Movie and Television Reviews

I'm a sucker for movies with historical allusions and ranging quests. Throw in some manly discovery, magic weapons, and attractive ladies and I'm yours to lose. The tween movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Theif doesn't squander these natural advantages.

Percy Jackson is a dyslexic teenager who likes water and hates his loutish stepdad. It's not that he doesn't try: His dyslexia is on account of his brain being "hard-wired" for Greek. The lout shields him from godly intrigues. And, you'd expect Poseidon's son to like water, wouldn't you?

Percy is set to the path of self-discovery when Zeus accuses Percy of stealing his lightning bolt (talk about profiling!)

The gods send their mythological henchmen to get the bolt back, and a secret demigod underground springs to life to protect Percy. Chiron (Pierce Brosnan) fights off a fury during a field trip, allowing Satyr Grover Underwood (Brandon T. Jackson) to whisk him and his mom away to a demigod charter school. One needs godly blood to enter the compound which is unfortunate for Percy’s fully-human mom; she’s taken to Hades by a minotaur. We have motivation!

Percy wants his mom back. But first, some character growth. Percy plays capture the flag against hot-as-Hades Athenian warrior Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario). He’s now ready to go to Hades.

Annabeth and Grover decide to accompany him. To get out of Hades after they get mom, they need three pearls which are scattered only throughout the United States because the gods hate Canada.

On the way, they encounter Medusa (a still bewitching Uma Thurman. This is Uma's second turn as a goddess. She played Venus in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Lotus-eaters, and a Hydra.

It's all very well-done and a lot of fun. Just don't expect Percy Jackson to make a lot of sense: Didn't Medusa already die at the hands of Perseus? Is the Nevada gambling commission aware of a strip casino that offers their customers free drugs? During a conversation between Poseidon (Kevin McKidd who played Lucius Vorenus in the excellent Rome) and Zeus, Poseidon tells Zeus that “omnipotence has gone to your head.” Without getting too theological, Greek gods were not omnipotent. If Zeus were, he wouldn’t have trouble finding his dumb bolt.

Rosario Dawson is Persephone, queen of Hades. She’s part-Cuban and sexy enough to make one long for death.

Message/Politics:

Percy Jackson errs on the side of nature (over nurture). Demigods enjoy genetic advantages. I’ve mentioned the bizarre notion of a brain being hard-wired for a specific language (obviously, producers didn't consult with Noam Chomsky or any linguist) and a clearly illegal school that bases its admission on race.

Students spend their time bragging about their parents. It’s all very Victorian.

On the other hand, Percy needs inner-strength to harness his water powers. He also loves his mother, is brave, and maintains loyalty to his friends.

The gods roam the earth seducing women like some immortal Tiger Woods. Percy Jackson doesn't condemn that practice, but stands four-square against dead-beat dads: Percy laments that the gods can't be part of their children's lives.

Rome: The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

National Treasure [Blu-ray]

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen [Blu-ray]

The Complete World of Greek Mythology by Richard Buxton

What a pleasure it was to sit and watch Sherlock Holmes. No lasers, super-powers, political agendas, 3-D effects. Just a rollicking tale, well-acted and directed.

Well, OK, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is a super-hero of the James Bond, semi-realistic kind; except that Sherlock trades the ability to bed foreign spies for a more-developed sense of perception and steel-trap logic.

And, the scenes of Sherlock deducing stuff are as good as one could have hoped for. Sherlock driven nearly mad at a restaurant by his uncontrollable ability to notice minute details really shows how accursed this aptitude might be, a premise I don't remember from the older movies. His working himself into an almost trance-like state to piece together the amassed clues further illuminates this interesting perspective.

We also get to see Sherlock rough it up a bit. His smarts applied to martial combat is a nice touch.

Little dandiness, however. This Sherlock is a lonely, eccentric rogue with a gift that makes relating to others challenging.

SH begins with Sherlock interrupting a Lord Blackwell's ritual murder of a beautiful maiden and then reels off an effective extended character exposition of Sherlock and Dr. Watson, focusing in part on their queer co-dependence.

The only woman Sherlock's loved, the Victorian hottie Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), enters the picture when we're quite familiar with the duo to ask Sherlock's help in tracking down a midget.

From there, Sherlock uses his powers to find and check the apparently resurrected Lord Blackwell, who convinces a Masonic-like order to attempt a take-over of Britain and, from there, the world.

