Funmurphys: the Blog

Dark Watchman Vs. The Architect of Fear

Is this the day? Is this the beginning of the end? There is no time to wonder. No time to ask why is it happening, why is it finally happening. There is time only for fear, for the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray? Or do we merely run now and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day?

This is the opening narration for the original Outer Limits episode "The Architects of Fear" where a group of scientists fake an alien invasion in an attempt to forestall escalating international tensions and a potential nuclear holocaust. We took in the Dark Knight over the weekend and this quote could have opened the third act of the film where the Joker is threatening the Gotham City with widespread destruction.

The Dark Knight is a dark film about a city fighting a terrorist. it's one of the grimmest movies I have seen in a while. It's not as downbeat as "Seconds" but certainly the "Empire Strikes Back" may be the last mass market film to end on so low a note. It's very well done but definitely a movie with adult themes.

Heath Ledger's performance is chilling. His Joker reminded me of Lewis Black on a rant (who they should consider now that this will be Ledger's last role). It becomes clear that the Joker is truly an agent of chaos, his real goal is for the citizens of Gotham City to lose their faith in orderly society ("the hidden conspiracy of goodwill") and descend into anomie. I viewed It as a cautionary tale for any free society fighting terrorism.

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Freidrich Nietzsche Aphorism 146

Batman is challenged to drop his own code of ethics and use whatever means necessary. But in spite of horrific provocation is able to follow his internal compass.

"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Juvenal

Which is normally translated as "But who will guard the guardians?" and Alan Moore interpreted as "Who Watches the Watchmen?" (more on that in a moment). To locate the Joker Batman engages in a massive invasion of privacy, but does so in a way that he has no personal control over the information gathered or the mechanism he created, allowing it to be destroyed when it's no longer needed. This is in the face of a villain who is killing any government official who tries to stand against him, and for good measure follows through on his threat to blow up a hospital.

Although I said it was a dark film about adult themes the boys both enjoyed it and we had a long discussion about civil liberty, and the difference between the police, the National Guard, and the Army. And the difference between the way that a free society fights criminals, affording them protection under the law, and enemy combatants who are committed to the destruction of a society.

"The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, takes responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and avoids it. Without the hidden conspiracy of goodwill, society would not endure an hour."
Kenneth Rexroth in the "Introduction to Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God Is Within You"

Ultimately, when confronted with the challenge to kill complete strangers or be killed themselves, Gotham's citizens--even its criminals--refrain.

The previews included the new Watchmen movie, which looked outstanding. If you haven't read the comic graphic novel, it's an extremely dense and intricately plotted exploration justice, vigilantism, and what it means to be a hero. My personal preference would have been for a 12 episode miniseries, with each episode an hour to 90 minutes long to do Watchmen justice, but that's probably harder to fund and monetize and it's taken more than two decades to bring it to the screen as is. It will probably get redone in 30 years as a hypertext movie to do it justice.

Alan Moore was apparently not aware of the Outer Limits episode "Architects of Fear" when he wrote Watchmen, but became aware of it as he and Dave Gibbons were collaborating on it, inserting a reference to it in the last issue.

We watched the the "Architects of Fear" again tonight, and I was surprised and how scary it was and how poignant the concluding narration remains:

Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford

I dragged the funWife off to see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford last friday night based on the recommendation of this review at Libertas. I was entranced by the film, the funWife compared it to The Horse Whisperer - the longest, most pointless, boringest movie ever made, let alone conceived. So there you have it - two people, one movie, diametrically opposed viewpoints.

The movie is long, almost 3 hours, but I was mesmerized the entire time. The train robbery scene is simply the most visually stunning art I can recall seeing in a movie theater. Compelling characters, stunning visuals, a laconic pace that allows characters to not just flower but bear fruit as well - what's not to like? I have to wonder, though, if part of the attraction of this movie is that there are so few like it made anymore.

I wish Hollywood made more movies like this - big, sprawling, character driven. This movie is Brad Pitt's best work (yes, I know that's not saying much) but sorry girls not only does he keep his clothes on, he's usually wearing a large hairy coat. Casey Affleck is amazing, the rest of the cast outstanding, the Missouri countryside never more beautiful (too bad it wasn't shot on location).

