The Spirit Review

The 1930's and 40's were rife with new and exciting heroes, including those pulp heroes. Among the most widely recognized of these heroes is the Spirit, a character created by famed comic book artist Will Eisner. The Spirit was a complex, multi-layered character whose adventures were many and varied. He captured the imagination and revolutionized comics as an art form. So what does Frank Miller's 2008 film version give us? A gritty-voiced pretty-boy who spends half the film narrating to a bunch of cats. Nice going, Frank. The eponymous character, played by Gabriel Macht, is a vigilante who is back from the dead, on the trail of the criminal mastermind known only as the Octopus, played by Samuel L. "I've had it with these motherf***ing snakes" Jackson. In the first ten minutes of the movie, we get a mud-spattered confrontation between the two, as the Octopus whacks the Spirit over the head with a toilet seat and loudly proclaims: "Toilets are ALWAYS funny!" These are the sort of lines we can expect from this film, as Miller treats neither the source material nor the audience's expectations with much respect. The film attempts a noir-ish tone, but it is ultimately lost inside the scarce narrative and heavily cartoonish atmosphere. Macht gives a decent performance, and might benefit from a script not written by Mr. Miller, whereas Jackson seems to be having the time of his life, hamming it up beyond even Shatner levels of overacting. One particular sequence near the end seems to evoke a certain style with which we are all familiar. All things considered, it is a fun movie to watch without the use of the higher brain functions. Just make sure you're in the mood for a cartoon, and not an actual film representation of the Spirit.

Cool World Review

Do you recall the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, about people and cartoons interacting with each other? Imagine watching it after taking a massive injection of mind-altering drugs and you’d get Ralph Bakshi's 1992 head-trip known as "Cool World." Those familiar with Bakshi's work (Fire and Ice, Wizards) will know that odd, hyper-colorful animated opuses are right up his alley. Cool World, however, manages to descend to new depths of insanity, a feat which leaves the viewer both bemused and bewildered. Cool World opens with a young man from 1945 named Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) being forcibly pulled into the film's eponymous realm immediately following his mothers' death. The "Cool World" turns out to be a zany, nightmarish realm populated entirely by cartoons known as "doodles." Cut to the present day, where we meet comic book artist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne), who is also pulled into the Cool World. Frank is soon on Jack's case, preventing him from forming a relationship with the voluptuous doodle Holli Would (Kim Basinger), spouting the immortal warning: "Noids do not have sex with doodles." The film is busy, and at all times the screen is clogged with cartoon animals and God knows what else clobbering each other senseless. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the films' aesthetic, and just as easy to be underwhelmed by the human element. The rotoscoping effects are done competently enough, but there's no real point to the film, it simply meanders around until reaching its conclusion. Coupled with Bakshi's trademark irreverence, you have yourself a real monster of a film. Despite this, the doodles' voices are rendered well enough, with veteran voice actors like Maurice LaMarche and Charlie Adler rounding out the cast. Overall, Cool World isn't so much "cool" as it is lukewarm.

D-War Review

As a young boy, I remember watching the first Godzilla film, the American version with Raymond Burr. That film was a finely-crafted tale of post-war trauma and fears of nuclear proliferation, but as a kid I merely wanted to see a big scaly monster blow things up. This same desire pervades the 2007 Korean giant monster epic "D-War," also known as "Dragon Wars." The prologue begins in 16th-century Korea, where a giant otherworldly serpent is attempting to find a young woman and sacrifice her to attain godhood. It's an intense CG-heavy segment, complete with armored demon soldiers, dinosaurs mounted with what can only be described as magical rocket launchers, flame-spewing drakes, and kung-fu of such potency that it is literally explosive. It's fun to look at, and the viewer is drawn in by the spectacle...for about fifteen minutes. It is at this point that the actual story begins, as we cut to present-day Los Angeles, where television reporter Ethan Kendrick (Jason Behr) seeks a young woman who is somehow connected with the return of the giant serpent. The second act largely consists of poor line delivery in barely-relevant scenes, occasionally punctuated by the appearances of a CGI serpent. It kills the pacing of the film. The actors are unconvincing and add little to the presentation. This is why the viewer is thankful when the third act of the movie arrives and the CG armies of evil invade Los Angeles, culminating in an epic mostly-CG smackdown in what appears to be the fortress of Barad-dur. It's certainly not "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah," but it's also not "Godzilla vs. Megalon." As an example of the recent surge in internationally successful Korean films, it shows a great deal of promise. In summation: better than one would expect, but nothing to write home about.