It's all good fun, even if it doesn't reach a level of super-intensity. It's better than the similar National Treasure movies, anyways. Like in NT, I liked the historical allusions. Britain dominating the world wasn't completely outside of the pale in the mid 1860s and the writers explain how the American Civil War makes an English conquest possible.

Robert Downey continues his scorched-earth comeback, imbuing Sherlock Holmes with a deep charisma. Jude Law as Watson is fine. Mark Watson makes a convincing pre-Black Sabbath Satanist.

SH unabashedly dips into the bag of cinema tricks to pull out the slightly differently-perspectived or new-scened flashbacks that both explain the plot and make us feel inferior to Sherlock for not being able to notice the things genius detectives do.

If I can fault the movie, it's perhaps in its romantic sub-plots. The movie goes not for a love triangle, but a love pentagram. The Sherlock-Adler one is fine, if little under-cooked. The concept of a lover who's also a rival is solid and Downey's acting does give one the sense that she's the only woman who can fluster him. Sherlock seems to find her nude-ness distracting. They hug, kiss once. Yet, we never see them close to passion. I don't want to over-emphasize this aspect of the movie. It's not bad, certainly doesn't ruin the film, and understandably incomplete considering the restricted screen time. In fact, forget I brought it up.

Watson has a fiance who's essentially a prop.

Sherlock and Watson give off a borderline-gay vibe. Their dialogue seems unrealistic unless unless seen this way: I don't think real guys bicker about waistcoats and try to ruin the other's relationships with the opposite sex.

Politics/Message:

The Masonic cult wants to seize power to help the teeming, ignorant masses who'd be lost without their enlightened guidance. Know any political parties with that attitude?

Not too much besides that: Friendship, loyalty, I guess.

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Tags: homosexual

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Family Fun Edition)

If he were to read the IMDB reviews, an astute reader would be able to divide the admirers of Avatar into those who believe in its message and those who like pretty pictures. I'd like to add a new category for myself, who enjoyed Avatar not as a movie, but as an anthropological experiment.

If James Cameron is correct and our planet "dies," and the dude next to me right now at the Norm's counter is right and advanced aliens exist, one can imagine the aliens coming back to earth and wanting to familiarize themselves with our society and its political factions, one of which is made up of those late-twentieth/early-twenty-first century creatures called "progressives."

The databases of Daily Kos and Huffington Post having long been gone, and the pages of the Nation having been burned for warmth after the disappearance of the carbon fuels; the aliens may come to rely solely on a copy of Avatar found in the vault of one of James Cameron's mansions.

What they would learn:

1. It's not good to encroach on other people's territory and change its culture or use its resources. The Earthlings in Avatar have made bad ecological decisions and attempt to steal the Na'vi's supply of unobtanium.

Earthlings shouldn't take unobtanium even if it's their only chance for survival, which seems to go against the natural Eywan law of survival (below). Cameron's going to have to work this one out.

Anyways, humans had their chance to elect Al Gore and they blew it. Now humanity can go lay in its apocalyptic bed.

2. War is justified to protect one's homeland. Similar to the traditional Christian Just War theory.

3. Religion is good, as are priestesses. It's appropriate to appreciate the source of balance on Pandora, the goddess Eywa; therefore, ceremonies are good. It's important to note that Eywa (the "Mother"- in your eye, patriarchists!) may just be some unconscious, material, biological phenomenon, like the microorganisms Midi-chlorians are responsible for the Force in Star Wars. This would seem to make the Eywa dances lively entertainments, but ultimately useless, unless achieving a trance-like state allows one to better "commune with Eywa."

Star Wars Trilogy

Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

Religion should represent reality so that if there really is a force that balances Pandora, and no authority above the planet, that force should be the one to follow. However, since Cameron made Pandora himself, one may assume that it's the kind of religion he prefers. That kind is a sort of pantheistic spiritual communion amongst bio-entities in which the ultimate good is that living things bother each other as minimally as possible. Gluttony is out, moderation evident in the svelte Na'vi physiques.

Even with that understanding, Pandora is still a pretty dangerous place where one wrong move in the dangerous forest, even in dealings with their fellow creatures, can lead to death for the Na'vi. Viciousness is natural, necessary to "maintain the balance." Eywa approves.

Interestingly, for being such a peaceful people, there sure are a lot of Na'vi warriors. Perhaps the different tribes war against each other.

4. Na'vi don't seem to care about improving their technology. It's implied that Earthlings destroyed their planet pursuing technology. The big robots seem especially grotesque next to the colorful Na'vi dragon steeds.

