A Serious Man, Frozen River, The Thief of Bagdad, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, & My Name Is Bruce

A Serious Man is the Coen Brothers doing the story of Job, with an ending straight out of John Sayles's excellent Limbo. Michael Stuhlbarg is outstanding as the put-upon professor, husband, and father in 1960s Minnesota, whose wife wants to leave him for a neighbor, whose son is a pothead who owes the neighborhood bully $20 and has to prepare for his bar mitzvah, whose job is in jeopardy, and whose brother's neck cyst is both hilarious and disgusting. The Coen Brothers really can do no wrong when working from their own scripts, and this one is defintely going to be a much tougher road for non-Jews (or non-Biblical scholars) to follow. But for me, even without any real knowledge of the story of Job, I loved the little Jewish touches (and I am very happy I didn't have to use a record player to learn my maftir and haftorah, as I am terrible at playing records). This is also a great excuse to remind everyone of the greatest trailer ever made. Although if someone wants to challenge me and and try to convince me otherise, you can try.

Frozen River stars Melissa Leo (who's excellent in everything she's ever done, including 21 Grams, Homicide, and Treme) as a newly single mother who lives near the Canadian border and starts to smuggle immigrants over the border to raise money to save her house. It's a little depressing, but it's interesting and well-acted.

The Thief of Bagdad is a sort of amalgamation of a lot of different Arabian Nights myths, and there's some significant links to things like Aladdin, and a mess due to being filmed in both England and the US, and having six different directors. It's interesting to see not just brownface, but also actual non-white actors in an early Hollywood film. If only it was a better film.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona makes me feel like it's Woody Allen trying to do something different, but no matter how hard he tried, with this one, he just failed at making anything much different from normal. The two American girls are typical Woody Allen's impression of how people talk rather than anyone who remotely exists. But hey, it's filmed in Barcelona rather than New York and they speak Spanish a lot! Congratulations, you've found the two things different from every other Allen film. Even the much hyped "Penelope Cruz kisses Scarlett Johansson" scene couldn't move this past any of Allen's mediocre films from the past twenty or so years. Boo.

My Name Is Bruce is Bruce Campbell's self-deprecating film. It's him being a huge ass, in a sort of Three Amigos but instead of a gang of bandits, it's a tofu demon. Yes, the Guan-Di, Taoist God of War and defender of bean-curd sellers, is the big bad, disturbed by a huge Bruce Campbell fan who goes to a graveyard to make out with a goth chick. He then goes on to start killing people in the town, magically appearing just at the best time to kill people. Problems with the film include Ted Raimi being racist stereotypes (yeah, two different ones), terrible acting from everyone, unfunny humor, crappy gore effects (lots of decapitations), and a winking tone that makes itself want to think that it's a much cleverer sendup of low budget horror films than it is. Sorry, Bruce, you're much funnier doing stuff like this in your books.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Pluto Files, Being Human, Life, & lots more TV

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is about the life of an obese Dominican and the history of his family tied up in a story of the Dominican Republic and the fuku that colonization has brought upon the world. Being both a history buff and a nerd, I really loved the book. It's just the kind of thing that I love. I'm enjoying the fact that there's books like this that are winning things like Pulitzer prizes. Because that means that I'm either becoming more literary, or, more likely, the literary establishment is becoming nerdier. I wonder when the first bit of fan fiction will win a major writing award. I really hope it's some good old Luke/Han Solo slash.

I finally actually watched The Pluto Files, and it was just as enjoyable as I was hoping. Neil deGrasse Tyson is just so engaging, and he makes science so interesting. Who doesn't make science interesting were the people who did Being Human. Which was a three part series about the evolution of man, but was pretty darn boring. Life, on the other hand, had annoying narration from Oprah Winfrey, but the footage in HD is worth it. I didn't enjoy it as much as Planet Earth, but it's hard to argue against HD nature footage.