Atlantis: the Lost Empire Review

Claude Monet was a herald of the impressionistic movement. His water-lily paintings were beautiful to look at, but they appeared to be discombobulated blots if viewed too closely. Monet's artwork is a perfect analogy for Atlantis: the Lost Empire, a 2001 animated Disney popcorn flick with much more style than substance. Young Milo Thatch, (Michael J. Fox) a linguist whose theories on the lost city of Atlantis are ridiculed by the scientific community, realizes his dreams when his theories turn out to be correct. He joins a multi-ethnic expedition to the sea bottom to locate the lost city, which they find in a state of slow decay. Milo befriends the Atlantean princess Kida (Cree Summer) as they seek to restore Atlantis to its former glory. While the scenery and art style are unique and fun to look at, the movie leaves the viewer desperate for some substance to complement its style. The acting, while capable, hardly drives the viewers' interest, and the plot is a little too reminiscent of better films, particularly 1954's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or 1994's Stargate (and neither film was exactly a work of genius). At times, even the movie itself seems disinterested in its own plot, racing through informative scenes at a breakneck pace. Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in a particular scene wherein Milo and the Atlanteans seem to almost instantly decipher each others' languages, with only a flimsy excuse provided to justify this incredible leap of faith on the part of the viewing audience. In summation: fun to look at, but not much else going on.

On Mallomars

I don't know how many of you have had any of these, but they have been a favorite dessert of mine for many years. These little guys have a special place in my heart (and in my pantry). Essentially, a Mallomar is a lump of marshmallow fluff on top of a graham cracker disk, and the whole affair is covered in chocolate. Delicious? I should say so.

I have often speculated as to the best method of consuming a Mallomar. There is, of course, the direct approach; simply biting headlong into the confection, perhaps in a single bite if you're feeling risque. Another method of which I am particularly fond is to bite off the marshmallow fluff separately, letting the chocolate coating meld into the fluff inside the mouth before finishing with the graham cracker bit. The inverse is also possible; that is eating the graham cracker before the marshmallow, but it's risky. For one thing, it's difficult to separate the graham cracker section from the larger, less solid marshmallow section, and you have to keep the marshmallow stable while ingesting the graham cracker. This is definitely a recipe for disaster.

Everyone has "their" snack. You have your Oreos, your Cheetos, your Three Musketeers, and all the rest. But the Mallomar is an odd creature, not quite disparate from the many snack foods of today, yet somehow occupying a strange strata of individuality which forever distances it from common, ordinary snacks. The Mallomar is a lonely sort of thing, untouched by time or others who might share its place.

Just like me.

Blog Entry #5: Book of Love Review

Craig Donnelly has given us another production as director and writer of "The Book of Love," which purports to be "A New Twist on 'Bewitched,'" undercut somewhat in that the highly-touted "twist" is little more than a reversal of gender. Don't be too quick to criticize the production, though; "Book of Love" has many amusing moments and a heavy emphasis on audience participation which captures the audience well.

The plot is, as the postscript suggests, essentially that of "Bewitched," just transposed into a high-school setting and involving Cole, a male witch (Emanuel Silva) and his female love interest Jewel (Chelsea Ordner). The cast is engaging and enthused, ably delivering their dialogue, especially considering that most of them are freshmen. The running gags don't become too tiresome, and at times the play seems even self-aware in brief displays of post-modernism (one dance interlude prompts one character to exclaim: "Does anyone else hear that music?").

Where the play begins to fall apart is in its plausibility. As the production progressed, one feels the sensation that events are unfolding simply to serve themselves, and there is a notable disjunction between story and action. By the end, one feels that the audience's suspension of disbelief has been punched, kicked, body-slammed, shot in the leg, thrown off the top story of a building, and finally decapitated as the play proclaims that "there can be only one!" It seems as though there is a disturbingly unrealistic context for the characters, so that in the end the message becomes a little drowned in spontaneous dance numbers and throwaway lines.

In summation, an amusing divesion, not bad.


Margaret Hamilton liked it, at least.

Blog Entry #4: "Good News" vs. "Bad News"

My mother (whom I may have previously mentioned as working for CBS News) often repeats the ever-popular maxim of many journalists: "if it bleeds, it leads." Certainly one can easily observe that news articles concerning tragedies and horrific incidents are far more attractive to the public than stories on equally-important, yet more placid story topics. This, however, does not answer the question at hand: namely, which of the two "aspects" of news stories contains greater intrinsic worth, "good" news, or "bad" news?

One must first ask what constitutes "good" or "bad" news. I find that only in rare instances do newsworthy stories occur where at least one party does not suffer some detrimental effect because of the event in question. News is always "bad" to someone, even if it is only a single person. Thus "good" and "bad" are just relativistic terms borne of the reading public's frequent inability to grasp all sides of a story, usually due to the ever-increasing pace of journalism in the modern world which leads to the general public holding a continually less firm grasp on the details of journalistic stories. The question then becomes even more broad: what sort of news story is worth writing?

Simply put, "good" news is not inherently "better" than "bad" news, and vice-versa. Rather, it is the number of people which the story could potentially affect (positively or negatively) which determines its eventual relevance. A journalist wants to write a story which will be accessible and comprehensible to a large number of people, unless writing for some sort of specialty column, but such instances are the exception rather than the rule. The value of a news story depends almost entirely on who will actually end up reading the story; the audience must, in a way, write the script.