Movie and Television Reviews

I've seen most of the movies nominated for an Oscar. Avatar is probably the favorite. It deserves to win some kind of technical award. Without it's fancy 3-D cameras, it's as trite as Pocahontas. Inglorious Bastards is another technically- from a film-making point of view- brilliant movie that lingers in one's consciousness as long as the last Red Vine hangs around one's stomach. Blind Side is fine and more affecting than the previous two, but it's too close to a movie of the week. The first half of Up is all-time great. Unfortunately, the second half is just very good.

My choice would be Hurt Locker. My case:

1. Hurt Locker explores a theme not touched upon by standard war movies, which either focus on the absurdity of war, the righteousness of a particular cause, or individual character (bravery, etc.). War is only Hurt Locker's backdrop. The subject matter is a person's desire to engage in the popularly bad or undesirable. In this case, war.

The main character, William James, is a man who needs war. Indeed, he loves war. He's not a sadist or evil, however, like the colonel in Avatar. Perhaps James sees war as a realistic video game or maybe he's addicted to war adrenaline the way a rock climber seeks a rush from heights.

James never discusses the morality of either the Iraq war or of war itself. Frankly, he doesn't care: if the U.S. were at peace, James would be a mercenary.

The Hurt Locker subtly, brilliantly contrasts James with his team-mates, one of whom is obsessed with questions of morality and mortality and the other who's practical and conventional- he just wants to go home and raise a son.

2. Acting, brilliant.

3. The structure of the story is interesting as well. The Hurt Locker isn't a mission or defense or re-telling of history. The on-screen reminders of the remaining time in the soldiers' tour suggest that the antagonist is the war itself. James, Sanborn, and Eldridge just need to get to the end. Yet, the war can't be the heavy in this film because James seeks it. Hurt Locker is that deep.

The Hurt Locker is a series of engagements, each with its own climax, the longest and most fascinating of which is a desert sniper battle, followed closely by an unsuccessful search for the murderer of the only human part of the war for James, his friendship with a boy who sells pirated DVDs to the American soldiers.

4. Not that this should matter, but Hurt Locker shows that hundreds of millions of dollars can't make up for vision.

5. Like any good war movie, it makes you want to be in the military.

Overall, a brilliant movie.

Up (Four-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + BD Live) [Blu-ray]

The Hurt Locker [Blu-ray]

Inglourious Basterds (2-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

The Blind Side [Blu-ray]

Pocahontas (10th Anniversary Edition)

The Song of Bernadette is amongst the best Christian movies that deal with a supernatural event other than the central story of our Lord.

It's based on the best-selling book by Franz Werfel of the same name and tells the story of Bernadette Soubirous, a French peasant girl to whom appeared Mary.

It happens that the "song" of Bernadette is dramatic enough to not require embellishment. The film-makers accordingly opt for a strait account of the events, wrapped in their abundant cinematic skill, of course. The conflict in Song of Bernadette comes from members of Bernadette's own family, who discourage Bernadette for fear of mockery and local officials of the secular French government, who wish to complete the work of the French Revolution.

The performances are superb. This is Vincent Price's best role, probably. Jennifer Jones perfectly portrays a simple, yet dignified and strong peasant girl. Jones evoked in me memories of similar people I've known (my sister-in-law, for example).

The movie provides the faithful with several emotional moments. It also shows how effectively movies can forward a point of view when it wishes to take a side. We've all seen movies where religious people are made to seem foolish. In Song of Bernadette, the audience feels sorry for the secularists. Vincent Price's character is a cold-hearted, smug, faithless man trying desperately to deny the evidence at hand out of self-interest- a Christopher Hitchens, perhaps.

Watching the movie again reminded me of the pre-video/cable days when local stations would show such movies during weekdays (instead of the trash we have today) and on Saturday mornings.

S/T to Catholic Fire for the videos.