The only sour note was the casting of James Carville as the governor of Missouri. His appearance brought a laugh from the Missouri audience, and his line "my wife has told me I've talked long enough" (I bet she, i.e. Mary Matalan, has) and it was jarring in a movie that was otherwise so immersive in the time period.

I was surprised the film could generate as much tension as it did when you know what is going to happen, although the chunk of the movie after the "assassination" was a revelation. What a sad testament to the state of Hollywood today that a movie like this is relegated to art houses. Hollywood just doesn't know what to do with a grown up movie. Trust your audience, and we'll both be rewarded.

We'll always have No Way Out

Maybe I was too harsh on Waterworld.

Pathfinder

Brian Noggle must be made of stronger stuff than I, because he titled a post "I Can't Wait For Joe Williams' Review". What's next, "I can't wait to be smacked repeatedly by a large mackerel", or "I can't wait to have a bucket of bricks dumped on my head" or "I would really like to have my toenails pulled out one by one".

I have to say, I saw the same trailer while I waited to see "300" the other day, and at first I was intrigued - nothing gets my intrigue up like seeing helms with lots of horns, wings, and assorted dodads and swords of destiny - but when it was clear that the movie was going to be a post-modern morality play dressed up in ornate plate armor I lost most of my interest. Yes, ornate plate armor is just that irresistable.

300

I saw 300 last night and I have to say it wasn't as bloody as I thought it would be after reading the reviews. 300 is a mythic epic, well worth seeing in the theater if you like that sort of thing, and like action movies filled with buff men, flying blood (they really really like their blood spatters) and flying heads (of the chopped off variety). But the biggest reason to see it in the theater is to see it it on a big screen. Sometimes I hear movies described as visually stunning, but believe me, this movie is visually stunning. The director, Zach Snider, doesn't forget for one frame that he is visually telling a story. The movie represents a Spartan survivor of the battle telling the tale to his country men on the eve of another battle against the Persians, so the movie has a certain Homeric cast to it. And there are times the creepiness factor got a bit too much for me and I actually turned away from the screen.

After watching it, I have to wonder if I saw the same movie as some of the critics -- were they expecting a documentary? Maybe it's just me, but I got the impression they were sort of hoping that Greek civilization, and thus Western civilization, got strangled in it's cradle this time. Because if it had, we wouldn't have been faced with the horror of people proclaiming about freedom while owning slaves. We would just would have been faced with people owning slaves and never once even mentioning freedom.

What motivated 300 hundred Spartans and 700 Thespians to fight to the death against the Persians in 480 BC? It sure wasn't a desire to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, end poverty, envision world peace, save the Whales, end Global Warming, or some other modern worthy enterprise. The world was much simpler then - or at least the struggle for survival was much clearer (and harder), and the extreme Lycurgian laws that Sparta lived under were all about how civilization could survive. Sometimes we forget the idea that love of country, a conviction that our culture is superior, and a devotion to duty and others are important values and not just quaint ideas without power to be forgotten or mocked.

Sweet Smell Of Success

I like movies. A lot. But the other day, 3/4 of the Murphy Family tried to pick out a movie at our local Hollywood Video and failed. Or almost failed, as after we all agreed we couldn't find anything we wanted to see or see again for free, I noticed The Sweet Smell of Success. Well, I just had to get it, after reading Libertas:

Have you guys ever seen The Sweet Smell of Success? Man! What a great flick. Cancel your Netflix account now and use that money to buy The Sweet Smell Of Success. And everytime you get an urge to watch the latest piece of junk — liberal or otherwise – that emanates from Hollywood, watch The Sweet Smell Of Success. You’ll thank me for it later.

You know what? Thanks, whichever one of you there that wrote that. While I was the only one to watch it (horrors, it was in black and white!), I loved it enough for all of us. And I never thought I'd ever say this, but Tony Curtis was a better actor than 95% of the people in the business today. I knew about Burt Lancaster, but not Tony.

