Category: Review

At World’s End or at a creative end? The movie was simultaneously tough to follow and mind-numbingly stupid. Another insipid sequel to what began as pretty good entertainment.

While it is a pirate movie, it was shocking to see so much death and mayhem in a Disney flick. Starting with the opening scene (which after the 169 minute running time felt like it was 2 movies ago) in which bodies are piled up in an accidental homage to Monty Python’s Holy Grail all the way through to the epic battle, staged in two parts, each with sufficient gore to have qualified it as rated R in my opinion. (Is the movie-going public and the ratings board so desensitized to on-screen death that even now with movie effects so realistic, death doesn’t rate even a shrug? That’s another post.)

The plot was lame and the bloody battles were downright unpleasant but at least the comic relief was top notch. Lots of laugh out loud moments, many of them featuring Barbossa’s henchmen. Depp’s take on Jack Sparrow hasn’t grown old for me yet. And a nice bonus with Keith Richards as his father. I still like Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa and he had some of the best lines of the film – worth turning on the captions to keep up with his classic pirate-speak!

Rating: 4 (out of 10)

I had a sense of the premise of this movie since I first saw the movie previews: a guy who lives in Connecticut, Walter, doesn’t get to his apartment in NYC very often and when he finally does, he finds a couple living there. They are illegal aliens who were led to believe that they were legitimately subletting the apartment and shocked to see the real owner show up. But when Walter realizes they have no place to go and that he has no reason to need them to go, he lets them stay until they can find a new place.

Why would a button down widower professor be willing to let illegal aliens squat in his NYC apartment? As the movie unfolds, we are shown glimpses of Walter’s current existence and realize it is rather dull and he’s actually quite intrigued by the newness that the adventure of having roommates offers.

As for the illegals, Tarek and Zainab, seem to be more New York than Walter is. Eventually, Tarek is arrested for a misunderstanding and when it becomes apparent that he is an illegal alien, he’s locked up in a detention facility. We then get a glimpse into what I imagine to be a very realistic portrayal of the plight of immigrants in this country. Yes, illegal is illegal. But on the other hand, Tarek grew up in the United States and considers it his home. The fact that his Syrian mother was asked to leave the country a decade ago can hardly be blamed on him who is more New York than Walter.

And that’s when I realized that the title “The Visitor” doesn’t necessarily refer to Tarek or his girlfriend or his mother. In fact, the true visitor is Walter himself who gets a refreshing look at New York courtesy of Tarek as a guide and when he begins to fancy Tarek’s mother and goes on a date with her. And in fact, Walter gets a refreshing look at life, courtesy of the whole experience.

The movie does end with a bit of a downer as Tarek is deported and his mother chooses to follow leaving Walter without his new friend and his new muse. And while we aren’t left with any touching stories about how Walter lives happily ever after with Tarek and his mother, we do see that Walter is reinvigorated from the new glasses he gets to the final scene with him drumming in the subway. (I know that sounds strange, but watch the movie and you’ll see.)

Rating: 8 (out of 10)

I’m already bored of the Caprica days – let’s get back to the Galactica.

Isn’t Gaius going to stay with Galactica? I just assume that Gaius is going to eventually do something selfless as Lee challenged him to.

Admiral Hoshi?

I thought it was a little forced when they just decided that Lee was President, but now they can do it again to Lampkin, the lawyer?

A-ha, Gaius did do the right thing, after all.

Centurions with red stripes – presumably marked so we know which ones are good ones, not just huge fans of the Jamaican beer.

An “X” on the forehead of those too badly wounded – that’s cold.

That Cylon ship is pretty cool looking.

“Brace for impact” – Nice! You don’t see enough of that in sci-fi.

“You see them?” Funny. Good end to a silly kissy scene.

Good battles. Nice to see the old Toasters in play. Still no answers to speak of, though.

Will we finally see what the theater dreams/visions are all about?

Five illuminated figures on a balcony. Ooooo.

A deal with Cavil seems like a questionable move. And he seemed strangely willing to go along with the deal. A time to worry? Or just proof that Cavil really hates being mortal?