In network TV news, Justified, the new FX series with Timothy Olyphant based on Elmore Leonard stories, is pretty enjoyable. Pacific isn't as good as Band of Brothers, but it's still fairly enjoyable. The Ricky Gervais Show, although based on podcasts, is funny, and Karl Pilkington is a magnificent moron. Community continues to be the best thing on free network TV. Treme, if you aren't watching, is a proud successor to The Wire. This is also about a city and people that is being failed by the institutions that are supposed to have protected it. There are so many things about this show that just make me giddy when I watch it.

Star Wars and Census Geekery

Assume [sic] all over this post.

Ms. Albright: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/weird/Jedi-Claims-Discrimination-at-Grocery-Store-60020902.html
Ms. Albright: I love our ridiculous world.
me: i believe jedi is an accepted religion in england (Editor's note: There are no accepted religions in England, but it does have a census code.)
Ms. Albright: apparently, the 4th largest. (Editor's note: This is worth it for this press release alone.)
me: more reasonable than catholicism
me: well... neither of them supports pre-marital sex (jedi's don't support any sex, but that isn't something that jedi's would probably acknowledge)
Ms. Albright: no sex? That's terrible.
me: you didn't see the prequels... which is a good thing, but apparently jedi shouldn't form romantic attachments, which is a serious issue since the force is supposedly passed down genetically
me: this all presupposes that the prequels are canon, which I argue is not true
Ms. Albright: Seems pretty ridiculous.
me: describes the prequels perfectly

The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier, & Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Darjeeling Limited & Hotel Chevalier should be taken together, although there really is no big point to Hotel Chevalier besides being an excuse for a naked Natalie Portman (not that there's anything wrong with that) and getting Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) stuck in my head whenever I think about this movie. But it's an effective enough mood piece, and completely unnecessary to the plot. Speaking of unnecessary, the main movie, The Darjeeling Limited, frustrates me to no end. Wes Anderson is a very talented guy, but maybe he really does need someone to rein him in with reasonable plots and remotely likable characters, of which there are fewer and fewer in his movies. And with the fewer likable characters, they become much harder with which to identify, and I like the movies less. It's basically been a downhill slide from Rushmore. It's frustrating because he's a talented guy, but he is just too busy distancing himself from reality. Maybe The Fantastic Mr. Fox will be better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the series, and the second directed by David Yates (he of the awesome State of Play and the less awesome but still good The Girl in the Café). As a Harry Potter film, it was pretty good, up with The Prisoner of Azkaban as the best, and far, far better than the Chris Columbus abortions. Oh, man, maybe I should use a different word... Anyway, I really didn't like the ending they chose, as it really lessened the emotional impact, but I bet they move some of it to the next film. And I knew that jump scare was coming, and it still got me. Kudos to you, David Yates, for one of the best ever jump scares. The movie focused a lot on the relationships, which was nice, but it could have stood to have a little more plot with the actual Half-Blood Prince, as the reveal itself just felt extremely perfunctory.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910, Runaways, Preacher, Dollhouse, & Better off Ted

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 is the first issue of a three-part third volume of Alan Moore's most detailed series. Basically, it's 1910, a new king is going to be crowned, and there's a vision of the future that suggests an apocalypse in downtown London. So the next version of the league has to stop it, meeting characters from the Threepenny Opera (who sing songs based on it), along with Jack the Ripper (along with a surprise answer to who it was, even if it's not a surprise for those who've seen The Ruling Class), a thinly veiled Aleister Crowley, and more (just take a look at this list of characters in the series). Of course, it has it's requisite sex and violence, along with a section at the end which references 2001: A Space Odyssey and then on the next page, The Story of O. Basically, it (and the earlier League books) may not be the most important comics of all time, but they're certainly near my favorite comics of all time. This was better than The Black Dossier, but not as good as the original two volumes. Yet.

