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[MOVIE REVIEW] The Hurt Locker

Arya Ponto — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Since the beginning of the Iraq War (that's 2003 in case you somehow forgot), there have been a number of fictional movies about the controversial war, most of them ignored by the public and many of them panned by critics. Not surprisingly, most of these movies have an opinion or two about the war itself and they tend to be quite cloying or bullheaded about their point. Not that The Hurt Locker is completely devoid of a political opinion. It in fact begins with a quote by New York Times writer and vocal Iraq War critic Chris Hedges: "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." However, it's certainly less concerned with mulling over the stigma of war than it is with communicating the experience of being there. This is the most relevant, nuanced and viscerally jolting war film since Full Metal Jacket. I kid you not.

Part of why it stands above the rest of the Iraq War catalog is that, rather than focusing on the soldiers' prepared outlook of war and attaching combat (an important part of their lives) onto them, The Hurt Locker tells us the soldiers' experience by putting said experience on screen. No philosophizing, no emotional reactionary outbursts. We see it, we feel it, and then we watch what it does to the soldiers, and we understand the breakdown.

You know how every action movie has that tension-filled bomb defusing scene? This movie has about half a dozen of them, each packing enough suspense to make your heart put a dent on your ribcage. Director Kathryn Bigelow lines three in front of the movie, almost back-to-back, before she even gets a story going. It gives us a taste of what routine and procedure are like for these guys.

Written by former journalist and first-time screenwriter Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker tells the story of a bomb disposal unit in Iraq whose job is to sweep the streets of Baghdad, defusing found explosives. When team leader Sgt. Thompson (Guy Pearce) is killed by a blast, a "wild man" is assigned to replace him. Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) doesn't seem to mind the danger, always walking into each potential death as if he was a cowboy diving into a bar fight. The first day he arrives in camp, he unblocks the window in his quarters, refusing to worry about incoming mortars because he likes the sunlight. It is in him that the "war is a drug" mantra becomes painfully obvious. He has a wife (Evangeline Lilly) and a young son back home, but doesn't seem to connect to them the way he connects to explosives. Renner plays him not quite like a junkie, but certainly with shades of it. When he's not at work, he's restless, looking for an excuse for action. When he is, he shuts everything out, drawn to his bombs and determined to conquer them.

Keeping him safe are his two team members Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). They're more ideas than characters; two reactions to Thompson's death. Sanborn becomes a stickler for protocol in the name of safety, while Eldridge is shaken by his own mortality. I wish they're given more to do, especially when you have a brilliant talent like Mackie in the role, but what it lacks in character development it makes up for with simple but beautiful human touches—a soldier helping another drink from a juice box becomes a tender moment.

With such a complicated war, though, things are never simple. The movie is sympathetic for the troops but at the same time reveals the consequence of their presence. It uses paranoia as a way to generate suspense, but also to comment on the double-edged sword that is the Iraq War. When Sanborn roughhouses an Iraqi gawker during a mission, it's his duty to be careful on a dangerous job and suspect any approaching Iraqi, but the look on the civilian's face says something else: he's trying to be friendly and helpful, yet he is assumed and treated as a threat by the Americans. Hatred brews.

"Well, if he ain't an insurgent, he is now," one soldier jokes as they arrest a trespassing civilian.

Boal was embedded with an actual bomb squad in Baghdad back in 2004 and his first-hand knowledge on the matter shows in the script; from the soldiers' camp lifestyle to the atmosphere of each mission, in which every nearby spectator could be a hostile. Toying with our anxiety, The Hurt Locker never develops an antagonist, yet presents a number of suspects in each situation for our heroes to defend against. You always hear filmmakers saying, "the city is another character," and often they fall short, but there's no other way to describe it here. Bigelow turns Baghdad into a sprawling yet claustrophobic villain. A cameraman on a fence, a curious Iraqi watching from a balcony, a taxi taking a wrong turn—these are all elements of the city that she uses to kidnap our breath at gun point.

After a summer full of disappointing action movies, The Hurt Locker is easily the most pulse-pounding movie of the summer. Of course there's more to it than that, but bullet-by-bullet, Bigelow's sharp filmmaking here shames the likes of Michael Bay and McG. They could learn a thing or two from her on how to make an exciting action film.

[DVD REVIEW] Third Watch: The Complete Second Season

Lex Walker — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:31:00 +0000

By the time Third Watch started, ER was in its fifth season. Both aired on NBC, occurred in major metropolitan areas (New York City and Chicago, respectively) and had healthy though changing casts of characters. However, ER outlasted Third Watch by nine seasons. Considering that one occurs within the confines of a single hospital and that the other has the whole of New York City you have to wonder how Third Watch fizzled so fast in comparison. Even more importantly, ER had significant cast changes on a seasonal basis while Third Watch maintained a strong core of about eight characters. So what went wrong?

The strong storytelling just wasn’t there.

Third Watch’s ability to keep a storyline going faltered severely from the get-go. The characters are inconsistent and prone to convenient outbursts for the sake of a moral or political message. Despite being a serialized show Third Watch seems committed to defying any story arc which might last longer than one episode. The arcs that should seem to fade away for 3 to 4 episodes only to resurface like no time passed in between (despite other storylines suggesting they had).

The storylines cross freely between the lives of EMTs and police officers which in all fairness should provide more than enough storylines the opportunity to occur organically. Instead, by some wild coincidence, about 1/3 of the episodes start with the people on duty, whether they be officers or EMTs, seeing a major crime or accident in progress. Now, I’ve worked as an EMT, and while it wasn’t in New York City I can safely say that 100% of the cases I was called to never, not once, occurred as I watched from a local diner. It would inevitably occur when you’re on the job, but in this case it happens far too often just to save the writers the trouble of showing them getting from location A to location B. Compounding the situation is the fickle nature of the characters. To err may be human, but these characters seem to change as people with each episode just so the series can play with a variety of problems. It helps the dramatic variety of the show, but it destroys any credibility in building the characters.

The actors may have no solid character to hold to, but that doesn’t really affect their performances. Kim Raver, who later moved on to play opposite Kiefer Sutherland in 24, has a very compelling arc concerning her divorce and children. Raver’s performance in 24 was never that strong, but it’s easy to understand why they chose her given her performance in Third Watch. Amidst her erratic mood swings (due more to the writers than her acting) Raver elevates the comparably insincere and tepid performances of some of the other cast mainstays. Michael Beach’s ‘Doc’ is one such character whose variations become too severe to forgive. In one memorable episode Beach suddenly becomes aflame with racial awareness only to have a lesson on the subject being force fed down the audience’s throat. Beach’s performance never really suffers but the character and his story become downright insufferable.

It’s as if there was an outcry for a noncommittal version of ER; a show with fast-paced medical drama which required less-than-weekly adherence in order to follow along. In fact, with the odd dispersal of storylines over disproportionate periods of time, it sometimes seems like they’re encouraging audiences to tune in less often than not. This might explain why it dropped out sooner than ER – but best bets are on inconsistent writing efforts and an underdeveloped cast.

It’s still damn fine drama, but there’s nothing here to draw you and keep you locked in. It’s nice to have dramatic episodic television to watch, but a little consistency isn’t too much to ask for is it?

DVD Extra Features:

There’s a gag reel and it has a few good yuks in its corner, but otherwise the DVD set is pretty empty. How unfortunate.

[MOVIE REVIEW] Brüno

Arya Ponto — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Is Sacha Baron Cohen maturing in reverse? That's the impression I get when I see his career trajectory, and it makes me sad. When I first became aware of him about 10 years ago, as his Ali G persona, he was an assault-comedian with razor-sharp wit. Interviewing political analysts and religious leaders, he often caught them off-guard with moronic questions and was able to make his unaware targets appear foolish. This was the same tactic that made Borat so memorable. Though it's the outrageous physical humor that makes us laugh the hardest, the genius-at-work is when Cohen casually uses stereotypes to expose the prejudices embedded in people. This time, as the last remaining alter ego from his TV show, the gay Austrian fashion journalist Brüno, Cohen disappoints by substituting clever pranks for a gross-out shockfest.

His snaring of reprehensible people is not completely missing—an audition scene where parents agree to perform liposuction on their babies for a photo shoot will make you gag in horror; likewise a church leader denouncing homosexuality while simultaneously revealing his contempt for women—but as great as they are, they're dominated by missed opportunities.