A Night At The Museum

Some of the Murphy Family saw Night At The Museum and were very pleasantly surprised. At least I was, as I didn't expect, but it was funny and enjoyable and a good popcorn movie. Yes, it is stupid, but entertainingly so, not annoyingly so. I guess I don't mind preposterous history in an unserious film (or at least a film that doesn't take itself seriously). And it's a treat to see Dick Van Dyke (I thought he was dead!) again, and to see him dance at his age in the final credits was worth whatever my wife paid. This is only the second movie Owen Wilson didn't set my teeth on edge -- so they must have done something right (like given him a supporting role).

Can The Dead Sue for Defamation of Character?

I watched Kingdom of Heaven the other night, not all of it though, because I just couldn't take it anymore. It's a wretched movie, and I suppose what galls me the most is if you're going to make a work of fiction, don't try to pass it off as based on fact. And by that I mean don't use a real setting, with characters named after real people, with some events from the world of reality but most from some other world of make believe. It's just despicable.

The Wisdom of James Woods

James Woods makes the uncomplicated easy to understand.

Restaurants:

“I like to use the metaphor of my buddy Dan Tana. At his (restaurant’s) 40th anniversary, somebody asked me, ‘Why do you think his restaurant’s successful?’ I said, ‘It’s really very simple. He serves good food and it’s a comfortable place to stick your ass while you’re eating it.’ It’s not rocket science. You know these places: You go in and there’s some froufrou guy has fixed everything and they spent five million dollars on the f@&^ing chandeliers and you’re eating some crap on a plate with a bunch of swirly crap on it. If they give you steak, French fries and a f@&^in’ booth, they’ll be in business for a hundred years. You think some guy wants to sit perched on a little wooden chair eating a sliver of somebody’s liver?”

Movies:

“I look at movies and they’re all so f@&^ing terrible. People ask, ‘Why aren’t movies more successful?’ It’s really a simple answer: It’s because they stink. Three simple words: Because they f@&^ing stink. That’s four words, but you can’t write the f@&^ing word. They stink, they stink, they stink, what’s wrong with you? They stink. Do better movies. … Finally, I saw a good movie – ‘The Departed.” And look what it took: It took Marty Scorsese, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, (screenwriter) Bill Monahan – and it’s based on another movie.”

There is an amazing parallel between the movie and restaurant businesses though - good product and a comfortable place to park your keister while partaking. That might sum up a lot of businesses actually.

I'd love to hear how he'd uncomplicate women, but I imagine I couldn't post it here.

Thanks to The Mayor of Television for the interview, and Libertas for the pointer.

King Kong ZZZZ

I've been sick and busy lately (funny how often the two go together, with the former leading to the latter), but I did watch Peter Jackson's version of King Kong over the weekend. I have to say, it showcases everything great about Jackson, and everything wretched. And here, the wretched outweighs the great. Far outweighs. The only reason I actually watched the whole thing is that (1) I never voluntarily stop watching a movie or reading a book once I start and (2) I didn't feel much like getting off the couch. I think perhaps Mr. Jackson should just produce giant spectacular movies, and leave the directing to somebody else.

The movie is actually quite boring despite, well actually because of the non-stop action. There is about 15 minutes of plot puffed into three hours of movie (kind of like a three hour porno movie -- if anybody was crazy enough to make one that long -- and just as believable) and it doesn't take long before it becomes clear that the criterion was that it didn't have to make sense, it just had to look good on film. And I'm not saying if you thought about it, it didn't make sense; it just obviously didn't make any sense the moment the photons hit your retinas. I don't mind suspending my disbelief, but I don't like to be insulted. If more is less, there wasn't anything at all to this movie, and more is less. I like movies that seek their proper length, whether that is 90 minutes or almost 4 hours, but there is nothing worse for a movie than to be very long and very boring (see The Horse Whisperer).

I should have paid more attention to Dirty Harry.

My Favorite Bond Reparte

One thing the Bond movies are known for, besides his women, is his wit. My favorite Bond movie, Thunderball, has my favorite example:

Bond: That gun, it looks more fitting for a woman.
Largo: You know much about guns, Mr. Bond?
Bond: No, but I know a little about women.

