Kick-Ass

So I saw Kick-Ass, because I can identify with a geeky high school kid who wants to be cool, as, I am sure, many people can. Also, you have to respect a filmmaker and studio who name their movie "Kick-Ass." That takes a certain amount of chutzpah.

The buzz on this movie has been very good. I am pleased to report that the buzz is deserved. This movie does, in fact, kick ass. There are good movies. There are great movies. Then there are movies which change film. This movie will change film. It will be one of those movies which become part of the cultural consciousness.

There are many movies based on comic books, as this one is (the movie and comic book were developed in tandem). Most of them feature a male superhero. Occasionally there is a female superhero. Never before has there been a superhero who is an 11-year old girl. Kick-Ass is the name of the main character, a superhero created by a teenage boy out of nothing but his own hopes and dreams. And a cheesy wetsuit. Hit Girl is the name of the aforementioned 11-year old girl. Hit Girl is a much better superhero than Kick-Ass. Hit Girl can pretty much wipe the floor with Kick-Ass. Hit Girl, actually, can pretty much wipe the floor with just about anybody.

This is female empowerment unlike anything we've ever seen. She's the purple-haired daughter of Wonder Woman and Morpheus. Thelma and Louise, meet Wolverine. Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, call your agents - Men In Black just dropped a notch on the cool list. One thing that gives her an edge in the competition to be an unforgettable figure in the cinematic history of heroes with guns is that she is totally adorable. Sorry, Mr. Eastwood and Mr. Wayne, this is Gloria Steinem's revenge. And Princess Leia's.

But she's an adorable sociopath. She doesn't just take out the bad guys - she takes out a lot of bad guys. Questions have been raised, and will continue to be raised (and are being answered), about whether or not it is appropriate to have someone so young playing a role so violent. She also uses language the actress herself (Chloe Grace Moretz, an instant superstar) can't use in real life (she has said that if she did, she would be "grounded for life"). She isn't just violent and foulmouthed - she's also ruthless and coldblooded. But even when she is reloading her Glocks in midair - damn is that a cool shot - she's still somehow cute. The purple wig is a big help.

She's cute partially because she is just absurdly self-confident. We're talking James Bond-self-confident. Sean Connery James Bond-self-confident. You have a feeling that, if she met Darth Vader in a dark alley, she would take out her own light saber and do the Jedi a big favor.

Iggy Pop probably wasn't this tough at 11. And he's sure as hell never been this focused.

She's this way because she was trained to be a lethal assassin by her father, Big Daddy. Whoever thot up "Take Your Daughter To Work" never expected this. Nicholas Cage, who took his own name from a comic book (his real last name is Coppola; he is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, and changed his name to avoid any appearance of nepotism) plays Big Daddy. I am not a big Nicholas Cage fan, paticularly of late. But he's perfect here. Big Daddy has his own costume, strongly reminiscient of Batman, and that deep thirst for revenge so necessary for a great vigilante.

A great vigilante, of course, is nothing without a great villain, and Mark Strong is wonderful as the local godfather. He has a son with a Michael Corleone complex, interested in taking over the family business, despite being still in high school. Also present in this character are shades of James Franco in Spiderman.

But back to the title character. Kick-Ass, aka Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson, a Brit with a perfect American accent), does not have Hit Girl's collection of weapons or her years of martial arts training. He isn't even particularly strong. All he has for weapons are a taser and a couple of big sticks. What he does have - besides the obvious delusions of grandeur - is determination. And a high threshold for pain. Another thing he doesn't have - and which every superhero needs - is a girlfriend. This brings up an interesting issue with Hit Girl. She's cute, adorable, and funny - but she's 11. She's not beautiful or gorgeous, because those are adjectives that tend to be attached to females in our society who are at least past puberty. Lyndsy Fonesca, who was also John Cusack's girlfriend in Hot Tub Time Machine, supplies the sex appeal as Dave's friend Katie. Not girlfriend - she thinks he's gay. Tony Stark does not have that problem.

All of this would be meaningless, of course, if it were not a well-directed movie. It's not a well-directed movie. It is an extraordinarily well-directed movie. Just about everything, from the costumes to the cinematography, is stylized just enough to be interesting, but not so much as to be distracting. One reason Hit Girl's violent tendencies are so disturbing is that she goes way over the top, but the rest of the movie feels fairly grounded. It's a very realistic comic book movie. Even the 2 or 3 goombas who are fortunate enough to have some speaking lines before they get whacked don't feel like cliches.

On IMDb, this has a rating of 8.5 out of 10, which puts it at #166 out of the top 250. That would be the top 250 movies of all time. I completely agree with that. It may move up. 165 is Dog Day Afternoon. 167 is Gandhi.

I have my own answer to whether or not it's appropriate for an 11-year old girl to be responsible for a couple of dozen deaths. My answer, unequivocally, is yes. Because if that 11-year old girl can't take on a role involving lots of bullets and blood, then she won't have the opportunity to become an iconic badass on the scale of Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (John Travolta was the epitome of cool in Pulp Fiction, but Jackson was the badass). And why shouldn't an 11-year old girl have an opportunity to become an iconic badass? There's a question that's never been asked before in the history of pop culture. Buffy was at least in high school, and it took her several seasons to reach icon status. Hit Girl makes Joan of Arc look like a slacker. That comparison hasn't been made too many times before.

What about preserving the innocence of children? Ah, it's a little too late for that. Harry Potter was 11 the first time he took on Voldemort. Wasting a room full of bad guys may send the wrong message to impressionable young minds about the efficacy of violence as a means of conflict resolution. Might be a little too late for that one, too. Problem-solving, let's remember, does wonders for self-esteem. Hit Girl - and Kick-Ass - solve a lot of very big problems.

Most superheroes have a sidekick. Trinity, let's be honest, is Neo's sidekick. Hit Girl is not Kick-Ass's sidekick. If anything, it's the other way around. She's not even Big Daddy's sidekick. Hit Girl ain't nobody's sidekick.

One of Yoda's great lines is "There is no try. There is do, or do not." Kick-Ass learns that lesson. Hit Girl was born knowing it.

The Hurt Locker

So I saw The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, currently frontrunner for Best Director Oscar (her chief competition being her ex-husband, James Cameron, for Avatar). It's about a bomb disposal unit in the Iraq war. That's it. There isn't much plot. These guys defuse bombs. Mostly IEDs lying on the street. They use robots when they can, but sometimes they have to walk right up to the bomb and disarm them. They have special equipment, like an armored suit, but it's still one of the most dangerous jobs in the armed forces, not to mention the world.


