happened; Deemer and his associates have been working on developing a super nutrient, using atomic isotopes, to provide food for our ever-increasing world population. The animals it's been tested on have grown very big, but the dead man and Deemer's other partner tried it on themselves and ended up rapidly mutating. The other partner attacks Deemer, and in the struggle the lab is destroyed, one of the animals- a tarantula the size of a large dog- escaping into the desert. The town doctor (John Agar) suspects something's not right at the Deemer place, but he's distracted by the professor's lovely new assistant Stephanie (Mara Corday), and who wouldn't be? But the tarantula still lurks, and keeps on growing, and eventually it gets hungry.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe movie goes through a lot just to get us to the point where a giant spider is rampaging across the countryside, and it's arguably too complicated and loopy for its own good. Parts of the plot rely on the characters explaining how acromegaly works, and the whole deformed-people subplot doesn't play nice with the \"giant animals\" business. The plot holds together but it sometimes gets in the way of the fact that there is a giant fucking tarantula roaming the desert. It's hard not to put this up against the procedural discipline of Them! and find it a little wanting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn the other hand, the film's melodramatics may ultimately serve a purpose. One of the major fears that films like this articulated was that of scientific progress making our world alien, even hostile- this was the Atomic Age, and it was inaugurated by the deaths of millions at the end of the Second World War. We may now associate fears of science gone mad with movements against evolution and environmentalism, but at the time people were understandably a little jumpy about rushing headlong into a new world and trusting experts to master forces we still didn't quite understand. \u003Ci\u003ETarantula!\u003C\/i\u003E's bizarre central experiment and its twisted results is a great example of the worst-case scenario- there's even a scene where two anachronistic old-timey miners chuckle about the educated folk playing with fancy new Geiger counters while behind them, the dark sihlouette of the giant spider grows. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSpeaking of which, the tarantula itself is still a remarkably effective bit of special effects considering how basic it is. The technique, used in many a Bert I. Gordon opus, was that of simply shooting slow-motion footage of an actual tarantula (guided along by puffs of air) and superimposing that on full-size background plates. There's the occasional glitch in processing, but it creates an incredible visual- most of the time the tarantula is simply a black twisted shape, walking with its odd gracefulness and instantly registering as a dangerous and unnatural presence. (The only real lapse is the use of the large puppet pictured above, which doesn't match the actual spider at all.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJohn Agar cannot help but project a certain smug aura on screen, and his is the kind of overconfident hero that has not aged well in genre cinema, but it's not a bad performance at all, and he, Corday, and Carroll all turn in solid performances. Arnold makes good use of a cast full of B-actors (watch for Clint Eastwood at the film's climax), and the film's brass-heavy score is as effective as it is unsubtle. \u003Ci\u003ETarantula!\u003C\/i\u003E endures simply because it's a solid, well-made movie about a giant spider eating people, and though it falls well short of classic status it's no slouch either. A memorable picture even if it is on the sloppy side.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by Jack Arnold and Robert M. Fresco\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDIrected by Jack Arnold\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6779654507713993623\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6779654507713993623\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6779654507713993623"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6779654507713993623"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/01\/random-movie-report-tarantula.html","title":"Random Movie Report: Tarantula!"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-GsTP-PGf9YU\/UQYa0K-m47I\/AAAAAAAABjc\/5-8iLQXnXAU\/s72-c\/tarantula.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4322770462704837779"},"published":{"$t":"2013-01-24T09:33:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-01-24T09:33:50.743-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.10: Where Every Bloke Knows Your Name"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-tQMfMBXALXQ\/UQFT-RSwt4I\/AAAAAAAABjI\/Qy0iVWtzHQQ\/s1600\/Ep105.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier's new hangout spot\" border=\"0\" height=\"221\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-tQMfMBXALXQ\/UQFT-RSwt4I\/AAAAAAAABjI\/Qy0iVWtzHQQ\/s320\/Ep105.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier:\u0026nbsp; You've got to be careful what you bring down to the pub with you.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne:\u0026nbsp; Tell me about it!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI was slow to jump into \"Where Every Bloke Knows Your Name\", since I recalled it being a gimmicky episode without a lot of substance to it. The episode revolves around a faux-British pub that Frasier takes over, and with that you get all the phony accents and broad stereotypes you'd expect. But amidst the wackiness there are a few good emotional beats, and it's really only nearabouts the end that the story gets too shaky. It's definitely a step down after a great Christmas, but still decent television.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier decides that too much of his social life revolves around him and Niles doing things, and he starts looking for new circles to move in. A night with Martin's poker buddies lasts for less than one hand, despite his strong opinions on the Angie Dickison\/Ursula Andress debate. Daphne tries to remedy his loneliness by fixing him up with an attractive friend of hers at the Fox \u0026amp; Whistle, a UK-themed pub for Seattle's apparently numerous British expatriates. The girl, as it turns out, is engaged, but Frasier does fall in love with the pub's chummy atmosphere and piano singalongs, and he makes it a second home, much to Daphne's consternation. She can't get away from her boss anymore, and she's scared to confront him about it, at least until Martin encourages her to put her foot down so that he can have the apartment to himself once in a while.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe portrayal of foreign cultures (or foreign expatriate cultures) on television is always a delicate thing, because nobody ever gets it right. Weekly television does not allow the kind of time it would take to research every nuance of British expat life, and as much as we sometimes hate to admit it, a shorthand is necessary for the average viewer to understand they're looking at something different. What I'm trying to say with this is that the Fox and Whistle is almost certainly not an accurate portrayal of how British expatriates in Seattle live, but does it matter? To be sure, the piano singalong seems a bit of a stretch (nowadays Brits are more likely to sing along to campy pop songs on the jukebox), but just how British the people are really is not the point. It's a context in which Frasier and Daphne can come into conflict, and while the portrayal is a tad cartoony it's not overemphasized. The theme of the episode is less about culture clash and more about the need for people to have personal space, or at least space that's isolated from specific other people. Daphne needs her life apart from Frasier, but of course Frasier needs one apart from Niles as well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe strongest sequences in the episode don't involve the Fox \u0026amp; Whistle at all, but Martin's poker buddies; the writers are on firmer ground here, and they get to have fun both with Frasier's inability to fit in and the odd way a pregnant Roz ends up altering the group dynamic. It makes sense that she's able to be \"one of the guys\", and it ties into the episode's overall theme of people exploring different social circles. Of course this sometimes means abandoning those you travel in already, and there's also some mileage in Niles' outrage over being left in the lurch by his brother. The episode actually starts with a young Frasier and Niles at the school cafeteria acting much as they do now, underscoring the eternal rut Frasier finds himself in. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMaybe it's the ending that brings things down a bit; Frasier being tricked into trash-talking the UK as he's trying to win exclusive rights to a UK pub plays out as contrived. To be sure, he has done dumber things, but we can see the joke coming and it feels like a quick sketch comedy blackout more than actual plot resolution. Of course, the stakes are low to start with given that this is a location we never end up seeing again. It's easy to empathize with Daphne's predicament in a general sense, but because the place is so ephemeral the whole thing seems trivial.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETriviality isn't necessarily a bad thing in a sitcom, but it's easy to see why this episode slips from memory the way it does. The poker scenes are notable but not a lot else is, which is a bit of a shame because Daphne rarely gets a lot of focus on herself. Still, the episode does rise above the gimmicky bits just a little, showing off the problems of moving between social circles in a way that isn't often examined. I'm mostly damning this with faint praise, but it's still worth watching, as just about every episode of this show is. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Rob Hanning\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired January 6, 1998\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles: You're passing up \"Orpheus \u0026amp; Eurydice\" to shoot pool at some sticky-bear salon?!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Yeah well, my partner, Terrence has agreed to skip a familywedding just to participate - I can't leave him in the lurch. Isn't there somebody else who could take my place?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: At this point I just so need to be by myself.\u0026nbsp; My brother has abandoned me, my wife is cursing my name.\u0026nbsp; Tonight when Orpheus descends into hell, I'll be there waiting for him with a fruit basket! \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4322770462704837779\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4322770462704837779\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4322770462704837779"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4322770462704837779"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2013\/01\/frasierquest-510-where-every-bloke.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.10: Where Every Bloke Knows Your Name"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-tQMfMBXALXQ\/UQFT-RSwt4I\/AAAAAAAABjI\/Qy0iVWtzHQQ\/s72-c\/Ep105.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-9062277487182047223"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-31T17:02:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-31T17:07:38.346-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Django Unchained"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-LtwbTnZC_YY\/UOIZE8uTmvI\/AAAAAAAABi0\/BAPLmzWpqRk\/s1600\/django_unchained_ver9.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Django Unchained poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-LtwbTnZC_YY\/UOIZE8uTmvI\/AAAAAAAABi0\/BAPLmzWpqRk\/s320\/django_unchained_ver9.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDjango Unchained\u003C\/i\u003E feels like a movie we should have gotten a long time ago. Hollywood's reluctance to deal frankly with race and the history of black\/white relations in America is disappointing for many reasons, but the main one has to be that we too often miss out on the simple pleasure of watching black cowboys battle slaveowners. There are some films along these lines, but not many, and few this high profile. Quentin Tarantino gave us another kind of guilty catharsis in \u003Ci\u003EInglourious Basterds\u003C\/i\u003E, and at first glance this is cut from the same cloth; a brutally violent exploitation picture about the oppressed taking revenge on bigots, but given a good amount of dramatic weight and narrative complexity. It's not exactly a redressed remake, though, and while \u003Ci\u003EBasterds\u003C\/i\u003E was more about images of violence, \u003Ci\u003EDjango\u003C\/i\u003E draws its power from a brutal and uncompromising picture of the ugliness of American slavery. By presenting this material in action\/exploitation dress, Tarantino lets this material reach people who wouldn't be caught dead at a respectful biopic of Harriet Tubman.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDjango (Jamie Foxx) is introduced to us as a slave, quickly sold to and effectively freed by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter masquerading as a kindly dentist. By posing as Schultz's manservant, Django helps the Dr. hunt and kill a number of criminals, before being offered a unique reward- the opportunity to try and free his wife Broomhilde (Kerry Washington), a slave now owned by the sleazy aristocrat Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio.) Schultz and Django make their way onto the plantation disguised as slave traders and experts on the oft-lethal sport of \"Mandingo fighting\" (a slight exaggeration- slaves were often made to fight but rarely to the death.) But Candie's most loyal and obsequious servant, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) figures there's something not right about the two. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDjango, for those who aren't fans of obscure European Westerns, is also the name of the protagonist of a series of Westerns which for the most part have absolutely nothing to do with each other- when the original\u0026nbsp; \u003Ci\u003EDjango\u003C\/i\u003E, starring Franco Nero, was a hit, a bunch of other movies were packaged as sequels. This film's Django has no more connection with the original than the 15 other people who played the part, but Nero appears in a cameo to pass the torch and make this as official as an unofficial sequel can get. In any case the visual language and style of the film belong to the rawest of the spaghetti westerns, with wild and often incongruous locations (there is apparently a mountain pass just outside of New Orleans), intense lighting with an emphasis on red and yellow, and even an original Morricone song. But the film isn't strict about its genre limitations, and when the mood strikes Tarantino he'll use modern rap, a seventies ballad, or a remix of James Brown. The freedom he allows himself is really one of Tarantino's biggest strengths as a filmmaker; there's never a sense that anything is being done out of rote obligation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's impossible to make a film dealing with this subject without kicking up controversy. Spike Lee most visibly argued against the idea of making any kind of action-entertainment movie about a genocide; I can see the argument, but I don't think the brutality of slavery is trivialized by such a context, as long as it it's still plainly visible. Stephen is also a divisive figure; he's derived from the familiar stereotype of the \"loyal house negro\" (of which Uncle Tom may or may not be the best example, I've forgotten how that one goes) and some feel the stereotype has so little basis in fact that using it plays into the idea of deflecting blame for slavery from white people onto other black people. I think the character is a little more complex than just the stereotype, and may even be some kind of riff on it, but it's hard for me to do this kind of deep interpretation after seeing a film only once. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn any case, Tarantino is as interested in creating memorable characters as in staging memorable shootouts, and while Django himself is largely a broad heroic type, there's a sense of him coming into his own as the action progresses, not only embracing his independence but making some very tough moral choices. However, in terms of pure unbridled ACTING!, it's a three-way race between the effortlessly charming Waltz, an amazingly intense DiCaprio, and Jackson, who suggests in Stephen a man broken and twisted by hate, turned into someone petty and malicious and loyal to a system that abuses him. I honestly don't know who comes out ahead. Jonah Hill has an unusual cameo as part of a proto-Klan group of masked racist vandals, who figure prominently in what may well be the funniest scene in any film this year.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo be sure, Tarantino makes a violent and excessive spectacle out of the struggle for emancipation, but there is something undeniably viscerally right about it. It plays on our basic desire to see the bad guys punished, and acknowledges that yes, even if we don't like to talk about it, even if we protest that those of us in the present should not feel guilty for the actions of our ancestors, American society supported and rewarded a whole bunch of bad guys. It's an honest film, acknowledging that vengeance is a tricky business which leads you through a few moral grey areas, but never leaves any doubt about which side is in the right. It's as ugly as it ought to be, and more fun than it has any right to. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten and Directed by Quentin Tarantino\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/9062277487182047223\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=9062277487182047223\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/9062277487182047223"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/9062277487182047223"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/in-theaters-django-unchained.html","title":"In Theaters: Django Unchained"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-LtwbTnZC_YY\/UOIZE8uTmvI\/AAAAAAAABi0\/BAPLmzWpqRk\/s72-c\/django_unchained_ver9.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5758235726150808116"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-30T15:04:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-30T15:04:51.026-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EJmHbu2ItJo\/UOCsCIdgW2I\/AAAAAAAABig\/yKwA8GfF2yA\/s1600\/hobbit_an_unexpected_journey_ver12.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Hobbit poster via IMPAwards.com\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EJmHbu2ItJo\/UOCsCIdgW2I\/AAAAAAAABig\/yKwA8GfF2yA\/s320\/hobbit_an_unexpected_journey_ver12.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EFrom IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's been over ten years since the first of Peter Jackson's films of J. R. R. Tolkien's \u003Ci\u003EThe Lord of the Rings\u003C\/i\u003E arrived in theaters, and it honestly was starting to feel like we were overdue for a return visit. So \u003Ci\u003EThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey\u003C\/i\u003E feels like an indulgence, expanding Tolkien's much more concise children's story into three epics bolstered with expanded subplots and backstory. And perhaps it can be said to lack the discipline used to tame the earlier material. It's just a little sloppy. But it is Middle Earth, real and sumptuous and inviting, and Jackson makes us feel at home in a fun rambling story that promises to provide three Christmases worth of ornate, overstuffed adventure. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe titular hobbit is Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a typical hairy-footed burrow-dwelling Englishman leading a seemingly very typical life, when the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) appears on his doorstep, followed in time by 13 rambunctious dwarves. They are on a mission to take back their mountain kingdom of Erebor from the vile dragon Smaug, and they need an expert burglar, and hobbits are small and escape notice easily. After some hesitation Bilbo agrees to come along, but the road takes them through the perilous Misty Mountains, inhabited by trolls, goblins, and a band of orcs with a personal vendetta against the group's leader, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage.) Meanwhile, Gandalf and his fellow wizard, the eccentric nature-lover Radagast (former Time Lord Sylvester McCoy), have found evidence of an ancient and evil power growing in the forest of Mirkwood, and the wizard's attentions are torn between helping the dwarves reclaim their home and treasure, and putting an end to this mysterious threat.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGandalf's subplot may be new to some readers of the book, but it was technically always there; he would disappear for long portions, and Tolkien got around to explaining that he and other wizards were busy carrying on a small war that presaged the return of Sauron in \u003Ci\u003ELord of the Rings\u003C\/i\u003E. The filmmakers expand on this material, which both requires and allows them to spread the story out beyond one film. I'm not sure this was a strictly necessary decision, since as above, \u003Ci\u003EThe Hobbit\u003C\/i\u003E is not really an epic; it's a children's adventure story mixing action and comedy and pure unadulterated whimsy, along with a few musical numbers. Drawing the story out inevitably risks dragging it out, making a story that's much longer and slower than it needs to be. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd to be sure, there are times when this is the case. A middle passage in the Elven village of Rivendell feels rather bloated, with the newly-expanded subplot threatening to overshadow the main story by some amount. It's entertaining in its own right, but this is the story of Bilbo Baggins and it's easy to get impatient and want to see it move along. The film can't help but feel uneven as a result of moving between two stories that aren't obviously connected, though there's the hope that the other two installments will tie them together more closely. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut even if the material isn't blended together as neatly as it should be, the overall experience is still a pleasurable one. We're still recognizably in Middle Earth, rendered with the same beauty as before, feeling real and old despite an abundance of CGI. It feels excessive at times and a little childish, but then this is a children's story, and the script actively calls attention to the idea of stories exaggerated and embellished in the retelling- hence a framing device in which an older Bilbo (Ian Holm) is putting this all down just as his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood in a cameo) is about to meet the wandering wizard himself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnchoring everything is Freeman, who having portrayed the modern everyday Englishman in the persona of Arthur Dent in \u003Ci\u003EThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy\u003C\/i\u003E, is perfectly suited for the fantasy version. Bilbo Baggins is a conflicted fellow, driven by a hobbit's natural instinct to stay at home and not make trouble, a desire for adventure, an appreciation for comforts not often found on the road to a dragon's cave, and a desire to do right by Thorin and company. You can see he's never entirely sure of what he's doing, but once having chosen a course of action commits to it with a strange sort of honor. McKellen and the other actors returning from the trilgoy are all welcome presences, and Richard Armitage makes Thorin into a formidable hero all his own.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are many wonderful things in this movie, from a battle between giants made of rock to a fearfully elaborate goblin city, to, of course, Bilbo's meeting with the strange creature Gollum (Andy Serkis). Sometimes it's a bit much, and a little discipline might have helped here and there, but it's still a movie that delivers- there's visual splendor backed by strong characters and a story with many moments that ring true despite their fanciful dressing. A lovely holiday spectacle, satisfying but leaving one eager for next December to roll around.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, and Guillermo Del Toro\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Peter Jackson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5758235726150808116\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5758235726150808116\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5758235726150808116"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5758235726150808116"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/in-theaters-hobbit-unexpected-journey.html","title":"In Theaters: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EJmHbu2ItJo\/UOCsCIdgW2I\/AAAAAAAABig\/yKwA8GfF2yA\/s72-c\/hobbit_an_unexpected_journey_ver12.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7357572689248246994"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-24T13:56:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-24T13:56:52.266-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.9: Perspectives on Christmas"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6bR8j5IcFsA\/UNizKRjiM4I\/AAAAAAAABiM\/Ow8dYu5oUqs\/s1600\/Ep104.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Tensions rise in Santa's Village\" border=\"0\" height=\"245\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6bR8j5IcFsA\/UNizKRjiM4I\/AAAAAAAABiM\/Ow8dYu5oUqs\/s320\/Ep104.jpg\" title=\"Things were awkward at the North Pole that year.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EMartin: You know the only part about Christmas I don't like? How quickly it's all over!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Yes.\u0026nbsp; Come December 26th, it's all just a memory.\u0026nbsp; With nothing but your light decorating touch to remind us.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe problem with a Christmas episode coming up near the actual holidays is that I have to either rush to get to it on or before December 25 or postpone it to at least February or March, when people aren't sick of Christmas stuff. So here we are looking at Christmas of 15 Years Past, and at a brilliant example of the Rashomon approach to sitcom writing. Instead of dissecting a single incident and pitting the characters against each other, though, \"Perspectives on Christmas\" poses a series of interconnected hassles and stress-inducers for everyone in the main cast, showing how the holidays drive people insane at the same time they bring them together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe framing device for this is that each character is getting a massage, and telling the masseur (Albert Macklin) what they've been going through over the Christmas holiday. Martin got roped into a church Nativity play, requiring him to sing \"O Holy Night\" despite having a voice comparable to a wounded moose. Daphne manages to completely misunderstand his secretive visits to a church and decides he must be dying of something. Niles gets trapped in an elevator with a giant Christmas tree and some very annoying passengers, and Frasier accidentally is the first to let Roz's mother know that she's pregnant. By the time of the actual Christmas Eve gathering, everyone is bitterly angry for some reason or another.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNormally the Rashomon device (which sounds less like a plot element and more like the MacGuffin in a 60s spy caper) is used like it was in the original story and film; people offer conflicting narratives of a single event to try and serve their own ends. \"Perspectives on Christmas\" takes a subtler approach. Nobody really manipulates events in their favor so much as explains their point of view. Daphne interprets a come-on from Niles as a helpful piece of advice about standing under mistletoe, and omits one of Martin's stranger side-stories about Eddie. When Niles tells his story, the dress Daphne wears becomes just a little bit shorter and sexier, and he manages to maintain a bit of dignity even after being covered in tree sap and grease. Similarly a lot of stories play on our knowledge of what we've already seen; even after Daphne's story is over she still keeps hearing the wrong things about Martin, and so on.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe device is also a convenient way to tell a bunch of short stories related to the holiday, rather than focusing on a specific idea like earlier Christmas episodes. But the masseur's presence is a good indicator of the episode's theme of Christmas stress. A common theme for stories about the holiday is the various things that get in the way of enjoying it as we think it should be enjoyed- simply by being a holiday it's supposed to be a small vacation, but we work ourselves up choosing presents, dealing with relatives, and being roped into gatherings and rituals. It's a broad theme, but the central plot device keeps the episode from being completely incoherent.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNot that it wouldn't be funny if it were. This one episode isn't really a farce, but it has the manic energy of one; tensions are high, people shout at each other, and pratfalls are taken. (David Lee directing may have something to do with the heightened mood, though it's often hard to know who to credit.) It's fitting that the major climax is Roz and Frasier arguing while playing Mrs. and Mr. Santa Claus at the mall, which is the unique kind of absurdity you can only get one time a year. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNone of what the characters go through is really too traumatic, though, and it's all easily solved with a call to a masseur and a jolly sing-along under the end credits. Some great Christmas stories are about finding joy and solace in the midst of real suffering; others, like this, simply deflate the minor irritations and excessive anxieties that start to roll in with Thanksgiving. They can't all be It's A Wonderful Life- sometimes it's just gotta be A Christmas Story. Hopefully this particular treasure won't be quite as overexposed, though.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Christopher Lloyd\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired December 16, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: What is wrong with you?\u0026nbsp; I'm going to kill you!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ESally: You're going to kill Santa?\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: No, little girl, Mrs. Claus just wants to kiss me.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: Yeah, I'll kiss you.\u0026nbsp; Come 'ere, I'll kiss you good! \u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7357572689248246994\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7357572689248246994\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7357572689248246994"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7357572689248246994"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/frasierquest-59-perspectives-on.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.9: Perspectives on Christmas"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-6bR8j5IcFsA\/UNizKRjiM4I\/AAAAAAAABiM\/Ow8dYu5oUqs\/s72-c\/Ep104.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2941793863099241963"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-24T09:30:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-24T09:30:12.685-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.8: Desperately Seeking Closure"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-5Nn7Q4BUWfQ\/UNh0twvnIII\/AAAAAAAABh4\/Eas-14QIeCU\/s1600\/Ep103.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"301\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-5Nn7Q4BUWfQ\/UNh0twvnIII\/AAAAAAAABh4\/Eas-14QIeCU\/s320\/Ep103.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: Oh, come on, Frasier, why don't you just admit what you're doing here. This isn't some \"help-me-be-a-better-person\" thing. You're trying to figure out what you can fix so you can win Sam back.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Oh, now, Roz, that's proposterous.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: Look who you're talking to! I've been down this road so many times, I call it \"The Roz Expressway\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: I've heard that phrase before but in a slightly different context.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n(Note: From now on transcriptions are coming via \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/kacl780.net\/\"\u003EKACL780.net\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd it ends as suddenly as it began. You always expect this to happen; sitcom girlfriends and boyfriends are fleeting things. Still, \"Desperately Seeking Closure\" makes an interesting companion piece with its prior episode, if not the most gripping one. It's another introspective episode for our protagonist, where he faces his need to be liked and ends up finding out at least one thing that's very wrong with him. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier and Samantha have been together a month, and he's been living the high life, visiting ski lodges with Jack Nicholson and Donna Karan and \"someone named Puff Daddy.\" So he's naturally a little shellshocked when Samantha dumps him on their anniversary dinner. She gives him the standard \"It's not you, it's me\" spiel, but he can't accept that, and he tries to find out- first from her and then from his friends- what he did to get dumped. Niles, however, steers him away from this line of inquiry to ask why he's so desperate to get Sam back, when he's not even sure he loves her. Perhaps he just misses running with the cool kids.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's hard to watch characters we like suffer, so Frasier's in extra-smug mode pre-breakup, and it's not hard to see how his behavior might drive someone off even if that's not quite the answer. Post-dumping, he's simply pathetic, finding excuses to run into Sam in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. Kelsey Grammer always walks a fine line with material like this, and it stays on the right side of embarrassing for the most part; we're just detached enough to find it funny, without being completely disinterested. The break-up is as sudden for the audience as it is for him, so we can see things from his point of view even if we were expecting him to get slapped down sooner or later.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt the same time, the fact that this is happening one episode after the two got together means it's not quite as compelling a story as it could be if we'd gotten used to Sam being around. It's a problem the series faces with Frasier's girlfriends- the writers clearly decided from an early stage that he was going to go through a lot, since they didn't want to return him to a married status quo. So there have to be quick outs, which run the risk of becoming routine or unsurprising. Overall, I'd say that while what happens to Sam and Frasier's relationship is expected, the writer at least finds a relatively fresh twist to the story by making it about the aftermath more than the end itself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe notion that Frasier misses his celebrity lifestyle more than his actual girlfriend fits with his character, though I can't help but wonder if he overreacts to this understanding. It's not that he doesn't like her, and when Samantha asks him for a second chance, he's perhaps too quick to say no, or rather to conclude that the celebrity was everything. (He was clearly smitten before he knew how famous she was.) But Frasier has always applied a kind of purity test to his relationships- it's a quirk of his ethical system, a desire to be truly madly deeply in love without anything that could cloud that emotion. It's kind of respectable even if it does lead to him making an ass of himself in front of Lesley Stahl.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo this was a neat little experiment, a two-part look at beginnings and endings with not a lot of time spent on those pesky middles. It suffers from being too brief for us to get really invested, but there's always something to mine from these crises. The point with these episodes seems to be much more about Frasier himself than anything involving the woman he's dating. Still, Samantha was a welcome presence, even if she wasn't the one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Rob Hanning\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired December 9, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: It's hard to believe this picture was taken only three days ago. Look at us. How happy I was. Now, I'll never see her again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Aren't you over dramatising? You're bound to run into her now and then.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: No, I was talking about me and Lesley Stahl.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2941793863099241963\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2941793863099241963\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2941793863099241963"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2941793863099241963"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/frasierquest-58-desperately-seeking.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.8: Desperately Seeking Closure"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-5Nn7Q4BUWfQ\/UNh0twvnIII\/AAAAAAAABh4\/Eas-14QIeCU\/s72-c\/Ep103.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2824418793285902087"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-24T00:45:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-24T09:33:20.407-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.7: My Fair Frasier"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-_PNpx7gpb4Y\/UNf4PLzuk_I\/AAAAAAAABhk\/2-lVPhtos1g\/s1600\/Ep102.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier shows off his latest gift\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-_PNpx7gpb4Y\/UNf4PLzuk_I\/AAAAAAAABhk\/2-lVPhtos1g\/s320\/Ep102.jpg\" title=\"Frasier Crane for Rolex\" width=\"315\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Thank you, Niles, but I am not some dewey-eyed teenager. But she did say the cutest thing… she said that murderers often show no remorse for their actions because they have no moral center. (beat) It was cute the way she said it.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFor a while now we've seen Frasier desperately in pursuit of love, but not as much about what he does when he has it. The first half of an informal two-parter, \"My Fair Frasier\" largely disposes with the messy chase to dive into the tricky business of being in a relationship, and of the power relations therein. It plays around with gender roles and expectations in a way that's of its time, but will probably still be relevant for a while. In the meantime it's fun TV, more grounded than last week's episode but only by a little.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFrasier has trouble returning a gift he bought for Roz, until dashing lawyer Samantha Pierce (Lindsay Frost) comes to his rescue. He asks her on a date, she says yes, and on the first date she asks to skip the dinner course and just have sex. So things are going well for Frasier, until he discovers that his girlfriend is in fact a bigger celebrity than he is, currently defending the unimaginatively named Butcher Knife Killer (hey, the media has off days sometimes) and talking to Larry King about the various hot male stars she's been rumored to be attached to. It doesn't help that Samantha's job means she has to keep canceling dates and trying to keep Frasier happy with expensive gifts. Frasier worries that he's taking the submissive role in the relationship, or as Daphne puts it, that he's the girl. Frasier's not used to this position.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf course in these enlightened times we shouldn't hold to such things. Men can be submissive and women can be dominant, though we're now experiencing a rather pouty backlash to the whole idea in the form of the \"Men's Rights Movement\" and people arguing a crisis in masculinity which seems to have its roots in the simple fact that people are no longer conforming to preconceived gender roles. While it doesn't always seem like a lot of social progress has been made from 1997, the concept of Samantha being dominant is treated with a novelty that would be absent now. (Even not terribly enlightened shows like Last Man Standing start from the position that of course women are in charge and that they've taken over, which is bad for some reason.) A similar sign of the times is an exchange about lesbian couples being \"in\" now, Ellen DeGeneres' public coming-out having taken place earlier that year.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is not to say that this is an overtly misogynistic (or homophobic) episode; Frasier the person may have trouble with taking the secondary role in a relationship, but Frasier the show is not really opposed to it. The episode is not dated because of the positions it takes on such issues, but that they are presented as at all new. But the real issue for Frasier is not so much that he is losing control to a woman (though that may be part of it), but that he is losing any kind of control at all. To take a secondary role in anything is simply not in his nature, and as far as celebrity status goes, he's happy being a big fish in a small pond. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStill, what we see here is a functional relationship. Frasier doesn't screw anything up just yet, so what we have is a low-level psychological story, based on the natural tensions that exist in almost any relationship- there may be, somewhere, some couple in which neither partner is more dominant than the other, a true partnership of equals, but it's sort of a platonic ideal. Of course there's still plenty of humor derived from the characters simply being, well, themselves; the cast's reactions to Frasier being in an unusual situation are a way of letting us touch base with each of them. Niles ventures a theory, Martin is put out by the break with tradition, and Daphne has a silly story that relates, but reveals more about her than anything else. (I would be amiss if I didn't note that Daphne's especially cute with her hair flipped up. I'm not sure why.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOverall it's a somewhat inconsequential episode, but it's an interesting glimpse into what happens with Frasier's relationships when he's not actively sabotaging them. Frost gives a good performance as a character who is at very least Frasier's intellectual equal, and though her guest turn is a brief one, it's memorable. There's something wonderfully satisfying in Frasier embracing being a trophy boyfriend at the end, as though it feels appropriate- he may not surrender control easily, but he does love the good life. Perhaps a little too much.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Jay Kogen\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired November 25, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne: No, all I'm saying is, I once dated a man who'd gone out with several of the top British actresses but got sick of their vanity and insecurity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: So there, you see, it does happen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;Daphne: Course, after he got through slumming, he dumped me and went \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;back to actresses. But he did get me an autographed picture of Helena Bonham Carter. She's riding a pony!\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2824418793285902087\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2824418793285902087\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2824418793285902087"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2824418793285902087"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/frasierquest-57-my-fair-frasier.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.7: My Fair Frasier"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-_PNpx7gpb4Y\/UNf4PLzuk_I\/AAAAAAAABhk\/2-lVPhtos1g\/s72-c\/Ep102.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1021622060362497067"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-20T00:15:00.006-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-20T00:15:56.514-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #112: White Zombie"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca alt=\"White Zombie DVD Cover and Amazon link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00006AUGD\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00006AUGD\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Kino will release a restored version in January, I'll update the link as that happens.\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-ikcv9NvBkDg\/UNKsAok-mvI\/AAAAAAAABgs\/j4P0JO8zEgs\/s1600\/WhiteZombie.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe zombie has changed a lot from its cultural origins. \u003Ci\u003ENight of the Living Dead\u003C\/i\u003E and its myriad of sequels and rip-offs ensured that we think of zombies as flesh-and\/or-brain-eating ghouls who travel in hordes and destroy civilizations when the word is used, and it's a powerful icon. But the original zombie of voodoo lore, the myth of the mindless servant arising from a culture which developed under the yoke of slavery, has a power of its own. \u003Ci\u003EWhite Zombie\u003C\/i\u003E takes that central fear, the total loss of will, and expresses it in a uniquely stylish way. An early sound film made by the conventions of silent cinema, it's a fascinating mood piece that could use a little more attention.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENeil Parker (John Harron) and his fiance Madeline (Madge Bellamy) are traveling through Haiti when they first cross paths with Legendre (Bela Lugosi), a notorious criminal known for raising zombies to work for him. Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer), a wealthy landowner, has long wanted Madeline and cannot bear to see her marry another. He makes a deal with Legendre to somehow bring her under his power. On the couple's wedding night, Madeline falls into a swoon and appears to be dead, but Legendre has rather made her one of his zombies. A despondent and drunken Neil is lured by visions of his \"dead\" wife to a ruined estate, where Beaumont struggles with the devil's bargain he has made with the sinister Legendre to take possession of a woman no longer herself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen preparing this film, director Victor Halperin and company to the conclusion that most talking pictures had too much talk- that the arrival of sound had made the movies too static and stagey. And so \u003Ci\u003EWhite Zombie\u003C\/i\u003E is deliberately light on dialogue and heavy on visual conventions borrowed from silent film, from visions of Madeline as a ghostly apparition plaguing the stricken Neil to slow and exaggerated gestures on the part of the actors. (Bellamy had been a silent star, and has the moon face so prized among icons of the era.) As a result the movie not only flows better, but has some of the silents' otherworldly quality. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe zombies in this film are not truly dead- Legendre's trick is one of hypnotic suggestion, visualized by Bela Lugosi making creepy hand gestures while a spotlight illuminates his eyes. The fear being exploited here is not so much that of death as the loss of self, and though the zombies are chilling they're also pitiable. The most horrific scene is one of the zombies working Legendre's sugar mill, one of\u0026nbsp; the mindless men falling into the machinery, his fate signaled by a brutal cracking sound. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELugosi, of course, is in his element. He plays Legendre as someone who genuinely enjoys his sick work, and takes particular pleasure in having made many of his enemies (mostly lawmen) into his servants. None of the characters is developed very much even by the standards of the genre, but that's befitting the film's spare nature.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EWhite Zombie\u003C\/i\u003E doesn't explore its premise as fully as its early scenes suggest, and as the title implies it skips over much of the actual culture of Haiti to focus on the travails of a bunch of white folks, but it tells its own story very well. It's ahead of its time in reclaiming the flexibility of silent cinema for sound, something it took the rest of Hollywood several years to figure out. Badly in need of re-appreciation, the film is not only historically significant (both in its technical innovation and in being the first \"zombie\" movie) but compelling and visually memorable. It's a uniquely dreamlike experience, and I wish more zombie movies were this idiosyncratic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the novel \"The Magic Island\" by William Seabrook\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Garnett Weston\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Victor Halperin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1021622060362497067\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1021622060362497067\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1021622060362497067"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1021622060362497067"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/random-movie-report-112-white-zombie.html","title":"Random Movie Report #112: White Zombie"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-ikcv9NvBkDg\/UNKsAok-mvI\/AAAAAAAABgs\/j4P0JO8zEgs\/s72-c\/WhiteZombie.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2396210112217638658"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-19T08:17:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-12-19T08:17:35.307-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.6: Voyage of the Damned"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XWOWBFXMwWs\/UNHL304X-DI\/AAAAAAAABgY\/rtWkTfQ5UMk\/s1600\/Ep101.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier, Roz, and the Barracuda\" border=\"0\" height=\"268\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XWOWBFXMwWs\/UNHL304X-DI\/AAAAAAAABgY\/rtWkTfQ5UMk\/s320\/Ep101.jpg\" title=\"If you were wondering what it takes to make Roz say no, here he is.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: I don't see [Maris], maybe she went back out.\u0026nbsp; Oh, wait.\u0026nbsp; I see her coat on a hat rack.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Look closer.\u0026nbsp; Is the hat rack moving?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: Oh my God!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESending characters off on a cruise is a sitcom staple with two key advantages: it provides a change of scenery and opportunity to mix things up, while at the same time being cheaper than actually going anywhere fancy. After an epic 100th episode, \"Voyage of the Damned\" is a return to manic setbound farce, and it's strongly written enough to excuse any seeming gimmickry in the premise. As highfalutin' as I can get about this show, it is a traditional sitcom, and it will inevitably indulge in classic sitcom tropes. It just does so very well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier gets an offer to appear as a celebrity guest speaker on an Alaskan cruise, and after some not-very-persistent prodding from Roz gives in. Martin comes along because he wants to show the buffets who's in charge, and Niles is distraught over missing he and Maris' anniversary dinner since she's off in Zurich for experimental surgery, so he gets dragged along. (Daphne stays home.) Unfortunately Niles runs into lecherous social butterfly Mimi (Stephanie Faracy), and though he tries to fend off her advances, Maris is on board, sees them together, and draws the wrong conclusions, paying waiters to throw drinks in Niles' face as punishment. He begins to suspect even worse things are in store when he sees her flirting with the ship's musical act, sleazy Latin lounge singer Carlos \"The Barracuda\" Del Gato (Miguel Pérez). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPart of the fun here is seeing Frasier in an unfamiliar, challenging environment. The luxury of a B-list cruise is not the luxury he's used to; it's the budget version, with gaudy decor and tiny cabins you're not supposed to stay in for any length of time. (Never having been on a cruise I can't speak to the accuracy or lack thereof of his experience, but I'm sure it varies.) Carlos, who is not only a sleazeball but a one-hit wonder whose 70s sensation, \"Do the Barracuda\", is convincingly horrible, epitomizes the run-down, has-been vibe Frasier gets from the whole vacation, and it's a great frission; the set design is appropriately kitschy as well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe chintzy vibe offsets the plot being another upper-class comedy of manners, one that plays on Niles and Maris' increasingly strained relationship. At this point in the show's run it honestly feels a little odd that they're still technically together- they've been hanging on the brink of reconciliation or divorce for some time now, and while it feels like this could easily have been a plotline from an earlier season, it's also perfectly in character for Maris to be jealous and possessive when she's the one who insisted on separate vacations. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut there they all are, stuck on a boat together, and though the farce doesn't bulid to a climactic explosion of absurdity, we get a lot of funny lines along the way. Roz fits oddly well into a situation that shouldn't even involve her; she's partly bemused by all the insanity going on, as well as thoroughly creeped out by Carlos himself. When she asks Niles is he thinks Maris is going to \"do the Barracuda\", a wonderful half-smirk breaks across her face; it looks for all the world like Peri Gilpin is corpsing, but it's also in-character. Her natural ease makes a great contrast with Frasier and Niles' usual high-strung antics. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe end with Niles and Maris again seemingly reconciled, or at least together for now. It's clear that this particular status quo can't really hold and we're heading for some kind of resolution, but in the meantime the old standby of sending the characters out to sea does help keep things interesting. It allows the characters to mix with unsavory lounge singers and comedians who have to call themselves \"Giggles\" to make it clear to the audience that they are in fact comedians, while over in first class the travails of the rich and strange remain as strange as ever. There's a reason the old TV conventions get used so often, and it's not just because it helps save money on sets.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Jeffrey Richman\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired November 18, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EDaphne:\u0026nbsp; Oh, I could watch the rain for hours.\u0026nbsp; Of course, when I was a little girl, I hated the rain.\u0026nbsp; Stuck inside, couldn't go out and play.\u0026nbsp; But my mum always said, \"enjoy it while you can, there'll be no water in hell.\"\u0026nbsp; Of course, that was her answer for everything.\u0026nbsp; \"Eat your veggies, there'll be no Brussels sprouts in hell... have a lie-down, there'll be no naps in hell...\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Daphne, you know I am a therapist, if you'd like to talk about this sometime.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne: About what?\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2396210112217638658\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2396210112217638658\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2396210112217638658"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2396210112217638658"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/frasierquest-56-voyage-of-damned.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.6: Voyage of the Damned"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-XWOWBFXMwWs\/UNHL304X-DI\/AAAAAAAABgY\/rtWkTfQ5UMk\/s72-c\/Ep101.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8854347583013352415"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-30T21:34:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-11-30T21:34:42.083-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Opening Credits"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Opening Credits Sequence Theatre: Monty Python and the Holy Grail"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SII-jhEd-a0\" width=\"480\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\n\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI always wondered why those llamas never directed any other movies."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8854347583013352415\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8854347583013352415\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8854347583013352415"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8854347583013352415"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/opening-credits-sequence-theatre-monty.html","title":"Opening Credits Sequence Theatre: Monty Python and the Holy Grail"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/SII-jhEd-a0\/default.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1991682652121286426"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-30T07:55:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-11-30T07:56:24.355-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: The Mind Robber (1968)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca alt=\"Mind Robber DVD cover and Amazon link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0009PVZG4\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0009PVZG4\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Sanity not guaranteed.\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-mH7mPF_tUeQ\/ULi6dWNu79I\/AAAAAAAABgA\/C3fYrTZOeCc\/s320\/mindrobber.jpg\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E often straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy; current showrunner Steven Moffatt enjoys invoking a fairy tale feeling, and it's a tradition that goes all the way back to the show's misty black-and-white beginnings. \"The Mind Robber\" is an especially bold step outside the show's traditional trappings of alien monsters and invasions from space, a piece of metafiction taking us into the land of make-believe as if the show didn't exist there already. The fourth-wall breakage may be in the tradition of Sixties surrealism, but it manages to do this without actually shattering our suspension of disbelief. In the end it does some amazing stuff.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie (Fraser Hines), and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) are forced to leave their last port-of-call in a hurry when a volcano erupts. The Doctor overtaxes the TARDIS' machinery trying to leave, and it ends up drifting outside space and time. Jamie and Zoe are lured outside of the TARDIS by images on the scanner, into an absolute white void. The TARDIS cracks up, and all three time travellers end up in a misty forest realm. After encountering Lemuel Gulliver (Bernard Horsfall) and a few mythical beasts, the Doctor works out that they have in fact arrived in a Land of Fiction, watched over by a mysterious master.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's something of a staple of science fiction series for characters to enter an environment where the laws of their universe don't apply. The Land of Fiction is an especially tricky place, where the denizens have power because people believe in them, and the only way the Doctor and his friends can protect themselves is to recognize that they don't really exist, which is easier said than done when you're looking right at them. This does lead to one of the show's delightful scenes, when Zoe meets The Karkus (Christopher Robbie), a hulking superhero from a comic strip of the year 2000, and is able to toss him around without breaking a sweat. Another great surreal vignette was cooked up to disguise Hines' absence due to illness- Jamie's face is literally shot right off by a redcoat, and the Doctor is led by a floating rebus to a board where he can reassemble his face, but he gets it wrong, and so for the rest of that episode Jamie is played by Hamish Wilson. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs with all mysterious nether realms, the Land of Fiction has a sinister purpose, but that doesn't prevent its inhabitants from taking on a certain charm. Gulliver, who talks almost entirely in passages from his titular Travels (I think the writer may cheat here and there but it's a clever conceit) is a helpful ally, as is the lovely Rapunzel (Christine Pirie), who over the years has decided to take an endearingly casual approach to strangers climbing on her hair. Of course there are also giant clockwork soldiers who are pure menace, but for the most part it's a break from the monster formula the show was known for in Troughton's time. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe show doesn't shy away from the strange implications of fictional characters entering a world of fiction. The major threat the Doctor and his companions encounter, after all the brushes with death from medusae and unicorns (which are apparently more hostile than we have been led to believe), is that of becoming characters in the Land's story. There's a nice chilling scene where the Doctor seems to have been reunited with Jamie and Zoe, but quickly recognizes that they're merely constructs parroting a few stock phrases. (Of course that may be a riff on how companions were frequently reduced to saying variations on \"What's that, Doctor?\") Our knowledge that they are in fact fictional doesn't prevent their struggle from resonating.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt its best \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E often feels like a surrealist dream, and that's why \"The Mind Robber\" is such a legendary installment. On relatively threadbare resources (the entire first episode was whipped up to fill space when \"The Dominators\" proved too thin for its initial order), it creates an intensely imagined environment and manages a level of brain-twisting that was probably quite surprising for viewers of a late Sixties kids' sci-fi show. It stands up as one of the classics of Patrick Troughton's run, and an iconic installment of the series as a whole, demonstrating just how far its concept can stretch.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Peter Ling\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nProduced by Peter Bryant\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by David Maloney\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1991682652121286426\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1991682652121286426\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1991682652121286426"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1991682652121286426"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/random-who-report-mind-robber-1968.html","title":"Random Who Report: The Mind Robber (1968)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-mH7mPF_tUeQ\/ULi6dWNu79I\/AAAAAAAABgA\/C3fYrTZOeCc\/s72-c\/mindrobber.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8991003382086223699"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-27T09:22:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-11-27T09:22:36.701-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: Delta and the Bannermen (1987)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002945DXE\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B002945DXE\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Delta and the Bannermen DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-Jyu1EZ82icw\/ULTZ-Iykj3I\/AAAAAAAABfs\/zFJAewGX83I\/s320\/Delta.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe 24th season of \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E was produced under trying circumstances. The BBC held off on formally commissioning the series until the last minute, giving producer John Nathan Turner and new script editor Andrew Cartmel very little time to select and prepare scripts. The sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, had been unceremoniously sacked, and BBC head Michael Grade was still leaning on the staff to make the show less dark and more kid-friendly. And to top it off, they were stuck with a season of fourteen twenty-five minute episodes, meaning very little time to actually tell stories. