Frequent visitors to this space are aware that I’m the sort that “enjoys” politics, at least in the abstract. Thusly, It usually takes a lot longer for me to “know” when the public discourse has become “too political” since on my end the public discourse is usually not political enough.

But every man has his breaking point in this areas, and this is mine: When the sequel to “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” unveils that it grounds a good chunk of it’s humor in the realm of U.S./European post-Iraq culture-clash, I am more than willing to agree that the popular culture has indeed become too political.

The story once again follows ever-underused SNL alumni Rob Schneider as the title character, whom you may or may not recall from the original film is a geeky fish tank cleaner who briefly became a low-end male prostitute to buy his way out of a sticky situation. The gag of that film was that Deuce could only find “employment” with insane, disfigured or otherwise desperate female clients; and that the creative lengths he went to to avoid actually sleeping with these women had the side-effect of helping them find self-confidence. Shaky premise, yes, but it had it’s share of blunt but effective grossout gags and Schneider’s earnest straight-man schtick was consistent.

The sequel finds Deuce jetting off to Amsterdam to reunite with his friend and one-time “he-pimp” TJ (scene-stealing Eddie Griffen.) Deuce has run into some trouble following the death of his wooden-legged fiancee Kate, (devoured by sharks somewhere between sequels,) so the change of scenery will do him some good. In short order, he’s introduced to the wonders of socially-liberal Dutch society (legalized prostitution, hash bars and topless weather reports) and the perils of wearing his American Flag-print T-shirt on the street. He’s also introduced, through TJ, to the main plot: A serial killer is stalking the gigolos of Europe, and when TJ is wrongfully implicated as a suspect Deuce goes undercover to find the real culprit.

From thereon, the film is the expected sucession of gags, alternating between outright slapstick and verbal gymnastics via TJ’s endless supply of gigolo slang (“mangina,” “he-bitch man-slap,” etc.) Some of this is very funny, such as Griffen’s standout sequence wherein a housecat attacks his genitals. Some of it isn’t, such as an extended montage where Deuce once again plies his craft with “odd” women who’s issues just aren’t as funny as the ones in the first film.

But it’s when the jokes trend into politics, which they frequently do, that it just gets flat out strange. Deuce’s flag-shirt earns him jeers of “imperialist” from the locals, but it’s a pro-U.S. local who yells to Deuce to pass her thanks on to President Bush who winds up taking a brick to the head. Later, Deuce’s polite request to an obnoxious Frenchman to extinguish his cigarette invites a zealous lecture about oil, Iraq and WMDs and ends with the offending Franco trussed up in the flag shirt, gagged and wearing a brick-drawing sign reading “America rocks, Europe smells like ass.” Still later, the “mystery” serial killer (who’s not hard to spot, you may guess) intimates that the gigolo killing-spree is motivated by a hatred of libertine Dutch social policy.

Accidentally interesting, occasionally funny and a few times hysterical. Not really reccomended, but not openly discouraged either.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

A brief restatement of MovieBob’s position on censorship and/or federal regulations of television, print, radio, film or art: All federal ratings, controls, limits or penalties for expression are unconstitutional and a direct abridgement of the freedoms of American citizens. As the Constitution and Bill of Rights garauntee to all citizens the freedom of expression, any attempt to abridge such at the federal level is in fact an attack on freedoms and thusly it is wholly appropriate to refer to any member of the government who would openly support such abridgement as, thusly, enemies of freedom.

However, use of the term “enemy of freedom” here exclusively refers to a given government representative’s status as a (percieved) enemy of a specific constitutional freedom, and is in no way meant to imply that said representative is in any way traitorous or disloyal to his or her office, nation or otherwise.

Ahem.

Now, with that out of the way…

LISTEN UP!

Seriously, people. If we value our freedoms, especially our freedoms of expression, (and if you don’t, why are you reading a movie blog?,) we need to stay on top of things like this. Remember: NEITHER of the two leading political parties in this country are “officially” standing against federal censorship. The Republicans, despite their supposed deferrence to limited government and free enterprise, are basically pro-censorship right now because attacking “indecency” plays well to the so-called “religious right.” Likewise, the Democrats are generally for it as well despite their supposed defference to the artistic community because, y’know, they’re Democrats and thus generally think the government should be in charge of as much as humanly possible, anyhow. (Yes, I know it’s a generalization. They’re political parties. Generalization is what they are about.)

In other words, you cannot count on either end of the political spectrum to do the right thing here. The only way we avoid creeping censorship is to continually remind these representatives who work FOR US that we do not want them involved in this.

