Mari Ness

...has Robert Downey, Jr. playing an Australian playing a black man.

This alone is worth the price of admission, along with some inspired casting of Nick Nolte and Tom Cruise.

Offensive to Hollywood producers, the mentally challenged, drug addicts, drug manufacturers, cute little Vietnamese orphans, cute cuddly panda bears, Vietnam, Fox Searchlight Pictures, black people, and oh, yes, Australians. But to make up for this, Tobey McGuire has this cameo....I'll let you see it.

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In completely unrelated news, everybody say Hi to Tropical Storm Fay. Everybody note that Tropical Storm Fay is currently aiming right at Florida, and at Central Florida, and specifically, my parents' condo. Everybody remember that my parents have been planning a huge party for the following weekend for years. Everybody plan for Tropical Storm Fay to get a lot bigger. Sorry, parents :).

Full disclosure: I was, for seven years, a diehard X-Files fan and a Mulder/Scully shipper. And although the last two seasons were almost enough to kill that love, enough remained to allow me to brave coming out to see the newest X-Files film. And what can I say? Rarely has any film made the FBI look so extraordinarily incompetent.

( The snark, it writes itself. Spoilery. Not that there's anything to spoil, exactly. )

OK. I gave all of you a few days to see this film. (Translation: I actually waited myself so I could see it in IMAX, but I'm trying to pretend I'm being nice here.)

Now it's time to discuss. ( Major, major spoilers. If you haven't seen the film, I strongly suggest not clicking – one strength of this film is its twists. )

1. Wall-E: She is absolutely, awesomely, hot (or cool), capable of shooting anything on sight, plus flying, not to mention incredibly competent. He is an utter dork obsessed with Hello Dolly who collects little pieces of trash.

Naturally, he's utterly smitten, and so was I.

Wall-E's received some significant conservative criticism for its anti-human, anti-corporate message (a fairly astounding message from a Disney product, actually), a message strongly undercut by the last five minutes of the film, and from some people concerned about the film's message about overweight people. I think that second message has been misheard; the overweight humans do almost nothing not because they are incapable, but because they are content. What I found more disturbing, and yet all too realistic, is that even 700 years into the future, when the entire human race is overweight and not moving, the company is still advertising products for thin people, and suggesting that the goal is to be thin. (Look at the models in the film's background – thin, thin, thin.) The first point might have validity if not for the film's last five minutes (by far the least scientific part of the film.)

And yeah, those last five minutes: ( spoilery ) Nonetheless, because I'm a bundle of contractions, I loved the film, especially the first forty minutes or so, and if the love story doesn't get you – well, you either have no heart, or you're not a geek. If you haven't seen it yet, go.

2. I-SPY: I missed this the first time around, and rather wish I'd missed it the second time around. Should it come your way, skip to the scene where Famke Janssen is stretched out wearing little but white lingerie, watch that, and then skip to the end. You'll be happier and in less danger of permanent brain cell loss.

3. Once Upon a Time in Mexico: Somehow, despite the presence of both Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas, I missed this one too the first time around, probably because it looked like the sort of disjointed, random gun violence movie that I'm not overly fond of. And as it turns out, this is a disjointed random gun violence movie (thinking about the plot too hard, or at all, is probably not a good idea) with some "Um, would he even be able to walk after that, let alone fire a gun?" bits, but on the other hand, the film has some decidedly watchable moments, including a the "how do we get out of a hotel room when we're chained together at the wrist and people are shooting at us" (some of you might be able to sympathize here) a showdown at the Mexican Day of the Dead festival, some decent dialogue bits, and of course, Johnny Depp.

Just got in from seeing Iron Man. My initial non-spoilery comments:

1. Wow, did this movie make me dizzy. I think it was all of the various things flying around and spinning on screen.

2. What is it with women running around in tottering high heels in action flicks? Can we, for once, please, please, please have an action movie where the girl is running around in flats? Sneakers, even? I spent entirely too much time wondering precisely how Gwyneth Paltrow was balancing on those shoes. (And she does so very nicely, mind you; I just kept thinking that under the circumstances she would have invested in a nice pair of comfortable, elegant flats.)