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"Delta and the Bannermen\" is not a particularly bad story, but is brought down by a number of problems. It's too short to ever properly explain itself, too chintzy to really resonate, and unabashedly embraces a pantomime feel that, well, is an acquired taste. At the same time, there's a surrealist charm to parts of it, and perhaps we sci-fi fans are a little too sensitive to our media not taking itself seriously enough. If nothing else it is unique. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Mel (the ever chirpy Bonnie Langford) stop by an intergalactic toll station only to be informed that they've won a vacation to Disneyland in the 50s, courtesy a time-and-space tour group travelling on a spaceship shaped like a bus. Sneaking on board the tour is Delta (Belinda Mayne), queen of the Chimerons, a race being systematically wiped out by the sinister mercenaries the Bannermen, for… some reason. The time and space bus hits a Sputnik-stand-in satellite, and crash lands outside a Welsh holiday camp. The alien tour group, all disguised as humans anyway, hide out among the holiday makers as the captain tries to repair the ship, while Delta strikes up a kind of friendship\/romance with local greaser and amateur rocker Billy (David Kinder), much to the consternation of his smitten childhood friend Ray (Sara Griffiths.) Ray and the Doctor discover that the Bannermen have snuck an agent onto the estate, and upon discovering that Delta is there, they quickly land an attack force. In the meantime Delta has an egg that's hatched, producing a young Chimeron princess who is rapidly growing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAlso there is some business with two American agents (one of whom, played by comedian Stubby Kaye, inconspicuously wears a Yankees jacket and baseball cap the entire time) looking for the downed satellite, but don't even get me started on that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor its first third, \"Delta and the Bannermen\" unfolds like many Who stories- weird stuff happens and the Doctor has to figure out what's what. But just when we reach a point where Delta is about to explain to Mel what's happening, the camera cuts away, and for the rest of the story's running time we have to infer what the backstory is based on what little snatches of it we get in the midst of constant running about across the Welsh countryside. Certain key points, like what the Bannermen are, why they want the Chimerons dead, and how the Chimerons hope to survive with a genetic diversity of one queen, are never explained, which turns the story into a very broad and generic good vs. evil plot, seeming to run on pantomime rules. The Bannermen are the villains because they are mean violent guys and are run by a mustachioed brute (Don Henderson) with horrible table manners.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFor the most part, this feels like a reaction to the BBC's fuss about the levels of violence in the program and desire for \"less horror, more humour.\" While the previous season seemed to attempt to meet Michael Grade halfway, that apparently wasn't enough and now we get people dressed in glittery outfits running around to electronic riffs on \"Devil's Galop\" years before the theme was appropriated by Sir Digby Chicken Caesar. One can almost imagine John Nathan Turner (who was now producing because the BBC wouldn't let him go anywhere else) shouting \"Is this what you want? Are you happy now?!\" while showing his superiors rushes of Ken Dodd prancing about in a pink ticket-taker's uniform.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn fairness, there may be more than pure bitter resignation at work here. At points the story's stubborn refusal to explain itself turns the whole thing into a sort of meta \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E story, an abstraction of what \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E is. Just as Sergio Leone reduced the Western to men in dusters riding in the desert and fighting for reasons that in the end didn't matter, \"Delta and the Bannermen\" is a story where a hero protects good aliens from bad aliens for stakes that are never adequately defined in a struggle that seems to turn on the most arbitrary of plot points. Malcom Kohll, Chris Clough, and company appear to want to push beyond wacky comedy into pure absurdism. It doesn't entirely work, but you can see them struggling against the limitations.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESome aspects of the story do work well enough, though, and one of them is Ray. She's kind of adorable, really, and acts as the Doctor's surrogate companion for much of the running time. (Mel is oddly sidelined, and there was apparently some uncertainty at the time as to whether or not Bonnie Langford would leave at midseason or stay for the whole year.) Sara Griffiths plays the part with a mixture of vulnerability and toughness that makes you regret she didn't stay on, though clearly elements of the character ended up in the Doctor's next companion, the spunky Ace.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's not a bad story, but it's not really a good story either. It's fascinating as a fan to watch the show push against boundaries that the BBC seem to have put in place explicitly to kill the thing, but I'm not sure most people will appreciate that particular experience. That said, it's nice to know that even at its most rushed and creatively desperate, the show still has a certain charm.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Malcom Kohll\u003Cbr \/\u003EProduced by John Nathan Turner\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Chris Clough\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8991003382086223699\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8991003382086223699\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8991003382086223699"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8991003382086223699"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/random-who-report-delta-and-bannermen.html","title":"Random Who Report: Delta and the Bannermen (1987)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-Jyu1EZ82icw\/ULTZ-Iykj3I\/AAAAAAAABfs\/zFJAewGX83I\/s72-c\/Delta.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2902822568599970944"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-20T10:08:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-11-20T10:08:56.540-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Music"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"My Favorite Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"My Favorite Movies: Phantom of the Paradise"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002O06Q3O\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B002O06Q3O\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Poster and link to the French blu-ray\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-djs5hbVac_8\/UKuqLxfxP4I\/AAAAAAAABfY\/wUleThu3w80\/s320\/phantom_of_the_paradise_ver1.jpg\" title=\"The French Ultimate Edition Blu-Ray is region free and multi-language! Vive le France!\" width=\"210\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhen people talk about the great movie musicals, there's usually one glaring omission. Brian De Palma's \u003Ci\u003EPhantom of the Paradise\u003C\/i\u003E is a cult classic that, while it's inspired a loyal fanbase, hasn't managed the pop culture prominence of similar offbeat rock musicals like \u003Ci\u003EThe Rocky Horror Picture Show\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003ELittle Shop of Horrors\u003C\/i\u003E. But it deserves better; while comparable to those classics, it's also unique. While De Palma has often gotten flak for imitating and ripping off his forebears, in \u003Ci\u003EPhantom\u003C\/i\u003E he manages to synthesize several classic stories and images into a blistering satire of the music industry set to a truly killer song score. It's one of the most purely cinematic musicals ever made, not only original to the medium but dependent on its tricks. And at the core of all the craziness is something heartfelt.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWinslow Leach (the recently departed William Finley) is a struggling songwriter who, performing one night at a club, catches the attention of the mysterious music mogul Swan (Paul Williams). Swan's agent Philbin (George Memmoli) convinces Winslow to give his boss a look at his life's work, an epic rock cantata telling the story of Faust, and then promptly disappears with the manuscript. In attempting to see Swan, Winslow is ensorcelled by the lovely, soulful singer Phoenix (Jessica Harper) but ends up beaten to a pulp, framed for drug possession, and sent to Sing-Sing. He escapes and tries to destroy Swan's record press, but is horribly mutilated in the process, slinking off into the night and left for dead. Now without a face or a voice, Winslow sneaks into Swan's new rock concert hall, The Paradise, and donning costume and mask, begins to wreak havoc- that is, until Swan makes contact with him and offers him another deal, to rewrite his cantata for Phoenix. But this devil's bargain, literally inked in blood, quickly turns sour, and the Phantom's obsession with his work again becomes deadly.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a film about a lot of things, one of the most prominent being the mistreatment of art. From the start, Winslow's work is misunderstood, and while it speaks on some primal level to Swan, he insists on changing it into an accessible pop confection. Paul Williams' brilliant song score is largely built on parallels- not only is Winslow's \"Faust\" explicitly converted into the beach nostalgia anthem \"Upholstery\", but the Phantom's own theme (played during a beautiful creation montage) morphs into a ghoulish glam rock number played by a KISS-esque troupe who dismember the crowd with razor-sharp instruments, and the love song \"Old Souls\" is made into a brutal statement of nihilism for the Paradise's newest star, the macho-to-the-point-of-overcompensation Beef (Gerritt Graham, though his vocals are by Ray Kennedy.) Swan isn't simply greedy- he seems to have pop banality in his blood, and he removes Phoenix from the lead role simply because he abhors perfection in anyone but himself. Phil Spector is the obvious parallel here, though the music scene had and has plenty more unethical and overbearing producers where he came from. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is also a morality play, in its twisted fashion- though most of the characters are pretty damned amoral, there's still a sense that evil is a tangible force in this world, and perhaps goodness is as well. The Phantom's revenge is by turns righteous and sadistic- Beef, who comes across as a mincing queen off-stage (part of the script that has aged very poorly) is ultimately sort of innocent and doesn't quite deserve the nasty fate the Phantom visits on him for stealing Phoenix's spotlight. He's ridiculous, but not evil, and the Phantom does go too far in that and other cases; he's ultimately damned as much as Swan, and must seek to redeem himself. Phoenix is the purest of the lot, but she's in danger of corruption as her star rises. Fame and the lure of the spotlight corrupt everyone, but there seems to be no other way for music to escape.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is an absurdist riot of color and sound, shot beautifully on a fairly low budget and maintaining a cartoonish silliness which lets it be sincere in the moments that count. De Palma's love of visual tricks and nods to classic cinema works very well in a dark and offbeat story like this; there's no need for the patina of realism that suspense thrillers try to maintain, and the sense of visual freedom De Palma maintains sets this apart from musicals which struggle against holdover conventions from the stage. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd the performers. Finley is a unique physical presence who stands out even under a mask, Williams makes a surprisingly terrifying villain, and Jessica Harper is luminous and soulful. In a clever joke on the potential of soundmixing (in an age before autotune, no less), Swan restores the Phantom's speech via clever engineering, but specifically gives him his own singing voice. Three actors- Archie Hahn, Jeffrey Comanor, and Harold Oblong- play first the 50s nostalgia band the Juicy Fruits, than the surf rockers the Beach Bums, then the Undead, each time trading off the lead vocal. Memmoli doesn't do any singing but distinguishes himself in a great and funny character turn.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt pains me to think that we live in a world where this film is not properly appreciated as the landmark in film musicals that it is. It's smart, soulful, imaginative, and 100% a work of \u003Ci\u003Efilm\u003C\/i\u003E, telling its story in cuts and movements as well as music and lyrics. It was a commercial flop on first release, attained a cult following, but still it took the French to give us a proper special edition Blu-Ray release. The film holds up as one of De Palma's finest, if not the finest. The more people who discover its odd beauty, the better.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWords and Music by Paul Williams\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and Directed by Brian De Palma\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2902822568599970944\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2902822568599970944\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2902822568599970944"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2902822568599970944"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/my-favorite-movies-phantom-of-paradise.html","title":"My Favorite Movies: Phantom of the Paradise"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-djs5hbVac_8\/UKuqLxfxP4I\/AAAAAAAABfY\/wUleThu3w80\/s72-c\/phantom_of_the_paradise_ver1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3687013955665194173"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-13T08:54:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-11-13T15:44:31.594-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Why You Should Be Watching... Part 3: Underrated Sitcom Round-Up"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-w7q_6TsJSHA\/UKJdcYkFC3I\/AAAAAAAABes\/y8_sEhjaYpY\/s1600\/ben-and-kate-group-shot-fox.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The cast of Ben and Kate\" border=\"0\" height=\"198\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-w7q_6TsJSHA\/UKJdcYkFC3I\/AAAAAAAABes\/y8_sEhjaYpY\/s320\/ben-and-kate-group-shot-fox.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe current TV season is an embarrassment of riches, and the downside of this is it's easy for good shows to fall through the cracks. There are a few sitcoms struggling in the ratings that I'd like to entreat you to check out, especially if you're a Nielsen family. It's all in the name of good television, I'm sure you'll understand.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EBen and Kate\u003C\/i\u003E, airing on FOX on Tuesdays at 8:30\/7:30c, is the freshman of the bunch, and it's a wonderfully sweet and engaging little show. The title characters are brother and sister- she's a single mother and he's a perpetual underachiever who recently suffered a nasty breakup, and has moved in with her and her daughter. Nat Faxon as Ben is pretty consistently hilarious, but Lucy Punch as their friend BJ frequently steals the show, especially in her interactions with the daughter.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-x6iICAhxdL4\/UKJdwzEMJFI\/AAAAAAAABe0\/MGP6jCEKwaQ\/s1600\/happy-endings-cast.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The gang at Happy Endings\" border=\"0\" height=\"226\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-x6iICAhxdL4\/UKJdwzEMJFI\/AAAAAAAABe0\/MGP6jCEKwaQ\/s320\/happy-endings-cast.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EHappy Endings\u003C\/i\u003E, on ABC Tuesday at 9\/8c, premiered two seasons ago with the premise of a group of friends dealing with the fallout when one left the other at the altar. It has since mostly ignored its premise and rested entirely on a great ensemble and fast-paced goofy scripts. It's a nice arrangement- everyone is funny and talented, and while I particularly love Casey Wilson as the sociable Penny, it's been a genuine surprise to see Elisha Cuthbert emerge as a gifted comic performer. It's a reliable thirty minutes of unpretentious laughs every week, and while it's on against the also-very-good \u003Ci\u003ENew Girl\u003C\/i\u003E, it's the one that needs the numbers right now.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-r6fmVPdv_ko\/UKJeDLwhwuI\/AAAAAAAABe8\/PvS_jZ9OFc8\/s1600\/james-van-der-beek-krysten-ritter-dreama-walker-dont-trust-the-b-in-apartment-23.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The B and company\" border=\"0\" height=\"256\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-r6fmVPdv_ko\/UKJeDLwhwuI\/AAAAAAAABe8\/PvS_jZ9OFc8\/s320\/james-van-der-beek-krysten-ritter-dreama-walker-dont-trust-the-b-in-apartment-23.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDon't Trust the B___ in Apartment 23\u003C\/i\u003E, on ABC Tuesday at 9:30\/8:30c, opened with a stupid title and a gimmicky premise but quickly became kind of awesome. The titular \"B\" is Chloe, played by Krysten Ritter, and the person who should not trust said B is the straight-laced June, played by Dreama Walker, and Chloe inevitably gets June into trouble with her partying, social hobnobbing, and frequent minor felonies. While part of the show's appeal is the absurdity of it (Ritter wielding a tranq gun in the season premiere was a beautifully strange image), there's a nice rapport between the two actresses, and it handles a female dynamic more believably than a lot of shows. Also James Van Der Beek is himself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-_LGUyUhI5Zg\/UKJeY-VIPZI\/AAAAAAAABfE\/eoMvCRNnWfg\/s1600\/parks-recreation-logo.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Leslie ****ing Knope\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-_LGUyUhI5Zg\/UKJeY-VIPZI\/AAAAAAAABfE\/eoMvCRNnWfg\/s1600\/parks-recreation-logo.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd then there's \u003Ci\u003EParks and Recreation\u003C\/i\u003E, on NBC on Thursdays at 9:30\/8:30 after \u003Ci\u003EThe Office\u003C\/i\u003E, now in its fifth season so you people no longer have any excuse. Sure, the first season was not, as the French say, good. But in the space of that six episodes it quickly reinvented itself, and for the past two or three years has been pretty much on fire all the time. It's the most goofily sincere show on TV, with Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a humble government worker with big dreams, doing her best to improve things in the dysfunctional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Knope is one of TV's great creations, utterly devoted to this insane little burg and having an endless enthusiasm that has yet to be dulled by the ugliness of politics. To add on the sugar, right now the show has not one but two super-cute relationships, between Leslie and the awesomely nerdy Ben (Adam Scott), and between apathetic April (Aubrey Plaza) and puppy-like Andy (Chris Pratt.) It's hilarious and sweet.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo set your DVRs if you have 'em, or just be prepared to do a lot of channel flipping, because it's way too easy to miss things in the current crowded prime-time schedule. I sometimes find myself wishing TV weren't quite this good so I could just watch movies every night, but the mood passes. A Golden Age like this can't last forever, so enjoy it while it lasts."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3687013955665194173\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3687013955665194173\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3687013955665194173"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3687013955665194173"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/why-you-should-be-watching-part-3.html","title":"Why You Should Be Watching... Part 3: Underrated Sitcom Round-Up"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-w7q_6TsJSHA\/UKJdcYkFC3I\/AAAAAAAABes\/y8_sEhjaYpY\/s72-c\/ben-and-kate-group-shot-fox.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-454782390399648212"},"published":{"$t":"2012-11-08T08:41:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2020-12-01T12:58:21.281-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Cloud Atlas"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-4qkCgpcT_WI\/UJvEBA8qC4I\/AAAAAAAABeY\/u7qMmEd4ANA\/s1600\/cloud_atlas_ver12.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Cloud Atlas poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-4qkCgpcT_WI\/UJvEBA8qC4I\/AAAAAAAABeY\/u7qMmEd4ANA\/s320\/cloud_atlas_ver12.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCynicism results when we don't see just consequences to our actions, when crimes go unpunished and good deeds seem to be in vain. \u003Ci\u003ECloud Atlas\u003C\/i\u003E, a staggering epic of multiple stories and people reborn in era after era, is about a lot of things, but I think it's mostly an argument against cynicism. It posits that all of our actions matter, that every gesture has some impact, if not in our lifetime, then in the next, and in ages afterward. But it's as much a work of pure cinema as a philosophical statement; working from the novel by David Mitchell, Tom Tykwer and Lily and Lana Wachowski have created a film that's wonderfully alive and agile. It's fun and surprisingly lightweight for a three-hour epic, a series of well-spun yarns that work on their own as well as together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film takes place across many different eras, featuring several stories that seem at first to be unrelated. In the mid-nineteenth century, a sick man (James Sturgess) travels across the Pacific under the care of an eccentric doctor (Tom Hanks) and makes friends with a runaway slave (David Gyasi). In England in the Thirties, a homosexual composer (Ben Whishaw) scribes the work of an aging master (Jim Broadbent) but is driven to compose his own symphony. In the Seventies, a reporter (Halle Berry) unravels a conspiracy surrounding the opening of a nuclear power plant.\u0026nbsp; In modern-day Britain, a publisher (Broadbent) in trouble with gangsters seeks refuge in the Scottish countryside only to end up a prisoner in a nursing home. Centuries from now in Korea, a clone bred for service (Doona Bae) rebels against an authoritarian government. And in a farther, postapocalyptic future, a farmer (Hanks) haunted by a spirit embodying his cowardice and vice (Hugo Weaving) helps a scientist (Halle Berry) climb a forbidden mountain.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETykwer and the Wachowskis traded off the various stories, but there aren't many signs of stylistic divergence, or obvious visual signifiers; rather the movie cuts between time segments on thematic or symbolic parallels, trusting us to work out where we are rather quickly. The effect is similar to D. W. Griffith's \u003Ci\u003EIntolerance\u003C\/i\u003E, the film's most obvious ancestor; the principle of parallel action is taken to an extreme and we ride across time, space, and incident, guided by a larger internal rhythm. It sounds like a lot of work on the audience's part, but it's surprisingly easy to follow. The actors change radically in appearance between stories, and the settings are all different enough that a quick glance at the scenery usually suffices to orient the viewer. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo we're clearly going for an \"everything is connected\" kind of story, and the philosophy is anything but subtle, but the film doesn't feel like a dry schematic on which a plot was erected. A simple joy of storytelling pervades each segment on its own, with a consistent brisk pace and a feeling in each case that the fat has been trimmed. On a simple level we're getting several movies for the price of one, and without a 3-D surcharge. It really is a fun, energetic movie, never becoming ponderous because there's always another part of the story needing to be told.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut there's also a profundity and genuine beauty to the story as well, and its simple but brave assertion that all our actions have lasting consequences. The disconnect of seeing various actors in different roles throughout, at times in different ethnicities and even genders, makes the viewer wonder if these are the same people, reincarnated forever, or if it's simply calling attention to the permeability and ultimate uselessness of labels and dividers. It may take multiple viewings to see the many levels of connection that each story has, simply because the whole thing is so intricately constructed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI'm not sure if \"pure cinema\" is the correct scholarly term to refer to something like \u003Ci\u003ECloud Atlas\u003C\/i\u003E, but it embraces the energy and possibility of the moving image more wholeheartedly than anything else I've seen this year. It's dynamic filmmaking, rich and complex but also fast, engaging, and visually spectacular. It leaps, skips from humor to tragedy, from melodrama to simple conversation, and crosses eons in an eyeblink, all to try and convince us that our actions have meaning that we cannot see. Our crimes and our good works both echo through time, it says. And it's hard not to feel emboldened by that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the novel by David Mitchell\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and directed by Tom Tykwer, Lily Wachowski, and Lana Wachowski\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/454782390399648212\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=454782390399648212\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/454782390399648212"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/454782390399648212"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/in-theaters-cloud-atlas.html","title":"In Theaters: Cloud Atlas"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-4qkCgpcT_WI\/UJvEBA8qC4I\/AAAAAAAABeY\/u7qMmEd4ANA\/s72-c\/cloud_atlas_ver12.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5582436763571224587"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-31T20:13:00.006-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-31T20:13:46.066-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: Werewolf of London"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ModsYLQlAGk\/UJHMYt7Tw0I\/AAAAAAAABeE\/9tZ5byTdWAk\/s1600\/werewolf.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"movie poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ModsYLQlAGk\/UJHMYt7Tw0I\/AAAAAAAABeE\/9tZ5byTdWAk\/s320\/werewolf.jpg\" title=\"This is on DVD with She-Wolf of London, but don't watch that one. Trust me.\" width=\"240\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThough werewolf legends are old, the movies are really are primary source for them- the werewolf equivalent of Dracula has yet to be written and most of the lore comes to us via 1941's \u003Ci\u003EThe Wolf Man\u003C\/i\u003E. But before Curt Siodmak and Lon Chaney, Jr. laid down the law, there was another werewolf epic from Universal, and possibly the first movie of its kind. \u003Ci\u003EWerewolf of London\u003C\/i\u003E, apart from being the inspiration for a Warren Zevon song, is an interesting primordial take on an iconic monster; blending science and the supernatural, it captures the fundamentally tragic vibe we're familiar with while having an atmosphere all its own.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHenry Hull is Dr. Wilfred Glendon, a botanist exploring the wilds of Tibet (which looks suspiciously like California) for a night-blooming flower apparently drawing its energy from moonlight. While exploring a forbidden valley, he finds the flower, but is attacked and bitten by a strange wild animal. Back at home, he obsesses over getting the rare flower to bloom under artificial moonlight, neglecting his wife (Valerie Hobson), when a Japanese scientist, Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) arrives, asking that Glendon surrender two of the plant's blossoms. Yogami was exploring Tibet himself when he was bitten by a werewolf and afflicted with lycanthropy, and was the beast who attacked Glendon, passing it on to him. Now the full moon approaches, and the flower is the only thing which can prevent a werewolf from transforming. Yogami steals the blossoms, and Glendon becomes a wolf man, driven to prowl the streets and kill, and according to Yogami, fated to kill the person he loves most.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe intricacy of the plot may have been an indicator that the filmmakers weren't sure a man turning into a wolf was enough for audiences to latch onto, and the foreign intrigues of plant hunters do add an interesting backdrop. The film has an eerie mood that blends the modern (well, modern for then) and the ancient- the blend of foggy London nights, electric machinery, and shadowy sets is an interesting one, not quite as expressionistic as Universal's horrors would get but still not quite the same world as ours. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHull naturally has to carry most of the movie, and while he never did much horror work he gives an excellent performance here. We get the sense that Glendon is not entirely normal even before he transforms; he's a cold, relentless explorer like Colin Clive's Frankenstein, and he cuts a wolfish profile which is nicely augmented by the film's relatively subtle makeup (done by Jack Pierce, who would later give Chaney the treatment Hull refused). While Oland may be doing the traditional yellowface (which would eventually lead to his playing Charlie Chan), his character is nicely ambiguous, already haunted by the knowledge of what he is and desperate to preserve his humanity, at the cost of another's. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film has a solid script full of interesting characters- there's the requisite comic relief that goes on a bit long, but some of the incidental characters are genuinely charming, and Lester Matthews is good as Mrs. Glendon's childhood friend and unstated love interest. The characters are strong enough to carry the story through the non-wolf scenes, and the monster is fearsome enough to merit waiting. (Some kinks of the subgenre were still being worked out, though- this is one werewolf who takes time to put on a hat and coat before venturing into the wild.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile \u003Ci\u003EWerewolf of London\u003C\/i\u003E is often overlooked in Universal's history, it has a lot to recommend it and to my mind stands at least on par with 1941's \u003Ci\u003EThe Wolf Man\u003C\/i\u003E. Its take on the legend is imaginative and well thought out, if perhaps a bit too complicated to catch the fancy of the public. Fortunately it's easy to hunt down now, and well worth a watch. It wouldn't be Halloween without someone baying at the moon.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Robert Harris\u003Cbr \/\u003EAdapted by Harvey Gates and Robert Harris, with uncredited contributions by Edmund Pearson\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by John Colton\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Stuart Walker\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5582436763571224587\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5582436763571224587\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5582436763571224587"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5582436763571224587"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-werewolf-of-london.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: Werewolf of London"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-ModsYLQlAGk\/UJHMYt7Tw0I\/AAAAAAAABeE\/9tZ5byTdWAk\/s72-c\/werewolf.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6501859933217656481"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-31T00:42:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-31T00:42:00.108-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: The Ghoul (1933)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00009PY38\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00009PY38\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The Ghoul DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-55VE42VGKLU\/UJC5iwJqGlI\/AAAAAAAABdw\/n8eenAEYvCo\/s320\/ghoul.jpg\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe first big horror movie wave of the 1930s really changed things. Through the silent era, full-blown supernatural horror was rare; it was more common to gather characters in an old dark house and have them killed off by someone masquerading as a supernatural being. \u003Ci\u003EDracula\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EFrankenstein\u003C\/i\u003E let actual monsters loose, but didn't wipe out the old way completely, and the UK production \u003Ci\u003EThe Ghoul\u003C\/i\u003E is halfway between subgenres. It's mostly built like a mystery thriller, but adds what seems to be a legitimate monster to the mix, and plays differently as a result. Despite a slightly confused approach it's an effective picture with some standout moments, elevated mostly by Boris Karloff's grim presence.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKarloff plays Prof. Henry Moriant, a dying man in possession of a rare Egyptian jewel- he believes that the jewel, placed in the hands of a statue of Anubis at the right moment, will open for him the gates of paradise. Before dying he warns of dire consequences for anyone trying to steal the gem, so naturally it gets stolen. Two of Morlant's heirs (Anthony Bushell and Dorothy Hyson) have gathered at his house, as well as her housemaid (Kathleen Harrison) and an Egyptian associate (Harold Huth), as well as a vicar who wasn't able to read the old man his last rites (Ralph Richardson in his first screen appearance.) One of them is the thief, and true to his word, the professor rises from the grave, a strong, menacing brute bent on recovering his key to eternal life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film doesn't lean too heavily on the mystery element; in the end, it's not quite so important who has the jewel as what everyone is going to do about the lumbering monster stalking the house. It's not really tightly structured, but it doesn't drag either.\u0026nbsp; We get quite a few twists and turns, enough to justify the buildup at least, and enough that the mystery elements don't feel like a waste of time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKarloff as the titular ghoul is still the main attraction, though. The character is no Frankenstein monster- he lacks the tragic conflict- but his makeup is effective and his physical acting is excellent. Morlant is confused, angry, but capable of discretion, as in a strange comic interlude with the silly maid. The script has one line that attempts to explain away Morlant's reanimation by saying he was buried alive (possibly a nod to British censors), but it doesn't quite make sense, since a normal not-yet-dead old man would probably not be able to bend iron bars with his bare hands. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe direction is heavy on atmosphere, and the visuals are dark- possibly almost too dark, though I wonder if that's the transfer talking. The obligatory comic relief, which really went broad in thirties horror, manages to work- Harrison's maid becomes amusingly enamored of the Egyptian gentleman, imposing all sorts of Valentino-inspired fantasies on him which he graciously indulges. There's also some bickering between our male and female leads, who are heirs but from different families in some arrangement that I can't quite recall but lets the movie dangle the possibility of romance without spending much time on it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe point is, a lot goes on, but in the end it comes down to Boris Karloff lurking in shadows and lurching forward to strangle people, and everything else is just pretext to make it work. It's fitting that the British would get some mileage out of a home-grown horror great who was making money in Hollywood, and if Gaumont never became as big in the horror game as Universal, they at least proved they could hold their own. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the play by Leonard J. Hines and Dr. Frank King\u003Cbr \/\u003EAdapted by Rupert Downing\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Roland Pertwee and John Hastings Turner\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by T. Hayes Hunter\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6501859933217656481\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6501859933217656481\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6501859933217656481"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6501859933217656481"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-ghoul-1933.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: The Ghoul (1933)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-55VE42VGKLU\/UJC5iwJqGlI\/AAAAAAAABdw\/n8eenAEYvCo\/s72-c\/ghoul.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2562624649467554675"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-30T00:58:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-30T00:58:14.723-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: Plan 9 From Outer Space"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B006ZUMOX0\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B006ZUMOX0\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Plan 9 cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-VhI7Co7Mplw\/UI9rj-D0H7I\/AAAAAAAABdc\/YGQPicadihc\/s320\/plan9-2.jpg\" title=\"Also in black and white, which is more fitting.\" width=\"220\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEd Wood's \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9 From Outer Space\u003C\/i\u003E would be a tricky film to evaluate even without the iconic status it has attained. Ignored in its initial release, \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9\u003C\/i\u003E was dubbed \"The Worst Movie Of All Time\" by Michael and Harry Medved (based on the results of a poll) in the early 80s, but has since come to be regarded as not nearly that bad, but rather one of the Great Bad Movies, so laughable as to be entertaining. That's partly true, but it doesn't fully explain the film's enduring appeal. Many other just as technically inept movies exist, but are too dull or unpleasant to earn such honors. \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9 From Outer Space\u003C\/i\u003E has something unique to it- it's a film that fails on almost every technical level (I say almost because the cinematography isn't bad), but maintains an effervescent energy and a vaguely subversive thrill. Part of it may just be that it's one of the few B sci-fi efforts to deliver what it promises, as ineptly as it does so, and part of it just may be that its crude imagery gets to the core of what we want from movies like this. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs introduced by TV psychic Criswell, the film is the story of a group of aliens out to attack the Earth, who have decided to experiment with re-animating dead humans and using them as soldiers. When an old man (Bela Lugosi in some shots) loses his wife (Vampira), she becomes the first ghoul- after he dies in an offscreen traffic accident, he joins her (and, because Lugosi died before the movie was shot, is doubled by Dr. Tom Mason with a cape over his face.) When a police inspector (Tor Johnson) falls prey to the ghouls in the cemetery, he's eventually brought out to join them. Meanwhile, airline pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) starts to get curious when a UFO buzzes his plane, and he and his wife (Mona McKinnon) happen to live next to the cemetery where the aliens (Dudley Manlove and Joanna Lee) are doing their dirty work. Eventually they, an inquisitive colonel (Tom Keene), and a police inspector with no sense of trigger discipline (Duke Moore) meet, as the aliens reveal their motive for attacking Earth- they believe the humans are on the verge of developing the solaronite bomb, a light-exploding bomb which has the potential to destroy the entire universe.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNever let it be said that this movie isn't high concept. One of the things that contributes to the good times is just how crazily inspired Wood's story is; he happily throws together old-time horror and Atomic Age sci-fi, as he did in \u003Ci\u003EBride of the Monster\u003C\/i\u003E, and takes the anti-nuclear subtext of the classic \u003Ci\u003EThe Day the Earth Stood Still\u003C\/i\u003E one step further, having his villains be misunderstood crusaders out to stop Earth from destroying everything in existence. The movie has mindless zombies reanimated by super science, it has our armed forces duking it out with flying saucers, it has spaceships in cemeteries and Swedish wrestlers rising from the grave. None of this is at all convincing, but it happens, which puts it quite a few levels above many of its contemporaries which promised epic threats to mankind and delivered mostly people talking in small rooms. \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9\u003C\/i\u003E has its fair share of conversation scenes, to be sure, but Wood demonstrates an odd grasp of pacing, using stock footage and Criswell's breathless narration to keep the story moving forward no matter what. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film's technical incompetence is at turns off-putting and charming- there are continuity mismatches galore, cardboard sets, and several scenes of normal dialogue dubbed over footage that was clearly undercranked. Pretty much nobody is a seasoned actor, or for that matter terribly used to the concept of speaking and moving in front of a camera, and of course Wood's dialogue has its own rhythms and cadences that have nothing to do with normal human speech. And yet while basic failures like this may make movies like \u003Ci\u003EBirdemic\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003EManos: the Hands of Fate\u003C\/i\u003E into material for seasoned masochists, for \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9\u003C\/i\u003E they just add to the charm. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd this is where things get tricky. \"So bad it's good\" implies that there's a level of ineptitude beyond which a movie must circle back around to be entertaining, but there are films that are both worse than \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9\u003C\/i\u003E and not as enjoyable as bad films.\u0026nbsp; Some attribute this to Wood's enthusiasm, and there may be a little more validity to this; it doesn't condescend to its audience, and Truffaut had a line about wanting to see either the joy of filmmaking or the agony of filmmaking expressed in every film. There's definitely something of the former here, but how do we really define that? How does this film express that joy where others don't? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt may be that the film holds together based on what virtues it does manage to cobble up. Wood spins a good yarn, and one that's almost daring by contemporary standards. American sci-fi films in the 50s tended to bring up the dangers of the nuclear age, but always qualified that with an understanding of how wonderful and vital our friend the atom was. \u003Ci\u003EPlan 9\u003C\/i\u003E not only presents its A-Bomb analogue as a wholly negative and destructive force that will inevitably kill us all, it suggests in the hamfisted aggression of its \"heroes\" that mankind may just be stupid enough to create it, in the name of patriotism and military might. The film has quite a few striking images; the gleaming silver hubcaps that represent the flying saucers may clearly be dangling on strings, but they sort of look like how 50s flying saucers should look. The soundtrack also has its interesting odd moments as well, with an appropriately melodramatic score and strange machine noises. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCould it be that this movie is actually, in a way, good? Well, it feels a little odd to say so, so perhaps it's best to say that this film exists on the fringe where objective notions of good and bad don't seem to apply. It's fun, it's a pleasure to look at and to follow, and none of Wood's many technical blind spots obscures what is an engaging story. It's one of the most fun movies of its kind, and the charm it exerts will always be singular.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten and Directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2562624649467554675\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2562624649467554675\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2562624649467554675"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2562624649467554675"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-plan-9-from-outer-space.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: Plan 9 From Outer Space"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-VhI7Co7Mplw\/UI9rj-D0H7I\/AAAAAAAABdc\/YGQPicadihc\/s72-c\/plan9-2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7330933148421936747"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-28T23:38:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-28T23:38:18.165-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: Little Shop of Horrors: The Director's Cut (1986) "},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B008AT71WI\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B008AT71WI\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Little Shop of Horrors poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Oc6yH5fMfkc\/UI4HiFqFg3I\/AAAAAAAABdI\/bpIHBKMI_dk\/s320\/littleshop.jpg\" title=\"The Director's Cut now available on Blu-Ray and DVD!\" width=\"220\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's hard not to love \u003Ci\u003ELittle Shop of Horrors\u003C\/i\u003E. It's plain one of my favorite movie musicals, and it captures so much of what was great about the ascent of genre cinema in the 80s; effects technology and audience tastes had advanced to a point where a musical adaptation of a Roger Corman movie about a man and his talking, man-eating plant was prime source material for a big budget holiday extravaganza.\u0026nbsp; Recently this film has been given a new Blu-Ray release featuring, for the very first time, a restored, darker alternate ending which for a long time was the stuff of legend. This so-called Director's Cut (Frank Oz was not directly involved) works very well in its own right while inviting interesting comparisons to the version seen in theaters, and whichever way you prefer it, it's a great film, vibrant, energetic, and strangely warm and human despite subject matter that's both macabre and outlandish.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(Note that spoilers abound after this point, since the entire difference between both versions of the film is in how they end.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESeymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis) works in a flower shop in Skid Row, under the gruff tutelage of Mr. Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia). He's got his eye on the lovely Audrey (Ellen Greene, reprising her role from the stage musical), but she's dating an abusive, sadistic dentist (Steve Martin). To try and drum up business at the store Seymour brings out a strange new plant that just happened to… materialize at a streetside vendor. The pod, which he names Audrey II, fascinates the public, but secretly, to keep it growing, he has to feed it his own blood. When it gets too big for him to feed on his own, it starts talking (with the voice of the Four Tops' Levi Stubbs), and suggests that if Seymour keeps bringing it fresh bodies to eat, it'll continue to grow and make him rich and famous. At first Seymour is reluctant to go out and commit murder, but then he realizes that Audrey's boyfriend really is a no good slimeball, and who would miss him…\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film originally previewed with an ending in keeping with the stage musical; Audrey II eats Seymour and Audrey, and then goes on to world conquest, demolishing cities as the chorus warns the audience, \"Don't feed the plants!\" Frank Oz had the effects people create a five million dollar Godzilla-style rampage, but test audiences hated it. He had done his job a little too well, and the crowd liked Seymour and Audrey too much to watch them die. So a happier ending was filmed, and the destruction footage became the stuff of legend- a \"work print\" version of the ending, in black and white, was included on a 1998 DVD release, but that was quickly pulled and became an expensive collector's item. For a while most of us assumed that was that (although it did end up on Youtube), but what ended up happening was backer David Geffen overseeing a massive restoration of the original footage, leading to this release where both versions of the ending are available.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn truth, it's hard to choose which one is better. On a certain level, the original, dark ending is what's earned- Seymour has done some bad things and deserves a nasty fate. But black comedy is a tricky beast, and requires a certain level of emotional detachment. The thing that makes Little Shop of Horrors such a good film is the strange and powerful emotional intimacy it generates. Oz deliberately eschews overly theatrical elements, but doesn't quite go for naturalism either, striking an odd balance in an intensified comic reality. We get a girl-group chorus (Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, and Michelle Weeks) sashaying almost magically through the crowd, blatantly fake rear projection for Orin's musical number, and a cartoonish fantasy sequence during Audrey's \"Somewhere That's Green\", but the sets for Skid Row are so elaborate and well-shot that it seems like the real worst part of town, and Audrey II itself is a masterpiece of animatronic effects, moving with unnatural fluidity thanks to skillful puppeteering and some occasional undercranking. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHoward Ashman and Alan Menken wrote a terrific song score for the stage, and though a couple of numbers are missing here while others are transformed, it's a satisfying adaptation; the pair even wrote an original number, the third-act showstopper \"Mean Green Mother From Outer Space\". The style is a deliberate throwback to the original film's 60s milieu, combining Motown and rock-and-roll with more traditional musical styles, which makes the casting of Stubbs as the voice of the man-eating plant an ingenious move. Not only is his deep bass voice intimidating, he can sing the Hell out of the material he's given, and can run from charming to despicable with ease.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe cast does a lot to anchor the film in reality- Moranis' Seymour is a believably hapless schlub, enough that we can almost forgive him his actions. Greene, reprising her stage role, is simply unique, with a strange, squeaky voice and Barbie-doll look. There's a touch of Marilyn Monroe, especially when she deadpans some of the script's funniest lines (mourning the death of Orin, she considers that she will at least save money on bandages), but there's also something that's simply Audrey and cannot be anyone else. The two have incredible chemistry, Gardenia makes a good counterbalance, and Martin is ideally cast as a rock star \/ dentist. They're supported by a number of established comic faces, most notably Bill Murray in an incredible cameo as a masochistic dental patient (reprising a role that Jack Nicholson had in the original film, but was left out of the stage version.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe newly restored dark ending is every bit as spectacular as the old scraps of footage and movie magazine stills indicated- some digital touch-ups were done just to complete the effects, and the HD restoration makes the new footage fit seamlessly- and the grim stuff attains an enjoyable, Rocky Horror grandeur. It does go on a bit, simply because, having gone through so much trouble to restore the incredible kaiju footage, Geffen and co. didn't want to lose any of it. One drawback, though, is that all this spectacle does make us lose sight of the characters who are so central to the rest of it. They've already been eaten (a plan to have their faces appear in Audrey II's flower buds was nixed as too grotesque), and all that's left are hordes of nameless extras. It doesn't quite give you the closure of the stage version, and while a happy ending may be a bit of an extreme reaction, it's not shoddily done at all, nor does it feel completely unearned. Seymour's sins are many, but that doesn't necessarily mean he can't redeem himself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, the good news is, in this brave new media world, we don't have to choose. Both versions of the film now exist at retail (Blu Ray owners can get both in the new release, DVD-only folks will have to get the theatrical cut separately), and if one ending doesn't satisfy it's easy to see the other. After watching the director's cut for the first time, I cued up the theatrical ending, just because it's nice to think that Seymour and Audrey got away in one version of the story. Call me sentimental.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEither way, this is a great movie, and arguably one of the best movie musicals. It's just plain charming, capturing the wicked charm of the source material and adding its own big-screen intensity. It's amazing to think such an odd, screwy story, in a form that Hollywood was in the midst of abandoning, got the attention and resources to make for a true spectacular, and the restored Director's Cut emphasizes just how bizarre, and yet how classically Hollywood, it is. If the movies were like this all the time, theater attendance would be no problem.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on an original screenplay by Charles B. Griffith\u003Cbr \/\u003EOriginal Stage Musical Book and Lyrics by Howard Ashman\u003Cbr \/\u003EMusic by Alan Menken\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Howard Ashman\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Frank Oz\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7330933148421936747\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7330933148421936747\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7330933148421936747"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7330933148421936747"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-little-shop-of-horrors.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: Little Shop of Horrors: The Director's Cut (1986) "}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Oc6yH5fMfkc\/UI4HiFqFg3I\/AAAAAAAABdI\/bpIHBKMI_dk\/s72-c\/littleshop.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-982052609477804445"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-26T08:53:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-26T08:53:37.439-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: Demons"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000T28POC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B000T28POC\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Demons DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-LapdWFHViMQ\/UIqVPrGi5aI\/AAAAAAAABcs\/UxEj_NMjFy0\/s320\/demons.jpg\" title=\"I could've sworn there was a Blu-Ray too but Amazon doesn't have it available yet.\" width=\"227\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of these days, I am going to find a tightly plotted Italian horror film. The laws of probability demand it. But it will be a long search, and in the meantime here's \u003Ci\u003EDemons\u003C\/i\u003E, which is \u003Ci\u003EThe Evil Dead \u003C\/i\u003Ein a movie theater. It stops making sense pretty early on, but it has a lot of energy to make up for it, and at times is almost awesome in its stupidity. That it works at all says there is something to the style-over-substance approach, as much as it may pain me to admit it. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story ostensibly revolves around two girls who receive free passes to an unknown movie screening at the Metropol theater. A colorful cross-section of people arrive for the preview, including a bickering married couple, two handsome boys who try to hook up with the girls, and a pimp and his employees. The movie they end up seeing is a horror film about a man who puts on a demon mask, is scratched by it, and starts killing his friends; as the slashing unfolds, one of the pimp's girls (Geretta Giancarlo, who nowadays just goes by Geretta Geretta) who had put on the same mask on display in the lobby and gotten a similar cut, suddenly turns into a demonic creature herself and begins attacking her friends, who in turn become monsters, until suddenly the theatre is under attack by a veritable horde of slavering, pus-ridden monsters from Hell. The exits from the building are mysteriously blocked, leaving the humans to try and find ways to dodge the horde of monsters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EVery little explanation is given for why this is happening, which in fairness is by design. Then again that goes hand in hand with the movie's decision not to provide explanations for much of anything, or to be terribly clear about what we're seeing. The thing about movie theaters is that they tend not to be terribly labyrinthine, especially if you're not talking about a multiplex; in order to break up and draw out the action the filmmakers have to separate the characters, so they have a tendency to run back and forth from places for no readily apparent reason. I'm not gonna blame a panicked crowd for not demonstrating sound tactical reasoning, but it's pretty obvious the main motivation for any character's actions is what will lead to another setpiece. (That the teeming masses are not very well-defined doesn't help; it might be easier to divine motivations for people's actions if we knew who the Hell they were.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPerhaps the epitome of this Cuisinart approach to plotting is when the film steps outside the theater for a solid ten or so minutes to show a gang of punks roaming around the city, doing drugs, having sex, and eventually stopping to check out the theater. There is a minor point to all this but it takes forever to get there. Digressions like this aren't without their own particular entertainment value, though, and the upside of the whole thing is that not being tethered to a logical plot enables the movie to engage in some interesting setpieces. In the lobby of the theater, alongside the demon mask, there is a motorcycle, and a samurai sword. Both see extensive use.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn a way, this film isn't really trying to tell a story. It's trying to show off cool and\/or scary scenes, and it does create a few memorable visuals. There's a great shot of a horde of demons running in slow motion into the lobby, backlit by the screen, and the climax reaches the level of pretty fucking metal. The film does consistently look neat, and it's just silly enough to be consistently engaging.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo I'm giving this a passing grade. If you have to judge a movie by the standards it sets for itself, it's as unfair to judge \u003Ci\u003EDemons \u003C\/i\u003Efor having a loose and inconsistent story as it is to judge \u003Ci\u003E8 1\/2\u003C\/i\u003E for its dearth of zombie attacks. On the most basic level it entertains. The search for well-plotted Italian horror continues, but my standards aren't that high.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOriginal story by Dardano Sacchetti\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Dardano Sacchetti, and Franco Ferrini\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Lamberto Bava\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/982052609477804445\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=982052609477804445\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/982052609477804445"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/982052609477804445"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-demons.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: Demons"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-LapdWFHViMQ\/UIqVPrGi5aI\/AAAAAAAABcs\/UxEj_NMjFy0\/s72-c\/demons.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7234153995001686881"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-24T11:57:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-24T11:57:12.948-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Monsterthon"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Monsterthon 2012: Them!"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002O3Z4XO\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B002O3Z4XO\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Them! poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-_Bxt7qpeMRE\/UIgdKrBBH4I\/AAAAAAAABcQ\/r8t5dFNvrVw\/s320\/them.jpg\" title=\"This is how you get ants, Lana!\" width=\"225\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's hard to imagine a time before giant bug movies; they were a unique product of fifties nuclear paranoia, sure, but there had to be a first impulse, a first writer or producer to suggest that the anxieties of the age were best represented by insects the size of trucks. \u003Ci\u003EThem!\u003C\/i\u003E was the launching point for an entire subgenre and an influence on a number of films afterwards, but it's never quite gotten the acclaim it deserves as a classic thriller. It's tense, atmospheric, and surprisingly smart, introducing an outrageous concept with enough dedication and discipline to make it work. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film opens with two New Mexico policemen coming across an abandoned trailer, and a little girl wandering the desert in a catatonic shock. The trailer has been destroyed by some unknown force, the inhabitants apart from the little girl are missing, and a general store nearby has similarly been ransacked and its owner killed. When one of the officers is killed by something unseen, his partner Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) is paired up with FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) to investigate the case, and they in turn are unexpectedly joined by the old and odd Dr. Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his lovely daughter Patricia (Joan Weldon), both entomologists. The two doctors are at first reluctant to share their theory, but their suspicions are soon confirmed; the atomic bomb tests at White Sands have given birth to a colony of gigantic ants, prowling the deserts for food. The police and local army are able to track down and destroy the original nest, but two queen ants and their consorts have already left, and if they are not tracked down, the species will spread across the world, possibly rendering man extinct within a year.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMuch of the film unfolds like a police procedural, recalling the hard-hitting crime dramas that producing studio Warner Bros. had been known for in the past. The police systematically examine the crime scene and sort through evidence, eliminating possibilities until the only one remaining is giant radioactive ants. The film's dedication to a hard-hitting style is reflected in some moody photography and a wonderfully bombastic musical score by Bronislau Kaper. There's a real verisimilitude to how the movie is shot and put together, within the bounds of a reasonably low budget. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the midst of all the intense and methodical ant-hunting, there's not a lot of time for human development, but what we see of the characters works quite well. There's a real contrast between Whitmore and Arness as professionals, even if they don't overtly clash very much; the basic difference in their acting styles and physical presence speaks volumes about the characters. Whitmore is soft-spoken but tough, Arness hits hard and fast. Weldon, a veteran of B westerns, has the toughness needed to hold her own with the boys- there's the inevitable 1950s dispute about a woman going into a dangerous situation, she wins, and the screenplay lets it go. (There's also no romance, and the lack thereof points up the urgency of the situation.) There is room for humor, though, in the form of some solid banter, some weird supporting characters, and in Gwenn's loveable fuddy-duddy routine which served him so well playing St. Nick in \u003Ci\u003EMiracle on 34th Street\u003C\/i\u003E. Not all of it works, but the encounter with a Texan pilot who ran into \"flying saucers shaped like ants\" is inspired.