By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

How much is that franchise in the window?

I rode the Polar Express last night. While the obvious assumption here is that I dropped a fistful of acid and took a ride akin to experiencing the full color oddity that was Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 nascent, in some mindless circles, classic.

The experience itself could best be described as a mind scrambler for my four and almost-two year old. They had read the book enough times to associate the physical reality of the decked out, velvety train car with that of the book. I can’t imagine the conceit that led these kids to believe that what they were seeing and hearing was real could have been any worse than leading them to believe that Santa Claus is real (I apologize to my children publicly right now when they’re old enough to employ Google-Fu on their own) but there was something about the construction of the experience that I not only found intriguing but fairly shameless.

If I had any gumption or was paid any kind of money to actually put an effort to researching things for my column I would find out what division of Warner Bros. is responsible for the licensing/franchising of the POLAR EXPRESS “experience” but a cursory search of a real train ride near you that harnesses the story’s saccharine mythos yields this badly designed website in New Hampshire for the ride of a lifetime which ultimately led me to the official site for the POLAR EXPRESS train ride experience.

Taken from the website, the company leading the way for little boys and girls (and the parents, like me, who brought along a little Bailey’s) says:

Rail Events, Inc. has signed a license agreement with Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. to license and help coordinate train ride events around the country based on the hit movie and award-winning book The Polar Expressâ„¢ written by Chris Van Allsburg.

Further, “Families are sure to enjoy their trip to the North Pole, complete with cocoa and cookies served on board the train, followed by a reading of The Polar Expressâ„¢ (ed. note – Love the TM usage) by Chris Van Allsburg.

Upon arrival at the North Pole, Santa will greet the children and each child will receive their own jingle bell, just like in the story. There will be caroling on board the train as your trip returns to the depot. This is a holiday ride the entire family will enjoy.” By all means, see if a train is departing soon from a depot near you.

Now, I would never begrudge anyone to make a dollar; I would support any half-baked idea to create a buck. (All hail and praise the assholes who plopped down any money for those Billy Bass animatronic plasticine fishes.) However, what I think irks me slightly is the co-optioning of the book as a means to extend a revenue stream a little further into the pockets of parents and rubes who don’t know better.

Por ejemplo, after you’re sold with a nauseating Josh Grobin, slo-mo trailer, resplendent with all the trickey that makes mothers weep at Hallmark commercials or that one coffee commercial where that douche Peter, with his perfect coif, comes home Christmas morning and brews up some Folgers, there’s a kind of sleaziness to the idea that there’s this ride you can pay money for that’s been endorsed by the suits at Warner Bros. and/or by some marketer.

I paid the price of admission and I have no problems with it. My kids loved it, they were happy, my wife was happy that they were happy and daddy was happy because of the fine people who make after dinner liqueurs; in some way I feel vindicated in sullying the experience by spiking my hot chocolate, and the hot chocolates of some fellow parents, with something taboo I shouldn’t have brought aboard. By the end of the night my kids had believed that Santa, indeed, visited the train car in which we chugged along for our hour and a half ride and were genuinely amazed by the uniqueness of the experience.

I think I’m going back again next year if it means I can spend a day or two extra with my family by ourselves.

At the end of my day I hate to be a part of some ancillary revenue stream of a movie studio that thinks nothing of pimping its properties out under the guise of it bringing families close together. Please. Warners would sooner enjoy my family being driven to divorce if it meant it could make a few more shareholders happy. I’m simply a cynical person when it comes to shameless marketing and plugging and the incessant push to consume the brand even further (Buy the book! Buy the movie! Buy a shirt or hat to commemorate the experience!) and I was honestly shocked as we drove away from the train station and didn’t see one mark on the jingle ball that every kid was given that would somehow let anyone who looked at know that this is was an Officially Branded Polar Express Jingle Ball. I guess that was the cynic in me.

I’m just happy my kids don’t yet know when they’re the unwitting audience of a Warner Brothers sales pitch.

Now, on to much more funny news: Pixar most definitely cribbed its plot for its newest film, WALL-E, from 1986’s SHORT CIRCUIT. After I made the accusation there was a curious letter that I received which I just had to share with the rest of the world that just sort of solidified the fact that I hope Fisher Stevens gets himself a good lawyer; it could be payday city.

