Reviews: A Distant Soil, Elephantmen, and Rocket Girl

Spent all my free time today catching up on news and writing some reviews for Comic World News. A Distant Soil and Elephantmen are both scifi comics, though A Distant Soil reads more like a fantasy and Elephantmen like a noir mystery. Rocket Girl is an indie superhero comic.

Tomorrow I hope to get around to talking about a couple movies I've seen recently: Lost Horizon and Day of the Dolphin.

Comics reviews

I've had a busy morning and it may interfere with Links today, but I'll see if I can get caught up. Also, I'm having to dig out my Phil Jimenez issues of Wonder Woman and remind myself why I quit reading it before I can finish part two of the Wonder Woman article. I'm pretty sure it had to do with Trevor Barnes, but I don't remember if it was a good reason or not. Need to revisit it.

In the meantime, I just posted some genre comics reviews at Comic World News, so please go check those out. I review a mystery/crime comic (The Killer), a fantasy comic (Eberron: Eye of the Wolf), and four scifi comics (Gødland, Retro Rocket, Blind Mice, and Fireblast).

Tarzan Escapes

I liked the first two Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies so much that I was sure I'd also enjoy the third, Tarzan Escapes. Not so much though.

The plot's pretty simple, but that's not the problem. The plots were simple in Tarzan, the Ape Man and Tarzan and His Mate too. In this one, a couple of Jane's cousins have come to the jungle to bring her back to England so she can claim an inheritance that they hope to share. They're not as mercenary as that makes them sound; they really do love Jane. Unfortunately, they hire an unscrupulous guide to help find her, but don't realize that his motivation for doing so is to capture Tarzan and show him off as an exhibition.

There are a couple of cool parts in the film. Tarzan immediately dislikes the guide and there's a nice tension between the two of them through the movie. You get the sense that Tarzan's starting to learn his lesson about civilized folk and their disregard for the jungle. But even better than that is the fancy treehouse that Tarzan and Jane have built. It's very Swiss Family Robinsion, but long before Disney made that film. Putting aside for a second that it means Jane is domesticating Tarzan, it's an undeniably cool place to live.

But I can't leave Tarzan's domestication aside for too long, because that's one of the big problems I have with Tarzan Escapes. The Weissmuller films obviously take a very different approach from the Burroughs novels and that's okay, but I'm starting to not like how they're portraying the Ape Man. It was fine for a while that he could only speak in grunts and monosyllables, but by the time Tarzan Escapes rolls around, he's been with Jane for a while and you'd think that an intelligent person would've picked up more English. He hasn't though, and I'm guessing that he doesn't for the rest of the series.

It makes Tarzan look stupid. Jane talks to him more like a pet or a child than her husband. You never doubt that she loves him or that the jungle is exactly where she wants to be, so it's not like she's being condescending. She genuinely struggles to communicate with him, like she's not sure that he understands. And frankly, neither are we. Tarzan should be a guy who's very presence communicates with you on a primal level and lets you know that you do not want to mess with him. Bad things may happen to him, and it's okay to empathize with him when they do, but he's not supposed to be an object of pity like a defenseless kid who gets picked on at the playground.

Another problem I have with Tarzan Escapes is that they re-use a bunch of footage from Tarzan and His Mate. Not just shots of Tarzan swinging through the jungle or stock footage of animals, but whole battle sequences and fight scenes. You definitely get the idea that MGM realized it had a hit property and figured it could just hack out whatever and still make money. They even frumped up Jane's costume into a one-piece mini-skirt.

At least they spent some dough on the treehouse.

Review: Tarzan and His Mate

I never did come back and post again about Tarzan the Tiger, but that's because my opinion of it never really changed from what it was three episodes in. Except that maybe I appreciated Jane's legs more and more as it went along.

There was one scene where Jane took everything off and went for a swim and even though she was always shot too far away to ogle properly, I found myself wondering how they got away with that in 1929. Naive me, thinking that nudity was some kind of issue in the late '20s/early '30s. I hadn't seen Tarzan and His Mate yet.

I didn't know it going in, but the Jane-swimming-naked scene in Tarzan and His Mate is infamous. According to the IMDb, it was shot three different ways (with Jane fully clothed, topless, and completely naked), but all the versions were originally removed due to pressure from religious groups. Nothing new under the sun, eh? Anyway, the nudie version is what's on DVD, though it's Josephine McKim, an Olympic gold medal swimmer, and not O'Sullivan who's actually in the water.

I like how Tarzan and His Mate is a true sequel to Tarzan, the Ape Man. Another preconceived notion I've had about the Weissmuller films -- probably due to my sporadically catching them out of order on TV over the years -- is that they're purely episodic in nature and don't cross-reference each other. That might be true of the later films (or not), but TaHM picks up where TtAM left off, only a year later. Neil Hamilton (who would later play Commissioner Gordon to Adam West's Batman), Jane's initial love interest in the first movie, has returned to the jungle to collect all that ivory they found last time. And if he can talk Jane into coming back home with him, so much the better. Complicating matters is the fact that he's brought along his major investor, a cold-hearted cad who's sunk all of his finances into the venture and has also taken a shine to Jane. Can't really blame him.

There's a lot to love about this movie. Some of the special effects are unbelievable. I've spent a goodly amount of time trying to figure out how they shot a scene in which a native is killed without actually killing the actor involved. Another scene that I've mostly figured out involves Tarzan's wrestling an enourmous crocodile. I know it's a fake croc, but there are moments in the fight where I honestly couldn't tell how they were doing it. It's as convincing as most modern CGI.

Not that all the effects are awesome. As in the first Weissmuller film, you can still see the trapeze bars that Tarzan uses to swing on, and the Asian elephants they used still have fake ears to make them look African. Some of the animals are obviously fake -- especially a lot of the apes that Tarzan hangs out with -- and there's also a lot of rear screen projection going on. But that's the kind of stuff that I expect from a '30s adventure movie. The fact that they were still able to fool me on a couple of scenes is remarkable.