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe ants themselves are an impressive feat of mechanical engineering, almost always shown full-scale. (At some point the studio planned to make the film in 3-D, which likely ruled out stop-motion and similar techniques.) In extended shots their mechanical nature is kind of obvious, and I'm not sure I agree with the decision to give them eyes with pupils, but there are still quite a few impressive sequences. Most impressive, though, is the strange ululating chirping noise made by the ants, an eerie, beautiful, ominous effect. There's never any doubt that the ants are a dangerous force, and the story explores their existence in some scarily thoughtful ways. (This film also kicked off the tradition of using nature footage to show off whatever creature was being enlarged and talk about how deadly it already is in its native habitat.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's common to think of 50s monster movies as quick, slapdash affairs done without much care or artistry, and to be sure, a lot of 50s monster movies are like that. But there are more than a few diamonds in the rough, and \u003Ci\u003EThem!\u003C\/i\u003E is a nicely crafted gem. It's fresh and inventive where later entries in the subgenre would go through the motions, and goes to great lengths to convince us of the danger of something that's downright impossible. Of course, it's really about the potential real dangers that came with the nuclear age, and possibly of the loss of humanity to a hive mind, reflecting fears of communism and mechanization and so on. But even if you stick with the most literal reading (i.e. there are giant radioactive ants out to kill us), \u003Ci\u003EThem!\u003C\/i\u003E is a classic of the genre as well as a pop culture milestone. Someone had to tell the truth about atomic mutation, and I'm glad these guys were the ones to do it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by George Worthing Yates\u003Cbr \/\u003EAdaptation by Russell Hughes\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Ted Sherdeman\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Gordon Douglas\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7234153995001686881\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7234153995001686881\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7234153995001686881"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7234153995001686881"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/monsterthon-2012-them.html","title":"Monsterthon 2012: Them!"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-_Bxt7qpeMRE\/UIgdKrBBH4I\/AAAAAAAABcQ\/r8t5dFNvrVw\/s72-c\/them.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8209574862757577748"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-19T09:01:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-19T09:01:01.721-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Looper"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Asqja8aeUt4\/UIFczFAfHQI\/AAAAAAAABb0\/SfpP-UsvqTI\/s1600\/looper.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Looper poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Asqja8aeUt4\/UIFczFAfHQI\/AAAAAAAABb0\/SfpP-UsvqTI\/s320\/looper.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ELooper\u003C\/i\u003E is one of the great surprises of the fall movie season, a picture that without much buildup emerges as a minor sci-fi classic. Time travel stories can be complicated affairs, and you risk losing even the attentive viewer among the contrivances needed to make the plot work. Writer-director Rian Johnson isn't averse to the fancy stuff, but he knows how to present it, and he manages to make it the background for a touching, character-driven story, surrounded by a smart and efficient action thriller. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJoseph Gordon-Levitt is Joe, a hitman in a run-down near future, performing executions and disposals for a mob 30 years ahead of him; in that period, time travel exists but is illegal, and the mob uses it because it's too hard to dispose of corpses in their present. Every \"looper\" who does this job is expected to eventually close themselves out- their future self will be sent back and they have to execute them, and then take 30 years to prepare themselves for the end. A lot of loops are being closed lately, and when Joe finally confronts his older self (Bruce Willis), the old Joe manages to escape. The Joe of the present wants to close his loop, if only to avoid what the mob in the present will do to him to make his future self surrender, but old Joe isn't just out to save himself- his wife (Summer Qing) was killed in the future, and he wants to stop that happening by making sure the man who ordered him dead, a mysterious figure known only as \"the Rainmaker\", dies before coming to power.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis would be a fine setup for a gunplay-heavy action movie, and that is partly what \u003Ci\u003ELooper\u003C\/i\u003E is. But Johnson can't help but explore the premise beyond the confines of the genre structure, and the film takes a dramatic turn when present-Joe stumbles upon a farm that happens to be on future-Joe's hit list. Emily Blunt plays Sara, the farm's owner, a single mom with a troubled past. When she and her son are introduced it feels briefly like the picture is losing momentum, when it's actually casually slipping into a lower, more cerebral gear. The story still has quite a few surprises to throw at us at this point, and the change of pace allows the story to breathe and find definition instead of rushing to a stock conclusion.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is still at least partly an action movie, though, and Johnson's emphasis on character doesn't mean we don't get some scenes of both Levitt and Willis fighting both each other and a horde of mobsters. I think it's fair to say we're safely out of the woods when it comes to the unfortunate \"nothing but shakycam\" phase of action films; \u003Ci\u003ELooper\u003C\/i\u003E's gunfights are cleanly shot and nicely staged. (The multiple perspectives of the story allow for some interesting set-ups as well, as some sequences are restaged from different angles to reveal either more information or simply play with a different tone.) The film's low budget doesn't prevent it from showing a convincing rendition of a run-down future, and a neat\u0026nbsp; bit of makeup trickery has been employed to make Levitt resemble his older self. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe end up delving into some heady concepts about fate and predestination in this film, and our sympathies are allowed to slide. Old Joe has lost a lot, and we understand his desire both to save his own life and prevent whatever horror is taking place in the future; however, doing so ultimately comes down to being willing to kill children, a clear indicator that this may be the wrong way to go. Willis rarely gets to play a character who could cross such a line, and it's too his credit that he doesn't instantly switch to playing a villain. (Acting-wise, kudos must also be given to Jeff Daniels as a bored handler of assassins and to Garrett Dillahunt as a fellow killer.) Some of it comes down to the old question, \"Could you kill Hitler when he was a child,\" though maybe that question is more common in my circles than others. There are also elements of nature against nurture, and of people being trapped in ever repeating patterns.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ELooper\u003C\/i\u003E offers a lot to think about, and does so in a way that is neither pretentious nor facile; it's designed to last in the memory a little, to have people talking as they come out. While the actual mechanics of time travel are left purposefully fuzzy, the movie emphasizes the parts we need to know about, and feels consistent. The results wrap together a good sci-fi story, some killer action, and strong thematic material. It's a really solid, substantial piece of entertainment that I think is going to stand up very well in years to come.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and directed by Rian Johnson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8209574862757577748\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8209574862757577748\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8209574862757577748"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8209574862757577748"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/in-theaters-looper.html","title":"In Theaters: Looper"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Asqja8aeUt4\/UIFczFAfHQI\/AAAAAAAABb0\/SfpP-UsvqTI\/s72-c\/looper.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5183844727868452853"},"published":{"$t":"2012-10-15T09:05:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-15T09:05:35.770-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.5: The 1000th Show"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5YBmZm1I0-I\/UHwX6T-jEnI\/AAAAAAAABbY\/zTVlVYkO5hQ\/s1600\/Ep100.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier and Niles at the fish market\" border=\"0\" height=\"245\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5YBmZm1I0-I\/UHwX6T-jEnI\/AAAAAAAABbY\/zTVlVYkO5hQ\/s320\/Ep100.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ENiles: Happy Frasier Crane Day.\u0026nbsp; Or is it Merry Frasier Crane Day, I can never remember.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMany shows never last this long. As meaningless as the hundred episodes milestone is, it's one rarely passed, and so it's a good excuse for a bit of celebration and introspection on Frasier's part. But on top of being a meta exercise, \"The 1000th Show\" takes Frasier and the gang to a place they've never been before- the real world streets of Seattle, in an epic location shoot that provides a nicely realistic backdrop for an unusually complicated Niles and Frasier misadventure.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier's show on KCAL has made it to 1,000 broadcasts. Frasier at first resists the idea of doing anything fancy to mark the occasion, even though Bob and Nipsey at KPXY got a rally below the Space Needle and everything. But he can't help but succumb to vanity and suggest to Roz that she arrange for a celebration, which ends up as an official Frasier Crane Day thanks to the mayor (Seattle's real then-mayor, Norman B. Rice, playing himself), who will also hand Frasier a key to the city. But when Frasier and a resentful Niles walk through the fish market, the latter spills coffee on the former's shoes, setting off a chain reaction of delays and detours that takes Dr. Crane further and further away from his party while Roz tries to kill time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt all comes back to Frasier and Niles, doesn't it? It makes sense that for this celebratory episode the writers would focus on the show's most powerful dynamic. Niles' passive-aggressive approach to his brother's latest triumph results in some wonderful sniping, and it plays particularly well against Frasier in full pomp mode. This unfolds over nearly the whole episode, as the reason to have the two walking through the real Seattle instead of seeing it from the comfort of a rear-projected car ride. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe location work gives an unusual atmosphere to the episode, a more naturalistic vibe as opposed to the deliberately stage-like status quo. Since the show eschewed using locations for quick establishing shots the way other multi-cam sitcoms do, it's a bigger deal when they're actually out in the open . The location trip makes the episode feel a bit looser, funkier, reflecting parts of Seattle that the Cranes themselves probably ignore a lot. It's a bit of an indulgence, but not an unwelcome one. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo be sure, the writers make sure everyone gets something to do. Daphne gets to talk to the mayor and make herself look crazier than usual, though the climax to this story feels a little contrived. Martin and Roz are kept busy running interference while waiting for the man of the hour to show up. Again, nothing terribly significant for either character, but this way all the cast is on location and it feels a bit more like a proper celebration. (Seattle held an \"actual\" Frasier Crane day on the now-unfortunate date of September 11, 1997, and footage from it comprises the end credits bumper.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's appropriate to end a celebratory episode on something of a positive note, so for once Frasier manages to overcome his ego and spend his honorary day actually helping someone. His nobler side prevails when it really matters, it seems, and this makes the episode a breakdown of the character's worst and best qualities. It's also a tribute of sorts to Seattle, the city that Dr. Crane calls home even if the crew never does. In any case it has substance, of a kind that's not always found in anniversary specials. After a hundred episodes the series shows no sign of losing steam.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Christopher Lloyd and Joe Keenan\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired November 11, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: But still, a thousand shows!\u0026nbsp; That's quite an achievement.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Yeah, I suppose, who'd have thought?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: Not me, that's for damn sure.\u0026nbsp; Yeah, those first two weeks. Peeuw!\u0026nbsp; Open a window!\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5183844727868452853\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5183844727868452853\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5183844727868452853"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5183844727868452853"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/frasierquest-55-1000th-show.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.5: The 1000th Show"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-5YBmZm1I0-I\/UHwX6T-jEnI\/AAAAAAAABbY\/zTVlVYkO5hQ\/s72-c\/Ep100.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7678085883916008922"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-30T23:49:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-10-03T00:09:53.100-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Site Miscellany"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"About the Slowdown"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"You may have noticed the posting volume has declined a bit in recent weeks. My social calendar has been strangely full, and I'm trying to balance having a job finally and being in a relationship with setting aside the time to write for the blog- I can't pull all-nighters to get articles up anymore, and of course I have to have seen or read something in order to blog about it. On top of everything I do have other writing projects that I want to move forward, but I'm going to try and keep up some pace of substantive posts here."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7678085883916008922\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7678085883916008922\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7678085883916008922"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7678085883916008922"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/placeholder.html","title":"About the Slowdown"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3857305179600513705"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-30T15:02:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-09-30T15:02:41.385-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Killer Joe"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-JQH1DlwJ-hs\/UGik2-fqyII\/AAAAAAAABaE\/hgRipBdc-4w\/s1600\/killer_joe_ver2.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Killer Joe poster via IMPAwards.com\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-JQH1DlwJ-hs\/UGik2-fqyII\/AAAAAAAABaE\/hgRipBdc-4w\/s320\/killer_joe_ver2.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"214\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA movie like \u003Ci\u003EKiller Joe\u003C\/i\u003E is one I feel compelled to support almost out of principle, because anyone braving the NC-17 rating in this day and age is clearly taking some considerable risk. Never let it be said that William Friedkin has mellowed with age. As with \u003Ci\u003EBug\u003C\/i\u003E, Tracy Letts adapts from his play, and the results are just as disturbing but in an entirely different way. It's a classic crime thriller in form, but the tone hints at something else altogether, a slippery blend of drama and black comedy that doesn't fall back on the genre's usual beats. Instead it goes to some uniquely terrifying and memorable places, and makes something fresh out of a well-trod genre.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nChris Smith (Emile Hirsch, who can apparently play any kind of part) is a poor, desperate man in debt to a local gangster (Marc Macaulay), and the best way he can think to get the money is to off his junkie mother for the insurance money. His father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), who has since married another woman (Gina Gershon), agrees that she's not doing anyone any good alive. So Chris calls in Killer Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a police detective who moonlights as an assassin. They promise him a cut of the insurance payout, but he insists on collateral- and decides to take it in the form of Ansel's sheltered daughter Dottie (Juno Temple). Chris and Ansel are desperate enough to encourage Dottie to be amenable to Joe's advances, and in any case she is strangely charmed by his cold intensity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's easy to figure from early on that something will go wrong with this scheme. The rule of cinematic crime is that the more petty it is, the more likely it will blow up in the perpetrator's faces. Chris Smith is the archetypal career fuckup, always in over his head and in debt to someone and having half-baked ideas on how to get out. But the film's focus is not on how the fiasco plays out, but on the side effect, which is Joe's entry into the Smiths' lives. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMcConaughey is magnetic. His performance is the total opposite of the public persona he's displayed; Joe's every move seems calculated, planned, and reasoned, and he rarely lets his emotions show. At first he seems like the classic \"honorable killer\" type so common in the genre, but that's only how he acts. At heart he is as broken as anyone else. He's a predator, looking to sate his own desires as efficiently as possible and using the twisted language of contracts and collateral to perverse ends. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe tone of the film wavers between comic and terrifying, and though the story ends in some fairly extreme territory, it gets there in a low key, self-aware fashion. Friedkin doesn't overload the picture with half-baked Southern gothic atmosphere or an excess of stylistic flourishes; when he does throw in a perverse touch or two (including a macabre use of the song \"Strokin'\"), it's spice instead of an overpowering flavor. The entire cast is very well-chosen, from the quiet and intense Temple to the gloriously deadpan Church. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is, by its nature, not a film that everyone will be able to enjoy. The climax is brutal not in the traditional way these stories usually end, but in a more intimate and uncomfortable fashion, never completely allowing for us to detach from it or view the violence and sexual exploitation ironically. It's not quite a realistic film, but it is an honest one. It means to transgress, and on that level it sure as Hell succeeds.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Tracy Letts, based on his play\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by William Friedkin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3857305179600513705\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3857305179600513705\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3857305179600513705"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3857305179600513705"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/in-theaters-killer-joe.html","title":"In Theaters: Killer Joe"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-JQH1DlwJ-hs\/UGik2-fqyII\/AAAAAAAABaE\/hgRipBdc-4w\/s72-c\/killer_joe_ver2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4300334428111632925"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-26T09:28:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-09-26T09:28:23.687-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Beasts of the Southern Wild"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-cUM92mdqUOc\/UGMQgo0lDwI\/AAAAAAAABZo\/PHbzGOA6qp4\/s1600\/beasts_of_the_southern_wild.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Beasts of the Southern Wild poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-cUM92mdqUOc\/UGMQgo0lDwI\/AAAAAAAABZo\/PHbzGOA6qp4\/s320\/beasts_of_the_southern_wild.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's notable that the two best films this year so far are about children interpreting the world through their own fantasies. \u003Ci\u003EBeasts of the Southern Wild\u003C\/i\u003E isn't cut from quite the same cloth as \u003Ci\u003EMoonrise Kingdom\u003C\/i\u003E but it invites a similar level of immersion; in order for it to work at all you have to accept its reality as true. For this reason it's hard to actually judge the film; it plays by its own set of narrative rules and asks the viewer to take it or leave it. But it is absolutely what it sets out to be, and offers a compelling vision of a society on the fringe of what most of us are familiar with.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) is a little girl who lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry) in \"The Bathtub\", a ramshackle island community outside of the flood levees which protect New Orleans. The people fish, raise animals, drink, and follow their own mythology which seems to revolve around the fact that they're in an area which floods a lot. Hushpuppy's daddy has gotten sick, and is sometimes violent, and she confronts him shortly before a terrible storm which threatens to render the area around the Bathtub uninhabitable. She believes that her anger with her father somehow caused the catastrophe, and also that it's tied to the melting of ice caps and the release of ancient boar-like monsters called aurochs. But there are more immediate troubles, like the land-based authorities trying to forcibly evacuate the community and separate Hushpuppy from her father and her home.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is narrated by Hushpuppy in a matter of fact style and presented relentlessly from her point of view, which means she accepts the Bathtub community as how life is, and we're asked to accept it as well. It can be a challenge- life in the Bathtub is gritty and strange, and it's not really clear that this is a good environment for a girl to grow up in. Of course, it's to the film's credit that the portrayal of this culture isn't overly sentimental; we see the flaws and the ugliness, even if Hushpuppy doesn't.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe major flaw is her father, who is basically a mess. He provides for her in his way, but is quick to anger and also prone to disappear. He's a violent man who pushes Hushpuppy to be stronger but often neglects her. There's a reason for his absences and his behavior, and the film doesn't ask us to see it as an ideal situation; rather, there's a connection between Wink and the Bathtub as a whole, both ailing and possibly not long for this world.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe rational viewer, at times, must question some of what's being presented. The area around the Bathtub is becoming uninhabitable due to the salty floodwaters which cover it; it might actually be a good idea for the people to be evacuated. But that's not really the major conflict of the story, or at least not the most important part of it. Hushpuppy weaves the issues of her father and the community into a larger story of self discovery, a hero's journey which will eventually have her confront the dark forces she thinks she's responsible for unleashing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is rambling, episodic, and rich; it's hard to see where it's going at times, and the mix of naturalistic filming and magical realism can sometimes be off-putting. But we're carried along by Hushpuppy herself, a charming narrator and a bold presence on screen. She makes it impossible to fully turn away from the ugly conflicts, because she's learning how to face them in her own way. The film ends on an ambiguous note, uncertain about the future of the Bathtub and the people who lived there, but it's clear that many transformations have taken place, inside and out.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the stage play \"Juicy and Delicious\" by Lucy Alibar\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Benh Zeitlin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4300334428111632925\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4300334428111632925\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4300334428111632925"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4300334428111632925"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/in-theaters-beasts-of-southern-wild.html","title":"In Theaters: Beasts of the Southern Wild"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-cUM92mdqUOc\/UGMQgo0lDwI\/AAAAAAAABZo\/PHbzGOA6qp4\/s72-c\/beasts_of_the_southern_wild.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7178760069304079431"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-19T12:44:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-09-19T12:44:11.062-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.4: The Kid"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-h90s5Yb3N04\/UFoD6mHIq8I\/AAAAAAAABZM\/KwZFTjNRKL0\/s1600\/Ep99.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Roz gets another surprise.\" border=\"0\" height=\"268\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-h90s5Yb3N04\/UFoD6mHIq8I\/AAAAAAAABZM\/KwZFTjNRKL0\/s320\/Ep99.jpg\" title=\"Roz gets another surprise.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: You get to share your life with a remarkable little creature... who only lives in the present, runs around naked without the slightest bit of shame, and can entertain himself for hours just staring at a shiny object. Isn't that wonderful?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: Isn't that Bulldog? \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz got some very surprising news last time, and now we move from farce to fallout. \"The Kid\" is a title with two meanings, referring both to Roz's unborn child and the father, himself only college age. (Incidentally, way to go Roz.) It's a graceful handling of the subject matter, which, while not as controversial as it used to be, was probably sensitive nonetheless. And it's a real moment of maturation for Roz as a character, as we finally see her handle a genuine crisis and incipient life change. All in all she takes it rather well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe morning after receiving confirmation that she's pregnant, Roz has already decided to go ahead and have the baby. There's just the little matter of telling the father, though, and it's a problem since the father is Rick (Todd Babcock), a 20-year-old college student who works as a waiter at Café Nervosa. Roz doesn't want to ruin his life with the news, but Frasier insists he has a right to know. Rick inevitably freaks out a little on finding out, but he decides to do \"the right thing\" and propose to Roz, who then has to talk him out of it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESingle motherhood may now only be controversial among people who make a hobby of sending letters to the editor, and this was well after \u003Ci\u003EMurphy Brown \u003C\/i\u003Emade its point on the subject and incurred the wrath of Dan Quayle, but the subject still needed some delicate handling. Martin brings up the subject of the baby needing a father, but doesn't press it. Roz's baby-daddy isn't a bad guy at all, but he's obviously not fit for fatherhood just yet; still, she knows raising a child alone will be tough. The challenge of being an unwed mother is key to the story, and at the end Frasier helps her build the courage to face that challenge.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe fatherhood question, in addition to being a logical one for the story, is a way to lighten the mood- we get the humor of Roz trying to avoid an unpleasant confrontation, and the humor of Rick's sheer naivete.\u0026nbsp; Roz gets to display her emotional maturity in gently letting him down, and it's fitting that on a show like this the dad is a really decent fellow who wants to do the right thing. This part of the story isn't all laughs, but it does help balance the greater fear that Roz has, of a future she is in no way prepared for.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier's dialogue with Roz at the end is inspired. Whether or not parents \"fall in love\" with their children is something that is still debated (God knows there are far too many parents who don't), but nonetheless the speech gets at something profound, even when undercutting it with a wonderfully character-specific joke. It's a thoughtful episode overall, taking the time to ponder some of the possibilities of youth and parenthood and other verities. It takes a positive view of most of them, being a lighthearted comedy and all, but it comes by those emotions honestly. (Both Grammer and Gilpin handle the comic and sentimental extremes very well, but praising the leads on this show often feels redundant.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz's character is changed in a subtle but noticeable way after all of this. She doesn't exactly stop being man crazy, but the experience forces her to mature. It also brings her closer into the ensemble; already we see how the other characters care about her and start treating her like family. Pregnancy storylines are often difficult for TV shows, but Roz's incipient motherhood gives the writers a new angle on the character without compromising who she is. It's going to be great fun to see this play out over the season.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Jeffrey Richman \u0026amp; Suzanne Martin\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired November 4, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Hey, Dad, what are you doing here?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin Crane: Oh, Sherry took her sister to that store across the street to buy some foundation garments.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: I think they call them \"bras\" now.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin Crane: Not these, you don't. You could cross the River Kwai on one of those babies. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7178760069304079431\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7178760069304079431\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7178760069304079431"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7178760069304079431"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/frasierquest-54-kid.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.4: The Kid"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-h90s5Yb3N04\/UFoD6mHIq8I\/AAAAAAAABZM\/KwZFTjNRKL0\/s72-c\/Ep99.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-417801475589209470"},"published":{"$t":"2012-09-12T08:34:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-09-12T08:34:41.987-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #111: Message From Space"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003DWS04U\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B003DWS04U\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Message From Space poster and Amazon Link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-s75K4N8qJoA\/UFCN9I4U2qI\/AAAAAAAABYw\/ea931BpjbrU\/s320\/MessagefromSpace.jpg\" title=\"They say this exists on DVD but I have my doubts.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's a reason I keep returning to the subject of early attempts to cash in on the success of \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E. I'm a fan of \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E as you might imagine, and I'm even one of those strange ones who finds artistic value in all six movies, but one saga of heroism, mysticism, and laser fights and exploding spaceships can't possibly be enough. So when I discovered a Japanese ripoff made and released one year later, having taped it off TV back when late night programming was not devoted quite so much to infomercials, I was in heaven. Many, many years later and I haven't been able to track down the DVD which Amazon claims exists, but there is Netflix, and as theoretically sophisticated as I have become in the interim, \u003Ci\u003EMessage From Space\u003C\/i\u003E remains a hoot and a half. Shameless in its filching of George Lucas' style, yet with a local flavor all its own, it's a film that makes very little sense and has a lot of things just happen because nobody could think of a better idea at the time, but damn it's pretty.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe planet of Jillucia is under attack by the warlike Gavanas. Seemingly without hope, the Jillucians send out eight magic Liabe seeds, which hopefully will lead the princess Esmeralida (Etsuko Hishomi) to eight heroes worthy of defending the embattled world. The seeds end up in some strange hands- two devil-may-care \"Roughrider\" space pilots, a thrill-seeking dilettante, and a two-bit conman, as well as General Garuda (Vic Morrow), a grizzled and increasingly cynical veteran followed around by a comic-relief robot, because of course he is. The basic problem that Esmeralida and her helpmate Hans (Sonny Chiba) encounter is that none of these people are terribly sold on the idea of battling an alien army, and some of them are downright scummy. But as the Gavanas enter our solar system, piloting Jillucia itself as a base of operations, a battle for the future of mankind becomes inevitable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film's visual style is a mix of the old and the new (well, new for 1978 at least.) There are many nods to the \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E aesthetic, with weatherbeaten ships going as fast as Toei's wirework would permit, motion control being out of the question. But there's also a touch of antiquity; Esmeraldia and Hans escape Jillucia in a rocket-powered sailing ship, while the Gavana leaders dress in a style that echoes medieval Japan while also having a few touches of your typical Power Ranger villain. The production values are uneven, with visuals ranging from fairly impressive and pretty to unbelievably fake. (That the only prints available are fuzzier than 70s porn just adds to the mysterious atmosphere.) On the whole the picture's motley look lends it considerable charm, even if parts of it are very much of its time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's a good thing the picture is so eye-pleasing, too, because it doesn't make a lick of sense. The basic story is as old as, well, at least 1954; however it plays out like several volumes of an epic manga were condensed into an hour and a half. New characters are introduced every five minutes or so, sometimes with brief narrative explanations that only raise further questions (like an old woman's mutant son who is apparently a lizard.) A big deal is made out of Earth's government electing a new prime minister we've never heard of before who is somehow instrumental in getting Garuda to go and negotiate with the Gavanas, which somehow for no good reason leads to a duel between Garuda and a random Gavana officer which is a pretext to introduce the main villain's sense of honor which is relevant to nothing, and there's a lot of material I'm still fuzzy on. It's full of last minute betrayals and repentance and\u0026nbsp; there's a plot cul-de-sac where one of the Roughriders who has already gotten a seed laments that he doesn't have one because they all threw theirs away and others came back and his hasn't yet (spoiler alert: it does anyway). Basically the filmmakers want to have every kind of dramatic action they can think of, from scoundrels becoming mature heroes to heroes betraying their own to old veterans making one last stand, and they don't particularly care in what order or to what purpose these things happen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGranted, I can't blame the filmmakers for wanting to skip to the good parts. Not having an especially coherent plot does allow for them to simply assemble a bunch of striking visuals and action setpieces, most of which are entertaining in themselves. The climax, in particular, is a well-done effects sequence that, while it recalls the Death Star trench run, also seems to have been stolen back by Lucas and co. for \u003Ci\u003EReturn of the Jedi\u003C\/i\u003E's journey through the guts of its own armored space station. And the circle of plagiarism continues. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nUnlike Toho's needlessly glum \u003Ci\u003EWar In Space\u003C\/i\u003E from the same year, \u003Ci\u003EMessage From Space\u003C\/i\u003E is a memorably perky experience. Its negative qualities, such as its unoriginality and frequent incomprehensibility, are to a certain extent made up for by a sheer chintzy excess. The results have a dreamlike quality, as though someone were describing \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E to a person who had never actually seen a movie before. Spaceships fly around, there are robots and aliens, there's some magic, and the plot is resolved mostly by scale models exploding. So, yeah, I love this stuff.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by Kinji Fukasaku, Shotaro Ishinomori, and Masahiro Noda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Hiro Matsuda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Kinji Fukusaku\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/417801475589209470\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=417801475589209470\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/417801475589209470"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/417801475589209470"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/random-movie-report-111-message-from.html","title":"Random Movie Report #111: Message From Space"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-s75K4N8qJoA\/UFCN9I4U2qI\/AAAAAAAABYw\/ea931BpjbrU\/s72-c\/MessagefromSpace.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6502813623189600267"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-31T23:52:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-31T23:52:02.673-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"A Preview"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-2nyK-ITUl38\/UEGUPmJ4LeI\/AAAAAAAABYU\/J0qsgE28bVY\/s1600\/MessageFromSpaceJapanesePoster2.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"640\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-2nyK-ITUl38\/UEGUPmJ4LeI\/AAAAAAAABYU\/J0qsgE28bVY\/s640\/MessageFromSpaceJapanesePoster2.jpg\" width=\"388\" alt=\"Message From Space poster\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6502813623189600267\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6502813623189600267\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6502813623189600267"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6502813623189600267"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/a-preview.html","title":"A Preview"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-2nyK-ITUl38\/UEGUPmJ4LeI\/AAAAAAAABYU\/J0qsgE28bVY\/s72-c\/MessageFromSpaceJapanesePoster2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4711952803156002258"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-31T13:53:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-31T13:53:05.818-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #110: Planet of the Vampires"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00005K3OF\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00005K3OF\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Planet of the Vampires DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-yvpqpJ4u9iQ\/UEEHm9RCuYI\/AAAAAAAABX8\/a90vp36rLZw\/s320\/PlanetoftheVampires.jpg\" title=\"Also available on Netflix WI, if you don't feel like giving me any money.\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScience fiction films of the 1960s were as much influenced by the pop art and psychedelic movements as they were by the actual space race. Mario Bava's \u003Ci\u003EPlanet of the Vampires\u003C\/i\u003E is a good example of the strange, stagey unreality that many genre films of the time embraced, but also an engaging thriller in its own right and a clear influence on \u003Ci\u003EAlien\u003C\/i\u003E. Plotwise it suffers one or two of the maladies that plagued European genre cinema of the time, but it's moody enough to power through.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAn expedition to the dark, foreboding planet Aura starts off on a bad note, when the crew of the starship Galliot go mad and attack each other shortly after landing. Eventually they pull themselves together, but their sister ship, the Argos, was not so lucky- it crashed on the planet and its crew killed each other. Temporarily stuck on the planet, the astronauts explore and discover a crashed alien spaceship holding two giant skeletons; meanwhile, their own dead are rising up and attacking them, as an unknown and deadly force seeks to control their bodies and minds.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is not the most tightly plotted of thrillers, at least not for the first two thirds- we know that something odd is happening, and if we remember the title we can work out what it is, but it takes some time for the astronauts to catch on. Not that the deliberate buildup is entirely a bad thing; there's a good sense of dread and uncertainty which carries us along despite thin characters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe main attraction is the art design, which is pretty damn cool. Things seem a little off from the start, with the crew in severe dark suits working in cavernous chambers, and the landscape is a jagged and foggy nightmare. A scene of the \"vampires\" (if that's what we can really call them) rising out of their makeshift graves in slow motion is beautifully staged- it's a familiar horror movie sight given a striking new context. The dead aliens are another amazing sight, clear ancestors of Giger's Space Jockey. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven if the characters are largely ciphers and the actors don't get to do much besides look worried, the film builds up enough of a head of steam that the climax is genuinely suspenseful. The divide between the living astronauts and their dead attackers is sometimes blurred, with no obvious way of telling one from another, though obviously it's fair to say that the ones they put in the ground are not to be trusted. The film does end on the kind of cheap twist that was apparently required of all European genre storytelling for some decades, from films to fumetti; it's not badly played but it feels more like an obligatory scare than a rational conclusion to the story. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMovies like this always feel like they're taking at least some ironic distance from their subject matter, but mysteriously this doesn't prevent \u003Ci\u003EPlanet of the Vampires\u003C\/i\u003E from genuinely working as a moody and involving thriller. Bava makes no real concessions to verisimilitude, but he creates a kind of alternate reality nonetheless. It may be a triumph of style over substance, but it's got as much substance as a scare picture of its ilk needs. It's a solid B picture, and inventive enough that it shouldn't be overlooked.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the short story \"One Night of 21 Hours\" by Renato Pestriniero\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Mario Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Román, and Rafael J. Salvia\u003Cbr \/\u003EEnglish language version written by Ib Melchior and Louis M. Heyward\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Mario Bava\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4711952803156002258\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4711952803156002258\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4711952803156002258"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4711952803156002258"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/random-movie-report-110-planet-of.html","title":"Random Movie Report #110: Planet of the Vampires"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-yvpqpJ4u9iQ\/UEEHm9RCuYI\/AAAAAAAABX8\/a90vp36rLZw\/s72-c\/PlanetoftheVampires.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3621703871186000559"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-30T09:27:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-30T09:27:22.768-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.3: Halloween"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-FHcVZWbl05Y\/UD93-yankRI\/AAAAAAAABXk\/tk-e6l4dCwQ\/s1600\/Ep98.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Roz as O.\" border=\"0\" height=\"294\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-FHcVZWbl05Y\/UD93-yankRI\/AAAAAAAABXk\/tk-e6l4dCwQ\/s320\/Ep98.jpg\" title=\"Uh-O\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: Even the best protection is only effective ninety-nine out of a hundred times. I can't beat those odds!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI've been lax with Frasierquest over the summer, seemingly too busy to watch 25 minutes of television, but as August starts to wind down I think I'm ready to really dive into the fifth season, and into the start of the biggest plot arc the show has attempted so far. Big changes are afoot in \"Halloween\" and what's notable is how deftly the show navigates a revelation that can be fatally clichéd. It does this by making the plot point in question the impetus for a classic misread behavior story, playing on multiple character relationships on top of Roz's own dilemma. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz thinks she may be pregnant, and is waiting on test results to be sure. She's only told Frasier so far, but in the meantime everyone is headed to Niles' Halloween party, where everyone comes dressed as a character from literature. Martin is Sherlock Holmes, Niles is Cyrano, Frasier and Daphne go as Chaucer and the Wife of Bath, Gil Chesterton is the Last of the Mohicans, Bulldog is Waldo, and Roz is O from \"The Story of O.\" (We get the obvious but still funny running gag.) Frasier accidentally lets Daphne in on the secret, thinking she already knows, and when overhearing the two talk about it, an increasingly besotted Niles starts to think that it's Daphne who's pregnant and that Frasier is the father (based on the two having gone on a beer-tasting weekend and acting more close than usual.) As the night rolls on he plans to confront Frasier about his apparent indiscretion, and to marry Daphne to protect her honor. Meanwhie, Roz is still waiting on those test results.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESimply waiting to hear back about something important, while agonizing for the person undergoing it, is not necessarily dramatic, so it makes sense that Roz's worry takes a backseat for most of the episode. This allows the story to deepen the irony- we know that Niles is fussing over something that hasn't happened, and we also know that in the process he and others are totally ignoring the actual dramatic situation unfolding in the background. And it's not the only irony in the story- Daphne's own misinterpretation of what's happened to Roz leads to a particularly brilliant exchange between her and Frasier. And there's an interesting use of the device in regards to Niles' belief that Daphne and Frasier may have slept together- we don't know for sure that they haven't but given what we've seen in the past five seasons, we know that they never would.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe episode also provides a nice look into Niles' twisted psyche. He may be a snob concerned with keeping up appearances, but underneath the fussiness beats the heart of a romantic. To a certain extent he wants to believe that his beloved Daphne is in grave distress so that he can come to her rescue, and it's not hard to imagine that sibling resentment makes it easy for him to see Frasier as the villain. Of course it's as much self-serving as romantic, but aren't all our delusions? Especially when we've had a few? David Hyde Pierce gets to really run wild in this episode, and it's a side of Niles we haven't seen before.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, the episode is also an excuse to get everybody in fancy costumes and have them play off their characters. Frasier and Daphne exchange some bawdy banter before their chumminess turns into irritation, Martin and Gil have a rare interaction that shows why their interactions are so rare, and it's just plain funny to see Bulldog frustrated over nobody \"getting\" his costume. As panicked and disheveled as Roz is, she still rocks a leather corset. (Camilla Donatacci-Grammer, Kelsey's then-wife, shows up as Eve, and well, she looks all right, let's leave it at that.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, Roz has more than fashion to worry about now. The confirmation of her pregnancy leads us to a cliffhanger, and it's a story that'll conveniently last the length of the season and change the character significantly, but not so much that she becomes unrecognizable. The one drawback of this episode working the way it does is that she doesn't have a big part to play in it, but that will soon be remedied.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGuest Caller: Cindy Crawford as Dorothy\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Suzanne Martin\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired October 28, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EMan at Party: \"Are you here alone?\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: \"God, I hope so.\"\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3621703871186000559\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3621703871186000559\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3621703871186000559"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3621703871186000559"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/frasierquest-53-halloween.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.3: Halloween"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-FHcVZWbl05Y\/UD93-yankRI\/AAAAAAAABXk\/tk-e6l4dCwQ\/s72-c\/Ep98.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7778034596561885887"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-29T15:03:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-29T15:03:36.156-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #109: Gog"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005TMXXX0\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005TMXXX0\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Gog DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-qmMas-vXqjY\/UD5z5omXLZI\/AAAAAAAABXM\/ETcR4SqkE_Y\/s320\/gog.jpg\" title=\"These barcodes just keep getting bigger and bigger...\" width=\"225\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBrian Aldiss once said, \"Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.\" While good stories can come from an attention to real-world science and its details, they can't afford to neglect human emotions and plain old visceral appeal. \u003Ci\u003EGog\u003C\/i\u003E, an obscure sci-fi techno-thriller from 1954, is a cautionary tale of what happens when the human factor is forgotten. It's admirably smart and slickly produced, but it plays like the screenwriter vomited the contents of an issue of Popular Mechanics onto the page. Like many science fiction movies from this era it's interesting as a portrait of a time when the scientific-industrial complex was moving boldly forward whether we liked it or not, but a potentially good story gets buried under all that exposition.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is set at a top secret underground research facility located in the desert. Two scientists studying cryogenic freezing are mysteriously killed when their equipment malfunctions, and government agent Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent to investigate. Joanna Merritt (Constance Dowling), an old flame of his, leads him on a grand tour of the facility, which is aimed at sending up the first space station, and to that end is researching deep freezing, crude solar power (focusing the sun's rays on a boiler to heat water to spin a turbine), weightlessness, atomic energy, and robotics. The very German Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) is in charge of the base's NOVAC supercomputer and two multifunctional robots named Gog and Magog. While Sheppard is on the tour, mysterious sounds start coming in from an object flying over the base, and the killings begin again. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI would like to point out that it is in fact over halfway into the movie before the killings begin again and Sheppard finishes his tour. The bulk of what I imagine would be \"Act One\" is composed of demonstration after demonstration of scientific wonders, and it's about as thrilling as you'd imagine. From what I can tell most of it has at least some basis in fact (the facts that we knew, anyway), but it insists on making its point long after actually doing so. To use just one example, to show how powerful the solar ray is, the scientists use it to heat a piece of metal, then melt a bar of steel, then set fire to a model city, and [i]then[\/i] to boil a model lake away into nothing, all in far more time than it takes for those things to stop being fun. The weightlessness simulation is similarly agonizing, with two leotard-clad test subjects performing some mildly impressive gymnastic moves before eventually the fake wirework takes over and they unconvincingly levitate a little. (Throughout the male scientists make leering 50s talk about the female gymnast, which is kind of funny because her outfit is a combination of unrevealing tights and what appears to be chain mail.) The demonstration of NOVAC and the robots is seemingly as slow as computers back then actually worked, and while there's a certain retro value to see everything programmed in via punchcards, this too loses its flavor.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThen again, maybe it's not the scientific rambling that's the problem. Even the parts of the movie where things actually happen are staged in an odd, repetitive, methodical manner. The killings are all very slow indeed, the mysterious sounds threaten to blow up the station by gradually increasing in pitch and making a bunch of tuning forks vibrate, and even at the climax, when the film has finally started to pick up some kind of steam, the filmmakers' steadfast refusal to use any kind of narrative shorthand keeps the action from getting too exciting. It's like a film made by the kind of people who complain about continuity errors in comic books; we see everything happen so that there can be no dispute over what just happened.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs I mentioned earlier the film looks really nice, with a clean modernist design and believable technology. The robots are as clunky and inhuman as makes practical sense- they're bundles of appendages, like the actual probes we've ended up sending into space- but have a certain personality too (enough to get star billing, at least.) And when the plot is finally moving, there is some genuine suspense as well as some surprise in the mystery unfolding. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the end I'm thinking this probably would have made a really good short film or radio play. The consistently slow pace of the picture makes me think there was padding involved getting this to feature length, or else it was simply a question of nobody being ruthless enough in rewrites or the editing room. It demonstrates a lot of the qualities of \"Golden Age\" science fiction, but the bad aspects of this, notably an emphasis on technology over people and some relentless cheerleading for the March of American Scientific Progress, overwhelm the good. And really, considering the title, the robots need way more screen time. They're more alive than half the characters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Ivan Tors\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Tom Taggart with Additional Dialogue by Richard G. Taylor\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Herbert L. Strock\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: C"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7778034596561885887\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7778034596561885887\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7778034596561885887"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7778034596561885887"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/random-movie-report-109-gog.html","title":"Random Movie Report #109: Gog"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-qmMas-vXqjY\/UD5z5omXLZI\/AAAAAAAABXM\/ETcR4SqkE_Y\/s72-c\/gog.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7176813797958851277"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-27T09:33:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-27T09:33:04.921-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academy of the Underrated"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Academy of the Underrated: Flash Gordon (1980)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003CRM6QO\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B003CRM6QO\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Flash Gordon poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-2fguJDVndEg\/UDuEN2YFlYI\/AAAAAAAABW0\/-z_d3NVRWkI\/s320\/flash_gordon.jpg\" width=\"212\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf Hollywoods' attempts to jump back into the sci-fi game in the late 70s and early 80s, none is quite so endearingly crazy as Dino de Laurentiis' feature film \u003Ci\u003EFlash Gordon\u003C\/i\u003E. It was misguided from the start, a throwback to the deliberate camp of 60s films like \u003Ci\u003EBarbarella\u003C\/i\u003E rather than believable fantasy worlds, but while it was a recipe for commercial disappointment it's become an utterly charming cult film. With a gorgeous candy-colored visual style, wonderfully over the top actors, and a hilarious rock score with songs by Queen, it was the \u003Ci\u003ESpeed Racer\u003C\/i\u003E of its day, and it has everything you could want apart from a good lead performance. Oh, well, you can't have it all.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe movie begins with the planet Earth coming in the crosshairs of Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow), ruler of Mongo and all its satellites, and allegedly the entire universe. As our world is bombarded with natural disasters, and the moon starts to fall from the sky, Jets quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and reporter Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) find themselves in the lab of Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol), a mad scientist who thinks he knows what's causing all this. He leads them at gunpoint into his homemade rocket and off they jet to Mongo, located in a swirling cloud of neon gasses, where the evil Ming takes them prisoner and sets out trying to kill Flash, marry Dale, and enlist Zarkov in his secret police to control the restless races of hawk men, lizard men, and Robin Hood refugees. Flash is rescued by the lusty Princess Aura (Ornella Muti), Dale and Zarkov are captured by the hawk men and their ruler Vultan (Brian Blessed), and one thing leads to another and sooner or later you're flying blind on a rocket cycle and dueling with Timothy Dalton on a giant spiked platform.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film establishes a goofy tone from the get-go and never tries too hard to escape it. This is probably what doomed it commercially, as audiences just emerging from the naturalistic cinema of the seventies weren't quite ready for something so blatant about its artifice. From a script loaded with one-liners to deliberately gaudy (but still gorgeous) art design, \u003Ci\u003EFlash Gordon\u003C\/i\u003E works hard to establish a camp tone, and when the occasional serious moment creeps through (including a genuinely oddly staged series of flashbacks for Zarkov) it feels extremely out of place. However, the film not taking itself seriously doesn't prevent it from achieving a weird intensity- the atmosphere is simply so heady that it's hard to avoid giving in to it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe major obstacle to all this is, ironically, Flash himself; Sam Jones had very little acting experience, and can't quite manage the sincerity needed to make a part like this work. Then again, part of the problem may be that much of his dialogue was dubbed over (apparently due to a pay dispute), which makes lines that were clumsy to start with seem downright robotic. Anderson fares better as Dale, but it ultimately falls to everyone else to provide the necessary enthusiasm to sell the fantasy; fortunately, Zarkov and all the Mongo natives have a grand time of it. Von Sydow's Ming revels in his own evilness, and Brian Blessed steals every scene he appears in and several he doesn't. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFar from being just another alien planet, Mongo is a collection of floating rock islands suspended in a sea of swirling neon gasses. Reds and golds are everywhere, and every little planetoid offers its own unique feel. (There's actually a good crazy sci-fi idea buried in here, implying that Ming acquired each kingdom by laying waste to their planets the same way he's attacking Earth.) This is another one of those films where the atmosphere is everything; it's a lush, opulent experience in which narrative and characterization take backseats to spectacle, not so much that the whole thing falls apart but enough that one is never compelled to sweat the details. It's not just that the film looks good, though- it's also backed by a truly awesome score by Queen and the more traditional composer Howard Blake. (It's frequently obvious who did what, but the rock score and orchestral material do blend nicely.) The theme music's signature piano rhythm becomes a wonderful driving force in the third act, and helps to build some genuine intensity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis movie is just plain fun. There are a lot of dumb jokes and silly quips delivered with the utmost conviction by actors who seem momentarily to believe that they're psychotic aliens waging war for control of a candy-color wonderland. The film is outright audacious in just how far it's willing to go; when Ming elects to marry Dale, we're treated to an electric guitar rendition of \"Here Comes The Bride\" and a floating rocket-pulled banner reading \"All Beings Shall Make Merry On Pain Of Death\". A scene featuring two characters held in chains begins with the line \"Tell me more about this man Houdini\", Dale and Aura have a pillow fight, and Richard O' Brien in a brief appearance manages to be one of the least over-the-top people in the entire film. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECamp can be a dangerous thing; it almost implies a kind of laziness, as though the filmmakers aren't willing to put in the effort to actually draw you into a story. But \u003Ci\u003EFlash Gordon\u003C\/i\u003E is clearly working hard to make you not take it seriously, and there's a decent amount of skill in its stupidity. Clearly this was the wrong approach to take in 1980, and you probably couldn't get away with it now either, but maybe some day the world will be ready for this kind of pure, uncut entertainment. We can only hope.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on characters created by Alex Raymond\u003Cbr \/\u003EAdapted by Michael Allin\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Lorenzo Semple, Jr.\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Mike Hodges\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7176813797958851277\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7176813797958851277\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7176813797958851277"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7176813797958851277"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/academy-of-underrated-flash-gordon-1980.html","title":"Academy of the Underrated: Flash Gordon (1980)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-2fguJDVndEg\/UDuEN2YFlYI\/AAAAAAAABW0\/-z_d3NVRWkI\/s72-c\/flash_gordon.