The Song of Bernadette

The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel

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Kalifornistan is about a poseur Muslim terrorist (Nick Nyon) in Los Angeles who becomes obsessed with a nameless “brown” stripper (Govindini Murty) while trying to detonate a nuclear bomb. A bounty hunter (John Barrett) employed by a Blackwater-like organization called Blackshnauzer thwarts the terrorist’s plans by taking advantage of the terrorist’s incompetent associates and weakness for women- he’s eventually nabbed while buying a Christmas present for “the girl.”

Chimpie McHitler (George Bush) sends him to Guantanamo. He escapes and returns to LA where he exacts revenge on the bounty hunter, seeks the girl, and encounters both her and her Viagra-munching White boyfriend.

Kaliforniastan is befuddling.

The trailer made me think that Kalifornistan is a comedy that mocks terrorists in the un-PC, conservative way that we never get from mainstream movies, like An American Carol. It is, partly.

An American Carol [Blu-ray]

The humor is two-note, mainly consisting of the mundane thoughts and concerns of a person with delusions of terrorist grandeur, unaware of his incompetence and relative unimportance. He streams paranoid, conspiracy-fueled hatreds of American society in general and in particular, with a focus on George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Republicans, White people (redundant, I know), commercialism, and women. Kalifornistan also features plays on names like “blackshnauzer,” “Glorious Jihad of Kalifornistan” (GJK), and “National Agency for the Defense of a Secure Homeland Against Foreign Treachery” (NADSHAFT). Those two notes aren’t poorly-played. When the terrorist chastises his assimilating cousin for stealing money and continuously hums indistinguishable Middle Eastern tunes, it’s funny. His phallic pride combined with his fear of women is both amusing and crucial to the film’s attraction. Kalifornistan plays a murder and an attempted rape for laughs.

Jason Apuzzo chooses to tell the story through the amateur footage of the terrorist, a device used in Cloverfield and Blair Witch; and Apuzzo’s not kidding.

The Blair Witch Series

Cloverfield [Blu-ray]

It’s this aspect of the movie that confuses: Either the movie is lampooning the first-person camera technique or its one of the least-disciplined movies I’ve ever seen.

Who’s holding the camera? Why is the footage in black and white? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to distinguish between the times the terrorist holds the camera and normal action by having only the terrorist footage in B&W? Instead, the only color we see is the girl waking up. Why?

Some of the situations make no sense. The girl’s boyfriend goes after the terrorist in his car. Couldn’t he have called the police while driving? It wasn’t against the law in 2007.

When the boyfriend doesn’t arrive, the girl goes after him...and finds him! In Los Angeles! How does she know where he is? Why does she leave in high heels?

An intact film was found in radioactive rubble? Is the girl's Christianity relevant?

I’m willing to accept that he bumbles his way off of Guantanamo like the protagonists in Dumb and Dumber accidentally solve a crime, but nobody having names except for the never-seen Azam is unacceptable.

Dumb and Dumber (Unrated) [Blu-ray]

At times it approaches conventional movie-making- you know, with a real plot. The bounty hunter part of the story begins well, with him thwarting his own murder and getting releasing the assailant for a $50,000 check (the funniest moment in the film is when the bounty hunter asks, “you brought your checkbook?”). He captures the terrorist, gets beaten up upon the terrorist’s return, and then, nothing. We don’t see him again. Why focus our attention on the bounty hunter if he’s to play no role in the film’s climax or resolution? Shouldn’t he intersect with the girl at some point?
Wouldn’t it have been better if the terrorist’s captured after the girl overpowers him and then returns to exact his revenge upon her?

Only a Tarantino should even attempt such disjointed film-making.

Overall, Kalifornistan peaks at the sexual assault (not graphic) and I maintained a high level of interest up until the mentioned chase scene when the thriller aspect of the movie kind of falls apart for its lack of internal logic. Worse, I'm afraid that these lapses aren't so much an attempt as artistry as just screenwriting laziness.

With all of its faults, Kalifornistan is worth watching for two insights: that terrorists may be driven by a sense of sexual frustration. This point comes through so clearly that the Apuzzo didn’t have to give us an on-screen statistic. And, that even dumb terrorists are dangerous.