3. Stick around for the end of the credits. I'm trying to figure out what precisely the movie studios gain from tacking on important scenes like this at the end of the credits -- it was one thing when these were just humorous little add-ons, like the post-credits bit in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I suppose the idea is to reward dire fans.

4. Good flick.

Spoilery comments later.

I admit it: I'm addicted to working plumbing. I can't help it: I feel a little sense of satisfaction knowing I have a working toilet. I'm not exactly obsessed about it, but still. (And I do have good memories of a certain spectacular toilet back in Tokyo which, quite apart from its toilet characteristics, also offered heat and massage and quite a few other qualities I don't usually associate with this sort of activity. Moving on.) Thus, when I came home to find out that I still had no working water, I was forced to take drastic measures: I went to see a film about the beginnings of professional football.

As a consoling note, Leatherheads does have George Clooney in it.

But it's not a very good movie, and no, not just because of the football scenes, but because the movie genuinely doesn't know what it's doing: screwball comedy, satirical look at the beginnings of professional football, satirical look at the development of celebrity, serious look at what heroism means, fun bits at speakeasies. And as a result, many scenes feel off or drained – especially the screwball comedy moments, which mostly fall flat. When I'm more entertained by the football moments than the screwball comedy moments, this is not good. This isn't to say that Leatherheads doesn't have its moments and its good scenes, not to mention George Clooney, just that during the movie, the thought passed through my head more once: I really wish I could flush my toilet.

Fortunately, the water appears to be working and running this morning, although my building is still fortified by the Deep Scary Trench. It genuinely is the little things in life.

So coldecho and I headed out to see this, mostly because I have a hopeless crush on Lee Pace. The film did have, for me, one noticable flaw: every time Ciaran Hinds appeared on screen, I kept expecting him to start plotting against Romans and ordering assassinations and the like, but that was probably just me. Otherwise, this was a nicely fluffy movie, not in the least credible, and yes, very predictable, and precisely the sort of happy screwball film I was in the mood for. Worth seeing on DVD, as long as you don't dread "chick flick" movies.

So I got around to seeing The Other Boleyn Girl the other night, and found it oddly lifeless for a film focused on any part of the life of the larger-than-life Henry VIII, although then again, his tendency to execute people who annoyed him probably did drain the life out of his court in some small way.

Part of the problem, I think, came from Eric Bana. I like Eric Bana. He's quiet. He's hot. He can smoulder when need be in that hot smouldering sort of way. And yet, he consistently gets cast in larger than life roles -- Hector in Troy, Hulk in Hulk, and now Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl, where he ends up coming across as just this guy, you know?

That's fine for some roles -- needed for many roles. But for roles that are crying for someone to overwhelm the screen, to be more than human, more than ordinary, to have that superstar quality shine out, and especially for performances that are following Richard Burton's magnificent regalness of Anne of the Thousand Days (historical hogwash but everybody looks great and marvelously overacts),it's just not enough. Eric Bana does redeem himself in a few moments here and there, (in a nice intimate scene with Mary Boleyn midway through the film, and a nastier intimate scene with Anne Boleyn later) but in the final analysis, when he walks into the film, he doesn't stride into it; he doesn't command it, and he's not Henry VIII.

The film has a few other issues as well. The film frames the historical truth that Henry first tumbled around a bit with Mary Boleyn (who by most contemporary accounts was basically a good hearted slut, instead of the virtuous not even mildly slutty girl the movie tries to portray here) before falling headlong in love with her sister as a saga of a father pimping out his two daughters, with Henry first liking Anne, then turning to Mary because Anne is a bit of a bitch, then turning back to Anne even though Anne has become even more of a bitch. Admittedly, Natalie Portman is, as always, drop dead gorgeous, and I can certainly see why anyone would want to sleep with her, but otherwise, the relationship, and Henry's attraction to her, is just unconvincing, except perhaps in one scene -- and that one scene isn't enough to carry the film.

