Movie and Television Reviews

The best live-action giant robot movie, ever.

It's also a very good movie in its own right.

As you may have expected from the ending of the first movie, which I also liked, Megatron is "awakened" to do the bidding of Fallen, who's trying to build robots on Cybertron without Energon, which is, if you've ever tried it, like doing something without what you need to do it (sorry, family blog). Anyways, he must be stopped.
T2 has a sort of a James Bond feel in that it takes place in various "exotic" settings throughout the world. World class sentient robot fight scenes. Some solid laughs of the "I can't believe I'm talking to a giant robot" variety and former Section 7 agent and deli owner Seymour Simmons (John Turturro). Two world-class babes as well: Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas.

The "funny character who accidentally get involved in something much larger than himself" is a college student who runs a conspiracy website.

T2 didn't feel long. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. For those of you who thought that you bought a ticket for Schindler's List or My Dinner with Andre: Wake up! It's a movie about giant robots.

One thing: Megan Fox (Mikaela), God love her, is the worst actress since the scientist in Star Trek IV. Luckily, the writers are kind to the audience and just have her run sexily through rubble and change outfits in the middle of the street. Typical scene:

Mikaela: Darn, a phone call, right when I'm polishing this motorcycle with my butt in the air, as if... Let me answer and sigh something sexy.

Witwicky: Here comes a huge robot!

[cut to Fox]

Mikaela: (pouting) sigh!

Politics/Message:

Michael Bay is coyly political. He's pro-military, much to the annoyance of New York Times film critics. He makes fun of "appeasing" politicians and portrays their lackeys as cowardly bureaucrats. In one scene, a reporter says how Obama is headed to an "undisclosed location." Flight, if you remember Fahrenheit 9/11, is what Michael Moore accuses George Bush of doing. I did see these as a criticism of Obama since he has no military experience and is eager to appease.

I'm not sure if this is a case of racism, but I'd agree with Henry Gates (I assume) that T2 revels in racial stereotypes. Two small autobots are black "homeboys from the block." They insult each other and make extensive use of slang. The shocking part is when, once having established their ghetto cred, one of them admits to not knowing how to read.

A Jewish mother nags his deli-owning son. I didn't detect anything negative about Arabs, even though they were in the film.

Interestingly, when the military needs backup in Egypt, they call the Jordanian Air Force and not the more effective Israeli one.

Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition + BD Live) [Blu-ray]

Schindler's List [Blu-ray] by Thomas Keneally

My Dinner with Andre (Criterion Collection)

History channel seemingly never fails to entertain with good re-enactments (sometimes repeated too often, like a news story with limited video) and inform with a very fair, middle-of-the-road approach to history.

In The Dark Ages, this approach can be summed up in the statement that the Church, so often a target in these kinds of things, did what it could to lessen violence and superstition.

I'm pretty familiar with the era, yet I didn't know that the plague was what thwarted Justinian's noble attempt to reconquer the West.

The Dark Ages (The History Channel )

I never owned "the poster." Mel from Alice had one. Charlie's Angels was a big deal, of course.

"The Poster."

Besides those two pop-cultural moments, Farrah Fawcett had a relatively small impact in movies or television. She never starred in a great movie (she was in Myra Breckinridge with another beautiful woman, Raquel Welch). In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to call any of the movies "good."

Fawcett and Welch: High babage per yard.

The best one for me is Logan's Run if only because I prefer sci-fi to domestic violence dramas (Burning Bed)and cameo-driven movies like Cannonball Run.

Logan's Run isn't a perfect movie, but it has one of the most fascinating near-possible premises of any sci-fi movie: In the LR dystopia, people live in an enclosed space with limited resources, and society has developed a system where reproduction is tightly controlled, parents don't raise their own children, and the computer-run government forces people to commit suicide at thirty in a ceremony called "renewal." In other words, it's a slightly exaggerated modern China, more greatly exaggerated Europe (and, by extension, United States after eight years of unimpeded Obama).

Spoiler below:

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I laughed a lot. I'm not necessarily proud of it, but I don't see anything wrong with it, either.

Bruno has almost the exact same plot as Borat: a shocking foreigner comes to America and...shocks Americans. Like Borat, he comes with a charming assistant, here named "Lutz." Like Borat, we get to see Bruno disgust, amuse, and anger both suspecting and unsuspecting "victims." However, whereas Borat chases cocks (it may have been a chicken) in the subway, Bruno...errr...chases them at Army bases, Evangelical churches, Hollywood interviews, and ultimate fighting cages.

You see, Bruno is an uber-gay fashion journalist who's trying to make it in Hollywood.

