Avengers Assemble!

If you are wondering whether or not to see The Avengers, whether or not the movie could possibly live up to the hype, wonder no more. Go see the freaking movie as soon as you finish reading this review because it ROCKS.

If you look at it logically, how could this movie NOT rock? You have a demi-god, a living legend (who does an awesome job holding up the legend part), a brilliant doctor with a massive anger management problem, the world’s greatest archer (sorry DC and Green Arrow), the world’s greatest spy, AND the icing on the cake — a billionaire philanthropist playboy genius inventor who happens to own some really cool suits of armor.

Not impressed? How about Samuel L. Jackson? In a freaking EYEPATCH! Yes! Jules Winnfield / Jedi Master Mace Windu is the man behind getting this superhero buffet together.

Oh, before I forget, one other thing.  Joss Whedon wrote the script and directed the movie. What’s that? You don’t know who Joss Whedon is? Crap, dude, you live under a rock? He’s ONLY a guy who “plain and simple wakes up in the morning to piss excellence” — to paraphrase Ricky Bobby. I mean, come on, the guy made a hugely successful and long running TV show out of a vampire chasing cheerleader. If he can turn that chicken sh. . . . um feathers, yeah, chicken feathers (sorry mama) premise into chicken salad, how could a fanboy like him miss with the kind of material The Avengers bring to the table?

Seriously, the script is very well written. The first half of the movie gets everyone in place without resorting to an over abundance of deus ex machina and the second half of the film lets the newly assembled, torn apart, and reassembled-with-resolute-purpose team loose to take care of the bad guys. The pacing just doesn’t lag. You aren’t sitting in the seats going “When is something important going to happen?” Important stuff is happening all the time, but in an easily followed fashion . . . . sort of like — and I’m really going fishing here — A COMIC BOOK!

What makes this movie work is it never takes itself too seriously. This is a fantastic action film that will make everyone involved with it a tandem-axle dump truck load of money. It is NOT an Oscar vehicle. The witty one-liners and sight gags abound, but they aren’t all dumped on one character. Everyone has a great line or scene or two — even the guy playing Galaga on his terminal while the SHIELD ship is under attack.

With all the huge stars in this film the potential for someone to want to hog the screen had to be overbearing, but everyone gets plenty of screen time. That brings up another point of excellence in the movie — all the casting was spot on. I think casting Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man is probably the most underrated but important move a director has made since someone picked a collie to play Lassie. Downey IS Tony Stark. He doesn’t even have to act. Mark Ruffalo, meanwhile, is the best Dr. David Banner since Bill Bixby famously said, “Don’t make me angry, sir. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!”  Jeremy Renner and the ever lovely ScarJo play their roles as physically perfect but non-superpowered members of the team to perfection as well. One piece of bad news though, girls, Chris Helmsworth / Thor never takes his shirt off in this film. In short, it’s an ensemble cast of established and rising starts who interact extremely well and make the movie a huge success and a ton of fun to watch.

Watching the movie is like reading a comic book complete with the same breathlessness and desire to turn the page. It also stays in the ballpark with established comic book canon. Not every little detail matches up, but enough stays behind from the Lee and Kirby days to make us purists happy. All in all, The Avengers gives viewers all the excitement and value for our entertainment dollar that a really good comic book movie ought to give and for longtime Marvel fanboys like me, that’s all we ask for.

So, love y’all, keep those feet clean, aaaannnnddd

Bring on Iron Man 3!

100 Years Since “A Night to Remember”

The last known picture of the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic as she left harbour for her rendezvous with fate.

At 2:20 AM, 100 years ago this morning, the RMS Titanic‘s keel broke in two just before she dove 2.3 miles down to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean carrying nearly 1,000 people to the Stygian depths with her. Around 500 more unfortunate souls were swept from her swiftly tilting decks into the sub-freezing waters of the North Atlantic to drown or die of hypothermia or shock within minutes of entering the water.

The disastrous sinking of the Titanic is the subject of thousands of articles, hundreds of websites, a multitude of full length books, and at least eight full length feature films . . . and that’s just in English. The individual triumphs and tragedies of surrounding the voyage are the stuff of legends and people like the ebullient buoyant “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, the craven coward J. Bruce Ismay, or tragically shortsighted Captain Edward J. Smith live on in our memories to this day — one century later.