About the only thing I didn't care for in the movie was Jane's jungle yell. I guess it makes some kind of sense internally to the series that she have one to go along with Tarzan's, but it sounds so shrill and silly that I cringed everytime she used it.

But everything else is great. I even like Cheetah in it, and I've always found her (always thought she was a boy, but not according to Jane in this movie) to be an annoying sidekick, but she's really charming and heroic here. And that final scene! I won't spoil the specifics, but the idea of having ivory poachers battling natives in the midst of a pride of clawing, biting lions is something to make Grant Morrison jealous. Then you add a herd of elephants to the war and my head explodes.

Force 10 from Navarone

I haven't wanted to "watch" Force 10 from Navarone as much as I wanted to gawk at the trainwreck that I knew it must be. It first got my attention by having Harrison Ford in it, but the rest of the cast is mostly made up of '70s "stars" who were all better known for other, particular roles than they were for actual acting talent. Carl Weathers from Rocky is there. Barbara Bach from Caveman and The Spy Who Loved Me is there. Even Richard Kiel, who played Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. All folks who were popular at the time, but who don't exactly scream "quality."

There's also the interview I once read where Harrison Ford admitted that he took his role in Force 10 not because it was a good part or a good story, but because it was a good career move for him. It was the first time he was able to get his name before the film's title in the credits. Purely a career move, and I can't fault him for it, but it didn't bode well that I was going to like the movie.

Surprisingly, it's not all that bad. The worst thing about it is that Carl Weathers' role is forced into the plot for no good reason, but more on that in a minute. The movie is a sequel to The Guns of Navarone (starring Gregory Peck and David Niven) and I was concerned that Force 10 wouldn't have anything to do with Guns outside of trying to capitalize on the name. Fortunately, both films are based on books by Alistair MacLean, so there's continuity between the two. Robert Shaw and Edward Fox take over Peck and Niven's respective roles and the movie becomes sort of "the further adventures of..." with their characters getting a new mission that piggybacks on another Allied mission being executed by a group called Force 10 under Harrison Ford's command.

Carl Weathers is a soldier who gets caught up in the story as he's being escorted to jail by a group of MPs who stumble across Force 10 as they're trying to sneak off on their mission. The MPs misunderstand what's going on and attack the heroes, allowing Carl Weathers to escape and jump on Force 10's plane just as it takes off. It's a silly way to get him involved and then he doesn't really contribute to the story in a meaningful way afterwards. He's there mainly to be racially insulted by the bad guys and to pout about not being treated as an equal with the members of the unit who are, you know, actually supposed to be there. Still, as poorly written as his character is, Carl Weathers is a charismatic guy and I always like seeing him on screen.

Harrison Ford is great as the no-nonsense leader who may not exactly lighten up by the end of the movie, but does find new respect for Shaw and Fox's characters whom he thinks have been forced on him. Shaw and Fox are the real heroes of the movie though, even if they're not the biggest stars. Fox is no David Niven, but he's got his own easy charm and I liked him in the role. Shaw was the big surprise though. Mainly because I didn't recognize him at first.

Even though I sort of had to grimace and bear through the parts of the movie with Richard Kiel (one of the worst Bond villains ever), that's balanced out by the fact that Robert Shaw played one of the best Bond villains ever, the assassin Grant in From Russia with Love (not to mention Quint in Jaws). I caught on to it about five minutes before the end of the movie (he's heavier and less blonde than he was as Grant, and cleaner than Quint) and it made me want to watch it all over again.

Which is something that I never thought I'd want to do going into it.

Bride of the Monster

So, Glen or Glenda made me feel sorry for Ed Wood. At least for the character of Ed Wood in the Tim Burton movie. In that sense, it made me appreciate the movie even more than I already did for its general campiness.

Bride of the Monster, on the other hand, got me curious about something. There's a memorable scene in Ed Wood where Ed's filming Bride of the Monster and is shouting directions at Bela Lugosi through a megaphone. Bela's coming into a hallway from a door on one side and has to exit through a door on the other. Wood's directions are basically something like, "You leave the laboratory. You're sad that the experiment isn't working. No, no. Not that sad. You must get through that door." Then Tor Johnson -- playing a guy named Lobo -- has to do the same thing and Wood repeats the same directions verbatim. Tor bumps into the wall as he goes through the second door and shakes the whole set, but when the cameraman asks if they should reshoot it, Wood replies, "No, it's fine. It's real. You know, in actuality, Lobo would have to struggle with this problem every day."

It's a hilarious scene that really emphasizes what a sloppy director Wood was. The only problem is that the scene they were shooting doesn't appear in Bride of the Monster. Not unless I fell asleep and don't remember, because I kept waiting for it and it never happened.

That got me wondering about other inaccuracies in Ed Wood, so I checked Wikipedia and it turns out there were a bunch. And some a lot more significant than just making up scenes that didn't exist. For example, one of the most touching moments in Ed Wood is when the hospital kicks Lugosi out of rehab for not having any insurance. According to Wikipedia, Lugosi "made a full recovery and newsreel footage exists of him leaving under his own power." Apparently Lugosi's funeral was a lot better attended than Ed Wood depicts it as well. "Lugosi's funeral was well-attended by his family and numerous fellow film stars, including Boris Karloff (whom Lugosi did not actually hate) and Peter Lorre, who said to Vincent Price (also in attendance) as they stood looking at Lugosi's body in his famous Dracula cape, 'Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?'"

So, digging into Bride of the Monster has made me a little disappointed about being manipulated by Burton's film. I prefer pretending that everything I see in biopics is exactly how it happened in real life.

