Just a funny idea I had, and was able to assemble with surprising quickness. Enjoy!
Direct Link:
About that Bush veto..
No, I didn't dissapear. That'll come in about a week when I'm on vacation. Meanwhile, nothing new I've seen really merits a strong review one way or the other. THIS, on the other hand...
So, by now you've heard Dubya actually managed to find a form of Government spending he WON'T sign off on. Unsurprisingly, it involves a big sopping-wet asskiss to the anti-science, anti-freedom and anti-American "religious right."
Let's get the basics out of the way, in the event that not everyone is versed in this business since, after all, not everyone expects a political aside on a movie blog. In simplest terms, "Stem Cells" are cells that don't have any "identity" yet. Thus, they take on the properties and function of whatever cells they are inserted among, meaning that they can potentially be used to grow back vital tissues that do not naturally regenerate: Like brain matter lost to parkinsons or alzheimers, or dead nerves of paraplegics. You can get these stem cells from various sources, but thus far the richest supplies tend to come from ultra-early-term embryos which are BURSTING with the aforementioned "blank" cellular material. Since, logically, you have to bust-up said early-term embryos to get the material, this is naturall opposed by the self-described "Pro-Life" lobby which holds the religious belief that personhood and all the rights attendent there-to exist from the moment of conception.
Got that? Okay, so... there's basically two ways to get Embryonic Stem Cells in the necessary quantities to perform the research to discover how much they can actually do. Way #1 is to get them from the "excess" embryos created and then frozen as byproduct of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF, aka "test tube baby") clinics. Despite the fact that these byproduct-embryos are innevitably destroyed anyway, this still hacks-off the anti-choice crowd. Way #2, still mostly theoretical, is generally called "thereapeutic cloning," and would involve using cloning to manufacture hundreds of identical embryos to procure a stable line of cells. This REALLY hacks-off the anti-choice crowd, and is also in murky legal-waters given the hundreds of knee-jerk "cloning BAD!!!!" laws passed across the planet in reaction to Dolly the Sheep.
Anyhow, back before 9/11 the first "big" thing Dubya got to do as president was sign off on what would be the immediate future of this science. As he'd largely run and won as an open comrade-in-arms of the anti-choice lobby, it could be safely assumed science and medicine were NOT going to win any ground. His faux-Solomonic decision: No cloning, no more new IVF harvesting, you can ONLY work with the lines you've already created. Or, to put it in broader terms: "Feel free to try and finish the building, but it's now illegal to buy or make new bricks." In fairness, this applied ONLY to Federal (read: taxpayer) funded research, and private companies were free to do as they want (and have, for the most part.)
Skip ahead to this week, and new largely Democrat-backed legislation to expand the Federal funding for the research makes it's way to the executive branch. This is, lets be honest, the Democrat equivalent of the Gay Marriage Ban: No one is expecting to "win" or for him to sign, the point is to get the prez and everyone else to declare a solid stance on the issue; primarily so that the Dems can make an issue of it in the November elections, hopefully forcing Republicans up for re-election to have to explain to their parkinsons, alzheimers and paralysis-afflicted constituents (and their families) why they're party doesn't want to help them find cures.
So, it's a political shell-game on both sides, and anyone can see that. That being said, here's why I'm pissed off...
Look, as a fiscal Libertarian I generally feel the Government shouldn't be funding all that much with tax money, and does so WAY too much right now. However, since we do after all live in the real world I understand that A.) sometimes it's unavoidable and B.) if we're going to federally fund anything, medical research ought to be right at the top of the list. As we DO already fund medical research, basic ethics dictate that we should do so fairly and in 100% in the spirit of the laws of the United States. If we are going to make decisions as to what should and should not be funded in medical research, we MUST make them based ONLY on matters of law and practicality: Is the research LEGAL and is the research PRACTICAL. That's all.
And that's why, while President Bush has the full right to veto the bill, which he did; his reasons for doing so both stated and implied should NOT have been the deciding factor, and should NEVER enter in to policymaking. President Bush vetoed the bill because he has a RELIGIOUS belief that there are such things as souls, and that embryos have them, and thus "destroying" embryos to get stem cells is "murder." The president has the right to live his life by these beliefs. He does NOT have the right to force me, you, or anyone else in America to live our lives by these beliefs. Bottom Line.
Mr. President, this is not Iran. This is not Saudi Arabia. This is not Afghanistan under the Taliban. This is not a nation of rule-by-religion. This is AMERICA. We are a modern nation. We are THE modern nation. We are a nation that helped pull the world, kicking-and-screaming, out of the Dark Ages and into Enlightment. When we make law, we make it on the basis of FACT and REASON... not FAITH. Whatever beliefs you hold or do not hold in your own life, When you take pen in hand to chart the course of the future for ALL Americans (indeed, all the world,) you owe it to them to act as a thinker... not a believer. When you took the stage this week and vetoed this bill, openly stating that you do so because of YOU'RE religious belief that embryos were sacred, surrounded by women holding actual infants in a staging that'd make TED KENNEDY shudder at it's manipulative smugness, what you did was spit in the face of Thomas Jefferson, and flip the bird to Thomas Paine.