“There must be a way out of here”… nice use of the lyrics.

All this has happened before and it will all happen again. Is that why we are back at Earth?

Okay, so what Earth is this? If not the same as the one our crew found before, then which Earth is the one I’m typing on right now? The wasteland one or the one with the primitive humanoids?

For the sake of taking a stab, let’s say that my Earth is the one that they’ve just arrived at with the primitive humanoids and that when they say they are going to spread people around the globe, that’s a cute way of explaining the very complicated issue of how people are everywhere on our planet now.

But as beej9 asked in response to my last post, what’s next? Is the origin of Earth the “next”? And that’s what has happened before and will happen again?

“Are you a Cylon?” At the time that Bill Adama would have been considering retirement on Caprica, they did not know that Cylons had taken human form. So that seems like a strange question.

I am still struggling with the notion that they are sending the ships to the Sun. That seems like a real waste of neato techy stuff.

Umm, where’s Bill going? It’s clear where Laura’s going, but Bill?

Poof. And there we have the mystery that is Kara Thrace remaining a mystery.

Oh, okay, Bill is just moving to a hilltop and he’s not going to see Lee, just because it is such a big planet. And it was a nice way to end Bill Adama’s storyline. But surely there must be more to the show, right?

Okay, I’m glad there was more. That feels like a decent ending.

Whoops, there’s more. 150,000 years later. Wait, what will happen again? And what doesn’t like to be called “God”? Of course, they couldn’t go out with an ending that didn’t ask at least a question or two.

As to the questions I still feel went unanswered, I’d like to have known more about Daniel. Perhaps as beej9 found on EW, he was Kara’s father. But that means she wouldn’t have been all human so she was either Cylon, which she wasn’t, or she was half Cylon in which case, she was the first before Hera. Oh, and that would mean that Saul, who she hated and liked to punch and drink with was her grandfather. It just doesn’t seem right.

We didn’t see D’Anna again and we don’t really know what becomes of the bad Cylons. Other than Cavil who apparently couldn’t handle the thought of mortality – defective machine!

Overall, it’s been a fun show to watch. I don’t feel like it pulled together tightly in the end. I don’t feel like all questions were answered. And I think there are probably “meanings” that I missed. But you have to admire the creative writing and the amazing production and frakking fantastic acting. Despite its faults, it was better than most TV on TV.

The new Bond movie was about what you’d expect. Daniel Craig continues his campaign to be the best Bond yet while the plot continues to be simultaneously stupid and overthought.

I liked that this movie opened with the story taking place moments after where the last movie ended. And a wonderful shot that zooms in from a peaceful lake to a highway chase in a tunnel. But the movie tries to out-Bourne the Bourne movies by placing the viewer in the middle of the action. Other than getting the feeling that it would suck to be in the middle of a car chase in a tunnel, I’m not really sure what happened. A little less first-person action would be welcome.

After Bond’s Aston Martin survives the car chase, the boot is opened to reveal the man Bond captured at the end of Casino Royale. Funny that we viewers didn’t know that he had anything/body in the trunk. And the interrogation scene gets good when we discover that the QUANTUM organization really does have people everywhere.

Then there are some action sequences, some muddy plot points revealed, devious CIA scheming, and one really cool bad-guy-meeting at an opera.

There is a satisfying end to the story but not satisfying enough to feel like everything you just watched made sense. And although this may be contrary to popular opinion, I hope we see the return of the Camilla character.

In Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace together, Bond gets his “double-O” status, falls in love, sees his love drown, gets thrown out of MI6, goes rogue, avenges his ex’s death, and gets reinstated (though he says he “never left”). That seems a little, umm, complete. I think modern franchise films are in too much of a rush to get to the big stuff. There’s nothing wrong with starting off with getting the “double-O” status in one film, getting some accolades in a second film, meeting somebody he likes in the third, losing that somebody in the fourth, nearly getting tossed from MI6 for avenging her death in the fifth, and considering retirement in the sixth. Only to return as a new Bond in the film after that. Instead, after only two films with Craig, I’m already feeling like Eon needs to let Bond take a break for a bit.

