Deep Something

You’ll recall a brief post last week about a guy who got hit by a car, which knocked him in front a bus, which hit him. No update on his condition, but a few other people have had pretty bad days too.

Sunday a man came to the Largo Hospital with chest pains and numbness in his left arm. I’d head to the hospital too with those symptoms. They admitted him to the cardiac unit, but around 5am Monday morning he decided he just had to have a cigarette. The nurses told him he couldn’t leave, but he insisted. Went outside, and apparently decided to wonder around a bit, and on a dark stretch of the road, a woman in a Suburban, on the way to her early morning Yoga class, hit and killed the guy. Hope the cigarette was worth it.

And the Tribune is reporting this morning that the Dade City Police are investigating a murder. Armando Uribe, Jr. was found dead in the street with a gunshot wound. Uribe had just been released from the Pasco County Jail Sunday after serving a 10 day sentence for driving while his license was suspended.

Jeff Bridges stars in this drama based on Thomas Cobb’s first novel about an alcoholic country singer. The musician’s career is going downhill as he watches his protégé’s star ascend, but his encounters with a journalist (THE DARK KNIGHT’s Maggie Gyllenhaal) might just keep him from hitting rock bottom. Oscar winner Robert Duvall costars and serves as one of the film’s producers.

Genres: Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Adaptation; Running Time: 1 hr. 51 min.; Release Date: December 16th, 2009 (limited); MPAA Rating: R for language and brief sexuality.

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall, James Keane (II), Anna Felix

Directed by: Scott Cooper

We finally went out to see a movie. We’re dying to see Alice in Wonderland, but were not about to see it opening weekend. Indeed, there were the expected wrap-around lines waiting to see Alice. We instead opted for Crazy Heart, and it was worth the ticket price.

I wouldn’t call it perfect, and it certainly wouldn’t be my vote for movie of the year. I think I would probably vote for Jeff Bridges for leading actor honors. Bridges is reserved, charismatic, and raw. Bridges’ 58-year-old Blake is one of the better performances of the year. There are obvious comparisons to  to Mickey Rourke’s work in The Wrestler, but this is unique in its own way. Bridges doesn’t overcook the role which would have been easy, he’s effortless and sings quite well. I was very surprised with the singing.

Jeff Bridges inhabits the songs he sings on screen as convincingly and seamlessly as he fits into the shambles of a life and mess of a body that is the film’s protagonist. This musical integrity is important because Bad Blake is one of those disintegrating performers whose art has not faltered, though his life has. The songs he sings are his own, and when he’s on stage, he’s alive. The rest of the time he’s lying, deceiving, or numbing out.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is average in her work. She’s coy with Jean and underplays her, but unlike Bad Blake, her role doesn’t call for it. Jean is a bruised, kindhearted, and devoted mother to her four-year old son Buddy (Jack Nation, as cute as can be), but uneven in forming her character.

Cooper’s direction is very subtle, and while the story doesn’t lend itself to action or even a lot of tension, he does let the story drag. In several scenes, he portrays the loneliness of the road showing Bridges driving his beat up Suburban over long empty roads. Effective, but instead three or four cuts, I got the message after about two of these.

The music was another bright spot in the movie. The song “The Weary Kind,” which is submission for Best Original Song for the Academy Awards, is one of the best songs written for a film in recent years. Delightful lyrics and exquisitely executed, the song is the perfect song for this film.

Updated: I didn’t get this finished yesterday, and now Bridges did get top honors at the Academy Awards last night, so congratulations to him.

And you thought your day was bad. An unidentified person in Tampa had about the worst day a person can have. He was apparently trying to cross Nebraska Avenue, one of the busier streets here in town, and he got hit by a car. Now that would be bad enough, but apparently the car knocked him into one of the HART buses. Not surprisingly, he’s in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital. It would be like something out of a cartoon if it happened for real.

After becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia was thrust into a new role as America’s sweetheart – the legendary “goddess of light,” known for her bold, larger-than-life charisma. Yet, even with her global fame solidified, her belief in flirting with danger and standing up as her own, outspoken woman never changed. She was an inspiration to people everywhere, from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to the men closest to her heart: her husband, promoter and publishing magnate George P. Putnam, and her long time friend and lover, pilot Gene Vidal. In the summer of 1937, Amelia set off on her most daunting mission yet: a solo flight around the world that she and George both anxiously foresaw as destined, whatever the outcome, to become one of the most talked-about journeys in history.

