The Scoop: 2009, R.  Directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and Nathalie Boltt

Tagline: You are not welcome here

Summary Capsule: (Bleep) phoning home.  Christopher Johnson wants to go there.

Lissa’s Rating: 10 cans of cat food

Lissa’s Review: I have to be honest- I’d heard nothing about District 9 until a few weeks back, when all of a sudden the worlds I inhabit on the internet exploded with how awesome this movie was.  Couple the internet buzz with a certain weekly entertainment magazine (gee, wonder which one I mean?) actually giving the movie an A, and I was genuinely curious.  Put in “apartheid allegory in a sci-fi setting”, and when I had a chance to see a movie for the first time in months, I took my 8.50 and got a ticket to see District Nine, not Harry Potter.

And I don’t regret it one little bit.  It was that good.

I don’t want to say a whole lot about the movie, because frankly, it’s best that way.  Previews these days seem to tell too much, and when you have the impression you’ve already seen the movie, what’s the fun in that?  So, let’s see… plot summary.  Aliens- and really ugly ones, too, none of these near-human elf-like types- land on Earth.  And they’re in trouble, malnourished, and their technology is broken.  As a result, the aliens are stuck on Earth.  And Earth… well, let’s just say that it’s a fairly cynical take on how the people of Earth respond to that situation, and sadly, probably pretty realistic.

How much do I love this movie?  Let me make you a list, because it needs one.

1.) I love that this movie took place in South Africa.  Wait, you mean the aliens didn’t land over Manhattan or DC?  There are OTHER places in the world?  That’s right!  Right there we have a major cliché buster.

2.) I loved that the main character Wikus was actually complicated.  He was kind of pathetic in his way, so I had an underdog vibe going for him.  He was good at his job, really.  He was prejudiced against the aliens, in a way that generally seemed realistic but at one point made me literally almost throw up.  He had a sort of charisma… and yet a humanity that was rather repulsive, too.  Awesome character.

3.) The little kid actually wasn’t annoying.

4.) The character of Christopher Johnson was interesting, and again, a cliché buster.  It was amazing how much emotion they could convey through a mask and CGI.

5.) Where did the aliens come from?  What was their home world like?  What was their culture like?  Couldn’t tell ya, and I loved that.  I’m so glad they never filled those gaps in, because it really works for this movie, and filling them in would have been a mistake.

6.) I loved the relationship between Wikus and his wife.  It was such a humanizing aspect, making it so clear that just because someone can be a jerk in one area of life doesn’t mean they are without any redemption.

7.) The movie sure didn’t pull any punches, and oh, some of it hurt.  There was one scene I nearly lost my lunch, not because of the gore, but because of what was being said.  And what hurt was that I’m positive that would be the attitude if this situation was real.  A souvenir, indeed.

8.) I love the fact that this movie was done on a small budget.  If you really sit down and think about it, it shows.  Aside from the aliens, there aren’t a ton of effects, and they keep to a very few locations.  I’ve never heard of any of the actors before.  But it doesn’t look cheap- it just looks real.

9.) The aliens actually had distinct personalities.  Go figure.

10.) I love that this movie took a message that could have come out as something that’s been said time and time again, and yet it didn’t.  Yes, this was a movie that urges us to open our eyes to how we treat others different from ourselves, and how terrible humanity can really be.  But the message was delivered in a creative, entertaining way, and while it came through strong and clear, the movie didn’t whack you over the head with it, either.

In fact, it’s that last thing that really made me enjoy the movie.  I read an interview with Neill Blomkamp, the director and creator of the film, and he said something to the effect of he didn’t want to make a story with a message, but tell a story in a way that might really happen.  He accomplished that, and that’s precisely what makes this movie so incredibly good.

This one’s a must see, folks.

"Hi. Have you heard of this fantastic company called Amway?"

Intermission:

All the shacks in District 9 were actual shacks that exists in a section of Johannesburg which were to be evacuated and the residents moved to better government housing, paralleling the events in the film. Also paralleling, the residents had not actually been moved out before filming began. The only shack that was created solely for filming was Christopher Johnson’s shack.

The idea of the prawns being obsessed with cat food came from two inspirations. In impoverished areas of Johannesburg, Neill Blomkamp would see people selling cheese poofs and other snack foods out of large 3-foot tall bags and wanted the aliens to have a similar cheap food. The decision to make them cat food came from one of the producers who used canned cat food to bait hooks when fishing for prawns in Vancouver.

Groovy Quotes

Automated MNU Voice: When dealing with aliens, try to be polite, but firm. And always remember that a smile is cheaper than a bullet.

Wikus Van De Merwe: [Points out Alien graffiti] This is basically a guy, and there’s 3 humans here, basically trying to make a warning, you know, saying “I kill 3 humans, watch out for me.”

James Hope – Police Officer: I mean, you can’t say they don’t look like that, that’s what they look like, right? They look like prawns.

Wikus Van De Merwe: Could you go a bit slower with the clicks there, it sounded like you said *three years*…

Wikus Van De Merwe: This whole’s thing’s under your shack? For 20 years, you’ve had this thing hidden out here? This is, this is very illegal, I mean, this is… this is a fine.

Christopher Johnson: I thought you said not to kill them?
Wikus Van De Merwe: He shot at me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try:

• Children of Men
• Men in Black
• The Power of One

The Scoop: 2009, PG, directed by P.J. Hogan, and starring Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, and Krysten Ritter

Tagline: All she ever wanted was a little credit…

Summary Capsule: Pretty girl shops too much, writes about saving money, and falls in love along the way. Yeah, you men know you want to see this one.

Lissa’s Rating: If only getting a writing job was really that easy….

Lissa’s Review: So, we live near this mall. The King of Prussia Mall. It’s not just any mall. It’s a huge, giant, hundreds-of-stores mall. And, like lots of girls, I enjoy shopping so I go there when I get a chance. But this mall is different from the ones I grew up with. This mall has the designer stores: Louis Vitton, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Hermes, Coach, and Neiman Marcus, to name a few. You know- the kind where there are only a few items on tasteful display and when you walk in, the salesladies kind of look at you and wonder “what the heck are you doing in here?” (Or at least, that’s what I imagine they’re wondering.) Granted, I never go into these stores, with one big exception.

Neiman Marcus has the nicest bathroom in the entire King of Prussia mall. It also has a mothers’ room, with comfy chairs and places to sit, and a low traffic flow. And the toilets are generally clean. It’s a great place to set your bare butt or to feed a baby, and it’s my bathroom of choice, followed by the ones in Nordstrom’s and Bloomingdale’s- two other stores I never actually patronize. Anyway, whenever I walk through Neiman Marcus to get to their mecca of a bathroom, I find myself glancing at price tags, just for the fun of it. And as hard as I’ve tried (which, admittedly, is not very hard), I’ve never found anything with less than three digits before the decimal place.

I have to confess, I don’t get it. I mean, I do get why people spend more than my mother would on clothes. My mom would die if she ever knew how much I spent on bras, but a good bra makes all the difference in the world. I’ll pay reasonable money for jeans, or for a coat, and I will always get the best running shoes possible, no matter what the price tag says. And I appreciate that some stores sell better quality merchandise than others. However, even when I go to the King of Prussia mall determined to spend a little money on myself, nine times out of ten I end up back at J.C. Penney’s.  I certainly don’t understand how people could spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on an item of clothing (erm, unless it’s a wedding dress).

The thing is – and this is a fairly ugly confession – I do judge women by the clothing they wear. I see a woman in designer clothing, and I’m almost positive we will not be friends. I’ve made progress on this – there was a time I was convinced every woman in designer clothing was a Mean Girl. But I’ve learned that’s not true, and now I’m just convinced that we won’t have much in common. There is a definite stereotype that comes with high fashion, and I certainly follow it, whether it’s right to do so or not.

So Confessions of a Shopaholic already had one big strike against it: I wasn’t sure I’d be able to empathize with the heroine. Strike number two was that it was a romantic comedy. I have nothing against a good romantic comedy, but those elusive beasts are few and far between. And strike three was that it was a total chick flick, so getting my Y-chromosomed husband to watch it was completely out of the question. But he traveled and I needed a girly fix (and a movie to review), so I bought it from On Demand, grabbed some chocolate, and watched.

It was an odd movie. The basic premise is that Becky (Isla Fisher), an aspiring fashion journalist, gets a job writing a column for a financial magazine. Her column becomes incredibly popular because she actually writes about money in terms that non-economists can understand, despite the fact that she doesn’t take any of her own good advice. Becky is a shopaholic, and that dependence on shopping actually impacts her life in terms of debt, her relationships, and her career. And, of course, as this is all a romantic comedy, mushed in with all this is the fact that she meets the man of her dreams.

As a romantic comedy, frankly, it sucks. I can suspend disbelief to a point, but I couldn’t here. A girl gets involved with her boss and everyone smiles indulgently? No one ever points out to either of them what an incredibly bad idea this is? And of course we have the obligatory misunderstanding, the bonding montage, the dramatic reclaiming (although it wasn’t so bad on that one)… it just… no. Everything you hate about romantic comedies? It’s here.

But.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is two movies rolled into one, and if they’d cut out the romantic comedy part and kept the parts about Becky actually being a shopaholic and addicted to the thrill of acquisition, it could have been a reasonably good movie. I know an addiction to shopping seems laughable, but as someone who’s battled with compulsive eating for years can tell you, not all addictions are gritty and needle-injected or alcoholic. But I have to admit, I kind of snorted at the idea of shopping being an addiction as well. Then I started listening to what they were saying, and I started getting it. Shopping isn’t an addiction for me, but I certainly have those days when I feel like only a brownie can make me feel better, and it does… for a few minutes. And then it wears off and if you aren’t careful, the urge comes back again and again and again… So yeah. I really, really got that part of the movie, and it was fairly well done.

In addition to the addiction storyline, I really, really liked the friendship between Rebecca and her best friend Suze. Aside from the fact that they actually acted like friends, I actually kind of really liked both girls. Suze (Krysten Ritter) comes across as a ditz but genuinely sweet and truly caring for her friend Rebecca, and Rebecca is just… I mean, I didn’t want to like her. I totally want to mock her, I really do. But Isla Fisher has this odd charm that’s half Clueless-era Alicia Silverstone, half Amy-Adams, and she’s really kind of funny and adorable and I can’t quite point and mock because she really did do a good job.

But although there was some good in here, the romance part really kind of overwhelmed it. I found myself cringing in horror more often than I was laughing, and I am quite sure I will forget this movie very quickly. (At least, there are parts that I’m really hoping so.) If you’re a fan of the book, it might be worth it to you, but otherwise, give this one a pass, even if you’re looking for a girly movie. There are definitely better ones out there.

Cruella D'Ville's dream coat finally hits the stores.

Didja Notice?

• Rebecca’s insult of the Finnish advertiser is actually quite clever. If he says she mistranslated what he was saying or that she’s lying, it’s hard to know if he’s telling the truth or covering his own behind.
• There are actually some funny spots. Wow.
• John Goodman and Joan Cusack make a very entertaining married couple.
• But apparently she had her daughter when she was 14.

Is It Worth Staying Through the End Credits?

Nope

Groovy Quotes:

Rebecca Bloomwood: When I was 7 most of my friends stopped believing in magic. That’s when I first started. They were beautiful, they were happy. They didn’t even need any money, they had magic cards.

Rebecca Bloomwood: When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it’s not, and I need to do it again.

Rebecca Bloomwood: Men like you are the reason I left Finland.

Rebecca Bloomwood: They said I was a valued customer. Now they send me hate mail.

Tarquin: Why do so many of your excuses involve Finland?

Rebecca Bloomwood: Because nobody checks up on Finland, Tarkie.

Graham Bloomwood: Your mother and I think that if the American economy can be billions in debt and still survive, so can you.

If You Liked this, Try:

• Clueless
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Legally Blonde

The Scoop: 2009, Directed by Jeffrey Reiner  and starring Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, and Paula Malcomson

Tagline: “The battle for humanity has a beginning.”

Summary Capsule: A teenage girl thinks her father doesn’t know all that much… and boy, in this case she’s right.

Lissa’s Rating: By… your… command….

Lissa’s Review: Once upon a time, I was a Harry Potter geek.  And when I say geek, I mean it.  I could kick anyone’s butt at trivia.  I knew what a kappa was and how it was different from a grindylow, the name of Fleur Delacoeur’s little sister, and Harry’s full course schedule for each semester.  I was in the fandom, and I read the books the second they were in my hands and I saw the movies the week they came out.  The only things I never did were attend a midnight release party or go to a convention.  And don’t get me wrong when I use the past tense – I still love Harry and his friends.  But the story came to an end, and I no longer need to know what happened next.  Sure, I had issues with aspects of Deathly Hallows – that’s part of being a fan, you get to blow stuff out of proportion.  But the story definitely ended, and I truly felt like it had done so.  And given that I was still at home and still had my mind wandering into fantasy realms, I got turned on to Battlestar Galactica.

It’s not a secret, I think, that I love Battlestar Galactica as much as I loved Harry Potter.  It’s a great series with a lot of room for speculation.  And it had that lethal combination of characterization and mystery – I got invested in the characters and I HAD to know what happened next.  It was one of those series where so much depended on this huge, intriguing backstory that strongly influenced the present day.  During Season 4.5, you just did not call this house at 10:00 on a Friday night.

However, also like Harry Potter, Battlestar Galactica has come to an end.  And yes, I had Issues with the finale (how much more literal of a deus ex machina can we get?) and with the whole last season (Deadlocked, would it have killed someone to pin a few pictures on the Wall?).  But at the same time, I was satisfied that the story of Adama, Roslin, and their ragtag Fleet had ended, and although I might not love how everything was handled, I didn’t need to know what happened next.  As far as I was concerned, this show was done.

Reopening canon because a sticky prospect after you’ve wrapped.  Aside from obnoxious fans like myself that will complain if you contradict yourself, you have to deal with the audience’s sense of closure.  Going back and revisiting stories doesn’t often work.  As much as fans might want more, sometimes it’s best to let things lie.  But if you must play in your same universe, it’s best to remove yourself from the story you were telling.

Enter the pilot for Caprica, Ron Moore’s new show.

Instead of focusing on the story of the Battlestar Galactica, Moore steps back in time forty years, back before the first Cylon war to the creation of the Cylons.  Instead of the military, the pilot focuses on a computer mogul Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz) and his wife and daughter.  However, to tie it in to the Battlestar Galactica world we all know and love, we also meet Joseph Adama (Esai Morales), a lawyer being dragged into the world of organized crime and raising his pre-teen son Bill.  The two families are brought together by a terrorist attack that takes place on a train, costing both fathers their daughters.  Along they way, they invent Cylons and probably sell their souls.

I have to admit, I was kind of dubious.  The last half season of Battlestar Galactica had some awesome moments, but it had some episodes I despised.  (Did I mention Deadlocked yet?)  And like I said, I wasn’t thrilled with the finale, especially on reflection.  Did I want to go back to the world of RDM, or had he lost all his fire?  Had he used up all his ideas?  I kind of got that feeling at times.

Well, I think he did lose his fire for Battlestar Galactica, but not for Caprica.  If this series actually makes it on the stupidly renamed SyFy (really?  They were worried about appearing geeky?  On a SCI FI channel?), I’ll be watching.

As a stand-alone movie, Caprica doesn’t particularly satisfy.  I don’t mean that in terms of having watched Battlestar Galactica, but it’s most definitely a pilot.  The ending leaves you wanting more.  Which, since this IS a pilot for a TV series, is a good thing.  And right now, I’m pleased with how the two series are tying together.  It’s interesting to see some of the politics and infighting, not to mention the culture that we really haven’t seen because it was lost in the miniseries.  There are very few spaceships, and even as the budget increases I don’t anticipate there being many more, but if you liked the Laura Roslin side of things, that shouldn’t bother you too much.  Plus, this being RDM, I’m sure he’ll find a way to cram in plenty of sex and violence, even without space porn.  Just say V-Club.

That said, although I appreciate the bits and pieces that make this the same universe, I have to say, don’t fall into George Lucas’s trap, Ron.  Which one specifically?  The one where the eight most important people in the first movies all turn out to have known each other or be related to each other previously.  Seeing a young William Adama in Caprica is fine, especially as Joseph Adama was a part of the BSG canon.  And I don’t mind a reference to the Lampkin family, as again, it’s canon that Romo Lampkin knew Joseph Adama.  But that’s it.  I don’t want to see Bill Adama exchange portentous glimpses with a young Laura Roslin or declare to his father “I’ll never like her.”  I don’t want to see the Thrace family brought in, I don’t want to see an Agathon as one of Greystone’s employees, I don’t want to see a Gaeta family member clerking for Adama.  Given how huge the Colonies were and how many billions of people were killed and how many thousands of people survived, just no.  Hopefully, Ron Moore is smart enough to realize this.

However, there were some things that tied into events on BSG, and I really appreciated those.  For example, the whole monotheistic cult?  Yeah, that was actually already going on Caprica.  I liked that, because during the show, it basically looked like the people believing in the one true God were adapting the Cylon religion.  Crazier things have happened, I’m sure, and given that the Cylons were winning, I could see the appeal of worshiping their God.  But it made more sense to me that it was a movement that had started on the Colonies and extended to the survivors.  Little things like that… they might be retcons, but when they work, they’re good.

Anyway, the storyline was intriguing and the characters were the shades of gray that Ron Moore likes so much, and overall, I was impressed enough that I’ll watch.  Granted, it helps that BSG is off the air, Heroes has been mostly sucking, and LOST utterly confusing.  Right now, the only sci-fi show I’ve found worth watching his been Fringe.  (Well, once we’re past the summer, anyway.)  But Ron Moore’s got to be extremely careful.  Not only does he have extremely rabid fans and a big task ahead of him, it doesn’t take a genius to start calling Caprica “Craprica”.   When you’ve got a built-in insult like that, your show had better not suck.

It’s not enough for a TV show to be watched; it must be worthy of being watched.  So say we all.

Didja Notice?

• Little Bill Adama eating ice cream.  Come on- it is kind of cute.  (Hope he brushes his teeth after.)
• Maybe not all the One True God people will be hot young women.
• How much of the virtual club will get edited before this is broadcast?
• Bear McCreary, who scored BSG, is also scoring Caprica.

Groovy Quotes:

Zoe Greystone:  I’m not a person, I know it. But I feel like one.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Battlestar Galactica (the series)
• The Matrix
• Gattaca

“The wise and powerful Jabba has one more small condition: he demands you bring back the slime who kidnapped his little…punky muffin.”

Tagline: No tagline

Summary Capsule: Anakin, Obi-Wan and friends fight battle droids a lot. Also, Dooku.

Lissa’s Rating: At least I don’t call my kids punky muffin.

Lissa’s Review: I’m a child of the seventies and eighties, and like pretty much everyone else from that era, I love Star Wars. Sure, it’s not pure brilliance in terms of acting, story, cinematics (these days), or anything else, but it’s Star Wars. And like all of us, I had my heart broken by the prequels. But note I went to all three anyway.

However, as much as I like Star Wars, I’m not all that into it. I’ve only ever read one of the novelizations, and I’ve never read any of the tie-in novels, although I’ve heard that some of them are quite good. I don’t write fanfiction for it. (And given that I do actually write the stuff for a couple of other franchises, that’s actually a good indication of my interest level.) Basically, I pretty much stopped at the six movies. But the other day I had an opportunity to see The Clone Wars for free and entertain my offspring at the same time (yay, Regal Family Film Festival!), so we went. And I learned a few things:

1.) Exposition can be really annoying.