Which is why, when a news story like this makes it to my radar (courtesy of the ever-reliable CATO Institute) I consider it just good civics on my part to pass it along to you:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4068

The jist of this editorial is that Senator George Allen (R-Virginia) has introduced a Bill in the United States Senate which would require that the federal government approve any ratings system developed for television. In other words, if this Bill was to pass, the government rather than the producers of television programs, the owners of broadcast networks or the audience of consumers, would be the final arbiters of how any ratings system would work.

This is such an outright affront to our Constitution that I can scarcely describe my indignation. Fortunately, CATO’s executive VP David Boaz echoes my thoughts accordingly:

“For years, Republicans argued that the Democratic majority in Congress was intruding the federal government into more and more matters best left to the states, the local communities, or the private sector. After 10 years in power, however, the Republicans have seen the Democrats’ intrusiveness and raised them.”

And he’s only getting started…

“They believe that their every passing thought is a proper subject for federal legislation. They hold three-ring-circus hearings on steroids in baseball. They sharply increase the fines for alleged indecency on television. They hold hearings on whether college textbooks are too expensive. They threaten to punish Major League Baseball if the owners allow left-wing billionaire George Soros to be a part owner of the new team in Washington. They vote for a federal investigation of the video game “Grand Theft Auto.”

And to those of you who don’t think a little federal nudging here and there is the beginning of the end, or even BELIEVE the lies of the anti-freedom lobby about obscenity and violent materials “causing” real life evils and WANT Big Brother to help you tell everyone how to live, Boaz has an answer for you:

“That’s why we write a Constitution — to protect us from our own temptations to turn our exasperation into laws, and to protect us from our fellow citizens yielding to the same temptation.”

Amen.

Some may think it extreme to put Senator Allen’s name in the title of this posting, as he’s obviously only a small part of the problem, but in the end he did introduce the Bill. Introducing Bills, after all, is the right of an elected member of the Senate.

And, likewise, voicing displeasure at the introduction of a Bill is the right of YOU. So here’s where you can send an email to Senator George Allen, letting him know what you think about the federal government regulating TV ratings or ANY kind of ratings, for that matter. Keep it civil, be polite, but make your voice heard:
http://allen.senate.gov/?c=email&which=Standard

ATTENTION ALL TEENAGED MALES:
You may be unaware that the following items are either not NEARLY as funny as you think they are and/or are not funny AT ALL.

Please review this list carefully so that you may adjust your public social behavior accordingly, so as to be less of an irritant to those around you AND reduce your risk of incurring a violent (if not entirely undeserved) strike upside the head in the near future.

Thank you.

THE NOT-ACTUALLY-FUNNY LIST:

Your impression of Napolean Dynamite.

“Newlyweds.”

Referring to a certain recent historical epic as “Alexander the Gay.”

Paris Hilton’s catchphrase, “that’s hot.”

The non-word “Ginormous.”

Your impression of Dave Chapelle’s impression of Rick James.

The “Chicken Fries” commercials.

“The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“Half Baked.”

Videotaped outtakes of skateboarders wiping out.

Jimmy Fallon.

“Trapped in the Closet 1-5.”

Michael Jackson.

“Being Bobby Brown.”

Your impression of various repeated phrases from “GTA: San Andreas.”

That’s all for now, more to follow…

It’s odd how promotion works. By all logic, Disney should have been overpromoting “Sky High” in a manner befitting a summer family offering that can easily be described with the lofty-sounding “Harry Potter’ meets ‘The Incredibles.” If that had happened, the film may well have played as “underwhelming.” But instead, the studio has barely promoted the film, and gently nudged it into a late-July release. As a result, what we have here is a quaint little gem of a family comedy that can be properly seen in the light of it’s own measured self-assurance.

Set in the basic comic book universe where superheroes and their adventures are just a fact of life, (a world which, thanks to the cinema audience’s growing awareness of the genre, the film happily doesn’t need a mountain of exposition to explain,) the story centers on “Sky High,” a secret trade school for teenage superheroes-to-be on a floating island above the clouds. The film’s comic conciet is that all the “typical” issues of high school life are here magnified to absurd degrees by the presence of superpowers and the social stratas of superhero mythos: At Sky High, the “popular” and “unpopular” cliques divide between those students with cool, impressive powers who are destined to be Heroes and those with silly or unimpressive powers (or no powers at all) who can only aspire to be Sidekicks. (Dave Foley plays the head teacher of the Sidekicks, Mr. Boy, and if you’re already giggling a bit at that this is the movie for you.)