Rating: 7 (out of 10)

Reportedly, the band made a conscious effort produce music as successful as their Master Of Puppets (MOP) record. And not surprisingly, the art produced by the conscious calculated effort isn’t nearly as amazing as the original.

The sound of Death Magnetic (DM) does have some similarity to MOP. And thankfully, the music is perhaps some of the best since, umm, since… well, the Black Album. But as was the case on St. Anger, James Hetfield’s voice is much too prominent in the mix. So while he was screaming on MOP, it worked better. I don’t know if it was just the mix, but listening to the song “Master Of Puppets”, you can hear Hetfield screaming musically. And when you listen to most of the tracks on DM, Hetfield’s voice is just too in your face and definitely not musical. The DM track named “The Unforgiven III” is easily the best on the record – Hetfield sings. It’s that simple.

For anyone who saw “Some Kind of Monster”, you know what goes on behind the scenes. And it is hard to believe that they could approach the creation of any new music without some kind of awareness that was probably not present when they did their best work. And that kind of awareness is not, I suspect, conducive to good kick-ass metal (though maybe it works for other genres!).

I’ve already listened to DM more than I have to St. Anger (maybe 3 listens total). But I have a feeling it won’t be long until DM disappears into the Metallica library along with Load and St. Anger – even though it is better than both, it’s not nearly as good as And Justice For All, The Black Album, Ride the Lightning, or Master Of Puppets.

Also, strangely, there appear to be digital artifacts when listening to the CD in my car. But listening to the ripped MP3s, the sound is better. Also, Hetfield’s voice presence is less annoying in the ripped MP3s. Again, like Madonna’s Hard Candy, I wonder if CDs are being mixed with the expectation of MP3 encoding. That’d be a real shame.

It’s great to have Chuck back on the air. It’s such a well-done show. Sure, there are cheesy moments, like when Sarah, soaking-wet from a fight in the showers, comes into the gymnasium and everyone applauds her as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about her current appearance. But for every silly scene, there are at least a couple of really cool or really touching ones. On the spy front, there’s the way Chuck gets updated for the Intersect. And for the retail world, there’s Lester trying to work out his new position of power. Here’s hoping McG sticks with TV like this and doesn’t try to make any more Charlie’s Angels movies.

I’m ambivalent about Crusoe, NBC’s series based on the classic. I did like the first episode – wonderful pirates and creative set dressing were highlights. But now after just two episodes, it’s already starting to feel tired. I just don’t see how this can be a viable series. It’s like a cross between Gilligan’s Island and Indiana Jones with a dash of Lost-ian flashback storytelling. Old joke: remember the Gilligan’s Island where they almost got rescued? Of course you do since it was a majority of them. It’ll be tough for Crusoe to rise above that. Lost didn’t end up in this trap because even though they want to get home on every episode, the story progresses. Crusoe isn’t setting itself up to do that well and the flashbacks are too cryptic to be interesting, verge on annoyance, and don’t provide enough of a story to distract from the concept of a weekly almost-rescue a la Gilligan.

Rating for Chuck: 9 (out of 10)

Rating for Crusoe: 4 (out of 10)

The movie War does contain an element of a war, a gang war between the Yakuza and the Triad. But that conflict is very much secondary to the conflict between the two lead characters which is why the movie poster is much more accurate than the movie name. But there’s still more story than just a simple conflict and in fact, War is a nicely layered movie.

The movie begins by introducing us to Crawford and Chang, cops who are such tight partners that their families hang out on weekends together. Chang and his wife and child are killed at his home and when Crawford arrives, his life’s mission becomes taking down the professional killer responsible, a near mythic figure named Rogue. Some didn’t believe that Rogue existed and those that did questioned whether Rogue was still alive. But the death of the Chang family proves to Crawford that he is real and alive.

Years go by while Crawford is waiting for Rogue to resurface after the Chang family murders. When Rogue does return, you can’t tell if he is working for Triad or Yakuza and we eventually come to realize he is trying to incite a battle between them so they can destroy each other.