As far as the quality of Bride of Monster goes: yeah, that octopus was hilariously awful. Whether it was just sitting there, supposedly looking menacing, like the rubber prop that it was, or having its arms manipulated by whatever actor it was supposed to be attacking, it stunk. Other than that though, it wasn't any worse than Lugosi's earlier, non-Wood, low-budget horror films. I'd put it above, say, The Corpse Vanishes. Lugosi is wonderfully campy in it and the rest of the cast do as well as should be expected for actors of their caliber. The lab set is ridiculous with its flatly painted-on stone wall -- and of course, there's that octopus -- but if you have any tolerance at all for cheesy, old horror movies, Bride of the Monster is worth watching for Lugosi alone.

Glen or Glenda

I guess it's just time to clear away a lot of movie-watching experiments that I've been meaning to get to for a while. Blame Netflix. They just make it so easy.

Now that I've got the Star Wars marathon out of the way, I'm onto something that I've wanted to do ever since seeing Ed Wood for the first time in the theater. Being a big fan of both Johnny Depp and Bela Lugosi, I loved Ed Wood, but I always felt like I was missing out on something because I'm not familiar with the actual films of Edward D. Wood, Jr. So, I've been wanting to watch the Ed Wood DVD and whenever it gets to the point where he releases a film, stop the DVD and then watch the actual Wood film.

Yes, it's an incredibly geeky thing to do, but admit it -- you think it's kind of a cool idea.

There are three films that Ed Wood talks about: Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Atom (aka Bride of the Monster), and Plan 9 from Outer Space. Last night we (my wife and I) watched the first part of Ed Wood and Glen or Glenda. In Ed Wood the producer of Glen or Glenda calls it a "stink bomb." He's absolutely right.

Forget about the fact that it's overly-serious and preachy as all get out about the plight of transvestites. Forget the stupid symbolism like when Glen/Glenda's girlfriend is pinned beneath a tree that represents the burden of knowing Glen's secret and Glen, not Glenda, is the only one able to lift the burden off of her. Forget the completely unnecessary use of Bela Lugosi as a mad-scientist-like puppet master who serves as one of the film's three narrators (actually, that bit is the best part of the film thanks to Lugosi's classic line, "Pull the string!"). Forget the overly long use of stock footage, like when a transvestite enlists in the military and we're treated to several, dialogue-less minutes of shots depicting military personnel shooting cannons and stuff. Forget about all that.

What I can't forget about, because I'm still trying to get my mind around it, is the buffalo imagery and Lugosi's creepy viewing of S&M/rape flicks and striptease images (which he follows up by looking straight into the camera with a "See? I told you so" expression as if I'm supposed to have understood any of what I've just seen, much less agree with the film's point in showing it to me).

What's truly sad about Glen or Glenda, if Ed Wood is right about the back-story, is that it was supposed to be a deeply personal movie for Wood, who was a transvestite himself. He was fiercely proud of the movie and really thought that he was showing society something that would change its opinion of cross-dressers and transsexuals. Knowing that, and actually seeing the stink bomb that he made, makes the character that much more sympathetic to me.

I think I'm going to enjoy this experiment.

Soon he's gonna be a Jedi

I didn't mention it before, but my recent re-watching of The Phantom Menace was to kick off something that I'm sure all real Star Wars fans have done a long time ago: watching all six movies (plus the Clone Wars cartoons) back-to-back in chronological order. I've put off doing it for reasons that would bore you, but finally decided it was time.

I was surprised by a couple of things during the experience, especially once I got to the original trilogy (which I hadn't watched since the first time I saw Phantom Menace). Seeing Star Wars so soon after watching Revenge of the Sith made seeing Vader for the first time in Star Wars even more of a thrill than it usually was. I tried watching the original trilogy as if I'd never seen them before and I found myself looking more forward to the Vader scenes than usual. As flawed as they are in some points, the prequels did a nice job of investing me in the Anakin character. (I've never been one to criticize Hayden Christensen's performances as Anakin. I blame any weakness there on the script and directing. He's actually got some very nice moments as an actor.)

When Leia meets Vader for the first time in Star Wars I got another little thrill. "Oooh, that's your daughter and you don't even know it!"

I was also surprised at how easily explainable most of the inconsistencies are between the films. I'm not the kind of guy who needs for everything in serialized fiction to perfectly jive with everything else. I know that inconsistencies occur, and rather than get bent out of shape over them, I find it more fun to try to figure out plausible explanations on my own. For example, Artoo's leg-rockets that he uses all the time in Clones and Sith never get used in the last three episodes. I was actually looking pretty closely for times when they might have come in handy and didn't see any occasions in which they would've made a crucial difference in the story. In other words, he never really needed to use them, so maybe he just chose not too. Another explanation though is that both Artoo and Threepio are considerably worse for wear in Star Wars than they were at the end of Sith, so maybe the leg-rockets were destroyed or disabled at some point between the two. (Speaking of the droids, by the way, I love the fact that having them finish Sith and start Star Wars in the service of Captain Antilles takes that horrible Droids cartoon from the '80s and the just-as-silly Dark Horse comics that followed right out of the canon.)

I won't go into every apparent inconsistency -- because it's clear that Lucas made most of this up as he went along and there are a lot of inconsistencies -- but another explainable one is the conversation that Luke and Leia have in Jedi about their mother. Luke says he has no recollection of her, but Leia claims to have a general impression of what Padme was like. My theory is that Bail Organa and his wife were able to tell Leia stories about Padme that influenced Leia's childhood memories of her mom, whereas Owen and Beru wouldn't have been able to do the same for Luke.

Some of Obi Wan's references in Empire and Jedi to being trained by Yoda are hard to explain knowing that he never actually was directly trained by Yoda, but borrowing his "certain point of view" logic I can let that slide. Obi Wan obviously just likes to tweak facts in order to simplify whatever story he's telling.