As high school movies are seldom set among the popular kids, the plot proper follows the exploits of a group of Freshman already branded Sidekicks, mostly for sporting powers of such dubious practicality as glowing in the dark or morphing into a purple gineau pig. One among them, Layla, has the technically hero-worthy power to control plants but remains a Sidekick as a flower-child protest against the class system. Michael Angarano has the lead as Will Stronghold, who’s the son of world-renowned superhero couple The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston) and thus has Potter-style fame preceeding him: Except that he hasn’t gotten his powers (read: puberty) yet.

So that’s the gag, comic book lore as allegory for growing-pain angst, and once you figure that out it’s not hard to plot where this is going: Naturally, Will sprouts his powers suddenly and must make choices about whether to abandon his uncool Sidekick friends for induction into the Superhero in-crowd. Yes, there’s a super-hot dreamgirl who comes between Will and Layla’s long-unexpressed mutual crush on him, and yes, there’s a “party while the folks are away” scene augmented by the presence of superpowers. And a big old-fashioned no-prize to all you smarties who guessed that this main teen relationships plot and the bubbling subplots of a return by an old foe of The Commander and nefarious goings-on at Sky High will all turn out to be interrelated.

But, damn, the thing really works, and the big reason why is that it’s supremely sincere about it’s material: The high-school dramedy is played straight and without overdone sarcasm, and the very Silver Age superheroics have clearly been conceptualized by folks with a genuine fondness (not to mention familiarity) with capes, tights and secret identities. Fans of the 80s Teen Titans or old-school Legion of Superheroes devotees take note: This movie is definately for you.

The young cast handles it’s job with uniform quality, the standouts being Angarano and Steven Strait as Warren Peace, (which I found hysterical every time, for some reason,) an enigmatic loner student who throws fireballs, nurses a family grudge against Will and has a genuinely interesting character arc.

As for the grownups, just as the “Harry Potter” cycle has locked in the services of British character greats in the adult roles, the teachers and parents of “Sky High” are a glorious grab bag of geek-culture icons: Alongside Russell we have Linda Carter as Principal Powers, Kevin Heffernan as a bus driver, Foley’s onetime “Kids in The Hall” cohort Kevin McDonald as a big-brained science teacher and, yes, Bruce Campbell as Coach Boomer.

This isn’t the cure for cancer, but I had a lot of fun at this and I think most audiences will if they give it a chance. Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

This was innevitable, and nowhere near as big a deal as it’s going to be made out to be, but it still has me a little bit hacked off. This just isn’t the sort of news story I like to come home to…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164446,00.html

Headline: “Bush: Schools Should Teach ‘Intelligent Design’ Alongside Evolution”

Let’s not panic just yet.

Here’s what this is about: “Intelligent Design” is the new catchphrase for the religious anti-evolution movement. Finally unable to continue arguing that Darwinian evolution “never happened” in the face of every shred of actual scientific data on the subject, the movement has readjusted itself from attacking the theory as a whole to attacking it’s key component: That natural development stems from random trial-and-error rather than the edicts of a divine superpower. “Intelligent Design,” while refered to as a “theory,” is in fact a philosophical “what if?” query, arguing that the intricacy of some natural systems are so complex as to make randomness less likely and perhaps serve as circumstantial evidence that a “higher power” is at work. In plain english: “Doesn’t some of this look SO perfect that SOMEONE must have been in charge?”

Intelligent Designists, who actually include a smattering of mostly-reputable scientists among their number, want this question given equal time in science classes alongside actual evolution. Some educators agree, a majority do not. The issue is currently the subject of heated debate, largely in communities where religious “conservatives” and/or creationists have heavy political sway.

President Bush has now weighed in on “teach both theories” side, which should be surprising to approximately nobody. This is politics, plain and simple, red meat to the religious hardliners whom the Republican party must sadly rely on for grassroots support. Dubya, like most U.S. presidents, has never pretended to be a big devotee of matters scientific, this is a “you’re still my guys” reassurance likely calculated to assuage those in the evangelical community still irked that his Supreme Court pick wasn’t an open foe of Roe v. Wade.

Here’s where I have an issue with this:

Firstly, “Intelligent Design” is not a “theory,” it is a “hypothesis.” Theory, among the most misused words in the english language, is correctly defined as referring to a hypothesis that has withstood a large variety of tests and challenges. So at it’s base, calling this a theory and thus worthy of placement alongside Darwin’s survival of the fittest is just incorrect on the raw level of language.