What kind of precedent does this set, after all? What the president has done, just like in the Terri Schaivo debacle, is to decree that the Government can ban or de-fund things for ALL citizens in order to comply with the religious doctrine of SOME citizens... so where does that end? Do we next ask the government to bust-up the Beef industry because American Hindus believe cattle are sacred? Do we limit the lumber industry because Druids wish to protect the souls of trees? Will we restrict the fashion industry from making skimpy clothing for women because Muslims dislike the public baring of female skin?
One thing is for sure: IF the Republicans actually do lose the House or Senate in November... THIS will be the reason a lot of voters give for showing them the door.
So, by now you've heard Dubya actually managed to find a form of Government spending he WON'T sign off on. Unsurprisingly, it involves a big sopping-wet asskiss to the anti-science, anti-freedom and anti-American "religious right."
Let's get the basics out of the way, in the event that not everyone is versed in this business since, after all, not everyone expects a political aside on a movie blog. In simplest terms, "Stem Cells" are cells that don't have any "identity" yet. Thus, they take on the properties and function of whatever cells they are inserted among, meaning that they can potentially be used to grow back vital tissues that do not naturally regenerate: Like brain matter lost to parkinsons or alzheimers, or dead nerves of paraplegics. You can get these stem cells from various sources, but thus far the richest supplies tend to come from ultra-early-term embryos which are BURSTING with the aforementioned "blank" cellular material. Since, logically, you have to bust-up said early-term embryos to get the material, this is naturall opposed by the self-described "Pro-Life" lobby which holds the religious belief that personhood and all the rights attendent there-to exist from the moment of conception.
Got that? Okay, so... there's basically two ways to get Embryonic Stem Cells in the necessary quantities to perform the research to discover how much they can actually do. Way #1 is to get them from the "excess" embryos created and then frozen as byproduct of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF, aka "test tube baby") clinics. Despite the fact that these byproduct-embryos are innevitably destroyed anyway, this still hacks-off the anti-choice crowd. Way #2, still mostly theoretical, is generally called "thereapeutic cloning," and would involve using cloning to manufacture hundreds of identical embryos to procure a stable line of cells. This REALLY hacks-off the anti-choice crowd, and is also in murky legal-waters given the hundreds of knee-jerk "cloning BAD!!!!" laws passed across the planet in reaction to Dolly the Sheep.
Anyhow, back before 9/11 the first "big" thing Dubya got to do as president was sign off on what would be the immediate future of this science. As he'd largely run and won as an open comrade-in-arms of the anti-choice lobby, it could be safely assumed science and medicine were NOT going to win any ground. His faux-Solomonic decision: No cloning, no more new IVF harvesting, you can ONLY work with the lines you've already created. Or, to put it in broader terms: "Feel free to try and finish the building, but it's now illegal to buy or make new bricks." In fairness, this applied ONLY to Federal (read: taxpayer) funded research, and private companies were free to do as they want (and have, for the most part.)
Skip ahead to this week, and new largely Democrat-backed legislation to expand the Federal funding for the research makes it's way to the executive branch. This is, lets be honest, the Democrat equivalent of the Gay Marriage Ban: No one is expecting to "win" or for him to sign, the point is to get the prez and everyone else to declare a solid stance on the issue; primarily so that the Dems can make an issue of it in the November elections, hopefully forcing Republicans up for re-election to have to explain to their parkinsons, alzheimers and paralysis-afflicted constituents (and their families) why they're party doesn't want to help them find cures.
So, it's a political shell-game on both sides, and anyone can see that. That being said, here's why I'm pissed off...
Look, as a fiscal Libertarian I generally feel the Government shouldn't be funding all that much with tax money, and does so WAY too much right now. However, since we do after all live in the real world I understand that A.) sometimes it's unavoidable and B.) if we're going to federally fund anything, medical research ought to be right at the top of the list. As we DO already fund medical research, basic ethics dictate that we should do so fairly and in 100% in the spirit of the laws of the United States. If we are going to make decisions as to what should and should not be funded in medical research, we MUST make them based ONLY on matters of law and practicality: Is the research LEGAL and is the research PRACTICAL. That's all.
And that's why, while President Bush has the full right to veto the bill, which he did; his reasons for doing so both stated and implied should NOT have been the deciding factor, and should NEVER enter in to policymaking. President Bush vetoed the bill because he has a RELIGIOUS belief that there are such things as souls, and that embryos have them, and thus "destroying" embryos to get stem cells is "murder." The president has the right to live his life by these beliefs. He does NOT have the right to force me, you, or anyone else in America to live our lives by these beliefs. Bottom Line.
