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Introduction
As many of you are aware (many more may NOT be) Tobin has decided that he wants to be a film maker. This may take one or two of a number of paths. His desires go toward screenwriting, editing, or possibly director of photography. Being his father, I've seen first hand his diverse talents with a video camera and his truly amazing ability to tell a story with video.
As a result of this lifelong interest in the film arts, we decided to create this blog to be something somewhat outside the perimiter of Tobin's Lab and what it does. Instead of sticking with the rather obvious choice of science blog, we've created a vehicle for movie reviews.
Here's the idea. Tobin and I will watch a movie that seems to be of interest to at least one of us. (We may go together to see it, or not.) But, before we talk about it much, each of us will put our thoughts down on paper (or vapor) and compare notes. There will be a review from both of us (Tammy, too if she wants to participate) included in the blog.
Please remember that these are our own opinions. There will be those of you who wholeheartedly disagree with us. The opposite is true as well. If you want to email your responses to us, we may include parts of them in the review as time goes on. Or not.
At this point in time, this will only be a blog, not a forum. We don't have the time to sift through and edit all the replies. We hope you will enjoy our ramblings about the movies we go to see. Please remember that if we recommend a movie, you may not like it at all. Or, you may love it. Movies are the artform of the current generations. Opinions will vary. Also remember that if we tell you that a movie really stinks, you may in fact like it. We can't dictate which art you will like or not.
Soooooo...Welcome to the Tobin's Lab Movie Blog (TLMB). I hope you find your time here profitable. If you have a comment that you would like to make about a particular review, please feel free to do so. I have included our email address at the bottom of each review.
Mike
To see what features have been added to Movie Watch Blog, follow this link to New Feature Alert.
When my sister insisted on Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium at a family movie night, I had my misgivings. It sounded so juvenile. But what a treat met my eyes and ears even from the opening titles. It is a kid’s movie, but the kind of kid’s movie which offers a healthy perspective on growing up, presenting a wealth of observations about life that will keep the whole family discussing it for days. Though its silly moments may seem tedious to older viewers, its characters are pure and its story is rich with themes of love, legacy, and using your gifts. Best of all, perhaps, is Dustin Hoffman in the title role – his performance elevates a potentially childish script to a cinematic delight.
Molly Mahoney is stuck. The one-time piano prodigy, and now reluctant grown-up, has been writing her first symphony for years, but is still drawing a blank. She has a sneaking suspicion that it is time to resign herself to the “real” world, even if it means giving up her dream of being a composer or leaving her old job at the local toy store for a more “serious” career. But employer/mentor Mr. Magorium has other plans. The Wonder Emporium is a store like no other, and its magic lies not only in the impossible and fantastic toys which inhabit it, but in the sense of wonder and humanity that Magorium himself encourages in Mahoney and the others in the store: a no-nonsense accountant and a lonely, credulous nine-year-old. Grandfatherly and oddly childlike, Magorium works his spell even on viewers well above the film’s intended audience, reminding us, like John Eldridge in this century, or Tolkien in the last, of the importance of myth and magic in real life, that dreams do come true, and that a store is never “just” a store. By the time Magorium’s work in this life is done, Mahoney and friends have regained a sense of awe in ordinary things, learned belief in the power of dreams, and gained the courage to color outside the lines.
The casting of the characters is brilliant. Natalie Portman well deserves a second look after her attachment to the dreadful Star Wars prequels; she is truly in her element here, giving a touching performance opposite a father-figure rather than a romantic lead. Character actor Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) delivers his trademark laconic wit as the Doubting-Thomas figure – an accountant eager to erase his childhood. Most lovable of all is Mr. Magorium. As he has done in such roles as Willy Loman and Raymond Babbit, Dustin Hoffman imbues the 243-year-old toymaker with a depth that adult viewers will marvel at.
The film is truly G-rated and family friendly, with writer/director Zach Helms showing us that Hollywood can present characters who are funny without being crass, and honest without being gritty. Apart from a reference to reincarnation spoken in relation to Magorium’s death, the film says little about life that a Christian must object to. The film’s politically correct statement of “believe in yourself” does not overwhelm the far more wholesome themes of living life to the fullest, using one’s gifts, and of touching the lives of others; I venture to say that Zach Helms would make a better Christian than a humanist, though he does not yet know it. For when it is a believer’s time to depart may we not echo Mahoney’s hasty reaction, “you have to live,” but respond with Magorium’s quiet assurance that, “Darling, I have.”
A kid’s movie? In the truest sense. A mediocre script? Probably. But the strong and lovable characters are honest reflections of my own life’s struggles. It is they, if not the story itself, that keeps me coming back to this movie. I can only look with anticipation toward Helms’ next film as he grows as a writer.
Tobin
I felt much the way Tobin did when I sat down the first time to watch Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium with Megan. I didn’t really want to be there and had no interest in seeing the movie BUT, I was willing to “take one” for my daughter. I was actually disappointed the first time we watched it. I felt embarrassed for Dustin Hoffman to be playing such a role. However, in spite of my original misgivings I walked away at the end of the movie not feeling particularly cheated.
Then when Tobin came home on vacation, we watched the movie again as a family. I was surprised at myself when I found out how engaged I was with the characters and moved by the story. I noticed things that I hadn’t seen in the first viewing. I picked up on many brilliant details that I had missed before. AND, I appreciated the character that Mr. Hoffman had created much more. I was very pleased at how much better the movie had become. In fact, I found it quite delightful.
While there is plenty to please the eye of the obvious children’s market, there is much to think about on an adult level as well. Themes of loneliness and friendship are prevalent. Henry (Jason Bateman) has devoted his life to making sure that everyone’s paperwork is all in order to the exclusion of any friendships. Eric (Zach Mills) is a very lonely but personable 9 year old. Against a backdrop of a brilliant choice of music (Don’t be Shy by Cat Stevens—one of my favorite songs of all time) Eric reaches out to Henry for a game of checkers…which Henry is too busy with paperwork to oblige.
Ultimately, I found the film to be quite engaging and, with the exception of a mild re-incarnation reference, it’s an excellent family movie. Repeated viewings will reveal the beautiful detail woven into the story and cinematography. Our family thoroughly enjoys the film. It just took me a little longer than the others.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
WALL-E
"After seven hundred years of doing what he was built for, he discovered what he was meant for."
TOBIN'S PICK
Meet WALL-E: Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class. Day in, day out, the little trash compactor on wheels rolls out of his storage truck to crunch garbage into tiny cubes. But after centuries of performing the same task, he has acquired what his programmers never intended – a personality. Now he sifts shiny relics from the trash and stows them with his collection.
The first thing we notice about WALL-E’s world is that it is knee deep in rubbish. The next thing we notice is that there is not a human being in sight. As we learn from the faded billboards around the city, the human race has abandoned the planet for a luxurious new home on board the space cruise ship Axiom. “We’ll clean up the mess while you’re away,” promise the 700-year-old advertisements for the early WALL-Es. But after all his brother robots have broken down, our hero is the last of his kind, persevering at a job that has been declared a lost cause. His diligence, and his ability to see beauty in the commonplace, ultimately shake the humans out of their complacency and bring them back to take responsibility for their world.
Far from being an environmentalist tale, WALL-E’s world covered in garbage is an important statement about our technology-dependent, throwaway culture. The indulgent lifestyle on board the Axiom has made mankind forget about his responsibilities – about God’s role for him as gardener. The example of one little robot, however, leads everyone he meets to stop and wonder at creation. While an environmentalist picture would use the trashed-planet motif to have us save the trees, WALL-E proposes the Biblical message that the trees need to be cared for by men. To be human is to take care of that which is beautiful.
WALL-E is ultimately all about protocol – to be a Waste Allocation Load Lifter is to crush trash, even though everyone else has given up. Throughout, we see other robots derive satisfaction from their designated tasks. The only characters who have ignored their directives are the human beings. And on a ship run by computer, where technology serves every whim, man is all too happy to give up the God-given directive of human innovation. WALL-E is thus timely in an America that spends more of its time in front of a screen than working under the sky. In celebrating the human lordship over machines and the environment (and our responsibility toward it), WALL-E is a study in human nature comparable to C.S. Lewis’ land of Narnia, which must be ruled over by a “son of Adam.”
The execution of the film is brilliant. It is not only a smartly written descendent of classic sci-fi like Omega Man, Soylent Green, and Logan’s Run, but it cleverly employs silent film dynamic to deliver characters who speak largely in R2-D2-esque squeaks and clicks. Best of all is the film’s portrayal of gender interactions. WALL-E’s life changes when the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator probe drops from the sky, and from the violin chords at WALL-E’s first awestruck glimpse of E.V.E. to his clumsy attempts to get her attention, the audience completely buys a robot romance that only Pixar could sell. The complementarian relationship that develops between the low-tech but industrious WALL-E, and the sleek but high-strung E.V.E. tells us much about human relationships as well.
I continue to be struck by the power of a good story to move and enlighten – even when delivered in the form of a cartoon. And in this case, the guidelines of the G-rating augment, rather than stifle, a wholesome and truly heartwarming tale. Pixar has invented a fresh new kind of animated feature just in time for this decade in which cartoons are no longer kid stuff.
Tobin
MIKE'S PICK
Whenever we have a "movie night" and I find out that WALL-E is on the marquee, I drop what I'm doing, go sit on the couch and wait for the movie to start. (Not really, but there are a few movies that I can't wait to see again and again, and this one is one of them.)
With most movies that Tobin and I go see together, we converse afterward about the story line, world view, cinematography, plot holes and other aspects of the film. (HINT: If you ever go to a movie with us, please be prepared to be quiet and sit all the way through the credits.) But not so with this film. We were both so wrapped up in the story and other aspects of the film that we were literally stunned into silence.
Like all other Pixar films, this one has a very strong story, perfect animation and believable characters. I bought the story of two robots falling in like with each other hook, line, and sinker. The almost complete lack of dialog for a good portion of the movie only made the story more real to me. In fact, at one point in during the show, I actually forgot that I was watching an animated feature.
Pixar is quite adept at playing our heart strings as well. Rarely am I moved by a film. (Most who know me would say that I am rarely moved at all.) However, I found myself helplessly drawn into the story as well as the beauty of the animated "stages" on which it was acted out. I found myself especially taken in by the dance sequence between the two robots outside the ship. Perhaps I'm softening up as I get older....
Those who look at this movie as a dark, man-kills-planet film, are really missing the entire point. This film is about friendship and relationships. Ultimately, it demonstrates how lonely we can become through technology. As the movie demonstrates, texting, facebooking, and emailing are poor substitutes for the real thing.
Whether you purchase, rent, or borrow WALL-E take the time to watch it. It is Pixar family entertainment at it's best.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Twilightis a little light in its loafers.
Edward Cullen is a one hundred year old seventeen-year-old, who lives with his family in rural Washington where the perpetual cloud cover protects their fair complexions. They don’t age because they are vampires – not the bad kind, of course, because the Cullens have sworn to be “vegetarians,” subsisting only on animal blood. Edward is lonely and unfulfilled until the lovely Bella comes to town to live with her dad, and the two fall into a convenient star-crossed romance which leads to adventures evading the “bad” vampires, and Bella’s ultimate desire to be made like Edward and join him in everlasting teenagerhood. Yawn. I’ll be frank. Twilight held absolutely no surprises for me. As the marketing suggests, it is a nicely shot, uncomplicated story, populated with self-absorbed, self-loathing teenagers and revolving around the romantic fantasies of teen girls. It actually has some nice visuals and lighting, and even a pretty cool “zip” special effect – used whenever one of the vampires runs faster than sight. But the obligatory nature of the romance between Edward and Bella, who have nothing in common except their belief that no-one understands their oh-so-unique adolescent angst, will surely corrode the soul of anyone who watches it all the way through. I had to watch Pride and Prejudice right after to feel cleansed. The difference is obvious: In good romance, one character’s emotions for another provide the motivation for his actions in the story. In Twilight, the characters’ emotions are the story. Why rent a DVD when I could see the same weepy fondling and snippy defensive tempers in any McDonald’s on a Friday night. The most obvious problem for many Christians is that Twilight romanticizes vampires. But more dangerous, it romanticizes teenagerism – an emasculated, self-centered version of adulthood. Let me highlight the juvenility of this movie by offering an artistic critique, namely that Twilight adds nothing new to the vampire genre, as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly did for the Western, and Star Wars did for science fiction. The only novelty it adds is vampires who sparkle in the light of day. That’s right, at sunrise they twinkle instead of crawling back into their coffins like Lon Chaney did. But even this glitter-skin is not an artistic innovation so much as it is a way to lift vampires from the gothic horror setting and transplant them in to the realm of sunshine, ponies, and rainbows so that little girls can enjoy them too. Edward the tame vampire with the pretty eyes is just the next step in a teen culture that downplays the evil of evil, or worse, finds it sexy. And the film’s lack of innovation – its sterility, if you will – reflects the shortsighted, amusement-fed audience at which it is directed. Edward’s effeminacy presents another problem. Yes, I just went against popular perception, and I’ll say it again: Edward Cullen is an effeminate pinky. Yes, he is ferociously protective of Bella, and yes, he is very physically powerful. But he is also controlled by his emotions, hesitant to lead the relationship anywhere, or even to leave Bella’s side when his presence puts her in danger. Twilight presents a fulfillment of adolescent fantasy, with a beautiful adolescent boy who is wildly attracted to the girl in the movie, yet will never ask her for a commitment that might force her to grow up; Twilight presents feelings without a man attached. The movie’s unheard-of teaming of female director, writer, and original author came as no surprise when the credits finally rolled. From Bella’s distant, clueless father, to her chucklehead classmates, Twilight utterly lacks any masculine presence as a product of a culture where men have stopped being leaders. Why, by the way, does Edward’s father, who is praised for his self-control and protection of humans, fail to guide his son away from his highly compromising feelings for a human girl? Oh, of course: that kind of leadership would ruin the sexual tension, wouldn’t it? But the real danger of Twilight is that its celebration of immaturity is masked behind an alleged “pro-abstinence” veneer. While Edward and Bella crave physical intimacy with one another, they refrain because even a kiss sets Edward’s vampire senses wild – and it takes all his restraint not to bite and kill. Some Christian reviewers have given this film the “thumbs up” because they see Edward, the passionate but potentially dangerous boy, as an every-teen, trying to exert self-control in the face of raging hormones. But this praise is totally baffling to me because there is absolutely no sexual ethic mentioned in the movie. I want to make the point, apparently lost on certain pro-abstinence reviewers, that the relationship’s “chastity” stems only from the highly practical reason that a moment of ecstasy is likely to get Bella killed; it is a problem to be overcome. Edward does not abstain because he has been taught a distinction between love and lust, nor because Bella or her parents set him any boundaries. In fact, during the pair’s first kiss, it is Bella who pushes for more – lucky for her, Edward tears himself away before she comes to harm. The kiss scene demonstrates the story’s central flaw: Bella need not discipline herself because Edward has enough restraint for them both. Bella and Edward refrain from sex, yes, but this is hardly “abstinence” from Bella’s point of view. Bella does not want sex. Bella wants attention. And Bella can have all the attention she wants, because in the convenient scripting of Twilight, it will never cost her anything. Just as a man viewing X-rated pictures on the internet can enjoy visual stimulation outside the context of commitment, Bella (and all the teen girls watching) can enjoy romantic feelings outside the context of maturity or discipline – this is pornography of the heart. Vampire movies used to acknowledge the presence and the power of God – vampires, are, after all, repelled by the cross and holy water. This is because vampire legend stems from the Christian worldview. Gasp! Yes, vampirism as a literary concept presents a perversion of the Eucharist in which the drinking of blood imparts a satanic, rather than an everlasting, immortality; and this, of course, relies on an audience familiar with the Eucharist. Blood-drinking vampires are unique to the Christian(ized) nations of Europe. They are a portrayal of evil which necessitates an acknowledgement of God; Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) remains a powerful Christian novel portraying the struggle of righteous men against a Satan figure. The most offensive aspect of Twilight for me was seeing the powerful literary symbol of the vampire emasculated and made to cavort for teen girls’ amusement. My point? Don’t pass up Twilight because it’s a vampire movie. Pass it up because it celebrates teenage fantasies. Monsters are not appealing. Childish emotionalism is not manly. Audiences should grow up.
