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

The Book of Eli starts with a vicarious thrill: I often glare at my cats and wish I held a deadly longbow. Eli lives out this fantasy for all of us.

From this auspicious beginning, we learn that Eli (Denzel Washington) is a drifter in a post-apocalyptic world. Well, not quite a drifter. He's a man making steady progress towards that holiest of American cities, San Francisco, to deliver the temporal salvation of mankind, a King James Bible, all copies of which have been destroyed since the war.

On the way, he encounters a town that resembles what I imagine any American city would if the Democrats were to win 30 strait elections cycles: Godless, barren, crime-ridden, with all commerce going through one man and his flunkies. The leader in this nameless town is Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who wants the Bible so that he may better control his residents. Well, Eli doesn't want to give it to him because 1. it's not his mission and 2. Carnegie obviously isn't properly disposed to dispense the Gospel.

Carnegie first tries to convince Eli to give up the Good Book by bribing him with food and water. When that fails, Carnegie deploys that near sure-fire corrupter of men: he sends Eli his step daughter, the post-apocalyptic babe Solara (Mila Kunis), along with a full complement of wiles. That stuff doesn't work on a holy man, of course (it would have worked on me), and sensing in him a nobility not present amongst the other men in her town, Solara decides to follow Eli.

Eli uses Solara's knowledge of local water sources and ditches her. Eli can't look the other way as highway bandits attempt to rape Solara, however, and once again employs Kitty-slayer (+1) to rescue her. Eli lets Solara tag along up until they encounter an elderly, disco-loving cannibal couple. Carnegie catches up to them and they fight. We get a legitimately clever ending.

What makes this movie unusual is that it places the stylistic action of a Tarantino movie in a non-nihilistic context. This no doubt will throw nihilists off, used as they are to senselessness. Conversely, it will refresh the cinematic palates of the God-oriented who rarely get to see cool God movies.

As a work of cinema, The Book of Eli is fine. There aren't any glaring errors (except that soap is not hard to make). It's funny without being silly. The fight sequences are original and well-done (and it's difficult to impress modern audiences with fights; creative fighting thrown at us every other movie- Bourne, Kill Bill, Matrix, etc).

The issue with the Book of Eli is that it feels flat. The acting's very good so that's not it. The plot is fine.

Why?

Possibilities:

1. TBofE implies what's wrong with a Bible-less world- purposeless-ness, rampant violence, rule by might. Usually, I prefer implied meaning over explicit explanations, but here it's not enough. The rapes, bad hygiene, and cat meat don't instill the creepy terror that the robot-controlled false reality of The Matrix or the almost-familiar societal dysfunction of the Surrogates, Blade Runner and Robocop does.

2. Explicitly Christian movies, books, and other media tend to unimpress because the obviousness of the solution saps the work of any drama. The best Christian movies are about real people and their struggles like Song of Bernadette and Ben Hur (I know, not real), have Christianity in the periphery like Blindside and Not Easily Broken, or operate in a misty religious haze like Knowing.

That this fix has been around for 2000 years and is controversial doesn't help.

(If non-Christians wish to crow that this is somehow a flaw in Christianity, consider that this rule would have applied if the book were the Communist Manifesto, Rights of Man, Declaration of Independence [Star Trek episode The Omega Glory], Shakespeare [The Postman], or the Audacity of Hope.)

Now, if the book were to have contained a discredation of the current on-screen oppressive regime, inspirational words (like Shakespeare's Henry V speech in The Postman) or some fictitious "All Spark," even if it that object referred to a real item or idea; that would be different: It seems to me that the more specific and realistic the solution to the problem, the less effective, from a cinematic perspective.

3. Its a McGuffin movie. McGuffin movies are those that center around one particular person or object. They don't have to be bad. Lord of the Rings is the McGuffin movie that rules them all and it's great. Perhaps because, again, the ring is an abstraction of evil, a weapon, and not a positive, culturally-baggaged solution.

4. TBofE just isn't big enough. All of the action takes place in a small town and a road. The climactic battle involves just a few people. My friend mentioned that no scene really distinguishes itself.

5. The fighting takes away from the movie. Cool fighting brings in the kiddies, but lowers the intelligence level of movies at least two notches. Had TBofE not had severed hands flying about, it may have reached a lower depth level.

Message/Politics:

Christianity as organizing force has precedent. At the end of the Western Roman empire, Christianity rallied the remaining remnants of the Roman empire and barbarians to create the most influential civilization in history. It served the same function for Russia, the Americas, and everywhere it's gained prominence. That it can do so after the collapse of itself, saving another religion filling the vacuum first, is an interesting proposition.