Now, does this mean that I don’t want it brought up in schools? Absolutely not. This is an idea, one worthy of discussion, and should be debated and hashed out and openly espoused and challenged in any classroom it can be.

But not in a science class.

Science is the study of facts and theories pertaining to such. By it’s very nature, it must narrowly define it’s scope to the provable realities of the natural world. “Intelligent Design,” by it’s own design, implies that there is a “designer,” which implies a supernatural, paranatural or extraterrestrial element. None of these things are provable or disprovable by any existing methods, thus they do not belong in the serious discussion of a science class any more than the anatomy of Bigfoot belongs in a primate-biology class or flying saucers belong in an astronomy class.

Intelligent Design should not be “banned” from schools any more than any other idea should be. But to insist that it be introduced in the realm of scientific education is wrong, and the President is wrong to support those who would do so. The “conservative” ideology that President Bush claims to espouse has always held the adherence to fact and logic as one of it’s core ideals, and pushing for a hypothesis to be taught as actual science in order to please a special interest group flies in the face of that. Matters of faith, spirituality and the supernatural are philosophy, and Intelligent Design belongs in a philosophy class.

I’ll be off on vacation for about a week, so updates will probably cease until then. My appologies, but I will return. Promise.

Until then, fresh reviews of “The Island,” “Devil’s Rejects” and “Hustle & Flow” are to be found below. Check them out, and see you all when I get back.

Review contains some information that can be considered minor spoilers if you haven’t seen any trailers for this film yet.

A common misconception about Michael Bay movies is that they are “unpretentious,” mostly due to the common misuse of the term “pretense” to describe only “highbrow” materials or artistic aims. In truth, “pretense” refers more accurately to the attempt by a peice of art to be visibly “more” (usually “more important”) than it actually is through a layering of elements. In this sense, Michael Bay movies are all about pretense: His whole style has been, from the start, imbuing action vehicles with exaggerated pretense toward glamour and mythic imagery. He loves magic-hour sunset cinematography, especially when linked to something as vulgar as a car chase or John Woo-wannabe shootout. He loves big, dramatic statue-of-a-greek-god hero shots of actors, especially when they’re everyman action guys in street clothes or a law-enforcement uniform.

In “The Island,” (his first directorial outing not under the wing of Jerry Bruckheimer,) Bay has finally been presented with a screenplay that aptly matches his visual style at overblown pretense: Here we’ve got a paint-by-numbers “cautionary scifi” which is cautionary in the broadest strokes and almost completely junk in terms of it’s science. A bloated, plodding, formulaic chase movie lurching forward under the heavy pretense of having “something important” to say about medicine and humanity in the biotech age.

It was sadly innevitable that the subject of cloning would yield a bad paranoid-scifi epic sooner or later, but it says something about the level of accuity that “The Island” is playing at to note that even with all the new science and frontiers involved in cloning in the real world, the film remains almost a total knockoff of “Parts: The Clonus Horror” which was made in the 70s. In other words, there’s nothing new to see here.

Ewan McGregor, who ought to have known better, is Lincoln (get it?) Six Echo. He lives in a big, sterile facility that looks the shopping mall “city” from “Logan’s Run,” along with thousands of other oddly-named people who go about wearing the white skinsuits from “THX-1138.” It could be that all this theft from prior movies is some kind of subtle gag, since the film is about copies of things… but I sort of doubt it. Lincoln (get it?) and his best pal Jordan Two Delta, (Scarlett Johanssen,) along with everyone else, believe that they are the last survivors of some vast contaminatory holocaust, and that their regimented lives are preparation for a (randomly selected via lottery) trek to “The Island,” the last uncontaminated place on Earth. Lincoln (get it?) is starting to get antsy, though: he’s troubled by nightmares, and begins to suspect that there is no Island.

After nearly a solid hour of beating heavy-handed foreshadowing into our heads, the truth is revealed and proves Lincoln (get it?) right: The facility inhabitants are actually clones, organ banks for a biotech firm’s wealthy clients, and the whole contamination/island story is just there to keep them docile until parts need harvesting. Lincoln (get it?) and Jordan bust out after learning this and go on the lamb, pursued by a bounty hunter (Djimon Honsou) hired by the head baddie (Sean Bean, regrettably not named Hitler SixSixSix Badguy) and the film becomes an extended chase sequence for the remainder of it’s duration. What it adds up to is that Bay gets to stage another scene of cars dodging junk falling off a truck, and Lincoln (get it?) gets to go and try playing Great Emancipator of his fellow clones.