And now for a one-line review: All of Anne Rice's characters are more masculine than Edward Cullen - and they're bisexual.
Tobin
Nothing in the previews even remotely inspired me to see this film. As a result, I am (alas) without an opinion on it. However, not to be completely left out of this review, I trust what Tobin has to say here and will bow to his greater experience with the film.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Star Trek
"Where no Remake has gone Before."
Over forty years ago the starship Enterprise, charge of captain James T. Kirk, set out to seek new life and new civilizations. Gene Roddenberry’s original TV series has spawned five spinoff series totaling 722 episodes, and ten feature films. And now comes the story of how it all began – the summer movie simply titled Star Trek.
Though an avid Star Trek watcher since my childhood in the 90s, the first ten minutes of the movie got an entirely new reaction from me: tears. The opening scene’s themes of valor and sacrifice present – in a way that perhaps only a remake can do – what it means to be a captain. Though the movie quickly becomes a fun summer action flick, the theme of fearlessness and initiative ring throughout, as when an adolescent James Kirk is challenged to enlist in Starfleet: "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives including yours – I dare you to do better."
We meet Kirk as a genius-level delinquent struggling through officer’s school and making friends with old favorites Lt. Uhura and Dr. "Bones" McCoy. Sparks fly when the impulsive Kirk meets his polar opposite, the logical Vulcan, Mr. Spock. Through the clever scripting of a time warp, Star Trek is both a prequel to the Classic series and a continuation of the Next Generation franchise. Kirk’s stint at the academy is interrupted when a shipload of angry Romulans appears from the future, demanding vengeance for the destruction of their home planet – destined to take place over 200 years later. Kirk and the current captain of the Enterprise rush to stop them, leading to an action adventure which succeeds at remaining intense while never bordering on the frivolous.
What is remarkable about the movie is that the writers have managed to distill these characters to their core essences, distinguishing them from the actors who originally played them; Chris Pine is not simply impersonating William Shatner but is enacting James Kirk. Audiences should not expect deep character growth in the course of the 2-hour film, but should instead marvel at the interaction between solidly written characters: these characters take action because of who they are, never because it is simply expedient for the story.
In this decade where famous film series are reimagined and redefined with prequels and restarts (Casino Royale, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) we see a moviegoing culture ready for a more serious take on the old favorites.
(Wolverine, by the way, is also worth seeing – if not for its predictable plot, then definitely for its presentation of classic X-Men characters and how they met.)
This reincarnation of Star Trek has a sleek new look and clever contemporary photography – but it reminds us, more clearly than ever before, what was good about the original: a sense of courage and adventure which appeals to the child in all of us, and the triumph of earth-men as they assert themselves in a community of aliens who are often stronger or smarter than they are. Whereas many TV-based movies overstretch their material by attempting to contrive an adventure big enough for the big screen, Star Trek provides the exact opposite: an adventure big enough to kick off the TV series it anticipates.
The movie is rated PG-13 for action violence and infrequent language. During a chilling portrayal of battle, an astronaut is sucked into space through a damaged wall. An ugly mind-reader bug is put into a prisoner’s mouth in an effort to pick his brain. Of course Kirk gets a non-nude scene in bed with the traditional green-skinned woman – though the encounter is cut short and played mostly for comic effect. While it may not be a family movie, Star Trek’s real presentation of tragedy and loss, is balanced with swashbuckling space adventure, likeable characterization and an overall uplifting tone which makes it well worthwhile.
If you are new to Trek, the movie will fill you with wonder in a way that few space adventures have done since Star Wars – yes, the real one from the 70’s. If you are an old fan, and you have not seen it yet, the movie will not disappoint.
Tobin
MIKE'S PICK
I grew up watching Star Trek when it aired the first time. That's right, BEFORE the reruns. I was in elementary school at the time and all the boys were kept busy giving "Spock Shots" to each other on the playground. (When given a "Spock Shot", one was expected to dutifully fall to the ground in a dead faint.)
As I recall, Star Trek went off the air before we landed on the moon in 1969. I was devastated. William Shatner went on to make such films as The Devil's Rain and Kingdom of the Spiders (they were as good as you might expect their titles would indicate). Leonard Nimoy became Paris in Mission Impossible.
I was THRILLED as a young adult when in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out. There were the same characters, played by the same actors, on a new and improved Enterprise, headed out into the galaxy ready to fight off the bad guys bent on destroying our planet. Life was simpler then. More movies followed, a goodly number of Star Trek spinoffs, movies from the spinoffs...you know the drill. And I devoured them all. I am, after all, a Trekkie...or Trekker...or Star Trek Afficionado...or whatever you want to call a die hard Star Trek fan. I even cried when Mr Spock died in The Wrath of Khan. How could they do that to me??
When the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise aired, I figured that the franchise had finally died. Oh well. WAIT...another Star Trek movie in the works? Could it be true? No way it could compete with the previous 40 years. No way could they replace Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and the rest....or COULD they?
Well, folks, they could and they did with Star Trek. While I cannot compete with Tobin's eloquence, I will say "Woo Hoo!!" loudly for Star Trek. This film surpassed any and all expectations that I had for the latest entry. In fact, I firmly believe that this film deserves a sequel. The franchise may be saved!!
During the film, we are in on the birth of James Tiberius Kirk, named after both of his grandfathers. We get to meet Spock, Bones, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty and Chekov in their first days aboard a brand new, first edition Enterprise. We even get to meet Captain Christopher Pike (who only showed up in the multi episode The Menagerie, which was the never aired pilot of the series). Pike recruits Kirk to Star Fleet in the beginning of the film. This causes a few continuity problems with the original, 40 year old story line. The die hard Star Trek fans might not be overly thrilled with the use of a time conundrum to sort all this out, but it all works quite well in the production. (The die hards need to re-adjust their pocket protectors and move on with life.)
On to the film. I found the movie very well done, tightly scripted but with action galore. LOTS of thing going "boom" (but not TOO many), make this an action flick to rival most others. However, the story is not sacrificed in the melee. Rather, the character of the players is shown in themes of heroism, self sacrifice, and honor. Captain Kirk gets the girl, kills the bad guy, and saves the earth for future generations. And I had a great deal of fun watching him do it...again. I can't wait for the sequel.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
UP
"Adventure is out there."
Carl Fredrickson has always had a craving for adventure. And on his way home from the movies, the quiet, fat little boy meets someone with the same dreams and even the same aviator’s cap and goggles: a rambunctious, fearless little girl with a missing tooth. Ellie.
The first ten minutes of the movie follow the adult Carl’s romance with Ellie and the beautiful life they share, until Carl is left alone and unfulfilled on the front porch of their aging house. This montage could not only stand alone as a poignant short film, it gives a unique insight into the grumpy-old-man archetype. But this grumpy old man is about to embark on a life-changing adventure with the help of Russell – a young boy scout who is, unwittingly, a shadow of Carl’s boyhood self.
As a kid, Carl promised Ellie he would take her to the most exotic and adventurous place they knew: Paradise Falls. And though she is gone, the prospect of a forced expulsion from the home they built together pushes Carl to do just that – with the help of a few thousand balloons. Carl sets his house aflight like the dirigibles and aeroplanes of the adventurers he once worshipped and soon sets down in Paradise Falls for a quiet retirement. Or so he thinks.
But adventure, so UP would tell us, is not the places we go nor the discoveries we make – especially not the fame for such discoveries. Adventure is the people we love. As Carl attempts to move his house he struggles to rid himself of unwanted companions Russell and the loyal, dimwitted golden retriever Dug – and especially the goofy rainbow ostrich Kevin, native to Paradise Falls, who takes a liking to the crew. Moving the house and fulfilling his promise to Ellie is ultimately self-serving unless he is willing to keep his promises to others and to love the way Ellie taught him. And when danger threatens his annoying hangers-on, Carl rises to the occasion and discovers an adventure really worth having.
Pixar continues to deliver stories that remind us what is important in life – delivering entertainment, ironically, which proclaims that life is about more than being entertained. Up presents a world where promises and people matter more than accomplishments. Where it is enough simply to wonder at the beauty of nature, represented by Kevin the rainbow bird, without bringing it home in a cage.
The climax of the movie delivers a high altitude chase crafted from the perfect balance of intensity and laughs. But the sweet denouement shows that action (and action scenes) is given meaning only by the strength of our relationships.
"If I give my money to the poor and surrender my body to the flames…"
Adventure is out there, to quote the catchphrase of Carl’s boyhood movie hero. Don’t miss it in the mundane triumphs of loving and living.
Tobin
MIKE'S PICK
It has been said that all stories consist of one of two elements...a man goes on a journey, or, a stranger comes to town. Sometimes it's both. And, if you boil it down even further, the story ultimately is about a man going on a journey. The stranger coming to town is simply another man on a different journey.
UP is a fabulous story about Carl, a crotchety old man who never quite lived his dream of high adventure. Reality always required that he set his dream aside for the more mundane activities that life thrusts upon us.
The beginning of the film is a beautiful 10 minute montage of Carl and Ellie's (his best childhood friend and wife for life) life together, complete with the joys and heartaches that they lived through. They live a happy life but never get to go on the ultimate adventure to Paradise Falls, an eternal dream for both of them.
Suddenly, Carl is alone and wasting away in sadness and bitterness in the home he and Ellie had lived in their entire married life. Ultimately, Carl is being forced to move to the retirement home and he decides to take action. With the help of a bazillion brightly colored helium balloons, he flies away in his home...with unwitting stowaway, Russel. Russel is a Boy Scout trying to earn the "Help an Elderly Person" merit badge and is caught in Carl's adventure, like it or not. And what an adventure it turns out to be.
What is interesting about this story is that both Carl and Russel are really involved in two journeys. The obvious one, full of danger, action, and travel, and the not so obvious journey that is a transition in relationship. Carl wants to be alone. And he absolutely does not want responsibility for a little Scout. Russel's father is either absent or non-participating. Russel refers to his lonely family life in quiet sadness as he desperately wants a friend. The relational transition is especially sweet through the duration of the film.
This movie is not without it's formidable action sequences either. It builds to a wonderfully stressful airborn battle between the good guys and bad guys with a hilarious twist in character for one of them. A subtle nod to Star Wars during the climax added a welcome release to the tension. Be sure to watch for it.
Pixar has learned how to make us care about the characters that they create for their films. The final word in Monsters, Inc always brings a tear to my eye. I felt like a fool during the dance sequence in WALL-E. UP is no different. Take some tissues or learn to lean your head on your hand so you can discreetly wipe away the water running down your face with nobody noticing. This is Pixar at it's best...until the next film they put out.
One more thing. The first movie that I took Tammy to when we were in college was Bambi. And, for you smart alecs out there, this was a re-release of the film, not a premier viewing... As the movie ended, she started to get up and walk out during the credits. I gently explained to her that a lot of people helped make this movie and we should stay through the credits and at least see who they were. Since then, we've always stayed through the credits while the amateur moviegoers trot themselves out the door. In recent years, the producers have been putting a little "treat" during or at the end of the credits for those who stay. Folks, stay through the credits. You never know what's going to be hiding there.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Kung-Fu Panda
"There is no charge for awesomeness."
Jack Black is not really an actor. He is more of a persona. That being said, I enjoyed his voice work in the endearingly written titular character of Kung-Fu Panda, Dreamworks’ best animated film so far.
Meet Po: noodle maker by day, king-fu master by night – but only in his dreams.
He wakes up every day to find himself the same overweight, go-nowhere loser stuck in the family restaurant. Though his dad assures him that they are noodle folk, and that broth runs deep in their veins, Po dreams of the opportunity to do something more – and dreams that of the courage to actually take it.
Like everyone else in the all-animal China he inhabits, Po the panda worships the kung-fu fighting "Furious Five." He has the posters, the action figures, and more than anything else, dreams of meeting them. But when the country is threatened by the return of Ti Lung, the fiercest kung-fu warrior of them all, the powers of the Five may not be enough. The old sage of the mountain says it is time to appoint a new weapon to fight Ti Lung: the Dragon Warrior. Po’s quest to become the Dragon Warrior and save China sets the stage for a comic adventure with intense but kid-friendly action scenes that are as entertaining as they are parodically funny.
To explain what’s so good about this Dreamworks production requires us to understand what is good about animated features in general. Pixar has set the bar for beautiful and entertaining cartoons because it has its own style – it has invented a breed of animated feature distinct (both visually and narrationally) from the fairy tale musical created by Disney. Animation is fueled by originality of style.
In their early years, Dreamworks attempted to mimic Pixar’s sense of humor, as if failing to realize that Pixar’s success stems from its uniqueness and not from its jokes. But Kung-Fu Panda is a sudden landmark, delivering character visuals, setting, and physical comedy in a style distinct from Pixar.
The major critique to be made against Kung-Fu Panda is the simplicity of its story. Po wants to be a kung-fu hero and finds – no surprise to anyone who saw the trailer – that it is his destiny to become one. However, the movie does not share the downfall of other simple stories: monotony. It delivers many different types of scenes from the comic, to the adventurous, to the spiritual, in a well-paced balance between many characters and locations. It is tidily written with foreshadowing, parallelism, and symbol. Even the music is evocative and authentically Chinese. The story’s simplicity is not necessarily to be held against it (not everyone is Pixar). Kung-Fu Panda does not puff itself up, and uses all its characters and elements in a unified and complete way.
The movie is also a visually appealing parody of martial arts films, with fight choreography on the scale of Hero or Fearless – intense and action-packed, yet family-friendly in their non-lethal silliness. My favorite was a duel between Po and his instructor, when they are each using a pair of chopsticks to fight over the last dumpling. The visual complexity of the action speaks to great quantities of talent and effort that went into its production. Best of all, the movie has its own look (something that has me intrigued about the upcoming Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), promising that, next decade, animated features need no longer copy Pixar to feel good about themselves.
Though Panda’s obviously eastern philosophy of self-discovery and inner peace may provide a reason to shelter younger children from it, it bears none of the potty humor that hobbled earlier Dreamworks releases like Shrek. The movie is a great popcorn flick for discerning audiences –perhaps even a good discussion starter about the growing popularity of Easternism in America, or the layers of truth that can be extracted even from this pantheistic worldview.