Nothing I could write about the disaster hasn’t already been written and by much better writers than I. Still, this disaster is one which resonates with something deep inside my mind and fills me with dread and foreboding even here in my warm, dry, and safe office. In my mind’s eye, I can see, with little trouble, the chaotic terror washing over the decks of the doomed ship like the water which would carry her to her grave. Imagine what it had to be like in the lower decks where the Second Class and lower passengers were trapped and trampled in the mad rush toward the top of the ship. Think of the brave, doomed men of the boiler rooms who stayed at their posts shoveling coal into the boilers to keep the spark of the wireless dancing as long as possible.

Photo of the iceberg that sank Titanic taken by a crewman of RMS Carpathia as she collected survivors and bodies following the disaster.

Should this world stand long enough and the Almighty tarry in His return, we shall all die. That is a certainty which comforts some and terrorizes others, but it is a certainty nonetheless. Still it is one thing to be felled by a lightening strike, a car accident, or some dreadful disease, but how many of us are fated to watch helplessly — as the people aboard the doomed liner were — Death’s slow, inexorable approach? Could you stand to watch the water slowly, then not so slowly, rise up the deck as you held your child upon your shoulders in a vain effort to keep him from the water a second longer? Would you jump into the frigid, salty blackness and clutch Death to your bosom like a lover just to make an end?

The wreck of the Titanic is something which haunts my nightmares even though it occurred long before even my grandparents were born because nearly every race and social strata participated on the Titanic’s maiden voyage so it is a picture of the death of the world in miniature. The people aboard the liner were happy and looking ahead to a bright future one moment then marking the steady approach of Death the next. What if instead of an iceberg plowing into a ship it is an asteroid plowing into the Earth? Those on the ship had two hours to ponder . . . how long would we have?

It makes me think of the people trapped above the crash levels in the Twin Towers. That was another microcosm of total destruction. People who are going about their everyday lives all morning then without warning they are off to meet the One whom Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins bet their lives and souls is not there. Can you feel the bitter cold of the water? Can you feel the rush of the air sweeping by as you plunge from 110 stories up?

The bow of RMS Titanic as she sits at the bottom of the North Atlantic, slowly turning into powder like the dreams of those who perished aboard her.

The water isn’t the most terrifying aspect of that horrible night for me, however. The worst scenario my mind can imagine is to be one of those who likely made it alive 2.3 miles down. Of course people scoff at that idea. No one could have survived that descent could they? I remember when NASA went public with the revelation that the crew of the space shuttle Challenger actually survived the initial explosion and were alive for the seven minute plunge to the ocean where the force of impact killed them. What if someone or several someones were happily sealed inside one of the many watertight rooms aboard the ship? What if they made it to the bottom? How did they die in the inky blackness at the bottom of the ocean? Suffocation or starvation? It’s a horrible thought, but not impossible. The interior of the wreck has never been even halfway fully explored. When you are as claustrophobic and fearful of the dark as I am, such a possibility is too terrible to imagine, but not too awful to be ruled out.

In any event, the loss of 1,514 people in the black icy water of the North Atlantic 100 years ago is a tragedy almost too great to imagine, if for no other reason it was so completely avoidable at so many points, but none of that matters anymore. To this day, it is the 8th greatest loss of life in a non-military maritime disaster in recorded history. So when you think of the Titanic or, God forbid, go see the hideous 3-D adaptation of the already hideous 1997 James Cameron movie, remember the words to an old hymn and say a prayer for those await the day when the sea shall give up her dead.

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

A rare postscript

I feel this particular picture did not fit with the tone of the rest of this post, but I must include it in any discussion where that abominable 1997 movie might come up . . .

This highlighted frame capture shows the piece of flotsam CLEARLY has enough room for Rose AND Jack if only the selfish cow had possessed the common decency to SIT UP or SKOOCH OVER!

John Carter is a Fun Flick

Before a curious hacker took a red pill; before a xenomorph wiped out a bunch of Colonial Marines; before a farm boy, a crazy Corellian smuggler (who shot first), and a walking carpet saved a Rebellion; before NCC-1701′s five-year mission; before a deposed duke tamed his first sandworm; even before the 3 Laws of Robotics were graven into a Foundation; a disillusioned  and haunted Confederate war hero went looking for gold and ended up on Mars.

