Frequent readers may or may not be familiar with Movieguide, the so-called “Christian” film review site from whence activist Dr. Ted Baehr issues his reviews/political pronouncements. If you’re unfamiliar, check out my previous expose on the organization and their misinformation-spreading during the Oscar season here:
http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2005/03/movieguide-misinforms-on-oscars.html

Well, Dr. Baehr is at it again in his review of the South Korean smash-hit “Oldboy.” Check it out:
http://www.movieguide.org/index.php?s=reviews&id=6831

Now, it would be wrong of me to proceed with this post without mentioning one of the elements of real praise I can offer to Movieguide. That is to say, while I’m largely opposed to almost everything they stand for and use their reviews to promote, credit must be given to Movieguide for frequently turning their attention to non-mainstream releases like this that most such sites otherwise ignore. Yes, I’m pretty much in disagreement with everything Movieguide has to say about the film, but it’s still worth noting that they are making the film known to an audience that probably wasn’t otherwise aware of it.

But then we come to a small… problem.

Right in the midst of calling the film “abhorrent,” Baehr takes a totally out-of-left-field shot at Aint-It-Cool-News web guru Harry Knowles. From Baehr’s review:

“No wonder so many secular, politically correct movie critics, like Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool, like this movie.”

Um… huh?

Okay, first, for those who don’t speak fluent Fundamentalist, “secular” means “anti-Christian” and “politically correct” means “liberal.” Their usual definitions, not mine 🙂

What’s WRONG here is that Baehr and company are taking a cheap and unwarranted shot at Knowles, and for no better reason as far as I can see than to make Movieguide look more “hip” by referencing a more “sub-celebrity” critic than Roger Ebert etc.

What’s kinda FUNNY is, it’s obvious that they’re doing so without much research, or they’d find that Knowles’ criticism (whatever else it may be) is so easy to categorize. In fact, not only did Knowles and his site host what turned out to be the public debut screening of Movieguide’s beloved “The Passion of The Christ,” but the “secular” and “politically correct” Knowles gave the film a GUSHINGLY positive review! Don’t believe me?…
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17152

Ahem.

The lesson here is not to rush to judgement. If I wanted to be coy, I think there’s a couple of passages in a certain old, popular book that I think Movieguide’s staff is pretty familiar with that has some choice things to say about judgement I could quote…

If I wanted to be coy, that is 🙂

Here’s the new one from Mike Binder, an writer/director/actor who’s very existence places me in a fairly exclusive group of people; namely folks living outside of the film industry who had heard of him before about a year ago. If you followed the brief spate of early-1990s films with an eye on being “the next ‘Big Chill,” you might have seen a charming little film he wrote and directed called “Indian Summer,” (which was likely more widely-seen for the presence of Sam Raimi as an actor than anything else.)

My aquaintance with Binder’s work begins about three years back via a low-budget indie comedy he made called “Sex Monster,” starring Mariel Hemingway as a woman who becomes “addicted” to lesbian-sex after being talked into a threesome by her husband (Binder.) The “hook” to the film is that we see almost none of the sex scenes, instead concentrating on the allegedly-humorous reactions of Binder’s hard-luck hero. As you might expect, this movie plays like a Jet Li movie where they close the door on all the fight sequences.

I “got” what Binder was going for with “Sex Monster,” in trying to examine the “dynamic” of the situation devoid of the distractions that would come from visualizing the film’s more “exploitative” elements, (i.e. Mariel Hemingway executing a flawless faceplant into the lap of a dinner guest’s comely college-age daughter.) Trouble is, the film just wasn’t terribly interesting outside of it’s premise, playing too much like “Live Nude Girls,” “Just a Little Harmless Sex” and all the other little indie comedies operating under the mistaken impression that they have something new and profound to say about adult relationships. Following this, Binder had a brief HBO series, “Mind of the Married Man” which suffered from more of the same problem.

That being said, whatever may have been wrong with Binder’s work prior has evaporated from this film: “The Upside of Anger” is the best Romantic Comedy/Drama for grownups in a long, long time. The actors are terrific, Binder’s script is spot-on and it’s genuinely funny, moving and interesting. It’s a damn, damn good movie, and you owe it to yourself to go see it even if it looks about as far away from “your thing” as you can imagine.

The story, in truth, plays like a thoroughly-modern take on Douglas Sirk’s cycle of 1950s “women’s pictures” (as opposed to Todd Hayne’s retro-reworking of the same, “Far From Heaven,”) in which classy, socially well-off women struggled to maintain dignity and composure amidst foundation-shaking emotional crisis. Whether intentional or not, the film mirrors Sirk’s entries beyond just setup and theme; it shares with them the visual fondness for idyllic, pastoral upper-class suburban enclaves perpetually “glossed” by autmun foliage or fresh-fallen snow. What Binder brings to the material is subtle but important, a life-informed subtext that understands that these characters are not inhabiting a Norman Rockwell world but rather a “real” world which they themselves have attempted to sculpt-into a Rockwell reflection.

Joan Allen, that radiant actress able better than anyone to embody a beautiful older woman as opposed to a beautiful woman who happens to be older, stars as the above-described classy, socially well-off woman; here Terry Wolfmeyer, a mother of four daughters (three college-aged and a teenager) who’s husband has fled the country with his Swedish secretary, leaving no trace and seemingly no desire to be seen again. She slips in a perpetual (but always presentable) alcoholic-haze, which gradually alienates her daughters but more-quickly earns her a new best friend: Denny, (Kevin Costner,) a similarly-alcoholic neighbor who, through encounters that surely make perfect sense to those thusly innebriated, becomes first her drinking buddy, then regular dinner guest and eventually lover but never quite her “boyfriend,” as if some silent agreement has been struck between them that two people in what looks to be their 50s really oughtn’t bother with youthful dating-pleasantries.