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4535097993124188355"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-18T13:03:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-18T13:03:07.656-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"My Favorite Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"My Favorite Movies: Videodrome"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003KGBIRK\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B003KGBIRK\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Videodrome Blu-Ray cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-vsAR0-8zTuA\/UC_X332E8HI\/AAAAAAAABWc\/rnREzClcFu8\/s320\/videodrome1.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI grew up in the video age. I have never known a time when it wasn't possible to preserve and disseminate audio\/visual media with relative ease, and it's easy to take for granted the impact this has had on our society and culture. This may be the reason \u003Ci\u003EVideodrome\u003C\/i\u003E speaks to me as much as it does. David Cronenberg's landmark film is a brutal, intense, and cunningly crafted nightmare, and on every viewing it reveals new details and new avenues of thought. The film not only shows its filmmaker's unique vision of the world, but is a brilliant encapsulation of its time. And it tackles the issue of the media's influence on our lives with the complexity and ambiguity that nonfiction writers too often pretend isn't there.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJames Woods stars as Max Renn, owner and operator of Civic TV, a small public access cable station that specializes in horror films and soft porn. He's looking for new and extreme material, so when his in-house video pirate Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) picks up \"Videodrome\", a show that seems to be nothing but torture and execution, Max gets hooked on it. His girlfriend, radio host Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry) also ends up sufficiently enthralled that she travels to Pittsburgh to audition for it. But Max hears that the program is actually an authentic snuff broadcast, and that it's the head of something very large and dangerous. A tip leads him to the Cathode Ray Mission, a strange TV-centered religious charity headed by media prophet Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), who will only communicate with Max via videotape. The cassette confirms to Max that watching Videodrome has started to make him hallucinate, and may end up changing his body as well as twisting his mind. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom here the narrative becomes increasingly unreliable. The film is told entirely from Max Renn's perspective; he's in every scene and we generally see what he sees, which means that as his grasp on reality slips, so does the film's. The movie resists any temptation to spell out for us what's real and what isn't- indeed it seems to deliberately confound attempts to work it out. Scenes involving Max growing a decidedly Freudian orifice in his stomach seem too absurd to be real even going by\u0026nbsp; what we have learned, but certain scenes later can't happen if all the weird stuff is a hallucination. It plays out like a drug narrative, a la \u003Ci\u003ENaked Lunch\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003EFear and Loathing in Las Vegas\u003C\/i\u003E, with no clear line between what's real and what's hallucinated. In this case, the drug of choice is television.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is full of twisted and gory imagery, which gives flesh and visceral reality to what can often be a very abstract and dry discussion- how the media influences us.\u0026nbsp; The story is in some ways the classic reactionary nightmare scenario, media permissiveness giving way to outright snuff pornography which warps the minds of those who watch it. But Videodrome, the show within the film, is actually the product of a moralistic organization who want to control and transform the sick perverts who normally watch Max's channel, while the seemingly benevolent Cathode Ray Mission is in some ways more permissive- it hooks people to television without regard for what's actually on it, believing that access to the medium itself is what is necessary for people to be patched into \"the world's mixing board\". O'Blivion himself is clearly modeled on media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who was interested not in what was on television but what television itself was. Is the film arguing that media is best left in the hands of the dispassionate and permissive rather than those who would use it as a means of active social control? Well, maybe, if certain scenes actually occur as Max sees them. This is Cronenberg's best trick; what the film means is entirely dependent on what actually happens within it, and what actually happens is as subjective as anything else.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf nothing else, this setup is also notable for deftly sidestepping the clichés and ossified assumptions of modern discussion of the media. It's really not a left or right issue, or one of religious moralists vs. atheist hedonists, it's not about whether pornography increases sexual assault or video games cause mass murder. In \u003Ci\u003EVideodrome\u003C\/i\u003E the medium is undeniably transforming us, but not simply by telling us what to do. It transforms how we live by the mere fact of its existence.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThough Cronenberg's visual style here is typically low key, avoiding obvious flashy camera setups or tricks, it's clear on repeated viewings that nearly everything we see on screen has been meticulously placed. Max's apartment is full of images of manipulation, and windows, glasses, lenses, and just as importantly doors are common recurring images. Even the less-symbolic decor seems chosen to evoke a slightly unnatural atmosphere. The film's gorier imagery (visualized skillfully by Rick Baker) focuses on openings and interiors, but also tempers the film's intellectualism with plain old fashioned visceral shock- an organic atmosphere often enhanced by Howard Shore's music, which takes on the quality of a slow heartbeat. It's a film with meat on its bones.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESome of the film's spark of life also comes from James Woods in the lead. Not only does Woods ably shoulder the burden of a first-person narrative, he gives Max Renn a great glib humor and the jittery persona of a man who never worked 9 to 5 a day in his life. Deborah Harry's siren presence is nicely balanced out by the ice queen performance of Sonja Smits as Brian O'Blivion's wise daughter Bianca. Everyone is well cast, looking vaguely normal but distinctive nonetheless. The last of Cronenberg's \"tax shelter\" films (so named because they were originally financed under a Canadian tax credit meant to encourage film production), \u003Ci\u003EVideodrome\u003C\/i\u003E shares its predecessors' glum vistas of a Toronto winter, giving the proceedings a cyberpunk feel at a fraction of \u003Ci\u003EBlade Runner\u003C\/i\u003E's cost.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOver a decade after I first saw it, \u003Ci\u003EVideodrome\u003C\/i\u003E still feels fresh- not only topically relevant but representative of what cinema can do when a filmmaker allows themselves the freedom to transgress. I can't think of any film that manages to be quite so raw and brutal while at the same time being so carefully put together. The combination of the visceral and the intellectual is finely balanced despite the seeming chaos of the film's story, and it's that chaos which allows it to be as insightful as it is. This is, quite simply, a masterpiece, and it's the reason I'll follow Cronenberg anywhere.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and directed by David Cronenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4535097993124188355\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4535097993124188355\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4535097993124188355"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4535097993124188355"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/my-favorite-movies-videodrome.html","title":"My Favorite Movies: Videodrome"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-vsAR0-8zTuA\/UC_X332E8HI\/AAAAAAAABWc\/rnREzClcFu8\/s72-c\/videodrome1.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6360957301313723443"},"published":{"$t":"2012-08-07T08:39:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-08-07T08:39:58.583-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Dark Knight Rises"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Zw5cZ3YN7I4\/UCEZ8EOPbJI\/AAAAAAAABWE\/fGeqGvLpvbM\/s1600\/dark_knight_rises_ver3.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Dark Knight Rises poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Zw5cZ3YN7I4\/UCEZ8EOPbJI\/AAAAAAAABWE\/fGeqGvLpvbM\/s320\/dark_knight_rises_ver3.jpg\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt this point there's no shortage of opinions about \u003Ci\u003EThe Dark Knight Rises\u003C\/i\u003E; even mentioning that it's the last in director Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman pictures is just saying what most people know already. But it's been just polarizing enough that I feel like weighing in. No, it's not as good as \u003Ci\u003EThe Dark Knight\u003C\/i\u003E. It's long and it does take a while to get going. But the payoff is remarkable in its scope and complexity; it's a memorable portrait of social breakdown that touches on issues of the day without feeling confined by them. And it provides the Batman story with an ending that, in a way, is as fitting as Frank Miller's legendary \u003Ci\u003EThe Dark Knight Returns\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story opens with Batman (Christian Bale, still growling) absent from Gotham in the wake of taking the fall for Harvey Dent's death- however, in the years he's been gone, organized crime is a thing of the past in Gotham City, and a reclusive Bruce Wayne starts to wonder if maybe his time is past already. (It doesn't help that years of fighting crime have left his bones brittle and his joints with less cartilage than is thought possible for non-pro-wrestlers.) But he can't really walk away when a masked mercenary named Bane (Tom Hardy) appears in Gotham, at first working for a Wayne Enterprises board member but soon implementing his own plan to plunge the city into chaos. With some assistance from Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), an expert cat burglar, Batman tracks Bane down, only to be crippled and thrown into a gulag as the masked villain unleashes a wave of terror while promising to set the city free. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's been hard to avoid talking about this movie without talking about politics. Bane sets himself up as a revolutionary leader, offering the people hope for freedom from the old structures and a reckoning for its corrupt, moneyed overclass. Some have pointed to parallels with the Occupy Wall Street movement (though the time frame involved in making this film probably means any resemblance is coincidental), or even the Tea Party, but even if the film puts the revolting masses on the side of the bad guys, it's not easy to pin down ideologically. Bane offers a false revolt against capitalist society, but there are explicit parallels between the false hope he offers Gotham and the false hope of the American ideal, the dream that anyone can claw their way to the top. And it doesn't shy away from the problems of Bruce Wayne, an individual who is \"the hero Gotham needs\", at least that's what he thinks, but also a child of privilege who has lost touch with the tragedy that made him a hero and whose secretive projects and poor moral decisions now backfire on him. There's a sense that he, and Gotham, have had this coming, even if order must inevitably be restored by movie's end.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a lot going on, and not only does the setup take a while, it feels a little formless. There's not enough of a driving force behind the movie's first act. I'm all for slow buildup when it's justified, but it definitely seems like the story could be told more efficiently, at least at the outset. Then again, this is easy to forgive once Bruce dons the cowl again and Bane begins his campaign- the pace of the rest of the film is relentless, and there's an authentic sense of the danger and the thrill of revolution, the rush of society being turned on its head. The action scenes are much improved from the first two installments, since Nolan learned with Inception how to keep the action in frame, and it helps that Tom Hardy as Bane is a legitimately intimidating physical presence (yet with an intriguingly cultured voice.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are a number of good performances in this film- Michael Caine's take on Alfred is wonderful as ever, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman are comfortable in their old roles, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes an excellent impression as a police officer who is fascinated by the Batman. Hathaway as Kyle is simply inspired casting, not just because she looks very nice in leather but because she projects confidence and a swagger that suggests she leads a very interesting life that she hasn't fully told us about. Marion Cotillard is a welcome addition to the cast, and while Bale's gravelly Batman voice has been slightly ruined by \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E, his last run as Bruce Wayne is a strong one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd the last run this is, at least for this particular incarnation of the Batman character. The trilogy represents something remarkable, a series of Hollywood blockbusters for which a director was given largely free reign to reinterpret recognized and iconic characters in a style that pushes at the edges of the PG-13 action spectacle, creating in the audience genuine discomfort and uncertainty as to what will happen. When you go into a Batman movie not even knowing if Batman will survive, something special has been accomplished. \u003Ci\u003EThe Dark Knight Rises\u003C\/i\u003E is a strongly crafted and thematically suited conclusion to a saga of one man standing against chaos while struggling not to lose his soul. It's possible to overpraise these films, but they absolutely should not be overlooked.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBatman created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan\u003Cbr \/\u003EDIrected by Christopher Nolan\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6360957301313723443\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6360957301313723443\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6360957301313723443"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6360957301313723443"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/08\/in-theaters-dark-knight-rises.html","title":"In Theaters: The Dark Knight Rises"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-Zw5cZ3YN7I4\/UCEZ8EOPbJI\/AAAAAAAABWE\/fGeqGvLpvbM\/s72-c\/dark_knight_rises_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7436004718228281537"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-31T22:24:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-31T22:24:29.050-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Opening Credits"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Opening Credits Sequence Theatre: Flash Gordon (1980)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YG46Kc2e0AU\" width=\"500\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI have to get up early tomorrow, so while I've got a couple of pieces cooking, enjoy the perfect blend of sound and image."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7436004718228281537\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7436004718228281537\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7436004718228281537"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7436004718228281537"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/opening-credits-sequence-theatre-flash.html","title":"Opening Credits Sequence Theatre: Flash Gordon (1980)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/YG46Kc2e0AU\/default.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5519765931946009287"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-31T01:02:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-31T01:02:50.149-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Moonrise Kingdom"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ekiOymuZjQ8\/UBd0sC8sNBI\/AAAAAAAABVs\/n0Yf21S89Zo\/s1600\/moonrise_kingdom.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Moonrise Kingdom poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ekiOymuZjQ8\/UBd0sC8sNBI\/AAAAAAAABVs\/n0Yf21S89Zo\/s320\/moonrise_kingdom.jpg\" width=\"217\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EMoonrise Kingdom\u003C\/i\u003E is a true original. It's hard to describe just what it is- a story of young love, a children's adventure that's not entirely appropriate for children, a droll comedy that nonetheless can be deadly serious about the feelings involved. I've never seen a movie quite like it, but it's endearing, beautifully made, and even though it has so many of Wes Anderson's signature touches, it feels like a quantum leap for him. This is a special one, folks.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's the story of Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), two just-about-teenage kids who shared a glance and a moment at a church play one night, and since then have concocted a plan to run away together. He's an oprhan and unpopular member of the Khaki Scouts who is about to be kicked out of his army barracks of a foster home. Suzy's a dreamer whose mother (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with the local lawman (Bruce Willis), and whose father (Bill Murray) is an increasingly pathetic drunk.\u0026nbsp; Sam leads the way to an unsettled patch of the tiny island of New Penzance, and there the two read, dance, and grow ever so awkwardly closer. But their disappearance has set off a massive search involving her parents, the Khaki scouts (led by Edward Norton), and most everyone else on the island, and their search threatens to tear the young lovers away from each other- especially once Social Services gets involved (Social Services being played by Tilda Swinton.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe tiny world of New Penzance is sketched out in glorious detail, with lush visuals and a slightly battered retro aesthetic, established early on by the opening credits which take us on a diorama tour of Suzy's house. Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola quickly establish not just the visual style but the sense of a world with its own rules, slightly unreal but internally consistent, and everyone speaking in a way that, while affected, is never forced. The film is full of little details, like Suzy's suitcase full of young adult fantasies and sci-fi adventures (all of which are a hair's breadth away from being real books), or the Khaki Scouts who are organized like a military unit in a war movie. (Bob Balaban shows up to provide some narration, because of course he belongs here.) What distinguishes this from a hundred other quirky indies is the sense that everything belongs. Anderson never gets quite enough credit as a storyteller, but the techniques he uses- insert shots, frequent use of letters and clippings, matter-of-fact flashbacks- lend an efficiency to what could easily have been a mess.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, much of this rests on Sam and Suzy's shoulders, and the scenes between the two kids are frankly adorable. Both actors are great discoveries, entirely convincing themselves and possessing a very sweet, very awkward chemistry on screen. The film doesn't step away from some of the things two kids these age would start to consider, but manages to stop short of Reddit levels of creepiness. They're fundamentally innocent, but they interact in a believable way even in unbelievable surroundings.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThroughout the film there's a tension between the innocence of the children's plan and the harsh realities of life around them, but the filmmakers avoid the pitfalls of this kind of story almost entirely. It's never too saccharine, but it's always warm and sympathetic- even if the movie shows the kids' dream as impractical, there's no doubt as to whose side we're on. There may be one or two characters that might be close to villains, but for the most part it's a work of incredible empathy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI'm a longtime fan of Wes Anderson, not just tolerating but celebrating his quirky theatricality, but even I wasn't really prepared for how startlingly fresh this movie is. It's richly funny and warm without being cloying or over-indulgent. It has the spring of youth, the joy of discovery to it, tempered slightly by the knowledge of the perils that befall us when we inevitably grow up. It's hard not to be charmed by the two crazy kids at \u003Ci\u003EMoonrise Kingdom\u003C\/i\u003E's center, and what they create for themselves is something genuinely beautiful.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Wes Anderson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5519765931946009287\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5519765931946009287\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5519765931946009287"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5519765931946009287"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/in-theaters-moonrise-kingdom.html","title":"In Theaters: Moonrise Kingdom"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-ekiOymuZjQ8\/UBd0sC8sNBI\/AAAAAAAABVs\/n0Yf21S89Zo\/s72-c\/moonrise_kingdom.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7908513165994444308"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-29T13:30:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-29T13:30:02.724-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #108: King Kong Lives"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000787Z1M\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B000787Z1M\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"King Kong Lives DVD Cover and Amazon Link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-2gvJEcamp4Y\/UBWAUB86UII\/AAAAAAAABVU\/uS0Z6Xtu3uM\/s320\/kingkonglives.jpg\" width=\"224\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of the reasons for my recent Kong retrospective was that I've become enamored of the theory that giant apes can make any movie worth watching. Scientifically speaking, the only way to test such a theory is to see a really bad giant ape movie, so I decided to be a completist (read: idiot) and watch \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong Lives\u003C\/i\u003E, the sequel to De Laurentiis' Kong remake that mostly survives as a record of a bunch of really bad decisions. Honestly, I went in open minded, but it's a movie that doesn't work for a lot of reasons, chief among them a petty, exploitative atmosphere that does little justice to the majesty of one of the screen's most iconic characters. Now, we do get two giant apes instead of one, and they wreck things and step on people and do the things we expect giant apes to do, but I'm not sure if it falsifies my theory or not.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo, as per the title, Kong survives his fall from the World Trade Center, and nine years later is in a coma at a giant university research center, where surgeon Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton) is waiting to install a giant artificial heart to revive the ape. The problem is, Kong needs a blood transfusion in order to survive the operation. Fortunately, adventurer Hank Mitchell (Brian Kerwin) has discovered a female Kong in the wilds of Borneo and manages to capture her thanks to the natives riddling her with poison darts. Lady Kong is shipped to the medical facility, and with her blood, the operation is a success, but when King Kong senses another of his kind in distress, he breaks out, liberates his female counterpart, and the two escape into the wilds of Tennessee. Amy and Hank are in pursuit, but unfortunately so is the kill-happy Lt. Col. R. T. Nevitt (John Ashton), who is in favor of destroying the apes rather than recapturing them. Meanwhile, King and Lady let nature take its course, and Lady is eventually with child, which makes their situation more difficult when the army rolls in.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENobody sets out to make a bad movie, but while a decent amount of talent has been assembled here (writer Ron Shussett co-wrote Alien, and John Guillermin returns from the 1976 King Kong), and they all are giving it a solid effort, the film can't escape a hacky, ramshackle atmosphere. Part of this is down to the fact that, before filming, the movie saw its budget slashed substantially when DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group ran into financial trouble. This required that various sequences be scaled down or cut out altogether, which makes parts of the story seem abbreviated. Lady Kong, for example, is captured within minutes of her introduction, brought down by natives who seem to be\u0026nbsp; used to doing this, which raises the question of why the people on Skull Island had to go to the lengths of putting up a giant wall.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhich, I think, brings us to the real problem: everyone's all too blasé about the existence of two giant apes and the fact that one of them was effectively brought back to life by an artificial heart the size of a coffee table. By the time Amy is introduced she's already accepted this assignment, and there's no sense that she feels any particular exhilaration or nervousness or much of anything at the prospect of performing an operation that would more or less make her the most famous heart surgeon of all time. The surgery itself is presented utterly matter of factly even though everyone is using giant scalpels, forceps, etc. Hank treats his (well, the natives') capture of a second giant ape as mostly an opportunity to make a few bucks, and Nevitt sees the primates as mostly a nuisance. The comedic tone of the 1976 Kong was a problem, but it's worse here, as it's not tempered with any kind of majesty. The picture can't help but slide into camp, especially when we have scenes of the two Kongs romancing each other, Kong disrupting hillbilly family reunions, etc.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt must be said that budget issues aside, the special effects are pretty good- the Kong suits aren't as ratty as in the '76 movie, and they didn't waste money on any malfunctioning robots this time. The action sequences are well shot and often fairly entertaining in and of themselves, they're just surrounded by a lot of very bored people and a story with a very obvious trajectory. They almost make the film worth watching, but the overall experience is a slog.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EKing Kong Lives\u003C\/i\u003E is interesting as a missed opportunity. American studios weren't even making giant monster movies in the Eighties, and this one has an intriguing enough premise that you could imagine it working in a strange, off-kilter way. And I will confess that even though this is a bad movie, I will probably pick up a copy on DVD if I find one for cheap. I have a giant ape problem. But you should probably avoid this.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy findings are inconclusive. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the character created by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory and screenplay by Steven Pressfield and Ron Shussett\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by John Guillermin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: D+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7908513165994444308\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7908513165994444308\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7908513165994444308"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7908513165994444308"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/random-movie-report-108-king-kong-lives.html","title":"Random Movie Report #108: King Kong Lives"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-2gvJEcamp4Y\/UBWAUB86UII\/AAAAAAAABVU\/uS0Z6Xtu3uM\/s72-c\/kingkonglives.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-506946958774429944"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-27T09:11:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-27T09:11:05.231-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #107: Matango"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00076ON28\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00076ON28\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Matango DVD cover and overpriced Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-Yk5tVW8C_J4\/UBKgq4TVHFI\/AAAAAAAABU8\/ZPv5VtDf3SQ\/s320\/matango2.jpg\" title=\"For the record, I found this at Half Price Books for around ten bucks. Just sayin'.\" width=\"232\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EMatango\u003C\/i\u003E has long been a picture that intrigued me, ever since I first saw bootleg videotapes labelled \"Attack of the Mushroom People\" being sold at a convention. The movie didn't get much circulation in America until its 2005 DVD release, and it's too weird to easily fall into familiar niches- it's not quite a kaiju picture, nor a straight horror film. Instead it's a weird fable about dehumanization and conformity that articulates its metaphor through the central image of people turning into fungus. In some ways it straddles the line between Toho's conventional movies and the more surreal Japanese art films that began to flourish in this decade and afterwards, and it's a response to the same anxiety about rapid social change and technological progress. It's also an effectively creepy and atmospheric little picture that, if it drags a little, still has a Hell of a payoff.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPassengers on board a yacht are caught up in the midst of a huge storm. The lost and crippled ship limps its way to a mysterious and desolate island, where the survivors find another abandoned boat washed up on shore and decide to use it for shelter. The ship is a scientific vessel making a study of the area after it was exposed to radiation from atomic testing, which killed off most of the wildlife but had beneficial effects on a local species of mushroom dubbed matango. Despite hints in the ship's logs that the mushrooms might not be entirely healthy, one by one the survivors try them, and find themselves slowly mutating, and forming a kind of cabal focused on getting the others to join them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMuch like \u003Ci\u003EInvasion of the Body Snatchers\u003C\/i\u003E, the film deals with the pressure to conform and join the mindless crowd, but places the story in a slightly different context. Instead of the deliberate and mechanistic takeover of society by a poisonous force, we have people driven to behaving like a mindless herd out of fear and desperation. There's a real intensity to the film's sweaty island visuals and the plot's constant hammering on basic issues of supplies and survival, which gives way to violence between the castaways even before some of them start turning into fungus. Indeed their transformation into inhuman monsters seems almost inevitable, the logical endpoint of a downward spiral of inhuman behavior.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGranted, that doesn't stop the whole business of people turning into mushrooms from being weird as shit. Honda seems to get that there's a certain comic quality to the concept of a human mushroom, and with the exception of an excellent early scene, treats them less as monsters than as a strange force that's unsettling simply because of how wrong it feels. Horror that plays off our sense of incongruity rather than the overt threat of death or torture is rare because it's tough to pull off, but \u003Ci\u003EMatango\u003C\/i\u003E's approach is interesting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile the human drama is linked to the central metaphor, there's definitely a sense that it drags longer than it should. The pacing is deliberate, and while I can see the need for it, the tension doesn't quite build as it should- the film engages us in the situation but doesn't do the best job building from it. There's something odd in people's casual acceptance of the idea that eating the mushrooms turns you into fungus yourself, the sort of thing you'd think the characters might need to see to believe, but it does make the story clear early on.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDespite its pedigree and the fact that it's known as \"Attack of the Mushroom People\", \u003Ci\u003EMatango \u003C\/i\u003Eshouldn't be approached as a monster movie. it's not trying to work on that level and expecting it will only lead to disappointment. Instead it's a fascinating mood piece, slow and even slack at times, but powerful nonetheless. It's a strong departure from the Toho genre formula, and an interesting parable for an age of rapid social change.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on \"Voice in the Night\" by William Hope Hodgson\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Shinichi Hoshi and Masami Fukushima\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Ishiro Honda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/506946958774429944\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=506946958774429944\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/506946958774429944"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/506946958774429944"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/random-movie-report-107-matango.html","title":"Random Movie Report #107: Matango"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-Yk5tVW8C_J4\/UBKgq4TVHFI\/AAAAAAAABU8\/ZPv5VtDf3SQ\/s72-c\/matango2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3054321421666069059"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-23T14:35:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-23T14:35:29.706-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.2: The Gift Horse"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HQvUlSn6j04\/UA2nM3oi-oI\/AAAAAAAABUw\/pHawDHorIcw\/s1600\/Ep97.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Niles and Martin with Agides\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HQvUlSn6j04\/UA2nM3oi-oI\/AAAAAAAABUw\/pHawDHorIcw\/s320\/Ep97.jpg\" title=\"Of course. Of course.\" width=\"312\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz (reading Sherry's invitation): \"Come one, come all, to jump and jive, Marty Crane's turning SEX-ty five!\"\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis episode is a bit of a nostalgia trip, not just because I caught it on the first airing but because it takes place in a distant age when big-screen TVs were giant monoliths requiring heavy labor to install. This may not seem like a big deal, but a major plot element of the episode- Frasier weighing his desire to buy Martin the perfect birthday gift against the damage a giant slab of a television will do to his apartment design- is one that's almost foreign in the age of sleek flatscreens and tiny speakers. It's appropriate that this part of the plot feels out of date, since \"The Gift Horse\" is really an episode about things- or rather people- being out of date. Martin Crane is turning 65 (or \"sexty-five\" according to Sherry), and while his sons bicker over what to get him for his birthday, they're overlooking what this passage of time really means.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMost of the episode revolves around Frasier and Niles in a gift-giving war. They've agreed to a spending limit this year, but Niles is just a hundred dollars or so either, and so Frasier inevitably has to try and top that, but Niles is always a step ahead.\u0026nbsp; Hearing that his brother has secured the ultimate in gifts, Frasier bites the bullet and purchases a TV that from what I can tell is roughly the size of the Apollo lunar lander. Niles, amazingly, is still in the lead- he's gone and purchased Agides, the horse Martin used to ride on mounted patrol, and put him up at a posh stable for his father to visit anytime he likes. But the gift arouses a melancholy in Martin, and his sons are left wondering why they can never quite please him.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBack when I frequented the alt.tv.frasier newsgroup (and if you don't know what a newsgroup was, you're probably lucky), one of the things I learned was that, apparently, the single most common spec script the Frasier crew ever received was \"Martin and the boys buy a racehorse.\" For some reason this is a common story in the Big Book of Sitcom Plots (though you don't see it much these days), but it's probably for the best that this is the closest the show ever got to that particular chestnut. (Which I will not be calling a horse chestnut.) Instead, the gimmick of bringing in a horse is used in a more subdued way- the horse is a window to Martin's past. Agides reminds him of a time when he was respected and admired and able to do his job, and the reminder does a number on him.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhile Martin's story gives the episode a bit of emotional heft, the pure comedy is handled mostly by Frasier and Niles' endless game of one-upsmanship. There's at least a good reason for them to be dedicated to this particular feud- they want the approval of their father, as in \"Breaking the Ice\"- but it's also about fighting each other because they must. And there may be no better symbol for their feud growing grotesquely out of control than the arrival of an obsidian monstrosity of a big-screen TV. This part of the story feels almost quaint, but it's a good gag nonetheless. Sherry is back to contribute some bawdiness, and she feels like a member of the ensemble already. Roz even gets a little spotlight time at the start. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe overall tone of the episode is very sweet and understanding. It's a story where both Frasier and Niles, as selfish as they are in trying to one-up each other, are also trying to do right by their father, and end up giving him a more meaningful gift than they realize. There's a light and celebratory element to the whole piece which tempers the sadness of the whole \"age and decline\" angle. Martin Crane is not the man he used to be, but he's still got plenty to celebrate. Including his stupid, bickering children.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Ron Darian\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired September 30, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrasier (caught kissing Roz): Hello, Niles. You know, this isn't what it looks like. You see, her ex-boyfriend was just... (to Roz) Oh, just stop that!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Please, no explanation necessary. I assume that at the next meeting of Seattle's \"Haven't Kissed Roz Club,\" it will just be me and the Archbishop.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: I'll save you the club dues.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E(She kisses Niles and exits. There is a beat.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Everyone kisses better than Maris! \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3054321421666069059\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3054321421666069059\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3054321421666069059"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3054321421666069059"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/frasierquest-52-gift-horse.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.2: The Gift Horse"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HQvUlSn6j04\/UA2nM3oi-oI\/AAAAAAAABUw\/pHawDHorIcw\/s72-c\/Ep97.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-977661226680124441"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-17T19:40:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-17T19:40:48.552-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-5cHw560TqrA\/UAYFj8l7HHI\/AAAAAAAABUk\/MnfgTaeIY8k\/s1600\/abraham_lincoln_vampire_hunter.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-5cHw560TqrA\/UAYFj8l7HHI\/AAAAAAAABUk\/MnfgTaeIY8k\/s320\/abraham_lincoln_vampire_hunter.jpg\" title=\"For the next few days, anyway\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCamp works best when taken seriously. The more absurd a premise is, the more heartfelt the people advancing it should be in their belief. \u003Ci\u003EAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter\u003C\/i\u003E has its premise spelled out in the title, and it would seem to demand a tongue-in-cheek treatment from that alone. But not only have the filmmakers (including Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the screenplay based on his own novel) played the premise straight, they manage to justify it by making the familiar undead hordes into a symbol for everything Lincoln was seen to fight against. While many have complained about the serious approach the movie takes, in the end we've got a really strong and skillfully done action movie which is just funny enough to temper our disbelief. It deserves better than it's getting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHonest Abe (Benjamin Walker, who may or may not be Liam Neeson's clone) first encounters the undead as a child, when his mother is killed by a cruel merchant who runs the docks. Years later, he clumsily and drunkenly tries to take vengeance, only to find the merchant is really a seemingly immortal monster. Fortunately, he falls under the care of Henry Sturges (Dominic Cooper), who makes Abe a disciple in a quest to rid the world of evil bloodsucking freaks. Of course Lincoln still goes to law school and heads to Springfield, where, much to Sturges' consternation, he falls in love with a woman named Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who I'm sure I'll get tired of looking at at some point but let's just enjoy for now), gets married, and starts up a career in politics, coming to see the plague of slavery as a greater threat to his country than any number of bloodthirsty ghouls. But the vampires have been using the slave states as a supply of easy food, and so when war threatens the nascent republic, there's no question of which side the vampires are on.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is kind of brilliant. While most readings and retellings of the Civil War insist on emphasizing moral ambiguity and a complex issue that turns brother against brother, it's nice to have a story that outright says the Confederacy was built on a parasitic evil that needed to be cleansed from the country with blood and fire if necessary. You may think I'm reading too much into this, but the film isn't exactly subtle about the connection, especially when Lincoln and company are assisted by none other than Harriet Tubman (Jaqueline Fleming), and one of his friends (Anthony Mackie) is a free black man wanted by slave hunters for helping with the Underground Railroad. The climax, involving the battle of Gettysburg, is a particularly clever twist on historical events even if it messes with the schedule a little.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn the midst of this we get some rather inspired action sequences. Director Timur Bekmambetov has a tendency to overdose on slow motion balletics, but there's no denying the inventive choreography on display. There's a lot of CGI, but it doesn't feel cheap, and the sequences still have a visceral kick. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBoldly keeping a straight face despite so many temptations, Walker makes a very believable and amiable Lincoln; a tall, awkward, slightly nerdy man who is nonetheless possessed of a steely resolve. Humanizing one of America's foremost historical icons can't be easy, especially when he has to do kung-fu moves with an axe, but Walker's performance really anchors the film. Rufus Sewell and Erin Wasson, as the major villains, are the only ones who come close to hamming it up, but even they stay within certain limits. Everyone's really made an honest go at this,\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; and it makes a world of difference- there's nothing more insulting than a movie that just isn't trying.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo, as was the situation with \u003Ci\u003EBattleship\u003C\/i\u003E, a movie with a gimmicky premise turns out to have a little more under the hood, even if critics and audiences aren't that interested in looking. I'm not sure if this has any wider ramifications for film culture,\u0026nbsp; but it's still unfortunate. \u003Ci\u003EAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter\u003C\/i\u003E is at heart a goofy picture, but it never lets that be an excuse. It works hard to earn our involvement and never abuses our trust. It is, for lack of a better word, honest.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith based on his novel\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Timur Bekmambetov\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/977661226680124441\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=977661226680124441\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/977661226680124441"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/977661226680124441"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/in-theaters-abraham-lincoln-vampire.html","title":"In Theaters: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-5cHw560TqrA\/UAYFj8l7HHI\/AAAAAAAABUk\/MnfgTaeIY8k\/s72-c\/abraham_lincoln_vampire_hunter.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1756617597544723512"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-13T08:58:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-13T08:58:31.323-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"My Favorite Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Amazing Spider-Man"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-4yzL07EwYGQ\/UAApGsMW71I\/AAAAAAAABUY\/ON5CWPp_QH0\/s1600\/amazing_spiderman_ver2.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Amazing Spider-Man poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-4yzL07EwYGQ\/UAApGsMW71I\/AAAAAAAABUY\/ON5CWPp_QH0\/s320\/amazing_spiderman_ver2.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs much as I strive to be impartial (or at least not so biased that my opinions are worth nothing), I admit that in my eyes \u003Ci\u003EThe Amazing Spider-Man\u003C\/i\u003E had a strike against it going in. This is a film made out of contractual obligation, rushed into production by Sony so that they could retain the movie rights to Spider-Man rather than let them revert back to Marvel, who are now owned by Disney and are unlikely to lend anything out again. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is not the kind of environment that is generally conducive to good filmmaking, even by comparison to other blockbusters, but there's always a chance, and \u003Ci\u003EThe Amazing Spider-Man\u003C\/i\u003E holds together much better than I was led to expect. Rebooting the franchise after the insanity (for better or worse) of Sam Raimi's \u003Ci\u003ESpider-Man 3\u003C\/i\u003E, this new take on the character is a little more grounded and a little more sensible, but not so much that it misses out on the character's appeal. It is perhaps too soon for a reboot, but taken on its own terms it's a solid superhero spectacle.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAndrew Garfield assumes the role of Peter Parker, a mild-mannered and geeky high schooler living with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) after his parents disappeared and died when he was very little. Peter is curious as to what his parents discovered that made them leave home in a hurry, and his search leads him to Oscorp, a major, vaguely defined corporation doing all sorts of odd genetic research involving interspecies gene splicing. Straying into the lab, Peter is bitten by a genetically modified spider and starts getting hit with some odd powers. His Uncle Ben falls prey to a mugger he could have stopped, and so he decides to do something with the abilities he's been given, first out of a desire for revenge, but later developing a true sense of justice. In the meantime Peter has been awkwardly romancing the brainy Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), and working alongside Dr. Curt Connor (Rhys Ifans), an old associate of his parents. Connor, who is missing an arm, has been looking at the reptilian phenomena of regeneration, and when a serum shows promising results in lab animals, tests it on himself- however, it inevitably goes a little haywire, and Curt not only gets his arm back, he now has scales, a tail, cold blood, etc. This does not have a positive effect on his mental state, and soon he's thinking that all mankind needs to be forcibly improved. It's up to a certain wall-crawling vigilante to stop him turning the entire city into lizard people.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI told you this was more grounded, didn't I? Well, the plot may not be, but the style is certainly more subdued- the acting is more realistic, the cinematography a little rougher and less colorful, Bruce Campbell isn't appearing out of nowhere, etc. It's not a major stylistic change from the Raimi films, but it's just different enough that it feels like a proper fresh start. There's something to be said for a more naturalistic approach to fantastic material, and while claims that this is somehow a \"dark\" take on the material are pushing it, it's subdued enough that we can believe in its world.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe acting and characterization are major assets in the film's favor. Garfield's Parker is moody and convincingly awkward, and he and real-life girlfriend Stone have great chemistry on screen (which isn't always true of off-screen couples.) Denis Leary has some great scenes as Gwen's dad, a police captain, and Ifans makes the most of his character's drop into insanity. Sheen and Field make a nice take on Peter's surrogate parents.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe pacing is a problem, though. The problem with a reboot is that we have to go through the character's origin all over again, and though there are some good twists on the story, it's hard to avoid a sense of deja vu, and a stronger sense that if we're getting this the second time around maybe it could be done a little more economically. At the same time some elements of the plot feel underdeveloped- most specifically, Connors is driven insane by the serum so quickly that he rather abruptly switches from being concerned about Oscorp testing the regeneration serum on unwitting veteran amputees to declaring that all humanity should be turned into reptiles. It's reminiscent of the lead character's degenration in Cronenberg's remake of \u003Ci\u003EThe Fly\u003C\/i\u003E, but condensed too much to register as well. This picture was apparently the victim of some heavy last-minute editing, and it shows in how it's put together- some subplots are condensed too far or cut altogether while others feel bloated. On the other hand, the action is quite well directed- I don't want to jinx it, but we may be coming out of the \"everyone shakes the camera around for no reason\" phase of action movies back into something which relies on spatial clarity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOthers are more enthusiastic about this reboot than I am, but I have to admit it's been done about as well as it could be under some very trying circumstances. I enjoyed Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films, but they too started out a little raw and uncertain. This is not really a great film, but it entertains while assembling some elements for potential future greatness. I do hope Gwen Stacy stays out of trouble this time around, though.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the characters created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by James Vanderbilt\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, and Steve Kloves\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Mark Webb\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1756617597544723512\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1756617597544723512\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1756617597544723512"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1756617597544723512"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/in-theaters-amazing-spider-man.html","title":"In Theaters: The Amazing Spider-Man"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-4yzL07EwYGQ\/UAApGsMW71I\/AAAAAAAABUY\/ON5CWPp_QH0\/s72-c\/amazing_spiderman_ver2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8292442231308133338"},"published":{"$t":"2012-07-08T11:36:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-07-08T11:36:14.361-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Brave"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vTISpKxyPdY\/T_m2ilHMOWI\/AAAAAAAABUM\/sGiQPqnZut0\/s1600\/brave_ver3.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Brave poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vTISpKxyPdY\/T_m2ilHMOWI\/AAAAAAAABUM\/sGiQPqnZut0\/s320\/brave_ver3.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI may not be able to be entirely rational about this movie. Brave basically had its hooks in me from its opening scene, in which an adorably adventurous little girl buried under a mass of floppy red hair is given her very own bow by her warlord father before traipsing off into the woods in pursuit of will' o the wisps. This is Pixar's first film with a female protagonist, and she's a charmer, even as she manifests some all too real flaws of kids her age. As familiar as this fairy tale may be at times, there's a compelling emotional truth at the center of it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMerida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald) is a reluctant princess, who prefers adventuring and archery to the more ladylike pursuits taught by her mother Elinor (Emma Thompson). She's really not looking forward to the arrival of the three neighboring clans, who are expecting her to choose one of their sons to marry- and if she doesn't, war between the four groups may break out. Merida escapes from the palace into the woods, and happens upon an old witch- sorry, woodcarver (Julie Walters), who just happens to be able to sell her a spell (and some woodcarvings) to change her fate by changing her mother. Merida, however, doesn't get all the details, and the charmed cake she feeds her mother ends up turning her into a bear. Neither is happy with this arrangement.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo this is obviously one of those stories about an unhappy adolescent learning a lesson about responsibility, and the themes are pretty much on the surface. That's not really a bad thing, because the issues are dealt with thoughtfully. The film doesn't forget that Merida has a valid reason for rebellion, and it's not just she who needs to learn a lesson. As a bear, Elinor has to learn a little bit about living in the wild (at least until her ursine form threatens to overcome her original personality), and so tastes some of the freedom and wildness that Merida so treasures. At the same time, Merida finds that some of the \"ladylike\" skills she ignored could come in handy, and makes use of them without sacrificing what makes her unique.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film makes sure to balance any lessons it has with broad but well-executed humor. The princess' three suitors are, respectively, an overdramatic emo kid, a man who cannot speak intelligibly, and basically the village idiot. Most of the actual argument is done by their fathers, who, being old-time scotsmen, spend most of their time insulting and\/or threatening to go to war with each other.\u0026nbsp; (Merida's dad, played by Billy Connolly, is a little more gentle but still lives hard and makes rash decisions.) And Merida's three tiny brothers are a delight, fast-moving food snatchers and mischief makers. The character designs are extremely appealing, and the animation shows a great grasp of human movement, notably in Elinor-the-bear retaining a strange grace and composure.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEven if the overall direction of the film is predictable, there are a few surprising beats. Specifically, its evocation of an older, more tragic story plays off the inherent familiarity of its fable. There's a certain self-awareness to Merida being told the same story she's heard before, but not yet realizing the truth of it. Brave is clearly a film that deals with the familiar, but between the visuals, the voice acting, and the comic timing, its charm more than overcomes a lack of novelty. And it turns out to be pretty intelligent in its handling of the issues it raises. It may not seem quite like the film that was advertised as early as last year, but it more than lives up to its potential.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Brenda Chapman\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Mark Andrews \u0026amp; Steve Purcell and Brenda Chapman \u0026amp; Irene Mecchi\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8292442231308133338\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8292442231308133338\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8292442231308133338"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8292442231308133338"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/07\/in-theaters-brave.html","title":"In Theaters: Brave"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vTISpKxyPdY\/T_m2ilHMOWI\/AAAAAAAABUM\/sGiQPqnZut0\/s72-c\/brave_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3198096843494398245"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-30T12:22:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-30T12:22:57.602-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #107: The Mysterians"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00068NWJW\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00068NWJW\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Mysterians DVD cover\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-02-LJRS2IHg\/T-81brCJxjI\/AAAAAAAABUA\/m4ek0C3Vvt0\/s320\/mysterians.jpg\" title=\"Well, I wouldn't go THAT far.\" width=\"224\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's a lot going on in \u003Ci\u003EThe Mysterians\u003C\/i\u003E. On a surface level, it's notable as the prototype for nearly all of Toho's alien invasion epics, setting up a number of familiar visual and aural tropes that would recur for over a decade. But it's also an interesting look at Japan's place in a postwar world and the atomic age, with issues raised both intentionally and not ranging from atomic devastation to racial anxiety to the curious way war advances technology. Subtext in and of itself doesn't make a movie good or bad, but fortunately \u003Ci\u003EThe Mysterians\u003C\/i\u003E is also a fun and well-crafted story with a neat atmosphere that's just slightly askew from the company's other entries in the subgenre. Any film with a giant robot mole in it isn't entirely playing by normal rules.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA remote village is beset first by forest fires and then a landslide which swallows the entire town. No sooner do people investigate than the landslide disgorges a giant robot which wreaks all kinds of destruction before being buried under a collapsing bridge. Later, a giant dome emerges from the ground- the spaceship of the Mysterians, men from the planet Mysteroid, which used to exist between Mars and Jupiter before an atomic war turned it into a bunch of floating rocks. The Mysterians are looking for a new home and ask for a few square miles of land, insisting that the robot and such were valid responses to their being attacked when they first arrived. (I'm a little unclear as to whether this was totally offscreen or what.) Oh, and they also want our women. Specific ones, that they've chosen, and some of which they've already abducted- radioactive materials in their bodies have contributed to a low birth rate and they think mating with healthier women will help. The Japanese government doesn't take kindly to this, and soon it's war. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFighting super-advanced aliens requires super-advanced technology, and one of the cleverer things about this movie is that it focuses on this basically being Japan's ticket to modernization. We start with an old village ritual that's been performed for hundreds of years, but that village and its traditions are buried under progress and now the country has to get scientific to preserve itself. There's even a sense of it joining the international community as a result- scientists from the United States help out, and both the US and Russia unite with Japan against a new enemy from the stars. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, amidst all this global cooperation there's a hint of xenophobia. It's kinda hard not to associate the fear of the Mysterians breeding with Japanese women with Japan's own history of strict national identity politics and not getting along well with its immediate neighbors. Obviously they're not the only ones to do this story, which was probably born when people first started to wonder what all those flying saucers were doing hanging around Earth to start with, and the Mysterians aren't portrayed as particularly exotic- they're as much the product of nuclear war as they are a foreign \"other.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe effects sequences- now for the first time in glorious Toho Scope- are quite impressive for the time, considering Tsubaraya was still developing a lot of this stuff. The drill-beaked robot, which off-screen goes by the name of \"Mogera\", is charming in an old school way even if it's weirdly pear-shaped. The studio's trademark charming weirdness was already emerging at this point, as well as their tendency to give the Japanese self-defense forces giant super-weapons that didn't actually exist yet. The color-coordinated Mysterians are kind of nifty too, and their echoing voices are memorable in both the dubbed and original language versions. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is not a terribly suspenseful film, with action sequences paced more for spectacle than uncertainty, but the rhythms of it are kind of compelling anyway, and there's no disputing the visual imagination on display. Compared to some of Toho's later achievements this is crude, but the crudeness itself is endearing. If nothing else, they had big plans.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStory by Jojiro Okami\u003Cbr \/\u003EAdaptation by Shigeru Kayama\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Ishiro Honda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3198096843494398245\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3198096843494398245\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3198096843494398245"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3198096843494398245"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/random-movie-report-107-mysterians.html","title":"Random Movie Report #107: The Mysterians"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-02-LJRS2IHg\/T-81brCJxjI\/AAAAAAAABUA\/m4ek0C3Vvt0\/s72-c\/mysterians.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6772902321831436185"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-29T09:43:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-29T09:43:08.162-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: Planet of the Spiders (1974)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004L9GMC6\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B004L9GMC6\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;l=as2\u0026amp;o=1\u0026amp;a=B004L9GMC6\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-NqmLv4uwY1o\/T-29mrRownI\/AAAAAAAABT0\/rClrOeQy51Q\/s320\/planetofthespiders.jpg\" title=\"I am still an Associates member, just sayin'.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Doctors' final stories tended to be ambitious undertakings, and Pertwee's definitely follows in that tradition. \"Planet of the Spiders\" is not only the last of the third Doctor's adventures and a semi-sequel to \"The Green Death\" from a season ago, but also a trippy Buddhist allegory about death and rebirth. It has a lot on its plate and is kinda disjointed as a result, but pulls itself together at the end to provide a fitting send-off for the actor who had, up to that point, played the character of the Doctor longer than anyone else.