Religion gives men the strength to ignore the temptations of the flesh and focus on a higher purpose. Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, et al should take notice: nothing brings a man more respect than doing so.

The Book of Eli is a very Protestant movie. Sola Scriptura is the underlying theology, as the world will seem to be reconstructed by amateur preachers slinging verses instead of direct successors of the Apostles dispensing sacraments. Catholics and Orthodox believe that Christianity would survive the burning of every Bible, but not the burning of every Bishop.

A note on the movie's violence. As anybody who's read the Bible, studied history, even the history of Christianity, or looks at the plight of many Christians in the world today knows, violence has, does, and will likely be part of the Christian experience until the Coming.

It's right for Christians to dislike violence and try to minimize it- it's what separated Christianity from the war-loving Romans and Norse. It's not OK to think that violence is always wrong. As long as one tries to avoid violence and not like it for its own sake, it's OK to participate in it. In fact, it's our duty to defend Christianity, even with violence.

If you look at the composition of the military, American soldiers tend to be more religious than the general population. One of the reasons is that religious people are more willing to see the need to defend things with one's life, if necessary.

Eli tries to avoid violence at several points in the movie. When confrontation becomes inevitable, however, Eli whoops booty. This is in keeping with Christian Just War theory. Eli is a complete Christian in this regard.

**Spoiler alert**

One may assume that Solara heads back to her home town at the end to preach Christianity, but the directors hedge their bets a bit. None of the Bible quotations Eli uses are from the New Testament. The printers at the end place the Bible in between the Tanakh and the Koran, making it seem one amongst equals and suggesting that Solara may preach a syncretic religion. I'd also like to mention that transcribing the Old Testament is a huge waste of time when one has a Tanakh on hand, as they're the same book.

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"

I watched an average amount of TV during my high school years, but I missed V somehow so I can't compare the new one to the original.

I can say that this V is the solid, middle-of-the-road (no faux cable "edginess") TV drama that I happen to enjoy very much. For comparison, I submit Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles and all of those great eighties mini series like World War III.

In V, aliens come down to earth bearing gifts and beautiful women baring legs to gain our trust (primitive, but hey, it'd work on me).

In case that doesn't work, however, the "Visitors" managed to infiltrate every institution on earth except the media, members of which they have to recruit when they get here.

One of those recruits is Chad Decker (Michael J. Fox look-alike Scott Wolf). Stargate and Firefly alumna Anna (Morena Baccarin) thinks that the press can be manipulated by a pretty face and flattery. In her studies of earth, Anna obviously missed the lesson about our press being impenetrably honest and scrupulously impartial reporters.

Also in the mix are Lost doctor Elizabeth Mitchell as an FBI agent who's skeptical of the V presentation. Her son is the kind of slacker who would have to move out of an Asymmetric household. There's a brother lizard on the inside and a priest.

I liked:

1. One of the first scenes is really quite inspired. Usually, in these invasion movies, you have the military discover a blip on the radar and contact the president who then authorizes an ineffective response. At the beginning of V, we just see the end result- an F-16 fighter crashing into a building and its pilot floating down onto the street.

2. Seeing out-of-work sci-fi stars get a gig.

I didn't like:

1. The teen dumminess and nerd humor (laughing at them).

Overall, worth a second night of watching.

Politics/Message:

During the TV interview with Decker, evil hot lizard-chick, Anna smiles and accuses the reporter of inhibiting "change" and "progress." What kind of progress? Free health care. Decker really perks up at the mere mention of this liberal catnip. For you guys into political allegory:

Obama is a candidate who covers his harmful agenda with his physical attractiveness, smooth words, and grandiose promises (health care); and who intimidates (Fox) or charms (Chris Matthews) the press into giving him positive press coverage. He employs operatives (ACORN) to infiltrate society and enforce a one-world government (like on the V planet). To counter the Vs, earthlings organize into small, underfunded cells (Teabaggers).

The religion aspect is interesting. The priests wonder what the Visitors mean to the faith. The Vatican has spoken on the religious implications of intelligent aliens (without getting too much into it, if aliens have the signs of a soul, being able to distinguish good from evil, they'd have to be evangelized like any other souled being). The movie must have been aware of this statement, as they mention that the aliens are part of God's creation. Anyways, I'm glad they included a positive religious role-model.

The fact that people are positively-inclined towards good-looking people is a good insight.

**update**

I'm no the only one that saw an Obama-V connection.

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

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."