Since the movie is geared at kids, I get why they didn’t do the traditional introductory scroll. When your target audience either can’t read or is still sounding out words like “pickles”, tossing words like “separatists” or “Federation” or made-up alien names at them just isn’t the most effective means of conveying information. But at the same time, having Obi-Wan or Anikan reiterate the plot in a “as you know, we are pinned down by the enemy and are now sending for more reinforcements” sort of voice can get a tad… tedious.

2.) It’s really obvious how much of the prequel movies was CGI.

People done in computer-generated animation still have that weird, stick-like look to them, no matter what movie you watch. However, robots and backgrounds look fantastic. While Anikan, Obi-Wan, and any other humans looked a little… funny… the battle droids and the settings looked almost exactly like they did in the prequel movies. Yeah, we all knew George Lucas was more concerned with flash over story, but this REALLY showed it up.

3.) But the Jedi have REALLY cool powers.

This was one area where CGI actually did benefit. Seventies/early eighties effects being what they were, we all could appreciate that light sabers were cool and Jedi were supposed to be powerful, but watching in animation… this was the first time I really saw how having a Jedi around was more of a threat than having a samurai around. Before, they were just guys with cool sticks that could throw things around with their minds. This time, I really got it.

4.) There are ways to make Anakin Skywalker less annoying.

Yes! It’s true! The first? Don’t give him any romantic dialogue. I actually liked the Anakin/Padme romantic hints in this one. But second, give him a sidekick more annoying than he is, and I promise he will start being less annoying simply by comparison. Ahsoka was easily one of the most annoying sidekicks in cinematic history, and wow, I wanted to smack her pretty much every time she opened her mouth.

5.) The majority of the kids of today aren’t as bad as everyone makes them out to be.

But the thing is, she was just annoying. She wasn’t actually bad – just a total know-it-all Mary Sue of a character. But actually, the real reason I had this point was because we were in a packed movie theater with 2/3 of the seats occupied by people under 10. And the behavior was amazing, and I mean that in a good way. Sure, it wasn’t silent, and sure, some of them got restless. But no popcorn throwing, no gum spitting or spitball fights, and the kids were relatively quiet. I was impressed.

6.) Hutts have sex.

It’s a repulsive image, yes, but apparently, it’s true.

The first way we find this out is that Jabba the Hutt has procreated. Someone has kidnapped his infant son “Punky muffin”, and it’s up to the Jedi to get him back. Of course, the fact that we never see a Mrs. The Hutt could imply that Hutts reproduce asexually, and Punky just split off from Jabba one day. However, then you have Ziro.

Okay, who the heck came up with Ziro the Hutt, and what decade do they think it is???? We’re supposed to be making strides forward in the way we view the homosexual community, not strides back. It’s not that I object to a gay villain, per se, but for crying out loud, could he have BEEN any more of a stereotype? Lots of pink, feathers, a lisp… head, meet desk. I’m normally willing to cut a lot of slack, but on this one… no. There is no WAY they couldn’t have known what they were doing.

7.) Not only did The Clone Wars fail at LBGT issues, it failed at gender issues.

Ah, gender issues in scifi. The thing is, I usually wouldn’t accuse Star Wars of having them. For the time period, Princess Leia was pretty forward in terms of butt kickers. Yes, she needed saving, but so did Luke and Han at different points, and as soon as they rescued her she grabbed a gun and took charge. She was competent, sassy, and held her own against Han, making him actually improve to HER level before she’d give him the time of day. So, yeah, I didn’t really have much in the way of gender issues with the original trilogy.

But now, I’d like to see scifi writers and filmmakers thinking more about gender issues. And in the prequels, we still have a strong, male dominated cast. There’s Padme, but aside from that… there aren’t many female characters.

The Clone Wars ups the ante a bit with two. Oooh. But notice how they’re both apprentices. Notice how they both wear revealing clothing while the male Jedi wear armor. (At least Leia dressed practically, and the slave girl bikini doesn’t count as that was supposed to be misogynistic.) I’ll give them the credit of making Ahsoka fairly competent for a young kid, but who also turns to goo in the face of a baby slimeball? I’m just saying- come on guys. It’s the 21st century. A prominent non-apprentice female Jedi with a decent-sized role wouldn’t kill you.

8.) I really split hairs on point 7.

For all that I’ll complain about the female characters being apprentices, and Ahsoka being freaking ANNOYING, I actually found myself liking the mentor relationship between her and Anikan. It was odd, because I couldn’t stand her and I normally can’t stand him and their dialogue was often lame and if I talked to my tae kwon do master like that I would have been kicked out of class, but I still liked the affection they developed.

Go figure.

9.) The Clones are kind of neat. It’s nice to see the Stormtroopers-to-be without helmets.

Hey, it’s the little things in life. Actually, it’s a line in Clerks, about wondering if your average Stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet main. It sort of makes you think a little about what life as a grunt in this society must be like, and it was kind of nice to see a few hints of that.

10.) It’s definitely a kids’ movie, and it’s already leaving my brain.

Granted, Star Wars movies aren’t always the deepest and most ponderable of movies, but they are memorable. At least the first three are, anyway. The Clone Wars had its ups and downs, but 48 hours later, I’m already forgetting a lot of it. While it might partly be because I took the kids and spent half the movie making sure Ducklet didn’t get swallowed by his seat and the other half keeping T2 from bothering the nearest neighbors, I don’t think that’s the whole explanation. It wasn’t terrible, it was fun for a few hours, but it wasn’t something I feel the need to buy myself, either.

Unless I can use Ahsoka for target practice. Then I’m all for it.

Want a second opinion?  Check out Al’s review here!

Jedi Padawan or annoying Thundercat? You decide.

Didja Notice?

• No opening scroll and no John Williams music? Weak.
• Are they fighting a blue, Scottish walrus in the opening battle?
• R2-D2 has a girlfriend?
• Punky Muffin? Ugh.
• A clone trooper Wilhelm Screams at the monastery?
• R2’s jet rockets are way more powerful than I would have thought.
• Anakin and Ahsoka are flying a B-Wing when they escape from Teth?
• Asajj can lock her lightsabers together and form a staff?
• No one says “I have a bad feeling about this.” This was easy fanservice, guys. Bad form.
• I’m not sure if James A. Taylor did a great Ewan McGregor impression or a great Alec Guinness impression, but I applaud it nonetheless.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Nope.

Intermission!

Anakin is shown here already sporting the facial scar we see in Episode III. Official continuity states he received the scar from Asajj Ventress approximately thirty months after the Battle of Geonosis (Episode II). According to the opening voiceover, however, the movie is supposed to take place ‘soon after’ the Battle of Geonosis. [Doug] Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder! [/Doug]

Groovy Quotes

Captain Rex: Who’s the youngling?
Ahsoka: I’m Master Skywalker’s padawan. The name’s Ahsoka Tano.
Captain Rex: Sir, I thought you said you’d never have a padawan.
Anakin: There’s been a mix-up. The youngling isn’t with me.
Ahsoka: Stop calling me that! You’re stuck with me, Sky Guy.

Ahsoka: So what’s the plan?
Anakin: I thought you were the one with the plan.
Ahsoka: Nope. I’m the one with enthusiasm. You’re the one with experience which I’m looking forward to learning from.

Anakin: You’re reckless, little one. You never would have made it as Obi Wan’s padawan. But you might just make it as mine.

Jabba’s Protocol Droid: The wise and powerful Jabba has one more small condition: he demands you bring back the slime who kidnapped his little… punky muffin.

Battle Droid #1: Concentrate fire on sector 113274265!
Battle Droid #2: Sector 1132—what was that again?
Battle Droid #1: Just fire right there!

Asajj Ventress: Master Kenobi, always chasing after Skywalker. How predictable.
Obi Wan: Anakin leaves quite a mess — which always leads me to you, Ventress.

Ahsoka: Master Kenboi’s here. Now we’ll see some real fireworks!
Anakin: And what do you call what I’ve been doing all day?
Ahsoka: I dunno. The word ‘reckless’ comes to mind.

Ahsoka: You’ve got that ‘We’re in trouble’ look.
Anakin: There’s a look?

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003 miniseries)
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• The Star Wars Holiday Special

The Scoop: 2005, M, directed by Ron Oliver and starring Chad Allen, Sebastian Spence, and Jack Wetherall

Tagline: A gay detective who always gets his man.

Summary Capsule: A detective takes on an attempted murder case for a client he can’t stand, and opens more cans of worms than he ever thought he would.

Lissa’s Rating: That’s not Albany. Where’s the Egg?

Lissa’s Review: One of the points of MRFH is to bring those obscure, how-the-heck-did-you-find-that, I’ve-never-even-HEARD-of-it movies to light. The thing is, this can get exhausting, because so often those movies are obscure for a reason. And as much fun as a bad movie can be, sifting through the dust to find the diamonds can get old. Personally, I haven’t found a good one in ages, so I’ve forgotten how exciting it is to find a movie that no one’s ever heard of that you really enjoyed and then run out and tell everyone about it.

The movie is Third Man Out. It’s a made for TV Canadian movie based on the Richard Stevenson novel of the same name. It’s not my normal genre in that it’s a detective movie (of course, I couldn’t discover this one before Noir Week), but for some reason (aka Sebastian Spence), I watched it anyway.

Donald Strachey (played by Chris Allen) is a private detective living in Albany, New York with his partner Timmy (the aforementioned Spence). The fact that he’s gay – and the only gay PI in Albany, according to the movie – often gets him onto cases involving the gay community. In this case, he’s hired by John Rutka (Jack Wetherall), a journalist who runs a website forcibly outing gay men in positions of power. Donald despises his client and what he does for a living, but he needs the money and so he takes the case. What follows is a fairly entertaining, occasionally convoluted mystery where I didn’t guess the culprit until 5-10 minutes before they revealed it. And even though I’d guessed another aspect of the ending, when it happened, it still surprised me. Good stuff.

Although I’ve never been into mysteries, I’ve never been opposed to their existence. I just usually find them forgettable. This one I didn’t, largely thanks to the character of Donald Strachey and Chris Allen’s portrayal of him. Despite the fact this is a made-for-TV movie, they managed to get some real talent in Allen, and I really, really enjoyed his performance. Donald is flip, a little irreverent, a little bit of a jerk but in an endearing sort of way, self-aware, and has a very intriguing past which is explored more in the next movie, Shock to the System, which I fully intend on watching as soon as I can.

The other huge attraction for me was the relationship between Donald and Timmy. It is so, so rare in movies to find a couple – and I mean this about heterosexual couples, too – that go through a movie happy and supportive of each other. It wasn’t that they didn’t fight, because they did have a couple, normal-couple like arguments (Timmy really doesn’t like Donald taking the case, and then later their positions reverse). But usually when the couple are happy in a non-romance, one side of the couple gets shoved off to the side. In this case, I wouldn’t say that Timmy was an equal presence to Donald, but I would say that he deserved the second billing that he got. But more than that, watching these two… you could see why they considered themselves married (the legality of the situation is never addressed). They actually enjoy being with each other, they joke, they flirt, they bicker, and they understand each other. They were absolutely charming as a couple. And I very much enjoyed Sebastian Spence’s performance, although he kept reminding me of someone as I watched it. (I finally figured out that it was Sam Seaborn from West Wing.)

The big thing, however, about Third Man Out was that it got so, so freaking preachy at times. Oh wow. Not from Donald and Timmy, but from the character of John Rutka and the people associated with him. In certain ways, it made sense given that Rutka was meant to be a gay rights activist. It fit the character that he got preachy and passionate about his views. But for the most part, a lot of the movie was a bit light-hearted, and when you hit these scenes it was suddenly all anger and passion, and that made the preachy aspect stand out all the more. Plus, I thought they were trying to cram in as many issues as they could. I know that there are a lot of issues that the gay community faces and that people may or may not know about, but we don’t need to put every last one of them into the same movie. At times I felt like a cat watching a ping pong ball being tossed around the room, because they’d zip from issue to issue. Rutka annoyed me to no end, and I could very much see why Donald and Timmy just didn’t like him. I didn’t either. However, I hear that Shock to the System is much better about this, so I really look forward to watching that one.

The low production values also show, and of course, there are obvious spots for commercial breaks. The one thing that highly amused me about Chad Allen was that every now and then his Canadian accent would slip through. I don’t know if I would have been so amused, except I’m from the Albany area, and our accents are most definitely not Canadian. (By the way? That wasn’t Albany. Not just that it was filmed in Canada, but it wasn’t Albany. Although I imagine a non-Albany person would buy that it was just fine. It was weird how I didn’t.) Some of the acting definitely reflected the made-for-TV movie nature of this, although I found that was more in supporting parts.

Overall, though, I really, really enjoyed Third Man Out, and I’m glad to finally have a chance to review a movie I’d never really heard of, but can honestly recommend.

"We made it to the Mutants. Cheers!"

Didja Notice?

• Seriously, now that the Sam Seaborn similarities have entered my head, they just don’t go away.
• The Egg? Where’s the Egg? Seriously, I’m really stuck on the Albany thing here.
• Also? Definitely not Albany med. I’ve spent enough time in there to know. Although I suppose there are other hospitals in Albany.
• My little BSG actors game comes up with at least two- Sebastian Spence played the Pegasus Viper pilot Narcho, and Colin Lawrence (aka the very hot fireman) was Skulls.
• The Pyscho reference at the car lot.

Intermission

One of the things I found really interesting about this- although it might be a total coincidence- is the name of the politician Bruno Slinger. Bruno is a pretty big surname in Albany-area politics, with Joe Bruno being the biggest one I can think of. Joe Bruno was active in New York politics when Richard Stevenson wrote the novel, but a quick glance at Bruno’s Wikipedia page doesn’t suggest any obvious connection.

Groovy Quotes

Timmy Callahan: Oh good! So maybe you won’t feel obliged to destroy her and I’ll get to keep my job.

Donald Strachey: O-kay. Timmy, I think maybe you need to take Doctor Watson for a walk.
Timmy Callahan: I just did.
Donald Strachey: I think he needs to go again.
Timmy Callahan: Okay. Excuse me, while I out my dog for the good of us all.

Detective ‘Bub’ Bailey: Always that subtle, Donald?
Donald Strachey: No. Usually, they hit me.

Donald Strachey: [Whispered] Just go talk to him!
Timmy Callahan: [Whispered] Why can’t you do it?
Donald Strachey: [Whispered] Because the last time he saw me he tried to beat my brains in with a tire iron and he may want to finish the job! Just go!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Shock to the System
• LA Confidential
• The Talented Mr. Ripley

Just given our age demographic, it’s not surprising.  Of the current reviewers on staff, four of us are married, and at least nine of us are of the age where we can have children and our parents wouldn’t completely die of a heart attack.  And our readers are hitting that same time in their lives.  And as we do, what’s on our TVs changes.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two don’t watch TV, and after that, children are exposed to a very limited amount of television.  Now, I’m all for that, but at the same time, kids watching TV has some benefits, trust me.  When your kid is sick, when it’s raining out, or when God forbid you actually want to cook dinner without someone under your feet constantly, the TV is a godsend.

But what can you put on?  What isn’t completely shrill and annoying and is something that everyone in the house can actually tolerate?  (At least the first 50 times.)  Fortunately, I have answers.  Now, this list is geared at the toddler set.  It’s also geared at the times parents want to sit down and watch WITH their kids.  I’m not saying that you should watch with your kids every second, because that can sometimes defeat the purpose (like the dinner-cooking one).  But sometimes it’s nice to have a cuddle and share something you love with your child.

And one other caveat: I have two boys.  There is a serious lack of princesses on this list.

10.  Titan A.E., the original Star Trek or the original Battlestar Galactica

Little boys, I am discovering, love space.  They really, truly do.  And it’s not just my kid- EVERY little boy I know can recite Star Wars and the Clone Wars without pausing for breath.  However, there is very little about space that’s geared at kids.  Space is no longer deemed cool by marketers.

But it was cool in the seventies and eighties, and that’s when the original Star Trek series and the original Battlestar Galactica came out.  I haven’t tested Star Trek with my kids, but my pediatrician actually recommended it.  I have tested the original Battlestar Galactica, and Ducklet spent the next month pretending to be Starbuck.  It was a huge hit.  And Titan A.E. is just cool, and has the little-kid advantage of being animated.

Yes, these movies/shows are a little… advanced.  Yes, there is a lot that will go right over their little heads.  But there are spaceships and neat aliens, minimal bloodshed (even if there’s violence), the enemy is generally not too scary, and two out of the three are genuinely fun stories.  (The third is just fun to laugh at its cheesiness.)  And just in case it isn’t clear, yes, I am totally talking about the original BSG, and not the new one.  Do not show your toddlers the new BSG.  End stop.

So, why isn’t Star Wars and the Clone Wars on this list?  Two words: light sabers.  Because let’s face it- after you see a light saber, there is only one thing you can do: pretend any stick or wrapping paper roll is one and run around hitting things.  If your toddler is the last of your line, this is fine.  If your toddler has younger siblings, it’s better to wait until the sibling can defend his or herself before introducing your toddler to Star Wars.

Trust me on this.

9. Planet Earth

This is a beautiful, amazing series that was put out on BBC.  It’s extremely educational and you’ll learn lots of interesting things about nature, and your kid will enjoy watching the close up shots of any sort of animal you can imagine.  All while beautiful, soothing music plays.

I will admit that it’s a little slow.  The talk might not hold your toddler’s attention, especially if your sprog is of the more active variety.  But it is really pretty, and the animals are really neat.

8. Ice Age 2: The Meltdown

Ice Age is a fun enterprise, one I’ve enjoyed long before I had kids.  It’s the story of an unconventional “herd”: Manny the Mammoth, Diego the Saber-Toothed Tiger, and Sid the Sloth, voiced by Ray Romono, Dennis Leary, and Jon Leguzamo, respectively.  Really, these three should do more together.  It’s a ragtag, fantastic group, and they play off each other very well.

I prefer the first Ice Age myself, but I listed the second one for a reason.  In the first one, Diego “dies.”  He comes back to life via the whole cats-have-nine-lives thing, but for a young one, that can be a little freaky.  In Ice Age 2, we don’t have any fake deaths.

Even better, in Ice Age 2, we get some new characters.  Ellie, the mammoth who thinks she’s a possum is relatively amusing, but her possum brothers, the mini sloths, and Scrat all steal the show.  It’s cute, it’s fun, and while it lacks the cutting wit of anything Pixar’s ever made, it’s a pretty good bet and holds up well to multiple viewing.

7. Walking with Dinosaurs

There are things little boys love more than space, and they are trucks and dinosaurs.  Walking with Dinosaurs is another BBC series, and the effects and the dinosaurs alone make this worth watching.  Again, it’s very educational, and it’s just… wow.

However, this is DEFINITELY one to watch WITH your kid.  This is the age of dinosaurs, so yes, some of them eat others.  Because that’s how dinosaurs work.  You might want to fast forward through that if your kid can’t take it.  They also (and I’m so not joking about this) show dinosaurs mating.  Trust me, your life is not complete until you’ve seen two apatosaurs getting it on.

Dino porn.  You know you’re curious now.

6. The Shrek Movies

What could be better than Scottish ogres and talking donkeys?  How about fencing cats and giant walking gingerbread men?  Shrek farts, burps, and is otherwise disgusting, which of course makes kids howl with laughter.  The movies also gleefully lampoon fairy tales and add in spoofs galore, which makes adults laugh.

