'TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Summer Movies 05
By Baron Dave Romm
Batman Begins is the best, and the darkest, of the Batman movies; dark, moody, excessively violent, well acted and holds your suspension of disbelief.
This movie follows the origins of Batman as laid out in Detective #27 in 1939 far more closely than I believed possible. The characters were all there, and the motivations. Batman has always been about obsessions, and Batman Begins mostly gets that right. I haven't read a comic in over twenty years, but I recognized many the characters right off the... right away.
It's still a comic book, but I liked how it plays with time. Not merely the structure of the movie, but the bending of time to allow Bruce Wayne's father and mother (and Bruce as a child) to exist in "the Depression" while Bruce Wayne the adult is using futuristic technology. Characters introduced in 1939 interact with characters introduced decades later. Tim Burton's Batman did some of this as well.
This is a very dark movie, exploring the excesses of obsession and sometimes goes overboard. And it usually works. You can almost believe a character like The Bat Man and a city like Gotham exist. The dialog is mostly cuteness-free, with just a few jokes, but the exchanges between characters are important.
The acting is superb all around. The technobabble works and, unlike the Joker in the Burton movie, you'll know "where does he get those marvelous toys?" (I love the Batmobile). Bruce Wayne is clearly placed in a larger universe than just this movie or his own past.
A few nitpicks that take away from a perfect rating: Some of the violence I thought was too gratuitous. Crane is gaunt enough but not tall enough. Rás al Ghul's first name is consistently pronounced to rhyme with "Banderas" while I preferred the more otherworldly pronunciation in the animated version that rhyme with "creche".
Still, I'd have to rate Batman Begins as the best movie adaptation of a comic book, beating out the first X-Men or the first Spiderman. It's about time movies caught up with the comics!
In The Lord of the Rings movies, the key character was Sam. Americans don't have the same position of "loyal servant" who is content to be what his father was and has no higher ambitions and no aspiration for a higher station in life. The Batman movies also need a little bit of explanation about a loyal butler. If Alfred doesn't work, the movie wouldn't work. Fortunately, the script covers that territory and Michael Caine sells it. In case you were curious: Alfred's last name is Pennyworth.
Sit back and let it all wash over you and you won't be disappointed. On the Shockwave Radio Theater scale of 9 to 23, I'd be hard pressed not to put Batman Begins somewhere in the 21-22 range.
Howl's Moving Castle is based on a Diana Wynne Jones novel but is unquestionably the usual fun from Hayao Miyazaki. It's a bit garbled at times, and some of the character movitations are hard to empathize with. Lots of things just sort of happen without question, so don't worry too much about some amazing coincidences. Not the least coincidence (to me) is seeing two movies in a row with the same star in the title role: Christian Bale is the voice of Howl. The voices are pretty good: Emily Mortimer is good as Sophie, the young lady who encounters Howl then has to seek him out; Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner are good as the Witch of the Waste and Madam Suliman; Billy Crystal as Calcifer the Fire Demon is great.
Lots of Miyazaki tropes: Billowing undergarments, big-faced old women, oozing baddies, steam-punk aerships, the child-like acceptance of magic and curses. The movie is seen through the eyes of the main character, a young woman who has to shoulder responsibility she doesn't want but is determined to handle. Her life is tough and then gets tougher, and she cannot control much that happens to her. But she perseveres and finds a place in the world. For a film that's more-or-less about coming of age, a major theme is growing old. But neither youth nor old age absolve anyone of responsibility, as Sophie learns the hard way.
While not my favorite Miyazaki film, it's accessible to American audiences and not nearly as scary as some of his earlier films. Recommended for kids or as a starting place if you're unfamiliar with Miyazaki animation. On the Shockwave Radio Theater scale of 9-23, I'd give Howl's Moving Castle about an 18 or 19.
War of the Worlds is an unecessary remake.
The latest version of the HG Wells novel isn't bad. It has all sorts of Spielbergian gimmicks, many of which you've seen before. I'll agree with every review I've read so far (and go further): the 1898 story has melded with the 1938 radio play and 1953 movie in a post-9/11-Afghan/Iraqi Quagmire milieu. The skiffy movies of the 50s prepared us for a nuclear war. With movies like this, 9/11 doesn't look so bad and the next terror attack won't be nearly as shocking. One of the characters vows revenge: "When the time is right, we'll take 'em by surprise like they took us." He was, of course, completely wrong.
In the end, G_d decides. Humans are helpless, but we win because our very existence was hard won. The narration is from Welles not Wells, but more poignant in these Crusading times. The most famous Deus Ex Machina of all time is tagged on as anti-climax. In the 1953 movie everyone is in a church praying when the aliens succumb. In this remake, it just happens, but later. Most of the film happens in a day or two, then time passes in a quick cut for the final few scenes. No emotional buildup, no resolution. Spielberg is usually good about this, and there are a few ET moments, but WotW never grabbed me I never cared for any of the characters.