Other things I noticed watching the films this way:

The duel between Vader and Obi Wan in Star Wars was much more powerful this time. As I watched it, I was reminded of their duel in Sith and I was able to feel a lot of latent anger and released frustration in Vader. Also, knowing that Obi Wan had learned about the Jedi afterlife from Qui Gon while on Tatooine made Obi Wan's "if you strike me down" claim make a lot more sense.

I like how you never hear Boba Fett's name in Empire, especially since he looks so much like Jango Fett from Clones. If you were watching these without any outside knowledge of the characters, you'd suspect that there might be a connection between Jango and this new "bounty hunter," but you wouldn't know for sure until Jedi. Unfortunately, the revelation of his name comes just seconds before he's anti-climatically killed.

As I expected, the scene where Vader tells Luke about their relationship loses a lot of power if you've seen the prequels. But there's still something important happening there as Vader suggests that he and Luke overthrow the Emperor. Before seeing the prequels, I thought it was possible that Vader was just lying about his goals in order to seduce Luke to the Dark Side. Now, seeing how conflicted Anakin was about joining Palpatine in the first place, I'm pretty certain that he meant what he said.

I love how every time I look at the Emperor now, I remember that it was Samuel L. Jackson who gave him that face.

The scene where Luke tells Leia that she's his sister is still the clunkiest, worst written and acted scene in the history of cinema.

I'll finish up with a word about tinkering. I've never blamed Lucas for wanting to mess around with and adjust the movies. With the exception of Greedo's shooting first, I've agreed with the changes Lucas made. I wasn't sure, though, when I started out on this little experiment, how I was going to feel about Lucas' putting Hayden Christensen in at the end of Jedi with Yoda and Obi Wan. Part of me just felt like enough was enough and that Lucas should just leave it alone. I was totally wrong though.

Putting young Anakin in was absolutely the right thing to do. With no disrespect to Sebastian Shaw (who played "Old Anakin"), that final scene in Jedi is infinitely more powerful seeing the now-familiar, young Anakin standing there, almost sheepishly, as if the character knows he's not really worthy, beside Yoda and Obi Wan. It's a beautiful, satisfying moment.

It was also satisfying to see Naboo added in to the montage of planets celebrating the Emperor's defeat.

And, was it my imagination, or was Temuera Morrison's (Jango Fett) voice dubbed in for Boba's voice in Empire? And the Emperor in Empire sounded a lot like Ian McDiarmid. Did they dub him in too, or do McDiarmid and Clive Revill (the original voice of the Emperor in Empire) just sound a lot alike?

Anyway, I like the tinkering (again, with the exception of Greedo's shot, but I can just blink during that scene and pretend that it never happened). I'm irritated by the complaining I've heard from fans about how certain actors' performances weren't used or were wiped out because of Lucas' changes. As if Lucas somehow owes these actors something.

I saw an interview with Johnny Depp once in which he claimed that there are many of his movies that he's never seen. The reason is that Depp understands his role in the making of a film. He's an actor, one contributor to a project that's got a lot of other contributors. He's hired to play a character and that's his one and only contribution to the film. If he starts thinking of himself as more than that, as if his contribution somehow entitles him to more than a paycheck, he'd go nuts the same way that these fans are going nuts. If he's worried about how his performance is going to be used in the final product, better to just not see it than obsess over what should've been done differently.

My point here is that Lucas hired a bunch of different people to play different aspects of Boba Fett, the Emperor, and Anakin/Vader. He paid those folks for their performances and he should be able to use or discard or change around whatever pieces of those performances that he likes. He doesn't owe any of those actors anything and the professionals among them would agree.

One last thing that watching all these movies together did was to reignite my interest in reading Star Wars novels and comics. I really do love the Star Wars universe and would love to spend more time in it. Unfortunately, I don't have time to do that and also read anything else in my life ever again (something that the publishers of Star Wars literature have very carefully seen to), so I'm just going to ignore the urge until it goes away.

My my, this here Anakin guy

I re-watched Phantom Menace last week and realized what it's big problem is. And no, it's not Jar Jar.

I love Phantom Menace. The coolness of Qui-Gon, Obi Wan, and Darth Maul more than make up for Jar Jar (though I'm nowhere near as annoyed by him as popular opinion is) and the unevenness in the acting of Jake Lloyd, and the special effects and art direction are amazing. It feels like a Star Wars movie, and that's the most important thing to me. Still, I've always found watching it to be a vaguely unsatisfying experience.

Some have questioned what the movie is really about. "A trade dispute?" they ask. "Really?" Well, no. Of course not. That would be boring. The movie's not about the trade dispute. That's like saying that Casablanca is about exit visas or that Pulp Fiction is about Marsellus Wallace's briefcase. Those are just the things that keep the story moving. But the fact that people have to ask what Phantom Menace is about is its major flaw, I think. Because really, just from watching the movie, it's not very clear.

Star Wars (I'm too old and stubborn to refer to the first film as A New Hope) is clearly about Luke Skywalker's leaving his old, boring life behind and setting out to become a hero. But in Phantom Menace, it's a little more difficult to see who the main character is. Obi Wan is the only character who appears throughout the entire movie, but it's really not about him. He's just there to support the other characters who do all the real work, and to be there at the end to pick up for Qui Gon. He doesn't go through any significant change during the movie. Qui Gon's an even less likely candidate since he starts off the movie being perfect and, well, we know he ends up.

The real hero of the film is Amidala. The trade embargo is all about harming Naboo, and Amidala represents Naboo. Several times during the film she makes statements to that effect. "I will not condone a course of action that will lead us to war." "I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee." That kind of thing. The liberation of Naboo (and so, Amidala), almost entirely through Amidala's actions, is the movie's real plot. Unfortunately, we don't learn anything about Amidala in the film. She spends all but the final third of the movie in disguise (for reasons that -- let's face it -- are a little vague and weird), so we don't get to know her as a character. In fact, that's a major problem with all three prequels. We get that Amidala is a great lady and we want to know her better, but regretably, we never really figure out what makes her tick. So, as integral as she is to what's going on in Phantom Menace, it's not her story either.