It takes place in 2004. That's about all you know about the world outside of this small group of guys. No mention of weapons of mass destruction, George Bush, or even Saddam Hussein. You're up close and personal with them, like they are with each other. They don't know each other before being assigned to watch each other's backs. They have different ways of seeing the world, different levels of appetite for risk. They don't always agree, which means that they occasionally have to challenge each other. They make mistakes, which, in this environment, can be deadly. For each other as well as themselves.


The movie takes no position on the war, just shows it like it is. But that becomes the best possible antiwar message, because you immediately understand how insane this reality is. This is what should be a normal country, with normal people trying to live normal lives. Even under Saddam Hussein, they managed to get on with their lives. Getting up in the morning, eating, drinking, doing their jobs, falling in love, arguing with friends and families. Playing soccer. Enjoying the sunshine. Then we started a war in the middle of it. And we're still fighting that war. They would like to be able to walk across the street, but there might be an IED there. And we're sending young men, almost none of whom speak the language, to fight this war. While these people have no choice but to try to get on with their lives.


The main character is a guy who is really, really good at defusing bombs, William James (Jeremy Renner, who deserves his Oscar nomination for Best Actor). But he's also something of a cowboy who takes some bizarre risks. Which means that he gets things done, but his risks don't always work out.

A war is a perfect frame for mixing the real and the surreal, because we, the audience, don't really know what normal is. What is over the top? I have no idea, because I don't know where the top is. A guy snipping the wires to defuse a bomb at the last second is an action movie cliche. Except that here the guy snippping the wires isn't a British spy wearing a tux, trying to save the world and the woman in a beautiful dress that he's been sleeping with. The guy snipping the wires is an American soldier in camo who is trying to save the lives of a few Iraqis and Americans. There are no beautiful women. This is not a fantasy. There is no escapism.

Bill James knows he's good at his job, but he doesn't know why he does it. He's very grounded in reality, completely aware of what he has to do. But he's also strangely detached from his own survival instincts. He's pragmatic, focused, competent, and professional.

And just a little bit insane.

My vote for Best Director goes to Kathryn Bigelow.

Inglorious Basterds

So I saw Inglorious Basterds, because when Quentin Tarantino makes a good movie, it's hard to ignore it, because it's probably a damn good movie. Tarantino may be the only person in Hollywood who enjoys his own insecurities. Fortunately for the rest of us, his talent - and ego - are greater than his nervous tics and personality quirks, so he can actually channel his bizarre obsessions in artistically productive ways. It's also quite helpful that his tendency towards self-indulgence is matched by a dedication to the craft of filmmaking. And it doesn't hurt that he's supported by a studio executive - Harvey Weinstein - with just about the same level of talent, ego, insecurities, and dedication to the craft.

Watching Inglorious Basterds, you get the feeling that Quentin Tarantino wakes up on the wrong side of ridiculous a little more than is really healthy. But you also get the feeling that one thing that pulls him back to the sublime is his technical brilliance, and his extraordinary command of pure technique. The cinematography particularly stands out. Much as I admire most of Pulp Fiction, I found the camera work uninspired. Not so here; Tarantino knows exactly how and when to take risks, and then pulls them off. There's not really anything flashy; it is simply superb. The same can be said of the performances. There is already much discussion of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Waltz as the Nazi Col. Hans Landa. He's certainly my favorite so far this year. I'm reminded of that old saying that the devil can be charming, and he almost makes you forget Hannah Ahrendt's observation that evil is banal. Until Tarantino cuts to shots of Hitler.

Brad Pitt won't be getting an Oscar nom, but only because he chose to deliberately go way over the top as Lt. Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds. This is one of Tarantino's riskiest bets, and it mostly pays off, but it definitely inches the film towards the absurd.

But then almost every other performance drags it back to wonderful. Melanie Laurent is a marvel as Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jew who runs a cinema in Paris. Diane Kruger shines as a German movie star. Tarantino's Promethean confidence in himself does wonders for his performers. His confidence is justified in part because he's providing them with the verbiage. One reason Brad Pitt can pull off a Tennessee accent that makes Bo and Luke Duke sound like Yankee frat boys is that he's interrogating German prisoners through the pen of Quentin Tarantino. It's not quite as memorable as Samuel L. Jackson's discourse on foot massages - which is one reason he's a movie star today - but it's still in the context of a Tarantino script.

Unfortunately for me, it's a little too much of a Quentin Tarantino script. What would a Tarantino script be without constant violence, highly choreographed gunfire, bodies everywhere? A more interesting movie, would be my guess. It's very tempting to analyze and criticize and comment and scrutinize and debate whatever message is in the movie, but I'm going to resist, not least because I don't think Tarantino himself really cares that much about a message. He's still having too much fun impressing himself and us.

Sitting in a bar afterwards, drinking a blueberry martini, I said to Peter, the friend that I had seen it with, "I'll be really impressed with Quentin Tarantino when he grows up." "But he never will," said Peter. Which with I could not help but agree.

Tarantino's technical ability as a filmmaker has progressed dramatically. He was always a brilliant writer, and he is now a craftsman of the highest order. But he is still too clever for his own good. I judge movies by their endings; whether or not everything comes together is the test, for me, of whether or not the director has had a clue what s/he is doing all along. The ending left me a little cold; the revenge fantasy felt too self-indulgent.

I can think of two reasons why Quentin Tarantino should ultimately grow up. One, because he will eventually be able to make the best movie that he possibly can, which I don't think he has done yet, and two, because then he might have a chance of winning the Oscar for Best Director.

Star Trek

So I saw Star Trek. At least I think I saw Star Trek. That was the title of the movie, and the characters all had the right names -Kirk, Bones, Spock, Uhura, Sulu. Lots of phasers and photon torpedoes. But I sure don't remember having this much fun on the Enterprise before.

I can't remember the last Star Trek movie that I saw. I can't even remember the last time I saw one of the TV shows. I have the sense that the movies were losing steam, creatively. And financially.

I have, however, spent some time recently watching clips of Galaxy Quest on YouTube. I love Galaxy Quest. They nailed something in that movie. There are three groups in the movie, all with completely different relationships to the TV show. The actors who were in the show are mostly burned out, utterly sick and tired of it. The Thermians, the aliens who watched the "historical documents," are the exact opposite: they treat the show as the gospel truth, and believe every word of it so faithfully that they have recreated the ship. The teenage fanboys straddle the line between truth and fiction; they know it's only a show, but they really, really want to believe in it. The actors have never taken it seriously beyond their paychecks; the Thermians have taken it seriously enough that the very survival of their civilization depends on it. The fanboys are the kind of geeky teenage males who are inclined to take it just a wee bit too seriously.