“Chris,

So, as has been my Friday routine for many years now, I read your article while sitting at my desk & drinking my coffee…during which time, I probably should be working. More often than not, I’ll completely agree with your prognoses (on a side note, the notion that prognoses is the plural of prognosis, just seem grammatically incorrect… shouldn’t it be prognosises or prognosi?). Anyway, back to my point.

I was a little disappointed of your scathing review of Wall-E.

Although, I completely agree that it holds a not so subtle resemblance to Short Circuit, don’t consider this just another blatant rip-off from an industry who’s seemingly incapable of coming up with an original idea…look at is an homage to one of the late, great, bad, cheesy 80’s movies. Even though it starred Steve Gutenberg, Short Circuit gave every teenaged boy the opportunity so confirm that, yes indeed Ally Sheedy was hot and gave one last chance to see her before she disappeared into obscurity. If Wall-E can flash everybody in their 30’s to a simpler time when, unlike Paris Hilton & Britney Spears, pop culture icons had enough sense to keeps their drug abuse and sexual deviance behind closed doors, isn’t that a good thing?

All that said, I’m holding out hope that Wall-E is a box office blockbuster…’cause that can only encourage studios to rip-off…I mean, homages to more of the really bad 80’s movies, that although they had almost no artistic merit or any other redeeming qualities, were wildly entertaining. It’ll only be a matter of time before we see feature length, animated versions of Remo Williams, Tremors or Weekend at Bernie’s…and wouldn’t that make the world a better place?

Keep up the good work.”

The only portion of that letter I take umbrage with is the very resolute fact that if any red-blooded American tried to steal the story of Fred Ward’s greatest cinematic achievement there would be blood flowing in the street; it would be anarchy.

WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (2007)

Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast: Jenna Fischer, John C. Reilly, Kristen Wiig, Tim Meadows, Angela Little Mackenzie, Matt Besser, David Krumholtz
Release: December 20, 2007
Synopsis: America loves Cox! But behind the music is the up-and-down-and-up-again story of a musician whose songs would change a nation. On his rock ‘n roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own 70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to — and then kicks — every drug known to man… but despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon and eventually earns the love of a good woman — longtime backup singer Darlene (Jenna Fischer).

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative. No.

Here’s the problem I have with this movie: there seems to be confusion on the part of either the filmmakers or the marketers. With only the trailer to go off of I can’t be sure whether this biopic that is a goof on biopics is going to be Zucker-like in nature or played for straight laughs. As it stands there seems like to be a lot of reaching going on in order to be funny or to essentially scream, “See what we’ve distilled from every single story about musicians…and how we’ve funnily poked fun of them!” I hate it when people want to club you over the head to make a point and that seems exactly like what’s happening here right from the beginning.

The 6 year old Dewey grabbing a guitar and with a faux voice singing the blues I think is supposed to make fun of the stories of musicians who say they’ve had it in them since they were little but even after we roll on this obvious gag the older Dewey making ladies strip their clothes, the priest who decries it and gets sucker punched for it, the guy puking from being overcome and the wife who plays the part of the Doubting Thomas (a common theme in the stories of people trying to make it big) is just grating for its obviousness.

They’re looking to lampoon these films but with Reilly’s character tongue flicking ice cream, his creation of a character that is oblivious and obnoxious, his protestation to his wife about walking hard (Ooh, his theme!) and his eventual demand to keep his monkey versus his kids just isn’t funny. I think it might play well to young men in their teens and twenties but they’re not useful for others, like me, who might want to have the comedy thrown at us in more subtle ways.

I mean, one of the best parts of this trailer is not Paul Rudd’s pathetic display of a character that just panders, but it’s Jack White’s appearance and talk about being able to chop a man in half with his hands that is amusing as all hell. He manages to be the greatest reason why this trailer just seems to be sticking its tongue in its cheek so much, being so ironic and making sure to wink at us as it does so, that it loses its ability to simply be funny.

The quicker we get to the end I think there is some redemption to be made of this movie. The aging Cox and his run ins with Patrick Duffy, his eventual Disco phase, the sad pitchman moment he has to go through, all these things add up to something for me that gives me a moment of pause. Yes, there could be all the aforementioned obviousness but if it can be smarter than that, if it can be more than just one of those SCARY MOVIE or NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE flicks, if it can be more intelligent with its satire, there could be more hits than there could be misses; a mark of a great screwball comedy.

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