Genres: Drama and Biopic; Running Time: 1 hr. 51 min.; Release Date: October 23rd, 2009 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG for some sensuality, language, thematic elements and smoking.

Starring: Hilary Swank, Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Joe Anderson

Directed by: Mira Nair

I wanted to see this movie when it was out in theaters, but we never made it. I downloaded it from Amazon, and Lay and me watched it Saturday night. We were both disappointed.

This film had so much on its side. Excellent actors, a fascinating subject, in fact the whole thing reeked of Oscar-Worthy…until I saw it. I can tell an attempt was made at an epic movie, but it falls short.

Swank gives a solid performance as the flying ace. She both looks the part and acts the part very well. I must say that I did not know an awful lot about Amelia Earhart other than the common knowledge about her, but I feel like Swank embodied pretty much what I would expect Amelia to be, and her physical likeness to Amelia remarkable. But the director failed to remind Richard Gere that he wasn’t playing Billy Flynn in “Chicago”, coming across as a shallow opportunist whose emotion for Amelia seemed forced, as he was only in love with money. Ewen McGregor was no less wooden, appearing as just another rich sleazebag in search of a shag. Add in a faint hint of lesbianism, dropped completely no sooner than it was picked up, so why bother? Add in an excessive amount of focus on Gore Vidal, maybe to try and portray Amelia’s suppressed maternal instincts, but again, merely toyed with in the bedroom scene, in which I genuinely thought she was about to break into “whistle a happy tune”!

“Amelia” is a highlights reel of Amelia Earhart’s life, faithfully chronicling all the significant events of the famed aviatrix’s career. However, it is hollow and nowhere is this more apparent than in the depiction of Earhart’s relationships. Or the lack of it. There’s no buildup, no exposition, no sort of character interaction to motivate any kind of bond or love forming between individuals. Things just kind of happen. Amelia falls in love, falls out of love, and falls in love all over again, all without any sort of event or prompt to motivate it.

In fact, that’s the problem of the entire film. Things just happen with little or not buildup or motivation in between. Poignant moments come and go with no warning or conclusion, rendering them meaningless and out of context. It seems almost as though the director Mira Nair tried a little too hard in the wrong direction.

The script fails with the jumping around in time. While this can be an effective technique, it did not work here because we weren’t given queues as to where/when we were in each scene until later in the scene. We were both disappointed in this film.

Based on two true stories, “Julie & Julia” intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Genres: Comedy and Adaptation; Running Time: 2 hr. 3 min.; Release Date: August 7th, 2009 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language and some sensuality.

Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Jane Lynch

Directed by: Nora Ephron

I watched this as an Amazon On-Demand movie one evening last week while Lay was at work. He was not interested in seeing this movie, but I was. And I found myself enjoying the experience.

Nora Ephron likes to observe how two people meet and bond with each other, ultimately forming a relationship that we hope will transcend time, and like in her previous films, she manages to nuance both characters seamlessly and bind them in our eyes to a point where we can’t care for one without wondering what will happen to the other. It is a rare accomplishment.

The film is based on two true stories. First there’s the story of the world-renowned Julia Child, who wrote the American classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” It is the story of Julia’s arrival on France in 1949, how she learned to cook, and how she went about co-writing the book with two of her friends. The other story happens in 2002. It follows Julie Powell, a government worker who lives atop a Pizzeria with her husband, and who decides that to find some meaning in life she’ll cook all of Julia Child’s recipes in a maximum of one year, and write about the experience in a blog. The film seamlessly interweaves these two stories, with Julia’s life experiences going into her cookbook, and those experiences wafting through the years to Julie’s kitchen.

The film may seem, at first, unimpressive…and it is, to a point. It’s a biopic, and we must admit that lives are seldom as impressive as Hollywood makes them out to be, so don’t be expecting ingenious plot twists or the characters coming full circle at the end. The film portrays the life of America’s most beloved cook and of a woman following in her footsteps. Just that. But it is amazing how the lives of these completely different women are similar, even though they live in different centuries and countries. They’re both: happily married, they both experience an important move at the beginning of the film, both take up cooking to fill up an emptiness in their life and both harvest so much passion and art from what they cook; both are writers, but find almost the same hardships when looking for publishers, both have similar marital problems, and at the end they both understand how life works for them.

