Babies who hate Vince Vaughn

 

The eight biggest media moments of 2007

Hey, everyone else closes out the year with some kind of stupid list. Why shouldn’t I?

On the other hand, this year didn’t exactly lend itself to media listing. For example, as I scanned the critics’ lists of best and worst movies of 2007, I realized that I’d seen almost none of them. That’s due at least in part to changes in my consumption habits: I only went to three movies in theaters this year. So if it didn’t make it to DVD, I pretty much didn’t see it. Likewise, the day job kept me away from trade publications, The Wall Street Journal, and other sources that track what’s really going on in the media world (rather than the Entertainment Tonight packaging of what’s important).

Nonetheless, I managed to eke out eight items that are at least somewhat likely to fill the bill.

The birth of 8sails.com – What could possibly be more important that this?

Celebrity rehabitants – Lindsay Lohan in and out. Britney Spears in and out. Kieffer Sutherland ending the year in the lockup for DUI number four. And so on. Worst of all, Paris Hilton’s foray into the only-mildly-stripy-hole was covered like the Watergate hearings. And that’s the real point here. The celebrities themselves aren’t the media moment of note. Instead, they’re notable as the absence of other media moments. Somewhere people are dying. Laws are being passed that do horrible things to us (and they’re being passed with our consent by the people we elected to protect us from them). Paris Hilton doesn’t want to go to jail? Who gives a crap?

Jesus vegetable fruit snacks – Yeah, I know media merchandising is as old as the hills. But this one really stood out it my mind because I personally fell victim to it. This past summer I needed fruit snacks for some reason (recipe? craving? don’t remember). I’m no great connoisseur of fruit snacks, so I operated under the assumption that they’d all taste pretty much the same. That left me free to make my pick based solely on price. And the cheapest of all were the Veggie Tales version. They were even cheaper than the dinosaur kind, which was odd because I don’t imagine dinosaurs charge much in licensing fees. And for the most part they met expectations: they tasted just like fruit snacks. Except for one: Bob the Tomato. It tasted just like a sweaty armpit. Mrs. Lens wanted to try one, so I gave it to her. Then I handed her a tissue so she could spit it out.

The writers’ strike – At long last, this is the elephant that’s been lurking in the corner of this column for a couple of months now. When they came for the soap operas, I said nothing. When they came for the late night talk shows, again I said nothing (losing Letterman’s top ten lists was a minor annoyance, but the rest of it – especially Leno – was no skin off my backside). Now I’ve lost new 30 Rock and My Name Is Earl episodes, and The Simpsons won’t be too much farther behind. Though I’d prefer that this hadn’t happened, it’s still not exactly turning my world upside down. At the moment this is a prelude to what may be the number one story of 2008. For now it’s an unfortunate fight. But if and when the actors and directors join the fray, things will get interesting. For the time being, however, it merely ranks between nasty-tasting fruit snacks and new whacko religions.

The Secret – I’m not sure exactly when this got started, but it made it into my house in 2007 via the DVD we rented shortly after seeing this on Oprah. The idea here appears to be the mass-marketing of infantile magical thinking: wanting something will make it so. I suppose these people have half a point. If you don’t think you’ll be successful at something, you probably won’t be. But that doesn’t make the opposite true. How many times have we sat through an American Idol wannabe butchering a song and then proudly proclaiming that he’s never had a lesson or really any other rational reason to believe that he could sing? The only thing that brings these pathetic creatures before us so we can feast on their humiliation is their absolute, unshakable conviction that they’re going to be famous and successful solely because they believe that they’re going to be famous and successful. Shame on anyone who encourages this at any level.

The increasing irrelevance of NPR – I didn’t do a content analysis (or at least I haven’t done it yet), so I don’t have any objective evidence of this. But subjectively I’ve noticed NPR doing less real news and more useless crud. How many obscure folk singers is it possible to interview? And don’t even get me started on the time-wasting felony known as the call-in show. The only thing that shoots my hand toward the Jeep radio off button faster than “Let’s go ahead and take a call” is any story that begins with “When I first learned that my mother had cancer” or words to that effect. In the 21st century, the public airwaves are no place for personal axe-grinding or hand-wringing. Get a blog.

Aqua Teen Hunger Terrorism – Here’s an odd note sounding in the early bars of the advertising industry’s funeral march. Though the world isn’t completely ready to give up on the notion that ads work, the logic is starting to fray at the edges. In particular, the world’s largest media conglomerate seems to have little interest in traditional marketing for movies spawned by the Cartoon Network. Stands to reason, though. Why should Time Warner pay a ton to promote a movie when the whole point behind it (and the TV show that spawned it) was that it cost nearly nothing to produce? So they get some boxes bedecked with LED versions of one of the characters and stash them in visible spots in a handful of cities. Then for some damn reason the Boston authorities decide one of the boxes may be a bomb, so they shut down half the city while they investigate. I don’t mind that the network paid out $2 million for the misunderstanding, because I’m sure it got its money’s worth in free publicity. However, the payment was also an admission of responsibility for the cops’ inability to tell a bomb from a Lite Brite. The words “bad precedent” spring to mind.

The death of my local video store – This one’s rounding out the list because I have to assume personal responsibility for it. I mean, obviously I didn’t single-handedly run the Hollywood Video corporation out of business. I probably didn’t even have all that big an effect on the store I used to go to on Johnson Drive. But as I look back on my movie-watching habits for 2007, I note that I went for more than six months without renting anything from the place I used to go to all the time. Between Netflix and our DVR/dish combination, we just weren’t renting stuff from the store anymore. And apparently we weren’t the only ones. I didn’t think I’d miss it, especially since – as I already mentioned – I wasn’t spending much time there. But now I kinda do. Every once in awhile I get a craving to watch a mess of lowbrow new releases in a single evening (or weekend), and my main channels don’t fill that bill. Plus I felt like a ghoul picking through the store’s dwindling supply of discs when it finally declared that it was going under.

Review – The Planet of the Apes

Here’s the barrel of monkeys that started it all (including four sequels, a short-lived TV series, and a reboot). Charlton Heston turns in one of the most furiously over-wrought performances of his career (which is saying something) as Taylor, an astronaut thrown off course and forced to crash-land on a planet ruled by apes. The main menu item of the day is social allegory, with ham-handed pontificating about everything from race relations to animal cruelty falling left and right. Still, that’s to be expected – or at least tolerated – in a movie from 1968. Though the apes are stylized and distinctly un-ape-like, their look and feel actually turned out to be more culturally iconic than the more realistic simians of the Tim Burton remake. Overall the end is still the best part. “Beware the beast man!” Mildly amusing

Review – Spetters

Coming of age was a popular theme back in the late 70s and early 80s. So popular, in fact, that Saturday Night Fever and Breaking Away managed to leap across the Atlantic and wedge themselves in this early Paul Verhoeven production. However, as one might expect from a European production, the sex is a lot more graphic in this picture than in its American counterparts. That aside, however, this is a familiar tale of young men coming to grips (or failing to do so, as the case may be) with their new roles in adult society. Mildly amusing

Review – My Neighbor Totoro

How wonderfully refreshing to watch a children’s movie that’s genuinely designed for children. The main characters are kids. They have imaginary (or are they?) forest friends who aren’t smarmy or gross or vicious or unlovable in any way. There’s some minor peril, but it’s kept to a minimum, used only to keep the plot moving, and never exceeds what children might normally be expected to deal with. Though it may not be noisy or flashy enough for most kids brought up on a steady diet of Pixar and Nickelodeon, brighter kids (and adults) should thoroughly enjoy this picture. Buy the disc

Review – The Star Chamber

Apparently the only thing in the world worse than too little justice is too much of the stuff. The idea here is that a small cabal of judges grow weary of watching criminal defendants walk free on technicalities. So they set up a “star chamber.” Anyone found guilty by the group – after escaping punishment by the regular legal system – is murdered by specially-hired hit men. It’s an intriguing concept. Unfortunately it gets mired in a lot of stiff sentimentality. The father of a murdered child is one of the most prominent supporting characters. And the conspiracy doesn’t go south until the protagonist (Michael Douglas) determines that a couple of guys he brought before the chamber were actually innocent (at least of the crime for which the group sentenced them). I know that moral ambiguity isn’t one of Hollywood’s strong points, but a little less simple-minded approach would have done this picture a world of good. Mildly amusing

Review – Julius Caesar (1953)

Et tu, Brando? Actually he plays Antony, but still … James Mason is fun as Brutus, and John Gielgud is disturbingly young as Cassius. Talent aside, however, this mostly seems like an attempt to ride the wave of critical success trailing in the wake of the Olivier Hamlet without spending much on the production. And though I’m not exactly a Shakespeare connoisseur, I can’t say that I think this one is one of his better offerings. It’s pretty good up through the assassination itself, and of course the speechifying that follows is a boon to every hysterical over-actor who ever had the guts to try Shakespeare. But from then on out it’s pretty dull going. Overall this is was entertaining enough but not exactly groundbreaking. Mildly amusing

Review – Dante's Peak

This is like Volcano only even more poorly paced. Pierce Brosnan stars as a geologist sent to the tiny town of Dante’s Peak to investigate some unusual seismic activity. Naturally it turns out to be the local volcano reactivating itself. And equally naturally, the local townspeople don’t believe it any more than the good folks of Amity Island thought they had a shark problem until it swam up and … well, you know the rest. This thing takes an hour or so for anything interesting to happen, but once the peak blows the movie becomes an unending parade of perils with little let-up. Some of the effects are kinda fun, but most of the rest of it is nerve-grating. See if desperate

Review – Ready to Wear

One of Robert Altman’s obits described him as “beloved by actors, hated by writers.” Why would writers hate him? Did he ever employ any? As is typical with the director’s work, this movie about the fashion industry is packed with celebrities who appear to be improving around situations vaguely woven into a loose structure. Some of them are good at it. Some of them aren’t. This was a novel – maybe even artistic – technique when Altman used it to break ground with movies such as Nashville back in the 70s. Now unfortunately the joke has gotten stale. Mildly amusing

Modern living tip

 

Taking a tumble down Maslow’s hierarchy

Last week I promised you Christmas carols, so it breaks my heart just a bit to be unable to deliver. But events have overtaken me.

