Grade: B
Harmless, but clever romantic comedy.
We’ve seen most of this before, and the only elements that make this story unique are worth keeping secret so it doesn’t ruin the film. As romatic comedies go, this one doesn’t break much new ground as the twists barely matter, but it’s still easy enough to watch.
Wish there was more to say about it.
Grade: B
The first in the new Earthsea collection brings the adult world to the classic fantasy realm.
As I mentioned before, I started re-reading the Earthsea books so I could read the latest additions to the series. Having completed The Farthest Shore, and not being sure if I’d read it before or not, I gladly turned my attention to the fourth Earthsea book, Tehanu.
While this is billed as the fourth book in the series, and indeed my book was billed as The Earthsea Quartet, this is clearly a new book that just happens to take place in Earthsea with some of the characters from previous books. But this is like if we had a book that took place thirty years in Harry Potter’s future–sure, it’s the same characters, but you have very different themes being covered. Tehanu is in that vein–although the original Earthsea quartet had some adult topics, those were mostly buried. All three of the original books were approachable by children and teens, Tehanu is not.
Tehanu deals with some very adult subjects. There are blatant discussions of sexuality that are crammed into a few pages, perhaps to try and gloss them over and keep this book approachable by a younger audience. But the book is slow, not as plot driven as the original three. In that way, it’s closer to The Tombs of Atuan in that it deals with more internal changes than external–and not even changes so much as realizations. Perhaps its fitting that the characters from Tombs are used so much here.
Ultimately, this isn’t even a complete novel, as it seems to simply set the stage for future stories to be told. In reality, this feels like a very long short story. And while it is an interesting, adult look at a fantasy world, it feel incomplete which is why it only earns a B. But perhaps its setting the stage for books 5 and 6 will be worthwhile in the end. Stay tuned.
Grade: A
Fascinating look at race in America, but not for the reasons the show thinks.
It’s not a new idea–Eddie Murphy parodied it several decades ago on Saturday Night Live. Take a black family of dad, mom, and teenage son and make them up to look white so they can see what life is like outside of their racial experience. Add to that a white family of dad, mom, and teenage daughter who are made up to appear black so they can see what life is like for black people. Then have them start living together in a crappy model home so they can educate each other about their experiences.
It’s an interesting idea, but one that’s been done to death. And the fact that this show often takes the cheap way out of dealing with issues doesn’t help it–chief among these points is the fact that the families only periodically put their make-up on to participate in structured events. The white family puts on make-up to go to a black church. The black family puts on make-up to go to the mall. And so on.
But what makes this show interesting is not the supposed universal lessons it tries to teach by applying this case to all of race in America, but in seeing how these particular families operate. In this case they couldn’t have recruited more polar opposites. The black family has calm, rational adults and a punk kid. The white family has totally insane parents and a completely down to Earth daughter. The result is laced with conflict as the insane white mother starts rattling her soul-poetry that’s filled with under-the-surface racism or the black teenager refuses to learn anything from the experience.
Yes, the sane people are learning important life lessons. The black parents see some of the racist actions they’ve experienced all their lives from a different perspective. The white teenager sees her black peers growing up with pervasive racism and how it impacts their lives. But the insane people truly show some of the problems with racism in America. The black teenager who refuses to acknowledge his situation, let alone try to change it. The white parents who go out to prove that they could be better black people than most of the black people out there.
At the end of the day these experiments can only lead to small truths since this is just make-up. But what it reveals about the crazy people, and perhaps a lot of the crazy people out there when it comes to these issues, is worth the price of admission.
Grade: A+
A fantastic conclusion to the original Earthsea trilogy.
In re-reading the Earthsea trilogy, I couldn’t honestly recall whether I’d read The Farthest Shore those years ago (nearly two decades-whoa!). Perhaps reading The Tombs of Atuan turned me off the trilogy back then. Or maybe I did read it–the book certainly felt familiar but that could also be because of Le Guin’s comfortable writing and obvious telegraphing of the plot. I wasn’t sure if I’d read it before or just knew where it was going because that’s how the Earthsea books worked.
Either way, this is a fantastic conclusion to the trilogy. Even though the series picked up again in the 90s, this is a true conclusion. As in the first two books, we follow a teenager in Earthsea. In the first book it was Ged coming to grips with his own power and his own mortality. In the second book we followed Tenar (and her meeting of Ged) as she became her own person rather than the one her environment forced her to be. In this final book we follow Lebanen as he journeys with Ged to embrace his own destiny in the world and save it in the process.