Tobin
Kung Fu Panda is one of those films that I had to supress my gag reflex at the thought even sitting through. The previews were not inviting and generated no interest for me. However, the other night, Tobin and I sat down and watched it together. What a delight!
Please don't mention this to anyone. It will be our little secret. I have become a closet fan of Jack Black. Even though his humor becomes crass and vulgar at times, when he has a strong director, he can be quite disarming. In School of Rock, he demonstrated some very nice acting skills, as in Be Kind, Rewind. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend his films in general, I'm ashamed to admit that I really enjoyed Kung Fu Panda.
Our protagonist, Po (a panda bear of great weight), dreams of being a valiant kung fu warrior even though his destiny lies in making noodles and bean buns in the family restaurant. The film opens with a well disguised dream sequence which is absolutely hilarious. Po dreams himself as a Caine type character (of the TV series Kung Fu from way back when) on a trek to find someone who can challenge him in battle.
Through an comical chain of events, Po is crowned as the Kung Fu master annointed and appointed to save the town from Ti Lung. He then must begin his training in earnest for the final showdown at the hoe-down.
While there is nothing particularly offensive in this movie, the world view presented is Far Eastern in nature. Themes of destiny and spiritism are part of the backdrop on which this film is played out. There are elements that might be a bit frightening to younger audiences. There will certainly be opportunities for discussions after the movie is over.
Jack Black can put one in the "Win Column" on this film. Dreamworks has finally stopped trying to be Pixar. It's possible that Dreamworks has figured out that it doesn't need to use potty humor in it's films any longer. I certainly hope so.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Terminator: Salvation
"I'll be back."
TOBIN'S PICK
Twenty-five years is a long time for any movie franchise, but when time travel is involved, anything is possible.
For those of you not familiar with the story, the Terminator saga originates in the future, where a race of self-aware machines wages war against their human creators. With superior weaponry and armor, they are all but successful – held at bay only by the leadership of one man: John Connor.
Failing any attempt to kill Connor in guerilla combat, the machines calculate a sneakier (and more metaphysically interesting) plan: send a mechanized assassin, a Terminator, back to the 80s to kill John’s mother before he can be born. The human resistance learns of the plan in time to send their own soldier, Kyle Reese, as her protector.
The sequels expanded the time-travel/dark future concept, each set in the year of its release. Terminator: Salvation is the first movie to actually take place in the future, depicting Connor as an adult, leading a ragged band of survivalists in their fight against mechanical killers. (And, yes, to any fans disappointed by T3, this movie more than makes up for it)
As horror is the dark side of fantasy, so science fiction has a dark side: cyberpunk. Science fiction traditionally depicts man’s use of science to propel human inventiveness and courage to other worlds beyond Earth. But cyberpunk, invented in the 80s with films like Blade Runner, depicts a future where science has become a monster man can no longer control – whether it take the form a killer computer or a culture addicted to implants and microchips. Cyberpunk portrays (perhaps more relevantly to today’s culture) the struggle between flesh and silicon as rapidly advancing technology threatens to violate the human essence.
This is the central conflict of Terminator, where man’s inventions seek to destroy him, his cities and accomplishments have been stripped away, and he must understand and embrace his humanity or else have it snuffed out forever.
(At one point in the movie, a woman goes to sleep with her head on a man’s chest and comments significantly that she loves the sound of a beating heart.)
But the appeal of Terminator goes beyond the basic man vs. machine motif that was sufficient for the 80s installment. Now man struggles to take control of an earth that has become a wilderness. This is the conflict that drives the most enduring of legends: the bringing of civilization where there was chaos before. Legendary heroes slay fictional monsters in representation of Genesis’ dominion mandate to subdue the earth – even the Biblical David is elevated to legendary status by his killing of wild animals and the barbaric Philistines.
The post-apocalypse of Terminator returns to the stuff of legend by presenting a new kind of wilderness – the rubble of human complacency – complete with a new kind of wild animal: machines. Much like Gilgamesh, David, or Beowulf, John Connor asserts mastery over these monsters, triumphing not because of superior strength or intelligence, but by virtue of his human spirit. Man alone was meant to rule the earth. Terminator follows in Tolkien’s tradition of fantasy in that it made me proud to be a human being.
Such are the form and themes of Terminator. As to the story, the script is tidily written, balancing the episodic adventures that showcase the setting in the first half with the questions of humanity raised in the second. Dialogue is pregnant with meaning and symbol in a way not common to action movies, and yet the action and stunts – while bordering sometimes on the implausible – make it a greatly entertaining summer movie.
Director "McG" scales back the gore and language of the original to achieve a PG-13 rating. (Note the same phenomenon in the latest installment of the contemporaneous Die Hard franchise – no matter what doomsayer Christians may say about the culture, audiences are becoming more sensitive and cerebral than they were in the 80s – not less). But again, what violence and language there is is in keeping with the survivalist scenario, and is more than forgivable for a discerning audience wishing to see a wholesome and mythic portrayal of the human spirit.
Tobin
MIKE'S PICK
"The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades, but the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight..."
In 1984 at 1:52 AM, he arrived. Unclothed, unfeeling, unmerciful, and unnoticed, the Terminator came from the future to accomplish his mission at any cost. The mission? To kill the mother of John Connor, the resistance leader, before he is born.
In 1984,we were living in Bakersfield, CA. We had purchased our first home ($45,000 for a nice little 3 bedroom, 1 bath house on a fairly large lot) and had our first German Shepherd named Olive.
Those of you who have met Tammy and me in person will not be surprised that I am a fan of the Terminator series. With a virtually indestructable robot from the future chasing after a woman who is forced into defending herself, bullets flying everywhere, and a explosions galore, this was my kind of film.
With cheesy (by today's standards) stop animation, lame opening credits, and really bad keyboard music scoring, Terminator, starring Arnold Swartzenegger was released in the theatres after several weeks of promotion on television. This was the first "cyber punk" film that I remember seeing and I was hooked. When it was over, I couldn't wait to see the second installment.
FINALLY, in 1991, T2 came out. In T2, Arnold plays another robot from the future, but this time to protect the now 13-14 year old John Connor who in the future, sent the Terminator back in time to protect himself. (It's one of those time conundrum things that's hard to explain.) T2, surprisingly, is one of Tammy's favorite films. There were even rumblings in the pro-life community about T2 having some pro-life themes. Again, I eagerly awaited the 3rd installment.
Then, in 2003, out came T3. Don't bother. It's not worth seeing.
Now we have Terminator: Salvation. This film is obviously an apology for T3 and WOW, do they apologize!!
Terminator: Salvation, unlike the other films, is set in the future. The movie takes us to the battle proper. The Skynet machines are dead set on eliminating mankind and are doing a pretty good job of it. The resistance is fragmented at best. Mankind's only hope is a newly discovered weakness in the Skynet network and John Connor volunteers to test, and ultimately implement it.
Gone is the pervasive language and brief nudity of the previous films. Gone is the R rating. What's left is a solidly written, well acted story of man vs machine. While the back story of the 3 previous films is helpful in sorting this one out, they aren't necessary. The film stands on its own quite nicely. The pacing of the story is perfect. The special effects are perfect. The tone of the film is perfect. The battle scenes keep you on the edge of your seat. Cinematically, the images are gritty and the colors are dimmed, adding just the right touch of reality to the story.
As with the new Star Trek, I was very pleasantly surprised with this film. I hope that we get another sequel in this series.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
G. I. Joe
This is a review that I started a couple of months ago right after I saw G I Joe and didn't bother to post it. Tobin relegated the top spot to me since he hasn't actually seen the film.
I was 8 years old when G.I. Joe came to market in 1964 before the Vietnam war started. (The Vietnam war began in 1965 with the Battle of Ia Drang). He was sold as "America's Movable Fighting Man". He had 21 moveable parts and was not a "doll", he was an "action figure". "G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip", was originally designed alongside a television series called The Lieutenant (produced by none other than Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame).
Johnny Hudgens was my best friend at the time and, while I was never really a fan of war or soldier toys, HE was and I couldn't help noticing how this action figure moved. He could be posed in any number of ways, including positions that only a Russian gymnast (with every bone dislocated) could even attempt to get into. G.I. Joe has been through as many modifications and presentations as Barby and is still popular today.
Well, Joe has finally made it into the ranks of live action moviedom. In association with Hasbro, G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra hit a home run at the box office. Its openening weekend produced some $50,000,000. After seeing it today, I don't really understand why.
This movie has it all: CGI effects galore, Dennis Quaid, Marlon Wayans, a predictable storyline, an ending that a child could spot coming 45 minutes ahead of time, and an all too obvious set up for a sequel. It also uses flashbacks galore to establish a back story. Why it even has 2 martial arts childhood enemies getting back together to settle it once and for all. And just GUESS who wins (the good guy? or the bad guy?)
Don't get me wrong. I LIKE Dennis Quaid. Marlon Wayans isn't bad. And CGI, if not overdone, is helpful for certain films. But, if I can spot the ending coming, it seems that the writers and directors aren't doing their jobs.
The film had its high points, though. The car chase involving 2 soldiers on foot was somewhat interesting, especially if you like to see lots of cars being thrown into the air. But it can get monotonous at times, even for me.
The carnage and loss of life was about what you would expect from a "struggle for world domination between the US Military and a psycho billionaire" story. Think "The Patriot" or "Braveheart" but without the class.
G. I. Joe was made to make a quick buck, which it did. It was hyped to the top of the charts based on no merits if its own. I RARELY walk out on a movie but if the kids were to rent this one for home viewing, I wouldn't bother sitting down to watch it again. I'd find something more productive to do with the 90 odd minutes. Like playing Minesweeper.
Mike
I am now going to do something new, which is to review a movie I have not seen. The main reason I didn't see G.I. Joe is that the director is older than I am. That's right - 47 year old Stephen Sommers did not grow up watching the "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" cartoon show (1989-91). And in my opinion, unless you grew up watching General Hawk's weekly battles against villains like Serpentor and the V.I.P.E.R.S., you would be hard put to bring it to the silver screen with any degree of dignity. (This is also why I did not bother with Transformers, and will not be seeing any screen adaptations of He-Man, Carmen Sandiego, Ninja Turtles, Mario Bros., Power Rangers, or M.A.S.K. any time before the next decade is up. These are MY generation's cartoons.)
Let's look at the best "kid movies for grown-ups" of all time: Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I propose that these movies are awesome for the sole reason that George Lucas had grown up with the serial adventure heroes like Flash Gordon and Doc Savage, and then, after reflecting on them for thirty-odd years, wanted to do them honor in a big budget film. Consequently, he created space battles and treasure hunts like nobody had ever seen before - but had always hoped they could. Only someone who grew up with Flash Gordon could have seen the potential for greatness embedded in his corny space swashbuckling.
Likewise, only somebody who actually grew up enthusiastic about the G.I. Joe vs. Cobra continuum could give it enough subtlety and freshness to spin the old classic into a new and enduring light. Sommers did not. Judging by the advertising, this movie appears to have not added any new depth or interest to the G.I. Joe franchise (as Terminator, Batman, Casino Royale, Star Trek, and even Wolverine succeeded in doing for their franchises recently), but instead to have created a cheap action story which banks off the name recognition of a familiar icon - using poor old G.I. Joe to ingratiate itself with the audience instead of trying to honor and expand the original. I mean, even the sick minds at Robot Chicken seem to do the G.I. Joe show more honor in their stop-animated parodies... where Cobra Commander and Lex Lutor are carpooling home from the evil office, and the Decepticons are just tossed into the skit for a laugh.... ah, the twisted nostalgia. (Movie Watch Blog does not in any way recommend Robot Chicken.)
But then again, I never saw the movie, so I'm just responding to the marketing and trailer. And maybe that cotton-candy-ish trailer veiled a movie that was actually quite nostalgic and satisfying. And maybe Stephen Sommers, 29 years old when I was six, was enough of a softie at the time to absorb G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero with the heart of a child. Maybe.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
District 9
The one-scene teaser trailer sums up District 9 the best: lobster-like creature sits in a police interrogation room, its face is obscured by a TV-journalism style screen blur.
Policeman: “Why are you here?” Alien: “We didn’t mean to land here.” Policeman: “Why don’t you leave?” Alien: “How can we leave when you have our ship?” Policeman: “How do your weapons work?”
District 9 brings an innovative twist to a familiar story: a flying saucer comes to earth, not for an invasion, but for an emergency landing. The crustacean-like creatures inside, nicknamed “prawns” by earthlings, land in need of food and shelter, and fall victim to earth’s “hospitality:” species segregation and interment camps, driven by the Machiavellian desire to control the aliens’ superior weapons. Like any persecuted and untouchable people group in human history, the prawns live in squalor – and degenerate to a corresponding state of barbarism.
A powerful theme here is that cruelty breeds barbarism – human oppressors grow callous and inhuman, just as the hopeless prawns devolve and become the slum-dwellers humanity has made of them. This theme is intensified in the person of protagonist Wikus van de Merwe, a compliant official in the alien interment program who falls afoul of his government and is forced to live among the prawns whom he has oppressed. In this way, District 9 is a Nebuchadnezzar story, and it is indeed edifying to see the tables turned on an unquestioning racist who suddenly finds himself persecuted and reduced to eating the aliens’ favorite delicacy – cat food – just as the ancient ruler of Babylon ate grass.
The movie’s skillful setup and gritty documentary style photography led me to expect a story that would speak seriously about prejudice, irony, and man’s inhumanity to those who are different. My disappointment was all the greater when the second hour took the form of a thriller movie – for when chases, explosions, and laser blasts obscure the important themes set up in the first act, they fail to even be exciting.
My major disappointment with District 9 was one of violence. We live in a time when graphic violence has become acceptable in R-rated film. This is not universally a bad thing – films like We Were Soldiers and No Country for Old Men depict violence, evil, and inhumanity in an arresting and insightful way. But District 9 presents pervasive gore in a context that does not bother to tell us much that is arresting or insightful about the themes on which the movie ought to center: prejudice and cruelty. A movie’s level of violence must match its level of seriousness, and a mere thriller quite simply does not deserve to depict the dismemberments, the torture, and the exploding bodies seen in District 9. Senseless violence should only be shown in a story that condemns the senselessness of violence – District 9 is merely senseless in its use of violence.
Tobin
When I first saw the previews for District 9 some months ago, I found myself being VERY interested in seeing it. My thoughts were steered toward "alien invasion against a backdrop of the horrible Japanese internment camps (JIC) of WWII". This ought to be good. (For the older folks, memories of the JIC are probably still vivid. For the younger, the JIC have been relegated to the history books. For ALL, it's a situation that must be looked at as an absolutely disdainful part of our history.)
My friend James and I went to see it when it finally opened here at the Culpeper 4. Yes, the Culpeper 4.
When I go see a film, I usually come away feeling like it was either a waste of money (in the case of GI Joe, it was a waste of a free pass), a use time and money that left me feeling neither good nor bad, or a tremendous experience that is worthy of the cost of another ticket and the time it takes to see it again. While District 9 wasn't a total waste, neither is it a film that I am likely to see again.