Last Tuesday much of the Midwest was hit by a big ice storm. It took out utilities in several areas, including my home (though apparently not the houses across the street from us). We were only without electricity (and thus also without heat) for 24 hours or so. A lot of people had it a lot worse than we did. However, the experience taught me a few important things about my relationship with the media.

The key lesson was just how hard it is to manage the mental acuity necessary to read. Going into the outage, I figured it would be no big deal. We’d just pile on the blankets and read books by flashlight. Good plan, but it didn’t work out. Seems the cold that rapidly set in throughout the house made it impossible to concentrate on the printed word. It also made it difficult to sleep and even more difficult to cook, so hunger and fatigue weren’t exactly helping matters.

In short, consumption of print media is greatly helped by at least a toe-hold on the lower rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

The other lesson was just how sweet television was when the power finally came back on. But let me clarify this point. I didn’t find myself missing the TV at all. We didn’t get several of our regularly-DVR’d programs, and all of it was no big loss. What I was grateful for was something that didn’t require me to think. As our furnace struggled to bring us back to normal and Mrs. Lens gave in to exhaustion, I finished up Tin Man and moved on to the 1953 version of Julius Caesar. Though mentally I had trouble drawing crucial distinctions between Shakespeare and Sci Fi Channel crap, they were both all too easy to enjoy. It wasn’t a sense of “yay, the plug-in drug is back” as much as “this, at long last, is normal.”

It was an unwelcome but important wake-up. I had no idea just how dependent I’d become on things that many people do without. Mind you, I’m not going to be killing the furnace for the sake of some Nietzsche-esque enlightenment experience anytime soon. I’m glad I got the eye-opener, but I’m not anxious to repeat the lesson.

Review – Factory Girl

Once again members of the upper crust of the East Coast art scene turn out to be spectacularly dull. Sienna Miller does a solid job playing the tragic Edie Sedgwick, superstar of the Warhol camp. Less impressive are Guy Pearse as Warhol (every once in awhile his performance lapses into Priscilla Queen of the Desert) and Hayden “Anakin Skywalker” Christiansen as Bob Dylan. I suppose the story of Sedgwick’s self-destruction (largely blamed on Warhol) is sad enough, but it’s just not all that interesting. See if desperate

Review – A Good Year

Russell Crowe was not made for romantic comedy. But even if a more suitable leading man had been cast, this still would have been a pretty dreadful movie. The protagonist is a jerk from London’s world of high finance. His estranged uncle passes on and leaves a French chateau and vineyard to him, dragging him away from his wheeling and dealing and dropping him into the bucolic world of Provence. The ensuing antics may have been intended to evoke a feeling similar to Local Hero, but while Forsythe’s classic was witty and charming this go-around is mostly just smarmy and crude. Further, our hero spent his care-free childhood at the estate cavorting with his quirky uncle, so every time the guy turns around he sees something else that triggers an extended flashback sequence. See if desperate

Review – Death of a President

Most of the mockumentaries I’ve seen lately have been comedies, but this one is deadly serious. The central thesis is that in October 2007 George W. Bush was assassinated, and this is a documentary made in the wake of the event and its aftermath. The main conclusion appears to be that the government would use such an event as an excuse to blame Islamic terrorists (whether or not they were actually responsible) and take away even more of our freedom. In other words, as bad as Bush is, things could always be worse. They should have just called this “President Cheney” and left it at that. Mildly amusing

Review – Tin Man

This is like The Wizard of Oz with some kind of horrible cancer that makes it swell to three times its regular size and grow into all sorts of bizarre, mutated forms. The characters, the plot lines, even some of the small details, are all familiar yet alien, transformed from beloved family classic to action-oriented graphic novel. It also has that distinctive Sci Fi Channel look and feel to it, though the production is at least a bit more expensive than the channel’s usual fare. Mildly amusing

Making the holidays special (part two)

Last time I devoted the bulk of the column to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the shiniest jewel in the crown of Rankin-Bass holiday specials. As crowns go, it’s mostly paste and tinfoil. But two of the studio’s other efforts deserve at least passing mention.

My clearest childhood memories aren’t of Rudolph. Instead, the one I recall as my original favorite was “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Looking back now I can only conclude that I must have been a fairly stupid kid. In my defense, I was really into the whole “origins” thing at the time. I collected the books Marvel and DC were putting out at the time anthologizing the comic books that told how super heroes first got their powers.

And the main focus of this special was the origin of Santa. We find out why reindeer can fly, why kids hang stockings for Santa, why he gives a crap about present distribution to begin with, and so on. I remember liking the Winter Warlock, except after he lost his evil powers he mostly just turned into a drag. Then of course there was the Burgermeister Meisterburger, the great hater of toys. He was scary in a grumpy-old-man-who-keeps-your-Frisbee-if-it-lands-in-his-yard kind of way. But he isn’t likely to take a prominent seat in the Villains Hall of Fame.

The only other Rankin Bass masterpiece I recall at all (except for some vague memories about an Easter Bunny thing) was “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” And even then to say that I remember it is a bit of an exaggeration. What I vividly recall are the legendary “Miser Brothers” musical numbers. The rest of it is just a misty mush in my mind.

Clearly that leaves a lot of Christmas special ground uncovered, but in the spirit of the holidays I’m going to try to keep this on the positive side. Last week I noted my affection for the Charlie Brown Christmas. Now I should admit that it’s only my second favorite special. Top honors go to the Grinch.

To be sure, it’s close. But “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” has just a couple of edges. First, it’s a bit more timeless. The moment when Linus takes the stage leaves nary a dry eye in the house, but the rest of the show is … well, let’s stick with the nice theme and just describe it as “dated.” The other big difference is a bit more important, but I’ll get to it in a minute.

First, let me sing the praises of the Grinch. This special brings together two amazing talents: Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones. Better writing is hard to come by, as is better animation (particularly in a world without huge staffs and computer assistance). Add the voice talents of Boris Karloff, Tony the Tiger and Rocket J. Squirrel, and you’ve got a mix that’s hard to beat.

But really, am I the only person who noticed a more than slight resemblance between the Grinch and former senator from Kansas Robert Dole? Especially when he grins his grinchy grin, it isn’t too hard to imagine him contemplating not only Christmas doom for Whoville but also an extra round of tax cuts for the wealthy just for good measure. Seasick crocodile indeed.

Of course that leads naturally to speculation about whether or not the Grinch also shares Dole’s … um … medicinal needs. Thank goodness Dr. Seuss decided not to share that aspect of the character’s life with us. “He lived at the top of his grinchy grinch hill, with a small nervous dog and a little blue pill.” After all, sometimes a guy wants something besides his heart to grow three sizes by the end of the show.

Speaking of the network, to this day I remain a little astounded that anyone besides maybe PBS would have or even should have aired this particular story. The upshot of the tale can be summed up in a line that goes something like, “Maybe Christmas, he thought, didn’t come from a store.” But no sooner do we absorb this simple sentiment than we’re confronted with three to four minutes’ worth of rebuttal from some folks who beg to differ. No Christmas is complete without the new Pantooker Mark XII. Roast beast five-for-five.

And that brings me to the key distinction between this production and just about every other Christmas special out there: this one doesn’t fall victim to what I like to call The Pee-wee Herman Magic Wish Fallacy.

The reference is to a joke from the Pee-wee Herman Show (the original comedy stage routine, before he got a TV series). At one point his genie friend grants him a wish, which he gives away to his friend Miss Yvonne so she can wish Captain Carl into liking her. This of course leaves Pee-wee bereft of wishes, leading to an extended lament over his inability to fly. And when Miss Yvonne asks him why he’s so sad, he tells a story about “a boy” who gave his wish away. The upshot: “It’s not like the boy wanted anything in return. But then he didn’t get anything in return.”

The joke uncovers the fundamental fallacy of most Christmas specials. They almost always involve some sort of selfless giving. But before the credits roll whoever does something good is rewarded for it. If right action is its own reward, then it’s downright poisonous (not to mention frankly false) to generate the expectation that good deeds always result in material gain. Even in Charlie Brown, the true meaning of Christmas is defeated if the “homely” tree is magically transformed into something that meets commercial standards. We’re missing the point.

But wait, don’t the Whos get their Christmas stuff back? Yes, but they were already having Christmas without it. The point is clearly stated: Christmas isn’t about stuff. The stuff is nice, but it’s beside the point. Imagine how the production might have been different if the Grinch hadn’t been able to stop the sled-o-stuff from sliding off the mountain, and you’ll see what I mean. Rescuing Christmas is about the Grinch learning compassion, not about the celebration that goes on without it.

But hey, maybe that’s too much philosophy for the Yuletide season. So at this point let’s put specials to rest, and next week we’ll move on to the musical side.