The second book took a very introspective, almost dull approach to plot. This one more than makes up for it. Almost all of Earthsea is covered in harsh detail, and magic is vital to the story. Power, its use and abuse becomes a central theme all seen through the eyes of a 17 year old. The Earthsea books were tagged as teen or children’s fiction because they have teenagers as central characters and they’re relatively short (each one under 200 pages for some editions). But that’s not a fair characterization. Yes, the issues are certainly identifiable by teens and perhaps slightly younger, but adults can pick up a lot more of the subtle undertones that make this such a compelling work.
I like Harry Potter, but it’s still a fun children’s tale. It’s a Disney movie in book form. A really dark Disney movie, like they used to make (anyone else remember Watcher in the Woods?), but it doesn’t go very deep by design. And if Harry Potter is a Disney movie, then the Earthsea books are like the Shrek films. Yes, a young audience will like them, but there’s also plenty of material for an older crowd.
Of course, things took a turn after the original trilogy, but I’ll blog that later. For now, if you haven’t read the original three books, I highly encourage you to give them a try.
So I’m driving home yesterday in one of those permanent construction zones, two narrow lines surrounded by those concrete barriers that make you feel like your driving in the light-cycle game from Tron. I’m going the same speed as the other cars around me, 45, which is the limit, when this giant delivery truck barrels in front of me and then darts to the other lane. People honk, he speeds away, probably doing at least 70.
I notice he has one of those “How am I driving?” bumper stickers with a 1-800 number and a code for that vehicle and for the first time I’m tempted to call. But how am I supposed to call when I would have to drive just as unsafely and maniacally as this lunatic to catch up and get the number and the code, then either write them down while I’m driving or fumble around to get my phone and call. So what’s the point?
I think it’d be cool to have suction-cup darts equipped on our front bumpers that have flags saying BAD DRIVER that we could shoot at these cars. Like Spy Hunter, but with a positive social influence.
Grade: B
What if Rocky and Seabiscuit had a love-child…
Let’s get one thing straight: The Great Depression was depressing. It was bound to happen with a name like that, just like we all knew Lou Gehrig was going to come down with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Words are powerful things, you know. So when we have a movie about a boxer on the up and up until some injuries and The Great Depression suddenly cast him down on his luck, you know it’s not going to be a happy flick for a while. Our hero can’t find work, can’t pay the bills, loses his nice suburban house in exchange for a crappy basement apartment with no walls (and no visible bathroom either).
See, because it was The Great Depression. That’s a sad thing. Be sad. Don’t at all try and get out of your funk just because you know this has been billed as a feel good movie. Don’t think you’re going to get a happy ending just because Russel Crowe smiles the whole time (except during his one Oscar clip) and Renee Zellweger smiles and pouts the whole time (actually, I think her face is just stuck that way). And don’t you dare think that this bad situation is going to get any worse just because the filmmakers put up a quote at the start of the movie saying how this was one of the best human interest stories ever. Nope. Be sad, people! SAD!
See, because if you’re sad, then you’ll start to be happy when our hero makes a comeback and wins the fight nobody expects him to win. And then you’ll be positively ecstatic when he gets another fight and another and another. Oh, I’ll bet you’ll be on pins and needles wondering if he’ll win. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you the outcome because I want you to be surprised, just like the film doesn’t want you to see it coming.
And when the big fight at the end comes and we’re faced with a world champion who’s just positively mean, why, we can’t even tell who’s going to win! Not until the final second, no sir! That’s what makes it so thrilling!
Sure, even seeing all these tricks from 14 rounds away still doesn’t prevent you from smiling a bit, but this movie could have used a scalpel a few more times instead of constantly slamming on the sledgehammer.
Grade: B
Decent, but not inventive thriller.
This is a light, somewhat entertaining movie who suffers by comparison to better works in the genre. If you’re looking for tight, fairly creative drama aboard the confines of a jumbo jet, the old Wesley Snipes classic Passenger 57 is actually much better than it was reviewed back in the day. If you’re looking for intense pscyhological drama amidst the enclosed space of a jet, Jody Foster’s Flight Plan (I think my review of that got lost in the server crash).
Instead, Red Eye is a thinned out mixture of both flicks. Party psychological drama, part action movie on a plane. But it feels a little thin on both fronts, and while director Wes Craven makes this plane fly as smoothly as it can, it still ends up landing in Dullsville.