It shows a certain maturity and unique understanding (read: he knows people just like this) on Binder’s part, I think, that Terry and Denny exist not as comical movie-drunks or self-destructive “Leaving Las Vegas” tragic-drunks but as the more rarely-seen breed of the Functional Alcoholic. This, of course, is just like a regular alcoholic save that they possess the financial comfortability and modicum of restraint to avoid serious trouble. Granted, Terry and Denny are hardly Nick and Nora Charles, but it reads clear that they’re much less harmed by their drinking than they are by avoiding the problems driving them to drink in the first place. In their more lucid moments between casual substance-abuse, they share casual walks and enjoy casual sex, and it’s easy to see that for all that it isn’t their relationship “works” in the casual way they both need it to…

…except that it can’t, because Terry’s girls with their whole lives ahead of them need a mother who can nuture them and a father figure to help, and while neither Terry or Denny is well-suited to either of these roles they gradually get their acts (mostly) together to help the girls through a difficult two (or more) year period which the film covers.

What’s best about the film’s branching storylines involving the Wolfmeyer daughters is that they are played smart and without need for unnecessary shouting and histrionics: In no particular order, Terry is asked to deal with one daughter’s sudden marriage, another’s dating a much older man and another’s development of an eating disorder. It’s obvious that these problems are all reactions to their father’s absence, but the film trusts you to get that and never really vocalizes the concept. What’s more, the film deftly avoids falling into a rythym by which all of the problems are an excuse for Terry to explode into comedic fury. Oh, she gets mad all right… but for the most part her reaction is entirely in-character and realistic: She usually just leaves the scene, immediately intuitive of situations where there’s simply nothing she can do. The three daughters with the biggest problems are all adults, after all, and if nothing else the film is ABOUT learning to live with life’s imperfections.

On that note, kudos to the film’s handling of the subplot of the youngest daughter experimenting with drugs, or rather that the film DOESN’T deal with it. The character is shown using a bong with a friend, and… that’s about it. The film has bigger fish to fry, and it wisely avoids the mistake of treating this indiscretion as anywhere near worth the “drama” of the near-fatal eating disorder, the hurried marriage or the exploitation of a younger girl by an older man. It’s a character detail, a small piece of a larger arc for the girl, and the film is smart enough to know that an extraneous scene of Costner or Allen crashing through her door, raising a righteous finger to heaven and mouthing D.A.R.E. slogans (not in the least because Terry and Denny are in NO position to lecture anyone else about substance abuse, after all.)

And hey, let’s here it for Kevin Costner, in what could end up being the career-reboot he needed. He hasn’t been this good in a movie for a good long time, so good for him!

This is just a fine film, even better than I hope I’ve made it sound (for reasons it would be wrong for me to tell you here.) There’s not a smarter movie about romance, relationships, family etc. playing in theaters right now. Highly reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

…still as of yet undetermined 🙂

But we now know who the actor filling the costume (or latex makeup appliance, or whatever) will be: Thomas Hayden Church, who if he knows whats good for him is right building a golden idol in graditude to his “Sideways” director Alexander Payne.

This comes pretty-much out of left field, as the only prior rumblings to be heard on the subject was a widely-reported story last week that Chloe Sevigny was (supposedly) aching to play a “sexy blonde villianess” that (supposedly) is scheduled for the next film. This pointed hard in the direction of a heroine/villianess character called The Black Cat, whom spider-fans have been aching to see in the live-action films for awhile now. Here’s why:
http://www.hillcity-comics.com/poster_misc/black_cat.jpg

‘Nuff said.

Sony etc. are keeping it still very close to their vest as to exactly whom Church would be playing, but since they now have an actor we should know fairly soon. Naming Church before releasing his role is a good strategy on Sony’s part, I’d imagine, as it allows fans to digest the notion of him as an actor without having the added variant of how “right” he is for the role. But until then, let the speculation begin!

So far, only one potential baddie (not counting the previously-dispatched Doctor Octopus and Green Golbin) would seem likely to be off the table, and that’s The Lizard. Rationale: Lizard’s alter-ego, Dr. Curt Connors, already popped up played by Dylan Baker in the second film, even sporting the missing arm that ties into Lizard’s origin-story. Of course, they could have recast, but if they had one would think we’d have heard something.

The name you’ll hear bandied about quite a bit is Venom, as thats the name that’s always bandied about when they announce a new Spider-Man foe. Me, I’ve never been at that nuts about Venom (a “monster” version of Spider-Man) outside of his origin story. But that’s just me. When it came to “evil versions of the hero” in Spider-Man lore, I was always much more fond of Mac Gargan, aka The Scorpion, or even The Tarantula.

Venom: http://www.keystar-r-s.com/reviews/pics/comics/marvel/Venom.jpg

Scorpion: http://www.virtualtoychest.com/spiderman/spidscorpion.jpg

Tarantula: http://www.allsf.net/Images/SFbd/US1/Spiderman%20147.jpg

But that’s just me.

Now, as far as Church goes, Hm…. damn good actor, great to see him in a role like this, but hm… who do I think he’s going to be? Well, dunno. Honestly, he’d make an interesting Venom (my opinion of Venom as a character aside) but for some reason he strikes me as more immediately reminiscient of Max Dillon, better known as Electro. Guess what he does. Go on, guess.