Runaways was started by Brian K. Vaughn in 2003, and then restarted a couple of years later, and then taken over by Joss Whedon after Brian took over the Buffy Season 8 comics. So I wanted to read them, and I have. Not as good as I personally would have liked, but a generally enjoyable "Don't trust anyone over the age of 18 (later increased to 19)" story about six teens who see their parents sacrifice a teenage girl and realize their parents are all very, very evil. And then the series continues, adding in new characters to replace dead ones, having a psychically linked velociraptor from the future show up, magic, the 1900s, robots, and have cameos from much more famous comic book superheros (it's a Marvel comic, so it's Wolverine and Captain America (along with Kingpin and The Punisher) among others). Basically, I liked it, I'll continue to read it, but it just confirmed that I don't actually like superhero comics in general.

Preacher is gratuitously violent, gratuitously naked, and gratuitously profane (in both word and religious senses). I loved it. There were vampires, crazy ultra-religious types, horse thieves, inbred southerners, a sex-crazed Nazi Harvard-educated lawyer, a disgruntled astronaut (in one of my favorite bits), a war in Heaven, an orgy, a seriously misguided fan of Kurt Kobain who becomes a rock star, and more. Just a great series, and I'm a little disappointed I won't get to see an HBO miniseries based on this. Read it. I want to apologize for not having read this before the last month, as I read the first two collections years ago, but I wasn't buying comics then, and I never read past that, and then I tried one time after that, but I kept getting sidetracked, so I finally just started over.

Dollhouse and Better off Ted are two shows that are too good for network TV. And almost got cancelled as a result. I joined a save Dollhouse facebook group before the show had even started to air, because it was a Joss Whedon show on Fox airing on Friday night. After a rough (well, very rough) first five episodes, with only the previously mentioned Middleman episode particularly good, but once we got to Man on the Street (which Joss had promised would be the beginning of the show being awesome), the show became awesome, and by the end was as good as his earlier shows (Alan Tudyk was great). I didn't even mind Eliza Dushku. Better off Ted was a workplace sitcom. Boo, right? Non-boo. It's from Victor Fresco, who did Andy Richter Controls the Universe (which I purchased on DVD based on the remembering it was funny and my love of the "I'm building a temple to you, made out of shrimp, in my stomach" line, and did not regret that purchase one bit), and stars Jonathan Slavin (also from ARCTU) and Portia de Rossi. The two leads (Jay Harrington and Andrea Anders) are acceptable, but de Rossi, Slavin, and Malcolm Barrett are definitely worth watching the show for. Slavin and Barrett are Phil and Lem, two genius scientists who are like an old married couple, but with science! And de Rossi is the utterly insanely demanding boss. Basically, it's a little wacky, but very funny. I recommend watching both. But it just depresses me about how good ARCTU was, and how pissed I was it got cancelled. I didn't remember it lasting almost two seasons though. So, good on Fox?

Häxan, Babel, & Shortbus

Häxan is a semi-documentary about the history of witchcraft. It's also a silent film. I also fell asleep at a couple points. I blame the Five Guys burger and fries eaten just before beginning it. Also the comfortable couch and the slightly warm room. I do, however, recommend it if you're up for it, as it's interesting, although it can definitely be watched at fast speed to get the same amount out of it faster. Not that I watched it at fast speed, which may also have contributed to my falling asleep. It's also a bit preachy, but the opening bits about the history of witchcraft and the misconceptions of early societies were quite nice, if the recreations of the witch trial wasn't nearly as interesting.

Babel is 143 minutes. And I didn't care about any of the people in it. I liked most of the actors I knew, and it was good to see Kôji Yakusho get some work noticed by the American public. He's been in some great films. And I imagine that Rinko Kikuchi goes on the list with the other GAWLIS's. Yes, new tag! Fun! Babel: Not Fun! I guess I could write more if I thought that Rinko's nudity was remotely needed. Well, maybe the ending stuff, but why, exactly, did we need to see her labia? Completely gratuitous. Amores Perros was amazing, and 21 Grams was pretty good as well, but this was just bloated.