Review – Attack of the Crab Monsters

Being stuck on a desert island with a mess of giant crabs would be bad enough by itself. But apparently these huge, droopy-eyed refugees from a Thanksgiving parade don’t just tear you in two. They also absorb your mind, so after death you become part of the collective crab consciousness. This is one of Roger Corman’s vintage best terrible, low budget horror flicks. See if desperate

Review – From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

I Tivo’d this thinking it was a different movie, but by the time I figured out I wasn’t watching what I thought I was, I’d already sat through enough of it to prompt me to stick through the rest. Overall it was a dull experience, a sad thing to do to Jules Verne. Indeed, the only thing that stood out about the experience was the odd decision to recycle some of the Theremin noise from Forbidden Planet (not exactly that picture’s high point, and certainly unwelcome as leftovers). See if desperate

Review – Monster on the Campus

Important life lesson: if the college where you teach acquires a frozen coelacanth and it thaws out leaving coelacanth drippings everywhere, don’t drink the drippings. Not that I’m saying I thought you were going to do that. But just don’t, okay? Because apparently the immediate side-effect of this unusual craving is an Altered-States-style regression to a more primitive form. The script is bad and the acting worse, but the big rubber fish is kinda cute. See if desperate

Tonight’s sushi special

 

Making the holidays special (part one)

Once again it’s upon us, the annual month-long orgy of avarice and sentimentality commemorating the birth of Our Lord and Savior. The malls clog with anxious merrymakers, and the airwaves clog with the Scylla and Charybdis of Yuletide entertainment: Christmas specials and Christmas carols. Let me get my rant out about the specials first, and then in a week or two maybe I’ll get to the songs.

I should start by admitting that I’ve got a problem with the whole Santa Claus thing. As a kid I was one of those gullible idiots who believed in St. Nick for some time after everyone else in the neighborhood wised up. All these decades later the sense of betrayal still lingers. I believe it’s this very selfsame trauma that first makes children into skeptics and sets the more literate among them on the path to journalism. I’m not sure what similar primal scene leads to lawyers or car salesmen. If I figure that out, I’ll let you know.

The Santa thing made holiday television tough on me as a child, because just about every kid-friendly holiday special prominently featured the Jolly Fat Man, or the Jolly Big Fat Lie as I preferred to think of him. I liked the show where the Miser brothers tried to bake and/or freeze everyone, but most of the rest of the classic specials were more than a little too sappy for me.

The exception to the rule was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Mind you, we’re talking about the show. The song upon which it was based drove me nuts, at least until my playmates taught me the Rudolph the Six-Gun Cowboy lyrics. “Rudolph with your gun so bright, won’t you shoot my wife tonight?” That bit of youthful misogyny annoyed my TV-is-corrupting-my-child parents enough to make it worthwhile.

The Rankin-Bass animated special, however, seemed from the outset tailor-made to worm its way into my sour little heart. Its protagonists – a misfit deer with a mock-worthy nose and a misfit elf who wants to be a dentist – were all too easy to identify with. Their vindication in the end didn’t exactly match my own personal experience, but perhaps Christmas could at the very least be about hope.

Sadly, kids nowadays are being forced to grow up without the best part of the whole show: Elf Practice. Everyone in the neighborhood loved doing a lewd little dance to accompany the onscreen action, sort of a “We are Santa’s elves BOOM-BA-BOOM-BOOM” number. But in recent years broadcasters have cut the sequence, either because they were afraid Elf Practice was corrupting the morals of America’s youth or they just needed some more time during the show for commercials.

On the other hand, the part that got under my skin the worst was the dreaded Island of Misfit Toys. The concept as it’s explained to the audience is that there’s an island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean that serves as a refuge for toys with some kind of defect. We’re introduced to a handful of these dour denizens and given a minute’s worth of musical number to feast on their freakishness.

Or are we? Quick show of hands: who can name what was wrong with about half the toys? Sure, there’s a train with square wheels on its caboose. That’s not so good. There’s a bird that swims like a fish. Like penguins don’t. Still, I suppose that too would make a somewhat outré leaving under the ol’ tannenbaum.

But the rest of the crew? Malingerers, at least at first glance. We’ve got a squirt gun that squirts jelly. Squirt it out on some toast or bagels and reload the thing with water for cryin’ out loud. We have a doll and several other random gift-wannabes with absolute zero visible defects. And then we have the jack in the box that insists his name is actually Charlie. “Just keep your doofus mouth shut!” I wanted to scream at the television. “If you don’t tell anyone you’re actually a stupid Charlie in the Box, then you could pass for a real toy and you wouldn’t have to freeze your crank off on that miserable island!” It wasn’t until I got a bit older that I came to understand the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing. He’s here. He’s Charlie. Get used to it.

Before our heroes leave the island, they’re treated to an earnest plea from King Moonracer begging them to tell Santa about the poor, unfortunate citizenry and their pathetic hopes for meaningful relationships with children. There must be kids in the projects somewhere that would be grateful for even the oddest playthings.

Now let’s stay on story here. Where do toys come from? Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. So where do defective toys come from? Think about it. The heartless Jolly Fat Man must already be fully aware of this gulag stuffed with the mutant spawn of elfin malfeasance. But hey, I’ve already admitted that I have it in for Santa. So don’t listen to me.

Then came the scene almost always cut from the broadcast. After the Island of Misfit Toys, the guys cruise over to the Island of Hangover-Victimized Toys. This island is very much like the last one, except all the toys here have two things in common. First, they all make – or at least made – some sort of noise louder than a bee sneeze. Second, they’ve all got big smashed spots just about the size of my dad’s right foot (or his left if he happened to catch one on the off-step). If you watch this scene closely you can catch a fleeting glimpse of my sister’s old Gnip Gnop flying past the backdrop.

But hey, it’s the holidays. So let me end this episode on a happier note. This year ABC appears to be getting copious air-use out of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Here’s one that gets me every time, even as cynical as I am. When Linus takes the stage and reminds us all of the real meaning of Christmas, there’s nary a dry eye in the house. And Santa doesn’t deliver a single line.

Most of this entry was originally printed as a column in the Kansas City Kansan.

Review – Freeway (1996)

I’m almost impressed by how stubbornly this picture rejects all possible opportunities to be clever or entertaining in any way. Reese Witherspoon (back when she wasn’t too big for roles like this) stars as a skanky teenager who falls into the clutches of a serial killer (Kiefer Sutherland). The tables turn back and forth several times as the plot unfolds, but the driving force is always brutish violence. The resulting tale is stupid, predictable (once you abandon any hope that it’s going to take an unpredictable twist) and dull. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Helvetica

Here’s a documentary in search of an audience. The only folks this is likely to appeal to are typography nerds willing to sit through an hour and a half about one type family. On the other hand, they’ll also have to be type nerds who don’t already know the history of the Helvetica fonts. Here and there we get a sprinkling of the circumstances surrounding the fonts’ historical development, particularly what they were a rebellion against and what in turn developed as a rebellion against them. But most of the interviews are self-indulgent babbling from artists who spend all their lives thinking about the tiny details that make one typeface different from another. Mildly amusing

Review – The Bridge on the River Kwai

For a war movie, this is an exceptionally morally ambiguous production. On the one hand we have an English officer (Alec Guiness) who seems like a decent, upstanding sort of guy. Yet he gets so deeply into cooperating with his Japanese captors that he actually ends up improving their chances of building a bridge that will carry troops and munitions to the front lines of the fight against the British. On the other hand we have William Holden as an American POW with distinct similarities to the character he played in Stalag 17. So who’s the hero, the noble traitor trying to build the bridge or the selfish commando trying to blow it up? The end helps resolve matters somewhat, but it’s still a strange journey getting there. It’s also a trip that could have been a bit shorter; the picture includes a lot of long, drawn-out sequences that don’t really contribute all that much to the plot. Overall, however, it’s an interesting relic from a time when war was more vague. Mildly amusing

The Macy’s Day Parade

Ah, once again the holidays are upon us. I don’t exactly let all my anti-social skepticism suddenly drop just because the first flakes of snow start to fall and I end up eating more turkey than anyone with sense would ever consume. Indeed, if anything the holidays make me even grumpier than usual.

Take the annual festival of avarice known in the halls of commerce as Black Friday, touted on the airwaves as After-Thanksgiving Sales, and celebrated in the Lens household as Buy Nothing Day. It could just be all the turkey I ate, but I actually get a little ill every year when the local news calls upon me to witness the spectacle of morons camped out in below-freezing conditions for two nights in a row (thus missing Thanksgiving dinner with their families) just so they can be first in line for sale prices at Best Buy.

That said, however, I must concede that I too have some masochistic holiday traditions that I observe religiously every year. Chief among these is my irrational addiction to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, also known as our annual reminder that for some reason Up With People still exists. I have a dim childhood memory of being taken to the parade when I was a wee toddler, but of course the tradition now centers not on the live, in-person experience but on TV coverage thereof.

This year, as ever, the televised versions sucked. I surfed back and forth between NBC and CBS, switching whenever one went to a commercial, dwelled on a marching band rather than the floats and balloons, or turned the broadcast over entirely to idle chatter between the co-hosts. I admit that a sane, detached person would never endure any of this. Indeed, Mrs. Lens usually sleeps through it or beats a hasty retreat to another room. The only way I can preserve my cherished childhood custom is to turn off the critical faculties upon which this column depends.

Every once in awhile something shows up that stirs me temporarily from my stupor. For example, the sight of The Crocodile Hunter’s widow and orphan doing a jump-up-and-down dance on a float that looked as if it might collapse at any moment suggested the possibility of a show-spoiling bit of grim coincidence. I was also disturbed by the Sesame Street float, which sported the desiccated corpse of Bob – the only cast member left from when I watched the show as a kid – still bravely lip-syncing away. Otherwise, however, I was content to turn my critical thinker off and just accept the spectacle at face value.

With one exception: the musical numbers. Before the parade itself gets within camera range, the networks (particularly NBC, though CBS did a little of it as well) kill time by airing performances from the Broadway stage. Or to be more precise, Broadway production numbers performed in front of Macy’s. Normally I try not to object to the practice too much, though of course I’d rather look at the parade itself.

But this year something about the numbers caught my eye. The acts I saw came from five musicals: Spamalot, Legally Blonde, Young Frankenstein, Xanadu and Mary Poppins. One immediately notices something about this set: they’re all musicals that were originally movies. The last two were musical movies, so I can only assume that translating them for the stage was a relatively harmless act. Likewise Legally Blonde was already sufficiently terrible that I don’t expect Broadway could damage it much.