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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Let me get the most troublesome aspects of Star Trek out of the way first:

1. If you remember the original series (TOS), Chekov is a young rookie out of the academy, and one gets the feeling that McCoy and Sulu are of different ages. Captain Pike is barely a little older than Captain Kirk.

In this Star Trek, everybody's about 24, except for Pike who's pushing 55. It's ridiculous.

2. Uhura's character creates massive illogic hurdles. Why is she a lieutenant in TOS and Kirk a captain, a full three grades and 15 years of career higher, if they went to school at the same time? Did Uhura get busted? Are there still remnants of racial prejudice in the future? And, she's from Africa. In the future, do all Africans speak English with a New Jersey accent? I know, but the original Uhura speaks with the careful diction of an English learner.

3. There's the complete impossibility of the whole situation: One ship comes to invade earth and they already have to call in the reserves, from the academy(!)? I don't think that's happened since Southerners left West Point to fight for the Confederacy. Note to Starfleet: increase recruiting budget.

When those cadets get on board the ship, they take over the most important jobs. Was the rest of the crew that awful?

4. I originally thought that what happens to Spock's mom in this Star Trek represents a huge continuity problem, as well as the fact that it's clearly stated in TOS episode "Balance of Terror," that the Federation had never encountered the Romulans; but then I realized that things in Star Trek happen in a different reality (Spock, in his dotage, failed to save the Romulan world from a super nova) so it's OK.

As to the movie itself, only hard-core Trekkies and sticklers for movies making lots of sense will find Star Trek offensive.

In fact, inoffensiveness is Star Trek's greatest attribute.

Gone are the original series' social commentary and psychological themes, a groundbreaking attribute of TOS which I realize becomes somewhat tiresome by its third season. Thus, this Star Trek has no evil corporations, exploitation of alien races, unenlightened war mongers, environmental destruction. There isn't any search for ultimate meaning or any human self-reflection at all. Nobody must "learn to live together." It's a clear good-evil fight. Everything seems right with Starfleet and the future world except for some bitter Romulans.

Plot: Aliens come to destroy the world. Out of control boy finds his true calling. Logical dude learns to let go. That's it. Pretty simple, huh? Nope. There's time travel. Time travel is a heavy sci-fi weapon to wield and one should do so with caution and only in an emergency. Does wanting to create a new series with the original characters, but sans Roddenberrian baggage, qualify? Perhaps.

I found the story boring, but some didn't, judging from the reviews.

The characters are uncomplicated and likable. They're not exactly funny- a lot of the jokes are just allusions to TOS, a common tactic when remaking beloved and quirky TV series; Scooby Doo does the same thing- but they're enthusiastic and easy to watch especially Uhura who rivals her predecessor in ebon hotness.

There it is, then. For better or worse: brisk, not quite MTV, unintellectual, and "fun."

Errata:

They couldn't have made William Shatner a bartender or something?

The Starfleet dress code hasn't changed. That means we still have completely impractical, but morale-boosting mini-skirts.

Politics/Message:

We haven't seen an unrepentant Flint/James Bond-style skirt-chasing bad-boy heterosexual male chauvinist (Starbuck from BSG doesn't count as she may be a girl) in such a long time that James T. Kirk is kind of refreshing.

George "Papa" Kirk is lauded for doing his duty. You can see good bit of dialog on it in the trailer above.

This is the least political Star Trek since "Trouble with Tribbles." They don't try to make any "inevitability arguments" by presenting current cultural issues as long-ago settled examples of past cultural silliness, as TOS does with racism and international conflict, for example. We don't see Sulu marry a guy, for example, even though we know he wants to.

Scooby-Doo (Widescreen Edition)

Star Trek: The Original Series (Remastered) - Three Season Pack

Star Trek Movie Set (The Motion Picture/ The Wrath of Khan/ The Search for Spock/ The Voyage Home/ The Final Frontier/ The Undiscovered Country/ Generations/ First Contact/ Insurrection/ Nemesis)

Cast and Crew below.

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Tags: "gay marriage", "star trek sex", same-sex"

Iron Man was a very good comic book movie. It wasn't, however, because of Terrence Howard; he was a bad sidekick for Robert Downey. How bad? I noticed, that's how bad. I actually said to myself, "Man, Terrence is not a very good sidekick."

So, they're going with an actor with a real personality, Don Cheadle. It was a smart move.

As for Howard refusing to tell us what's going to happen in Iron Man II: Wow, huge loss, Terrence. Let me see if I can guess even without your help: Errr, a bad super hero wants to do something bad and Iron Man tries to stop him. Iron Man wins. The bad guy might or might not get away.

Iron Man (Two-Disc Special Collectors' Edition)