Shortbus. I'm not sure how to discuss the film and, honestly, am not sure what to think about it. I mean, there's the porn aspect of it (and I use porn as in it has stuff that's normally only in porn, not that it is a porn film), but it's got an interesting plot, and I liked it, but I felt kind of dirty for doing so. I don't want to condemn it for not being better, but it's eminently watchable. I think that I'm one of the people who is supposed to be shocked by the film, but they forget my long history of nunsploitation and that I've seen Ken Park. Admittedly, this is the first time I've seen autofellatio. Didn't look too comfortable. I never even thought about the possibility of it being done like that. See, I just can't get away from the explicit sex and discuss the film as a story. A story about finding your place in life, basically, similar to Hedwig, but without the kick-ass soundtrack. Just an ass-soundtrack. Woo! Man, if you haven't seen the film, you wouldn't understand the pun. I want John Cameron Mitchell to continue to make movies. He's an interesting voice. Does Sook-Yin Lee get added to the GAWLIS list? Yeah, I'd say probably. It's not Great, it's just Good.

Harry Potter

Being in the United States and 18, I hadn't heard of Harry Potter when the first book was released (September 1998, the beginning of my freshman year), and wouldn't have heard of it until the first movie was close to coming out, had I not participated in Toys for Tots my freshman year in college. I had a choice of a book and a toy to buy from a prescribed list, and when I went to the bookstore, the clerk recommended the first book. So I took the advice, and didn't think of Harry Potter until the first movie came out, and people started to compare it to The Fellowship of the Ring. Being a huge nerd (but not one remotely familiar with the book, but with Chris Columbus's history of filmmaking), I came out very clearly on the Tolkien side. After seeing the film in college, I was even more sure. From the lost blog on March 25, 2002: "I went to see "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" last night. I know that this is going, at least, to annoy some of the readers of this, but that movie was 2.5 hours of the biggest crappy-ness that Hollywood could throw at me. I am positive that it's a combination of Chris Columbus's no-talent directing and J.K. Rowling's derivative book. And what's with the Deus Ex Machina ending? It apparently wasn't in the book, but they decided to include so much of the book, and then change the ending to something that pissed me off more than the entire crappy CGI of the Quidditch match? The movie was complete tripe. At least I didn't completely piss Brady off by being too vocal in my scorn in front of her brother. I think that the book is probably a little better than the movie, but not much, as it's so derivative of the Star Wars trilogy and LOTR that I hated it. I mean, I really like the cast (as it's English), but dear god, that was 2.5 hours long. I remember sitting there looking at my watch and saying, "Dear god, there's 45 more minutes of this crap?"" So you can see, umm, I really didn't like it. Even with that horrible reaction to the first film and quite a few more screeds against Harry Potter when the second movie and the fifth book came out, when I saw Mean Girls in May of 2004, I wrote this: "I was actually hoping that the new Cinderella story was the new Harry Potter trailer. I'm tempted to see it, because Cuarón is a very talented director. Oh well." Cleary, my mind had changed.

In 2005, I finally saw Chamber of Secrets, as I am a huge fan of Alfonso Cuarón, and will see anything he's done (A Little Princess and Great Expectations are gorgeous films, even if not as good as Y Tu Mama Tambien), so his directing the third one made me need to have some background. And yes, I enjoyed Prisoner of Azkaban. So clearly, after watching the second and third ones (and accurately predicting the release of the 7th book in 2007), I was planning on reading the books. I watched Goblet of Fire in the theater with my family later in 2005, again hoping for faster writing of the last book. I finally saw the fifth one (in HD on my fancy TV, which is so awesome, by the way) in the midst of reading the others, and man, if my nerdiness didn't make me get a little annoyed at all the changes made, even though I had only read the books once and that was in the two weeks right before watching the film. And still, the thing that annoyed me most was making Cho Chang's role smaller, because I want more attractive Asians with accents, please. Anyway, seeing the movie was a little ahead of where I was in my story.