The other two, on the other hand, did make my stomach lurch a bit (and no, it wasn’t the turkey, because the uncooked bird was still in the fridge at that point). I liked the movie version of Young Frankenstein, and the number they did from it was sufficiently dreadful to make me shudder at the thought of what the whole musical must be like. Perhaps I should just take comfort in the fact that Mel Brooks hasn’t turned Spaceballs into a musical. Yet.

But the one that really bugged me was Spamalot. The number they did was “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Monty Python fans of course know that this song comes not from Monty Python and the Holy Grail but from Life of Brian. In its original context, the chipper lyrics are completely ironic; the song is performed by a group of people who are dying of crucifixion. But now it seems to be an earnest reminder that “if life seems jolly rotten, there’s something you’ve forgotten” belted out by gaily-cavorting knights and women in skimpy raincoats.

Perhaps it’s doubly ironic to take an ironically-sunny number and turn it into a genuinely-sunny number. But then again, perhaps not.

Review – American Assassin

This starts out to be a mildly amusing bit of low-budget documentary film-making about Lee Harvey Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union and brief career in a radio factory in Minsk. Almost immediately we start getting bad reenactments of events in Oswald’s life (featuring an actor who bears little or no resemblance to the man he’s playing). But eventually – as all such productions apparently must – it departs from the facts and veers into speculation. And again following the usual Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist pattern, speculation becomes evidence that in turn becomes a one-sided account of events. Even that would have been okay if this had added anything new or even interesting to the discussion, but it didn’t. See if desperate

Review - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

I think I actually liked this one a bit better than the first one. It seems like just about every super hero movie I’ve seen lately has devoted an excessive amount of screen time to character development. I don’t want to hear about Spider-man’s relationship woes. Just let him fight the bad guys. The first FF movie suffered a bit too much from this problem as well. Though it’s not completely absent from this go-around, it seems like they’ve finally figured out that audiences come for the flashy effects, scary villains and dramatic fights. I think I would have done things a bit differently (for example, less Von Doom and more Surfer back-story), but overall this was fun to watch. Mildly amusing

Review – Miss Potter

I don’t care how deeply fictionalized this Beatrix Potter biography is. I’m just so damn grateful to finally see a biopic that doesn’t spend the whole time dwelling on sex or drug abuse that I’ll take just about anything as an alternative. To be sure, parts of this are a bit cutesy, and if you don’t like Potter’s books then you’re probably going to really hate this movie. But for the most part it’s simple, happy in the right places, sad for the right reasons, and overall just a charming experience. Worth seeing

Review – Bug (2006)

Small cast. Single location. Stiff dialogue. No special effects to speak of. Yep, it’s yet another bad play transformed into a bad movie. Actually, for all I know this might have worked well on the stage. But on the screen? No. Here it’s an annoying hour and a half about a woman who takes in a drifter only to discover that he suffers from a bizarre delusion about bugs. Or is it a delusion? Before we even got to the bug part, I’d already stopped caring. See if desperate

Review – La Vie en Rose

Just once I’d like to see an artist’s biography made into a movie without excessive attention to her sexual indiscretions and/or substance abuse problems. Guess I’m going to have to keep waiting. In a way it’s fortunate that Edith Piaf destroyed her body with alcohol and drugs, because this movie whips back and forth in the timeline of her life so frequently that her physical disintegration is the only way the audience can tell if it’s 1935 or 1960. Marion Cotillard does a superior job in the lead role, but the rest of the production is dingy and uninteresting. As I’ve remarked about other biopics, I’d rather be in the audience for a brilliant performance (of which Piaf had many) than a bystander at a car wreck. See if desperate

Review – The Reaping

A small town in backwater bayou Louisiana is beset by the Ten Plagues of Egypt (in more or less biblical order). Is it the wrath of God, or is it Satan at work through a tween-age girl? The production goes in a couple of different directions with this. As a straight horror movie – including the reactions of a skeptical scientist both to the phenomena and to the townspeople’s reaction to it – this isn’t too bad. Unfortunately we also get a lot of mooning around about questions of faith, and that part isn’t so hot. Overall it had enough interesting tricks to keep it going. Or perhaps I just liked it more than I should have because I watched it right after sitting through Bug, compared to which most anything would have seemed like a masterpiece. Mildly amusing

Review – Sicko

Michael Moore does it again. This time around he starts with some valid points about health care in the United States. Yes, we should all be ashamed to live with a system that kills people by denying them medical care merely because they can’t afford to pay for it. And yes, the socialized medicine systems in place in other countries could alleviate a lot of suffering if implemented here. As usual, however, what could be a persuasive argument sinks almost immediately under Moore’s shrill, one-sided brand of humor. He paints a picture in which everything in the United States is bad and everything in Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba is wonderful. Anyone above the age of five should be able to recognize the inherent falsehood of such drastic oversimplification. But worse, he openly makes himself a liar. His love for the Cuban system (expressed in obviously-orchestrated photo ops) is undermined by a quality ranking of national health care shown earlier in the movie, a list that clearly places Cuba below the United States (though not by much). He also includes a clip of a British journalist reporting that on average even poor English people are in better health and live longer than wealthy Americans. If that’s the case, then health care alone isn’t the issue. Even Moore doesn’t contend that good medical care isn’t available to rich people in the United States. So the answer must lie at least partially in other factors, which of course he leaves largely unexplored. So shame on you once again, Michael Moore. If only you had used your film-making talent to produce an honest consideration of this serious problem, you might have actually helped us do something about it. Polemic like this only further polarizes the issue, adding to the problem rather than aiding the search for a solution. See if desperate

Review – Voodoo Island

This low-budget Boris Karloff picture starts out with some promise, which should come as a total shock to anyone who’s watched a lot of low-budget Boris Karloff pictures. But fear not, crap fans. You won’t have to wait too long for the bad dialogue and rubber plant monsters to climb into the driver’s seat and steer the production along more familiar roads. As an added bonus we get some weird sexual overtones, particularly between the typical love interest and another member of the exploration party, a lesbian as blatant as production standards of the time would allow. Overall this comes so close to not sucking that it’s actually somewhat disappointing when it turns out as it does. Mildly amusing

Review – The Lives of Others

Here’s a rare piece of cinema in the 21st century: a film that works on more than one level. As a straightforward – if fictionalized – account of how the secret police operated in East Germany in the 1980s, this works quite well. But it gets even better when the protagonist – one of the Stazi’s best surveillance guys – spends so long spying on a playwright that he begins to empathize with his victim. The result is a fascinating exploration of both state control and the emotional qualities of voyeurism. This production definitely rewards the effort required to read the subtitles. Worth seeing

Review – 1408

Once again Stephen King’s writing fails to translate to the big screen. John Cusack stars as an author who specializes in travel guides to “haunted” locations. But his cynical skepticism meets its match in room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, a spot that’s actually haunted (and by something worse than ghosts). The premise is solid, but the execution is inept. The protagonist slowly moves from one phobia to the next, so no matter what bugs you, you’ll probably find it somewhere in this parade of nastiness. Of course you’ll also have to sit patiently while someone else’s secret fears get tweaked for awhile. Overall it resembles the short story upon which it’s based by playing like a condensed version of The Shining confined to a single room rather than an entire hotel. Mildly amusing

Review – Transformers

I think this is the noisiest movie I’ve ever seen. When you’ve got giant robots busily transforming back and forth between their true forms and their disguises as various easy-to-sell-to-pre-teen-boys vehicles, naturally they make quite a racket. But the dialogue is delivered with the same frantic urgency. Characters rush their lines and talk over one another like people with pre-paid cell phone plans who are about to run out of minutes. The script is fairly minimal, leaving the action sequences to do most of the work. A few years ago the transforming and fighting would have been genuinely impressive, but by now we’re all accustomed to what computer animation can do. So if you’ve got a fidgety five year old on your hands, this might keep him quiet for awhile (though perhaps not for the whole two-and-a-half hour running time, which was difficult to sit through even for those of us with longer attention spans). See if desperate

Review – The Black Hole

After Star Wars caused such a stir in 1977, other movie studios tried hopping onto the sci fi bandwagon. This was Disney’s less-than-successful bid to join the club. The cast sports some talented – or at least familiar – actors (Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux and Ernest Borgnine, to name just three). The effects aren’t up to ILM par, but they’re good for the time. The script is bad, but the underlying story has a few interesting twists and turns. The problem here isn’t what the movie is, it’s what it isn’t. And what it isn’t is Star Wars. The characters, the robots, the villains, just about everything in the whole show finds a parallel in its more popular predecessor (except in the end, when it suddenly turns into 2001 for no readily-apparent reason). The result is a picture that screams “bargain basement” almost the whole way through. See if desperate

Review – Bright Lights, Big City

This should be Big 80s. It has the cast; Michael J. Fox alone should have been enough to assure it a spot on the decade’s Q-list. Add a lot of drinking and cocaine, and you should be getting a good picture of upper-middle-class white America thought about itself at the time. Trouble is, it’s so damn boring that it’s hard to stick with it long enough to draw much of a cultural look-and-feel from the experience. The plot is pure soap: Fox plays an under-employed yuppie trying to party away his dissatisfaction with life. His wife leaves him for a more glamorous life as a fashion model. His boss is a jerk. His best friend is a jerk. He’s still trying to come to grips with the death of his mother. And half of New York (with the audience along for the ride) has to play therapist as he shares his life story with anyone who will at least pretend to listen. I’m genuinely astonished to find myself typing this, but Less Than Zero was actually a better movie. See if desperate

Hi, I’m an a-hole. And I’m a PC.