Missed opportunities such as an interview with Ron Paul. Yes, that Ron Paul. Rather than engage in any kind of verbal prodding, Brüno just does a striptease and Congressman Paul promptly freaks out. It's kind of funny at first, but then you come to a realization... That's it? There's no attempt to get Ron Paul to say something silly, there's no clever baiting? Just stripping? It'd be a more interesting scene if Brüno tries to rape him and the Congressman punches him in the mouth.

Considering America's current climate, a provocatively gay man exploring redneck zones and challenging the religious right could be a great thing to see, especially if Cohen could expose the more hidden homophobia. It's frustrating to discover that he barely attempts to scratch the surface. There's no mention of Proposition 8, gay marriage barely enters the film, and it seems like only a third of the movie even refers to homophobia. It's like Cohen saw that his naked wrestling match with Ken Davitian was considered Borat's highlight, so he decided to pad out this "sequel" with similarly shocking stunts. If you liked Borat for its crude humor alone, you'll most likely like Brüno; but if you thought Borat was a potent and clever satire, it's clear that Brüno utterly dropped the ball. The Brüno sketches on Da Ali G Show were always the weakest part of the show, but even those were more astute than this movie.

The main problem with Brüno as a film, above all, is a lack of focus on what it's really about. Borat, as much as it was a series of pranks, was tied together by a common theme (learning American culture). Here, it's all over the place. There's fashion, showbiz, celebrity hypocrisy, Israeli-Palestinian conflict (?!) and eventually homosexuality. It's like a collection of ideas that they filmed but couldn't find a way to put together as a movie.

There is a narrative thread: Brüno's assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten, who plays a great wounded puppy dog lover) is in love with him, but Brüno doesn't love him back. There's potential for a great subversive and satiric love story here, if only the film recognized it.

I'm probably demanding too much of Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles. What's wrong with just a dumb comedy? After all, there's still satisfaction (and laughter) to be had from Brüno hitting on redneck hunters or flaunting gay sex in front of an Arkansas cage fight audience. Yes, all things considering, the movie is still pretty funny, but it's sullied when the potential for something great is this obvious and this close, yet the ball bounces off the court. It's also not as funny as Borat's non-stop barrage of baffling interviews and unreal infiltrations (I still consider Borat's church revival scene to be ballsier than anything in Brüno). Brüno is such an extreme character that often the believability goes right out the window, which wasn't a big problem with the Borat character. Brüno's antics are so clearly beyond illegal that when people react to him, we can't quite laugh as heartily, since it's all too obvious of a farce.

You know, I wonder if I got it all wrong. At one point, Brüno shows a focus group his new infotainment pilot, which consists more of him gyrating his crotch towards the camera and a close-up of a penis flopping around than actual celebrity interviews. The middle-aged volunteers are naturally repulsed, but that's because they don't know it's a put-on. Funny thing is, that pilot is not that different from this movie. I'm beginning to think that Sacha Baron Cohen made Brüno as an Andy Kaufmanesque joke in itself, to put as much peen on America's movie screens as possible, flaunting it as hard as Brüno does. Who knows, maybe that's a pro-gay incentive in itself. I can't imagine it being very effective, though.

[MOVIE REVIEW] Sex Positive

Arya Ponto — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:52:00 +0000

It's scary for me to realize that AIDS is still such a big issue in my lifetime, even though I (and the rest of my generation) grew up in a world in which the disease is hardly a mystery and its prevention is common knowledge. Depressing, isn't it, to think that we still inhabit a society where even teaching safe sex has to be a battle?

Despite recent breakthroughs, a readily-available cure is still out of reach. This much is terrifying in itself. It blows my mind to imagine a time when AIDS was such a specter of death that it was communicated only in hysteria. I start to compare it to an epidemic I can relate to today, like swine flu, and I instantly feel stupid for even making it. It's much more serious and pandemic, that much is obvious.

So then the question becomes, why wouldn't it still rouse that level of panic? Especially now that we've moved past the naive assumption that it's only a gay man's sickness. Could it be that the generation growing up with AIDS as an oft-cited danger is so used to its presence that they casually dismiss it? The less mysterious it is, the less we're scared of it, which means the less people pay attention to it. This doc seems to come to that conclusion, talking about the early days of the AIDS epidemic almost as if this is an excavation of a lost civilization, but relevant for current times all the same.

Setting up the mood of this distant world of 1980's, Sex Positive starts with an "outtake" of its primary subject, Richard Berkowitz, refusing to answer a question. The camera shakes, the angle awkward... Berkowitz moves around, agitated, telling the off-screen director Daryl Wein that he doesn't want to discuss certain things from his past. It's not a glamorous one. It may be a shameful one. Eventually Berkowitz opens up (revealing his drug use, bath house encounters and stint as an S&M hustler), presumably after Wein persuaded him to. It's a smart and deliberate choice to include that initial reluctance; Berkowitz's difficulty in revisiting that period of his life conveys—at least emotionally—why it was difficult for people back then to accept the necessary progress. There needed to be a persistent instigator.

The topic is a heady one. Wein weaves in and out of various chapters of it, from Berkowitz's history with activism to the gay culture of the time to the scientific research surrounding the HIV virus to the political back-paddling in accepting it as a serious issue. But the film, mostly, is about Berkowitz's unsung accomplishment in being one of the first to suggest that the spread of HIV was linked to reckless promiscuity in the gay community. A theory that proved extremely unpopular among gays—accusing Berkowitz of being a self-loathing gay man—given the free culture they'd fought so hard to achieve. Yet Berkowitz insisted on pushing the idea in order to save his peers' lives.

Years later, Berkowitz is now a broke middle-aged ex-addict living with HIV, hoping that this film would raise more awareness than his out-of-print book. Not surprisingly, he holds a very Democrat point of view of the pandemic. He fought for government funding for AIDS research, and he admits no shame living off of disability checks; even though he himself know it was his own doing. It's nevertheless engrossing to listen to his account of the dark days, helped by archival footage. Berkowitz is such a contradictory character that he makes a tremendously fascinating documentary subject, if not a dubious spokesman. Kudos to Daryl Wein for favoring honesty over message, I guess.

To return to my original point, though: while the fog has been lifted, these days it's been replaced by a fence built by ignorance. The film points out that HIV rates have been on the rise again in the past decade, no doubt due to a barricade against safe sex education in many parts of the country. So what is there to do? Sex Positive reminds us that we are and have never been invincible, and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Which is why it's so achingly eye-rolling for this doc to get an R from the MPAA just for language and sexual discussions.

Music Video Corner IV

Matt Medlock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:47:00 +0000

Welcome back to Music Video Corner with another group of music videos to check out from the comfort of your computer chair.

This time, you can check out recent vids from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dirty Projectors, Band of Skulls, Oh No Ono, M. Ward and Franz Ferdinand. And the classic video this outing comes from none other than the Beastie Boys. Check them out after the break.

Oh No Ono – “Swim”

Disturbing, yet the sentiment should ring true with almost any post-pubescent male out there.

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Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is the Move”

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Franz Ferdinand – “Can’t Stop Feeling”

My reaction to the latest Franz album was pretty lukewarm, but these guys can usually be counted on for an entertaining video. This one’s no exception, making good use of low-budget video tricks and (I assume) intentionally exaggerated “actions.”

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Heads Will Roll”

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Band of Skulls – “I Know What I Am”

Proof that you don’t need interesting lyrics to deliver a g’dole f’shunned rock song. And the rock video clichés follow suit.

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M. Ward – “Rave On”

Portland’s Ward takes on Buddy Holly. I doubt Clay-mation will ever get played out in music videos.

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And the classic:

Beastie Boys – “Body Movin’”

Not only was this Fatboy Slim remix superior to the version originally released on Hello Nasty, but it also remains one of the two or three coolest videos ever released by the Beasties, and those guys are music video royalty. Funny as hell, too.

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[DVD REVIEW] Reno 911!: The Sixth Season

Anders Nelson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:18:00 +0000

Even though the show debuted a full year and a half before The Office did, it’s fair to say that Reno 911 still operates in its shadow. They’re both mockumentary television shows that play on uncomfortable awkward tension, and they both deal with reckless, shocking incompetence in the workplace that almost completely defies imagination (and occasionally credibility). But whereas The Office plays on the awkward tension between the characters - primarily between the all normal characters and Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott and Rainn Wilson’s Dwight Schrute - Reno plays on the awkward tension between the show itself and its audience. The result is frequently pretty funny, but never quite as engaging as its counterpart.