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Doctor receives a surprise in the post, with Jo Grant and her husband returning the blue jewel from Metebelis III he gave them, saying it's scaring the natives in the Amazon. True enough, the jewel has weird psychic properties, killing a local clairvoyant and attracting the attention of the giant mutant spiders who came to inhabit Metebelis III after the Doctor left. The leader of the spiders wants the crystal for herself (all the spiders are female and don't ask me how that works), and they've gotten in touch with rogue members of an otherwise-peaceful Buddhist retreat where Sarah Jane (Lis Sladen) is investigating. One of the spiders merges with the unscrupulous meditator Lupton (John Dearth), adding her powers to his in an attempt to capture the gem for the spider queen. Various chases and betrayals ensue as the Doctor tries to keep the gem he stole from falling into the wrong hands, even if he must do so at the cost of his own life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInevitably, since this is a six parter there is padding. Pertwee presumably had to get in one last car chase, so there's a long pursuit of Lupton which takes place on land, air, and sea, incorporating hovercraft, a helicopter, and the Doctor's own flying \"Whomobile\". However, there's nearly enough story here to justify the running time, and the story's major problem is less one of padding and more one of structure. There's a lot of switching back and forth between parallel stories that, for the first couple of episodes, don't seem to actually have much to do with each other, and while we as viewers trust that this is going somewhere it doesn't mean it couldn't do so more efficiently and effectively. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe allegorical elements of the story count for a lot, though. In some ways, writer Robert Sloman and director\/uncredited writer Barry Letts were preaching the Zen gospel, or at least letting people in Seventies Britain know that the Zen Buddhist practice was nothing to fear. The story is rooted in the Doctor's past act of greed, which requires him to confront his own ego and fear and to face death so as to become a new man. It's a nice twist on the regeneration concept, enhanced by making one of the retreat's elders a Time Lord himself (and hence knowing a thing or two about the cycle of rebirth.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat's interesting about this whole story is that it turn's one of the Doctor's great strengths against himself. The Doctor's greed, which led to him stealing the jewel, is greed for knowledge. His curiosity and desire to learn have normally been virtues- he's an intellectual hero, one who champions thinking and discovering. But of course Buddhism is, to some extent, about finding a way to step outside the self and reject even those trappings we consider \"good\". Hence the Doctor not only sees the downside of his pursuit in the crystal, but also in Lupton and the spiders' desire for knowledge and mental power.\u0026nbsp; To question the fundamental assumptions of a series is a good way to close out an era of it, and the final episode really does an amazing job of driving the allegory home without being preachy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"Planet of the Spiders\" closes out the Pertwee era well, but there are a lot of rough bits along the way. It's worth seeing for the historical significance alone, and if you're patient enough to put up with the occasional slow or unclear patch, and a bunch of fakey spider puppets, the end is a very good reward.\u0026nbsp; There's a lot going on, and in the end, most of it works.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Robert Sloman\u003Cbr \/\u003EProduced and Directed by Barry Letts\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6772902321831436185\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6772902321831436185\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6772902321831436185"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6772902321831436185"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/random-who-report-planet-of-spiders.html","title":"Random Who Report: Planet of the Spiders (1974)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-NqmLv4uwY1o\/T-29mrRownI\/AAAAAAAABT0\/rClrOeQy51Q\/s72-c\/planetofthespiders.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4145404350700541226"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-27T09:34:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-27T09:34:59.837-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Prometheus"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ytopJMasPD0\/T-sZhwsJzsI\/AAAAAAAABTo\/klshZ_-RPgY\/s1600\/prometheus.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Prometheus movie poster.\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ytopJMasPD0\/T-sZhwsJzsI\/AAAAAAAABTo\/klshZ_-RPgY\/s320\/prometheus.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nPrometheus is the rare spectacle that allows itself room to breathe. An ambitious science fiction thriller which deliberately \"precedes\" director Ridley Scott's \u003Ci\u003EAlien\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EPrometheus\u003C\/i\u003E also echoes masterpieces like \u003Ci\u003EForbidden Planet\u003C\/i\u003E and even \u003Ci\u003E2001\u003C\/i\u003E, and even if it falls short of those lofty heights it's a refreshingly thoughtful movie. If \u003Ci\u003EAlien\u003C\/i\u003E was pure terror, \u003Ci\u003EPrometheus\u003C\/i\u003E is more the danger and excitement of heading into the unknown. It's a movie where what waits at the end of the universe isn't very friendly at all, but there's still a thrill in uncovering it. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENoomi Rapace plays Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, an archeologist who has discovered clues all across the globe which seem to point to a distant world, which may hold the secrets to how human life began on Earth. A strangely credulous Weyland Coporation funds an expedition for her and her partner (Logan Marshall-Green) to explore this world and search for the Engineers, the beings the two believe are somehow responsible for man's existence. But the Corporation, represented by the chillingly pleasant android David (Michael Fassbender, aping Peter O' Toole), has its own agenda, and what the crew discover seems to threaten not only their lives but the survival of the entire species.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's hard to talk about this film without spoiling at least some of it; a complex plot holds a great number of secrets, and a lot of the satisfaction of the film comes from finding out more, effectively sharing Dr. Shaw's desire to finally get answers from the gods who created her. If you're a fan of the Alien movies (or just the first), you'll likely get caught up in trying to trace the connections, of which there are many, but taking the film in such a literal sense seems like missing the point.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMany criticisms of the film have revolved around the old horror standard of people acting unwisely or rashly in a dangerous environment, but as much as this can actually bug me, I think the film sets up a rather solid rationale. The entire mission is an act of faith on behalf of a company whose aging founder is desperate for answers to the ultimate questions of Life, the Universe, and Everything- most of the crew are along for the ride, and not expecting to find anything, let alone anything dangerous. They're not expecting a crisis situation and so, inevitably, make mistakes. You expect them to be a little reckless.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EArguably the entire film is about the reckless charging in where angels fear to tread; it's about how faith compels us to great acts and great follies. The title alone has all sorts of mythical and spiritual connotations, and the movie isn't exactly subtle about this being a mission to meet God. This being a horror film, what we find isn't very pleasant, but the view of faith is kept complex, not entirely positive or negative.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERidley Scott directs with a delicate touch. As a director he can sometimes go overboard with flourishes of style, but this time he's got a fairly complex story to present and makes sure that the images are clear and powerful. It's a gorgeous film, with slick 3-D photography bringing out the contours and textures of an alien space while leaving us just enough light to see. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt times the picture does seem to echo its source material a little too much- you'll recognize a lot of parallels, most notably the room full of small canisters that probably don't contain anything good, and inevitably some very Freudian monsters. Of course, some of the echoes are pleasurable; Michael Fassbender is excellent as a synthetic man with uncertain motivations, who models himself after Peter O' Toole in \u003Ci\u003ELawrence of Arabia\u003C\/i\u003E, another man who couldn't be read. And when it comes to body horror, Scott creates a truly ingenious sequence that's nearly as cringe-inducing as the original chestburster. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI like where this movie is coming from. It's thoughtful and thematically rich even as it takes the familiar shape of a thriller, and while parts are predictable the whole thing comes together rather beautifully. It ends with a link to the past, but also a rather bold statement of discovery and confrontation with the unknown, promising a sequel that, should it ever materialize, will be wondrously strange indeed. (The grosses have just been okay, but I hope this works out anyway.) I'm not sure this will ever be considered to be in the same pantheon as \u003Ci\u003EAlien\u003C\/i\u003E or \u003Ci\u003EBlade Runner\u003C\/i\u003E, but then again, we may just need to give it time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Ridley Scott\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4145404350700541226\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4145404350700541226\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4145404350700541226"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4145404350700541226"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/in-theaters-prometheus.html","title":"In Theaters: Prometheus"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ytopJMasPD0\/T-sZhwsJzsI\/AAAAAAAABTo\/klshZ_-RPgY\/s72-c\/prometheus.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-254291213317590205"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-22T10:11:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-22T10:11:17.236-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Shameless Self Promotion"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Live Tonight! An Evening of Audio Theater"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"Zombies! Dogs! Romance! Bigfoot! \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt 7:30 Central Time (that's 8:30 eastern, etc.), the National Audio Theater Workshop for 2012 will present their end product, a 2-hour evening of radio theater, live from the West Plains Civic Center here in southern Missouri.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe will be on local radio, but for those not in the area, the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/natf.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003ENational Audio Theater Festivals web page\u003C\/a\u003E will be streaming it live as it happens. The link is not on their page right now as I post this, but it will be come showtime. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe work will feature the voice acting of such veterans as the Firesign Theatre's Phil Proctor and David Ossman, and audiobook luminary Barbara Rosenblatt, as well as amateur participants from all over the world. (Translation: one of them is from England.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe plays:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cul\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\"The Last Broadcast\", a brutal horror epic featuring a zombie invasion at the doorstep of a local radio station.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\"September, September\", a touching romance between a teacher and an older man unsure of commitment.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\"Workshop 101\", written by the Workshop's freshman class- this year, the story of a struggling farmer, a wealthy developer, and a giant apelike creature named MoMo.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003Cli\u003E\"On The Internet, Nobody Knows You're A Dog\", a raucous comedy about a family and the dogs who secretly run their lives.\u003C\/li\u003E\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\nTune in! Enjoy! Tell your friends! I'll be telling mine!"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/254291213317590205\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=254291213317590205\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/254291213317590205"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/254291213317590205"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/live-tonight-evening-of-audio-theater.html","title":"Live Tonight! An Evening of Audio Theater"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-271506133018790975"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-13T08:46:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-13T08:46:39.963-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Books"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"RIP Ray Bradbury"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-eKbDvcwYc-w\/T9iZedZdRLI\/AAAAAAAABTc\/kuR9q4xqFF8\/s1600\/ray-bradbury-1-sized.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-eKbDvcwYc-w\/T9iZedZdRLI\/AAAAAAAABTc\/kuR9q4xqFF8\/s1600\/ray-bradbury-1-sized.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's not a lot I can say about Ray Bradbury that others haven't, but I feel compelled to talk anyway. He was a hero of mine, and probably is my single favorite writer. In truth he's a great example for anyone who writes, who wants to write, who thinks of the whole writing thing.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI'll keep it focused. First, Bradbury was an absolute master of the short story form. His novels are good too, but he wrote back in the day when short stories were a writer's bread and butter, he produced a lot, and almost inevitably, years of practice refined the talent he already had into something downright amazing. As florid and sentimental as his prose may seem, it's actually efficient; he uses words to carve out images, clear and bright and resonant. It's close to poetry or painting; the story and the characterizations matter, but where he really gets you is in the images, which, however fantastic the subject matter, always have a foot in our world. I've always struggled with the form myself, but every so often I think I should dive back in there, because Bradbury showed me just how much is possible in a small space.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut there's another thing about Bradbury that I think is really important to note on his passing. He was, among literary circles and great writers of his time, a rare optimist. Or at least an idealist. Sure, he may be best known for a great work of dystopian literature that anticipates the dumbing-down of society and the death of the printed word, and he could when inclined write something amazingly brutal, but there is a positivity to his work that stands out as an anomaly. To hear most artists and thinkers these days tell it, things are bad now and will only get worse. Our fiction is increasingly apocalyptic, and we seem to value the bleak and the nihilistic view of the world as more honest. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBradbury's work speaks to joy. It argues that the ridiculous and the optimistic and the fuzzy-headed are as worthwhile as the cold and rational, and moreso than the despairing. In one of his stories, \"The Toynbee Convector\", he makes the crucial point that we can't believe the world if we don't believe that we can- we have to envision a better future in order to make it happen. He was no utopian, but he knew that dreams and ideals have a power beyond reality.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWe need that. We need it in our politics, our discourse, and our art. Bradbury's passing is a sad thing, but the best way to celebrate his life is to start dreaming a little harder. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/271506133018790975\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=271506133018790975\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/271506133018790975"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/271506133018790975"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/rip-ray-bradbury.html","title":"RIP Ray Bradbury"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-eKbDvcwYc-w\/T9iZedZdRLI\/AAAAAAAABTc\/kuR9q4xqFF8\/s72-c\/ray-bradbury-1-sized.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-721200627225602679"},"published":{"$t":"2012-06-06T08:52:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-06-06T08:52:50.812-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academy of the Underrated"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Battleship"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DpEqSZWmUe8\/T89fjrJjijI\/AAAAAAAABTQ\/x7v2q9T9KfE\/s1600\/battleship_ver2.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Battleship movie poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DpEqSZWmUe8\/T89fjrJjijI\/AAAAAAAABTQ\/x7v2q9T9KfE\/s320\/battleship_ver2.jpg\" width=\"202\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe sad irony of \u003Ci\u003EBattleship\u003C\/i\u003E is that it would probably be doing just a little bit better- or at least receive a little more goodwill- if it weren't named after a board game in an attempt to create profitable corporate synergy. The same public that had no problems patronizing the Marvel Studios uber-franchise or a live-action Smurfs movie have drawn their line in the sand, and a film based on a boardgame is a step too far no matter how good or bad it is.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut hear me out on this. It's actually pretty good. However cynically calculated the initial boardroom meetings that produced this movie may have been, at some point director Peter Berg and writers Erich and Jon Hoeber (as well as any others who may have been involved) and the rest of the filmmakers decided to actually try and make a good, sincere sci-fi\/war movie based on the simple premise of the Navy fighting aliens, and their efforts paid off. \u003Ci\u003EBattleship\u003C\/i\u003E works on a simple but satisfying level, and it has the important lesson that you shouldn't judge a film by its premise.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOur hero is Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), a headstrong naval officer who was only thrown into the military at the best of his brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård) in an attempt to make him something other than a total loser. And to be sure, he is dating the Admiral's daughter (Brooklyn Decker) and about to ask the Admiral himself (Liam Neeson) for her hand in marriage, but discipline problems threaten to get him kicked out of this man's Navy in the middle of their annual wargames off Hawaii. However, aliens from a distant planet choose this time to respond to our deep space broadcasts, landing several ships off the coast right next to the Navy ships. Inevitably, shots are fired, the alien technology makes short work of most of the armed destroyers, and soon Alex's brother is dead and he's the highest ranking officer on board a small, lightly armed ship dodging the alien hordes.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPerhaps since the filmmakers knew we were unlikely to take this movie seriously, they keep it light. There's a goofy comic tone to the film's early scenes that helps us connect with Alex and Stone, and it helps that Kitsch's performance is very enthusiastic and he's not afraid to look ridiculous. He honestly is a bit of a screw-up to start, and much of the film is a throwback to the classic \"this man's Navy\" kind of movie where a rogue officer learns discipline and leadership while falling in love with a nurse (Decker's character works with wounded vets), down to the noncoms exchanging comic banter. The film's one disappointment in this respect is that Stone's early death cuts off that particular dynamic, but it's necessary for the story to progress.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOh, yeah, and it's an action movie too, and a well put-together-one at that. Peter Berg takes care to emphasize the spatial relations between the human and alien ships, which is fitting given the game the movie is based on (there's a nice nod to the property in the alien projectiles, giant pegs that drill into the ships and then explode.) Indeed, in one scene that's both silly and kind of glorious, the movie really embraces its roots by having a Japanese captain (Tadanobu Asano) suggest using the tidal monitoring system surrounding the islands to form a grid and work out where the alien ships are, and yes, this involves launching missiles and working out whether they hit or missed. You'll either go along with this or you won't. It is what it is.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film introduces a couple of interesting twists to the formula as well. One is that the aliens may be, if not necessarily misunderstood, not entirely evil- as in the classic \u003Ci\u003EEarth vs. The Flying Saucers\u003C\/i\u003E, we do fire the first shot, and though the aliens never can explain themselves they do seem to at least try to avoid killing noncombatants. It's disappointing that the film doesn't go farther with this- in the end we still want to cheer the good guys killing the bad guys- but it at least adds something extra to chew on. There's also some business involving the veterans of the U.S.S. Missouri that, while as cheesy as anything else, stays just the right side of sentimental.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere are disappointments. There's some business up in the mountains that, while strictly necessary to the plot, don't quite mesh as well as they should, and Liam Neeson is mostly wasted in a role that puts him outside the combat zone for most of the running time. Alex's change from goofy loser to responsible commander happens a little too quickly for my tastes- you can chalk it up to a crisis situation but, given that it's the main character arc of the film, it could have used some breathing room.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOverall, it's a shame that this isn't doing better. Sure, I have as much of a kneejerk reaction to the idea of basing major A-list motion pictures on board games as anyone else, but on the other hand, there was \u003Ci\u003EClue\u003C\/i\u003E, and now there is this. Strictly speaking the genre's pretty much batting 1.000 creatively. Maybe when the panic settles this film will get the appreciation it deserves, but in the meantime, there's no reason for you not to give it a chance. Good filmmaking can really come from anywhere.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Erich and Jon Hoeber\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Peter Berg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+ \u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/721200627225602679\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=721200627225602679\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/721200627225602679"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/721200627225602679"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/06\/in-theaters-battleship.html","title":"In Theaters: Battleship"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-DpEqSZWmUe8\/T89fjrJjijI\/AAAAAAAABTQ\/x7v2q9T9KfE\/s72-c\/battleship_ver2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6469164308737430949"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-31T23:13:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-31T23:13:44.971-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 5.1: Frasier's Imaginary Friend"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vYGMYXRlVxU\/T8hA7u4ECuI\/AAAAAAAABTA\/9uDUgnLIjso\/s1600\/Ep96.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"235\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vYGMYXRlVxU\/T8hA7u4ECuI\/AAAAAAAABTA\/9uDUgnLIjso\/s320\/Ep96.jpg\" width=\"320\" alt=\"Frasier attempts to get it on film.\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: I am dating a supermodel zoologist, whom I stole away from a football player, and she is off to the Galapagos Islands to artificially inseminate iguanas! Is that so hard to believe?\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESeason Five marks a lot of milestones. It has the show's one hundredth episode, some major character developments, earned the show a fifth consecutive Best Comedy Emmy, and it aired alongside the first syndicated reruns, which shows relied on to reach immortality before home video releases were commonplace. So a big year lies before us, but the premiere is focused on resolving a little bit of business from last season. When we last left Frasier, he was still going through a desperate romantic dry spell, which compelled him to board a plane to Acapulco. At long last, the dry spell ends, but in a way that so typifies what makes Frasier, well,\u0026nbsp; Frasier.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOn the plane, Frasier meets Kelly Easterbrook (Sela Ward), famous model, and the two end up spending a night of passion together. So far, so good. But she's going through a breakup and doesn't want too much publicity, so she asks that they keep their relationship a secret for now. Frasier agrees, but when he tries to be discreet about what happened in Mexico, everyone assumes he went home empty handed, and his ego just can't take that. Of course, when he tells them he's dating a famous supermodel, nobody believes him, and there's no easy way to prove it. And doing so would probably piss her off.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOnce again Frasier's dilemma is basically one of his own making. If he didn't care what others thought of him, he wouldn't agonize over them thinking he struck out on vacation, and wouldn't do anything to actually jeopardize his relationship. But the story twists in a way that give things a logical reason to keep going- Niles, Daphne, and Martin start to think that Frasier is not just lying but delusional, and are trying to intervene to get him to face reality. If there's one thing Frasier hates more than people thinking he's a loser, it's people thinking he's wrong about something. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe results are really consistently funny in a way that's true to all the characters, and helps us touch base with all of them. Nobody has to stretch too far to make the story work, and the fact that all the other regulars care for Frasier and want him to be happy actually drives the conflict. The dilemma most sitcoms face in the long run is that either everyone is too nice for there to be believable conflict, or too snarky for us to believe that they'd stay together unless forced to. Here the writers use the characters' essential warmth and togetherness as a source of tension. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA word must also be said for Sela Ward (beyond \"wowie\"), who makes believable the role of a gorgeous supermodel\/zoologist who falls head over heels for a pompous, middle-aged radio shrink. There's actually some very good chemistry between the two, and her playing Kelly as a pretty normal person heightens the split between the reality of their relationship and how it seems to everyone else. (There's a good detail in her looking very different from her magazine photos, because, well, she would.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe ending elevates a solid episode to near-classic status, when Frasier manages to screw up the relationship in the worst way possible, but in so doing also proves himself right to his family, and so, at the end of the day, counts it as a \"win\". It's always good to end a story by giving the audience what they expect in the last way they expected it; we expect Frasier to screw up his relationships, but we do not expect him to be so desperate that he'll settle for just having proof that he got laid recently. It also works on the larger level, to the extent that Frasier's dry spell counts as a character arc- the expectation is that he'll eventually meet someone, not so much that he'll be so anxious to prove he met someone that he'll get out the camera.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo we head into the season with Frasier his old, insufferable self. This is good, not just because you feel sorry for the guy now and again, but because he always causes the most problems when he's incredibly self-satisfied. This is the season where I started to follow the show week to week, keeping up with the fandom online, etc., so I'm really looking forward to this year and all the events therein. I'm not sure it's the best season, but it's basically my favorite, and we're off to a rollicking start.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Rob Greenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired September 23, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles (on seeing Frasier dining alone): Oh, that is so sad…\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne: I'll say. Nobody's ever bought me caviar and I'm real.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6469164308737430949\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6469164308737430949\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6469164308737430949"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6469164308737430949"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/frasierquest-51-frasiers-imaginary.html","title":"Frasierquest 5.1: Frasier's Imaginary Friend"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-vYGMYXRlVxU\/T8hA7u4ECuI\/AAAAAAAABTA\/9uDUgnLIjso\/s72-c\/Ep96.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7510382890804516441"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-31T14:29:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-31T14:33:23.885-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #106: Scanners"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00005K3NY\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00005K3NY\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Scanners DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-KHENtmjY4MM\/T8fGvth4aVI\/AAAAAAAABS0\/EpcHuLgx7oc\/s320\/Scanners.jpg\" title=\"The tingling means it's working.\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EScanners\u003C\/i\u003E isn't the best film David Cronenberg has made, or even the most commercially successful, but it's become a cult classic all the same. A lot of this is, let's be honest, down to the scene where a guy's head explodes. It was the sort of big gory shocker that could make a movie's reputation in the splatter era, and it helped to cement Cronenberg's reputation as One to Watch Out For in the new breed of horror filmmakers. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nExplosive cranial displacement aside, \u003Ci\u003EScanners\u003C\/i\u003E is an intense flick. Drawing heavily from the work of writers like Philip K. Dick, A. E. Van Vogt, and Alfred Bester, Cronenberg puts together a slick and thoughtful sci-fi tale which presents the old chestnut of telepathy in a unique and visceral way, and becomes a story about a new culture rebelling against its elders. Though not quite as polished as the filmmaker's\u0026nbsp; later work, it's a really good example of how to make a technological thriller on a low budget, and ultimately a pretty compelling ride.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is a vagrant plucked from the streets after he gives a woman a heart attack just by looking at her. Officers from a company called ConSec put him under the care of Dr. Paul Ruth (Patrick MacGoohan), a scientist who reveals to Vale that he is a scanner, someone with the power of telepathy- the ability not just to read minds, but to interface with the nervous systems of others at a distance. A particularly explosive use of this power is displayed by Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), a rogue scanner and leader of a terrorist underground, when he attacks a ConSec presentation, and the company has Ruth send Vale to eliminate the menace. Along the way, Vale falls in with Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill), a therapist and fellow scanner who is uniting others of their kind in peaceful exploration of their powers, and the two track Revok to a chemical company responsible for manufacturing the drug Ephemerol, which scanners use to shut out the cacophony of other people's thoughts- but the chemical corporation has links to ConSec, who have at least one traitor in their midst.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film is slow going at first, and it doesn't help that Vale is presented to us as a true blank slate; his head was filled with other people's voices for as long as he can remember, and he never had time to grow his own identity. It's an interesting concept, but Lack's flat delivery and relative lack of emotion can be grating; it's the sort of thing that's hard to pull off, and the script doesn't have a lot of room for character exploration. But as the story grows more complex, it becomes more interesting, and though Revok is a clear villain, there's clearly more going on than just one bad man on the loose.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs above, the film presents telepathy as less of a form of communication as a form of interaction with the body; there's really no clear line between body and brain, and a scanner can throw someone across the room, set them on fire, or just make them kill themselves. Unlike Carrie Weiss, they can't slam doors or crash cars with their mental powers, but Cameron is able to interface with a computer, in a scene that leads to a clever twist on the old \"explosive short-circuit\" cliche. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA lot of Cronenberg's skill is already on display. His style is not a showy one; the camera doesn't call attention to its placement, but this is good, since we're less conscious of watching a movie and more just seeing events unfold before us. But frequent use of low angles keeps us on edge, and there's a nice semi-futuristic vibe coming from the industrial landscapes of early-80s Toronto and environs. Call it cyberpunk on a shoestring. There's also composer Howard Shore at his minimalistic best, with a poundingly intense main theme that kinda gets into your head after a while. The intensity of the performances by Ironside and MacGoohan also help grant the film an over-the-top sense of reality.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn the end it's possible to read the film as a truly perverse Hero's Journey for Cameron Vale, in which he finds sanity and a kind of identity in a world that basically hates and fears him. (The parallels between Revok and Magneto are probably unintentional, but hard to avoid.) This core probably helps the film through its sillier moments, but it also helps that it's just plain fascinating in the way classic sci-fi literature often is. It's a good idea expanded into a really good story, helped by a strong atmosphere and the director's command of the elements needed for a good thriller. The DVD is a bit rare, having drifted out of print due to MGM owning the rights and being generally unable to release things, but this is a film you should hunt down, and not just because a guy's head blows up in it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut that totally happens.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten and directed by David Cronenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7510382890804516441\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7510382890804516441\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7510382890804516441"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7510382890804516441"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/random-movie-report-106-scanners.html","title":"Random Movie Report #106: Scanners"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-KHENtmjY4MM\/T8fGvth4aVI\/AAAAAAAABS0\/EpcHuLgx7oc\/s72-c\/Scanners.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8773388564223979849"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-30T09:21:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-30T09:21:06.064-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 3: 2005"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B001KZVQJI\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B001KZVQJI\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-8r9VyPmACYM\/T8YrTGMT9hI\/AAAAAAAABSo\/Tt8nxWLAuM4\/s320\/king_kong_ver3.jpg\" title=\"Silent monkeys run deep.\" width=\"216\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd we come to the movie that got me started on this. I wanted to talk about Peter Jackson's \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E but it's hard to do so without reviewing what's gone before, even if you're a formalist like me who believes in taking a work of art in and of itself before going on about external connections. Sometimes those connections are key to understanding, though. \n\nThe first time I saw the 2005 take on \u003Ci\u003EKong\u003C\/i\u003E, I thought it was very well made but somehow dissatisfying. The length of the action sequences, or indeed the film overall, didn't bother me much, but the intensity of it is a bit draining and the sadness of it is more pronounced than in the original. Like the seventies remake it can't quite dodge our modern sensibilities, which inevitably turn the story from a fun adventure to a plain tragedy. But on re-watching, what makes this movie great is that it goes beyond just moping about our mistreatment of nature. Instead it expands on the world and themes of the story, creating something that's suitably lush and fantastic for our time, and being almost as powerful. If the original \u003Ci\u003EKong\u003C\/i\u003E was about Beauty and the Beast, Jackson's film is about how the pursuit of beauty can make beasts of us.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCarl Denham (now played by Jack Black) is a desperate man. A movie project of his is falling through, he has backers literally trying to chase him down, and he needs an actress to drag to a tropical island to shoot a movie. Fortunately, this is Depression-era New York, with no shortage of hungry and desperate people, and Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is a vaudeville player whose theater has just closed down. So he drags her, and writer Jack Prescott (Adrien Brody), and lead Bruce Baxter (Kyle Chandler), off on the Venture to set sail for mysterious Skull Island in the East Indies. Ann, a lover of Jack's work, starts falling for the man, but when the island's unfriendly inhabitants catch sight of her, they kidnap her to sacrifice to Kong, a giant silverback gorilla with a mean temper. Carl and Jack and the film crew pursue Kong and Ann into the dinosaur-infested jungle, and as you can imagine, things don't go any better than they did before.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nPeter Jackson's style is one of excess, which suits \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E just fine. Sure, it's over three hours long, meaning you have to find a good clear spot on your schedule to watch it.  The action sequences, notably the various fights between dinosaurs, men, and a giant ape, are long in themselves, and over the top, and absurd, but there's something glorious about them too. Jackson never passes up an opportunity to goose the spectacle- where previously the sailors were just skeptical of Denham's story, now they threaten to turn the ship around, but it turns out it's too late because they're already running into the giant rocky pillars which surround Skull Island. Where once they got trampled by an unaccountably angry apatosaurus, now they face an entire stampede of the beasts. But, really, this is that kind of fantasy- this is a world new yet primeval, strange and baffling to men's eyes. (It seems to have driven the natives absolutely insane.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u0026nbsp;And yet none of this glorious insanity drowns out the film's rather subtle take on the original's themes. By making Denham an obsessed Orson Welles type- the kind of untrustworthy guy who always absolutely believes whatever he's saying at that very moment- as well as Jack a writer and Ann a stage performer, the film enters into a pretty complex examination of the nature of art.\n\nOn the one hand the desire to capture and have something beautiful brings with it much destruction. Denham's relentless pursuit of his film results in the death of nearly the entire crew; his desire to show off Kong results in a massive wave of terror across New York; finally, Kong's desire for Ann, who has shown him beauty and a world beyond constant violence, leads to his eventual doom. But Ann survives by making Kong laugh and by teaching him a sign for \"beautiful\", and there is a sense that his tragic life is the better for knowing that lightness.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nKong, here, is realized as much closer to an actual gorilla than any prior incarnation, but there's a lot of personality to him as well. Part of this is due to the design, giving him a scarred face suggesting years of brutal fights, but Andy Serkis' motion capture performance also does wonders. Kong comes off as a grizzled veteran, used to struggle but capable of experiencing wonder and affection. Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow is also utterly superb, and Jack Black is better than you'd think- he demonstrates a range here he's rarely asked to show.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo be sure, this \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is not the perfectly formed adventure movie experience that the original is. What it is, however, is Peter Jackson getting all the time and money he needs to make the ultimate statement about what that movie means to him, and in so doing he's made a film that's not only entertaining and moving in itself, but a wonderful complement to its predecessor. In the end, it's a film about the mad passion of art, the pursuit of beauty, and the way that the vagaries of \"show business\" can corrupt that pursuit. If it's a little self-indulgent, I can't argue with results.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on a story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Peter Jackson\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8773388564223979849\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8773388564223979849\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8773388564223979849"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8773388564223979849"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/three-faces-of-kong-pt-3-2005.html","title":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 3: 2005"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-8r9VyPmACYM\/T8YrTGMT9hI\/AAAAAAAABSo\/Tt8nxWLAuM4\/s72-c\/king_kong_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-859720456544956333"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-26T13:22:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-26T13:22:02.069-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 2: 1976"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000B8I9YK\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B000B8I9YK\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"King Kong poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-6nBSbafVWE4\/T8Eeb09Pp3I\/AAAAAAAABSc\/yfzRuhGlF10\/s320\/220px-King_kong_1976_movie_poster.jpg\" title=\"Warning: DVD cover not nearly as awesome\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Dino De Laurentiis-produced remake of \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is an interesting case, in that it's not very good but still quite watchable because, in the end, it's still about a giant ape. Apes seem to make everything better, and the 1976 \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is the kind of movie I'm willing to watch even if it always disappoints just a little. My relationship with it is complicated. This is a movie that does a lot of things right, but there's something wrong with the core of it- it's a version of the original story with a lot of the magic and adventure missing, replaced as the times dictate with a grim cynicism and too many attempts to poke fun at itself. It's not without its moments, though.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe crew of an oil company's exploratory vessel are off to what executive Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin) is convinced will be the biggest oil strike in history, on an uncharted island hidden by a perpetual fog bank. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a hippie scientist, has stowed away on board, convinced the island holds something a lot more interesting than oil. The ship picks up a lifeboat carrying a dazed Hollywood starlet, Dwan (Jessica Lange), saved from an explosion on board a producer's yacht, and she joins the expedition to the mysterious island- where she, as you may expect, ends up captured and offered up to the natives' god, the giant ape Kong (played mostly by Rick Baker in an ape suit.) When the oil exploration proves a bust, Wilson decides to save his job by bringing back Kong as a publicity attraction, and you can imagine what happens as a result.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film began production less than a year before its release (after a protracted legal spat between Paramount and Universal over who had the rights to do the remake), and to a certain extent a casualty of the rushed filming was Kong himself.\u0026nbsp; With stop-motion out of the question, the filmmakers turned to the old standby of a man in a gorilla suit, albeit enhanced by facial animatronics. Rick Baker actually does some good work huffing and puffing inside the suit, and the facial expressions are pretty impressive, but the thing still looks a little shaggy at times, and is definitely a step down from the expressiveness and mobility of the original Kong. And then there's the life-size hydraulically-controlled King Kong robot, a major ingredient of the film's publicity which didn't work at all and is visible in about 6 shots. And doesn't even look like the suit. We don't get any dinosaurs this time either, and while I'm normally loath to roast a remake for being different form the original, I think we can all agree that, all other things being equal,\u0026nbsp; a movie with dinosaurs is superior to one without. (This is why \u003Ci\u003ECitizen Kane\u003C\/i\u003E, the best movie ever, has a pterodactyl.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe dearth of prehistoric monsters is a symptom of a larger problem, which is a general lack of wonder. The film manages some sense of mystery early on, with a journey to an unknown land and ominous hints of \"the creature who touches heaven\", but insists on undermining it with a jokey script heavy on lines that undercut the reality of the situation. When Dwan quips about the psychological motivation for Kong knocking down trees, she's treating him like a pop culture icon and not a terrifying beast from before time. Lines like \"Estimated Monkey Time to your position\" don't help either, and while there is the occasional sparkle of genuine wit- Kong being unveiled inside a cage festooned with a giant gas pump- too much of it follows the predictable pattern of Fred being a buffoon and Jack possessing an almost prescient knowledge of the island. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is very much a film of its time, and it never quite overcomes the problems that accompany this. By 1976, we were aware of animal rights as a concept and of imperialism-in-the-name-of-oil as a bad thing (not that that has stopped us any), so of course the men who capture Kong have to be bad guys, Kong has to be misunderstood, and the male lead has to be a sensitive liberal who understands the tragedy unfolding. Jeff Bridges' acting ability needs no defense from me, but he's saddled with the burden of a character who is always right, and not in any kind of fun way either, since we know how this story ends. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMuch of what makes the original film great is the ambiguity of Kong, the fact that we end up feeling sorry for, and even kind of rooting for a man-eating monster, and there's a tension between the fun jungle adventure part of it and the ultimate tragedy. The 70s \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is mostly tragedy with a few hints of adventure, but it's too goofy to be effective. At the end of the day it is a movie about a giant gorilla wrecking things, and it's not like the picture doesn't have things to recommend it. John Barry's musical score is gorgeous, some of the visuals are nice, the cast mostly turn in good performances. (Lange was so good she had a hard time convincing people she was actually a talented actress and not a bimbo.) It just never gels, and we're left with something that looks nice but is ultimately redundant.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on the story by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace, and a screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreeplay by Lorenzo Semple, Jr.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by John Guillermin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: C+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/859720456544956333\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=859720456544956333\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/859720456544956333"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/859720456544956333"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/three-faces-of-kong-pt-2-1976.html","title":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 2: 1976"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-6nBSbafVWE4\/T8Eeb09Pp3I\/AAAAAAAABSc\/yfzRuhGlF10\/s72-c\/220px-King_kong_1976_movie_poster.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3896520840250730084"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-21T09:44:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-21T09:44:38.765-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"On Dan Harmon's Removal from Community and Similar Bullshit"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-A1cUVLCoBLM\/T7pUGJrUQRI\/AAAAAAAABSQ\/aCYEcIMRPUs\/s1600\/danharmonisagenius.gif\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Annie tells it like it is\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-A1cUVLCoBLM\/T7pUGJrUQRI\/AAAAAAAABSQ\/aCYEcIMRPUs\/s1600\/danharmonisagenius.gif\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI should say something about Dan Harmon being fired from \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E. God knows it's been bugging me enough. After the exhilaration of the show being renewed, followed by a gloriously fun three-episode finale, Sony Pictures Television decided to throw us all in the dumps by ousting its showrunner without even so much as a courtesy call, and so threatening to turn one of the most cutting edge shows on TV into something depressingly normal.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EObviously certain things must be gotten out of the way first. This is a low-rated show and it's a damn miracle it's been on as long as it has, and Harmon does not have the very best reputation as a showrunner- he recently had a major personality clash with star Chevy Chase (though in defense, Chase also has a difficult reputation), and there were rumblings of this for a time. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut let's, for a minute, put all questions of artistic integrity and creator ownership and so on aside. Does Sony actually think this is going to turn things around? It's not likely- the show has established what it is, what it is is something that's esoteric and appeals to a small base of devoted fans, and changing that- as replacing your showrunners will do- is more likely to drive the existing base off than it is to bring anyone new in. How many people are going to start watching- on Fridays, no less- because they've heard it's gotten slightly more normal? \"Normal\" isn't a hook, is the thing. It can help retain audiences but it won't draw them in on its own.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo, business wise, this makes no sense. This may be some weird desperation play by Sony to make it just popular enough to get a back 9 or even a fifth season, so that they can make a better syndication deal, but it's shooting the moon essentially. The odds that this will greatly increase viewership are incredibly low. It reminds me of the battle over Terry Gilliam's \u003Ci\u003EBrazil\u003C\/i\u003E- in the end, even if Sid Sheinberg had gotten his way, the movie probably still wouldn't have done very much business at the box office, because there's no way you can turn a dystopian black comedy into a charming romantic adventure.\u0026nbsp; You're not going to turn \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E into \u003Ci\u003EFriends\u003C\/i\u003E either.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECreatively? To take something as personal and idiosyncratic as \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E and remove its chief creative voice is probably not gonna end well. The best we can hope for is a respectable approximation of what came before, a victory lap as it were. The new showrunners have worked on \u003Ci\u003EHappy Endings\u003C\/i\u003E, which is a very funny show- it's not ambitious, really, but they know what they do well, so maybe \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E season 4 will just be funny and get by on the charm of its cast (which is substantial.) They also worked on \u003Ci\u003EJust Shoot Me\u003C\/i\u003E, which was honestly okay with a few down spots so I'm not sure if that means anything one way or another. They were also involved with the pilot of a failed American remake of the British comedy \u003Ci\u003EThe IT Crowd\u003C\/i\u003E, for which they made no contact with the show's creator despite recreating the entire first episode shot for shot. This is less good news. Hopefully in the years since they have learned something about respect for creators.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo everything depends on them, and so far they have yet to poke their heads up. (Not that I can blame them.) If they are truly respectful of what's come before they can at least finish on a pleasant note, keeping some of the show's adventurous spirit even if it ends up a little less personal. But if they decide that their job is to make the show mainstream at all costs, things could get very, very ugly. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOf course, even if the last season of \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E is not very good, we should appreciate what we've gotten. The original \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek\u003C\/i\u003E also had a third and final season without its original showrunner's involvement, a year where the plots were silly and childish, a time that the fans like to call the \"turd\" season. And yet, \u003Ci\u003EStar Trek\u003C\/i\u003E is considered a pretty great and important show. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo matter what, I feel confident that \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E will be recognized as a great work of television. But the people coming on board should understand what they're inheriting, and understand that to try too hard to make it more commercial will not only make it worse, but also probably not deliver very many more viewers anyway. I really want the next season to be good. And I look forward to Dan Harmon's next work, and wish him well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut maybe he should get himself to a psychiatrist's office too, because honestly, dude sometimes beats up on himself too much. I worry.\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3896520840250730084\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3896520840250730084\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3896520840250730084"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3896520840250730084"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/on-dan-harmons-removal-from-community.html","title":"On Dan Harmon's Removal from Community and Similar Bullshit"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-A1cUVLCoBLM\/T7pUGJrUQRI\/AAAAAAAABSQ\/aCYEcIMRPUs\/s72-c\/danharmonisagenius.gif","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-613602924982247087"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-18T10:04:00.002-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-18T10:06:26.258-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 1: 1933"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B001KVZ6LQ\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B001KVZ6LQ\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"King Kong poster and link to the Blu-Ray on Amazon\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-p7qTSk4c4WA\/T7ZjZ2xNvnI\/AAAAAAAABSE\/4eHPk-OB77Y\/s1600\/MV5BMTkxOTIxMDU2OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjM5NjQyMg@@._V1._SY317_.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is an icon of cinema, and indeed a household name. A single film in 1933 was enough to endear him to the world, partly because it's a classic and partly because it was the first motion picture to realize the awesomeness of giant apes. This simian innovation is but one part of the legend, and here at the Club I've decided to look at the three major renditions of this classic story, from its original version all the way to the Kong of the digital age. I'm not touching any of the sequels or tie-ins yet, except of course for the monster's two Japanese outings, chronicled \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/10\/monsterthon-2011-king-kong-vs-godzilla.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E and \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/random-movie-report-102-king-kong.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOkay, this is partly because of the title. I'm proud of it dammit.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo we start in 1933, with one of the very best films ever made. \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E is in some ways the ultimate demonstration of what people talk about when they talk about the magic of the movies. It shows us things that can only exist in the imagination and makes them vividly real, even more than real, for the time we watch it. It's a blend of romance, adventure, and tragedy that with time and changing attitudes has become more complex than its makers even intended, but hasn't lots its original emotional power in the process. Superlatives are hard to avoid in talking about this one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story, you know. Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) is a nature documentarian planning to shoot a movie off on a lost island whose existence is only verified by a map he got from a Dutch sailor. All well and good, but his backers want his movies to have a love interest, and no legitimate actress is willing to take a long ocean cruise to an unknown land of danger, so Denham hits the streets and finds Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), a desperately poor girl reduced to shoplifting apples, who's more than willing to take such a dubious job. On the way to Skull Island Ann falls in love with ship's mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), but when they arrive the natives decide she'd be a much more suitable mate for Kong, a giant ape they periodically make sacrifices to because why wouldn't you. Kong grabs Ann, Jack and everyone else goes into a dinosaur-infested jungle to rescue her, and Carl starts to think maybe he's got something bigger than a movie he can take back to New York.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is a lean and smartly told adventure yarn. It holds off on the apes and dinosaurs for the first third, gets all the character development done that it needs to, and then leaps forward into the unknown. Helping the pacing is a pounding, avant-garde score by Max Steiner; in the early sound era many films eschewed incidental music outside of the main titles, but co-producer Merian C. Cooper paid out of pocket to have Steiner create music that closely followed the action in a way normally associated with cartoons. It both complements the film perfectly and is really memorable on its own. There's a lot of energy in the air.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf course, the major attractions are the monsters of Skull Island, with Kong himself at the top. For stop motion innovator Willis O' Brien the film was a refinement of what he'd managed with 1925's \u003Ci\u003EThe Lost World\u003C\/i\u003E, and as the chief animator he was responsible for giving Kong much of his personality (often over the objections of Cooper, who wanted him to be more terrifying.) There's a real sense of life to the movie's star, and though the effects used to paste him together with the live actors are crude, there's never a sense that they don't inhabit the same reality. The pathos of Kong, which lends the film its inescapable sense of tragedy, is really one of the earliest examples of cinema drawing our sympathy towards something wholly unreal.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's also a really interesting dynamic going on with the human characters as well. \"Beauty and the beast\" is established as a theme from the opening title card (quoting a made-up Arabic proverb), and Ann Darrow is a beauty among many beasts. Carl Denham may be civilized enough, but he's still a dangerous man, but he won't put her in danger, and she outright tames Driscoll before awakening in Kong a fatal vulnerability. Wray is gracious and believably innocent (though the screaming gets to be a bit much, and she apparently thought so too), and Armstrong's performance is a grand piece of work. Brassy, bold, and charming despite capturing an innocent monster and unleashing him on New York, Denham was largely based on Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, both nature documentarians wanting to convey the sense of adventure they felt in the remote places of the world. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt that they certainly succeeded. \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E gives us a lush jungle straight out of Gustav Dore, pointlessly aggressive dinosaurs, some unfortunately stereotyped natives (who are apparently African despite this being the East Indies or something), and an ape whose love for a woman takes him across the world, to a legendary final fight atop the Empire State Building. Reviewing the original seems almost pointless since, really, it's part of the canon, but it's always surprising just how much life and energy and newness it retains. It's an adventure story with interesting undertones, positing its title character as both a monster and a tragic figure, a divide that our modern understanding (i.e. it's a bad idea to capture wild animals and drag them across the world for a quick buck, especially if they are capable of crushing you) makes only more severe. Really, if you haven't seen it yet,\u0026nbsp; you're missing out on so much fun.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFrom an idea by Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/613602924982247087\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=613602924982247087\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/613602924982247087"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/613602924982247087"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/three-faces-of-kong-pt-1-1933.html","title":"The Three Faces of Kong, Pt. 1: 1933"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-p7qTSk4c4WA\/T7ZjZ2xNvnI\/AAAAAAAABSE\/4eHPk-OB77Y\/s72-c\/MV5BMTkxOTIxMDU2OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjM5NjQyMg@@._V1._SY317_.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2356308052647082198"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-10T09:31:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-10T09:31:38.849-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.23: Odd Man Out"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zAqlaLMrFro\/T6vQwrd2IGI\/AAAAAAAABR4\/dEW1J8QXt8s\/s1600\/Ep95.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier's not-so-chance encounter\" border=\"0\" height=\"182\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zAqlaLMrFro\/T6vQwrd2IGI\/AAAAAAAABR4\/dEW1J8QXt8s\/s320\/Ep95.jpg\" title=\"In fairness, he resisted the temptation to greet her with 'Come with me if you want to live.'\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Great news! Laura's in town!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Who's Laura?