There are loads of special effects, many of them good. People get killed in all sorts of ingeniously designed ways. The alien ships don't seem practical for an invasion fleet, but what the heck. Should you decide to see it, I highly recommend searching for a theater with very good sound.
The acting is okay but doesn't get in the way of the cinematography. Tom Cruise does fine (but no better than fine) in the thankless role of a divorced father who has to content with aliens and rebellious kids he barely knows. (His public remarks recently have been stupid, but I try not to let Real Life (tm) impinge on my moviewatching.)
On the Shockwave scale of 9-23, I'd give WotW about a 16.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E , and you can hear the last two Shockwave broadcasts in Real Audio (scroll down to Shockwave). Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
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Reader Comment
Re: Dr. Who
Marty,
Just a note about the latest Dr. Who series if you
didn't know already.
CBC is running them again, every Sunday night at
7:00pm, starting tonight.
Here in Windsor I get 20 channels with rabbit ears. 14
of them are US.
Maybe CBC should be putting a few repeater stations in
the south just to be fair and balanced.
BTW, we had Live8 coverage up the ying yang. Watched
Floyd live on the net then on CTV when they had a
break on the Barrie coverage. Afterwards they spent
the next 5 hours reshowing the highlight performances
around the world.
Should I get dish hook-up? I feel I'm missing out on
so much not having FuxNews and C N-double.
Cheerio Bye - Gerry
Thanks, Gerry!
Deregulation increased the number of broadcast options, but also allowed for them to all be owned by 6 companies who
place profits before truth and act as de facto government propagandists.
Sure would be nice to have CBC on the Dish, though.
OTOH, having lived near the Canadian border a few times, this brought back memories - Canadian TV Theme Songs
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Andrei Cherny: Why Liberal Isn't Liberal (huffingtonpost.com)
LIBERAL, KANSAS - I don't know what's the matter with Kansas (I've only been here about 24 hours on a nearly cross-country drive from Washington DC to Phoenix), but, at first glance, things seem to be all right.
Sydney H. Schanberg: Extinguished Journalist (Village voice)
Described as a "distinguished journalist" on the dust jacket of his new book about Hillary Clinton's sexuality, Ed Klein for the past 14 years has been gossip columnist for Parade, writing under the pseudonym Walter Scott.
Ellen Goodman: Tongue-tied by a yellow ribbon (Washington Post Writers Group)
Does 'support our troops' equal 'support our president'?
Jim Hightower: TSA Secretly Snoops on Passengers (AlterNet)
If you flew in June of 2004 the Transportation Security Administration now has a file on you, amassing such passenger records as our names, phone numbers, and credit card info .
Scott Foundas: Man of the Dead (LA Weekly. Posted on Alternet)
The director of the prophetic 'Dead' trilogy talks about his films' anti-consumerist message, Abu Ghraib, and why the White House probably wouldn't get it.
Bush's Magic 8 Ball Strategery
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny, cool and very pleasant.
Had a great time on the Erin Hart Show, as usual. The updated links are posted
here.
Gets Unfriendly 'Neighborhood' Welcome
ABC
ABC's extraordinary cancellation of "Welcome to the Neighborhood" less than two weeks before its premiere proves that reality television can only handle so much reality.
With a threatened lawsuit and accusations the network was tone deaf to bigotry, ABC may have traded a major headache for the temporary embarrassment of throwing out a series that was already finished.
The six-episode summer series, which was to debut July 10, was heavily promoted and given the plum "Desperate Housewives" time slot. ABC saw it as the potential hit follow-up to "Dancing With the Stars."
Within the first two episodes, one man made a crack about the number of children piling out of the Hispanic family's car. The citizenry of the business-owning Asian family was questioned and displays of affection between the gay men were met with disgust.
Anger about the series even united the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (which found it "really disturbing" to watch privileged couples vote out families they don't like) with the Family Research Council (which worried that conservative Christians would appear like overly judgmental buffoons).
ABC
'Pearls Before Swine'
Stephan Pastis
Some believe that the key to humor is timing. Others think it lies in a slightly distorted presentation of the familiar. E. B. White thought that humor ceased to exist upon close examination.
But if anyone has humor figured out, it's Stephan Pastis. His philosophy is written in black felt pen on the bulletin board in his home office in Santa Rosa, Calif., an hour north of San Francisco. It reads: "When in doubt, kill cute things."
Pastis is a 37-year-old former lawyer and the cartoonist behind the morbidly hilarious daily comic strip "Pearls Before Swine," which appears in 225 papers nationwide and has been collected in four briskly selling books. Pastis lives by those six sinister words. "Pearls" is dark, outrageously blunt and sparingly drawn-because, well, Pastis can't draw. It's pretty darn funny too, a pearl on the newspaper comics page, wedged among the many unfunny strips of artists who died or retired years ago but somehow remain surprisingly prolific.