But part of the accidental genius of the original Star Trek is that it's almost impossible to take it too seriously. Tribbles? Please. The other part of the accidental genius of the original is that there is stuff within it that does deserve to be taken seriously. Relations with other races/cultures, emotion vs. logic - good stuff.

By not taking it too seriously, we give ourselves permission to go ahead and take it seriously, after all. This is what Trekkers/Trekkies (I have no idea what the difference is) do: by playing up the camp factor, they let the world know that they know it's a joke, and that they're in on it. But then they have their own joke, which is that they manage to find meaning in it.

J.J. Abrams has pulled off a variation of this trick in this movie, except that he almost skipped the "not taking it seriously" part. First of all, he's made a damn good movie. There's no other way to say it. It's just a damn good movie. It's got a great blend of humor and action. The casting is just about perfect. Simon Pegg as Scotty? Genius. Tyler Perry as the head of Starfleet Academy? Points for that little surprise. Winona Ryder as Spock's mother? OK, that one was a little weird.

But Abrams nails the "not taking it seriously"/"taking it too seriously" tension perfectly within the movie. Chris Pine as James Tiberius Kirk starts out as a rebel who doesn't want to even think about joining a cause. Spock, of course, takes everything as seriously as possible. Oil and water, fire and ice, Vulcan/human, reason/emotion, Newtonian/Einsteinian physics, pick a dichotomy. Except male/female. Not a lot of that.

The one thing Kirk and Spock have in common is that they both love challenges. Abrams - thanks be to the Federation and ILM - has the technical and artistic chops to throw them both a fair number of challenges, personal, political, and, of course, military. And throw them he does.

Abrams' great challenge was to pay homage to the mythology/history/cultural phenomenon that is Star Trek, while creating yet another version that is and is not a mirror image of the very first series. He references the references we all know without making them feel like blatant references. When Bones yells "Damnit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" he says it because it's true - he's a doctor, not a physicist, and that is a highly relevant piece of information at that particular moment in time, and he needs to make it very clear. Abrams has to make us remember and forget the original series at the same time.

He has one spectacular advantage in this regard: this particular dichotomy lies at the heart of the Star Trek phenomenon. There have already been several reimaginings of the franchise within Paramount, the studio, and umpteen zillion outside of it. Star Trek has already mutated a thousand times, with budgets in the millions of dollars and the tens of dollars. It just hasn't been done with a budget in the very high tens of millions of dollars.

I'm waxing philosophical partially because this is one thing Abrams does not do much of in this movie. Mostly because he doesn't really have to. Spock is half human and half Vulcan - he struggles with this dichotomy. Yes, we know. The Enterprise is on a peacekeeping mission, armed to the teeth. Force/diplomacy, when to use each. Yeah, got it. Shields up already, what's taking so long to fire the photon torpedoes? Oh, there they go. And there they go again. I'll shut up now and try to hold on. Pacing is not a problem in this movie - it's about the fastest two hours I can remember. Kirk is boldly going wherever his hormones lead him. And thank you, Zoe Saldana, for making Uhura hot AND smart. Remember what Jean-Luc Godard said are the only two things you need to make a movie? A girl and a gun. A little light on the girls, but my oh my do we have guns. Not set on stun all that often, what with the fate of billions of people at stake. Just for fun, what say we start with ship-level drama, and then get to grandiose and epic scale as soon as we can. Oh, wait, we're already there.

At the end of Galaxy Quest, the Thermians have shown the actors that the show was worthwhile after all; "Never give up, never surrender!" really was something to believe in. J.J. Abrams has done the same. He has accomplished the rather impressive feat of convincing a fair segment of the population that Star Trek is not only still worth taking seriously, it was worth taking seriously in the first place. See also: Stewart, Patrick.

Then Abrams delivers a great gift to all the Trekkies/Trekkers/Trekizoids/Trekkyboppers out there: not just a great Star Trek movie, not just a great movie, period, but the best possible excuse to take Kirk and Bones and Spock and Klingons as seriously as they want to, logical or illogical as that may be.

And then he delivers to them (and us) an even greater gift: he makes it all cooler than it ever was. Beam me up, Scotty, there's a lot of intelligent life around here. Warp factor ten, Mr. Sulu, we need a sequel.

Vactican doesn't hate "Angels and Demons"

Ron Howard and Tom Hanks made another movie about intrigue at the Vatican. The first movie that they made about weird, spooky people infecting the Catholic Church, The Da Vinci Code, was not popular with the priesthood. The Vatican made it clear that they did not approve. Of course, it worked out for the movie, because you can't buy that kind of publicity. It went on to make over $750 million worldwide.

This movie is called Angels & Demons, and it is, again, based on a Dan Brown novel. But this time, the Vatican doesn't hate it!

The film offers "more than two hours of harmless entertainment, which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity," L'Osservatore's reviewer wrote. It's "a videogame that first of all sparks curiosity and is also, maybe, a bit of fun."

"A bit of fun?!?!" Now I smell a plot. I think this review is part of a Vatican conspiracy to kill this movie with kindness. This is like the kiss of death. OK, maybe that's not a good simile.

But still. Couldn't they have generated some kind of outrage? Would it have really been all that hard for them to find something objectionable? Don't they understand that their role is to be judgmental and puritanical? If the Church approves of a movie, there will be no controversy. That means that the studio is going to have to rely on traditional means of marketing - depending on the quality of the film, the reputation of the actors and the director, whatever goodwill is left over from the first one. Sure, Ron Howard is a highly accomplished mainstream director, and Tom Hanks is arguably the biggest movie star in the world, but these people need help. This is a hugely expensive movie. Marketing it is going to cost millions. But a couple of hissy fits from guys in robes, and we're all set!

Sigh. Of course, it is the age of Obama, in which we are all trying to get along. Or at least most of us. Maybe this is a sign of old divisions crumbling. Maybe the Church really does like it. Maybe they really aren't afraid of it. Maybe they really do realize that one movie will have basically no effect on a religious tradition thousands of years old with hundreds of millions of adherents.

