Author: admin

TV Or Not TV: The Morning After for LOST 4/15

Welcome to another Morning After edition of TV or Not TV where I’ll be reflecting on last night’s episode of LOST titled Some Like it Hoth. As usual, I will be freely be talking about what happened in the episode, so if you don’t want to have anything spoiled I suggest you come back after you’ve seen it.

One of the things that LOST has done this season is introduced questions that seem self-contained and answered within the same season. An example would be the question of where Kate took Aaron before deciding to come with Jack to the Island in the episode 316. In the episode Whaever Happened, Happened we see Kate delivering Aaron to his maternal grandmother. Question served, question answered. A quick and simple device to allow the writers of the show to compel us to watch.

Last week we were handed another mini-mystery which also carried over to this week’s episode. Ilana asked pilot Frank Lapidus the question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?” During this question there was a man standing next to Ilana. This week we see this same fellow again in a flashback for Miles Straum. We learn his name is Bram (at least I did) and he is with a group that abducts Miles to try to convince him to not work for Charles Widmore. During this exchange he asks Miles the same cryptic question, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”

Since Bram was trying to convince Miles to not work for Widmore I guess we can stick a pin in my theory that Bram was hired by Widmore and put on the plane. Without that theory I’m left to wonder if Bram is aligned with Ben Linus, or is this in fact the introduction of a new faction that we haven’t been made aware of before? I do not know who these people could be, unless they some how pre-date the Others when it comes to exotic Island living.

Another bit of history came back to us when Miles was being auditioned for hire by Naomi to join the freighter expedition in another flash back. Miles used his talent for hearing the dead on a body Naomi brought him to that was to deliver photos of empty graves and the purchase order for an old plain to Widmore. This is a reference to the documents that were shown to Michael Dawson back in last season’s episode Meet Kevin Johnson. What Michael was shown was proof that it was Widmore who had bought and sunk a plane identical to Oceanic 815 that was filled with dead bodies. After this revelation one has to wonder why someone would be delivering these documents to Widmore since they could really only be used as evidence. Widmore wouldn’t need evidence of the acts that he had himself had performed, would he? This bit of inquiry, mixed with the knowledge of our “shadow of the statue” people makes me wonder if maybe there is a third party that is playing Ben and Widmore against each other?

The “daddy issues” theme of LOST also carried over into this week’s episode when we discover that the father of Miles Straum is in fact Dr. Pierre Chang (or Dr. Marvin Candle, Dr. Edgar Halliwax or Dr. Mark Wickmund… take your pick), who wasn’t ever present when his son was growing up. I think a lot of people have been thinking that Chang was Miles’ father since we saw the scientist tending to his new born baby in this season’s premiere. The theory was further emphasized when both Miles and Charlotte seem to be having greater ailment from the time jumps on the Island, something Daniel Faraday mentions could be to amount of time exposed to the Island (suggesting they had been there longer than those around them / been there before).

The two other big things that occurred this episode aren’t really thought provokers at all, they are the elements that move the story forward. Miles wasn’t able to erase the camera footage of the pylons, so Phil was able to see Sawyer and Kate taking 13 year old Ben. This lead to Phil being cold-cocked by Sawyer after he reveals that he hasn’t yet told anyone about this. Juliet went to get a rope to tie Phil up and we now know that the comfy life in Dharma-ville is officially coming to a close.

Right before the end title of LOST we also saw a group of scientists arriving on the Island in 1977. One of these scientists was Daniel Faraday, the physicist who has been missing for the past five episodes. I find it very interesting that he is returning to the Island as a scientist in a dark jumpsuit but during the season premiere Because You Left we see him in a gray jumpsuit (with no identifying emblem on the Dharma patch) seemingly trying to infiltrate the Dharma station The Orchid. Was this scene from the season premiere something that has happened before or after Daniel left the Island? I guess we’ll know the answer in the next four hours of the show.

If you are like me you’re probably dissapointed that we are getting handed a clips show next week and have to wait two weeks for the last four hours of this season. At least you won’t have to be married to your television next Wednesday night, right?

Join me again in two weeks and we’ll talk LOST again.

– Will Wilkins loved that Miles shot his dad a dirty look when he heard that his dad liked country music.

April 16, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 4/13 – 4/19

Welcome to another TV or Not TV where I’m just confused as all get out.

If you didn’t see the finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which judging from the ratings you probably didn’t) we were handed a bit of a twist to what we thought of might have been going on and a good ol’ steaming pile of confusion.

The show itself didn’t have the best balance this season as far as the pace went. Part of this, I believe, is due to the show having to pick up after being interrupted by last year’s writer’s strike. Upon it’s return this season T:TSCC never reached it’s original ratings numbers. People clearly felt abandoned and didn’t come back.

Those that did were handed aÂ season started out strong. We saw the negative repurcussions to the angst of a teenage John Connor who is in love with the Cameron, the Summer Glau Terminator. The show also gave itself a chance at a roadmap and new direction with the inclusion of scribblings on the wall from a soldier from the future to try to help guide the Connors on their way to prevent Judgement Day.

The mid-season confusion over Sarah’s obsession around three dots on the wall is where the show really started to lose me, and lead to the slowest part of the season. This, coincidentally, was around the time where the show actually was picked up for a full season after seeming to be cancelled after 13 episodes.

The two or three episodes following the return tried to finally get rid of that story line and move on to what turned out to be a decent wrap up to the season. We found out that the mysterious Catherine Weaver, who was a liquid metal T1000, was actually on the side of the Connor‘s and was trying to create the anti-SkyNet with the creation of John Henry. The Turk from season one conveniently became the real source of the three dots we were so bored to death watching Sarah track down, and we got to see Summer Glau do an impersonation of a real Terminator, complete with jailhouse invasion and massive damage showing her metal skeleton underneath.

The biggest twist, however, is the one that also confuses the heck out of me. For whatever reason Cameron gave her chip to the artificial intelligence John Henry, and Weaver eludes to the fact that he may have escaped to another time. Even more baffling is that John Connor decides to bail on humanity and time travel with Weaver to try to recover the cyborg’s chip. This lead to a very interesting moment where Connor finds himself in a future after Judgement Day where no one has heard of him. Is this because he travelled back in time to and hasn’t lived out the years between then and Judgement Day or is this how John Connor actually gets to where he needs to be to become the savior of humanity?

These questions, sadly, may not be answered as things are not looking good after this sophmore season. Fans of the show can take comfort in the fact that they were at least given some answers before Terminator: Salvation hits theatres and completely disregards anything the show has set up (just as it has ignored anything after Terminator 2). I’m sure there will beÂ mail campaign where people send in potato “chips” to represent the one that Connor is after. Will it make a difference? Probably not.

Let’s put the time travel stuff to bed now and take a look at the shows that are coming up this next week.

MONDAY

CBS – 8:30 PM: Now that Ted has been fired from his job he starts up his own architectural on How I Met Your Mother. Maybe the mother he’s meeting is a bankruptcy attorney?

FOX – 9:00 PM: Elisha Cuthbert is back tonight on 24. Creepy therapist C. Thomas Howell isn’t.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Tonight on Heroes they reveal the answers to what happened in 1961. What, you didn’t know there was an unanswered question about then either?

SUNDANCE – 9:00 PM: If you really want to know how much show business sucks when you are on the bottom rung of it’s food chain then check out Confessions of a Super Hero. This documentary looks at the people that dress up as costumed movie characters and super hero’s on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

TUESDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: Biggest weight loss, biggest injury and normal make-overs are on tonight’s The Biggest Loser: Couples.

E! – 8:00 PM: An E! News special takes a look at The Final Hours of Natalee Halloway. You can use this as a primer for the upcoming TV movie. As a dad this story still breaks my heart.

CW – 9:00 PM: Donna turns up on 90210 while millions won’t even know she did.

WEDNESDAY

ABC – 8:00 PM: Will JD figure out how to set things right with Elliot while Janitor and Lady get married in the Bahamas? Tune in to Scrubs to find out.

BRAVO – 9:00 PM: I’m a sucker for the lashing Kathy Griffin always gives to Hollywood and her latest show She’ll Cut a Bitch delivers in droves.

ABC – 8:00 PM: It’s back to 1977 tonight on LOST and we might find out tonight what connection with the Island that Miles has.

TV LAND – 10:00 PM: A group of 20-something men vie for the hand of a 40-something woman on the new reality show The Cougar. Thankfully it is nothing like the horrible SNL skit.

THURSDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: My Name is Earl is back tonight and Earl tries to make ammends to someone he used to torture in school. This almost makes me think I’m going to see Jason Lee on my doorstep.

FOX – 8:00 PM: A death metal band has been using an actual human skeleton as a stage prop tonight on Bones. At least they aren’t posers.

NBC – 9:30 PM: Liz has to fill time during her suspension after last week’s 30 Rock. I’m sensing lots of Internet surfing and deep fried pastries in her future.

FRIDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Prison Break is back and takes over the night of programming on FOX. I only hope they can wrap up this once great show in a really good way in these final episodes (I’m also so glad that FOX could mess up the momentum of Dollhouse by giving it a week off).

NICKELODEON – 8:30 PM: With the great Johnny Depp guest-voicing on tonight’s Spongebob vs. The Big One how could I help but not mention it (besides, with a five year old I’ll also be watching it)?

ABC – 9:00 PM: The Supernanny comes to the rescue of a couple that admit the live with three house demolishing little devils. Heads up folks, this just means they are kids… and you are whimps that let them walk all over you. Guess that wouldn’t help fill an hour of prime-time though, would it?

SATURDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: What do you do with your lowest rated night of television? How about put all three of your Law & Order shows from earlier in the week on?

DISC – 8:00 PM: It appears to be Alaska night on Discovery Channel as MythBusters, Dirty Jobs and Arctic Roughnecks all are located in Palin country. Grab your mucklucks and settle in for viewing.

SUNDAY

NBC – 7:00 PM: Miss USA 2009 is here and ready to turn out the next Kelli McCarty. With her recent career change it’s too bad Miss USA didn’t have a talent competition.

LMN – 8:00 PM: Remember The Natalee Halloway Story movie I mentioned earlier? Here it is.

FOX – 8:30 PM: Animation Domination won’t be dominating much with the likes of Sit Down, Shut Up. It’s got a great pedigree of creators and voice talent, but the comedy/writing just isn’t up to snuff. Hopefully this academic comedy learns something quick.

– Will Wilkins wrote this column in front of a live studio audience.

April 14, 2009
Toy Box: The Kindle 2

Normally, I review toys. Technically, most of what I review aren’t true ‘toys’ (if you can find a way to play with a Professor McGonagall mini-bust that doesn’t involve your own weird sexual aberrations, please let me know), but that’s generally how folks think of it nonetheless. So today I thought I’d go for something a bit different, and look at the newly released Kindle 2 e-book reader from Amazon. Hey, it’s more of a ‘toy’ than a Premium Format statue of Slave Leia…and yes, I know exactly how you’re ‘playing’ with her, you sick bastard.

If you’re jonesing for the more traditional collectibles review, don’t forget to check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy, or follow me on Twitter for regular review updates.

As a card carrying geek in good standing with the association, I’m a huge fan of technology. I’m an engineer by education, and I was working with computers when they still took up entire rooms. I tend to be what the marketing types like to call an early adopter, especially when it comes to technology related to entertainment.

E-books and e-book readers were touted as the next great thing that would change the face of the world more than a decade ago. And as you might have noticed, books haven’t disappeared. I was one of those people who thought that e-books didn’t stand a chance, not because the technology sucked, but because of thousands of years of inherited instinct. We’ve been reading books an awfully long time, and there’s a special bond between a reader and the tome he reads. Early proponents of e-books seemed to dismiss that human instinct and desire for the printed page, right up to their failure in the market.

So years went by, and I didn’t own an e-book reader. Various models popped up and disappeared, as well as various technologies to make reading e-books easier on computers and portable devices. And I avoided them all. Until the Kindle.

My sweet, adorable, loving wife bought me a Kindle 2 for my recent birthday. However, it was not a total surprise, as I’d been requesting such a gift since last summer. Maybe it was the cool look. Maybe it was the ability to get new reading material instantly, any where, any time. Maybe those marketing types had finally just wore me down. In any event, I was ready to give it a personal shot.

I’ve had my Kindle 2 for a couple weeks now, and have already bought 5 books for it. I even bought one newspaper, largely to see how it handled such a beast. I’ve read it in various lighting situations, and in various places, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Let’s start with the design and ergonomics. The overall reader is about 8″ tall and just over 5″ wide, making it book-sized. However, it’s only about a third of an inch thick, making it Christian Bale in the Machinist skinny. To add to the impression of thinness, they’ve beveled and rounded the sides, tapering them down at the very edge. The Kindle weighs in at about 10 ounces, which is more heft than you’d think. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not heavy, but having the 10 ounces in such a thin device does give you the impression that you’re holding something sturdy and substantial, not something cheap and easily broken.

The screen is 6 inches on the diagonal, and is certainly large enough. As a fast reader, I find myself flipping pages quickly, but said flipping happens with great speed, so there’s no delay or interruption in the flow of the book.

There aren’t a lot of buttons on the front of the Kindle 2. There’s two large buttons on the left and right edges, both designed to move to the Next Page. Why two instead of just one on the right? Well, first you’re forgetting the lefties out there, and second, having the main button on both edges means you can hold the book in only one hand and still flip pages, and that hand can shift back and forth as you change physical positions. Hey, I shift around when I’m reading, and I found the two buttons very useful. Above the Next Page button on the left is a smaller Previous Page button (which does the obvious), and above the Next Page button on the right is a Home button.

The Home button takes you to your home page, where there’s a listing of all the books, papers, magazines and blogs that you have on the reader, and allows you to archive content or delete it. Jumping away from a book at any time to the Home page or another book does not lose your place, by the way.

Also on the right, near the bottom, are two more buttons and a control ‘stick’. The top button is your method for accessing the Menu, where you can shop the Kindle store wirelessly, along with a ton of features like annotating, bookmarking, copying text, etc. These features vary based on where you are, and I’ll cover these additional features more in a minute. The bottom button is a simple Back function, and it functions anywhere just like you’d expect.

The Kindle 2 does not have a touch screen. I’m good with that – I really don’t need to smudge up the screen constantly, especially when I’m trying to read with it. But some of the menu functions I mentioned require a cursor to be on the text, so that you can highlight passages or add notes. The control stick can be used to move said cursor, or to move any cursor (for example, the cursor in a Search box in the Kindle Store) to the left, right, up and down. Likewise it can move you through various menus, and by pushing it, you can select particular options.

Across the bottom of the Kindle is a keypad with the usual alphabetic characters as well as a couple of the most used symbol characters. There’s actually a ‘sym’ button mixed in there for the less used symbols, a delete key, a space bar…the usual suspects. This keyboard is useful for searches, notes, annotations, etc.

There’s one little key mixed in with the keyboard that’s very important, particularly if you’re an old fart who refuses to use bifocals, like me. It’s labeled “Aa”, and pressing it brings up a screen that you can use to alter the size of the typeface. The default font is right in the center, and you can up the size (as I did), or shrink it down, for you punk ass kids with your eagle eyes and complicated shoes.

The use of these various buttons, menus and functions is extremely clear and straight forward. In the first two weeks, I haven’t referred to the user manual for any thing – the interface is that intuitive. The manual is available right on the Kindle of course, but most folks won’t need it to get started.

Getting started means buying your first book, newspaper, or magazine, and to do that you have a couple options. There are two key features that I think separate the Kindle from all previous e-books, and the first and foremost of those is the ability to get content any time, any where, over a 3G wireless network. This network access is free, at least in the sense of no monthly bills or additional charges once you’ve bought your Kindle. If you are wondering about the network coverage, Amazon has a coverage map right here. Can you read me now?

I can attest to the speedy nature of the downloads. I bought Dan Simmons’ new book, Drood, and it’s a long book…and I had it within 30 seconds. The beauty is that you can order the books from the Kindle itself, or on your computer and they get downloaded instantly. When you ‘register’ your Kindle, you tell it what your Amazon account name is. This links your Kindle directly to your Amazon account, using the CC you have on file for the purchases. It’s one click buying on your computer too, and is a fast, simple process.

Being able to get content this way is a key feature that sets this e-book reader apart. Now I can be sitting at a restaurant for lunch, and grab today’s copy of USA Today to keep myself occupied. An unexpected delay at the airport, doctor’s office, or any other situation can be turned into a chance to start a new book, without having to have the forethought to have bought it in advance. How great is that? No longer will us bookworms be forced into uncomforable conversations with the strangers around us.

There’s plenty of content to choose from too, and much of it is absolutely free. Amazon has over 260,000 books available right now, and like I said, I had no trouble finding Dan Simmons’ new book…or Michael J. Fox’s new book…or his old one, for that matter. New books are usually $9.99, up to 50% cheaper than what you’d pay for the hardcover. Older books are even less expensive, often just two or three dollars, and I picked up Wind in the Willows to read to my kids for just eighty cents. Many classics are absolutely free! And don’t worry about accidently deleting a book off your Kindle. Amazon keeps a backed up record of all the books you’ve downloaded, so you can always download them again for free.

The Kindle 2 can store up to 1500 books. That translates to a lifetime of reading, or about 1 book every two weeks for 70 years. You could read e-books your entire life, and never delete the old content. Of course, you know that’s not going to happen, which is part of the issue with an e-book reader. When you buy an actual paper book, you have something you can keep your whole life (short of fire, flood or your dog chewing it up). But as time has passed, I’ve figured out that there aren’t many books I actually WANT to keep. Oh, I’m a packrat, so I end up with more than I really need, stored in boxes in an attic, garage or basement, and finally ending up in a garage sale. It’s taken me awhile to get to this point, but I’m fine with the concept of electronic media being my only copy of a new bestseller.

However, most folks aren’t going to want to ditch their electronic copies of their books every few years when the next great reader comes out. Amazon has that covered, by providing the back up service I mentioned above. Since they’ll always let you re-download a book you’ve purchased, I can see them using that as a method of getting you to upgrade to the next Kindle. Buy the latest and greatest reader from them, and all your old Kindle content can be downloaded to it again!

Another big drawback is that you can’t share your copy with your friends. There’s no way to simply hook up a USB stick and drop the book on for your friends to read, and you know what…I can live with that too. If you’re in the habit of loaning out your books, you might not agree. But as far as I’m concerned, buy your own damn copy. And get the hell off my lawn, while you’re at it.

One area where I think e-book readers like the Kindle have real potential is college text books. The Kindle 2 allows you to highlight and annotate passages, cut sections of text out, make notes, and do all that sort of stuff the average poor college student is forced to do. But instead of being forced to pay $40 for some crappy used copy of a text book that was owned previously by some anal moron that highlighted every other paragraph and doodled love poems to their latest drunken conquest in the margins, they could have their own copy for just ten bucks, nice and clean and ready for their own virtual yellow highlighter. And the authors and publishers of college text books would be happy too, since they’d be getting a piece of ALL text book sales, instead of losing a huge hunk of the income to the used book market.

This ability to annotate, book mark and notate is something that only an e-copy allows. Another feature that can only exist in the electronic world is searching. Kindle’s search function will allow you to find a phrase, character, or word across your entire library of downloaded books. Lets say you’re a fan of Stephen King, and have all his books on your Kindle. You are reading his Kindle only novella, UR, and you know he’s used the term ‘low men’ before in describing the same type of characters…but in what other books? The search function will find them all for you instantly.

Amazon also has a free feature to convert your own documents to the Kindle. Let’s say Bob in Accounting has just sent you a huge Word document you need to read this weekend, but you don’t want to lug your laptop to your kid’s baseball game. You email the doc to a specific Amazon email address, and they convert it to a Kindle usable file. For a small fee (ten cents) they’ll also transfer it directly to your Kindle over the wireless network, or if you’re really a cheap bastard like me, for free they’ll send it to your regular email address, and you can hook up your Kindle through it’s USB port and download it yourself.

Another new feature with the Kindle 2 is the ability to read a book to you. You can choose between a male or female voice, and alter the speed a bit as well. However, don’t go thinking this feature will put any book-on-tape actors out work any time soon. While it’s not as robotic as WOPR, but it does have some trouble with inflection with longer words, and lacks any sort of emotion. The speakers are clear and well placed however, and their inclusion means that you can download audio books from Audible.com, and listen to them through your Kindle, either with the speakers or with headphones.

I mentioned early in the review that there were two features that make this e-book reader stand out. One is clearly the wireless connection. What’s the other? Why, the single most important feature of any e-book reader – the display.

Most readers feature a backlit display. Yep, you can read a book on your iPhone with an iApp, and you get iStrain. One of the main reasons is the backlighting. Staring at a bright screen with black text is hard on the eyes, especially when you’re reading for long periods. A computer monitor can be tough enough on your eyes, but when you’re browsing web pages and playing games, your eyes are bouncing around, getting updated images quickly. When you’re reading, you’re simply staring at text – do that for an hour, and you’ll quickly start to feel that tell tale headache behind your forehead.

The Kindle 2 is NOT backlit. Of course, that means you can’t read it in the dark without a light, just like a regular book (and yes, I’ve heard some people complain about this), but it also means that the page not only looks much more like an actual piece of paper with black type on it, but it treats your poor eyes the same way too. I read for 3 1/2 hours last Sunday at my daughter’s gymnastics meet, and didn’t have any trouble. Because there is no backlighting, and holding the ink on the screen requires no real power, the only real power use is when you’re flipping pages or using various functions. That means the battery lasts an extremely long time, and the Kindle doesn’t heat up no matter how long you’re using it. The screen itself allows no glare, so you can read in any sort of direct light including sunlight without any of the usual problems. While all the other features of an electronic book are fantastic – downloads, searching, bookmarking, etc. etc. etc. – they wouldn’t have any appeal if they hadn’t solved the simple issue of making the screen simulate an actual page. I think that Amazon’s ‘electronic ink’ technology has solved that basic issue, allowing all the other features to become the focus.

There’s lots of other features here, including an experimental web browser, a pre-loaded dictionary that can instantly tell you the meaning of words in the text, wireless access to Wikipedia, the ability to zoom in and out on images (yes, it can handle images, although they are rendered in 16 shades of gray), the ability to sync with your iPhone, and much, much more. But the key purpose here is to read books, and that’s what you’ll be doing for hours with this reader.

So am I happy with it? Yea, if that isn’t obvious. Rememer, I’m one of those bookworms who never believed I’d be able to give up the feel of a novel in my hands. And now it’s going to be the mighty rare book that I buy that isn’t on my Kindle 2.

Because Amazon has solved the riddle of eye strain with their new electronic ink technology, you can get past that issue and focus on the pros and cons of electronic media versus print. With print, you can share the book, have it on your shelf, and throw it at the cat. You can treat it as poorly as you’d like, and not feel too bad about it. You can’t do those things with an electronic copy (at the price of a Kindle, I wouldn’t recommend throwing your own at anything or anyone…but if it’s you’re boyfriends, and you just caught him cheating with that tramp at the coffee shop, then chucking his Kindle at him will be far more satisfying than any paper book) but you can do oh so much more. So are e-books and readers like the Kindle going to change the face of the print world? Yes, yes they are. Oh, they won’t do it overnight, but I suspect that it’s going to seem that way once we hit the tipping point.

You can get your Kindle 2 from Amazon for $359. Yep, I said it wasn’t cheap, but considering the price of hardcover books these days, it’s not going to take too many downloads before the reader pays for itself. And besides…there’s a price to be paid for being an early adopter 🙂

April 13, 2009
Trailer Park: Amber Borycki

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

So, I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp. Some weeks you get lucky with the kind of information that people are talking about. This week a debate about whether video games are art and the new trailer for MOON created some waves.

Quick announcement for those readers living in Phoenix (surprisingly, there are a lot of you out there) there is a screening of Kevin MacDonald’s (ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND) solidly casted film, STATE OF PLAY. The movie boasts the talents of Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren and Robin Wright Penn so at the very least it’ll be pretty to look at.

The sneak screening is this Tuesday night, April 14th at Tempe Marketplace. Those interested know the drill. E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com and I’ll make it happen.

The film’s synopsis:

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party’s contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

D.C. reporter Cal McAffrey has the dubious fortune of both an old friendship with Collins and a ruthless editor, Cameron, who has assigned him to investigate. As he and partner Della try to uncover the killer’s identity, McCaffrey steps into a cover-up that threatens to shake the nation’s power structures. And in a town of spin-doctors and wealthy politicos, he will discover one truth: when billions are at stake, no one’s integrity, love or life is ever safe.