In the show’s sixth season, the Reno police department is doing essentially the exact same things that they’ve been doing for the previous five seasons. Led by the consistently short-shorted Lieutenant Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), Deputy Jones (Cedric Yarbrough), Deputy Raineesha Williams (Niecy Nash), Deputy Travis Junior (Robert Ben Garant), and Deputy Trudy Wiegel (Kerri Kenney), along with newcomers Deputy Frank Rizzo (Joe Lo Truglia) and Sergeant Jack Declan (Ian Roberts) patrol the streets of Reno with the exact kind of bumbling ineptitude that one would expect of the modern-day Keystone Cops. Occasionally, there’s some kind of overarching plot to an episode, such as when Dangle hosts a murder mystery party (which is easily the highlight of the season); but for the most part they spend their days responding to calls from various residents, which gives the writers more than ample opportunity to insert amusing cameos from a variety of guest stars like Rainn Wilson, George Lopez, and Craig Robinson. All in all, this show feels more like a sketch comedy show than it does a sitcom, which is an asset, as they have the option of getting rid of ridiculous ideas sooner than they otherwise would be able to, and a liability as basing a sketch show around the same roster of characters can be more than a little tiresome.

So imagine, if you will, an Office in which absolutely every single character was as weird and loopy as Dwight Schrute, and no barometer for reality really exists. In a way that works, because The Office has always had a few moments where you’re just sort of forced to go ‘come on…' I’m positive I’m not the only one who has stopped to note that Michael Scott would have been fired many times over in reality. But on the other hand, it’s hard to stick with an ongoing show in which none of the characters have any real depth of feeling. Granted, if this show did abruptly take a turn for the serious, it would be excruciating, but it’s still hard to invest in a show where it doesn’t really matter if you saw the last one or not.

But all of that’s kind of irrelevant if the show’s funny. Is it? Most of the time, it is. It goes for those ‘laugh-because-you’re-shocked-buzzwords’ a little too much (‘Hitler’ and ‘rape’ being examples), and assumes that if a dick joke is funny once, it’s funny every time. It gets good mileage out of its guest stars, and never stays on long enough to wear out its welcome. Reno 911!’s certainly an amusing enough show that works perfectly if you’re looking to all but completely turn your brain off, even if it never fully comes together in the way that you might hope it would.

DVD Extra Features:

The first disc contains a number of extras, including: "Tupperware for Tampa Uncut", a deleted scene in which the department is pitched a plan to sell Tupperware to afford a trip to Tampa; "Profiles in Valor" for both Sgt. Declan and Dep. Rizzo, which are basically highlight reels of their best moments from the season; and two commercials produced by Craig Robinson’s character. Certain episodes also contain commentary by members of the cast; nothing too special there. They talk about how they shot scenes, how ridiculous they occasionally worry that the show can get, and each other’s breasts.

[DVD REVIEW] 12 Rounds

Lex Walker — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:06:00 +0000

12 Rounds is either one of the best tributes to action films of the last two decades or a horrible rip-off with nothing unique to say or show – it’s a genuine toss-up. But even if you can’t decide whether or not 12 Rounds borrows too much or the right amount, one thing isn’t debatable: John Cena has no place acting. The movie itself has problems left and right, but what’s really proven by the time credits roll is that action stars don’t just require muscular bodies in tear-away shirts, some acting is required. Bruce Willis didn’t rock our faces off in Die Hard by just being tough as nails – no, instead he threw in some acting to make John McClane endearing and even funny.

Detective Danny Fisher (Cena) and his partner Hank Carver (Brian J. White) took down the wrong criminal on the wrong night, a happenstance which would come back to haunt Fisher a year later. Miles Jackson (Aidan Gillen) had a knack for popping on and off of the FBI’s radar with heists in cities around the world; when he pops up in Louisiana, Special Agent Aiken (Steve Harris) attempts to trap him only to have the plan go awry – landing Jackson in the laps of Carver and Fisher. In bringing Miles to justice, his girlfriend is killed and his grudge against Fisher takes hold. Fast forward a year later and Miles has escaped from prison and challenges Danny to a match of 12 rounds of death-defying stunts. Plowing through the city in a fire truck, exploding buildings, high-speed trolley chases fill out the list of activities Fisher and his police friends must survive if they want to rescue Danny’s wife alive.

So let’s break it down piece by piece. Challenges that force the hero to race through the city to solve riddles or problems? Die Hard with a Vengeance. Large public transportation device hurtling wildly towards the end of the line with no breaks? Spider-man 2 or even Speed to some extent. The villain killing off a main character in an apartment with a bomb? Speed, again. There is a point where paying homage to action films becomes an absence of originality. What’s really funny about drawing a comparison between 12 Rounds and the third Die Hard film is the name Renny Harlin. Now, Renny directed Die Hard 2 which most will agree is a minor misstep in the franchise. The fact that he’d direct a film with the main plot device of the second Die Hard sequel must say something about him being passed over to direct that film.

Now, in defense of the film, action movies borrow from each other over and over – there’s lots of inbreeding. Movie X borrows from Movie Y, Movie Y from Movie Z which then inspires a sequence in the sequel to Movie X. It’s an unfortunate circle with brief moments of brilliance recognized only to be recycled. 12 Rounds is, like many others in the genre, a recycler of innovative stunt work. The brief moments of success to be found in 12 Rounds are when it makes it very clear which subsection of action junkies it’s attempting to attract. I’d hesitate to call it low-concept, but really the premise behind 12 Rounds is little more than stringing together 12 otherwise unrelated stunts. In short, the people 12 Rounds would claim as fans are the ones who get their kicks from destruction derbies and really big cars; the people who go beyond marveling at fire fighters and police officers as noteworthy civil servants and consider them stalwart examples of human endurance.

You won’t see anything new in 12 Rounds, but it still offers the requisite amount of bangs and booms for the action junkies. The one place where I won’t accommodate 12 Rounds is John Cena. As Hulk Hogan and Dwayne Johnson have proven, there is room for conversion from a career in showboat wrestling to the silver screen. What many wrestlers have failed to realize is that the wrestlers who make the transition successfully are in the minority. Kevin Dunn, Tor Johnson, Stone Cold Steve Austin and countless others have all tried their hands – but none have found the same success as Hogan and Johnson. To be brutally honest, Cena doesn’t deserve it. Hogan may have been cheeseball acting through and through, but when your movie career happens primarily in the 80s and 90s that fits the bill perfectly. Dwayne Johnson gave us The Rundown, an almost inexplicably enjoyable action film; the man has tremendous comedic timing and it helps every film he’s in. John Cena has none of the cheeseball, over-the-top acting nor the wry humor – he took lessons at the Christian Bale acting school and only learned one thing: the deep raspy voice.

The hi-def yields of 12 Rounds makes the film look like a Tony Scott film reject, even with its crisp and grainy take on a beaten down New Orleans. Certain action sequences have a great look with the resolution but for the most part there’s nothing really separating it from a viewing on a DVD transfer. The audio is very typical with nothing about it to really recommend itself in any way negative or positive. Overall the visual and audio presentation is average for a Blu-ray disc.

Blu-ray Extra Features:

While it may be horribly derivative, the movie seems to be deserving of copious behind the scenes exposure if you trust the disc’s featurettes. The generic extras start with two audio commentaries with one starring director Harlin and the other featuring the voices of Cena and writer Daniel Kunka; both are quite irritating as Harlin and Cena independently seem to be under the impression that they achieved something revolutionary with 12 Rounds. Then we have two alternate endings (neither really all that “alternate”) and a gag reel only funny for those wrestling fans who do think Cena has a riveting sense of humor. It isn’t, he doesn’t. The two featurettes with any actual worth explore some of the bigger action sequences of the film. Considering its genre these two are the most anyone could hope for from the extras – so watch these, ignore the rest.

[ALBUM REVIEW] At the Bottom

Matt Medlock — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:27:00 +0000

Canada unleashes another Lamb of God-loving metal band upon the world; this one is called Odium. Not the most original name around (naming rights in the originality department is usually relegated to some unpronounceable word that’s derived in some way of something like Succubus or Netherworld or Bloodguzzler or whatever), they have no difficulty living up to that value prejudice by delivering fare best described as standard issue—never a compliment for the radical noise and pomposity of death metal. This death metal is, of course, tempered with cleaner melodies than usual, a style beloved by roughly three hundred groups of the ilk hailing from Sweden (Soilwork, In Flames, etc.). Maybe the cold air affects something in these songwriters.