And maybe I will have to go see it to make up my mind about all of this. Maybe I'll just have to figure out a way to enjoy it on its own merits, without worrying about any long-term political implications. That would be weird, but I think I can do it.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

So I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or, as I like to think of it, "How To Spend $150 Million To Score An Oscar Nomination For Best Picture (but not win the actual Oscar)."

It's a gorgeous movie, very well-directed, with wonderful production design, excellent cinematography and good acting. But underneath the expensive special effects (which you can't tell are there, but which you know are, in fact, there) are two things: kind of a cool gimmick, and a story that isn't as interesting as the gimmick.

The gimmick is that Benjamin Button ages backwards. He's born the size of a regular human baby, but with the afflictions of an 80-year old man. He gradually becomes more limber, his wrinkles disappear, his hair comes back, he turns into Brad Pitt.

His mind, however, ages just like the rest of us; he's an innocent child, then an adventurous young man, then a somewhat stable middle-aged man, etc.

The one thing that Benjamin Button never is, however, is a fascinating character apart from his chronological quirkiness. Brad Pitt earned an Oscar nomination for the role, and I think he deserved it, if only for the technical challenge. But the character is just not that exciting. He's fairly passive. He's kind of shy. He's not particularly smart or creative or crazy or charismatic. He falls in love early on with a girl in the neighborhood. This is interesting because they're both children, but he looks like her grandfather. They are, of course, star-crossed lovers, flirting for years, abandoning each other, finding each other, etc. She is played by Cate Blanchett, and watching the two of them light up the screen is oddly comforting and heartwarming. They cross paths, timewise, in middle age. It's the 60's, a particularly candy-colored version thereof, when people their age were hip and groovy and Simon and Garfunkel were brand new. It's a cozily nostalgic remembrance of an allegedly more innocent time.

It threatens to become sentimental, but never does. David Fincher, who is better known as a director of intense thrillers (Seven, Fight Club) and stunning music videos (Madonna's Vogue, Paula Abdul's Cold Hearted Snake) knows what he's doing.

A co-worker mentioned that it feels like Forrest Gump, and there's a good reason: both were written by Eric Roth. Forrest Gump's great charm came from the fact that, because he was too stupid to lie, so he was always telling the truth. Benjamin Button the movie lays on the charm with almost every shot. Benjamin Button the man has trouble charming the love of his life, to say nothing of the audience.

There's a good framing device; the story is told by a woman reading her mother's diaries, while she sits with her mother in a hospital. The older woman is dying, and dying quickly. The younger woman is played by Julia Ormond, who was once the hottest young starlet in Hollywood. In this movie she looks like a hard-worn version of Sandra Bullock. She's not remotely glamourous, but mature in a way that suggests she has a deep well of wisdom and self-imposed tough love. I'm focusing on her because although we know very little about her, and, in a movie with lavish costume and production design she wears the same thing in a basic setting, she anchors the movie for a simple reason: she's the most real thing about it. Welcome back, Ms. Ormond, hope to see you again soon.

I like Brad Pitt, I like Cate Blanchett, I like David Fincher (although I prefer his music videos to his movies). I liked Benjamin Button, but I didn't love it. One part of the definition of an epic story is that it has to be a story of national significance. Forrest Gump accidentally became an epic because it told a story against a backdrop of many incidents of national significance. Benjamin Button does almost nothing of the kind, despite covering a longer span of time. Forrest Gump is also a movie of both great tragedy (his mother, best friend, and wife all die) and high comedy. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a comfortable drama, which, apart from being almost a contradiction in terms, is not a recipe for greatness. Or a Best Picture Oscar.

Slumdog Millionaire

So I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a movie whose best qualities can be found in its title: a simple, charming contradiction. What is a slumdog millionaire? "Slumdog" is not a term Americans are familiar with, at least they weren't before this movie, but it's not hard to figure out its meaning. A slumdog is a guy from the slums, lower class, vaguely dirty. A millionaire, on the other hand, is wealthy, possibly glamourous, maybe someone to be envied.

Two words, and yet a contradiction. I've been trying to think of another movie with a contradiction in the title, and I can't think of one. Right away, this movie has us thinking and wondering. How can a slumdog be a millionaire?

The contradictions don't stop there, they're just getting started. It's a grim romantic comedy, a love story inside a thriller. The plot elements are standard; an underdog, bad guys, a beautiful woman, impossible odds. But it's like nothing you've ever seen before. It's an American movie, released by a Hollywood studio, but it has almost nothing to do with America. It is a very Indian movie - it takes place in Mumbia, and was shot there, with Indian actors. But it is also a very multicultural movie - it was written, directed, and shot by Englishmen, and it features a game show imported from America. It takes place among the poorest of the poor, but it was partially shot with cutting edge digital cameras.

It's heartbreaking and heartwarming. It's gentle and sweet and brutal and violent. It is horrifying and beautiful. It's a story few people have ever heard, but everyone can relate to. It's cliched and original. It almost wasn't released in theaters, yet is in the front running to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the plot, because there is so much to tell, and so much of it that I don't want to give away. I don't want to give it away because I want you to discover this cinematic gift yourself. Because you have to see it. You must. Some movies that win Best Picture are controversial (Crash, Shakespeare In Love). If Slumdog Millionaire wins, it will not be controversial. Its closest competition is Milk, which is very well-made and features some fine performances, including a brilliant one by Sean Penn. Milk is a very good movie, well-paced, nicely shot; it has few, if any weaknesses. But Slumdog Millionaire is bottled lightning. Gorgeous, infectious bottled lightning.

So I am not going to tell you anything about the plot. All I am going to do is ask you some questions.

Are you a slumdog? Probably not. Have you ever been a slumdog? Probably not. Do you want to be a slumdog? I would guess absolutely not.

But are you a millionaire, have you ever been a millionaire, do you want to be a millionaire? I would guess the answers to those questions are maybe, maybe, and quite probably yes.

But when you see Slumdog Millionaire, you will understand when I tell you that we all want to be slumdogs. Because Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), the slumdog millionaire, embodies a few more contradictions. He's been oppressed, he's been betrayed, he's emotionally scared, and yet he's a hopeless romantic. He's a little bit of a geek, he's kind of shy, and yet he is what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as grace under pressure. Because most of all, this slumdog, this gentle soul in a violent world, is a hero.

Milk

So I saw "Milk," because I've never really understood San Francisco, and I figured it was about time I took a stab at it.

Ha! Just kidding. Of course I understand San Francisco, even though I've never lived there, and only visited a few times. It's a lot like Boston, but with better college football teams (Los Angeles compares favorably with New York in this respect as well).

