"New Direction" Earns Two Thumbs Down

Ok, Siskel has been gone since 1999, and Ebert hasn't been on the show for a couple of years due to health reasons, but the final demise of the show they created is very sad. I may not always agree with Roger Ebert's reviews. There have even been times when I wondered if he was insane based on his opinions, but there is no doubt that he, like Gene Siskel was, is a man who loves the movies*. That is what made the show great in its heyday. These were two guys who loved movies talking about the movies. In the pre-internet days, they were the superfans out there going to early screenings and telling you what they thought. They were the ones telling you that "yes, these are the good movies showing near you, but here is something you may not have heard about." The millions of film sites on the web today (for better or for worse) wouldn't be the same without the influence of this program. They were critics, yes, but they were also fans who loved what they were doing and just wanted to talk about it. That's why Sneak Previews/At the Movies worked.

Ebert recently wrote a great piece about the show, which covered it from conception to now. I highly recommend it, and I sincerely hope that even if it ends up with a new name in a new place, that the show and the thumbs will return once again.



*This has little to do with the article, but I just wanted to mention it anyway. Roger Ebert and I share an alma mater, and every year he returns to Champaign and puts on a film festival with what he considers to be "overlooked" movies. I always talk about going, but something always gets in the way (time, money, not caring about the movie selections for that year).

Take What You Can Get

Sometimes, my job irritates me. Sometimes, it irritates me a lot. Every once in a while, however, something small will happen that at least amuses me enough to help get through one of the bad days. It's things like being able to say, with all seriousness, "I had to go put on my tie so that I can look professional when the Byelorussians^* do their walk through."


^*Yes, I could say Belarusians, but phrasing it this way emphasizes the inherent absurdity of the whole thing.

The Dark Knight

I loved Batman Begins and have been waiting (im-)patiently since for the sequel. Today, that wait was over.

I will freely admit that when I first heard that Heath Ledger was going to play the Joker, I was skeptical. I will also freely admit that I was wrong. Really, really wrong. This is not the same Joker we've seen before. He isn't Jack Nicholson being Jack Nicholson in makeup. This Joker isn't funny. He's the Joker comic fans know who is a psychopath and when he makes one of his jokes, he's the only one laughing.*


I don't want to give away too much about the movie, so I'll just make a few more points before saying a couple spoilerish things in the comments (that way spoilers won't just show up in your RSS reader).

If you are planning to see this, hit the bathroom first and go for the small soda. It's a long 152 minutes when you get the 72 ounce mega-jug.

I'm still not sure I love the character of Rachael Dawes, but Maggie Gyllenhaal does a much better job than Katie Holmes did.

Don't expect a nice tidy back-story like you got for previous versions of the Joker. Much like in the comics, his story changes depending on who he tells it to. I think I like it that.

Aaron Eckhart was perfect as the "white knight" Harvey Dent and the counter-point to Batman's Dark Knight.

I love that Nolan never really gives us an answer as to whether it's ok that Batman is a vigilante and breaks laws or whether his mere existence creates the new version of criminal like the Joker. It's a morally gray area and we have to figure it out for ourselves.

When you see the mayor of Gotham, what pops into your head: "It's (a) Batmanuel! (b) Luis or (c) Richard Alpert"?

Before the movie, the were trailers for the new Terminator movie (good trailer, not sure if I care about the movie), The Spirit (ok trailer, not sure if I care about the movie), Watchmen (great trailer, and I really want this movie to be good.)

*Unless you were in a theater like the one we were in where people were so used to the Joker being funny (funny ha ha, that is) that they laughed no matter what he said. I kept wondering if they were really aware of just how crazy the guy was. This was scary crazy, not funny crazy.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I managed to escape just a little early today, and we went to catch a late matinee of Hellboy II. It's no secret that I love Hellboy. I loved the first movie, loved all the comics I've been able to get a hold of, including the BRPD comics without Red. (You have great storytelling that combines pulp noir with mythology from all over the world, secret organizations, and a big red smart-alec demon with a huge right hand made of stone. What's not to like about the comics?)

Guillermo del Toro, who returns to direct his second Hellboy film, is the perfect choice to helm the series because he has an eye for the fantastic unlike any director working today. The creatures he has created for the Hellboy films (as well as those in Pan's Labyrinth) look as if they had just crawled out of a dream...or nightmare. (This is why I really look forward to seeing what he can do with The Hobbit.)