Perhaps my expectations were set a bit higher than the movie was able to meet? Perhaps the previews led me to believe that it was something that it wasn't? (The scene in the trailer that Tobin mentions above wasn't even in the film.) Perhaps I was actually in the mood for something else? I'm not really sure. But, I came away feeling whelmed. Neither underwhelmed, nor overwhelmed, just whelmed. While the film made some important observations about how power corrupts even the most mealy mouthed individuals, it fell short in other areas that could have been addressed more carefully. In one particularly disturbing scene, unborn alien babies are callously aborted with less thought than it takes to swat a fly.
With all it's flashes, bangs, and booms, ultimately the story is about a man who goes from panty waist beauracrat, to being put in charge and abusing his authority, to becoming what he hates and realizing the error of his ways.
While my tolerance for film violence and language is fairly high, the violence in this film is mostly gratuitous and the language simply displays a poor command of the english language.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
REWIND REVIEW
City of Ember
The poster to City of Ember depicts many things that I like: a young man helping a girl up a perilous-looking cliff as they climb away from their safe, familiar home, braving the darkness to find a purer light at the end of the tunnel. The movie just wasn’t quite as good as the poster.
To understand the characters in City of Ember, you have to understand its very creative setting, adapted from the novel by Jeanne DuPrau. The day the world “ended,” in a now-forgotten disaster, the underground city of Ember was built to preserve the light of civilization. In their world of clunky electric generators and incandescent light bulbs, the inhabitants of Ember have no remembrance of the world on the surface – or of a surface at all. They mind their own business and never venture away from the lights of the city. Until those lights begin to flicker.
Doon Harrow just wants what every young man wants; to brave a dangerous job that will save his community. As his home of Ember shows unnerving signs of age, Doon dreams of growing up to fix the fabled Generator, the source of all power. But what he stumbles upon is much bigger – the secret of the forgotten world above.
The problem with Ember is that, for an adventure film, it does not take our hero far enough away from home. His whole quest revolves around clues that were already in the city itself, under his nose, as it were. I found this to be frustrating as was first Redwall book, hoping for the greater diversity of settings and hazards as in The Hobbit.
The setting is clever, nonetheless, and the city is crammed with puzzles, secret passages, and even “monsters” of a sort – those who love fairy tales like I do will be amused and satisfied with how Ember replaces the traditional dragon/ogre motif. But for those expecting brilliantly written characters or a smartly twisting plot, it’s important to remember that City of Ember is more of a kids’ movie: a gimmicky treasure hunt flick, with some cute casting and some interesting ideas, but nothing very deep. (though it has a straight performance by Bill Murray, who has the capacity to make any movie better). What Ember does do is transpose basic fairy tale/adventure ideas into an eclectic fantasy world of gears and pipes rather than the traditional castle-and-forest setting – a touch that I absolutely loved.
City of Ember: good literature? Hardly. But a wholesome family film that will hold the kids’ interest, and inspire little boys to have courage and conviction like Doon Harrow, no matter what? Absolutely.
Tobin
After reading Tobin's review, I decided to put City of Ember on my NetFlix list. It came in a few days ago and Tammy, Megan and I watched it together.
This film has elements from several other of my favorite movies. Mix equal parts of Goonies (1985), National Treasure (2004) and Logan's Run (1976). Add a dash of Men in Black (1997), and a pinch of Soldier (1998). Fold in a helping of the Splash Mountain ride mixed with a wonderful soundtrack worthy of any decent surround sound amplifier and you have a delightful children's adventure flick. (For purpose of this review, I am not endorsing the above films.)
Against a backdrop of a forgotten underground city where food is getting scarce, power is unreliable, and crooks still thrive, this is a story of a young man and woman who have decided to take charge of their own lives.
On graduation day, students are handed out jobs not by their aptitude or interest, but rather by random draw. Doon Harrow is destined to be a messenger. Lina Mayfleet is assigned to Pipe Repair Works. She and Doon decide to secretly switch jobs so that they can both do what they are inclined. Together, they discover the secret of the City of Ember. With Bill Murray playing an uncharacteristically serious role as the Mayor, the story has all the elements of a well done children's film.
Although the film is painfully predictable and has a plot devoid of depth, virtually any adolescent or young teenage boy will come away wishing that HE were Doon Harrow saving the town, the day, and not one but TWO young ladies.
The question that you might want to ask me is, "Did you enjoy the 90 minute ride with your family?". Yes, I sure did.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Outsourced
"Todd Anderson lost his job. But half-way round the world, he found his life."
Office Space (1999). Slumdog Millionaire (2008). Brigadoon (1954). Blend the best of each in the magical medium of independent filmmaking – where witty dialogue, expressive camerawork, and parallelism exorcise the need for big name stars and big budget visuals – and you have Outsourced.
Todd Anderson’s job has been yanked out from under him. Worse, the company still needs him – to train his replacement. In India. Todd finds himself a stranger in a strange land, battling the very culture in order to get his new crew of Indian phone salesmen to speak (and keep a timetable) like Americans.
At first, the Indian culture is no more than an obstacle to Todd. A typical American, he just wants to get in, get out, and get back to the apartment he left in Seattle. But it is as if India, and the patron goddess Kali herself, are holding him there; the death-goddess’ likeness is all over India, and it is Todd’s cultural preconceptions that must die before he can find a meaningful life.
At first Todd remains aloof in the dirty, alien land, turning up his nose at the lack of soap and the backward cultural ways – and even the many Indians who try to befriend him. But by the midpoint of the movie he finally surrenders to India and allows himself to love it, in what is by far the coolest film baptism allusion that I have ever seen (you’ll know it when you see it). And when his time there is over, he has discovered something more important than the apartment – the things – he left in the States. Contentment is a decision.
The remarkable thing about Outsourced is that no plot summary can really sum it up. More than a comedy about a man who lost his job, it is a leisurely-paced, theme-driven story about contentment, and about seeing what is truly important in life. Like Todd himself, Americans (even Christian Americans) can benefit from the window into a foreign culture provided by this movie. In one wordless scene, Todd observes the love shared by a poverty-stricken family that has invited him to eat with them, and the last of his materialism is blown away. Sappy? Only because it’s been done too many times and by all the wrong filmmakers. In Outsourced, on the other hand, director John Jeffcoat hits it home in a way that is genuinely touching.
The portrayal of Hinduism, too, is a culturally broadening experience. Christians still know reincarnation is a false doctrine, but after seeing this movie, they will no longer think it sounds stupid. Far from it, the destruction brought by the goddess Kali sounds suspiciously like “unless a seed fall into the ground.…” Don’t worry; this movie will not turn you into a Hindu – but it will give you a new respect for Hindu people.
Outsourced is rated for some barely PG-13-worthy sexual content, which is kept tastefully off screen (thank you, independent filmmaking). In fact, the most graphic things that are seen are some illustrations from the Kama Sutra, which are talked about in a humorous light. Christians may or may not be offended by the movie’s sexual ethic (that it’s okay if the love is real). I wasn’t. At least the movie had one. And though the story by no means centers on this topic (I only bring it up because it is a possible stumbling block among many many other elements), the dilemmas of people who become physically involved are portrayed realistically enough to perhaps spark a good family discussion with younger viewers about what we, as Christians, believe about marriage.
So buckle up for a ride to India with a movie where you can smell the food, feel the dust in the air, and taste the culture. By the time the credits roll, you won’t want to go back to Seattle.
Tobin
I haven't seen this film yet, but I just put it in my Netflix queue.
I've now seen Outsourced. It's been some time since I watched the film, but I must say that I still think about it from time to time. I won't go into much detail, however I will point out a thing or two that I found very interesting.
After Todd moved to India, he spent a great deal of time and frustration fighting the culture. He was furious that the people there wouldn't "do it his way". One day, he met another outsider in a hamburger shop (yes, a hamburger shop in India...). The outsider said "Stop fighting it." This one statement gave Todd something very serious to think about.
A few days later, Todd unwittingly experiences one of the Indian holidays wherein everyone has fun throwing dried pastel paint powder at each other. Looking like a rainbow, he heads for the Gangese river. This is the baptism scene that Tobin mentions. It is truly amazing.
I thoroughly enjoyed Outsourced and will watch it again. Because of some thematic elements, I cannot give this film a "Mike's Pick", but otherwise, it would certainly be in the running.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
“Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’ve got this under control?”
Welcome to Swallow Falls, a quiet sardine-fishing town with an ambitious mayor. But when world consensus declares sardines “super gross,” the town is on the brink of economic collapse. They try everything, even sardine-themed tourist attractions, to keep afloat, but it is an invention by wacky outcast Flint Lockwood that finally makes the town famous, and at the same time unveils its biggest threat – greed.
I like this movie’s take on the typical “boy genius” character type. Flint Lockwood is a goofy, inept, imaginative young man, whose bedroom is adorned with posters that depict Edison and Tesla as superheroes. But more than his nerdiness, the movie succeeds in showing him as an everyman, with dreams that are just out of reach, and an indefinable difficulty sharing his feelings with his loved ones.
I’ll be brief on the story: basically the town goes crazy for a new meteorological food creation device which Flint invents, until they realize that too much of a good thing can not only be fattening, but deadly. The size of the food gradually grows out of control, and killer-sized pancakes, hot dogs, and yes, meatballs, begin demolishing the town. It is up to Flint and some unlikely heroes to save the day.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a story of shortsighted reward vs. long-term responsibility. Flint must find a balance between the popularity-minded and hedonistic mayor, who will do anything to reach an unsustainable seat at the top, and his conservative, unassuming father who is content to a fault, finding it difficult to learn anything new. Interwoven with this, is the theme of being true to self; Flint struggles with the social outcastism of being a skinny inventor, while former nerd reporter Samantha Sparks sacrifices her brains for the perky bimbo image that will make her successful in the news. The point? Be who you are (and, by extension – though the movie doesn’t say this – what God has made you for) whether or not it is popular.
On an artistic note, I was hooked as soon as the nostalgic, ‘80s sci-fi looking title font filled the screen. From its snappy editing to its unique looking characters, Sony Animation has created a computer-animated cartoon that feels distinct in every way from Pixar’s films – and is no less funny, which was a problem for the early Pixar rivals like Shrek. Cloudy comes forth with its own identity and its own sense of humor, and while WALL-E definitely represents subtler imagery and more worthwhile themes, Cloudy is great (and wholesome) entertainment.
As Pixar tends to deliver the pinnacle of witty writing, Cloudy is a pinnacle of slapstick comedy – which for once, is not an insult.
By it’s title, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” (CWACAM) was not a film I was particularly interested in seeing. However, the previews were fun and made the film look like it might be mildly entertaining.
Megan and I were in South Carolina visiting with Tobin (who lives there now) and we all decided to go see CWACAM (you’ll get the joke when you see the film but right now I’m ROTFLOL.) The theatre was relatively empty which is just the way I like to watch a movie.
How someone made an hour and a half film out of a book that takes about 5 minutes to read is beyond me, but I was engaged from beginning to end.
Flint is an aspiring inventor. In elementary school, he invents spray on shoes. While the spray works very well and the shoes themselves are indestructible, there’s one problem. He can’t take them off and he’s still wearing them as an adult. He’s immediately labeled a nerd in the 3rd grade but keeps right on inventing things. Perhaps the funniest of his inventions is a remote control television set which sprouts legs and walks over to the owner’s chair so that he can change the channel. The TV immediately walks back to it’s place on the table and sits back down. One day the TV runs away and we see it in a couple of brief scenes later which includes a hilarious twist involving some looting going on in the town. Don’t miss it.
Flint’s life ambition is to figure out how to turn water into food. When he succeeds, the problems begin.
I’ve heard that a large number of the stories that we tell and hear have references to Greek mythology and the Bible. If that is true, then the case can be made for this story being loosely based on the “manna from heaven” story in the Old Testament. Now, please don’t get excited about my correlating the two. I’m NOT saying that this is a Christian film or a Bible story. It isn’t. There are simply some similarities here. Food begins falling from the sky, the people like it, get used to it, then start to complain and then they’re really sorry.
There is another interesting aspect of the film. Many of us remember the cartoons we used to watch as children (or still do as adults). In some cartoons, there is a small devil and angel which stand on the character’s shoulders; one egging him on to do the bad thing and the other trying to get him to do the right thing. These two characters are personified by the town mayor (trying to appeal to Flint’s greedy side) and Flint’s father (acting as his conscience). Also worthy of mention is the character played by Mr T as the town’s policeman. While he’s quite funny, he plays a man of integrity and responsibility. Even though he is spoiling his son, he loves him deeply and would do anything to protect him and his wife. He displays his self-sacrificing love for his family in obvious fashion. One of my favorite lines in the film could ONLY be delivered properly by Mr T. "You know what you are Flint Lockwood? You're a shenaniganizer."
For Star Trek fans (and if you're not one, you ought to be), there's a treat toward the end of the film. Without going into much detail, think VGER. Need a hint? Ok. Think Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released 12/7/1979 by Paramount Studios. Nominated for 3 Academy Awards: Set Decoration, Visual Effects, and Original Score. Directed by Robert Wise, Written By Gene Roddenberry and Alan Foster. Starring, of course, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and all the rest of the TV Cast plus a few more. Think BIG space cloud about to destroy the earth.
I don’t usually laugh out loud when I’m watching a movie in the theatre as I find it distracting when others do it. However, I did at this one. With all the wonderful sight gags and one liners, I couldn’t help myself. The story was well written, paced well, and allowed my period of suspended disbelief to go on throughout. Children will love the action. Adults will love the dialog. Be prepared to listen fast.
I will make one last comment. Pixar (Monsters, Inc., Wall-e, UP, etc) has set the standard for successful animated films. They insist on strong stories, loveable characters, and ZERO potty humor. Dreamworks (Kung-Fu Panda) and Sony (CWACOM) have finally figured out how to make a good movie using the same formula. Now, if they’ll just stick to it, they may give Pixar a run for their money. While CWACOM didn’t receive a MIKE’S PICK, it sure came close. It was a thoroughly enjoyable family film but lacked the class and panache of WALL-E.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
REWIND REVIEW
The Last Legion
I’m not sure how I missed this one in 2007, since it was exactly the kind of escapism I needed during a tough Junior year of college. This screen shot pretty much says it all. Colin Firth. Swinging on ropes. With a dusky warrior princess. Can a movie get any better?
Well, yes, the story could have been more plausible, and could have interwoven some deeper themes. But if, like me, you are a sucker for wizards and swordfights, then The Last Legion is for you.
460, AD. Ten-year old Romulus is crowned emperor of Rome – the day the empire falls. Now the boy, his bodyguard, aging tutor, and an exotic martial-arts babe from Constantinople must make a perilous trek through blood-thirsty barbarians, double-crossing senators, and a crazed warlord, to the last bastion of the empire: Hadrian’s Wall – and along the way, fulfill a prophecy to discover the lost sword of Julius Caesar himself, a weapon forged from a fallen star and destined to lead a people to freedom.