I include Shrek for another reason.  Of all the movie princesses, Fiona is one of my favorites.  I like the fact that Fiona is an ogress, and she’s happy that way.  She goes out and saves her man, she doesn’t just sit around being pretty… Fiona is a pretty strong female character, and if I had a daughter I’d like her to like Fiona.  It’s nice to see someone turn the princess cliché on its head.

And although the movie is heavy handed with its moral, it’s a moral I really like.

5. The Jungle Book

Ah, classic Disney.  Hand drawn animation.  There is very little of that on this list, which sort of surprises me.

But I’ve found that my kids aren’t as into the old Disney movies.  Some of them, I just haven’t shown them.  I never liked Pinocchio, I have feminist issues with Snow White, and The Fox and the Hound is one of the slowest movies EVER.  Plus, Pixar is just awesome, so my kids tend to watch those.  But The Jungle Book is one of the best classic movies out there.  It focuses on animals, it’s funny, and it’s got the best music of any classic Disney movie out there.

4. Finding Nemo

You might be shocked that only two Pixar movies made this list, or that I didn’t just put “anything by Pixar.”  I am, a little, too.  But, see, for the toddler set, not all Pixar movies are created equal.  The Incredibles, for example, is a little too talky for the kiddies, especially at the beginning.  Same with Ratatouille.  (Interestingly, those are my two favorite Pixar movies.)  Toy Story can be scary for kids, because honestly?  Sid is a scary villain.  Not because he’s so far out there, but because he’s NOT.  Kids know that the Drej from Titan A.E. don’t exist.  They also know that kids like Sid do.  Monsters, Inc has monsters.  Yes, yes, I know they’re NICE monsters, but YOU convince a three year old of that one.

Finding Nemo, however, goes over incredibly well.  It’s gender neutral, it’s bright and colorful, it’s hysterical, and I’m telling you: I’ve seen this movie over fifty times and Dory NEVER gets old.  She really doesn’t.

If you have a kid, you need to own this movie.  End of discussion.

3. Cars

Cars is the other Pixar movie I put on the list, because again, it’s funny and it’s pretty gender neutral and it’s creative and it’s great.  Yes, it’s Doc Hollywood told by cars, but hey.  But the thing about Cars that I really like is that there are no real villains.  There is absolutely nothing scary (except maybe Frank) about Cars.  There is nothing that can be conceived of as scary.  And yet, because of the structure of the story, this works, even for adults.

2. The Muppet Movies

The Muppets are pure awesome, we all know this.  But the Muppets also have some monsters, and some jokes that go too far over kids’ heads.  However, the Muppet movie is a little more kid-friendly, with lots of Fozzie and Kermit and Miss Piggy and Gonzo.  Great music, and great guest cameos, although I have to admit, I don’t recognize some of them.  I like the other Muppet movies as well, by the way.  But the first one is always a classic.

And if you don’t believe me that they’re aimed at adults as well, the Lost? Try Hare Krishna running gag or the scene where Miss Piggy fantasizes about having sex with Kermit prove it.

1. Sesame Street

Jim Henson really deserved a Nobel Prize for all he’s done for children’s entertainment.  Seriously.  Aside from the amazing puppetry, he created shows that parents and children could watch.  Shows that genuinely made learning fun.  Songs that I have on my iPod.  And Sesame Street is right there at the top of the list.

Sesame Street isn’t as snarky as the Muppets, and Elmo can be annoying for parents, yes.  But it is still packed with stuff adults will laugh at, and spoofs and references that kids just don’t get.  (My favorite: there was a man dressed in a terrible powder blue suit- with cape- on, back facing the audience.  “The Final Countdown” started playing.  And it totally went from there.  If you don’t get the reference, you really need to watch Arrested Development.  If you do, it’s worth finding this spot and watching it.)  I particularly have enjoyed “American I” and “Let’s Make a Meal.”  (I now want them to do “Battletriangle Galactica”, with Telly as Adama, Oscar as Tigh, and Elmo as the ever-helpful Gaeta, all battling the even Trilons (triangle shaped robots) and learning that monsters and Trilons aren’t so different after all.  Tell me that wouldn’t be hysterical.)

Okay, so Elmo’s World can be hard to stomach as an adult, I admit that.  But the rest of it… it really is great stuff for kids to watch.

5 Shows or Movies to Think Twice About

5. Most kids’ entertainment

For every gem of a show, there are about 10 terrible ones out there.  At best, a lot of children’s entertainment is just DUMB.  At worst, it can be offensive and stupid.

However, there is good stuff out there that you just don’t want to watch with your kids.  It’s geared at kids, it doesn’t have that edge that anything Jim Henson touched does, and it does go heavy on lessons and morals.  But it’s still worth allowing your kids to watch.  Just choose carefully.

Death To Smoochy, while a horrible movie, was made for a reason, people.

4. The Road to El Dorado

Why must people insist on thinking that animated means suitable for kids?  I very much enjoy The Road to El Dorado, but I would not show it to a young child.  There’s some scary violence, the “heroes” are in the morally gray area, and there’s a fairly obvious oral sex scene.  (Come on.  You KNOW that’s what she’s doing.)  I’m not objecting to animated movies not being for children, just investigate them before you show them to kids, okay?

3. Zoboomafoo

This has been a list of things that it’s good to watch with your kids, that everyone can stand.  For things you can let your kids watch on their own, Zoboomafoo tops my list.  Zoboomafoo is an animal show hosted by the Kratt brothers, Martin and Chris.  The brothers both have degrees in animal related fields, and are educational, informative, and clear.  They talk about all sorts of different animals and emphasize compassion, environmentalism/animal protection, and safety around animals.  They’re joined by an overactive lemur (I think) named… I don’t know.  Zaboo?  Zoboomafoo?  I haven’t worked that out.  It’s a great show.

However, unless you really get into the animals, there’s really nothing here for the adults.  This is strictly kid stuff, and while it’s good kid stuff, I find it BORING.  This is the stuff to put on when you want to get the bathrooms cleaned or dinner cooked, because there’s NOTHING here that requires parental supervision and it’s quality kids’ entertainment, but it’s not something you want to watch yourself.

2. Baby Einstein videos

Have you ever put these things in?  They are hypnotic.  They’re geared for the baby set, and images go across the screen as classical music plays.  The thing about these is that if you sit down to watch, you will not get back up.  Especially because if you’re watching these, you probably aren’t sleeping the nights yet, anyway.

1. The Lion King

Disney makes a lot of great movies, and The Lion King is my personal favorite of them all.  I used to believe that this would be the one I’d want to share with my children first.

Then we visited a friend, who told us that her son was not allowed to watch it.  Why?  Because Simba’s father dies in the middle, on screen.

It’s a good reason.

Should children be shielded from violence and tragedy?  Well, YES, if we can help it.  I’m not saying that children should grow up naïve, and when you as a parent ARE ready to start introducing the concept of death, The Lion King might very well be a good jumping off point.  And a seven or eight year old might not be so concerned.  But yes, a three year old- once he understands what death is- is immediately going to start worrying that his daddy is going to die.  As parents, we need to have dialogues with our children, but we also need to understand when our children are emotionally and mentally ready for those dialogues.

Sue, stop laughing your butt off at me right now.  I’m eating crow in public for you, girl, and it’s still one of MY favorite Disney movies.  Shut up.

And that’s really the big caveat of this list.  These are the things I’ve found are good for my kids, and that my kids enjoy and can handle.  But your mileage may vary, because only the parents really know what they want their kids watching.  What I find objectionable (Barney- I HATE Barney) might not bug you at all, and you might be staring at this list in shock wondering what the heck has possessed my brain.  Make your own judgments, but maybe this can give you new ideas or help get you started.

Start the discussion!

KYLE: First off, I certainly would NOT have wanted to see any of the cherished Original Trilogy characters as kids or anything ridiculous like that. But that doesn’t mean I would have cast Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru as young action heroes. Each prequel film would have taken place in a different era, ranging from thousands to finally maybe a hundred years prior to Episode IV. I would have been a lot more interested in the very beginning of the Jedi and Sith orders, early on as prophecies are made and tenets to operate by are devised. That way you can still have occasional hints towards what will come later (”No one will EVER make this Kessel Run in less than 18 parsecs!” and “One Sith will walk openly, his master will remain in shadows; no one will suspect their identity until it is TOO LATE!” and so on). I would be a lot more interested in the universe at large versus the origins of the handful of heroes and villains that decided the fate of their galaxy. I’m sure to play to the fans slightly that third prequel film would namedrop a couple lineages, or more likely show the origins of the man who would become Emperor Palpatine. Lots more moral gray areas and suspicious motivations, rather than the bland ineptness of the Jedi Order and far-too-easy manipulations of the Sith. How about you?

MIKE: I won’t knock the machinations of Sidious because if you take a few steps back and look at them from a distance and get the whole picture, they’re really kinda Machiavellian. I will admit the Jedi were rather inept and should have been a bit more aware of what was happeneing around them. Casting Anakin as a eight year old was a misstep, and made the relation between him and Padme kinda creepy. I would’ve liked to have seen him aged a bit, a little more roguish. I think I could’ve accepted an older character, more hard boiled and less prone to naivette’. I think the eventual transformation into Vader would’ve been a lot easier to swallow that way. As far as the current Clone Wars series; aside from it being a total cash-in, are we supposed to be sympathetic toward the clone troopers who we know are going to wipe out the Jedi? Also, how are old time fans supposed to reconcile these crack commandos with the canon fodder of the original movies who could barely hit a target and were prone to hitting their heads when entering a room? Do I even need to say no Jar-Jar?

LISSA: No Jar-Jar and no romantic dialogue, period. Anikan romancing Padme is still up there in “the most embarrassing cinema I’ve ever witnessed in my life.” But I think that’s a given, really. Is there anyone who’s not a thirteen year old girl that LIKED that?

I’m liking a lot of these points (especially not seeing so many of the original trilogy characters). Another thing I would add is LESS CGI. I know George was very proud of his cool toys, but he overdid it and it really became distracting. This is one of those times when less is more, y’know? If he’d done less CGI, he could have afforded some sets that weren’t deserts and the entire adventure wouldn’t have had to have so much time on Tatooine.

JUSTIN: I think the single biggest, and often unmentioned, problem with the prequels is: you know exactly how it turns out. I really dislike movies that are leading up to a conclusion that I’m more than familiar with, because it doesn’t leave a lot of room for suspense and doubt. It’s reverse engineering a plot from a finish point.

So one option is simply to disconnect the prequels from the original trilogy by a factor of time, like Kyle mentioned. The video game Knights of the Old Republic went back 4,000 years to tell their story, but they still had Jedi, Sith and a very Star Warsian feel — and it worked. The 4,000 year barrier also was sufficiently long enough so that even though it is a prequel, you don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen.

If we did have to stick with Lucas’ intention of telling the story of Darth Vader, I would’ve liked to see him become corrupt and evil and all dark side of the Force by sometime in the middle of episode one. Here’s an idea: they should have really turned the concept of good and evil on its ear, by making the Galactic Empire’s rise to power a perverted, noble attempt at wresting power from a very corrupt, despicable Republic. Make Vader the underdog, with a group of friends who are fighting for what they think is the right way to rule the galaxy, and in so doing, make us cheer them on. But then by the last film, they’ve gone too far — betrayals, friendships disintigrating, power corrupting — and the Empire ends up worse than the Republic was, making the Rebels the new noble force.

The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban

Tagline: The future begins.

Summary Capsule: Star Trek gets a reboot/prequel/sequel of sorts… but it’s all good (mostly).

Lissa’s Rating: You know, it was really funny watching Heroes while Zachary Quinto was filming this and noticing that his real eyebrows had been shaved off and the ones he had on were fake.

Lissa’s Review: I have to confess, I have never been a Star Trek fan.  It’s not so much the franchise itself, it was the lack of opportunity.  When I was a kid, my parents weren’t into it at all, and it never really crossed my sphere of knowledge.  By the time I was old enough to have a better idea of what was on TV, I was in college and not watching much anyway.  And by then the mythology was so deep, it seemed like this giant, impenetrable fortress of geekdom.

Of course, I knew something about Trek.  Doesn’t everyone?  I’ll bet most Americans could at least tell you that there were characters named Kirk and Spock, and there was some sort of spaceship, and someone said “live long and prosper” while doing that weird thing with their hands.  I could also tell you that there was Uhura, Bones, Scotty, and Sulu (Chekov seemed to always fly under my radar), and I do remember seeing Star Trek IV in theaters.  And I love the Futurama episode where the Star Trek actors’ heads get kidnapped by Melvar and forced to participate in something resembling a convention.

That said, I am a geek.  When I saw the shiny lights and pretty special effects in the trailer, I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted to see this movie, and I wanted to see it bad.

God bless my parents, who babysat.

So, for those of you who are Star Trek noobs like myself?  Fear not and hie thee to a theater — you don’t need to know a darn thing about the universe.  Would you get some of the jokes and references better if you know more?  I’d say there were people laughing in the theater when I wasn’t, but those same people were laughing at a really dumb trailer, so I’m not convinced they knew any more than I did.  But yes, you would get more references and intricacies if you knew more about the universe, I’m sure.  But not knowing a thing won’t stop you from having a darn good time.

So, there’s this guy, George Kirk, and he gets put in charge of this starship.  And he saves lives and it gets blown up literally seconds after his baby is born.  He names the baby and then goes on to a terrible, painful, explosive death.  And his kid, James (eventually played by Chris Pike), grows up to be a total brat.  Across the galaxy, a little half-Vulcan boy named Spock is getting picked on by Vulcan bullies (which is really sort of funny in its way, and while I’m on the subject, WOW could that kid pull of a young Zachary Quinto.  That’s one of the best “this is this actor as a kid!” casting decisions I’ve ever seen).  So, Spock and Kirk both end up at the Starfleet Academy, and they hate each other on sight.  Of course, this leads to wacky adventures.

It’s really a fun, awesome movie, although the time travel aspect makes my head hurt like always.  As a movie itself, I really have very little negative to say about it.   I got exactly what I (as a non-Trekker) wanted: awesome effects, minimal cheesiness, a good story, snappy dialogue, and the creation of a fantastic universe.  But if you’ve read even one review of Star Trek already, you knew this.

There was one thing that caught me by surprise, though, and that was how much I laughed during this movie.  It really was funny.  I think my surprise comes from the genre.  As anyone who reads this site knows, I’m a Battlestar Galactica girl.  Battlestar Galactica took an old, occasionally (okay, VERY) cheesy TV show and updated it, making it more realistic and gritty.  It didn’t just update it — it turned it on its head until there was hardly anything left in common with the original.  I think a part of me was expecting that from the Star Trek movie.  However, this is NOT a reimaging in the sense that Battlestar Galactica was.  Which has its perks and its drawbacks, but at least it means that the Star Trek movie does NOT become the game of “let’s see how much we can torture these characters and how positively MISERABLE we can make them!”  The effects are updated.  The dialogue is updated.  There are fingerprints of the twenty first century all over it.  But the spirit remains largely the same, and the new Trek movie is NOT a depressive emo fest that would make a junior high creative writer envious of how much tragedy can be heaped on a single character.

The other thing I wanted to take up valuable bandwidth to address was the issue of Uhura.  Can I just say how much I adored her?  But let me go into detail.

Scifi and fantasy are old boys’ schools in a lot of ways.  People have long believed that only men like scifi, and so strong, interesting female characters have historically been rarities.  And of those men that like scifi, Hollywood has unfailingly seemed to believe that most of them are white.  Finding good characters of non-Caucasian origin can be… well, about as difficult as finding good, strong female characters.

The original Star Trek had a female character, and a black character.  And lo and behold, they combined them into one and basically made her a glorified telephone operator in a short skirt.  Now, we all know it’s not that simple.  Star Trek did actually have an Asian character in Sulu, and the original Uhura did have some good moments (although again, I’m not a Trekker enough to know what they are- I just have been told they existed), and you need a communications officer on any ship.  (I’ll refrain from pointing out that Battlestar Galactica ALSO had a black female as a communications officer, and even on the Pegasus, Hoshi was originally scripted as a woman.)  But anyway.  The original Star Trek made steps forward, but by today’s standards, not big enough.

I’ve seen rants about how that it was sexist (and racist, but more about the sexist) not to remedy that.  Uhura remained the sole woman in the core crew, she still wore short skirts, and she retained her original duties, and she had a love interest.  Well, yeah.  But the thing is, that’s what Uhura was, minus the short skirt.  (More on that in a bit.)  She is the communications officer, she does speak languages (and does it well, darn it), and she is the sole woman in the core crew.  Hi, this is Star Trek, okay?  But I don’t see how her role is any less heroic or flashy or whatever than Scotty, Chekov, or Bones.  Sure, she doesn’t get fight scenes, but neither do those guys.  Sure, she’s got a love interest, but while Kirk would reduce her to a pretty face, the movie clearly shows us that Uhura is a lot more than that, and Kirk’s kind of a jerk for even thinking it.  Uhura’s a character in her own right, and she’s a pretty awesome one at that.

As far as the miniskirt goes, well, yes.  I can’t ever see any normal woman wanting to enter combat in a skirt that flashes their underwear if they lean over wrong and high heeled boots.  But like I said earlier, this isn’t the kind of update that Battlestar Galactica was.  These are essentially meant to be the same characters as those we know from the original series, and it is essentially meant to be the same universe.  And in that universe, women wore short skirts as their uniforms.  Like it or not, that’s what the iconic Uhura wore, and therefore that’s what Zoe Saldana must wear.  This is especially true as the men’s uniforms were also the same, even if they could have stood an update as well.

Yeah, I spend too much time on the Internet.  What else is new?  But hey, that’s what makes sites like this fun — the ranting about the details the rest of the world doesn’t much care about.

So, yeah.  I loved it.  I can’t speak for the Trekkers too well, but if you like action, space, or hot people on space ships, this one is worth every penny.  Nice and tight and well crafted, and completely and utterly enjoyable.

(And as for MY PS — spoiler, by the way — notice how Spock ended up being a dirty old man?  “Hey!  We can be in two places at once.  YOU go be on the Enterprise, I’LL go repopulate the Vulcan race.  Hehehe.”)

Want a second opinion? Check out Justin’s review of Star Trek!

'There are some things in life that are just fact; and one of those facts is that every odd-numbered Star Trek movies is s**t. ...Wait, what movie am I in?'

Didja Notice?

• The eyes of the alien doctor who delivers Kirk? Freaky!

• Hehe… Chekov can’t say his V’s in this timeline either
• Is that fold-up sword Starfleet issue?
• Vulcans have six billion people on their home planet, yet they’ve established no colonies before this point? That’s… odd.
• The groan-worthy Nokia product placement
• Green girls go for Kirk, 9 times out of 10
• Um, what is “red matter” and why do you never, ever explain it, other than it makes black holes and we have twenty kilograms of it in a lightly shielded chamber?
• So… what DID Nero do for those 25 years other than just hang around?
• Uhura’s first name
• The tribble on Scotty’s desk
• Christopher Doohan, the son of the late James Doohan (Scotty from the original series), appears alongside the new Scotty, Simon Pegg, in the transporter room.
• The little nod to Star Trek: Enterprise (Archer and his beagle)
• In the scene where Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru test, he is eating an apple, which is also what he is eating while recounting his tale of taking the Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

Intermission!

The idea of a young James T. Kirk and young Spock meeting at the Academy was considered as early as 1968, announced by Gene Roddenberry at the World Science Fiction Convention.

The “Trek” movie with the longest hiatus to date since the last motion picture (7 years). Of the now 11 films, this is the most expensive “Star Trek” film by far ($140 million).