As with the first film, del Toro worked on the story with Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy. The story, this time, revolves around a prince of elves who wishes to break the truce with humans that has held for years and restart an old war, exterminating humanity once and for all. As he strikes the first blow, the BRPD is brought in to investigate. Where it goes from there, I'll allow you to see for yourself. The story itself works as more than just a way to move from one (admittedly impressive) action- or visual-heavy piece to the next and is strengthened by the fact that the characters are written to show their humanity even if they aren't really human at all.

David Hyde Pierce is hardly missed as the voice of Abe Sapien (this is no knock on DHP, he declined the offer to come back and didn't even do publicity for the first film because he thought it really was Doug Jones' role, not his.), and John Hurt's return as Prof. Bruttenholm is welcome even if it is relatively brief. Seth McFarland (of Family Guy fame) joins the cast as the newest member of the BRPD team, Johann Kraus. Really though, the movie belongs to Perlman who is again pitch-perfect as Hellboy.

The movie isn't without it's flaws, but they are ones I was willing to overlook for something as enjoyable as this was. If you liked the first one, I would certainly recommend this one as well.

WALL-E (and other movie-going things)

We went to see WALL-E last week, not long after returning from a trip to my parent's house. Before I got a chance to post about it, a thunderstorm knocked out our power and left us in the virtual dark ages sans lights, air conditioning and, most importantly, internet access.

I could tell you all about the movie and whether I liked it or not (I did), but let's face it: You can find a review of WALL-E anywhere and if you haven't seen it and don't plan to see it nothing I say will really make a difference.* What I can give you that no one else can is the remarkable story of some of the people with whom we shared a theater.

We had hurried to make sure we made it to the 11:00 showing, and by the time I bought our tickets (for the 11:30 show because I'm no dummy) and got in line at the concession stand it was around 10 after. Since we went to the movie early in the day and WALL-E was showing on three separate screens, the crowd was pretty sparse even though it was summer. There may have been 15 to 20 people in the entire theater, but that didn't bother me, I'd much rather have the place to myself than sit next to a stranger.** Most of the people were there with small children***, but our story will focus specifically on a woman who was there with (what I assume to be) her granddaughter.

They sat uneventfully through the movie, and were directly in front of us as we filed out. They tossed their trash into the waiting can rolled out by the employee who was waiting to clean the theater, and, following close behind, we did the same.

"Oh hang on," the grandmother said, digging through the trash, "I want to show them this."

She pulled out the cup for their Pepsi Freeze (a sort of slushy, partially frozen thing...kind of like a Squishee one might get at the Kwik E Mart) and proceeded over to concession stand. Needless to say, I was intrigued and fortunately since we had nothing to do but stand around while waiting for the third member of our party to extricate herself from her seat and actually leave the theater, we got to find out what was going on. It turned out that the frozen beverage had a piece of popcorn in it. "Wait," you might say, "a piece of popcorn? Inside the open cup? Like what might happen if one is eating popcorn in a dark room while holding a cup with a large opening?" And of course, that isn't at all what happened, since the people filling the cup clearly filled it about halfway, took it to the popcorn machine and dropped a piece in and then continued filling it. Fortunately, the people at the concession stand weren't nearly as judgemental as the rest of you, so they happily gave her a refill in her freshly recovered from the trash cup. As we stood, still waiting, the granddaughter came trotting back to the trash can and came away with their popcorn bucket, emptying it of the few remaining kernels.

"Did she just..."

"Oh yeah. She sent her back for the bucket."

"Are you sure she didn't just bring the bucket and dump it out.?"

"No she got it out of the trash."

"But it was in the trash."

"Yes, it was."

By the time we were finally ready to go, they were strolling out of the lobby and into the parking lot carrying a freshly refilled Freeze cup and bucket of popcorn. Which brings me to my question for all of you:

At what point does something officially become trash and become unsalvagable? Me, I think I share Jerry Seinfeld's opinion that adjacent to refuse is refuse and that eating it means you've crossed the line between man and bum, but I guess not everyone feels the same way. Obviously they didn't.



*To make it short: It was very good, just as one might expect from a Pixar movie. I wasn't sure how they'd pull off the sizable chunks of time in which it was all robots who really don't have much dialogue, but it worked quite well. It doesn't come close to being as wonderful as Ratatouille, but considering my feelings for that one, I think it's probably unfair for me to try to make that comparison. Also the short before WALL-E is probably my favorite one shown in front of any of the Pixar movies. Anyway, just go see it, you'll be glad.

**Or behind a stranger. Or in front of a stranger. Really, pretty much anywhere within a 5 seat zone of a stranger.

***Since there were actually three of us, one could argue that we also there to take a child to see it, but that would be rather impolite even if metaphorically accurate.