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: A stranger who called my machine by mistake.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESeason four closes on an odd note, but not one unwarranted by what's gone before. For once paying little to no attention to the the problems of other characters, \"Odd Man Out\" is all about Frasier being in a rut. It's a rut we've seen him in all season, and it reaches a peak here that inspires him to commit an act of romantic chivalry with Sarah Connor from the \u003Ci\u003ETerminator\u003C\/i\u003E movies. The result is a simple story that starts out realistically awkward but ends up very sweet. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter Roz skips out on her own birthday dinner, Frasier has a humiliating experience dining alone in a restaurant of families and loving couples. In his early 40s and still single, he's starting to realize that Lilith was a long time ago. When he finds that a woman named Laura (Linda Hamilton, a guest caller on the show's first episode) called his machine by mistake and is arriving at the airport, he finds himself mysteriously drawn to her. She's a cellist, she's witty and cultured, and as Martin observes she expresses affection easily. So off to the airport Frasier goes, to rescue a woman he's never met from the horrible fate of having to take a cab.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAll of this is building off Frasier's \"dry spell\" that's lasted most of the season. If he had been doing maybe a little better in the dating department, his desperation here wouldn't seem so believable, and while this doesn't seem like it was planned explicitly, it works well regardless. The episode is about him feeling lonelier than he ever has in his life, and at times it's almost too cutting. (Then again, I've eaten alone a lot of times without feeling a stigma about it. I'm weird that way.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat the episode focuses on Frasier to the near-total exclusion of everyone else is unusual for a sitcom season finale. There's no real taking stock of where all the other characters are in their lives as in years past. It's easy enough to infer some things- Martin is still with Sherry, Niles is still in couples therapy, and Daphne and Roz are single and doing their best to enjoy it. It makes sense, then, to focus on Frasier, because he's the one with the most problems. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe redemption Frasier finds at the end of his adventure is not quite what he hoped for. Laura's married, but she tells him he should appreciate the thrill of not being married. It's a concept that cuts to the heart of Frasier as a character- he craves a certainty and stability to his life that just isn't there, and looks ridiculous as a result. But for a moment, at the end of his rope, he's willing to listen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo we end the season with Frasier off to Mexico in pursuit of another beautiful woman, a redemptive yet silly note showing his optimism after a year of setbacks. This is not a man who stays down for long, which is why we can enjoy his pratfalls. After what is easily one of the show's best years, though, he's earned a vacation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Suzanne Martin\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired May 27, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: And I have a date with Greg.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Greg? I don't believe I've met him yet.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: I have, he's gorgeous. (Off their looks) Well, he is!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne: Certainly the best looking man I've ever been out with. Of course, he doesn't have a thought in that pretty little head of his. Oh, this could be the one.\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2356308052647082198\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2356308052647082198\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2356308052647082198"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2356308052647082198"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/frasierquest-423-odd-man-out.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.23: Odd Man Out"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-zAqlaLMrFro\/T6vQwrd2IGI\/AAAAAAAABR4\/dEW1J8QXt8s\/s72-c\/Ep95.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4053663098748639709"},"published":{"$t":"2012-05-05T17:28:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-05-06T02:42:49.040-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Comics"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Avengers (2012)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-zA0I_Vr84h0\/T6WpM8a2TWI\/AAAAAAAABRs\/uypwZyC1JdY\/s1600\/avengers_ver14.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The Avengers movie poster\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-zA0I_Vr84h0\/T6WpM8a2TWI\/AAAAAAAABRs\/uypwZyC1JdY\/s320\/avengers_ver14.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster from IMPAwards.com\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI come into The Avengers with conflicted feelings- on the one hand I'm glad they're finally doing a big superhero team-up movie, embracing the full range of absurd imagination inherent in the genre, and I've always liked Joss Whedon, but on the other hand I now have to be really specific when talking about \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2007\/04\/academy-of-underrated-avengers-1998.html\" target=\"_blank\"\u003Ethe single most underrated film of the 1990s\u003C\/a\u003E, and I do talk about it a lot. After much wheeling and dealing, Marvel Studios have brought together Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor from their respective franchises, added a couple more heroes alongside them, and given writer\/director Whedon the task of bringing it all together in a coherent fashion in time to kick off the summer blockbuster season. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis could easily have ended in disaster, given the sheer scale of what was attempted and the micromanagement inherent in any movie with a budget the size of several government programs. But The Avengers is admirable in how well it negotiates the perils of blockbuster moviemaking; it delivers even more action and spectacle than you'd expect, draws characters big and charming enough to engage us, and even has a plot that basically, more or less hangs together. Not too much, but it'll last until you get to the fridge.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFor years, researchers at the top secret organization SHIELD have been studying the Tesseract, a strange cube that could be a source of unlimited free energy. However, it's also prized by beings from many other dimensions, and can be used to open portals between worlds. The chaos god Loki (Tom Hiddleston) manages to steal it and uses his power to enlist the loyalty of a small army of agents and scientists- worse, he's planning to use it to lead an invasion of Earth by an army of extradimensional alien beings, and take the role of \"supreme overlord\" denied him by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in the movie bearing the thunder god's name. SHIELD agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) responds to the theft by rounding up some of Earth's mightiest heroes- Iron Man, aka Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.); Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk (now Mark Ruffalo); Captain America (Chris Evans); and top assassin Black Widow (Scarlet Johannson)- and assembling them into an elite superteam of Avengers. The problem is, they're used to working on their own and don't get along terribly well, and none of them are entirely sure SHIELD is on the up-and-up either. Thor joining the team just adds to the number of egos in play, and all this conflict just makes them easier prey for the trickster god.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA story this big takes some time to build, even if bits of the narrative groundwork were laid in other films. (I'm reasonably sure you don't have to have seen any of them to follow this plot, but since I HAVE seen them I can't be positive.) The early going is kind of slow, and involves a lot of laying of pipe by various characters. Which is not to say it's unenjoyable, because we get some witty banter (Whedon's voice isn't quite as dominant as in Buffy and the like, but he still likes the exchanging of quips), some action, and some of the plot stuff is genuinely interesting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOnce the story kicks into high gear, though, and an aircraft carrier starts flying because why the Hell not, the film's true strength starts to emerge. This is a very good ensemble, full of strong performers (including a really great turn by Clark Gregg as a nerdy agent, and a nice action role for Cobie Smulders), and the filmmakers seem to get that one of the strengths of the Stan Lee\/Jack Kirby halcyon days was that the heroes had outsize personalities to go with their earthshattering abilities. There's a really strong dynamic at work in how these characters bounce off each other; Tony Stark is a smug bastard who earns it by being smart and realizing that the whole set-up isn't very kosher, Banner bonds with him over their mutual geekiness and mistrust, Cap feels the need to do his duty, Thor wants everyone to focus on the cosmic matters at hand, and Black Widow has a personal stake in this, as her partner Clint \"Hawkeye\" Barton (Jeremy Renner) has been turned by Loki. Not only do the team exchange funny quips, they clash in believable and entertaining ways, and the film really manages to make their attempts to come together a central theme as opposed to a subplot. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut how is the action and explosion-related material, you may justifiably ask. While the action in Whedon's Serenity tended to be fairly rough-and-tumble (reflecting both the setting and its moderate budget), he transitions well to the realm of slick superhero action with only a few bumps on the way. The action is mostly clear and comprehensible, or at least the important bits are- there are a few messy close-ups, and the climax involves an entire alien army plus giant flying snake monsters so we can't keep track of everything, but I never felt like we were being denied a good moment by a bad angle or cut. Amazingly, what would be the one practical problem- how can characters defined as \"woman with a gun\" and \"guy with a shield\" share the spotlight with \"ultrastrong monster\" and \"god of thunder\"- is handled so easily I found myself never really thinking about it. Everyone gets to shine on and off the battlefield. (I would recommend against the 3-D screenings of this, however, as the film wasn't really shot for it and it does make the images less sharp than they should be.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Avengers doesn't quite have the same level of passion that propels the true masterpieces of the genre, and of course it doesn't have anything as awesome as a conference room full of giant teddy bears, but it's fun and reasonably smart, and despite some obvious sequel hooks is more than enough payoff for the years of franchise building Marvel has engaged in. It's a very finely put together movie indeed, and proof that the superhero genre has plenty of life left in it, the behavior of comic companies themselves notwithstanding.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on characters created by Stan Lee, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, and others whom Marvel Studios declined to give any credit to.\u0026nbsp; For shame.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by Joss Whedon and Zak Penn\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten for the screen and directed by Joss Whedon\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4053663098748639709\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4053663098748639709\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4053663098748639709"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4053663098748639709"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/05\/in-theaters-avengers-2012.html","title":"In Theaters: The Avengers (2012)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-zA0I_Vr84h0\/T6WpM8a2TWI\/AAAAAAAABRs\/uypwZyC1JdY\/s72-c\/avengers_ver14.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2862956660037872021"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-30T23:22:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-30T23:22:54.521-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: Planet of Fire (1984)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003O97W32\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B003O97W32\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-SGZ2sXrFlTs\/T59kNovmWTI\/AAAAAAAABRg\/XQlNYU-JYKM\/s320\/PlanetofFire.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhile classic Doctor Who stories often have the feel of movies, it was still a weekly television show. Sometimes episodes had to fill functions in a larger story, and for \u003Ci\u003EPlanet of Fire\u003C\/i\u003E a number of those functions intersected- the departure of a compaion, the arrival of a new one, dealing with a recurring character and giving us another round with one of the show's most popular villains. Peter Davison's penultimate story works pretty well under these circumstances, and if it lacks a certain urgency, it makes a good pause for breath between two much grimmer serials.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Doctor and Turlough (Mark Strickson) discover that the robot Kamelion (voiced by Gerald Flood) is in distress, picking up signals that take them first to Earth and the island of Lanzarote, off the Spanish coast. There, Turlough is just in time to save the life of a drowning woman, Peri (Nicola Bryant), an American student who ends up recovering on board the TARDIS when it is drawn to the planet Sarn, home to a theocratic society worshipping the volcano god Logar. The high priest, Timanov (Peter Wyngarde) has his hands full putting down rebels and nonbelievers, and the arrival of \"outsiders\" who seem to call into question the whole \"worship an angry fiery mountain\" thing doesn't help. Finally, the shapeshifting Kamelion is taken over by, and takes the form of, The Master (Anthony Ainley), who is controlling him from his TARDIS on Sarn and seeks to use the soon-to-erupt volcano's healing gasses to correct a little mishap he experienced.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo much is going on in this story that the people of Sarn, manipulated and fearful and in danger of all dying in fiery rock, don't get developed that much. There's definitely a critique of religion, or at least superstition, in Peter Grimwade's script, but it doesn't get to be developed a lot; the Doctor and his companions don't wrestle with the ethical and moral questions of how to confront a tyrannical religion without just imposing your culture on top of another, or anything that grandiose. Timanov does get developed a little bit beyond your standard overbearing priest near the end (Grimwade apparently based him on the Ayatollah Khomeni), but it feels like a cursory resolution. The Master's plot is also a little needlessly obtuse at times, though there's a great revelation regarding what actually happened that's put him in his current predicament. It's a genuinely imaginative take on one of the character's \"powers\", one of those times when nods to continuity add to the show's richness instead of making it less accessible.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKamelion is a more interesting (and sadder) story. Introduced in \u003Ci\u003EThe King's Demons\u003C\/i\u003E as a functioning electronic prop, Kamelion was seemingly intended to be a part of the TARDIS crew in a way similar to the tin dog K-9. However, he proved difficult to control, and when his inventor, Mike Power, died suddenly, nobody was left who could consistently run the character well. What few glimpses we see of Kamelion in his robot form here are stiff and halting, and for the sake of the plot he spends almost all of his time transformed, either as The Master or as Peri's father (a suspiciously young Dallas Adams). This reduces the drama of his \"takeover\" somewhat, though Flood does add a lot with a good voice performance.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe two major character changes are, on the other hand, handled very well. The ever-shifty Turlough gets some backstory that fits his character's desperate nature, and these revelations are integrated well with the rest of the plot as opposed to being grafted on at the end. Peri's introduction is, gratuitous bikini close-ups notwithstanding, pretty promising; while Nicola Bryant's American accent slips in several places, she's admirably energetic and gets to confront the Master in a particularly fun scene where she defies him by saying, \"I can shout just as loud as you can!\" \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHelping to tie this all together is some particularly nice direction by Fiona Cumming, who finds a lovely, earthy visual style for Sarn which matches well with the location work. There's an atmosphere and a sense of genuinely being in a new place which adds to Peter Grimwade's inventive writing, so even if the story lacks drama, we still get a lot to hold our attention. The story finds a good rhythm and tone for itself, even if the actual plotting is messy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThough \u003Ci\u003EPlanet of Fire\u003C\/i\u003E isn't a particular standout from this era of the show, it's a good representative of what John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward had working by this point- it's a slick production and a story with a lot of interesting concepts, even if continuity and ongoing behind-the-scenes troubles make it less successful than it could be. It's just weird and clever enough to remind us of what makes Doctor Who unique.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Peter Grimwade\u003Cbr \/\u003EProduced by John Nathan-Turner\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Fiona Cumming\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2862956660037872021\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2862956660037872021\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2862956660037872021"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2862956660037872021"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/random-who-report-planet-of-fire-1984.html","title":"Random Who Report: Planet of Fire (1984)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-SGZ2sXrFlTs\/T59kNovmWTI\/AAAAAAAABRg\/XQlNYU-JYKM\/s72-c\/PlanetofFire.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3521745614800052684"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-30T09:31:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-30T09:31:17.808-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #105: The Iron Rose"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0063E00KC\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0063E00KC\" target=\"_blank\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Iron Rose Blu-Ray cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-sIF5nFnmY1A\/T56hmuGzw-I\/AAAAAAAABRU\/LE8maLP3N2M\/s320\/ironrose.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJean Rollin has a style that's easy to pick up on, not so easy to love. His films' languid pacing and emphasis on bleak but atmospheric images makes his approach comparable to Bergman or Tarkovsky, with the crucial difference that neither of them ever made films about lesbian vampires. \u003Ci\u003EThe Iron Rose\u003C\/i\u003E- which, to be fair, is not about that either- is a particularly difficult and abstract film, one I'm not entirely sure what I think about some weeks after having seen it. It's as much an experience as a film, and while it's slow and not terribly satisfying, there's the nub of something powerful in there.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA boy (Pierre Dupont) and a girl (Francoise Pascal) meet at a party, make a date to go biking together, and end up at a cemetery, where the boy leads the girl into a crypt so they can make love. (Apparently this works. Single guys, take this down.) Time passes, pleasantly we assume, and when they climb out, it's night and they have no idea how to get out. The cemetery, being old and European, is a twisted maze of crypts, stones, and overgrowth, also featuring the occasional open pit to fall into. The girl slowly goes mad, developing an unhealthy obsession with death- one that may have always been there, even if she was reluctant to enter the place to start with.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo that is more or less the entire film. Two people are in a graveyard, trying not to be; it's a plot that, with a little trimming, could have been a \u003Ci\u003ENight Gallery\u003C\/i\u003E episode. As a result, it's kind of slow going, and it's hard to work out any progression in the story- there's no sense that they're getting anywhere, so the only real driving force is the breakdown of the girl's sanity, which as the above paragraph indicated isn't really consistent to start with. The film mostly foregoes a music score in favor of ambient noise, which gets a little annoying after a while.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAnd yet there's something here. The upside of the whole mood piece approach is that Rollin is genuinely good at creating mood. There's a palpable sense of isolation and displacement in the images of the graveyard, and it's easy to believe the two characters are lost, because all we see are spots of light illuminated in a tangle of blackness. The place is old and filled with loose bones and skulls, and the silence is palpable.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe thinness of the characters seems deliberate, though it makes the girl's madness harder to process- it seems like it has something to do with the boy becoming agitated and violent at being lost, but it's hard to piece together a sequence of events in something deliberately plotless. Pascal is alluring in her way, just captivating enough to help anchor our interest, but both she and Dupont have to struggle with a script that gives them very little motivation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs I've said in the past, atmosphere counts for a lot. The power of film to transport us to somewhere else is one of the reasons I love it, and really managing that is no mean feat. The film is based on a poem by Tristan Corbiere, and perhaps its idiosyncrasies stem from the fact that it doesn't stray very far from the poetic form- the aim, in the end, is to present images, not take us through a story. I'm not sure the picture is entirely successful in this regard, since it does still have to keep us engaged and it doesn't always do that, but what's there is more than enough to be worth a look. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on the poem by Tristan Corbiere\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScenario by Jean Rollin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDialogue by Maurice Lemaitre\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Jean Rollin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3521745614800052684\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3521745614800052684\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3521745614800052684"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3521745614800052684"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/jean-rollin-has-style-thats-easy-to.html","title":"Random Movie Report #105: The Iron Rose"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-sIF5nFnmY1A\/T56hmuGzw-I\/AAAAAAAABRU\/LE8maLP3N2M\/s72-c\/ironrose.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6604274564923851034"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-26T09:22:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-26T09:24:03.542-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Cabin in the Woods"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kRLUdg61o0s\/T5lZb8Qv9oI\/AAAAAAAABRI\/fiQYfzlC0uA\/s1600\/cabin_in_the_woods_ver4.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kRLUdg61o0s\/T5lZb8Qv9oI\/AAAAAAAABRI\/fiQYfzlC0uA\/s320\/cabin_in_the_woods_ver4.jpg\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003EPoster via \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003EInternet Movie Poster Awards\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\n\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDespite sitting on the shelf for a couple of years, \u003Ci\u003EThe Cabin in the Woods\u003C\/i\u003E feels pretty fresh. A lot has been written about how there's more to the plot than even the seemingly revealing trailers let on, and it's definitely a challenge to write about this without giving something away. Suffice it to say, Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon's film is an imaginative take on horror movie tropes that goes beyond simply referencing them, to questioning the need for their existence. If it isn't quite as surprising as it tries to be, it still manages to create some genuinely transgressive thrills.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHere's what I can reveal. Five college kids go out to a cabin in the woods for vaguely defined reasons, there to drink, screw, etc. What they don't know is that by doing so, they're becoming part of a kind of project, watched over from miles below the Earth by a couple of technicians (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) who are subtly manipulating their behavior through pheromones and other tricks. When the gang stumble upon the cabin cellar and unleash something horrible, it's all according to a very old plan. Only the stoner of the group (Fran Kranz) suspects that they're being manipulated, but he's a little too baked to do any good, so it's mostly the young and sweet Dana (Kristen Connolly) who has to find a way to fight the forces who want them dead- if she ever figures out what they're really up to.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of the good things about this exercise in genre reflexiveness is that the cabin scenario itself, which ends up involving a family of zombie pain cultists (one of whom is \u003Ci\u003ETideland\u003C\/i\u003E's Jodelle Ferdland), seems like a decent horror film, with some spooky backstory and a few good shocks- it'd be an acceptable time waster, and the lead of the Buckners does carry a bear trap on a chain that he throws to ensnare people, which is pretty intense. Of course it's still a bit cliched, since that's the entire point.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's not hard to see the metafictional elements in this story. It has a lot to do with the formulas that bedevil American horror films, and how religiously they're followed, like rituals where something will go horribly wrong if they don't kill all the characters who have sex and do drugs. I've never understood this, and it's ruined a few horror flicks for me as of late. (I'm looking at you, \u003Ci\u003EPiranha 3D\u003C\/i\u003E.) In broad terms, \u003Ci\u003ECabin\u003C\/i\u003E suggests this is unsustainable- that the old ways don't work anymore, that we're too clever and self-aware for them to fulfill their function. The film does leave some room for ambiguity in interpreting what it's about, and while it's a critique of the genre it doesn't hold itself above the audience who enjoy such things.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe drawback of being a spoof on the traditional horror formula is that the movie still has to follow it for the first two-thirds before it really goes nuts, and our awareness that things aren't what they seem doesn't always help. Some plot points I saw coming, but at others the foreknowledge is engaging- it's a mixed bag. Still, the film's final third is a glorious chaotic storm, an act of sheer creative anarchy that elevates the whole thing. It helps that the script is witty (though your tolerance for Whedonspeak may vary) and the acting spot on, with an inspired cameo near the end.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHorror is always changing, but it's always bedeviled by people who stick to the status quo because it's easy money- on top of which there's a guilty fun in rehashing old clichés. While there are definitely horror films being made that don't follow the Dead Teenager identikit model, it's nice to have one that actively demolishes the confines. \u003Ci\u003EThe Cabin in the Woods\u003C\/i\u003E is an engaging movie in its own right, but what it says about the horror genre leaves us with a lot to chew on.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Drew Goddard\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6604274564923851034\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6604274564923851034\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6604274564923851034"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6604274564923851034"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/in-theaters-cabin-in-woods.html","title":"In Theaters: The Cabin in the Woods"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-kRLUdg61o0s\/T5lZb8Qv9oI\/AAAAAAAABRI\/fiQYfzlC0uA\/s72-c\/cabin_in_the_woods_ver4.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-941772794429755659"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-21T16:22:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-21T16:22:52.987-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.22: Ask Me No Questions"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-c1wNfFZXe_g\/T5Mk0UmteUI\/AAAAAAAABRA\/39oCFRDy9zI\/s1600\/Ep94.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier contemplates, Daphne doesn't.\" border=\"0\" height=\"279\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-c1wNfFZXe_g\/T5Mk0UmteUI\/AAAAAAAABRA\/39oCFRDy9zI\/s320\/Ep94.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ENiles: Do you think Maris and I are meant to be together?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Right, well, that's a tough question. Well, perhaps, the better question would be do you think Maris and you are meant to be together?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: I serve you up a question, you clumsily bat it back to me. We've hardly missed our squash game at all.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"Ask Me No Questions\" feels like an earlier episode, something built around a simple, straightforward psychological concept. Frasier is handed a difficult question by someone who very much trusts his answer, and his obsession with getting it right drives him mad. It's a story that plays on Frasier's high opinion of his own importance and the awkwardness we all feel when put on the spot. On the heels of \"Are You Being Served?\" it looks more at Niles and Maris' changing relationship, and raises some questions of its own which aren't answered right away.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EStill going through marital counseling, Niles asks Frasier if he thinks he and Maris are meant to be together. Frasier tries to deflect or ignore the question at first, but Niles seems insistent. He then plans to tell his brother what he thinks he wants to hear (i.e., \"Yes\"), but Martin reminds him that Niles values his opinion and trusts what he says. But Frasier doesn't know what to say, and he starts to obsess. His focus on the question jeopardizes his date with a smitten coworker (Cindy Katz), and eventually sends him wandering the streets looking for an answer.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a speedy episode, focused on one thing and able to explore it to the fullest. There's a subplot about Martin and Daphne exchanging gifts while managing to anger each other at the same time, but the episode focuses almost entirely on Frasier's attempt to resolve his dilemma, and it benefits from that. We learn more about Frasier in the process than we do about Niles and Maris; he's always been one to obsess, and as shown here it leads to indecision, because he values his own opinion too highly to make a decision quickly.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut even if the episode is mostly about Frasier, we do see a little more of Niles and Maris' developments. On the whole, things are going well- they're going to the sessions, and Niles' reports are hopeful. This contributes to this episodes' feeling like a throwback, with the two almost a happy couple again, even if we're as unsure as Frasier about whether it can last. And it provides another appearance by the ever-adorable Marta, who is now learning how to be fashion conscious. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI actually like the Martin\/Daphne subplot, though they've been getting thrown together a lot by this point. I've never been in the escalating gift situation myself, but it seems to reflect their personalities quite well- Daphne does a sweet thing because she's a nice person, Martin is worried about the rules of when you give gifts and why. They'll hopefully be getting more to do soon than just get on each other's nerves.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs we finally close in on the season finale, we're seeing some changes, and one of them is that Niles and Maris are within hailing distance of reconciliation. In this episode they even sleep together, a big hop back into dangerous territory. Frasier reveals in this episode that he doesn't think this can work out, but we don't know for sure. It's a nice ambiguous note on top of a fun, speedy episode.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Dan Cohen \u0026amp; F. J. Pratt\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired May 20, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EMarta: Missy Crane very different, nicer to everyone, and this time no happy pills! For my birthday she give me a beautiful Chanel makeup bag. Is a knock-off, but is big!\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/941772794429755659\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=941772794429755659\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/941772794429755659"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/941772794429755659"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/frasierquest-422-ask-me-no-questions.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.22: Ask Me No Questions"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-c1wNfFZXe_g\/T5Mk0UmteUI\/AAAAAAAABRA\/39oCFRDy9zI\/s72-c\/Ep94.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8467442320861309547"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-18T18:12:00.003-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-18T18:12:42.450-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #104: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0011E5RXO\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0011E5RXO\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Munchausen cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-hN4np_mRwDA\/T49JZI7Hd3I\/AAAAAAAABQ4\/oBzcXGXqKaE\/s1600\/Munchausen.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt's both ironic and understandable that an enchanting fairytale like \u003Ci\u003EThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen\u003C\/i\u003E was an absolute nightmare behind the scenes. It was one of the biggest flops of its day, largely due to Columbia Pictures' decisions not to support a film greenlit by the last administration and to only strike a grand total of 120 prints during its entire theatrical run. But you can't say it doesn't deliver. Indeed, it's one of the most straightforwardly satisfying movies Gilliam's ever made, a wonderfully overstuffed, chaotic spectacle designed to leave the viewer dazed, tired, but happy. Gilliam clearly doesn't believe in leaving 'em wanting more, but his excess has a purpose, and at the core of the film is an affirmation of mad fantasy in the face of insurmountable sanity.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's the Age of Reason, and an unnamed town in Europe is under siege by the Turks. In an attempt to distract everyone from their sure-to-be-short lives, a small theatrical company is putting on a play about the exploits of famous adventurer\/liar Baron Munchausen, only to be interrupted by the \u003Ci\u003Ereal\u003C\/i\u003E Munchausen (John Neville), who sets about telling everyone what really happened and why the Sultan (Peter Jeffrey) is after his head. Sally (Sarah Polley), the theater owner's daughter, convinces the Baron to help fight off the Sultan, and he decides to do so by rounding up his old friends, the speedy Berthold (Eric Idle), the strong Albrecht (Winston Dennis), eagle-eyed marksman Adolphus (Charles McKeown), and Gustavus (Jack Purvis), a man with giant ears and powerful lungs. In their quest to find these men, the Baron and Sally travel to the moon, the center of the Earth, and the South Seas, meeting up with sea monsters, the King of the Moon (\"Ray D. Tutto\", bearing a resemblance to Robin Williams), and the godly couple of Vulcan (Oliver Reed) and Venus (Uma Thurman). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is definitely an episodic film, adapted as it is from a series of stories that never had much structure beyond being the stories of a man given to stretching the truth. However, any resulting slack in the narrative is taken up by some of the most intense imagery Gilliam can throw at the viewer. It's reminiscent of the filmmaker's \u003Ci\u003ETime Bandits\u003C\/i\u003E, but bigger, louder, and somehow weirder; some of the transitions, like the trip to the moon over a stormy sea which becomes an ocean of moon dust, are downright poetic. Though a hellish production resulted in the film going way over budget, and some sequences were altered or discarded, the movie certainly \u003Ci\u003Elooks\u003C\/i\u003E like a 50 million dollar colossus, with vast armies, crumbling cities, giant fish monsters, flying heads, clockwork birds, and the angel of death himself. Michael Kamen's score, owing much to Korngold, raises the film's energy level still higher.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's almost too much, and it can be wearying. The film lightens the viewer's burden with a wry, Pythonesque humor, as well as a baroque grace in its images. The moon is surrounded by living constellations, an eternal game of cards in the belly of the fish threatens to draw the Baron to his death, and the Baron and Venus share a waltz that leads them into the sky, and this after she emerges naked from a clamshell a la Botticelli. Neville is ideally cast, playing his part with an old man's weariness mixed with an arrogance that somehow manages to be charming- it's the old tough exterior masking a heart of gold, and it's hard to make work.\u0026nbsp; Polley makes a very good impression as well, and Jonathan Pryce has a lot of fun turning his \u003Ci\u003EBrazil\u003C\/i\u003E role on its head and playing the secondary villain of the piece, a civil servant insisting that the war, however brutal, be conducted according to logic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is where the story gets interesting. In many ways it's a continuation of the themes Gilliam was exploring in his 1985 magnum opus, and unofficially \u003Ci\u003ETime Bandits\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003EBrazil\u003C\/i\u003E, and \u003Ci\u003EMunchausen\u003C\/i\u003E have been lumped together as a trilogy, the first dealing with childhood, the second adulthood, and the third old age.\u0026nbsp; The Baron is briefly rejuvenated by his encounters with the fantastic, and is disappointed by the fact that his companions have had their powers tempered by time, but a part of him wants to die, especially since the world has grown too sensible for him. Only Sally can keep him going, reminding him frequently of his promise to save the town. The Baron's dance with death is arguably the real heart of the story, though it's intertwined with his conflict with the enlightened world- youth is a time of infinite possibility, and just as adventure rejuvenates him, every closed off possibility is years off his life. Portraying reason as the enemy may seem distasteful to current liberal sensibilities, but the film is unapologetic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThough the story sometimes suffers in its need to cram in every fantastic thing imaginable, \u003Ci\u003EThe Adventures of Baron Munchausen\u003C\/i\u003E is still a gem. It's a brilliant twist on the Hollywood concept of the movie as thrill ride; that may usually mean it's nice to look at and has lots of action, but for Gilliam it means taking the audience to the very highest and lowest reaches of the imaginative realm, and near exhausting us from the motion. It's a valid goal, as much as it is to devastate the audience through tragedy or through rapt suspense. That Gilliam manages to deliver on this more than Michael Bay ever could is significant; that the story still has a mad heart beating underneath is worthy of high praise indeed. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the stories by Gottfried August Burger and Rudolph Erich Raspe\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Charles McKeown and Terry Gilliam\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Terry Gilliam\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8467442320861309547\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8467442320861309547\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8467442320861309547"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8467442320861309547"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/random-movie-report-104-adventures-of.html","title":"Random Movie Report #104: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-hN4np_mRwDA\/T49JZI7Hd3I\/AAAAAAAABQ4\/oBzcXGXqKaE\/s72-c\/Munchausen.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4948093394212930944"},"published":{"$t":"2012-04-12T09:37:00.005-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-04-12T09:42:21.115-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"My Favorite Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #103: At the Earth's Core"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00005O06Z\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00005O06Z\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"At the Earth's Core DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-uNiZ_3KdCbI\/T4bnjfq_2XI\/AAAAAAAABPw\/5YOTl8EEMHU\/s1600\/attheearthscore.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn the wake of \u003Ci\u003EJohn Carter\u003C\/i\u003E's unjust reception, I find myself taking a look at another attempt at bringing the fantastic literature of Edgar Rice Burroughs to the screen. \u003Ci\u003EAt the Earth's Core\u003C\/i\u003E is a film carried by its weirdness; it would be a bog standard adventure movie if not for just how strange everything it presents is. It's realized on a fairly low budget, so the presentation is inconsistent at best, but the overall experience is memorable. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDavid Innes (Doug McClure) has given funding to Dr. Abner Perry (Peter Cushing) for the creation of a giant mechanical drill that can tunnel through a mountainside in a matter of hours. Hopping inside the vehicle for its first test, the two men find it's a bit too powerful, as it veers out of control and starts drilling to the center of the Earth. Fortunately, they wind up not at the molten core, but in Pellucidar, a strange underground world inhabited by prehistoric monsters and primitive humans. Innes and Perry fall in with a group of people captured by the Sagoths, brutish slaves of the Mahar, telepathic flying dinosaurs. Innes, in the midst of falling for a beautiful native named Dia (Caroline Munro), decides with Perry to help free the humans from Mahar tyranny, which involves finding a way to destroy their fiery fortress.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe last film produced by British studio Amicus, \u003Ci\u003EAt the Earth's Core\u003C\/i\u003E tries its best to make a grand adventure from limited resources. On the one hand, the monsters are a little shoddy looking, and without stop-motion we're confined to stiff-looking puppets and men in suits. On the other, this doesn't mean that they skimp on the stiff-looking puppets and men in suits; at no point do you get the feeling they're holding back out of embarrassment. I've always felt that the quality of special effects, while important, wasn't nearly as crucial as their aesthetic attractiveness- if something looks cool, it also looking fake isn't the biggest drawback.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe film definitely has an appealing aesthetic, one that was probably looking a little dated in 1976 but has aged well. Pellucidar is a truly alien environment, with a perpetually pink sky (there's no day or night, since the radiance comes from the core itself), overgrown vegetation, fiery mountains, exotic castles, etc. While the Mahar vaguely resemble flying dinosaurs, the giant horned beasts that roam the countryside are entirely unique, something like bipedal boars. The Mahar fortress is all sulphuric stone and chasms of lava. The lavish design helps transcend the low budget.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMcClure is something of a blank slate as the square-jawed hero, fitting the bill but not doing anything more. Fortunately, Peter Cushing is as charming and energetic an actor as he always is, and the script provides him with a few great lines. As standard as the story is, it does maintain a good energy, not letting some of the hokier subplots bog it down much. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIf not the fullest realization of Edgar Rice Burroughs' work, \u003Ci\u003EAt the Earth's Core\u003C\/i\u003E still shows off the author's imagination and manages to capture the spirit of pulp adventure at a time when the film industry had largely moved away from the genre. It's not quite as impressive as Andrew Stanton's epic, but it's a suitable final bow for Amicus and a solid 90 minutes' entertainment. If you can handle cheesy monster suits and some whacked out plot elements (like a firebreathing frog that explodes for reasons I've forgotten), it's worth the time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by Milton Subotsky\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Kevin Connor\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4948093394212930944\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4948093394212930944\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4948093394212930944"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4948093394212930944"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/random-movie-report-103-at-earths-core.html","title":"Random Movie Report #103: At the Earth's Core"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-uNiZ_3KdCbI\/T4bnjfq_2XI\/AAAAAAAABPw\/5YOTl8EEMHU\/s72-c\/attheearthscore.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8347240732800889377"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-31T13:19:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-31T13:19:55.776-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #102: King Kong Escapes"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000E1BXFG\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B000E1BXFG\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-cb_tpN1Mrdk\/T3dJn2OSBpI\/AAAAAAAABPo\/6YNvFTpPVss\/s320\/kingkongescapes.jpg\" title=\"Click here to buy it on Amazon!\" width=\"223\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA curious chapter in the Toho kaiju saga as well as its title character's filmography, \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong Escapes\u003C\/i\u003E is a film that languished in obscurity for many years, not even getting an American video release until the DVD era. It's definitely a lesser effort for Kong and for Toho, but it's not without its ridiculous charms either. Since it's apparently my lot to cover every SFX film Toho made in this period, well, here we are.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA UN scientific expedition led by Dr. Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason) and Jiro Nomura (Akira Takarada) discovers the island home of the giant ape King Kong, who naturally becomes enamored with the expedition's lovely nurse Susan (Linda Miller). Meanwhile, the evil scientist Dr. Who (Eisei Amomoto), who is not a Time Lord but does kinda look like William Hartnell, has built a robot Kong to mine a precious radioactive isotope from the arctic ice, at the behest of his enigmatic benefactor Madame X (Mie Hama). But when the radiation scrambles MechaniKong's circuits, Who learns about the real Kong being found and captures him. Despite having returned to civilization in the interim, the UN team recognize something's up and get involved as Who attempts to control Kong- and as the title suggests, he doesn't quite succeed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis apparently isn't a sequel to \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong vs. Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E so much as it is a live action version of Rankin-Bass' animated \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong\u003C\/i\u003E series, which has been even more obscure. It's at the very least a do-over for Eiji Tsubaraya, who acquits himself a little better with the Kong suit this time- it's still pretty ratty compared to the animated models of the original, but at least this one doesn't look like death warmed over. MechaniKong (at least that may be his official name) comes off better, and this is also the debut of Gorosaurus, who was in this film solely to help Kong re-enact his famous T-Rex battle but ended up in \u003Ci\u003EDestroy All Monsters\u003C\/i\u003E for his troubles. The effects are a little cheap (MechaniKong seems to attack the real Kong with very bright lights at some point), but mostly functional, and there's the occasional wild touch like MechaniKong opening his mouth to reveal a loudspeaker through which Dr. Who broadcasts an ultimatum.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story is surprisingly logical, revolving as it does around the abduction of giant apes and the construction of robot apes to take their place. It's a question of internal logic, and once you accept that the best way to do mining for radioactive materials is through primates, the rest falls into place. The script never reveals where Madame X is from, but that starts to become irrelevant as Who emerges as the real villain, which is probably for the best because why be a mad scientist for hire? There are a few other minor points which aren't clear, but this may be a product of editing (the American edit is 8 minutes shorter than the Japanese version.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe actors at least help keep the characters memorable, even if they're 2-dimensional at best. Linda Miller is decidedly cute in a very 60s way, even if the actress who dubbed her voice (yes, they dubbed the English speakers too) is a little shrill. There's the faintest hint of attraction between her and Takarada's character, but I may be imagining it. While Reason is fairly generic, he fits the bill, and Amomoto is a terrific baddie.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's nothing too deep going on here, even by the standards of the genre, but it has the goofy conviction that makes so many of these movies work. In many ways it is a live-action Saturday morning cartoon, and by that standard it holds up pretty well. It's nice to have a lighthearted entry in the Kong canon. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Ishiro Honda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8347240732800889377\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8347240732800889377\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8347240732800889377"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8347240732800889377"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/random-movie-report-102-king-kong.html","title":"Random Movie Report #102: King Kong Escapes"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-cb_tpN1Mrdk\/T3dJn2OSBpI\/AAAAAAAABPo\/6YNvFTpPVss\/s72-c\/kingkongescapes.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-551808307018153519"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-31T03:15:00.000-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-31T03:15:05.506-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Opening Credits"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Opening Credits Sequence Theater: Spider-Man 2"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"Been too long since I did one of these, and writing time has been a little pinched, so here's the opening to one of the best superhero epics of the last decade. There's not a lot to say about this one, it's a variation on the opening for the first movie, but the addition of Alex Ross's art as a recap of the first film is a nice touch (and something movie sequels don't actually do that often these days.) Enjoy!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iSDU2tu7rpk\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/551808307018153519\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=551808307018153519\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/551808307018153519"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/551808307018153519"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/opening-credits-sequence-theater-spider.html","title":"Opening Credits Sequence Theater: Spider-Man 2"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/iSDU2tu7rpk\/default.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1521508320298875144"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-28T10:07:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-28T10:07:37.956-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #101: Battle Beyond the Stars"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B004VT9JJE\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B004VT9JJE\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Battle Beyond the Stars cover art and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-rroD_uwmYB8\/T3Mojb1Z31I\/AAAAAAAABPg\/gGY-SBMsOyg\/s320\/battlebeyondthestars.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMy weakness for the glitzy space operas of the late 70s and early 80s is tempered by my understanding that, \u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E aside, most of them weren't very good. It's a genre that's harder to do well than it looks, and it's both significant and surprising that one of the most artistically successful attempts to ape the 1977 blockbuster is from Roger Corman. \u003Ci\u003EBattle Beyond the Stars\u003C\/i\u003E attempts to do on a shoestring what Lucas did on thirteen million dollars, and manages at least a decent part of it. For a low-budget movie we get plenty of model spaceships whizzing around and shooting lasers at each other (you know, the fundamentals), wrapped in a particularly fast and bouncy take on The \u003Ci\u003ESeven Samurai\u003C\/i\u003E. It gets that space opera is supposed to be fun, wondrous, and that it doesn't have to take itself too seriously. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJohn Saxon is Sador, a brutal warlord who travels from planet to planet, subjugating them all with the threat of his stellar converter, a gun capable of destroying entire planets. He sets his sites on the peaceful colony of Alkir, which basically consists of one village surrounded by a lot of desert. Shad (Richard Thomas, the apparent prototype for Chris Colfer), a young pilot, volunteers to search the galaxy for mercenaries to battle Sador. And quite an assortment he runs into: there's Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel), daughter of a mad roboticist; Cowboy (George Peppard), an arms dealer from old Earth who watches a lot of westerns; Nestor (Earl Boen and John Gowans and a couple of others), a hive mind; Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning), a fanatical and sexy Valkiri warrior with a costume held in place solely by the force of the film's PG rating; Cayman (Morgaon Woodward), a reptilian outlaw with a personal grudge against Sador; and Gelt (Robert Vaughn), a grim assassin who can no longer show his face on any civilized world. They're a wild and inventive bunch, but they're up against the biggest war machine in the galaxy, and it's clear that not everyone's making it out alive.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nJohn Sayles wrote the screenplay for this one (from a story by him and Anne Dyer), and as is common for his work for Corman, he has a bit of fun with it. Most of the first half of the movie is a semi-comic odyssey, with Shad encountering various weird aliens and outlaws, everyone with their own culture and reason for wanting to fight the big bad guy. It's naturally episodic and a little rushed, since there are so many people to introduce, but eventually the picture settles down into a more epic space opera groove.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis was the most expensive film Corman had made up to that point, costing a cool milion. He gets a lot out of it; you can tell a few corners were cut here and there (a \"resort planet\" Shad travels to turns out to be deserted, for example), but for the most part it all looks appealing in a cheesy way. The art direction is partly by future megablockbuster director and deep sea explorer James Cameron, and he and Charles Breen follow the traditional 80s model-kits-and-blinkenlights aesthetic with some skill and a few interesting flourishes. (I'm not sure who to credit\/blame for the fact that Shad's ship seems to have breasts.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat's surprising about the picture is that it does manage a good level of suspense in the final act. We don't doubt that the bad guy will eventually be defeated, but there are a number of prominent deaths, and a \"horror of war\" theme gets brought up, and contrasted with the peaceful religion of the settlers. None of this gets explored in too much detail, but it's enough to add some spice to the proceedings.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEven if the story stops and starts in some odd places, and the flying model ships don't steer that well, \u003Ci\u003EBattle Beyond the Stars\u003C\/i\u003E has a playful enough attitude that it seems almost rude to dwell on the rough patches. There are a lot of neat little imaginative moments, like the Alkirians setting up a system of trenches solely that everyone can run around in them like in a proper battle scene, or the Cowboy grilling hotdogs over a \"campfire\" created by two tiny aliens who have the ability to radiate intense heat. It's often a silly film, but it never goes so far that we cease to care about the outcome. It doesn't stir the soul but it does tickle the imagination, and that's something a lot of these films don't manage. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nStory by John Sayles and Anne Dyer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nScreenplay by John Sayles\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Jimmy T. Murakami\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1521508320298875144\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1521508320298875144\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1521508320298875144"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1521508320298875144"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/my-weakness-for-glitzy-space-operas-of.html","title":"Random Movie Report #101: Battle Beyond the Stars"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-rroD_uwmYB8\/T3Mojb1Z31I\/AAAAAAAABPg\/gGY-SBMsOyg\/s72-c\/battlebeyondthestars.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1907648897527839463"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-19T09:16:00.004-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-19T09:16:52.568-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: John Carter"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"John Carter poster and IMPAwards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HvedEJ9cPb8\/T2c_Fpt-QyI\/AAAAAAAABPY\/HxroeJgjUZ0\/s320\/john_carter_ver2.jpg\" title=\"Enigmatic poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe worst thing about box-office flops, from a pure end-user perspective, is that they put the fear of God into studio executives and send them scuttling from any project that seems remotely similar. The predetermined-before-it-even-happened failure of \u003Ci\u003EJohn Carter\u003C\/i\u003E probably means we won't get any retro pulp sci-fi movies for a while, so drink it in while you can.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELow expectations are tough to put aside when dealing with a film represents as major a financial misstep as this, but it gives one the benefit of low expectations. \u003Ci\u003EJohn Carter\u003C\/i\u003E works much better than I expected it to, and though it never rises above well-executed pulp adventure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. There are some points one can pick at, but Andrew Stanton's first live-action feature as director (hopefully not his last) has a lot to recommend it, and should be sought out before the box office closes.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe unfortunately named Taylor Kitsch is the titular John Carter, a former Confederate soldier living out on the frontier, who, as is explained in an elaborate framing device, stumbles into a mysterious cave of gold, where he then is transported to distant Barsoom- or Mars, as we like to call it. There he is captured by a group of green, four-limbed barbarians called Tharks, and after learning their language, is caught up in a war between two groups of Red Martians, fighting on the side of the equal parts badass, lovely, and brilliant Deja Thoris (Lynn Collins.) It seems she's due to be married to local warlord Sab Than (Dominic West), who thanks to some enigmatic robed aliens is now in position of the Ninth Ray, a horrible destructive weapon, but also the energy that brought John Carter across worlds. Trying to get home, Carter finds himself drawn into a heroic cause.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film has a bit of a problem getting up to speed, and some of that lies with Carter himself. There's nothing particularly wrong with Kitsch's performance that I can identify, but the character starts the story grizzled, cynical, and emotionally distant. This is demanded by the story, and it ends up being a good arc, culminating in an excellent battle scene interspersed with a brutal flashback to Carter's past, but the getting there takes a little patience. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's plenty of fun surrounding him, though. Willem Dafoe does some glorious voice work as Tars Tarkas, the brutal but wise ruler of the Tharks, and the movie doesn't skimp on the weird aspects of Barsoom culture. Carter is actually raised with the Thark young on account of being found with them, and this leads to a rather touching subplot involving his caretaker Sola (voiced by Samantha Morton), who's broken so many rules of the tribe that she's probably going to get executed sooner rather than later. Also, there is a doggie- a cute guard creature with super speed and the face of a happy pit bull. There's warmth and humor and a sense of unironic fun, and the personality the film projects is ultimately an amiable one. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt delivers on the action front too, fortunately- the plot is just sane enough that it doesn't get in the way of some very fun sequences, and while no one scene is a standout, it's consistently fun to watch Carter bound across the low-gravity Martian landscape. Make no mistake, the $250 million dollars it apparently took to bring this to the screen didn't go to waste- there are twisting airships and horrible giant albino apes and fabulous alien cities. Director Andrew Stanton goes a little heavy on the color saturation, but at least there's a logic to the color scheme beyond it looking cool.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo we're probably not getting any more of big screen adventures of Edgar Rice Burrough's planet-jumping hero, which means we have to savor the slightly-over-two-hours of Barsoom we get here. Though Disney's shareholders won't agree with me, I'm glad Stanton got the money he needed to realize his dream project, and I hope it'll join Terry Gilliam's \u003Ci\u003EAdventures of Baron Munchausen\u003C\/i\u003E in the hall of \"flops that didn't particularly have anything wrong with them.