This is Leonard Nimoy’s first live-action film role since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

Majel Barrett, the wife of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has a role in this film as the voice of the Enterprise computer. She completed filming two weeks before her death on December 18, 2008.

Spoiler alert – The Enterprise is, at the time, the brand-new flagship of Starfleet. And they just let a cadet jump from a pre-ensign rank to full-fledged captain on the basis of one really good mission? Buh?

Another spoiler – Is it just me, or does the Spock/Uhura hookup seem to be there solely to provide ‘shippers something to squeal over? They never explain why it happened or give the relationship any depth beyond a bit of smooching (which, coming from Spock, is profoundly disturbing).

Final spoiler – will Future Spock be equally free to distribute future technology to this past timeline as he did with the transporters? And what does that mean to this universe?

Groovy Quotes

Scotty: I like this ship! It’s exciting!

McCoy: Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

Sarek: [to Spock] You will always be a child of two worlds, and fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose?

Spock: Are you a member of Starfleet?
Scotty: Uh, yes. Can I get a towel?

McCoy: We’ve got no Captain and no First Officer to replace him.
Kirk: Yeah, we do.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Star Trek IV

• Star Trek II
• Galaxy Quest

With that in mind, I decided to undertake watching the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I’ve never seen the original, but this one has Keanu Reeves! (Unless he’s playing Ted, this does the opposite of impressing me.) Because the thing is, good movies can get boring to review, unless I find a good hook. I was going to do this one night when I was alone, but last night Duckie and I decided we were in the mood for “mindless”. What could be more mindless than a Keanu Reeves movie?

Fueled by my triumph in getting Duckie to watch as well, I grabbed a pen and paper (still no laptop- what can I say? I’m stuck in the twentieth century.) and decided to do a viewing, anticipating that Duckie would have some good stuff to say about it as well. And now, I am undergoing the Herculean task of translating my own handwriting. Lieutenant Uhura has nothing on me, let me tell you.

9:26: We start the movie. As it is on Comcast On Demand and I don’t feel like watching the display bar the whole time, you’re stuck with the time of night rather than the time into the movie. If you really want to figure something out, do the math. We watch the opening credits, and mockingly decide that John Cleese was either deluded or desperate.

9:29: I really don’t get the attraction to Keanu Reeves. He’s not all that and a bag of chips to me. Even in black leather. Also, notice how although this is India, it isn’t an Indian on the mountain. I guess he could be an explorer, but still.

9:29: When faced with some shiny crystal thing you don’t understand, what to do but whack it with

a pick axe? That’s some pretty fine thinking, there.

9:34: Do scientists EVER really get summons like this? No one’s ever sent a car to pick me up, much less with unclear and mysterious instructions that I’m not allowed to question.

9:35: Okay, BSG fans, play along with me. See, The Day the Earth Stood Still is largely shot in Vancouver. Apparently, the Vancouver acting pool is smaller than Hollywood. So, watch any scifi show or movie shot there, and you’ll see a lot of the same faces. So let’s count the BSG alumni. Starting here, with Alisen Down. She’s the FBI agent with the laptop, and she also plays Jean Barolay in BSG.

9:37: Oooh, it took them THAT long to figure out they’re all scientists? Duckie comments that I’m bashing this movie before I give it a chance. I gleefully inform him that yes, yes I am.

9:39: “Three times ten to the seventh meters per second?” Who talks like this? I would say thirty million meters per second. That’s not how people really talk- and contrary to popular belief, scientists are people. And why is it always Manhattan? Even if you want a recognizable US city, why not San Francisco? Washington, D.C.? Honestly.

Oh, and by the way, for the count-the-BSG-people game, we’re up to two. The older woman scientist is Lorena Gale, who played Elosha in the series.

9:41: Okay, the military woman asking to borrow the cell phone? That was rather touching, despite my cynicism.

9:44: I’d gripe about all the scientists being men, but a.) they’re all acting rather stupidly so I’m just as content not to have much female representation, and b.) at the ages they’re at and the sectors they’re in, they’re largely men anyway, although less than it used to be. (I didn’t have a single female professor in my Fuel Science courses, although I believe there are some there now.)

9:46: I comment that at least no one’s hitting the big glowy sphere with a pick axe. The cavalry comes in. Duckie laughs and says, “there’s the pick axe.”

9:47: The title is making sense now. Seriously, they’re all just standing there and staring?

9:53: Keanu Reeves in whale blubber. What a way to make him even more attractive. I’m betting he will now respond to Helen’s amazing empathy and compassion, which no other scientist in that room will possess.

9:55: Bets that Katy Bates’s character is “evil”?

9:57: Driscoll. Recognizing the face, but who is he? (Checking IMDb… Kyle Chandler. Not sure why I think I’m recognizing him. Oh well.)

9:58: Is I just me, or does it seem logical to not jump in with accusing questions? I’m not saying that questions aren’t justified, just… when someone’s just woken up from surgery and you think they might be an alien, “hi, welcome to the planet, where are you from, can I get you something?” seems like better etiquette, especially when you don’t know if they can vaporize you or not. (And given that they can travel further through space than we can, I’d assume the answer is “yes” until proven otherwise.)

10:04: I’m finding myself running low on wise cracks. This surprises me. It’s not because the movie is better than I expected. It’s just more boring than I expected.

10:08: Wow. It’s amazing what a beard and long hair will do. Hoshi (Brad Dryborough, aka BSG person #3) looks fairly hot, even if he is playing a thug type.

10:10: “School’s cancelled on account of the aliens.” Hehe.

10:13: Duckie points out that it’s rather ridiculous that she’s still carrying around the vial. He’s got a point. I don’t usually shove bottles of substances into my non-work jacket and then around with them, especially if they may be dangerous.

10:17: My Chinese is rusty, but Keanu Reeves seems to be doing a vaguely reasonable job with it. Sure, he sounds like a foreigner speaking it, but since he’s supposed to be an alien in the truest sense of the word, I think that’s understandable. But I’m surprised. But then, I’m surprised I managed to recognize it as Mandarin Chinese, so take that for what it’s worth- wait. Why did they suddenly switch back to English? Did we lose our ability to read subtitles? Or is it for the Moral Of The Story?

“But as this life comes to an end, I consider myself lucky to have lived it.” I like that sentiment. I’d like to be able to say that when I die.

10:22: “Do or not do… there is no try.” Oh, come on. Like you weren’t thinking it, too.

More the problem I’ve found with this movie is that it’s philosophical without substance, trying to be mysterious but only ending up confusing without any real mystery. They’re being very heavy handed with their message, but delivering it in tones that make it sound like they’re trying not to be. Very pretentious, and pretension = BORING.

10:24: The government gets intel off the internet. This amuses me, even if the joke is getting old already.

10:25: Well, at least the idea of the heroine falling in love with the alien is presented as a weird, bad idea by the kid. Erm, I hope.

10:27: Oh, God. Humans are evil. AGAIN.

10:28: Now, if this movie had any guts, they’d kill off the entire human race.

10:30: Okay, the kid just grew on me. It seems realistic that he’d be so direct, and yet there’s an innate respect for human life at the core. Hmm. He was playing a violent video game (World of Warcraft, I’m told) at the beginning. Is this a comment on video game violence warping children’s minds? Or is that too subtle for this movie? Probably the latter.

10:31: Yup. Kathy Bates’s character is the bad guy.

10:30: I still can’t buy Keanu Reeves as any kind of scientist, but I like this scene with the equation- the derivation, and Cleese’s character keeping up with Reeve’s character- is really neat.

10:35: Battlestar Galactica spotting #4- that’s Ty Olsson, aka Captain Kelly.

10:43: Bugs. I hate bugs.

10:44: Ten bucks say that flaming the GORT doesn’t work. What, aren’t you going to take my bet?

10:45: Nothing like a Biblical plague of locusts.

10:46: Are they honestly firing missiles at a bunch of bugs? Not Raid or something? Also, hiding somewhere in these military scenes is Michael Hogan, Tigh from BSG. I think I spotted him, but I had a hard time with it. (That’s #5)

10:49: So, how many people are dead by now, I wonder? Just for the record, they never do tell you. But given how fast those bugs work, I’m betting a lot.

10:50: Yup, we’re at Dad’s grave. Big shock. But that’s depressing- he was only two years older than me. Oh, darn. This scene is actually kind of moving… at least when the kid’s begging “you have powers!” That’s nicely done, to be honest- very black and white way of viewing the world, and the kid just not getting it. Ouch.

10:53: Heck with the killer bugs- let’s have a daddy issues scene instead. But at least they’re subtle. Love saves us all, right? (Although at least this ‘love saves us all’ makes some sort of sense- this being is seeing the love between these two people and saving the human race based on that exhibition of love.)

10:54: How does a handful of decent people giving their word constitute an entire human race changing? If that really worked, wouldn’t the world be a better place already?

10:55: Okay, so Kathy Bates isn’t pure evil. This is our “people can change” lesson again as she argues with the President.

10:57: If the bugs are already here, how will he be able to- oh, I see. Okay, they’re running in front of them.

10:59: And he gives up his own life to save them. Gee. Didn’t see that one coming. Well, I assume he’ll die, anyway.

11:00: Oh, come on. I don’t need to be at death’s door to know I’d but a kid’s life before mine, especially a kid I’m responsible for raising. Sheesh. And how’s he keeping the bugs out of the tunnel? And seriously, what exactly has changed? For the entire movie, this woman has protected this kid and had his safety at the top of her priority list. It’s never been an issue. And I’m not arguing with that, necessarily. I’m just saying it’s like Kaatu has seen some great change, and it’s been there the whole time.

11:02: Ah… NOW is when the earth stands still and the title makes some sort of sense and dead bugs rain down from above. Ick.

11:04: And so, the movie ends. I have to be honest, it was nowhere near as mockable as I thought it would be. I’m not saying it was good, mind you. It was really quite boring and unremarkable, and another glossy Hollywood effort telling us how Evil We All Are for polluting the planet and being mean to each other. Changed my life and my way of thinking, this movie did.

Look, I’m not at all saying that the world doesn’t have problems, or we’re so much cleaner than that, or that people are good except for one or two bad apples. The problems that some of these movies present are real in our society. But for crying out loud, say something about it. Make it a real story. This was just “people suck, and if they don’t change their ways they’ll be eaten by alien bugs.” Um, yeah. Like I said, very persuasive. “Be excellent to one another” was more compelling. (Or, if we’re attributing the correct line- “party on, dudes!”)

So, safe in the knowledge that we all suck and the bugs are coming, I bid you all good night. Hopefully I (and the BSG cast) will find something a little more interesting next time.

Let’s hear what the Mutants have to say!

Mike: It’s funny, a friend of mine actually coined a term for this phenomena: Darkman Syndrome. It’s a weird category here. Mortal Kombat at the time it came out was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and upon seeing it more recently I literally cringed at the crappy CGI, atrocious dialogue, and wooden acting, but alternatively, Howard the Duck has only improved in my estimation. Go fig.

Lissa: I’ll take your word on Howard the Duck, because there’s no WAY I am EVER watching that again. The once from my childhood was enough, thanks, and there’s not enough booze in the world for me to recant that.

It’s been mentioned before in reviews, but The Neverending Story is one that just doesn’t age well. Which is sad, because the book is even cooler than I remember it, especially with its colored text. But the movie… yeah. Wish dragons aren’t as awesome as I remember.

Heather: Um…it’s a luck dragon, Lissa. Get your outdated 80’s icons right, won’t ‘ya? Sheesh! Well as I’ve just made painfully obvious I can still stomach Neverending Story (and love to dance to the theme on DDR Extreme). What really wrenched my childhood memories on the rewatch is Flight Of The Navigator. That was my favorite movie of all time and I spent countless hours in front of the television watching it whenever it ran on The Disney Channel. I only wish it were half as amazing to me now as it was then. “Get around, ’round, ’round, I get around!”

Mike: That’s funny! My four-year-old nephew just now picked that movie out of my DVD collection. Also, did you know it looks as though Disney is remaking it? I’m still kinda blown away by the space ship design, if a tad underwhelmed by some effects and Joey Cramer’s performance (and yes, I had to look him up). PS – I’m not saying Howard the Duck isn’t a miserable, poorly written failure, I’m just saying it’s the kind of miserable failure I can get into…for free…on Hulu.

Lissa: Luck dragon, wish dragon… either way it doesn’t breathe fire and smite its enemies, and therefore it has now become lame (says the woman who reviews any princess movie that comes out).  You know, speaking of Disney, there’s a category in itself.  I used to love all things Disney.  Still do like a lot of it, but now that I’m being forced to rewatch much of the collection, I’m rather amazed that I was as devoted to some of the older movies as I was.  (Although I still love the Prince John song from Robin Hood, and always will.  Phil Harris =  one of the best voices EVER in animation.)

Drew: Any movie I dragged my poor mother to in the theater. Mom, I’m so sorry. Masters of the Universe was not worth coming back to the next day because the projector broke in the middle of the film. And that one about the kid who gets a blank check and cashes it for a million dollars? Ugh. Home Alone, of course. Oh, and The Wizard — in those pre-Internet days, we would have paid $6 just for a glimpse of Super Mario 3 ahead of time. The rest of the movie was superfluous… but, much like the Power Glove, so bad.

Justin: One of my nephews’ name is Lucas, and every time I see him, I make a Power Glove joke (much to the dismay of his parents).

There were a ton of movies we watched repeatedly “back in the day” that aren’t worth spit to me now. Neverending Story, yes, although it’s iconic enough to still be useful. Lots of Disney movies come to mind — Sword in the Stone, Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers (that was Disney, right?). My brothers and I also watched this TV movie called “The Rescue”, which was a highly-laughable ripoff of (of all things) Iron Eagle — Navy SEALS are captured during a dangerous mission, and it’s only up to their kids to invade (I think) North Korea to bust them out of jail.

Oh, and Short Circuit 2… yeah, I wouldn’t give it the time of day right now, but I must’ve memorized it way back when.

The Scoop: 1992 PG, directed by Penny Marshall and starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, and Lori Petty

Tagline: To achieve the incredible you have to attempt the impossible.

Summary Capsule: Girls? Playing baseball? What’s the world coming to?

Lissa’s Rating: God help me if my boys are ever anything like Stilwell Angel.

Lissa’s Review: Some movies are just so good and so appealing that you can put them in and everyone in the room will watch them and enjoy them. Your parents, your grandmother, your boss, your best friend, the guy next door who makes inappropriate comments at inappropriate times, your weird internet buddies who you’re afraid to bring home to meet your parents, your weird internet buddies who you’re afraid to meet in real life… they all love them. There are a few universal truths in the movie world, and one of them is that everyone loves The Princess Bride. Another is that everyone can at least tolerate A League of their Own, and most people love it.

A League of Their Own, like October Sky and various made-for-Hallmark channel movies, is loosely based on real events. Back during The War (World War II for you whippersnappers), the boys all went off to fight, leaving the women to run the country. They went to the factories, the stockyards, and the farms, and they did a pretty darn good job of it, too. But they also kept the sport of baseball afloat for those years. That part is real. The rest might not be so factual, but hey, it’s a good movie.

The movie focuses mainly on Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) and her kid sister Kit (Lori Petty). Dottie and Kit are working at their family’s dairy in Oregon when an enterprising scout comes and whisks them away to play professional baseball. Dottie could kind of care less, but Kit is over the moon. Once they make it to the Wrigley- oops, Harvey- fields, they make the league and meet a rather typical assortment of characters in their teammates. And I’d be more inspired in my recap if I didn’t think you couldn’t guess a lot of what happens after that.

There’s a lot to like in this movie. There’s snappy dialogue and lots of memorable one-liners. The cast of characters dances that fine line of cliché, but they’re fun cliches so it’s forgivable. There’s a lot of good cast chemistry, and the sets and costumes really look like the 1940’s. (Erm, I assume.) The story is completely predictable but still makes you feel good at the end, and there’s lots of game shots. The little romance that’s present is far from overpowering, and there’s actually some food for thought in there. There’s even a great debate point for the end, which can spark discussion if you’re really looking for it. (If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean, if you haven’t, it’s a spoiler, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when you see it.)

What’s not to like? Honestly, I don’t really know. There are a few moments when the cheese factor gets a little heavy even for me, but overall, that’s really forgivable. Maybe you won’t like the ambiguity of the ending. Maybe you strongly disagree with me that the ending is ambiguous at all. Maybe Rosie O’Donnell drives you bonkers no matter what role she’s in. (This is my stepfather’s complaint.) Or Madonna. Maybe you just don’t like Kit, who is kind of abrasive and grumpy. It’s not a perfect movie, that’s for sure. But it is one that’s appropriate for a wide range of people, and that’s pretty hard to come by.

For as good as this movie is, I feel like I should be going on and on for a lot longer. But it’s not really a movie that lends itself to much mocking or discussion, so I’ll spare you the monologues. So, on the off chance you haven’t seen this in its entirety by catching on TNT at odd times of the night, go out and add this one to your collection. It really is a worthwhile movie.

'No, -I'm- going to motivate the Mutants into getting reviews in.'

Didja Notice?

• When the Peaches run out for the first game, Rosie O’Donnell trips.

• When Jimmy Dugan walks in to the locker room and urinates, he urinates into a trough which would not have standing water in it, but we hear the sound of someone urinating into a toilet with water in it. (Yes, I found that one on the internet.)
• Stilwell Angel is one of the most annoying children on Earth.

Intermission!

The characters at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and seen playing as the credits roll, are real original players from the league portrayed in the film.

All of the injuries and bruises that are seen in the film were real injuries that the actors received during filming. And given that nasty bruise that Alice gets sliding in, can I say OUCH!

Actresses auditioning for the film had to prove they could play baseball as well. All the actresses cast in the film apart from Geena Davis did their own baseball stunts. None of the performers wanted stunt doubles.

The end of the film notes that the players of the AAGPBL were “the first women ever to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.” Actually, they are not inductees. Rather, they were recognized with a permanent exhibit in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, entitled “Women in Baseball,” in 1988. The first woman to actually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame was Effa Manley, the co-owner (with her husband, Abe) of the Newark Eagles. She was inducted in 2006.

For an interesting summation of the differences between movie and real life, check out http://espn.go.com/page2/s/closer/020511.html

Groovy Quotes

Kit Keller: You ever hear Dad introduce us to people? “This is our daughter Dottie, and this is our other daughter, Dottie’s sister.” Should’ve just had you and bought a dog!

Ernie Capadino: “You know, if I had your job, I’d kill myself! Wait here, I’ll see if I can dig up a pistol.”

Ira Lowenstein: If we paid you a little bit more, Jimmy, do you think you could be just a little more disgusting?
Jimmy Dugan: [brightly] Well, I could certainly use the money.

Mae Mordabito: [to reporters] Hi, my name’s Mae, and that’s more than a name, that’s an attitude.

Dollbody Kid: What’s your rush, dollbody? What do you say we slip in the back seat, and make a man out of me?
Dottie Hinson: What do you say I smack you around for a while?
Dollbody Kid: Can’t we do both?

Jimmy Dugan: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!

Dottie Hinson: You ever been married?
Jimmy Dugan: Well, let me think… yeah, twice.
Dottie Hinson: Any children?
Jimmy Dugan: One of them was, yeah.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Invincible

• Rudy
• Field of Dreams

Interestingly, it’s not always the sad moments that make me cry. I wrote this list before I wrote the introduction, and only three are officially truly sad moments. The other seven are bittersweet, some even more sweet than bitter. A few are even downright happy (well, by tearjerker standards). What can I say? Strong emotion makes me cry.