Easy Bake Movies

Dirty Harry at Libertas has another spot on post about Hollywood: Must We Destroy Hollywood In Order To Save It?:

The reason I want certain films to fail is because it might facilitate actual change. Sequels, remakes, old TV shows, and comic book films can all crash and burn. I’m sick of them. Sick to death. And I’m sick of them because they all share one common trait: We know the story before the lights dim. We know the characters, we know the world they inhabit, and we know how it’s gonna end. I want to meet new people, see new places, and not know what happens next. But that requires originality. It requires talent. It requires risk-taking. And Hollywood hasn’t met those requirements since the peak of maverick (and liberal) film making in the 1970’s.

Amen, brother Dirty. Easy filmmaking isn't good filmmaking, and that's all we're getting these days. We've seen time and again, make a good, original film and fannies will flood the theater. Make another lousy remake, and you'll go down like The Poseidon.

United 93

This weekend the funWife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by seeing United 93. It isn't the typical date movie, and I was worried about seeing it since I'm going to be on some long plane flights this summer, but we went ahead anyway and we were glad we saw it.

It is an amazing movie. Normally Hollywood takes a great story and tries to improve upon it but rarely succeeds. Thankfully, there was none of that for this movie, and instead it was told in a documentary style that let the events speak for themselves. The power of the movie comes from the power of the events themselves, and not from any artificial additions (compare Saving Private Ryan with its miserable phony framing device to Schindler's List which (by and large) just told the story). This is the second movie I've seen where it simply starts - no previews, no title sequence, just the lights go out and the movie starts. It makes for a better experience, IMHO.

The movie starts with the hijackers getting ready in the morning and then the attack of 9/11 is recreated through the story of United 93 - the airtraffic controllers, the military, the passangers and hijackers on the flight. No backstory, no flashbacks, nobody is introduced except through the details of the exposition itself. It's a hard movie to watch because it brings back all the horror and confusion of 9/11, and sitting through the final scenes of the passangers, scared, confused, and yet ultimately fighting back is especially difficult. And that's why this is filmaking at its finest - an unflinching look at events very few people really want to look at, but you want to during the movie.

It must have been very hard for the actors who portrayed the hijackers. I know a lot of big stars love playing the villain in a movie, but that really is play acting as those villains aren't real, and the byzantine plans of mayhem and distruction are pure screen writer fantasy. Not so in this case, where the villains, the mayhem and the destruction were all too real.

The only thing I found odd was that the movie has some European passanger counseling do nothing and even tries to tell the terrorists the passangers are plotting to attack them. Is there some basis for this?

Libertas liked the movie;
A student at Cal Poly didn't ;
And the final word(s) goes to the ladies of the cotillion.

Crash the Movie

My wife and I found an idle moment to watch Crash a while back -- I think it was a free weekend on Showtime or something. It features a large cast who with a couple of exceptions play racists of varying race and ethnicity. I thought the racism was exaggerated for effect, as you will find few people who are so openly and unconflictedly racist.

I don't know that I can say that I enjoyed it since it is a pretty bleak movie, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. I didn't find it an indictment of American society as racist, but an indictment of racism, or better yet to use the words of Andrew Young, ethnocentricity itself. Crash is the best endorsement of color blind society I've seen, as the message I took away from the film is that people who are obsessed with race/ethnic origin make their own lives worse. They just pass the hate around. They were in prisons for their own making. As I've observed before, if virtue is its own reward, vice is its own punishment. There are three characters who aren't racists -- the DA played by Brendan Fraser, the locksmith played by Michael Pena, and the daughter played by Karina Arroyava -- and while they are affected by racism, they aren't actually hurt by it like the others are. In fact, one is even saved by another. They do not pass the hate around. But while the racist cop played by Matt Dillon is able to rise above his hatred at a critical moment, the movie ends with more hatred all around.

Another thing that struck me was how desperately lonely all these people were, but were unable to reach out past the bars of their own making. Their lives were hell. Which put me in mind of this.