Ephron knows how to relate two characters. These two women have never met, but they’re so similar and share so much that we wonder whether they may be family. And notice how Julie adores and reveres Julia, even though she’s never met her, and how Julia is the motivation and spark behind Julie’s life even if she’s not aware of her existence. Meryl Streep as Julia Child takes over what could be an uninteresting story and injects it with glee and joy with a powerful and entrancing performance, an Oscar-worthy one. Amy Adams as Julie Powell is very good too, depicting a typical struggling American woman and bearing her heart for the audience. Her story is a bit uninvolving too, but her performance does wonders for what could otherwise be a stale film.

“Julie & Julia” has two seamlessly intertwined story lines and two superb leading ladies. The cinematography and editing are very well done, but not spectacular. The production design is very good, actually, especially on the Julia storyline, recreating bourgeois France in 1949 and seeping us into the charming and infectiously fun lifestyle she led.

It’s not the movie of the year, but Streep and Adams and outstanding, and all the supporting characters are excellent. The screen play is very interesting, and the two stories are woven together nicely. This is is a movie well worth watching.

The Bush-Cheney campaign believes "religious conservatives are at the heart" of their electoral strategy. Earlier this summer, the president’s campaign tried to identify 1,600 "friendly congregations" in Pennsylvania and encouraged religious conservatives in that state to "send your church directory to your state Bush-Cheney ‘04 headquarters or give to a BC04 field rep." According to the Lexington Herald, that effort "was roundly criticized not only by groups favoring separation of church and state but by leading Catholics, evangelicals and mainline Protestants." Just recently, the Bush campaign’s top official on Catholic outreach was forced to resign after the National Catholic Reporter exposed his sordid sexual forays and ensuing sexual harassment charges filed against him.

Pretty shameful stuff, but Americans seem to reward this type of behavior. Just how Christian is Bush…really?

Joel is one step away from selling his flavor extract factory and retiring to easy street when a freak workplace accident sets in motion a series of disasters that put his business and personal life in jeopardy.

Genres: Comedy; Running Time: 1 hr. 30 min.; Release Date: September 4th, 2009 (limited); MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual references and some drug use.

Starring: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck, J. K. Simmons

Directed by: Mike Judge

We watched this on DVD a couple of weeks ago, and it was reasonably good movie with several funny sub-plots. I watched this movie with Lay having no expectations whatsoever. I hadn’t seen the trailer and I didn’t know who was in it. The initial premise was interesting: a successful businessman in an odd industry wanting to sell up to be able to live a different life and spend more time with his wife.

With a few motion pictures and several television projects under his belt, Mike Judge has become the undisputed master of working man’s comedy. No matter the color of their, the characters created by Judge exist on the front-lines of American industry.  Judge is content not to tug the heartstrings or rely on frequent hilarity as long as he is able to build the impression that the people on screen are an honest reflection of the co-worker to your right or the relative on your left.

The cast Judge has assembled is very good. Jason Bateman continues to display his mastery of portraying the straight man; playing effortlessly against the eccentricities of his oddball co-workers and the other peculiar people surrounding him. The scene-stealers here, though, are Ben Affleck, Clifton Collins Jr., J.K. Simmons and David Koechner. Affleck submits a wonderful performance as a bartender who believes Xanax is the cure for everything (including the common cold). The role tackled by Collins Jr. is one dimensional on paper, but the actor’s performance provides the character with depth and humanity. J.K. Simmons appears to relish the opportunity to play Joel’s business partner and is given several killer lines to play with, while Koechner nails the part as the annoying, talkative, socially awkward neighbour. Mila Kunis (best known as the voice of Meg Griffin in Family Guy) is well-suited to the role of Cindy; she’s required to look ridiculously hot as she goes about her business of tricking the men she encounters, and she pulls it off. The music store scene is especially funny.

Judge places an interesting and funny film that doesn’t seem to be interested in finishing,or filling out the characters and/or situations of the story,and thus falls short of previous efforts(Office Space and Idiocracy). Practically every character besides Joel is left open-ended: the wife,the injured worker in question,the unctuous neighbor played by David Koechner and the grifter hottie. Certainly a quick comedy that plays for absurd events that mull out of mundane occurrences is probably going to have one-dimensional characters,but it still feels like this film was somewhat hurried. A little more exposition and maybe an awkwardly pinned ending might’ve improved the quality of this film.