Oh, performances are fine, music’s good, and the direction doesn’t look amateurish.

Politics/Message:

The two insights above plus an indirect satire at the deranged Bush-haters those of us who follow politics suffered through for seven years.

I'm a conservative (Cu-con). Govindini and Apuzzo are Libertarians, I think. I know they're open to conservative ideas from their association with the Liberty Film Festival. I wanted to like this movie on these grounds, and did. This isn't going to be a game-changer for explicitly conservative film, however. I hope they keep making movies and come out with something fine next time.

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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Bugsy, Godfather, Boyz in the Hood, American Me (or Blood In Blood Out), Scarface, Angels with Dirty Faces; every ethnic group needs a gangster movie to call its own, to remind its members that they can be just as cruel, tough, and resourceful as the next race- even if their whole hood is currently on the honor roll at Berkeley.

Baby is the first Asian-American gangster movie, I think, and it's a good one (Slumdog Millionaire is set in India so we need one for the Hindi-hoods. Eskimo Gs would be interesting, "Hey, Sled Dog, do we have a word for 'bloody ice' yet?").

Baby is an Asian pre-pubescent whose gangster neighbors involve him in a crime, for which he has to go to juvy. While there, he suffers the usual prison pangs (ouch!), but eventually toughens up, prison style (brutal soap-in-a-sock scene). Baby is unable to adjust to life after jail and gets a gig with an Asian gang start-up led by a homicidal psycho. The gang's reign of terror in the middle part of the movie is quite remarkable. I'll never be able to attempt a pool shot while facing away from the hall entrance again.

The shenanigans impress Asian godfather Benny, whose lack of courage at the gang fight that cost Baby eight years in the pen should have ended Benny's G career, enough that Benny invites Baby to join his operation. Baby negotiates the merging.

Betrayals, remorse, determination. Baby can't bring himself to butcher a little kid and confronts Benny.

Things end in a satisfying frenzy.

Benny (Feodor Chin) and Mike (veteran actor Ken Choi of Crash, 24, Heroes, CSI, and a bunch of other stuff), and "Pops" (Tzi Ma) give strong performances. David Huynh and some of the other actors, not so much- a little stilted, as is some of the direction: actors look like they're standing around repeating lines.

The action is appropriately bloody and the basic story is compelling enough. One must (do it, now!) applaud Baby's creative ambition: Baby employs a flashback story structure that challenges the audience, for good and ill. Some of the scenes are complicatedly layered like when Mike recounts the OG gang's demise with his face, the narrated story behind him, and a girl singing karaoke all visible at the same time.

Side plots like the father-son relationship, the hooker-mole (sexy, though), and the romance don't quite have the relevance to the main story or emotional impact that they should. I'm not sure why the movie's set ten years before the present.

The best scene is the one in which Benny invites Baby to join his operation. As a gangster's reputation is his de facto resume and because Baby's presence either jeopardizes his standing or just reminds him of his shame, Benny feels the need to tell Baby how he's made up for his cowardice by leading his current gang to prominence. Benny enumerates his responsibilities as shotcaller- bookkeeping, rub-outs, keeping the stalls stocked with TP, and otherwise makes the case it's hard out there for an Asian pimp.

It's stuff us gangsta bloggers understand.

Politics/Message:

The hero of Baby, Baby's gang mentor, takes a 10-year-old to a gang slaughter, gives him a gun, and sends him down the path to no-goodville- not exactly stuff they teach at Sunday school. Within gang culture, however, he's an honorable man because he didn't leave the fight, unlike Benny.

Baby's nerdy neighbor is presented in a good light, and is even able to knock Baby out.

It's interesting how people associate and disassociate depending on the circumstance. The pan-Asian gang in Baby can probably only exist in America where their intra-Asian differences are minimized by being a small percentage, collectively, of the overall American population.