It takes George Lucas' explaining it to figure it out, and it's never a good thing when an author has to step out of the story to explain a major point to his audience. Lucas has told us for years that the prequels -- heck, the whole series of movies -- is Anakin's story. And it fits that he's the central figure of Phantom Menace. It's the story of not only Naboo's liberation from the Trade Federation, but of Anakin's from slavery on Tatooine. And his liberation is largely due to his own actions, so he's also a hero (though his heroism saves only himself and not a whole planet like Amidala). It's his idea to help Qui Gon and company to leave Tatooine, and obviously it's his use of the Force that not only motivates Qui Gon's interest in him, but also wins the pod race and provide the means of everyone's escape.

The problem is that we don't meet Anakin until halfway through the movie. We do get to know him better than we do Amidala, but if it's Anakin's story, what's with all this prologue stuff about the Federation and Naboo? No wonder people lose sight of the movie's point and have to wonder what it's about. Rather than start the movie focused on Qui Gon and Obi Wan, from a storytelling perspective, wouldn't it have been better to spend that time on Anakin?

Or, better yet, spend it on Amidala. Let us see why she cares so much for her people. Let us see why it's a good idea to spend so much time in disguise while a decoy does your talking for you. Let us see why she would have a soft spot for a kid like Anakin.

Either of those would've been better choices than what the movie actually does. By focusing on Qui Gon and Obi Wan, the movie's main heroes -- Amidala and Anakin -- become mystery characters that we have to figure out along with the Jedi. Lucas builds his whole story around supporting, peripheral characters and that' s Phantom Menace's big flaw. It's like telling the story of Rocky entirely from Paulie's perspective, or focusing The Godfather on Tom Hagen.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a cool movie. I'm glad to have been able to see Qui Gon and Obi Wan whup up on as many droids as I did. But, unlike a couple of the other Star Wars films, it still leaves me feeling a little empty inside and this is why I think that is.

Review: Spy Kids movies

I'm really in the mood for some crazy spy stuff lately. Casino Royale totally fixed everything that's been wrong with the James Bond franchise because it brought the movies into alignment with my beloved Fleming books. But it also means that there's a hole that needs filling. There's a place in this world for over-the-top, wanna be world-conquerors, scantily clad vixens, impossible gadgets, and mind-blowing stunts. I don't want Bond movies to be that place, but I certainly want those things to exist somewhere.

The Spy Kids movies make a good go at filling that void. They're family movies, so forget the scantily clad vixens (Carla Gugino is gorgeous, but unfortunately, no bikini), and the stunts are all CGI, so don't expect too much there, but there are gadgets and over-the-top villains galore and it's been a long time since I've seen such sheer imagination thrown up on a movie screen. Whether it's Alan Cumming as the Willy Wonka-like host of a children's TV show or Steve Buscemi on a mysterious, Ray Harryhausen-inspired island or Sylvester Stallone playing four different roles -- all in desperate need of a hug from Ricardo Montalban -- Robert Rodriguez tosses influences and ideas into the films like a crazy man. And that's a good thing, by the way.

The movies really do need to be seen in order though. My pal Dave saw just the last one and didn't care for it, but I really think that's because he didn't know what to expect. Out of context, it does feel like a lame video-game rip-off, but when you know what Rodriguez did with the first two movies, the third one fits in perfectly as yet another celebration of everything that makes us smile.

Review: The Dust Factory

I don't remember why I had The Dust Factory in my queue. It's about a kid named Ryan who falls off a bridge and drowns and finds himself transported to a sort of limbo world (the titular "Dust Factory") between life and death. Maybe it was the fantasy world that originally attracted me; I don't know.

Whatever it was, it unfortunately didn't connect with me when I actually saw the movie. The movie is about grief and it's very possible that I didn't get it because I haven't yet lost anyone really close to me. Ryan hasn't spoken since witnessing the accident that killed his father, so he's profoundly affected by that loss. His grandmother (to whom he was also close) has also recently died, but his grandfather -- who has Alzheimer's -- doesn't even seem to realize it. His mom is sensitive to her son's feelings, but she's remarried, so there might be some feelings of betrayal going on in this kid too, which would represent yet another kind of loss. Writer/director Eric Small obviously put a lot of thought into this theme.

Where the movie loses me is when Ryan arrives in the Dust Factory. It's a beautiful, quiet place that looks just like the world did when Ryan left it. His grandfather is there, and since he doesn't suffer Alzheimer's in the Dust Factory, he and Ryan are able to communicate and form a relationship for the first time. There's also a young girl named Melanie (played by Hayden Panettiere, the cheerleader from Heroes, even more under-aged here) who's been in the Dust Factory for a while and refuses to move on. People who tire of life in the Dust Factory are given the chance to go to a circus Big Top and try to complete a routine on the flying trapeze. If they complete it, they die permanently and are sent to the afterlife (the movie wisely never tries to explain what that is), but if they fall, they hit the floor in a cloud of dust and are sent back to the world of the living. Melanie is afraid of even trying and her distrust of the process rubs off on Ryan. And I guess that's what really has me scratching my head.

The Dust Factory is a beautiful place, but it's also a lonely one. Especially for Melanie before Ryan showed up. What's keeping her there? Since the afterlife is never defined, maybe it's a fear of the unknown. If you complete the trapeze routine, do you go to heaven, or hell? Or do you just cease to exist? I suppose those questions might keep someone off the trapeze bars. Or maybe it's fear of that fall that sends you back to the living. No one who takes that fall ever screams or seems to be in pain, but it's still got to be a pretty terrifying drop.