So back in late June, I was unceremoniously dumped by email late on a Friday when I was at work. I went home, and instead of sulking like I normally do when this occurs (some of my sulks are better than others), I started to read Harry Potter. I made it through the first one in a day, the second one in a couple more, the third by the end of the first week, the fourth over that second weekend, the fifth over the next week (it's long and I can't read all day when I'm at work), and the sixth one made it a little over a day (I had to watch the fifth movie first). And somewhere after I started to read I noticed that Tweaks (it's a long post but you got mentioned), had two copies of the fifth book but no copy of the seventh. And those two Order of the Phoenixes were the English version (so no pictures at the chapter headings, boo! but I liked reading the English version anyway). So I really tried to hold off on the sixth one, but I was into it and epic fail. And everyone else in DC I knew who read it didn't have their copies of the books, and so I had to wait for four days to get to start reading the seventh book. Which is nothing compared to the two years for everyone who read it when the books came out, but I was getting a little antsy anyway. And I finished the seventh by staying up until almost 3 am after Tweaks's birthday party and 2 am the next night (couldn't stop reading with so little left). So I was a little less social than I would have been over the last few weeks, and now you know why I haven't actually posted too many movie reviews lately.

Now to the actual books: I liked them. Certainly not the deepest or best written books I've ever read, but they're extremely enjoyable, and probably quite good for an early teen. Not being an early teen, the bits of self-censoring and willful ignorance (you're putting a whole bunch of boys and girls, ages 11-17, in rooms without any kind of watching besides some kind of charm that makes a noise when a guy tries to enter the girls dorm, and there's no sex? Really?) made me question how realistic it really is, but then again, it's a story for youngsters, and as much as I know that sex happens among those under 18, encouraging it probably isn't the best social policy. Now that I've gone off on that tangent... well, I knew that the books would end with some bad things happening, but with an ultimate happy ending, because man, you can't give a story with a down ending to kids. So my major problems with the books were that I was too old for them, which makes sense. A little more depth for some of the characters, and possibly less sullen Potter in the last few books, and I would have been even happier. If you haven't read them, I recommend them, but the movies are basically the same: suffer through the sort of basic first two, and then they get better. I was sort of surprised how much of the books were set up in the first one, although some of that was due to the almost constant repetition of the important plot points from the previous books when necessary near the beginning of the book. So again, my problems with the books were more about the fact it wasn't written for someone my age.

So I want to thank Tweaks (for the first six books), Vermonstrous (for the last), and all my other friends who suggested I read them (going all the way back to this Alicia in college telling me that they weren't crappy kids books and told me to give them a chance). I can, without a doubt, say that Harry Potter are good books, and worth reading.

Letters from Iwo Jima, Mephisto, Stranger than Fiction, The Prestige, Stardust, Hard Candy, & The Matrix: Reloaded

Letters from Iwo Jima made me think about how much I have changed from being a young boy who read everything he could about war, spend many hours playing with guns, and watching everything he could about war. I can't imagine anyone watching this film and thinking that war was remotely something that's acceptable. I can't watch films like this and feel good for a while. It was considerably better than Flags of Our Fathers.

Mephisto is about an actor who was a communist in early 30s Germany, and then is willing to do anything to keep acting. Klaus Maria Brandauer is the main, and almost only, unless you want to see Karin Boyd naked (not a bad thing, by any means), reason to see the film. He's mesmerizing. It's too long, but he is worth watching. One of the great performances make a movie worth watching singlehandedly.

Stranger than Fiction was extremely disappointing. A magic watch? Will Ferrell is no... Adam Sandler. Punch-Drunk Love had a lot more talent behind it, but man, Will is not very good. Although Maggie Gyllenhaal is certainly good, and Tony Hale doesn't get enough work. The almost constant math references just got annoying, and Crick just makes me think of Waterland, which was unfortunate. I liked that movie.