Still,the lines and some of the performances–the guy who plays the stutlifyingly dumb young hustler hired to seduce Joel’s wife is particularly mint,complimenting Affleck’s inspired turn–make this movie easily enjoyable. Certainly no Oscar contenders here, but it was kind of a fun movie, and worth the time watching it.

According to the Associated Press, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Paul C. Lawrence was arrestted a week ago on charges that he’s been writing bogus tickets. It seems that 200 tickets have been dismissed so far after people started complaining they knew nothing about the tickets.

Of course the only comment the Highway Patrol had was that troopers have no ticket quota they have to meet. So I’m left to believe this guy just got off on writing bogus tickets, and getting a grand laugh off it all. Sorry, I’m just not buying that.

Susie Salmon, a young girl who has been murdered, watches over her family — and her killer — from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal. Based on the best selling book by Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones is the story of a 14-year-old girl from suburban Pennsylvania who is murdered by her neighbor. She tells the story from Heaven, showing the lives of the people around her and how they have changed all while attempting to get someone to find her lost body.

Genres: Drama, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller and Adaptation; Running Time: 2 hrs. 19 min.; Release Date: December 11th, 2009 (limited); January 15th, 2010 (wide); MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving disturbing violent content and images, and some language.

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Michael Imperioli

Directed by: Peter Jackson

Lay and I watched this movie a couple of weekends ago. Obviously I have not been posting much lately due to work demands, but hopefully I’ll be back to a more regular schedule.

This is an extremely dark story from a well written book. It had the potential to be an excellent movie, but managed to fail pretty significantly. The characters did a very good job with the parts they were given. Mark Wahlberg was excellent, showing great depth of character and subelty. Stanley Tuccia, a great actor managed to play his part very well. He maintained some great tension, but was just a little bit over the top with the creepiness.

We see a lot of the little girl in this “in-between place” she inhabits as she works to help the family move beyond the situation. Most of that did not make a lot of sense. Those parts of the movie, combined with narration by this character just didn’t add a lot to move the story along in a meaningful way.

I thought this movie came across as a college class assignment in cinema. It’s like the students had access to some cool CGI software, so they decided to try every tool in the palate during the scenes from the “in-between place.” There was a symbol (I won’t give it away), that seemed to be there for no reason other than an instructor might have said that some thematic convention was needed throughout the movie. There was even a love scene al la “Ghost.”

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds:  Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED community’s exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, “One Wish to Change the World.” After several months of preparation, they unveil their wish at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. These wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

On February 28, 2008 Karen Armstrong won the TED prize and made a wish: for help creating, launching and propagating a Charter for Compassion. On November 12, 2009 the Charter was unveiled to the world.

The Charter for Compassion [Visit their Website]

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others–even our enemies–is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings–even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

On the day before Hurricane Katrina–just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew–Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, turns her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. The couple returns to the devastation of their neighborhood in New Orleans, only to be met by the appalling repeated failures of the government. But these self-described street hustlers become heroes, surviving the storm and seizing a chance for a new beginning.

Genres: Documentary; Running Time: 1 hr. 33 min.; Release Date: August 22nd, 2008 (limited); MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Lay and I stumbled across this movie at Blockbuster a couple of weeks ago when there was nothing new we wanted to watch. We’d never heard of this movie, and were surprised in the extreme at how moved we were by this movie. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to post about it. It is a movie I highly recommend.

I call this an “accidental” film because it’s only a series of coincidences that bring this movie into being.

Kimberly Roberts is a 24-year-old rap hopeful who took some incredible footage just before and during hurricane Katrina. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin came down to Louisiana to film a different project about Katrina and found both her and her footage, they switched gears and this movie was the result. They blend newsreels and footage taken by the couple and the directors. It’s not polished, but it’s real.

Kimberly knows her neighborhood and is a real person. She asks people what they are going to do about the hurricane her uncle buys another bottle of booze, stumbles home, while a 10-year-old niece flashes a gang sign, and declares she is not scared of any water.