To really enjoy The Last Legion, it is important to understand the function the B-movie serves in the world of literature. In the days before television ruined the visual media, films came packaged in double features: one did not go to see a particular movie, one went to “the movies,” and was treated to a newsreel, a cartoon, an A feature, where dramatic actors like Humphrey Bogart pondered the meaning of life and the human condition, and a B feature, where cowboys, superheroes, mad scientists, flying saucers, and adventurers cavorted in that wonderful world which is “pulp” fiction.*
With today’s increases in budget, and the need to distract audiences away from their television sets, filmmakers now give formerly B movie material the same production values as A movies (which has led to the common misconception that the B is for ‘bad’ – a failed attempt to make an A movie). Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark were some of the first B movies to approach this level of serious filmmaking.
And in fact, The Last Legion stirred me the same way Star Wars did all those years ago. The story is video-gamish, but the acting is good enough and the action purposeful enough (most battles give the characters a chance to show their personalities, and not just their moves) that I really didn’t care. A boy who yearns to be a hero, leaders who make predictable but still delightful statements about honor and nobility, swordfights, rescues (and swinging on ropes), all harmonize together to create a nostalgic, sublime experience.
I love watching the characters of The Last Legion, whether they be battling, bantering, or sacrificing themselves for the team. Many adventure films introduce more heroes than they need – and then cheat the minor ones out of a real personality. But in The Last Legion, all the good guys feel real. In fact, it would be possible to do a spinoff film about any one of them. (The above photo, for example, was actually the movie poster for some foreign releases of the film, though neither of the people pictured are the “main” character) Perhaps Colin Firth (like Dustin Hoffman) has the ability to elevate the acting performances of the people around him, or perhaps director Doug Lefler is just that good.
The costuming is also very cool, dingy browns replacing the classic reds of Roman soldiers to signify the decline of an empire; and the movie is just history-conscious enough to be amusing for those who know about the era and don’t mind having a little fun with it. It also draws on a legendary/literary source, which makes it doubly fun, but which they don’t explicitly give away until the end, so I won’t either. (Don’t watch the trailer unless you want a spoiler.)
The violence in the film definitely earns it a PG-13, but a comparatively tame one. When Romulus’s mother and father are killed by a mob of barbarians, both the act and the blood are kept tastefully out of frame. The boy is threatened with bodily harm again and again, but the tone of every scene is more Adventure than it is Danger, and so even these moments feel pretty safe – as opposed to, say, a film by Quentin Tarantino, where the audience is always kept fearful that something even worse will happen than actually does. However, when the barbarian chieftain cuts off the finger of an unruly subordinate (also kept out of frame) was when I realized this was indeed a PG-13 movie.
This is the best adventure movie I have seen in a while. Not on the artistic level of Raiders of the Lost Ark or Lord of the Rings, but good, and definitely beats out Narnia for pure entertainment value. Basically, in the way that 300 turns history into popcorny fantasy fiction, so does The Last Legion. But without the nudity. And with funner fights. And with better acting.
*Pulp fiction is the name originally given to these genres, which were first popularized in the early twentieth century’s phenomenon of the “dime novel” – printed hastily and cheaply on the coarsest paper that would hold together: barely refined wood pulp.
Tobin
I've marked this one in my NetFlix account and will comment when I see it.
I've now seen the film and I have only 2 words for it. "Thoroughly Delightful".
On a personal note, I've mentioned this to Tobin privately on a number of occasions, but it's time to go public. I love the way he writes reviews. I love the way he writes stories. And I LOVE watching the video work that he does. Yes, well, he's my son, but I honestly try to put that aside when looking at his work. I believe that he as a gift when it comes to writing and telling stories with film and I'm very proud of him.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Where the Wild Things Are
"I'll eat you up, I love you so."
For the thirty year anniversary of what has been called the most popular picture book of all time, Warner Bros. brings Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things are to screen.
Sent to bed without supper, the energetic and frustrated Max runs away to an imaginary world where monsters cavort and smash things all day, with no mother to boss them around. But Wild Thing Island represents something much more dangerous than Neverland, and unlike Peter Pan, Max must make a choice to come home – or be devoured by his wild side.
This movie, both visually and emotionally, captures the classic picture book: the isolation, the yearning for wildness, and the danger which that wildness represents – all are here. The writers did a fabulous job of putting words in the mouths of Sendak’s creatures, inspired only by the illustrations; the wild things are rich, believable, and extremely lovable – even brilliantly animated: Wild Things is the certainly biggest landmark in puppetry/computer animation fusion since Babe.
Wild Things brought to my attention a new type of filmmaking that has emerged over the last decade: what I call the Handycam movie, or the Blog Culture movie. Influenced by today’s easy access to media, these films take a step back from the look of independent film in an effort to feel homemade – not unprofessional, but pervaded with the kind of art the main characters themselves would make. From the time the movie opens, its childishly sketched credits, its carefree handheld camera work, and its silly indie iPod-playlist-ish soundtrack makes it feel akin to the nonchalant artiness of Bella, or the wonderful title sequence of Napoleon Dynamite.
Stylistically, this is a good choice for Sendak’s story because this kind of filmmaking gets us very quickly into a central character’s personal thoughts and feelings, the same way blog culture has taught us to do; we are able immediately to relate to the uncomplex pain and selfish fantasy of Max. Nor does this medium fail to teach Max a lesson, for his terror and repentance are equally vivid. The unfortunate side effect of this style is that it tends to be too breezy, tolerant, and lighthearted to sit still and make a real point (an obstacle Bella carefully overcame).
And that’s the weakest part of Wild Things: the story raises great themes but doesn’t wrap all of them up in a tidy way, in large part because of its length. In the book, once Max arrives on Wild Thing Island the text gradually disappears, reflecting barbarism and dehumanization. The movie reflects this by having many scenes where wild rumpus fills in for dialogue, and these scenes make the point that rumpus is fun, but can become sinister when it is unrestrained (there is a little of Lord of the Flies here, too). It takes incredible directorship to pull off so many consecutive minutes of wordless scenes. The bad news is that Spike Jonze’s directorship is good but not incredible, and the movie ends up about thirty minutes too long – thirty minutes of fun fort-building and dirt clod fights, when there was clearly enough time to make the message clearer.
What did I get as the message? Well, I absolutely love the idea of monsters whose feelings are so big that they only experience them one at a time: the wild things are either wholly affectionate, excited, or angry (in another interesting Peter Pan parallel, for those who know the original). As near as I can tell, the wild things represent facets of Max’s own mind, or possibly his stuffed animals come to life – it’s not clear. They are simple, idealistic and excitable – but also lawless, and to be eaten by them is to lose one’s self. The point is, in attempting to be king over these volatile and irresponsible beings, Max learns to rule his own emotions instead of being consumed by them.
Where the Wild Things Are is a fairly entertaining ride for those who don’t mind being just a little confused. It is too long for adults, but makes its points too subtly for kids. The language in the film is quiet and infrequent, but totally unnecessary (why would the wild things’ vocabulary include words like ‘damn?’). One good thing is that the movie purposely feels unsafe, and even has some real moments of scariness, until Max returns home. This unsafeness even results in some rather inappropriate violence, when a wild thing’s wing gets torn off in an angry tussle. I didn’t know whether to be set at ease, or even more disturbed, by his nonplussed reaction at the sawdust that leaks out of the hole.
The movie has weak points, but its emotions are strong and its characters bring tears to the eye, leading up to an incredibly sweet final shot. We can only hope the DVD version will include a “reduced cut.”
Tobin
I haven't seen this film. At this point I will have to wait for the DVD to come out.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Avatar
In 1982, Disney’s TRON changed computer animation history. In 2009, you have a chance to see Avatar do the same.
Think opera. The young artist falls in love with the beautiful call girl, only to be torn away from her by his family’s pride, only to win her back, only to discover she is dying of tuberculosis. Or something equally predictable. You don’t go to opera expecting a complex or meaningful story. You go expecting a stirring production with spectacular music and vocal talent – theatrical execution in the raw.
That is pretty much what you get from Avatar, only for the eyes, not the ears.
Our hero, crippled ex-marine Jake Sully, gets a new lease on life when scientists find they can temporarily place his consciousness into a fully functioning, genetically grown alien body via the kind of sleeper-tube device of which James Cameron’s science fiction is so fond. Sully’s mission: to walk among the primitive Na’vi society on the planet Pandora as one of them, to study these blue-skinned natives as an anthropologist – and to be a ready inside man in case the human landing plans go south. Because the military wants to clear the Na’vi out of the way so they can get at Pandora’s valuable ores. But as his love for the natives increases, Sully is torn between two loyalties, and ultimately leads the natives against the battleships and bulldozers that arrive to destroy their home.
As someone who craves rich storylines laden with symbolism and themes (such as James Cameron’s Aliens) I struggled not to be disappointed with Avatar until I realized that a rich story is not the point of the movie. What this movie has done is to bring a somewhat interesting story to life in a more interesting setting. And this is one setting that makes movie history.
In the 90s, computer animation really broke into the public consciousness. You remember: the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast with that amazing 3-D chandelier. Then came Babe, with its computer-manipulated talking animal mouths. Remember when computer animation was still so new that it got featured on Oprah? Then it became commonplace: a means for filmmakers to paste cool, invented backgrounds into their movies, or for George Lucas to impose annoying comic relief characters into his prequels. Then, with the help of Pixar’s innovators, the medium evolved until whole landscapes could be computer generated. But here at the end of the decade, gone are the weird settings of 300 and even the cartoonish backdrops of Journey to the Center of the Earth. Avatar gives us a backdrop that is both dazzling AND intimately involved with the story, in a degree of special-effects honesty that perhaps has not been achieved since What Dreams May Come. Avatar manages to be an effects movie, without becoming just another effects vehicle. Computer animation is no longer a gimmick.
The planet Pandora is not just a location where the story takes place; to a large extent it is the story, and Cameron uses the film’s three hour running time to immerse us in this world. Pandora glows in the heavens, like an otherworldly New Zealand covered in weird jungles of photosensitive plants, little dandelion puff jellyfish, and alien animals that are as believable as they are incredible.
The pacing is pretty drawn-out; while most movies can be distinctly broken into three acts, the three-hour Avatar seems to have four, taking time off from the “main” story in order to explore Pandora itself. Where an action movie might feel the need for a plot twist, Avatar gives us a topographical twist, taking us running, jumping, and vine-swinging to new and beautiful parts of the planet.
And there is plenty of action too. Both in his human body and in his Na’vi body, Sully gets into shootouts, chases and escapes, wrestles hyenas, tames a pterodactyl, and then leads a million blue natives with bows an arrows against the invading gunships. The science fiction concepts in the movie, right down to the design of the aircraft, are satisfyingly realistic without being overly technical. And the villain, a heartless and imperialistic colonel, is a bad guy worthy to be respected and feared. Action movie watchers will be bored with the amount of culture, nature and scenery that is presented before the explosions start, but that’s just immature.
I wanted to end on the line, “that’s just immature,” because it’s way funnier. But because this is a family site, I also need to say a few words about any in appropriate content in the film. The biggest problem with this movie, for most of our readers, is its political correctness. It is an obvious retelling of how the White man drove out the Red man, with a tad more bias against whites than an honest history book would let on. But, hey, I can agree with James Cameron that these atheist bulldozer drivers are not stewarding creation in any way close to the task Adam was given to do. This movie bashes greed, not America, and though it upholds a naturey, new-agey kind of religion, it bashes materialism, not Christianity. And when I see nature getting raped for something as transitory as money, well, Great God, I’d rather be a pagan.*
Christian families may be offended by the thinly veiled blue bosoms of the Na’vi women, and the bare buttocks of both sexes – whose Cowardly-Lion-ish tails apparently make butt coverings difficult. For me, there is a big difference between native semi-nudity (which is a costume) and sexualized nudity (in which clothed actors remove their costumes). Make it blue alien semi-nudity, and it’s even less of a stumbling block. Love interest Natiri, though gracefully and realistically animated, is not curvy in ways meant to stimulate a human audience – as we saw in Aliens, James Cameron likes to unsexualize his heroines so that we can get at the deeper essence of femininity without getting distracted from the story. (Sigourney Weaver and, later, Sam Worthington, are both seen, naked but tastefully covered, during medical procedures). There is one passionate kissing scene, but the camera cuts away before the audience is allowed to intrude upon anything private.
In Na’vi society, life, relationships, and commitment are pretty simple, and I found myself envying the incomplexity of Sully and Natiri’s wholesome commitment to one another. If you think two people aren’t really married unless they have tuxedos, guest lists, and a fancy church, you may have a problem with this movie. But that’s just ethnocentric.
Our family went out to see Avatar together the other night (a family movie outing to the theatre is a rarity around here). I wasn’t actually sure just what to expect but the previews looked very interesting. Doe-eyed characters fighting a war with bows and arrows might be good movie fare.
When the film started, it had James Cameron written all over it. Being a big fan of his work with Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the Alien films, True Lies, etc, I was hoping that the incredible detail for which he is known for requiring of his films would not be lacking. I was not disappointed.
Let’s go back a bit and take a look at the history of film and animation according to Mike. In the EARLY days of silent movies, there were some exceptionally talented film makers (Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, etc) who worked seeming miracles with just a camera and tripod. Most of the effects were done “in camera” and through sheer trickery, we can watch characters walk through walls, balance on a steel beam hundreds of feet above the ground, and even hang on the arms of a clock above a busy intersection…all done with camera, paintings, and creative editing.
In the 40’- 60’s we were treated to hand drawn animation added directly onto the film to combine cartoon characters, talking animals, and even weapons fire much to the delight of the audiences.
Then came Star Wars. As I recall, George Lucas had to actually invent cameras and other machinery to take us on the amazing journey through space that that film took us on. The PC as we know it today was 4 years away when that film was made. I was in college at that time and we were shown things that we’d never seen before. The “jump to light speed” was STUNNING. We cheered.
After Star Wars was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Other films followed and then…TRON. Tobin is quite a fan of TRON and perhaps he’ll review it some day. I thought that it was little more than a vehicle to demonstrate some computer graphics. My guess was that “they” had created some cool computer effects and then loosely (very loosely) written a story around them. However, TRON did bring CGI into the mainstream in 1982 and it was truly a breakthrough film.
As computers got more powerful, the CGI got better. In 1991 a truly amazing animated feature (using computers for much of the effects) was released. Anyone who has seen Disney’s Beauty and the Beast will remember the ballroom scene with the fly by’s, shadows, reflections etc that were included. I remember it as if it were yesterday and it still looks good even compared to today’s technology. Another breakthrough film.
Well, fast forward to today. In Avatar, gone are the silly looking computer animations. Gone are the jerky animated characters that look like they’ve been pasted into the movie. What we have in Avatar is a stunning and seamless integration of live and animated characters along with a wholly believable landscape on which the characters play out their story. To a certain extent, the stage IS a character in the film. In this area, this is yet another breakthrough film worthy of the awards I’m sure it will get. If for nothing else than to see the sheer beauty of the film, go see it.
Avatar has a good story. Not a GREAT story, but it is a good one, and interesting as well. The Na’Vi (Native?) are in danger of being run out of their home. The evil, money grubbing, amoral corporations have hired heartless mercenaries to clear them out so that their planet can be plundered of it’s valuable ores and minerals. Of course, the Home Tree (read rain forest) must be destroyed so that the mining equipment can be rolled in. A friend of mine dubbed the film “Dances With Wolves in Outer Space”. I can see the resemblance. The story is somewhat predictable but well played out. AND (take notes here, this is important) I didn’t get antsy even though it’s a 3 hour film. Avatar carries its weight in the “this is a good movie” department. It is paced well and holds interest throughout.