Watching Disney’s John Carter in a cool, dark theater is a good, exciting, and not terribly educational (not that that’s a bad thing) way to spend a cloudy afternoon with someone you love. That is precisely how my beloved Budge and I spent yesterday afternoon. In the end, she liked the movie more than I did, although I did like it a great deal. It is pure escapism at its finest and the cinematography isn’t too shabby either.

I must admit when I saw the first posters announcing John Carter’s pending arrival back at the end of summer last year, I had absolutely no idea who the character was, who created him, or what the whole mess was all about. None of that proved the slightest impediment to my enjoyment of the film.

For those who have not checked out Wikipedia for themselves, John Carter is the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs — yes, THAT Edgar Rice Burroughs — the guy whose OTHER major character made Johnny Weismueller famous. Carter is the central character of Burroughs’ Barsoom novels, which give the history not only of John Carter, but also of Mars — known to the natives of the books as “Barsoom.” Their publication in 1912, first in serial form and later as pulp novels stands as a seminal moment in the entire genre of science fiction. Fittingly, the movie came out on the same date as the first book.

Before I go any farther, let me caution anyone sucked in by the “Disney” nameplate. The movie is PG and with good reason. Limbs are hacked off, creatures are branded with hot iron, and copious amounts of blood — blue though it may be — splashes across the screen. In fact I was nearly certain the adorable little six-legged dog/lizard creature  was going to get killed and I was fully prepared to storm out of the theater as soon as that happened. Thankfully, to ease the minds of the other animal lovers in the house, the little  fellow survives the entire movie and plays the hero on one or two occasions.

The movie plays true to most of the source material, from what I can gather anyway. However, even if you know nothing about the background works — I certainly didn’t — the movie is still fun to watch. Much like Dorothy steps from black and white into Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz, we get cued in that John isn’t in Kansas anymore when the picture goes starkly desaturated. Most of the blue tint comes out and what is left is a light, slightly yellowish haze that captures fairly accurately the look of the Martian landscape sent back to us by  the Mars Viking probe and its 21st century descendents.

One knock some people have made against the film is its abuse of scientific knowledge. First of all, it IS a science FICTION film so a little suspension of disbelief is necessary — just as it requires a huge dose of disbelief in traction to think that every alien race in the cosmos is not only bipedal and at least passingly humanoid, but also that every one of those aliens speaks the Queen’s English better than my former students did. However, if one realizes that the science of the film FITS FAIRLY WELL with the science of the times of the novels, it becomes much easier to give the directors a pass.

The movie is worth seeing and it does have all the elements required of a great action flick. The damsel is in distress and fleeing an arranged marriage, the evil general turns out to be merely the puppet of an even viler overlord, and the little (if 12′ tall can be considered little) green men end up saving the day. There’s even a slight twist at the end that those with more knowledge of the source material than me might have seen coming.

Taken as a whole, John Carter wasn’t the very best sci-fi movie I’ve seen, but it is far superior to many of the worse ones I’ve endured. It is worth seeing and I give it three and a half of five stars.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Won’t Disappoint Larson Readers

It’s not often that I see two movies in two days, but then it’s not often Budge and I get enough movie gift cards to afford such a display of opulence. Last night, Budge and I joined Deuce and Cameron to check out The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Budge and I had read the novel; Cameron and Deuce had not.

My general opinion is anchored strongly in the music. I feel that any film which opens with Trent Reznor doing an excellent cover of the unbelievably hard to cover “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin AND showcases “Orinoco Flow” by Enya in the most ironic and inappropriate moment since the “Stuck in the Middle with You” scene in Q. Tarentino’s Reservoir Dogs (Google it on an empty stomach) is pretty much destined to be a good flick.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a good flick. I might go so far as to say a great flick. At the very least, Rooney Mara deserves a nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Dramatic Film. When I see a movie based on a novel I’ve read, one criteria for me is how much do the actors match the images of the characters I’ve created in my imagination. Mara’s portrayal of the brilliant and haunted Lisbeth Salander is closer than any character from any novel based movie I’ve ever seen. It’s like Mara read the novel then somehow absorbed Salander into her soul. Her eyes, her mannerisms, her genius all glare off the screen. She is a character who cannot and will not be ignored.