5. No discernible policy on out-of-wedlock sex. Small Na'vi villages tend to be conservative. Perhaps in the bigger villages, "if this leaf-hammock's a rockin', don't come a knockin'."

6. Gay marriage is out. At the appropriate age, a man chooses a woman, for "mating." That's the imprimatured way on earth.

Mating is for life. Another orthodox belief.

7. It's not necessary to love one's enemies. In fact, Avatar is full of hate. First, Earthlings towards the Na'vi. Then, the Na'vi right back. After stripping Earthlings of their capacity to harm, the Na'vi probably could have worked something out with the defeated remnants. Nope. "Go home to your dead world" (not just Detroit, either- all of Earth).

8. Free health care. It seems like the medicine shaman is on call and doesn't require payment. Could be single-payer, which would make them far superior to us.

9. Fashion should allow for the maximum freedom of movement.

10. Slight Xenophobia. Outsiders are not welcome, unless they're willing to completely assimilate.

11. The Na'vi are the ideal people: perfectly in balance; peaceful, yet retaining the ability to wage war.

If this movie is an allegory, then the most noble population group on earth are either Native Americans or Africans. My friends and I argued about this. I kept an eye out for a loincloth malfunction to decide the matter. Alas, none. Fortunately, Stephen Lang settles the issue. They're "Indians":

12. Americans are bad. When anti-American film-makers want to present a fighting force for good, they either internationalize a group like in GI Joe, downplay its Americanism like in Superman, or make it explicitly anti-American like in the Bourne Identity.

The Bourne Trilogy (The Bourne Identity | The Bourne Supremacy | The Bourne Ultimatum) [Blu-ray]

Superman Returns [Blu-ray]

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

In Avatar, all of the bad guys are Americans.

(This is a financial decision. Only half of a Hollywood release's revenue comes from within Yankee shores. Studios figure they can more than make up for offended patriots- who probably don't go to movies much anyways- by appealing to foreign anti-Americans while getting a majority of the Huffington Post crowd, keeping in my mind that most Americans probably won't understand what's going on. In its first weekend, Avatar's overseas business was much greater than domestic revenue.)

13. Marines are good on Earth where they fight for freedom (Cameron makes a point of saying this, so it's not really fair to say that he's anti-military), but bad on Pandora because of point #1. Context is everything.

14. Marines are just the muscle for corporations, which makes corporations the real heavies for their pursuit of profit above peaceful peoples.

Tags: anti-christian, avatar theology, theology of avatar

My wife and daughter don't like me ruining their girly fun at these movies, so I asked my daughter to write a review. It follows:

I saw the movie New Moon and I would like to tell you about it. I really liked New Moon because it was fun and interesting. I personally think a lot of people (girls especially) would like this movie.

New Moon is the second movie in the Twilight series. Twilight is about a quiet girl, Bella, who gets involved with vampires and wolves, but especially one vampire, Edward.

Edward and his family are good vampires who never hurt humans. Bella and Edward fall in love but have a lot of troubles with the bad vampires who hurt people.

Next, I will tell you about the plot or plots of New Moon. One problem is that Edward has to leave Bella and she feels lonely, so every night she dreams of him. She feels scared and unprotected without him. She has to make new friends.

Another plot is that Victoria, a bad vampire, tries to attack Bella. Jacob, a man-wolf, tries to save her because he pledges his love to Bella, even though she refuses him. Jacob is just so kind that he protects Bella while Edward is gone. Jacob protects Bella because there's a bad vampire trying to hunt her, which is Victoria.

I liked many parts of New Moon but there was one that I was a little more interested in. It was when Edward is going to reveal himself to the humans and Bella comes to save him. She's scared that he will reveal himself so she runs for it. When she gets there, he's about to reveal himself, but she comes just in time and pushes him back in. Then they go into the place where they kill vampires who don't want to live any more.

They're going to kill Edward and they think that Bella knows too much so they also want to kill her.

[**spoiler alert**]

Alice, Edward's sister, makes the bad vampires not kill Bella.

[Message/Poliitics:]

The message of this movie is to never leave someone behind that you love unless it is necessary to protect them. They show us this because many bad things happen when Edward leaves Bella.

This is what I have to say about the movie New Moon.

Me:

Well, there you have it. I'm sorry I missed it.

Special note/warning [me, too]:

My wife loved it as well. She came home mad at me because I don't act like the vampires (protective, sweet, etc.), indicating that you guys should wait until this movie wears off before approaching your girlfriend or spouse.