The film is obviously striving to be a kind of topical, Spike TV-skewed riff on “The Matrix,” but it lacks the brains or the conviction to arrive at such. It dwells obsessively on the “science” of it’s junk-science, and only looks junkier as a result: We’re expected to believe that, when the ability to regrow tissue with a vial of mere stem-cells is looming on our horizon, that in a film set at the tail end of the 21st century the most efficient way to get spare parts is have a giant city full of functioning adult clones wandering around dining at juice bars and playing virtual-reality kung fu games? Seriously? Beyond that, the film soon jumps the science-rail entirely and gets into the old standbys of “genetic memory.” Please, make it stop.

The good points are few and far between: The otherwise dull action scenes get a momentary lift thanks to a cameo by the big flying motorcycle thingees from “Halo,” and Steve Buscemi has a fun turn in his reccuring role as “Interesting Wildcard In Otherwise Formulaic Michael Bay Movie Guy.” And it wouldn’t be much of a cloning movie without an amusing scene of an actor acting against his digitally-replicated “self,” would it?

Much hay is being made right now about the “politics” of this film, but having seen it I think it’s giving “The Island” far too much credit to infer that it has the depth necessary to be propaganda for anything. The fact is, the anti-choice legions are going to latch onto this film as “one of their own,” reading it as an anti-Embryonic Stem Cell Research parable that makes their point by recasting the microscopic stem cells as full-grown marquee-name actors, and there’s really nothing that can be done about that one way or the other. Yes, it’s depressing to think that you, me or someone we love may one day die of a curable ailment because research was held back amidst serious debate on the personhood of petri-dishes… but it would be wrong to place any real blame for this on “The Island,” however below-average a movie it is in it’s own right.

(That said, there’s a rather blunt line about midway in that sounds very much like a reference to Terri Schiavo, another unwitting-icon of the anti-choice movement. Hm…)

Eh. You may choose to see “The Island” in political terms. I myself mostly saw it as a dull, formulaic movie and would honestly reccomend that people not see it, period. Four other movies came out this weekend, along with an expanded screen-count for “March of The Penguins.” See one of those.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

How did Rob Zombie survive the goth/metal implosion when so many of his more critically lauded fellows perished? Simple: He never visibly bought into the “romance” of it. While other late-90s metal acts were dolling up like Anne Rice archetypes and immersing their stage presence in the realm of Ankhs, serial-killer mythos and morose humorlessness, Zombie took a different path: His music was hard-driving, infectious and (gasp!) danceable, and for imagery and inspiration he plumbed the depths of spook-shows, haunted houses, carnival-freakshows and old horror movies. One part Metallic and one part The Munsters. I fondly remember a day in my otherwise rueful High School existance where my film-geek ability to cite and explain the various references in some of Zombie’s songs and videos temporarily made me extremely “interesting.” (btw, the big-head robot is from “The Phantom Creeps.“)

No, it wasn’t the deepest music, and it never terrified the culture the way Marilyn Manson did, but when “goth” metal stumbled under the weight of it’s own pretense Zombie carried on without so much as a missed step. Semi-androgynous guys dressed like The Crow had had their day as the reigning cultural fad… but the bearded horror-host looking maniac in the mandatory top hat, that schtick was already around before Zombie himself was even born for a reason.

Having absorbed so much of his energy from horror movies, it was innevitable that Zombie would make one of his own. The result, of a few years back, was “House of 1,000 Corpses,” a busy throwback to the mid-70s deluge of “Texas Chainsaw”-knockoffs about a group of young people who fall prey to a family of boundlessly-creative mass-murderers on Halloween. Uneven but hugely entertaining, plus solidly directed, the film now has a sequel in “The Devil’s Rejects”… structured in such a way that, if you happen to be among the many who never gave “House” a chance you won’t be completely lost. It’s also, overall, the superior film.

Briefly: Following (presumably) the events of “House,” a crazy-in-the-religious-sense Sherriff Wydell (William Forsythe) leads a massive armed raid on the farmhouse of the crazy-in-every-sense Firefly Family. The raid yields a motherload of bodies, plus a captive Mother Firefly, but survivors Otis (Bill Mosely) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) escape. Teaming with their father Captain Spaulding (Sig Haig,) the remaining Fireflys begin a murder-spree as they seek safe haven with their “uncle,” (Ken Foree,) a brothel-proprietor named Charlie Altamont. In pursuit are the increasingly-insane sheriff, plus a pair of hired guns (Danny Trejo and Diamond Dallas Page) called The Unholy Two.