The rest of the cast are well suited to their roles also. Stellan Staarsgard is particularly gripping in his role as the dutiful and enigmatic Martin Vanger while Christopher Plummer lends his character acting mastery to the role of the grief broken Heinrick Vanger. Personally, two of my favorite performances were minor characters. I thought Steven Berkoff perfectly captured the role of the harried lawyer who is so deeply enmeshed in the family that he pretty much IS a member of the family while Goran Visjinic captures Dragan Armansky’s touching paternalistic solicitude of Lisbeth with pitch perfect precision. When he says, “She’s had a difficult life, can we please not make it any MORE difficult?” the audience gets the sense of a man who cares deeply for a wounded and troubled girl but who has no fleshly interest in her whatsoever.

This film is R rated and it has good reason. Some R rated films, particularly raunchy comedies like The Hangover might be okay for your kids to watch once you realize they hear worse language and cruder humor in the cafeteria and on the playground of the average public school. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t really have much in the way of bad language. For a modern film the characters drop very few F-bombs but unless you want to explain what cunnilingus is, leave the kiddos home. What the characters do, however, is see life at it’s seamiest and most brutal. One rape scene in the first third of the film is extremely disturbing as is the revenge the raped takes upon the rapist. Consensual sex is shown graphically, but not frequently although you probably don’t want to take a first date to this show;  oh yeah, and if you’re an animal lover, don’t get attached to the cat.

As with any novel based movie, the question always arises “how faithful to the novel is the movie?” In this case, I feel David Fincher has done for Steig Larson’s work what Peter Jackson did for Tolkien’s corpus. The movie has some rearranging of events to better fit a movie and some events are changed for what seems like monetary or time concerns, but on the whole, the story is remarkably unchanged from the novel. I find that to be a plus, but some people may not really care. If you are a Larson fan, however, this movie won’t disappoint you and I think Larson himself would be proud of the way his debut novel has been brought to the screen.

Incidentally, I know this is a remake of the Swedish film of the same name from just a couple of years ago and since I reviewed Sherlock Holmes 2 so recently, I can’t help but mention that Noomi Rapace, who played the female lead in SH 2 also played Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish film. I’d love to hear from anyone who has seen the original and would like to tell my audience how the two versions compare.

Sherlock Holmes 2 is Exceedingly Well Done

If you haven’t been to see Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows, by all means go see it before it leaves the theaters. Budge and I went to see it yesterday with one of the many movie gift cards we acquired at Christmas and I was completely pleased with the movie as a whole. I realize some people — particularly movie snobs — will think I’m daft, but this film was crafted well enough and cast well enough to be considered for an Oscar. Now I have no delusions of it even being nominated, but if it does get on the slate, it will be the biggest Hollywood coup since Shakespeare in Love topped Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture.

As far as the cast, no one in Hollywood plays a manic dissolute independently wealthy hero as well as Robert Downey, Jr. I am somewhat biased in favor of Mr. Downey, I must confess, because I love to root for the underdog and not very long ago, RDJ was considered, rightly, by many in Hollywood as a washed up has been whose taste for alcohol and drugs had derailed a promising career. I think he has channeled some of that real world skid row gutter experience into characters like the alcoholic Tony Stark and the cocaine addicted Sherlock Holmes to bring a dimension to the screen other actors would be hard pressed to duplicate.

Jude Law as Watson comes across as anything but a sidekick second banana. Far from just a sober baseline foil for Holmes’ mania, Law plays the retired army surgeon as a concerned friend and worthy successor to Holmes’ masterful detective work. He also shows an audience how to help an addict but avoid the pitfalls of co-dependence. Jared Harris also gives a masterful performance as the brilliant but depraved Professor Moriarty — the one man whose intellect and powers of planning are a match, if not quite superior to Holmes’ own skills. When Harris and Downey share the screen, the air fairly crackles with the tension of two brilliant narcissistic geniuses crossing razor sharp intellects.

One particularly good part of this movie that I noticed and I hope others do as well is the marvelous music played throughout the film. From the somber strains of Don Giovanni to the lively wailing of an Irish fiddle, the music is ever-present and ever-changing but always maintaining a goal of helping move the action forward. I don’t know if the studio will release a soundtrack, but I for one would welcome it.