A long time ago IBM tried selling PCs using one of the world’s most beloved symbols of innocent, non-corporate fun: Charlie Chaplin’s famous Little Tramp character. Following swift on the heels of the advent of this campaign came the inevitable parodies. The one I remember the best ran in a humor magazine (National Lampoon, if memory serves). On one side of the ad was the “public icon,” the Little Tramp extolling the virtues of purchasing a personal computer from IBM. On the other side was the “in-house corporate icon,” The Great Dictator outlining IBM’s labor practices and various other misdeeds.

Thanks to my DVR and the advent of baseball’s off-season, I’m not currently watching a lot of television advertising. But Mrs. Lens and I have gotten hooked on the Hi-I’m-a-Mac-And-I’m-a-PC ads. Some of them are clever. They’re cheap enough to produce that Apple doesn’t have to keep showing the same ones over and over again (an excellent advertising strategy that more companies should seriously consider adopting). But more than anything else, as Mac users we still seem to need occasional reassurance that we’re the cool kids and the majority of computer users are dorks.

But earlier this week I saw one of these things that actually ticked me off. In this go-around, PC hired a PR flak to answer questions about problems with the Windows Vista operating system. Whatever PC said about it would be re-interpreted by the flak. Most of this was innocuous enough. But when PC admitted that the first release of Vista had some serious bugs in it, the PR woman bent this around to “Some early adopters experienced a few difficulties” or words to that effect.

Who the hell does Apple think it is picking on anyone else for releasing insect-ridden products? The iPhone debacle that prompted the company to offer discount coupons to overcharged “early adopters” should by itself have made this a point of embarrassment to the company.

But of course those of us with longer, more extensive experience with Apple know that the iPhone thing was not a fluke. I would be humiliated to admit how many times I installed the new Mac operating system before letting at least two or three revisions drift by. And if you really want to know how willing Apple is to screw its own customers, dig back into computer history and see if you can find someone who bought the Lisa. Or instead, try finding someone who will admit to buying the Lisa.

This mistake is especially damaging to the Mac’s product position. The last thing anyone at the too-cool-for-school table in the lunchroom wants to hear is that we’re all secretly the thing we hate most: witless stooges eating a big plate of corporate propaganda. Even if that’s what we really are, it’s a mistake to call our attention to it.

So dump on the suckers all you want, Apple. Just don’t throw your own customers into the sucker basket.

PS - Don't forget Buy Nothing Day this Friday!

Review – Black Book

It takes some doing to make the Holocaust take a back seat to the other dramatic elements of a movie, but this one does it. Yet again a thriller becomes so obsessed with the twists and turns of double-crossing that it loses track of just about everything else. The story starts out earnestly enough: a young Jewish woman joins the Dutch resistance after her family is massacred by Nazi thieves. But from there it sinks almost immediately into a mire of who’s-on-which-side. Some minor league violence and sex help keep things somewhat interesting, but otherwise the whole thing is fairly dull. Mildly amusing

Review – Hamlet (1948)

I know Olivier is supposed to be the ultimate cinema Hamlet, but frankly I found his performance a bit stiff, better suited to the stage than the screen. At least the acting was in keeping with the overall look and feel of the production. The sets all looked like stages. The gestures and line delivery clearly had the poor folks in the back row in mind. And yet the camerawork and editing were self-consciously cinematic, constantly manipulating the point of view in ways that worked not at all with the theatre-like job everyone else was doing. I’m glad they decided to play around with some unusual techniques, but nearly 60 years of subsequent perspective show that a lot of this just doesn’t work. Mildly amusing

Review – Snake King

Okay, reviewing this one is a problem. Normally with movies that run on the Sci Fi Channel I can just toss in some random rude remark – such as “Snake King, you make my butt sting” – and call it done. The quick treatment is a strong temptation. The hero is played by Stephen Baldwin. The monster looks like the CG baddie from Basilisk: The Serpent King, only with more heads. And don’t even get me started on the talking-like-Tonto jungle denizens. But buried somewhere under all that there’s something else going on. The bad guys turn out to be the people pillaging the rain forest, not the monster. And the Snake King actually manages to live to the end (sorry if that’s a spoiler). So even though this follows the usual plenty-terrible formula, it actually turns out to be a notch or two above most other pictures of this ilk. Mildly amusing

Oprah eats shit (at least it wasn’t green)

It could happen to anyone. You set up a girls’ school in South Africa, basing the students’ educations in part on The Secret. In order to keep things under control, you cut the kids off from their families, sharply limiting their contact with the outside world. But that’s okay, because you hire only the finest staffers South Africa has to offer.

Except oops, apparently one of the people you hired to “mother” the girls turns out to be an alleged sexual predator. The tiny autocracy you created proves ideal for this sadistic bully, allowing her to victimize the children at will. Or at least that’s the story as it stands now.

And by “you” of course I mean Oprah Winfrey.

In Oprah’s defense, when the ugly truth came out she sat down at the table with the big plate of shit in front of her and dug in like it was a HungryMan entrée. She acknowledged the problem and immediately began discussing ways to deal with it. Normally I’d be against praising someone just for showing a little basic honesty. But in 2007 it’s all too easy to imagine George W. Bush sitting at the same table. “Why do the Democrats want to play politics with this? We tried hard to set up a school like the American people wanted, and all the liberals can do is criticize.” At least Oprah managed a bit more dignity than that.

However, that doesn’t smooth over the underlying problem: Oprah’s empire reeks of the control fallacy much mused-over in the original Jurassic Park movie. The more she tries to establish absolute authority over everything around her, the more sand squeezes through her fingers. We’ve seen it with the Million Little Pieces fiasco. We’ve even seen it with the new, revamped, and now-suddenly-off-putting Rachael Ray. And now it afflicts some of the most vulnerable people on earth, sad proof that absolute power doesn’t even have to bother with corruption.

Elsewhere in the world, last week we were treated to a bizarre spectacle known only as the Environmental Media Awards. Big media drew a handful of B-list celebrities to a ceremony patting the collective corporate back for all the good work they’ve done for the environment over the past year. The only award category missing was “Most Successful Act of Pretending to Care About the Environment So People Will Watch Our Shows.” I’m sure it would have made a great, show-stopping grand prize.

And fast on the heels of this parade of cynical capitalism came NBC’s “Green Week.” I only watch two NBC shows regularly – My Name is Earl and 30 Rock – but I’m given to understand that all the network’s programs were expected to have some kind of pro-environment theme. Both shows rose to the occasion in ways well-suited to their themes and audiences.

On Earl our hero was forced by the warden to add a green theme to the “scared straight” production he put together for local school kids. And Tina Fey’s show featured a new, “green” mascot being used to sell GE products. So we all keep our too-cool-for-school reps while at the same time doing the company’s business. Welcome to the 21st century’s version of the best of both worlds.

Review – The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Someday someone will make a movie about Ireland that isn’t sad. Needless to say, however, anything set during the Irish Civil War probably isn’t gonna be it. And indeed, this production is full of the awful, self-destructive rage rampant at that time. But here we’re given at least some sense of understanding via dramatic re-creations of the crimes of the Black and Tans and the retributive violence they helped inspire. To be sure, Anglophiles will not enjoy this picture. But for anyone else willing to sit through some unpleasant stuff, this is a reasonably good job of storytelling. Mildly amusing

Review – Meet the Robinsons

For a fluffy little kid-oriented movie this isn’t too bad. The story is a typically tangled time travel tale, and the punch line becomes obvious way before it’s finally delivered. But some of the jokes are clever, and the animation is good. Overall it plays like a Disney-fied version of The Addams Family, celebrating a clan of oddballs but without the darkness and irony. Mildly amusing

Review – Blades of Glory

Zoolander on ice. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it

Review - Fido

Leave it to Beaver meets Night of the Living Dead in this post-zombie-apocalypse set in the 1950s. In the peaceful green land of small town America everyone who’s anyone has a domesticated zombie. They’re great for all your household chores et cetera as long as nothing interferes with the collars that keep them docile. Needless to say, an accident shuts off the collar of a boy’s pet reanimated corpse (the title character, played by Billy Connolly) and things go downhill from there. The production is mostly concept and ham-handed allegory, though it’s somewhat entertaining to watch Connolly convey zombified emotion from behind a mountain of makeup. Mildly amusing

Review – Truth or Consequences, N.M.

Once again a studio gives money to an edgy young actor and he brings back a mess. Apparently Kiefer Sutherland’s one great ambition was to make a Tarantino-style ultra-violent caper movie, and that’s just what he did. The story is dull and the script is stiff and clumsy, reminiscent of one act plays written by college boys who think they’re smart. All this stinker needed to be a perfect example to sub-genre crap was Vincent Gallo. Oh no wait, he was in it. Never mind. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Ratatouille

The last 15 minutes or so of this animated tale about a gourmet chef who happens to be a rat are actually fairly entertaining. That’s in part because the story and the action finally pick up a little pace, in part because technically this part is well put together, but mostly because the hour and a half preceding it don’t amount to much more than a lengthy set-up for where we’re all sure it’s going to end up. So when it finally gets there, it’s quite a relief. However, much of the set-up is hard to sit through. We’re treated to a lot of obvious plot twists, a stiff romance, and generally too much unnecessary nonsense. To be sure, the cooking-related stuff is fun in a Food Network sort of way. It just makes an odd blend with the generally cartoony nature of the production. And speaking of cartoons: the animated short that accompanies the movie on the DVD is quite good, in some ways better than the feature itself. Mildly amusing

The Green M&M vs. RockStar

I don’t mind that the CBS Evening News featured a story on the latest ultra-violent video game from RockStar. I don’t mind that what they aired could scarcely be considered news. Has RockStar really produced something scandalous? Isn’t that what they do? Is there really anybody in the country who cares anything about videogames and yet has not heard of the likes of Grand Theft Auto?

Of course companies like RockStar thrive on this kind of publicity. Games such as GTA and the new one (which I’m not going to name because I don’t intend to help them plug it) don’t look very good. Even in their ads – where presumably they have their best foot forward – the graphics look boxy, very last-gen. But hey, if you can’t make a game good enough to sell itself, why not move product by tweaking some noses and cashing in on the resulting publicity?