Mr. President, this is not Iran. This is not Saudi Arabia. This is not Afghanistan under the Taliban. This is not a nation of rule-by-religion. This is AMERICA. We are a modern nation. We are THE modern nation. We are a nation that helped pull the world, kicking-and-screaming, out of the Dark Ages and into Enlightment. When we make law, we make it on the basis of FACT and REASON... not FAITH. Whatever beliefs you hold or do not hold in your own life, When you take pen in hand to chart the course of the future for ALL Americans (indeed, all the world,) you owe it to them to act as a thinker... not a believer. When you took the stage this week and vetoed this bill, openly stating that you do so because of YOU'RE religious belief that embryos were sacred, surrounded by women holding actual infants in a staging that'd make TED KENNEDY shudder at it's manipulative smugness, what you did was spit in the face of Thomas Jefferson, and flip the bird to Thomas Paine.
What kind of precedent does this set, after all? What the president has done, just like in the Terri Schaivo debacle, is to decree that the Government can ban or de-fund things for ALL citizens in order to comply with the religious doctrine of SOME citizens... so where does that end? Do we next ask the government to bust-up the Beef industry because American Hindus believe cattle are sacred? Do we limit the lumber industry because Druids wish to protect the souls of trees? Will we restrict the fashion industry from making skimpy clothing for women because Muslims dislike the public baring of female skin?
One thing is for sure: IF the Republicans actually do lose the House or Senate in November... THIS will be the reason a lot of voters give for showing them the door.
JUSTICE!
Today is a great day to be an American.
"Cleanflicks" has bitten the dust.
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-fi-clean10jul10,0,4583837.story?coll=cl-movies
A federal judge in Denver, Colorado has handed down a ruling that (duh) the Utah-based movie editors and their like have been violating the laws of the United States, and have to cease.
I don't have to explain to you why this is a major victory for freedom. The good guys won, the bad guys lost, and The Faithful can take a walk. This round goes to the REAL Americans.
"Cleanflicks" has bitten the dust.
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-fi-clean10jul10,0,4583837.story?coll=cl-movies
A federal judge in Denver, Colorado has handed down a ruling that (duh) the Utah-based movie editors and their like have been violating the laws of the United States, and have to cease.
I don't have to explain to you why this is a major victory for freedom. The good guys won, the bad guys lost, and The Faithful can take a walk. This round goes to the REAL Americans.
REVIEW: Pirates of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest
NOTE: Review will contain as few spoilers as possible, please continue to exercise caution.
Watching a big event movie that's also a big fantasy/action sequel is always kind of an unusual experience for movie geeks, because it affords "us" the chance to see the mainstream audience "geek out" over something. When something like the first "Pirates" becomes a big deal, "everyone else" starts embracing their inner nerd, keeping track of the franchise mythology in their heads, gasping at the return of characters thought departed (in one way or another) and excitedly chatting with friends about "what'll happen next" once the film reaches it's "to be continued" climax. That the "pop culture phenomenon" of the series owes more to Johnny Depp's whacked-out performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow than it does to the increasingly dense, increasingly fanciful and increasingly creature-laden "The Mummy,' only with water" storyline is eventually not the point: Audiences are packing theaters for an action film about sea monsters, magic treasure chests and scheming British naval traders, and that only bodes well for the genre.
Wisely departing from the lengthy set-up of the previous film, "Dead Man's Chest" presumes the likely audience fore-knowledge of the series' style and mythos and barrells at full sail through a plot that could charitably be called convoluted and more properly described as a dense pack of double-crosses, secret agendas and multiple story-threads. Lingering plot issues from the first film are tied up, while new ones take their place to be continued in the third (final?) installment next year.
Summation of plot would be kind of self-defeating, then, because the "story" keeps going with new twists and rewirings as the film progresses; so to describe "whats going on" would give away the whole chase and with it the whole film. Suffice it to say that the new story largely concerns Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) a centuries-old cursed pirate who roams the sea in a submersible ship called The Flying Dutchman, crewed by damned souls who've chosen servitude to Jones over drowning at sea and have become, like Jones himself, half-man/half-fish monsters. Jones is chasing Jack Sparrow, who apparently owes him such servitude, while Jack is trying (and failing) to use a magic compass to find the fabled "Dead Man's Chest" which he believes contains the key to holding Jones at bay. Meanwhile, back in Port Royale, Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth (Kiera Knightley) are shanghaied into service by a villianous trader named Beckett, who forces them at penalty of death to chase down Jack and retrieve the magic compass for his own (likely) nefarious ends which seem to have something to do with the enroaching dominance of the seas by British trade companies.