As well, I’ve got a screening for SIN NOMBRE this week for Arizona dwellers.

The film, which is just a phenomenal debut from filmmaker Cary Fukunaga, is testament to the brilliance of those who are just looking for a change to tell the stories they believe in.

SIN NOMBRE is playing this Thursday, April 16 at 7 pm at the Harkins Camelview in Scottsdale, Arizona. E-mail me to get on the list…

Sin Nombre is an epic dramatic thriller written and directed by Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga in his feature debut. The filmmaker’s firsthand experiences with Central American immigrants seeking the promise of the U.S. form the basis of the Spanish-language movie.

Sin Nombre tells the story of Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a teenager living in Honduras, and hungering for a brighter future. A reunion with her long-estranged father gives Sayra her only real option ““ emigrating with her father and her uncle into Mexico and then the United States, where her father now has a new family.

Meanwhile, Casper, a.k.a. Willy (Edgar Flores), is a teenager living in Tapachula, Mexico, and facing an uncertain future. A member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang brotherhood, he has just brought to the Mara a new recruit, 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer), who undergoes a rough initiation.

While Smiley quickly takes to gang life, Casper tries to protect his relationship with girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana GarcÃa), keeping their love a secret from the Mara. But when Martha encounters Tapachula’s Mara leader Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta MejÃa), she is brutally taken from Casper forever.

Sayra and her relatives manage to cross over into Mexico. There, they join other immigrants waiting at the Tapachula train yards. When a States-bound freight train arrives one night, they successfully rush to board ““ riding atop it, rather than in the cars ““ as does Lil’ Mago, who has commandeered Casper and Smiley along to rob immigrants.

When day breaks, Lil’ Mago makes his move and Casper in turn makes a fateful decision. Casper must now navigate the psychological gauntlet of his violent existence and the physical one of the unforgiving Mara, but Sayra bravely allies herself with him as the train journeys through the Mexican countryside towards the hope of new lives.

I also have 2 DVD giveaways: THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE and A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY – 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

Alan Moore writer, artist and performer is the world’s most critically acclaimed and widely admired creator of comic books and graphic novels. In The Mindscape of Alan Moore we see a portrait of the artist as contemporary shaman, someone with the power to transform consciousness by means of manipulating language, symbols and images. The film leads the audience through Moore’s world with the writer himself as guide, beginning with his childhood background, following the evolution of his career as he transformed the comics medium, through to his immersion in a magical worldview where science, spirituality and society are part of the same universe.

What I can tell you about watching this documentary is that is Alan Moore very much encapsulates independent thinking and raises it to an art form. Regardless of this stances on the metaphysical or the ephemeral Alan is able to distill some very complex thought patterns into cohesive narratives that at once entertain and mind bend.

The documentary frames this writer as the master of his own donat, his own language. He is no ordinary writer, to be sure, and this documentary wonderfully dovetails with the WATCHMEN film in that here is a film that at once explains the why’s and how’s and then goes on to wrap your brain around the mysticism of Alan’s thought patterns. There are some more than excellent interviews with those he’s collaborated with and this documentary will more than satiate anyone wanting to know more about the man who has, in popular media, only been known as the guy who didn’t want his name attached to the film adaptations of his work.

I have a few to give away and if you’re interested please stick the words “Alan Moore” in the subject line of an e-mail and shoot it over to me at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com

Featuring interviews with hundreds of fans, movie executives, and high profile celebrities, A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY delves into the franchise that has made household names of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, R2-D2 and C3PO. As a new wave of Star Wars mania was being induced in “˜99, Jalal brought his cameras to Star Wars conventions, to boisterous nationwide premieres, into the homes of devoted fans showing off their treasures and collectibles and captured those who spent 42 days on line, just to be first to see The Phantom Menace.

Interviews and archival footage featured includes Samuel L. Jackson, Joe Pesci, genre filmmaker Roger Corman, Meat Loaf, Dennis Franz, Andy Garcia, Jimmy Kimmel and Star Wars alumnus David Proust (Darth Vader), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Anthony Daniels (C3-PO) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). Offering a complete, often hilarious, exploration of George Lucas’ crowning achievement that brings together a group of fascinating, passionate, hysterical — and often touching ““ fans, A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY is not just a film about overzealous fanboys.

Instead, it plumbs the depths of a common, shared love that knows no boundaries and seeks answers to a stunning phenomenon that continues to live on like Yoda.

I love documentaries like this. There is something about the examination of any subculture where I’ve had a passing interest. To wit, TREKKIES has set the bar for me in regards of simplicity and its lo-fi sheen. In the middle of this average documentary I not only came to understand why some will dress up and descend on conventions simply to indulge their passion as fans of this science fiction program. The interviews always draw me in, I cannot start this film without going all the way through and I suspect the same will happen for this documentary. It hits the notes it has to with its exploitation of the crazies who are genuinely into this but it also has some solid interviews with those who have inside the sphere, first-hand knowledge of the universe that George Lucas has crafted. Say what you will about the man but he has parted a lot of people with their money. This documentary absolutely shows where a lot of that cash has gone.

I’ve got a few copies available to give away so if you’re interested please put “Galaxy” in the subject line and shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com.

———————————————–

HARPER’S ISLAND: AMBER BORYCKI

Sometimes it’s just good to sit on something.

I waited to release this interview with Amber Borycki of CBS’ Harper’s Island, now showing every Thursday night (and watch the show’s premiere online if you’ve missed it), as I’ve done this before. I’ve talked to a show’s talent and released the thing weeks before the show has even aired. Most of the time it’s a safe bet but if you’ve never heard of a program or watched it there is an inherent problem at times in making it meaningful to someone who hasn’t seen it.

With Harper’s Island, though, I hedged a bet that it was going to well in order to have a little more than a passing interest in the following interview. But the bet wasn’t that risky in my own estimation. You had an excellent time slot that was poised to help this little show that could, you had a cast full of unknowns that only increases the tension for a murder mystery program in that you can’t cherry pick who is going to make it to the end but, most of all, and what impresses me, is that this show has a finite lifespan. I am just as a fan of Lost’s twisted and arching story lines but there is something fascinating in a program’s development that says to itself, “There will be someone dead at the beginning and there will be a resolution of it all by the end of 13 episodes.” If all goes well, there could be a different set-up for each batch of shows. Yes, it’s gimmicky in a way. However, where the rubber meets the proverbial road is whether the story and writing can sustain itself for these episodes; you could have any number of wacky premises but if each one was written well enough I could care less about how nutty the idea is.

As it stands, and why I feel vindicated if only for a week, the debut of Harper’s Island last Thursday ranked first in viewers for its time slot (10.5 million) behind only stalwarts CSI and Survivor. Take it as you will in this fickle viewing pool of television viewers but I’ll strike while the iron is hot and introduce you to Amber Borycki, an actress who had her film debut in a breakout performance in 1984’s RUNAWAY by Michael Crichton starring Tom Selleck , Kirstie Alley and Gene Simmons of Kiss only to disappear for almost 20 years.

Read on to find out why…

HARPER’S ISLAND is on Thursday nights at 10 ET/PT

CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Tell me, what is it about this show ““ it’s one of those shows that has been shrouded in mystery with only a vague idea of what it’s about. What can you tell me?

AMBER BORYCKI: Let’s see. There’s a lot I can’t tell you about the show. We are sworn to secrecy to our death actually. Do you want the premise of the show?

CS: Briefly. Lay it out for me.

BORYCKI: It is a one hour drama. They are calling it a horror-inspired drama or a 13 episode mystery event. Basically it’s about a group of friends and family and they travel to an island to celebrate a wedding and for Abby Mills who is the lead character played by Elaine Cassidy this is the first time she’s gone back to Harper’s Island since her mother was murdered there 7 years ago.

I guess at the beginning spirits are really high and it’s all a big party but as the show progresses people are gripped by fear and are murdered one by one and everybody is a suspect. By the end of 13 episodes, the murdered will be revealed.

CS: And this is one of the interesting things I found out about the show is that they are planning on spinning this into ““ if this season goes well, next season will be a completely different cast with a completely focus.

BORYCKI: Yeah, they have to. There’s nobody left.

(Laughs)

CS: But, yeah, they are planning on making this more than just a one time thing.

BORYCKI: Yes, that is the one thing we are allowed to say is that they are promoting it as everybody is going to go, one by one people are going to be picked off and by the end you will sort of find out who it is. I mean, pretty much everybody.

CS: This seem right for a couple reasons. Why I like this is that they know there is a finite, definite end to the series. Can you shed some light about what they had in mind? You can see how this could have been stretched into 3, 4 or 5 seasons. Why did they want to shoot it all in one season and get it done with?

BORYCKI: I think it’s just because it’s a new idea. The reason they are doing just 13 episodes is because they are calling this a mystery event. They are promoting it as kind of a mini-series. So, that way you are guaranteed, I think by July 13^th, you are going to know who it is. That way, people who are watching the show ““ they have this anticipation every time. They know they are going to find something out.

I think that’s the difference between a series like Lost. You don’t know when you’re going to find out the end. This way, you know the exact day you are going to get that reward for watching the series. It’s really like a horror movie stretched out over 13 episodes on TV. Like a really long horror movie ““ which is pretty cool.

CS: Are they shooting this cinema-style or doing it kind of vÃ©ritÃ© like a documentary?

BORYCKI: It’s actually done cinema-style. Like any other one hour drama. There is no hand held camera. It’s great, shiny and colorful. That’s one cool thing about the show is that it starts off in the beginning in the summer and it’s the wedding, it’s the parties, the heels, bright colors and sun but as the show progresses, the whole tone starts to change when people start getting killed and obviously if your friend or family member gets murdered you are not going to be putting on your heels and dresses anymore. Dressing in darker colors and jeans and the whole tone starts to change. A very cool visual effect ““ the palate changes as well.

CS: Is that what brought you into this? Was it the premise that sold you, did someone have you in mind or is this one of those things you basically go in for and audition and see if you get it?

BORYCKI: I auditioned, yeah. I auditioned for a show here in Vancouver, Canada where the show is filmed and I actually only auditioned a week before the show went to camera. They were still doing casting and it all happened super fast. I went in and Jon Turtletaub, our executive producer, Dan and Karim were there in the room and, right away, I knew walking in that I wanted to be a part of the show because of the energy in the room. They were warm, inviting and such great guys and were excited and it was a cool experience auditioning because they were so welcoming. I left saying I really wanted to work with these guys because they were so great. So, I’m really happy to be a part of it.

CS: Speaking about Jon, I read some interviews with him. He’s an interesting guy to get on-board with something like this. Serial television isn’t something he gets a whole lot of involved in.

BORYCKI: True. National Treasure fame and all.

CS: Exactly. Can you share what brought him to do this thing? He said he was going to do National Treasure III.

BORYCKI: That maybe a question you would have to ask him. I don’t really know exactly how he got involved in the first place. I just know that it was a collaboration of people that really wanted to try something new. Something that has never been done this way before. Yeah, it was kind of different. We were all really excited to work with him. Him coming into a TV series. He directed the pilot as well, which was great because we all got to hang out. To have him there with his film background and history really just worked for the show because it feels like a movie on TV. Like a 13 part movie. But in terms of how he got involved initially, I’m not sure.

CS: Let me ask you a little bit about yourself. From 1984 until about 2003 you were basically absent from major productions but were doing a lot of theater. What brought you back in?

BORYCKI: You must have looked at my resume!

(Laughs)

CS: Yes, I did….

BORYCKI: The Runaway is on there and it makes me laugh because I did movie when I was a year old. It starred Tom Selleck and he actually rescued me from killer robots. It’s hilarious. Now we have all these cool I-Robot type movies and in this movie it looks like shoe boxes with guns sticking out.

(Laughs)

It’s all kind of funny. I’m in my crib and he comes in and rescues me. Magnum-style. I guess it was my parents. My dad is a writer and producer but I never did any child acting. I guess in high school started doing theater and musicals and came to acting that way and didn’t start doing TV and films until I was about 19. They left it up to me to find my own interest and it just sort of came back into my life and I realized that it was what I loved to do more than anything. That explain the “senior” hiatus?

(Laughs)

I took a little break. The Runaway took it all out of me!

CS: Did the writers know ““ obviously one of the things about Lost ““ some of the guys didn’t really know where it was going to go when they got started, we just had the idea.

BORYCKI: We asked them and yes, they knew. That was really funny because we would try to get it out of them all the time. There were people claiming that they were going to have mental breakdowns. I remember going out for dinner and one of our cast members was like, “Look, if you don’t tell me this… I can’t handle it anymore. I don’t know if I’m going to die. I don’t know if I’m the killer. I need to know this. I’m going nuts.” But it was like a game all the time. They did a really good job because nobody knew anything until the end. Top secret.

CS: Well, what about for you? What’s on the horizon? What are you looking forward to?

BORYCKI: I’m super excited right now because the show comes out in about a month and we have our billboards up, which is really cool. I’m in Vancouver right now but I’m heading down to LA tomorrow, actually, and the picture of our billboard has been circulating around and we’re sending it like on Facebook and emails. I love the websites where people are starting to talk about it. So, at this point I’m just super excited about the show and I’m going to head down to LA and be there for the pilot episode and we’re all going to get together and watch it. That’s the focus right now. I’m still auditioning for other things and thinking about what’s coming next but at this point, the focus is pretty much on that. There is some pretty cool press stuff coming up. They are doing a lot of extra stuff that goes along with the show. There’s the Harper’s Globe which is a website that CBS is doing which is kind of like a story of a girl, a local to Harper’s Island who writes for the paper and keeps a blog on what’s happening. Sort of an off-shoot of Harper’s Island. Things like that. Pretty cool stuff to watch out for.

CS: That’s the frustrating thing about doing an interview like this because you can’t say a whole lot.

BORYCKI: I know. I’m trying to be really careful. We had to sign our lives away to not say anything and it’s so hard. Even my best friends and family are asking me questions. My accountant the other day was asking. But I couldn’t say anything. I can only say what I can say. I don’t want to slip up.

April 13, 2009
TV or Not TV: The Morning After for LOST 4/8

Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where my head is once again left spinning from the night before.

Last night, just like every Wednesday night, I continued my romance with the television show LOST. I am still amazed at just how powerful this season is. I know I shouldn’t be surprised since this is in essence the act that immediately preceeds the final chapter in this story, however last season had some slow points so I keep expecting to hit one this season. It hasn’t happened yet. I’m not sure it is going to.

I will warn you now that I will be freely discussing what occured in last night’s episode of LOST, so if you haven’t yet watched the show than I would strongly encourage you to return once you have.

This episode, titled Dead is Dead, was another episode where we saw more into the past of Benjamin Linus. There was a whole lot else that went on in this episode, but it is these flashbacks that have given me the most food for thought because of what they revealed.

Back in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham I was left wondering how much of the tale told to John Locke by former Islander Charles Widmore was true. Widmore claimed that he had a camera where John had appeared because it is the exit point, the same place that he himself had appeared years ago when Ben had tricked him into leaving the Island. At that time I had my doubts, mostly because in the episode The Shape of Things to Come there was no camera present when Ben appeared on this same spot. When I first saw the camera it was my suspicion that Widmore had some how back tracked Ben‘s steps to find the spot where Ben had appeared (which shouldn’t be too hard since Ben left two dead bodies there) and set up the camera so he could watch for another person to show up that might help him get back to the Island. After it was revealed last night that Widmore did, in fact, NOT leave the Island via trickery or deception as he had previously indicated I think my original speculation may be closer to the truth than what Locke was told by Widmore.

Last night it was also revealed to us exactly how Ben became so banged up prior to boarding Ajira flight 316. Many have speculated that this happened in pursuit of completing his promise to Widmore that he would kill Widmore‘s daughter in retaliation for the death of his own daughter Alex, which turned out to be right on the money. In this revelation a few more important facts, for me anyway, were revealed…. ones that got my mind working. While on the phone to gloat about his impending actions Ben tips his hand to Widmore that he would be returning to the Island that day. Widmore points out that the Island will not let him return if it doesn’t want him to, just as he has tried for nearly 20 years. Not a very thrilling conversation, and not something that really seems to reveal a lot, not when you look at the facts alone. If you couple these comments, however, with later actions in the episode I think we can get a bigger picture.

In The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham we see that Widmore has been keeping tabs on the Oceanic 6. I would think it is also a safe assumption that he may have been trying to keep tabs on Ben. We also know from the episode Jughead that he knows the whereabouts of Eloise Hawking. This may mean that Hawking could be sharing information with Widmore, or that simply by following all of these people and their activities Widmore could know that they booked travel on Ajira flight 316. Where am I going with this? Let me tell you.

I think there may be a possibility that the bounty hunter, Ilana, and maybe other people on the plane could have been on the Widmore payroll. Near the end of last night’s episode we see pilot Frank Lapidus return to the site of the Ajira 316 crash. There he finds Ilana and another crash survivor continuing the securing of the large metal canister that, earlier, she indicated was something they just “needed to move.” I’m sure a man of Widmore‘s wealth and resources could arrange for weaponry to be packed in the cargo hold of a plane, and what better way to try to find the Island without detection than to send in an undercover group in the hopes they survive getting there? The fact that Ilana seemed to have some type of pass-phrase that she asked to Lapidus (“What lies in the shadow of the statue?”) would really seemed to imply that she’s under orders/control of someone and was looking to verify that Lapidus was as well, making me think that maybe this is a code the Widmore people were given to use to identify each other once they got to where they were going.

This guess is nothing but a speculative guess. It could be that our good old friend the Smoke Monster took a trip over to the second island and worked the same mojo he did on the French Scientists that we saw back in This Place is Death and they are now all “infected” or doing the Island’s bidding. It could be that Ilana is also just taking charge of a group of people now that someone seemingly with them (Ben) killed someone else with them (Caesar) before fleeing to the main Island. That pass-phrase however makes me think the latter is not that likely.

Setting aside all of my crazy theories, it was very interesting to see in last night’s episode how the tables have really been turned on Ben. It was made very clear to him, by episodes end, that he is no longer the architect of the Island’s bidding and he darned well better get in line and follow John Locke. It was also interesting to see how the Smoke Monster made Ben reflect on the life of his daughter, and seemingly let him live because he truly had regret for his actions.Â This regret, and admission of his own guilt, seems to be the redeeming quality. Back in season 3’s episode The Cost of Living we saw how Mr. Eko was not as fortunate when facing judgment by the Smoke Monster because when told to confess his sins he instead stated he had not choosen the life he was given, he was not sorry for the things he had done, and that he believed he did his best with what was given to him.Â No regret, no guilt, no redemption.

One last observation: Did anyone else feel like Ben‘s statement that, “It let me live” almost seemed to be filled with regret?

There you have it folks, the meandering thoughts that come to me after watching last night’s episode of LOST. Now that I’ve gotten them out of my head I am going to explore the Internet to see what other people thought as well.

Tune in next week and we’ll do it all again.

– Will Wilkins can’t wait for the 100th episode of LOST.

April 9, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 4/6 – 4/12

Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where I’m finally all moved in.

I know that you don’t care about my moving woes, and I really don’t blame you.Â Clearly they’ve had an impact on me and my ability to get things done and I’ve had to set this column aside not once but twice (not something that I like to do). It’s also distracted me from my ability to watch TV, which also makes writing this column a little tough.

That being said I hope that you can accept the fact that I actually have very little to talk about at the head of this column, accept for a few ramblings that sprang to mind between my last column and this one while I’ve been shuffling boxes from there to here.

I’m still blown away by LOST and I have no idea what direction that they are taking with this show, but I’m still thrilled to sit here and enjoy the ride.

I never actually watched Life on Mars but I understand that a lot of people were dissapointed in the way that the show closed the season (and series).Â Sorry you guys got stung.

I’ve been watching Heroes and I have to say that the past few episodes have almost made me forget all of the bad that the show has been lately and I’ve actually been looking forward to viewing again (even though I admit that Hayden‘s hair in the last episode was a major distraction).

Battlestar Galactica‘s ending actually had a bit more heart that I was expecting it to have, and ended on far warmer a note that I ever would have imagined the show capable of. Our illustrous Ken Plume hit the nail on the end when he recently tweeted that an influence of Douglas Adams was present.

I’m both happy and sad to learn that the next season of Monk is going to be it’s last. The show has been a long-running staple in my house and even though there is more to come I’m already starting to miss the Defective Detective.

I still amazed at how good Smallville has been this season as it’s a show I’d all but written off after last year. If the quality were to keep up like this I’d be more than happy to see it return, and get paired with another season of Reaper. Both of these things are nothing but wishful thinking on my part.

I have to wonder if ABC really intends to air the final three unaired episodes of Pushing Daisies this summer since they will be on the second season DVD set, which is set to release July 21.

With these minor ramblings out of the way I present to you my take on the schedule this next week.

MONDAY

NBC – 8:oo PM: Tonight Chuck is special guest-tastic with Chevy Chase and Scott Bakula. This show is starting it’s season wrap-up so if you’ve been a fan in the past and you’ve not been watching recently then now would be a good time to get back in to it.

NGTV – 8:00 PM: The holiday of Easter is upon us and the National Geographic Channel is goin’ In Search of Jesus’ Tomb. Didn’t anyone learn from Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone’s Vaults?

ABC – 9:30 PM: Bob Saget is returning to the realm of the sitcom with Surviving Suburbia. This is no Full House but I hear really good things.

TUESDAY

ABC – 8:00 PM: It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown is another one of those specials that I just don’t remember but I’m sure I watched as a kid.

FOX – 9:00 PM: The odd cases and creepy bald guy are back with tonight’s return of Fringe.

FX – 10:00 PM: I’m trying to avoid the fire jokes with the return of the smokin’ hot FX original series Rescue Me, but I can’t help it.

WEDNESDAY

DISCOVERY – 9:00 PM: If you were already a fan of Mythbusters than I have three words that are going to make you squeel with glee: Demolition Derby Special.

ABC – 9:00 PM: So Ben broke the rules and now has to atone for his past discretions. How does one do that? Looks like you may have to go to the temple where the Smoke Monster lives and present yourself for judgement. I love LOST.

ABC – 10:00 PM: I don’t know what to think about The Unusuals just based on the previews that we’ve been given. Either this is going to be an incredibly quirky and entertaining ensemble cast set in the oddest police precinct in New York or it’s going to be a monumental mess.

THURSDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM & 9:00 PM: I was thrown for a loop on The Office when Michael quit. I was mystified when he decided to start his own paper company (was Dunder-Mifflin just a reseller?). I’m glued to watching tonight.

NBC – 8:30 PM: Can the people that brought us The Office make lightning in a bottle twice with Parks and Recreation? Amy Poehler sure hopes so.

COMEDY CENTRAL – 10:00 PM: If you were hoping for much from Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire you’re probably in for a let down. This is Comedy Central, not Adult Swim.

CBS – 10:00 PM: The murder-a-week mystery show Harper’s Island premieres tonight. Each week a wedding guest is offed, bringing us closer to the killer. Eh, it’s only 13 weeks, I’ll watch.

FRIDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Will tonight’s season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles be the series finale? I don’t think they’ll be back.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Must be something in the air tonight, it’s also the season finale of Friday Night Lights.

FOX – 9:00 PM: Someone’s been spying on the Dollhouse so Echo and Sierra are imprinted to be spy-hunters. I love how this show has gone from giving us the creepy clients and gone internal with the story lines.

HIST – 10:00 PM: If you were wondering how to not do a Ponzi scheme than you may want to watch Ripped Off: Madoff and the Scamming of America.

SATURDAY

ABC – 7:00 PM: Will this year be the year that I finally watch The Ten Commandments?

FOOD – 8:00 PM: Get ready for the sugar induced little ones with the tempting Easter Unwrapped. Maybe it isn’t good to know how our favorite treats are made.

HBO – 10:00 PM: Thrilla in Manilla is a doc that looks back at the final Ali-Frazier fight, featuring Joe Frazier himself. This is from a time when boxing was more than something just on Saturday nights HBO, it was a national obsession and this competition was ugly.

SUNDAY

HISTORY – 8:00 PM: Scientests try to figure out if life started here or abroad as well as try to determine alien influence on mankind in Ancient Aliens.