The thing is that Melanie never explains her anxiety about the process and Ryan buys into it unquestioningly. Maybe that's to make us think and ask the very questions that I'm asking here. I buy that explanation just because it's so apparent that Small didn't write this thing in a hurry. Everything seems deliberate, even if I'm not picking up on all the details. So, maybe my real problem is that I saw a movie that starred a couple of young teens and immediately expected something light and fluffy and easily explained, instead of the dark, complicated movie that The Dust Factory really is.

I'm still not saying that I liked it, but I'm also not willing to say it isn't good. It is a good film; just not what I expected or wanted. A second viewing might increase my appreciation for it.

Bored of Shannara

I didn't need to invoke the 100-page Rule on Terry Brooks' Armageddon's Children. I knew by Page 50 that I wasn't going to make it.

Even though it was a rip-off of Lord of the Rings, I enjoyed Brooks' Sword of Shannara in the '70s. The sequel, The Elfstones of Shannara, was even better because it was an original story. I somehow got distracted and never finished the third book, Wishsong of Shannara, but I didn't blame it on the book. In fact, I remember being especially intrigued by one of the characters.

I missed the whole Heritage of Shannara series because I always wanted to finish Wishsong first and felt that it might be a good idea to revisit Sword and Elfstones before doing that, only now I was talking about a commitment and there was just too much else I wanted to read.

When First King of Shannara came out, the prequel to Sword, I read it because I didn't have to remember anything that came before it. I liked it and especially enjoyed tying together the threads between it and Sword.

Then Brooks came out with this new series, The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, and I figured that it was finally time to plow through the whole series once and for all. Only, me being me, I decided to start from the chronological beginning and read First King again, then Sword, etc. And my problem was that I kept getting bogged down in the first few chapters of First King.

I hadn't noticed it before, but Brooks fills page after page with nothing but exposition about what's been happening in the world to get you to the point where First King begins. It's tedious reading and I kept giving up. When I heard that he was going to write a prequel series that comes before even First King, I decided that that would be my chance to dig into the series again. After all, this new prequel series promised to bridge the gap between our real world and the fantastic future described in the Shannara books. It would be a great jump-on point and I could let the momentum from enjoying that series push me through the boring parts of First King and on into the more exciting parts of the series.

The problem is that Armageddon's Children, the first book of the prequel series, doesn't begin in any kind of recognizable world at all. Yeah, the city names are familiar, but technology has already crossed over into sci-fi territory, demons and other creatures have already invaded the world, a mysterious "Lady" has already recruited a scattered group of "Knights" to protect the Earth, and a supernatural Messiah has already been born. And how do we know all this? Page after exposition-filled page.

It's the oldest rule in the Writer's Manual: Show, Don't Tell. I'm interested in the demons and the lady and the Messiah and all of that, but I want to see them introduced into the narrative as it happens, not just matter-of-factly be told about it long afterwards. Brooks started his story in the wrong place and it makes me feel like I'm still not getting the whole picture; like there's yet another prequel that I'm going to eventually need to read. And I'm not up for that.

Review: Interstate 60

So, you take Bob Gale, writer and producer of the Back to the Future movies, and turn him loose writing and directing a film that stars James Marsden (Cyclops in the X-Men movies; Superman Returns) and Gary Oldman with cameos by folks like Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Kurt Russell, Chris Cooper, Ann-Margret, and a couple of gals from Felicity (Amy Jo Johnson and Amy Smart). You're golden, right?

Right.

Especially when the movie is a road flick about a young man named Neal (Marsden) who really needs some direction in his life and how a North American wish-fulfillment legend/trickster hero (Oldman) screws around with him enough to give him some. With the aid of a truly magic 8-ball and a hot set of wheels that he doesn't even want, Neal takes off in search of Interstate 60, a highway that doesn't appear on any map and goes to places that no one's ever heard of before. In one town, highly addictive drugs are not only legal, they're distributed by the police so that after partying all night the junkies provide menial labor for the clean, crime-free town. In another place, every citizen is a lawyer and all of the gas stations and grocery stores are operated by passers-through who've been held prisoner by endless strings of frivolous lawsuits. Chris Cooper plays a hitchhiker who insists on employing (complete with contract) the drivers who pick him up.

It's a zany movie with tons of great ideas, but the real beauty of it is that they all work together to teach Neal something by the end. It's light-hearted, not preachy, but it has a point. Though that's just icing on the cake of another movie in which you get to see Gary Oldman completely and brilliantly disappear into yet another role.

Review: Timeline

After the disappointing Sound of Thunder, I was prepared for Timeline -- another time travel movie -- to be pretty bad too. Not so much, though.

There've really only been two time travel movies that I've liked: The Terminator and Back to the Future. Outside of those, figuring out alternate timelines and resolving paradoxes and keeping track of all the rules that scifi writers create to do those things just makes my brain hurt. Fortunately, Timeline -- like Sound of Thunder -- is more of an adventure story than real scifi. It surpasses Sound of Thunder though by trading in bad CGI for believable characters. A group of time traveling archeologists go back to the Middle Ages, get stuck there, and have to figure out a way home without getting killed by either the French or English armies that are battling in the past over a castle.

The time travel technology is unimaginative and hokey, and there's a lame subplot about an "evil" scientist who's really much more lazy than wicked, but the medieval scenes are convincing and everyone does a nice job of helping us to care about the travelers who get stuck there. It's kind of like watching a time-travel episode of your favorite scifi TV show, only you're not sure who's going to make it out of the past alive and who's not.

Not that it's completely unpredictable though. When the archeologists are studying the castle/battleground in the present and uncover a husband-and-wife tomb, they wonder about the story behind the couple. Not only are you sure that the couple's story will be told once the archeologists go back in time, you're fairly certain that one of them will be intimately involved in it. After all, you've seen at least one time travel movie in your life already, right?