This is, plainly, one proudly odd duck of a movie. Zombie is working a series of pretty specific cinematic fetishes here, and not only is it not garaunteed that any one of them has enough adherents to make a hit out of this, it’s not even sure that the various stratas of film buffs would be able to stomach it all in one package: The Fireflys, plus the level and manner of violence they inflict, are straight out of the nastiest gorefest. The settings… dusty highways, rusty trucks and sparse dives… are the stuff of “Walking Tall” hicksploitation nirvana. The soundtrack eschews metal in favor of searingly well-utilized southern rock classics. It’s like Zombie went on a bender of post-60s exploitation self-education and made a screenplay out of his crib notes.

This is no “Kill Bill” of semi-segmented genre-dissection, this is styles-in-a-blender, and it’s made even stranger by the imposition of a “revenge drama” story arc upon these outlandish characters: The Firefly’s are ruthless thrill-killers, and their pursuers are equally vicious in their own right, but the film plays out as though it’s Butch & Sundance with pickup trucks; framing the Firefly’s in the terms of a “wacky but loving” family of miscreants and seemingly rooting for them to triumph over the cops. The pace never breaks it’s flow between, for example, horrific scenes of the Firefly’s torturing and slaughtering a random family they happen upon at a motel and later scenes of family comedy over whether or not to stop the car for ice cream.

But I digress. It’s up to the film scholarship of the future to discern whether or not the road/revenge/southern-rock/gore/horror/comedy genre was anything of note; what can be said here and now is that Rob Zombie has made the best possible entry in it I can seriously imagine. I loved this, whatever it is, unashamedly. I don’t think I’m the only one, the actors all seem to have had a great time: Sig Haig once again proves an incredible screen presence, Sheri Moon Zombie is once more the year’s most alluring murderess, and Mosley has actually toned down his bit as Otis (btw, this time around the inside joke of the Firefly’s copping the names of Groucho Marx characters becomes a key plot point) to great effect, utilized this time out as the “straight man” to his more absurd family members.

Zombie has improved exponentially as a filmmaker, and his “money” scenes of gore are just as self-assuredly inventive as the movie containing them: Hands are nailed to chairs, skulls are bashed in, ammo-clips are emptied, axes are swung, knives are thrown and even staple-guns get memorably employed at one point. In terms of bloodletting-as-artistry this is the best boot-to-the-guts gorefest since “Sin City,” bar nothing. And if that sounds like your kind of night at the movies, then get out and see it. In terms of the not-yet-“converted” getting into this at all… look, I honestly can’t tell you. It’s just a hugely difficult film to classify.

I guess it comes down to this: One scene in the film involves a carful of hateful, remorseless (and by that point thoroughly horrific-looking) serial killers engaged in a pitched gunbattle against a phalanx of police that becomes a blur of blood, bullets and wounds all set to the (complete) tune of “Freebird.” If that even approaches something you’d be entertained or even impressed by, you can see it in this movie.

FINAL RATING: 9/10

Whether or not you’ll get anything out of watching “Hustle & Flow” will depend less on your appreciation (or lack thereof) for hip-hop than it does on your willingness (or lack thereof) to entertain seriously the core mythology of the genre: That there exists within denizens of impoverished areas, especially those toiling away at illegal activities, the souls of poets just aching to tell the world “what it is” in the form of a rythymic dance track. If this is a notion you believe in, or at least can feign belief in enough to enjoy the genre when it works, you’ll likely find a lot to enjoy here. On the other hand, if you’ve got a tough time buying the “romanticism” of hoodlums setting self-aggrandizing inner monologues to repetitive Casio beats… you probably ought to see something else.

Myself, I fall somewhere in the middle on the whole thing. Objectively, it’s hard to deny that much of the mythic image of hip-hop is little more than shrewdly manufactured smoke and mirrors. But it certainly had a kind of genesis in something real, like all music, and when it works it works. Which is about what you can say for this movie.

Terrence Howard toplines as DJay, a low-level Memphis pimp and drug-dealer who rediscovers a yearning to be a rapper when he lucks into the posession of an old keyboard. It turns out he’s got real talent for lyrics and beats, and soon he’s lucking into other things like an old buddy (Anthony Anderson) who owns recording equipment and knows how to build a makeshift studio and the impending visit of a childhood aquaintance who’s grown up to be megastar rapper Skinny Black. Still more luck: A local church kid (scene-stealing DJ Qualls) is a whiz with a mixing board and DJay’s pregnant ‘ho reveals a great voice for singing hooks.