And again, this may be the weakness of Eric Bana the actor, or of the script, which avoids portraying Henry as the ladies' man he unquestionably was right up until his final days. (I've always liked imagining the immediate encounter in the afterlife with Catherine of Aragon, a highly irritated Anne Boleyn, a sniffling Jane Seymour, and a Catherine Howard happily snuggling with Thomas Culpepper). And the way the film moves both far too slowly (the first half, especially) and yet far too quickly (Mary to Anne: "You know I love him." Audience: "Really? News to us. When did this happen?). And yes, the various historical missteps here and there. Not to mention the inexplicably kindly portrayal of Jane Parker Boleyn, Lady Rochford, who may possibly have been the absolutely nastiest and deranged person in Henry VIII's court, even leaving aside Henry VIII himself.

Sumptuous costumes, though, and the chance to see Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson wearing them.

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We were also highly amused to hear the spontaneous laughter from the audience when the trailer for Speed Racer, particularly this bit:

Pops: You think you can drive a car and change the world? It doesn't work like that.
Awesome racer Speed dude: Maybe not, but it's the only thing I know how to do and I gotta do something.

As C pointed out, while laughing, it's not as if the original cartoon had any other plot. I still can't decide if deciding to bring Speed Racer to the big screen is a work of utter genius or the worst idea ever since persuading the Southern Baptist Church to help pay for Plan Nine From Outer Space, but I'm thinking the second.

1. For the local foodies, or the unlocal foodies who happen to visit me, or local nonfoodies, or nonlocal foodies who happen to visit me, or just random people in general: new restaurant recommendation: Rendez-Vous, located in an utterly atrocious location without enough parking on Oakland Park Boulevard, but serving truly extraordinary French toast. I'm not usually one to fall into French toast raptures – it's an occasional treat for me – but this was the rapturous sort. Bonus: it's right across the street from a drag queen show, although if I recall correctly that particular drag queen show requires you to order food, so, you might have to eat twice. The difficulties of life. Second bonus: as you might guess from the location, Rendez-Vous offers many, many, buff and cute young gay guys to stare at. Le sigh.

2. People planning on giving birth to the AntiChrist should really budget for it. I'm just saying. Also, these same people should remember that the Antichrist, by all accounts, is not going to be the kindest, most generous sort of dude, so if they're expecting to make money by birthing the Antichrist, they might want to seek a slightly more financially secure route. I'm just saying.

3. Discovery: Microsoft Word thinks that "Antichrist" is just fine, but "AntiChrist" isn't. I'm not sure if I want to know what this means.

4. When someone tells me that they've been asked to transfer the soul of a rat to the soul of a newborn (not coincidentally, the same newborn hoped to be the Antichrist) I am, I must admit, stuck between wondering if I'm being put on, if the person telling me the story was being put on, or if I should just give into my baser instincts and get a raspberry mocha anyway.

5. I am, however, fairly certain that the power outage that happened at Starbucks just in the middle of the animated conversation about the Antichrist was coincidental. Wasn't it?

6. The Subaru Impreza is a very boring car. Even when the salesguy is chatting hopefully to you about its four wheel suspension and its special oil filters. It's a very boring car. No wonder Allstate thought it was a good car for me. I hate you, Allstate.