The reason this all works, in spite of itself, is among the reasons that the first film was so surprisingly "not terrible," given the history of films based on theme park attractions: It understands, within the strictures of it's PG13 rating, that the whole fun of making half your characters Pirates means that they DON'T have to obey any kind of moral or even logical code. Thus, double-crosses, sudden changes of heart or moments of outright uncouthness that would be un-do-able in any other film are here quite welcome: They're PIRATES, after all.
To charitable, all of the double-twists and surprises and revelations tend to serve at the behest of creating situations where various characters can clash swords with one another, or be tossed into an impossible escape, or flee an army of monsters, or do battle with a giant squid, or whatever... but thats not the same thing as saying it's not all interesting. On the contrary, jerked around by the invisible hand of fate in the name of a bigger, wilder ride, the series' characters are made to undergo various degrees of situational evolution: Bloom's Will Turner shows ample skill at the art of deception, for example, while Depp takes the perilous risk of plumbing for depth in the studiously-shallow Jack Sparrow. Even newcomer Nighy as the simply incredible Davy Jones goes an unexpected route, delivering a seething, internalized and inquisitive supervillian played with as much subtlety as can probably be managed within a character who has an octopus for head.
But it's Knightley's Elizabeth Swan, until now the series' (literal, at times) moral compass, who's got the biggest "didn't see that coming" personality shift out of the main cast; taking a murky and ULTRA dark character turn in the third act that's garaunteed to throw fans for a "did that just HAPPEN!?" loop just in time for "to be continued."
Two summers ago, the big surprise of the season was that a movie based on a decades-old theme park attraction and that EVERYONE had already decided was going to "suck" turned out to be a great popcorn-muncher diversion. Now, two years later, the big surprise seems to be that that great popcorn-muncher diversion may have had the makings of a grand fantasy/adventure series.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
P.S.
Memo to Keira Knightley: If in the next few months you see one or more 12 to 16 year-old girls coming toward you on the street at great speed and looking REALLY angry with you... Run. Don't think, just RUN.
Watching a big event movie that's also a big fantasy/action sequel is always kind of an unusual experience for movie geeks, because it affords "us" the chance to see the mainstream audience "geek out" over something. When something like the first "Pirates" becomes a big deal, "everyone else" starts embracing their inner nerd, keeping track of the franchise mythology in their heads, gasping at the return of characters thought departed (in one way or another) and excitedly chatting with friends about "what'll happen next" once the film reaches it's "to be continued" climax. That the "pop culture phenomenon" of the series owes more to Johnny Depp's whacked-out performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow than it does to the increasingly dense, increasingly fanciful and increasingly creature-laden "The Mummy,' only with water" storyline is eventually not the point: Audiences are packing theaters for an action film about sea monsters, magic treasure chests and scheming British naval traders, and that only bodes well for the genre.
Wisely departing from the lengthy set-up of the previous film, "Dead Man's Chest" presumes the likely audience fore-knowledge of the series' style and mythos and barrells at full sail through a plot that could charitably be called convoluted and more properly described as a dense pack of double-crosses, secret agendas and multiple story-threads. Lingering plot issues from the first film are tied up, while new ones take their place to be continued in the third (final?) installment next year.
Summation of plot would be kind of self-defeating, then, because the "story" keeps going with new twists and rewirings as the film progresses; so to describe "whats going on" would give away the whole chase and with it the whole film. Suffice it to say that the new story largely concerns Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) a centuries-old cursed pirate who roams the sea in a submersible ship called The Flying Dutchman, crewed by damned souls who've chosen servitude to Jones over drowning at sea and have become, like Jones himself, half-man/half-fish monsters. Jones is chasing Jack Sparrow, who apparently owes him such servitude, while Jack is trying (and failing) to use a magic compass to find the fabled "Dead Man's Chest" which he believes contains the key to holding Jones at bay. Meanwhile, back in Port Royale, Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth (Kiera Knightley) are shanghaied into service by a villianous trader named Beckett, who forces them at penalty of death to chase down Jack and retrieve the magic compass for his own (likely) nefarious ends which seem to have something to do with the enroaching dominance of the seas by British trade companies.
The reason this all works, in spite of itself, is among the reasons that the first film was so surprisingly "not terrible," given the history of films based on theme park attractions: It understands, within the strictures of it's PG13 rating, that the whole fun of making half your characters Pirates means that they DON'T have to obey any kind of moral or even logical code. Thus, double-crosses, sudden changes of heart or moments of outright uncouthness that would be un-do-able in any other film are here quite welcome: They're PIRATES, after all.