So, the movie has no big surprises and doesn't add anything meaningful to time-travel theories. It's just a fast-paced, entertaining adventure story, and viewed as such, it succeeds. I bought into the various relationships and really wanted to see the characters make it back to their own time.

Review: A Sound of Thunder

You might expect that a movie based on a Ray Bradbury short story might not live up to its source material. But if it's got a gun-toting, chiseled hero leading an expedition across a futuristic, jungle-covered city that's inhabited by sea serpents, giant bats, and baboonosaurs... well, that's got to be awesome, right?

Not so much.

I've never read Bradbury's original version of "A Sound of Thunder," but I've read comics adaptations of it, so I'm familiar with what happens. Even though Bradbury's story says that changing history by altering the past can't be undone, I figured that the movie would mostly be about just that. And that's okay. Really, Bradbury's story makes its point and then just ends at a rather unsatisfying place, so I've got no problem with the idea of continuing from there and having the heroes try to fix things. Especially if doing so involves futuristic, jungle-covered cities and baboonosaurs.

Unfortunately, the special effects in the film version of A Sound of Thunder are beneath bad and into "laughable" territory. The dinosaur in the prehistoric sequences looks like it was created for a video game, and the blue screen work -- which puts the characters into the setting of futuristic Chicago -- is ridiculous. Thanks to flat imagery and goofy lighting, you never for a second believe that the characters actually inhabit the backgrounds in the exterior shots of the city. There are even a couple of shots of characters walking through the city where the actors are very clearly walking in place as the scenery moves past behind them. The baboonosaurs and other monsters are all well-designed, but no more realistic than the prehistoric dinosaur.

The acting by the main cast is absolutely fine (I mean, it's got Ben Kingsley in it, for goodness sake, and Jemima Rooper from Hex), but I actually gasped at how poorly some of the bit part actors delivered their lines.

It's a shame, because this could've been a fun, simple, adventure movie, even if it wasn't an intelligent adaptation of Bradbury's story. Glaring parts of it are so amateurish though, that I was never able to just sit back and enjoy the cheese.

Review: Constantine

Being a Hellblazer fan, I resisted seeing Constantine for a long, long time. Pretty much universal consensus among other Hellblazer fans (who were masochistically more willing to take a chance on it than I was) though was that if you watch it not as a Hellblazer movie, but as a generic monster-hunter movie, it's pretty good. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that.

I tried, but the problem is that the movie actually gets pretty close to the comic in some key places. Setting aside the fact that he's American and has dark hair, Keanu Reeves actually makes a pretty good John Constantine. The attitude, the way he carries himself, the way he lights a cigarette... the character is there and intact. Contrary to some early, troubling production art that got passed around the Internet, there is no Constantinemobile and John doesn't drive at all. And, like in the comic, he's taxied around by a cabbie named Chaz (although the movie version is a much more enthusiastic sidekick than the comics version. There's also an attempt to work in Garth Ennis' famous "Dangerous Habits" storyline.

So, as I'm watching the movie, trying to pretend it's about someone else, I keep getting reminded that, no, this is a Hellblazer adaptation. To judge it purely as something else would mean that I'd have to ignore some things I liked about it, like how Keanu lights a cigarette. But if I let myself count those things into my final estimation, I also have to count stuff that I didn't like, like the crucifix-gun, the magic tatoos, and John's switching to gum.

And seriously, I doubt I'd have liked the crucifix-gun no matter what the name was of the guy carrying it. Really, Constantine is a pretty average monster-hunter flick with decent special effects. It's only in comparison with Hellblazer fans' original expectations of it that it looks good.

Night Watch

I finally saw Night Watch. I couldn't remember why I originally wanted to see it until I went back and read an old blog entry about it, but it turns out, it was everything I hoped for.

Dark? Check. Creepy? Check. Adventure-oriented? Check. Artistic? Double-check.

Everything about the movie is artfully done, even the sub-titles (it's a Russian movie). The sub-titles are actually part of the movie. They appear and disappear around the actors and change style depending on how they're used. If characters are using a computer while talking, the sub-titles take the appearance of text being added to a computer screen, complete with cursor. When a character screams in protest of something he sees happening, the English words "NO!" and "Stop!" literally fly out of him. When a vampire summons her victim from across the city, her whispered words appear in red and almost immediately dissipate, like blooddrops in water.

I mean, really, the movie's worth seeing just for the sub-titles. But it's also worth seeing for other reasons. It's very different from most movies that deal with vampires. In fact, it's not a horror movie at all. More of a fantasy. The vampires are just one of many supernatural creatures (called "Others") in the story. The plot revolves heavily around them, but it could have easily been another kind of creature. There are also witches, psychics, and were-creatures in the film, all choosing either the side of Good/Light (the Night Watch) or Evil/Darkness (the Day Watch).

What's cool is that people from opposite sides don't necessarily hate each other. They're less warriors than rivals. Light Others can live in peace in apartments across the hall from Dark Others, and the leaders of the two groups may not hang out together, but one can safely lounge in the office of the other without any apparent animosity.

Unfortunately, the rivalry is about to get more serious because a prophecy about a powerful, balance-upsetting Other seems to be coming true. That's the plot of Night Watch: each side trying to find this special Other and coerce him or her into joining their team. It's the first of a planned trilogy and it ends like one. Not like Star Wars, where you could really either stop or keep going without any difference. Like Fellowship of the Ring, where you have to keep going to see what's coming up next.

The critics were pretty divided about this movie, so your mileage may vary, but I found Night Watch to be a snazzy, fast-paced, visually beautiful, artistic, fun, exciting movie, and I'm definitely going to keep watching to see what happens.

Revisiting Casino Royale

I went to see Casino Royale again last night. It's still perfect.