Electro: http://www.alaph.com/spiderman/pictures/enemies/electro/electro02.jpg

There’s also perenial fan-favorite Mysterio (a washed-out movie special-FX guy who commits crimes using Hollywood-style illusions), who would be spectacularly cool on film but who’s lack of a visible face makes it hard to “dream cast” for:

Mysterio: http://www.geocities.com/bulmasan/mysterio/mysterio.jpg

Anyway, thats the news.

Oh, and Sony… if it is Electro… please keep the big star-shaped mask. The big star-shaped mask is awesome 🙂

At this point, I am feeling like the only (even-semi)-political blogger who has had nothing so far to say about Terri Schiavo. My reasons for this are simple: It had NOTHING to do with the overall thematics of my blog, and I didn’t want to go off on a tear about something that, honestly, I do not know all of the facts about. This is none of my business. Unless you are related to someone in this situation in Florida, it’s none of your business either. So I had nothing to say.

That has changed. Yesterday evening, Congress, acting largely under the impetus of the Bush White House, convened an “emergency” session and RAMMED THROUGH legislation to create a special one-time brand-new law that would allow them to intervene in the case. I now have something to say:

What I have to say here is my opinion and my opinion only. Flame away if you like.

What Congress and the President did is wrong. They have overstepped their jurisdiction, and have made a mockery of the Constitution of the United States in doing so. They have injected themselves into a private family dispute that has been settled according to the laws of the State of Florida. Twenty Florida State Judges, in twenty-three court cases on the matter over a period of fifteen years have all found, according to the laws passed by the duly-elected members of the State Legistlature, in favor of Michael Schiavo’s claim. You may disagree with the laws. You may believe that Mr. Schiavo has sinister motives. You may believe anything you wish to. But the law has been followed, due process has been served, and no violation of the constitution or overall federal law (which would allow for “emergency” actions) has been found (and, again, the opposing side has been trying to find such for FIFTEEN YEARS.)

But now, because they “believe” that it is the “right” thing to do, the Congress and President of the United States have decided it proper that they leap right over the checks-and-balances and waaaaayyyyy over what is supposed to be the Republican Party’s ideological commitment to state’s rights. Whether or not you agree with the intentions behind it, this “emergency action” is a slap in the face to the State Legislators who passed the laws and American Citizens who voted for those Legislators.

Let’s be very clear here: I am not advocating in favor of one side or the other in the actual Schiavo matter. That case is complex, personal, family-based and ideologically wrenching no matter which side you are on. It’s one of the most complicated and nuanced family-law disputes in many a moon, really. For the record: I am a supporter of the right-to-die, however the various uncertanties in this case do not lend themselves to any easy yes or no answer. The situation of that case, especially from the legal standpoint, is PROFOUNDLY intricate…

…but the situation of the Congressional and Presidential involvement in this case is NOT complex. It’s mind-bogglingly simple: They have no right to be involved. This is STATE matter in the hands of the Florida STATE judiciary. Until said judiciary violates the laws of the state or of the country, the Federal government has no right to get involved. Now, you may believe that a moral law is being violated here. Fine, you are allowed to believe that. But our laws are not determined by morality, they are determined by The Constitution of The United States. It does not matter how “righteous” you think your cause to be, no politician, President or otherwise, has the right to violate our Founding Document in order to get their way.

Some, I know, who felt passionately (and more power to them, seriously) that Terri had to be “saved” are no doubt thrilled about this, the notion of the Great And Powerful Government riding to her rescue like a Soldier of God on a charging white steed. But ask yourself this: Would you be as inspired if Congress was being as bold in favor of a cause you were against? If another president, some years from now, were to call an emergency session of congress in order to steamroll legislation through that would legalize late-term abortion across the nation regardless of State laws against it… would you still cheer for that overreach of Federal power? Or is it only okay when “the Good Guys” do it?

Our Constitution, our legal system and even the often-torturous lengths of process that are involved in both all exist for a reason: to protect freedom and ensure a system of government whereby things like this cannot happen. The idea of one man or one political party taking “hold” of a situation in order to ensure an outcome that pleases their ideology regardless of law or process is the exactly the sort of thing that Thomas Jefferson wrote his landmark documents to protect us against. The law is not perfect. Sometimes it does not come out the way “we” want, sometimes it moves too “slow” for our desire for “justice.” These imperfections are the price we pay for Democracy. The actions of Congress in this case may or may not be rooted in the best of intentions, but those intentions are rendered moot by the simple fact that these actions are unconstitutional.

The moral merits of all sides of the Schiavo case are important, literally matters of life and death, and they are worth as much debate and hand-wringing and argument and shouting and editorializing as all those interested can muster. But nothing is worth trampling on the Constitution and State’s Rights. NOTHING. The Constitution will, most-likely, survive this latest assault, but that’s not the point. It shouldn’t have to endure ANY assault.

That’s my opinion. I’d like to hear yours.

If you’re an internet-saavy movie-geek, there’s probably a good chance you known who Jeffrey Wells is. If not, read on:

Wells is a web-based film columnist of some note, responsible for a column called “Hollywood Elsewhere:”
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/

The “hook” is mostly that Wells is a sort of traveling-minstrel-as-critic, seemingly leaping from festival to festival to screening to screening all over the Western world, peppering his cinematic musings with travelogue notes and photos of hotel rooms, etc. It’s good stuff, even though I seldom agree with Well’s take on the medium, it always makes my weekly reading.