To charitable, all of the double-twists and surprises and revelations tend to serve at the behest of creating situations where various characters can clash swords with one another, or be tossed into an impossible escape, or flee an army of monsters, or do battle with a giant squid, or whatever... but thats not the same thing as saying it's not all interesting. On the contrary, jerked around by the invisible hand of fate in the name of a bigger, wilder ride, the series' characters are made to undergo various degrees of situational evolution: Bloom's Will Turner shows ample skill at the art of deception, for example, while Depp takes the perilous risk of plumbing for depth in the studiously-shallow Jack Sparrow. Even newcomer Nighy as the simply incredible Davy Jones goes an unexpected route, delivering a seething, internalized and inquisitive supervillian played with as much subtlety as can probably be managed within a character who has an octopus for head.
But it's Knightley's Elizabeth Swan, until now the series' (literal, at times) moral compass, who's got the biggest "didn't see that coming" personality shift out of the main cast; taking a murky and ULTRA dark character turn in the third act that's garaunteed to throw fans for a "did that just HAPPEN!?" loop just in time for "to be continued."
Two summers ago, the big surprise of the season was that a movie based on a decades-old theme park attraction and that EVERYONE had already decided was going to "suck" turned out to be a great popcorn-muncher diversion. Now, two years later, the big surprise seems to be that that great popcorn-muncher diversion may have had the makings of a grand fantasy/adventure series.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
P.S.
Memo to Keira Knightley: If in the next few months you see one or more 12 to 16 year-old girls coming toward you on the street at great speed and looking REALLY angry with you... Run. Don't think, just RUN.
REVIEW: Superman Returns
Warning: SPOILERS will be discussed, but not "the big one" you're co-workers and friends are just DYING to tell you. Read on at your own risk.
All other things aside, I do not envy the task that Bryan Singer (late of the two good "X-Men" films and "The Usual Suspects") was set up with in directing "Superman Returns," a film of pop-culture import so enormous that it's title isn't just a rough description of it's premise... it's it's own reason for being: This film isn't just here to be a good movie in it's own right, or even a good SUPERMAN movie in it's own right... It sets for itself the herculean task of sucessfully re-inserting Superman, eldest and greatest (and thus often least narratively-approachable) of Superheroes, into a cinematic era which is already teeming with his more immediately-three-dimensional, angstier, more humanized progeny.
And it has to do so with baggage. That Superman's general status as the 20th Century heir-apparent to Joseph Campbell's "hero with a thousand faces" means by default that everyone has their own nearly religiously-held opinion as to what he is/means/should-be is problem enough, but fate saw fit to place yet more weights atop these already impressive expectations: Nostalgia for the original Richard Donner/Lester "Superman" movies was always going to weigh as a factor, but that was before star Christopher Reeve's tragic paralysis, ascension to real-life iconic hero and eventual death made him and, by proxy, "his" "Superman" work essentially untouchable in the public mind. That even the accomplished Singer might make a passable "Superman" film against such odds and expectations was a lot to hope for...
...and so to see him make a great one almost seems like a literal miracle to behold: "Superman Returns" is a grandly-entertaining, dramatic, heartfelt and awe-inspiring film; immediately among the finest films of 2006, the finest of the "summer movies" thus-far period and certainly one of the best superhero movies ever made... not to get too "inside baseball" on this, but we're talking on-par with the original two films, "Spider-Man," "The Incredibles" and even the oft-venerated "Captain Marvel" serial.
The film's initial stroke of genius, fueled no-doubt primarily by a genuine nostalgia on Singer's part but likely-also more than a little by necessity of compromise, is to set itself up not as yet another re-tread of the origin story that everyone knows but as part of a broadly-defined pre-existing continuity: The style, sensibility, crystaline Kryptonian art-design, digitally re-jiggered Marlon Brando footage and (of course) the John Williams theme music of the original films are retained; grounding the proceedings in the most-known of what "everybody knows."
With this seemingly-simple fusion of re-invention and reverence, Singer and his cohorts deftly side-step the gut-instinct to seek unfavorable comparisons to the immortal Reeve films and in the same stroke give themselves the leeway to take things in an entirely fresh direction: They're film hits the ground running, trusting in audience-familiarity to afford them license to put the Man of Steel through an original story of their own... and what they've come up with is a doozy.
Having suddenly vanished five years ago, compelled by the possibility that astronomers had discovered the remnants of his desicated homeworld Krypton, Superman returns to a world that's since had a lot of time to reconsider it's earlier embrace of him. Specifically, his onetime love Lois Lane has moved on rather definitively: She has a new beau named Richard a, son named Jason, and a Pulitzer Prize winning article titled "Why The World Doesn't Need Superman." Ouch.
Need or not, the non-Lois population of Earth gets over it's seperation anxiety pretty swiftly, especially when Superman's attempts to re-woo Lois prove futile (Richard is, enjoyably, a totally decent and heroic fellow in his own right) and he opts to seek comfort in a spree of world-saving acts. Elsewhere, Lex Luthor has weasled his way out of prison and into a massive inheritance, which he's used to steal the powerful Kryptonian power-crystals from Superman's arctic Fortress of Solitude. His nefarious plan for them I won't reveal, save that it's one of the most gloriously "Silver Age" nutty supervillian ploys put to screen in some time, and that if you're honestly bugged by the logistics or practicality of it you really ought to remind yourself that we're talking an evil plan by LEX LUTHOR.