Yeah, It’s that kind of music movie. All the staples of the genre are there: Stapling egg cartons to the walls for soundproofing, miraculous scenes of “it all coming together,” recreational drug use, a lead character feverishly scribbling lyrics in a notepad, inside-ref-laden scenes about mics and studio mixing, the married character who’s wife doesn’t like him spending time at the studio, it all gets a workout. None the less, Filtered through a determinedly 70s-colored lens, bouyed by the authentic-looking Memphis surroundings and resting on the back of Howard’s inspired starmaking turn, the film frequently rises above the “how I got into the music biz” movie-pile and has moments of real energy and emotion. It’s characters are complex, culled from the genre stockpile or no, and yield surprises.

Thus, it’s a bit disheartening that the film suffers a bit come the third act, eventually collapsing into the overworn cliche’s of hip-hop movies (and videos) past. It’s at least agreeable that the characters don’t have to break their previous strides in order to arrive at the genre-mandated blowup of police, posses and screaming onlookers, but still a bit of a letdown on my end that the story couldn’t find a more original way of wrapping itself up.

Still, it’s a well-made film and a good star-turn. And unless the genre is a complete turnoff for you, I’d say it comes reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” — Thomas Jefferson, Sept. 23 1800.

You may have been able to expunge it from your memory, but you may recall that the big “hoped-for” impact of Mel Gibson’s religious-fundamentalist (and, in my view, nominally anti-semetic) torture-porn epic “The Passion of The Christ” from it’s most fervent supporters was that it would “prove” to Hollywood the existence of a massive Christian-hardline audience and that more of the overall film output would begin to be catered to them. As you may have guessed, in my opinion there’s already too much influence by extreme-religiousity on American culture, so this is was a concern of mine as well.

While it’s not only true but also grossly-underreported that the majority of American faithful are good and decent people, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of faith-based leaders, lobbyists and special-interest groups; which were of course the very machines propping up “their” manufactured hit in “The Passion.” Most such groups are pushing not for faith and/or “morality” but instead for political agendas in the anti-freedom vein. Also, their usual reccomendations for “improving” Hollywood product: purging out curse words, nudity, sex; inserting cloying moral messages, using film to prop up their belief to the exclusion of all others, etc., would result in movies that really really really SUCK. Which is the real problem.

I was sort of hoping that the failure of Hollywood to bow before the pressure and shower “Passion” with undeserved accolades in the awards season would be the end of the dream, at least in large part. But now comes this story from Sharon Waxman of the New York Times, laying out the apparent rumblings of a movement towards, if not the “Christianizing” of the U.S. film industry, at least a troubling development to those of us who truly value freedom (they once called us “Americans”) and have the historical acumen to recall what becomes of freedom when the type of religiousity espoused by the Passionistas becomes any kind of formidable cultural force.

Here’s Waxman’s original peice, courtesy the NYT by way of the International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/19/business/christians.php

As my feelings about such have likely come up before, I’ll just say for the record that YES, it does in fact bug me to be quoting the NYT for this. If I want to read DNC talking points, I’ll just read DNC talking points is the usual extent of my “use” for said newspaper, but this time around Waxman’s peice is stocked by a good deal of quotes and free from much editorializing, so I’ll let it aboard.

From the article:
“Mel Gibson did us a service,” said Bob Waliszewski, a media specialist with Focus on the Family”

Focus on The Family is a militantly anti-choice, anti-gay rights organization, fronted by anti-freedom juggernaut Dr. James Dobson. Just thought I’d bring that up. Here’s their website, be forewarned about the vitriol of some of the content:
http://www.family.org/

The article then segues into a discussion of the biggest publicity “coup” for this so-called movmement: Disney’s very public wooing of marketing firms aimed at mollifying the evangelical audience for “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The With & The Wardrobe.”

“Paul Lauer, who on his Web site calls himself an expert in the “faith and family” market, has been hired to work on “The Chronicles of Narnia,” based on the C.S. Lewis literary fantasies, which Christian groups regard as an explicit allegory of Christ’s Resurrection.”

As I blogged before, thus far this has seemed to me to be a development that is a touch troubling in the overall but does not negatively reflect on the film proper at this time. Despite the creepiness of marketing a children’s film in the same manner as the ghastly “Passion,” a simple formulation thus far holds for me: The marketing is the marketing, and any niche you have to hit to sell the film should be considered. The problem with “Passion” in this case is that it actually was the creepshow propaganda it was often marketed to be. Thus far, I see no such indication from the makers of this film.