Still, if you’re looking for a light action/thriller flick, you could do worse.
Grade: A
The other AI is pretty dang close to the original–and it’s a blast.
I was one of a handful of people who watched Cupid, Simon Cowell’s last attempt to produce a show loosely based on the American Idol format. There we had America voting off possible fiances for a woman who really should have questioned why she was letting America pick anything for her in the first place. Take a look at the last couple of presidential elections–these are the two best guys America could find for a job we like to think we know a lot about. You really trust the same people to pick your husband?
So it was with more than a few tons of uncertainty that I started to watch American Inventor. I had read about it earlier and its legal troubles since there was another show with the same idea, same name, etc. I guess that was resolved, because Simon’s show aired and it shares more than just half a title and all of the initials of that other show that made Simon a household name.
Potential inventors parade their creations in front of a panel of judges who either heap lavish praise upon the assinine (“Sure, it’s a product I’ll never use, but what I really love is that you made the invention your own!”) or heap backhanded compliments (read: insults) on the most unsuspecting, innocent participants. Like the 9-year old who came up with a good idea, if not great (portable air conditioning unit that would keep dogs cool in the car), and is told “I’m telling you what I’d want to be told at your age–your invention sucks, there’s no Easter bunny, and if you don’t get those ears fixed you couldn’t pay someone to sleep with you!”
This is really just a continuation of American Idol–I’m surprised it actually isn’t combined with the original so we can finally vote on whether Clay Aiken’s Totally-Straight-Man-Glitter-Jeans-And-Makeup-Bag should be sold to the public. But ABC snapped it up, probably hoping for some tie-ins with their other series so when the smelly crash survivors on Lost find another hatch in some remote beach–POP–out comes a guy with a rubber bag they can urinate in without having to, you know, find a bathroom.
What takes this show to the next level are the tears. Yes, all good reality television needs people crying. Here we have inventors crying because they’ve invested so much of their life and their money, like selling their house so they could invent a shovel with an empty handle. So now they cry because they have a crappy invention, but they’re on TV. So all is right with the world. Sure, some will be given $25,000 to take the invention to the next level, and then I guess America will decide which invention gets to sing a duet with Kelly Clarkson or something. I don’t care–as long as they keep showing me crazy people who think I want to a lubricant dispenser with my toilet paper, I’m watching.
Grade: C
Yes, I get that this is a character study. But that’s no excuse for it being boring.
The Weather Man is a quirky movie about a quirky guy who has a quirky father, some quirky kids, and a lot of quirky things happen to his life. It’s not plot driven, a point the filmmakers proudly wear as a badge of honor in the behind-the-scenes material on the DVD–instead, it’s a collection of emotions that pile up to paint a portrait of a man. Or something like that.
I get that this isn’t a traditional three-act movie. That’s okay. But being boring isn’t. You want to do a character study about a man living in the shadow of a famous father? You can do that but still have a really great story (Quiz Show). You want to tell the story of a man with really quirky kids? You can do that but still have a sense of fun (The Royal Tenenbaums). Instead, we’re treated to constant metaphors (see, nobody can really predict the weather, you just report it) and quirky events (like being aimless so you take up archery).
This is a movie that struggles under its own weight. A lighter movie is trapped inside, desperate to get out. But the filmmakers made sure that energy was completely shackled. A shame, really, since they got the best quirky actor out there (Cage).
Grade: B
Teenage rebellion comes to Earthsea.
The second book in the Earthsea series was quite risky for an actual sequel. The main character from book 1 doesn’t appear until halfway through this novel–not too late since this book is also under 200 pages, but still surprising since the story is clearly geared towards people who read the first book. Also gone from the second installment is most of the magic (until near the end) and virtually all of what makes Earthsea unique. This book comes from the perspective of an entirely different character and 99% takes place on one island.
So instead of dealing with a world of magic amidst a harsh environment, Tombs is the story of a girl taken from her family and brought up to be a spiritual leader for a religion she doesn’t believe in, but doesn’t know anything else. So when a mage shows up, it becomes her catalyst for teenage rebellion. But the rebellion isn’t prolonged, isn’t reasoned (or attempted to be reasoned), it just sort of happens. Which makes this book a bit weaker in my opinion–the major change we see in Ged in the first book felt natural, reasoned. This one feels random, more like a plot device.
Still, Le Guin handles fantasy starring teenage leads with her usual grace and skill, and to the extent this book sets up the next volume (and the fourth to a great degree), it’s a must read for the series.