To say any more as to the actual story would be the tread into the territory of spoilers for what might end up being one of bigger story suprises of the summer. Singer and his partners have chambered and fired a story-bullet that 60 years worth of DC Comics scribes have avoided like the plague, and the confident result is a story of profound resonance; a re-statement of the one of the key themes of the Superman mythology explored in an entirely new way.
And mythology is the key word here, on the presentation side. The bulk of the film, as it should be, is a seriously-maintained character drama that happens to revolve around Clark Kent, aka Superman. But when the plot leads into one of several action sequences, the visual scheme aims to emphasize it's lead character in the most explicitly mythic (if not outright messianic) terms one is going to find outside of an Alex Ross calendar: Superman descends from space hovering in the pose of a Renaissance Crucifixtion, strains under the weight of falling planes, chunks of architecture and... well, you'll see... with a strain clearly evocative of Atlas, endures a beating that's as blunt a Christ-paralell as anything in the Mel Gibson canon and at a key point even comes bursting down through the clouds in a literal shaft of light. In less symbolic terms, the action scenes trend (wisely) away from fisticuffs (cause, after all, what'd be the point?) in favor of grand feats of strength, speed and sheer will.
The immediate standout among the actors is fresh-face Brandon Routh in the title role. For a moment, it almost seems that the early criticisms were correct that his performance essentially amounts to a Christopher Reeve imitation... but this is not the case. Look closer, listen harder, and you'll realize: It's not that he looks and sounds just like Reeve, it's that he and Reeve BOTH look and sound just like Superman. Kevin Spacey, as expected, shows up to throw big-league pitching in the villian role: His Lex Luthor is an interesting interpretation, framed as a kind of transition between Gene Hackman's colorful huckster in the earlier films and the cold, calculating supervillian more familiar from the comics and recent animated series.
Kate Bosworth, it must be said, is simply a little TOO young-looking to be playing a veteran newshound, but her overall performance is solid and hits the proper emotional beats... after all, it's no small feat to come off onscreen as consistently likable when the foundation of the your character is being the bitter ex who makes the Man of Steel weepy. James Marsden, formerly the late, lamented Cyclops of Singer's late, lamented "X-Men" films, has the most difficult role and does fine work as Richard White; the man who finds Superman a potential romantic rival and yet doesn't descend into jealousy or vendetta.
In the end, and overall, the most important thing I can say here is that the title didn't lie. Superman has returned, the franchise is reborn, and a so-far deeply uneven summer is saved. Whether or not the "world" needs him will, presumably, be fodder for further sequels. But for now, it turns out that the movies sure as hell did.
FINAL RATIG: 9/10
REVIEW: Nacho Libre
I'm still not sure what to think about Jared Hess, director of "Napolean Dynamite" and now "Nacho Libre." He demonstrably has a clear enough vision of the sort of films he wants to make, and his work has the quirky sense of feigned amaturism. Problem is, it's still unclear how much of it is actually feigned and how much really is just sloppy... and whether or not that matters.
"Napolean," whatever else it was, was off on an odd-duck "kick" all it's own: The plot openly followed a 100% by-the-book "school dork makes good" formula, and that seemed to be the point. Since Hess and his film could count on nearly everyone being able to intuit every beat and turn of the actual story, they were free to focus squarely on every weird little character tick and "local color" oddity that drifted into the frame. Anyone who'd seen more than one teen comedy in their life could tell you that Napolean would come out of his shell in front of a huge crowd to help Pedro, and once the dancing came into play they could tell you how... but could ANYONE have predicted, well, that?
This seems to be Hess' "style" thus far, and it's once-more put to use in "Nacho Libre." Jack Black leads as Nacho, a Mexican friar minding the kitchen of a poor Mexican orphanage and nursing a not-so-secret dream: To become a Luchadore (masked Mexican professional wrestler) and be rich and famous. Newly-inspired by the arrival of an alluring Nun and the befriending of a homeless man of nearly-feral fighting skills, Nacho sets out to live this dream... without really being very strong, physically fit or even slightly skilled at the Lucha Libre sport. But since, as it turns out, even losing a match pays well enough to provide Nacho's orphanage with desperately-needed food money, he finds himself drawn deeper into the wrestling world. Just like with "Napolean," most of us know where this is going: Nacho will be conflicted between fame and his "real" life, have a fall, rise again, etc. The story isn't the point, all the weird "stuff" Hess and Black pack the running time with is.