So, my ten moments I cry, no matter how many times I’ve seen the movie (and with #7, that one feels like it’s the triple digits.)

1.) Homer Hickam tells his father that he’s his hero in October Sky.

The relationship between Homer and Jack Hickam is one of the foundations between the movie. It’s complex, subtle, and beautifully acted by both Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper. I love this moment because the two of them spend the entire moment not getting what the other is saying (mainly because they’re not listening to each other), but this is when the deep love that is there boils up through, and they both get it. It’s a lovely, tender moment, and it makes me cry every time.

2.) Satine dies at the end of Moulin Rouge!

When I think of tragic death scenes that make me cry, this one tops my list. It’s impressive that it works, because you know she’s going to die from the very beginning. I mean, that’s how the movie starts, with the quote “The woman I love is dead.” But what I think really tips this over the edge is the way Christian/Ewan McGregor just completely breaks down.

3.) The Schindler Jews give Oskar Schindler his ring in Schindler’s List.

All of Schindler’s List is a heartbreaker, especially the first time you watch it. The brutality and cruelty shown in the movie… well, come on. It’s the Holocaust, graphically portrayed. But while that got me the first time through, I think my mind sort of took defenses when I’ve watched the movie in subsequent viewings. However, the moment Schindler truly realizes what he’s done and thinks he could have done more never, ever fails to twist my guts.

4.) Wat tells his the newly named Sir William “your father heard that” in A Knight’s Tale.

I’m a sucker for redemption stories, and also a sucker for parent child bonds. This is a fun movie where I don’t expect deep emotion, but when William realizes his father just had a life long dream he never expected to happen come true… there go the waterworks again.

5.) The entire ending of Life As a House.

When I was 16, my father passed away from leukemia (a disease I still cannot spell the name of without help from my spellchecker, even though it’s been eighteen years). This movie is about a sixteen year old losing his father to cancer. If you need more of an explanation, I’d be happy to direct you to the Midvale School for the Gifted.

6.) George Banks reflects back on his daughter’s life the night before she gets married in Father of the Bride.

Re-read #5, and then apply. But at the same time, I almost always cry at weddings. It’s so nice to see people celebrate something so happy.

7.) Dory tells Marlin that “when I look at you, I’m home,” in Finding Nemo.

Okay, enough of my Daddy Issues. Sheesh. This is just a great little moment in a great movie, when Dory’s trying to convince Marlin not to leave and go off alone. It’s just such a wonderful summation of what love- any love- is, and delivered with such earnestness from a character whose previous deep lines included “the sea monkeys have my money” and “Es-cap-ee! That’s funny, it’s spelled just like the word escape!”. Perfect moment in a great movie.

8.) The boys stand on their desks to say goodbye to Mr. Keating in Dead Poet’s Society.

Like with Schindler’s List, the big obvious moment (in this case Neil’s suicide) doesn’t really choke me up so much after the first viewing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still horrible, but it doesn’t make me cry. But much like the moment Schindler gets his ring, the moment that the boys stand on their desks is a total tearjerker. And the beautiful bagpipe music and the boys still sitting hunched over don’t help keep me from crying.

9.) Matt reads the poem at Gareth’s funeral in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

This is one where yes, the death is sad, especially since Gareth’s one of my favorite characters in the movie. John Hannah does an amazing job playing the grieving lover without overdoing it. But I think it’s the poem, “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden, that just really gets me every time.

10.) Sam insists on going with Frodo at the end of Fellowship of the Ring.

Self-sacrificing hobbit bromance. Do I REALLY need to say more?

So, yeah. For all the death and chick flicks I’ve probably seen, those are the ten moments that stand out in my mind as making me cry. What can I say? When it comes to movies, I take tissues. It’s a good precaution.

The Scoop: 2008, PG-13. Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Tagline: Why so serious?

Summary Capsule: Bruce is the dark knight, Harvey’s the white knight, and the Joker’s wild.

Lissa’s Rating: Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Oops. Wrong Joker. Sort of.

Lissa’s Review: Of all the solo superheroes, Batman appeals to me the most. I think mainly because he’s not so super strong that he’s invincible. There’s a level of “hey, I could do that!” in him. He’s not so much a superhero as he is someone with really, really cool technology.

But still, I just can’t seem to get too into Batman, even though he’s the best of the superheroes. Well, maybe Spider-Man. I don’t know. It depends on my mood and whose girlfriend is being less annoying.

However, for all that I’m finding solo superheroes kind of boring, I fully support the new, grittier versions of them. You know, the ones where they actually get tired and have moral dilemmas and dislocate shoulders and stuff. Batman Begins started that for this franchise, and The Dark Knight certainly continues it.

That said, I was underwhelmed.

I KNOW. Shock of shocks, and stone me and throw me into a pit today, for I have foresaken my geekdomness. I’ll hand over my badge, okay?

Look, I’m not calling it a bad movie. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I was expecting something really twisted and really off the wall, I think just from all the hype. I was expecting not to be able to sleep after this movie, like I couldn’t sleep after Blood on the Scales or Schindler’s List.

I slept just fine.

And it wasn’t that the movie was bad, or the acting was bad. Christian Bale still is my favorite Batman of all time, with his brooding moodiness and tortured what-the-hell-am-I-doing-running-around-in-a-costume-ness. And Heath Ledger did deserve his Oscar, because he totally knocked it out of the park with the Joker. Even moreso if you’ve seen Brokeback Mountain, because I seriously cannot imagine two more different characters than Ennis del Mar and the Joker. And the one who really got me was Aaron Eckhart, playing one of the most understandable, sympathetic, no-don’t-go-there! villains ever. Seriously, I don’t think I’d ever seen much he’s done before now, but I was totally sold. Add in Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman (do either of them EVER turn in a bad performance?), and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and you’ve got some excellent acting all around. Excellent effects, good plot (albeit a bit on the long side), and some decent dialogue… it’s not like I can say “this part SUCKED and ruined the movie for me.” And really, the movie wasn’t ruined for me at all. I enjoyed it. I was just expecting to be thoroughly depressed after it, and I wasn’t.

Oh well. Such is hype, I suppose.

But for the most part, The Dark Knight did a pretty good job living up to the positive reviews. I won’t say it lived up to the hype because few things ever do, but it was a pretty darn good movie. And yet, I just can’t get into jumping up and down and telling you you absolutely MUST see this movie NOW. Maybe it’s because you already have. Maybe it’s because it’s Batman. Maybe I’m just lazy today, I don’t know. I think the truth is that you know going into this one if you’ll like it or not. If you like Batman, you’ll probably like it. If you don’t, you won’t.

So take that for what it’s worth.

Want a second opinion? Check out Al’s review of The Dark Knight!

PROTIP: Don't look behind you.

Didja Notice?

• William Fitchner in the William Fitchner role?

• The Scarecrow? Yay, a rogue’s gallery!
• “Here’s my card.” Heh.
• Lucius Fox mentions the new suit should do fine against cats? Maybe a little bit of foreshadowing?
• Senator Patrick Leahy at Bruce Wayne’s fundraising party?
• Anthony Michael Hall as the host of Gotham Tonight?
• The Jerry Maguire reference?
• The “I believe in Harvey Dent” sticker on Joker’s nurse outfit?
• That The Joker apparently rigged an entire hospital with explosives and no one noticed?
• That headache you get when you look at Bat-sonar for too long?

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

No.

Intermission!

This is the first Batman film not to incorporate the word Batman in its title.

While developing the style and mannerisms of the Joker, Heath Ledger relied on the look of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of Alex De Large in A Clockwork Orange.

This is the last film role Heath Ledger completed prior to his death on January 22nd, 2008.

Ledger won 32 posthumous Supporting Actor awards for his work on this movie.

Much of the script sprung from the Batman stories “The Long Halloween,” “The Killing Joke,” “The Man Who Laughs,” as well as some early appearances of the Joker in the 1940s.

Groovy Quotes

The Joker: Wanna know how I got these scars?

The Joker: I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you… stranger.

The Joker: How about a magic trick?

Harvey Dent: The famous Bruce Wayne. Rachel’s told me everything about you.
Bruce Wayne: I certainly hope not.

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

The Joker: Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?

The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan?

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Batman Begins

• Batman (1989)
• Heat

Summary Capsule: In a really messed up world, people buy organs, and when they can’t pay, they get repossessed. Oh yeah, and people sing about it.

Lissa’s Rating: I can’t believe I actually wanted to watch a Paris Hilton movie.

Lissa’s Review: I feel like I should turn in my feminist card or something.

Look, I can’t say I hate Paris Hilton, okay? I’ve never met the woman, and for all I know in real life she’s charming and gracious and kind to puppies and small children. But I do hate the fact that she’s famous. As far as I can tell, she has no real discernable talent (holding a tune and talent are not synonymous), and I just don’t get the appeal. I mean, I could name ten actresses off the top of my head who are more attractive and talented than Paris Hilton but not nearly so famous. (Fine: Leah Cairns, Katee Sackhoff, Alyson Hannigan, Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, Felicia Day, Mary Louise Parker, Ziyi Zhang, Angela Basset, and Sarah Chalke. See? And this doesn’t mention all the people we all know in real life.) So when we clicked on the preview for Repo! The Genetic Opera starring Paris Hilton, we were thoroughly prepared to mock it. We were NOT anticipating saying, “Um, y’know… that might be good.”

Of course, no one else was anticipating that either. I don’t think it came to a theater around here, but then again, I do blink. And when I went to the evil empire that is Blockbuster to rent a copy, there were three perched on the shelf, all waiting to be signed out.

Now, what in the world would possess me to watch a Paris Hilton movie? Excellent question. Let’s answer it:

1.) It’s a rock opera. I am a sucker for rock operas.
2.) It’s a rock opera about a post-apocalyptic world where people are oppressed and in danger and addicted. More things I’m a total sucker for.
3.) It’s stylistic. It’s kind of like a young Baz Luhrman on a bad acid trip. See above notes about suckers.
4.) Anthony Stewart Head.

So there’s this world in the not so distant future, where people were being killed by some plague that caused organ failure. A company called Gene Co was able to offer a solution, and some people became addicted to surgery, having “designer” organs. However, when they couldn’t keep up with the payment plan, the organs were repossessed.

Lovely premise, huh?

Repo! The Genetic Opera was one of the most uneven movies I have ever seen in my life. In one moment, I’d be thinking how much I was enjoying whatever was on screen. The set was pretty awesome (if obviously done on a low budget), the costumes and mood were pitch perfect, and some of the songs had their moments. And yet, the next moment I would be cringing in agony, amazed that something could suck that badly. When Paris Hilton comes off as the most talented in a trio, you have some issues, people.

The stuff I was loving was almost exclusively when Anthony Stewart Head was on screen. The guy carried the movie as best he could. I love good old Giles, and one of my favorite parts about the show was the father-daughter relationship between Giles and Buffy.. Here he plays an actual father, pushed to desperate measures by circumstances outside of his control and forced to do terrible things because although he has a choice, his other options are ones he can’t bear to think of, and he’s on a redemptive arc and DID I MENTION THESE GUYS ARE CRACK TO ME? I am a total sucker for that sort of character, and he played it so well. Tortured Fathers Desperate to Save Their Children are right up there with Pretty Boys Not Allowed to Have Nice Things, so yeah. I couldn’t help liking that part.

I also loved the way they did all the back stories, with graphic novel like panels. It fit the movie and the genre perfectly, delivered the back story effectively, and was an extremely creative touch.

The stuff I was hating was… well, a lot of it. The music was anything but melodic, although some of the songs were okay. But for the most part they were spoken more than sung, the lyrics didn’t flow, and they don’t remotely stick in the head. The first half hour of the movie was slow. Some of the performances were the opposite of impressive. I will mention it was gory here, but the special effects on that count were bad enough that I didn’t avert my eyes once. (Given what a baby I generally am about that, that’s NOT a ringing endorsement.) And although there are some interesting ideas, the movie is not deep, and the dialogue is not clever. The movie is making a bit of a splash at Hot Topic from the looks of things, and that’s perfectly fitting.

The thing is, Repo! The Genetic Opera struck me as a big risk by a younger film maker. There were some flashes of brilliance in it- ideas that worked well, tidbits that tantalized and showed real talent and vision… and yet, it seemed like it wasn’t quite carried through. And when a risk like that falls, it falls hard. After all, that’s what makes it a risk. And this was a risk that almost paid off, but not quite.

However, this is TOTAL Mutant material. Quirky, laughably bad in spots, excellent in others, interesting and warped ideas, and something that no one is ever going to watch but is actually fairly worth watching, at least once, as long as you’re into that quirky sort of thing. If nothing else, it’s only 97 minutes and you get to see Paris Hilton get booed off the stage. That right there makes it worth while. Would I recommend this movie to my mother? Not on your life. Would I recommend it to someone who reads this site? Hell yeah- this is THAT kind of movie.

So go rent it and enjoy!

Didja Notice?

-Joan Jett as a guitarist
-The headline of the newspaper is misspelled.
-How much profanity is in this movie? Pulling quotes was hard.
-Amber Sweet changed her face eight times.
-Granny DJ! (Much less alarming than the Granny rapper in Wedding Singer)
-That you can be quite alive after having your intestines removed? (Although I think I knew this after Braveheart. Who came up with disemboweling, anyway? And what was WRONG with them?)
-10 out of 9? Really?

Intermission

-Repo! The Genetic Opera holds the record for the most songs ever composed into one film, with 64.
-The movie is actually the second in a potential trilogy, although neither the first nor the third have been filmed.
-When traveling through the underground tunnels Alexa Vega almost caught her hair on fire due to the many torches around her.
-The entire set was built on one sound stage.
-Some of Amber Sweet (Paris Hilton)’s costumes actually belonged to Paris Hilton.
-Paris Hilton won a Razzie for her role in this. Ironically, she actually wasn’t that horrendous. Go figure.

Groovy Quotes

Grave-Robber: Zydrate comes in a little glass vial!

The common response to Paris Hilton singing. Look, it's late. I'm going for the cheap and easy shot, okay?

Shilo Wallace: A little glass vial?
Dancer, Dancer, Dancer: A little glass vial!

Pavi Largo: Ask a Gentern who they prefer, ten out of nine will say “The Pavi!”

Shilo Wallace: Stay with the dead, I’m joining the living!

If You Liked This Try

-Rocky Horror Picture Show
-Moulin Rogue!
-Heavy Metal

The Scoop: 2008 PG-13, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf

Tagline: No tagline

Summary Capsule: With the Cold War in full swing, Indiana Jones fends off the Russians and runs into old an old flame while searching South America for the mysterious Crystal Skull of Akator.

Lissa’s Rating: I can fence, too, but I doubt I could do it on the back of a moving car.

Lissa’s Review: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

At seven o’clock, Ducklet was just finishing watching Empire Strikes Back, his new favorite movie of all time. At ten o’clock, Duckie and I were watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That’s right — in three hours, Harrison Ford aged thirty years and he was still spouting the same line.

Fortunately, we were amused.

I’ve been avoiding reading the other Mutant’s reviews on the latest (and hopefully last) installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, just because this is one of those movies where I was going to see it no matter what, and reading a lot of negative reviews beforehand would make me very cynical and almost certainly not enjoy it. Because, see, Indiana Jones is not about thinking for me. It’s brain candy, and all I expect from my Indiana Jones movies is to have fun watching it. I mean, come on. The favorite villains in the first few were Nazis. When you want someone to be indisputably evil with no shades of gray whatsoever, who do you draw on? Nazis. It’s why Godwin’s Law exists, y’know.

Despite the fact I knew I would see — good Lord, is there a shorter version of this freaking title? Let’s call it Skulls – despite the fact I knew I would see Skulls, I elected not to see it in the movie theater. I get out to the theaters rarely, and I prefer to spend my money either on a.) films that I know Duckie won’t see with me, or b.) films that I know won’t suck. It’s best if a movie combines both, but hey — we all know how often that happens. And Skulls didn’t fit either criteria.

It didn’t suck nearly as bad as I was fearing. In fact, there were parts of it I really enjoyed, and like I said before, that’s all I need in an Indy movie. The setup was just as simplistic as any of the others: weird crystal skull needs to be either replaced/put in a museum/rescued from the hands of the Russians, whatever the movie calls for at the moment. Coming along for the ride are Indy’s ex Marion and her son Mutt, which, DUH. Anyone with half a brain can figure THAT one out. (Which says a lot about Mutt and Indy that it takes them over half the movie.) That’s pretty much the whole plot summation of the movie, or at least as much as I’m going to give you.

There are some great lines and some great action, the latter as pleasantly unbelievable as the action usually is in Indy movies. Okay, at times it totally stretches into the absurd, but at least it’s really pretty. I’ve got to give Ford a lot of credit for the shape he’s in (and I mean that in a completely non-sarcastic, wow-he’s-still-awfully-hot sort of way), and the kid subplot was nowhere near as annoying as it could have been. I liked the way they just rolled with it. Indy is still Indy, and Marion was always my absolute favorite of his love interests. And it was kind of nice that the villain was played by a very attractive woman and he didn’t sleep with her. (Of course, she was a crazy dominatrix type, but that’s never stopped a man in Hollywood.) The way they explained the non-presence of Indy’s dad and Marcus was classy, perfectly done, and seamless.

My main criticism is that the movie was too easy. The thing I always liked about Indy was that, even though he was an action hero, there were always puzzles in his way. True, they might not have been the most profound or anything, but there was a reason to make this whip-swinging, Fedora-wearing adventurer a college professor. (Oh, also? The tenure joke CRACKED ME UP.) And given that our adventurer IS getting older, a few more puzzles wouldn’t have hurt, y’know? I’m not talking Mensa level or anything — just the equivalent to what used to be in the movies. Cunning traps. Snares that could be avoided by understanding the culture. Anything more complicated than holding up an artifact and winning the day just by raising your arms over your head.

Either way, the Indy movies are an era unto themselves, and it was pretty cool to get a last installment. Or hopefully a last installment, anyway. Sometimes it’s a good thing to let something end, and I think we’re at that point now. And no, George, Mutt Jones just does not have the same sort of ring.

Now give back the Fedora.

Want a second opinion? Check out Al, Kyle and Justin’s reviews here.

No one pulls off the manpurse like Indiana Jones pulls off the manpurse.

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Drag racing the military? Those crazy kids…
• “Russians.” You can almost hear the “I hate these guys…”
• Indy tracking the warehouse crate MacGuyver-style?
• Howdy Doody on TV?
• Fake towns never get any less creepy, do they?
• Indy is still telling his students to read Michaelson twenty years later?
• Little Shia LaBeouf in the black and white picture?
• The stage business with Mutt, Indy, and the beer?
• Indy giving Mutt the Henry Jones, Sr. ‘This isn’t funny.’ look during the car chase?
• The Marcus Brody statue says he was dean of students from 1939 to 1944?
• Indy spitting at the name of Victoriano Huerta?
• Mutt’s not-so-subtle mention of being great at fencing?
• The reverse blowdart?
• Shia LeBouf getting attacked by scorpions? I’m alright with that.
• Saucer Men from Mars?
• So, you’ve found the Ark of the Covenant, been paralyzed by a voodoo doll, and drank from the Holy Grail. But aliens and psychics? Bah! A bedtime story!
• Okay, the Tarzan bit is a little much.
• Quicksand vs Dry Sand?
• The S-bomb! Is that a first for an Indy movie?
• Why are there two parallel paths through the jungle, anyway?
• How many times can you bust a guy’s nose in 48 hours?
• So the skull can find your car keys *and* keep away insects? Neat.
• OMG Mutt’s gonna be the new Ind–syke!
• My wife was absurdly pleased with the amount of “fluffies” present in this movie, including some comical prarie dogs and attack monkeys
• Indy seems to lose his hat quite a bit
• “Janitor” from Scrubs as one of the FBI interrogators
• The ending is a gallon of “Huh?”
• It’s the Ark of the Covenant! Still melting faces, Ark?
• Man-eating ants! Now, I’m happy.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Just for the Raiders March in Dolby Digital surround sound.