The Prestige has David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. Unfortunately, that's the high point. That's not to say it wasn't fitfully enjoyable, but it felt like it was twisty just to be twisty. And I don't like that very much.

Stardust was very long, but ultimately, enjoyable. Even with De Niro as a gay sky pirate. Michelle Pfeiffer was deliciously evil, Claire Danes was not bad (as much as I loved My So-Called Life, she's not a particularly strong actress), and the risque humor was fairly enjoyable. I really need to read more Neil Gaiman.

Hard Candy made me feel dirty. And that was just the Sandra Oh scene. Man, I hate her so much. Arli$$ cannot be condemned enough. Ellen Page is disturbing, and Patrick Wilson is suitably creepy. I think it's just one of those films I will never feel the need to see ever again.

When I told someone I was watching The Matrix: Reloaded, I was told, "I hope you have scathing things to say when you are done." Well, I'm done, and this is what I have to say: As ridiculously stupid as the plot and philosophy of The Matrix was (and dear frikkin' lord, it was stupid), this takes all the stupidness of it and multiplies it by the number of Agent Smith's in the Burly brawl. If it weren't for the car chase, there would be utterly nothing to recommend the film to anyone other than people who thought that the "brain in a jar" philosophical experiment was the most brilliant theory of the universe ever come up with. And Keanu Reeves... well, what can you say about him, he's the worst actor ever to star in so many films. He is just painful. And that "rave" scene? Who the hell thought that was a good idea? I really have to see Revolutions just because I can't imagine that film could be any worse than this one. I need to see it with my own eyes.

Into the Woods & How To Steal a Million

Into the Woods is a Sondheim musical, and as such, has very complicated and well-structured music. I first saw it, I think, 12 years ago, in Manchester with my family. As a much younger person, I didn't realize what Sondheim and James Lapine were trying to do, and while I vastly enjoyed the first act, I didn't care for the second. Now that I've had enough time to become extremely cynical, I realize that they were pointing out how even the "good" people in fairy tales don't always think through their actions and are selfish. And Sondheim has, what I believe to be, his best score ever. Vastly better than the badness that was Pacific Overtures, and better than Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I certainly remembered Into the Woods, but I had forgotten Children Will Listen and No One Is Alone, the two best songs in the musical. And some of the best Sondheim ever did. The entire cast was very good, but Bernadette Peters as the witch and, especially, Joanna Gleason as the baker's wife were standouts. It's too bad that this was such a weak DVD, with no subtitles, which are occasionally needed with Sondheim's music, since he puts a lot of very important words in not that much space. At least he's a hell of a lot better than Andrew Lloyd Crapper.

How To Steal a Million is Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole as a pair of art thieves. Well, sort of, but to say much more about it would spoil the fun. It's delightfully flufftactular. There's a nice Hitchcock reference early on, but all that does it heighten the fact that the movie would have been vastly better had it been done by Hitchcock instead. That's not to say that Wyler isn't talented, even though he made Jezebel, a movie so horrible I can't begin to describe how much I hate it, but it feels like To Catch a Thief, but not nearly as good. About the only real reason to watch it is to see Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn together. Although Hugh Griffith is also good. The movie just never coheres like it should.

Fanny and Alexander, Night of the Demon, & A Lion in the House

Fanny and Alexander is definitely a Bergman film, with its evil religious figure, the belief that there is no god, that we're all puppets, but the magic is real aspect is not something that really fits in with most of his other films. I liked it, but it was too long. It felt like it could have been cut a lot. I'm happy I didn't try to sit through the five plus hour long version. I've not enjoyed his later films nearly as much as his earlier ones. After Persona, I just don't like the films as much. His best period, the eleven or so years from Smiles of a Summer Night to Persona has his best films. Later films may be praised, but they just arne't quite as good.