Baby

American Me

Blood In, Blood Out

Cast below:

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Along with the rest of the civilized humanity, I reacted to the canceling of Stargate SG1 with great lamentation and gnashing of teeth (4 out of 5 dentists agree that this is not a good idea no matter how exceptional the show.). Fortunately, the producers of the Stargate franchise forge ahead with the equally excellent Stargate Atlantis and the strait-to-DVD SG1 movies. The first of these, Ark of Truth, is serviceable- its service being to close the controversial Ori story arc begun in season nine.

In Continuum, we return to the Goa’uld, the original parasitic bad guys from the Stargate movie (hinted at) and beginning of the TV series. SG1, having captured Ba’al, the last of the system lords, gives Ba'al up to the Tok’ra who plan an extraction ceremony to remove Ba’al from his host.

It’s all part of Ba’al’s plan. Ba’al’s real last surviving clone had built a time machine, and we see him board the ship transporting the stargate from Egypt to the United States. He disables the ship, thereby preventing the Stargate Program from ever having been started (A dystopian alternative for all sci-fi fans.). The heroism of the ship’s captain prevents the ships total destruction which allows Daniel Jackson, Mitchell, Carter (O’Neill dies in the Tok’ra city.) to go through the stargate and reappear in the North Pole-stranded ship.

Mitchell was never born, Carter died saving her crew on a Space Shuttle, O’Neill stayed in the US Air Force Special Forces, and General Hammond isn't retired(!) in this alternative time line.

The surviving trio minus one limb agrees that not attempting to change the time line is reasonable and accept new identities and my own personal fantasy, a guaranteed allowance- if they don’t mention the stargate to anyone and avoid each other.

Ba’al uses his foreknowledge to gain the upper hand against the other system lords. His queen, Qetesh, is the Goa’uld who made Vala her host.

When Ba’al is ready to attack Earth, the government presses the out-of-time trio into action. SG1 heads for the Ancient base in the Antarctic, but a quick counter move from Ba'al prevents them from using it.

Continuum is a triumph of the genre and amongst the top 300, of 12,000 or so, minutes in the Stargate franchise. Instead of the unexciting profundity of the Ori arc and the absurdity of the too-profound Battlestar Galactica, we have a clear Star Wars-like battle between good and evil. There’s no doubt that the Goa’uld must be destroyed.

We know from the episodes 1968, There But for the Grace of God, and Moebius, Stargate that Stargate writers have done well in those most tricky of sci-fi story lines for their many logical pitfalls- time travel and alternate reality.

The writers do a marvelous job with the time travel story here. It mostly makes sense, and the events are quite plausible given that such machines can exist in the first place. Going for the Ancient weapons platform is an obvious choice, and I would have been happy had the writers just had SG1 use it to engage the Goa’uld. The writers decide to use the platform as a pre-ending instead, and this feint adds a nice ladle of suspense to an already interesting plot pot.

Motivations as well are justified and reasonable- it is a bit too much to ask an alternative civilization to change everything around on a hunch.

Continuum has natural, non-cheap, and unforced fan delights aplenty: In the mid-movie calm, still exciting, we see Jackson pick up a book from his frustrated and scorned alternate self and then calls him to offer encouragement.

O’Neill is present. I’ve found his increasing goofiness over the years distracting at times (The low point is where O’Neill, an avid lay astronomer, doesn’t remember to take the cap off of a telescope.). He’s goofy here, but we also see his serious side when Jackson mentions O'Neill's son.

The action scenes aren’t of BG quality, but I liked them: I found the appearance of the Russian fighter planes especially exciting.

I hope this DVD does well and the producers continue releasing more at this quality level.

Message/Politics:

In Moebius, Carter is a nerdy scientist whereas alternate Carter in Continuum is as heroic as “real” Continuum Carter. Stargate, therefore, adopts the view that mathematical ability is natural while personality is more nurtured. That society evolves similarly in both realities suggests a belief in the inevitability of “social progress.”

Bravery and sacrifice, as always, although Carter and Mitchell uncharacteristically leave O’Neill and Jackson behind on separate occasions.

Stargate (Ultimate Edition)

Stargate - Continuum

Stargate SG-1 - The Complete Series Collection

Stargate - The Ark of Truth

Credits below:

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