To sum up, this sequel is every bit as good as the first film and for my part attains the rare pedestal held by other second runs like Terminator 2 as even a measure superior to the original. It is more than just an action flick. It is a thinking person’s movie and it is loaded with great lines, great performances, and great music.

Wikipedia: Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr. →

Of Meyers and Monkeys

Budge and Deuce are at a late showing of the newest “must see” cinema attraction, the long awaited epic screen adaptation of . . . Breaking Dawn, part 1. Really, they are. This was one movie Budge didn’t even bother to ask me to take her to see because my beloved and longsuffering wife knows that frost will form on the hinges of Hell ere this little duck pays to see vampires sparkle.

We're working on it, Ms. Meyer.

 

“Vampires sparkle.” Just typing that phrase threatens to make all my lovely Chickpea Chicken supper suddenly reappear.

At this juncture, I want to state for the record that I am all too intimately aware that Ms. Meyers has sold more novels in a day than I have or very likely ever will have sold in my entire hypothetical lifetime. I know this. I also know that the aforementioned Ms. Meyers now has more money in book sales, licensed merchandise, and movie royalties than the GNP of SEVERAL smaller nations. I realize this, I admit this, and I submit ONE reason in my defense that I am not simply spouting about sour grapes as an unpublished and unpopular writer.

My reason, in the words of a fine Baptist preacher named Charles H. Spurgeon, is “A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog.”  Ms. Meyers can get richer than Solomon by selling more books than the Bible and it will not change the fact her magnum opus is as well-written as the assembly instructions for a piece of IKEA furniture.

For starters, Mrs. Bella Cullen (nee‘ Swan) is THE most insipid, weak, and pablum sipping “heroine” since Pollyanna. Why ANYONE, let alone two supernatural beings the likes of Sparkles and Lassie would be willing to grant her a moment’s glance is beyond me. I find it appalling so many young girls and GROWN WOMEN think of Bella as a suitable role model. Her craven, driveling character sets the cause of women’s rights back to the Victorian Era at best.

Secondly, the works rely on every stereotype known to feeble literature. The vampire is “charming?” Well, thank you Mr. Stoker, oh, I meant Ms. Meyers. An American Indian (or other rustic native) is a shapeshifter? Really? That trope hasn’t been used since, oh, I don’t know . . . Underworld? (And incidentally, Kate Beckinsale on her WORST day is blazingly hotter than Kristen Stewart in full wedding array.)

Thirdly, the books have more plot holes than Danish lace. A “family” that never ages lives in the same vicinity off and on for two centuries or so? GROWN VAMPIRES go to high school regularly? Well, Ms. Meyer obviously never went to high school biology class because if she did, she’d know that, by her OWN admission, vampire blood does not circulate in a vampire’s body. Since the blood doesn’t move, neither does Edward’s “little fang”. Hard to figure out where little Reneesme came from, now isn’t it?

Finally, and most importantly, Meyer ignores over 1,000 years of written eldritch history and supernatural lore. If she had one iota of respect for the tons of work that came before her she would know that VAMPIRES. DO. NOT. SPARKLE!!

Vampires die in the Sun. They burst into flames and blow away on the cold wind of irony and unrequited love!

THEY. DO. NOT. SPARKLE!!

So yes, Stephanie Meyer has raked in the dough and proven the Infinite Monkey Theorem in the process. She has followed in the footsteps of another nouveau riche female writer, J.K. Rowling. They both have truckloads of money and shiploads of fame. Of course, Rowling is twice the writer Meyer is, and I despise Rowling as well — for other, more esoteric reasons.

I think no less a literary figure than Stephen King says it best. On comparing Bella and Harry, the King of Horror himself says, “Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”

And if he’d thought about it some more, you know what else he would have said?

VAMPIRES. DO. NOT. SPARKLE!!

Love y’all. Keep those feet clean and just say no to sparkly vampires!

This is all that gives me hope.

 

Cowboys and Aliens is Worth Seeing

Okay, a movie has to be able to hold a lot of weight to be the kickoff for a 15th anniversary celebration. Cowboys and Aliens delivered nicely. Budge and I made a last-minute decision to skip Captain America in favor of Cowboys and Aliens mostly because the latter fit better into our evening dinner schedule, but also because I am a Cap Am fan and I always dread movies about my favorite heroes because I always end up getting one of two extremes — Iron Man or the first Incredible Hulk. In other words the movie is either outstanding or wretched. Of course, critics and other viewers may love comic book movies that I hate (e.g. X-Men: First Class), but they are watching a movie while I am watching over 40 years of canon, origins, and history slaughtered.