Intermission!

Sean Connery was approached for a cameo appearance as Henry Jones Sr., Indiana’s father, but he turned it down, finding retirement too enjoyable. George Lucas later stated that in retrospect it was good that Jones Sr. did not appear, as it would disappoint the audience when he would not come along for the adventure. Harrison Ford also joked that he was getting old enough to play his own father, so Sean wasn’t needed anymore.

This is the first Indiana Jones film without actor Pat Roach, who had a role in all the first three films. Roach died in 2004.

To reprise his role as the legendary explorer Indiana Jones, the 64-year-old Harrison Ford spent three hours a day at the gym, and subsisted on a high-protein diet of fish and vegetables, thus building his body into a condition where he could perform his own stunts (he always kept himself fit anyway, as he hoped to complete all the five Indiana Jones films that were originally planned in the 1980s). Steven Spielberg later stated he was so impressed with Ford’s form that he could not tell the difference between the shoots for the third and fourth films.

Groovy Quotes

Mac: Well, this isn’t going to be easy.
Indy: Not as easy as it used to be.

Spalko: No defiant last words, Doctor Jones?
Indy: I like Ike.

Indy: What’s your mom’s name, again?
Mutt: Mary. Mary Williams. You remember her?
Indy: There were a lot of Marys, kid.
Mutt: That’s my mother you’re talking about!

Mutt: She said if anyone could find the skull, it was you. You’re like some kind of graverobber or something.
Indy: I’m a tenured professor of archeology.
Mutt: Oh, you’re a teacher? Well, that’s gonna be a big help.

Mutt: You know, for an old man, you ain’t bad in a fight.
Indy: Thanks a lot.
Mutt: What are you? Like, eighty?

Mutt: You’re a… teacher?
Indy: Part time.

Marion: Are you still leaving a trail of human wreckage, or have you retired?
Indy: Why, you looking for a date?

Indy: I think we both knew that it wasn’t going to work!
Marion: You didn’t know that! Why didn’t you ever talk to me about it?
Indy: Because we never had an argument I won!

Marion: I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to go on with my life. There must have been plenty of women for you over the years.
Indy: Yeah, there were a few. But they all had the same problem.
Marion: Yeah? What’s that?
Indy: They weren’t you, honey.

Mutt: What’s he gonna do now?
Marion: I don’t think he plans that far ahead.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark

• National Treasure
• The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Zach Snyder and starring Billy Crudup, Malin Ackerman and Carla Gugino.

Tagline: They watch over us… but who watches them?

Summary Capsule: Alan Moore’s ‘unfilmable’ magnum opus gets filmed.

Lissa’s Rating: There are times and places for “Hallelujah”, and this is NOT it.

Lissa’s Review: This past Friday, I finished reading Watchmen for the first time. This represents the culmination of years of a mind changing process.

I am a total geek. We all know this. Come on, I write for a website called Mutant Reviewers From Hell — what else would I be? But despite that, I clung to my belief that comic books (and yes, they were ALL comic books) were lesser art forms. Meant for kids. Archie and Jughead and anything else was just sort of unthinkable. Over the years, I’ve made friends (about 90% of them guys) that read graphic novels. I politely ignored their love of them and mentally patted them on the head much the same way they probably did the same thing when I waxed poetic about Harry Potter. Then I saw V for Vendetta.

V for Vendetta is everything I love in a story. End times. Dictatorial regime. Persecution. Desperation. Tight bond between two characters that is not necessarily sexual. I loved the movie, and actually considered reading the book. Hey — for me, this was a big leap forward. I really started looking at graphic novels differently, understanding what sort of stories they could tell.

Then that survey started going around on LiveJournal and Facebook. The one that asks how many of the Times Top 100 books have you read? And Watchmen was on that list. Okay, that gave me a kick, especially since a lot of the other books struck me as pretentious, and frankly boring. Shortly after I saw that, I wrote a story that I really, really liked, and someone illustrated part of it like a graphic novel. Seeing my own work brought into imagery that way… I suddenly got it. Completely and utterly got it. I now understand what graphic novels can really be if done well, and just how valid an art form they really are. So I picked up Watchmen, and needless to say, I adored it. Add me to the fan list, even if I’m the most recent name on it. (I suspect I’m not.)

So, Friday I finished reading Watchmen. Saturday I went to see it.

Now, one of the best parts about being a newly converted fangirl is I haven’t had the time to soak up all the details and the intricacies and the implications. So when I went to see the movie, I just really, really enjoyed it, especially given how freaking faithful it is to the novel. I completely agreed with what they cut, was amazed at how much they kept in, and was okay with the change at the end, although I know other people weren’t. (I’m not going to say they’re wrong. I spend too much time ranting about Harry Potter and Battlestar Galactica to tell them “hey, it’s just a movie and they just streamlined it a little.” I get that frustration. But I haven’t earned my spurs as a Watchmen fangirl, so I’ll leave that analysis and rant for someone else.)

For the uninitiated, Watchmen is a superhero story, but it’s a different take on superheroes. Instead of making these people out to be mountains of nobility, Watchmen starts with the premise that it takes a very specific mindset to dress up in a costume and go out fighting crime, and chances are these people are lunatics. Well, come on. Do you dress in latex and patrol the streets? I didn’t think so. But the idea that it takes a very extreme personality is very plausible. And then to put these personalities into proximity of each other… it’s like an especially, incredibly dysfunctional forerunner of the X-Men family. And it’s awesome.

It’s a fantastic story, yes. How is it as a movie? I wasn’t at all disappointed. The effects are beautiful, particularly those on Mars. (Although I would have liked to have seen more of Mars, just because we’ve been reading books about the planets with Ducklet.) The acting ranged from acceptable (wasn’t that impressed with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozy) to stellar (Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian were complete standouts). There was some really neat cinematography, especially the pauses during the fight scenes where they basically shouted “Look how perfectly we’re recreating the novel!” and the “The Times they Are A-Changing” sequence at the beginning. I wasn’t even all that phased by the naked Dr. Manhattan, although when I mentioned that fact Duckie was suddenly relieved he didn’t go see the movie on the IMAX screen.

It was a bit long, I have to admit. However, I should lodge that complaint more at the people who make the movie seats than the people who made the movie. I wasn’t bored — my butt just started hurting, that’s all. (But boy, let me tell you how grateful I am that they cut the monologue at the end down a bit!) In fact, I can’t wait for the director’s cut, because I’m dying to see the stuff that got cut out.

So, yeah. I loved it. But as I said, I’m a brand spanking new fan, and I’m still in the infatuation phase, so take my review with that in mind. I’ll certainly reread the novel, and I’ll certainly buy the DVD and watch it that night, and probably several more times. Really, unless you truly despise any sort of fantastical elements whatsoever in a plot or are very, very squicked by violence or are under a certain age, there’s no reason not to see this one.

Want a second opinion? Check out Mike’s review of Watchmen here!

Whoever said purple is the new gray was seriously disturbed.

Didja Notice?

• Ozymandias’ German accent when he’s not in public?

• How much Nite Owl and Silk Spectre look like Clark Kent and Lois Lane?
• Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing in Veidt’s lobby?
• Doc Manhatten’s package? Yeah, if I was packin’ that much heat, I’d walk around naked all the time too.

Intermission!

Nathan Fillion was considered for the roles of The Comedian and Nite Owl.

Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were both previously scheduled to direct.

The first official image from director Zack Snyder – a test shot of Rorshach holding The Comedian’s button – was actually hidden in a trailer for Snyder’s previous film, 300. It features the film’s associate producer, Wesley Coller, wearing a makeshift mask in front of a composite New York backdrop, and was created as an experiment by Snyder to establish the mood and look of his proposed Watchmen project. Snyder’s wife, Deborah Snyder, bet him $100 that no one would discover it, while he was convinced that someone would find it almost immediately. He won.

Groovy Quotes

Nite Owl: At least I’m not the one still hiding behind a mask.
Rorschach: No, you’re hiding in plain sight.

The Comedian: Here I am spilling my guts to my arch enemy. Truth is, Moloch, you’re the closest thing I have to a friend. What does that say?

Silk Spectre: Breaking into a national security prison is not the same thing as fighting a tenement fire.
Nite Owl: You’re right. It’s more fun.

Lee Iacocca: And we all know ‘free’ is just another word for communist.

Rorschach: Funny story. Sounds unbelievable. Probably true.

Rorschach: You keep calling me Walter. I don’t Like you.
Dr. Malcolm Long: Oh… why not?
Rorschach: You’re Fat.

Rorschach: None of you understand! I’m not locked in here with you! You’re locked in here with me!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• 300

• Sin City
• Wanted

The Scoop: 2007, R, directed by Greg Mottola and starring Seth Rogan and Michael Cera

Tagline: Come and get some.

Summary Capsule: Three geeky kids try to get laid before they graduate. Gee. Sound familiar? (Um, I mean to other movies, not your own life.)

Lissa’s Rating: Superyawn

Lissa’s Review:I saw this movie well over a month ago, and have been attempting to formulate a review ever since, and I just can’t seem to get myself off my butt and do it. Even now, I have my Facebook page open in the background so I can reward myself with a game of Scramble after every paragraph. (This would explain why my high score is 257.) This movie was just that uninspiring to me.

I had hopes. For some reason I had it in my head that this was a Judd Apatow script, which might partly account for my disappointment. (It was Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, for the few of you who didn’t know that. But Seth Rogan’s worked with Judd Apatow a lot, and Apatow was one of the producers on this.) It’s full of barely-past-indy actors who seem to be involved in a lot of good comedies these days. Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill (who I first saw in the rather underrated Accepted)… we were just missing Paul Rudd and Justin Long, I think. And the setup, while pretty predictable, seemed like it could be full of entertaining but true insights to being young and stupid. (Because sorry, but stupidity sort of goes with the territory when you’re a teenager.)

And I guess that was all there. But still.

The plot was pretty American Pie-like. Three high school buddies — Seth (Hill), Evan (Cera), and the Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) — want to get laid before they graduate high school. In order to do this, they offer to get booze for a party. Of course, since they’re under 21, getting booze is harder than it is for me, since no one ever cards me anymore now that I’m old enough to be someone’s mother. And wacky hijinks ensure. And, as I’m sure you can guess since this movie is focused on teenaged boys, so does profanity.

The thing is, I don’t consider myself a prude. I’ve got a pretty healthy inner twelve-year-old, and although I might make pretensions to class, I enjoy a good scatological joke at times as well. And sex jokes are often downright funny. And I’m certainly not going to start wailing about “the children”, because come on people, not everything in this world should be appropriate for three year olds. But a sex joke has to be more than just actually saying the naughty words, y’know? Anyone can say them, but it takes some wit to actually transform sex terms into something funny.

But Superbad is one of the few movies I’ve ever seen that was really ruined for me by the profanity and language. It wasn’t that it was particularly disgusting; it was that it was boring. Seriously. The pacing was really thrown off by the constant stream of off-color “jokes”, and I just wanted the story to move along. Because there was a story there, and if the movie had been a half-hour shorter, it would have been much better.

Plus, I thought some of the jokes (like the blood one) were a little too gross. But after talking to Al about the movie, I think that just might be my X chromosome talking.

The thing about Judd Apatow movies is that generally, despite the profanity and the sex gags and the puerile humor, there’s usually a story in there, and it’s often times touching. Partly because it’s believable, and partly because the characterization makes it become believable. Superbad fell down in the characterization. I really like the idea of two geeks who are best friends, and one’s ready and eager to move onto college and the other hasn’t quite gotten to that point yet. It’s got a lot of potential, and while sure, it might not be the most novel story in the universe, it’s something we can all relate to. But the real story got lost in the onslaught of four-year-old humor, and it was really to the story’s detriment. The balance was off.

Well, I’ve played a good five games of Scramble, and frankly, I’ve run out of things to say. I ended up finding this movie so forgettable and dull that I’m really just phoning this review in. If you want a good teen sex comedy, go back to the video store and rent American Pie for the millionth time. It really was a lot better.

Spawn 1 has his driver's permit? May God have mercy on us all!

• Seth and Evan. Duh, of course you noticed. It’s like noticing an anvil being dropped on your head.
• The young Becky is holding a very different drawing than the one the movie says she is. Thank God
• -Some serious guy love going here. (::Cues JD and Turk.::)
• What the guys did versus what they say they did? That cracked me up and made me think that this was actually going to be a good movie for a moment.
• How hard a time I had finding appropriate quotes for this? Sheesh.

IS IT WORTH STAYING THROUGH THE END CREDITS?

Only if you really feel the need to see more of Seth’s drawings. (And according to IMDb, a lot of the minor character actors were credited with their “porn star” names.)

INTERMISSION

• Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg started this script when they were thirteen. This explains SO much.

• Because the guy playing Fogell was only seventeen at the time, his mother had to be on set for the filming of his sex scene. Wow. My opinion of this young man’s acting chops just went up a hundredfold, because I sure couldn’t fake having sex with my mother watching and not die of embarrassment. (About that. I really wonder how many actors watch their works with their parents, and how everyone in the room feels when the steamy scenes come on. I mean, I love my boys and everything, but once they’re old enough I do not want to see what they look like having sex, even if it’s all acting, y’know? How awkward must it be to have your parents know what you look like having an orgasm?)

• Oh. I see from IMDb that Justin Long originally WAS in the movie, but his scene was cut for length.

GROOVY QUOTES

Evan: This guy is either gonna think ‘Here’s another kid with a fake ID’ or ‘Here’s McLovin, a 25 year-old Hawaiian organ donor’.

Seth: You dropped your purse, ma’am. Would you like me to help you with your shopping?
Old Lady: That would be lovely! Do you want me to buy you alcohol?
Seth: That would be lovely!

Seth: He is the sweetest guy. Have you ever looked into his eyes? It was like the first time I heard the Beatles.

The Scoop: 2006 PG-13, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou, Ian McKellan and Jean Reno

Tagline: Seek the Truth

SUMMARY CAPSULE: The Church is an evil entity dedicated to covering up sex and women, and Tom Hanks must expose it all! (Um, the Church’s cover ups. Get your mind out of the gutter!)

Lissa’s Rating: All right, blasphemy! Let’s get it on! (Kidding, Justin!) Just kidding.

Lissa’s Review: I have a confession to make: I’ve never read The DaVinci Code.

I know, I know. It’s a fantastic book, lots of fun and interesting, and I really should read it. And I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy it. But the thing is, it’s taken so darn long to come out in paperback. As a mom with two toddlers, the only place I read is in the tub, and hardbacks and water don’t mix. So, even though we have a copy, I still have not read The DaVinci Code.

Needless to say, this puts me in a pretty unique place for viewing the movie. No comparison to the source material, no ranting about what should have been different…. And given that I’m a scientist and not a historian, I gleefully live in ignorance of the finer points of the Knights of Templar and the intricate history of the Church, so I don’t feel the need to complain about any inaccuracies. I could just sit back and enjoy the story. And enjoy it I did.

In case I’m not the only one out there that hasn’t read the book (should we start a support group?), the story is this: Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is giving a lecture on symbols when he’s pulled in on a murder case. (That happens all the time during conferences.) The curator of a museum has died an extremely messy death, and a lot of people aren’t happy about it. Said people include the curator’s granddaughter Sophie (Audrey Tautou), the police, and a weird albino type monk named Silas (Paul Bettany). Oh, wait, I take that back – Silas is VERY happy, given that he killed him. Sorry about that. Anyway, the big question is why, and the chase is then on.

As a movie, it’s a nice piece of intelligent popcorn fodder. Acting’s fine (especially Ian McKellan as Leigh Teabing, whom I enjoyed immensely), sets are cool, story’s decent, backstory is fine… yeah. It isn’t a deep, heavy movie, but it isn’t pure fluff that you can dismiss from your mind immediately. The mystery isn’t completely obvious, for a two and half hour movie the pacing is quite good, and I really enjoyed watching it. Definitely worth seeing.

What I found interesting, however, was the main thesis of the movie and probably book (and this is a spoiler for my support group) – the idea that the Church had covered up that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

This is not a new idea, so I’m not completely sure why the Catholic Church got so up in arms. For ages, I think people have speculated on the relationship between Jesus and Mary. If Catholicism was a fandom, the JC/MM shippers would be a very vocal faction, and probably quite rabid. And you know, in a way, that’s sort of what I feel like things like The Last Temptation of Christ and this idea in the DaVinci Code are – fanfiction based on the Bible. They’re giant “what if”s and “could this have happened?”s. And frankly, I love ‘em. Well, okay, I’ve never watched all of The Last Temptation because the crucifixion scene in the beginning really bothered me. But still.

See, in my experience, I find the Bible very difficult to read. Now, please do not interpret this as pure blasphemy – I’m a Christian. But you have these fascinating stories that are reduced down to mere paragraphs or even sentences. The writing is rather dry, and not much space is given to the conversations or thoughts or motivations of some of the people. (Note that I said some of them. Paul has Books on his thoughts.) And given how influential of a man Jesus was and continues to be, it’s only natural that people would want to know more about how his mind worked. What his life was really like. How his friends, apostles, enemies, and everyone around him related to him.

Do I believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a romantic relationship? I don’t know. I frankly do not know enough about the time period, and I’m not stupid enough that I’ll take what’s in a movie as fact without any verification. Do I believe it could have been possible? Sure, I’m open to it. Just like it’s interesting to think about Moses relating to his Pharoh adoptive brother, or how Samson and Delilah really went, or where Cain’s wife came from, or anything else that the Bible leaves so widely open.

According to this movie, I may be hunted down by the villainous Catholic Church, determined to keep any mention of Jesus actually loving someone (How terribly unholy! LOVE! Blech!) out of the media and out of our minds. And I suppose that could lead to some very interesting speculation on the Church. But frankly, I think I’m pretty safe, and I’m sure it burns a lot of good priests up to see the depiction of their religion in a movie like this. (I keep harping on Catholicism because the movie does, by the way.) Needless to say, I did find the depiction of religion in the movie a bit simplistic. I’m not saying there weren’t some valid points, but I think the brush they used was a bit too wide at times.

The thing about the DaVinci Code is this: it’s the kind of movie that can spark discussion. It might be a bit of a popcorn flick, but it’s one you can talk about beyond, “whoa, did you see that explosion?” or “that chick was HOT.” And anything that can do that has serious redeeming value in my book.

I’d say go rent it, but as I’m officially the last person in the world to have seen it or read the book, I’ll save my breath. Just enjoy it again or something.

DIDJA NOTICE?

American Gothic meets Mona Lisa

• Les Mis is playing!
• Angelic car air fresheners.
• Apple was the password? Wouldn’t something like JUNXD or PGBQR be a better password?
• You need Dad’s DNA to prove he’s your dad, you know. (Or great-great-great-great-great-keep going grandpa’s DNA.)
• Pagan sex rituals. I guess that’s what that was, according to the great font of knowledge that is Wikipedia.
• The way they showed Langdon’s mind working the clues was really, really cool.
• Mary Magdalene and Jesus getting together I get. But making her secretly royal? That’s rather fanficcy, don’t you think? I actually don’t like that concept- I like the idea that Jesus would see worth and value in a prostitute much better. It fits better with what he preached than that his wife was a princess.
• Are there any famous figures that weren’t members of secret societies?
• I really liked the symbolism of Langdon kneeling at the end, and told Duckie it would be cool if he’d been a Knight of Templar this entire time.