The film skews to a younger audience, despite Black's reputation otherwise, and they'll be the age group that probably appreciates it the most. It's more silly than outright funny, relying on the absurdity of the situations (and the general absurdity of Lucha Libre, here presented without excess parody) and characters to drive most of the humor. In a Felliniesque move, Hess has stocked the "bit parts" with actors seemingly selected because they are "funny looking," which eventually gives the proceedings the air out captured surreality.
"Nacho" isn't quite the "thing from another world" oddity that "Napolean" was, but it's endearing and charming on it's own strange terms. Black has an interesting aura going on as Nacho, turning what could have been (and, lets be fair, occasionally still is) a one-note ethnic caricature into a character who's fills out more than just his "stretchy-pants." But the heart of the film is young Darius Rose as little orphan Chancho, a real find of a child actor who's deadpan earnesty is really something to see: If the way he's enraptured by Nacho's exploits transmits even a little to the kids his age in the audience, Nickelodeon has a real hit on it's hands.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
"Napolean," whatever else it was, was off on an odd-duck "kick" all it's own: The plot openly followed a 100% by-the-book "school dork makes good" formula, and that seemed to be the point. Since Hess and his film could count on nearly everyone being able to intuit every beat and turn of the actual story, they were free to focus squarely on every weird little character tick and "local color" oddity that drifted into the frame. Anyone who'd seen more than one teen comedy in their life could tell you that Napolean would come out of his shell in front of a huge crowd to help Pedro, and once the dancing came into play they could tell you how... but could ANYONE have predicted, well, that?
This seems to be Hess' "style" thus far, and it's once-more put to use in "Nacho Libre." Jack Black leads as Nacho, a Mexican friar minding the kitchen of a poor Mexican orphanage and nursing a not-so-secret dream: To become a Luchadore (masked Mexican professional wrestler) and be rich and famous. Newly-inspired by the arrival of an alluring Nun and the befriending of a homeless man of nearly-feral fighting skills, Nacho sets out to live this dream... without really being very strong, physically fit or even slightly skilled at the Lucha Libre sport. But since, as it turns out, even losing a match pays well enough to provide Nacho's orphanage with desperately-needed food money, he finds himself drawn deeper into the wrestling world. Just like with "Napolean," most of us know where this is going: Nacho will be conflicted between fame and his "real" life, have a fall, rise again, etc. The story isn't the point, all the weird "stuff" Hess and Black pack the running time with is.
The film skews to a younger audience, despite Black's reputation otherwise, and they'll be the age group that probably appreciates it the most. It's more silly than outright funny, relying on the absurdity of the situations (and the general absurdity of Lucha Libre, here presented without excess parody) and characters to drive most of the humor. In a Felliniesque move, Hess has stocked the "bit parts" with actors seemingly selected because they are "funny looking," which eventually gives the proceedings the air out captured surreality.
"Nacho" isn't quite the "thing from another world" oddity that "Napolean" was, but it's endearing and charming on it's own strange terms. Black has an interesting aura going on as Nacho, turning what could have been (and, lets be fair, occasionally still is) a one-note ethnic caricature into a character who's fills out more than just his "stretchy-pants." But the heart of the film is young Darius Rose as little orphan Chancho, a real find of a child actor who's deadpan earnesty is really something to see: If the way he's enraptured by Nacho's exploits transmits even a little to the kids his age in the audience, Nickelodeon has a real hit on it's hands.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
REVIEW: An Inconvenient Truth
The problem with Global Warming is that it's Warming that's Global.
The problem with Al Gore is that he's Al Gore.
The problem with "An Inconvenient Truth" is that it needs to be "the Global Warming Movie," but it's stuck being "the Al Gore Movie."
And the problem with being "the Al Gore Movie"... is being "the Al Gore Movie."
*sigh*
Former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 election loss to George W. Bush (yes, he lost. Get OVER IT already and think about stuff you can actually DO something about!) was subject-zero for the current, oft-lamented stereotype of Democratic politicians as being blackbelts in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A combination of ego, poor planning and innability to recognize his own blind-spots did him in that time, and now it does him in again; transforming what could well have been a full on image-changing public-reinvention into yet another missed opportunity for both the man and his movement.
And he almost made it, too. That's the sad part.
About 80% of the total running time of "An Inconvenient Truth" is made up of what could easily have been the most nobly-intended, simply-executed pretext for a mass-market documentary in recent years: A sober-voice, calmly-demeanored man who obviously knows his subject inside and out stands on a stage before a large video screen and explains with hard science and matter-of-fact visual aides the realities of a serious, controversial issue. In this case, global warming. In a pleasant-surprise, the automatic humor that comes from the fact that our lecturer is the nigh-mechanical former Veep subsides pretty quickly at first. One starts to notice that Gore is more animated here, doing his power-point presentation, than he ever was in politics. "He'd be a decent teacher," you realize.