And the nose tweaked this time belonged to Katie Couric. At the end of the story we were all treated to her Church-Lady-esque snipping about how she couldn’t see why anybody would buy such an awful game. Because you said not to, Katie. Precisely because you and people like you say they’re bad. And for almost no other reason.

Obviously the purpose behind bemoaning the passage of the legacy of Murrow and Cronkite faded away sometime during Dan Rather’s tenure. But surely such obvious side-handed hucksterism ought to be beneath anyone who puts the word “journalist” on a business card.

Review – Q: The Winged Serpent

Let me lead by trying to say something nice. I liked the animated flying lizard. It was cute. Some of the chopper shots of the rooftops of NYC in the early 80s were kinda cool. I also liked the interiors of the top of the Chrysler Building. I always wondered what was up there. Beyond that, however, this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The script and editing are on par with what one might expect from someone who’s never even seen a movie, let alone tried to produce one. The concept had potential, but it’s ruined by the bad execution. Even the casting could have done wonders – David Carradine and Richard Roundtree have certainly done good work elsewhere – but all the performances end up buried beneath mounds of bad editing and even worse writing. Michael Moriarty deserves special recognition for his performance as the movie’s ne’er-do-well co-protagonist. He turns in what is either the best performance ever as a hateful character or the most hateful portrayal ever of a guy with whom the audience is supposed to sympathize. Overall this is the sort of picture that unfortunately might encourage low-budget film-makers to think about going into the insurance business instead. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Paragraph 175

Here’s a new slant on Holocaust film-making: a documentary that focuses on Nazi abuse of homosexuals. This focus produces some interesting results. For example, the Nazis had an awkward time reconciling their bigoted hatred of homosexuals with the presence of gay men in prominent positions in their own ranks (though this angle isn’t explored much beyond the death of Ernst Rohm). The interviewees are quite a set as well, ranging from a witty Jewish man to a senile German to a French man who was still understandably bitter about what happened to him. The researchers who put this production together assert that only ten victims of the Nazis’ anti-homosexual persecutions remained alive when the movie was made, and eight of them agreed to be interviewed. The value of their preserved insight makes this a solid contribution to an under-considered aspect of the Holocaust. Mildly amusing

Review – Brother Bear

Jeez this movie has a lot of death, even for a Disney production. The studio continues to make its way through the world’s various ethnicities, here ostensibly telling an American Indian story of a young man transformed into a bear. The production has an amusing touch here and there, such as Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis voicing a pair of distinctly Great White Northern moose. Otherwise this is more depressing than it is entertaining. Mildly amusing

Review – The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy

This was an ABC News special rather than a movie, but I’m reviewing it here because it’s available on DVD, because it’s movie-length, and because a thing or two needs to be said about it. I’m deeply disappointed that a journalist with Peter Jennings’ reputation would associate himself with something this terrible. The report is an openly biased endorsement of the lone gunman theory, a recitation of the “facts” that makes no meaningful attempt to present more than one side of the story. Particularly galling is the repeated insistence that there is no evidence to support any other point of view. This is a lie. Two quick examples: the connections between Oswald, Guy Bannister and David Ferrie are almost completely ignored, as is the ease with which Oswald the defector managed to return to the United States. One might legitimately contend that this evidence is outweighed by other evidence supporting the theory that Oswald acted alone. It’s also legit to argue that the facts supporting conspiracy theories are inconclusive and don’t amount to positive proof. But when Jennings states that no such evidence even exists, he makes himself a liar or an idiot or an idiotic liar. This sort of “reporting” isn’t cold water on the flames of doubt about the official version. It’s just more fuel for the fire. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – 28 Weeks Later

With a little luck we won’t get 28 Years Later for another two or three decades. This sequel magnifies almost everything from the original. The budget is bigger. The gore is gorier. The jump-cutting is more frantic. And the lulls in the action are more boring. The one thing this isn’t is scarier. The first one had a certain indy creepiness to it. This installment is mostly just an expensive reheat of the tricks from the first go-around (with a touch of Romero’s Land of the Dead stirred in for good measure). Though I’ve certainly seen worse zombie movies, overall I thought this was somewhat uninspiring. Mildly amusing

Review – Dark Ride

So why is it that film nerds make such lousy movies? It’s clear that the guys who put this together were real cinema buffs, because the script constantly brings us mindful of movie trivia and other odds and ends that only film nerds care about. So everyone here has seen a movie or two. And yet the pacing is off, the plot twists are predictable and uninteresting, and the production suffers from a host of other amateur mistakes. Even the good parts are undone by the problems. For example, the show is set in one of those crappy carnival haunted houses, the kind you ride through in a track-traveling cart. But here some of the stuff inside is actually kinda spooky. As a more severe version of a childhood experience, it works. But then they use the same mediocre special effects when we’re actually supposed to believe that we’re looking at a real slasher victim, and at that point naturally it falls flat. Overall this gets an E for Effort but not for Execution. Mildly amusing

Since I quit watching Olbermann (part two)

Because Amy and I were loyal Olbermann viewers for some time, I feel the need to add a bit of detail to last week’s posting. We didn’t just randomly decide to quit watching his show. Indeed, in the end we made the decision because he left us with no other choice.

David Letterman used to have peculiar attacks of semi-brain-freeze. He’d get something stuck in his head, decide it was funny, and then keep repeating it over and over. This annoying tic was cleverly lampooned in a skit on Saturday Night Live in which Norm McDonald (as Letterman) repeats, “Hey, ya got any gum?” ad infinitum.

From time to time, Countdown resorted to a similar substitute for substance. There can be no doubt in the minds of loyal viewers that we share the planet with an actor who resembles the Italian prime minister, at least on a pixelated web video in which he thrusts his pelvis against a meter maid. And can a tranquilized bear be counted upon to fall out of a tree directly onto a trampoline? Apparently so.

We’ve even seen whole segments run over again lock, stock and barrel. At least part of why we’re all sick of the tranked trampoline bear is that it’s a key feature of the Animal Wing of the Countdown Hall of Fame, a segment we’ve been treated to so many times that “treat” has become more than a little ironic. I can only assume that the show’s producers do this because they have no actual news to report. Or maybe Keith just needs a coffee break in the middle of the show, and the stock footage lasts long enough for him to get in a few sips.

But the beginning of the end was a re-running of the story about the automatic weapons festival, an event that marked a new low point in Countdown’s history. The story was only two days old when viewers were treated to a second helping. This wasn’t a quick clip, either. It was a whole, long segment. It was only vaguely interesting, and by no means relevant or useful to most viewers. In other words, it wasn’t news.

However, the most serious problem with this piece was dishonesty.

One of the most hateful things about Fox News (and there are many to choose from) is the network’s reliance of a simple-minded, “us versus them” world-view. For Fox partisans the United States is divided into two groups: good Americans and pointy-headed, Democrat-voting, tree-hugging, gay-marrying, terrorist-loving liberals.

Unfortunately, this Foxgeist has an evil twin. From the opposite-yet-equally-wrong viewpoint, the “us versus them” becomes a battle between good Americans and low-brow, Republican-voting, pointy-hood-wearing, shotgun-toting, televangelist-tithing conservatives. Remove the “good American” parts, combine the two equations, and one begins to see why we’re in such a state of unrest about our national image. Living with this “liberal or conservative” false dichotomy is like being next in the “cake or death?” line just as they run out of cake.

Thus I was extremely disappointed when Countdown ran the gun story and fresh out of vocabulary to describe my reaction to the rerun. “Look at the quaint provincials!” this story seemed to say. “Don’t these NRA-cap-wearing hicks have anything better to do than blowing up old cars and shooting used appliances with machine guns? No wonder they all voted for Bush. They’re as dumb as he is.” Now that’s entertainment. Hey, let’s watch it again.

I’m a bit thick when it comes to noticing things like bias, but when it’s rubbed so liberally in my face even I take note. It left me wondering when Keith was going to balance the scales a bit. Let’s see some idiots in New York City moronically living the liberal stereotype. Shortly after the gun story ran (and then re-ran) on Countdown, the Assignment America segment on the CBS Evening News threatened viewers with the possibility of a story about commune-dwelling hippies who may actually have to get jobs now that the market for handmade hammocks is bottoming out. Tackle something like that. Reassure your viewers in the fly-over states that Countdown isn’t a big, partisan joke with us as the unfairly-stereotyped butts. If you have to do this sort of thing at all (and that’s a big if), at least spread the love around.

But no. The longer we watched the farther Olbermann slid into his new role as the Bill O’Reilly of the left wing. At first his “Special Comments” were an entertaining break from endless conversations between the host and his gang of pet pundits. But the more he did it, the more inescapable became the feeling that at any moment he was going to demand that we all go to our windows and start screaming “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

And therein lies the heart of Countdown’s departure from our “to record” list. Clearly Olbermann has deluded himself into believing that he’s some kind of Edward R. Murrow for the 21st Century. And equally clearly, the network is using him as a Howard Beal for brainless liberals who need rabble-rousing mouthpieces as badly as their conservative counterparts require the likes of O’Reilly and Limbaugh.

I recognize that desire in myself. From time to time I’ve wondered what it would be like to pick up a newspaper and read a story about how three Klansmen who went missing years ago were dug out of an unmarked grave. What would it be like to learn that the racist bastards were killed by leftist locals and that nobody would ever be prosecuted for the crime?

For that reason, Olbermann had to go. Well, that and the extra 20 minutes I now have to read a book.