Certainly not a bad film writer by any means, but when Wells gets ink it’s usually for what he’s not than what he is, i.e. a web-based film writer defiantly not occupying the movie geek strata with the likes of AICN, CHUD or yours truly. Wells takes particular sport in antagonizing movie geeks and geeks in general, whom he appears to see as a kind of unworthy “lower life-form” making in-roads into the film world that previously “belonged” to old-school film snobs like himself. At least that’s my take 🙂

There’s a pattern at play here, or at least there seems to be from my perspective: Wells appears to be of the opinion, (shared by, I believe, a certain majority of so-called “serious” film scholars,) that the films and genres that generally form the foundations of “movie geek culture,” (horror, scifi, fantasy, etc. and especially those based on graphic novels,) are on-their-face unworthy of serious merit as films and are “harming” the medium by their very existance. During the period that his site was running as a subset of Kevin Smith’s “moviepoopshoot.com,” Wells most famous “contentious” moments with movie geeks involved his three-years-running state of disbelief and resentment that anyone was taking the LOTR trilogy seriously.

Now, I like Wells. He was even gracious enough to print a letter of mine once massively disagreeing with him right on the main site. Stand-up guy.

But his knee-jerk loathing of film geeks, and the air of snobbery that seems to informing it, it’s an annoying trait that undermines his otherwise solid work every single time it comes up. Case in point:

Wells posted a lengthy column last week about his looking forward to the upcoming “Sin City” movie, despite it’s comic origins. Good peice, mostly involving an anonymous positive review sent in from another source. In the “blog” portion of his site that always occupies the center of the weekly column, Wells today posts a brief that he’s seen the film and adores the black and white photography, but we’re going to have to wait for the full peice apparently. So far, so good…

But then his “thing” about geeks comes up out of left field. Apparently, while he liked at least something about the film, he’s still defiantly dead-set that a line must be drawn between “real” films and a “lower” geek-genre piece like this. From Wells:

“But take no notice of anyone (Rodriguez included) calling this a film noir flick. There is real film noir — crime movies made with a downbeat fatalistic attitude, and grounded in a reasonable facsimile of human truth — and there is simplified noir lite for chumps.”

Now… there’s certainly some hay to be made off the GROTESQUE overuse of the term “film noir” these days. And I’m sure a long and interesting piece could be written to remind people that the term is really kind of broadly-applied, as it didn’t even exist until a few decades AFTER the films it describes had largely run out their original cycle.

(BTW, film noir: Generally describes crime-related films made roughly from the 30s to the late-40s in the United States prominently involving characters and situations of murky, difficultly-defined morality. Term covers a wide variety of genres, was coined by French film scholars roughly in the early 60s to describe the “cycle” of such films as occuring at their particular period of U.S. film history.)– Me.

Anyhow, thats not really what Mr. Wells is talking about here. His REAL issue (unless I’m waaaaaay misunderstanding him here) is that, in his view, the various “out-there” elements of “Sin City” owing to it’s graphic novel origins make it unworthy of mention with “real” (read: traditional) Film Noir. And in case there was any doubt:

“This is noir as re-imagined by Frank Miller and digested by comic-book geeks in their 30s who live in their lonely heads and haven’t gotten laid very much or gotten to know women at all.”

Ugh. Y’know, he didn’t even get the stereotype completely right. Hey, Jeff, you forget to reference “living in their mother’s basement,” man. At least use proper psuedo-bigotry 🙂

But seriously, Jeff, why the hate? What did we ever do to you? You’ve got some issues with “Sin City,” great! Write the review, explain what the issues are. Why the need to just go take a cheap shot at a whole massive (and ever-expanding) segment of film fandom? What is it about Geek Culture that you so resent?

Whats going on here, really, is more evidence of a changing-of-the-gaurds in terms of the driving force of film-fandom: The age of the Film Buffs is being, by leaps and bounds, overtaken by the Movie Geeks. And with every epic about Elves that wins best picture and every comic book that becomes a blockbuster megahit and every serious actor who declares they just can’t wait to slip into a cape, swing an ornate sword or fly on Woo-Ping’s wires, the Age of Geek Cinema becomes more and more real. And a lot of folks, apparently including Mr. Wells, just aren’t happy about it.

Oh, well 🙂

Warning: Review will be relatively spoiler-free, but some may slip in here and there. You have been warned.

Whatever else it may be, “The Ring Two” is an invaluable case-study for film critics and those who aspire to be; it’s a chance to hone our skills on one of the oldest and most stubborn problems in regard to the critique of any work on narrative storytelling: Just how connected IS a film’s overall effectiveness to it’s effectiveness within the confines of it’s genre?

The film is a singularly strange animal: It’s direction, production, pacing and editing are all fine. It’s story is interesting and engaging, competently fulfilling the good-sequel mission of taking the material in a new direction while expanding our understanding of the mythology and backstory. The actors are all doing solid, competent work and the screenplay is solidly-structured. Judged on THOSE merits, i.e. the raw-basics of narrative cinema, “The Ring Two” is a solid entry.

The trouble is, “The Ring Two” is not only concieved as a work of narrative drama. It’s also a Horror Movie, and yet it is not even the tiniest bit scary. So, then, how does one deal with this? Has the film failed at one mission but suceeded at another and, if so, does it’s failure to be scary negate it’s “success” at telling it’s actual story?

The sequel takes place some time after the events of “The Ring.” To recap: The original film focused on an anonymous haunted video-tape, a kind of urban legend come to life. Anyone who watches the surrealistic imagery recorded therein (it’s look like a two-minute Naya Deren film) becomes cursed, charged to die within a week’s time unless they show it to someone else (who must then show it to someone else, and so-on and so-forth.) The tape has been manifested by Samara Morgan, the vengeful ghost of a little girl who was (apparently) shunned and eventually drowned in a well by her parents, who believed the child’s latent (demonic?) telekinetic powers were responsible for the mass-deaths plauging their horse farm’s livestock.