Tags: "reviews by girls"

"Some people want to fill the world with [manipulative, melodramatic, derivative, exploitive, lowest-common-denominator hackery]. And, what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know."

-Paul McCartney

Before I start, I’d like to say that, if possible, you should see this movie in a predominantly Hispanic theater. The premieres of 2012 in Huntington Park (with subtitles) and Pico Rivera were a combination of Mardi Gras, the Academy Awards, and an Olympics opening ceremony: Long lines, unlicensed street vendors, and people milling about who may not have had tickets, but still wanted to be where the action is. Inside the theater itself: newborns (PG-13 my pompis), great grandparents- everybody.

"Hard to imagine? It's easy if you try."

-John Lennon

If you’re a middle-aged White guy, imagine your reaction upon the announcement of a new rooftop Beatles concert where the two surviving members will join a resurrected John and George. OK? Well, double that. That’s what 2012 means to us (interestingly, a person who denies the end of world in HP thinks himself a Christopher Hitchens-like skeptic/intellectual). My wife said she hadn’t felt that way about a movie since Titanic.

Plot, in one sentence:

Scientists discover that the earth’s core will cause a world-wide cataclysm and inform the authorities, who then prepare a way for some humanity to survive and sell tickets to participate in the plan, which one family can’t afford, leading the family to find an alternative. Do they? No spoilers here.

Derivative:

2012 is a pastiche of numerous pseudo-scientific/mystical disaster movies, most of which also happen to have been directed by Roland Emmerich: There are ignored warnings, plans (Deep Impact), races against time, and a stapled-on love story.

Caharacter-wise, we have the divorced father-loser who still loves his kids’ mother from War of the Worlds; the scientist with the correct theory who’s not taken seriously by his colleagues from Independence Day, Stargate as well as the crazy, but correct conspiracy theorist from ID; the cute kid with a soon-to-be-resolved life-impediment; the corrupt politician; the president’s daughter; the good president from Independence Day; various personages from Armageddon, Jurassic Park, Poseidon Adventure; Day After Tomorrow, and Knowing. Truly, the gang’s all here.

Hackery:

About fourteen times in the movie, the characters barely escape ahead of some shock wave, debris shower, or ground collapse. They almost hit a bunch of stuff. After a while, you feel like you're on one of those Back to the Future/Star Tours rides where you're strapped to a seat inside a shaking box and watch a video of meteors or dinosaurs coming at and missing you.

Absurdities abound: Why does the head scientist of a secret location have to meet the trespassers? Isn't that what security's for?

For some, a youtube highlighting the impressive, I guess, destruction scenes will do.

Melodramatic/ manipulative:

The family scenes barely register above "trite" on the authenticity meter. We're led to care about a puppy. The world's ending and Emmerich expects the audience to shed a tear for a useless dog (sorry, owners of yapping rat-dogs [not that you ever care about your neighbors' sleep]).

Exploitative:

I think Emmerich should next do a movie about a deadly swine flu epidemic.

Yet:

My attention never wavered and I found myself cheering the protagonists' escapes and break-ins. Something subtle was going on here: My mind said “stop,” but my bootie squirmed as every type of land, sea, and air vehicle narrowly escaped doom.

2012 is a cheesy movie that thrills. Roland Emmerich is the opposite of M. Night Shyamalan: Emmerich is a low to middlebrow genius while Shymalan is a hoity bore.

Lastly:

I like that humanity will restart where it began. Like a homo sapien reboot. Guys, this time keep the apples away from the women.

I'd love to see is a television series that extends the ending.

Politics/message:

Hmmm. The movie's as deep as the earth's post-shift crust, but such a scenario can't help but deal with some big issues.

We know that people will turn to God at the end of the world. He doesn't show up in the movie, however, and nobody has a faith crisis. Religion's mostly just a way to deal with horrible events: "Smoke 'em if you got 'em"

(Maybe it's for the best: Remember Contact?)

"If we are only for ourselves, what are we?"

The moral crisis that Emmerich does deal with is a fairness lesson appropriate for a 4th-grade journal topic (a leading one at that): "Should only rich people survive the end of the world?" Proving that Star Trek changed the world, it's claimed that any non-inclusive decision will sacrifice the group's "humanity."

I did find it semi-clever when they asked whether their first action should be a loving or practical one.

Thankfully, no eco-preaching.

Cast and crew below:

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Tags: mexican, mexican-american

Magnificent.

A Christmas Carol combines a traditional, faithful in every sense of the word telling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with probably the best realistic-type animation ever, surpassing the previous record-holders, Up and Bolt from the past year.