The story of the U.S. government’s response to hurricane Katrina remains shocking at many levels, but that has been covered. This is a more personal account shot by a resident during and after the storm. But it still contains plenty of gruesome insights: the failure to evacuate the hospitals and prisons, and the protection of higher ground from homeless citizens by the armed forces of the U.S. navy, are the most terrible details. The film also depicts the huge burden of trying to rebuild a life that has been completely swept away. As a piece of pure cinema, it’s limited; but it’s a story that needs to be told and re-told until something is eventually done.

There are several striking images in the film, including a recording of a 911 call in which an woman requesting help can’t get out of her attic which is flooding. The 911 attendant has to tell her that there is no help at this time, and the victim replies, “So I’m going to die?” Silence on the other end of the line.

This is a documentary you really must to see to understand the personal impact of Katrina. Sure, it’s about failures of government in the aftermath of the storm, but it’s also about ordinary people doing the best they can in the most extra-ordinary circumstances.

In the not-too-distant future, some 30 years after the final war, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America. Empty cities, broken highways, seared earth–all around him, the marks of catastrophic destruction. There is no civilization here, no law. The roads belong to gangs that would murder a man for his shoes, an ounce of water… or for nothing at all.

But they’re no match for this traveler.  A warrior not by choice but necessity, Eli seeks only peace but, if challenged, will cut his attackers down before they realize their fatal mistake. It’s not his life he guards so fiercely but his hope for the future; a hope he has carried and protected for 30 years and is determined to realize. Driven by this commitment and guided by his belief in something greater than himself, Eli does what he must to survive–and continue.

But neither will find it easy to deter him. Nothing–and no one–can stand in his way. Eli must keep moving to fulfill his destiny and bring help to a ravaged humanity.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction; Running Time: 1 hr. 58 min.; Release Date: January 15th, 2010 (wide); MPAA Rating: R for some brutal violence and language.

Cast: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals,

Directed By: Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes

This was Lay’s choice for this past weekend, but I wanted to see the movie also.

The movie takes place sometime in the future 30 years after “the big flash” seems to have destroyed most of the world. It’s shot in a Sepia tone, and primarily follows Denzel Washington’s character, Eli, as he makes his way towards the west coast to deliver a book that will somehow help renew humanity.

The cinematography is very good, and sets the motif well for the movie. A stark and forbidding landscape is portrayed well, and frankly, it made me feel dry. The acting was good with Denzel playing a typical character for him as the quiet but explosive hero. Oldman carries the movie coming across as sinister yet portraying an appropriately strange sense of humor. Kunis’ character is mainly meaningless and provides only an excuse for Eli to explain his mission. Her acting is overdone.

Frankly, the film severely over-inflates the influence of the Bible, especially in light of how it’s treated at the end of the movie.

Overall, this movie is probably worth watching, but wait until it is out on video.

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home.

We enter the alien world through the eyes of Jake Sully, a former Marine confined to a wheelchair. But despite his broken body, Jake is still a warrior at heart. He is recruited to travel light years to the human outpost on Pandora, where corporations are mining a rare mineral that is the key to solving Earth’s energy crisis. Because the atmosphere of Pandora is toxic, they have created the Avatar Program, in which human “drivers” have their consciousness linked to an avatar, a remotely-controlled biological body that can survive in the lethal air. These avatars are genetically engineered hybrids of human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives of Pandora… the Na’vi.

Reborn in his avatar form, Jake can walk again. He is given a mission to infiltrate the Na’vi, who have become a major obstacle to mining the precious ore. But a beautiful Na’vi female, Neytiri, saves Jake’s life, and this changes everything. Jake is taken in by her clan, and learns to become one of them, which involves many tests and adventures. As Jake’s relationship with his reluctant teacher Neytiri deepens, he learns to respect the Na’vi way and finally takes his place among them. Soon he will face the ultimate test as he leads them in an epic battle that will decide nothing less than the fate of an entire world.

Genres: Action/Adventure and Science Fiction/Fantasy; Running Time: 160 min.; Release Date: December 18, 2009; MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking

Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez.

Directed by: James Cameron

I am skipping ahead a little by writing this review, as I’m behind on a couple of other movies I’ve seen recently. I went to see this Monday. It was a holiday, Lay was working and didn’t want to see this, so it was a good time to go. I saw it at Westshore Mall, and the theater was nearly  full.