TLC – 8:00 PM: A woman’s legs and feet grow to 210 pounds on The Woman with Giant Legs. Sometimes the title really does say it all.

SHO – 10:00 PM: Tracy Ullman is back on the tele again with Tracy Ulman’s State of the Union. She’ll be using a cast of self-played characters to make us laugh and take a look at the American condition.

April 6, 2009
Trailer Park: X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – Reviewed

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp. Some weeks you get lucky with the kind of information that people are talking about. This week, though, was all about ShoWest and the plethora of crumbs that fell from Hollywood’s summer movie season table.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE – Now Available in the iTunes store!

So, stop me if you’ve heard this: on April Fool’s Day eve the word went out that a leaked version of Fox’s X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE had made its way to the Internet. Those who have been around these parts for a while have come to expect a bit of juvenelia from those in the online community be it in the form of fake stories, fake rumors, fake DVD releases (I still remember the one that mentioned the existence of a PEARL HARBOR preview on copies of THE ROCK) and basically stupid shit that still surprises me that webmasters everywhere think is amusing to perpetuate. However, that said, and like Sally Forth’s daughter wondering whether her mom would bite the ears off of her chocolate Easter bunny in the Sunday funnies, it always amused me to see what would come up next however lame or uninspired.

This rumor, though, had a different tenor. Spread across Twitter, there was some urgency in the message that WOLVERINE had popped up on the Internet. First the screen shots appeared, the quality was incredible I have to admit, and then like a pack of people wondering if something was real or not “Has anyone heard whether this is legit?”, “This is a bad day for Fox”, “Someone is going to prison” the chatter was enough to make you wonder. Then, not succumbing to the peer pressure just yet, Ethan from Screen Geeks Radio took the plunge for all of us and gave a play by play of what he was seeing.

It was real and it was DVD quality.

For once the Internet got it right. It was a bad day for Fox and then the commentaries started from all the usual suspects across the film spectrum. Was it right to publicize this? Is this news? Is it a news story that, if someone ran, would just inspire people to download it more? How awful were the people who downloaded the film and did these people represent any considerable dent to the possible box office if it proliferated?

It was the latter question that got me thinking about who ARE the kind of people that download these kinds of things and whether they did represent any threat to the overhaul haul this film would eventually bring in? The easiest answer is no. It’s not. No matter how many people download it, the bell curve of the people who are, right now, rabidly consuming the bits and bytes off torrent sites everywhere to see this unfinished film represent a subset of users who not only don’t mind watching an unfinished film but users who roll up to these sites looking for cam copies of I LOVE YOU, MAN or blurry versions of KNOWING.

The difference between me and a lot of other movie site contributors is that I don’t have any animosity towards these people. Derision, hatred, abject disgust are just a few things those who are leaders of the bully pulpit of commentators are using to describe those downloading the film. Why? I can understand where they’re coming from, I understand their position but I don’t think I can empathize with their negativity. Now, keep in mind this is obviously my opinion, but when you are in a position of having it all, and many of those lucky enough to be writing about film for more than just yourself are enjoying this moment in their life when their comments and opinions matter, it’s easy to cast aspersions on those who would hazard to download this movie. I could list a few popular podcasts out there right now who are sometimes aided in their reviews of films that never quite made it to their part of the woods but using “special antennae” were able to get copies of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, GOMORRAH, THE HURT LOCKER and countless others simply through a few mouse clicks. It doesn’t make the downloading better or right when someone is doing it for professional purposes but I can certainly understand where the temptation comes in to play.

It’s the tastemakers who have access, who can pick up a phone and verify a rumor, can shoot off an e-mail and get things done, can go to places like the Comic-Con and get treated like the royalty they are not by the publicists looking for some favorable buzz, a favor or two when and if they need it. (Anyone want to take a stab at how many sites were “asked” to take down images from X movie or risk any modicum of power being dimmed like a dying bulb) There are no true outlaws on the Internet; only those willing to play quid pro quo.

The issue here really has to come with why we seem to be a culture that is warp speeding towards free. Some people, not all, have an expectation of access to everything, at all times, without having to pay for it. Just ask how your local newspaper is doing with regard on how they’re doing on creating a fiscal model where the print paid product can be replaced with their online, free version. It’s not working well, I can you that. And it’s just this microcosm of anomie among media companies that illustrates why WOLVERINE being on the Internet not only represents the pain it’s causing the money men at Fox but it is also indicative of the issues surrounding of what happens when you have a current climate of those who can consume their media at no cost to themselves. This movie, if I were to go back to when I was 13 and screwing around with my man Brandon Murphy and we were dream casting the X-MEN if and when it would ever get made, would represent a temptation even greater than porn. Now think of what it represents to those who use the ‘net to get their music, their television shows (show of hands: who has used BitTorrent to download a show that has long since gone away or who wanted to use it to see an old episode of The Office?) and other uses that some would consider “awful”, “shameful” or any other word ending in “ful.”

So, seriously, save your sanctimonious bullshit, your disdain for those who are downloading this film at a rather healthy clip and your upturned nose at those who you were many years ago when you had no one to listen to your empty praise of how awesome SCOTT PILGRIM is going to be or how awful 12 ROUNDS is because, I get it. I understand where the viewers are coming from and it’s the reason why your business model will never allow you to charge one fucking cent for your own content. The money won’t come rolling in, it’ll slowly trickle like a torrent file.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the review. I have to admit it is hilarious to see Ryan Reynolds, in the middle of a great action sequence, polished , well choreographed and slick looking, doing a forward flip assisted by wires attached to his harness.

If you want to know the rest you know where to find it.

THE MIGHTY BOOSH

With that out of the way I wanted to give a shout out to a most strange but entrancing series that hit television this week: The Mighty Boosh.

Now, the title may throw some people off but this show, honestly, is one of those unique visions of both creativity and complete insanity. I was falling ill with the flu earlier this week and I found it was just what my mind needed. I’ll allow the press release to put the program in context but do yourself a favor and schedule it in your TiVo and give it a chance. I’ve attached some sample clips to whet the proverbial appetite and to show you why it’s so hard to explain what this program is about without sounding like I’m on something.

Eels:

Trailer:

THE MIGHTY BOOSH ARRIVES TO ITUNES

Starting today, Season Three of the UK hit comedy series from award-winning creator-stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, The Mighty Boosh, is now available on the iTunes Store in the U.S. (www.itunes.com), with the first episode offered at a discounted price of 99 cents.

The Mighty Boosh joined the Adult Swim Sunday line-up this week, with episodes airing weekly at 1 a.m. (ET/PT). New episodes will be available on the iTunes Store each week following broadcast at www.itunes.com/tv/themightyboosh.

The third season sees Vince Noir (Noel Fielding, IT Crowd) and Howard Moon (Julian Barratt, Nathan Barley) working in Naboo’s second hand shop in Dalston. Needless to say they don’t get much work done. This doesn’t bother Naboo too much, firstly as the shop is really only a cover for his shady interplanetary Shaman business and secondly, he’s usually quite chilled out from sampling his own magical herbs and remedies.

With a massive cult following in the UK, Barratt and Fielding launched their first nationwide tour The Mighty Boosh Live across the U.K in 2006. Their second tour Boosh Live sold out venues at 90 stops across the U.K. and Ireland and wrapped up earlier this year.

April 3, 2009
Toy Box: Stargate SG-1 F-302 Strategic Fighter/Interceptor

I think that sometimes franchises like Stargate don’t get all the credit they deserve. The big boys like Star Wars, Star Trek, or Terminator end up grabbing all the glory, while work horses like Stargate just keep plugging along, making money and giving fans what they’re looking for.

Hey, they must be doing something right. The 1994 film has spawned the very successful television shows Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, the animated show Stargate Infinity, several direct to DVD films, a comic book series, several novels, and a whole gaggle of video games. The franchise isn’t at an end yet, with another announced new series (called Stargate Universe) in the planning stages, and another potential direct to DVD movie in the works.

Of course, with all those movies, shows and games out there, collectibles are a no brainer. There have been a fair number produced, including a great line of action figures by Diamond Select Toys. The latest collectible based on the franchise has just been released by Quantum Mechanix. They’ve produced a scale model of the F-302 Fighter, first seen in the season 6 episode Redemption. This ship is key in the later seasons of the show, and Qmx has re-produced it in small scale to exacting detail.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my regular collectibles review site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy. Let’s check out the fighter!

Stargate SG-1: The F-302 Strategic Fighter/Interceptor

You can get more info on this ship at the QMX website, where you can also pick up some of their other cool products and prop replicas. This F-302 is a limited edition, and only 2500 were produced. It runs $120 direct from Qmx.

Packaging – ***
The packaging is fairly straight forward. It’s a box, and you know I like boxes. They store easily, and there’s really no wasted space or material here. The interior foam tray holds the ship and base safely, so the package does job one quite well.

The box lacks a window to see the ship you’re buying, but your purchase is likely to be online. What sets this apart for me is not the box itself, but the included Certificate of Authenticity, which is very attractive, and contains background info on the ship and the release.

Sculpting – ***1/2
It’s important to note that this is a tiny ship. The photos aren’t going to tell you that, with the exception of the final shot that shows the ship with two 3 3/4″ action figures, but it’s important to remember, because close up photos will always show some issues. You need to remember that the entire ship is only 8″ across, so the small paint and sculpt details you are seeing are quite tiny.

Considering the scale, the level of detail is quite impressive. Areas where mechanical sections exist have the appropriate tubing, ribs, sharp lines, and technical details that you’d expect on the actual ship. Some of these details are sculpted as part of the larger piece, but many are individual pieces attached to the main body, adding to the realism.

The ship comes with a base designed to look like a section of the flight deck. The ship can attach to this base with a clear plastic rod, or it can be removed from the base so you can fly it around the room. Just make sure to make appropriate whooshing sounds, even if that wouldn’t be scientifically correct.

My one complaint with the sculpt is that the plastic landing gear can be a bit warped. My front gear is tilted slightly off to the left, and not lined up perfectly straight. I’m going to try using some hot water to soften it and reposition it (wish me luck!), but that’s not something I expect to have to do (or risk) at this price point.
[ad#contestbox]
Paint – ***1/2
They’ve complimented the sculpt with a great hand painted finish, including many other minor details on the ship. Some of these are tampos of course, but the work is very clean and neat, and includes warning placards and various regulation markings, just like the real dea.

They’ve also used the paint to simulate a metallic appearance, as well as wear and age in some places. This works particularly well on the underside, where the torpedos and guns are present.

Design – ***1/2
This ship has the ability to hover, and they’ve used that to their advantage with the design. The ship is lifting off from the flight deck, with the landing gear just starting to raise into the ship. It’s an interesting concept, and certainly one that hasn’t been done too many times in the past.

Value – *1/2
At $120, this is not a model for the weak of heart (or light of wallet). They’re targeting the serious (or crazy…is there really any difference with any fan of any property?) Stargate SG-1 fan here, and folks in that mindset probably won’t bat an eye at the sticker. However, comparing it to other items on the market of similar quality, size and materials, it’s still a pretty hefty price tag.

Things to Watch Out For –
Not much. The little landing gear can be a bit brittle, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to display it resting solely on them for any extended period. I’m betting they end up wilting if you do, so stick with the included display stand.

Overall – ***
I really like the attention to detail, and the fine sculpt and paint work here. Fans of the show will appreciate the finer points, and take pleasure in pointing them out to their friends and captives.

For me, the high price tag pulls the overall down a bit, but if money isn’t an issue for you when it comes to Stargate SG-1, then the overall quality will boost your score higher.

Quantum Mechanix is producing some nice product right now, and I look forward to their next release. They had solicited a prop replica of the petrified hand from the Creature from the Black Lagoon at one point, but had to cancel it. As a huge Creature fan, I certainly mourn the loss.

Scoring Recap –
Packaging – ***1/2
Sculpting – ***1/2
Paint – ***1/2
Design/Quality – ***1/2
Value – *1/2
Overall – ***

Where to Buy –
Your best bet is direct from QMX at their website.

Related Links –
When it comes to Qmx, I covered their Firefly replica stunt pistol awhile back. If you’re more of a Stargate fan, check out my reviews of the Atlantis figures from DST, as well as series 1, series 2 and series 3 of DST’s SG-1 figures.

April 1, 2009
Trailer Park: MONSTERS VS. ALIENS – REVIEW

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp. I’ve been finding that when you start to follow other people Alex Billington of First Showing.net and some other lightning rods of public opinion you got yourself an amusing petri dish of entertainment.

FAST AND FURIOUS – Screening

Now, first things first: Is there any among you living in Arizona who believes in the redemptive power of empty action?

Vin Diesel is back to the franchise that really launched him into the films that, well, set up his eventual arrival back to the franchise. Say what you will about THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS but it was a movie that was all parts action and no part brainpower. It’s one of those films that I still label as a guilty pleasure simply because I enjoy watching it. There isn’t anything redemptive about the story but there are really some excellent practical effects and it still holds up as the kind of movie you can enjoy if it just happens to pop up on cable.

Now, though, the gang is back in Justin Lin’s FAST & FURIOUS, coming into theaters April 3rd and here is the synopsis:

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reteam for the ultimate chapter of the franchise built on speed – Fast & Furious. Heading back to the streets where it all began, they rejoin Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster to blast muscle, tuner and exotic cars across Los Angeles and floor through the Mexican desert in the new high-octane action-thriller.

When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O’Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmaneuver him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what’s possible behind the wheel.

The screening is happening this Tuesday night, March 31st, at Tempe Marketplace and I only have a handful of tickets to give out. If you’re a winner I’ll put your name on the list and you’re as good as in. Just shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com.

BOLT – Blu-Ray/DVD Combo Giveaway

This is one of the most progressive things to happen in the home entertainment market. Say what you will about the battle between whether we’re all going digital or whether it’s better to stay safely in the DVD or Blu-Ray camp because Disney has just released last year’s BOLT, featuring the vocal stylings of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus, in handy Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs.

You don’t have to guess which to get as you fiddle around guessing whether you’re going to be upgrading in the next year or whether you’ll be able to take a digital copy with you in your portable media player. This combo pack also sports a digital copy along with the two other formats so I cannot recommend this release enough.

The film surprised me as I wasn’t really expecting much but I ended up genuinely enjoying this film and am happy to announce I am giving away 5 Blu-Ray/DVD combo packs to the first five people to shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com. I’ve also got tons of temporary tatoos, note pads, sticky pads and blow up toys so come one, come all.

For those in the dark about BOLT here is your synopsis:

For super-dog BOLT (voice of JOHN TRAVOLTA), every day is filled with adventure, danger and intrigue – at least until the cameras stop rolling. When the star of a hit TV show is accidentally shipped from his Hollywood soundstage to New York City, he begins his biggest adventure yet – a cross-country journey through the real world to get back to his owner and co-star, Penny (voice of MILEY CYRUS). Armed only with the delusions that all his amazing feats and powers are real, and the help of two unlikely traveling companions – a jaded, abandoned housecat named Mittens (voice of SUSIE ESSMAN) and a TV-obsessed hamster named Rhino (voice of MARK WALTON) – Bolt discovers he doesn’t need superpowers to be a hero. Directed by Disney veterans Chris Williams and Byron Howard, BOLT is a hilarious, fun-filled, action-packed animated comedy adventure in Disney Digital 3-D.

BOLT is currently available in retail stores everywhere…

THE EMPEROR HAS NO SOUL: MONSTERS VS. ALIENS – Review

Good, but not great. If you’re being honest and your crap detector is plugged in anyone watching the new film, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, should have some kind of reaction along these lines.

Before I launch into the review here’s the synopsis:

When California girl Susan Murphy is unexpectedly clobbered by a meteor full of outer space gunk, she mysteriously grows to 49-feet-11-inches tall and is instantly labeled a “monster” named Ginormica. The military jumps into action, and she is captured and held in a secret government compound. The world learns that the military has been quietly rounding up other monsters over the years. This ragtag group consists of the brilliant but insect-headed Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D.; the macho half-ape, half-fish The Missing Link; the gelatinous and indestructible B.O.B.; and the 350-foot grub called Insectosaurus. Their confinement time is cut short however, when a mysterious alien robot lands on Earth and begins storming the country. As a last resort, under the guidance of General W.R. Monger (on a desperate order from The President), the motley crew of Monsters is called into action to combat the aliens and save the world from imminent destruction.

Featuring the voice talent of Seth Rogen, Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Stephen Colbert and Keifer Sutherland this film so much wants to be so much more than it is and more than it delivers. I’m not sure where exactly the movie comes off the rails as an enjoyable narrative but there are moments in the film where you feel like entire segments of the film are missing; that’s a false notion as it is obvious this production thinks it’s able to move from traumatic moment of woman getting married, turning into large woman and then going into battle to fight a giant robot, then an alien horde, her fighting acumen sharply honed in the 3 minutes worth of transitions and exposition that fails to endear you to the 4 characters we’re supposed to care most about in this film. To illustrate the point, why do we care as an audience about Sully and Mike at the end of MONSTERS, INC.? It’s because we’re given enough moments throughout the film that show us that although they may look bizarre and completely abnormal the storytellers at Pixar paid attention to their humanity, or that immutable and ambiguous essence of what would make you and I feel something for them, so that at the end of the film when Sully says good-bye to Boo you’re positioned to feel something human for this wholly made up beast.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS does none of this.

The film manages to completely skirt the issue of emotional development and, as a result, you have a movie that ends up just being good, missing the opportunity to create a new hybrid of superhero monsters that you not only want to see more of but would pay money to see. As it stands this movie employs the kind of 3-D showboating that we now make fun of in FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 3 where the direction takes a back seat to using camera tricks to show you how neat-o it is to have objects flying towards your face. Don’t get me wrong, however, as the effects are genuinely a delight. You haven’t seen real 3-D until you’ve seen a crisp digital picture unencumbered by ill fitting red and blue glasses of yore tossing enough visually appealing objects towards your eyes. I believe the filmmakers have compensated enough so that those who find themselves in a 2-D theater won’t feel put out but it genuinely takes this humdrum story and launches it into another dimension. The effect is so convincing that at times your senses are tricked into thinking this world is all before you in real time. That’s amazing technology, to be sure, but the story suffers.

We’re introduced to all the monsters shortly after Reese Witherspoon becomes the super woman that we will know as Ginormica but even though we’re rapidly introduced to Susan as a wee little human and then see her transform within the span of the first 15 minutes we’re still hurried through everyone’s back story, all well told with nods to classic sci-fi films, and there is nary an attempt to make these monsters more, well, like you and I. I wanted to appreciate B.O.B.’s eccentricities more than I did, Seth Rogan has found the outlet where his guttural laughter actually accentuates the character he’s playing, to feel some connection to Dr. Cockroach or even feel something other than neutrality for The Missing Link. In an effort to appease an ADD audience, it seems, who would be unwilling to stand still for more than a minute we are rushed through his story of a savage robot, laying siege to San Francisco. Some illogical progressions of the story and ample derring-do to give the kiddos something to gawk at aside this set piece framed the tone for the rest of the film.

If you’re a fan of Stephen Colbert, his voice gives life to the part of an ineffectual but violence-embracing president of the United States, then you know what you’re getting. There’s nothing new here besides a genuinely humorous moment when the prez gets loose on a synthesizer in order to communicate with an alien ship and busts out “Axel F” as his sonata. His character, along with Kiefer Sutherland’s turn as the hard-ass military man who is in charge of the monsters, feels like someone we’ve already seen before, hackneyed even. Put these elements together and you’ve got yourself a briskly paced film that doesn’t require you to feel anything more than delight as the movie takes you on a visual feast (there are some moments when the visual palette is just bursting with detail) where the plot devices that bring us into the 3rd act just seem convient if not completely forced fed.

Much more of the same pervades the eventual climax of the film where our fine heroes find themselves aboard a spaceship, faced with the pressing threat of world domination should they fail. And of course they do not fail, it’s the actions of the team other than Ginormica which become more interesting than she is, and we’re all treated to an ending full of treacle and possibility that Part 2 is going to be coming at you in a few years.

The problems I have with this film were enough to land this movie in the “Good, but not great” category. This is, however, a film aimed at kids so my point here could be, well, pointless. Parents are always looking out for movies that appeal to their children and as this is the movie business, this investment, this commodity, for Dreamworks will absolutely bring them delicious dividends. As a movie that will be revered, be looked at with respect and awe, though, you can count on MONSTERS VS. ALIENS to be relevant in the moment and then be relegated to all the other films that will sit on a shelf, blurred out in time to other movies that have given the audience a little more than this did.

March 27, 2009
Toy Box: Batman Black and White: Joker

DC Direct has been extremely successful with their line of 6 – 7″ scaled statues based on Batman, done up in moody black and white paint schemes. The Batman Black and White series has given us Bats based on the artwork of artists old and new, classic and contemporary, and DCD knows they’ve got a good thing here. But how do you try to make it better? Why not move into Bat villains!

His Rogue’s Gallery is large and famous, but I doubt they had much trouble deciding who would get the monochromatic treatment first. It’s his arch nemesis of course, The Joker. More will come, including the Penguin, but the clown prince makes perfect sense as the first non-Batman statue in the series.

For the artist, they selected Jim Lee’s rendition from the Hush story line. Sculpted by James Shoop, the statue will run you around $60 or so at most online dealers. Your LCS experience could differ greatly, since the SRP is $75.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or head over to my site at Michael’s Review of the Week for lots more collectibles reviews.

Batman: Black and White – The Joker

Packaging – **1/2
Hey, it’s a box. Unfortunately, the box has no window, so you won’t be able to see your specific statue till you get it home. That means any issues with paint are a crap shoot. That’s not new for this series, as all the statues have been boxed this way, but it’s still disappointing for me.

There’s no Certificate of Authenticity, but they did print the edition number and size on the bottom. The Joker is limited to 5500, which is not much of a limit.

Sculpting – ***1/2
This statue is based on the classic look from the Hush series, with the wild eyed and clearly insane Joker posed with his ‘bang’ gun. This is one of the more detailed sculpts we’ve gotten in the series, because the face and hair of the Joker allow for much sharper and extreme work than the rather staid Batman.

Comparing this to the previous DCD action figure based on the same art, I’d say they’ve done a better job here capturing the comic representation. It’s a little extreme, but I think that’s something the overall Batman Black and White series needs.

He stands just shy of 6 inches tall with the base, and fits in nicely with the rest of the series. There has already been a Jim Lee Batman, and this statue goes fairly well with him.

Paint – ***
While the sculpting is strong, the paint is a bit on the sloppy side. Fortunately, the eyes are done quite well, and I like the choices of blacks, whites and grays that they used to translate this character into this color (or lack thereof) format. They’ve also mixed the finishes again, with some high gloss black on the lapels, but a matte finish most everywhere else.

But they did get a bit wild with the paints here, and you can see pretty obvious slop on the teeth (the big discolored round spot dead center on his lower teeth is really annoying), and the white of the face is dirtier and grayer than I’d like. I’d prefer a brighter, more consistent white on the face and hands, more like the package photo.

Design/Quality – ***
The first thing worth noting about the design is that the figure is permanently attached to the base, something that is usually not the case with this series. I suspect that this was done to avoid damaging the feet or the thin ‘bang’ flag.

My only complaint about the design is one that could have also been put in the sculpting section, but since I’ve lumped ‘quality’ in here, I’m including it in this category.

The positioning of the gun and flag makes it appear as though the barrel is bent, warped toward the front. In fact, it is slightly bent, but it’s really the design that exaggerates this bend.

Value – **
The price on these went up a year or so ago to an SRP of $75, which translates to $60 – $65 at most retailers. I’m not sure they’ve done any that really rate that kind of price, especially considering that Gentle Giant is still able to produce their mini-busts at around $45.

Shop around, and you might be able to get this closer to $50 (or perhaps on ebay), and at that price you can add another half star.

Things to Watch Out For –
Nothing you wouldn’t expect. Obviously, he’s breakable – he’s a resin statue, duh – but there’s nothing particularly weak or fragile here.

Overall – ***
This is a decent first villain entry in the series, but it could have been even better with a bit more care on the paint. Had the paint ops been as solid as the sculpt, I would have been more inclined to ignore the high price and awarded this crazed clown another half star overall.

If you have the Jim Lee Batman in this series, I highly recommend picking this one up, paint issues aside. They make a great set together, and pay a nice tribute to Lee’s ability.