The actual performance leans towards the commendable. Andrew Fullerton and Bo Louther wind their churning guitars together well, though they lack the divergent interplay that could have set them apart. And Joe Mullen and Dale Burrows are even tighter with the rhythms, especially on “Population Zero” and the pummeling epic “Need to Exist.” But on the songwriting side, there’s not much here to really sink the teeth into. On the first listen, there wasn’t a single song that didn’t simply flit out of the brain the moment they barreled into the next track. There’s too little urgency gleaned from the songs beyond tempo cues; the melodies are richer than usual, but they’re not interesting melodies. Metal has always been music of the moment, but the failure to linger is one of the chief faults. Sure, it’ll fill the background of most any metalhead, but since when has that ever been a headbanger band’s goal?

Thomas Emmans’ vocals help somewhat, especially when he raises the register and sings with regal melodrama—any accusation of affectation disappears because you’re happy for the break from the chugging growl that’s all too commonplace these days. The album’s midsection benefits from this direction most—“At the Bottom” and “The Failure” even have brief snippets worth revisiting after the disc runs its course. Unfortunately, its implementation seems born from triviality more than maximum impact—should all successes sound so accidental? It doesn’t help that the lyrics are mostly a batch of trite phrases, wallowing and clichéd. “Rising from our bridges/There will be nothing else/Just ashes and tyrants/I’ll watch the smoke block out the sun,” Emmans howls on “Need to Exist.” And on “It Goes Cold”: “Put the locust in a syringe/Everything’s plagiarized/Every urge a sin/My life is a consequence now…A breach in the walls of paradise may be the last thing we all know/I’ll tear every feather from your wings and smell your skin as it goes cold.” You get the idea.

Attempts to punch holes in the tenacious repetition aren’t cleverly integrated. The title track is inflated by strings and closes in static, “Serenity’s End” flushes with electronics, an eerily somber synth bleed opens leadoff “Oblivion’s Gates,” and so on. Not only are these efforts rather shallow, but they don’t really break anything up. Only the prog-metal ambition of the impressively mounted but ultimately unspectacular “Need to Exist” and the acoustic guitar passages on the penultimate track, “The Abyss Stared Back,” seem to strive for breaking the mold, but both come at the very end, and even the latter eventually folds its hand and settles on a smoothly distorted guitar riff before melting into a stew of overearnest piano keys.

Considering the volume and tuning, it’s hard to believe that At the Bottom could frequent the territory of blasé as much as they do. It’s an album of virtually no highs or lows, just a series of fast, thrashing guitars, double bass kicks, tom tom abuse and vocal lurches between gravelly yelping and porcelain rafter soaring. The only reason to reach for the skip button is because you want something different, but different is not Odium’s specialty. For all of the attempts at novel (and mostly superfluous) flourishes, the formula is either an inescapable tedium or the limit of the band’s powers. Let’s hope not—they seem to have the individual ingredients for a worthy metal outfit—but no matter where it was aimed, At the Bottom winds up settling somewhere in the middle.

[DVD REVIEW] Princess Protection Program

Inna Mkrtycheva — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Princess Protection Program stars tween sensations and real-life best friends -- excuse me, BFFs -- Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. Gomez plays a 16-year-old girl named Carter, who lives in Louisiana with her father and works at a bait shop, and Lovato is Rosalinda, the princess and reigning-queen-to-be of a fictional Spanish island called Costa Luna. Carter's father happens to be a secret service agent who's assigned to protect Rosalinda, and when the tyrannical leader of a neighboring nation stages a coup during her coronation rehearsal, he is forced to enlist Rosalinda in the titular Princess Protection Program, and to take her to Louisiana where her safety will be assured. As fate and convenient plot twists would have it, the two girls clash at first, but before we hit the feature-length mark you can bet they'll be the bestest of friends. They pick up one another's habits along the way, not always for the better; Rosie teaches Carter to be graceful and dignified, and Carter teaches Rosie that it's important to work for your money. She also teaches her how to burp, informing her that it's something most American teenagers know how to do since the third grade. So you can see how this makes for fine, high-minded entertainment. But I digress.

See, Carter is a tomboy because she has a boy's name and wears jeans, and Rosie is a princess because she wears pretty dresses and speaks softly. Two "perfect girl" archetypes falling on opposite sides of the spectrum; the girl you can bring along to hang out with your buddies and shoot hoops with and the one who will do the cooking and blush and be really good with your parents. It's not really the most feminist-friendly message in the world, especially considering the fact that the princess model is ultimately decided to be the ideal -- I mean, why can't the perfect girl be an amalgam of the two? Or even exist completely outside of the boundaries of such blatant stereotypes? -- but then again, this is Disney we're talking about. The same people who have been giving us the same damsel-has-a-happy-ending-but-not-without-her-prince-story for years. At least Gomez's character veers from the standard, and when her beloved Prince Douchebag finally gives her the time of day (after she puts on a pretty dress, mind you), she tells him off. Nonetheless, even though the girls happily run off into the proverbial sunset at the end of the film, it's only after Carter gives up her tomboyish ways and succumbs to the way of the princess. Princess Protection Program sends a semi-sincere, if somewhat muddled, message.

Now, normally I have no qualms about ragging on kids movies and the usually mediocre talents of their characters. But honestly, it's kind of hard to hate them. (That is, until you watch the behind the scenes footage, but more on that later.) Both Gomez and Lovato are pretty decent actresses for their age, and considering the script they had to work with, I'd say that being able to muster up any sense of emotion is quite a feat. They also lack that snotty sense of entitlement that so many stars their age seem to exude as naturally as they exhale. I won't name names, but you get the idea. But who knows, maybe they're just better at hiding that sort of thing. In which case they are very good actresses.

DVD Extra Features:

The "Royal & Loyal BFFs" segment consists of Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato hanging out on the set talking about their favorite "rock" musicians ("Paramore, the Jonas Brothers...") and boys they find dreamy. I'd skip over these segments unless you're really curious about how many scoops of frozen yogurt Selena Gomez can put away in a single sitting. (I think the answer was around 9.) Seriously? Does anybody actually care about this stuff? In addition to the inanity, there's a mini-documentary called "A Royal Reality" where a real-life princess talks about her princess-y duties. There's also a music video featuring both girls.

[DVD REVIEW] The Betrayed

Erin Burris — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:43:00 +0000

It’s rare that a film can be considered good when it takes place in basically only one room. This isn’t one of those times…it’s just rare. The Betrayed is a thriller, but it’s terribly hard to be thrilled when you can see every angle of the room at all times. The door that separates our girl from our villains is made of glass, so you can always see someone coming. Of course, because of lighting you see the person’s larger-then-life shadow approaching a few moments ahead. Which can be scary. It wasn’t here, but again…just mentioning.

Some productions have done the one room thing well. 12 Angry Men was a movie that was interesting from beginning to end and it took place in a jury room. A special episode of the big 90s show Homicide: Life on the Street took place entirely in the interrogation room and it was captivating. Now this is a show that normally took place as the detectives hit the pavement, running all around Baltimore to close a case. But this one episode, “Three Men and Adena,” is just about a single night where detectives try to draw a confession, and it’s very compelling. It’s certainly possible to create drama around one space. This film, however, is not an example of a successful one-room drama.

The thrills are also cut short because the sound quality was so bad that you will constantly need a remote in hand to turn it up and back down again. You can’t hear any soft dialogue whatsoever, but right when you turn the dial to make it audible...BAM! A roaring car crash flashback blows your eardrum out. The main thrill from this thriller came from dialing up and dialing volume back down to suit your needs.

The story begins with Jamie Taylor (Melissa George) shown post-car accident, in a dungeon-like back room of a warehouse. The room is bare save for an industrial showerhead that hangs in the center of the room, over a drain in the floor. The art director must’ve had fun with the oldest tricks in the book: how to make a thriller/horror movie’s scary dungeony set. Step 1) Low lighting. Step 2) Grays and browns only. Step 3) Some type of industrial style warehouse. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yeah, right out of my rulebook. OK, my rules came after this movie. But still. It seemed like a copycat of something. Basically everything ever made in the genre.