What I don't think Boston has ever had is a politician quite like Harvey Milk, i.e. a character colorful enough to be played by Sean Penn in an Oscar-nominated role in a Gus Van Sant movie (although Van Sant did make an Oscar-winning movie about a colorful character in Boston).

There's one thing that struck me as a little odd about this role for Sean Penn; the character is a lot of fun. Not that Sean Penn doesn't know how to have fun! The man was, after all, married to Madonna. But he won his Oscar for playing a rather depressing character in one of Clint Eastwood's more serious dramas (which is saying a lot).

But Harvey Milk is just a blast. You have a feeling that he's gay in both senses of the word - he's homosexual, and he's just a great guy to be around. He's not frivilous or superficial, airheaded or blissfully optimistic. He's just having a grand old time fighting for what he believes in.

It's probably helpful that what he believes in is his own right to be in love with whoever he wants. This is not to say that all is goodness and light in his life - he has more than his share of extraordinary pain, the kind of pain that can be just as powerful a motivator to fight for political change as wanting to be in love. In the movie, we do not see as much of the pain as we do of the love, but we are very well aware of the former. This is a movie about peace and love and guys wearing long hair and stupid mustaches and living the hippie dream. But it's also a movie about people getting beat up and murdered and ostracized. It's a movie about an inspirational leader who can rally thousands and have them cheering in seconds. But it's also about a politician who has to frantically try to stop riots and is willing to play hardball with his political opponents and who enjoys his own sense of power.

It is also a very, very good movie with a superb cast. Josh Brolin, who plays Dan White, Milk's fellow Supervisor, political opponent, and murderer, was also nominated for an Oscar, for supporting actor. He played George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's W., so he was nominated for an Oscar for playing the lesser evil of the two Republicans he played in movies this year. James Franco delivers a wonderfully light and tender but grounded performance as Scott, one of Milk's longtime lovers. The scene where Milk asks him out is incredibly charged but sweet, simply a great seduction scene. Beneath the politics lies a good old-fashioned love story. The only thing missing from the traditional good old-fashioned love story is a woman.

Which is a little bit of a problem from the perspective of our current showbiz politics. This is, unfortunately, like a lot of other Hollywood movies, missing great roles for women. Sorry, girls, these guys are bonding, and they're still figuring out how to deal with members of their own sex - members of the opposite sex don't have the usual priority for these guys. Women are victims of the present's relationship with the past in these terms - sometimes there aren't lots of good roles for women in movies being made today because there weren't a lot of good roles for women in real life throughout history. It's not Hollywood's fault that one of the most fascinating gay politicians was a guy. There is one role, however, that I would have liked to have seen more of, and that is Dianne Feinstein. Her current status as a Senator probably precluded doing much with her in the movie - she's just too well-known. There is archival footage of her announcing what happened. She was the one who found Harvery Milk's body.

It is technically a tragedy, because Harvey Milk dies at the end of the movie. But in most of the moments before then, it is a celebration. Sean Penn just won the SAG Award for Best Actor in a movie. He may very well win the Oscar. He deserves it.

A hater's guide to Twilight

Something for the rest of us: all the best reasons we're not going to see Twilight. Among which reasons is the following:

This adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel (for girls!) is actually the lamest episode of 90210 ever made combining forces with the second-lamest episode of 90210 ever made.

I have never seen an episode of 90210 (and have no intention of ever doing so), and I am actually thrilled to be making a killing off of Twilight on HSX, and I'm glad that there is a highly successful movie based on a book by a woman, directed by a woman, and made for girls. Whoever thot that a sensitive vampire would strike a blow for feminism?

But still, I have no interest in seeing it, and I'm glad someone else made the retro masculine argument why.

On a personal note, this is my 666th post. I am not going to try and figure out any significance for that.

Quote of the day: movies

[H]e’s really just an old-fashioned movie man, the kind who never lets good taste get in the way of rip-roaring entertainment.

Manohla Dargis on Baz Luhrmann, from her review of Australia.

Quantum of Solace

So I saw Quantum of Solace. I'm still not sure what the title means. I take no solace from the fact that I know what a quantum is.

As I was making plans to see it with a couple of friends, one of them asked if we should perhaps wear tuxes (there is a group of men in LA who do wear tuxes to the opening weekend of every Bond movie). I said no, because that would violate Rule #2 of John's Rules Of What Men Should Wear When They Go Out In Los Angeles. Specifically, Rule #2 states that:

You should not wear a tie when you go out unless you are a) giving a speech; b) receiving an award; or c) you will be photographed.

Rule #1 is: When in doubt, wear jeans.

James Bond movies have rules as well, of course: martinis are shaken, not stirred. "Bond. James Bond." A beautiful and dangerous woman. Another beautiful and dangerous woman. A dangerous guy, who is somehow related to at least one of the beautiful and dangerous women. Really cool gadgets that are not available to mortals. Bond wearing a tuxedo. Bond wearing a suit. Bond making some lame joke, but pulling it off and not looking like an idiot, because he's James Bond. An incredibly expensive car that has been highly customized.

I did not break my rules about What To Wear, and neither did Mr. Bond. He wears a tux, and suits by Tom Ford. Of course Daniel Craig looks great in both. In the case of almost any other human being, wearing Tom Ford anything would up their cool quotient. In this case, however, I believe the hipness equation flows the other way; it is Mr. Ford who benefits from the association with Mr. Bond, not the other way around.

In art, of course, rules are there to be broken. Casino Royale, the first Bond movie with Mr. Craig, broke some of the Bond Rules. Mr. Craig's Bond famously did not give a damn whether or not his martini was shaken or stirred. The justification for this was that it was a "restart," a reimagining of the franchise, very much like the "restart" of the Batman franchise with Christian Bale. Of course, only Bond could break the Bond rules, and, by doing so, the caretakers of the Bond tradition made him that much cooler.

But breaking the rules a second time is not quite as interesting. The thrill is a little less; the joke is slightly stale. He doesn't introduce himself as with the trademark three-word line. "Bond. James Bond." was apparently a victim of an editing decision.

More important than the details, however, what is missing is the sense of humor, and, most important, the sense of elegance. Sean Connery's Bond was, in some respects, a wonderful snob. He was the best in the world at what he did, he knew it, and he enjoyed it. James Bond should be ridiculously self-confident. But he's not arrogant, because he's playing deadly games, and too much self-confidence at the wrong moment could be deadly.