It’s not easy being a fanboy, but someone has to do it.

So Cowboys and Aliens is great. It starts interesting and finishes strong. In between is a strong enough plot to keep the viewers guessing and if that isn’t enough, well . . . the ladies can stare deeply into Daniel Craig’s sky blue eyes. (Parenthetically, while I am most definitely straight with absolutely no homosexual tendencies, I must admit that Daniel Craig is one well put together man.) He also does a fantastic job carrying the movie’s lead role.

If you are staying away from this movie because you had the misfortune of losing two hours of your life to the egregiously nauseating cheesiness that was Will Smith’s Wild Wild West, DON’T! This is not a cheesy or campy movie. It is a luxurious cinematic fusion of two genres — Western and Sci-fi. Yes, aliens invade a small town in the Old West, but that is as far as you must suspend disbelief. The aliens have vastly and overwhelmingly superior technology. The cowboys and their Apache allies have Winchester rifles, Henry Repeaters, and Walker Colt revolvers with some stone point arrows and a few Apache lances tossed in for good measure. The aliens are effectively bulletproof . So this isn’t about a bunch of sharpshooting Texans saving the day OR the magical “discovery” that aliens computers have the exact same programming language as Earth computers so a hastily written virus will bring down the mothership. The good guys do have ONE of the alien’s weapons and Daniel Craig’s character comes by it quite plausibly during his escape from his initial alien capture. It helps, but from the first you know that single weapon won’t defeat this marauding bunch of extraterrestrials.

What carries the movie is the story of a group of people determined to get their people back from these invaders regardless of how hard (basically impossible) that task might be. Characters are deep, especially Harrison Ford’s turn as a hard-bitten Mexican and Civil War veteran who “despises battle, but refuses to run from it.” Daniel Craig’s amnesiac gunslinger character is also intriguing BECAUSE of his amnesia.

This movie is definitely worth seeing. It is as plausible a sci-fi flick as you’ll find. The aliens even obey the laws of physics and at no time do they speak English. It’s also full of memorable lines like, “Do you want to spend your last hours drunk on some beach in Mexico — which, by the way, is NOT a bad plan — or do you want to ride with me one last time?” Finally, it doesn’t succumb to a full-bore Hollywood ending, which I found refreshing.

Go see it. I bet you’ll like it.

Love ya’ll and keep those feet clean.

“The Fighter” isn’t about Boxing

Well, it is, but that’s not the real story. The REAL story is the story of a family and this bunch takes ALL the “fun” out of “dysfunctional.”

Mark Wahlberg stars in this touching and realistic homage to his real life friend, boxer and fellow Bay Stater “Irish” Micky Ward. Both Ward and Wahlberg hail from HUGE Catholic families and both have advanced degrees from the prestigious University of Hard Knocks — Real Life Campus.

The film is very good and the boxing alone makes it worth seeing, but the real story is a once-promising older brother trapped in the haze of drugs and eternally reliving his one glorious moment in the spotlight AND a still promising baby brother of the family emotionally ripped in two by a childlike adoration for his older brother and an earnest desire to “make it” as a boxer in the way the older sibling never could. This movie is an Oscar vehicle and rightly so. Wahlberg turn in a terrific performance as Micky Ward, but Christian Bale is remarkable as the drug addicted, past his prime, Dickie Ecklund.

The best fights in the movie are not in the ring. They are in the living room and kitchen of the Ecklund family home, on the porch of Micky’s girlfriend’s apartment building, and, at one point, in the middle of a Lowell street. Micky is caught in the trap so many young men are when they genuine love their sprawling and brawling families but have come to realize the toxicity of that atmosphere is killing any chance at a real future. As I’ve stated on this blog before, love can smother, wound, and even kill with all the best of intentions.

The women of the film put in fantastic performances, from Micky and Dickie’s mother Alice, who has no idea just how much she favors Dickie over Micky, as well as seven of the raunchiest, ugliest, and most brutal sisters to ever grace the silver screen. Growing up in this household, it’s no wonder Micky Ward eventually won a boxing world title — he had to root hog or die just to get a place at the dining room table and sparring partners abounded, even if they were mostly female.