Mark On Movies

I admit it - I'm fascinated by movies. I can still remember the days when I lived in LA and a visit to my brother in the Bay Area was its own movie festival. Mark at Kaedrin also likes movies, and he has a trio of posts

Offbeat Movie Corner -- he likes The Matador. Greg Kinnear isn't in many movies, but they are usually good (he's Gandalf the White to Owen Wilson's Saruman the White).

Piecing Together Obscurity -- this could apply to X Files as well - a show I finally just gave up on as it constantly promised, but never delivered.

Philadelphia Film Festival -- Mark sees a lot of movies so you don't have to.

One Good, One Bad

My wife and I rented a couple of movies the weekend before our vacation. We got Wedding Crashers for the adults since we'd read good things about the movie, and Madagascar for the family, since we'd heard good things about it. We learned to trust word of mouth more than what you read in the media.

We watched Wedding Crashers first, and boy, was that a lousy movie. At then end, my wife and turned to each other and in unison said "I thought it was supposed to be a comedy." I know what you're thinking - I'm just an old fuddy duddy. All I can say is, I found the American Pie movies quite funny, even if they were tasteless. Wedding Crashers was about two self-centered jerks who after suffering a series of completely unfunny experiences were by the end of the movie still a couple of self-centered jerks. I'm beyond the point of laughing at something that is "inappropriate" just because it isinappropriate. When I watch a comedy, I want to laugh, so I'm willing to let almost everything slide except the laughs. Wedding Crashers didn't make me laugh even once, but it did lead me to coin the Owen Wilson rule of movies - he makes every movie worse, and he's only funny if he's paired with Jackie Chan. I think the Jackie Chan pairing works because they have opposite onstage personas. Compare Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers - the one without Wilson was much funier than the one with, even though it was a sequal. And don't get me started on The Royal Tenenbaums which had both Wilsons, and which was 109 minutes of boredom for just one laugh. Yes, when there is only one, I can keep track. The only reason I can think Wedding Crashers did so well is that there are so few (OK, pretty much none) good grown-up comedies out there.

On the other hand, Madagascar was sheer delight. Funny, inventive, memorable, yes, fun for the whole family. There were jokes, situational humor, sight gags, references to other movies - I laughed throughout the movie. You couldn't go wrong with a movie that included penguins in a major role in 2005.

Are All Creeds Created Equal?

You just have to love a title like "Jesus and the Duke", and the post itself doesn't disappoint after such a strong lead. Andrew Klavan looks at creeds, honor killings, and how they relate to Elizabeth Smart. Yes, there is a difference in creeds, and what make the United States a rare country is that it a nation built on a creed and not ethnicity. Mr. Klavan writes:

I couldn’t help reflecting that if Elizabeth had been the child of Islamic hardliners, her welcome home might not have been quite as loving as it was.

Now the Mormons and every other group have their extremists, but they’re not accepted by our society as they are virtually throughout the Muslim world. To the vast majority of Americans, the idea of punishing, let alone murdering, a raped child is so appalling that language fails. And there can be no multicultural dithering about it: our way is better than their way, as civilization is better than savagery, as love is better than hate. But, of course, our superiority isn’t a matter of individuals, it’s a matter of ideas. The Islamofascist’s creed is a bad one; the American creed is not.

Which brings me at last to the films of John Wayne and the ministry of Jesus Christ. I mean, if these are not the twin pillars our nation rests on, man, I don’t know what those pillars would be. Thus my texts for today’s sermon, brothers and sisters, are John 8: 3-11 and John Ford’s The Searchers.

Not just anybody who can weave the Bible and John Wayne together. I might have gone with Romans 12:19 myself.

I wonder what text Mr. Klavan would choose to go with True Grit?

Oscars: Context and Explanation

Sunday night my wife and dauther attended a ladies only Oscar Party at the Fischers. Dress was strictly red carpet. So Mister and Master Fischer came to our house and from there we were going to go see a movie. Only there weren't any movies any of us wanted to see. So instead we stayed home and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail and then played Scene It just for fun. And that's what's wrong with Hollywood -- we wanted to go spend money on their product by they didn't have anything we wanted to buy. And just to be clear here, Mr. Fischer liked Fahrenheit 9/11.

