Movie and Television Reviews

I can't wait for Obama to rescind Bush's executive forcing the American movie industry to remake every Asian horror movie beginning with an article and cast Jessica Alba in 25% of all new American releases.

The premise of The Eye is that a transplanted organ, in this case an eye (a nose would have been funnier), can cause the recipient to perceive what the donor did. Or, "does" since the dead person won't rest until Sydney Wells (The progressively less-fresh Jessica Alba. I predict a JLovian fate for her.) does something for her- the old "unfinished business" business.

The Cell (New Line Platinum Series)

Sydney, by the way, is a blind musician who starts seeing visions after doctors swap her corneas for those from a troubled Mexican girl with the gift (curse) of seeing dead people. Dr Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) falls in love with her. The Eye doesn't make it clear why, but it's probably because she looks like:

If you think about it, you've made your first mistake. If you just want to see things jump at you, it might be OK.

Message/Politics:

I don't think we need to worry about China overtaking us in movie originality anytime soon.

The Grudge

I love these mid-budget, B+, strait-to-DVD movies. They sometimes reach the "great" plateau like, just thinking quickly, the 2000 TV miniseries, Jason and the Argonauts, and Fatherland, but, mostly, they're just a lot of fun.

Jason and the Argonauts

The Last Legion is closer to The Scorpion King and American Soldiers than the above two, but it's still better than King Arthur and the Kingdom of Heaven, mostly because of TLL's conscious middle-browness and consequent unpretentiousness make its historical contortions easier to stomach.

King Arthur - The Director's Cut (Widescreen Edition)

Kingdom of Heaven - The Director's Cut (Four-Disc Special Edition)

The story is fascinating. It's based on a book by Valerio Massimo Manfredi that fills the historical chasms of the last Roman emperor's, the boy-Ceaser Romulus Augustus, life with the spackle of fiction. Basically, instead of retiring on a pension, the likeliest outcome I learned from Wikipedia twenty minutes after I started watching the movie, Romulus goes on to found the Knights of the Round Table.

In TLL, after the barbarian Goths bring down the Roman empire, some dead-ender Roman troops led by Aurelius (Colin Firth) whisk the boy and his teacher, Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley), away from their Goth captors and take him to England to join with the remains of a Roman Legion. Romulus finds Caeser's sword, known to us as "Excalibur," before embarking towards the isles.

They have to fight an oppressive king when they get there.

Oh, and the most beautiful of 500,000,000 Indian women, the mind-boggling gorgeous Aishwarya Rai (So stunning, I felt like stopping the DVD and calling Dell tech support.) is an impossibly skilled assassin and river bather.

Aishwarya Rai doesn't kiss in the movie, a move which may have hurt her career in Bollywood.

The movie itself is semi-ridiculous. During their travels and echoing Lord of the Rings (don't they all?), our adventurers curiously decide to cross the Alps along what seems its highest point. Barbarians travel right behind them just to recapture the boy. We're Goths that dedicated? Don't you think most Goths would have stopped in Gaul or Luxembourg?

The evil sword-seeker storyline is tacked-on and then underdone (Surprisingly, the role isn't played by John Malkovich. Was he busy?). The romance fizzles. Colin Firth's "freedom speech" sounds like Bill Richardson preaching abstinence to the pool loungers at an Acapulco spring break party.

And, the rest of the movie falls flat as well. Still, there's worse movies and only this one has Aishwarya Rai.

Politics/Message:

Very pro-Roman empire. I kept wondering if TLL legion wasn't a remake of some Benito Mussolini propaganda film. And don't underestimate female martial artists just because they're babes.