I bring it up only because I've been wanting to share Steven Barnes' review of it with you, and this is a good excuse.

Barnes gives labels to the two types of Bond fans that I've long known existed, but have never thought to name. "Serious" Bond fans -- like me -- usually have read the Fleming novels, prefer Doctor No and From Russia with Love to Goldfinger, and have a higher tolerance for Timothy Dalton than the other group. "Escapist" Bond fans, by far the majority of people I've met, dig Roger Moore (though usually not as much as Connery) and relish all the gadgets, one-liners, and over-the-top plots that the movies have come to be known for. Neither group is better than the other, but it's important to realize that both come to Bond movies looking for different things.

Escapist fans acknowledge that Bond may be a chauvanist or misogynist. Serious fans, as Barnes points out, know that he's really a borderline sociopathic misanthrope, "smoking and drinking himself into the grave, balancing on the edge of breakdown, capable of being wired together for one more assignment… maybe." Barnes also notes that Casino Royale is the first time we've ever seen that Bond, and that -- as justifiably revered as Sean Connery is -- he may have just been ousted from his throne as Greatest Bond of All Time:

"Connery wasn’t a great actor when he started the series. He never became a great actor, although he is a great star of fantastic virility and charisma. But Acting? Check him out in Diamonds Are Forever’s opening sequence, when he is pursuing the man who killed his dearest love. Does anyone believe the emotions displayed, even for a moment?"

Barnes calls Daniel Craig "the best actor ever to play the role" and I don't disagree. That takes nothing away from the joy of watching Connery's charisma and physicality in the part, it just means that we're on a whole, other level now.

Anyway, read all of Barnes' review. He's dead on.

Review: The Brothers Grimm

As I was watching The Brothers Grimm, I developed a theory that maybe I don't like Terry Gilliam movies as much as I think I do. Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, and now The Brothers Grimm are all visually wonderful movies that I feel like I should love and want to watch over and over again, but I don't.

What lets all the air out of that theory is the existence of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Time Bandits, and Twelve Monkeys; all movies that I do love and want to watch over and over again.

So it's not inherently Gilliam that I'm not connecting with, but I'm having a hard time deciding what it is about The Brothers Grimm that leaves me so unaffected. It's a vast improvement over the similarly themed Van Helsing, but that's not a very big compliment. Van Helsing made me cringe; Grimm just makes me shrug.

It's not Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Those guys are both excellent actors and I'll watch pretty much anything that either one of them does. Ledger is especially good here in a role that's as much a surprise for him as Brad Pitt's was in Twelve Monkeys.

It's certainly not Monica Bellucci as the wicked Queen that bothered me. Yowza. I actually sorta found myself rooting for her a couple of times out of sheer enchantment.

It's not even the story itself that I dislike. The concept is a pretty good one: the Grimm brothers are a pair of travelling con men who prey on village superstitions in order to make money. They come into a town that's rumored to cursed by this ghost or that witch; perform an impressive, but fake exorcism; then scoot before anyone's the wiser. Wilhelm (Matt Damon) is completely pragmatic about their job and doesn't believe that spirits actually exist. Jacob (Heath Ledger), on the other hand, desperately wants to believe that he's part of a larger story involving the supernatural. That difference in worldview puts them in conflict with each other (though the movie unfortunately waits longer than it should to reveal it), especially since Jacob's "naivety" once cost them the life of their sister.

I put "naivety" in quotes, because of course Jacob's not naïve. When the brothers are captured by Napolean's invasion army and forced to put a stop to a series of kidnappings in a nearby village, they soon realize that something very spooky and real is going on. There's also a subplot in which the brothers find themselves rivals for the affection of one of the village girls (Lena Headey).

There's enough going on and enough dramatic conflict that The Brothers Grimm could've been a solid movie. None of the conflict is particularly inspired, but the right dialogue could've made it interesting. Unfortunately, that never happens and we get an X-Files-derived, but otherwise generic, romantic comedy. Although -- it can't be said too often -- a gorgeous one.

Even the fairy tale elements -- things that happen in the village that will supposedly one day inspire the brothers' stories -- fail to live up to the potential of the idea. One of the kidnapping victims happens to wear a little, red, riding cloak. Another, named Greta, gets lost in the woods with her brother Hans, in spite of having left a trail of bread crumbs. Another girl is sucked into a mud-creature of some kind, which then flattens itself and inexplicably refers to itself as a "gingerbread man." An enchanted woodsman turns -- again, without explanation -- into a wolf. It all seems very forced, as if the idea to have the brothers' tales be inspired by their adventure in the village was a late suggestion. The exceptions to that are the Queen, who has elements of Snow White and Rapunzel that make sense in her story, and a clever bit that humorously gives a possible real-world explanation for the Frog Prince story.

One last gripe I have is about the character of Cavaldi (Peter Stormare), an Italian torturer who's sent along to keep an eye on the brothers and make sure that they fulfill their obligation to Napolean's army. His accent is mostly indecipherable and he's sadistic to the point of ridiculousness, right up until the point where the plot requires him to suddenly change his personality so that he wants to help the brothers rather than menace them.

Still, the movie looks great and any imagination lacking in the script has been poured ten-fold into the visuals. Gilliam's created an enchanted place that's worthy of fairy tales. It's just maddeningly unfortunate that the story told there isn't worthy of the setting.

Salome: REVELATIONS III

I'm having a hard time getting back into the groove, I guess. I'm a couple of weeks behind on my Pop Thought column and I still haven't finished the book I'm reading to review for CWN. Finally got an analysis posted of Revelations Episode Three.

I did get my Eisner and Harvey ballots off in the mail though and I'm almost done reading the huge pile of comics for this week's Pull List, so I'm doing stuff. Need to figure out what I'm going to say at The Great Curve this week though.