Night of the Demon is Jacques Tourneur's entry into the demon and witchcraft genre. Not as good as Cat People, but still a very good horror film, even if the producers did force him to show the demon. That would have been better than the goofy looking thing they did finally use. The early English horror films all have a good bit of style to them, and this is definitely full of it. Tourneur also did Out of the Past, one of the best film noirs. He's very talented, and it's a shame that he didn't get better films and bigger budgets. I'm not exactly happy with the ending, but a lot of that can be blamed on the fact that the demon was shown. Would have been better if we never really knew if the demon was real or not. I wonder if the estate of Aleister Crowley was pissed about the movie? Or, more accurately, if he himself was pissed from his post-death state. Doctor Karswell is clearly based upon Crowley.

A Lion in the House is for people who want to cry for four hours. Because if you aren't crying very soon into it, you have no heart. I also thought it was nice to see Cincinnati Children's Hospital again. I recognized a lot of the doctors. Not that I knew them all, well, I did watch Dawn of the Dead with one of them, and I definitely have talked with a couple others during my two plus years working there. I had to wander around these halls for various job related things, and seeing these kids, and kids just like them struggling to live would make me happy to be working on improving their care and lives as much or as little as I was. Working there was a very important part of my life, even if I regretted every time I saw the kids in the cystic fibrosis area, knowing about it. I recognize just about everything in the movie, when they're going around Cincinnati. It's very nostalgic for me as well as a powerful film. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

I Married a Witch & Why We Fight

I Married a Witch is notable for having Veronica Lake. And really that's about all you need to know. It's not that funny (although there were some very funny lines), the special effects aren't that special, and parts of it grated on my nerves. Or should that be grated my nerves? Either way, Veronica Lake is very attractive and funny, and it's a damn shame more of her stuff isn't available on DVD. I guess Rene Clair's reputation was built on his other films, as this only had bits and pieces go above and beyond the genre. But it has Robert Benchley in it, which is always a treat.

Why We Fight is the movie that Michael Moore wishes he made. No crazy conspiracy theories, no unconnected dots. Just 100 minutes of very structured and effective discussion of why we're both in Iraq and why Eisenhower was a great prescient president. Really, that speech was outstanding, and it's pretty damn clear that the best way to avoid going into unnecessary wars is to see the utter destruction that war can achieve. About my only problem with the movie was Gore Vidal saying that the Japanese were trying to surrender the entire summer before we dropped the bombs on them. I don't remember that from my history, but it could be right. However, Vidal isn't entirely the most trustworthy source on things. I would have preferred someone else supporting that claim. Richard Perle, on the other hand, provided almost all the humor in the film, as he disingenuously argued for his side, when there was no support for it. I'm not sure whether it was Jarecki's intent to film Perle in such a way as to make his eyes look very sunken or if it was the makeup or if it was just that he hadn't gotten much sleep, but he was pretty darn evil looking throughout the film. I did enjoy the use of Not Dark Yet and I Fought in a War, so Jarecki clearly knows music or someone else does. I Fought in a War was just a perfect ending song. Kudos!

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, The Manchurian Candidate, Mysterious Skin, & Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children probably makes little sense to someone who doesn't already know these characters and the basic plot of FFVII. I also imagine that it might help to read some reviews of it to see if you can pick up the plot, since most of it doesn't really get explained. I also appreciated that Tifa had more clothes on this time. Before was sort of ridiculous. I also would have preferred that there was more Aeris, but since she's dead, I guess we can't have that. Makes me somewhat interested in seeing what they could do with new technology and FFVII. Well, I guess we can always just accept that the new games will have to keep us busy.

The Manchurian Candidate was ok, but didn't need to be made, nor did it do anything new for the story. Denzel was ok, as were Meryl and Liev, but none really did anything new. Beh to the making of this movie.