Where to Buy –
Online retailers include:

– Alter Ego Comics has him for $63.75.

– Urban Collector has a great price at just $56.

– Things From Another World has him priced at $60.

– Entertainment Earth has him at $63.

– for the UK collectors, Forbidden Planet has it in stock for 50 GBP.

– CornerStoreComics has him at $60 as well.

– or you can always search ebay.

Related Links –
I’ve reviewed quite a few of the Batman Black and White statue:

– most recent was the Ethan Van Sciver version.

– before that was the Aparo, which I wasn’t all that keen on.

– prior to that, there was the Neal Adams and George Perez versions, the Gotham Knight, Bob Kane, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Matt Wagner, Mike Mignola, and Kelley Jones.

– and it’s worth nothing that DCD also did an action figure several years ago based on this appearance.

March 24, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 3/23 – 3/29

Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I’m in the middle of packing for a move.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t be bothering you, Internet reader, with such a silly detail from my life however it is having an adverse affect on my ability to write. When I try to summon up the inspiration for a story all I encounter in my head is the thought of the closets that still need to be emptied.Â When trying to summarize my reaction to the Battlestar Galactica finale all I think about are the boxes that have not yet been filled. All I see when I close my eyes is bubble wrap, wrapping paper, and box tape.

This panic is, sadly, going to be lasting at least through next week’s column as well. This week is the boxing panic. Next weekend is the moving panic. I know, don’t panic. I try not to, but I can’t stop.

That said I really liked the way LOST last week got me to watch a show that didn’t really reveal a whole heck of a lot, but clearly helps gets us from point A to point B. I’m always a sucker for the episodes when Christian Shepard shows up. He’s this equal mix of informative and creepy and I’m sure before the series plays out he’ll have had a conversation with just about everyone with the exception of Jack.

The current season has also been an interesting blend of informative and confusing as they’ve been giving us some answers to what is going on while creating mini-mysteries to be revealed as well. An example of this is very apparent in the last three episodes. We’re given a tidbit of something that has already happened (Sun takes off with the pilot for the main Island, as told to us by Ceaser) with subsequent episodes revealing what transpired (Sun takes off with the pilot for the main Island thanks to Ben showing her where the boats were and then subsequently clocking him with an ore).

It’s really the first season of LOST where I haven’t been sitting here trying to figure out what is going on and instead just enjoying where the show is taking me. Pretty good stuff.

I’d try to come up with something more profound but I’m once again thinking I should be breaking down all of the equipment in my office and jamming it into a box. Instead let’s just see what is going to be on this week that I clearly have no time to actually watch.

MONDAY

ABC FAMILY – 8:00 PM: There’s finally a baby on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. After this, is there really a secret any more?

NBC – 9:00 PM: Heroes has been trying to get us sucked in to who this new Rebel character may be, some super tech savvy computer guru. I’m guessing they think we’ve forgotten about the kid from season 1 and 2 that could talk to machines.

TUESDAY

CW – 8:00 PM: Sam is forced by the Devil to work with one of his sons on Reaper. Since Sam seems to be the son of the Devil (something that has yet to really be confirmed) he may be aggravated by the fact that this son is much richer and more charming than him.

TCM – 8:00 PM: Generations were entertained by his work and in Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood we have the man himself tell of his youth and influences.

WEDNESDAY

ABC – 9:00 PM: One of the LOSTies goes rogue tonight and we get a glimpse of what life was like for Sayid when he was off the Island and not capping people for Ben.

THURSDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Tonight on Bones they investigate a half-eaten body just outside of a tiger cage. I bet the butler did it.

NBC – 9:30 PM: 30 Rock sees the return of Liz‘s ex The Beeper King.

NBC – 10:00 PM: With all of the old faces returning on ER I’m sure everyone can’t wait to see none other than Tom Arnold tonight. Wait, what?

FRIDAY

FOX – 9:00 PM: Disease is running rampant on a campus on Dollhouse, but this is worse than cold sores.

SATURDAY

NICK – 9:30 PM: The Penguins of Madagascar premier tonight after the Kids Choice Awards. Since they were always scene stealers in the Madagascar movies they should be pretty good here.

SUNDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: Homer and Marge find out their marriage isn’t actually valid tonight on The Simpsons. Didn’t I already see this on 10 sitcoms througout the 80’s?

– Will Wilkins hardly wrote this.

March 23, 2009
Trailer Park: The /Filmcast and KILLER AT LARGE

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, This week saw a burst of activity with regard to Comic-Con lodging and how dismal the Comic-Con hotel ordering system really is. Hopefully you’re one of those ones who got through. Myself, I’m staying at a hostel/hotel hybrid. Should be interesting if nothing else…

For those who may not of found out about it one way or another, the esteemed human checkbook known around these parts as Kevin Smith was on the /Filmcast last week. Even if you are all burnt out on WATCHMEN you really do have to listen to this marathon podcast. David Chen, Peter Sciretta, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley all do a great job with this show and it’s one of those things I like seeing drop into my iPod queue in any given week. This week was no exception but it really is fascinating to get a filmmaker’s perspective on things and it helped me to couch my own interpretation of the minutiae contained in this as well as delving into some of the particulars of the movie. Think of this as the perfect thing to listen to as you reconcile what you thought this could be versus what it actually was.

[display_podcast]

Secondly, I always like to promote those who were more than complimentary when I had the chance to interview them. Christian Oliver talked with me last for the hotly debated topic of “Is it good?”/”Is it crap?” for his turn in SPEED RACER so when I heard he had a new film coming out I just felt it polite to return the nicety.

The film is called READY OR NOT and the film is described as follows:

Four college buddies find themselves on the adventure of their lives, when on the morning after a Las Vegas bachelor party, they end up stranded deep in Mexico penniless, being chased, falling in love, and fighting to make it back across the border in time for the wedding.

I can’t vouch for how mind-blowing it is but the man was genuinely nice and so it’s always a pleasure to simply be a human being and give a shout-out.

—————–

Ribwich.

I loved eating ribwiches in high school. Along with a side order of sizzling fries, splayed out on a foam tray, chugging it all back with with a Barq’s root beer it was my version of a good lunch. I can’t tell you how vividly I remember the class I had after lunch, it was health, and consisently thinking about how sluggish and foul I felt after consuming these types of lunches day in and day out.

It wasn’t until Freshman year in college when I knew I was headed for Portly Town, getting winded just by doing warm-up calisthenics, and did something about it. I picked up a book by Covert Bailey, called “Fit or Fat”, and made life altering choices that have been with me now for over 15 years. I don’t consider myself freakish about it but I do try and always make sensible choices (although get me around a pepperoni and bacon pizza and watch the glutton in me leap out) and have kept an eye on the news reports regarding obesity in America and whether we really are becoming the fattest country in the world.

When I head about Steven Greenstreet’s documentary about the health and social issues facing our nation today with regard to our waistlines I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to someone who might give me the inside line about how the battle of the bulge is going. From what he tell me, there isn’t really much to be proud of and a whole lot to be alarmed by.

KILLER AT LARGE hits DVD on March 31st..

CHRISTOPHER STIPP: How did this project come about?

STEVEN GREENSTREET: It started about ten years ago. We met up with a doctor who specializes in obesity and he contacted us. He had seen our last film and said he had some new research on obesity and asked if we could make a short film for him. So we said sure and then got into some of the research and said holy crap this is an epic film. We just touched the tip of the iceberg. There was tons of stuff that needed to be covered. So we went back to him and said why don’t we re-establish the budget and make this a feature film and he got on board. That’s how it got started.

CS: What kind of stories were you unearthing?

GREENSTREET: One of the stories we read was how the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland was shut down and had to be renovated because it was designed back in the 60’s when people were thinner and now people are so heavy that they were actually drowning the ride. They had to renovate it because of people’s weight. Locally, there was a huge theater that had to renovate its seats because the theater was built in the 70’s and people are just getting too big.

And then, we got a hold of a video clip, and it took us forever to get a hold of this by the way, but the Surgeon General of the United States was giving a speech at the University of South Carolina where he literally says that obesity will dwarf 9/11 or any terrorist event you can play out to me. And we’re like, “Holy crap…” You can’t do a film about obesity without taking time. We realized it was a big problem. The problem with obesity is that it’s a complex problem and you just can’t point your finger at any one thing. You can’t say McDonald’s is the bad guy or junk food is the bad guy or the lobbyist in Washington is the bad guy. We used the statistics for global warming ““ obesity is leading to global warming in that we used 39 million extra gallons of fuel each year simply because we weigh more and that’s since the 1970’s.

CS: Really?

GREENSTREET: Yeah, 39 million extra gallons of fuel and it works in reverse. If every American just lost one pound we would save 39 million gallons of fuel.

CS: What seemed to be the turning point in people’s knowledge that this is an issue? If we look back at the 20th century it wasn’t really an issue. What has happened that we are so attuned now to healthy eating ?

GREENSTREET: Well, we actually went back further. We went back 4 million years to the dawn of man and interviewed some anthropologists about evolution ““ back in Cro-Magnon days ““ how our brains were wired – we used to be hunters and gatherers running around the plain hunting our food. And for the most part we didn’t eat meat or high calorie foods because it was so hard to get so we were eating fruits, eating brush, eating things like that.

Every once in a while we would get a deer or an antelope or something like that and then we really had to run for dinner, essentially What has really happened in evolution is that we don’t have to run for our dinner any more. Nowadays, with technology and the luxuries that we have, we sit a lot and there is no movement being done. In fact with children in the No Child Left Behind Act which is one of the Bush administration’s significance to education it has upped the requirements for reading and arithmetic ““ schools are actually cutting out physical education. So kids are sitting on their rumps all day in school and then all night at home. So we actually interviewed teachers and superintendents about the effects of No Child Left Behind and literally we have a shot of this huge elementary school gymnasium that’s been converted into four classrooms. They don’t even use the gym anymore.

CS: Lazy kids…

GREENSTREET: So they could meet the requirements of the government. We interviewed experts about our toxic environment. Everywhere you go there are cues to make you eat. Car washes, the DMV, there is vending machines. I just edited into the film there’s a locally tire store called Swab Tires and they give away free beef. Come fix your tires and they give you slabs of beef. Back in the 60’s you go to a gas station and you just got gas. Now you get cookies, chips, soda. And vending machines at schools are totally off the charts. We interviewed kids that that’s all they eat for lunch. They put $5 in a vending machine. There is a school that is so under funded by the government that Pepsico moved in and said, “We will give you $50,000 ““ just sign this contract with us.”

School lunches are nothing but surplus.

If there is a surplus of butter, they put a lot of butter in the lunch, if there is a surplus of ground beef, they are going to eat a lot of hamburger. Here’s an interesting statistic ““ we spent more money feeding prisoners in the state of California than we do on school lunch on a national level. Per child.

CS: I haven’t seen the movie but I go back to the trailer with the Surgeon General ““ how does the government factor into this problem? Are they aware of it or are they complicit in it or, like you said, you had a hard time trying to track down some information. How do they factor into this issue?

GREENSTREET: You have to understand that by and large, money talks, money walks and in Washington, DC is bought and sold everyday and they are absolutely complicit. Let’s start with the Surgeon General ““ Dr. Vinichiy is supposed to inform the public about health crisis, health problems and stuff like that. While he was in office for the Bush administration, he wrote a document about the dangers of obesity. That document was not allowed to reach the public eye by the Bush administration. In turn it was given to a Bush insider, Wm. Steiger, George Bush Sr.’s godson, who edited it and any mention to eat less sugar, eat less, he edited that all out before it became public. And we got a hold of the before and after document (before it was edited).

CS: That’s fascinating…

GREENSTREET: Yeah, it was actually a very big news story. And then Carmona, before he left office he did a tell all and went on all the news stations and said that during his tenure with the Bush administration he was muzzled and was told to shut up on so many issues and obesity was one of them. Because big sugar lobbies, meat lobbies, etc., they buy and fund congressional and presidential elections and they didn’t want to tick their people off so they didn’t want anything in the document that says eat less sugar, eat less of this, any mention of eating less, because once you tell people to less of something you can tell them what to eat less of.

One of the most infuriating and yet fascinatingly funny aspects of our film is about a year and a half ago, when Shrek III was coming out the government got together with DreamWorks Animation who was releasing the film and they released a PSA with this huge glutinous ogre on TV saying get up and play an hour a day get out and exercise at the same time his face was on the front of over 70 junk food products. Like from cereals to candies to Fruit Roll-Ups to soda and the government knew it. Even on Twinkies, with green filling it was absolutely disgusting and Shrek gets out there and it was free publicity for DreamWorks and the government, Secretary of Health claimed it was a huge victory for government. We’re going to get our kids to get up and play. Another thing is the food pyramid. The government threw away the old one at this big press conference and replaced it with no food just colored bars and completely confusing and no one knows what it means in fact if you go to the my pyramid website and put in your weight your age and sex they will tell you what to eat ““ what your diet should be. And no matter what age, sex or weight you are it will tell you to drink 3 cups of milk per day. That’s the dairy lobby. Buy our milk whether you are two years old or 86 and 300 lbs. Drink 3 glasses of milk a day. Here’s another thing: The USDA over 75% of the officials at the USDA are former food lobbyists ““ meat lobbyists, dairy lobbyists. So basically if you go to the upper echelon at the USDA for agriculture, people are actually on leave from their corporate jobs. And now USDA is regulating the rule about food. Basically a revolving door with corporate America.

CS: How does this stack up against other countries? Are Americans genuinely the fattest people on earth?

GREENSTREET: Yes. Statistically we are. Granted per capita countries such as Tonga and some Polynesian countries are more overweight but as a leading country the United States is the fattest in the world. But obesity is not just an American thing. Strangely it is popping up in Ethiopia. Obesity is being seen in places we haven’t seen before…

CS: Didn’t we send money over there in 1984 for We Are The World to help feed them?

GREENSTREET: Yes, exactly. The experts across the board says one of the reasons contributing to world-wide obesity is the importing of American food. American fast food culture ““ Japan, Europe, parts of South America. Here is something else that is infuriating is for some reason and it didn’t used to be this way, the poorest people in America, the people with the littlest money are the fattest. How did that come to be? You would think that if you were poor you wouldn’t have that much money for that much food to be glutinous. We set up our system that the foods with the most calories are the cheapest and the ones with the littlest calories are the most expensive. You take a $1 in the grocery store and can get 1200 calories for your dollar in the snack food, candy or soda aisle but you can get 200 calories of carrots for your dollar.

CS: Why is that? It infuriates me because I try to eat healthy ““ I’m thin by comparison to a lot of people and it costs so much for me to make right choices and have salads but for half the price I could go to McDonald’s and have a huge bad-for-me meal. Anything you found out about why the inverse is the case?

GREENSTREET: Yes, in the film we do a history lesson. Back in the 70’s the Nixon Department of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butts decided that farming will not be a mom and pop type of business but should be more of a corporate conglomerate and he told the farmers plant as much as you can of corn of soy and we’re going to put you in a world market. What’s happened is that we have created a surplus of corn and soy, an over abundance of it and hence it’s become extremely cheap. Corn is put in more than 75% of things you buy at the grocery store. That McDonald’s meal that you buy, it’s in the bun, it’s in the burger because it’s a corn-fed cow, it’s in the ketchup, it’s in the mustard, it’s in the French fries, in corn starch in the chicken nuggets and in the high-fructose corn syrup in the soda.

So, one reason that fast food is so cheap is because they are using cheap surplussed corn. That’s one of the reasons that junk foods, all that stuff is so cheap. All that stuff has corn in it. Candy has corn in it. That’s one of the reasons we are growing so fast because as a species we are supposed to be eating 50 – 70 ingredients for nutrients for our bodies and now we are mainly eating 3 ““ 5. Corn and soy are the main products of that. The agriculture policy in this country is one of the reasons that cheap high calorie food is the way that it is. Because of the surplus. Corn production has sky rocketed and even now the corn production has increased every year ““ even though we don’t need it.

CS: Where does it go? Does it go into everything and anything they can stick it in?

GREENSTREET: Exactly. The film shows how so many ways the corn plant can break down the corn plants you can make starches and sugars out of it and you can process so many foods. Another very interesting statistic is that 40 or 50 years ago if you trace back the food’s energy source you’d go to the sun. it brings us to the cow that eats the grass and you eat the grass and the cow got it’s energy from the sun. Now”¦.you have to go back to the Persian Gulf. Because what’s happening because cows and livestock are not eating grass they are being fed fossil fuel derived corn. The follicle fuel comes from the gulf. Essentially we are sipping oil. That McDonald’s meal’s energy source you’d have to go back to the Middle East.

CS: Hmm…

GREENSTREET: Another thing, if you took a strand of hair and put it under a microscope, you would find corn in your DNA.

CS: Really?

GREENSTREET: Americans. For the most part if you are an American and eating an American diet, there is corn in your DNA.

CS: Is it because we are eating so much of it, it is becoming a part of who we are?

GREENSTREET: Literally the children of the corn!

CS: What do you do now that you’ve spent time on it, what is your perception on how obesity has evolved?

GREENSTREET: First and foremost, I had no idea how complex and deep rooted this problem was but at the same time when the film was over it makes sense to me that things are the way they are. One of the anthropologists we interviewed who has been studying the evolution of man for decades he says that I think that humanity is heading for an evolutionary disaster because we set up this system that goes against our biological makeup. We are eating foods that we are not supposed to be eating and too much of it. We are creating a world of luxury and convenience and we are not “hunters and gatherers” anymore. And it is really sucking up our biology. And we are not keeping up with it. When you look at it from outside the box it makes sense that things are the way they are.

CS: Why don’t enough people care? Some people who are overweight are just sort of resigned to it. Some people care, some people take action, but we are not getting any thinner.

GREENSTREET: it’s complicated for sure and personal responsibility plays a big part for sure. A lot of people when they see a fat person would say if you wanted to lose weight you probably could. But there a lot of different factors, it’s one thing to tell a parent, tell kids, like Shrek says, gets up and play an hour a day but to say we’re going to take phys-ed out of school and convert the gym to a classroom. Adults – we’re going to put you in a cubical and you crunch some numbers and you can do your work but then you go home and see your kids. When are you going to exercise? We have a solution section in our film – $72 billion dollars a year is spent on health insurance obesity related illnesses. It’s really a threat to our health system to our insurance system and employers are beginning to wake up.

For instance, Sprint at their headquarters, they totally renovated their headquarters. They slowed down their elevators and updated their stair cases with beautiful vistas, sky lights and put signs on the staircases saying that if you walk this many stairs you will burn this many calories and in turn paying employees for every pound they lose. IBM, Astra Zeneca ““ there are companies around the nation that are realizing they are losing money. We gotta care about the health of our employees or we are going to lose money. And so they are actually taking steps during the day ““ we are giving you a half hour during the day to go exercise in the company gym and if you do that we will take $400 off your health insurance. So companies are starting to do that. And there is a lot of different things to do but I think the right people to help out are doing the wrong things, i.e., the government, the school system, companies themselves marketing to kids is astronomically off the charts.

CS: Talk to me about that. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old at home and we hardly keep the TV on and thank goodness for TiVo because we can blast through the commercials but when I do have to sit down and see these commercials I can’t imagine that the amount of money that is used to spend on kids has gone down in years, the opposite must be true. They must be doing hardcore marketing to get that younger demographic.

GREENSTREET: Yes. $100 million is spent just on candy – marketing candy.

And if you want a comparison, $10 million is spent to market breath mints and $1 million used to market fruits and vegetables in this nation. The statistics show that companies want cradle to grave loyalty from kids. They want to get them out of the cradle essentially. They have 7 Up and Pepsi bottle bottles ““ they look like a 7 Up bottle or Pepsi bottle. McDonald’s had a billboard that’s in our film a billboard that had a baby breastfeeding on a McDonald’s burger. And kids under the age of 8 cannot differentiate the difference between the commercial and the program so when Sponge Bob cuts to commercial, they don’t know it’s a commercial. They don’t know they are trying to be sold something. And they have a thing called the Nag Factor. Ralph Nader’s film actually says it in there that Madison Avenue when a new ad campaign comes out they actually rate it. This has a 50% Nag Factor, this has an 80% Nag Factor ““ getting kids to nag their parents.

We have a Chuck E. Cheese commercial where the kids are having fun and then mom shows up and they say “Oh mom, why did you have to come?” And then she actually pulls her face off and it’s really Chuck E. Cheese and they say now we can have fun again. And there’s a McDonald’s commercial where they kids are doing homework and it’s raining and grey outside and classical music is playing and they are all bored but then Ronald McDonald shows up and the lights get all bright and he wisks them off to McDonalds and they start eating cheeseburgers and are happy. So they are getting the message that classical music is bad, being at home is bad, so they are getting these kids to nag their parents for what they are told is fun. So it’s really unfair and undermines parental authority. As a parent you have to choose your battles. Which battle are you going to pick if your 8 year old is dressing like a hooker? It’ll be the sexuality battle. So there is some movement, Senator Tom Harkin wants to eliminate marketing to kids under 8 but nothing of any significance.

CS: Demographically speaking, is it easier to get the individuals in the lower economic strata that a middle class child or adult?

GREENSTREET: Statistics show that kids or adults in poor communities are the fattest and most obese. They have a variety of problems but also if you go to poor communities some of these people don’t have cars. And where’s the closest place I can get fresh produce. It’s probably not a block away but there is a McDonald’s a block away, there’s a McDonald’s on every block or there’s a Wendy’s on every block. Or there’s a 7 Eleven where you can get a Grandma’s cookie. So the incentives in this country to feed our kids right are totally out of whack. There are no ““ the government is doing nothing to create incentives. You have to look at this evolutionarily ““ we’re screwing ourselves up and doing nothing to put the brakes on. Except in little sections of the nation people are starting to wake up.

CS: What are people saying after you show them this finished film?

GREENSTREET: 100% of the people are completely pissed off and say, “We had no idea.” People will email us and say “we have stopped drinking cola because of the corn” and it’s really getting people to wake up and be aware and how it’s all hurting our biology. The fat tax in Mississippi is not a solution.

Poor people are relying on that 99 cent cheeseburger.

We are just screwing the poor even more making it more expensive. I don’t think the idea is to ban McDonald’s or ban junk food but to show them something better and create incentives to get that. There is actually something going on today called upchuck rebellion. The next generation is refusing to eat crappy foods and is more focused on eating healthy and becoming more educated about their bodies and learning more about cooking. I certainly don’t agree with Morgan Spurlock or people like that that say McDonald’s is the bad guy ““ we just have to get rid of that and we’ll be fine.

CS: Right. And, regarding the process of making a documentary, what are your thoughts about the medium itself? Did you ever think…”Maybe I’m getting too preachy here?” How did you keep that in check in the editing room?

GREENSTREET: My first film, my first documentary I didn’t want it to be too preachy and I didn’t want it to be too biased. I didn’t want it to be like a war film. This is how it is. This is how it should be. This film is not narrated. It’s observational, it’s educational. And I’ve seen this film so many times and there is one part in the film right now that I’m struggling with because I think it comes across too vegan like propaganda. I’m a vegan but I eat meat.

(I laugh)

GREENSTREET: What’s that?

CS: Nothing. I’m just laughing that you say you’re a vegan but that you are a meat eater.

GREENSTREET: Yep, I can say that filmmakers probably have the worst diets ever. We put all our money into the film so we grab the fast food break between editing. But I don’t want the film to be one sided. We covered all aspects as best we could. It still could have been a 10 hour epic. But we tried to cover as many aspects as we could and stay in the middle if we could.

CS: When you did your first cut, what did you have to do to pare it back or did you have any babies you had to leave on the cutting room floor?

GREENSTREET: Our first cut was 3 hours long. Way too long. So anything that doesn’t 100% address obesity we had to cut. Like the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon ““ things on the sidelines we had to cut out of the film. We had stuff about fertilizer ““ why does the orange look so orange? Why does the tomato look so red? So that it looks good on a shelf so you buy it but we trimmed all that and now it’s down to an hour and a half ““ literally cut it in half.

CS: Now that you finished it, and have shown the final version to people that could be in the position to buy it, what has it taught you about the final stages of movie making and how to market and to see you film and get people interested in seeing your film?

GREENSTREET: We have a good PR person and Oprah showed a clip last January 4^th so we are out there. We’ve been in some newspapers and we’ve been interviewed but once our film gets sold it’s going to be full throttle. Calling on people to find out what their plan is to address the issues in the film. The activists are in the thousands that are involved in this issue. We’ll be calling on all of them to get the word out to call on their local leaders to see the film, and address the issues about what can be done. We have solutions in the film to see what others have done to solve the problem so it’s really grass roots stuff.

CS: Did any candidate that is out there now that is in a position to vote on something is there anyone out there that has a so-called food policy?

GREENSTREET: Bill Clinton is in the film. He had to undergo heart surgery and talked about how fast food and our kids are walking time bombs. He says that this may be the first generation that has a shorter life span than their parents because of obesity. So Clinton, for the last 7 or 8 years, along with Hillary, have been advocates very publicly. I know Mike Huckabee battled obesity and lost over 100 pounds so he’s an advocate for obesity problems. I haven’t heard anything besides general health care statements from Obama or any other candidates about the issue. But I would say if there was one politician nationwide tackled it like a lion is Senator Tom Harkin in Iowa. He’s all over it. He’s been changing eating vending in the schools, he’s updating nutrition policy at the USDA. He’s been a bull fighting this.

CS: What does he say about the lobbyists and the opposition?

GREENSTREET: He’s in the corn state so he’s fighting the junk food but fighting it the right way. He brings the story of children and he puts them up there on the Senate floor and how can you argue that. He did lose the 2007 farm bill for the USDA to update their school nutrition policy and it got completely shut down. Because the Republicans said it was too hard on the food industry. So there are wins and losses across the field.

CS: Well, Steve I have just one more question for you. When this film finally makes it to the public what would you classify a win in your mind?

GREENSTREET: A win?

CS: What would you hopes happens?

GREENSTREET: I think the best case scenario for me would be that people come away from the film knowing that this is a battle that we fight three times a day. It is the most democratic of wars. And the life blood of a democracy is our ability to be informed to make a change. I don’t want to shove anything down anyone’s throat or force a change but I want people to take a second look at the battle they are fighting with their food, their government, school, employers and take a second look. And think, if I just do one thing, if I put a gym in my work, put physical education back in our schools. I’m going to my kids school tomorrow and I’m going to see what my kids are eating. Getting people upset and getting them educated. I have no expectations for a final solution but a win would be for people to stand up and ask some questions.

March 20, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 3/16 – 3/22

Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I’ve spent far too much going crazy and looking for Easter Eggs.

I’m sure the above statement might be confusing, especially if you are any where near a calendar. The Easter Eggs I’ve been looking for are actually of the DVD persuasion. Still confused? OK, let me explain further.

As far back as time began, or the first time a programmer spent far too many hours being sleep deprived, people have been slipping secret items within their software to keep themselves amused and to give the end user a special treat. One of the earliest examples I ever encountered in my life was in the Atari 2600 video game Adventure. There was a wall in the game where your square character (literally it was a square people, not a blocky shaped man… the character was just a block with four equal sides) could grab a 1 pixel by 1 pixel dot that would allow you access to another secret room. I was 8 at the time and this secret made me feel like I was part of a secret club of people, even though I was just one of millions who could read a video game magazine. Ever since then the concept of the Easter Egg has held me enthralled.

If you’ve been reading this column than you know that the Internet Only three act show Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was one of my favorite things to come out of the summer. After receiving my copy of the DVD I realized that something was afoot when it came to Easter Eggs. On the back of the package is a logo that says “Count the Letters UL +RD”. At first I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I knew that it meant something. It had to be the first clue.

One of the obvious ways to look for Easter Eggs on a DVD is to start using the arrow keys on your remote around all of the menus. I tried this to now avail. After giving up in frustration I looked at my remote, I looked at the box, I looked at my remote and realize that in my constantly moving Up, Left, Right and Down so many times that I had the answers to the logo in my hand the whole time! Each one indicated a direction, laid out in the logo just like the navigation buttons on the remote. I was excited! I was exhilarated! I still had no idea what it meant!

In my menu explorations I had made a discovery that made me chuckle in that there was a Wiccan subtitle option. I decided to activate the option and start watching, hoping for a secret incantation or two. Instead what I saw was “Enter @ 0793529867”. My initial reaction to this was ?!?!??!. After regaining my compsure (and using a lot of patience in freezing the DVD just right to get the number) I copied the number down and Googled it. The most obvious thing the number turned up was the ISBN number for Mariah Carey‘s album Music Box. Again, elation and confusion raced through my vains. Two clues down and I knew absolutely nothing.

Fresh with my knowledge of an extra telling me something (that meant hopefully more than the extra having very bad taste in music) I began to look at other items as well. It turns out that the “The Music” featurette was the true gold mine in that two things occur. Felicia Day at one point mentions that she sometimes sounds like Mariah Carey. My ears perked up, and I rant he featurette back. Just as she once again said Mariah Carey I pressed the enter key and to my excitement I saw a countdown with a case of Wonderflonium on it. Hazzah! What does it mean though?!?!

Continuing on to the end of the featurette also had several letters in the credits that were yellow. These letters spell out “Enter at Act 2”. Wait, the movie has a tile specifically titled Act II! I quickly switched back and to my excitement and frustration if I hit my Enter button at just that moment hat Act II appears I was treated to another countdown with a picture of the Evil League of Evil member Professor Normal (who I had to look up in the credits to figure out who he was). There it was, something else right in front of my face and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Further exploration and paying close attention made me realize that there was a false chapter in the chapter selection menu titled “Moist Dries Up”. When I selected the chapter I used the previous clue to hit Enter and I received another countdown with a picture of Dr. Horrible. Awesome, another countdown. But what now?!?

After a few days of frustration I finally did what I swore I wouldn’t due, I turned to the Internet. What I found didn’t help much as others had discoverd what I had along with some tricks that seemed to work but didn’t quite seem right as there was no direct connection to how to get to them. Dejected I turned to pen and paper and began writing what I knew. I don’t know if it was seeing the clues written out or the fact that I had the case right in front of me when I realized that the countdown required action (as seen from my searches) and every one of the names pictured in the countdowns had the letters in them that we were supposed to be counting (the R, L, D, U’s). Excited with this realization I went to Act II, pressed enter and used my arrows to press Right, Right, Right, and Left. To my excitement I was given a behind the scenes clip! YES!

With nervous and giddy excitement I went to The Music featurette and and went to the mention of Mariah Carey and hit enter. As the Wonderflonium lay before me I pressed Down, Right, Left and Up.Â The interviews that flowed before me were amazing!

Lastly I triumphed as I went to Moist Dries Up and looked at the picture of Dr. Horrible and pressed Right, Right, Right, and Left. VICTORY!

In trying to hunt for more Easter Eggs I paid closer attention to the beginning sequence where in the FBI and ELE warnings there is the flash of a picture of Bad Horse with three colored orbs that match the colors of the countdowns. I’m going to take this as a clue that there are actually only three Easter Eggs on the DVD. At press time I’ve sent an email to Jed Whedon to get confirmation. I’ll let you know what he comes back with.

So there, my friends, is my journey into the depths of a DVD and the payoff. I really hope that’s all that is present in the DVD since this journey was an exhausting one. If you want to see them yourself than you can pick up the DVD at Amazon if you haven’t already.

Now that I’ve given you the most non-TV related column possible let’s take a look at what is happening this week on television.

MONDAY

ABC FAMILY – 8:00 PM: Tonight they set the Wayback Machine on The Secret Life of the American Teenager as we see how Amy met Ricky. Not sure if this gimmick will play out or will just come across awkward and creepy. I’m voting the latter.

ABC – 8:30 PM: Ted finds out that Lily has been meddling in his past relationships to allow some to live or die on How I Met Your Mother.

ABC FAMILY – 9:00 PM: Kyle XY‘s series finale airs tonight and I’ll finally watch the entire series on DVD in a few months.

SCIFI – 10:00 PM: I’m sure you’ll be up to your ears from the computer guys at your work about the finale this week of Battlestar Galactica, so if they’ve finally sucked you in to watching this Friday you may want to get caught up with Battlestar Galactica: The Last Frakkin’ Special. Gotta love the name.

TUESDAY

CW – 8:00 PM: Ben wants to introduce the guys to his demon girlfriend on Reaper. If that isn’t awkward enough, same girlfriend was hired to kill Sam originally. Should be a fun evening.

CBS – 9:00 PM: We’ll see how keen Patrick Jane‘s powers of observation are when he’s temporariliy blinded on The Mentalist.

WEDNESDAY

HBO – 8:00 PM: Get ready for the season finale of Big Love with the previous three episodes airing back-to-back tonight. Oh so good.

ABC – 8:30 PM: The good news: you’re a new show that is the lead in to LOST. The bad news? Better off Ted would be better off dead. Oh well.

HIST – 9:00 PM: MonsterQuest gets together a bigger boat as they hunt for a 60 foot shark in Mexico. See what happens when you have no FDA restrictions?

THURSDAY

BRAVO – 5:00 PM: Here’s seven of the saddest words I’ve ever typed in a row: Five straight hours of The Million Matchmaker.

CW – 8:00 PM: Tess must have been taking a queue from Superman 2 (either the original or director’s cut) as she orchestrates an accident to try and get Clark to expose his super powers. I’m sure it will work out for her as well as it did for Margot Kidder.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Michael holds a party for his 15th anniversary with Dunder Mifflin on The Office and wouldn’t you know the new strict VP shows up? I’m sure it won’t be awkward at all.

FRIDAY

FOX – 9:00 PM: So we’re now at episode six of Dollhouse. This is purportedly the point where the show takes on more of that trademark Joss Whedon feel. You’ve been advised.

SCIFI – 8:00 PM: Battlestar Galactica ends it’s amazing run tonight and I have NO idea what the heck is going to happen (bet you thought I’d use the word frak didn’t you?).

SATURDAY

SCIFI – 9:00 PM: I can’t think of a better recipe for entertainment: last man alive in a city of zombies in I Am Omega. Too bad it’s on SciFi and it will probably suck.

FOX – 11:00 PM: The end is near for MADtv so tonight they roll out a best-of clips show.

SUNDAY

HBO – 9:00 PM: Tonight brings a close to a very powerful season of Big Love. It’s been so good this season I really don’t want it to end.

ABC – 9:00 PM: The good news: Edie finally confirms she’s been married to a psychopath on Desperate Housewives. The bad news: psychopaths don’t like to be discovered. Sorry Edie.

HBO – 10:30 PM: East Bound & Down also comes to a close tonight. This gritty and dark comedy has been both entertaining and discomforting at the same time.

– Will Wilkins wuz here.

March 15, 2009
Trailer Park: Trevor Moore, Zach Cregger and 2007’s Playboy Playmate of the Year, Sara Jean Underwood for MISS MARCH

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings. From standing in a pool of toilet water to talking about nothing of great importance you can ensure that I send out quality.

Before we get started with the interview I thought I would begin with giving away some free stuff.

In support of this week’s release of Universal’s ROLE MODELS on DVD I have five copies to send to anyone living and who can write me an e-mail to Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com. One entry per e-mail address (some of you really get into this and while I appreciate your enthusiasm I cannot let you think this is Publisher’s Clearing House so keep it to one) and, just to make things interesting, I have a first runner-up prize for a handful of hopefuls: an official ROLE MODELS bottle opener w/ custom blue LED flashlight built into it. What better way to show you can open a beer bottle and then navigate your way through a darkened beer garden than with this nifty piece of electronica.

Good luck…

Official Synposis:
Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott star in Role Models as Danny and Wheeler, two salesmen who trash a company truck on an energy drink-fueled bender. Upon their arrest, the court gives them a choice: do hard time or spend 150 service hours with a mentorship program. After one day with the kids, however, jail doesn’t look half bad. Surrounded by annoying do-gooders, Danny struggles with his every neurotic impulse to guide Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) through the trials of becoming a man. Unfortunately, the guy just dumped by his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) has only sarcasm to offer a bashful 16-year-old obsessed with medieval role play. Meanwhile, charming Wheeler tries to trade in an addiction to partying and women to assist a fifth-grader named Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) redirect his foul-mouthed ways. It would probably help if Ronnie’s new mentor wasn’t an overgrown adolescent whose idea of quality time includes keggers in Venice Beach. Once the center’s ex-con director (Jane Lynch) gives them an ultimatum, Danny and Wheeler are forced to tailor their brand of immature wisdom to their charges. And if they can just make it through probation without getting thrown in jail, the world’s worst role models will prove that, sometimes, it takes a village idiot to raise a child.
———————

MISS MARCH INTERVIEW

These three were a delight.

One of the problems with seeing a movie before interviewing those who were in it is that sometimes, once in a great while, the film doesn’t live up to what either you or I would consider, in this case, a breakthrough of comedic proportions. That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its moments. However, I thought it best to stick to questions about Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore’s (WHITEST KIDS U’KNOW) triple threat of writing, directing and acting in their first feature film.

They proved to be affable and quite open about the process of making the movie and when the interview starts with Zach giving Playboy Playmate Sara Jean Underwood shit for texting during a previous interview it was a good enough entry point for me.

MISS MARCH opens everywhere today, March 13th.

SARA JEAN UNDERWOOD: He called me out and said I was rude at one point, so…

CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Really? Why did he say you were rude?

ZACH CREGGER: Would you be offended if someone was texting while you were interviewing?

CS: Well, it would make me feel bad on the inside.

(Laughs)

CS: I would never say it but…

UNDERWOOD: So unprofessional! Thank you for calling me out. I will never do it again.

CS: Texting when someone is interviewing you. That’s hardcore.

(Laughs)

UNDERWOOD: I was trying to be sure they had a booth tonight at the club. I was working.

[I intentionally turn away from Sara]

CS: So what I’m going to do is focus on this part of the table to avoid…

CREGGER: Aaaand….I’m going to text.

(Laughs)

CS: So, where did this come from? Did the two of you go into a room and say, “Let’s make a movie”?

CREGGER: Well, originally, somebody wrote the script for Trevor and I and gave it to Fox and Fox brought it to us and said, “Would you like to re-write this movie and direct it?” So we read the script and were not wild about doing a road trip/sex comedy. Just not our sort of thing. So we were really hesitant, but then we thought about it a lot and decided that we could turn it into a challenge ““ a writing challenge ““ and say, “OK, can we take this model that has been done and try and put our stamp on it, push it as far as we can and make it something that we would enjoy and hopefully that others who enjoy our show would enjoy as well.”

That was our motivation for accepting.

And so we threw out the script they gave us, the only similarities, every character is different except for Hefner.

TREVOR MOORE: Hefner wasn’t even in the original script

CS: Really? A movie abut a girl who becomes a Playboy Playmate doesn’t have Hef in it?

CREGGER: He wasn’t, you’re right. Originally, they get stuck in a ravine outside the mansion and they have to get rescued by…

MOORE: I honestly never made it past more than 25 pages of the original script.

(Laughs)

CREGGER: I did but out of pure morbid curiosity.

UNDERWOOD: I feel bad for the guy who wrote it.

CREGGER: He’s a great guy.

MOORE: We know him and actually it should be said that we don’t think that it was his intention ““ we think it was his intention just to get us to re-write it. He was basically saying, “I think this is a good idea. Here’s a script. You guys take it and do whatever you want with it.”
I think the big thing that was kind of the idea that made us think that maybe we could make this something that would be worthwhile for us to do, was the idea of instead of having both characters being obsessed with getting laid ““ which is in every road trip sex comedy, we thought we’d have it just be about putting sex on a pedestal and having an unhealthy viewpoint on sex. So it happens on both ends of the spectrum. The Eugene character is terrified of sex and he is put up as this thing that it starts to hurt his relationship with his girlfriend. Then he begins to hold past partners against her. Then on the other side of that coin, we have the Tucker character who has a good girl, a girl that is probably right for him but he can’t accept that because he doesn’t think he’s lived enough yet, or doesn’t have enough notches in his belt. So, it’s really about these two, completely opposite, but also, completely wrong viewpoints on sex and finding a middle ground in the middle of probably where they both should be.

CS: When you went to do it, and [looking over to Sara] I’ll pull you into this one because I can see you are not texting right now…

(Laughs)

UNDERWOOD: You have my undivided attention.

CS: There are moments in the film where there is a lot of, for lack of a better word, gags. You shit the floor, Craig Robinson’s nuts…

MOORE: Lack of nuts.

CS: Yes, lack of nuts and all that. How did you block with Sara and say, “This is kind of the idea of what we want to do, comedically, but we want to make it funny and not go over the top.” Coming from a comedy background in sketch comedy, where do you know where that line is between what’s really funny or what someone would look at and say, “They are just being obnoxious at this point”?

MOORE: You just have to go with your gut. It’s kind of like a fingerprint. Everybody’s personal style ““ it’s just something that is your sensibility. Where you think the line is or how you would tell that joke and hopefully enough people are on that same page that you are. There are some people who would go like that joke could go even more low brow or some people ““ like the way we did it was too low brow.

CREGGER: Our rule is that if it makes us laugh out loud while we’re writing then it probably will go in.

CS: And during the process of writing, getting Craig Robinson, getting Hugh Hefner in the picture, how hard was that coming from a couple guys that have a sketch show and will you be in our movie? How hard was that to get everyone on board?

CREGGER: Craig just auditioned.

MOORE: It was his first audition after Knocked Up. He came in and auditioned. It was one of those things where we had a couple options of people, different comedians who had come in and done well and would have been fun but then Craig just came in and right off the bat basically was the character you see in the movie. Just got the character, was him from the very beginning. The art direction for Craig would be like, “Remember what you said back there, use that, do that again.” It was very little direction for him because he really got the character. As soon as he left and shut the door, it was like, “Call his agent, call his agent.” We knew right off that bat that he was the guy.

CS: How did you know she was right?

MOORE: We did the movie without Playboy’s involvement originally. We had Robert Wagner playing Hefner. We shot it because when you are dealing with a company as iconic as Playboy you don’t know how seriously they are going to take their image and don’t know who much they are going to micro-manage the script. That was our paranoia. So we were like, “Let’s just do it without Playboy being involved.” Then, when we screened it, the movie tested well all the way through except when Hefner would come out and then there was just a disconnect. Even though Robert Wagner did an awesome job they were just thinking, “Why didn’t they get Hugh Hefner? That’s weird.”

CREGGER: Especially with the TV show now and Hef’s more in the limelight now than in the last 10 years.

MOORE: Yeah, so you can just see in the eyes that, that’s not happening. So we knew it was a problem and knew we had to see if Hefner would actually do it. We showed him the movie and we were really lucky that he liked it, wanted to be in it, and didn’t want to change anything. Our fears were for naught. He was totally down to do it the way we had written it. Then he sent us some reels of some Playboy Playmates and we saw some footage that Sara had done and there was something that was just very likable and sweet about Sara.

CS: There was. Sara is very sweet on camera. Very demure. Not that I’ve met any other playmates but the kind of vibe that they put out is that they are beautiful and have a certain air but with Sara it was very natural…and kind of like the girl next door for lack of a better word.

MOORE: It was an instant likability ““ I don’t want to say anything bad about other playmates, but there is more of an instant likability than other playmates. That’s really good for doing this movie and the point of the movie in some way in that the Cindy character is not a bad person because she’s in Playboy so meeting another playmate like that just reinforces.

CS: And that part, the moment in the movie when Hugh talks about the ugly girl next door, how many takes did that take because it looked, for a comedy, it looked very natural for him. I can see that if he delivered that it could seem kind of stilted, or awkward but it seemed very natural, very easy.

CREGGER: Not that many. I think maybe three or four. He was just really eager to cooperate. If he did a take and you wanted him to do it different, he was fine. You never know what you’re going to get when dealing with someone like that. He used to be so powerful. No incentive for him to be in this movie other than really wanting to help us out. He just came out of I’m going to help these guys and make it as good as possible. He was enthusiastic which is why he came across that way.

MOORE: What we didn’t know until yesterday, Sara said the day before he was studying his lines and taking it very seriously and trying to get it down. It was really kind of impressive.

UNDERWOOD: He said it was the most lines he’s had in a movie. He said he’s done cameos. But he had a lot of lines in that and he was really nervous about it.

MOORE: I think that was amazing that this guy has other stuff to do. This is not a make or break to his career.

CS: I’m shocked. The last time I saw him was probably in Beverly Hills Cops II. That’s the last time I saw him on screen.

CREGGER: He was in House Bunny.

CS: Didn’t see it. I’m sorry. Last movie that was aimed at the ladies I did see was HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.

UNDERWOOD: Was that good?

CS: It was pretty awful.

CREGGER: But they had so many stars in it.

(Laughs)

CS: You would think! Obnoxious. You two both have co-directing credits on this. How was the relationship? Anything along the lines of “I don’t know about this”, “I don’t agree with that?” Or was that not an issue?

MOORE: We wrote it together so by the time that you are shooting, we already voiced the characters while we were writing it. Kind of like acting it out as we were writing it. So, there’s not a whole lot left up to discussion by the time we are on the set, except for angles and camera equipment and stuff like that. So the beginning of each day we just walk though and set that up and it was pretty good.

CS: Seeing the film ““ the finished product ““ you are used to doing half hours at a time, how was it now looking at the finished product and seeing what you have on screen? Did you get everything you wanted to get or did you say, oh, I wish I would have gotten something different here?

CREGGER: I can’t help but think that. That’s just how it happens when you do this. When I watch it I see every little thing I wish I could change. Not that I don’t like the movie, it’s just when you slave over something…I wish I could have another tweeking. Just the nature of the beast. Got to let the baby go. But there are also things that work very well. In a couple of years I’ll be able to watch it without any of that stuff.

CS: How do you feel about the filmmaking process itself when you compare it to your television work?

MOORE: There’s pros and cons to it. I think by nature I enjoy television a little more because of the immediacy of it. I love writing and I love writing something, shooting it and throwing it out there. Immediate audience feedback on it. But this you have to do something for two years. I do like doing movies but to direct something again it would have to be something I really, really cared about and thought that I need to direct this or else it won’t have the right tone. I think the next thing I would want to direct is a wise kids movie because I don’t think that is something you could turn over to just another director. We would have to direct that. But, I’m interested in just writing stuff and not directing it unless it’s a pet project.

CS: Sara, as a bonus for you not texting the whole time, I’ll give you the final question real fast. Your experience on the film, what did you take away from working with these two?

UNDERWOOD: They make fun of me every time I say it like I’m brown nosing, but it was exciting to be in it. They wrote it, directed it and stared in it and they are really talented and I think they are upcoming stars and I think that it’s cool to be a part of their first movie. They have some much more cool stuff ahead of them.

March 13, 2009
Trailer Park: Exclusive Screening – DUPLICITY

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings. From standing in a pool of toilet water to talking about nothing of great importance you can ensure that I send out quality.

This year’s first screening for the faithful legion of QuickStopEntertainment readers living in Arizona is for DUPLICITY, starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.

To give you an idea of how far Clive Owen has come since CROUPIER (a fabulous film filled with dark nooks and crannies) the attraction, for me, isn’t so much Roberts as it is Clive. I think he’s shown himself capable of dynamic range and it’s nice to see him in a movie that I think everyone can agree looks to be light and airy like a delicate madeleine pastry. With the heady box office offerings as of late it’s just nice to have one of these kinds of films to look forward to.

The screening is for this upcoming Monday, March 16, at 7 PM at Harkins Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Arizona. The film opens on March 20th but for those interested in seeing DUPLICITY a few days early just drop me a line at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com. It’s just that easy.

The film’s synopsis:

CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have left the world of government intelligence to cash in on the highly profitable cold war raging between two rival multinational corporations. Their mission? Secure the formula for a product that will bring a fortune to the company that patents it first.

For their employers – industry titan Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and buccaneer CEO Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti) – nothing is out of bounds. But as the stakes rise, the mystery deepens and the tactics get dirtier, the trickiest secret for Claire and Ray is their growing attraction. And as they each try to stay one double-cross ahead, two career loners find their schemes endangered by the only thing they can’t cheat their way out of: love.

March 12, 2009
Trailer Park: WATCHMEN – Review and Interviews

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings. From standing in a pool of toilet water to talking about nothing of great importance you can ensure that I send out quality.

I don’t care what the cool people say.

The hipsters of the world will have you believe that Comic-Con is a big bloated mess of a convention and that it’s better left to the overweight Chun-Li, Slave Leia, and Wonder Woman impersonators of the world who want to show off their well-deserved muffin tops and cottage cheese thighs. I say “pshaw!” to that as this convention, really, always ends up being the highlight of my summer. I get to go back and see the people who I identify with the most and it allows me to get the hell out of Arizona in order to get moments like this.

Correspondents who operate out of LA or out of some other major market can’t appreciate what it’s like to be starved for material and access to anyone related with the films we cover so when I had the chance to be a part of these roundtables I couldn’t pass it up. It’s no secret that I abhor the roundtable process, that I am genuinely jealous of any Tom, Dick or Harry who gets even so much as 5 minutes with someone connected to a high-profile film (It’s what brings all the boys to the virtual yard, so to speak) as it’s tough enough trying to sell an editor on running an interview with the guy who might have held a kleig light for a pick-up scene from WANTED so having the full cast from WATCHMEN talk about their roles, months and months before anyone would glimpse what this was all going to look like, was a welcome opportunity.

Every single person was a live wire when it came to talking about this movie. I think this was one of those moments when you could actually believe the bullshit: these guys got it. Whether they could execute Snyder’s direction, that was still an unknown but looking back at these interviews after seeing the finished film I am struck at how their words weren’t hollow. They all worked as tiny cogs in a bigger wheel that Zack Snyder was tireless in creating. I hope you watch some of what these kids have to say as I equally hope you like this more than having to actually read another WATCHMEN interview.
[ad#contestbox]

PART 1:

PART 2:

Thanks to Ken Plume for the assist in getting these things digitized in an easily digestible format.

WATCHMEN – A REVIEW

Alan Moore, from a recent interview which makes his take on the adaptation of his graphic novel: “I think that adaptation is largely a waste of time in almost any circumstances. There probably are the odd things that would prove me wrong. But I think they’d be very much the exception. If a thing works well in one medium, in the medium that it has been designed to work in, then the only possible point for wanting to realize it on ‘multiple platforms,’ as they say these days, is to make a lot of money out of it. There is no consideration for the integrity of the work, which is rather the only thing as far as I’m concerned.”

“Can one desire too much of a good thing?” As You Like It, Act IV, Sc. I

When director Lambert Hillyer took on Batman in the 1940’s, bringing the great cowled one to the screen for what was the first of many live action iterations, he made Bruce Wayne something more akin to a savior for the public than the vigilante lunatic he really is when you take the time to break down the idea. Of course, comics are a place of Never Never Land and Hillyer, over a half-century ago, embraced that false sense of reality. Comics embraced this false sense of reality. Superman was the indestructible force that indirectly belonged solely to the United States. Of course, he would fly to Germany to set things straight during World War II, we can’t have too much reality getting in the way of our comics, but it was escapism. And kids loved it.

Then those kids grew up and saw the world was obviously a lot more gray than the hard and fast black and white of their pulpy confections.

Alan Moore was one of those kids who saw the world of comics as fertile ground for a little existential exercise into what it means to be a hero, a cape, a crusader for people. What he came up, The Watchmen, is the perfect blending of thoughtful prose, dynamic characters and a storyline, in postmodern theory, that we all take for granted today. Could anyone debate whether THE DARK KNIGHT could have worked in the 50’s or 60’s? Sure, but the real answer is that before Moore took on the task of throwing childish comics and melding it with the seedy, dank recesses of culture’s greatest sins and vices there wasn’t a language to interpret it. Any cultural anthropologist worth their salary will tell you that the 40s and 50s were not, in fact, any gem to be revered in American society. There were the same social problems then as there is now and Moore has bridged the generation gap to show and prove the biggest point, in my opinion, of his graphic novel: Man’s inhumanity to man will never cease or relent. Rape, murder, violence, malevolence will always reign exist somewhere in our collective lives and to think different about it not only makes you ignorant of the facts but part of the larger problem.

What Zack Snyder has done, you see, is distilled equal parts commentary and equal parts violence and mashed it together with a love story that, for better or worse, doesn’t leave you completely despairing over the fate of humankind. The real exciting thing about this film is that you have one of two ways to enter this picture: 1) completely oblivious to the source material or 2) somewhat knowledgeable of everything that’s going to happen. I happened to be in the latter camp while the person I went with fell squarely in the former. Both of us were impacted by Snyder’s vision and ended up on the same side of the discussion as the movie let out. Really, if you meditate on it, Snyder had to account for both audiences. He wanted to keep the fidelity to the source material closer than anyone else could have done it but he needed to make sure there were enough bread and circuses to keep the masses happy. This graphic novel eschews violence insofar as it is a commentary on the human condition, these “heroes” completely fallible and broken, human, and the lengths some will go to prove how committed they are to their ideals.

For Rorschach, the violence feels wholly a function of his upbringing, his life as a neglected and abused child; his actions, lunatic though he may be, serve his warped sensibilities in a way that no one has ever explored before. Sure, we have countless comic versions on this theme but to say Alan Moore was the first to do it would be to give short shrift to the other personalities he was able to lay claim to examining. Dr. Manhattan, a God of a man given to fits of dissonance to those who want him to be their savior, while he sees the human population for what they are: parasitic organisms obsessed with self-destruction. Billy Crudup’s syllogistic intonations and ruminations are the highlights of this film as his words feel less like comic monologues but observations on humankind that are disturbingly real. The Nite Owl, played by Patrick Wilson is pure delight. Pathetic, to be sure, impotent and a bit of a wimp to begin this is the character that you root for as you see the struggle in the man’s spirit. Too modest to be a lecherous knave like The Comedian, Dan wants to be more than he is. He is not content to be useless to a country that doesn’t want him but he’s not the same man we know him to be by the end of the movie as he was when we first meet him. Wilson is easily one of the bright spots in a movie that doesn’t have a lot of light to give. His relationship with Dr. Manhattan’s on again, off again lady, Silk Spectre brings humanity to a movie that is on genuine need of it.

However, it’s The Comedian’s turn as the resident sleaze, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, that is the only real downfall of this film. In flashbacks to when he was still alive and kicking ass Morgan plays him with a bombast that doesn’t quite work well on the screen. He feels campy, like he’s almost putting on a show. The Comedian should have come across as more brusque and sinister but what we get is a comic book interpretation of what The Comedian seems to be. His moments in the film are hit or miss when it comes to their effectiveness but it’s usually those he is playing off who come off as the real deal. Dr. Manhattan, in comparison, wipes the screen clear with his blueness and flat tonality. I would hazard a guess as to say that Crudup is the very best part of this movie and he, along with Rorschach, make the running time seem meaningless. Crudup understands Manhattan in a way that I don’t think I have when you consider Crudup’s tone. He is smooth, almost whispering. You forget this is a god among men as when he talks he makes complete and total sense. The moment he has with Malin Akerman on Mars is worth your full attention. Rorschach, as previously mentioned, is completely arresting and, oddly, sympathetic at times. As an example, and all bad Christian Bale voice comparisons aside, when Jackie Earle Haley is having his impromptu psych evaluation inside the state penitentiary, Jackie thunderously blends voice over, performance and nuance that when he dispatches a child molester you not only recoil in horror at the savage act being depicted on the screen but, again, he engenders sympathy in an odd, odd way. We understand his motivations. They may not be very Christian but, for him, he is the result of the age old question of nature versus nurture. He’s weirdly the guy you root for throughout the picture. I did anyway and I have no idea what that says about my own psychology but I think it’s a valid point. Both Rorschach and Nite Owl are kindred spirits and in a landscape full of those who have no chemistry with one another you can believe these two are friends.

In the background to all of this is Snyder who has, without question, created a faithful adaption to Moore’s work. I think you can quibble here about the level of fidelity he has brought to the visual storytelling that he so wanted to retain but there is something that I hope to recuse myself of doing: casting judgment on a less than viewed film. It’s no secret that Snyder had to trim this movie in order for it to be as long as it is now and there are signs that things here were snipped, things over here were trimmed. Expediency took precedence over what his full vision really encompassed. I fear that the things that I take issue with, the hurried moments between characters when there was obviously more to say, the sequences that feel rushed, are all there except they have been taken out, temporarily. As it stands, however, this movie is an artistic movement of both social commentary and the hopes and wishes we put upon our heroes. Snyder takes a page from As You Like It in that he understands if you’re going to bum everyone out with the high concept you better deliver on some sweet bloodletting. He gives us this book’s bread and circuses on a visual palette that mixes soundtracks and sights that evoke a period not so removed from our own.

The film has to be so many things to so many people but Snyder takes the risk by doing the honorable thing which is being true to what was on the page. The debate can rage without me as it pertains to whether he stays too close to the novel but the penultimate fight sequence, the prison, Mars, the opening moments, Dan and Spectre’s love tryst all outweigh small problems compared to what should be held in the same regard as Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. To be sure, Jackson had a lot of runway to pave his own vision but flipping through the graphic novel you could see where the challenges were all but apparent.

The Watchmen prove that there is much we have yet to learn from history and ourselves as beasts and Snyder has indeed given a film that slides narrowly on that line of artistic endeavor and full-throttle action.

———————

And now, some misguided ramblings from our own Raymond Schillaci who is back from seeing THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Welcome to 2009, Raymond…

The Curious Case of Oscar Slumming

Okay, so I have been away for a while without a good excuse to bring something to the table.Never mind that I have been wowed by the likes of “Son of Rambow,” “Let the Right One In” and “Gran Torino”.If you have not seen them rush to the nearest video (when they are released) store (or NetFlix) and rent them because they are far more articulate, artistic and deeper than the choice for Oscar’s best picture, director or adapted screenplay, “Slumdog Millionaire”. Mind you, I did appreciate director Boyle’s picture and I was touched, but Oscar, once again, missed the big picture.They missed it by a mile, especially not recognizing Boyle’s efforts with a far better earlier picture, “Millions”.

Was it circumstance, fate or just the academy’s lack of attention that had given the kitschy “Slumdog” an undeserving sweep?Will anybody talk about it years from now or will they stumble upon the more deserving fair as mentioned above? Perhaps Fincher’s film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” will be far more appreciated as years go by.It certainly was an intricate, beautifully done piece of work from beginning to end.It did not truncate itself with a self-indulging dance sequence that Bollywood loves to propagate.Perhaps it was a direct example of the global economy and political correctness filtering through our film industry.

Whatever it is, it’s disappointing to say the least after I have just watched Fincher’s adult masterwork.Forget the comparisons to “Forest Gump” they are undeserved.This is a wonderful human odyssey.For those Pitt nay Sayers, leave your jealousy at the door.Pitt delivers a wonderful portrayal of a simple man with a complex problem attempting to wrestle down all the big questions life has to offer with the added twist of physically living it backwards.

Fincher with all the dark baggage he has brought to his other masterpieces, “7even” and “Fight Club” sets everything aside to show us his warm and fuzzy side.No, it’s not sappy, melodramatic or over-the-top.It’s a sincere poetic allegory that carries you through Benjamin’s strange journey and all the people he affects and the funny and unusual way life works itself out.Fincher paints his tale with broad strokes taking us from BB’s birth (as an old man), his awkward dealing as he goes through adolescence (still as a senior citizen) with the yearning of wanting to relate to other children to mid-life where the greatest years are lived and finally reaching an inevitable youngster dealing with dementia. It is heart-wrenching and may have fallen into maudlin territory if Fincher and writer Roth had not ventured further taking us into the character’s various loves (including his surrogate mother ““ played with remarkable perfection by Taraji P Henson), friends and acquaintances that make up a person throughout one’s life.

I could go on and on about the attention to detail from costume, sets and props. I could probably give a little more detail to this amazing story, but I would rather have it take you by pleasant surprise as it did me.It’s a great date movie, but do not mistake this as a chick flick.If you have any kind of heart at all, you will feel this film pull on the strings several times and find yourself looking for a hanky.I saw it alone, which made it twice as hard.No, I’m not wimping out, but I am a romantic and Fincher’s film is far more charismatic and romantic than “Slumdog”.I only hope the director will visit this kind of wonderment filmmaking again so he may receive the kudos he deserves, along with a golden guy spearheading him to legendary status.

March 6, 2009
Trailer Park: BITCH SLAP Interview

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings. From standing in a pool of toilet water to talking about nothing of great importance you can ensure that I stand for quality.

So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: I’m in a hotel bed with three ladies…

The promotion of BITCH SLAP, coming your way very soon in 2009, was a masterstroke of genius. Simply put web journalists who came to the San Diego Comic-Con to talk to fully clothed actors and actresses in sterile press chicken coops the opportunity to interview Julia Voth, Erin Cummings and America Olivo, three gorgeous ladies who deserve kudos for both being pretty and witty, about a movie that hasn’t come out yet…in bed.

Look, I’ve been married for 7 years. I have 2 little girls at home. I can’t even bear to even give the appearance of impropriety. But, as I slid onto the edge of the king sized mattress, knowing this was going to be a complete off the cuff interview about what in the world this movie was about, I will admit I was like a schoolboy being introduced to three sirens who would have just as soon laughed at my dweebiness than carrying on a coherent conversation with me.

I can’t say one way or the other about whether you should see this film but after talking with these girls, talking with the writer/director at length about what he wanted to do with this film (shot with a RED to boot), seeing the footage and then seeing this extended trailer I know that I will be giving this one my money when given the chance. The comparisons will come that this film is trying to be everything that GRINDHOUSE was not and I think that’s valid. Rodriguez and Tarantino did not capture the essence of those film and, instead, made the visual equivalent of a cover song but what BITCH SLAP looks to be doing, then, is to really embody those randy sexploitation films in an honest, fun and loud fashion.

Watch the interview I had with, let’s face it, the three hottest ladies you’ll see on this site today… BITCH SLAP is coming to theaters this spring…
[ad#contestbox]

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

March 6, 2009
Toy Box: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Who’s watching the Watchmen? If you’re Warner Brothers, you’re hoping just about everyone. The film has gone through it’s share of complex issues, but it’s finally hitting the big screen on March 6th. I don’t know about you, but I’ll have my butt in the IMAX theater Friday night.

Since this is a DC property, it should be no surprise that the product coming out in conjunction is from DC Direct. They’re producing action figures in a psuedo 7 inch scale and a psuedo sixth scale, as well as busts and prop replicas. I’m checking out two of the first four action figures tonight – Rorschach and Nite Owl. The other two in this wave are the modern Silk Spectre and Ozymandias, reviewed over at Michael’s Review of the Week.

You can pick these guys (and girls) up for around $17 or so, depending on the retailer of course. That’s a pretty hefty chunk of change, but I have some suggestions in the Where to Buy section that have the full set of four at just fifty bucks, or just $12.50 each. If you have any questions or comments, drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com, or hit my website at Captain Toy – Michael’s Review of the Week.

Watchmen series 1 – Nite Owl and Rorschach

Series 1 has been out for a week or two, and series 2 (with the Comedian, original Silk Spectre, original Nite Owl, and Dr Manhattan) has been hitting as well. There are also three variants that will be showing up at your LCS: a translucent Dr. Manhattan, old school Comedian, and unmasked Rorschach.

Packaging – Rorschach ***1/2, Nite Owl ***
Hey, they’re boxes. And the best part is they not only look great, and store easily for the MiBers, but they are also collector friendly. You can pull the figures out and just have to deal with a couple twisties – no need to actually damage the box or inserts in any way. That’s not true for the Ozy or Nite Owl figures, where the stand is blister sealed to the interior cardboard tray, but it is true for Rorschach and Silk Spectre. I don’t quite understand why they designed two this way and two the other way, but it may have something to do with the capes getting in the way.

Sculpting – Nite Owl ***1/2; Rorschach ***
This entire line exhibits great sculpts, with lots of good detail, and what appears to be a good match to the on screen counterparts. Of course, that’s tough to tell based on just poster photos and a few movie stills, but they’ve certainly captured the look of the costumes. The detail work on the Nite Owl outfit is excellent, but he does suffer from a slightly soft sculpt on his facial features. He’s the largest figure in this wave, standing about 6 3/4″ tall.

Rorschach is the smallest of the set, as he was in the comic. He stands about 6 1/4″ tall, a full half inch shorter than Nite Owl (and Ozymandias). He’s also the least articulated, so his sculpted pose is the most critical. That’s where he loses a half star for me.

The other figures in the line have a ball jointed neck to allow them to tilt, turn, and swivel. These joints work great on all the others, but for some reason DCD decided NOT to give Rorschach the same neck. Now, there might be a ball buried down there, but the neck works pretty much as a straight cut joint, allowing it to turn from side to side. Clearly, DCD knew that this was a shortcoming, since Rorschach tends to tilt his head…to compensate for it, they sculpted his head tilted. Yep, it’s sculpted in that tilted pose. Which means it looks good in only that one pose. Why did they do this? I have no idea.

Add to this the odd walking pose they went with on the legs, and I’m not feeling it. The sculpted details are still good, and I like the look of the masked face, but the figure is basically a statue, and the selected pose really ain’t doing it for me.

Paint – ***
The paint work is fairly clean, although at this price point it certainly should be. There’s some minor issues here and there, particularly with some gloppiness on Nite Owl’s face and a few fuzzy cut lines here and there, but it’s certainly B work.

The one aspect of the paint job that really does stand out though is the rorschach ‘stain’ on Rorschach’s mask. It’s extremely well done, nicely centered, and looks terrific.

Articulation – Nite Owl **1/2; Rorschach *1/2
None of these figures is super articulated, but Nite Owl is much like Ozymandias and Silk Spectre, with better articulation than you might expect from DCD. He has a great ball jointed neck, as well as ball jointed shoulders that have a reasonably good range of movement. There’s single pin elbows and knees, T hips, and cut wrists. No, no cut waist…but then this is DC Direct we’re talking about.

Rorschach doesn’t fair as well as the rest of the series. As I mentioned in the sculpting section, he only has a cut neck joint. With the head sculpted in a tilt, it looks a bit weird in all but one pose. He lacks the ball jointed shoulders too, instead having simple cut joints. There’s single pin elbows and cut wrists, but there is no knee joint, and the legs are simply cut at the thigh were they meet the coat.

Accessories – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
None of the figures have a ton of stuff, but at least these two add one extra to the mix.

Each figure in the series comes with a small base. These bases have three holes in them, placed evenly across the surface. Two small pegs can be inserted from the bottom to allow the figures to stand on them, but the figures only have a hole in one foot each. Unfortunately, since the holes are evenly spaced, a character like Rorschach ends up standing in an off center way on the base no matter which hole is used.

Each figure also comes with a little bracket that appears to be designed to attach the bases to each other. At least that what it looks like to me – the packaging doesn’t bother to explain.

That’s all that Ozy and Silk Spectre have, but Rorschach includes his cool gun and an extra right hand to hold it, while Nite Owl has his version of the batarang that can attach to his belt. Is it an owlarang? Unfortunately, he can’t hold it particularly well in his hand, and it tends to fall off his belt, but as long as you can keep it in place, it looks fine.

I had some issues swapping hands on Rorschach, and ended up needing some hot water to do the job. The posts are very weak plastic, so twisting them or pulling them if they are stuck could result in tearing the hand off.

His gun looks great, but I did have some trouble getting it to stay in his hand. It’s not impossible, but it will take a little effort, and it tends to fall out once in place.

Fun Factor – **
These aren’t really designed for kids, even if Toys R Us is carrying them. It’s an R rated movie, starring characters that kids will have no background on. If one or two were gruesome and hideous, kids might enjoy them just for the monster effect, but these will just look like generic superheroes to them.

Value – *1/2
These figures will run you at least $17 if you buy the singles. At that price, you arent’ getting much – a 7″ plastic statue (albeit a good looking one) without much in the way of accessories. If you want the whole wave though, I have some suggetsions in the Where to Buy section that get the price down to about $12.50 each, which would get these up another star or so in the rating.

Things to Watch Out For –
I had issues with Rorschach’s right hand – the one that’s supposed to swap. Even twisting it was questionable, and the pegs on these are made from a fairly soft plastic. Rather than risk tearing one, just use hot water (which is what I did this time), or the old ‘freezer trick’ to free them up.

Overall – Nite Owl ***; Rorschach **1/2
Nite Owl turned out good, if a tad too statuesque for my tastes. Considering the high price point on these figures, they need something extra, either in accessories or articulation. Without it, I really can’t give Nite Owl better than three stars overall.

Rorschach doesn’t fair quite as well for me. He’s not awful, and I think the painted mask and head sculpt look great. But once again, at this price point I’m expecting that they step up their game, and I really dislike the sculpted tilt to the neck. If you’re cool with the concept that he’s pretty much a statue, and if you like the sculpted pose, then you’ll be much happier than I.

Score Recap:
Packaging – ***
Sculpting – Nite Owl ***1/2; Rorschach ***
Paint – ***
Articulation – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
Accessories – Rorschach **1/2; Nite Owl **
Fun Factor – **
Value – *1/2
Overall – Nite Owl ***; Rorschach **1/2

Where to buy –
These are hitting some retailers, like Toys R Us (shocking!), but they aren’t cheap there. Even with shipping, your best bet might be some of the online retailers:

– Urban Collector has the singles for $17 each, but you can get teh case of 4 for just $50.

– Alter Ego Comics has series 1 or series 2 available for $55 for the set of four.

– Corner Store Comics has the singles for $15 – $18, depending on the figure, or the set of four for $55.

– Things From Another World has all the singles, including variants, for about $20 each.

– Clark Toys has the sets of four for $62.

– or you can search ebay using sponsor MyAuctionLinks.

Related Links –
I have a review of the other two figures in this first series, the modern Silk Spectre and Ozymandias, over at my site.

March 3, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 3/2 – 3/8

Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I don’t fear the Reaper.

It’s been nearly a year since we last saw Reaper, which is returning March 3rd at 8 PM to the CW, and truth be told we’re lucky we’re even getting a second helping of the show.Â Reaper originally showed a lot of promise in its pilot episode, but quickly devolved to a simple “monster-of-the-week” retread that we’d already seen in year’s prior from show’s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. The only saving grace at that point was the flawless performance of Ray Wise as the Devil.

About the same time I was thinking to myself that Reaper was going to fall off of my viewing list the Writer’s Strike happened. When it was over Reaper returned and something had changed. Suddenly the reaping was playing second fiddle to story lines like a demon uprising wanting to overthrow the Devil and the nagging question of lead character Sam’s own parentage. In the season finale we were even given a gem in Sam‘s own father seeming to be a demon (or something else that is capable of surviving being buried alive). The increased interest from the fan base seemed to give the CW reason to give Reaper a second season order of 13 episodes.

The initial question that has to be asked is if this new season learned from the last part of last season and will the show really try to knock it out of the park for what could be it’s final 13? The answer to the question may be revealed in the season opener where Sam encounters a soul of interest who he may pursue over the course of this season’s run. Sam also has challenges to over come as he returns from a road trip with friends Sock and Ben to discover he’s been evicted from his apartment, fired from his job at The Work Bench and girlfriend Andi may not be terribly happy with him either. Of course the Devil also makes things a bit difficult since he isn’t the type of employer that likes granting extended leaves from work.

The second question also is if the CW really wants to see Reaper do well at all. Originally the show was slated to premiere March 17th and it was going to have the drama ladened 90210 as it’s lead in. Suddenly the premiere has been moved up two weeks and Reaper is now the lead in show, and if you look at the schedule it looks more like the sacrificial lamb the CW is handing over the FOX‘s American Idol, pushing 90210 to the safer 9 PM post-Idol slot originally intended for Reaper. I suppose we can just be thankful that if that is the case as we’ll at least see all 13 episodes of Reaper. The show’s producers have stated they plan to deliver a complete story for us should Reaper be shaking loose this mortal coil at the conclusion of this season. Even if it does, I’m glad we’ve got 13 more episodes of Ray Wise‘s Devil to enjoy.

If all of this Reaper talk didn’t scare you off than here’s what else is coming up in the next seven.

MONDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: It’s two hours of 24 tonight with a full on assault on the White House. It’s bad enough when they asked us to believe… well, just about everything from all of the seasons past, but really… the White House? Shame on you 24. Shame…. on…. you!

NBC – 9:00 PM: I admit that I acutally enjoyed Heroes last week up until the last five minutes of the show. They bought my interest for one more week. Let’s see if they can do it again.

FOOD – 9:30 PM: Rabidly interested in how cranberries are harvested? Hop into the bog on Will Work for Food.

TUESDAY

BRAVO – 1:00 PM: Hunker down for a marathon of The Real Housewives of New York City. Did I just type that?

FOX – 8:00 PM: American Idol rolls out the poor song choices performed horribly by the next 12 contestants hoping to survive the night.

CW – 8:00 PM: Yup, like stated above, Reaper is back. Give it a try if you didn’t before.

WEDNESDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: Tonight on Knight Rider… hah, just kidding! This show is harder for me to watch than a vasectomy reversal (and yes, I’ve seen one).

FOX – 8:00 PM: Nine more dreams are crushed as three more are chosen for the final 12 contestants on American Idol. Dragging this out for 60 minutes is almost as unjustifiable as the running time of the Oscars.

HIST – 9:00 PM: If you’ve ever wanted to see the sewers of New York than tune in to MonsterQuest as they delve into the disgusting depths in search of alligators.

ABC – 9:00 PM: I’ve noticed a trend that is happening on LOST. They’ve been playing this cat and mouse game of mysterious and answers so much that they are creating mini-mysteries that surface and get paid off in a few episodes. Watch more tonight as we get caught up with where Sawyer and crew have been in LaFleur.

THURSDAY

TOON – 2:30 PM: I’ve really been enjoying Batman: The Brave and the Bold and I really wish I had recommended last week this first part of a two parter. It’s got everything geeks love: super heroes and alternate universes where the good are bad and vise versa. The second part airs tomorrow night, so set your DVR for this one to get caught up.

FOX – 8:00 PM: Just when you thought they couldn’t shove more Idol down your throats they bring out a wild card show. The judges favorites shill one more time for a chance on the show.

NBC – 8:30 PM: Does anyone who reads this column want to email me and tell me what I’m missing not watching Kath & Kim? I only ask because it’s the only show I skip on the Thursday night NBC lineup.

CBS – 8:00 PM: The first alliance of the season surfaces tonight on Survivor: Tocantins.

FRIDAY

TOON – 8:00 PM: Batman teams up with The Joker (what?!?!?) to try to foil Owlman in tonight’s season finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

FOX – 8:00 PM: It’s just so hard having a Terminator on your team when they have a damaged chip, which appears to have a BIOS made by Microsoft. Haha! Nerd humor!

AMC – 8:00 PM: See the entire first season of Breaking Bad tonight and you’ll be jonesing for more.

SATURDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: Didn’t catch the premiere of Celebrity (really?!?) Apprentice? You get a second shot tonight.

DISNEY – 8:00 PM: I know it is no great work of cinematic art, but I really got a kick out of Sky High.

ABC – 9:00 PM: This is really shaping up to be second chance Saturday. Miss the two hour Brothers & Sisters episode from last week or your DVR botched up? Queue it up again.

SUNDAY

Hope you remembered to set your clock ahead an hour!

NBC – 7:00 PM: Sometimes a show name says it all: Saturday Night Live: Just Game Show Parodies. As long as it is 90% Celebrity Jeopardy I’m in.

FOX – 8:00 PM: The home loan crisis hits Springfield as The Simpsons ARM skyrockets. Way to help us escape from our everyday lives guys!

NBC – 8:00 PM: I don’t think you can take any percentage of anything to make me watch Saturday Night Live: Just Commercials.

AMC – 10:00 PM: Did you get hooked on Breaking Bad after Friday night? Good news, season 2 premieres tonight.

– Will Wilkins wrote this column while thinking about his Dad. It’s been a year Pops and I still miss you.

March 2, 2009
Trailer Park: Vinessa Shaw (TWO LOVERS) – Interview

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings.

Now, before I begin today’s interview this week’s DVD Giveaway is being brought to you by SWING VOTE on DVD. I have five (5) copies of this film to give out and if you’re interested in being considered for one just send me a note to Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and just put SWING VOTE in the subject line. Good luck and for those who would like to know about this film here is the synopsis:

Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) is just your below-average Joe. He works in an egg factory, likes to knock back a few too many beers, and is a single parent to 12-year-old Molly (Madeline Carroll), a bright spitfire who does her best to keep her dad on the straight and narrow. Patriotic Molly insists that apathetic Bud do his civic duty and vote in the upcoming presidential election, a tight race between Republican incumbent Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer) and Democratic candidate Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper). Soon the media and both candidates descend upon Bud’s hometown of Texico, New Mexico, when it’s determined that his vote wasn’t counted and will decide the outcome of the entire presidential election. Now that Bud is a ‘somebody’ – there’s even a ‘Bud Cam’ capturing his every move – will he be swayed by visits to Air Force One and the ‘Bud Ball’ held in his honor, or will he be the voice of the American people and vote for the better candidate?

Writer/director Joshua Michael Stern (NEVERWAS) tackles American politics in his second feature film. The lengths the candidates go to in order to win Bud’s vote are high points of the film, as they find themselves supporting initiatives that are completely opposed to their platforms at the urging of their campaign managers, played by Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane. Grammer is well cast as Boone, and it’s a hoot to see counterculture icon Hopper in this light. Costner makes Bud likable despite the loser stereotype he personifies. But this film belongs to Carroll, a lovely young actress who can steal a scene with one look. If nothing else, SWING VOTE is a reminder that even though politics may be a game, every single vote really does count.

———————

Quiet.

It’s the best way to describe TWO LOVERS, a film that takes the archetype of a man torn between two women, one sultry while the other is, well, not, and turns it enough to make this movie one you have to seek out and watch. James Gray has crafted world where place and time actually matter, the environment seeps into every scene, and it enhances this timeless story of restlessness and the quest for finding the love you can call your own.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and, today’s guest, Vinessa Shaw, the film is gingerly making its way through the art house circuit. You may have seen Vinessa in countless television or film productions, most recently her turns in 2006’s THE HILLS HAVE EYES and 2007’s 3:10 TO YUMA, and it is the latter film that most would probably recognize her from, albiet not in the most opportune way. Vinessa indirectly got caught up in a sort of Perv-Gate case between Internet blogger Jeff Wells and YUMA’s director, James Mangold. The particulars are there for you to see but it tickled me to see that almost a year later, when this film screened last year in May, his mention of the film added this footnote at the bottom of his comments: “Sidenote: anyone who chimes in about Shaw in a certain context — you know what I mean — will be banned for life from this website. Fair warning.” His reprint of this column, centering around the film’s debut a few weeks ago, noticeably had the above comment deleted.

Regardless, Vinessa is spectacular in every regard in this film. It’s harder, I would posit, to be demure and muted in a film when you’re having to go up against two other characters like Phoenix and Paltrow who made it their business to be known on the screen. Seek this one out. It’s one of the best films to come out this Winter.

VINESSA SHAW: Hi, Chris…

CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Hello…

SHAW: How are you?

CS: How are you doing and how’s your press day going?

SHAW: Good. Very good. Thanks for asking.

CS: Is this part of the job that you like or could do without?

SHAW: I actually like it. There’s such a long time from the end of shooting to the release that talking about it refreshes you and reminds you why you liked doing what you did in the film.

CS: One of the things I wanted to ask you because I know our time is not that great but I would like to jump right into the character that you play. Opposite of Gwyneth Paltrow ““ the two of you are set up as diametric opposites. You are the safe and sane bet and Gwyneth plays the sort of firecracker. What initially drew you to a story that we’ve seen so many times before?

SHAW: Well, I really appreciated the honesty with which James wrote the piece because I felt like everything I read now is tongue-in-cheek and filed with irony and I just felt that everybody was straightforward and honest. Even if they had a lot of skeletons in their closet they were honest and felt like the characters leapt off the page for me. And I really particularly liked how Sandra and Leonard related to each other. I really liked Sandra’s amazing self-confidence she had yet still maintained a sense of awkwardness about her in speaking with Leonard and I really just appreciated the real true relationships the people had in this movie. It was very honest even if it’s complicated.

CS: And definitely compared to something like The Hills Have Eyes where you had a large production…this seems a little bit quieter.

SHAW: It’s very quiet. When I read it I thought it felt like a Mike Nichols film or something from the 70’s which I later found out that James is a huge fan of 70’s film and intimacy that those films had. It was a pleasure and such a refreshing thing to read.

CS: James’s aim ““ and when you see the final piece ““ it does feel like a movie we haven’t seen in a long, long time. He’s not being ironic, like you said, he’s being honest and trying to capture this moment in time. How did you come to feel what James’s vision was for this movie?

SHAW: I didn’t know quite the scope of how he would be filming the film until I got on set. I really started to see how simply he wanted to portray the characters and how each person’s life was true to life. Michelle and her glitzy boyfriend, her world seemed very real to me. I don’t know. I felt the way that I encountered or understood the scope of what James was doing was really how I felt when I was in Leonard’s bedroom or the kind of clothes that I wore. So, James didn’t take me through it but he knew that he wanted me to be simple and not fussy in terms of her clothing and the way that she is ““ Sandra is so I think you see that how Sandra is herself. I wasn’t privy to any of the lighting or the scope of the scene but I could feel it when I was on the set in Brighton Beach ““ tiny little rooms and small corridors ““ it was very intimate and lent for intimacy in the scene.

CS: Your character has been described as dowdy, frumpy, all these sort of terms ““ not flattering but obviously part of the role – and Gwyneth is supposed to jump off the page with her exuberance and what have you. It got me thinking. Why isn’t dependable attractive in movies? I mean, I think I understand it. I’m no slouch and I can appreciate why chaste doesn’t sell well but I would figure that your character would be the one to appreciate ““ the crazy ladies in films always end up boiling bunnies and rabbits in your stew like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Why isn’t safe attractive?

SHAW: I think, of course, that we want to go and see a movie and go into an adventuresome world where we can escape from our own trappings, but I think we have to see, and it’s comforting to see, that Leonard goes on a crazy journey but does return back home.

The Wizard of Oz in a way, a physical way, going to another land and coming back but I think Leonard is dealing with the traumas he’s had of losing his fiancÃ© and he’s kind of exploring the different sides of his character and some of it’s dark and not pretty and he has to deal with the ramifications of having that dark side to him. And he goes there in order to come back to where he was in the beginning and realizes where he’s been almost like a dream. I think in the end most people would find it comforting that he does come back and hopefully they survive their relationship because most people could consider I wonder what will happen to Leonard but I really wonder what will happen to Sandra. Will she be able to withstand all his ups and downs and his antics?

CS: Exactly. It’s always the after story. It’s never a happily ever after and I think it gets to the heart of the movie that James is trying to make a truthful movie. I would love to know what you saw with why James seems to love working with Joaquin. It’s a no-brainer why someone would not want to work with him but they’ve worked together so often ““ how does that relationship translate on set?

SHAW: They are almost familial. It’s almost like they are family. I feel that Joaquin really trusts James as a director and he has a small close group of friends and I know he considers James as one of them. James is someone he can really trust so I think he can play any character with James as the director and he would know that whatever comes up on screen, he would feel comfortable with. I have head that Joaquin doesn’t see any of his movies.

CS: Really?

SHAW: Yes. He doesn’t watch any of his own films so I think that that plays a lot into whom he works with is that it’s if he feels comfortable on set with the person not really what happens on screen after the fact.

CS: How about you? Do you ever watch, re-watch, what you’ve been in for premiers or what have you?

SHAW: Yes. I don’t mind it at all. I enjoy it. The way I grew up, my mother would, because I was so rebellious as a kid with my mother ““ I started acting on the job. I didn’t go to any classes so my mother, I apologize to her now, but she had to be with me questioning her why would I do it that way, why take that stance on the character and she was fine, I will just record you and you can direct and judge yourself. So then she would record me for auditions before I would go in so I can make adjustments. So I’m very comfortable seeing myself play characters and having a more objective view of myself.

CS: Looking over your resume about where you’ve been for the last 15 years, you have been through a litany of television and film. How has life of an actor been as you look at how far you’ve come in the time you spent doing this?

SHAW: It’s so interesting because I think it’s all your perspective. Right now I feel like I’m just beginning. Maybe that is perhaps what makes an actor survive in this business ““ your constant curiosity and your tendency to feeling like that you have never arrived. I’m always feeling like I’m searching to play a more difficult character that would challenge me even more. So, looking back I feel like I’m just beginning. I feel like the training or roots have sunk in deep but I have yet to blossom into who I really am as an actor. I think I have yet to discover what that truly is.

CS: And I think I would absolutely second that. It’s funny how I heard about you, or discovered you, a couple years ago when you were in 3:10 to Yuma and internet blogger Jeff Wells petitioned James Mangold for topless photos of you. It’s an awful origin story and and I don’t know if you’ve heard about that brouhaha…

SHAW: I’ve heard that story in retrospect, yes.

(Laughs)

CS: It’s a little awkward but it indirectly made me want to know who you were. So I had to find out I watched 3:10 to Yuma was taken aback. I had to find out what else you’ve been in and I found you’ve been at this now for years. And it’s funny, I’d love to get your take as to why, but there seems to be some actress who come right out of the gate with something that’s just huge and you look on their IMDB page it just two films and they are already in the latest Jerry Bruckheimer production. How has it been mentally to say, “You know what, I haven’t hit my plateau yet, I keep going, reaching…”

SHAW: I really enjoy it because I just cringe when people would say “the IT girl”. Any of those things, I never wanted to be a flash in the pan. I really wanted to have a career that had longevity so I did my very, very best to make that happen. It’s so easy to type cast anyone in this business. How you look or how you act and I just refused to be typecast and people wanted to make me the girl next door, then, “No, she’s the hot sexy girl, oh no, she’s the wacky comedic lady, no, she’s”¦” I just want to be an actor and be able to explore any kind of role I want to.

So, I made a huge effort to continue to be an actor and a director’s actor. So, I worked with people who would put me in that realm. I was very specific and it has taken a lot of crafting and time to do it that way because my full vision is to have a long career. It kind of freaked me out because I saw a lot of my peers go really fast and quick to the top. I would feel I wouldn’t have anything behind me to support the reason for me to be there. I am somebody who feels I need to work hard for what success I achieve.

February 27, 2009
Toy Box: F.M.O.M. Wave Disruptor Gun

When it comes to unique and unusual collectibles, you can’t beat the uber-cool rayguns from Weta. You know Weta, the guys that did the props and designs for the Lord of the Rings films, as well as King Kong. George Lucas has Lucasfilms, Peter Jackson has Weta.

One of their very cool lines is the Dr. Grordbort’s Rayguns. Based on the general concept of the old time science fiction guns of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s, these are all original designs that use proper materials to make as realistic of a gun as possible, short of being able to disintegrate your enemies. All that realism costs though, and the usual full size raygun will run you any where from $700 for the Manmelter pistol, to $4500 for the Blunderbuss.

For those of us barely avoiding being committed by our families, buying one of these would be one step too far. But Weta has come up with an alternateive, ‘mini-rayguns’ that are identical in design to the big boys, but only 1/4 the size (and not nearly as complex). There have been two released at past SDCC events: the mini Manmelter from 2007, and the Goliathan at SDCC 2008. The Manmelter is long sold out, but you can still pick up the Goliathan from their site, as well as the newest in the series, the F.M.O.M. Wave Disrupter Gun.

If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line at mwc@mwctoys.com, or check out my site at Michael’s Review of the Week. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I’ll post info on new stuff, as well as links to new reviews.

F.M.O.M. Wave Disrupter Gun

If you’re a fan of the quarter scale Star Wars weapons that Gentle Giant produced, then these little buggers will be right up your alley. Weta doesn’t make a ton of these, and this version is limited to just 900.

Packaging – ***1/2
These come in excellent boxes, with great graphics done in a cool retro style. The gun itself is wrapped and packed tight to help avoid damage, but you’ll want to unpack it VERY carefully. You could end up damaging it just by removing the several twisty ties.

Sculpting – ****
These sculpts are all quite intricate, with fine wires, tubes, and doohickeys everywhere. Many of these small pieces are quite fragile, made from soft metal. The entire gun is made from metal, actually, with quite a bit of heft and weight to it. The scale works well with varioius quarter scale figures too, although it’s heavy enough to make it tough for them to hold it upright. The gun is about 3″ long, small enough to fit entirely in the palm of your hand.

Paint – ***1/2
I’m not sure if ‘paint’ is the right word, since the gun has a unique finish that makes it appear old and worn. There’s even some fake rust in a few spots, as though it’s owner hasn’t been keeping it clean between uses.

There are additional paint details too, on various wires and tubes. There’s even a small white dial, although on very close inspection you can see that the detail is a bit weak. Still, to the nekkid eye, it looks pretty damn good.

Design/Quality – ****
All metal? How can you go wrong! As I said, the gun designs themselves are all extremely unique, and yet they capture that 30’s sci-fi serials feel perfectly. I think I might like the Goliathan just a little better than the F.M.O.M., but that’s more a matter of artistic taste than basic quality or design.

There’s also a metal stand included which holds the gun up in a perfect position for display on your shelf. The style and color of the stand matches with the gun, and it includes the name of the weapon on the base.

Value – **
Yes, these are really cool, no doubt about it. But they aren’t cheap, even the little guys. Sixty bucks might not seem like a lot, but let’s keep in mind that these are only 3″ long – not exactly a huge hunk of metal. The first mini-raygun was $30, which was a much more appropriate price. I can even see $40, but $60? That’s a slight stretch.

Things to Watch Out For –
As I mentioned earlier, the gun has lots of soft metal tiny pieces that can easily be bent or broken off. Be especially careful when taking the gun out of the box for the first time. All the packing material keeps it safe in shipping, but if you’re too impatient it can also cause its own brand of damage.

Overall – ***1/2
Hey, I’ll admit it – I love these little guys. I’d love to have one of the full scale versions, but I already sold a kidney to afford my Hot Toys habit. I’m smart enough to know that a herion addict shouldn’t take up crack as a second hobby, so I’ll be sticking with the little versions.

Where to Buy –
Your best bet is the Weta site, where it can be had for about $60 US.

Related Links:
I looked at the Goliathan last year.

February 24, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 2/22 – 3/1

Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I am now very pleased with Dollhouse.

Even though I have close ties to the show I have to admit that I wasn’t thrilled with the premiere when it aired on 2/13.Â The show was good, it told a story, but there was something that was missing from the mix. It is one of those things that is most annoying because it is very hard to put a finger on what was missing, aside from the trade mark blend of drama and humor that is usually injected into a Joss Whedon project. There was also something in the storytelling that just felt forced. Even after re-watching I still couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was that was bothering me.

After seeing this past week’s episode of Dollhouse I can definitely say that whatever it was that I felt was missing is new present. From what I have read and from what I have heard this past episode, titled The Target, was the original pilot of the show (with some changes I’m sure to accommodate last week’s episode Ghost) and it certainly served the purpose of explaining what the show is and what it is about.Â It fleshed out for us why Boyd Langton was brought to be the handler for Echo, it made the tech Topher Brink far less annoying, and FBI Agent Paul Ballard came across as a much stronger character than what we saw in Ghost.

Another thing we were given was a real bad guy to watch out for in the form of Active gone bad Alpha, who sees something more to Echo than what we see on the surface. Alpha also appears to be a bad guy who is also on a mission since he appears to be manipulating things to enhance the FBI discovery of the Dollhouse as well as setting up the chain of events that made up the entire episode of The Target.

The pilot for the show was just an appetizer. This past episode for a full meal. It set things up AND sets them in motion. This episode I walked away from very satisfied.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that if you gave Dollhouse a chance and didn’t come back for more, you might want to reconsider.

Now that we’ve gotten that bit out of the way let’s see what the week holds for us.

MONDAY

AMC – 8:00 PM: It’s Dirty Harry week on AMC and tonight they are running the one that started it all with Harry Callahan going up against the Zodiac inspired Scorpio killer.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Parkman uses his mind powers to make HRG spill the beans on why he is helping with the capture of those with abilities. I’m hoping they treat this like Parkman walking through revealing events in Noah’s mind but I’m sure they’ll just give us more of the flashback style crud.

TUESDAY

ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX – 9:00 PM E / 6:00 PM P: Join me as the nation holds its breath while waiting to hear what our President has to say in his first official State of the Union address.

TNT – 10:00 AM: If you haven’t caught the TNT show Leverage than you can watch an all-day marathon leading up to the 10 PM finale.

AMC – 8:00 PM: Tonight Harry Callahan is going up against vigilante cops in Magnum Force.

WEDNESDAY

ABC – 9:00 PM: Ever since I learned the names of the episodes this season for LOST the one I’ve really been looking forward to is The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. Tonight we find out what Locke did before taking his lined pine box nap.

AMC – 8:00 PM: Still haven’t gotten your Dirty Harry fill? The Enforcer had rocket-armed radicals and hostages on Alcatraz long before The Rock existed.

THURSDAY

SCIFI – 7:00 PM: I have no idea why SciFi is running four hours of Battlestar Galactica from last year, but four hours BSG is still four hours of BSG.

NBC – 8:00 PM: If you didn’t pick up the Kung Fu Panda DVD set than tonight is your chance to see Secrets of the Furious Five for the low low price of nothing (if you can handle commercial interruptions).

HIST – 10:00 PM: Get ready for the second season of Ax Men with the Road to Season 2. Nothing says, “I feel very unmanly” more than this show.

AMC – 8:00 PM: Faster than you can say, “Go ahead. Make my day.” it’s time for Sudden Impact.

FRIDAY

VHI1 – 6:00 PM: Black to the Future is a four part series that takes a look at contributions of the black community to pop culture from the 80’s through today.

BET – 8:00 PM: Although the social commentaries on race seemed shoe horned in to the movie I still found Inside Man to be very clever movie.

AMC – 8:00 PM: Dirty Harry is back for one last film as he protects a newswoman and others on a celebrity hit list in The Dead Pool.

SATURDAY

AMC – 8:00 PM: Blazing Saddles followed by Caddyshack? It’s like my childhood memories are responsible for programming AMC tonight.

SUNDAY

NBC – 7:00 PM: Andy Samburg hosts Saturday Night Live Short Films, a look back at a lot of the shorts, commercial parodies and other pre-taped bits from the shows run. Seriously, the guy who brought us Laser Cats is the best candidate to host this?

LIFE – 8:00 PM: Rosie O’Donnell plays a psychiatrist who helps a troubled boy in the foster care system in America.

NBC – 9:00 PM: Show producers once again stretch the term celebrity with another edition of The Celebrity Apprentice. I don’t know what is more shocking, Joan Rivers appearance or that they still callÂ Andrew Dice Clay a celebrity.

– Will Wilkins wrote this from the beauty of South Lake Tahoe.

February 23, 2009
Trailer Park: Julian Morris (DONKEY PUNCH) – Interview

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

And now, you can follow me on Twitter. Find me here, my oh so original name on the thing is Stipp so come on and follow my stray ramblings. I’m really digging being able to follow such luminaries as Not Henry Rollins, Not Gene Simmons and others who aren’t the real celebutards they lead you to believe they are. It’s Web 2.0! Catch it!

Now, before we get into the interview with Julian Morris of DONKEY PUNCH I have some things to give away.

Specifically, I have 5 copies of the Buena Vista Home Entertainment release of BLINDNESS starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. I also have a metric ton of posters featuring the image to the very right so if you’re looking to spruce up a cheery room here is your opportunity. For those who are unfamiliar with the film’s premise it is as follows:

From acclaimed director Fernando Meirelles (“The Constant Gardener”) comes this extraordinarily intense and gritty thriller that will change your vision of the world forever. Led by a powerful all-star cast featuring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover, this unflinching story begins when a plague of blindness strikes and threatens all of humanity. One woman (Moore) feigns the illness to share an uncertain fate in quarantine, where society is breaking down as fast as their crumbling surroundings. Based on Nobel Prize-winning Jose Saramago’s novel – let “Blindness” lead you on a journey where the only thing more terrifying than being blind is being the only one who can see.

If you’re interested in winning a copy, drop me a line at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com. I can’t think of anything difficult for you to win one so we’ll make this a first come, first served giveaway. And, because of some issues of shipping to locales out of North America, we’ll limit this contest to our neighbors to the north and anyone in the continental United States. It’s not that I don’t love you nutty Europeans but tracking this stuff to make sure it gets to you has been a pain. Blame the postal system.

Now, on with the interview…

———————–

The thing about Julian is that he’s a great interview.

The man has a way with casual conversation that you wonder if he’s been doing this for a long time or if he’s just that sincere when he talks about what gets him excited with regard to his work. The first time I talked to him it was over some water at the Beverly Hills Hotel (a swank locale that is excruciatingly difficult to navigate into but reeks of people who have more money than I’ll ever see in this lifetime) and I was struck by his genial and affable nature. That’s why when it was he who I could talk to regarding his newest venture, DONKEY PUNCH, I not only said yes but I campaigned to speak to him; it’s just easier when you have a connection with someone, however tenable and dubious the tether, that this helps to kick start a conversation when you only have 15 minutes to talk.

You’ve got to be able and make the subject feel comfortable and when you’re doing it over the phone it’s almost like you’re rushing a relationship where no one has the time for witless banter. Julian, though, is a true gentleman in the sense he’s willing to share his thoughts but is willing to go that extra few inches and talk about what he’s really thinking. It may not mean much to you, those who are reading this, but for someone like me, who is stuck on the other end of the phone, it’s the difference between a long 15 minutes and a conversation you wish could go a little longer. To be sure, you’ll hopefully be reading another conversation between him and I in the near future.

Again, like last week, DONKEY PUNCH is in limited release and will be out on video in mere months.

JULIAN MORRIS: Chris?

CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Sir…

MORRIS: Good to hear your voice again.

CS: You too. How have you been?

MORRIS: The last time was the Beverly Hills Hotel, right?

CS: That’s correct. How have things been?

MORRIS: Since I’ve seen you last, things have been incredible. Social’s been great. Life’s great. Did a movie with Tom Cruise. Did, this one, DONKEY PUNCH. Played a doctor on ER. What else? Got another movie coming out this year that you would be interested in, called SORORITY ROW.

CS: Well, I had no idea that you were in this film. Zero.

MORRIS: What? You saw it?

CS: I’m having a copy being sent to me. I think it’s at my house today.

MORRIS: Great.

CS: I’m hoping to be able to watch it tonight. I’ve just culled a bunch of information about it and now I’m really amped to see it at least after reading everything about it.

MORRIS: It’s pretty out there. I’m really proud of it. I think it’s really different from movies that are being made for our demographic. It’s a smart movie. Incredibly disturbing but people get a kick out of it.

CS: How did it come across your table? And I only ask because I know because Ollie [Blackburn] is a first time director. This film was only made for less than a million pounds if I am to believe the reports.

MORRIS: Well, I loved Oliver Blackburn’s reel. I loved the short films that he’s done. I loved the videos he’s done. And when we were meeting to discuss the film ““ his insights into the character and his vision really excited me. And also with the way he directs, you would never believe he is a first time director. He directs with the confidence and also the ease of someone who has been doing it for decades. So, how I came about it was being in America a lot I was shooting this film Privileged and my agent called me up from London and said there is a script that I think you will love and initially I was being looked at for another part but I really like the character I play and when you see it you will understand why. He’s interesting. At the beginning he’s quite shy, slightly awkward, young man but with this huge internal to be the alpha male or at least within the respect of the huge chasm between the man that he is and the man that he wants to be and that was really exciting to play out. He does the famous Donkey Punch. How could I say no to that?

(Laughs)

CS: Exactly. That’s all I’ve been hearing about this technique. How was it doing the thriller/horror genre? You’ve been through it now with your other film…

MORRIS: CRY WOLF…

CS: So do you have this down to a science about what it takes?

MORRIS: I guess I’ve been lucky in that all the characters I’ve played have been exceptionally different. Josh is very different from Owen in CRY WOLF. And not only that, the movies have been very different. Whereas CRY WOLF is, I don’t want to say generic, but it was a very Hollywood slasher of it’s time and I think that a film like SORORITY ROW which I just did is like a remake of one of those 90’s films like SCREAM ““ a lot of that dark twisted humor running though it and DONKEY PUNCH is more intellectual and serious one. I don’t know that I would describe it as a horror film as much as fascist almost in it’s intensity of extreme thriller in the way STRAW DOGS was and I know that Pauline Kael, the terrific critic, she coined it “fascist cinema” and I think DONKEY PUNCH is more in that genre. Like Michael Haneke’s film, FUNNY GAMES, CACHE, etc.

CS: Speaking of the way the movie unwinds, I read that it was very unique in that it was almost shot in sequence.

MORRIS: Yes, the director was great. Some things were done on stage and that was separate, but it was all one location on the boat, either below the boat or on deck and did that in sequence setting up the character development.

CS: The old adage of you never shoot on water

MORRIS: You never work with animals or kids…especially in porn.

(Laughs)

You know what? I think it was surprisingly nice shooting on water. It was a gorgeous super yacht that was the kind that you see on MTV owned my wealthy people or huge rock stars. It was great fun. And also the fact that we were all on this boat in this relatively small space. There weren’t dressing rooms, never in trailers, a single green room. We would be there in our wet costumes when it was cold, covered in blood and it was intense. There was never escape of the characters or anyone else and I think that intensity comes through in the film.

CS: How was that? Now you’ve been on a few sets of this kind ““ this variety. What kind of challenges does horror, an intense thriller, like this present? What do you have to bring to a role to really get that kind of emotion across in your performance?

MORRIS: Well I think in any scene you want to bring realism. I think with the horror genre you tend to be looking at the emotion of fear a lot and particularly with horror and I think it’s true with all cinema, at least in the cinema I like to make and the characterization I like to make, you want it to be an incredibly empathetic vicarious experience for the viewer in a sense that I want the audience to empathize with my character plus I want them to feel what my character is going through. Any successful cinema, when you are feeling what that character is going through, when you are in that experience, so whether I’m running away from a nice bear I can cry wolf I want the audience to be running with me. I want them to get that tightness in their chest, their heart pounding or in this film ““ there’s a torture scene and I’m digging a knife in someone (I hope I didn’t give anything away but I think it’s fine to say) I want the audience to be torturing that character with me or at least going through what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling while I’m doing it. If I’ve done that successfully that’s great. If not, oops.

CS: And I guess on that point as well and something I want to bring back with your stint on ER for a few episodes, is the idea of ensemble acting. How is that working within a group, is there a dynamic of sorts that has to take place, whereas do you have to throw it back or forward to make sure you don’t overshine anybody?

MORRIS: Ensemble is great. I think when you are in the lead in something there is just so much what the audience sees but there’s a lot of you are on your own a lot just because of how the filming and the machinations of the filming takes place. When you are doing a scene with a lot of other actors it won’t always be with the same people you’ll be in your travel a lot of the time. You’ll be first in and last out. You’ll spend a lot of time by yourself. The experience is quite isolated. The experience is all good but it’s isolated. Ensemble acting you are with your cast mates all the time. It’s a different feeling. A great sense of teamwork and I think it helps that you are always with the other actors and feeding off them, bouncing off them, not just on camera but off camera as well so you bring that to the set as well.

CS: Being that it’s an ensemble, ensemble cast as well, all these things working against you, first of all it’s low budget, second it’s that it’s a first time director, third you are shooting this thing in 24 days. Were there really any challenging moments where people had to come together to get something done, i.e. go beyond your acting duties, or did everything go smoothly?

MORRIS: This is about two people, the producer, Angus Lamont and also the first AV, Barry Wasserman. I think both AV’s don’t get credit nearly as much as they should but they were really in charge of creating the atmosphere and space on set with which to work between the actors and the directors. They did a tremendous job. So, although we shot in 24 days it was intense. It was challenging. We were jumping in the sea which was probably pretty close to freezing and spent long hours ““ at one point we shot 24 hours straight. We never got the feeling that we were being rushed at all or forced to act on the nail. The space was always really terrific to work in and very comfortable. That said, the intensity of the drive and the excitement of working in such confinement both on the boat and in time, did create a sense of urgency and intensity and I think that comes through in a successful way and translates itself very well into the film.

CS: Looking at the finished product, what came up on screen, a lot of films try to mimic this, why does this one stand out? Why is this film getting attention?

MORRIS: Because it’s very real and realism works in a number of ways. It works well for the horror. The horror is this fantastic imagined horror. The baddie isn’t some supernatural being with crazy feet. It’s us. We’re the enemy. The other characters are the enemy. We are each other’s own worst enemy. My character is his own worst enemy. Because it’s so real, the audience can associate with them far more. And in that sense, the experience for them is more haunting and exciting. And the last thing is that it’s real. When these kids are on the boat, and they are young people, they are doing what any other young person would be doing or would like to be doing with their best mates, gorgeous girls, drinking a little bit, skinny dipping in the Mediterranean as the sun’s setting. It’s a crazy orgy. And up until the point of the donkey punch it is really the best of youth or the best of any fanaticized youth. After which these real people are confronted with an extraordinary situation and how they deal with it is probably how many young people would deal with it and try to get away with it. And it all goes wrong and leads to this bloodbath. Does that make any sense?

CS: What elevated this? From the very beginning you would think that if you were explaining it to someone they would be apt to say “Nah, this seems like just another teen thing” but what elevated it for you?

MORRIS: I think Oliver Blackburn is probably one of the greatest directors working right now in Britain and his vision was incredible. The cinematic devices he used, whether it was slow motion which was reminiscent of Peckinpah, STRAW DOGS, he drives this menacing destructive crushing atmosphere that’s on this boat and it is a great experience when you are watching it. It’s definitely nails getting right down to the knuckle.

CS: Julian, I know our time is short so let me ask just one more question of you. You are doing a lot of TV, you’re doing a lot of films now, where is your heart taking you? Do you want to have your cake and eat it to? Do you want to keep doing both? What’s on the horizon?

MORRIS: Yeah. I think the line now between great film and great TV is diminished. I think it’s quite easy to swim between the two and I’m just enjoying playing great characters and I want to continue playing characters that inspire me and hopefully inspire those that watch them.

February 20, 2009
TV Or Not TV: 2/16 – 2/22

Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I really don’t think I need a television any more.

Let’s face it folks, content delivery is the name of the game for just about any broadcast medium. You have to get it to the people. It used to be in the wonderful world of television you were able to manipulate the masses by forcing them to bend to your will and make them sit somewhere at a certain time of your choosing if they wanted to be entertained. If you wanted to watch it you had to be at the right place at the right time and on the right channel. There was no getting around it.

The home video tape revolution started to offset this a little so that people could try to record the shows that they couldn’t be for or, in my house, it would record one channel for us while we were watching another. The TV enthusiast would also use the video tape system to capture the things they were actually watching as well so that they could view it again and again, or share it with friends. These were the beginning of good times, but they were often wrought with frustration as a channel change being missed or a tape not replaced would ruin the whole set up. It wasn’t perfect but it worked.

The DVR was the really the great evolution in home video recording and it is one that has changed many facets of the way that television advertising is done and ratings are determined. Most DVR’s allow you to convenienty skip over the commercials in far less time than a video tape allowed us, and as such more commercials and product placements are placed within the show itself to ensure that we are seeing their products (last season of the SciFi show Eureka‘s synergistic advertising of Degree deoderant is a shining example).

Best of all the DVR captured the television we were recording in to some type of digital format that a dilligent user might find the way to extract and convert so they could conveniently remove the commercials and start sharing the show with their friends. Heck, even if you didn’t have a stand alone DVR there are so many ways to turn a stand alone computer into a DVR that it is no surprise how many shows were becoming available on the Internet in certain circles. The shows were getting out there and you didn’t have to rely on cousin Tony in Newark sending you his VHS tape to catch up on the show you missed.

Each of these steps has taken the broadcast networks to the natural evolution: delivery of their shows via the Internet to personal computing and mobile devices. If you think about it, as I’m sure they did, they didn’t really have any choice. If the video industry learned one important thing from the music industry it was that you can’t fight the Internet. If there was any way to curtail the illegal distribution of their product it was to embrace the Internet and start delivering it themselves, on their terms, with some ad revenue helping fund the cost. Change the old school thinking and make sure that you still control how people see what you want them to see.

So as I sit here reflecting on all of this, and after having caught up on some of my shows either from my laptop via the Internet or my iPhone during my commute I have to ask, “Do I really need a televisoin any more?”

Thankfully I do have a TV and if you are reading this you must have one too so let’s take a look at the scraps that are out there for us to try to enjoy.

MONDAY

SCIFI – 8:00 AM: Before Bryan Fuller created Pushing Daisies (and after Wonderfalls) he created the quirky dark comedy Dead Like Me. Since the Direct-To-DVD movie Dead Like Me: Life After Death is released tomorrow this is a great time to introduce yourself to this very entertaining show.

TLC – 9:00 AM: Get your Roloff on with a marathon day of Little People, Big World.

ABC FAMILY – 2:00 PM: If my prodding has made you think about watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager (or if you have nothing better to watch during the national holiday) you can now watch it for 7 straight hours.

TUESDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: The first 12 of the top 36 performers take the stage tonight on American Idol. Will one be the next Kelly Clarkson or Taylor Hicks (how many of you just said “Taylor Who?”)

NBC – 8:00 PM: Tonight the contestants on The Biggest Loser have to work out without the benefits of a gym. To me that reads as trying to lose weight without dropping pounds.

TBS – 10:30 PM: This syndicated airing of The Office was directed by Joss Whedon and is one that I highly recommend.

WEDNESDAY

FOX – 8:00 PM: The first three of the final 12 are chosen tonight on American Idol. That leaves 9 hopefuls out in the cold. If you want to make it a drinking game take a shot every time someone cries.

FMC – 9:00 PM: There was a movie that started a slew of Gene Wilder / Richard Pryor movies. It was called Silver Streak. Watch it.

ABC – 9:00 PM: Well I didn’t get my Black Rock fix last week on LOST but my mind was as entertained as it was blown away. This season so far is television greatness. I hope you aren’t missing it.

THURSDAY

NBC – 8:00 PM: Danny Glover guess stars on My Name is Earl as someone claiming to be Crab Man‘s dad. Isn’t he getting too old for this $h!t?

CW – 8:00 PM: If you didn’t see the Smallville episode Identity the first time it aired than you really missed out.

FRIDAY

USA – 8:00 PM: The season is coming to a close for Monk. Didn’t it just get back on?

FOX – 9:00 PM: Tonight’s episode of Dollhouse has Echo being a counterpart to an outdoors man. Nothing says sexy like chicks with bows and aarows.

USA – 9:00 PM: Wait, this is the season finale of Psych as well? What, are we watching the BBC and we only get six episodes of a show per season?

SATURDAY

ABC FAMILY – 8:00 PM: Witness the cultural greatness of the original Grease followed by the stunningly awkward Grease 2.

CARTOON NETOWRK – 8:00 PM: If you didn’t pick up Justice League: The New Frontier on DVD than you can enjoy it tonight free of charge.

OXYGEN – 8:00 PM: Some might say the ultimate stay-in date movie is Sleepless in Seattle. Who am I to argue?

SUNDAY

ABC – 8:30 PM E/5:30 PM P: Wolverine is hosting the Oscars and almost all of the networks have thrown in the towel about airing anything worthwhile.

CBS – 8:00 PM: The Amazing Race 14 doesn’t fear the Oscars.

ABC FAMILY – 7:00 PM: So this is weird. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is followed by Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. At least they didn’t try to stick Mark Wahlberg before Charlton Heston with Planet of the Apes.

– Will Wilkins is glad you decided to read this.

February 18, 2009
Opinion In A Haystack: Bloody Cheese

Michael and Leatherface came back, Jason’s just passed through the re-birthing canal, and Freddy, Chucky, and Pinhead are clawing their way up the fallopian tubes. So…

In Defense of the Crimson Cheese

There is a sect of 80’s horror fans that do not adhere to the common adage of “once a franchise delves into self-parody it dies.” The absolute beauty of horror that originated in the decade of decadence is how they all started out as maniacal ideas, executed with a serious tone and passion. Freddy, Chucky, Jason, Michael Myers, and Pinhead all started out this way. Then, after success, there was an attempt to copy that tone and passion a few times, which for the most part resulted in a “meh” type of feeling. There are exceptions like Dream Warriors, but for the most part the median of these franchises are forgettable. This is of course when the self parody begins. Flicks such as Freddy’s Dead, Jason X, Bride of Chucky, and ultimately Freddy vs. Jason all delved back into the serious nature of their beginnings and made a joke out of it (some would argue it started even earlier then these movies.) Please, don’t get me wrong, straight horror can be amazing, but that is not the focal point here… it’s about this specific generation of mainstream horror franchises.

Of course, this caused a lot of horror fans disappointment with their cries of how it isn’t scary anymore and how they are more comedic then horrific. So? What’s the problem? Are you seriously telling me that you were actually scared of the original movies? Are you seriously saying that the reason you enjoyed them so much was because they incited fear in you? If your answer is yes, then I need to ask if you have ever watched any of them more then once and more recently then 20 years ago? Are you really a fan, or do you just remember them being more brutal and horrific then they were? If you have such an austere lust for the most demented, gore spewing, psycho characters… what is more “psycho” then killing someone with a healthy sense of humor? Perhaps those of us who were never legitimately scared by slasher flicks are prone to enjoy the comedic, hedonistic side of things more; hence that is what gobbled up the straight terror end of the spectrum.

Look, the first Nightmare, the first Child’s Play, the first Halloween, the first Friday are all beautifully made horror classics, but all these 80’s franchises were unique unto themselves and their time period in one way that really has never been replicated… we started to root for the villains. As for the sick, cold, beautiful bastards that always root for the villain no matter what… we love you, but this isn’t directed at you, now go masturbate to Cannibal Holocaust. The 80’s horror icons, our generation’s Universal Monsters, somehow became the heroic protagonists of the story. The first films in the franchises were created to scare and viewed to be scared, but time and sequels changed the social response to creating these flicks to “WOW” the audience with funny kills and viewing it to laugh at how many one dimensional nymphomaniac 20-somethings they will carve up next. Freddy Krueger was a child molesting murderer and yet it got to the point where we cheered as he slaughtered innocents. THAT WAS THE FUN OF ALL THIS!

This all lead to the characters being caricatures of themselves… which was never detrimental, if anything they stayed more honest to their origins this way, but were free to do anything under the sun. Look at Freddy vs. Jason, director Ronny Yu understood what made these guys great, the look, the back-story, the lore, the comedy, the kills. Sure the humans in that movie were garbage, who cares? This is not about “quality” or writing or any standardized pretentious film arguments. This is about understanding what made these characters stick around for so long and become so beloved. It wasn’t even specifically the flicks, it was the characters! Sure they all had their earnest moment at the beginning when it was supposed to be scary and we were supposed to be rooting for the good guys, and for most of them it was done right the first go around. Why do we always have to go back and try to make everything serious again? Re-release movies if you have to, some things should stay as artifacts and beacons of their time. If the franchises never embraced the villain’s status as a champion of hilarious murder they would NEVER have obtained the iconic heights they have now. Ok, how about we settle it with this… as long as the killer’s nature and persona are kept in tact, all is well. Period.

(Also, none of the above pertains to any horror character, or franchise created in the 90s… that was a whole different animal of parody that was lame beyond belief.)

With that said…

Friday The 13^th: A Review of the last 10 minutes that would make Larry David Proud.

******SPOILERS******SPOILERS********SPOILERS************

There is really no need to review the whole movie; it was half travesty and half brutal fun. Jason looked physically bad ass (still not as iconically perfect as Ken Kirzinger or Kane Hodder); Derek Mears gave a good performance with his physical presence. Very akin to Rob Zombie’s Halloween the stuff that was added to the persona of the character destroyed it. Mr. Vorhees doesn’t set traps, he doesn’t keep hostages, he doesn’t practice archery and he most certainly doesn’t have an elaborate headquarters of death. Honestly, I think the best thing to come out of this film is the completely definitive image on the gorgeous theatrical release poster.

It seemed at times that Marcus Nispel was trying to remake his other remake, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with this remake. Add a slight dollop of Leatherface from the 1986 Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, with the whole sympathetic pseudo sexual victim relationship and a sprinkle of that awful too-close-shaky cam crud and you got the new Friday. The acting was good, the comic-relief surprisingly funny, the plot simple as it should be, and the intelligence/booby level was equalized appropriately. All I want to discuss, in brief, is the ending. If you want a well written full-review just head on over to the talented Christopher Stipp’s much more thorough and different assessment:

http://asitecalledfred.com/2009/02/13/trailer-park-friday-the-13th-and-shopaholic-reviewed/

**********EVEN BIGGER SPOILERS*********

There are two groups of teenagers in the movie. The first, on a mission to find Crystal Lake’s best weed, get destroyed by Jason in the very beginning. The exception being the girl who supposedly looks like Jason’s mother, he takes her hostage, locks her up in his basement lair while he is out… um… bringing home the bacon. The second group is simply a bunch of wealthy kids going up to stay in daddy’s lake-side cabin for a weekend of boners, beer, and republican conversation.

Supernatural‘s Jared Padalecki plays Clay Miller, the brother of Whitney, the chick locked in Jason’s love nest. Cut to after Jason is supposedly dead. It’s night time. Mr. Voorhees has a chain wrapped around his neck, the other end of said chain is tangled up inside a wood-chipper which is located in a barn. I will give the benefit of the doubt and say the barn is roughly a mile away from the lake. Also note that Clay has no knowledge of Jason’s story, legend, or origin. Cut to the scene of both Millers standing on the Camp Crystal Lake dock, it’s now day time, Clay kicks Jason’s dead body into the water… and then Jason pops back up through the dock to grab him. Cut to credits.

Ok… I laughed out loud in the theater. Not because it was awful, not because it was badly shot, not because it was meant to be humorous, but because of the plethora of questions!!! Not questions about Jason returning to life… questions about WHY IN THE HELL DID THEY DRAG 300 POUNDS OF DEAD WEIGHT ALL THE WAY TO THE LAKE AND DUMP HIM IN? WHY!

Think about it… There are somewhere around 12 freshly murdered corpses in the area, probably hundreds more in Jason’s home. You and your sister/brother have gone through the most traumatic and exhausting experience of your entire life, yet you manage to take down a lumbering psychotic professional killing machine whom you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT. Would your first instinct be to spend the next 3 hours, cutting him down from the wood chipper, and doing your best to move a humongous, foul-smelling, corpse all the way to the lake and dump out the only evidence to prove to the cops, the world, and everyone that you yourself did not go on a brother/sister killing spree? They effectively spent all night moving this body… with no motive, they didn’t even consider going to get help? None of this occurred to them in the LONG arduous trek these two tired, broken victims spent transporting the corpse? Clay is shown to be a pretty smart guy throughout the whole movie too. I mean I can deal with stupid characters in horror films… but this is just beyond absurd, they are going WAY out of their way to do this meaningless act, which is actually a detriment to their future well being (a.k.a. Not going to jail.) Let’s not forget that a cop was brutally murdered here… No one is going to take this lightly.

I realize I am over analyzing an extremely lazy storytelling device, one that only served to give Jason a chance to pop out of the water, but it’s absolutely hilarious. I also realize that Whitney heard her friend at the beginning of the film say something about Jason’s origin… but come on… she has been a hostage for 6 weeks! A month an a half in a constant state of fear and god only knows what Jason was giving her to eat, the last thing this chick would want to do is spend a few hours dragging a corpse through the woods in order to be symbolic! What truly made me laugh is the thought of the movie cutting away right after Clay kicks Jason into the lake, and then we go straight to a conversation with Clay Miller and the police:

Cop: You kids ok?

Clay Miller: Well I’m a little banged up, and she’s been held hostage for 6 weeks but yeah, we’ll live.

Cop: so you say Jason Voorhees did this?

Clay Miller: yes, he’s a psychopath… he brutally murdered everyone…

Cop: WELL… where’s the body, got to call in forensics and such. You said you killed him in the barn right?

Clay Miller: he died in the barn, yes sir, but we dumped his corpse in the lake… so…

Cop: The lake? What the hell for? Because of the legends?

Clay Miller: Legends? No… we just… we just figured the lake would be fitting, you know?

Cop: Fitting? Your tellin’ me you disposed of the body of the prime suspect in well over hundreds of missing person cases including last nights murders?

Clay Miller: hmm… should we not have done that? Was that a bad idea? “˜cause I gotta be honest, we started to question it ourselves as we were both crying and dragging his body through the woods.

Cop: God damn…

Clay Miller: So next time… no lake… check. Got it. Man… he was HEVVVVV-EEEE too… Haha.

Cop: get in the car.

You know what, it’s so absurd it actually makes the movie better. Thanks for reading!

February 16, 2009