NOTE: When I watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, I was ready to leave after about three quarters through. Tobin mentioned that it was an hour and forty minute film jammed into two hours.
You will want to know that there is a lot if Indian culture built into the film. Mother Earth, Star Wars type unifying Force, the thanking of an animal for it allowing itself to be killed for food, etc. I found the “worship services” uncomfortable and the entire “living, conscious planet” theme a bit much. However, in the universe that Cameron has created for us, it all works. I found the bonding method of characters plugging their braids into the receptacle on the animals that they wanted to tame a very interesting addition to the film.
Because of the language and violent images, I would not recommend this film for younger children.
Would I go see it again? Probably. With the caveats I have mentioned, I enjoyed the film and would recommend it to others.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
New Features
NEW FEATURE ALERT
Tobin came up with an idea that we both liked. I will let him explain:
Once we got started reviewing movies, Dad and I realized we were looking for different things. I go more for the edgy artistry of a movie's execution, which can lead me to favor theme-driven movies where the plot may be harder to discern (there's no story!), where the ending is not necessarily happy, or where the subject matter is darker or more "mature". Dad goes more for a story's ability to delight kids and grown-ups at the same time-another important quality of film.
We wanted these two opposing interests - depth of excellent art, vs breadth of excellent entertainment value - to be represented on Movie Watch Blog, so we came up with Tobin's Picks and Mike's Picks: two different awards to be given to movies we think are the best of the bunch.
So now if you see a review marked with Tobin's Pick, be prepared for a movie that may require a lot of thought before it can be fully enjoyed (and that may or may not be for the whole family). If you see one with Mike's Pick, remember that he's a father picking out the accessible, family-friendly fun that made Movie Watch Blog a success in the first place. As always, both of us will be reviewing films that are worthy of your reflection, whether in terms of complexity, simplicity, or just the good time they provide.
Tobin
I will add here that Tobin is mostly correct. There might be a film or two that I would Pick which would not be suitable for young children. While Terminator could be a Pick, it's not necessarily good for small kiddos.
As always, Movie Watch Blog contains OUR opinions of the films we review. As parents, Tammy and I pre-viewed films that we let Tobin and Megan see. I would suggest that parents evaluate films prior to letting your children see them. Then YOU decide.
We would love to hear your opinions of the films AND our reviews. We may even print your response. THANKS.
Mike
New Features
Another New Feature Alert
We have another new feature that we've added starting now. It's called Rewind Review. These are reviews of films that we weren't able to see in the theatre (or weren't reviewing films when they WERE) and are now available on DVD. I hope you enjoy the reviews.
As always, please feel free to comment on our opinions of these fine, or not so fine films. We LOVE feedback. You can use the email links at the bottom of any of the reviews.
The Book of Eli
Eli walks by faith, not by sight.
When the church took the cultural
back seat (sometime around 1966), choral music became just an interesting
background for epic movie scenes. Latin
lost its meaning because there was no-one to sing to. And now, in this world where YouTube comments
stand a testament to the power of state education, English has lost its meaning
because there's no-one to talk to. The
sociologists tell us that words don't pass on ideas, they're just herd instinct
- and we only need to glance at the way the media leads the flock to see that
it's true. Ideas r abbrev'd 2 thr basest
forms on the web, on children's television, and in everyday colloquy. Words have become castrated: a sound byte at
best, room noise at worst.
Fast forward x hundred years and
Denzel Washington is traversing a ravaged U.S. carrying the last King James
Bible. If the loss of words did not
cause the apocalypse in The Book of Eli,
then it definitely fueled the barbarism that followed. Eli wanders through grim scenes of desolation
where little speech is required. Even
when meeting bands of illiterate thieves, verbal exchanges are brief. It is kill or be killed.
But Eli, while a man of few words,
is never at a loss for them, quoting from his ancient book like an angel of
destruction or a prophet of hope as occasion demands. His quest: obey the voice of God which told
him to carry the Bible west. When Eli's
path brings him onto the turf of Carnegie, an enterprising businessman/pimp who
already owns one town and would like to expand his operation, he is offered a
price for his skills with a sword. But
Eli's martial abilities are not the most valuable thing he's packing. Carnegie wants the Book, because if he has
the right words, the masses will come for miles to bow to him.
The critics who malign the film by
saying Carnegie could simply have founded his own religion, instead of spending
the whole movie tracking down the Bible, clearly don't understand the power of
words, and haven't looked very hard at history, either - perhaps the kind of
illiterate barbarism portrayed in The
Book of Eli is nearer than we think.
Words are the driving force in Eli's
world, where illiteracy usually means either ruffianship or cannibalism, where
people have forgotten how to pray. When
Eli offers to share his food with a woman too young to remember the world
before, the kindness is as alien to her as his next request: that she sit with
him to eat it, and that they voice thanks to God.
Words, and specifically The Word,
are shown to be the foundation of community.
And, just as ideology peddlers use catchy words today, Carnegie seeks to
use the words to found exactly the wrong kind of community. While the protestant bias here is only thinly
veiled ("This has happened before. It
will happen again," says Carnegie), the rightness or wrongness of the Medieval
Roman Church is not the real point of the story. Christians of all strains should agree that
the loss of words means the loss of culture and the enslavement of the
soul. In this movie, the hope of the
world lies in the preservation of books, and the Bible in particular.
Christians will lose the culture
war if they do not support movies like this.
As a praise (or possibly a
justification?) for the latest Chrindependent DVD (they actually screened it in
a theater or two in Iowa!)
I have often heard the phrase, "We need movies like this in Hollywood.
'Cuz, I mean, when was the last time you saw a positive portrayal of
Christianity in a Hollywood film?"
My answer is always the same.
"All the time; because I actually
go to Hollywood films."
Dear family of Christ, we live in a
culture as morally barren as the deserts traveled by Eli, and we are the ones
who did it. In 1966 the Motion Picture
Association of America was founded in order to rate movies from within Hollywood. Until that time Hollywood voluntarily submitted its material
to a board of pastors. The pastors were
the ones who uninterestedly broke off the relationship, sealing the doors of Jerusalem to leave Athens to its own
devices. The next forty-four years of
media testify exactly how that separation turned out.
Can you imagine a time when Hollywood reached out to
men of faith?
I can. Because, like I said, I go to Hollywood films.
Christians are the newest, most
interesting demographic in film right now, both for producers, who want to
attract our money, and for writers, who have suddenly realized that
Christianity makes for interesting and solid characters. Tokens of Christianity are more and more used
to identify characters as reliable fellows, and even films that have no
intention of glorifying God have taken on a religious edge because religion is
cool. Villainous corrupt movie clergymen
are not an attack on the church - they are an acknowledgement that true clergy
ought to be above such things. Dozens of
films have portrayed our faith positively.
Dozens of television programs have done the same and died unwatched
because we were too lazy to update our assumptions about the media. Hollywood
is giving us another chance. Like the
masses in Eli, they want the power of
the Word.
And how should we deliver that
Word? In a clean, no-need-to-be-rated
Christian DVD flick with shaky camerawork and shakier acting? We owe our God more. We owe Him the most relevant movie we can
think up. And, in case you haven't been
watching for the last forty-four years, a lot of what's relevant these days is
R-rated.
Yes the bad guys in Eli drop the F bomb a lot. But we are as illiterate as they are if we
fail to see that the screenwriter is trying to use this vocabulary to
underscore their illiteracy - or if we assume this is the worst word our
children can hear; the G bomb, after all, is the one that has one out of ten
commandments devoted to it, and it only earns a PG rating. Yes, there is death and sexual slavery in
this movie; because, yes, there is death and sexual slavery in our world (In a disturbing scene a conflicted Eli passes on the other side of the street,
leaving a man to bleed and a woman to be raped. Like a few other shaky points
in this script, it is never clarified whether the screenwriter believes that a
good man can only do so much, or whether this is meant to be a lapse in Eli's
application of the Word - though we can give the script the benefit of the
doubt.) We do not live in a Disney world. We do
not worship a Disney God who deals with Disney problems. Christian adults
live in a real world, with a real God who is interested in real problems. People use ugly words to describe the ugly
things around them. And we, as a church,
need to grow up enough to accept movies that depict this world as it is - this
a movie must do if it is to portray Truth as it is.
We live in a world where words, and
the ideas associated with them, are dying.
And if Christians do not jump into the conversation for once, we may
soon find ourselves in the world of Eli.
Tobin
The Book of Eli is not a film from which you will walk away
feeling happy and entertained. It has
some of the same look and feel of the Mad Max series of the late 70's and early
80's. But then most post apocalyptic
films are alike in that way. In some
ways, I was reminded of The Omega Man (1971, starring Charleton Heston).
In the post apocalyptic world (PAW) the only government that
exists is the guy who has the most and biggest thugs and the most and biggest
guns. There is nothing to stop one
person from taking advantage of others in any way imaginable. The final broken threads in the moral
societal fabric are the common abuse of women and in some instances, cannibalism. Without God or eternal destiny to worry
about, what little is left of social morals quickly disappears.
Most films have some sort of a Christ figure as a central
character. He's the one who is
self-sacrificing to the point of giving his life in some way as Christ
did. In The Omega Man and I Am Legend,
Charton Heston and Will Smith respectively gave their lives trying to
help. In the Batman film, Dark Knight,
Batman took the heat for something he didn't do for the betterment of society. In The Book of Eli, Eli is the Christ figure
in that he was commanded to take his book "out west". That was 30 years ago, and he is still on his
journey. (About the time I began to
wonder why it had taken so long to get "out west", the character Solara asked
Eli if he had gotten lost somewhere along the way.) For 30 years, Eli is being obedient to God's command in spite of myriad hardships, gang attacks, and lack of food and water. Even through the extremely hard times, Eli
doesn't lose faith or initiative. He is
focused solely on the goal and remains determined to carry out his assigned
task, without regret or misgiving, even to the point of death. Likewise, Christ focused solely on his
purpose for being on earth. (Please do
not interpret my pointing out that in that there is a Christ figure in most
stories that I am elevating Eli to the same level of Christ. By "Christ figure", I mean having one or more
Christlike characteristics.)
The Book of Eli is surprisingly gentle with Eli's faith. He isn't ridiculed for it. Faith, however, is puzzling to those around him. God is so far out of the equation in this world, that to be thankful for much of ANYTHING is a paradigm shift. This is demonstrated when Eli sits down for a meal with Solara and insists on giving thanks for it with her. She is completely and utterly confused by the act. Interestingly however, she mimics the ritual with her mother during the next meal with her. I was quite taken with this scene.
The film was difficult to watch. I wasn't so much disturbed by the language,
nor the sef-protecting violence as I was by the senseless violence of men
against other men and the heart wrenching violence against defenseless
women. From a cinematic standpoint, it
was extremely well done. The bleak color
levels and gritty contrast drew me into the story. I almost felt like I was actually in the
desert with the characters.
Denzel Washington was, as in most everything he does, very
believable in his role.
I was able to immediately despise the bad guys and love the good
guy.
With the prevalence of foul language and violence, I find it
difficult to recommend this film.
However, if you are interested in the PAW genre, and might like to get a
glimpse of what this world would be like without the restraining power of the
Holy Spirit, this would be a good film to see.
NOTE: The violence is
very graphic in places. This is NOT
comic book violence. It includes
decapitation and limb severance. I would
be remiss in not mentioning it.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
How to Train your Dragon
“This is Berk. It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three. The food that grows here is tough and tasteless; the people, even more so. The only upside is the pets.”
Our regular readers will remember that ever since Kung-Fu Panda I have eagerly anticipated the next, non-Ice-Age-related, non-Shrek-related, production from Dreamworks. And, aside from the trailer for yet another Shrek sequel (I think it was called “Shrek VI: Hey Viewing Public, Fart Jokes Are Still Totally Funny,” or something), How to Train your Dragon does not disappoint.
Typical of Dreamworks films, the movie begins abruptly and with shallow characterization – characters fall into predictable types like, “skinny-kid-with-underappreciated-talents,” and “loving-but-narrow-minded-father,” or “tough-acting-but-actually-cowardly¬-guy.” But also typical of Dreamworks films, the story is told with no wasted details, with humor, and with tasteful wackiness. Dreamworks may play second fiddle to the reigning animators/storytellers at Pixar, but it rises to the occasion with a touching, exciting, tidy little movie.
How to Train your Dragon takes us to a fantasy world where Vikings are both a people-group and a profession: life on the rocky island of Berk consists of farming, smithing, and fighting dragons, who wing in to steal the livestock, apparently nightly; to be a Viking means to kill dragons with prowess and jollity. This way of life is derailed by an inventive boy who, shunned by the “cool” Viking kids, nurses a dragon back to health just outside the village. “Toothless” the tame dragon becomes a pet, a friend, and a faithful mount in an adventure that brings a boy into manhood, reunites him with his father, and causes the whole Viking culture to rethink what taming the earth really means.
This movie delivers many breeds of dragon, from the two-headed, to the miniature, to the one who can knock a man’s head off through the sheer volume of its thunderous roar. While most of these species are extremely cartoonish, the particular breed tamed by the hero is a cartoon rarity: a graceful and beautiful animal, which, if discovered in the real world, would inspire awe. Perhaps the sheer cartoonishness of the other things in this movie accentuates the majesty of Toothless, with his sleek black scales and catlike eyes, in a way that a more realistic-looking movie like Avatar could not quite underscore. All the species are detailed in the handbound Dragon Manual, mandatory reading for all young Vikings.
Funny little Dungeons & Dragons references crop up throughout, from the fat Viking kid who has nerdily memorized all of the dragons’ stats from the Dragon Manual (8 speed and +5 attack for one, 17 armor and x3 fire damage for another) to the appearance of the Dragon Manual itself, which looks rather like the real-life hardcover Monster Manual published with the third edition of the game. D&D players may even recognize a cranial similarity between Toothless and the “bulette,” a fictional creature detailed in said Monster Manual, which I always thought had a friendly look.
I don’t think I can describe the sweetness of some elements of this movie. Dreamworks has learned to hold our attention by delivering scenes of dragon-taming that are sweet and magical, as well as goofier elements like the battered Viking blacksmith with interchangeable hand prostheses for seemingly every situation. What I like is their use of vertical space – in Kung-Fu Panda, we had a fight scene that took place across perpendicular walls and on the tops of falling boulders; in Dragon, we have a battle miles high and wide that ranges through the elements of sea, air, and fire. There are shades of Avatar here, as I expect there will be throughout the next decade. Dragon uses elements from Avatar, Water Horse, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Reign of Fire but brings them all together in a way that is fun, satisfying entertainment.
How to Train Your Dragon: maybe a pointless little movie, but definitely a good way to how to spend your ten dollars.
PLUS: One Line Review (well, maybe a little more than one.)