\" In any case, see it while you can. We won't be seeing anything like it for a long time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on \"A Princess of Mars\" by Edgar Rice Burroughs\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Andrew Stanton\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A-\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1907648897527839463\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1907648897527839463\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1907648897527839463"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1907648897527839463"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/in-theaters-john-carter.html","title":"In Theaters: John Carter"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HvedEJ9cPb8\/T2c_Fpt-QyI\/AAAAAAAABPY\/HxroeJgjUZ0\/s72-c\/john_carter_ver2.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1331374183725722891"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-15T13:48:00.001-05:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-15T13:57:43.673-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.21: Are You Being Served?"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dD_pLAwxgQI\/T2I5IM9DpVI\/AAAAAAAABPQ\/mK_l1SUfPeI\/s1600\/Ep93.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier and Niles, at bay\" border=\"0\" height=\"256\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dD_pLAwxgQI\/T2I5IM9DpVI\/AAAAAAAABPQ\/mK_l1SUfPeI\/s320\/Ep93.jpg\" title=\"Trapped like rats.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ENiles: You know, this is sort of exciting. Even as a child I always fancied I might make a first-rate society cat burglar. I think I'm right.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: Yes. All it takes is stealth, cunning and a key to the door. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe longer a show goes on, the more it has to do to keep our attention. \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E had established itself up to this point as working from several formulae. There are the conceptual episodes, there are the silly farces, and there are episodes which mark significant developments for the characters and their relationships. \"Are You Being Served?\" blends all of the above with remarkable grace, with a strong central plot allowing for all kinds of humor. It does a lot with its premise, putting Niles at the forefront in a story that tests his resolve and his willingness to break with the past.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMaris serves Niles with divorce papers, prompting a bit of a panic attack on the latter's part. Frasier advises him not to cower, but cower he does, sending back the papers and begging her to take him back. In the meantime, however, Daphne has been cleaning out some of Martin's things, and they come across one of Hester's journals- apparently a study of Frasier and Niles, finding the younger brother to be extremely submissive, especially around the female of the species. Reading the passages, Niles decides to try and break his pattern and get the divorce papers back along with the letter he wrote before Maris can read it, bringing Frasier along. The two break into her house easily (having the key and all), but while Maris hasn't changed the locks yet, she did change the dogs.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe setup of the episode is very character-driven; upon finding out seemingly pathological things noted about them, Frasier and Niles set out to change their ways. In addition to Niles' submissiveness, we're shown Frasier's discomfort with easy physical intimacy (such as hugging people); it's something I'm not sure has ever been outright stated before, but it's entirely in character. Niles' story takes the focus, but Frasier's strained attempts to become more of a huggy person make for a solid running gag.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOnce we get to the mansion, though, it's a quick left turn into theatrical farce. Maris' place is the perfect location for this sort of thing; a big house with big rooms, only one of which we actually see, with glass doors and various breakable objects. Oh, and there are guard dogs, because of course there are. The one really sad thing about Niles and Maris being on the rocks is that their marriage was a source of constant insanity, so it's good to step back into the world of the very rich and exceedingly strange. In the midst of a lot of silliness involving dogs and pills and so on, though, we do get a real step forward for Niles when he signs the divorce papers and signals he's ready to leave the marriage if Maris really isn't going to change.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe subplot of Daphne and Martin going through old things mostly plays like a silly side story meant to give the characters something to do, but the writers manage to integrate it into the plot in a couple of ways. First, it gives us Hester's journal, which turns out to be about a couple of lab rats, which in turn gives us the revelation that Frasier and Niles were named for said rats. A running gag about the other stuff Daphne has found- mostly Popeil-esque As Seen on TV products, including a device that pre-heats shaving cream- leads to a climactic visual gag that is too hilarious to spoil.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat I will spoil is that Maris eventually caves and agrees to counseling, putting off any major changes in that subplot for another time. We don't come to this show for the story progression anyway. \"Are You Being Served?\" is an episode that piles on the series' strengths, mixing genuine character insight with out-and-out wackiness. It's rarely mentioned as one of the show's best episodes, but maybe that should change.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by William Lucas Walker\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Gordon Hunt\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired May 13, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EMartin: Now the beauty of the \"Hot \u0026amp; Foamy\" is the ultra-quick heating action. You just plug it in and two minutes later, presto, guess what comes out?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne:Well, the obvious answer would be shaving cream, so I'll go with... music?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: You had a lot of sassy things to say about my clothes steamer, too. But didn't those snow peas taste delicious? \u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1331374183725722891\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1331374183725722891\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1331374183725722891"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1331374183725722891"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/frasierquest-421-are-you-being-served.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.21: Are You Being Served?"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dD_pLAwxgQI\/T2I5IM9DpVI\/AAAAAAAABPQ\/mK_l1SUfPeI\/s72-c\/Ep93.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7292673053981680011"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-10T12:28:00.005-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-03-10T15:43:01.129-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"For Your Ears Only"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"RIP Peter Bergman"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Q3-mCjOTuS8\/T1uYc1b2zFI\/AAAAAAAABPI\/L9xTf1o4tig\/s1600\/Bergman.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Q3-mCjOTuS8\/T1uYc1b2zFI\/AAAAAAAABPI\/L9xTf1o4tig\/s1600\/Bergman.jpg\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Club Parnassus is sad to announce the passing of Peter Bergman, writer, voice artist, and founding member of the Firesign Theatre, at 72 from complications from leukemia.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe influence the Firesigns have had on American comedy and American audio theater is easy to understate. At the same time groups like the Beatles and Beach Boys (and Stones, baby, Stones!) were using multi-track editing to produce complex, genre-defining rock albums, the Firesign Theatre used the technology to turn their comedy albums into fully-formed audio plays, with complex soundscapes and all sorts of audio tricks. Their surrealistic humor was as much about constructing imaginative worlds as telling jokes, and they provided a unique view of much of the era's social upheaval. Bergman's sardonic voice was key to characters ranging from the gruff, show-stealing Lieutenant Bradshaw to teen deadbeat Mudhead, and on \u003Ci\u003EDuke of Madness Motors\u003C\/i\u003E, the recently released DVD-ROM archives of the Firesigns' early Seventies radio shows, he's frequently the passionate hippie philosopher, calling for the end of pointless laws and hellish jobs and bland food, wrestling with a kind of New Age anarchism.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Firesigns had mostly stopped producing original material for some years before this, but with this the group is likely truly done. He is dearly missed by his friends and partners, and by those of us who appreciated his unique perspective.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\"I'm finished in politics because I don't have the votes, and I can't go into wrestling because I don't have a mask. Guess I'll just swim, swim, swim...\"\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7292673053981680011\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7292673053981680011\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7292673053981680011"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7292673053981680011"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/rip-peter-bergman.html","title":"RIP Peter Bergman"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-Q3-mCjOTuS8\/T1uYc1b2zFI\/AAAAAAAABPI\/L9xTf1o4tig\/s72-c\/Bergman.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7891493963559712745"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-29T10:04:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-29T17:53:30.745-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #100: Destroy All Monsters"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005G7WGFO\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005G7WGFO\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Destroy All Monsters Blu Ray Cover and Amazon Link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-EAg0mk8zCaI\/T05Ler3CXhI\/AAAAAAAABPA\/sYuS1Ye1DNY\/s320\/destroyallmonsters.jpg\" title=\"Available on BR and DVD from Amazon- for normal prices for once!\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis is what I've been building up to. Though I've long since stopped numbering features, I figured the 100th installment of Random Movie Report ought to be something especially neat, hence, the Godzilla film to end all Godzilla films. (Granted, this undermines the concept of randomness, but never mind.) \u003Ci\u003EDestroy All Monsters\u003C\/i\u003E took forever to get a proper DVD release in this country, but though I've had the DVD since Christmas, I decided I had to build up to it. It deserves it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ci\u003EDestroy All Monsters\u003C\/i\u003E was a climactic blowout for the golden age of Toho's SFX films; the last film to be fully overseen by Eiji Tsuburaya, and Honda's last entry until \u003Ci\u003ETerror of Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E. The film marks the passing of an era with the biggest spectacle in the entire series, unleashing 11 Toho monsters on a worldwide rampage. There are aliens, rockets to the moon, shootouts, and cities being flattened, building up to a gigantic battle that's arguably the best in the series. It's a gorgeous and satisfying epic that serves as a capstone for the work of some of the era's finest purveyors of mayhem.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe year is 1999, a wondrous future in which the UN has established a moon colony and all the Earth's monsters have been rounded up on an island complex known as, appropriately enough, Monsterland. The creatures are kept confined by a series of chemical barriers and radar screens, and scientists underground study the creatures and also do some important aquatic farming in the nearby seas. The complex is attacked by a strange yellow gas, and when contact is lost, the crew of the moon rocket SY-3 (captained by Akira Kubo)\u0026nbsp; head down to check it out. They find that the apparently unharmed monsters have now been let loose on the world, remotely controlled by the Monsterland scientists (including the captain's girlfriend), who themselves are under the control of the Kilaaks, a race of asteroid-dwelling aliens intent on colonizing Earth. Under Kilaak control, Godzilla terrorizes New York, Rodan attacks Moscow, Mothra rolls through China, etc. The only way to stop the creatures is to find a way to foil the aliens' control system, and to see if they themselves have any weaknesses.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nToho apparently intended this to be the last Godzilla film, hence the futuristic setting; if so it explains why they went for broke, turning in the biggest spectacle they could and using as many monsters as they were able to round up. Anguirus returns for the first time since \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla Raids Again\u003C\/i\u003E, in a spruced-up suit, non-Godzilla-series critters like Baragon, Varan, and Manda make appearances, and there's even room for Gorosaurus, a dinosaur from \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong Escapes\u003C\/i\u003E. Not all the monsters get decent screen time and it's clearly Godzilla's show to carry, but some of the more obscure ones make an impact nonetheless. The film's major effects setpiece has Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Manda descending on Tokyo and tangling with the military, but it's far from the only big monster sequence. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe human-scale action has been pumped up as well. The adventures of the crew of Moonlight SY-3 and their battle against the Kilaaks are a mini sci-fi saga of its own, whether it's dodging Godzilla in an attempt to infiltrate the base or chasing down flying saucers. There's one attempt at a suspense scene involving a laser cutter that doesn't really work, but for the most part it's dazzling and engaging stuff. The movie takes place in a bright, pastel world, pitting the best of man's progress against alien invaders in the tradition of \u003Ci\u003EBattle in Outer Space\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EThe Mysterians\u003C\/i\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIndeed, what pervades this movie the most is a sense of cautious optimism about the future. Now over two decades after the atomic bombing of Japan, in an age of nuclear power and new technology, but still with the Cold War looming, Toho was looking to finish its series based on a literal embodiment of nuclear terror with the hope that the terror might be tamed, controlled, even turned to a positive use. It's mostly a bright future, with men on the moon, food production projects to solve the world's hunger problems (as in Son of Godzilla), and of course, the monsters all locked away until space aliens decide to let them out. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSome critics have suggested that the round-up of monsters on a remote island is a metaphor for nuclear disarmament, and in that context, the monsters being loosed is a reminder that a power controlled can still be dangerous. Control seems to be the movie's central theme, as humans and Kilaak alike struggle to master forces that perhaps can't really be tamed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDestroy All Monsters\u003C\/i\u003E is one of the most fun movies in the entire Godzilla series and one of the all-time great monster epics. For the series' increasingly young target audience it delivers a bunch of shiny toys and monstrous playmates, and for the adults there's an air of sophisticated absurdity, the kind of controlled chaos that Toho at its height delivered better than anyone. It looks amazing, has a gloriously chirpy martial score, and never stops for a moment to let you realize how loopy it is. The \"Showa\" Godzilla series would go on, but never quite achieve these heights again. But with a celebration this grand, I can't blame Toho for wanting to continue.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Ishiro Honda and Takeshi Kimura\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Ishiro Honda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7891493963559712745\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7891493963559712745\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7891493963559712745"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7891493963559712745"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/random-movie-report-100-destroy-all.html","title":"Random Movie Report #100: Destroy All Monsters"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-EAg0mk8zCaI\/T05Ler3CXhI\/AAAAAAAABPA\/sYuS1Ye1DNY\/s72-c\/destroyallmonsters.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-217412109903652316"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-28T09:52:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-28T09:52:35.516-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"2012 Oscar Roundup!"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"I have some thoughts on the Oscars, as many people do. It was a solid ceremony, predictable but decently presented, with the exception of the piercing electronic scream of a thousand uncalibrated hearing aids that wove its way into the soundtrack just subtly enough to make the viewers at home wonder if their house was about to explode. \u003Ci\u003EThe Artist\u003C\/i\u003E was a really good movie, and while there were better I can't really object to its victory.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEach year the ceremony comes around and makes a big deal out of itself, leading many to say that it's totally irrelevant and not worth a damn. They have a case, and this year's proceedings didn't help themselves by not-so-subtly boasting about the wonder and power of the theatrical experience. But let's level here- I love the movies, and chances are if you were watching the Oscars you have at least a somewhat positive opinion of the medium. Maybe they were preaching to the choir a little, but it's hard not to get in just a little on the celebratory mood. (And the segment of Brad Pitt recalling his experience seeing \u003Ci\u003EWar of the Gargantuas\u003C\/i\u003E was kind of wonderful.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBilly Crystal did, well, what he does, and I'm okay with that. However, I'm still wondering where all the time went- the speeches weren't especially long, the pointless segments were also mostly short, and yet they had no time to perform the two songs nominated for awards or to bring up the year's lifetime honorees. Perhaps we could do without the direct addresses of the lead actor\/actress nominees, but who knows.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe most exciting development in all this- well for me it's the fact that \u003Ci\u003ECommunity\u003C\/i\u003E, back March 15, now co-stars \u003Ci\u003Ethe Academy Award winner\u003C\/i\u003E Jim Rash. Others may go with Bret Mackenzie taking home a little gold statue, or \u003Ci\u003ERango\u003C\/i\u003E's much-deserved victory, or the discovery that we're finally getting around to nominating Gary Oldman for things. But this is rarely a night of extremes. Some very well-made films and very solidly talented people are given awards, some very well-made films and very solidly talented people are ignored, corny jokes are told, celebrities dress funny, and for a night we all think \"Yeah, the movies are pretty neat. In theory.\" \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd as predictable as it is, a substantial portion of us keep coming back. Because the dream is a nice one.\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/217412109903652316\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=217412109903652316\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/217412109903652316"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/217412109903652316"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/2012-oscar-roundup.html","title":"2012 Oscar Roundup!"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1948830415882445664"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-24T15:35:00.005-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-24T15:37:04.575-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #99: Son of Godzilla"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca amazon=\"\" and=\"\" cover=\"\" dvd=\"\" godzilla=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00066KWCO\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00066KWCO%20alt=\" link\"=\"\" of=\"\" son=\"\" title=\"Apparently this one's expensive too. How many of these did TriStar print?\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dSTxhyh0zws\/T0gBYIVx0-I\/AAAAAAAABO4\/GLGdUdVvROQ\/s320\/sonofgodzilla.jpg\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe second of Godzilla's tropical adventures ends up being one of the series' weirdest installments. \u003Ci\u003ESon of Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E, as the title implies, is a continuation of the great monster movie tradition of having inexplicable offspring, a tradition going back to Kong himself (though maybe it started with the Grendel family.) As a result this was the most kid-friendly monster epic Toho had produced up to that point, and so an omen of things to come. It's a fun, loosely put together affair which has a few obvious weak points- including the worst Godzilla suit in the series- but is cute and playful enough to make up for them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe action takes place on Solgell island, a tropical hothouse on which a group of scientists are conducting experiments in climate control, hoping to lower the island's temperature as a test to see if they can make the barren parts of the Earth more habitable. Perhaps inevitably, the test goes wrong, and instead the island is bathed in radioactive heat for a few days, turning the already-man-sized praying mantises into giant monsters, and uncovering a mysterious egg. Called by a mysterious signal, Godzilla wades ashore just as the egg hatches, releasing an adorable baby 'zilla (never called by name in the movie, but \"officially\" called Minilla.) Godzilla may or may not have had anything to do with Minilla's birth, but quickly treats him like his own anyway, rushing in to defeat the mantises and taking it upon himself to look after the little fellow. In the meantime the scientists, along with an enterprising reporter (Akira Kubo) and a beautiful archaeologist's daughter (Bibari Maeda) who's gone native after being stranded for over 10 years, are searching for a way off, and it doesn't help them that there's a giant spider named Kumonga just now stirring.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nCompared to most monster movies, \u003Ci\u003ESon of Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E has an almost episodic structure; events flow into each other, but there's no feeling of one central conflict that must be resolved. The people eventually want off the island, Godzilla eventually wants to raise his offspring, and there are the giant bugs to deal with. This does mean a certain lack of urgency pervades the film, but at the same time there's always something happening. Director Jun Fukuda aims for a light approach, comedic without being really campy, and there's a sense that it's okay just to sit back and go with the story's unusual rhythm.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMinilla himself is basically the centerpiece of the film, and it's a step into cutesy territory that carries a few risks. As a rule sci-fi and cute kids' stuff have trouble mixing, and cute kid characters are especially dangerous. Minilla enlists our sympathy by being mostly helpless; he looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, breathes harmless smoke rings instead of fire, and walks so slow he has trouble keeping up with his not-terribly-speedy pop. (At one point he adorably hitches a ride on his tail.) The scenes of monster and son bonding are actually kind of fun, and while Minilla does get a little precocious at times, for the most part he's a toddler who needs supervision.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGodzilla himself doesn't fare terribly well this time around. In an attempt to make the king of monsters more paternal and less frightening, SFX directors Eiji Tsuburaya and Sadamasa Arikawa came up with a suit design that ultimately makes him look like an overweight frog. It's ugly by the standards of giant monsters, and kind of sloppily put together to boot. On the upside, the giant mantises and Kumonga the spider are both impressive works of puppetry, and the mantises also get the benefit of the coolest theme music in the film. Masaru Sato did an okay job on the last movie, but here he really lets loose with some jazzy tropical tunes that just scream 60s. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESon of Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E doesn't deliver much of what you normally expect from a Godzilla movie, but it has some pleasures of its own, and stands out as an interesting twist on the kaiju genre. It's cute, it's pleasant, it's visually stunning, and the end is very strangely moving. Purists may object to the cuddly treatment of a monster first seen razing Tokyo to the ground in a metaphorical embodiment of the trauma of the atom bomb, but, well, purists object to a lot of things. This is worth a look anyway.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Shinichi Sekizawa and Kazue Shiba\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Jun Fukuda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1948830415882445664\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1948830415882445664\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1948830415882445664"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1948830415882445664"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/random-movie-report-99-son-of-godzilla.html","title":"Random Movie Report #99: Son of Godzilla"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-dSTxhyh0zws\/T0gBYIVx0-I\/AAAAAAAABO4\/GLGdUdVvROQ\/s72-c\/sonofgodzilla.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4162493331121034261"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-20T09:32:00.003-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-20T09:33:01.760-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.20: Daphne Hates Sherry"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-tXStZbss0ig\/T0JnXzjTVEI\/AAAAAAAABOw\/ApBtKxKdaMI\/s1600\/Ep92.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"311\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-tXStZbss0ig\/T0JnXzjTVEI\/AAAAAAAABOw\/ApBtKxKdaMI\/s320\/Ep92.jpg\" title=\"Niles and Daphne in a steamy situation\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: I mean I have been keeping myself on the shelf lately. I'm feeling a little like the good china.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Someone should be eating off you every day. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Niles and Daphne romance is mostly a classy affair. Oh, Niles may leer at his beloved and notice when she bends over, but until he's ready to actually make a move he's resigned to appreciating her like a rare and delicate flower, while she remains mostly innocent of the whole thing. But she's not really a delicate flower, and \"Daphne Hates Sherry\" takes their non-relationship into some tantalizing territory. If a cold winter's night in Season 1 inspired feelings of gooey sentiment between the two, a heat wave and some snappy fighting is sure to lead to hot times indeed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs the title indicates, the whole thing kicks off because Daphne and Sherry aren't getting along. Daphne tries to look after Martin's health, Sherry wants to serve him spam fritters. There's a turf conflict involved, and with Frasier fighting off a flu and Martin indecisive, nobody's interested in mediating. When Sherry starts setting Daphne up with men she's never met, a fight results, and Daphne storms out. In search of shelter, she ends up at Niles' place, and with no air conditioning at the Montana, the two spend a particularly sweltering evening together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTennessee Williams gets name-checked a couple of times, and while my familiarity with the playwright is not what it should be, it's hard not to draw connections to at least the stereotype of his work- hot sweaty people in passionate clinches against appropriately humid backdrops. This episode really manages to get the atmosphere right, which is a challenge for a multi-camera sitcom, and it captures\u0026nbsp; some of the things which are driving people to extremes, such as a sickly Frasier being annoyed by every little noise and Daphne and Niles being lulled into a seductive paralysis by the heat. The dialogue is particularly vivid on these points as well, with some fairly creative imagery. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut let's face it, the whole thing is about sex. The big development this episode is that Daphne puts herself in a situation where having sex with Niles is, however briefly, a very real possibility. She was almost his in \"Midwinter Night's Dream\" too, but that was more a swooning after a breakup. Here, though she never says as much, she seems to consider it, albeit in that headspace in which one only considers very bad ideas. Because of the nature of Niles and Daphne's \"relationship\" thusfar, we rarely get her perspective on things, but little hints like this that not all the attraction is one-way provide a lot for fans to chew on. The writers like giving us more reasons to think it could happen while pulling back from actually going through with it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTrue, there's other stuff happening in this episode- it's \"Daphne Hates Sherry\", after all. Both want to take care of Martin in their respective ways, and it's a well-drawn conflict revolving around their respective places in the Crane family as outsiders. While Frasier's illness is partly a plot device explaining why he doesn't interfere in the conflict sooner, it makes for an amusing subplot in itself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's some ambiguity to the story's resolution, in which a night of passion is narrowly avoided by circumstances which Frasier suggests were influenced by Niles' ethics (going back for Daphne's pills rather than writing a scrip himself.) It's certainly plausible that subconsciously, Niles wouldn't want it to happen like this, or see an ethical dubiousness to it. On the other hand, he only gets that \"out\" because of Daphne's thyroid rearing up (of course, her not bringing her pills may have been a subconscious move on her part, implying she meant to go back anyway.) Whatever the reason for what happened, though, it's probably for the best. Their story should not resolve in a bad decision in the middle of a heat wave; however, their encounter does suggest that though we're still far off from ignition, the sparks are there. And they're flying both ways.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Chuck Ranberg and Anne Flett-Giordano\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Kelsey Grammer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired May 6, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Bup! I don't care who did what to whom or in what disgusting manner. As we speak, hordes of viral Visigoths are hurling themselves over the battlements of my immune system, laying waste to my... Oh, dear God, you see how weak I am? I can't even finish a simple Visigoth metaphor. \u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4162493331121034261\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4162493331121034261\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4162493331121034261"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4162493331121034261"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/frasierquest-420-daphne-hates-sherry.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.20: Daphne Hates Sherry"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-tXStZbss0ig\/T0JnXzjTVEI\/AAAAAAAABOw\/ApBtKxKdaMI\/s72-c\/Ep92.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6802257157467397937"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-18T13:07:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-18T13:07:55.753-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Top 10 Films of 2011 and Assorted Miscellany"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"After a weak 2010, 2011 proved to be a surprisingly good year for movies. To be sure, most of the problems that bedeviled Hollywood at the start of the teens are still there; studios are panicky and greenlighting properties that aren't really movies, distribution for indies is all out of whack, and the MPAA is still taking the bazooka-as-flyswatter approach to internet piracy. But actual filmmakers have risen to the challenge of an increasingly timid industry and turned out entertaining, smart, and sometimes even original films in a number of genres and on scales from the intimate to the epic. Sure, a lot of the good stuff was backwards-looking and nostalgic, but that doesn't mean it doesn't move the medium forwards at the same time. It felt to me that there were more surprises, and while there was surely a lot of crap, I found it easier to avoid.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI was encouraged to see a bit more variety of style. Action movies are apparently allowed to have legible action sequences again, though the Michael Bay approach is by no means dead. The \"teal and orange\" thing seems to have calmed down a bit. Directors are finding actual uses for 3-D. And the neglected opening credits sequence made a very nice comeback at the end of the year. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film industry will always have problems and things may get worse instead of better, but at the end of the day, I had a hard time narrowing this list down to 10. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo, in ascending order:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E10. \u003Cb\u003EThe Adventures of Tintin\u003C\/b\u003E. Steven Spielberg does justice to the world-famous boy reporter in a sprightly action adventure full of spectacle, with just the right slightly goofy tone. The 3-D adds to the kinetic fun, and the motion capture animation allows for some truly remarkable sights.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E9. \u003Cb\u003EThe Muppets\u003C\/b\u003E. A glorious return to form for the world's finest entertainers. The film is light on plot but heavy on stupid gags and bouncy musical numbers, which allows both the Muppet performers and the game human cast to tear up the screen while still allowing for moments of genuine sentiment. Also features the finest cover of a Nirvana song I've ever seen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E8. \u003Cb\u003ERise of the Planet of the Apes\u003C\/b\u003E. Probably the most subversive summer blockbuster of the year- nature revolts against man, and we're actively encouraged to take nature's side. Turning a CGI ape into both the film's protagonist and moral center was a ballsy move, but it's helped by fine special effects and a winning performance by Andy Serkis. The film has a giddy, exhilarating quality, the rush of freedom that comes with a revolution. We're cheering our own overthrow.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E7. \u003Cb\u003ERango\u003C\/b\u003E. One part solidly written, well-executed animated adventure film, and one part mystical fable about identity. Industrial Light and Magic's first animated feature is visually sumptuous, with a great voice cast, and an inventive, engaging script. There's no reason this should work as well as it does.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E6. \u003Cb\u003ESuper 8\u003C\/b\u003E. Part gripping suspense thriller, part homage to the Spielbergian sense of wonder, and part examination of grief and tragedy- this film's got a lot on its plate.\u0026nbsp; J. J. Abrams manages to pull it off, though, and some really talented child actors help (Elle Fanning is a major discovery). There's still something very bold about its ending, which asks not only the characters, but the audience, to be able to let go. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E5. \u003Cb\u003EBridesmaids\u003C\/b\u003E. While its role as savior of women in Hollywood is probably overstated, this movie is still proof that it's possible for the American film industry to make a movie targeted at the female audience without excessive pandering. More importantly it's a really funny film which balances gross-out humor with solid character work. Kristen Wiig gives a performance which defies the one-note caricatures she's stuck with on \u003Ci\u003ESaturday Night Live\u003C\/i\u003E, and proves herself a legitimate comedy star.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E4. \u003Cb\u003EThe Artist\u003C\/b\u003E. It's interesting how quickly this was embraced as an Oscar favorite and crowd-pleaser, when it's a black-and-white silent movie shot in an aspect ration that even TV is starting to phase out. True, it's a nostalgia piece, a tribute to Old Hollywood. There's nothing actually wrong with that, even if you want to argue we're doing it because we're in some sort of permanent cultural death-watch. It's incredibly fun and kind of touching, a hopeful reminisce. Maybe we don't have to throw everything old aside.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E3. \u003Cb\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/b\u003E. Though I was something of an apologist for Diablo Cody in recent years, I was still blindsided by her newest collaboration with Jason Reitman. Both parties deliver a shockingly powerful black comedy about a woman obsessed with her past, not without reason. Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt give devastating performances, and the film never tips into cutesiness or neat resolutions. Things get very ugly and unpleasant, but in a way that suggests we could all end up there. A downright brutal experience.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E2. \u003Cb\u003EDrive\u003C\/b\u003E. Speaking of brutality, this unique thriller applies plenty of it, but only after we've been lured in by a hypnotically understated atmosphere. It's an exercise in minimalistic style, maybe a bit shallow, but the iconic power of the forever-distant Driver is enhanced by our not knowing much about why he is this way. Probably the most original film of the year, and one of the most daring. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E1. \u003Cb\u003EHugo\u003C\/b\u003E. In the end, though, I cannot help but give the prize to Martin Scorcese's warm, lush, imaginative, and thoroughly charming adventure, lovingly adapted from Brian Selznick's book and rendered in dazzling 3-D. A marriage of the old and new, the film is a salute not just to movies or the silent era but to craftsmanship, invention, and the skill required to make magic happen.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERunners Up: \u003Cb\u003EThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003EAttack the Block\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003ECaptain America: The First Avenger\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENot Seen: \u003Cb\u003ETree of Life\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003EThe Descendants\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003EMelancholia\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy Ten Favorite Performances of the Year:\u003Cbr \/\u003EKristen Wiig, \u003Cb\u003EBridesmaids\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAndy Serkis, \u003Cb\u003ERise of the Planet of the Apes\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAlbert Brooks, \u003Cb\u003EDrive\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECharlize Theron, \u003Cb\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPatton Oswalt, \u003Cb\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EElle Fanning, \u003Cb\u003ESuper 8\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EKiera Knightley, \u003Cb\u003EA Dangerous Method\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMichael Fassbender, \u003Cb\u003EA Dangerous Method\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EViggo Mortensen, \u003Cb\u003EA Dangerous Method\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERooney Mara, \u003Cb\u003EThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMost Underrated Film of the Year: \u003Cb\u003EIn Time\u003C\/b\u003E. Andrew Niccol's populist thriller doesn't always play fair with its premise, but it has the graceful coolness which characterizes most of his films. There's something fundamentally viscerally satisfying about the way it addresses our problems of social inequality and economic immobility, however strained the metaphor may be.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBest Opening Credit Sequence: \u003Cb\u003EThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo\u003C\/b\u003E. This unexpectedly became a real horse race near the end, but the combination of twisted imagery with the pulsing beat of a great cover of \"Immigrant Song\" pushed this over the top. It's an assurance that this is going to be anything but a conventional mystery, and focuses our attention on Salander where it belongs. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERunners-Up: \u003Cb\u003EThe Adventures of Tintin\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/b\u003E, \u003Cb\u003EMission Impossible: Ghost Protocol\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6802257157467397937\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6802257157467397937\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6802257157467397937"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6802257157467397937"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/top-10-films-of-2011-and-assorted.html","title":"The Top 10 Films of 2011 and Assorted Miscellany"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-1878185868933910905"},"published":{"$t":"2012-02-06T09:59:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-02-06T09:59:08.624-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: A Dangerous Method"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg \"title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" alt=\"A Dangerous Method poster and IMPawards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-taBiKKJP2y0\/Ty_4X8denuI\/AAAAAAAABOo\/gPh08CEF0Po\/s320\/dangerous_method_ver3.jpg\" width=\"214\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSome people have called \u003Ci\u003EA Dangerous Method\u003C\/i\u003E a change of pace for director David Cronenberg, but I'm not sure that's true. He's a director who's done a lot with Freudian imagery, psychological themes, and sexual \"abnormality\", so a picture about Freud and Jung is, as far as I can see, right in his wheelhouse. Partly adapted by Christopher Hampton from his play \"The Talking Cure\" (which was going to be the title but just wasn't sexy enough), A Dangerous Method looks at the interactions and thoughts of the two greats as well as a third, largely unsung figure, patient-turned-psychologist Sabrina Spielrein. Though a bit too unfocused to be as successful as it could be, the film does justice to the intellectual struggles of a young discipline, and is one of those films about smart people doing smart things that's becoming pleasantly more common these days.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMs. Spielrein (Kiera Knightley) is introduced to us as a shrieking mess, being thrown into a mental hospital under the supervision of Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Jung starts to use Freudian psychoanalysis on his new patient, letting her talk without excessive prompting, and she begins to work through her sexual obsession with humiliation. Jung's work eventually brings him into contact with Dr. Freud (Viggo Mortensen), who starts to see the younger doctor as an heir apparent. But as Spielrein heals, she begins to desire an actual sexual relationship, and even though Jung is married and aware that sleeping with patients is a very bad idea, at the urging of the decadent Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell) he gives in to temptation and begins a very kinky affair. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe arc of Sabrina Spielrein is easily the film's strongest point. At first her mania is so intense it's hard to believe there's a real woman under there. Knightley's performance would be over the top if we didn't know that some early \"hysterical\" patients were really that far gone, their repression amplified by a society and medical community that had no clue what it was dealing with. As she's allowed to talk, her vocal and physical tics ever so slowly subside, until the intelligent and powerful woman emerges. (She never loses her interest in humiliation, which is a good detail- S\u0026amp;M isn't a disorder, after all.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENot quite as successful is the material surrounding Jung's relationship with Freud. A major dividing line between the two of them is that Jung begins to go beyond the purely scientific and gets involved with mysticism and supernatural concepts, but the movie never really has occasion to show this to us. It would have been interesting to see how Jung is lured away from science and tries to find more esoteric solutions to the problems that psychology can diagnose, but there's not really time for that. The friction between the two is well played by both actors (it's nice to see Mortensen playing a purely cerebral role), and we can interpret it as a more general tension, but theres not much of a place for it to go.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGenerally this is a film with a number of very good things in it that could use a stronger focus. When I think about what I like about it, it's in the details; Jung's wife (Sarah Gadon) tacitly accepts that her husband has a mistress, Freud and Spielrein acknowledge to each other that they're both Jews in somewhat hostile territory, Cassell as Gross has what's basically a glorified cameo before stealing a ladder and escaping the hospital. Cronenberg brings a low-key realism to the proceedings, making it feel like a lived-in world rather than a costume drama (even though it technically is.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis isn't the strongest of Cronenberg's recent films, but there's still plenty to enjoy. If the story is not honed as keenly as it could be, there is still something fascinating in the dynamic of Freud, Jung, and Spielrein, the third a catalytic presence in the worlds and philosophies of both men, while also charting her own way. If the intellectual fireworks taper off near the end, it still leaves plenty to think about.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the play \"The Talking Cure\" by Christopher Hampton\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd the book \"A Most Dangerous Method\" by John Kerr\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by Christopher Hampton\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by David Cronenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1878185868933910905\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=1878185868933910905\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1878185868933910905"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/1878185868933910905"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/02\/in-theaters-dangerous-method.html","title":"In Theaters: A Dangerous Method"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-taBiKKJP2y0\/Ty_4X8denuI\/AAAAAAAABOo\/gPh08CEF0Po\/s72-c\/dangerous_method_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3112973191732533296"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-31T09:26:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-31T09:26:25.514-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.19: Three Dates and a Breakup"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0cUz3cyye8o\/TygHpT0h6TI\/AAAAAAAABOg\/u_we6MDEtI4\/s1600\/Ep91.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier prepares for a date\" border=\"0\" height=\"269\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0cUz3cyye8o\/TygHpT0h6TI\/AAAAAAAABOg\/u_we6MDEtI4\/s320\/Ep91.jpg\" title=\"The master prepares.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Niles! I'd offer you a sherry, but I'm fresh out! \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe arrive now at a milestone, the first of quite a few hour-long episodes the show would have over the years. These days it's fairly rare for a sitcom to get a bigger-sized slot, but back in NBC's heyday (and yes, such a rare and mythic time existed),\u0026nbsp; it was common for them to beef up installments of their hit shows by a little or a lot in order to grab more ad revenue. \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E, being a hit show, got to stretch its legs a few times, and usually with good results; the writers generally used the time to let stories breathe and develop rather than simply cramming in more story. \"Three Dates and a Breakup\" is an organic use of the format; it doesn't feel padded, or for that matter overstuffed. Rather, it interweaves two storylines that could by themselves make for good episodes, and does so in a way that enhances both.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin's relationship with Sherry has gotten more serious, with his ladyfriend staying over more nights, much to Frasier's chagrin. But he's got more important things to focus on, like the fact that in one night he manages to secure three dates for the weekend. This makes him insufferable, especially towards Niles who's in his own bad patch. Sherry and Martin manage to ruin one of Frasier's dates by coming home early, but the next morning they're fighting, and soon enough they've broken up. At first Frasier is ecstatic (as is his brother), and Martin doesn't seem too put out, but Daphne thinks something's wrong and Frasier starts to come around. That doesn't stop Sherry from ruining his dates.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier's storyline focuses on his inability to handle a good thing. That he's now a babe magnet after a drought is all well and good, but rather than simply seek out a relationship with a woman he is attracted to, Frasier gets greedy. What goes wrong on the first date is mostly his fault; he tries to paint himself as a dog lover and vegetarian, and Martin and Sherry simply reveal that he's a liar. The second is undone by the first, when Sherry mistakes his new date for his old, and by the third his carefully calculated seduction routine has become a desperate frenzied dress rehearsal for a play that will never open. There's something downright Aesop-like about the whole thing, and characters trying to overindulge their appetites and ending up starved is a rich comic tradition. And of course, Frasier's smug arrogance\u0026nbsp; sweetens his fall. It's almost encouraging to think that no matter how many failed dates he has, Frasier is never far from believing he's Casanova.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMeanwhile, Martin and Sherry's story is a more mature one, but they too find ways to act childish. The fight that leads to their breakup is an extremely petty one, over insignificant things like Chinese food for breakfast and the proper use of chopsticks. But arguments like this are always about bigger things, and this ends up being true on two levels. One is a conflict in their personalities; Sherry pushes Martin to try new things and Martin likes to stay in his comfort zone. It's the sort of friction that can go either way, either strengthening a relationship or breaking it up. But we also run into Martin's fear of committing to another woman, and again it's a memory of Hester that Frasier uses to help resolve things.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo fill out the hour there's a fun little story with Roz running into an old Wisconsin friend immediately after a mile jog, and trying later to make sure he knows she normally isn't drenched in sweat. We also see that Niles is having a bad run of luck with women, which is awkward at first but adds to his amusement on hearing about Frasier's dating disasters. Also, Daphne tries on an American accent and horrifies everyone in the process. Despite this being a super-sized episode, these subplots aren't used much; there's quite enough going on with the main stories.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe end of the episode provides an opportunity for Frasier to redeem himself of his schadenfreude over Sherry's departure, and it's also a nice turning point for Martin. He can now not only date, but actually fall in love with another woman after Hester; it's a very important step for the character in later seasons. \u003Ci\u003EFrasier\u003C\/i\u003E's first hour-long outing really works in all the ways it needs to, and it proves that the show's world is expansive enough for the occasional prolonged stay. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Rob Greenberg\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jeff Melman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired April 29, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003ENiles: Yes, and I'd love to stay but I... have my therapy group meeting, and last time I was late the compulsive gamblers were betting the passive aggressives that they couldn't make the over-eaters cry. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3112973191732533296\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3112973191732533296\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3112973191732533296"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3112973191732533296"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/frasierquest-419-three-dates-and.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.19: Three Dates and a Breakup"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-0cUz3cyye8o\/TygHpT0h6TI\/AAAAAAAABOg\/u_we6MDEtI4\/s72-c\/Ep91.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2649756677380907480"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-27T17:11:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-27T17:11:44.871-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Kaiju"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #98: Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00006IUGR\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00006IUGR\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-lWlg0L3KU1U\/TyMt-QqKagI\/AAAAAAAABOY\/HxXv2uFw9NA\/s320\/godzillasea.jpg\" title=\"I'm linking this to Amazon in spite of their vendors' ridiculous prices for this one, but check around your local stores before ordering. There is no way this is that hard to find.\" width=\"222\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAfter \u003Ci\u003EMonster Zero\u003C\/i\u003E, Ishiro Honda took a break from the Godzilla series, and the series itself took a vacation. In one of those great stories of Tinseltown, a script originally intended for King Kong was instead messengered over to Godzilla's people, deals were struck, and Godzilla traded Tokyo for the South Seas. It was a move that allowed Toho to save a little money on miniature city sets, and \u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. The Sea Monster\u003C\/i\u003E, under the direction of Jun Fukuda, turned out to be a really neat change of pace. It's a jaunty, colorful romp in which four Japanese guys get mixed up with island natives, international terrorists, a giant dinosaur, a giant moth, and one very angry shrimp.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThrough circumstances that are way too crazy to condense properly, four men end up on a boat- a thief named Yoshimura (Akira Takarada), two dance marathon contestants named Ichino (Chotaro Togin) and Nita (Hideo Sunazaka), and Ryota (Toru Watanabe), a man searching for his brother who was lost at sea, but who the local fortune teller guarantees is still alive. A storm overtakes the boat, and it's destroyed by a giant claw coming from up out of the sea, and the men wash ashore on a remote island. That island turns out to be the home of the Red Bamboo, a mysterious terror organization interested in manufacturing nuclear weapons. The Red Bamboo also use slave labor from nearby Infant Island (home of Mothra and her miniature twin heralds) to manufacture a liquid which keeps Ebirah, the local giant shrimp monster, at bay, while letting him serve to keep unwanted people off the island. The men meet up with the lovely Daiyo (Kumi Mizuno) who helps them discover more about the Bamboo, and also happen across Godzilla slumbering in a cave. When the bad guys start to close in on our heroes, they soon see no alternative but to wake up the big guy in hopes that he'll stomp on the right people.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe script for this movie was originally going to be used to make another King Kong movie, since Toho still had rights to use the character. The switch to Godzilla (Kong ended up fighting a robot version of himself, and that's a whole other story) puts our scaly hero in some uncharacteristic situations, such as grabbing jets out of the sky with his bare hands and taking an uncomfortable interest in Daiyo. He even gets revived by a bolt of lightning in what was probably a callback to Kong's electrical abilities in \u003Ci\u003EKing Kong vs. Godzilla\u003C\/i\u003E. It's an interesting tweak on Godzilla's normal mindless rampaging, and probably ended up helping make him a more heroic figure- even in this film, the human characters assume he'll be on the right side when he wakes up.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA note on Ebirah- \"ebi\" is Japanese for shrimp, and so, yes, Ebirah is a giant king prawn. He's not the most intimidating of monsters, truth be told, and the fact that he's bright red makes it look like he's already been boiled. Still, he has a certain charm, as do most all of Tsubaraya's creations. Mothra's reappearance in a minor role is a nice creative use of the character. The monster action is as fun as ever, and the story integrates it well with what the human characters are doing, rather than just having them run along in the foreground. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn comparison to Honda, Jun Fukuda brings a looser, more kinetic feel to the Godzilla series. He uses a lot of close-ups and occasionally jittery camera work, and combined with Masaru Sato's jazzy score (complete with surf guitar for Ebirah), the feeling is ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek. Of course this was an element of the screenplay from the very start (an early exposition scene takes place at a dance marathon), but Fukuda proves particularly adept at capturing this feel. There's something pleasantly relaxed about the film, even as the craziness mounts.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EGodzilla vs. The Sea Monster\u003C\/i\u003E isn't as ambitious as earlier entries, but it plays around with the formula to good effect. It's an enjoyable and often-rewatchable picture, well-made despite its goofiness. It was a shake-up the series needed, lest it grow stagnant repeating the same \"monsters destroy civilization\" story over and over. We'd get back to that soon enough.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Shinichi Sekizawa\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jun Fukuda\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2649756677380907480\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2649756677380907480\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2649756677380907480"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2649756677380907480"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/random-movie-report-98-godzilla-vs-sea.html","title":"Random Movie Report #98: Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-lWlg0L3KU1U\/TyMt-QqKagI\/AAAAAAAABOY\/HxXv2uFw9NA\/s72-c\/godzillasea.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-5812600498863653722"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-23T09:33:00.007-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-23T09:33:51.468-06:00"},"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Artist"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The Aritst poster and IMPawards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-e8iwfJbTM8U\/Tx19fQ-OlNI\/AAAAAAAABOQ\/MGpVhKxj6Tg\/s320\/artist.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe silent film is a form so distinct that it's a shame they just aren't done very often anymore. Whereas filmmakers sometimes will be able to use black and white as an artistic device, few have been able to go as far as eliminate sound. So \u003Ci\u003EThe Artist\u003C\/i\u003E is a welcome experiment, a look at vintage Hollywood through the lens of the goofy, sweet romances they made at the time. For someone like me, it's an irresistible approach and I have a hard time being truly objective. The movie just charms; it tells a sweet story with a sweet tone, using the tricks of the silent form without letting the self-awareness get in the way of the emotional content. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJean Dujardin is George Valentin, star of the silent screen, thrilling viewers in a series of adventure epics for Kinogram Pictures. Also at Kinogram is Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a struggling extra who is nursing a crush on Valentin. Peppy buckles down and begins to rise through the ranks, from extra to chorus girl to bit player to supporting actress to star. Meanwhile, Valentin's career is threatened by the arrival of sound; he doesn't want to speak, can't speak, sees talkies as a novelty, and tries to go into business on his own to continue making silents. The Great Depression soon puts an end to that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn addition to being a black-and-white silent, the picture aims for the straightforward but lightly fantastic style of silent comedies- we don't get the range of visual invention you see in a film by Lang or Murnau, but there are some very nice \"gags\" and devices used to tell the story in shorthand, and the atmosphere of 1920s Hollywood is very, very strong. The film is energetic even in its slower moments, and avoids being wholly realistic in favor of a more glamorous vibe.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA well-chosen cast adds a lot, especially in a movie where faces are so important. Bejo has the kind of sparkly, urbane sexiness that characterized so many starlets of the 20s, and is charming even as Miller's rise precipitates Valentin's fall. Dujardin, who starred in the writer\/director's \u003Ci\u003EOSS 117\u003C\/i\u003E films as the titular chauvinistic spy, has a lot of Douglas Fairbanks' charm and handles both the comic and tragic angles on his character very well. The always wonderful John Goodman plays a studio executive, and a couple of other familiar faces pop up to surprise us.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe real stunner here is just how compelling the film becomes in its later scenes. Dujardin's downward spiral is a familiar one from this point in history, and though some of it is his own making (his outright refusal to join the sound era), it's hard not to feel sorry for him. It helps that Miller isn't a bad person at all- there's nothing inherently wrong with the new breed taking his place, it just hurts to be pushed out so early. The film's climax is genuinely gripping, moving, and suspenseful, with great use of parallel action and at least one trick you can only pull off in a silent movie. Actress Kim Novak complained about the film's use of music from \u003Ci\u003EVertigo\u003C\/i\u003E at a key point, but from my perspective it was entirely appropriate.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETo a certain extent, I can't not love this movie. It delivers a lot of things I like- metafiction, old Hollywood glitz, an experiment with a neglected form, pretty 1920s girls, a cute dog- and doesn't fail to make good use of these elements.\u0026nbsp; There's just not a lot wrong here, and the picture has an ingratiating charm. It's a great feel-good picture and a reminder that sometimes, words aren't that necessary. Says the English major.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten and directed by Michel Hazanavicius\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/5812600498863653722\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=5812600498863653722\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5812600498863653722"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/5812600498863653722"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/in-theaters-artist.html","title":"In Theaters: The Artist"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-e8iwfJbTM8U\/Tx19fQ-OlNI\/AAAAAAAABOQ\/MGpVhKxj6Tg\/s72-c\/artist.