Jamie and her young son are captured by a masked man (Oded Fehr). He tells her that her husband Kevin has been involved in illegal activity and wants money from his bank account. Jamie pleads that he’s an upstanding citizen and has never committed a crime. The masked man reveals months of tapes he has retrieved from wire tapping Jamie and Kevin’s home, granting Jamie with the task of going through the tapes to discover where Kevin has kept the money. Money that she doesn’t even think exists. At the risk of losing her son, she is forced to discover truths while withstanding various levels of persecution from her attackers.

Although I can’t be sure this was writer/director Amanda Gusack’s intention, The Betrayed employed shades of a pitiable genre: torture porn. For those unfamiliar with the term, it’s the blurring of the line between eroticism and horror. I wouldn’t say it embodies the category by any means, but a few scenes were certainly questionable. The camerawork was rather selective and parts of the film played with voyeurism and female sexuality. Honestly, I hope I’m over-speculating on this one because the genre completely disgusts me. These few scenes broke up the monotony of an otherwise poor excuse for a thriller. You should enjoy a movie as you watch it. Beginning, middle, end. This isn’t one of those films, just mentioning again. Instead with The Betrayed, you’ll just be waiting for the credits so you can at least see how it ends. You’ve put in your time, so you won’t walk away. But you won’t enjoy the ride.

DVD Extra Features:

Usually there’s at least something to write for this section of these reviews, but with the straight-to-DVD release of this one, there are no extra features to speak of.

[DVD REVIEW] Fracture

Lex Walker — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:34:00 +0000

When Grisham was king of the novel-to-movie adaptation, a title stolen briefly from the hands of Stephen King, law dramas would hit theaters every year and would consistently entertain. As the Hollywood system is wont to do, the introduction of Grisham-films to the theatrical sphere spurred a mass exodus of other legal dramas from the page to the screen. But then there was a lull. It seemed for quite a while that stories about court cases were best shown on television – or maybe it was that audiences were inundated with Law & Order spin-offs to the point that no one wanted to pay to see them in theaters – who knows. The point is, when Fracture rolled around in 2007 it actually seemed fresh. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

But the heart is fickle; or rather, the heart isn’t so easily fooled by the peak-a-boo antics of a film genre. Even after staying in hiding for a near decade, the American audience won’t just wave in a new law drama without a discerning eye. To its credit, Fracture made it past the initial stages of suspicion thanks to its stalwart pedigree. Director Gregory Hoblit (Frequency, Primal Fear, Fallen, Untraceable) may not have a perfect directorial record when it comes to films, but the man has major records when it comes to directing legal suspense having directed copious episodes of NYPD Blue, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues. Add into the mix two stellar actors - Anthony Hopkins, whose achievements make the man an acting legend, and Ryan Gosling, who’s proven himself one of the most promising actor’s of his generation – and suddenly Fracture looks like the perfect vehicle to kick start the legal procedural film trend anew.

Yet it didn’t – and there are two perfectly good explanations as to why. First and foremost the film isn’t all that gripping to start with. Sure, we’d all love to figure out how it is Ted Crawford (Hopkins) killed his wife (Embeth Davidtz) – but not at the cost of a plodding story which stretches out its overly confident twist to a breaking point. Hopkinz and Gosling entertain, but even they can’t undo the damage of the extra 20 minutes thrown in to demonstrate the cat and mouse concept every legal film thrills with. Willy Beachum (Gosling) could have been the most likeable lawyer to grace the silver screen in all of time, but it still wouldn’t have saved the plot from exhaustion; instead his likability just adds to the frustration of the audience as he seems to take his sweet time in getting to the film’s final twist. Quit rending your garments in despair and self pity and take the steps you’ll inevitably take to win the day – stop stalling. It’s the drawn out moments which take Fracture from a compelling legal drama to a ho-hum courtroom venture.

The final nail in the coffin of Fracture’s attempt to revitalize the dramatic legal film is the ending. It’s certainly a twist, and it’s certainly out there – but it won’t just be the lawyers in the room who know they just got cheated. After an entire film where Crawford plans each step with masterstrokes of legal cunning, to think that he’d get caught up on a technicality that no judge would approve in their right mind is almost an insulting finale to the otherwise faithful legal tale. It may have been long and overdrawn, but at least it didn’t sacrifice what little integrity it had on the legal front – until that ending. What a shame. The ending may irk me, but when the credits roll and the scenes have played out, Fracture remains a light and enjoyable legal film, even though you can’t take it took seriously lest the holes start opening up wide. Take the film in at a leisurely pace and halfhearted attention and you’ll enjoy it.

Fracture looks beautiful with all its low-lighting and gritty style. The high-definition gets to shine thanks to the cinematographic style of Fracture and it makes a high-def purchase of this film worth considering as opposed to just hoping for a minor upscale in quality from a DVD copy. It might not be a perfect fit for the HD treatment, but its style merits consideration – especially for fans of the film.

Blu-ray Extra Features:

It’s a barebones set unfortunately, and besides a few deleted scenes and theatrical trailer there are two alternate endings. Now, considering that one of the film’s largest detractors is its ending – the prospect of alternate endings goes a long way towards mending the film’s worth. I’d almost recommend stopping the movie with five minutes left on the clock and switching over to one of the alternate endings instead.

[DVD REVIEW] Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience - Deluxe Extended Movie

Lex Walker — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:35:00 +0000

The movie itself is critic-proof, but the box office, DVD and Blu-ray sales are not. It seems that Disney’s nigh endless well of self-made stars may finally be starting to dry out – and not a moment too soon. Since the Disney Channel shifted away from playing old episodes of Tale Spin, Goof Troop and Gummi Bears all those years ago, they’ve been on an endless and seemingly unstoppable quest to create and market a new generation of stars. Unto itself, that’s not a bad goal. But even after unleashing Shia LeBoeuf on the world, Disney’s thirst for creating celebrity legacies became insatiable. Hannah Montana. Miley Cyrus. And now the Jonas Brothers; but unlike Hillary Duff, the Jonas Brothers don’t even have the smallest modicum of talent – and Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience makes that clear in as many dimensions as it can.

The target audience for Disney’s latest concert flick pays no mind to their parents telling them the Jonas Brothers are nothing special; in fact they ignore the words of warning from every person who’s seen this phenomena come and go. Screaming girls with flailing arms extended towards their teenaged heartthrobs threaten to overpower the calculated strums of the guitars as they play songs written by Disney’s songwriting hatchet men in dark rooms with nothing but said girls in mind. It’s a darkly vicious cycle and the transparency of the entire situation is finally letting the light through. Songs about oooh, girl, how you’re so beautiful; or dang, girl, how you broke my heart; or even an acoustic diddy about how I’ll wait for you. We can’t blame musicians for rehashing on the same messages forming the basis of virtually every rock discography belonging to the likes of Bon Jovi, Meatloaf or Sting.

But there is no effort to be found in the Jonas brothers’ corner. They don’t perform for the love of the music. Disney’s dreamy trio isn’t about the music. It isn’t really even about the fans. It’s about converting at least one or two of these boys into marketable movie stars – which explains the bits and pieces in between the two to three song sets. These moments offer the screaming girls before their TV sets a few minutes to ogle at the brothers as they talk or walk showcasing their photogenic potential for all the other studios to see. The strutting doesn’t work. Instead of showing us three brothers with remarkable talent, we see them for the mediocre musicians with a lucky streak that they are. Are they anymore deserving of fame than three other male musician trios? Not at all. So why were they picked? They’re brothers with an uber-family-friendly message of anti-sexual proclivity.

And yet, the sexual overtones here are eerily prevalent. A large hose showering adolescent girls with white gunk? Teenaged guys prancing about on stage singing about love with shirts half unbuttoned? Not to sound like the prudish parent everyone resents, but Disney sends mixed messages with the Jonas Brothers’ feature film debut. It’s great to find ways to involve the audience and give them some experience that’s more than purely aural, but I’m not sure white foam was the right choice. Why not throw tied-off condoms filled with water into the crowd instead? It’s still an overtly sexual message disguised as a childhood activity (running about under a hose vs. water balloon fights). If Disney isn’t to blame for the concert’s unflinching anti-sexual hypocrisy, then Bruce Hendricks comes next in line. The truth about the foam-spewing-hose will be known; even if we have to beat it out of him (I can do overt sexual innuendo too, Disney).