All of this mystery was uncovered and solved by lady reporter Rachel (Naomi Watts) and her young son Aidan, but the film climaxed with a delightfully cruel twist: After a whole 3rd-act’s worth of playing brilliantly to the audience’s expectations that child-ghosts are “always” misunderstood abuse-victims who just want someone to get them some justice, Samara is revealed to seemingly actually be the homocidal lil’ hellspawn her parents thought she was, and the cursed-videos are little more than her outlet to continue her wicked ways from beyond.

The sequel picks up with Rachel and Aidan having fled Seattle for a little seaside community, believing that by passing the curse on through a copy of the tape they have made an infernal bargain for peace with Samara. Rachel has, apparently, never read a Stephen King book in her lifetime or she would know that small coastal towns are the last place on Earth you should go with that sort of thing in your past, but nevermind. With great efficiency, cursed tapes starts popping up along with corpses mangled in a familiar style and Samara starts showing up in little Aidan’s digital photographs.

As the trailers, posters and TV spots have already informed you, the tape is mostly out as the signature symbol-of-menace as Samara takes center stage; leaping in and out of TV sets and her victims nightmares with a new plan (or maybe this was the idea all along) to possess Aidan and claim Rachel as her mother. This new notion of Samara (whatever she is) desiring a maternal figure becomes the central subtext of the film, and we get some perspective on this from Sissy Spaceky as Samara’s long-institutionalized birth-mother (this casting is, of course, an exercise in generating metatext as Spacek played the literal mother of all telekinetic abuse-victims in “Carrie.”) The notion is raised that Samara may have “had” to be drowned because she was herself under some sort of demonic influence, and the film is suprisingly frank about positing this as a kind of worst-case-scenario explaination for Post-Partem Depression child-murders. (It’s also suggested that Samara was fathered by some otherworldly being “from the waters beyond our world,” a gleefully Lovecraftian turn-of-phrase that is sadly never quite paid off.)

All of this is executed with style and poise. Hideo Nakata, who directed the original Japanese “Ringu” that inspired the first film (and about 70% of all scary movies now made in Japan,) has a good eye and a fine sense of pace. The actors are uniformly good, though there isn’t as much room for a supporting cast as there was in the first film. As I said before, it’s well-made, well-written and well-acted… and yet, it’s just not scary. Not once.

Understand, I’m not making demands of the film. Frequent readers of this blog will know I would prefer to see the world of genre become MORE liquid and interwoven, and I’m certainly not placing some kind of scare-quota on the film just because of it’s supernatural setting. If it appeared at all that the “point” of this film was to eschew the horror genre for a more character-drama slanted sequel, that’d be a different story. The first field put Samara’s appearance, powers and technique all on the table, so logically the second film should be more about learning and understanding than it is about trying to build suspense for a “monster” we’ve already met once.

What it comes down to is, the film HAS scare-scenes. It WASN’T designed to merely be a drama, there are scenes that are constructed, edited and scored to make you jump or feel tension, and they just don’t work. The film essentially tries to repeat the “holy crap!” vibe of the original’s “Samara emerges” climax over and over again, and it just won’t work more than that once. The strange thing is, the screenplay while not providing scares IS well-structured enough that, at first, it’s difficult to notice that something isn’t right: most of the time, bad scares are easy to spot because a film goes to great plot-strain to get them in. Here, the non-scary scary parts all occur within the framework of logical plot-progression, so it takes awhile to realize that the film is basically blowing-it on it’s primary mission.

Interesting and well-made but ultimately a failure at generating it’s intended emotional response from the audience. It’s just not scary, and it’s trying hard enough to be scary that it becomes a pretty big problem. Worth seeing for curiousity’s sake, but ultimately lackluster and dissapointing.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

disclaimer: Frequent readers to this blog will already be aware that MovieBob’s definition of an “enemy of freedom” casts a pretty wide net, essentially encompassing ANYONE in or seeking a position of regulatory power who is in favor of increasing OR opposed to decreasing (or, ideally, eliminating) Government-enforced censorship of radio, television, film, print or radio. As the First Ammendment to the Constitution of the United States establishes a freedom, and as almost all such censorship violates this freedom, the by Socratic method I feel comfortable in refering to censorship advocates as being enemies of that freedom.

That being said, the answer to the above question is… possibly.

With Michael Powell having stepped down as FCC head, the new appointee announced today is one Kevin Martin. As was expected, Martin is a preexisting member of the FCC and thus will be allowed to skip the confirmation hearings which have dogged Bush appointees for most of his tenure thus far. Martin’s “promotion” does, however, leave a vacancy which will need to be filled by appointment, which has the unlikely chance of turning out well for those of us who value freedom if an anti-censorship appointee were to be named. (But don’t hold your breath, since Senator Clinton has already shown that the Democrats’ move-to-the-middle strategy is right now heavily contingent on their cozying up to the far-right support for censorship of the arts.)

Surprising no one, Martin is a career politician with strong ties to the current White House: A former campaign counselor and economic advisor to the 2001 Bush campaign, his wife is an economic policy special-assistant to the president and previous worked for Vice President Cheney.

The Brandenton Herald has a good just-the-facts writeup:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/11155318.htm

So… is Martin going to be a friend or foe to to the First Ammendment in the current climate of pro-censorship lionhearts like L. Brent Bozell’s “Parent’s Television Council” continuing to escalate their war on broadly-defined “indecency?” Well, he’s certainly not a hardliner, or at least has never made any big waves as one thus far. However, he DOES appear to buy into the same “family programming”-centric mantras as Bozell does. Among the paltry “paper-trail” on Martin right now is this brief mention in an article from the invaluable Cato Institute, which lists him as among those who wish to extend the already-ludicrous “decency standards” in place for network television to Cable:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-23-04.html

Money quote from Cato (boldface is mine): “For example, during recent hearings, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) suggested that Congress needs to create a “code of conduct” for television that encompasses cable and satellite TV. And Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Republican FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin both suggested that cable and satellite companies should offer a “family-friendly” tier of programming.”