“Godzilla: Final Wars” Japanese. Not the American one from 1998, for which I have an even shorter review: Lame. Get Godzilla 2000 from Netflix On Demand right now. It is the kind of crazy that will suck you in and alter your very concept of watching a movie, in an amalgamation of weird, explodey action scenes which every Saturday morning cartoon show of my nineties childhood aspired to be. It has monsters that can level cities, supermen, laser guns, swordfights, aliens, and even rocket-powered submarines, somehow. It’s like the suspenders of my disbelief just snapped, and I have been given wings.
Tobin
MIKE'S PICK
Dreamworks started figuring out how to put a good film together with strong characters and story line with Kung Fu Panda. They even left out the potty humor again. However, How to Train Your Dragon (Dragon) did something that Kung Fu Panda was unable to do. It made me respond emotionally in much the same way Pixar did with Monster’s Inc., Wall-e, and Up. I found the sheer beauty of the flying scenes stunning and quite moving. Add to that a wonderful Celtic musical score (especially the bagpipe music during flight) and there’s some real emotion showing here. Hopefully, Dreamworks will have it down pat in their next film.
There are several themes going on in Dragon. Some are more obvious, others are pleasant subtleties.
There is the common theme of the son wanting to make his father proud. But in this movie, it takes an interesting turn with the father desperately wanting his son to be proud of him as well. (In Dragon the relationship between the dad (Stoick the Vast) and the son (Hiccup) reminded me of the relationship in “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” between Tim and his son Flint; so much so that, had this been a live film, it could have almost been the same actors playing the same characters.) In the end, the tension between Stoick and Hiccup’s vast differences melt away in the fire and comraderie of battle.
Then, there’s the “lost boy befriending the beast” theme, with it’s usual “friendship dance”. This happens when the animal allows itself to return the trust that is being offered. These dances can be very serious or somewhat humorous, but they are always quite beautiful. The “friendship dance” in Dragon reminded me of the beach scene between the boy and horse in Black Stallion. Imagine an Avatarish bonding without the wormy ponytale plug-in. If you haven’t seen Black Stallion, I highly recommend it. One could also think of the scene in which when Kevin Costner befriends the wolf and earns his Indian name, Dances With Wolves. This afternoon, I thought of the Aesop Fable of Androcles and the Lion. Where Androcles pulled the thorn out of the lion’s foot, Hiccup mended Toothless’ damaged tail and got him in the air again.
I was taken aback by some of the references to scenes in other films. In one spot, I was transported back to the cave where Gandalf confronted the Balrog in Lord of the Rings. In another, I was amazed to see a scene directly from Pitch Black with Vin Diesel. Much of the flight scenes were lifted out of Avatar. There are plenty more to find if you look for them.
The story: Hiccup is the antithesis of everything a good Viking should be...large, aggressive, rather low on the IQ scale, and a killer of dragons. Hiccup has no muscles to speak of and cannot picture himself actually killing a dragon, but is smart enough to compensate. He and his father, Stoick, love each other but generally aren’t on the same page. While Hiccup actually wants to help during a dragon attack, he is mostly in the way and generally causes as much damage as the dragons do.
Through an interesting turn of events he captures, then befriends and names Toothless the dragon. Toothless is of the “night fury” class and is very dangerous and destructive with his precision firey spitballs. However, Hiccup learns to understand how Toothless and other dragons behave and communicate. The story is not a new one but is very well told and paced. The musical score fits perfectly and in all places helps tugs on our heart strings very effectively. While the ending is somewhat predictable, I had a lot of enjoyment being brought there.
Pointless? I think not. This was a beautiful movie indeed. AND, after seeing it a 2nd time with a friend, I think that I can bestow the coveted “Mike’s Pick” award on How to Train Your Dragon.
And, not to be left out of the One Line Review:
I took Tobin's advice and immediately watched Godzilla: Final Wars. What a pleasant surprise. The language dubbing was hilarious as always in these movies. There was actually a reasonably good storyline, and, the site of Godzilla doing a soccer goalie block on a flying armadillo was almost more than I could stand.
Mike
Clash of the Titans
“Damn the gods.”
Perseus: fathered by a god, spurned by a jealous king, raised as a fisherman, destined to slay immortals.
In Greek mythology, Perseus slew Medusa and married a princess. Clash of the Titans infuses the Perseus story with a new theme: a mortal who defies gods and masters his own destiny. In the study of mythology, such a revolution is called “succession myth,” and we are prepared for one by an opening narration which details the gods’ own succession: as the title suggests, the gods overthrew their parents, the titans, millennia ago. Director Douglas Letterier brings us an all-new interpretation of the Greek tales, where the gods finally get some come-uppance from their own children: men.
Perseus gets caught up in the fray when the gods offer blasphemous King Cepheus a simple choice: sacrifice his daughter, or face the annihilation of his people. True to the tradition of PG-13 adventure flicks (the rating was created to accommodate Raiders of the Lost Ark) the ensuing excitement feels like a boys’ adventure movie grown up – and aimed at those who don’t mind some goriness. To save princess Andromeda, and to rack up a point for mankind, demigod Perseus rides the Pegasus, stares down a sea monster, and even takes a trip through hell. It made me think of classic sword-and-sandal films, minus the claymation. And, gods, how I miss the claymation.
Speaking of classics, Clash of the Titans is a remake of a 1981 film by the same name. In the intervening time CGI has expanded our capabilities but shrunk our imagination; the 2010 version is incapable of a villain anywhere near as interesting as the original Calibos, scheming with his crew of feral Oompa Loompas, and thwarting Andromeda’s suitors with crazy riddles. On the other hand, the original has stupidly poor pacing and loads of 80s-era surprise nudity.
Greek mythology has deities who view humanity with ambivalence – or have such a short attention span that their favors only make things worse. The 2010 Clash of the Titans succeeds in this portrayal, showing us gods who turn whatever they touch into monsters. And against such gods Perseus’ defiance is right and appropriate. By glorifying this defiant character, Leterrier may think he has struck a blow at the God of the Bible, but he undercuts himself; he expends much energy to show that these gods are nothing like the Lord. In the end, balance is even restored between Earth and Olympus (so that I’m not sure what Perseus’ defiance really accomplished). Where ancient Greek writers focused on a demigod’s ultrahuman feats, today we are fascinated by his human-ness and his place as a mediator between two worlds. And we even have a readymade star for such films: Sam Worthington, half terminator, half blue alien, and now half god.
The problem with Clash of the Titans is that it has the same identity crisis as its half and half hero. It’s like the writers don't know if they're writing an epic character story, like Oedipus or Job, where a man finds himself trapped between cosmic forces like life vs. death or freedom vs. destiny – or if they're writing an adventure/quest story like Jason and the Argonauts.
All of the quest movie motifs are here: the hero teams up with all the right character types – The Wizard, the Cocky Beastslayer, and the Adventure Babe, who fights with lariats and other unemasculating weaponry and has a different cutie-pie outfit for every scene. The movie pits its heroes against many amazing creatures, and takes them to many exciting locations (even taking a liberty to place Medusa’s statuary-filled lair in the underworld, just so the movie would have a reason to go there).
Or, as an epic character story, Titans has the prerequisite "between-man” hero, stuck between two worlds. At the beginning of the movie we see boy Perseus worry about his adopted status. We see, too, a human race yearning for better treatment, but afraid to challenge its volatile gods; Perseus represents this race in a cosmic clash between Earth and Olympus. But the movie doesn't explain the implications of this clash enough for it to really feel cosmic (or even like it proves a point), which is too bad considering that a movie like Max Payne can generate a big, cosmic feel not by showing a clash of actual cosmic forces but just by talking it up a lot.
The running time was a warning sign: Clash of the Titans had material for both kinds of stories, but weighing in a whole hour shorter than Avatar, it hardly has the time.
Titans does some clever things like making Perseus sensitive to lightning storms (can you guess why?), exploring the relationship between Perseus and distant dad Zeus, and giving the heroes reasons to sympathize with the monsters. It freely lifts elements from all over mythology, but it always does so in a way that’s entertaining.
But Titans leaves many things to be desired, such as the undeveloped personalities of the co-star gods and even of Perseus’ companions – I credited The Last Legion with having side characters who could each star in their own sequel, but in Titans, you can guess who's going to die by picking out the next least interesting person. The battle between two brother gods, when it arrives, is delicately sidestepped instead of exploding into a fun-to-watch, planet-smashing paroxysm, even though their hatred has been smoldering since the title sequence. And, except for Medusa, hell seems pretty deserted. Where are the thousands of ghosts clamoring around the newcomers’ boat? Where is Sisyphus, damned to roll a boulder up an infinite hill? Where is Ixion, bound to a man-sized frisbee for his peeping tom ways? The world of mythology contains so much that would have made Leterrier’s movie cooler, had he taken the time. Talk about titan clashes: the titan Saturn went so far as to castrate his father with a sickle, and it feels like a hasty release schedule did the same thing to this script.
The final irony is that when a recognizable prop from the original Clash of the Titans is pulled out of a weapon chest, the only self-referential joke the writers could think of was for the captain say, “Oh, just leave that.” I hope that in future (read, Prince of Persia, later this year) the sword-and-sandal genre is treated by a director with a little more reverence for the past. For now, this movie is decent adventure-food to raise boys on, as long as those boys are already filled with the One True Faith (Harryhausen). Jason and the Argonauts and 7th Voyage of Sinbad are good to start with.
Tobin
I saw The Clash of the Titans aeons ago (the one with Harry Hamlin). As I recall, it was pretty horrible. Seeing the previews for the current one, with the stylized CGI everything, I decided I wouldn't bother seeing the remake. No opinion here, just no interest. None.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
This is a major departure from Movie Watch Blog.
This is a BOOK review and not a movie review. However Tobin and I
both though this was a good vehicle for his review of The Core.
“Some parents will protest
that they do not know how to skin rabbits, build decks, or find the North
Star. Well, neither did our family
at first.”
The Core:
Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education lays out the retrogressive educational style which
has made Leigh Bortins famous both as a homeschool speaker and as the founder
of the K-12 curriculum, Classical Conversations.
Classical education has
become a buzzword in the home school and private school communities, and yet many
parents are still unsure what, exactly, it means. A classical education is one that is intended to raise a
citizen, not a consumer – a goal in direct opposition to today’s progressive
(public) schools. But since
classical learning hails from the Greeks’ and Romans’ ideal of “liberal
education”, many Christians have even doubted whether Christian classical
education is not a heretical oxymoron.
Classical Christian
education is in fact a the style of learning embraced b Christian Europe, the
Reformers, and the American founders centuries before learning was stuffed into
factory-like public schools. That
bit of cultural progress happened in 1912, and was inspired by John Dewey’s
belief that children could be treated like malleable material on the oh-so-successful
assembly lines of that decade instead of being respected as thinking, organic
beings. This newcomer ideology,
now a mere hundred years old, has so deeply pervaded our culture that many
Christian parents are at risk of continuing the same assembly-line thinking
even after removing their kids from government schools – simply because they
have never seen any different. To
truly distance ourselves from the mistakes of “progressive” education,
homeschoolers must look to the past – education that is retrogressive – and
restore the lost tools of learning which are the core of the classical
model. The Core is a freeing, challenging place to start.
The Core explains
a model of education which was successful for all of civilized history: essentially, classical learning is an
opening of the eyes in order to experience knowledge, not as a series of
unrelated subjects or categories, but as a unified, living whole. Recently I was reading Rabelais, which,
you’ll remember, is one of the three library titles denounced by the prudish
town wives in The Music Man. I was struck by how much we have lost,
educationally speaking; Rabelais details his protagonist’s school day, which
includes extracurricular details as watching the cook prepare the meal,
observing jousts, visiting museums, reciting poetry, drawing, and looking at
insects and clouds. In fact, the
“extracurriculars” vastly outnumber the schoolroom activities such as studying
Latin and poetry. Rabelais wrote
in the sixteenth century, and even though his account of a jam-packed,
dawn-to-dusk schoolday is comedic, the comedy only works because the audience
of the time already thought of education as something which takes place from
dawn to dusk – that a disciplined person is learning 24/7, not just 9 to 3.
This is the difference of
the classical model, and it is the difference which Bortins strives to put
forth in her book. This book does
not present a step-by step method of schooling, it presents something much
older: an approach for raising students who are self motivated to spend their
days productively. In fact, while
reading The Core, I was struck that one could adopt the approach here outlined,
its self-imposed challenges and its parent-imposed standards, and become
educated without ever getting caught up in the details of “doing” school
(Rabelais’ hero never “does” school, either). Under this approach, a student can take his classroom
everywhere he goes. Life, when
taken into hand this way, is school.
Of course Leigh prescribes
the use of books and tests; she just refuses to let those very useful tools
become slave drivers. For Leigh,
the teacher/parent should be more like a gardener than an assembly line worker,
not hammering children into a societal determined form, but guiding and
disciplining the natural process of learning already at work in a the
child. The nature of a child is to
seek out knowledge, and to find the creator revealed in the creation. The Fall has of course stymied this
nature – but classical education means, and has always meant, guiding nature to
run its course anyway, via intelligent, moral guidance.
Sometimes meandering,
always accessible, The Core should reassure homeschooling parents that they
have what it takes to raise responsible, interested adults. Bortins’ stream-of-conciousness writing
style is not a weakness (though it might frustrate those expecting a rigid
instruction manual), but actually underscores the book’s unstated message: that
parents need not be to an inflexible structure, and need only create for their
kids an environment so rich that education can happen naturally. This is the message of The Core, both
in its content and its delivery style, and Leigh writes as a parent to parents,
encouraging them to stop “doing school”, and to pursue the higher goal of
enjoying learning instead.
The Core is available at Amazon, Borders, and The Classical Conversations Bookstore.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
Tron Legacy
28 Years Later
I haven’t been excited over a movie for a long time. The new Narnia? The Christ figure in these movies was disappointing enough BEFORE they got to the Chronicle which least lends itself to a film plotline. Cowboys vs. Aliens? Looks like Twilight for dudes. In fact, check out this chart I made:
Generic 2010 dude movie: Ordinary guy gains superpowers for no reason Enter a bad guy possessing the exact same superpowers Plot continues in a predictable manner based on the nature of the superpowers.
Generic 2010 chick movie: Ordinary girl attracts a guy who has superpowers, for no reason Enter a bad guy possessing the exact same superpowers Plot continues in a predictable manner based on the nature of the superpowers.
This used to be a Venn diagram, but the circles got too close together for my printer.
I mean, Harry Potter LXXVII ½ was a good film, with respectable acting and production values, Eric Bana, plus a pithy, British storyline, but I haven’t kept up with the books, so it didn’t mean a lot to me. Never Let Me Go looks fabulous but hasn’t come to the U.S. yet. I just feel like ever since Shyamalan died my world has been as dimly lit as any of the “””locations””” in The Last Airbender. Fall and Winter 2010 hasn’t been great for movies, unless you like 3-D, which I don’t. 3-D pretty much turns me into a grumpy old man on the porch. I jab at the kids with my pipe stem and growl, “Back in the ’85, movies only had two dimensions – and that’s the way we liked it!”
But then along comes TRON: Legacy. Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5) and Jeff Bridges (everything) are together again a whopping 28 years after the original Disney film, which is indeed a new record. In 1982, TRON opened a big door in terms of computer special effects. “Radical,” said hippie protagonist Kevin Flynn (Bridges) when he suddenly found himself transported inside the computer network, which looked like an eerie cityscape of light and mathematical points, and he was right: never before (and not again for a long time) had live actors been placed into computer generated backgrounds.