I think the biggest problem for Hollywood is that they've lost sight of the fact they are another business, just like every other business. When butts aren't in movie theater seats, the response shouldn't be that there is something wrong with the audience, but that the movies aren't compelling enough. Yeah, movies have more competition than ever, but I can think of few more enjoyable ways to spend a couple of hours than at a good movie. Hollywood just doesn't make enough good movies anymore, and I think that there is a real danger for them that once you don't go to a movie in a while (depending on the person), you stop even thinking about going to movies. It takes something like Passion of the Christ to get people back who've lost interest.

The Oscars have become another sign of a disfunctional Hollywood. What is the point of the Oscars? Stroking the ego of people who have their ego's stroked every day and who are paid fantastic sums to play make believe? An excuse to have a party afterwards? No, that's what they've become, but their point from a business perspective is marketing. And the marketing is two fold - the individual product in the form of the movies, directors, actors, etc. who win, who are nominated, and who show up and are seen by the audience watching at home, and the brand of Hollywood movie. From the business perspective, there isn't a lot of difference between the Oscars and an ad for a particular movie - they are both marketing, although in different forms. So Hollywood would ideally put on a show that people wanted to watch and showed its product (and I'm including "the talent" here as part of the product) in such a way that people want to pay to go see it.

And they are failing miserably on both counts. Viewership is down both in the theaters and of the Oscars. So does Hollywood make use the Oscars (as they used to do) to remind people of the good movies that were made? Nope, they remind people of the crappy ones they stayed away from in the first place. They could have brought Bob Hope and Johnny Carson back from the dead and in their prime, and it wouldn't have changed that goof. The show reinforces the idea that Hollywood is smug, arrogant, out of touch, and basically not interesting in making a movie you want to see. Does George Clooney's speech make anyone who's on the fence, let alone not a fan, want to go see a movie that he's associated with? In a word, no.

As somebody who really like movies, should I be worried? Yes and no. In the shortterm, I'm worried because I don't think Hollywood is going to pull its head out and make product I want to see. In the long term, I'm not worried because I think between movies made in the old Hollywood mold in other English speaking countries (think Bollywood) and a new breed using new technology in the US once again there will be movies I want to see.

Mark at Kaedrin liveblogged the show, as did Andrew Olmsted in a display of their ability to do what it takes to bring you their opinion, whatever the cost is to themselves.

Libertas, as you would expect, has an in depth look at the night. I think we're saying the same thing when I say they've forgotten they are a business and Libertas says they think they are entitled to an audience.

Manhatten Transfer looks at the politics of Oscar voting this year.

Busy Mom has a non-analytic take on the event.

McQ looks at the numbers and discovers in all of 5 seconds what Hollywood can't seem to get: People want to see movies the whole family can go to.

Patrick Runkle provides a brief synopsis of everything Oscar.

Crooked Timber notes an unintended irony from the broadcast.

Eamonn Fitzgerald looks at the Best Picture winner, Crash.

The Chicagoist is ambivalent about the oscars.

Missing Movies

Andrew Klavan provides a list of his favorite movies this year at Libertas:

All the same, I can't help feeling a little disgruntled about the movies the Academy decided to pass over. For instance, how could they ignore Heroes In The Sand, that incredibly stirring tribute to the fighting Americans who blasted the Taliban out of Afghanistan? And what were they thinking when they slighted Reason To Live, the biting drama about a once left-wing university professor who comes under fire when he accepts Jesus Christ as his savior? And what about Goodbye, You're Out of Luck, the classy suspenser about a heroic 1950's federal investigator who breaks up a ring of homegrown Communist spies?

How did I miss those movies when they came out? I'm sure there are a lot more like those that I miss every year.

Battle of Britain

I had a good Christmas, very relaxing, and I hope you had a good one too - or if you don't celebrate Christmas, then I hope you had a good holiday. One of the gifts I received was The Battle of Britain which is one of the great air combat & historical movies. Some of the special effects are cheesy -- they couldn't do flak worth a darn -- but the aerial combat scenes are first rate. And the movie took great care with historical accuracy - something that seems to have gone completely out of style in Hollywood these days (the movie is British) - right down to hiring German actors to play Germans speaking german with subtitles instead of speaking english with a heavy german accent. It even continued the tradition of the pointless romantic subplot in a war movie with Susanna York and Christopher Plummer as husband and wife torn apart by the war. It has one of the great montage scences from the dawn of the montage era towards the end that captures the nerve racking terror of massive aerial combat. It's interesting that it does a good job of capturing the horror of war, does justice to both the British and the Germans involved, but clearly isn't an anti-war movie.