A very clever plot twist, which I will not reveal, comes in nearly four fifths through the movie. Just when I was thinking that the movie was a little too typical and not interesting enough, you begin to realize what Rogue’s motivation is. And the movie is written in such a way that while you despise Rogue for his past actions, you have a hard time routing against him for what you see. And the last two chapters on the DVD tie things up neatly (packages are delivered by Rogue to various surviving characters and a certain amount of exposition to confirm what you’ve been wondering) and left me very satisfied.

The movie is violent and was a little hard for me to follow. But the movie is titled War and stars Jason Statham and Jet Li, so violence was expected. I found the subtitles to be very helpful for understanding the various accents in the movie and the quiet dialog by the main characters during some of the important scenes. Also, the DVD extras were very helpful at answering some of my lingering questions. Before watching the extras, I probably would have rated the film one or two points lower. In particular, the Director Philip G. Atwell, (apparently mostly well known for music videos) comes across extremely bright and savvy about filmmaking in his interview segments. I’m looking forward to more movies from him.

War is an ultimately clever film that still delivers the action.

Rating: 8 (out of 10)

Long a fan of Duran Duran and recently a fan of Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, the new Duran Duran record that features the Timba-Lake combo seemed like guaranteed perfection. But I’ve ended up quite disappointed.

The first three songs (“The Valley”, “Red Carpet Massacre”, and “Nite Runner”) should have been the big hits from the record but end up falling flat. You can hear the Timbaland influence but the killer beats aren’t there. And of course you can tell that it is Simon LeBon’s voice, but he sounds a little too disinterested. Nelly Furtado may have delivered low-key performance on her Timbaland collaborations but there’s a difference between low-key and disinterested.

The only song that has the real Timbaland juice is “Skin Divers”. Great beat. LeBon is still a little too disinterested on the verses but the chorus makes up for it with Timbaland’s rap. This song is simultaneously my favorite and the least Duran-ish song on the whole record. Weird.

“Tempted” is my second favorite on the disc and probably the most successful Duran-Timbaland combination. The beat sounds like it could have come from the mind of either Nick Rhodes or Timbaland – perhaps it was both. “Zoom In” is similar – good modern beat yet still Duran-ish.

“Falling Down” definitely has a good Justin Timberlake vibe to it. It’s Pop-py but lacks a little zing and punch. Not JT’s best work, but his best here.

Other songs like “Box Full O’Honey” just plain suck.

Overall, this record is better than no Duran Duran record but it’s missing winners that were on the previous album like “Sunrise” and “Astronaut” (the song). You have to wonder if the absence of Andy Taylor had anything to do with it. How much a part of the creative process is Andy and how important is his guitar work? Regardless, I hope the next disc gets closer to the Astronaut record.

Note: This record came out November 2007 and I’ve had it since then. But I was so initially disappointed by it that I put it away and didn’t listen to for months. Then, when Duran Duran came to town for a concert, it was worth checking out the album again and it improved with age. Or perhaps it improved the further I got from my initial expectations. This review would have been much harsher back in November 2007.

Rating: 6 (out of 10)

The strange thing about this record is that so many are saying it is her “return” to her simple dance music from the past. I don’t see that at all. To me, it’s just as electronic sounding and that’s a good thing. Besides, how can songs like Confessions From a Dance Floor’s “Hung Up” not be considered a dance song – it samples classic ABBA!? And that’s the crux of my problem with this record: it just doesn’t live up to the expectations she set with Confessions.

“4 Minutes” rocks. (If I can say “rocks” for a pop/dance song.) Again, more Timbaland and Timberlake here, and it’s more successful than on Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre.

Ultimately, though, the rest of the disc just isn’t very interesting. Lots of ho-hum tracks. Too much Pharrell and not enough Timbaland. Also, strangely, the disc is mixed with overly heavy bass. My only guess is that this disc may be the first to be intentionally mixed for MP3 encoding – even after a lossy encoding, it is still going to sound thick.

So, in the end, I completely disagree with those who say they welcome her return. For me, I liked where she was on the last disc and think she should return to that!

(Note: this post was languishing as a draft for eons – so even though it is published today, 5-Sep-08, it was actually written back in June, so I’m backdating the post.)