But Bond is defending the free world, and what's the point of defending that freedom, if you don't occasionally enjoy it?

Not that Daniel Craig's Bond doesn't have fun, and isn't self-confident. He's very sure of himself, sometimes to the point of seriously annoying M (the great Judi Dench, who demonstrates why England was one of the first countries to elect a woman to its highest office). He plays games with his opponents.

Bond still has his wit, but he lacks accouterments. Part of the problem is that he doesn't have great gadgets with which to play games. Bond's memorable exchange with Goldfinger ("Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.") was all the more so because a laser was about to slice James Bond in half. Movies are a visual art form; gadgets are a very visual element of the James Bond mythology. They're part of the reason Bond is so good at playing games with his opponents. It's not just his wit that he's using; he's also using toys created by the best minds in Britain. That's part of why James Bond is so cool: some of his best friends are geeks, and he makes geeks look cool. For which effect many people with engineering degrees are eternally grateful.

Women accessorize with necklaces, bracelets, earrings, purses. Men don't really accessorize much, beyond watches and, now cellphones, but James Bond sure as hell did. Marc Forster, the director of Quantum, explained that he didn't go with gadgets this time because it seemed "old school."

Well, yes, of course it's old school. That's the bloody point. It's James Bond. He is British. It is my understanding that tradition is rather important to England's sense of itself. It certainly is a key part of my understanding of England.

Forster also argues that, with the profusion of advanced technology, gadgets do not cast the spell that they used to; once everyone has a cell phone, it's just not that exciting to see a really cool one. I disagree, and would argue the opposite. We all know someone who has lots of cool gadgets; they got the iPhone before everybody else, they have GPS in their shoes, etc. But the fact that we all know someone like that should, if anything, heighten the interest in what Bond has. Bond should make everybody's ultracool friend look like a dork. Bond shouldn't just have the latest phone; he should have the next phone.

The same applies to the car. I know people with cool cars that go fast; I learned how to drive a stick on a Porshce 944. But I don't know anyone with a car that has an ejector seat or that can go underwater. Part of the fun of a Bond movie is supposed to be seeing what the filmmakers came up with for the car. I can't imagine what else a Bond car could do that one hasn't already, but that's the point; the people making the Bond movies are supposed to be the ones with the imagination. They are supposed to imagine something about this car that I can't. That's what I am paying them for.

So we have rules being broken, but we also have tradition being ignored. We also have some editing that is frantic and, unfortunately, utterly predictable. Fists fly, bodies whirl, punches are thrown, and I could hardly follow any of it. I like my action fast and furious, but I also like it comprehensible, thank you very much. Two of my favorite action sequences are the first fencing scene in the first Pirates, between Jack Sparrow and Will Turner, and the training sequence in The Matrix. The fencing is slow, but that allows time for Jack to taunt Will. In the training scene in The Matrix, Morpheus and Neo fight incredibly fast, but there are also some great pauses and slow-motion shots. "You think that's air you're breathing?" The first chase scene in Casino Royale was breathtaking partially because it was very believable, and part of the reason it was believable was that you could actually see what was happening. The filmmakers want to make Bond more realistic. That's a noble goal, and I recommend they start with fight scenes that can be believed because they can be understood.

Great dialogue between people who are trying to kill each other should be the difference between a standard action-adventure movie, and, well, a James Bond movie. Steven Seagal can throw a punch. James Bond is supposed to throw a punch and make you remember why he threw it. Which is that he is James Bond, and you're not.

Razorback

I saw an interesting new play, Razorback, this weekend. The advertising describes it as a "pitch dark comedy about fathers and sins." "Pitch dark" is appropriate. It's like an entire season of The Sopranos squeezed into one play. I saw it with a friend, who once directed one of the actresses. It was in one of those hole-in-the-wall theaters, less than 100 seats, where you are up close and personal with the stage regardless of where you are sitting.

It takes place over a couple of days at a summer cottage in Maine. A nice, upper-middle-class family is struggling with some normal, but important issues. The father has cancer. Should the son, and only child, take a semester off from his sophomore year at Dartmouth to take care of him? Dad also has issues in the bedroom, which is a little frustrating for Mom.

But things get much more intriguing fairly quickly. Turns out the son is not the father's only child - he has another son, from a previous marriage. Dad is now a respectable businessman of some kind, but once upon a time he was from "the neighborhood," the kind where blood runs much, much thicker than water. Of coure, he's Italian. The son from the previous marriage shows up. He brings some baggage, notably his pregnant Puerto Rican girlfriend and his Ma, Dad's ex-wife. Son #1 and Wife #1 are both still living in "the neighborhood." I mentioned that blood runs thicker than water. What made me think of that is that, in this play, blood also runs rather freely. There's a sign on the entrance: "Gunfire will be heard during this performance."

The acting was almost uniformly good, although the son at Dartmouth seemed almost too nerdish. The production design was impressive, making the most of a small stage. The directing was solid. The script was well-structured, but I would describe it as more "dark" than "comedy." It could have used one or two more polishes, and a few more jokes. All in all, recommended, as quality theatre, but do not go alone.

Kung Fu Panda

So I saw Kung Fu Panda. This review will be short, because I don't have much to say about it. It's a cross between an episode of Sesame Street and a Jackie Chan movie, with dialogue inspired by fortune cookies. There isn't really anything wrong with it, and there are several things that it does well, but it never rises above the level of a decent cartoon. The animation is beautiful, there are many scenes that are humorous or clever, the action is exciting, and then it ends fairly quickly. That was probably the best part - it was mercifully short. The kids in the theater where I saw it seemed to like it, and I'm sure it will function very effectively as an electronic babysitter for years to come. There aren't any silly pop culture references, and I'm sure that there are some references to real Chinese culture, which is nice, so four year-olds will have a bit of a multicultural experience, which is nice. The plot is interesting enough to hold a kid's attention. But not mine.

Get Smart

So I saw Get Smart, which is an updated take on the original TV show. I can barely remember the original, but I do know that part of the joke was that Maxwell Smart wasn't actually all that smart. This time around, he's actually quite the geek, obsessed with stats and charts and reports and apparently pretty good at his job, which is being a desk jockey at CONTROL, the supersecret government agency. You've never heard of it, right? See, that's how secret it is. He's so good at his job that he's getting bored and wants to move to where the action is, being an agent. And it looks like he probably deserves it, and, don't know you, he gets it.