Now, I want something understood here: I don’t have a big problem with fundamentalist Christians having movie marketing aimed at them. Hollywood exploits everyone else’s hobbies and interests for marketing, so why shouldn’t they have that “fun,” too?

No, my issue is that films may be hurt and creativity stifled in an attempt to appeal to a market bloc that has not really been historically condusive to creative freedom. And that’s where the worrisome stuff begins to creep up:

“In some cases, such customizing has meant sanding the edges off dialogue that might offend churchgoers.”

Uh-oh.

And before anyone brings it up, YES I am equally offended when film dialogue gets a polish to avoid offending ANY special-interest group.

“For example, the actor Peter Sarsgaard, speaking at a tribute to his work during the Seattle Film Festival recently, said he was instructed to strike the word “Jesus” from his dialogue during shooting this year of the forthcoming Disney thriller “Flightplan.”

I’m sorry, but that is simply total and utter CRAP. You cannot just yank every line that MIGHT offend someone, you’ll be left with no lines.

“They said: ‘You can’t say that. You can’t take the Lord’s name in vain,”‘ Sarsgaard said he was told by the film’s producers. He said he offered to say the line more reverently, but “they wouldn’t buy it. I had to say ‘shoot,’ and that isn’t as good.”

“You can’t take the Lord’s name in vain????” This came from a film producer’s mouth as an instruction to an actor? This is faith-based censorship of the worst kind, and the makers of this film should NOT have either stood for it or engaged in it. The makers of the film (which looks pretty awful anyway, no?) should hang their heads in shame for selling out the integrity of their art like this. Disgusting.

Still, the article isn’t ALL bad news:

“There’s definitely more of an awareness, but it’s just another group to be marketed to, albeit a very strong one, with incredible grass-roots tentacles,” said Russell Schwartz, president of theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema, a Time-Warner company.”

That’s what, in my estimation, the prevailing studio additude ought to be: It’s fine to attend the party, just don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Big applause to New Line Cinema.

And then there’s always the issue of one of the more amusing bits of hypocritical behavior by the so-called “Christian-Right”… their often-noted warm relations to movie violence in spite of their often-noted dislike for movie sex:

“And just to complicate matters, a new study by a leading Hollywood marketing firm, MarketCast, suggested that not only do American Christians watch mainstream entertainment, but the most conservative among them are also drawn to violent fare.”

Wow, didn’t see that one coming, eh folks?

“What you find is that people with conservative religious doctrine are the most likely to see movies rated R for violence. If you compared it to liberals, it’s a third more.”

Hypocrisy, you say?? In a religious movement???

Ahem.

Now, lest some of you determine I’m unfairly focusing on “conservatives” here, let it be known I’ve got JUST as much disdain for anyone making anti-freedom waves on the “liberal” side.

For example, they don’t come much more “liberal” than Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has embarked on a crusade to bring down the hammer of the FCC on the video game industry:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3267154

“Clinton compared the sale of violent and pornographic video games to that of alcohol and tobacco and said it was time for a law “with real teeth.”

Put aside any thoughts of the 2008 election or your own political preferences for a moment and ask yourself something: Can you fathom ANYTHING for anti-freedom or anti-artistic than this notion? That entirely subjective IDEAS might need to be regulated as “harmful” the way drugs or stimulants are? Think about it: Under that logic, ANY creation of art, literature, whatever, could be found “harmful” on unprovable illogical grounds and subject to government regulation. Does just the sound of that scare the bejesus out of anyone but me? Just asking…

Of course, this is largely a ploy on Clinton’s part. She’s running (yes, I know what she’s said and I don’t care trust me she’s running) for the 08 presidential nomination of her party, and she knows she needs to woo “moderates” to do so. And “moderates” can be most effectively wooed by Hillary trying to look “traditional” on social issues.

So she’s picked up the pro-censorship flag, which makes sense for two reasons: It’ll WORK (no modern myth terrifies the weak-minded more than the idea of GTA turning their lil’ precious into a Columbine killer) and it still fits in the perameters of her actual politics (“it needs more government regulation” being the default-position for Senate Democrats on just about everything, after all.)

Not that I was ever all that fond of Mrs. Clinton to begin with, but it needs to be said: A proponent of censorship is a proponent of censorship is a proponent of censorship. Supporting and especially advocating such an infringement creative expression makes her every bit the enemy of freedom that James Dobson, Pat Robertson and the Passionistas are.