Yeah, not exactly the pedigree I was personally aching for in an FCC chairman.

By the way, if you’ve still never heard of Cato, it’s time you did. A kind of all-in-one information outlet for Libertarian-minded Americans, Cato (and especially their media guru Adam Thierer) is one of the most powerful and politically-fair advocates of the first ammendment out there. One more GREAT quote from Thierer:

“Moreover, what happened to common sense and personal responsibility in this country? After all, these cable and satellite boxes and personal computers and Internet connections didn’t just magically appear in our homes; we put them there! Once we voluntarily bring these devices into our home we shouldn’t ask government to assume the bulk of the responsibility for then minding our children.”

Amen. Now THERE is an American who understands what freedom, and the responsibility attendant to it, is really all about.

Now, the other side to this is that Martin has, in the past, shown himself to be a potential proponent of dregulation, that is to say a gradual but steady dissolution of the FCC’s overall powers in the policing of the industry from the business side. He was in favor of drastic deregulation of the phone companies previously, and clashed with Powell over the issue numerous times. Here, a small Texas telecom biz sees his ascension as a good sign:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050316/daw041_3.html

The reason this might be good for everyone is that deregulation-advocates are generally pro-business and will generally fall on the side of “whats best for the industry botton-line,” and anyone in the industry with a brain will tell you that LESS censorship and GREATER leeway for “harder” content is more profitable for them. So there’s that possible bright spot, and all the more reason to be fair and not get TOO worried about this fellow until he actually starts showing a legislative style in his new post.

However…

L. Brent Bozell and his anti-freedom pro-censorship group The Parents Television Council think he’s great for the job…
http://www.parentstv.org/ptc/publications/release/2005/0316.asp
…and that, people, is a VERY good reason to be concerned.

From the PTC: “The PTC has strongly supported Kevin Martin as Chairman of the FCC because he is a stalwart leader on the issue of indecency, and we are confident he will make a superb Chairman,” said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council.”

BTW, you can read my expose on Bozell, the PTC and their FCC-baiting pro-censorship skullduggery here:
http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2005/02/your-freedom-is-in-danger-plus-meet.html

Now, to be fair, the PTC “liked” Michael Powell until he started calling them on their agenda and dumping their mass-mailings, so this could just be some strategic posturing. Still, if Bozell likes a choice for this job, chances are he thinks theres at least a chance that this new leader might be a comrade-in-arms in his endless campaign to control what you and I are allowed to see.

In the end, FCC chairmen will come and go, and eventually so will Bozell and his cronies. But until we wake up and accept the fact that censorship will never work and will always be a violation of basic human freedoms we’ll just keep doing this same dance. On that note, I leave you with a final admonition from Cato’s Adam Theirer:

“Those of us who are parents understand that raising a child in today’s modern media marketplace is a daunting task at times. But that should not serve as an excuse for inviting Uncle Sam in to play the role of surrogate parent for us and the rest of the public without children.”

The battle continues.

Let me be very clear about something: When I issued my original post wherein I tried to be a voice of reason about the surprising (some would say “worrisome”) move by Disney to hire a Christian-oriented marketing firm previously connected to “The Passion” in order to promote their upcoming “Chronicles of Narnia” film to a religious niche-audience. My position was that, while it’s certainly within the realm of reason to feel a need for extra caution whenever the so-called “Religious Right” shows signs of infiltrating the popular cinema culture, the mere hiring of a niche-marketing firm that caters to a Christian audience is not in and of itself cause for alarm. That position, defined in those terms, still stands.

And to those Christians among my readership who may feel offended by the insinuation that portions of “your” movement entering into the pop culture is something to be “feared,” I can only offer that I do not refer to all of Christianity or even the majority of Christians, but I soundly refuse to modify my position. So long as the “leadership” of the religious right continues to be dominated by pro-censorship, anti-freedom, hate-spreading theocrats like Robertson, Dobson, Phelps and Falwell, I will continue to hold that any movement operating under such leadership gaining a foothold in the media culture is something that freedom-loving Americans should oppose.

And why, yes, I happen to feel the same way about all other religious fundamentalism, too.

Ahem. Anyway, the situation i.e. Disney and Narnia has grown more complicated. There are now levels and gradients to the story that require one who is interested in it to take a new look and form new, additional opinions to go along as ammendments to the original. On that, I offer up this recent article on the topic from the Orlando Sentinel:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-narnia16031605mar16%2C0%2C56410.story?coll=orl-caltop

The topic of the article is, admittedly, a new but entirely appropriate angle that even I had not thought of in relation to the story: namely, what does this sudden cozying-up to the Evangelical crowd do to the nationwide boycott they were supposed to be having against Disney?

If you’re only JUST NOW remembering that this boycott existed, don’t worry. Almost no one really ever cared or fully participated in the movement, started back in the late 1990s mostly by the Southern Baptist Convention as an attempt to “punish” Disney for alleged crimes against American Christians. These “crimes” included:

• The making of films that envinced a worldview other than that of the protesters. Well, at least it’s not something petty.
• The promotion of “Gay Days” at company theme parks to entice gay vacationers. The fiends! (apparently the “Christian Right” only appreciates Disney’s niche-marketing when THEY are the niche. Hm.)
• The extension of spousal health-benefits to employees with same-sex significant others. Well, at least that one makes sense for them to be upset about. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything Christ-like about being charitable to members of a persecuted minority, right?