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7625280408274460593"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-19T10:05:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-19T10:05:15.482-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Movie Report"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Movie Report #97: Attack the Block"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005J4TLQG\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B005J4TLQG\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Attack the Block poster and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-iP1oWBYFLd4\/Txg9rSbrbAI\/AAAAAAAABOI\/_nT2tJrq5DU\/s320\/attacktheblock.jpg\" title=\"Available on Blu-Ray, DVD or digital download from Amazon.com\" width=\"213\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI'm not sure why \u003Ci\u003EAttack the Block\u003C\/i\u003E didn't get a better release in the US. Sure, it's uniquely a product of British culture, immersed in UK slang and the sensationalized chav gang culture, but alien monsters are a universal language and the hook of \"inner city vs. outer space\" (see above) isn't exactly hard to explain to a wide audience. In any case, it's a movie you should see, working both as a genre exercise and a riff on social issues. In spirit it hearkens back to the alien-monster epics of the 80s, but has a vibe all its own.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe block is a block of flats, aka an apartment building, in this case a particularly run down bit of state housing, with a small gang of very young hoodlums running about under the direction of Moses (John Boyega) who seems to be in charge mainly because he's the biggest. (And also his name is Moses, so it was sort of inevitable.) We start off seeing the kids mug a young woman named Sam (Jodie Whitaker), so they look pretty bad, but there's something worse out there. A meteor falls nearby, unleashing a nasty toothy alien thing which the gang quickly dispatch and bring to the local stoner (Nick Frost) to keep in his greenhouse while they await the inevitable tabloid payout. However, more meteors start landing and disgorging even more vicious nasty toothy alien things, and they're all converging on the block (hence the title.) The gang are the only ones mobile enough to try and keep people alive, including, ironically enough, the girl they just robbed, who isn't entirely pleased with her self-appointed rescuers.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's a lot of sociopolitical baggage in all this, as the film makes heroes out of possibly the single most disliked group in British media- poor kids on council estates who commit crimes because they're bored. They exist, and the film doesn't attempt to excuse their actions as justified by their class- Sam is a block resident too, and though they claim they wouldn't have robbed her had they known, that's not really an excuse. However the film reminds us that kids like this are just that, kids, irresponsible and immature by nature. The film begins showing the gang at their most menacing, then sets itself the challenge of making us like them. And it kind of succeeds.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIndeed, the nice trick of this movie is that it's actually a story of maturation for Moses. As played by Boyega, he's a boy trying very hard to look like a man, wearing a perpetual scowl and never betraying much emotion. He's set himself as a responsible leader of the gang, but over the course of the film it's revealed his actions have indirectly set the creatures on them. It becomes a very satisfying arc in the midst of a lot of blunder and action, as entertaining as that is in and of itself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe aliens themselves are a nice design, with neon-green teeth and fur as black as the cover of \"Smell the Glove\", light seemingly falling into them. They're mindless beasts, but we're given a nice sci-fi explanation for their behavior that ties into the movie's main emotional arc pretty well. Some of the characters are less developed than they could be, and as with almost all horror\/comedy combos, the film's tone isn't 100% steady, but the story is compelling enough that these shortcomings don't drag it down very far. Be warned, though, if you're not familiar with the slang and speech patterns of estate-housing London, some of the dialogue might fly by. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEven when you're making a film about rampaging beasties from outer space, stories tend to be about people, and \u003Ci\u003EAttack the Block\u003C\/i\u003E remembers this. It functions well enough as a monster movie, and can be enjoyed just on that level, but it also broaches some touchy subject matter and makes us look through the eyes of people the tabloids would have you believe are slavering blind savages running riot. Even the most irresponsible of us has the potential to be a hero, and access to a katana doesn't hurt.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten and Directed by Joe Cornish\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7625280408274460593\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7625280408274460593\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7625280408274460593"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7625280408274460593"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/random-movie-report-97-attack-block.html","title":"Random Movie Report #97: Attack the Block"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-iP1oWBYFLd4\/Txg9rSbrbAI\/AAAAAAAABOI\/_nT2tJrq5DU\/s72-c\/attacktheblock.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4090243305549661209"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-16T14:57:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-16T15:04:17.943-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.18: Ham Radio"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-QF5PfuiCNMU\/TxSOv3N5ChI\/AAAAAAAABN8\/XXBIeHMI0Gk\/s1600\/Ep90.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"254\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-QF5PfuiCNMU\/TxSOv3N5ChI\/AAAAAAAABN8\/XXBIeHMI0Gk\/s320\/Ep90.jpg\" width=\"320\" alt=\"Frasier Crane, actor\/director\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: The people of Dad's generation would sit around the radio every night, absolutely mesmerized.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: We were a simple people\u003C\/i\u003E. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs a fan of audio theater I've been looking forward to this one. \"Ham Radio\" is one of the show's best and silliest episodes, an exercise in pure goofiness that trades on the old comedy trope that, in a live performance, Murphy's Law is always in effect. It's one of Frasier's own great personal disasters, but while his arrogance is the cause of a lot of it, it's mostly just things going wrong because it would be funny. And that's all right, because the gags end up being just that good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nKACL's anniversary is coming up, and Frasier discovers that the station used to specialize in live radio theater. He's found the script for \"Nightmare Inn\", the first mystery the station ever did, and is the director of a live reading of it on the station. He enlists Roz, Bulldog, and Gil to read parts, and when his over-direction gets one actor to quit, he pulls in Niles to play several small roles, most of whom speak in succession. Of course Frasier casts himself in the lead. When showtime comes around the situation with the cast is already tense, so when things start to go wrong the production quickly lurches out of control.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA lot of what happens is pinned on Frasier having an \"Orson Welles complex\", which becomes apparent early on when he names the production \"Frasier Crane's Nightmare Inn\". His controlling nature leads to the project being no fun for anyone, and you can see their enthusiasm drain away slowly. None of these people are professional actors (except the one that Frasier drives away), but they want to make it work. Their director just makes it really, really hard\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOf course, if the story were limited to Frasier's bad decisions it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. What we get in the broadcast is a perfect storm of live disasters. Sound effects fail, music cues miss hilariously (with Frasier making the worst save of all time, described below), and Gil's attempt to hold on to his character's \"boyhood in Surrey\" speech turns the story increasingly surreal. And a bit about Roz on novacaine trying to spit out \"multiple murderer\" is just inspired. There really isn't a reason all these things happen, but the results are too hilarious to care about a lack of narrative tightness. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIndeed the entire episode leans more heavy on the rule of funny than the show usually does. Take Niles' climactic tantrum, in which, sick of Frasier's direction and having to play several parts at once, he hijacks the story and brings it to an abrupt and extremely violent conclusion. Under most circumstances this would seem a petty and childish thing to do, but it's far more hilarious than any \"actual\" conclusion to the Nightmare Inn saga could ever be. And it's not like the other performers care- by this point Frasier has turned everyone against him. The whole point is just to watch a glorious trainwreck, and Niles sends it off with such aplomb.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIs there a lesson to be learned here? That a good director should never let ego get in the way of a collaborative effort, perhaps, or an admonishment against populating your live radio drama broadcast entirely with non-actors? Maybe, but fundamentally you get the feeling the writers just wanted to have some fun with the idea of the gang doing a live radio play and screwing the whole thing up. Fortunately everyone involved brings their A-game, and the result is not just a nice salute to a neglected medium, but an oft-cited classic episode of the series. Farce never sounded so good.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by David Lloyd\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by David Lee\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired April 22, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: It appears to be… the ice cream truck!\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4090243305549661209\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4090243305549661209\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4090243305549661209"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4090243305549661209"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/frasierquest-418-ham-radio.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.18: Ham Radio"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-QF5PfuiCNMU\/TxSOv3N5ChI\/AAAAAAAABN8\/XXBIeHMI0Gk\/s72-c\/Ep90.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6572709358796641710"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-11T09:35:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-11T09:35:07.186-06:00"},"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Young Adult"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Poster and IMPAwards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-gfML0PE6foc\/Tw2ruYrXZxI\/AAAAAAAABN0\/D35t9ZryAcM\/s320\/young_adult.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"211\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of the good things about sticking up for creative people is the smug sense of validation when they finally prove themselves. When I reviewed \u003Ci\u003EJennifer's Body\u003C\/i\u003E I said that the backlash against Diablo Cody was a little excessive and that she actually had talent that was obscured by her tendency towards overly hip dialogue. Now she's gone and reunited with \u003Ci\u003EJuno\u003C\/i\u003E director Jason Reitman and they've made a mature, thoughtful character study with only a few audible hipsterisms. \u003Ci\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/i\u003E is the best film I've seen from either talent, and though it's confusingly being marketed as a straightforward comedy, the reality is it's a scathing, discomforting work that nonetheless has compassion for its broken central character.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECharlize Theron is Mavis Gary, ghost writer for the long-running \u003Ci\u003EWaverly High\u003C\/i\u003E series of YA novels that's slowly drawing to a close. When she learns that her own high school sweetheart, Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), is now a father, she decides to take a break from Minneapolis and head back to her hometown of Mercury. Her plan is to win him back, but along the way she runs into school sadsack Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt), who was beaten up for being gay (though he actually wasn't) and still walks with a limp. Matt is the first person to whom Mavis explains her plan, and rightly diagnoses it as utter insanity and a horrible thing to do. Mavis is undeterred and starts arranging meet cutes with her intended, even as he struggles with trying to be a responsible father and husband. And it's not like his wife (played by Elizabeth Reaser) is anything but a sweet and considerate person. It's clear that Mavis is heading down a very dark path, but she's unwilling to pull away.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere's a trick to telling a story with an unlikable protagonist. Mavis is, as we work out from fairly early on, pretty screwed up. She had a great time in high school, and despite several years in the real world she still believes in \"Love conquers all\" to a rather self-destructive extent, even as she becomes cold and calculating when it comes to pursuing her target. But though she doesn't have very many redeeming qualities, Mavis is fascinating to watch. In some ways she's out of her depth but in other ways she's brilliant and cunning, and though her plan seems doomed to fail it's still interesting to see what depths she'll sink to. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut the film isn't purely a black comedy. Mavis has more problems than can be chalked up to having read too many teen lit books, and it's clear that on many levels she's deeply unhappy and in denial about being unhappy. The film never lets go of a certain humane pity for her, and Matt articulates this dichotomy well; he objectively sees all the problems that Mavis has, but because he was the fat nerd and she was the most popular girl in school, he can't tear himself away. He of course is also damaged by his experiences, and while he's aware of that damage, the awareness only helps so much.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe film is a showcase for two truly amazing performances by Theron and Oswalt, both of whom have proven their chops before. Theron has the delicate job of keeping the audience from being fully repulsed by Mavis' selfishness, and shows the conflict within her very well. (I also have to credit the makeup and wardrobe for this picture- depending on the scene Theron goes from looking normal and a bit jaded to being absolutely drop dead gorgeous.) The same sardonic delivery that makes Oswalt's stand-up work so well serves him nicely as the only character calling Mavis out on her shit, while being aware of his own. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EYoung Adult\u003C\/i\u003E is uncompromisingly honest. Whenever it threatens to veer into cliche it steps back just a little and takes a more delicate path, dealing in a very complex manner with the way our pasts define us and warp our present. Mavis is a woman who should be free, who has the means to make a good living and find a good life, but instead she's drawn back to Mercury, rewinding the same part of an aged mix tape over and over and trying to reset the one big thing that went wrong in her past. It ends messily, as it has to, leaving us to wonder whether she'll ever escape. But as horrible as she is, it's hard not to hope just a little. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Diablo Cody\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Jason Reitman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6572709358796641710\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6572709358796641710\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6572709358796641710"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6572709358796641710"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/in-theaters-young-adult.html","title":"In Theaters: Young Adult"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-gfML0PE6foc\/Tw2ruYrXZxI\/AAAAAAAABN0\/D35t9ZryAcM\/s72-c\/young_adult.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-2222409520773873119"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-06T09:16:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-06T09:19:09.527-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: The Adventures of Tintin"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Tintin poster and IMPAwards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-8mJi2xgRFfM\/TwcPuWBMShI\/AAAAAAAABNs\/fRbtvgy-fP4\/s320\/adventures_of_tintin_the_secret_of_the_unicorn.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNow that we're mostly out of the holiday season (by the Gregorian calendar at least), I finally have time to actually see some of the major holiday releases. \u003Ci\u003EThe Adventures of Tintin\u003C\/i\u003E, Steven Spielberg's first animated film (which seems wrong somehow), has actually been out for a while in most parts of the world. When I was a child I read a lot of Tintin's adventures, and even have some memory of the animated series, so it's gratifying to see the world's favorite boy reporter who isn't Jimmy Olsen get his due on the big screen. Spielberg does right by our hero; his Tintin may be a little more action-heavy than the books were, but it's still a light comic adventure with plenty of mystery, wry humor, and an engagingly crazy story adapted straight from Hergé's books. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIt all starts when Tintin (played in voice and motion capture by Jamie Bell) buys a model ship from a street merchant. The model is of the Unicorn, a mighty ship commanded by the late Sir Francis Haddock, sunk beneath the waves hundreds of years ago and seemingly bringing a curse upon the Haddock family line. The model is stolen, but Tintin recovers what the thieves were after- a scroll inside forming part of a clue to a mysterious treasure. He finds this out just in time to be kidnapped by the sinister Sakharine (Daniel Craig) (and yes, his name is pronounced like the sweetener), who has another one of the scrolls and is after a third held somewhere in Morocco. Aboard the boat Sakharine has commandeered, Tintin meets Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), last of the Haddock line and an unreliable souse. They, and Tintin's ever vigilant dog Snowy, are driven to beat the evil Sakharine to the treasure he seeks, and in so doing redeem the Haddock family name.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nHergé's will actually forbids the creation of any new Tintin stories, so screenwriters Steven Moffat (of \u003Ci\u003EDoctor Who\u003C\/i\u003E), Edgar Wright (of \u003Ci\u003EHot Fuzz\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EScott Pilgrim\u003C\/i\u003E), and Joe Cornish (of \u003Ci\u003EAttack the Block\u003C\/i\u003E) adapted the story mostly from the classic tale \"The Secret of the Unicorn\", throwing in elements and references to other Tintin stories along the way (eagle-eyed fans will catch a lot of treats.) They've managed to make the story suitably epic for the big screen without ever getting too serious- there's some thematic stuff about living up to your potential but it's generally pretty lightweight. It also manages to make a surprising amount of sense, which is really difficult when you're dealing with ancient puzzles, sinister conspiracies, and elaborate heists.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSpielberg, of course, is in his element with this material, and animation doesn't seem to have tripped him up any. There are some remarkable action and chase setpieces here, notably one sequence that is mostly taken up by a single unbroken shot that takes us through the chase. Spielberg has an almost instinctive grasp of the grammar of movies, and knows how to sell each little detail of a scene, from a scroll rolling under a table to a tank plowing through the streets of a Moroccan city. The 3-D adds to the sense of kinetic fun without being overbearing- it probably works about as well in 2-D, but if the three-dimensional version is still playing in your area that's the one to go to.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA lot of people have gone on at length about the evils of motion capture animation and the dead-eyed automatons it supposedly produces, so I guess I have to talk a little about that. Well, for the most part it works. There are a few medium and long shots where some of the characters look a bit like live actors in rubber masks, but up close they're much more convincing, and just caricatured enough that live action or simpler animation wouldn't have done them justice. (Zakharine looking like a clone of Svengali is a little problematic but I suppose the director of \u003Ci\u003ESchindler's List\u003C\/i\u003E can get away with it.) The renditions of the classic Tintin characters are spot-on; though Tintin himself is a bit of a blank slate, the script has some self-aware fun with his born adventurer's persona, and Serkis as Haddock is just wonderful, as are Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as crack detectives Thompson and Thomson, respectively.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EThe Adventures of Tintin\u003C\/i\u003E loses some energy near the end, gently coasting to a stop more than anything, but the effect is a pleasant one. This isn't an intense thriller, it's an adventure, a lark, with just enough weight for us to care how it turns out and enough sense to leave us wanting a little more. Rumor has it we're going to get this story's follow-up, directed by Peter Jackson (the American box office has been weak, but it's already made more than enough in the rest of the world), and I hope that does indeed come about, because there are still a few more bits of Hergé's world I'd like to see brought to life. Even if the characters do look a little weird.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBased on the books by Hergé\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Steven Spielberg\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: A-"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2222409520773873119\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=2222409520773873119\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2222409520773873119"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/2222409520773873119"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/in-theaters-adventures-of-tintin.html","title":"In Theaters: The Adventures of Tintin"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-8mJi2xgRFfM\/TwcPuWBMShI\/AAAAAAAABNs\/fRbtvgy-fP4\/s72-c\/adventures_of_tintin_the_secret_of_the_unicorn.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3021316608309663024"},"published":{"$t":"2012-01-04T09:31:00.005-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2015-08-28T14:15:23.304-05:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Comics"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"The Comics Page"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Comics Page: Lightrunner"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0898653150\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=0898653150\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Lightrunner cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ID3Eb4G5o68\/TwRwNOPMlBI\/AAAAAAAABNk\/Tb3dvtFCzg0\/s320\/Lightrunner.jpg\" title=\"Available from resellers on Amazon, who were actually being quite reasonable with the prices when I checked.\" width=\"251\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe boom in original graphic novels in the 1980s gave us a lot of material that's since sunken into obscurity, be it through low print runs, poor distribution, or simple physical decay. I found \u003Ci\u003ELightrunner\u003C\/i\u003E in an antiques store some years ago, hardbound with some nice foil embroidery. It was\u0026nbsp; a labor of love for its creators, a full color science fiction epic, and if it's not exactly original, the enthusiasm of it is charming. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story takes place in an interstellar civilization known as the Empyrean Alliance,\u0026nbsp; a group of corpro-states who depend on transport on the Star Stream, an FTL network connecting all member worlds and powered by generators on both ends. Burne Garrett is an Empyrforce officer and frustrated would-be pilot taking a look at an experimental Stream Breaker, capable of even more incredible speeds than anything in the Star Stream itself. He's sitting in the pilot's seat dreaming when the ship suddenly launches itself halfway across the galaxy, in what seems to be a remote theft by pirates. Now, Garnett- son of a commander, no less- is the chief suspect in the theft of an experimental spacecraft, and falls in with a gang of space bandits, including the gruff captain Scarn, a hissing snake-man, a telepathic furry creature, and the lovely and deadly Lanie. In Lanie's own ship, the Lightrunner, the group end up finding out more about the conspiracy to steal the Stream Breaker and derail the project, a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels of the Alliance.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo, nothing terribly unpredictable here. It's plain that the creators are big sci-fi nuts who enjoy indulging the popular tropes of the time, and aren't out to redefine the post-\u003Ci\u003EStar Wars\u003C\/i\u003E space opera. This is just fine by me. Reviews of \u003Ci\u003EAvatar\u003C\/i\u003E to the contrary, originality isn't that important, not if things are executed right. \u003Ci\u003ELightrunner\u003C\/i\u003E's story works; it's comprehensible, told with clarity, and holds together under the pressure to keep exciting and visually appealing things happening.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe art, by Rod Whigham, is a colorful exercise in 70s\/80s sci-fi aesthetics. The characters sometimes look a little more like action figures than people, but it still captures a nice and bygone mood. I honestly miss the shiny, perky optimism of space opera of the period, and even if the future portrayed isn't quite utopian, the visuals give a sense that it can be really fun. Good art and color work ensure that even some of the slow, talky passages (and there are a few, given the intrigues at hand) are at least nice to look at.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ELightrunner\u003C\/i\u003E ends on an inconclusive but hopeful note, and what went before was good enough to make me regret we never got any follow-ups out of it. Not every pet project can succeed, but there's an accomplishment just in getting something good and entertaining out there, and over a quarter-century later it can still reach someone. For lovers of space opera this is definitely worth hunting down, and as a piece of comics history it's kind of fascinating too. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Lamar Waldron and Rod Whigham\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nArt by Rod Whigham\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLettering by Susan Barrows\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3021316608309663024\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3021316608309663024\u0026isPopup=true","title":"3 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3021316608309663024"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3021316608309663024"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/comics-page-lightrunner.html","title":"The Comics Page: Lightrunner"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-ID3Eb4G5o68\/TwRwNOPMlBI\/AAAAAAAABNk\/Tb3dvtFCzg0\/s72-c\/Lightrunner.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"3"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-535632758633131834"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-31T17:55:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2011-12-31T17:55:22.642-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Books"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Bookshelf: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312536631\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=0312536631\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Forever War cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-wuUPzaPHM7E\/Tv-gXPIZqaI\/AAAAAAAABNY\/_UlQVT3nJUs\/s320\/foreverwar.jpg\" title=\"Available in various formats from Amazon, via this link.\" width=\"214\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI try to keep abreast of all the classics of science fiction literature, but it gets difficult sometimes. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War came out when the genre was going through a lot of changes in response to the times and to new literary trends, and it's certainly a product of that era. But it also manages a timeless feel, defying the traditional jingoistic slant of military sci-fi with a story that shows the real horrors of war, horrors psychological as well as visceral. Though a grim and intense read, it's also a very heartfelt human story.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe book follows the story of Mandella, who starts out a private in Earth's army, fighting against a distant and barely-known race called the Tauran. The war is taking on planets orbiting collapsars, collapsed stars which act as portals for interstellar travel. Travel is hazardous, the planets themselves are hazardous, and mere training produces a number of casualties, and open fraternization is pretty much the only means of reducing stress the soldiers have. Mandella has a close affair with a woman named Marygay, and when the two survive their first term they hook up again on Earth, and eventually fall in love. But Earth itself changes by decades each time they leave (thanks to relativity), and it's clear that society itself is in a bad state, basically economically dependent on the war continuing ad infinitum. Eventually it seems the best option for both of them is to re-up.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Forever War was published in 1974, when American media was still wary of dealing with the subject of Vietnam. Haldeman, himself a vet, had a hard time selling the book as a result, but while the book isn't an allegory in the strict sense, Vietnam pervades it. The war is a seemingly endless conflict with no clear state of victory against an enemy rarely actually encountered, and it's hard not to connect the dots. Of course it also describes our current engagements pretty well, except in the book it's implied the wars are holding up the economy whereas we can't even make a profit off the MIC anymore. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat really makes the story work is the use of relativity as a metaphor and vehicle for the difficulty veterans have re-integrating into society. The world becomes increasingly foreign and unwelcome to Mandella, as social pressures change basic customs and taboos. Increasing age discrepancies make forming relationships difficult, and Mandella and Marygay try to stay on the same wavelength as long as possible, but eventually the military separates them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt's mostly grim stuff, but Haldeman carries the story along with wry humor, matter-of-fact descriptions of increasingly fascinating developments, and a genuine flair for thrilling action. Though it's in some ways an anti-war book it's still military sci-fi, and the battles are suspenseful, terrifying, and make fascinating use of the strange physics and other properties of the hostile worlds they're fought on. You never get the sense that the author is falling back on notions of how war works here on Earth- he's sweating the details.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat makes this book work so well is that underneath all the craft, it's a sincere attempt to convey the experience of being a soldier, both the horrors and the mundanities and the little pleasures that get them by. Mandella clings to a hope that he will one day eventually be free of the war that's defined his life, whether or not the rest of society follows suit. That hope provides a thin thread of humanity strong enough to take the reader through a difficult and rewarding experience.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/535632758633131834\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=535632758633131834\u0026isPopup=true","title":"1 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/535632758633131834"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/535632758633131834"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/bookshelf-forever-war-by-joe-haldeman.html","title":"The Bookshelf: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-wuUPzaPHM7E\/Tv-gXPIZqaI\/AAAAAAAABNY\/_UlQVT3nJUs\/s72-c\/foreverwar.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"1"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-4054575402150815340"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-29T12:53:00.002-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2012-01-19T10:09:36.048-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.17: Roz's Turn"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-BHa5aAzC0D0\/Tvy0cVJAa9I\/AAAAAAAABNM\/ndmP1ddsfso\/s1600\/Ep89.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier, Daphne, and Niles help Roz make a demo tape.\" border=\"0\" height=\"191\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-BHa5aAzC0D0\/Tvy0cVJAa9I\/AAAAAAAABNM\/ndmP1ddsfso\/s320\/Ep89.jpg\" title=\"Of course this gets awkward.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EFrasier: Well, it was just an offhand remark, how did I know how she'd react?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: She's Bebe! If you had said you liked my eyes, they would have been on your desk tomorrow in a Tiffany box! \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSo I haven't timed this season's coverage right to get any appropriate holiday episodes ready for this time of year. That's too bad, but \"Roz's Turn\" is a great episode anyway so it doesn't matter. I always seem to like it when Roz gets some emphasis, if only because at this point in the series it's such a break from the routine, and this episode goes one better by throwing in Bebe Glaser. The result is an episode that never gets dull, and is a great lesson in building humor.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOne of the personalities at KACL has left for the greener pastures of TV, and Roz is thinking about auditioning to take her place- she always wanted to do her own show, but got sidetracked by producing. She puts together a demo and seems to be the one to beat, but Frasier happens to mention to Bebe that he'd be sad to see Roz go, and soon enough somebody else gets the job. Wracked with remorse, Frasier confesses to Roz, and she demands that he fire Bebe as his agent. This proves difficult, because Glaser is willing to do anything to hold on to her clients.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe story really goes through three phases, the first revolving around Roz's potential show. Called \"Love Matters\", it's a dating and love advice show, and it provides some good opportunities for gags involving the other characters. Frasier does his best pirate voice, Niles and Daphne pretend to be a couple, Martin lays on some old school charm, and Roz… actually gives some poor advice, glibly recommending a girl dump her SO because his sex drive has diminished. She admits she's not doing well, and Frasier started terrible too, but it's an interesting touch.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nA highlight of the episode is easily when Bebe shows Frasier her menagerie of stars, a bunch of second-rate gimmicky talents who are being schlepped around in a van. It points up the contrast between Frasier as a man genuinely helping people and Frasier as an entertainer- as good as he is, he's in the same world as people who can recite basic trivia off the top of their head. They are, to paraphrase Paul Freeman, a shadowy reflection of him.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs for Bebe herself, this episode really ramps up the demonic imagery, both with direct satanic references and just making her even more contemptible than in the past. Sure, faking a suicide attempt to get your client a better contract is one thing, but faking a horrific family tragedy from the next room over is so gloriously shameless it shows her total lack of boundaries. The best part of this scene is that Roz and Frasier don't buy the charade for a second, but the episode sticks the landing by having Roz join up with Bebe anyway, because, hey, she wants to get ahead. Can't blame her.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLooking back over the last few seasons, Roz is definitely a character who the writers had trouble giving spotlight time to. She's not part of the Crane family unit, she's a co-worker, so that excludes her from a lot of stories where Martin or Daphne are still welcome. I recall from many years ago that this was around the period where they started getting better at integrating her into the ensemble, and this episode is a good sign. In the meantime it actually manages some lasting plot development- Bebe is not Frasier's agent anymore, though she's far from gone- on top of being funny. All the more reason to look forward to Roz's next turn.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Joe Keenan\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Joyce Gittlin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAired April 15, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EDaphne: I should think having a lady friend would make you exercise more, not less. I don't mean to be indelicate, but a man in your condition who wants to enjoy certain, shall we say, indoor sports, should take steps to make sure that cranky old Mr. Hip doesn't, shall we say, let down the team, if you get my meaning?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMartin: Don't you worry about me. I may not be the rookie of the year any more but I can still move around the bases!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E[Roz enters]\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERoz: Oh, hey, Martin.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Oh, look, a scout from the majors. \u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/4054575402150815340\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=4054575402150815340\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4054575402150815340"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/4054575402150815340"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/frasierquest-417-rozs-turn.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.17: Roz's Turn"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-BHa5aAzC0D0\/Tvy0cVJAa9I\/AAAAAAAABNM\/ndmP1ddsfso\/s72-c\/Ep89.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-8497910599147086120"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-21T10:05:00.004-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2011-12-21T10:05:46.172-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Frasier"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Frasierquest 4.16: The Unnatural"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EnmF44RMVaE\/TvIDJUzZ7nI\/AAAAAAAABNA\/UWI4wh6KmIc\/s1600\/Ep88.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Frasier at the Bat\" border=\"0\" height=\"265\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EnmF44RMVaE\/TvIDJUzZ7nI\/AAAAAAAABNA\/UWI4wh6KmIc\/s320\/Ep88.jpg\" title=\"The Frasier Crane rookie card is now worth upwards of 10 cents, depending on the condition of course.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003ERoz: All right, there's a guy on second, one guy's out, I drive one to the gap. The throw to the cut-off man is late, our guy's safe at home, and I try to stretch it to a double. I make a beautiful hookslide right under the tag. How can I be out?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrasier: I'm still trying to understand why you drove to the Gap in the middle of a game.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI think we all pretty much knew Frasier couldn't play softball by now, or really any sport, but it's nice to have confirmation. \"The Unnatural\" throws a few different balls in the air, but the central premise is that Frasier doesn't have a chance of hitting any of them. It's also an episode that focuses on the ever-developing relationship between father and son, as Frasier sees an unfortunate milestone coming up for him and Frederick. It's the biggest role the younger Crane has had on the show, and we start to see some real development of his character. I can't tell if this is an especially funny script or if I've been suffering from deprivation neglecting this feature for so long, but it's definitely an eventful episode which does a lot with a basic premise.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrederick's back in town for another visit (still played by Trevor Einhorn), and Frasier's been trying to arrange for a tour of Microsoft. He can't quite make it happen (despite Roz attempting to call in a favor on a clingy ex-boyfriend), but Frederick, while talking to Bulldog, who happens to be coaching the station's softball team, decides he wants to see his dad play in their next game. The problem of course is that Frasier can't play, but he doesn't want Frederick to know this, because he's not quite ready for his little boy to find out that dad isn't perfect. He attempts to take a few lessons, but the automated pitching range proves to be a formidable challenge indeed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is the first episode of the series directed by Pamela Fryman, who is responsible for some of the show's best installments and would go on to become an executive producer for \u003Ci\u003EThe King of Queens\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EHow I Met Your Mother\u003C\/i\u003E. The premise simplicity itself, but fortunately everyone involved does their part to build on it. One element introduced here is that Frederick has developed a crush on Daphne, which she playfully indulges. This drives Niles insane, and the scenes playing on this manage to strike just the right balance between humor and cuteness (the cuteness coming as much from Daphne's indulgence as from anything Frederick does.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe fundamental conflict, meanwhile, has more to do with the inevitable passing of time than anything else. There's nothing shocking about the revelation that Frasier can't play softball, nor do we expect him to learn. The scene at the cages is great, though, and a rare opportunity for Kelsey Grammer to indulge in some slapstick. We never actually see the game, but there's really no need to.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe whole episode is really about grown-ups not just trying to look good in front of their children, but to do right by them. It even applies to non parents like Daphne, Roz, and even Bulldog, who lets Frederick think his old man is a great player because he's trying to be polite. (The scene between Freddie and Bulldog is one of the funniest bits of the episode, with Frederick managing to call into question Bulldog's entire world view with a few well placed \"why\"s.) The converse side of this equation is a cute bit where Frasier recalls Roz's disappointment at her mom not taking her to see Bobby Sherman, and in the under-the-credits gag makes it up to her. It's hard to think of even a young Roz as a screaming teen idol worshiper, but it's kind of adorable too.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne of the things we learn from this episode is that Frederick is a pretty sharp kid. He knows his dad isn't perfect and isn't too surprised that he's actually not very good at sports. (He is appalled at Martin's inability to do math in his head, but this is a guy who was wearing a viking hat for no reason earlier so it shouldn't really be a surprise.) \"The Unnatural\" is a story where both father and son learn a little from each other, and it's part of a well-realized journey continuing throughout the show's life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENo Guest Caller\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWritten by Michael B. Kaplan\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Pamela Fryman\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAired April 1, 1997\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDaphne: We went to the amusement park, we had a lovely time. Only I think the ferris wheel scared him a bit. Spent the whole ride hugging me for dear life.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: Really.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrederick: Her hair smells like strawberries.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENiles: It smells like peach blossoms, lavender, and vanilla. (Beat) From here, of course.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8497910599147086120\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=8497910599147086120\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8497910599147086120"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/8497910599147086120"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/frasierquest-416-unnatural.html","title":"Frasierquest 4.16: The Unnatural"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-EnmF44RMVaE\/TvIDJUzZ7nI\/AAAAAAAABNA\/UWI4wh6KmIc\/s72-c\/Ep88.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-6558552291394806912"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-18T13:36:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2011-12-18T13:36:54.602-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Doctor Who"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Random Who Report"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Television"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Random Who Report: The Five Doctors (1983)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0017XOFGE\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B0017XOFGE\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Five Doctors DVD cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-MoCpAJksTT0\/Tu5AKzZr00I\/AAAAAAAABM4\/79HiMqjwazE\/s320\/fivedoctors.jpg\" title=\"Available as always from Amazon.com\" width=\"225\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThere's a first time for everything. \"The Five Doctors\" was the very first Doctor Who story I ever saw, when all I knew about the show was a few passages in sci-fi books, the Peter Cushing film Dr. Who and the Daleks, and faint memories of seeing something really creepy on PBS. \"The Five Doctors\" was a twentieth-anniversary special that ran as a full 90-minute feature (as opposed to being serialized), and while it's not the best story of its era, it's a good introduction, a pastiche of several familiar faces and story elements into a fun if scattershot story. Oh, and it's not quite five Doctors, but we'll get to that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe current Doctor- being Peter Davison- is on a brief holiday with his companions Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson), when he suddenly starts feeling pangs of weird cosmic pain. A mysterious force is kidnapping his former incarnations (save the fourth- Tom Baker didn't agree to come back so his Doctor gets trapped in a time eddy) and bringing them to Gallifrey, to a remote and shielded land called the Death Zone. The Death Zone was, in ancient times, the site of a series of cruel and bloody games, and it seems one of the Time Lords is interested in playing the games all over again, and has kidnapped the Doctors, as well as several of their old companions, to run them through it. There are also Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti, and a superfast warrior robot, and just to make things more complicated the Time Lord High Council sends the Master (Anthony Ainley) to try and contact the Doctor and help get to the bottom of this. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe game setup for the story was a good idea on the part of writer Terrance Dicks, because it actually provides a justification for throwing together so many disparate elements of the show's past. It also has the appeal of providing a sense of progression towards a goal, and appeals viscerally to the concept of \"play\", even if the rules of the game are left vague. The Welsh locations used to represent the Death Zone exteriors are grey, foggy, and intensely atmospheric, and overall the set design does a good job of bringing out the fantasy elements in the script. This may have been part of what drew me in so many, many years ago- this was clearly no ordinary sci-fi show.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLooking back, the pace lags just a little, and it's not entirely clear how the great plan\u0026nbsp; the story's villain has is supposed to work and why it's necessary to run multiple Doctors through the Death Zone. As long as the quest is moving forward we don't care too much, but since the Doctors and their companions don't particularly know what they're doing the story is a little chaotic. There's a sense that it's relying on charm and the fact that it's an anniversary celebration to get by, but to be fair there is plenty of that.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWilliam Hartnell had shuffled off this mortal coil years before, so while he makes an appearance in a pre-credits clip from \"The Dalek Invasion of Earth\", the part of the First Doctor is played through the rest of the story by Richard Hurndall. (Tom Baker's contribution is represented by clips from the unfinished story \"Shada\".) The cast and companions are nicely chosen- we have the Doctor's own granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), Sarah Jane Smith (Lis Sladen), and of course the Fifth Doctor's current team, as well as a few random cameos. As the Master, Ainley excels at hamming it up without feeling inauthentic, and in the scenes on Gallifrey he's nicely counterbalanced by the low-key Philip Latham as Lord President Borusa and the classy Dinah Sheridan as Chancellor Flavia. (Paul Jerrico as the Castellan is less impressive, but I'm not sure anyone could have pulled off the line \"No, not the mind probe!\")\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn the whole it holds up; in a way the spectacle prefigures the new series' Christmas special blowouts, emphasizing action and fun over in-depth drama. There's a place for that, especially in Doctor Who, and \"The Five Doctors\", though not entirely accurate title-wise, delivers what you expect from an anniversary celebration. And though I can only speak from personal experience, it may still work as an intro to the classic series, showing off much of what was wild and weird and inexplicably charming about it. Or maybe it just worked for me.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWritten by Terrance Dicks\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nProduced by John Nathan-Turner\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nDirected by Peter Moffat\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGrade: B+"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6558552291394806912\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=6558552291394806912\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6558552291394806912"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/6558552291394806912"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/random-who-report-five-doctors-1983.html","title":"Random Who Report: The Five Doctors (1983)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-MoCpAJksTT0\/Tu5AKzZr00I\/AAAAAAAABM4\/79HiMqjwazE\/s72-c\/fivedoctors.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-7350980405639268827"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-14T13:44:00.000-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2011-12-14T13:44:07.844-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Books"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Bookshelf: The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00302TIT4\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;tag=clubparn-20\u0026amp;linkCode=as2\u0026amp;camp=1789\u0026amp;creative=390957\u0026amp;creativeASIN=B00302TIT4\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"The Flying Eyes cover and Amazon link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-sQEbWoKvZSY\/Tuj7xsMK_VI\/AAAAAAAABMw\/SsJglnrMz4o\/s320\/flyingeyes.jpg\" title=\"Theoretically available from Amazon here! The prices so far are reasonable.\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI am a simple kind of man. If I see a book on the shelf with the title \"The Flying Eyes\", you know damn well I am going to purchase that book. I may not know if it's good or bad, or the author, or when it was written, but I just have to dive in. This is an obscure volume- the version I purchased doesn't even have a copyright date or much information of any kind, but it was apparently originally published in 1962 or 1963 (depending on which source you believe), and J. Hunter Holly is the pen name of Joan Carol Holly. It's a terse, effective, albeit supremely goofy novella, and its retro B-movie premise is accompanied by an appropriately cinematic tone. It works surprisingly well.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELinc Hosler, Wes, and Kelly, three friends who collectively have a sort of unstated Jules et Jim thing going, are all at a football game when giant disembodied eyes descend from the sky. Most of the crowd panic, but a good portion of them line up and follow the eyes to a giant pit in the middle of the forest, where they disappear. The invaders have the power to hypnotize, and soon enough they're luring away crowds from all over town, like the Pied Piper if he were a giant eyeball from space. The eyes can be hurt, but have lightning fast healing abilities. It falls to Linc and Wes (both researchers at a university Space Research Lab) to start unravelling the mystery of the eyes, and how to resist them- a task which involves capturing one of them for study.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EYou can tell this is a pre-New-Wave sci-fi novel primarily by how the characters talk. Everyone's reasonably smart and self-assured, though Linc is troubled by the quantum status of his and Kelly's relationship and the involvement of the more handsome Wes. They're all professionals or science-type-people so they can talk to each other at the same level, nobody has any grotesque character flaws, they all have the sense of being idealized visions of the science fiction reader. There's nothing wrong with this except that it was getting a little cliched at this point, but Holly manages a little more conflict and less certainty than most authors.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe imagery of the book is quite vivid, and there's no denying that the giant flying eyeballs with hypnotic powers have a distinct retro sci-fi appeal. The fifties and sixties were the era of the bug-eyed monster, and much could be written about the psychological and archetypal implications of the images of giant eyes, giant brains, and so forth that permeated genre fiction of the time. The eyes are scary not just because of what they do, but because they don't fit. They're something fundamentally wrong. The ultimate revelation of the nature of the eyes is quite clever, and introduces a few new wrinkles to the story.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThough I generally appreciated how quickly the book moves at 140 pages, the tight schedule does ultimately result in a very rushed ending- one that basically makes sense, though it has to handwave a couple of things, but still feels too quick given just how desperate things have gotten up to that point. I can only assume there was a pretty strict limit on how long these little novellas could be (this was first published by Monarch Books). The whole thing seems like it could be a novelization of a contemporary monster movie- I had little trouble envisioning the B actors of the time who would play the leads.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis book has been out of print for a long time, and while I wouldn't make any great effort to find it, it's worth keeping an ey- it's worth keeping a look out if you're in a used bookstore. There are few images more emblematic of late 50s\/early 60s sci-fi than people being hypnotized by giant flying eyeballs, and this is one of the rare high-concept works that manages to be good beyond its premise. At this point any pithy conclusion I could come up with would end up as just a sleazy eye pun, so let's just say it's a good book. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: B+\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/7350980405639268827\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=7350980405639268827\u0026isPopup=true","title":"5 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7350980405639268827"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/7350980405639268827"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/bookshelf-flying-eyes-by-j-hunter-holly.html","title":"The Bookshelf: The Flying Eyes by J. Hunter Holly"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-sQEbWoKvZSY\/Tuj7xsMK_VI\/AAAAAAAABMw\/SsJglnrMz4o\/s72-c\/flyingeyes.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"5"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797917.post-3217341103881327611"},"published":{"$t":"2011-12-07T09:45:00.001-06:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2011-12-07T09:50:01.233-06:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"In Theaters"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Movies"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"In Theaters: Hugo"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.impawards.com\/\"\u003E\u003Cimg alt=\"Hugo poster and IMPAwards link\" border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HVf2tG5wHfo\/Tt-KLtQYEqI\/AAAAAAAABMo\/HrStwPaU_Dw\/s320\/hugo_ver3.jpg\" title=\"Poster via IMPAwards.com\" width=\"215\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EHugo\u003C\/i\u003E is the kind of movie I wish I saw more often. While Martin Scorsese doing a children's fantasy film in 3-D may not seem like the most obvious match, this kind of tribute to the history and power of the movies could only have been done justice by someone like him. An adaptation of Brian Selznick's acclaimed book \"The Invention of Hugo Cabret\" (which I have not yet read even though it is literally sitting next to me as I type this), \u003Ci\u003EHugo\u003C\/i\u003E is both a dazzling spectacle and a warm, intimate story about dreams and lives lost and reclaimed. It's one of my favorite films of the year.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan living in the catacombs of a Paris train station, working to maintain the clocks and on a mysterious automaton that his father found in a museum, and was trying to fix before he died. Nobody knows he's up there, so to live he's been stealing food and supplies from the shops, including a clockwork toy shop run by a stern old man (Ben Kingsley). The old man catches him and makes him work in the shop to pay off his debt, and there Hugo meets the man's granddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Moretz). The two become friends, and Hugo takes her to the movies for the first time, and then shows what he has been working on. It turns out Isabelle literally has the key that makes the automaton work, and the magnificent machine reveals a secret message from the past- one that, among other things, leads to the discovery that Isabelle's grandfather is the legendary filmmaker George Melies.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt first the brassy, blue-and-bronze images of the film seem familiar for the genre, but \u003Ci\u003EHugo\u003C\/i\u003E takes a lot of care to establish the right atmosphere. It's actually mostly red and blue, after the two-strip Technicolor process that was used sometimes during the silent era (and was employed for a similar effect in Scorsese's \u003Ci\u003EThe Aviator\u003C\/i\u003E) as well as being a fashionable combo of the time. The 3-D is used to highlight the enormity of the station as the world Hugo inhabits for most of his life, and is used in some excellent ways, bringing out the hidden picture-window depths of Melies' cinematic tableaus and making a comical station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) more sinister when he leans in to interrogate the boy. 3-D can be a restricting process, requiring brighter visuals and extreme care taken with the borders of the frame, but Scorsese navigates around them deftly, resulting in a film that feels light and unbound.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe story itself is surprising for just what it ends up being. While the first half has many of the hallmarks of a traditional children's fantasy, with an orphaned boy, a mystery from the past, persecution from authorities and the like, it unfolds to reveal something much more complex and human. Hugo wants to make the automaton work because he feels it may have a message for him from his father, but its true message leads him to someone else's story, and the gradual end of his isolation becomes bound up with learning to connect with the pasts and emotions of others. The screenplay, credited to John Logan, takes care to emphasize the basic decency of many of its characters, even the sinister\/comical inspector, who is ashamed of the leg brace he must wear because of a war wound, and nurses a crush on a gentle flower girl (Emily Watson) in the best silent comedy tradition. There are no real villains, just the spectre of the Great War and a real world that often disappoints its dreamers.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAs a loving homage to Melies and the silent era in general, the picture is a special treat for movie buffs. (It may not be coincidence that Brian Selznick is related to legendary movie producer David O. Selznick.) It's simply a treat to watch the flashbacks of Melies at work in his glass studio, with performers, props, and mechanical monsters all choreographed precisely. Film isn't the only medium given its due, though, as there are some lovely scenes with Christopher Lee as a kindly bookseller, and in the end it seems that booksellers, flower sellers, moviemakers, toy makers, and magicians all are part of the same group, seeking to make the world something greater through illusion. There are some great performances here, and both Butterfield and Moretz make strong impressions. (The latter is already well-known as a child actress but I'd missed most of her earlier work.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt may not mean very much to describe a movie as magical, but that's the feeling that \u003Ci\u003EHugo\u003C\/i\u003E radiates. It dodges clichéd drama and phony sentiment in favor of the real thing, a loving salute to one of film's most influential legends. I don't often recommend movies \"for the whole family\" because I don't know most of you people,\u0026nbsp; but this really is a great all-ages experience, one that I hope becomes a standard in years to come.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBased on the book \"The Invention of Hugo Cabret\" by Brian Selznick\u003Cbr \/\u003EScreenplay by John Logan\u003Cbr \/\u003EDirected by Martin Scorsese\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGrade: A\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3217341103881327611\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/comment.g?blogID=26797917\u0026postID=3217341103881327611\u0026isPopup=true","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3217341103881327611"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/26797917\/posts\/default\/3217341103881327611"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/evanwaters.blogspot.com\/2011\/12\/in-theaters-hugo.html","title":"In Theaters: Hugo"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Evan Waters"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17263250766060234515"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"30","height":"32","src":"\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjWHmBTEfGDm_Y255hlx1TZBL8OyM6PyoGU13fc_WYjXwbnoRFck9EzDmU6_5ZmMYgKjZhGRz05qwU1pueFKzBsRCaZDb--qcheALxSrtXzbCUxY6I-wwSQlw5htnk0Sw\/s220\/Steed.png"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-HVf2tG5wHfo\/Tt-KLtQYEqI\/AAAAAAAABMo\/HrStwPaU_Dw\/s72-c\/hugo_ver3.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});