The three-dimensional work disappoints. Do we need to see hands waving in 3D? It may lend itself to a more immersive concert experience, but otherwise it’s a waste of the technology that does little more than remind people of how many directors still use the effect as a gimmick and little more. Director Bruce Hendricks could have spent more time focusing on the stage and the performers than on the audience – but he didn’t. Hendricks could have shown non-concert footage with actual weight as opposed to the staged bits with the band and fans; but he didn’t. Hendricks never attempts to utilize the technology to the best of if its use nor the band. We receive little in depth coverage of their lives on the road and are instead asked to settle for a superficial candy-coated pill of Disney marketing. The tweenage generation might not care now how little they actually get from this movie, but in 5 years, if they ever look back on this film, they’ll realize just how short changed they were. They’re not being entertained but conned.

Blu-ray Extra Features:

There are no extra features, whereas Disney has instead chosen to give us the format blitz instead. The Blu-ray copy includes a DVD and digital copy as supplementary material. The DVD only has the film in 2D and the same is true of the digital download. There are four pairs of 3D glasses included – but it’s Red & Blue lenses, so there’s a migraine headed your way.

[TV] Futurama Complete Collection Debuts as Comic-Con Exclusive

Arya Ponto — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:37:00 +0000

If you're a big Futurama fan, chances are that you've got all the season box sets already made available since the show was canceled many years ago (thought it never left the air, it seems, thanks to Adult Swim).

But those were in DVD boxes! That's lame! How about getting a complete collection set inside a Bender head, in line with the show's fascination of putting severed heads in jars? I'd question why they would put a robot's head in one of those jars, but it's better to not ask these things.

Starting tomorrow, the limited set will be available for pre-order for Comic-Con attendees only. You have to buy it online at the Fox store, then pick it up in person at the San Diego Comic-Con later this month (no shipping!). Only 500 copies are available, each comes with a hand-numbered letter from creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, as well as a limited edition collectible poster.

The set contains all four volumes (15 discs) plus the four direct-to-video movies Bender's Big Score, The Beast With A Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into The Wild Green Yonder, adding up to an impressive 19-disc collection. Notice that the etching on bender's jar says 1999-2009, which is a reference to the fact that this is not really "complete," since Futurama is actually returning on Comedy Central in 2010. So I don't know. Would you buy an incomplete complete collection just for the Bender head?

It costs $199.98, in case you were wondering. So if you're going to Comic-Con or you know someone who will (you can place someone else's name to pick up on the order form), go reserve your copy here. The set will NOT be available for purchase on site, unless someone didn't pick up theirs by Sunday.

But wait a tick, you say. I saw this set on Amazon a week ago for pre-order! How can Amazon have it when it's for Comic-Con only?! Well, Amazon has since taken the product page down, implying a mistake, but the press release for this set says that it'll be available everywhere in October. So I guess they're going to make more later on, sans the letter and poster. Not sure how Amazon is handling the existing pre-orders, however.

[MOVIE REVIEW] Downloading Nancy

Arya Ponto — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Downloading Nancy is not, just so you know, a movie about the Internet. The online world itself plays little part in the story, save for it being the tool that connects Nancy (Maria Bello) to an intimate stranger named Louis (Jason Patrick), behind the back of her distanced husband Albert (Rufus Sewell). If anything, writers Lee Ross and Pamela Cuming, as well as director Johan Renck—all first-timers—use the term more for its allegorical quality. Nancy's marriage is so devoid of happiness that she's gotten used to cutting, masturbating and chatting online to find moments of short bliss. From that last one she meets Louis, a man she asks to kill her.

It's not as depressing as it sounds, but it is discomforting. Maybe more to some than others, which limits its audience (and apparently the critical appreciation too, as some reviews coming out of its Sundance premiere earlier this year seem to have lambasted the film for its extreme subject matter more than its execution).

To its credit, it doesn't fantasize—or fetishize—Nancy's masochism. There are the unavoidable tinges of eroticism, yes, but it knows enough to avoid sexualizing, as movies often treat dangerous kinks. Not that there's anything overtly wrong with that, but when your character is a woman who enjoys pain as the result of an emotional abuse, it's not so much the joy of physical exploration anymore as it is a coping mechanism, thus robbing it of its, er, sexiness. One hard scene to watch has a blindfolded Nancy walking barefoot across a hotel room, while Louis repeatedly puts mousetraps in front of her toes. It establishes them as two individuals who get off on this, but it doesn't hide the look of pain in Nancy's face with each loud snap.

The actors do the heavy lifting. Maria Bello as Nancy, naturally, bears no further praise. It's a difficult performance that requires extraordinary fearlessness; not just in enacting the explicitly degrading sex scenes, but also the dark place her character burrows into. Bello's portrayal of an unbalanced suicidal woman never crosses the line into showy scene-grabbing preciousness. She plays Nancy as an average housewife, whose desperation has gone so deep that it's permanently oozing out of her. The moments where she does "act out," so to speak, ring true as genuine outbursts.

But it's not all about Nancy. Rufus Sewell as the spiteful husband successfully sells the vision of a terrifying marriage. Not from physical or verbal abuse; but from the way he avoids eye contact or his hateful dismissal of her jokes and advances. You wonder how the hell they got married in the first place, but seeing his genuine worry when Nancy disappears, there's a realization that this is an alarming trend in married couples—when love can't translate to affection (this film is supposedly based on a true story, though that rarely matters much). Jason Patrick's Louis, on the other hand, is terrifying on a different level. He's transparently psychotic and doesn't hesitate to inflict physical abuse on Nancy, but he also demonstrates care for her and gives her the fulfillment she never had.

The most disappointing aspect of the film, surprisingly, is the great Christopher Doyle's cinematography. Downloading Nancy is textbook drab, depressing indie film: tight shots, colorless, and a whole lot of blue. Missing are the lush colors prevalent in Doyle's recent works, or the energetic style of his guerrilla past. His lensing here is lifeless, maybe to better suit the mood of the film, but certainly adds nothing to it. It's like they decided that since the characters are miserable, then the movie must look as miserable as possible to convey a point. Nancy's marriage is cold, her life anemic? Then let's have the landscape icy and sulky; drain all the colors out of everything. It's not a wrong decision to make, but it's ghastly one-note. Unfortunately, so is the film.

Renck plays with a non-linear narrative, dividing the film between Nancy's emotionally charged affair with Louis, Nancy's barren past with Albert, and Louis' chilling confrontation of Albert. Given the possibility of murder, the film builds a sense of mystery and suspense around these three conflicts, which cooks up a narrative drive that is otherwise missing from the vignettes of pain that dominate the film.

For all its stark approach to the subject, Downloading Nancy doesn't seem to have much to say about it. Often, the film shocks more than it informs. Is there a point to all this, or is it using an extreme situation just to play bleak? It's a fascinating—no doubt divisive—film, but it's hard to deem it noteworthy. Though the characters do have some life in them, the story unfolds in a flat, stubbornly dreary manner that eventually reveals itself to be more tiring than challenging.

[DVD REVIEW] Spaceballs

Lex Walker — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:15:00 +0000

If you ask someone what their favorite Sci-fi spoof movie is, chances are Spaceballs will be mentioned. It’s the as-of-yet unmatched parody of Star Wars (and Star Trek, etc.) that just can’t seem to be replaced. It’s not even Mel Brooks’s best work, but it has a stranglehold on the genre. Brooks has a comic sensibility that many filmmakers can only dream of: the timing is perfect, the casting is always top-notch and the scripts have that necessary balance of self-importance and ridiculous notion to keep the entire scramble of a genre in one piece. Unfortunately, Spaceballs seems to grow dimmer as opposed to brighter as time marches on – but that has a lot to do with Mel’s self-professed, basic principle of parody: you can’t parody what you don’t love. Alas, the world has fallen out of love with Star Wars and Spaceballs feels it.

The Spaceballs are a greedy, vicious lot whose planet long ago ran out of air thanks to their civilization’s wasteful ways. Leaving their planet behind, the Spaceballs took to the stars and decide to steal the air from the neighboring planet Druidia. The higher-ups of the Spaceballs, Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis), President Skroob (Mel Brooks) and Colon Sandurz (George Wyner) guide their ship of inbred assholes to abduct Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) of Druidia just as she’s ditching her arranged marriage. Vespa’s father calls upon the aid of Lone Star (Bill Pullman) and his mawg accomplice Barf (John Candy) to rescue his daughter. Along the way romance blossoms, the Schwartz is discovered and climactic battles occur – all with that laugh-a-minute pacing Brooks is famous for.