'If I throw money in, does my wish come true?'

IS IT WORTH STAYING THROUGH THE END CREDITS?

The code stuff is funky, but there are no extra scenes or anything.

INTERMISSION

There is a gargoyle spied by Sophie inside Temple Church that is modeled after Ron Howard’s face.

When Teabing is describing the passage in the lost gospel of Philip, he is interrupted before he can finish quoting a line about Jesus kissing Magdelene. During an interview on NPR’s “Day to Day,” religious historian Elaine Pagels (whose book on the gnostic gospels was a source for Dan Brown’s novel) said that the gospel is physically broken at exactly the place that Teabing stops talking, so he would be unable to quote it any further anyway.

Near the U.S. Embassy, there is a quick shot of a poster advertising an opera based on Les Miserables. According to documents, its author, Victor Hugo, is the twenty-fourth Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, serving from 1844 to 1885.

Alexander Pope never delivered a eulogy or did anything for Sir Isaac Newton’s funeral. However, he did at one point write a poem about him.

And if you look real close, you can see the moment when he really does hit himself with the book.

GROOVY QUOTES

Robert Langdon: It’s an old wives’ tale.
Sir Leigh Teabing: The original one, in fact!

Robert Langdon: I’ve got to get to a library… Fast!

Robert Langdon: The ancient male symbol was the blade, it’s a basic phallus. It’s still used today on military uniforms.
Sir Leigh Teabing: Yes, and the more penises you have, the higher your rank. Boys will be boys!

Sir Leigh Teabing: As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• National Treasure
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• The Last Temptation of Christ

The Scoop: 2008 PG, directed by Gil Kenan and starring Bill Murray, Tim Robbins and Harry Treadaway

Tagline: Escape Is The Only Option

Summary Capsule: Two kids save their city and humanity when no adults will listen to them.

Lissa’s Rating: The costume people raided the old Battlestar Galactica wardrobes, I think.

Lissa’s Review: Fantasy gets a bad rap for some reason, especially among the movie-going public. Unless it’s preceded by Harry Potter and the…, fantasy movies almost always get lukewarm reviews. Oh, sure, you have your exceptions, like Pan’s Labyrinth. But in general, the critics and so many people just don’t like fantasy. Now, me, I love fantasy, so it’s only natural that I’m going to say what I say next: I just don’t get that. Why are magic and dragons and all that considered so much more unbelievable than the lifestyles on Sex In the City? Okay, maybe I can answer that, but why are fantasy novels deemed so irrelevant by so many people?

Well they are, and it’s a shame, because when a movie like City of Ember comes out, it gets lambasted as boring and trite, and really, I found it to be neither. I’m not saying it’s a work of cinematic genius, but I am saying that I really enjoyed it and would see it again in a heartbeat, as long as there was nothing else playing I wanted to spend money on. (Obligatory fantasy statement: I have not yet read the book, so I have no idea how loyal an adaptation it is.)

City of Ember takes place in an underground city after humanity has devolved into nuclear winter. It’s a pretty fascinating premise, and actually a little reminiscent of the Noah’s Ark idea I liked in Deep Impact. However, in the two hundred years that the survivors and their descendents have been down here, some things have gone wrong. For one, the city’s infrastructure is starting to go. But the bigger thing is the Escape Plan – and the whole reason for being down here in the first place – was lost when one of the Mayors of Ember died unexpectedly. But no one really knows that, since it was kept in a locked box, so the crumbling infrastructure (particularly the generator) is of more interest to the townspeople.

So, enter Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway). Doon wants to work with the generator, but he has to accept the job he’s given. In a typical dystopian future society move, jobs are not selected but assigned. In this case, children pull them out of a hat. Doon is assigned the job of messenger, which he promptly swaps with his friend Lina (Saoirse Ronan) for a pipe worker’s job. As the two begin to fit themselves into their roles, they both happen across important clues for the survival of humanity. And of course there’s a villain who wants to stop them – Mayor Cole (Bill Murray, lazily doing a little scenery chewing).

What captivated me the most about City of Ember was the world that was created. I always like seeing worlds that have some grounding in our society, but have some interesting laws, structures, or stories born out of the circumstances. The film makers did a pretty seamless job introducing us to that world without too much clunky exposition. The city of Ember came to life quite nicely, and although I was left with some hanging questions that may or may not be cleared up in either the books or the sequels, they were minor and not too distracting. It was interesting to see how the people dealt with their dwindling resources, and I’ve gotta say, apocalyptic fiction with a bit of hope is always fun.

To be specific, I think one of the things that made City of Ember so appealing and human to me was Lina’s home situation. Like all good fantasy heroines, Lina is an orphan. However, instead of being fairly carefree or tied to an abusive family, Lina lives with her three year old sister and her grandmother, who seems to be succumbing to Alzheimer’s. The way Lina copes with that – and heck, even the situation – just made her very real to me.

'Look at the suckers. Hehe.'

If you are looking for swinging swords and lots of action, you’ll probably be disappointed. But I think that’s a fantasy stereotype, and one that’s often quite limiting. There isn’t a lot of action, but I don’t think there really needs to be. The exploration of this society and the implications that we’re left to ponder are interesting enough.

Loris Harrow is a little unclear on how microwaves work.

• Costuming by old school Battlestar Galactica. Well, that’s what it made me think of, anyway.

• Giant bugs. Yeach.
• This is presumably set in the future. So what’s with the Cold War-style pamphlets? (Rhetorical. I get the symbolism.)
• Bicycle powered answering machines!
• Yarn. Lots of yarn.
• See, girls? This is what desperation looks like. Just don’t go there, okay?
• Can you imagine some of the messages Lina had to repeat? Really, that could be entertaining.

Is It Worth Staying Through The End Credits?

No.

Intermission!

‘Ember’ is a Hungarian word which means ‘man’ and ‘human’ in English.

Doon and Lina escape from Mordor.

Lina Mayfleet: Count down to nothing, it sounds like doomsday.

Mayor Cole: We stand united against the darkness.

Loris Harrow: If you want proof, you have to pursue it.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Stardust

• Solarbabies
• Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

I have to be honest — a lot of 2008 was a blur to me. Granted, my big, life-changing event didn’t happen in 2008, it happened on December 14, 2007. That’s when T2 joined our family, depriving Duckie and I of sleep and bringing a heck of a lot of love to make up for it. A baby coming really wipes a year from your mind, and certainly wipes the time off your plate. But it was a good blur, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Just wish all my Mutant brethren could say the same thing. (::kicks Sue’s 2008. Hard::)

Movie-wise, I can’t say a whole lot. I’ve probably seen fewer movies this year than any year since I graduated college. Sure, I’ve seen several, but very few of them stick out in my head. But I haven’t seen some of the big ones yet. I haven’t seen Dark Knight. I haven’t seen Indiana Jones. I haven’t seen any of the big Oscar contenders, except for Slumdog Millionaire (which you should go see). What I have seen has been pretty non-life changing. Mamma Mia. Hamlet 2. City of Ember. Iron Man. Dragonlance. (Okay, that one made me reconsider watching movies for a moment, but still.) It might have been a reasonable year for movies, but as far as the movies I saw, it was sort of a middling year.

Oh well. Won’t bother with the Oscars again this year.

As far as TV, however… I actually care about TV again. LOST got its footing with its end date and got cool again. Heroes completely faltered and flailed, and is laughable. (But, erm, I still watch. Oh, and that article I wrote where I was undecided who would win between Sayid and Mohinder? Sayid officially wipes the floor with Mohinder’s crusty self.) And I discovered Battlestar Galactica, which has replaced Harry Potter as my area of obsession. But at least now I have Al to talk to about it. We can form a support group or something. I also discovered Big Bang Theory. (How have we missed this for so long? HOW?)

In other media… hmmm. I barely read books this year, which is a shame, given what a voracious bookworm I usually am. (I can, however, do a flawless recitation of The Lorax.) I said a very painful goodbye as I watched what used to be my favorite comic strip die a terrible, mutilated death (that would be For Better or For Worse) and grinned at the end of the year as I discovered Piled Higher and Deeper. (Must have been hiding with Big Bang Theory.) I’m a country listener, so I’ll spare you all my thoughts on music.

And then there was MRFH. On the upside, we had our good stuff. We managed to get four Mutants in one place, which is always fun. I got to spend time with Sue and her spawn (and you haven’t lived until you’ve met Sue’s spawn — they really are fantastic), and I got to meet Al face to face. We saw quite a bit of Drew and Lady Luck, and are really looking forward to meeting Baby Luck so Ducklet can refuse to share his toys with her and fifteen years later we can remind him of that when he tells us how hot Baby Luck is and she won’t look his way. (Which is smart, because Drew at the door on Prom Night? Easily the scariest event of that young boy’s life.) And we got new Mutants, which is always exciting. I was sad to see Shalen go, but we got Kaleb, Heather, and Courtney, so I’d say we lucked out this year on that one. However, I’m praying that next year we can skip anything resembling cancer, but I’m very, very, very, very grateful that Sue’s such a fighter, and that if her spirit is anything to go on, one of my best friends will be here for a long time.

Well, naptime is officially over, so that’s all I’ve got. Hope you all had a fantastic 2008, and here’s to a happy, healthy, wonderful 2009!

DISCLAIMER
There are two kinds of people when it comes to Battlestar Galactica: those who love it and those who will. For anyone in the latter category, please stop reading now. Seriously, I mean it. The following geek session contains discussion about every season of Galactica so far: events, characters, and episodes that will be MAJOR SPOILERS for anyone who isn’t up to date. BSG is the best show on television right now and for us to cheat you out of experiencing it untarnished simply isn’t fair. So, please, go read Justin’s excellent review of seasons one and two or browse Findaflik for something else to occupy your time today. Or better yet, run down to your local video store and grab it for yourself. Anyway, consider yourself warned.

—–

With the last half of the last season of Battlestar Galactica primed and ready to launch, Lissa and I have decided to get our geek on and create lists of the moments during the past three-and-a-half seasons that really knocked us out. They could be events that shocked us or left us feeling gutpunched, character moments that helped us define or see another side to those who inhabit the rag tag fleet, or scenes that put our hearts in our throat with adrenaline or anger or sadness or fear.

Of course, not everything in the past five years is worth putting on the ‘For Your Consideration’ reel. Boxey. Pregnant Six. And, of course, Lee whining and whining and whining and whining. And what more fun than tearing down the stuff that bugs you? So grab your gun and bring in the cat, as we present our Top Ten Battlestar Moments Worth Talking About (and Five Where You Can Save Your Breath)!

#10

Lissa’s #10 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Laura Roslin kidnaps Hera (Downloaded, Episode 218)

LISSA: Okay, the truth is this moment is highly uncomfortable because I adore Roslin and seeing her do something so dark is very disappointing. But at the same time, it’s real. What I really like is that BSG isn’t afraid to tarnish (most of) its heroes, and that’s why I picked this moment. Plus, while I love Laura, she doesn’t get a lot of the big kick-ass moments that other people do. And it led to the awesome line, “Doctor, if I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I’ll say so.”

AL: That is quite possibly my favorite line in the entire show and I like this choice for the same reason. Roslin is a fascinating character to see change from the miniseries to now, and it’s really the first time she did something that I hated her for. I can understand mistrusting Sharon and everything, but faking the murder of a child is just disgusting, especially coming from a character you love so much.

Al’s #10 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
There’s a Baltar in Six’s head! (Downloaded, Episode 218)

AL: Although there are other moments that I rate higher for other reasons, my money says this is the biggest mindfrak of the whole series. When Caprica Six wakes up in the gooey Cylon placenta stuff only to see the face of purported human Gaius Baltar staring back at her, the director gives us just enough time to suck in our breath and go “OH MY GOD, HE’S A CYLON!” before showing us that it’s way more interesting than that. Six in Baltar’s head has been a staple of Galactica since the miniseries, but finding out that Six has an invisible Baltar following her around too just compounds the weirdness ten times over. I love it.

LISSA: Aside from everything that Al has mentioned here, the Head!Baltar just cracks me up. Granted, it’s even funnier when he’s in his own head, but the smooth, sarcastic, jibing ways of the Head!Baltar are fantastic. James Callis isn’t underrated as an actor, but he really does a great job with this.

—–

#9

Lissa’s #9 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tyrol becomes the union head (Dirty Hands, Episode 216)
LISSA: The first time we watched the series, Chief Tyrol was one of my favorite characters. He won me over with his laid back, easy-going attitude and the way he seemed to really care for his crew. Like all the BSG people, he went through a lot of falterings and fumblings, and this was a great moment for me because it seemed like Chief had found his footing. Before they DESTROYED IT! BWAHAHAHAHA!

I also really wish I’d thought to mention Cally’s breakdown at the beginning of The Ties That Bind. Okay, so I watched that episode in the middle of PPD after having T2, but Cally’s desperation as Nicky just refused to sleep was so true to life and so… well, I just sat there crying at that one. It’s nice to see media portray the less glamorous, less-Hallmark side of motherhood.

AL: Chief playing Norma Rae? Really? I like the guy, too, but I would have been happy if they just left it at him throwing his body on the gears and the levers and whatnot from New Caprica. I mentioned in my Babylon 5 article that labor union episodes bore me, and this definitely falls in that category. No thanks.

Al’s #9 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaius convinces Boomer to commit suicide (Kobol’s Last Gleaming I, Episode 112)
AL: This, for me, was the first time I really sat up and took notice of Gaius Baltar. He was always the series’ bad guy, but it was almost by default. He wasn’t knowingly complicit in the Cylon attack and he hadn’t done anything terribly villainous since, except lying to save his own skin and acting like a giant sniveling coward. His situations were really often played more for laughs than anything else. But Baltar’s manipulation of Sharon in this episode snapped him right back into focus for me. He has reasons—and, perhaps even more horribly, they are understandable and justifiable ones—but his behavior here is just chilling.

LISSA: Oh my God, YES. Oh, that was so creepy. I love it. I really, really, really did not expect that, and when that gun went off my jaw was on the floor. This scene was amazing, especially since at first I couldn’t get my mind to believe he was truly convincing her to shoot herself.

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#8

Lissa’s #8 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Dee has to rescue Starbuck (Rapture, Episode 312)
LISSA: At the express request of Starbuck’s husband and Dee’s husband, who’s as good as Starbuck’s lover. As much as the Quadrangle of Doom annoys the heck out of me, this was so brilliant and the girls played it out so well… Battlestar Galactica isn’t the same show unless they’re all breaking each other’s hearts, and that’s exactly what they’re doing here.

AL: Dee’s character has been pushed in a direction where she doesn’t get a lot of great moments, so I was definitely glad to see her have this little plot all to herself. Of course, in addition finally watching Kandyse McClure get some screentime, I think it also brings an interesting dimension to the aforementioned Quadrangle. We know Sam has trying like hell to hold onto his marriage and Dee has been increasingly frustrated seeing her predictions come to pass, but getting to watch the two women being forced to deal with each other in close quarters is excellent.

Al’s #8 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
The Galactica finds Earth halfway through Season 4 (Revelations, Episode 412)
AL: Ron Moore had long said that the last season of Galactica would see our Rag Tag Fleet finally make it to Earth. I just don’t think anyone expected that there would still be ten episodes left when they did it! I mean, I’m sure the Cylon civil war and the missing skinjob will keep our crew busy, but I’m super curious where the heck the story goes from here. It was always ‘Find Earth,’ ‘Find Earth,’ ‘Find Earth.’ Now that they’re here and it sucks, I’m absolutely clueless about how it’s going to end. Hopefully not with Galactica 1980.

LISSA: Add me into the cluelessness. But yeah, this was such an amazing midseason finale. The whole celebration, the crew… I mean, I was watching and grinning and I think I might have even been crying when they were all celebrating. And then the flat “Earth” from Laura, and everyone (but Gaeta and Tom Zarek) staring around at a nuclear wasteland. Somebody’s Fleet is gonna be really ticked off….

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#7

Lissa’s #7 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Adama and Cain try to assassinate each other (Resurrection Ship II, Episode 212)
LISSA: The whole return of the Pegasus arc was awesome anyway, and I… well, not liked Cain, but thought she was an excellent character. I always thought she and Adama were interesting foils. But this was great, especially as they each brought their seconds in, and then backed off. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and even though I knew they wouldn’t kill Adama (then), I was still on the edge of my seat.

AL: I absolutely love Admiral Cain. Aside from being played by Michelle Forbes, who I think is one of the most underrated actresses in the business; she was a great mirror for Adama, like the Battlestar version of Spock with a goatee. She represents what Adama could have been in different circumstances. And, while I also knew deep down that they weren’t killing off Eddie Olmos anytime soon, BSG is the one show on television where I could ask the question ‘Is our lead character going to shoot another character in the head?’ really believe it might go either way.

Al’s #7 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Galactica faces off against the Pegasus (Pegasus, Episode 210)
AL: My #7 is from the same story arc as yours, and really rests on the same reasoning: seeing what happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object. Both Michelle Forbes and Eddie Olmos are dynamite and on no other show would it be plausible to us that our characters might shoot down the only other group of humans left in the galaxy.

LISSA: Yeah, we’re good, aren’t we? I don’t have much to add, so I’ll take a moment to agree that Michelle Forbes did an awesome job with Cain, and that got even more layered in Razor. And that it was really interesting how different they made the Galactica and the Pegasus look.

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#6

Lissa’s #6 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Starbuck captures the Raider and appears over Apollo (You Can’t Go Home Again, Episode 105)
LISSA: Ah, Season 1 Starbuck, how I miss you. Aside from the capture of the Raider leading to some of the better comedy moments in the series, this proved that Starbuck was as smart as she was cocky and brave, and just pure awesome. Although where she got the duct tape will remain a mystery, I’m sure.

AL: Yeah, it is kind of sad that we don’t see more of Starbuck kicking ass like this as the series goes on. I also like the little ‘happy dance’ wing shimmy that Apollo and Starbuck do in tandem as they head back to Galactica; it’s a sweet moment.

Al’s #6 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gina the Cylon (Pegasus, Episode 210)
AL: Can you tell I’m a little stuck on the whole Admiral Cain arc? This was another instance where my stomach really felt like it dropped into my shoes. When Baltar first encounters the Pegasus’s Cylon prisoner, it’s enough to make you cringe. She is a broken, crippled, nearly catatonic woman, beaten until she has become unrecognizable. The real horror of the scene, though, is the dawning look of recognition of the face of Gaius’s invisible Six. “It’s me,” she says. Six has always been intelligent, sexy, and in control; seeing her so utterly shattered is almost hard to watch.

LISSA: And then add in that Gina and Cain were lovers… ouch. Seriously, I know that there are people who are grumpy about that, but it was a brilliant touch that added so much more pathos and tragedy to that scene. Also, that was the first time I truly liked Baltar, when he saw Gina and obviously felt true, unfaked compassion for her.

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#5

Lissa’s #5 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Boomer shoots Adama (Kobol’s Last Gleaming II, Episode 113)
LISSA: It should be a warning: every time everyone’s riding high, something bad is going to happen. But of course, this was Season 1, so we didn’t know that. And after Boomer got back from her blow-up-the-basestar mission all triumph and smiles, and then pounded two into the Commander’s chest… WOW.