Ahem. In any case, the great Christian Boycott of Disney is basically a massive colossal failure on almost every level, unless you want to posit that Disney’s loooong string of boxoffice failures has been the whim of divine intervention as opposed to the results of astonishingly poor filmmaking. But now, with the Mouse House actively reaching out to “the Christian community” to promote the fantasy film based on C.S. Lewis’ allegorical Christian-flavored swords & sorcery fairytale, some leaders seem ready to either put the boycott to rest or, at least, take the opportunity and call it off as “victorious” while they’ve got something to spin.

Hey, all well and good with me.

Now, here’s a quote from the article that adds a troubling new layer to all of this:

“One of the groups that led the boycott, Colorado-based Focus on the Family, has been included in the early stages of the marketing campaign.”

Uh oh.

“Focus on the Family” is run by one Dr. James Dobson, a hugely influential “culture warrior” who is, right down the line, ant-choice, anti-gay and pro-censorship. In terms of people on the right AND left I define as an enemy of freedom, Dobson is ALWAYS near the top of the list. Here’s his website:

http://www.family.org/

Go ahead, surf around. It’s helpful to be reminded that creatures like Dobson are not just boogeyman invented by “paranoid” people like myself: They’re real, and they’re scary. Dobson cloaks his agenda behind being a sort of “counselor” for families with problems, but the “aid” he offers is based in propaganda and psuedo-science: Focus openly endorses such typical Religious “Right” propaganda as homosexual “reprogramming” and the (again) 100% UNPROVABLE myth of media-imagined violence “causing” the real thing.

Of course, it’s Dobson’s right to spread hate, psuedo-science and propaganda: That’s his right under the First Ammendment that he and his fellow censorship-advocates have so little respect for. HOWEVER, to learn that Disney is including this organization in their outreach effort is a depressing move, one that shows that the Mouse House is not going about this with the care they need to and one that, while I continue to support the IDEA of Disney niche-marketing the religious audience for this film, I simply cannot support: Dobson and Focus are, I’m sorry, NOT good people… and giving them some kind of possible connection to this film is a bad decision that will come back to haunt them.

It comes down to this, Disney guys: In the long run, you do not want someone like Dobson seen as your “partner” in this venture. Forget for a moment that he’s a demagogue and propagandist for dangerous religious extremism, and TRY to forget (if your aware in the first place) what an insult his connection to the film is to the memory of C.S. Lewis, who’s theories of reason-based Christianity are the precise opposite of the regressive fundamentalist “because the book says so!” theology of Dobson and his comrades. Think of this in business terms: In that same Sentinel article, Disney reps are quoted saying that they plan equally-strong niche-marketing to “fantasy audiences” and “adventure audiences.” Newsflash to Disney: A HUGE contingent of both of those audiences (“fantasy” in particular) are made up of gays, “secularists,” neo-pagans and other folks who are well aware that Dobson considers them and their very existance to be sinful and evil: he regularly rails against such folks in his writings and speeches. Do you want such a divisive, hateful figure to be associated with you’re family fairytale film?

I’m doing, I believe, my best to be fair and honest here: Disney’s initial instinct to market “Narnia” movies to a Religious audience is a fine and dandy thing, but to involve fringe extremists like Dobson and his organizations in the proceedings is a mistake on nearly every level, and while it doesn’t really tarnish the FILM itself any (yet), it’s still a shame that not even the powerful Disney cannot find a way to appeal to American Christians without making deals with regressive anti-freedom “leaders” like Dobson.

I can only say that I hope this does not end up harming the release of the film too much or the film itself AT ALL, and that in the humble opinion of one fan; Aslan and his fellows (even that rascal Edmund) deserve better company than they are now being afforded; and perhaps content myself with the knowledge that Narnia has outlasted and risen above demagoguery and fundamentalism before, and that it will do so again.

Here’s an odd duck from Japan, which may or may not have popped up without much fanfare on your local rental outlet’s shelves. It’s being promoted as a “high-end” Asian import, which is code-talk meant to signal to “discerning” (read: “vaugely snooty”) Cineastes that it is free of giant monsters, equally-giant robots piloted by emotionally troubled tween-agers, long-haired homocidal poltergiests, tentacles with sexual preferences, characters proficient in the martial-arts, and all the other “lower genre” elements that defines so much of popular Asian cinema in America (and, lets be fair here, popular Asian cinema in Asia.)

All well and good, as promotion goes, until one of these “discerning” folks actually rents the thing and discovers with some surprise that this “high-end” entry includes “lower-end” staples of recent Japanese pop-film like out-of-left-field carnage and a psychotic gang of teenaged nihilists, and that much of it’s story arc revolves around the invasion of Tokyo by an army of ultra-poisonous, freshwater-acclimated jellyfish. Which isn’t to imply that “Bright Future” is indeed some sort of mis-marketed J-horror shocker, but more to remind us all that Japan continues it’s reign as the world’s leading producer of “what the hell!?” filmmaking.

The director is Kiyoshi Kurosawa, generally known for more “traditional” genre pics like “Pulse” but here offering up something more like an observational character-drama occuring on the margins of a “standard” nature’s-revenge piece. It’s an “attack of the kille whatevers” flick where the central “whatevers” (Red Jellies conditioned to survive in fresh water) seem to have at once everything and nothing to do with the movie itself. They seem to be some kind of visualized metaphor for the film’s overall point, and also as a kind of literalized counterpoint to some human element in the film, but exactly what the point may be or which human characters are meant to be the counterpoint is entirely debatable.