The real failing here is not a lack of brilliance in Spaceballs’ script – because it’s there. Unquestionably. The problem arises from most of these great jokes being so memorable that upon the second or third viewing you’ve already laughed at the joke before it’s even come on screen – it’s just that comfortable. And that’s a great thing – all comedies ever made hope for such a status with their viewers. But after the fourth or fifth viewing, Spaceballs’ jokes feel worn out instead of comfortable. The comedic shoes which carried us for five years suddenly seem worn down – the soles [read: jokes] too thin to hold the movie over for another 96 minutes. Spaceballs is hilarious, but it requires a bit of time between each watch. The jokes aren’t as layered as Blazing Saddles, where you can watch it two times in a month and laugh at all the small sub-textual things you missed the first time through. Spaceballs has a much more overt comedy to it and so requires longer periods of absence to make the heart grow fond again.

While Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga and Joan Rivers (as the C-3PO look alike Dot Matrix) have their moments, this film will always rest on the humorous laurels of Rick Moranis and John Candy to make it great. If you ever want a film to make you regret Moranis’s departure from acting – this is it. As Dark Helmet he’s superb. His reactions, his spit takes, everything. God, I miss him. The same is true of John Candy. The man lights up the screen even when he has ridiculous prosthetic ears mounted to his head.

Visually Spaceballs gets only a minor visual bump from the Blu-ray transfer. If you want proof, Fox has graciously bundled the Blu-ray with a DVD copy (an exact replica of the ones most of us have on our shelves; barebones extra features and all). The sound however still has a few issues here and there. At moments the sound betrays its lo-fi heritage and it can be painfully audible, whereas at other times (in the most action-packed sequences) it’s a better sampling. A decent transfer, but by no means perfect.

Blu-ray Extra Features:

If there’s any real incentive to pick-up the Blu-ray, it’s in here. Finally, after all these years, Mel Brooks and company have seen fit to give the audience genuine behind the camera retrospectives beyond the meager audio commentary brought over from the DVD. While we’re talking about audio commentaries, I was a bit disappointed to discover that the Mawgese and Dinkese audio commentaries mentioned on the case are nothing more than a throw away 25 second gag. How great would a feature-length audio commentary of “dinkdink DINK dink DINK DINK” have been? Sigh. But anyways, the three featurettes of note are a piece on John Candy where his friends talk about the man and the actor; a 20 minute conversation between Mel Brooks and co-writer Thomas Meehan discussing the origins of the story; and finally “Spaceballs: The Documentary”, the real meat and potatoes of the disc. It may only be 30-minutes long, but considering it’s more than we’ve ever had offered and the amount the dump into it, it’s a nice piece to have (finally). Beyond that there’s a storyboard-to-film comparison with side-by-side clips, some picture galleries, a mistake reel and a trailer with an intro by Mel Brooks. These last few are all rather unimportant but worth a look for the fans finally relishing Spaceballs extras.

The extra features almost help us forgive Mel Brooks for selling Spaceballs into animation hell with Spaceballs the animated series.

Today's Short: "Late Term Abortion"

Arya Ponto — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:32:00 +0000

Being pro-choice doesn't mean you lose the right to choose once the baby's out of the womb. Dr. Charles Nash, PhD, who is not really a physician, will help you get rid of unwanted children—no matter how late! Is this something that should be condoned? Actually, it's just a funny sketch from the guys at TotallySketch.com. Best part is at the end.

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Today's Short is a feature on JustPressPlay showcasing wonderful short films found all around the web. If you have suggestions, hit us up.

Win a Harry Potter Collector's Book Boxset!

Lex Walker — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:20:00 +0000

Hey, all you Harry Potter fans! To be frank, the summer blockbusters of 2009 have all been somewhat miserable (even if they are making serious bank). The last reprieve of the summer is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, directed by David Yates, hitting theaters on July 15! Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint return as the wizards-in-training as they gear up for one of the most harrowing chapters in the series. To celebrate its release, JustPressPlay is giving one lucky winner all seven books in an awesome collectible case and to five runners-up a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (finally released on paperback July 7th). That's right, because we value literacy.

All you have to is zap your e-mail into the box below, hit submit and you'll be entered to win! Like magic...or technology - which are interchangeable if you're older than 75.

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There's only two weeks left and so we here at JustPressPlay are giving you a chance to snatch up a must-have collector's item. The Harry Potter boxed set includes the seven phenomenal Harry Potter hardcover books by best selling author J. K. Rowling. These books are housed in a collectible trunk-like box with sturdy handles and privacy lock. Bonus decorative stickers are included in each boxed set. You may have read each one 5 times through by now, but even when they were brand new sans folded pages and scuff marks they never looked as good as this.

Notice: Many will enter, few will win. Limit one (1) entry per person, excess of one entry results in disqualification and ineligiblity to win. E-mail information received will NOT be kept a week past contest end date, all information will be held private and never used for soliciation. You don't like spam, we don't like spam. For more information on the Harry Potter books visit Scholastic's Website. Contest ends July 22, 2009.

[ALBUM REVIEW] Wilco (The Album)

Matt Medlock — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:14:00 +0000

If this is the sound of a band floundering without inspiration, I’ll take it, and so should you. Whenever a band rises to a once restricted plateau, suddenly there’s no excuse to wander down the path sloping into the valley. For Wilco, as they ascended past Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (pick your own favorite), they were expected to keep going. And A Ghost Is Born was nearly of the same height, yet suddenly the consensus said, “too far.” Then when they “played it safe” with a mostly ordinary batch of summery pop and country rock tunes on 2007’s Sky Blue Sky, the fanbase was split, and fears of settling began to ripple. Now we have the amusingly titled Wilco (The Album), which could be called a retread (no matter the implications of insult or applause you consider with such a remark). So it’s the sort of stuff they do, and more of it. Stale? Not quite, but isn’t more of the same still better than a bad turn?

Wilco (The Album) comes equipped with its own “Wilco (The Song),” though any hint of parodying the conceit of Black Sabbath, Bad Company, et al, either passed by unnoticed or doesn’t exist—simply self-aware goofing off? It also brings along a “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” refresher with “Bull Black Nova” (good for them) and a “Jesus Etc.” spinoff via “Everlasting Everything” (not quite as successful). “You and I” is rather A.M. of them and “Sunny Feeling” feels plucked from Being There. Lots of watered down takes on the lilting pop and sonic experimentalism they fashioned so nicely around the turn of the millennium. It’s Wilco as you love them, usually a little tamer, and spread wide across their storied history. Complain about a lack of startling returns if you like, but it’s not like they advertised something that wasn’t on sale.

There’s room for some shimmering melodies and tinkling fills on subdued but lovely tracks like “Country Disappeared” and “Deeper Down.” They nakedly ape George Harrison on first single “You Never Know” and a low-key Tom Petty is invoked on “I’ll Fight.” Jeff Tweedy’s duet with guest vocalist Feist on “You and I” is far more pristine than it has any right to be. In fact, aside from a few scattered moments (orchestral swell on the closer, pounding keys on “You Never Know”) and the feisty krautrock of “Bull Black Nova,” this is a much gentler and more mature collection for the always-assured band. Some will appreciate such comforts. Others might mourn the absence of grittier vitality. As a headphone record, it will serve, but as one to sing along or warp your little brain to, it sounds a bit too tepid during long stretches.

But (The Album) isn’t going to be remembered as one of the band’s compositional highlights, yet as far as confident and lucid lyricism goes, this one’s a watershed mark. Tweedy’s words have usually had a flair for bland wackiness and general vagueness, but more than ever before, he’s beginning to compile stories and specific philosophies amidst his esoteric arrangements. On “One Wing,” Tweedy sings that he “always knew this would be our fate, this is what happens when we separate, this is what happens to all dead weight eventually,” and continues, “One wing will never fly/Neither yours nor mine/I fear we can only wave goodbye.” He goes another Beatle route (Paul) on “Everything Everlasting,” singing about the emotion of soulmate ideology: “Oh I know this might sound sad/But everything goes both good and the bad/It all adds up and you should be glad/Everlasting love is all you have.” And he turns bleak and paranoid on “Bull Black Nova,” nervously muttering about how, “It’s in my head/There’s blood in the sink/I can’t calm down/I cannot think.” Thanks to the gut reaction to the moody words, Pat Sansone’s incessant piano chime and the rangy, squealing interplay of Tweedy’s and Nels Cline’s guitars, it’s the immediate highlight…and the one most out of place with the rest of the album’s more temperate aesthetic.