AL: You know, this actually got halfway spoiled for me and I was still left in shock when it happened. I rather foolishly opened my Season 2.0 DVD before finishing Season 1, and the capsule for Episode 201 starts off with something like “With Adama critically wounded…” But even with that knowledge, this whole episode is so jammed full of plot and characters that Adama’s shooting took me completely by surprise.

Al’s #5 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Boomer shoots Adama (Kobol’s Last Gleaming II, Episode 113)
AL: Hey, great minds, huh? I’m not sure I have a whole lot else to say about this moment that you didn’t cover. I think it bears mentioning, though, how much time they took handling all the fallout. Adama didn’t get back on his feet for like another five episodes, which is refreshing. Picard would have been striding around the bridge by the end of the next episode.

LISSA: Hmm. I don’t have much to add here either, so I’ll take a moment to say I’m really impressed with the acting from Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. They both play multiple, physically identical characters, but you can always tell which Cylon they are, if it’s a named one. (However, if we could stop with the Eight romance plots, that would make me REALLY happy, okay? But they can still shoot people. That’s fine.)

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#4
Lissa’s #4 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaeta pulls a gun on Baltar (Exodus II, Episode 304)
LISSA: Gaeta is my current favorite character. I say current, because I didn’t really notice him much the first two seasons the first time around. He was always there, but always this fairly happy little do-gooder fanboy of Gaius Baltar. (Incidentally, I have done a complete 180 from my Last Cylon article. I no longer think he’s a Cylon, and I’m now completely convinced he was truly in love with Baltar.) But when he trained that gun on Gaius… aside from the fact he acted the hell out of it, that was the precise moment Gaeta got a third dimension and went from good little military boy to broken idealist. No other character has had that defining of a moment for me.

AL: Gaeta was totally in love with Baltar (though it was something I never considered until you mentioned it) and I think you hit the nail on the head with this moment of his. As much as I liked his double role as Chief of Staff and resistance informant, his pulling the gun on Gaius is such a perfect example of the drastic, life-altering changes that New Caprica has brought on our characters. Becoming suicide bombers and being chained up in freaky dollhouses may make for good television, but it’s a little too dramatic for most of us to relate to. But feeling bitter and lied to by someone who looks like they’re going to get away with it? I can understand that.

Al’s #4 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tigh kills his wife (Exodus II, Episode 304)
AL: Saul and Ellen Tigh have been my favorite characters for most of the series. Ellen always presents such a fun, funny contrast to the doom and gloom of everyone else on Galactica, and Saul walks this amazing line between being a total disaster of a man and a steadfast, worthy officer of the fleet. They don’t deliver big, important speeches or make cataclysmic decisions each week, but that’s probably why I gravitate towards them more than the others. And that’s also why Saul’s poisoning of Ellen was so much harder for me to watch than Roslin’s death will be or Starbuck or Helo or whoever else they’re going to kill off before the end of the show. No matter how completely messed up and unhealthy their marriage is, her love for him is so strong that she will do literally anything to keep him safe and he clings so desperately to his code of conduct that he is forced to kill her for it, hating himself all the while. This is my favorite scene of the show, hands down. It didn’t make the top of my list here, but I can watch this over and over and it’s a heartpunch every time.

LISSA: Oh yes. And Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon acted this one like crazy. It’s a heartbreaker. But I am optimistic that they will be reunited, because my current (unspoiled) theory is that Ellen Tigh is the final Cylon. (Honestly- I don’t think the identity of the Cylon can be a shocker, because come on. The internet has guessed everyone from Adama to Jake the dog. But the why or the how… how about something like Ellen’s known she’s a Cylon the entire series, and encouraged Tigh’s drinking because she was hoping that would somehow override his circuitry and get him to remember he’s a Cylon, too?) Gotta agree with Al on this one- this is one heck of a moment.

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#3

Lissa’s #3 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Tigh’s balls of steel moment (Revelations, Episode 412)
LISSA: I didn’t really like Tigh a lot in the beginning. It was hard to. He was a drunk, he was a lousy officer, and do we even need to discuss his stint at martial law? And yet, somehow, I think starting on New Caprica (I love New Caprica), he started growing on me. But unlike the above mentioned Gaeta moment, my love for Tigh crept up on me. And I didn’t realize how much I had grown to really like and respect the character until that moment when he walked himself down to the airlock, completely willing to put himself out it if it would save humanity and his best friend Bill.

AL: This is a great moment for Tigh, who, like I said above, is not a character that gets a lot of ‘stand up and cheer’ moments. This isn’t really a situation that elicits a great deal of cheering either, but his willingness to suck it up and devastate his best friend is tremendous. The more I think about it, it actually represents a great deal of growth for Tigh, comparing it to how he struggles to make tough decisions during so much of seasons one and two.

Al’s #3 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Adama gets a moustache (Lay Down Your Burdens II, Episode 220)
AL: Yes, some other stuff happened, too. The timeline jumps forward a year (something that BSG did before every other show on television started to), the cast settles on New Caprica, Starbuck grows her hair, Lee gets fat and married. But a moustache? In space? It just isn’t done, Bill. It just isn’t done.

LISSA: And it was not at all flattering, either. Good thing he shaved it before Laura saw him again, or she would have laughed her butt off at him, and gone off and had a quickie with Tom Zarek.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t take cold medicine before writing Mutant articles.

—–

#2

Lissa’s #2 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
“I love you.” “About time.” (The Hub, Episode 409)
LISSA: There’s a phrase in fandom called “OTP”, meaning “one true pairing.” It means the pairing you love above all others. Roslin/Adama is my OTP. I liked them from the first season, and have been eagerly watching the evolution of their relationship over time. It’s mature, it’s balanced, it’s flawed, it’s honest, and it’s absolutely amazing. It is easily my favorite relationship in media, period. The above exchange was simply the crystallizing moment of what has already been an amazing chemistry.

AL: Roslin/Adama has been a long time coming and I love that, even when it was acknowledged, they would refuse to do much more than dance around it. The show really worked for that scene and the characters earned it.

Al’s #2 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
Gaius confesses his sins (The Hub, Episode 409)
AL: If there’s one thing you always thought you could count on in the world of Battlestar Galactica, it’s that Gaius Baltar would always be a self-serving, spineless sneak. So, seeing him at the head of a religious movement in Season 4 is something I simply didn’t buy as legitimate; I assumed he was blowing smoke to stay in the good graces of the only people who would still accept him. But then in The Hub, he goes and does something totally unexpected: he confesses his darkest secret—the one that has driven him since the original miniseries—to Laura Roslin, the woman who has spent the last thirty episodes just looking for an excuse to flush him out an airlock. And once I was able to process what he had done, my mind was changed. I think it’s true, folks. Gaius is reformed. You think you know some people…

LISSA: Yes, yes, and more yes.

I hate Gaius Baltar, and I love to hate him. He gets under my skin, he annoys the heck out of me, and I do not respect his code of ethics at all. He’s a strange little man, and yet still manages to sleep with more women than anyone else on the show. (Seriously, the man is a total sex addict, and I’m not convinced he wouldn’t try to have sex with an electrical socket if he thought it would get him off.) And like Al, I just did not believe he had changed… until he made that confession. And then I believed it wholeheartedly.

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#1

Lissa’s #1 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
The New Caprica rescue (Exodus II, Episode 304)
LISSA: Exodus II is my favorite episode thus far, but the rescue! WOW! From the moment the Cylons look out over New Caprica and see the bombs going off, it’s just the biggest adrenaline rush ever. I love the prison break, and Sam finding Kara. I love the Pegasus taking out two basestars. I love the Galactica holding out, even as she’s dying. I love when Adama is hoisted onto the crowd’s shoulders, and Tigh limps away. But more than anything, I love, love, LOVE that moment when the Galactica breaks atmo and lets out the Vipers. BEST. TV. EVER.

AL: You won’t find a more action-packed episode than Exodus II (plus it’s great for showing off your HDTV). The script, the direction, the acting, the effects; they’re all spot on at every turn. Even characters that don’t get a lot to do in the episode, like Laura, get little moments that will make you smile. The whole thing is a fantastic production that not only looks good, but creates shockwaves that will resonate for the entire season. Really stellar stuff.

Al’s #1 Battlestar Moment Worth Talking About:
All Along the Watchtower (Crossroads II, Episode 320)
AL: The other moments on this list have made me cry, laugh, shout, or left me shocked, but this is the only time where I can say I had my mind blown. Hearing the weird strains of music begin to knit together as our characters starting reciting song lyrics is confusing enough, but then the big reveal of the Final Five, the massive Cylon attack, the return of Kara Thrace, and a long awaited glimpse of Earth, all while the soundtrack blossoms into a psychedelic All Along The Watchtower? Whoa.

LISSA: The problem I had here- and the reason it didn’t make my list- is because I accidentally got spoiled for this. Now, I like me my spoilers, and you better believe that when Amazon accidentally released four of the last five webisodes, I watched #10 first. But, I only like certain spoilers. I could watch webisode #10 because I wanted one question answered: did Gaeta and Hoshi stay together? Now, frankly, who cares? How does that remotely affect the plot? It doesn’t. But I don’t want to know who the Cylons are in advance, or what happened to Earth, or what the heck is going on with Starbuck. And because we were behind, when I happened across the Entertainment Weekly article that SAID WHO THE FOUR WERE, I got spoiled.

But it would have been awesome if I hadn’t been.

MOMENTS WE WOULD RATHER FORGET

#5

Lissa’s #5 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The Quadrangle of Doom (Various, Seasons 2 & 3)
LISSA: This is more something that extends over the whole series. I don’t mind Starbuck and Lee, although frankly, I think they work better as friends. I love Starbuck and Anders, and think she’s an idiot for tossing away the best thing that could have happened to her- I don’t care if he’s a Cylon, the guy gets her. I don’t like Dee and Lee, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. I do think Dee and Anders should just ditch the losers and go hook up and be happy, but even when they try to Starbuck and Lee just can’t get it together. And it drags on and on and on. I get how the relationships are important to each character, but I’m sick of it already.

AL: No arguments here. I will say, however, in between all of the relationship sludge, it does allow for some fantastic moments between Sam and Kara after New Caprica, that heartbreakingly uncomfortable scene where they make out in front of Lee at the end of Season 2, and the entirety of Unfinished Business, which is one of my all time favorites.

Al’s #5 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
Lee shoots a gangster (Black Market, Episode 214)
AL:
Dear Battlestar,
When you start an episode with a character telling your emotionally unstable leading man that there’s no way he’s going to shoot him, the fact that he will indeed be shot is not only not a foregone conclusion but makes the entire episode a giant waste of our time. Thanks for listening!

Love, Alan

LISSA: YAWN. Um, totally agree with Al, got nothing new to add since I listed Black Market as my #1 moment.

—–

#4

Lissa’s #4 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The entirety of Hero (Hero, Episode 308)
LISSA: Retconning the entire mythology and the introduction of a character we never see again… oi. Plus, I like me the ensemble cast, and this was a little too single character centric, especially since it was a character we’d never met. (Well, and Adama. And Tigh.) But this one just fell flat for me.

AL: I really liked seeing Carl Lumbley again (Go M.A.N.T.I.S.!), but, yeah, this episode was a bit of a throwaway. The ‘Adama started the war’ retcon doesn’t bother me as much as the ‘Laura was sleeping with the President’ one from Epiphanies, though, because I think it plays nicely into the Cylon perspective that humanity will never leave them alone if they are left to their own devices.

Al’s #4 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The scrolls of Pythia get a little too specific (Home I & II, Episodes 206, 207)
AL: Battlestar Galactica is a story about a lot of things, but searching for pirate treasure has never been one of them. When Roslin and Elosha dove headfirst into the scrolls of Pythia and started announcing that Caprica Sharon represents the “lower demon” of prophecy and they need to follow “high road through the rocky ridge” and pass over “the gates of Hera” to find the Tomb of Athena, I started getting a serious case of sour milk face. I half expected X to mark the spot. Generally, I really like the whole mystical angle that the show has developed—I think it provides a welcome respite to the gloomy, pervasive atheism of our heroes and helps add an epic, ‘walking in the shadows of giants’ feel to the whole thing—but the prophecies play best when they hover in the background. They ought to be a guideline, not a roadmap.

LISSA: Can’t really argue with your logic, although I have to admit I didn’t mind this so much. Prophecies tend to annoy me in general, so I usually flat out don’t think about them and go along for the ride. This was a middling moment for me. Didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it, either. I will take a moment to note that I find it interesting that my bottom five are more character/relationship moments, and yours are more plot/science moments. See, people? There’s lots in here for both genders.

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#3

Lissa’s #3 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
Adama’s wife (A Day in the Life, Episode 315)
LISSA: Now, I will defend romantic relationships on BSG. I don’t think they’re pointless, even the above-mentioned quadrangle of doom, which is just more annoying than pointless. But Bill belongs to Laura, darn it. She may flirt with other men, because all must realize how hot and amazing and purely awesome Laura is and that’s fine, but Bill belongs to Laura. Anyone arguing will promptly be put out the airlock. Yes, it’s a double standard. No, I don’t care. And I REALLY didn’t care about Bill’s failed marriage. Especially when it led into Lee’s whole “Mom abused me and brother” wibble. I mean, how many episodes ago did we find out Starbuck had an abusive mother? (Although that one worked for me.) It made Lee’s Daddy issues make more sense, but it was still a little too much.

AL: Mommy Adama was definitely unnecessary. I know every show that runs long enough has to have a ‘this is a typical day’ episode, but I think the writers got scared and started heaping on conflicts and revelations that weren’t that interesting to begin with just serve to throw more angsty fuel on an already overfed fire.

Al’s #3 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
Chief establishes a labor union (Dirty Hands, Episode 316)
AL: Enter the difference between me and Liss. I will begrudgingly award a few brownie points to this episode for presenting a legitimate argument on both sides of the labor issue, but I honestly don’t care. The whole thing just feels like a small distraction given too much attention when there are much more interesting things the show could be dealing with. Add to that the fact that the union is never brought up again and that the writers must have known that Chief’s story was changing drastically just a few episodes later, and it all ends up feeling like they were padding out the season.

LISSA: Okay, that’s a fair point about them never bringing it up again and Chief’s story changing drastically. However, what I did find very interesting about this episode was Adama being willing to shoot Cally. I’m wondering if that trait will come up again in Season 4.5, as previews have indicated that mutiny is pretty likely. But I still like Chief, and so anything that gives him that kind of screen time, I’ll stick to it.

—–

#2

Lissa’s #2 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
The Woman King (The Woman King, Episode 314)
LISSA: Do not get me wrong. I love Helo- I really do. If these people were real, I would want Helo to be my best friend. (Because, y’know, I’m happily married and I’d never dare to cross Athena even if I wasn’t.) But for all that I do like Helo as a moral center, Helo needs to fall. He needs to put his faith wrong for once, or pay the consequences for his decisions rather than be patted on the head. However, he does wander around shirtless a lot in this episode, so I suppose it has some redeeming value.

AL: Agreed. I rewatched this episode recently and, while I had really enjoyed it in the past, it definitely stuck out as another unnecessary notch in Helo’s belt. If he had been wrong, then the show could have added Bruce Davison as a regular cast member, too. A missed opportunity, I guess.

Al’s #2 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The Blackbird is destroyed (Resurrection Ship II, Episode 212)
AL: Flight of the Phoenix is probably my favorite standalone episode in the show. I love watching everybody banding together to build The Little Viper That Could. I love what they do with Chief’s character in the aftermath of Boomer’s betrayal. I love Tigh and Tyrol’s scene in the storeroom at the gin still and the unveiling of the stealth ship in front of the President. It’s an episode with a lot of heart in it. So why, oh why, would they take so much time and devote so much praise to their super-duper whoa-isn’t-this-the-coolest-thing-ever Blackbird, if they were just going to destroy it three episodes later? On its first mission? <i>In a flashback?</i> I know they were setting up Apollo for his big story arc and that, given where the rest of the season was headed from that point, the ship may not have seen a lot of action, but it just seems like a real waste of a good concept.

LISSA: Yeah. I can see that. It didn’t bug me nearly as much as it bugs you, but it really is the epitome of anticlimactic. Plus, did they build any more? I know resources were tight, but it seemed like there were lots of scraps to build from.

—–

#1

Lissa’s #1 Battlestar Moment She’d Rather Forget:
Black Market (Black Market, Episode 214)
LISSA: UGH. BO-RING. Seriously. The whole frakking episode. It’s still not horrendous, but it was an experiment that just didn’t work for me, and it was heavy on Lee. (I don’t really like Lee. Did you notice that?)

AL: Yeah, this was a misfire from start to finish. I recognize that it was part of a very dark character arc for Apollo, one that I don’t think really resolves itself until the last episode of Season 3, but Black Market just stinks. It’s got big, supposedly important backstory information about Lee that has never been mentioned before and never will be again, laughable character inconsistencies from just about everyone, and the whole thing is done with that irritating flashback/flashforward plot device that BSG insisted on using four episodes in a row during Season 2. It’s a waste of time and waste of the awesome guest star Bill Duke. Interestingly, my friend Mike ranks this as one of his favorites in the whole series. I can’t figure it out, but at least the episode has a fan base <i>somewhere</i>.

Al’s #1 Battlestar Moment He’d Rather Forget:
The Midseason Wasteland (Various, Season 2 & 3)
AL: Battlestar Galactica seems to have developed a formula about itself (and I’m not counting Season 1 because it was only 13 episodes.) Each season starts off with a bang to resolve last season’s cliffhanger, then spends a few episodes dealing with the fallout and building on the mythology of the series. The midpoint is a multipart story about a large, unexpected bump in the road for Galactica and the Rag Tag Fleet, and the final few episodes set up the new cliffhanger for the next go-round. In between the midpoint and the drive to the finale, however, are a handful of episodes I have termed the Midseason Wasteland. Be it through network pressure, a lack of ideas in the writer’s room, or simply a misguided belief that we need calm before the storm, these episodes are standalones that tend to focus heavily on one character, present a problem that almost feels beneath our heroes, and generally don’t build on the series in any meaningful way. This is Black Market, Sacrifice, The Woman King, and The Captain’s Hand. They are stories whose overall relevance can be summed up in two sentences or less. I could tolerate them were they sprinkled throughout the year, but each season instead presents you with three or four weeks where you could skip the show entirely and not miss anything that couldn’t be recouped with ten seconds of ‘Previously on Battlestar Galactica.’ A show this good shouldn’t make me feel this ambivalent for this long. Hopefully Season 4 will break the trend and give us a strong finish.

LISSA: I think Season 4 will, just because there’s way too much that needs resolved and we’ve already had our padding. But I don’t mind the mid-season wastelands as much. Sort of. I guess. I mean, I certainly cited Black Market and The Woman King as my two least favorite episodes. I didn’t really like Sacrifice, especially since that’s when they killed Billy. (I really liked Billy.) And yeah, The Captain’s Hand… I just read the Wiki summary and while I can remember the abortion plotline, I still only have vague memories of the rest of it. And Hero falls into that. And Epiphanies. (Oh, definitely must agree about the Roslin/Adar affair.) Okay, okay. You win. But more for Season 2 than Season 3.

So, yeah. Season 4.5 (Now THERE’S a low point- hiatuses!!!!) is starting very soon, and we’ll be gabbing about it on the Forum, I’m sure. (And by “gabbing” I mean “picking it apart and analyzing all the details that most of the world wouldn’t care about.”) So if you haven’t caught up, do it NOW, and join us. You can’t resist.

So say we all!