7. So I finally got around to watching last week's episode of Lost, and while I share blondeheroine's suspicions that the entire episode was written solely to allow us to see a nicely shaved Desmond (and, with her, let me just say, um, Wow. Get more razors on that island, now!), and even though it had been so long since I'd seen Lost that I had absolutely no idea what was going on for the first several minutes (like, um, helicopter?), although, since this is, after all, Lost, that's not exactly an unusual feeling, and I can't help but maintain the feeling that the island's actual purpose is just to guide amazingly good looking people to it and have them make gestures that just happen to show off their best looking parts, presumably for the enjoyment of the island's native goddess (you just watch: that'll be the season finale, complete with a sashaying voluptuous goddess and an announcement that the entire group has been handpicked to be on the first ever "Choose the Goddess Consort" reality TV show, only with a much, much worse title) and even though I could feel the episode greatly lengthening and convoluting my sentences, as we can all see here, my summary: awesome episode, and damn all of you for getting me to watch the show again.

8. Also finally got around to seeing The Spiderwick Chronicles with a group of friends, which was enjoyable enough, but somehow missing something. Some element of magic, perhaps. Part of the problem is that a few of the scenes seem to go on a little too long, given that we pretty much know where the scenes are going, and on occasion the movie meanders off for no particular reason, with no particular payoff, and part of the problem may be that one actor is playing twin brothers Jared and Simon, and clearly greatly prefers playing Simon. Still, as said, enjoyable popcorn flick.

9. And finally, since I've been accused of unfairly targeting The New York Times, allow me to direct my wrath towards The Washington Post, and briefly note that this may well be the single stupidest article printed this year, or indeed the past year, or indeed for the past ten years. So much so, indeed, that I must warn you that the article may melt your brain cells, and that I sense a second and longer response coming.

It can't be that bad, you tell me?

Oh, yes it can. She is judging the intelligence of women by, god help us, GREY'S ANATOMY, and I so wish I were kidding.

So all the buzz about Juno -- that it's a pro-life film, a pro-choice film, a film that ignores the evil reality of adoptions, whatever – got me out to see the film this weekend. And I was glad I did, since any film that sneaks a McSweeneys joke in with a particular observation about high school male track stars is a film well seeing. Regardless of the subject matter, this is a frequently hilarious and often quite sweet film, and Jennifer Garner is surprisingly good as the infertile woman convinced she was destined to be a mother and desperate to have a child of her own. Her moment in the mall with Juno, which I won't spoil, is one of the film's highlights. For the pro-lifers celebrating this film, I have to say: the film seems to me to be more celebrating choice: most of the characters of the film seem to think that abortion is the more reasonable alternative, and Juno seems to choose adoption more on a whim than through any long thought out process, or because she thinks abortion is somehow wrong.

Otherwise, I'm finding myself relatively quiet for the last few days for various reasons, still tired from being sick, work related, life related, and yes, writing related. It was a productive Sunday and a slightly-productive Monday, and hopefully, despite my inevitable distraction with politics today, it will be a productive Tuesday as well.

And oh, yes. My household has been officially joined by a dancing R2D2. But that's decidedly a separate post.

And now for the actual review of El Orfanato, a movie about the importance of keeping your closets neat and well organized so that nothing will ever happen to you or your head. Well. Maybe not. But that's an important moral lesson anyway and it is one subtle point of the film.

I'm not much of a horror movie fan, mostly because what passes for "horror" movie in most American films is "loud noises lots of gore and missing arms," and gore for the sake of gore just doesn't do much for me, and second because I'm not big on paying money just so I can get scared. I have enough fear in my life from my daily excursions on I-95. Show me something intelligent, though, and you've hooked me, which is why I loved Pan's Labyrinth so much last year, even when I found myself needing to shut my eyes at a couple of moments (again, not much for the gore.) El Orfanato was produced by the same guy that directed the earlier film, so on the recommendation of a couple of people I decided to overlook the horror element and give it a shot.