The plot, such as it is, centers on a pair of socially-disaffected twentysomethings named Nimura and Mamoru who seem content to work their crappy part-time job, hang out in arcades and indulge in their mutual hobby of “teaching” Mamoru’s pet Jellyfish to breath fresh water by gradually desalinizing it’s fishtank. The sudden intrusion into their lives of their overreager boss, who wants them to become more-responsible full-time employees and possibly his midlife-crisis “young pals” leads to a not-quite-misunderstanding about the Jellyfish, which leads to Mamoru getting fired, which in turn leads to an inexplicable act of terrible violence that turns Mamoru into a condemned criminal and Nimura into the Jellyfish’s sole owner.

In short order, Nimura’s life and sanity begin to deteriorate, the Jellyfish escapes into the Tokyo canals, Mamoru’s estranged father and Nimura meet and form a kind of surrogate-family relationship, and Nimura briefly tries his hand at office work. Around the same time that Nimura finds himself voted the de-facto leader of a Clockwork Orange-esque gang of street punks the Jellyfish re-emerges with an army of offspring that launch a reign of not-quite-terror-more-like-annoyance in the city.

I think an argument can be made that, at least on one level, “Bright Future” is hovering in the realm of the Fudoh/Suicide Club/Battle Royale cycle of abstract tales of Japanese youth in rebellion, with the docile-but-don’t-bother-them Jellyfish acting as a symbolic warning against disturbing the content slacker-hood of guys like Nimura and Mamoru. This would certainly hold, given that Nimura eventually seems to “generate” an army of destruction-prone young followers at the precise time that the Jellyfish swarms into Tokyo with it’s newfound brood. But it’s also entirely possible that there’s both much more and much less going on here than there appears, especially given strange details such as how the strangy body of water beneath Tokyo through which the Jelly escapes Nimura’s house into the city canals only seems to exist some of the time. And, of course, as is the case with so much of Japanese cinema a slight hint of impending apocalypse seems always in the air.

This is definately not something for everyone, but I dug it. It’s got something, and it’s worth a look if you get the opportunity to do so.

WARNING: This review will be kept as spoiler-free as possible, but proceed with caution nontheless.

“Hostage” is being billed as a gritty action/thriller, and that it is but also much more. Fueled by an international (and inter-media) criss-crossing of talent that finds quintessential American everyman-hero Bruce Willis occupying a movie world set in a “California” more reminiscient of recent French suspense thrillers and frequently drenched in bold, over-the-top style of Italian “giallo” shockers. It feels as though birthed from a kind of primordial melting-pot into which the alternate cinematic streams of the Slasher, Home-Invasion, Cop, Crime-Thriller, Seige and Action genres have all been diverted; joining the growing ranks of films that are not content to live within the limitations of a single style or category.

It’s also the best new movie of 2005 thus far, setting a VERY high bar for the rest of the year’s action/thrillers to follow. You owe it to yourself to go see this movie as soon as possible, knowing about it as little as possible.

Willis, once again proving himself one of the most naturalistic and thus terminally underrapreciated actors in America, here is Jeff Talley; a one-time “legendary” FBI hostage negotiator fallen from grace and putting his life back together as police chief of a tiny California county. On a day like any other, a pair of ne’er-d0-well teenaged brothers and their possibly-psychotic hoodlum friend “Mars” attempt the robbery of a high-security mansion inhabited by an accountant (Kevin Pollack) and his two children. Things go about as badly as they can, and they’re soon to go worse: Without giving anything away, it will become apparent that the house’s security system is touchier than one might guess, that there’s more going on in the house than it seems, that the father’s clientel is far more than it seems and that Mars is, unfortunately for those locked inside with him, exactly what he seems. Outside the house, not only Talley’s local cops but also the FBI and some unseen, shadowy figures who have motives entirely their own are working to get in. Everyone has an agenda that puts everyone else in danger, eventually even Talley himself.

It would have been easy for “Hostage,” with so many differing styles and story-points competing for attention, to turn into a giant mess; but it holds up not only well but spectacularly well, and credit for this has to go to newcomer director Florent Siri. Siri is a newcomer, who’s only prior film of note was an actioner called “The Nest.” He’s done the majority of his work as a director of video games, namely the two most-recent Tom Clancy “Splinter Cell” titles. I’m not positive if this makes Siri the first game-director to cross over into mainstream filmmaking, but I certainly can’t think of many others. In a way it makes perfect sense, as the experience of having to “direct” the action of a multi-story, multi-linear, player-maleable interactive game must have made a difference in how expertly he handles the criss-crossing stories and stylistic leaps of his film: If Siri lands a hit with this film, and I believe he may, expect to hear a lot of buzz in the coming months about video game directors being “the new music video directors.”

Always overlooked even in his own better films, Bruce Willis is as good here as he’s been in a long time. The effortlessness with which he seems to inhabit action movie worlds, even one so penetrated by other genres as this one, often leads to his being written off as just another action hero. But it takes an enormous talent to remain grounded and “real” in as many different worlds as Willis’ heroes frequently find themselves, and here his presence serves a similar function to his presence in “The Fifth Element”: He’s the anchor, the one who keeps the movie from flying off into deep space on it’s various genre-tangents. Over-the-top and stylized as it may be, “Hostage” constantly seems to exist in a real world of real consequence largely because it’s impossible to believe that Willis-as-Talley would be there otherwise.

There is absolutely nothing “wrong” with this film, it’s as solid and excellent as a mid-scale action/thriller can be, and it wrings 110% of the possible potential from everyone involved. This is the best new movie playing in theaters right now, and it’s definately worth your time and your money. Highly reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 10/10