So it's off to a good start. "The way to screw this sort of thing up," you may surmise, "would be to make it overly political and/or engaged in hero-worship of the star." So guess what they do?
This is the problem: If you go to see a movie "starring" Al Gore, and in the film Mr. Gore makes an offhand reference to humanity "making mistakes" and the film follows with a "Florida Recount 2000" montage and eeeeeevil slow-mow shots of now-President Bush, and in response you laugh/applaud/smile-knowingly... you're already "sold." The message of this movie reached you before you even saw it. And that's fine. Great. Hurrah for environmentalism. BUT, well... you're only half of the people Gore himself says his message needs to reach. The other half, whatever you may think of them, are the ones that all this plain-spoken science and easily-digested message-relaying really needs to get to... and cheap, unnecessary political shots like that and a dozen others mean they'll probably feel personally-attacked and stop listening.
The rest of the film executes a swan-dive into the hero-worship mistake. Getting more screen time than ANY of the death, devastation and turmoil caused or said to be caused by global warming are endless shots of Gore. Gore looking sadly out of windows. Gore visiting his old family farm. Gore sheepishly towing his luggage through customs (awwww, see? He's just like YOU!) taking phone calls while working at his laptop, etc. In short, the film ceases to be about Al Gore's warning about Global Warming and instead becomes about what a wonderful, selfless, heroic and generous fellow Gore is for taking the time to warn us.
When one thinks how easily this could've been turned into a good, even great documentary... with more multimedia, more footage, someone OTHER than Gore doing the talking (Morgan Freeman, maybe?) it's just kind of sad to watch. The unfortunate truth is that Gore has cast himself as the only hope for saving the Earth... and if I was the Earth I'd be pretty damn worried.
FINAL RATING: 4/10
The problem with Al Gore is that he's Al Gore.
The problem with "An Inconvenient Truth" is that it needs to be "the Global Warming Movie," but it's stuck being "the Al Gore Movie."
And the problem with being "the Al Gore Movie"... is being "the Al Gore Movie."
*sigh*
Former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 election loss to George W. Bush (yes, he lost. Get OVER IT already and think about stuff you can actually DO something about!) was subject-zero for the current, oft-lamented stereotype of Democratic politicians as being blackbelts in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A combination of ego, poor planning and innability to recognize his own blind-spots did him in that time, and now it does him in again; transforming what could well have been a full on image-changing public-reinvention into yet another missed opportunity for both the man and his movement.
And he almost made it, too. That's the sad part.
About 80% of the total running time of "An Inconvenient Truth" is made up of what could easily have been the most nobly-intended, simply-executed pretext for a mass-market documentary in recent years: A sober-voice, calmly-demeanored man who obviously knows his subject inside and out stands on a stage before a large video screen and explains with hard science and matter-of-fact visual aides the realities of a serious, controversial issue. In this case, global warming. In a pleasant-surprise, the automatic humor that comes from the fact that our lecturer is the nigh-mechanical former Veep subsides pretty quickly at first. One starts to notice that Gore is more animated here, doing his power-point presentation, than he ever was in politics. "He'd be a decent teacher," you realize.
So it's off to a good start. "The way to screw this sort of thing up," you may surmise, "would be to make it overly political and/or engaged in hero-worship of the star." So guess what they do?
This is the problem: If you go to see a movie "starring" Al Gore, and in the film Mr. Gore makes an offhand reference to humanity "making mistakes" and the film follows with a "Florida Recount 2000" montage and eeeeeevil slow-mow shots of now-President Bush, and in response you laugh/applaud/smile-knowingly... you're already "sold." The message of this movie reached you before you even saw it. And that's fine. Great. Hurrah for environmentalism. BUT, well... you're only half of the people Gore himself says his message needs to reach. The other half, whatever you may think of them, are the ones that all this plain-spoken science and easily-digested message-relaying really needs to get to... and cheap, unnecessary political shots like that and a dozen others mean they'll probably feel personally-attacked and stop listening.
The rest of the film executes a swan-dive into the hero-worship mistake. Getting more screen time than ANY of the death, devastation and turmoil caused or said to be caused by global warming are endless shots of Gore. Gore looking sadly out of windows. Gore visiting his old family farm. Gore sheepishly towing his luggage through customs (awwww, see? He's just like YOU!) taking phone calls while working at his laptop, etc. In short, the film ceases to be about Al Gore's warning about Global Warming and instead becomes about what a wonderful, selfless, heroic and generous fellow Gore is for taking the time to warn us.
When one thinks how easily this could've been turned into a good, even great documentary... with more multimedia, more footage, someone OTHER than Gore doing the talking (Morgan Freeman, maybe?) it's just kind of sad to watch. The unfortunate truth is that Gore has cast himself as the only hope for saving the Earth... and if I was the Earth I'd be pretty damn worried.
FINAL RATING: 4/10