Mysterious Skin is one of those, yay for pederasts movies. Wait, it was one of those pederasts are terrible movies. Quite a few more of the latter than the former. Acting was very good from that young alien, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I was a little shocked I actually liked a Gregg Araki movie. Did not care at all for Doom Generation. If you're up for a pederast movie, and for seeing Dawn in a good role, then see this movie.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire felt like it was just trying to fit in as much plot as possible, and thus just spent lots of time on the plot and not enough on allowing characters to do much. Plus, it didn't take nearly enough advantage of Katie Leung's accent. There were actual gasps in the theater when she spoke. Is a thick Scottish accent coming out of an Asian girl that surprising? Really? I like to think that it was just the audience. So yeah, I saw the movie in a theater. Does make me want to read the book, since it appears lots of interesting things happened outside of the scope of the book. JK needs to write quickly.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban & Swimming with Sharks

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was suprisingly really good. I'm not sure whether I was just expecting suck or what, but I was really happy with it. Maybe it had a little something to do with me being a sucker for a good time-travel joke. Maybe it was the fact that a major problem with Chamber of Secrets was fixed in this one, with Hermione (who's getting more attractive...) instead of Ron at the end. But I think it's mainly due to two things: Alfonso Cuarón and the decision to film it in more actual locations rather than in a studio. Cuarón's touch is clear with the more realistic CGI and the darker tone. I'm surprised that it didn't get a PG-13. I think that Radcliffe may need a few more acting lessons, but at least everyone else was pretty good. Well, except for Draco Malfoy, who is still annoying as hell. But there may not be any more of Potter's muggle family. Not a bad thing. None of the films seemed to get remotely interesting until they start to go to Hogwarts. I did notice immediately that Richard Harris had been replaced by Michael Gambon. Obvious, but some of it was because I'm so familiar with Gambon's face. We need more Alan Rickman. More more more. At least Gary Oldman will return, with more of a part. And damn it all to hell, but I am actually somewhat interested in seeing the 4th one. When does the 7th book come out? Based on my extremely complicated computations, I figure sometime in 2007.

Swimming with Sharks had an outstanding performance from Kevin Spacey. Completely outstanding. Frank Whaley paled in comparison. And it had Miranda Freakin' Zero in it. I don't think that I'll ever get over her in that role. So damn cool. But [SPOILER] how could he freakin' kill Miranda Freakin' Zero? The ending sort of felt like a cop-out, the only way for a somewhat happy ending after that kind of torture, but the scenes with Buddy mentally torturing Guy were great. What the hell happened to Spacey? He hasn't done anything remotely interesting since 1999.

The Stepford Wives & Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The Stepford Wives was terrible. I don't think there was one redeeming thing in it. Not one. Christopher Walken and Glenn Close, two very talented actors, were very wasted in it. And not wasted in the good way that can sometimes make for enjoyable aspects. No, this was a mess, pure and simple. Waste of film. About the only good thing to say about it was that it was fairly short.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, on the other hand, was long. Plus, there were too many cheesy bits. And Chris Columbus wouldn't know a good director if s/he beat all the crappy movies out of him. Which would take a long time. A very long time. Longer than the movie. Anyway, as to the actual movie, it allowed itself to work much more effectively than the last one, ignoring most of the boring, but necessary, exposition that comes in the first film of a series. Plus, the triumvirate are getting more comfortable in their roles. Not sure about leaving Ron Weasley unpetrified and making Hermione stone. Ron still is an annoying person. Hermione at least seems less of a caricature. I saw the Riddle/Voldemort thing coming a mile away. I mean, with a name like Marvolo? Of course he's evil, and it's only a little stretch to start with the anagrams. I have a feeling that a lot of my complaints about characterization and the like would be fixed in the books. Makes me more interested in reading them. But I'm not going to bother until the 7th comes out and then I'll borrow them from a friend. It's not like every single person in the District I know hasn't already read them.