The trick in this kind of "running joke" movie is to have funny gags. Almost all of them work in Bruno, with the Paula Abdul, Ron Paul, a psychic, an (alleged) terrorist, and two witless publicity twins ones being the funniest. Right below are scenes with hunters, swingers, and Army OCS trainers.

Now, anybody can dress outrageously and swish around the street; Cohen uses higher level humor as well like referring to Bruno's attempt to commit suicide by eating carbohydrates for the first time in 10 years as "carbocide." He mixes "over" with "uber." Well, I thought it was funny.

The shocking part comes from the many direct references to and outright demonstrations of homosexual activity. If this offends you, you will walk out of Bruno the most offended person on earth.

You won't see more sausage at a Berlin butcher shop.

Which brings me to:

Politics/message:

Professional PC groups like GLAAD members are shocked (and angered) that Bruno makes fun of gay people (they don't like stereotypes), proving that everybody likes edgy, brave humor as long as it's not directed at them. And, it is. And, so what? We can't laugh at gay behavior any more?

Diane Medved didn't like the overt sexuality and wonders who would, "Heterosexual males won't be attracted to the crude overt homosexuality."** GLAAD cares about the gay image which is understandable, but Diane Medved is plain wrong. Men joke about homosexuality all of the time. It's the basis for much humor in male-dominated environments: locker rooms, army barracks, role-playing man caves, the only caveat being that homosexuality must be a joke and it's appellation a semi-insult, not the subject of serious contemplation- "Men on Film" (from In Living Color) rather than Brokeback Mountain.

In Living Color - Seasons 1-5

Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Widescreen Edition)

Brokeback Mountain (Widescreen Edition)

Bruno's gross this weekend kind of counters Medved. To placate GLAAD, Sacha Baron Cohen has said that he's really making fun of "homophobia," but that's not really true. Nobody in the movie flat-out hates gay people. Some, like the Evangelicals disapprove and try to change gays' behavior (I suspect that Cohen was disappointed that the preacher didn't hit on him), but Cohen has to go to the Middle East and wear an outrageous and disrespectful outfit to get somebody to chase him. Even the people who hate gays like the Fred Phelps group just walk past him. A largely black audience at a Jerry Springer-type show only becomes upset with Bruno when he describes how he's raising little O.J.

What does one learn about Americans' attitude towards gays, then? That if you don't shove gay behavior in strait people's faces, strait people won't care.

Other targets are on the left side of the culture war as well: We have some Zoolander-type fashion world satire, Hollywood hip-charity, and celebrity culture in general.

Zoolander (Special Collector's Edition)

Credits below:

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Cartoons have transformed themselves into the movie genre where moviegoers of all ages go to avoid sex-drenched, cynical entertainment.

Up is certainly neither cynical nor drenched in anything but wholesomeness. It's also in that recent tradition of spectacularly well-made animation: uplifting, clever, swift, and exciting.

Up begins with one of the all-time montages, a beautiful mini-story of a man, Carl Fredrickson, and woman's, Ellie, lifetime of love for each other. In the montage, we find a dream, the building or placing of a house on a South American waterfall (that the waterfall is completely uninhabited by people despite being featured in a magazine and that Google earth hasn't picked up the presence of a huge blimp only gets in the way if you're a reality fetishist), delayed by necessity. Or rather necessities, as something always comes along to prevent the dream's fulfillment.

Providence denies Carl and Ellie children as well.

We then see the old Carl struggling to save his home against a real estate developer. When Carl accidentally brains one of the workers, he ties a bunch of balloons to his house and flies off to South America. Russell, an "Adventure Scout" goes with Carl by having the misfortune of not stepping off in time (another unrealistic development).

Carl and Russell make it to South America by and by where they run into Kevin, a large bird and then Charles Muntz, Carl's boyhood adventuring hero who, it turns out, is after Kevin.

The plot is as fine as any Pixar movie you've seen, and its emotional depth moves it into Toy Story territory.

Disney Pixar Ultimate Movie Collection (Toy Story / Toy Story 2 / Finding Nemo / The Incredibles / A Bug's Life / Monsters, Inc. / Cars / Ratatouille)

The jokes are as funny as you've come to expect from the most talented people in the world: We have dog, age, grumpiness, and nerdy-kid jokes. What separates Pixar jokes from other productions' is that the jokes go a step further and the cleverness cuts a little sharper.

Instead of run of the (puppy) mill dog jokes, we get dogs who wear a collar that verbalizes their doggy thoughts, for example. The oldster battle is hilarious.

Message/Politics:

The Boy Scout-like organization is a positive force in the lives of youth and not some homophobic Nazi front group. Committed marriage is extolled and the importance of fathers, implied. An interesting twist on the "follow your heart" message: Yes, it's good to have dreams, but duty, the other message one gets from kid's movies (Michael Medved), comes first.