Review – Deja Vu

How does Denzel Washington keep ending up in these bad sci fi action movies? Wasn’t Virtuosity enough? Apparently not. To be sure, the budget is a bit bigger here and the production values are better than average. However, the plot is way dumber than most. This is another one of these time travel pictures where everything hinges on going back and changing the past. The picture holds some interest early on when it isn’t immediately clear what’s going on. Is meddling with the past is actually causing what happened rather than preventing it? Or are we once again being “treated” to that ultimate sci fi screenwriter’s canard, the parallel universe where things can come out differently than they did? Once that question’s resolved, the only remaining fun is the gun battles and the explosions. Fortunately that part of the movie is well done. Mildly amusing

Review – Pennies from Heaven

This was a risky move for Steve Martin at the height of his success, and I can see why it didn’t pay off for him. Fans of his goofy routines from Saturday Night Live and The Jerk naturally rejected this arty, not-at-all-funny production. Even those of us willing to give him a little room to branch out creatively must still recognize that this effort is far too stiff and theatrical. However, the concept is great. Martin plays a Depression-era sheet music salesman who can’t stand his go-nowhere job and his emotionally unavailable wife. He longs for a life more in tune with the frantically sunny lyrics of the era’s popular music. Martin brings this out by interrupting the straight-faced drama with fantasy musical numbers in which the actors lip-sync to the original recordings. Though the execution is weak in spots, the idea alone is actually enough to make this worth a look. Worth seeing

Since I quit watching Olbermann (part one)

Eight ways my life has changed since Amy and I took Countdown with Keith Olbermann off our Tivo list:

Suddenly I have an extra hour every evening. Well okay, more like 20 minutes. Though we originally watched the whole show, of late we’d been buzzing past most of it.

I haven’t heard Michael Musto say anything nasty about a celebrity. I actually miss Musto.

Without the Oddball segment, I’ve become ill-informed about the wacky antics of people in foreign countries and “red states.” That evens things out, because even when I did watch Oddball on a regular basis I remained uninformed about whatever wacky antics people in “blue states” might be up to.

Is John Dean still alive? I have no idea.

I no longer believe in the Bushpocalypse, the imminent demise of the W administration that Olbermann seemed quite sure was just around the corner.

On the other hand, I’ve acquired a bit more patience about the whole Bush thing. My inclination to write angry letters to politicians demanding impeachment has been replaced by a sense of “and this too shall pass.”

I’ve lost the nagging feeling that I’m watching Network without being aware of it.

And last but certainly not least, I now have no idea what Bill O’Reilly says or does. It’s pure bliss to no longer follow every misdeed of the radical right’s most meaningless factotum.

Review – The Time Machine

I loved the H.G. Wells source story when I was a kid, and I can remember feeling somewhat let down the first time I saw this movie because it didn’t conform to how I’d imagined it. However, as an adult I recognize that a movie-maker’s vision is naturally going to differ from my own imagination (which is why to this day I make a point of reading the book before seeing the movie, assuming I’m ever going to bother with the book). And youthful disappointment aside, this is a good production. George Pal’s stop-motion animation both subtracts from and adds to the picture. In spots the logic of time travel takes a back seat to the animated effect Pal wants to try. But his stuff is just so interesting to look at that it’s easy to excuse such small and occasional inconsistencies. Mildly amusing

Roh roh, Raggy! Rotten Rodcast!

One of the occasionally unpleasant parts of my job as a journalism teacher are some of the moments when a student asks me, “Do you think I can be successful at this?” That’s not an inherently awkward situation, as at least some students do in fact possess the talent to go on to illustrious careers. However, the ones I really dread are the kids who want to be sportscasters.

“Okay, here’s what you need to do,” I want to say. “Start be becoming a professional athlete. Learn to pronounce that last word with an extra syllable: ‘ath-a-lete.’ Have a career for a few years. Being a big star helps a bit but isn’t essential. Just be sure that you end up washed up, gain 50 pounds or so, and buy yourself a large collection of ugly ties that don’t go with your suits. Now you’re ready for the local news, ESPN, or any other announcer’s job that might come your way.”

Up until now, similar advice has been largely unnecessary for other journalism realms. Political commentators don’t need to have been politicians. Pundits don’t need to have done anything with their lives besides punditry. And if you want to be an entertainment journalist, it actually seems to help if you’re Ms. or Mr. Nobody-in-Particular. Just as long as you’ve got a big, toothy smile and you aren’t too fat.

But now a new danger to entertainment journalists has emerged, a threat so insidious that it could easily make the path of the sportscaster look like smooth sailing. Press junkets were never exactly the most challenging of interview opportunities, but now Entertainment Tonight has reduced them beyond absurdity. Instead of using real, live reporters, the show is now employing the M&Ms. Movie-plugging celebrities are now being interviewed by computer-animated, talking candy.

As if being an ex-jock isn’t hard enough. Now some aspiring journalists have to find a way to become imaginary pieces of chocolate.

Even more nightmarish is the notion that eventually even more high-minded news operations will tumble to the advantages offered by CGI characters. People like them, and the importance of popularity can’t be underestimated in a time when Paddy Chayevsky’s Network has gone from farce to documentary. And they’re cheap. You don’t have to provide them with health insurance or a pension plan. They don’t eat much, either.

Thus it’s only a matter of time before we see a scene like this:

VO:   This is the CBS Evening News, with the Green M&M.

GREEN:   Good evening. Tonight’s top story: more bloodshed in Iraq. Insurgents continue attacks on US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad. For the complete story, we go to our chief Iraq correspondent, computer-animated Scooby Doo. Scooby?

SCOOBY:   Rah-roh.

GREEN:   How’s the situation on the ground there? More sectarian violence?

SCOOBY:   Ruh-ruh.

GREEN:   No? Well, Scooby, we’ve got reports that several people were killed today. Is none of that happening near you somewhere?

SCOOBY:   Ruh-ruh.

GREEN:   Scooby, where are you?

SCOOBY:   Ragrad.

GREEN:   Yes, but where in Baghdad?

SCOOBY:   Reen Rone.

GREEN:   Scooby, don’t you think you should leave the Green Zone, go out into the city and get the story?

SCOOBY:   Ruh-ruh.

GREEN:   Would you do it for one Scooby Snack?

SCOOBY:   Ruh-ruh.

GREEN:   How about two Scooby Snacks?

SCOOBY:   Ruh …

And the negotiation continues.

Review – Pork Chop Hill

Gregory Peck stars in this classic of the “war is hell” action movie sub-genre. In the five-minutes-to-midnight days of the Korean War, infantry units are ordered to attack and re-take the title location. The assault repeatedly runs afoul of bureaucratic foul-ups, with constant emphasis on the fact that in combat government inefficiency and poor planning get soldiers killed. Characters run a range from heroic to let’s-just-get-the-job-done to downright cowardly, reminding us that the men who get stuck in situations like this are human beings. Just about the only real objection I have to this is that the point gets a bit belabored after awhile. Mildly amusing

Review – Badlands

Terrence Mallick transforms the Charles Starkweather murders into an oddly quiet and peaceful piece of cinema. Though fictionalized, the connections with the real crimes are obvious. Martin Sheen stars as the killer, and Sissy Spacek plays his half-accomplice girlfriend. The script and acting work quite well, painting a picture of two young, Midwestern people with few if any critical thinking skills and an eerie sense of emotional deadness. Set against Mallick’s strong visual sense of landscapes and the hauntingly un-dramatic soundtrack, the contrast between subject and presentation makes for an intriguing mix. Worth seeing

Review – Dirty Pretty Things

This movie combines three-dimensional characters, an intriguing plot and a worthwhile purpose into a single production. I’ve seen plenty of movies that do one of those things well, and a few that manage two. But three is rare enough to make this an experience worth seeking. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a Nigerian doctor who emigrates to London only to be forced into menial jobs. He and his roommate (Audrey Tautou) run afoul of some creepy goings-on at the hotel where they both work, about which I can say no more without ruining part of the plot. I’m glad a friend recommended this to me, as I missed it completely in theatrical and DVD release. Worth seeing

Review – Black Hole

Thank goodness for the Sci Fi Channel. Without it, where would Judd Nelson find work? This time around he’s the I-tried-to-warn-you-all scientist in a battle against a black hole accidentally created by a science experiment. His efforts to keep the singularity from swallowing St. Louis are complicated by the presence of some kind of energy monster hopping in and out of another dimension via the title portal. Even the effects are bad, consisting primarily of animated electricity knocking stuff out in advance of the swelling event horizon. See if desperate

Review – Stage Door

Katherine Hepburn stars in this comedy / drama mix about a boardinghouse full of young actresses seeking roles on Broadway. I have a like / dislike relationship with scripts like this. Every character in the whole picture comes equipped with an unlimited supply of snappy comebacks to fit every occasion. On one hand, the effect is jarringly unrealistic. What for normal human beings would be a simple “good morning” becomes an extended exchange between clever wordsmiths composing their thoughts with skill. On the other hand, it’s just so much fun to listen to. Sadly, the clever dialogue is wasted on an inferior plot, a maudlin tale of the broken dreams of hopeful young women that must have been moth-eaten even back in the 30s. Mildly amusing

Review – Arachnid

This was back before the Sci Fi Channel started using computer-generated spiders, so they had to work with a giant model spider. That limited the action somewhat. But the rest of the elements are here: bad acting, bad script, implausible plot, and of course a big ol’ bunch of giant spider fu. So if that’s all it takes to make you happy, open your mouth and close your eyes. See if desperate

Review – The Empty Acre

I started out really loving this movie. It had a certain subtlety missing in most bargain-basement horror pictures. The monster was amorphous, appearing as little more than shadows. The production – particularly the script and the acting – was good enough to avoid being terrible while at the same time not good enough to be Hollywood slick. The opening twist is that a young farm couple’s land contains an “empty acre,” a dead patch of earth that appears to have some malevolent power. This could have turned into a “Colour Out of Space” moment, or really gone just about anywhere else, but instead it stays put more or less where it is. I could forgive the animal death and the baby abduction for awhile, but by the midpoint it was sadly obvious that the show had shot its bolt. If only the folks who made this had gotten tired of their spooky routines a little faster than I did. Mildly amusing

Review – The Swarm

I watch movies alone.
It hasn’t always been this way.
It’s nice sometimes
to watch movies with my wife.
But she won’t watch crap like this.
I’m not sure what it means
why we can’t shake Irwin Allen disaster movies from our minds.
It must be that they’re packed with 70s minor luminaries
like Michael Caine, Richard Chamberlain and Patty Duke.
I do remember persistent references to killer bees as “Africans,”
making the where-and-how more than subtly racist.
These movies happen just because we need to watch pictures that lower our IQs.
When bees are here or gone,
to lie down in front of the TV
and listen to the swarm.
See if desperate.