Like the earlier film, El Orfanato explores the boundaries between Reality and The Other, as a woman returns with her husband and adopted son to the orphanage where she lived as a child. (It looks remarkably grand and palace like for an orphanage, but never mind that.) The plan is to care for mentally disabled children there, leading to the distinct question of why anyone would think that a huge gloomy house right next to an extremely dangerous beach and several cliffs would be the ideal place to raise mentally disabled children, but that isn't a question the film wants to answer. Rather, it wants us to wonder if the imaginary friends of the adoptive son are indeed imaginary – or quite real. Various odd things begin to happen in a quiet, creepy sort of way – nothing overdone here, just a few things that could be easily explained, even though creepy music happens every time they happen. A very strange social worker arrives. The couple has a party for the disabled children, complete with masks. (This leads to some of the best stuff in the film. And then, Charlie Chaplin's daughter shows up and tells us, "Seeing is not believing. It is the other way around."

And perhaps it is.

The film has genuinely creepy moments: even if most of them are outright stolen from previous ghost or horror films (and a couple of camera shots are taken directly from Psycho they do work. This is a slow pace dfilm, for the most part, but that's partly why it is so effective – that, and the camera work that constantly reminds us that we are seeing everything from the point of view of the woman, Laura, and her seeing might not be trustworthy.

Warning: the film also has two major plot holes, one of which I saw coming and thought, oh, no, please tell me they're going to come up with some explanation….and, er. No, they don't. What made that worse was that the audience afterwards easily came up with several alternative endings that might have helped. ( Ok, the plot hole, for those who have seen the movie or who don't care about spoilers: )

But in the end, this isn't really a horror movie, creepy moments or no creepy moments: it's a film about growing up, or not growing up, and death. And as I said, if you give me something intelligent, you've hooked me.

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While we're on the subject of horror movies, a couple of you have mentioned Cloverfield to me, which I won't be seeing because I can't: those handheld movies on the big screen and sometimes even on the small screen make me extremely sick. So my sole review of Cloverfield, at least for now, is "Damn it, couldn't you have spent some time investing in decent camera equipment during your flight from the monster so that I could watch your gruesome torture and death and screams without getting nauseated?" I have been reliably informed that none of the film's characters have time to stop by Best Buy while fleeing from monsters, though, so I guess the answer was no.

I have suffered for you, my readers: ( I went and saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets so that you didn't have to. )

So I finally got around to watching Sweeney Todd. Alas, the chief thing that disturbed me about the film was our audience, and by audience I mean the three young children sitting directly behind us, who were constantly kicking my friend's chair and ( spoilery comments ).

Otherwise, I felt curiously unengaged by the movie. It's well crafted: the cinematography, the costumes, the sets, all up to what you'd expect from a Tim Burton movie; it's well cast, for the most part (and watch for the uncredited Anthony Stewart Head cameo), Johnny Depp is marvelously entirely mad, Helena Bonham Carter delightfully freakish, displaying an excellent sense of comic timing; the singing is for the most part pretty good, and yet – and yet. It might well have been the distraction of the audience, or that I had problems connecting to or feeling much sympathy for the two young lovers of the story. (My chief unsympathetic response was that the film illustrates just why falling in love with somebody just because said somebody happens to be sitting in a window singing at birds is just not a good idea.) Or that – truthfully – I found several moments of the film, despite the violence, despite the subject matter, curiously dull. (Burton has never learned to pace his movies well.) But I'll note that several other people loved this film, and have given it excellent reviews, so don't take my word for it.

Posted to waste time before I head out for shopping trip number one:

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kubera501 Your birthday's Christmas Eve?

Me: Yes.

kubera501 That must suck.

Me: Yes, yes it does.

kubera501 On the bright side, you were born on the dark of the year, so there's a very good chance that when you die, you'll be reborn as a vampire.

Me: That's very comforting. Thanks.

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From a Ravenloft game:

Almost booming voice: He impregnates the zombie with magic missiles!

Me, distressed: But I don't want my zombies to give birth to magic missiles!

(Later, when said zombie had caught on fire)

If that zombie gives birth to both magic missiles and fire, I am so out of here.

