Movie and Television Reviews

Well, besides being notoriously mean people, they're huge liberals. It's like I tell a somewhat hateful lefty friend of mine: "Lover of mankind- hater of men."

The list of Hollywood meanies is here.

And, yes: I'm sure that there are plenty of nice libs and mean cons. Living in LA, I've brushed against a handful of celebrities and they seemed very nice.

I heard from a friend that Michael Moore's a real wienie as well.

One less ticket sold, right here:

Hiking to a log cabin in the mountains to uncover the apex of his wife's fears (it could be anywhere, but let's imagine we're in the neighborhood of Burkittsville), the doctor's little experiment in exposure therapy ends in crushed genitals and, uh, worse. Much worse.

Because nothing screams "date movie" more than crushed testicles.

"The 'Double tap'- very important when fighting zombies. They don't like when you stick out your tongue either."

"How do you know they hate that?

"Learned it from a zombie forum called 'The Zombie Forum.'"

"What else?"

"They hate Pepsi."

"That's absurd. Zombies can't taste."

"The hell they can't. Have you ever seen a zombie drinking Pepsi?"

I knew never to insult a man who thinks ravenous, unthinking post-human monsters respond to marketing, "Hmmm. come to think of it, I haven't. Good insight."

What did I learn from Zombieland? Well, Zombieland reminds me a lot of when my friends and I get together and riff on some nerdy theme (I'm not a nerd, but some of my friends are): same inside (zombiephilia is popular, with its own subculture and trappings: books, movie, video games, t-shirts, etc.) jokes, understatement-humor, and serious takes on the ridiculous.

I learned that my friends and I can be pretty dumb.

The plot has Columbus running into zombie master-killer Tallahassee who then both encounter Wichita and Little Rock, a young lady and her middle-school aged sister. Wichita and Little Rock trick Columbus and Tallahassee, taking their car and guns. They do this again until they team up and make it to Bill Murray's house on the way to theme park, Pacific Playland.

The movie attempts to hold things together with a series of running jokes. You've noticed that people call each other by their home city. There's a list of zombie rules that occasionally pops up on screen, like in Quentin Tarantino movies. Tallahassee wants a Twinkie. And Columbus is afraid of clowns. Clowns? Unhip and overdone. In fact, all of the running jokes are derivative, not clever, and signal a brain-dead creative process.

The Bill Murray sequence tries to be bizarrely genius, but the fact that it only made it to bizarrely banal reinforces the sense of mediocrity.

And, thank goodness for that. If they had succeeded in making a truly weird film like Rob Zombie or something, I would have walked out.

Questions, for those who care about this stuff:

1. Why is there still electricity after years of zombie infestation?
2. Gasoline?

Overall, a movie exploiting the zombie fanboy base. For every semi-serious phenomenon, there's a satire and, after several serious zombie movies, this is it (Zombieland deflates the prospect of a Scary Movie-type satire).

Politics/Message:

No discernible politics. The survivors yearn for their families, which is nice. Loyalty.

This is the first real episode of Stargate Universe and I'm encouraged.

It turns out that the bickering amongst the crew does add a little more thoughtful depth to the series. I liked the military-scientist rift; where the scientist, Rush, psychoanalyzes the soldier, Greer, in order to denigrate him (a common tactic for those only able to compete with their minds, or so they think. Most really...).

Another instant depth charge is religion and SGU includes the real kind (some moderns really believe it), SG-1 and SGA having only dealt with dead or invented (for the show) myths. Pretty respectful for TV, too. The priest who took care of LT Matthew Scott was only a drunk. I think Scott wears a cross. He could turn into some kind of Catholic TV saint, doing for Catholics what Will from Will and Grace did for gays.

The story was fine for E03, even suspenseful: A little deus ex machina , but still requiring heroism from the characters.

The communication stones led to some decent melodrama. Chloe Armstrong seems to be responsible for the social-moral conscious (Daniel Jackson handled some of this area in the early years of SG-1), feminine (Dr. Keller in SGA) parts of the Destiny's psycho-atmosphere.

Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper discuss Battlestar Galactica in 2006:

"How come they get to be on the cover of 'Entertainment Weekly'

"Why don't people write learned, intellectual articles about Atlantis?"

"We can write deep sci-fi if we wanted to."

Jealousy.

Stargate Universe.

Stargate Universe feels deeper. Nobody makes jokes and the camera cuts are "artistic." People argue more. Although I can't put my finger on anything the characters say that's really smart, they angrily, emotionally, philosophize over weighty issues such as death (in a secular way): "Politicians ask soldiers to sacrifice themselves all of the time." Well, not suicide missions exactly, but OK- not a bad point.

The scientist-leader (modern philosopher-king), Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), is more complex in that he may have some bad motivations and serious character flaws instead of merely being annoying like Rodney McKay in Stargate Atlantis or grumpy like General Hammond.

Another sign that this Stargate is different is that crew members have sex. (Or, that we actually see them having sex. We know that Teyla from Stargate Atlantis had sex because she was pregnant, but we didn’t witness the act. If Teyla and her husband were in Stargate Universe, we would have seen how Athosians get it on.).

I don’t like this development: It adds nothing to the show either intellectually or in plot development and prevents me from watching it with my son, who’s a big fan of Stargate. Whether the number of people who will tune in specifically to watch outer-reaches lovemaking exceeds that of those turned off by this distraction remains to be seen.

The greatest strength of the Stargate franchise is its fantastic concept- a series of gates to other worlds- that has led to 15 seasons of adventure and will apparently generate several more.

The Stargate notion survives here in modified form: When the Lucian Alliance (SG creators finally make good use of that plot thread) attacks an SG research facility, some of the base personnel escape by boarding a huge Ancient starship which served the Ancients as a scout ship until they learned to ascend and didn't need it.

The crew members have no hope of returning to earth (and I don't anticipate them stepping on terra firma for a hundred episodes or so). Lost in space, the earthlings wander the universe, surviving, striving for earth.

Such a diverse group- scientists, military people, politicians- will no doubt have many conflicts, both ideological and inter-personal. Hopefully, these stresses won't devolve into obvious allegories of contemporary political issues like the worst Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica episodes. Romance will loom large, I'm sure. In the other Stargate series, romance is serious at times, but tame and temporary, more often humorous, as with McKay.

The writers include a neat little adventure generator: The ship automatically activates its gate when it needs something from a planet with a stargate. In the second episode, for example, they will have to find something to clean the air.

Rush has some long-distance communication eggs that allow the writers to cheat when needing to involve some of the people on earth.

Two characters stand out: Rush is brave and scientifically ambitious. The well-being of the crew doesn't seem to be his first priority.

Eli Wallace (David Blue) is an overweight geek. Needless to say, he will provide comic relief (does Battlestar Galactica have any humor at all?). How funny is he? Eh, so far.

The most clever part of the first two episodes is the introduction of Wallace. Rush wrote a nearly unbreakable code into an online game. Shortly after super-geek Wallace cracks the conundrum, Rush and General McNeil show up at his house to recruit him.

The worst scene is the ending. Chloe Armstrong loses her senator dad after he heroically sacrifices himself to save the rest of the crew (I liked this plot element. It's also unusual for Stargate to have such a high opinion of politicians: think of the IOC officials and Senator Kinsey in SG-1) and cries her remembrances of him to young lieutenant Matthew Scott. Any guy knows that he's just listening to increase his chances of a deep-space booty call: "Even though we all just crashed onto a space ship with no chance of getting home, I want to hear more about how your dad would always listen to you even if you were being a brat." Yet, he seems sincere. Very odd.

I doubt this cast will approach the sheer likability of the excellent Stargate Atlantis group, with Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, Dr. Beckett, and Dr. Keller (Jewel Staite).

General O'Neill, Colonel Carter, and Daniel Jackson were in the pilot. Nice to see them.