That's what Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, gets. What Steve Carrell, the actor, gets is a chance to be funny in a role for which he is just about ideally suited. What Steve Carrell the actor DOES NOT get is a script worthy or his talents, or a director wtih as good a sense of comedy as Carrell has.

I'm going to go with "better than adequate" as my evaluation, and I am going to give the credit for the "better" largely to the cast. Carrell has made an interesting choice, which is to upgrade Maxwell Smart's native intelligence. He's not quite a bumbling idiot, he's more of a bureaucrat who's not quite aware that he's not really tailor made to be an agent. He's stiff, a little clueless, and just not really an undercover kind of guy, but he's not stupid.

But he does wear a suit and tie in the middle of the Russian countryside. Um, hello, aren't spies supposed to be incognito? Isn't blending in a key part of the job description? I think the CIA went business casual a LONG time ago.

Anne Hathaway has also upgraded Agent 99. I don't remember much about Barbara Feldon's take on the role, but my impression is that she was generally more competent than 86, and tended to be the one who got him out of trouble, but she never took advantage of her superior abilities - she never lorded it over Max.

Anne Hathaway's Agent 99 knows damn well that she is much more talented than Max, and takes every opportunity to let him know that she knows it. I found this wonderfully refreshing. This is something that few filmmakers seem to appreciate - competency can be very charming. It also provides multiple - nay, constant - opportunities for repartee and banter as they bicker and fight while trying to stop the dastardly KAOS from achieving - one guess what the bad guys want - world domination.

Terence Stamp, trading in on decades of building an image perfect for the role of evil genius, aces it, but is also woefully underused. The man can instill fear without moving a single facial muscle, and does so, but more pure villainy and wickedness would have sharpened the sense of danger, and, therefore, the sense of fun. We remember Goldfinger's exchange with 007 ("Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.") because the threat was visible and therefore visceral as the laser sliced its way towards Bond's crotch. As vile as Stamp can make Siegfried, too much of a slapstick feel for the movie as a whole takes him closer to Dr. Evil than Keyser Soze.

The plot can be easily followed, but not easily swallowed. You've heard the term "a hole big enough to drive a truck through?" The space shuttle could fit through some of gaps of logic here, with room to spare. It feels like pieces of several scripts were pieced together, and no one went through the final product and said, "You know, these scenes, which made sense in their respective drafts, when combined, are totally ridiculous." Oh, look, the ultrasecret, incredibly high tech headquarters has been trashed! Catastrophe! Disaster! Whatever shall we do!?!

Why don't we wait two days, and, through the magic of Hollywood, it will be rebuilt, exactly the same as before! Close your eyes, snap your fingers, blow out all the candles, your wish for a brand new HQ will come true, and an exact duplicate of the one that was destroyed just hours ago will appear before your very eyes! Oops. If it weren't actually intentional, that one would qualify as the mother of all continuity errors. As it is, it is laughable. Laughter is good in a comedy, but not for reasons like this. At one point, Smart finds a trap door in the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall. Right. He's going to go into a secret entrance in broad daylight in plain view of one of the most famous tourist attractions on the planet.

I didn't bother trying to suspend disbelief, because that would have been an exercise in futilty. But the cast is so good that I enjoyed myself just watching them. Alan Arkin as The Chief? Perfect. Again, somewhat underused, but a joy to watch. At one point he tackles a high (very high) government official. I would have loved to have seen that up close and personal, and not just because I would love to see any version of the person currently holding that position get smacked around. James Caan has a cameo as the president - he could have used a few better lines. Dwayne Johnson (fka "The Rock") has a great sense of how to use his phenomenal screen presence to good effect. The rest of the cast is solid, but I really wanted to see more women in the minor roles. For example, there are two "analysts" who look like they still wish they could have gone to the prom - one's Asian, one is on the heavy side. Stereotypes through and through. The actors are good, but I think making one of them a nerdy woman with a crush on Max would have been more fun. And whatever happened to the idea of having a henchwoman at the side of the evil genius who can kill with her manicure?

Anne Hathaway is more than adequate as the dominant female presence onscreen, but she is also easily strong enough to have been able to share some screen time with other women. She's growing up fast onscreen. Fortunately, while she always manages to look fantastic - the woman knows how to look really, really good in white leather - there's only one cheesy cleavage shot. This is great. She's much sexier when she's not being a sex symbol. It's so much more fun to watch a beautiful woman and be able to respect her for what she's doing, because you end up having more respect for yourself. It's nice to be able to say that you appreciate her for her mind and mean it.

If only the directing were as good as the acting. Missed opportunities abound, absurdities are too numerous to mention. Homeland Security gets a call from Siegfried announcing that he has nuclear weapons, and is about to use them. He's dismissed out of hand as a crank. Because, of course, we all know that the US government is taking it easy on terrorists these days. The climactic scene involves Beethoven's Ode to Joy in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Nice touch, and I always love hearing that piece of music, but a concert is filled with great visuals - violinists bowing away, entire sections moving in time with the conductor's baton - none of which are captured. The conductor is an old white guy - stereotype again - but Esa-Pekka Salonen is only 49, and Gustavo Dudamel is in his 20's (and boy would he have been fun to see in this movie). That building just about begs for some interesting aerial cinematography.

As impossibly gorgeous as Anne Hathaway's eyes are, they are even more beautiful in a movie even half as interesting as she is. Which this, unfortunately, is not.

Sex and the City

So I saw Sex and the City. I think my moviegoing experience was unique in at least a couple of respects. I think I was the only person in the theater who had never seen a single complete episode (I did see a couple of clips here and there). I think I was also just about the only straight man there who hadn't been brought there by a date. I went with three friends who were all very excited about it, two straight women and a gay man. I think I was also just about the only straight man there with a gay friend who knows more about fashion than the gay friend.

I had heard about the strategies that other straight guys were going to use to avoid seeing this movie: "Sorry, honey, I have to mow the law/walk the dog/work late/serve in Iraq." But, hey, Kristin Davis is gorgeous, Kim Catrall is seriously hot, Cynthia Nixon is beautiful in a geeky sort of way, and this was an HBO series with the occasional nudity, so, even if it's filled with gossipy women and girl talk, there should be at least some side benefits. Also, I understood that women were going to be dressing up for this movie, which they did. They didn't do that for the Indiana Jones movie. Another small benefit.