Pastis populates Pearls with a quartet of generically named characters. Rat, the gravitational center of the "Pearls" universe, is a callous megalomaniac. Pig, Rat's roommate and comic foil, is sweet and misguided. Goat-visually identical to Pig, but with antlers-is intelligent and detached. Zebra (Goat with stripes and a mohawk) seeks to protect his herd from predators and avoid the hungry but stupid local crocodiles ... who live along with everyone else in American suburbia.
For the rest, Stephan Pastis
N.J. Governor
Richard J. Codey
Actress Brooke Shields has an ally in her war of words with Tom Cruise over her use of prescriptions drugs to treat postpartum depression: New Jersey's acting governor.
"Tom Cruise knows as much about postpartum depression as I do about acting, and he should stick to acting and not talk about women who need help," said Richard J. Codey, whose wife, Mary Jo, has struggled with the illness.
Mary Jo Codey, 49, a kindergarten teacher, has openly discussed her struggles with postpartum depression, speaking about the ordeal that started when she was diagnosed 28 years ago.
During a public appearance last fall, Mary Jo Codey told of driving to a pharmacy four towns away from her home to fill a prescription for antidepressants. She said she "wore dark sunglasses and prayed really hard to God that no one would see me."
Richard J. Codey
Gives to Hometown
Robby Takac
Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac may call Los Angeles home now, but he's never far from his hometown.
He's in the schools supplying donated instruments collected by his Music is Art Foundation. He's at the Albright-Knox Art Museum curating an exhibit. He's helping an HMO raise awareness of lead paint-related illnesses. And he's brainstorming with his alma mater, Medaille College, on music-teaching ideas.
"I don't consider myself any kind of, like, philanthropist, or any sort of weird, self-righteous savior of the universe or anything like that," Takac, 40, said with a laugh. "It's just, coincidentally, I'm having the time of my life and great things are happening, so I may as well keep it rolling."
Robby Takac
MTV to Film Special
'Dukes of Hazzard'
The home of the first five episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard" will host MTV when it comes to film a special on the history of the late 1970s show.
The show will feature the jumping of "General Lee," the Duke boys' car, at Covington's Oxford College - the same spot the car was jumped for the show 26 years ago.
Travis Bell, president of the General Lee Fan Club and organizer of the annual "Dukes of Hazzard" reunion in Covington, will serve as historian for the 30-minute program, called "Your Movie Show."
'Dukes of Hazzard'
Groundbreaking Film
'The Shape of the Future'
In a groundbreaking cooperative venture, Israeli and Arab TV stations on Saturday simultaneously broadcast the first part of a documentary exploring possible solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Program's producer Search for Common Ground, a conflict resolution foundation, hopes that by presenting the dispute in graphic human terms and focusing on the need for territorial compromise by both sides, then the series could have a greater impact than previous documentaries, which centered on the conflict's history.
The first two parts of the four-part series, titled "The Shape of the Future," were aired in Hebrew on Israel's Channel Eight cable channel and in Arabic on the public Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), on the privately-owned MAAN Palestinian channel. They were also aired throughout the Arabic-speaking world by the Abu Dhabi satellite channel.
Israeli and Arab viewers had mixed feelings about the impact the four-part series would have on the course of a conflict that has claimed the lives of 3,487 Palestinians and 1,042 Israelis in just the past five years.
'The Shape of the Future'
Japanese Manga Legend
Osamu Tezuka
The production house of late Japanese manga legend Osamu Tezuka is to make its first film entirely for China, employing local talent, in a bid to expand the Japanese star's cultural export in the huge but sometimes hostile neighbor.
The two-hour animation film, "Rest on Your Shoulder", will be the debut work of Beijing Xiele Art Co., a Chinese subsidiary set up by Tezuka Productions.
While Japan has seen a growing international market for its animated films, the producers say the upcoming film will target Chinese tastes by basing the plot in part on Chinese fairy tales.
A Chinese-language fantasy of a man who continues to love a woman even after she turns into a butterfly, the film will be made by Hong Kong director Jacob Cheung using both Chinese and Japanese creative staff.
Osamu Tezuka
Australia Honours Outlaw
Ned Kelly
Australia's most famous outlaw, Ned Kelly, was honoured by the government when the scene of his last stand against police was listed as a national heritage site.
"Ned Kelly has become part of the Australian story, both as one of our best-known historical figures and also as a mythological character," Environment and Heritage Minister Ian Campbell said.
Kelly was "to some a bushranger (outlaw), some see him as a larrikin (a term applied somewhat admiringly to those who act in disregard of convention) and some as a hero," Campbell said.
Included in the eight hectare (19 acre) heritage listing are the original railway platform in the town, the site of the Glenrowan Inn where the gang holed up and the site of Kelly's fall and capture.
Ned Kelly
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