I was leery of dropping $20 for two tickets on this flick at first, but I can honestly say it was extremely well acted, well scripted and enjoyable. See it. You won’t be disappointed.

Season of the Witch = What I’d Expected

Budge and I didn’t buy tickets to Season of the Witch expecting we’d be viewing an Oscar vehicle and we weren’t disappointed. We went to see this sword and sorcery flick because we both like Nic Cage and I particularly like Ron Perlman. Once again, no disappointment.

This was a movie that gave what it promised, a two hour escape from reality with a clear good guy(s) to root for and an ambiguous to increasingly clear bad guy to boo and hiss. The film accomplished its mission with alacrity and style. I liked it; as did Budge. I am a HUGE fantasy fan and while this wasn’t my beloved Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, it wasn’t the worst fantasy movie I’ve ever seen by a long shot.  Nothing at all like, oh say, Bloodrayne or King’s Quest.

In brief, Nic and Ron are two burned out Crusader knights who hack and slash across the known world killing all enemies who would oppose God’s holy Church. Best line of the whole movie? In the middle of ANOTHER huge fight, Ron Perlman’s characters says to Nic’s, “Is it just me or does God have too many enemies?” With the typical deadpan we’ve come to expect since Con Air, Nic’s character replies, “I don’t know about that, but being his friend isn’t much better apparently.”

Anyway, these two erstwhile friends are fiercely loyal to each other so when Nic accidentally skewers a young girl on a smoky battlefield and tells the priest / general he quits, Perlman walks out right behind him. Unfortunately, leaving the Crusade is tantamount to desertion and the medieval church frowned upon desertion. The two are arrested in a plague stricken town and given a choice by the dying head priest of that town — deliver a young girl who is a confessed witch to an abbey of monks for trial, or face hanging or burning at the stake.

Well, that’s not much of a choice for a couple of Dark Age original gangsters like these two so they take the offer and accompanied by a few companions, set off with titular witch encaged in a wagon. Dark forests, wolves, plague ravaged villages, you know, basic fantasy stuff. Generally, mayhem ensues.

So, this isn’t a movie that’ll win an Oscar, but it’s a terrific way to spend the afternoon with a significant other.

Love y’all and keep your feet clean.

Tron Legacy is Eye Candy!

I love what Budge said as we left our viewing of Tron: Legacy in IMAX-3D, “Jeff Bridges does a great job of capturing a guy lost in the late ’80s.” Since she was in elementary school in the “late 80s”, I’m not sure how she knows this . . . but she’s right. HA!

My favorite line of the movie — Flynn, Sr to Flynn, Jr: “You’re really messing with my Zen thing, man!”

I was in elementary school when the original Tron showed at the now-paved-over-with-a-parking-lot Oaks Theater in Laurens, and it was one of the movies (along with Star Wars IV, V, and VI) that made me into a sci-fi / fantasy geek. You always worry when someone remakes one of your childhood landmark events, but the guys behind this sequel did a great job filling in the intervening twenty years and bringing us up to speed with some plausible (for a sci-fi flick) reasons for Flynn’s captivity in the machine. Of course, some other areas, like how “digital” food keeps carbon based life forms alive for all those years are a bit lacking, but at least it’s not Jar-Jar Binks!

The story was interesting, but no one came to an IMAX 3D theater for a STORY. This movie is a special effects dream. As incredible as it sounds, Tron: Legacy was my first IMAX movie and I’m completely spoiled now. The picture is beyond explanation, but the SOUND!!

I want to see Handel’s Messiah on-screen in an IMAX now.

But I digress in rapture at the medium rather than the media . . .

The movie is one of those shows you need to see at the movies. Some movies don’t lose much from the big screen to DVD, but this one will. I don’t care that you have an LCD the size of your living room wall and home theater surround sound . . . it ain’t IMAX and those lightcycles won’t look the same otherwise.

In short, if you, too, were an 80′s child and have an old TRS-80 or Commodore-64 in the attic, you won’t be disappointed in Tron: Legacy. It doesn’t run rough-shod over your childhood and it’s a ball of fun to watch.