Review – Creepshow 3

The first Creepshow is one of my all-time favorite movies. I managed to at least tolerate the second one. This thing, however, was enough to make me long for another screening of the “Thanks for the ride, lady” sequence from #2. I don’t know how they managed it, but somehow each vignette is even dumber than the one before it. Plus they start to intermingle in a not-particularly-clever way. The result is one of those jaw-dropping, why-did-anyone-bother-making-this bits of pure stupidity. Thank goodness neither George Romero nor Stephen King had anything to do with this round. I’d hate to think that either of them had slipped this far. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

This movie: the butcher of my last damn nerve. It’s something of a distinction being the worst Gein-based movie ever made, as the field is quite crowded down at the bottom. The plot hovers somewhere between a straight Gein biopic (along the lines of the Steve Railsback version, which was a much better movie) and yet another Texas Chainsaw picture. And it ends up doing neither job well. The story departs from the facts far too radically for this to count as a “true story.” And yet it’s too boring to work as a standard slasher picture. The whole experience is typified by the decision to cast a hulking brute of a guy (think Leatherface) as the thin, wimpy killer. The result is something that will tick off connoisseurs of Geinabilia and not draw in any other audience in their place. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes

I don’t think Doug Bradley has had this many lines in a movie since the third Hellraiser picture. I suppose the extra strain of acting might have been relieved a bit by the luxury of not spending hours every day getting done up in the Pinhead makeup. Beyond Bradley, this is yet another one of these. One group of hicks wants revenge on another group of hicks, so they hire our old friend Haggis to once again conjure the Melon Man to go after them. The main problem is that all the hicks look so much alike that who’s being killed and who’s responsible for the killing is often solely a matter of weight, facial hair or (in the case of the ladies) hair color. As an added complication, the night shots – i.e. most of the picture – are so dark that often the screen goes almost completely black, leaving us with nothing but the sounds of Pumpkinhead breaking crap in search of victims. The final product is therefore even harder to pay attention to than most pictures of this ilk. At least it was a bit better than Pumpkinhead 2. See if desperate

Review – Wild Hogs

I probably wouldn’t have sought this experience out by myself, but it came strongly recommended by a friend so I decided to give it a whirl. I’m not entirely sorry I tried it. To be sure, this isn’t an enduring classic example of the cinema arts. In general John Travolta and Tim Allen get on my nerves, a trend they continue here. I’m indifferent to Martin Lawrence but like William H. Macy, opinions that also remain unchanged by this production. Ray Liotta stops by to do his usual crazy villain shtick. Come to think of it, just about everyone in the whole movie performs exactly as expected. That’s in keeping with the plot – four midlife crisis victims take to the road on their Harleys – which is likewise sitcom predictable. Indeed, the whole show is designed to steer our quartet of suburbanite “bikers” safely down the middle of the road. As a soft piece of Friday night brain candy, it did the job. Mildly amusing

Review – A.I. Assault

After a long summer of watching movies on the Sci Fi Channel, I’m starting to run out of things to say about them. So hey, here’s another one. Deadly robots escape from a military lab and blah blah blah. Effects cheap. Script bad. Acting sub par. Killed an hour and a half or so. What more can one ask of such an experience? See if desperate

Review – Terror Train

Because back in 1980 when they still had to sell tickets to make a movie a commercial success, calling it “Boredom Train” probably wouldn’t have done the trick. It would, however, have been a bit more honest. This hit theaters two years after Halloween, and yet Jamie Lee Curtis looks much younger than she did in the role that originally made her famous (and set her feet on the path that led her through a parade of crappy slasher movies like this one). The age thing is also odd because in this production she’s supposed to be a college senior. David Copperfield and Vanity are just two of the 80s “luminaries” that back Curtis up in this dull little show about a psycho killer seeking revenge aboard a train full of partying frat boys and their horny dates. See if desperate

Review – Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Watching this movie is like riding around with a driver who has one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brakes. First he stomps hard on one. Then he stomps hard on the other. One minute this production is hysterically funny, and the next it’s so annoying that it borders on unwatchable. Still, after Anchorman I expected a lot worse from Will Ferrell. Of course the subject helps a little. NASCAR pretty much serves as its own parody, though it gets a boost from just a touch of Ferrell’s George W. Bush character styling thrown in for good measure. My only gripe – other than the host of dead spots distributed throughout the picture – was the love interest. Leslie Bibb does an acceptable job, but if a role is clearly written for Jamie Presley then go ahead and spend the money to get Jamie Presley. Mildly amusing

Review – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

To this day it completely astounds me that this later became a successful television series. I never saw the TV show, but the movie that spawned it is pure sitcom. We’re given a 50 / 50 mix of valley girl high school comedy and vampire picture. The surprising thing is that the mix works fairly well. Perhaps it’s just that both of the spawning sub-genres are so dumb that their collective lack of wit blends easily together. In any event, despite a clever line or two and a handful of appearances by actors who would later become famous for other roles (not to mention two or three folks whose careers were headed in the opposite direction), for the most part this is just as terrible as the title makes it sound. See if desperate

Review – The Mummy’s Ghost

Mummies are scary. Ghosts are scary. So a mummy’s ghost should be double scary, right? Apparently not. Perhaps the two cancelled each other out rather than doubling up. Or perhaps the problem was that there’s a mummy here, but he doesn’t really seem to be a ghost of any kind. In any event, at this point I’ve lost track of which 40s-era mummy movie is a sequel to which other 40s-era mummy movie. I think this is a sequel to something, but it’s hard to be sure exactly to what without checking the timeline. And I’m too lazy to do research on a movie that isn’t any better than this. Once again Lon Chaney Jr. shambles about in search of tomb-defiling archaeologists, his mummy makeup sporting an especially inappropriate haircut. Just about the only notable feature of this episode is John Carradine’s entry into the White Guys Who Don’t Look Ethnic Just Because They’re Slathered With Makeup Hall of Fame. Beyond that, however, this is distinguished from every other cheap, black-and-white mummy movie ever made is the usual downer of an ending. See if desperate

Review – Trilogy of Terror

Richard Matheson supplies the short story sources and William F. Nolan writes the screenplays (except for the third, which Matheson scripted) for this trio of made-for-TV horror segments. Karen Black stars in all three sequences, playing an odd variety of protagonists. But of course the real star of the show is the now-famous Zuni Warrior Fetish Doll, the often-imitated-yet-never-equaled monster from the final third. Perhaps if it had been a little less cute or made a slightly less ridiculous noise, it might have stood a chance to not end up as high camp. But hey, at least it was welcome relief after the thoroughly-predictable course of the second sequence. And the very end supplies at least a bit of a genuine chill. Mildly amusing

Review – Post Impact

The Sci Fi Channel serves up another snoozefest about the end of the world. This time around Dean Cain stars as an ex-military guy trying to get back to Paris to look for his wife and child in a post-apocalyptic world in which half the planet has been obliterated by a giant snowstorm (not unlike the earlier and much more expensive The Day After Tomorrow). If stuff freezing over charms you, wait until it happens to Hell and then see this picture. See if desperate

Review – Caved In: Prehistoric Terror

Less thugs, more bugs. Jewel thieves in pursuit of a lode of giant emeralds kidnap a cave guide (a badly-aging Christopher Atkins, looking like a desiccated blend of Mark Hamil and Tommy Shaw). Sadly for all concerned, the abandoned mine they’re prowling is infested by giant beetles. When the monsters start attacking in waves and their intended victims fight back with lasers, the whole thing takes on the distinct look-and-feel of “Centipede: The Motion Picture.” However, we do get lines like “Your plans aren’t just coming apart. They’re being torn to shreds by giant bugs.” See if desperate

Review - A Few Good Men

On the surface this is an empty-headed military courtroom drama, a picture well suited for the “talents” of Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. It’s packed with the sort of dialogue and plot progression that clearly reveals its origin as a stage play. Further, it’s a stiff exploration of the nature of duty and honor, concepts apparently best understood in terms of platitude-laden barbs tossed back and forth between the characters. But to get more out of the viewing experience, carefully count up the sides. Almost all the protagonists are Navy, and almost all the antagonists are Marines. The result turns into a strange bit of class warfare in which the ruling elite eventually prevails over even a high-ranking member of the “grunts.” Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it, and there’s really nothing more here than Jack Nicholson’s high-ham insistence that Cruise “can’t handle the truth.” Mildly amusing

Review – The Tomb of Ligeia

I believe this was the last of the Poe pictures Roger Corman and Vincent Price did for American International. Though in the past I’ve griped about the inclusion of too much humor in horror pictures, this one actually might have benefited from a little levity here and there. The basic story is pure Poe: the vengeful spirit of a man’s first wife returns to torment his second. As that doesn’t really supply enough plot for a whole movie, we end up with a lot of go-nowhere embroidery such as strange dream sequences and weird legal complications. The result is a good deal duller than I’d expected. The picture also loses a point for the particularly brutal treatment of a cat. That the creature was the avatar of the departed spouse did little to add enjoyment to the experience of watching Price threaten, hit, and ultimately strangle her. Wish I’d skipped it