Expectations may play a part in your enjoyment of Wilco (The Album). The finesse and growth cultivated during Jay Bennett’s tenure suggested a band eager to push boundaries, but complaints that they’re content to drag their feet are somewhat unfair. We cannot pressure the artists we follow to kowtow to what we want, and if their direction is circular and safe for now (ambling the minivan around block?), so be it. But there aren’t enough subtle hooks in the tender, country-tinged numbers (particularly on the second side) to escape a few lulls and the few moments of inspired arcane guitar grind and richer aural alchemy are poorly integrated into the album as a whole. For less demanding Wilco fans, it will undoubtedly please them (might even the slightly more critical ones, as it did me) but it won’t likely inspire the sort of devotion and furor of their best records.

[MOVIE REVIEW] Public Enemies

Arya Ponto — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:32:00 +0000

In 1934, John Dillinger was famously shot dead coming out of a gangster movie.

The movie in question was a Clark Gable picture called Manhattan Madness. Perhaps sensing the obvious irony, director Michael Mann's vision of Dillinger resembles Gable's smooth gentlemanly rep. Handsome and persuasive, romantic even when he's violent.

Johnny Depp's Dillinger is a far cry from the way Lawrence Tierney or Warren Oates portrayed him in previous films about America's most notorious bank robber. This time he's lovesick and mostly troubled by unnecessary violence, behaving more like a prince charming than a dangerous criminal. Hence the many scenes of him spewing schmaltzy pick-up lines to Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), the gal who had the "honor" of calling herself Dillinger's girl. Elsewhere, a Napoleonic J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), wanting to push his Federal Bureau of Investigations out of infancy, assigns his super-agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to lead the Dillinger manhunt. One that would eventually end at a movie theater.

The film is so sympathetic towards Dillinger that it happily paints the FBI as a vicious and recklessly incompetent mob that would torture suspects, beat up women and never get anything done. This is troubling because it clearly wants to paint Purvis as a hero, yet aside from a quick gasp here and a remorseful brood there, Purvis is shockingly unaffected. Dillinger, on the other hand, gets some crybaby moments that, embodied by Depp's pretty mug, are supposed to tug women's heartstrings. It follows the trend of hoisting macho action scenes on effeminate men that Mann also applied in Miami Vice and Collateral.

This movie's downfall lies in how Mann seems to have fallen in love with John Dillinger, or at least Depp's portrayal of Dillinger, to the point of underselling the film's more interesting objective, which is visiting the "Public Enemy" era of American history, the era that coincided with the rise of the FBI. There are obvious traces of this, from the title itself to a scene likening the media adoration for both Dillinger and Purvis. The FBI stages photo-ops, while Dillinger likes to joke with the press; both side vying for public endorsement. But the film, strangely, doesn't seem interested in Dillinger's status as public enemy or folk hero, just his personal life and his daring exploits. Halfway into the movie, we see Dillinger transported by car, and Mann shows people lining up along the streets so they can wave to Dillinger as if it was a motorcade. However, before this, there's only one throwaway mention of him caring about the public's opinion, and afterwards, it's inconsequential. The film fails to capture why Dillinger is such a known figure, treating him as just a slippery criminal giving G-Men a hard time.

Mann abandons that side, thinking a Dillinger-worship would be more enchanting. It is unfortunately not the case. Especially not when it reduces enriching characters like Pretty-Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Frank Nitti, J. Edgar Hoover and even Melvin Purvis, among others, into cameos or one-dimensional historical shout-outs. When, at the end of the movie, the film throws out an on-screen text factoid that Purvis eventually quit the FBI and shot himself, it's almost humorously out of left field, because the film offers no insight into Purvis' personality. Yes, chalk this up to another round of Christian Bale roped in by lazy typecasting. Need an intensely stoic and obsessive or brooding hero? Turn on the Bale-signal. He will give you a perfectly operational but unmotivated performance.

The visuals are a sore point. Michael Mann is a supporter of digital filmmaking, and good for him for that because it is, like it or not, going to become the new standard. But for some unfathomable reason, Mann prefers his shots looking as "digital" as possible, like a home video footage. He makes it even more apparent with the liberal use of jerky handheld motions even in static dialogue scenes. Certain shots look like Cloverfield with period costumes. That's just weird, and so jarring that it often distracts from the scene. The only time the style works to the film's advantage is during a nighttime shootout. The sharper look gives nozzle flares from tommy guns a distinct burst. When edited well, it really boosts up the intensity of the action scenes. There's also the electric-cool score by Elliot Goldenthal, giving the film a near-western feel. Fitting, given its taste for big gun battles.

Public Enemies is extraordinarily researched (thanks to the non-fiction book it's based on by Bryan Burrough) and also meticulously executed, with Mann shooting much of it in actual historical locations around Wisconsin—but it's a cold, cold film. It has no high or low points, just assured moment-to-moment progression, mirroring Dillinger's own crime spree. No goals, no trajectory, and not much thought; he was all about the next heist. He robs, he romances, he fights, he goes to jail, he escapes, and he starts over again. And then he's dead. And the movie ends. Thank you for the timeline, but where's the drama?

[ALBUM REVIEW] Wait For Me

Tyler Barlass — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0000

For all the up-tempo dance-pop splendor that Moby showcased on last year’s critically lauded Last Night, an album that was considered by many to be a return to the dance floor and a return to form for the legendary electronica artist, I seemed to always favor the more downplayed ambient side of Moby’s eclectic styles. Luckily for me Moby has followed up the energetic Last Night with a much more subdued, brooding and ambient filled album that seems to tickle my musical fetishes in ways that no Moby album has ever done before. Before I even gave Wait for Me a first listen, the rumors that I was hearing about the album had already peaked my interest. Moby said that the approach he took while writing the album was to “make records that were more personal,” and create something that was “artistically and creatively more satisfying.” While listening to the finished product you can easily see where he’s coming from. Wait for Me is a cohesive swirl of shimmering sounds that all work together to create a beautiful yet weary work of art. It’s heavy-hearted for sure, a far cry from the cheerfully upbeat Last Night, but despite its downtrodden mood it’s just hard to stop listening to the ethereal beauty of it all.

The album begins with a string filled intro that prepares the listener for the journey he or she is about to embark on. It segues well into the slow burn single “Pale Horses” sung by Amelia Zirin Brown, an apparent friend of Moby. All of the vocals on Wait for Me are actually performed by New York area friends of the artist; I guess this adds an even more personal touch to the album. Moby commented about the subject, “On ‘Pale Horses’ my friend Amelia is singing; she's holding a $20 microphone, no headphones, just singing it with me holding the lyrics in front of her pointing to the words. She didn’t know the song before she sang it, so her performance has a vulnerable and almost naive quality. After recording her vocals I thought they still sounded too polished, so I put her vocals on an old 1/8” tape machine and re-recorded them back into the song. I wanted them to sound as if they were recorded 50 years ago instead of in 2008.” And that’s just one of the many unique recording techniques that Moby employed to try and get the sound he was looking for on Wait for Me. Other examples include the fact that the record was recorded in Moby’s home studio rather than an actual professional recording studio and even the album artwork was hand written by Moby himself with a sharpie.

The following track, the dark and theatrical “Shot in the Back of the Head” is no doubt one of the true highlights on the disc. The song opens with a grating synthesizer, building in mounting anticipation before an array of sounds aid it in its continued path towards oblivion. Other songs on the LP that contain less tension are equally as interesting. “JTLF” and its preface track “JTLF-1,” will sweep you away its piano filled aura. The title track is a nice change of pace for it’s slightly more up tempo styling, and the jazzy “Hope Is Gone” is definitely one my favorite tracks on the album.

One of the greatest aspects of Wait for Me is its nearly uninterrupted flow. Other than a couple of wayward moments, such as the out of place “Study War” or the uninspired “A Seat Night,” the album ebbs and flows better than any Moby album since Play, and it actually may be a little more cohesive than that iconic album. From the table setting intro to the dreamy final track “Isolate,” with its weeping guitar, its yearning strings and its show stealing piano work, Wait for Me has completely taken me by surprise. Though I was once a distant admirer of Moby’s ability to bring electronic music to the masses, this album has made me a true fan. It’s dark and dynamic, beautiful and haunting – and it’s not only one of the year’s best full lengths, it’s one of Moby’s finest moments.