I am happy to report to the men of this world that it's actually quite a good movie, very enjoyable as a movie in and of itself. I had followed the series through other media, so I had heard of Mr. Big, Chris Noth, and I could even name all of the characters (Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha), but, having never watched an episode, I didn't know much of the background. Even approaching it as a sui generis phenomenon, however, I followed the plot without any problems. I now understand the appeal. I get it. Now I know why women are obsessed. It makes perfect sense to me that the opening weekend boxoffice - $55 million - blew away all projections.

The appeal is really very simple: it's just a good show. It's well-written, the characters are interesting and realistic, and there's just enough drama to keep everything going. The "realistic" part is particularly intriguing. It doesn't have the absurd characters and bizarre relations of a soap opera or the narrow confines of a sitcom. I could easily see myself knowing one of these women. Suspending disbelief is just about effortless.

Well, suspending disbelief is easy until Mr. Big drops a chunk of change to buy what must be a $10 million penthouse apartment for he and Carrie without blinking an eye. I bought that, but only because Chris Noth sold it really well. I guess that's why they call him Mr. Big.

But I also figured out why men are scared of this series/movie/phenomenon. Personally, I'm not a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker, although I like her more now that I have seen this movie. Apart from her acting, which is good, I now have a great deal of respect for her as a producer. As a movie star, on the other hand, she doesn't work for me. She seems to have an elevated sense of her own sex appeal, which, for me, dampens her sex appeal. There are aspects of this that clearly appeal to women far more than men: guys just don't talk about their relationships this much. They really, really don't talk about their relationships this much.

And then there's the question of the men in this movie. Are we going to be identifying with them? Most of the men, even the ones in relationships with the women, are somewhat in the background. That's a reversal of what we see in most male-oriented movies, where the women are usually underdeveloped. Personally, I have no problem with that. Most of the guys, even the ones who seemed to be drawn along fairly standard lines (the sensitive intellectual, the blond surfer dude) were real people. So no problem with reverse sexism.

No, what scares guys about this movie is this: the women will argue amongst themselves, even fight, but they always are there for each other somehow. But the drama is going to require a villain, and the villain is going to be a guy. The bad guy is going to be a guy. And he's not going to be a normal villain. He's going to be a normal guy. He's not going to be some serial murderer with bizarre accessories. He's not going to be some well-dressed Eurotrash with a thick accent and a sinister sneer. He's not going to be played by John Malkovich. He's not going to be coming after Carrie with a souped-up fighter jet and an evil plan to rule the world.

No, the villain is going to be an average guy about town, and instead of threatening nuclear annihilation, he's going to make some stupid mistake that just about any guy can make. He's going to piss off Samantha because he forgot her birthday. Or he's going to break up with Carrie because his ex-girlfriend just came back into his life. Or he's going to break Charlotte's heart yet again because he's an average guy with average guy fears and neuroses and he loves her and doesn't want to hurt her but he just doesn't have it all together.

Any guy watching this is going to see this and either remember the time he was a complete idiot and did something really stupid and really, really pissed off his girlfriend/fiancee/wife, or he can see himself doing something similar to what normal guy X just did that he shouldn't have done and is now going to have to spent six months apologizing for.

But the flip side of that fear on the part of average guys is that they might be able to watch it and learn a few things about women so they DON'T make that kind of mistake, or they might be able to watch it and think to themselves "Wow, that guy is a total idiot/wimp/loser, I would never do that to a woman," and thereby realize that their personal standards of behavior are somewhat better than those of this guy on the screen. So that's a good reason for a guy to see this movie: because they get a nice boost of self-esteem for realizing that they're one of the good guys.

The scene with Kim Catrall and the sushi isn't bad either.

Today is my sister's birthday, and she is a huge fan of the show, so this review is dedicated to her. Happy Birthday, Christina!

Speed Racer

So I saw Speed Racer. It's terrible. How bad is it? It's so bad that I am completely uninspired to come up with a great putdown. I have no interest in figuring out the best way to slam this atrocity. That's just about a first.

But that's also a great indicator of just how completely bored I was. I spent large chunks of the movie thinking, "These are the guys who made The Matrix?" Of course, I saw the two Matrix sequels, so I am aware of how badly the Wachowski brothers can fail. But this was much worse than even the third Matrix movie, whatever it was called.

The failure takes place on two levels, plot and basic concept. Is this a cartoon, or a live action movie? It's sort of both, but the result is that the laws of physics - gravity, etc. kind of apply, but kind of don't. So impossible things happen, but since you're not really sure whether or they're supposed to happen or not, the sense of wonder you feel when watching great special effects isn't there. Look, a car is driving straight up a cliff. OK, if that's a real car, that's a cool special effect. But if it's a cartoon, it's just a drawing, and just kind of a cool idea. And the live action is designed to look like a cartoon, with garish colors and over-the-top production design. So trying to willingly suspend disbelief is pretty much out the window, because it's not clear what you're supposed to disbelieve. So that's the problem with the basic concept.

And then there's the plot. I am going to describe the plot as a pastiche of cliches. That's a tired and trite criticism, but, you know what? Writing that sentence took up about all the energy that I want to spend thinking about the plot. There is some controversy revolving around a corporate takeover. I am thoroughly familiar with the concepts and language of mergers and acquisitions, and I had no idea what was going on. Tragically, I didn't care enough to even try to follow anything.

Since it has its origins in Japanese anime, there are martial arts sequences. Some of them, for a few seconds, are exciting to watch. But then the dialogue starts up, and once again, you're bored out of your mind. Even though there are some wonderful actors and actresses (John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci) delivering the lines.

The last straw, which takes this movie from merely stupid and worthless to almost complete and utter failure, is that they don't do much with the car. The Mach 5 has the kind of accessories that James Bond cars have - bulletproof bubble, blades coming out of the front, spiked wheels. But they don't add those things to the car until the movie is at least half over. But that's supposed to be the whole point of the movie! It's not just that it's a fast, gorgeous car. It's a fast, gorgeous car with ultracool gadgets. Speed Racer is supposed to used those gadgets as much as possible.

But he doesn't! I think he uses each of the gadgets once. Wrong. Failure. Reboot.

It is a gorgeous movie. The colors are incredible. I was going to try and come up with a comment that involved The Wizard of Oz and psychedelic drugs, but there's no point. I was looking forward to waxing nostalgic about my childhood, but, honestly, all I remember is that it felt kind of cool to watch these cartoons at a friend's house. Those memories are better than anything associated with this movie.

Game over. Sayonara.

Review of Iron Man coming soon

Check back in a day or two for my review of Iron Man.

For now, enjoy this trailer: