The Bottom of the Food Chain (Part One of Five)

That I was a “loser magnet” in high school is a fact as certain as any other in the universe. Call it an unfairly critical relative self-assessment if you want. I know the truth. I had the honor of getting in good with some gargantuan losers over the years. I look back on it now, and it is both a humorous and humbling thought.

Just after the Nico era, I was facing the completion of high school. The summer of ’92 was ending. This brought me to senior year. It would have been one of my best had I not had the crap knocked out of me literally at mid-term in a bus boxing match with a mean Irish kid who happened to get the better of me, but that’s a story all its own.

The summer wasn’t yet over. I was young and got caught up like so many young and dumb kids do into the door-to-door sales routine. I needed a job, and so I got one. The job was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners, and I sucked at it. In case you’re wondering how I got it, I went into an office where a guy ten years older than me was sitting. He told me to hang in there and that if I kept talking to people, I’d be making a thousand a week in no time. He promised and I bought into it. I found out the hard way exactly how dumb I was. Just wait until you have a couple doors slammed in your face…

“If I could have a moment of your time, ma’am, I’d like to demonstrate how to make your home cleaning easier. Do you vacuum [cluck-clunk]…a lot?” ☹

And then there were the Asian people who threatened to loose their dogs on me. I once had the police called on me for being a solicitor. I made it away before they got there. I figured, shit, staying home and masturbating to freeze-frame images of naked women from R-rated movies was better than this. Hell, I could be watching Terminator! Having no job was a lot better than this, even if that meant I had no independence.

But my quitting didn’t happen fast enough. I couldn’t quit before being put in touch with another fellow who quit, being equally disappointed. I still remember that scrawny silver touring van and it being filled with other kids who had no lives. It was a loser’s experience. The guy who recruited us and delivered us in the van managed to round up about 12 kids, half boys and half girls. I still remember the boss’ inspirational speech…

“Guys, you’re gonna love it! Fuckin women coming to answer the door naked or with a blouse on and their pussy hairs showing…YEEEEEEHAAAAAH! I’m tellin ya, you’re gonna love it!”

All the girls just smiled and rolled their eyes. And of course, we didn’t love it, not one bit. I quit. I suspect we all quit, but I know one other guy did. The fellow’s name was Chris Kennedy. He and I hooked up as buddies. Chris was a loser of fucking monumental proportions. He had one Fuji brand cassette tape, and on it he tried to record all the songs he loved. The tape wasn’t big enough, naturally, and so rather than taking the rocket scientist option of getting a new another tape, he just recorded parts of the songs he had to hear and always talked about how he wished he could have recorded them each in full! I remember him playing “Juke Box Heroes” by Foreigner till I wanted to throw up.

He would work out with a set of 35-pound dumbbells in his garage. Those were all the weights he had. I was bored and had nothing better to do, so we hung out and I worked out with him. We never really did a full workout, but he thought he did. Our unemployed asses had to think we were doing something productive. Industriousness flew from us like a horsefly.

I met Chris’ dad once. He was a small, glasses-wearing, bald man who, when he built a fence, measured everything in meters and centimeters. He was an intellectual with those “Dickies” shop clothing outfits. He was very emotionless, like he was tired of dealings with his son. Stupid as I was, I read the man right. It turned out, he was tired of dealing with his son who was quickly headed for a life of living on a discarded old mattress under a bridge somewhere. I could tell his dad wasn’t going to have him around forever.

I never will forget it. The man looked at me and hated me as much as his son. He sneered at me with his eyes when our gazes lined up. I could just see him saying to himself: “This guy’s a loser like my son! Why couldn’t I have a successful son?” I was a clueless kid, but I knew what he was thinking for sure.

I was 17. Chris was 25. Low as I was, I was nowhere close to the level of loserdom of Chris. I wanted to tell him that at times. He looked like a cool guy, but he was just too stupid for words. But Chris was too intimidating for me to ever confront. With his big goatee and grow-able full beard, I wasn’t in a position to lecture him. He’d been to jail before. Plus, I liked the idea of bumming rides.

Speaking of rides, he had a suspended license, but he still drove. He drove a beat-up 1985 GMC Jimmy truck with torn seats. The overpowering smell of Michelob was everywhere in the cabin. He had a bad alcohol problem…and a 15-year-old girlfriend! I was present when she brought her little overdeveloped body outside and dumped him. She was way more emotionally mature than he was! He cried like a baby at bedtime and drove home like a maniac, burning rubber and making a public scene. That night, he blew all the money he had left over from our doing yard work and odd jobs on 2 cases of beer which he bought at a place near my house called The Beer Barn. He drank nearly both cases and the result was that we missed out on a chance to mow some yards to make money the next day like we had planned.

It was now clear to me just how much of a miserable loser Chris was, but I didn’t tell him because he was like a really, really, really weak authority figure to me—that and because I felt sorry for him. I started to realize that I was his only friend. He couldn’t make friends his own age, and so he ran around with a younger, less discerning crowd.

We once stopped off at some man’s house whom he said he knew. It was this man with a cowboy hat and his crowd of 30-somethings having beers on their porch. He walked up and shook each of their hands and grabbed some beers for the road. I just stood back because it was as obvious as the Elephant Man that they wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and the rest of the high school crowd. I just waited by the car as he tried in vain to cozy up with these people. Finally, we left and picked up some more beer, which we took to his house and consumed.

I barely finished my one beer. He kept saying, “You look depressed. Want another beer?” I took one just to fit in, but I never finished more than one (never had a tolerance for beer as a youth). I went home and thought about how much more cheese-ball-ness I could take from this walking empty beer can. When we next hooked up, he told me more about his past and how he went to jail for nearly killing a small child whom he had run over because he was intoxicated. He told me the whole story. Then he needed to compose himself….and then he went for another beer!!!

I decided that I wouldn’t throw him to the wolves of non-friendship yet. I’d be there for him like his under-aged girlfriend wasn’t. But this wasn’t destined to last long. Old rock head Chris got worked up about how the girl who dumped him was seeing some other older guy, a 27-year-old named Mike who frequented the acquaintance’s house we visited earlier. Chris confronted the guy the next day and got the mother-lovin’ shit beat out of him in the front yard. I didn’t see the fight, but he told me about it. I knew he was telling the truth because when he called me, he came totally unglued…

“Listen, listen very carefully! Mike beat me up! [heavy breathing] He beat my ass, man! [heavy breathing] We’re gonna fucking kill him, ok? We’re gonna fucking kill him! He will die! [heavy breathing] He will not do that to me. [phone noise, inaudible sounds, heavy breathing into the phone] He will not do that to me! Listen very carefully, we’re gonna do it tomorrow! [heavy breathing] Listen, listen very carefully, he’s gonna die, I swear to fucking god [more inaudible crying], etc…”

What made this event even more pitiable than it sounds was that a day earlier, Chris sat me down and told me about how he beat the hell out of Mike for messing around with “the woman of my dreams.” He bragged about how the guy was put on life support in nearby Northeast Baptist Hospital. Then he said: “I got proof.” I remember thinking: “Oh? Do you need proof? Is there some reason you suspect I won’t believe you?” Could it be that you don't believe yourself? He pointed to a red dot on his loafers and said that he got that from kicking in the guy’s head. The dot was not even as big as a raindrop. It was more purple than red. It sure wasn’t blood. Poor bastard was unaware that I’d seen the dot on the same shoes before this day. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how much of a retarded, self-esteem-less, dejected, hopelessly despondent loser he was. I just sat there and pretended to listen.

Poor Chris…the cops had to chase him when they decided to pull him over for unsafely backing into an intersection…he made the cops chase him and he wondered why he got the ticket! Big fucking mystery! The idiot continued to try and make money mowing lawns, though he once mowed the wrong lawn and got bitched out by the owner for doing it. God damn, he was stupid! He was nearly half as smart as a mentally retarded peanut.

So I decided to distance myself from Chris. Fuck, getting lectured by my parents was starting to seem better than putting up with Chris! I kept finding other reasons not to hang out, and after a while, it worked. He comes by the house one day and we talk a bit as I pretended to be heading out somewhere, and he left. That was the last time I ever saw or heard from him.

Is this pathetic story of loserdom not telling about developing a healthy self-image? Our entire lives we are told to feel good about ourselves and to have self-confidence. It’s all such shit. The truth is, a healthy self-image is seldom built. You just have it or you don’t. The closest you can come to building self-esteem is to look at all the other pathetic fools worse off than you and say: “At least I’m leagues above that sad sack!” It shouldn’t be true, but it is. “There are bigger losers than me!” is the lesson. Chris never did much in life – and I’m sure (if he’s even alive) he still hasn’t – but he taught me to have more confidence in who I am. The one good thing about the evolutionary food chain is that those at the very bottom don’t fucking know it!

(JH)

The Bad and The Ugly

Movie Title: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Spoilers: No

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2008 was known for being the year of release for a slew of holocaust movies, a number of them of questionable quality. As 2009 now passes the halfway point, another holocaust film emerges—this one of pleasingly higher quality (and one where the viewer is strongly encouraged to learn German). Too many portions of the film are in German and they run too long, but in those times, you get the tax-less task of absorbing German and European culture and picking up on the body language of characters that is as telling as any full-length Sunday morning sermon you ever heard.

Come see Inglourious Basterds where chopping up Nazis redneck queer-hater-style is made more appealing than you thought it could be. And the gruesome killing is only one item. There’s still more story than slaughter. You get to see Germans with a taste for the finer things in life have cake on the one hand while discussing hate-based nationalism over champagne on the other. You get to see machine gun fire and scalping of Nazis, and then there is the added feature of Nazi skulls being opened up with the aid of a baseball bat. It was giddy watching!

Inglourious Basterds was inspired by The Inglorious Bastards, a 1978 Italian war film, though it is not a remake. Inglourious Basterds is about a brigade of Jewish-American holocaust survivor soldiers who band together under the leadership of an Apache-blooded Tennessean by the name of Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt). Raines needs to wear a rat-tail haircut and be a regular at country music dance halls. He’d fit right in. Seeing a hill-bill-ified Brad Pitt on ads and in trailers didn’t do it for me. I had to actually see him on screen as Raines, readying his soldiers and telling them they each owed him 100 Nazi scalps. When I saw that, then I decided he worked for the part.

Aldo’s brigade is on a mission, and that mission is to rendezvous with an English (and beautiful) spy named Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) who is working with the American government in their mission to eliminate the four higher-ups of the Nazi movement, including Hitler. By ambushing and killing them at the viewing of a movie called Nation’s Pride, the war would be brought to an end. The brigade’s opposition is headed up by Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a connivingly brilliant and multilingual Gestapo intelligence officer who has a reputation for rounding up Jews like the “Jew hunter” he comes to be known as. His is one of the finest of the fine performances.

Tarantino focuses on the subject of the Holocaust in tongue-in-cheek revenge-minded fashion. Inglourious Basterds is comically crafted. Tarantino does not rely on heavy drama, and he doesn’t reinforce the Hollywood Jew-inspired “lest we forget” somber mood or feel. Rather, Tarantino instead brings us a funny and entertaining story of vengeance that satisfies on many levels. In message of the plot, it is unapologetic; in its delivery, it is brutal.

The Nazis of Inglourious Basterds are evil sure enough, but their portrayal does not conjure up images of demonic laughter or thug-like debauchery. The Nazis’ hatred for the Jewish people comes right through to the surface in the brave men and women who do their civic duty to serve their Fuhrers and country. The German citizens are well educated. These are people who listen to Bach. They are people who will die for their convictions, however misguided. Tarantino shows us that.

Though they too will die for their cause, Aldo’s crew is not nearly as refined and for sure not as educated as their to-be-scalped assailants. The American soldiers speak one language. The English and German soldiers speak at least two languages fluently. The Germans run things like clockwork. The Americans get the job done anyway they can and get chewed out for minor infractions/insubordinations later. But the Americans happen to have the cause to be championed. Hitler must be stopped.

Like the stepped on “rats” called Jews, sometimes the side of the less esteemed has the better cause. The Americans are degenerates; the Germans are graceful barbarians. Does Tarantino want America to read between the lines? Are we a stone’s throw away from being the Nazis we look down upon and condemn? Was it nothing more than a fortunate turn of events that led to America and her anti-Nazi allies being on the right side of things? Tarantino appears to be sending that message.

But Inglourious Basterds doesn’t get bogged down in delivering its message like so many other films would. The dialogue at every point is as sly as a fox. Ordinary conversations escalate to levels of nail-biting intensity. Tarantino is a student of human behavior. His careful application of human conduct turns what would have been just another humdrum holocaust film into a story that stands out like the swastikas carved for our pleasure into the foreheads of the disheartened German soldiers.

(JH)

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Grade: A- (4 stars) Recommended!
Rated: R
Summation: A group of American-Jewish soldiers attack a theater in an attempt to take down the Nazi regime.
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt “Lt. Aldo Raines,” Mélanie Laurent “Shosanna Dreyfus,” Christoph Waltz “Col. Hans Landa,” Eli Roth “Sgt. Donny Donowitz,” Richard Sammel “Sgt. Werner Rachtman,” Michael Fassbender “Lt. Archie Hicox,” Diane Kruger “Bridget von Hammersmark,” Daniel Brühl “Fredrick Zoller,” Til Schweiger “Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz,” Gedeon Burkhard “Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki”
Genre: Action / War / Drama

And The Shameless Batchelor Award Goes to…

Movie Title: The Ugly Truth (2009)
Spoilers: No

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Can you imagine what the world would be like without romance movies or romance novels? Why, it would be just the same. The only difference would be that we’d be free of – more often than not – pathetic portrayals of non-life-like romances. In short, we’d be better off without these relationship lie-makers. Sure, we’d be without a handful of great romance movies, and it would suck not knowing what we were missing in Vicky Cristina Barcelona and 40 Year-Old Virgin, but we could live. I’d take that.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I have little tolerance for romance flicks—funny or not. The director’s got his work cut out for him who tries to win me over with one. Sleepless in Seattle didn’t do it. The nod-worthy Last Chance Harvey almost nailed it, but The Ugly Truth is only a notch-and-a-half above Ben and J.Lo’s trifling 2003 disaster Gigli. So, no, this one isn’t going to make the cut.

Ever since 2006’s 300, who would have thought that Gerard “King Leonidas” Butler would be giving misogynistic advice on TV in the movies? Not I, friends. But here he is as Mike Chadway, a late night relationship answer man who has his own version of The Man Show. Like Dave Attell, Chadway is classy enough to buy a woman vibrating panties and then use them to bring her to orgasm while in front of her work associates, and he talks about female masturbation in terms like “flicking the bean.” I honestly think the writers stole that term from me.

But I’m not envious. There’s not much to be envious of in The Ugly Truth, which is all about how you have to know what makes the opposite sex tick in order to get some action. Women are such game-players, and guys like Chadway understand the game. They have that special gift, which comes in handy when you need to cut to the chase and do what will get you laid. But as you might have expected, the film isn’t really about that. It’s about how, when you get tired of having meaningless sex and being someone you clearly are not, just relax. Quit running from true love because true love will find you. No need to look for it.

Even if you believe that scheisse, it’s not telling anyone anything. And that, Dear Reader, is the problem with romantic comedies—darn near everything they have to say has been said before. That men don’t want to talk (after sex or otherwise) and that some women crave rudeness and an attitude in a man is not new material. It might survive a standup comedy routine in a nightclub for amateur comedians. Such a routine will impress me only if Chris Roc delivers it, but short of that, it’s going to fall into that gluttonously growing category of “Heard it before.”

The by now blown out candle flame that powers The Ugly Truth is, of course, shock value. A lot of young and early middle-aged guys want to hear a smart, dirty-mouthed game-player talk up his routine and show how much he knows about women. At the same time, a lot of women want to laugh along with their men, poking them in the ribs when they see them smile in delight at the screen. And then the women get to see true love come in for the kill.

[Begin rant]

Mike is absolutely right about one thing: the stuff that women put in their online dating profiles (“long walks at the beach,” “candlelit dinners,” “hiking,” “horseback riding,” and “a guy that makes me laugh,” etc.) is total donkey crap! There…I said it. I feel so much better.

[End Rant]

On no other point is the movie quite as satisfying. But the characters are surprisingly well defined, and the plot – though predictable – makes room for what would be a believable one. Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a television network producer whose search for “Mr. Right” has gone horribly wrong (A woman dissatisfied in her search for a man? Go on!) She has a failing love life and she’s a control freak. She blows a fuse when, to boost ratings, her network decides to bring Chadway onto their morning show lineup to present “The Ugly Truth” about men and women. Let the formulaic anti-feminism jokes begin!

The plot was salvageable…right up until the 8-ton elephant of bad writing steps into the room and crushes the conference table. Every ounce of humor brought before you is raunchy in nature and as dirty as the lint stuck in Chadway’s bachelor-kept belly button. You’ve seen it before. Everything from apparent blowjobs on the big screen at ball games to women wrestling in jelly, to a man’s pants getting yanked off in a moment of clumsiness…it’s been done before. If it were a product, you could buy it at Kmart.

The Ugly Truth tries to convey passion, but the script doubles as the films own death certificate. The unbelievable antics that no television network would allow are the signature on that certificate. A sexually frustrated news reporter couple being “set free” to explore their passions on the air, cursing on live TV because Chadway is just tooooo much to handle…

Check please!

(JH)

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Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Summation: A producer with a bad dating track record is infuriated when a misogynistic TV personality is brought onto her network
Director: Robert Luketic
Starring: Katherine Heigl “Abby Richter,” Gerard Butler “Mike Chadway,” Bree Turner “Joy,” Eric Winter “Colin,” Nick Searcy “Stuart,” Jesse D. Goins “Cliff,” Cheryl Hines “Georgia,” John Michael Higgins “Larry,” Noah Matthews “Jonah,” Bonnie Somerville “Elizabeth”
Genre: Comedy / Romance

The Women’s Names Quandary

Tell me something…why are the qualities of a woman so defined by her name? Why are Bertha, Stella, and Marge always hideously fat and why is an Alexis or a Marissa always blisteringly hot? I can’t figure it out, but there seems to be a connection between hot, average, and unattractive girls and their names.

An Alexis, Ally, a Brooke, a Britney, a Courtney, a Mona, a Monique, a Cammie, a Candy, a Carmen, or a Krystal are almost always thin and fine and tan, causing men everywhere who see them to get hot under the collar. I’ve never seen an exception. Berthas, Marges (with the exception of the lovely Marge Simpson), and Biancas tend to be hideous-looking and fat as fucking hell. The Opals and Nancys and Agnes’ tend to fit into this category too, along with the Nadines.

And then there are names that go either way, like a Jennifer or Kathryn or Lisa or Trisha. Gwen is usually a better-than-average-looking woman, but can go either way, the same with Carrie. Michelle is another such name, with a leaning towards average or better, as is Christy, Kristen, Melissa, and Monica, and even the old-fashioned Mabel. Alice is also an either-way name. Add Debra and Dianne to this list as well. And there is Elizabeth. There are Charlottes and Valaries who tend to be uglies, nearly on level with those repugnant, tongue-ringed "butch" lesbians that so proudly court their decently pretty partners around in public.

Now a Vicki...a Vicki can be hot, but more often than not, is only slutty, with average or less looks. This is also true of a Jessica or a Celeste. Amanda, Kara, and Kelly are in this category too, but they tend to be good-lookers more often than not. And then there is a Mary. But Marys or MaryAnns are average at best, and are either fat or have some hideous feature/features that offset a strikingly good feature, like a catcher's mit face or un-womanly body fat distribution, or possibly sopaipilla-looking arms that ruin everything.

And then there is the smell factor. Smoking hot women almost always either chew cinnamon gum or work/play around scented cinnamon candles, at home and/or at work. Better-than-average and merely average-looking women are drenched in lotions, like cocoa butter and other highly scented Gergen’s crap. Not that looks-challenged women don’t cover themselves in lotion. They do, but the hotties love to sulk in them like some fountain of youth, just as they read books in hot baths with only candle light.

Hot women pick their food apart, are more likely to send food back if it’s not made right while out dining, and they never fart. Less than average women will fart around their boyfriends, but will only sometimes pick their food apart and sometimes send food back. Hot women play with their hair more, average women do some, but the uglies do rarely.

This can’t all be a coincidence. What could be the reasons behind this? I don’t know, but this has always puzzled me.

(JH)

The Drought Has Ended

Movie Title: District 9 (2009)
Spoilers: No

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There is a cliché, a tepid and worn-out saying that goes: “Truth is stranger than fiction.” It is worn-out because it is so old and so used. It sounds simple, but the veracity of the truth behind the pronouncement is something that no one can prepare for until they have seen it. The saying tells us that when life “happens,” it does so in a way that no one would dream up. You can’t create something as crazy as life!

Movies often fail because they fail to successfully emulate reality. They do this by lacking the chief element of reality, which is unpredictability. When the thinking viewer starts to get the impression that what is being watched is something that the viewer expects to see, there is a rightly perceived drop-off in quality. Once the movie loses its connection to reality, it becomes a predictable piecemeal production for film junkies who don’t want to think or to be challenged.

Usually, it’s the movies not getting reality right, but in the case of District 9, you have a movie that doesn’t get fantasy right. This one is so off-the-beaten-path, so implacably weird that you sit in your seat and you say to yourself: “No one in their right mind would create such a beautifully contorted mess!” Nobody expects fantasy like this! It tears a hole in our expectations like a moth-eaten garment.

The scaled down camerawork gives the intended feel of a documentary made from 6 o’ clock news coverage. The dialogue…it’s as unspectacular as watching an episode of COPS. Aliens wearing red vests, being pinned up in South Africa with a craving for cat food…it should have been laughed out of the theater ten times over…but it wasn’t!

I wasn’t laughing. I was in complete awe, and not because of the aliens with their almost traditional appearances or their use of DNA-based super weaponry. In District 9, there is no snobbery. The writing is not too good to flaunt techno-sophistication. It makes no attempt to hide its likeness to more familiar films where extraterrestrials could be called human-like in many ways.

The teasing restraint with which the story unfolds, the notably non-American feel, the slow-but-informative beginning – combined with a most unexpected plot – puts it in a class by itself. Incredible!

In the past, stories about alien invasions have generally been about aliens trying to take Earth’s resources. For years, we’ve been hearing about Earth, the envied planet, and about malevolent conquests. That is “old hat.” It’s been done before, and it isn’t done in District 9. The aliens aren’t the invaders. They look like beasts, but they are most positively not. The humans are more beastly than the “prawns,” the derogatively named and segregated beings. But the movie takes no sides. There are no good guys.

The human animal’s potential for hate-based atrocity is boundless, and so it is with any species capable of devaluing minority life in favor of their own. It is fear and a misguided sense of self-preservation that makes us so deadly. That premise crosses the boundary between human and non-human. We do what any intelligent species would do—we try to survive by making sure the other guy’s “missile” isn’t bigger than our own.

We’ll kill our own kind just like we dissect those not of our kind in the labs if it keeps us erecting bigger missiles. We hate those who are not like us…and we hate those who are like us. Someone is always looking to make a profit at the expense of poverty and pain and the misfortune of others. There is no sense of brotherhood when survival and corporate profit is at stake.

The year is 2010. Sharlto Copley is Wikus Van De Merwe, a promoted agent of Multi-National United, a large weapons technology corporation. His assignment is to re-locate almost two million aliens who have been subjected to conditions of squalor since their arrival in Johannesburg, South Africa nearly 20 years earlier. Because of civil unrest, the aliens must be moved from district nine to district ten. But De Merwe is about to learn that taking a paycheck from a deep-pocketed weapons corporation has a potentially big downside!

You won’t care about how powerful the laser guns are, but you’ll get to see plenty of destruction from them. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You won’t want that for long. But that’s the problem…we are so ready to kill. We expect it, and in some cases, enjoy it. We won’t stop killing until we find ourselves on the side of the downtrodden as we hurt with them and bleed with them.

On the list of concerns, the science fiction element is a distant second to the story. Good movies have something to say. District 9 has many things to say. The finely combed plot and multi-tiered sub-plots bring meaning to the whole story. I am still stunned. I may have to see it again.

Under the directional debut of Neill Blomkamp, with Peter Jackson as lead producer, District 9 will be the influential standard-setter for sci-fi works over the next 10 years. Alas, the long awaited end to the quality sci-fi movie drought is here!

(JH)

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Grade: A+ (4 stars) Recommended!
Rated: R
Summation: An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley “Wikus Van De Merwe,” Jason Cope “Grey Bradnam - UKNR Chief Correspondent,” Nathalie Boltt “Sarah Livingstone – Sociologist,” Sylvaine Strike “Dr. Katrina McKenzie,” Elizabeth Mkandawie “Interviewee,” John Summer “Les Feldman - MIL Engineer,” William Allen Young “Dirk Michaels,” Greg Melvill-Smith “Interviewer,” Nick Blake “Francois Moraneu - CIV Engineer Team”
Genre: Sci-fi / Drama / Adventure / Thriller

B.I. Joe: Why Cobra Won’t Rise

Movie Title: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)
Spoilers: No

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If a contest was being had for the clangiest, noisiest, and most annoying science fiction movie with a major release budget, this one would undoubtedly win. Any broken-in moviegoer knows that “big budget” doesn’t necessarily mean “expensive feel.” It is the cheap feel and amateurish writing – with performances that baaaaarely make the cut – that put Stephen Sommers’ G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra on the exterminator’s list.

The film has less grace and charm than a snake, but about as much as a really good B-movie. That right there guarantees that you’ll find it in the bargain bin section at Wal-Mart once it’s released on DVD (which will be very, very soon). But go see it on the big screen if you want a personality-lacking fight flick that envies far superior kung fu movies of the past. Fear not, because to make up for its evident lack of quality, enough action sequences for three movies are thrown in. This way, the immature in the audience will get plenty of “tough guy” without any of that wishy-washy, annoying “character development” stuff that the sissies like.

And with the action dial cranked up as far as it will go, you get the added bonus of having sci-fi gadgets stuffed down your throat. There are gadgets…and gadget noises…and like the Chinese Water Torture, these become more grading with time. I just know that the writers swore on the lives of their children that not a single viewer in any audience the world over would walk out of a theatre and say: “You know what, there wasn’t enough technology shown off in that film.” They made good on their vows. No one has said that.

But I’ve got to hand it to him. Mr. Sommers’ creativity is to be commended for searching far and wide until he found a crack-smoking chimp to serve in place of an expensive camera operator like many traditional directors would have used. You save a lot of money having a chimp do the job of a human, although you have that unfortunate downside of having a movie where the picture shakes. The consequence of that was that I was unable to enjoy any of the action sequences. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the chimp thing was creatively commendable.

Like a good B-movie, there were no notable performances, just your standard lot of bad to barely passable. Dennis Quaid as General Hawk came as close as anyone could to reaching that mighty high likable bar. There’s nothing wrong in admitting that likable is a quality that G.I. Joe is not going to have, not this one. Let's not deny it. Honesty is the best policy.

All in all, I felt kind of lonely. It’s tough seeing a film on a tremendously big screen in a dark room where none of the characters being thrust in front of you – not even the good-looking women – are likable. And you know there’s a problem with character development when you start imagining how hard you would laugh if only someone would throw a bucket of diarrhea in the faces of the lead performers. If you’re not sure up until that point, then you know things are sucking!

I can say that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra did provide moments of nostalgia…all two of them.

(JH)

---

Grade: D- (1 star)
Rated: PG-13
Summation: An elite military unit comprised of special operatives known as G.I. Joe, operating out of The Pit, takes on an evil organization led by a notorious arms dealer.
Director: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje “Heavy Duty,” Christopher Eccleston “McCullen / Destro,” Grégory Fitoussi “Baron de Cobray,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt “The Doctor / Rex,” Leo Howard “Young Snake Eyes,” Byung-hun Lee “Storm Shadow,” Sienna Miller “Ana / Baroness,” Kevin J. O'Connor “Dr. Mindbender,” Gerald Okamura “Hard Master,” Ray Park “Snake Eyes,” Jonathan Pryce “U.S. President,” Dennis Quaid “General Hawk”
Genre: Action / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Thriller

Stopped By Wood

Movie Title: Aliens in the Attic (2009)
Spoilers: No

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I never thought I'd see anything like it again. This is the second film I've seen where space aliens get stopped dead in their tracks by wood. Yes, by wood. Who knew that the stuff composing cabinets, benches, coffee tables, and most household furniture possessed such kryptonite-like power!

Go back a few years to 2002 when M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs was new. There was so much suspense. The only thing you remember about the movie was how afraid you felt of those aliens who flew all the way to earth to eat humans—those aliens who were super strong, and yet – incredibly – could be trapped in wooden pantries and kept out by ordinary wooden doors. The plot had enough holes in it to strain the leaves out of your pool. Signs died. Cause: plot-hole death.

I took it upon myself to believe that no director since Shyamalan would make such a massive mistake, but I was wrong. One did. That director is director John Schultz, director of Aliens in the Attic. It's as if I was being forced to watch Signs all over again. Once was soooooo enough!

Signs is a serious film. Aliens in the Attic is not. Oddly, in reference to Signs, there is a moment when one of the kids says to an alien: “Are you allergic to water?” Har, har…very funny, considering Aliens in the Attic is nearly a clone of Signs, with a partial cinematic overhaul to ensure that it will appeal to those who dig Power Rangers.

Honestly, I don't know which I hate more – a movie for kids, with stupid, Crazy Frog-like aliens, or a serious movie where the excrement-for-brains director didn't see a problem having aliens allergic to water fly across the galaxy to consume human beings who are 90% water on a planet that is 75% covered with water. I can't make up my mind, so I will be vocal about my seething hatred for both.

Aliens in the Attic is about two families who rent a house next to a lake to do some good ole' family fishing. There's Stuart Pearson (Kevin Nealon) and his brother Nathan Pearson (Andy Ricther), along with a very charismatic cast of kids, including Carter Jenkins and Ashley Tisdale as Tom and Bethany. There's “Nana” Rose Pearson (Doris Roberts) and a Chevy Camaro-loving boyfriend (Robert Hoffman) of Bethany’s who is taking his time robbing the cradle by going after dad's little princess. Tim Meadows is Officer Doug Armstrong, a small town sheriff. He takes the place of those normally pear-shaped female Peace Officers who sit in police stations with headsets on in front of computers and take 911 calls. He takes the calls himself. It’s a good thing there aren’t many.

The stupidity flows like a river…of stupidity. But the film is finely written and the directing is better than good. The scene cuts are in the right places. The camerawork is to be envied. Like love handles in PE class, the fat budget shows right through. The special affects are amazingly well done. Now, if only the content would measure up.

There's a 1980s bias. I can’t tell whether it’s positive or negative. On the one hand, there are references to “minds fried with bad 80s music,” but on the other hand, the writing is saturated with “pyscheeeeeek!” mock handshakes and a cultural vibe that was dead as a doormat by 1990. Go figure.

Just as in Signs, the aliens are not seeking man’s best interest. These aliens are dumber than ten bags of hammers, but they've got technology on their side. The aliens seem to have the advantage. Only problem is, they are confounded by their two archenemies, wood and sheetrock. They stay in the attic for most of the film, taking over people's minds and getting kicked around by (to them) giant human children.

And the parents...they have no clue that their kids have turned into collaborating cousins who are hunkered down upstairs to stop an invasion of potentially catastrophic proportions. Rather than hide out in cornfields like the aliens from Signs, these miniature versions find it a good strategy to take over the world by snooping around humdrum houses out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that's a subtle message about how technology can make us stupid. Well, I don’t think. I know it is.

That is what the film is saying. Having technology isn't having everything. Take away the aliens and the attics and granny doing flips and jump-kicks because her mind has been taken over by an alien mind control dart, and what do you have left? You've got a child's movie that vigorously promotes family values.

I'd take your whole family out to dinner to avoid having to sit through this painfully ridiculous film again, but then, I'm not trying to get it through my 10-year-old's head that breaking away from MySpace for more than two hours won't kill you!

(JH)

---

Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: PG
Summation: A family of kids must stop a worldwide invasion of aliens who begin their attack in an attic.
Director: John Schultz
Starring: Carter Jenkins “Tom Pearson,” Austin Robert Butler “Jake Pearson,” Ashley Tisdale “Bethany Pearson,” Ashley Boettcher “Hannah Pearson,” Henri Young “Art Pearson,” Regan Young “Lee Pearson,” Doris Roberts “Nana Rose Pearson,” Robert Hoffman “Ricky Dillman,” Kevin Nealon “Stuart Pearson,” Gillian Vigman “Nina Pearson,” Andy Richter “Uncle Nathan Pearson,” Tim Meadows “Sheriff Doug Armstrong”
Genre: Adventure / Comedy / Family / Fantasy

When Comedians Get Serious

When viewed through the eyes of a movie with an effectual story, Funny People has some value.

Movie title: Funny People (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No

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Funny People stands to be counted (hunched over and unshaven, but still standing) as a film that lets down its audience while still retaining a measurable amount of value. You go in wanting to love it. You want to laugh out loud. But to your dismay, you go out (at least marginally) disappointed—regardless of how optimistically you marched in.

Love Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Eric Bana all you want. None come close to making this film pay out on the promised dividends of laughter. It does deliver the goods in other areas by offering raunchy sexual references, some amusing verbal exchanges, and a couple of intentionally offensive stereotypes. Not to be missed, it becomes very clear very fast that this really is how comedians talk to each other while sitting around and having a Diet Coke.

And they’re just people like you and I (their heightened levels of unhappiness and inner-pains notwithstanding). They have family problems, past regrets, failed marriages, and the males get disappointed with their “small packages” just like any other dude who stares at himself in the bathroom mirror too long. When not on stage performing, funny people are fighting their own battles and putting up with their own families. And to those family members, they aren’t stars at all. They may not even be that funny, just grown-up versions of the kids that once played on Wee Wheelers in the backyard. Funny People has the “people” part down in highlighting the complexities of behavior and relationships on an amazingly intricate level.

Behold, a film about the lives of comedians with their pains and struggles! From these dry, empty wells of human beings comes comedy. But don’t think it’s funny; it’s not really funny. It could have been titled, “When Comedians Get Serious,” and that would have worked like a charm. Not fifteen minutes in and you’re convinced that the script is working overtime to actually kill the effectiveness of what little comedic output it offers. What cannot be killed (or ignored) is the purposely drama-laden storyline that demands the same attention you would put toward any Lifetime movie about a woman who survives her ordeal with a pedophilic father and husband who gave their son genital warts. Watched with those dark glasses on, the film succeeds.

Adam Sandler is George Simmons, a world-famous comedian (in other words, a fake version of his real life self). As a powerhouse funny man in the movies, Simmons is in and out of the comedy clubs where he meets the up-and-comers, one of them being Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). Ira is a struggling comedian who badly wants to be able to pay the bills doing what he loves most. But he’s not there yet. He’ll have to keep making macaroni salads for the public until that day comes.

When Simmons gets the news that his days may be numbered due to a dangerously far-gone case of leukemia, he finds himself in the throws of somber self-reflection. This puts him on the path of getting connected with Ira and Ira’s fellow roommates/comedians. But the drama didn’t start there. It started before. The life of a stand-up comedian is hard. To get ahead, you often have to work for free and then wait for opportunities for advancement that actually pay. The up-and-comers hate that.

Simmons is somewhere else in life. He’s been there and done that. He’s paid his dues, but something’s missing. He’s not happy (for other reasons than leukemia), and yet he’s front-page news, which is where those champing at the bit to get in his shoes want to be. Everyone is at a different place in life. Good movies highlight that fact.

A good comedian draws the interest of the audience by telling the truth, by always showcasing those odd connections that shape life experiences. These connections the rest of us see, but we take them for granted. Comedians call attention to them. That’s why we laugh, and that’s how Funny People draws you in. Waiting for the punch-line, that’s why you watch and listen. You are waiting for it to connect with you. The waiting keeps things interesting.

But when the expected punch-line never arrives, then what do you do? You lose interest or you keep waiting (perhaps a little of both). And sometimes, it becomes easier to accept that, like a deadbeat mother, the punch-line just ain’t gonna come back! And it doesn’t.

So you watch; you watch as one man loses his way and another finds it, while one begins to take off and another who has already taken off climbs higher still. You watch as one man’s life spirals out of control while another man finds himself in a position to help him.

Funny People does go somewhere, though sometimes you frown in puzzlement for not knowing just where. Brilliantly written, it all means something—every detail of the film. At the beginning, you are watching a young would-be standup comedian make senseless prank phone calls for his amusement. Then, later, you are watching a comedian tell jokes that do nothing but preface the arrival of a new (and hopefully funnier) scene. At another moment, you are watching Simmons defend himself because he likes to “go down” on a certain off-limits female. At other times, the weirdness gets to you. You don’t know why you keep watching. It’s just the anticipation of that punch-line, that darn punch-line!

(JH)

---

Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Director: Judd Apatow
Summation: When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship causes him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.
Starring: Adam Sandler “George Simmons,” Seth Rogen “Ira Wright,” Leslie Mann “Laura,” Eric Bana “Clarke,” Jonah Hill “Leo Koenig,” Jason Schwartzman “Mark Taylor Jackson,” Aubrey Plaza “Daisy,” Maude Apatow “Mable,” Iris Apatow “Ingrid”
Genre: Comedy / Drama

When Comedians Get Serious

Movie title: Funny People (2009)
Spoilers ahead: No

---

Funny People stands to be counted (hunched over and unshaven, but still standing) as a film that lets down its audience while still retaining a measurable amount of value. You go in wanting to love it. You want to laugh out loud. But to your dismay, you go out (at least marginally) disappointed—regardless of how optimistically you marched in.

Love Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Eric Bana all you want. None come close to making this film pay out on the promised dividends of laughter. It does deliver the goods in other areas by offering raunchy sexual references, some amusing verbal exchanges, and a couple of intentionally offensive stereotypes. Not to be missed, it becomes very clear very fast that this really is how comedians talk to each other while sitting around and having a Diet Coke.

And they’re just people like you and I (their heightened levels of unhappiness and inner-pains notwithstanding). They have family problems, past regrets, failed marriages, and the males get disappointed with their “small packages” just like any other dude who stares at himself in the bathroom mirror too long. When not on stage performing, funny people are fighting their own battles and putting up with their own families. And to those family members, they aren’t stars at all. They may not even be that funny, just grown-up versions of the kids that once played on Wee Wheelers in the backyard. Funny People has the “people” part down in highlighting the complexities of behavior and relationships on an amazingly intricate level.

Behold, a film about the lives of comedians with their pains and struggles! From these dry, empty wells of human beings comes comedy. But don’t think it’s funny; it’s not really funny. It could have been titled, “When Comedians Get Serious,” and that would have worked like a charm. Not fifteen minutes in and you’re convinced that the script is working overtime to actually kill the effectiveness of what little comedic output is there. What cannot be killed (or ignored) is the purposely drama-laden storyline that demands the same attention you would put toward any Lifetime movie about a woman who survives her ordeal with a pedophilic husband and father who gave their son anal warts. Watched with those dark glasses on, the film succeeds.

Adam Sandler is George Simmons, a world-famous comedian (in other words, a fake version of his real life self). As a powerhouse funny man in the movies, Simmons is in and out of the comedy clubs where he meets the up-and-comers, one of them being Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). Ira is a struggling comedian who badly wants to be able to pay the bills doing what he loves most. But he’s not there yet. He’ll have to keep making macaroni salads for the public until that day comes.

When Simmons gets the news that his days may be numbered due to a dangerously far-gone case of leukemia, he finds himself in the throws of somber self-reflection. This puts him on the path of getting connected with Ira and Ira’s fellow roommates/comedians. But the drama didn’t start there. It started before. The life of a stand-up comedian is hard. To get ahead, you often have to work for free and then wait for opportunities for advancement that actually pay. The up-and-comers hate that.

Simmons is somewhere else in life. He’s been there and done that. He’s paid his dues, but something’s missing. He’s not happy (for other reasons than leukemia), and yet he’s front-page news, which is where those champing at the bit to get in his shoes want to be. Everyone is at a different place in life. Good movies highlight that fact.

A good comedian draws the interest of the audience by telling the truth, by always showcasing those odd connections that shape life experiences. These connections the rest of us see, but we take them for granted. Comedians call attention to them. That’s why we laugh, and that’s how Funny People draws you in. Waiting for the punch-line, that’s why you watch and listen. You are waiting for it to connect with you. The waiting keeps things interesting.

But when the expected punch-line never arrives, then what do you do? You lose interest or you keep waiting (perhaps a little of both). And sometimes, it becomes easier to accept that, like a deadbeat mother, the punch-line just ain’t gonna come back! And it doesn’t.

So you watch; you watch as one man loses his way and another finds it, while one begins to take off and another who has already taken off climbs higher still. You watch as one man’s life spirals out of control while another man finds himself in a position to help him.

Funny People does go somewhere, though sometimes you frown in puzzlement for not knowing just where. Brilliantly written, it all means something—every detail of the film. At the beginning, you are watching a young would-be standup comedian make senseless prank phone calls for his amusement. Then, later, you are watching a comedian tell jokes that do nothing but preface the arrival of a new (and hopefully funnier) scene. At another moment, you are watching Simmons defend himself because he likes to “go down” on a certain off-limits female. At other times, the weirdness gets to you. You don’t know why you keep watching. It’s just the anticipation of that punch-line, that darn punch-line!

(JH)

---

Grade: C+ (2 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Director: Judd Apatow
Summation: When seasoned comedian George Simmons learns of his terminal, inoperable condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship causes him to take a relatively green performer under his wing as his opening act.
Starring: Adam Sandler “George Simmons,” Seth Rogen “Ira Wright,” Leslie Mann “Laura,” Eric Bana “Clarke,” Jonah Hill “Leo Koenig,” Jason Schwartzman “Mark Taylor Jackson,” Aubrey Plaza “Daisy,” Maude Apatow “Mable,” Iris Apatow “Ingrid”
Genre: Comedy / Drama

Three Things Most Annoying

Movie Title: Orphan (2009)
Spoilers: On down a ways.

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The movie Orphan looked to be a spellbinding work. The tagline is: “There’s something wrong with Esther.” Woo, how maniacally enticing! But never judge a book (or movie) by its cover (or trailer). That being said, there’s something wrong with this movie, it being a perfect example of bad writing and directing.

Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is the adopted daughter of John and Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard). After suffering the loss of a child, the couple decides they are ready to adopt. They’ve fought some personal battles in the recent past, including alcoholism, but they’ve made it to the other side with the marriage intact. Now it’s time to move on and enjoy family life again. That won’t happen because of Esther. John and Kate got a bad girl.

We, the audience, got a mostly bad movie (some potentially redeeming moments of shock value aside). The sound affects: Good. The acting: Not so good, but better towards the middle and end. The choreography: Fair at best. Scenery: Typical. Can’t we at least once get a horror movie that is not set somewhere in the Northeastern United States during winter? Do ghosts actually prefer colder climates or something? Just once I want to hear a lawnmower and see some neighbors out watering the grass before heads start rolling.

Like the setting, Orphan is playbook horror stuff. It never deviates from what you’d expect from a clichéd and unremarkable Friday night thriller. The creepy music build-ups and sudden drop-offs just before nothing happens, the unconvincing screams, the contrived feeling that glides along right through to the end of this 123-minute film, it’s all “old hat” and hard to get into.

I watched, and what I saw made me angry, not scared. Below are the three things most annoying to be found in many poorly directed horror flicks. The pattern has become painful by now. * SPOILERS: Though not all plot-points will be revealed, more about the plot is addressed below. Some may want to quit reading here *

…

#1) The cops never get there on time: No matter when you call them or how frantically you tell them of the evil, crazy, ranting, raving, psychopathic killer in your home, who is in the middle of the very act of slashing the throats of your beloved husband and kids, the police will be damn slow getting there. Don’t count on them. Instead, expect them to pull up – sirens a blarin’ – right AFTER you’ve disposed of the bad guy yourself.

#2) People get inexplicably weak around the evil-energized kid: Watch and you’ll see how the evil seed has this strange power over everyone, including adults. It’s like a paralyzing power. The demonic offspring manipulates so well that everyone is put in a state of complete unguarded-ness, and when the little devil comes a killin’, no one can fight him/her off.

The strongest man in the world could end up tackled by some gaunt, 106-pound Russian girl like Esther, and he won’t be able to do anything about it. Esther doesn’t take steroids. She hasn’t been trained in tactical takedowns or martial arts maneuvers. And despite her rather oddly shaped head as seen on the movie advertisements, she’s not an alien. Nope. Everyone just goes limp when she decides to attack!

#3) The children keep secrets: This is the most annoying, teeth-grinding, infuriating of all things that happen in horror movies—the kids keep detrimentally important information to themselves right until the end! This doesn’t often happen in real life.

If one deranged sibling takes a knife to the throat of another and threatens to kill them if they share x or y secret, they’ll pretend to cooperate and then run to mom and squeal when they’re out of danger. But in horror movies, the kids never talk. The wicked child of Lucifer can start their own Holocaust right under everyone’s noses and threaten their brother/sister to make sure they keep a lid on it, and the kid will be hush-hush until there are snowball fights in Hell. It won’t be until tons of lives have been lost and others ruined when the little baby-cakes breaks down and starts talking. If only they’d have opened their mouths on time, it would have saved us all the trouble.

Orphan is devious, dark, and at times, on the right track towards being an effective thriller—until it loses itself in the backwaters of bad writing. That is a shame, considering the nicely selected actors and actresses that fit well the roles they were given. Still, Orphan’s appeal will score high on a lot of scales. I say, this one has “cult classic” written all over it.

(JH)

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Grade: D+ (1 ½ stars)
Rated: R
Summation: A husband and wife who recently lost their baby adopt a 9-year-old girl who exhibits menacing tendencies.
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Vera Farmiga “Kate Coleman,” Peter Sarsgaard “John Coleman,” Isabelle Fuhrman “Esther,” CCH Pounder “Sister Abigail,” Jimmy Bennett “Daniel Coleman,” Margo Martindale “Dr. Browning,” Karel Roden “Dr. Värava,” Aryana Engineer “Max Coleman”
Genre: Drama / Horror / Mystery / Thriller

G-(whizz)Force

Movie Title: G-Force (2009)
 Spoilers: No

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I'm supposed to review a child's film about rats (guinea pigs, yes, but rats under another name).

These rats are capable of using high-tech toys that only government agents should be using. The rats kind of are government agents, and the story explains this, as it does how these little furry creatures talk to humans and reliably transmit valuable military intel on a consistent basis.

What I wanted to know was what kind of engineering skills were required to craft lenses and visors and other instruments of great electronic precision down to small enough sizes for mouse eyes to make use of. My question was never answered, so I'll quit asking.

The rats were genetically altered, made smarter, which is how they can accomplish what Chloe and Jack Bauer together accomplish. How these rats mastered the human nuances of thinking in terms of human culture will remain a mystery, but like the rest of the flick, we chalk it up to magic-like technology and are done with wondering.

You can't totally botch a kid's movie. You just can't, no matter what you do. You can't really botch a review of one either, and that's why I've been meddling on the subject of rats this long. What I should say before it slips my mind is that G-Force has one of the most kiddishly old school plots in a while. What does the villain want? Take a guess. Go on…

Time’s up. The answer is, world domination, of course! Ever since the first Nintendo came out, very few kid's movies were complete without having one of two possible goals—saving a princess and/or stopping an insanely wicked villain who is evil just for evil's sake. The latter is the case here as Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy), a wicked billionaire has his heart set on taking over the world.

The resistance is a team of well-trained animal secret agents, each voiced by a celeb. There is Darwin, the team’s head honcho (Sam Rockwell), Juarez, the hottie martial arts gal (Penélope Cruz), with Blaster, the weapons expert (Tracy Morgan). The mole – who is literally a mole – is Speckles, the cyber-intelligence dude (Nicolas Cage). And there’s Mooch, the surveillance fly (Edwin Louis).

There's plenty of action, including one psychotic child who loves to try and slaughter small animals, but it’s all in good fun. You already know he doesn’t succeed, and so I guess that excuses it. The funniest line in the whole film is aimed at this sick puppy, and it is delivered by Tracy Morgan: “I believe it's time to take your medication.” No, it's not very funny, none of it.

The FBI agents could almost have stood in line to audition for the part of The Matrix' Agent Smith. A trip to the pet shop with de-hyped jokes about rats having lots to read from the newspaper that lines the cages comes standard…whether you want it or not. Like I said, not very funny. 

It's been a long, long time since I've seen my old animated hero, Dumbo the Elephant, which is to say, I may have forgotten what it is like to be enthused by a cute little furry stuffed animal. Maybe seeing a digitally created stuffed animal on screen has more meaning to a child than I give credit for. But this hammy presentation isn't going to do anyone's acting resumes any favors. I'm sorry, but being cute and furry is not enough. The characters are not particularly likable or memorable.

Thankfully, the film's pacing is quick. It races along like a Lingenfelter Corvette through the quarter mile, but it sure would have been nice to see this film cross its own finish line in 10.2 seconds! Would that that was the case.

(JH)

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Grade: D+ (1 1/2 stars)
Rated: PG
Summation: A specially trained squad of guinea pigs is dispatched to stop a diabolical billionaire from taking over the world.
Director: Hoyt Yeatman
Starring: Bill Nighy “Saber,” Will Arnett “Kip Killian,” Zach Galifianakis “Ben,” Kelli Garner “Marcie,” Tyler Patrick Jones “Connor,” Piper Mackenzie Harris “Penny,” Penélope Cruz “Juarez” (voice)
Genre: Action / Adventure / Family / Fantasy

To Touch What Matters

Movie Title: My Sister's Keeper (2009)
 Spoilers: No

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My Sister's Keeper...could you ask for a more reverent title? The title is more reverent than the movie. It’s not biblical, but it does deal with a moral question—with a moral question that ideally shouldn't be a question.

The film was birthed from the fictional novel, “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult. The plot seems a bit much to swallow, but only at first. Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) is suing to emancipate her own body from her parents’ use of her body like an old, beaten-up, parts truck in some salvage yard. Anna was conceived to save the life of Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), her older sister.

Kate has promyelocytic luekemia and she's dying. Against the odds, her parents keep hoping – groping – at every straw of hope that can be found. But Sara and Brian Fitzgerald (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) grabbed at one straw that wouldn't break...or bend. They had a daughter who was determined to live her own life, despite her being basically genetically bred to be the perfect donor.

As awful and debilitating as leukemia can be, the indignity with which Anna is treated is right near horrifying. It wasn’t intended to come off quite that way (there are many subtle concerns involved), but it did. If accused of harming their second-born, Anna’s parents would contend that they were just trying to save the life of their older daughter while still loving and offering the best for Anna. Anna would contend that her parents’ effort to save her older sister was depriving her of a life of her own.

What would have done the film a favor would have been to provide some sort of counter-antagonism to offset the unthinkable brute fact behind what transpires. As it is, you focus more on the emotional battles created by terminal illness and an inner-family lawsuit than on the borderline inhumane treatment of Anna Fitzgerald. It is extremely touching to see a movie where a cancer-stricken girl gets to see the beach one last time. That alone will make the lot of us reach for a box of Kleenex, and there's nothing wrong in saying so.

You might consider the plethora of polarizing views concerning this film, but don't neglect to consider that in My Sister’s Keeper, you have a deep storyline with some of the most well-defined characters, every one of them hitting close to home in their own way.

Alec Baldwin doesn't act. He plays a hotshot lawyer with as much of himself in the character as he would walk into any room and introduce himself. Baldwin is Campbell Alexander, hired by Anna to represent her against her mother, who also happens to be an accomplished attorney.

In My Sister's Keeper, you have a tearjerker of a story about life and death, about hope, about fate, about medical ethics, and about a legal battle over the rights of a child. While some would find the emotional girth to be too much, others have no desire to hide the fact that they can't cross the street without a Kleenex box in one hand and Dr. Phil in the other. There's nothing wrong in saying that either.

Some cry because they need something to cry about. Others cry because the crying of others helps them deal with their own past pains. Others will go all out to avoid sadness at every turn. To them, if only they can momentarily trick themselves into believing that death isn't real, then that is enough.

Experiencing a loss (even if its not our own loss) or failing health is a damaging thing to cope with, which is why I say that a movie which forces you to think and deal with a subject that many have no desire to discuss is worth being considered. Once you’ve seen it, then you’ve got to draw some moral lines. That makes a good movie. My Sister’s Keeper isn’t the greatest tear-tapper ever, but it doesn't have to be to touch what matters.

(JH)

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Grade: B+ (3 1/2 stars) Recommended!
Rated: PG-13
Summation: Anna Fitzgerald looks to earn medical emancipation from her parents who until now have relied on her to help their leukemia-stricken daughter Kate remain alive.
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Abigail Breslin “Andromeda 'Anna' Fitzgerald,” Walter Raney “Pawn Shop Proprietor,” Sofia Vassilieva “Kate Fitzgerald,” Cameron Diaz “Sara Fitzgerald,” Jason Patric “Brian Fitzgerald,” Evan Ellingson “Jesse Fitzgerald,” Alec Baldwin “Campbell Alexander”
Genre: Drama

Something Else to Put on Ice

Movie title: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
Spoilers: No

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Along with the champagne, here’s a little something else to put on ice: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It should have been called “Dawn of the Mammals.” The mammals came after the dinos were well on their way out of the evolutionary timeline, not that it really matters in a film like this where the core audience is still infatuated with Fisher-Price building blocks and Toy Story stuffed animals.

The very repetitive and annoying sound affects are surpassed only by Ray Romano’s perpetually strained-sounding voice. Thankfully, he has rather few lines compared to certain other characters. Ray Romano is “Manny,” the mammoth. Ellie (Queen Latifah) is his mate. They await the birth of their baby.

John Leguizamo is “Sid” the sloth who stirs up some ruckus and manages to create the plot when he steals some dinosaur eggs and tries to start his own family. Kidnapped by an angry mother, he finds himself in need of a rescue. Diego (Denis Leary), the saber-toothed tiger is in a reflective period of his life, but he’s part of the action.

Buck the weasel (Simon Pegg) is an adventurer. Like him or not, the gang will need Buck’s help in battling through mantrap plant/gigantic dinosaur territory to get back their foolish friend. And then, there’s Scratte (Karen Disher). Yes, he’s still after that illusive nut!

Forget that mammoths and smiledons didn’t live when T-rex walked the earth (actually, the gang had to traipse into a hidden world to get to where the dinos were). Remember that unlike high quality animated films (Wall-e, Kung Fu Panda, Bolt), this one makes no attempt to charm. It’s a cheap laugh for those who put Pokémon underwear on their Amazon wish lists.

You might find it funny. Depends on your sense of humor. To get an idea, it goes a little something like this…

Buck: “Listen to the wind. It’s speaking to us.”
Manny: “What’s it saying?”
Buck: “I don’t know. I don’t speak wind.”

Manny: “Why do they call it the chasm of death?”
Buck: “Well, we tried ‘big, smelly crack,’ but that just made everybody giggle.”

Manny: “Liar, liar, fur on fire.”

Buck: (seeing a butterfly) “I knew that guy when he was a caterpillar.”

Ice Age 3 is a child’s comedy that is not afraid to be gross, suggestive, or scary. If I were a parent, I might take issue with seeing a furry cartoon creature hanging on a visible uvula that so closely resembles a purple scrotum, but maybe I’m just too far from five-years-old to not see it.

Injury, death, and peril are shown, but without the seriousness that would make it unbearable. What is just about unbearable is the appeal to childish humor. You could say that the whole film is like your nutty eccentric uncle who knoweth not when to shut up.

It produces the unnerving feeling of listening to the juvenile ramblings of grade schoolers who prefer to make noises and experiment with helium. You get to enjoy the charm of tar hair removal scenes and makeshift elevators made from stegosaurus rib cages. It’s none of sophisticated and all of simplistic, but that’s what young audiences are for, right?

(JH)

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Grade: C- (2 stars)
Rated: PG
Summation: When Sid's attempt to adopt three dinosaur eggs gets him abducted by their real mother to an underground world, his friends attempt to rescue him.
Directors: Carlos Saldanha, Mike Thurmeier
Starring: Karen Disher “Scratte” (voice), Maile Flanagan “Aardvark Mom” (voice), Kelly Keaton “Molehog Mom / Shovelmouth Mom” (voice), Queen Latifah “Ellie” (voice), Denis Leary “Diego” (voice), John Leguizamo “Sid” (voice), Simon Pegg “Buck” (voice), Ray Romano “Manny” (voice)
Genre: Animation / Comedy / Adventure