It’s been usual for contemporary adaptations to update the CC premise, sometimes infusing it with a modern, secular sensibility. Not this time. We get a historically accurate setting with characters approaching Christmas as one would imagine a Victorian Brit would: No toys, just family meals and good will. No doubt this is because Zemeckis uses the exact sequence of events as the original story and keeps Dickens’ language in all of its Victorian glory. The latter means that Scrooge and the love he discards for money break their "contract," not their "engagement," Scrooge doesn’t ask to be "taken away," but "removed," and purchases Turkeys from the "Poulterers."

(It wouldn’t be an altogether bad idea next year to purchase the DVD and watch CC it in one’s home with Dickens’ text in hand.)

Zemeckis' direction is extraordinary with some wonderful angles and a quite effective chase scene. The pacing, near-perfect; only once did I feel the arc sagging a bit.

Good music and just the perfect amount of sensible scariness for kids about 8 years old.

Message/Politics:

CC is probably the most anti-Ayn Rand movie of the year: Men cannot be happy being selfish. In fact, our joy correlates quite strongly with how much we help our fellow men. In CC, Charity is a duty to one’s neighbors and oneself and it's primarily because…

…God meant it when He commanded to care for others as we would ourselves. CC is that rare supernatural movie that’s also theologically sound. Choices in the earthly life affect the next, or, each act of selfishness is a link in the chain one drags in Hell, to borrow Dickens’ metaphor. And no amount of post-condemnation charitable inclination can remedy one’s fate, as one ghost in CC finds out after futily offering to relieve and mother and her child’s suffering.

There are earthly consequences for the selfish rich as well. Poverty and Ignorance, personified in CC by a little boy and girl who grow up to be a criminal and prostitute respectively, attack Scrooge; suggesting a kind of Marxist rising of the proletariat.

Yet, CC isn’t a leftist movie, either. At one point Scrooge asks a man seeking donations for the poor if the workhouses, union shops, and prisons have shut down. Or, “I don’t need to give because the government already takes care of the poor. “

This is the theme of a book called Who Really Cares by Arthur Brooks which shows that religious conservatives, what Scrooge becomes at the end of the story, give much more money to charity than liberals, with one of the speculations as to why posited by Brooks being that socialists think charity is the government's job. You can see the verification of this theory on this chart:

Rank Countries Amount
# 1 Australia: 18%
# 2 United States: 15%
# 3 Netherlands: 9%
= 4 Ireland: 7%
= 4 Norway: 7%
= 6 Canada: 6%
= 6 Belgium: 6%
= 8 Germany: 5%
= 8 Finland: 5%
= 8 United Kingdom: 5%
= 8 Sweden: 5%
= 8 France: 5%
= 13 Austria: 3%
= 13 Italy: 3%
= 13 Switzerland: 3%
= 16 Denmark: 2%
= 16 Japan: 2%
Weighted average: 6.2%

So, CC is a conservative movie in that it forwards the idea that free enterprise married to a virtuous, NGO-obliged (like religion) mass ethic makes for the best society (as opposed to a Randian or Marxist one).

There is an anti-clerical line for people who aren't completely comfortable with organized religion.

I thought to myself: "Where have I seen this theme- man exploiting nature and corrupting an innocent culture with his greedy ways and lust for conquest?"

Then, it came to me: just about everywhere! So, I go on youtube for a clip of Ferngully in order to make my point in a humorous way and bam! I discover that somebody had the same idea:

**update**

It's worse than I thought. One would expect Big Hollywood to ding a movie for its overt liberalism, but Variety?

Thematically, the film also plays too simplistically into stereotypical evil-white-empire/virtuous-native cliches, especially since the invaders are presumably on an environmental rescue mission on behalf of the entire world, not just the U.S. Script is rooted very much in a contemporary eco-green mindset, which makes its positions and the sympathies it encourages entirely predictable and unchallenging.

It's a near 100% rule that people love messages in movies...as long as they agree with them (making a point of not having a message is a message too- nihilism). So, who will love the messages in this movie? Anti-Americans and Naturists.

**update #2**

Apparently, it urges people, indirectly, to root against Americans and encourages military desertions.

**update #3**

A more in-depth analysis here.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Family Fun Edition)

FernGully 2 - The Magical Rescue

Dances with Wolves - Extended Cut (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

Pocahontas (10th Anniversary Edition)

Pocahontas II - Journey to a New World (Disney Gold Classic Collection)

Tags: "anti-american", environmentalist, lefty, liberal, mashup, progressive