Imagining the then-new idea of computer networks as cities where little people walk around performing tasks was pretty radical too. TRON was the story of an oppressed populace (played by actors in glowstick-colored costumes), eking out a living in “the grid,” under the dictatorship of the Master Control Program, a data management software who devoured other programs, growing ever bigger, and forcing all the software under his prevue to denounce their belief in the “users,” or face harrowing gladiatorial video games.
I was excited about a sequel from the first I saw of the trailer. In the theater I raised my arms in Tron’s hero pose at the same moment when the new movie replayed it (are they going to do it? I will be seriously angry if they don’t do it right here. Oh, they are… they are…!) which got an odd look from my date, but it didn’t matter, because Tron resonates deep in the soul. I’m not even talking the actual movie TRON here, which is admittedly pretty B-grade, but more the idea: every boy wants to be Tron, the anti-virus crusader who fights for the users, or Kevin, the goofy hacker whose snooping gets him unexpectedly downloaded into the magical computer world. TRON had a lot of good adventure story elements: it had a journey, it had faith and nobility, a fight for freedom, and even a little “animal” companion called Bit (not present in the new movie) who could only say yes or no.
TRON: Legacy does a good job of following up on the original, but brings viewers up to speed in case they haven’t seen it (or just, you know, forgot it by now.) In the story, Kevin Flynn has disappeared, leaving his son to grow up as a directionless hooligan. But after becoming trapped inside the grid through the cunning of computer program villain “Clue,” young Sam Flynn finds his dad trapped there too. Together they make a break for the real world, riding videogame motorcycles that leave behind a deadly snail trail of solid light, and evading faceless security guard programs – they’re users, the only real people on the grid, so if Clue captures them, he can unlock the secret of traveling between his world and ours. There’s some good retroactive science-fictioning here too: in 1982, the writers couldn’t have predicted this thing called a computer network would become more complex and far-reaching than even the Master Control Program could have aspired – so in 2010 they have Kevin Flynn claim to have gone on from the events of the original movie and invented the Internet: a world within our world where information is free for everyone.
TRON: Legacy again takes advantage of the latest special effects, which ironically means having a greater number of actual sets than many big movies today. It’s in 3-D, but since the franchise was always about, and made on, the latest technology, rather like an EPCOT Center attraction, that actually works for me. Even electronic music is a boon in this case. Here’s one critique: why didn’t they take this to the next level, and make use of both 2-D and 3-D technologies? Tron is all about the meeting between two worlds, but as far as I know, The Wizard of Oz is still the only movie to make really great use of the transition between the two movie mediums. Our protagonist could have been like Dorothy, leaving behind a drab 2-D world for an exciting new 3-D one. Or, the whole movie could have been 3-D up until a part where the characters have to squeeze through a very thin part of the internet.
Legacy does, however, break all boundaries with another technology, which has been employed in other movies but with varying degrees of success. Industrial Light and Magic’s “de-aging” computer mapped Jeff Bridges’ facial movements on set, and then played those movements back through a computer-generated “puppet” of Bridges, built up from footage taken from Against All Odds (1984). This allows Bridges to play a younger version of himself (Clue), who many times appears opposite his present-day Character, an aged Kevin Flynn. Sometimes Clue’s facial expressions look a little artificial, but since Clue is supposed to be a computer program anyway, that’s all right. Legacy is a special effects showcase movie that does its job well – I wasn’t aware of this de-aging computer before, but it’s going to be a bit hit for flashbacks and time-travel movies.
This movie has many good things, not least of which is the performances, from Michael Sheen (30 Rock, British TV) who is absolutely astonishing as a weird club-owning program, to Jeff Bridges as both a mentor and a villain, to Olivia Wilde as a heroine who is naïve and even uncouth, while yet being feminine and sassy. It opens up a lot of good themes, like freedom vs. fascism (open sources vs. proprietary), discovering perfection in nature instead of trying to create it, and a young man discovering direction under the influence of a father. Few of these ideas are really tied off in any kind of a satisfying way, but it’s all fun to watch.
The one theme I will criticize, not because it wasn’t tied off well enough but because it had no business being there in the first place, was the Buddhism. It’s okay that Kevin Flynn has become a peaceful Zen guy since the first movie. It’s even okay that this philosophy leads the characters toward things like sacrifice and patience, but when it interrupts correct movie structure, any philosophy just gets dumb.
The Buddhism surfaces all throughout the story and never really explains itself, which leaves some bad plot holes. Nothing I wanted my money back over, just things that made me go, “?”
In lots of action movies, the mentor sacrifices himself to help the hero escape – the bad guy kills the old good guy, and it gives the young good guy the emotional charge to win the battle or whatever. It’s a classic. It’s correct structure. Without giving too much away, Legacy gets this part wrong near the ending. Good Jeff Bridges and Evil Jeff Bridges do a bizarre yin-yang thing instead of Evil Jeff Bridges just killing Good Jeff Bridges. I’m not saying all movies have to follow the exact same structure, but this doesn’t even make sense according to TRON’s own rules about how users and programs relate to one another. See, in TRON, programs look like the user who wrote them. The original movie made interesting use of this with Boxleitner playing Tron in the computer world, and a real person (Tron’s programmer) in the real world. Now, the reason for this is the obvious one: a program is a figment of a programmer’s thought. It’s not that he’s a weird yin-yangy opposite of the programmer (I mean, if that were the case, then all programs, written anywhere, would have to turn evil to maintain the balance of the universe, right?) But if you want to read a religious reference into this interplay at all, well, the correct one would be Genesis: programs are made in their creator’s image. And since this is actually a quote from Legacy itself, I think it’s silly to also cram a separate religion into the same script. Tron himself always felt more like a crusader or a vampire-slayer than a kung-fu master to me, anyway. Well, watch this movie and think about how if any of the plot holes were filled in, the story would immediately become less Buddhist. But hey, there’s plenty of times that Christian-Bookstore-ism (not Christianity) has gotten in the way of good story writing too.
I’m just impressed that Christianity has a structure which follows (no, is the source of) good storytelling, while Buddhism, apparently, just has to be stuffed in in a way which damages good storytelling. Huh.
Nevertheless, TRON: Legacy does a good job, and its special effects are fun to look at instead of tiring to look at, which is rare in this day and age. I’m going to say something I will never say again on this blog: spend the extra three dollars to see it in 3-D.
Tobin
In 1982 I was living in Bakersfield, CA. Tobin wouldn't be born for another 4 years. I was working for Triad Systems, selling inventory management computer systems to auto parts stores. My friend, Dana (who lived in Whittier, CA) and I would get together from time to time and go see a movie together, visit Magic Mountain for a day of hard hitting roller coaster riding, or find a pinball hall and drop some serious change to play pinball and the newest video games. Asteroid was fairly new around that time. Mix in some Space Invaders, Robotron, and Donkey Kong and we had ourselves some good, meaningful male bonding time.
10 years earlier, Cray Research was founded by Seymour Cray, the so-called "father of supercomputing". With its main memory of 8mb (yes, 8mb) the Cray computer was legendary for its computer processing speed and sheer horsepower. 8 years after that, the IBM PC was released. Cray computers were used to run governments, industrial plants, and used for research. This computer was and remains cutting edge and state of the art. AND, as I recall, the Cray was behind some pretty serious animation test films when I was in high school. The one that comes to mind was of a massive steam locomotive barrelling down the tracks as the "camera" angle shifted to give a good view of the entire engine. I also believe that it was used in the production of the movie TRON in 1982.
TRON was one of those groundbreaking films. A film making breakthrough, if you will. It belongs in the history books right alongside STAR WARS. We hadn't seen anything like we were treated to before in TRON. What it was lacking in story, it more than made up for in special, computer generated effects. I don't remember the statistics, but well over 3/4 of the film was made with computers. In fact, Dana made the one comment that probably poisoned me against the film. He told me, "It's a movie that is only made to showcase what a computer can do. It has no story." And, herein lies the difference in Tobin's and my opinion of TRON.
In 1982, I found the film confusing and long. I couldn't follow what was happening, but I was fascinated by the motorcycles and other vehicles along with the concept of "the grid" (see Tobin's review for more on the grid). Cheesy by today's standards of CGI, in the day it was utterly spellbinding.
Roll forward 28 years to TRON: Legacy (NOTE: in computer terms, the word "legacy" is used to refer to old fashioned computer like the early PCs from the 80's.) and I have the same problem I had with the original TRON. I found it too long and hard to get a grip on. Like the 3rd "Pirates of the Carribean" film, there was not enough story to fill the time. "Pirates" tried to stuff a 100 minute story into 130 minute film. I got bored and fidigity toward the end. The same thing happened to me in TRON.
I'm not saying to not go see it. There are some interesting things in the film, and I completely missed the Budhism thing that Tobin mentions. I DID like the computer version of the Colliseum fights. I enjoyed the motorcycle races to the death. And, I thought that the mention of Cray in one of the identification signs during the game of "killer frisbee".
Overall, the film didn't work for me. Either the film was not good on its own merits, or I'm suffering a poison flashback from my friend Dana.
Copyright 2009 Tobin Duby and Mike Duby Published with permission by Tobin's Lab www.tobinslab.com Comments? Please write to me at mike@tobinslab.com
I am Number Four
No. No, no, no, no, no. No. No, no.
No.
I told you it would be bad, in my TRON review. But even I was surprised.
Michael Bay shows that he can ruin a movie when he’s not even directing it, in this Bay-produced, action-packed thingy that captures all the “superheroes in high-school” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer… but with none of the character depth; all of the “Savior of the Earth” excitement of Superman… but with none of the grandeur; and all of the “hot guy falls for pretty girl for no other reason than that they are just attractive” of Twilight. This part, it captured pretty well, actually.
A superboy has come to earth, and now people from his planet are here to kill him. That’s about it.
Boys come to grips with their fathers, things get blown up, and a hot girl has superpowers. Then it just kinda ends.
But you know I’m not a sour puss. I try to keep things positive on this blog, so instead of criticizing this non-stop firehose of filmographic feces, I’m going to put my writing abilities to the test and tell you all the ways this movie could have actually been worse:
1) It could have ended on the type of cliffhanger that made me hate it, instead of just making me not want to see the sequel. And that is a fine line. I left the theater feeling full of junk food, but not stuffed. You know the way movie-theater popcorn smells kind of like skunk, but good skunk? This was like movie-theater popcorn you watch.
2) It could have had an uninteresting villain. Don’t underestimate the importance of a respectable, even likeable, villain; Avatar would have been straight up boring without Colonel Rightwing Nutjob. So it is with I am Number Four: its villain is the face of happy-go-lucky evil, here on earth to kill superkid “Number Four” for some reason. He’s got freaky head-tattoos, he cracks jokes, and he even makes a failed lackey swallow a tiny buzz saw as punishment! This guy is hard core! If he hadna got blown up at the end of the movie, I would be 5% more likely to watch the sequel – but the writers had to pull a Darth Maul on us by killing off the most interesting character before the series really got going.
3) The script could have conceivably had (even) more writers. Generally, in story writing, the fewer writers the better. David Copperfield - by Charles Dickens, period. The Odyssey - by Homer, period. There's a reaon all the famous co-writer duos are musicians, not writers. Well, IA#4 plays it pretty save by employing only five writers - three to adapt the story from a science fiction novel by Pitticus Lore, plus Pitticus Lore himself - who is actually a pen name including two separate people. (When a pen name covers more than one person, it is called a penumbra name? Ha!) Why this pie needed so many fingers in it, I'm not sure, but we can be grateful they kept it to fifty. Actually, the owners of those fifty fingers have such cool names - like Jobie Hughes, and James Frey - that you'd think we would have heard of them independently.

wait…
wait…
No.
Doing my research on IMDB.com, I have just realized that Marti Noxon was one of the screenwriters for this terrible, terrible movie. Marti Noxon, who wrote, edited or produced 123 of the 144 Buffy The Vampire Slayer episodes. You are now experiencing a live record of my sense of betrayal, in real time, as I find out for myself just how deep the cut goes.
How could you let me down like this, Marti?
Everything I have believed in has been a lie.
Aw, never mind. There is NO way this movie could have been a worse experience. Me? I’m going to go find out which 21 Buffy episodes are the untainted ones.
Tobin
After reading Tobin's calm and collected review of this film, I was laughing so hard that I just HAD to go see it...NOW.
The way that Tobin responded to this film, I immediately thought of a movie that I saw back in 1978. It was called "Message from Space" and it starred the late Vic Morrow. Mr. Morrow had starred in many recognisable films (Humanoids from the Deep, Bad News Bears, and King Creole and was the star of the TV series Combat!) and died on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie in a horrible helicopter accident.
As I recall, "Message From Space" was one of the WORST movies I have ever seen, but not QUITE as bad as "Plan Nine from Outer Space". If memory serves me, a group of young adults each have a walnut dropped on them from space. These weren't just ANY walnuts, these were "fortune cookie type walnuts" and each contained a message (hence, the title of the movie). I can't remember what the messages were, only that one of the recipients lost his walnut and all the others were sad. But then, he found it again, and then they were all happy.
At the time, I felt that to walk out on ANY movie was a waste of good money and time, and that it was rude...so I didn't. But, if I find a copy of this film in the Wal-Mart $4.99 "nobody wants these bin", I'm going to buy it so that I can walk out on it as many times as I like and amortize the angst across several viewings.
But I digress.
I didn't react to "I Am Number Four" with quite the vicerality that Tobin did. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that his reaction to it was in part due to his familiarity with Buffy and Twilight. I have never seen either and was not able to make the same connections that he did.
While I didn't come away feeling cheated, I wasn't particularly happy with my choice to go see it. The effects were pretty good, the story was familiar and predictable. But what for me was unforgiveable, was the soundtrack. The music played with this movie was virtually non-stop, dull, and had so many violin sounding instruments as to make it obvious that, since the film itself couldn't really tug at your heartstrings, the soundtrack tried to make up for the lacking of plot originality. It's the same kind of music you'll hear on Days of our Lives. I found it extremely distracting, especially after I figured out what the filmmakers were trying to do...affect an emotional response where none was deserved.
Read Tobin's description of the plot, cut out some of the hostility, and I have to pretty much agree with him on this one. I can't really recommend the film. It wasn't even CLOSE to being kind of maybe even having a passing thought to getting the sought after "Mike's Pick" award.
Mike
PS I just though of something else that irritated me about this film. I HATE it when a self serving screenwriter ASSUMES that we will want another dose of him in another film by making an obvious setup for a sequel. With very few exceptions, films don't need to pop you in the head with the news that there's another in the works. AND, some are even a bit sneaky about it... (Most of you know that I feel that it's it is extremely rude to walk out of a theatre simply because the credits are rolling. Stay and watch the credits. They are part of the film. And sometimes, you'll be rewarded for your extra time.) At the end of the credits in Iron Man, Nick Fury was introduced as a lead in to the sequel. I like non-brazen setups for sequels. I Am Number Four left the door wide open for I Am Number Four Point One, Point Two, I Am Number Six, ad nonfinitem. Come on guys, give it a rest.
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