There is no doubt this is a visually beautiful film. Cameron, with WETA Workshop and ILM, have truly outdone themselves. They have created a very real seeming alien world, and made it a work of art besides. I saw the 3D version after some debate (I don’t generally like 3D), and suggest that is the only way to see it. I appreciated the fact they used the 3D effect merely to help immerse you into this world, and not using it as “device” merely for the sake of the effect (no scary creatures jumping out of the screen at you).

The actors played their parts well, and the characters came through as realistic and believable. It was a good screenplay, but frankly could have easily been 30 minutes shorter. It was also a bit predictable and clichéd. I read a comment somewhere that it was like “Dances With Wolves” meets “Star Wars”, and I can certainly see how that was an apt comparison…in nearly every detail.

I can see why some neocons and others of the believers in “American Exceptionalism” would be unhappy with this movie. It is clearly an indictment of colonialism, and points out how Americans (and everyone in this movie from earth appears to be at least english speaking) abuse natural resources and have a sense of entitlement about it. Also, it clearly portrays our own sense that “our way” must always be better. So, yes Virginia, there is a political message here, and it comes through loud and clear. Maybe some people will take it to heart.

This would normally be a film I’d recommend seeing, but suggest waiting to see it on DVD. However, because of the stunning visuals in the film resulting from the colorful world Cameron has created, and the 3D effect, I have to suggest watching it in the theater on a big screen.

Okay, this may have been around for a while, but I had not seen it, and I’m amazed. This is a performance by a couple named David and Dania on “America’s Got Talent”. Even in one change, you can kind of see the dress change while it’s on her, but I can not for the life of me figure out how it’s done.

Apparently this is a trick that goes back hundreds of years. Quick-change is a performance style where a performer or magician changes quickly within seconds from one costume into another costume in front of the audience. Origins of this can be found in a book dated 1600 describing the performance of Giovanni Gabrielli, performing different change of costumes and characters in the public square of Bologna. But this couple take it to a whole new level.

In early afternoon, four armed men hijack a subway train in Manhattan. They stop on a slight incline, decoupling the first car to let the rest of the train coast back. Their leader is Ryder; he connects by phone with Walter Garber, the dispatcher watching that line. Garber is a supervisor temporarily demoted while being investigated for bribery. Ryder demands $10 million within an hour, or he’ll start shooting hostages. He’ll deal only with Garber. The mayor okays the payoff, the news of the hostage situation sends the stock market tumbling, and it’s unclear what Ryder really wants or if Garber is part of the deal.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Thriller, Crime/Gangster and Remake; Release Date: July 24th, 2009 (wide)

Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Brian Haley

Directed by: Tony Scott

I’m behind on writing reviews. We watched this on DVD a couple of weekends ago. We never saw this in the theater. I wasn’t expecting much from this remake of the original, especially with Travolta in a starring role, and because it was a remake by an explosion-happy director (Tony Scott). But, it was actually not too bad, with some nice plot twists.

Of course, the biggest reason the movie succeeds is Denzel Washington. Washington plays a disgraced (investigation pending) transit executive who’s currently slumming as the control chief. On his shift, naturally, a 1:23 train out of Pelham (New York City) suddenly stops in the middle of its run, and a hijacker demands $10 million to be delivered in exactly one hour, or passengers start dying unnaturally.

What makes this a little more than your typical cat-and-mouse game is the undercurrent of what’s gotten Washington’s character into hot water, as well as Travolta’s character’s actual motives.

Washington and Travolta play off each other very nicely, with Washington’s flawless portrayal of a flawed man far more convincing than Travolta’s garden-variety unhinged wacko. Essentially, Washington was good enough to counterbalance Travolta’s overacting.  Washington’s Walter Garber is unsure of himself, an actual Everyman thrust into a madman’s master plan.

There are some changes from the original, true, but they don’t seem contrived; for example, Walter Matthau was a transit cop in the 1974 version, not some under-investigation suit.

The action is tense throughout, especially since you assume that the hijackers are going to have to murder someone at some point (otherwise, why have a deadline?) Somehow, the movie manages to be gripping and realistic without being over the top. There are some minor bouts of nonsense, and maybe in the final 20 minutes or so it’s a little by the numbers in its approach to action, but overall it’s not bad at all. It’s certainly a lot better than I’d expect a John Travolta movie to be, but maybe that’s because he’s the bad guy here, and they’re expected to be over the top.