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Speaking of D&D, there's a distressing rumour that D&D 4.0 will not include gnomes, since gnomes have a tendency to annoy other players. I'm not entirely sure this is true (I say, with a happy memory of my gnome character who was dumped into a well by other player characters purely for being annoying). But still. Surely other players, other than me, have played cute reliable helpful gnomes, or evil assassin gnomes, or joking gnomes, or some sort of variation on gnomes that doesn't inspire other players to think of gnome assassinations, or make the cruel Wizards on the Coast eliminate gnomes from future releases?

(On a related note, does it amuse anyone else to hear Wizards of the Coast and other game companies borrowing software development terminology when chatting about their new upcoming games? I realize this isn't a particularly new thing, but it continues to amuse me.)

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We saw I am Legend yesterday, which I enjoyed more than I expected to, given my general lack of interest in horror movies and things that leap out at the dark at you and so on. ( But I did have a few spoilery quibbles. )

Sigh. I fear that that is quite enough time wasting. Must go and accomplish stuff.

Demonstrates just why people should not try to make a King Arthur movie without King Arthur.

( And amusingly enough, it claims to be an  )

Wow.

Just wow.

And not in a good way.

You know, for a moment there -- during Pirates of the Caribbean I actually had a hope or two for Jerry Bruckheimer, that he might just possibly be able to rise up above the ludicrously bad awfulness of his films.

And then we have this film. There's dumb, and then there's dumb. Consider this:

1) Characters, watching the obligatory Big Explosion near the beginning of the film, turn to each other and say, "Let's get out of here before somebody sees the smoke." They're north of the Arctic Circle. Who are they worried about? Polar bears?

2) Cheerfully enough, another set of characters displays no concern over being trapped in the Arctic since, after all, they are only nine miles away from an "Inuit village," and, as we all know, those Inuit villages exist strictly to save characters dumb enough to get trapped in the Arctic.

2) The National Archives decides to clean the Declaration of Independence during a major Gala Event in honor of various donors.

3) They put lemon juice on the Declaration of Independence.

4) Before putting lemon juice on the Declaration of Independence, one of the characters announces that she is a curator "trained in the handling of ancient documents." At this point, she proceeds to pick up a Q-tip (yes, really) and squeezes the lemon onto the Q-tip before brushing the Declaration of Independence with lemon juice.

5) Despite the fact that as a curator trained in the handling of ancient documents she would know full well that the actual Declaration of Independence is stored in a strictly climate controlled environment with limited access to water vapor for a reason said curator then proceeds to breathe on the Declaration "to bring heat to it." Words fail me.

6) Did I mention the lemon juice?

7) But anyway. Hunted by a bunch of bad guys with guns and a bunch of FBI agents and a bunch of other people, do our heroes a) go into hiding? b) work to formulate a clever plan? No: c: They head to Urban Outfitters and have a nice loud conversation, in public, about their problems. Geesh.

8) Urban Outfitters accepts a $100 bill without question, and then, the clerk at Urban Outfitters agrees to temporarily exchange the bill for a watch.

9) People zip in and out of historical monuments without security or, more critically, crowds. (The Signing Room in Philadelphia is crowded, people.)

10) Conveniently enough, just as they reach the Deep Dark Scary Room, they just happen to find torches that according to the plot have been buried for 200 or more years and according to the plot again immediately light on fire.

11) Which is good, since although they are heading underground, and although they are in New York City, where you can buy anything and everything, nobody takes a moment to go and buy a flashlight.

12) Or rope.

13) Although they find some rope, which was awfully nice of the Founding Fathers to think of.

14) Villains who have previously displayed an astounding recollection of (inaccurate) U.S. history trivia suddenly and conveniently can't recall a single detail of "Paul Revere's Ride." (I'm not expecting most people to remember the poem, mind you, but somebody with enough knowledge to remember what's written on the Liberty Bell would probably remember their Longfellow.)

15) Did I mention that they put lemon juice on the Declaration of Independence?