Narnia at the Movies

The Murphy Family saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe friday night in a full house. I have mixed feelings about the movie: it is simply superb in every way - writing, casting, plot, dialogue effects, and all the small touches that go into a first rate movie, yet in the end I was unsatisfied (unlike the rest of the family who all just adored it). The dissatisfaction arouse with the scenes of Aslan's death and resurrection. I discovered I'm not a big fan of allegory, and especially when it comes to something so important, so central as the death and resurrection of Jesus, and when it is presented in such a way as to make it less comprehensible and comprehensive. I wasn't offended, just let down.

Suitably Impressed

I was kind of shocked last week when the bulletin at church (OK, it's titled "The Navigator" or some such but we all call it the bulletin) contained an ad for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Which, and the Wardrobe. No, not at the length of the movie title which threatens to be longer than the movie itself, but that Disney, you know the company boycotted by the Baptists, was partnering with evangelical Churches to promote their Christian movie. So church members are getting a sneak preview and group rates for the movie -- just like for The Passion of the Christ. I guess Disney decided there was money in them there churches, and we evangelicals are a forgiving lot. Yes I do plan on seeing the movie, but then I also look forward to the Harry Potter movies. I'll be able to tell what side Disney is truly on if the witch's dying words are "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays".

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire

The Murphy family did something it rarely does - venture out over the Thanksgiving Holidays and see a movie. While I prefer seeing comedies in full houses, I never have liked crowds, or standing in line to see a movie, or rushing to get a good seat. And by good, I mean with the people I came with, and not in the front row off to the side. Yes, we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and I think the Potter movies just keep getting better. I saw it on a chain Imax screen (Ronnies 20 if you must know) which doesn't compare to a real Imax theater, like at the St. Louis Science Center. But it is still a better movie going experience, especially enhanced because there were no previews - we went from a couple of slideshow adds straight to the main attraction without passing go. There is a scene in the movie about evil and our response to it that I wanted to blog, but sadly the rest of the weekend experience has driven from my mind. But let me say I enjoyed it, and the only negative for me was that there was a stetch that focused on the fact that Harry & Co. were 14 year olds and not on swashbuckling. I want my swash buckled, I don't want teenage angst at the movies. I get enough of that at home.

Flightplan

I saw Flightplan over the weekend and I can't figure out what all the fuss is about. Look, it's a convoluted psychological thriller (that's the polite way of saying a thriller without a lot of action) that is an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. I thought Jodie Foster did a good job of playing a mother driven past the breaking point by the death of her husband and the kidnapping of her daughter, and Sean Bean did his usual good job playing the captain of the plane she was on. Given that the discussion will contain spoilers, I'm hiding it behind the extended entry feature, unless you come here via a link to the post itself, in which case if you don't want the thrill to be spoiled, read no further.

OK, now we can talk freely. First, Debbie Schlussel savaged the movie (in part) for having a red herring consisting of a group of Muslim men on board the flight who the movie hints are terrorists. The problem with this is as a red herring isn't Ms. Schlussel's complaint that it makes you question "your suspicions of Arab Muslims, to think you are unfair and prejudiced" but the impracticality of it -- Jodie Foster's character simply stops as she's running around the plane looking for her daugher and accuses them of taking her daughter without offering any possible motive. And it does make you think about the central puzzle of the movie - why kidnap someone on an airplane?

But her complaints about the depiction of an air marshal and a stewardess as the evil doers -- they aren't terrorists, they're old fashioned criminals of the murder, kidnap, and extortionist kind -- has stirred up stewardesses and their unions enough that flight attendents and their unions are calling for a boycot of the movie. On the one hand, I do sympathize with flight attendants and air marshals complaints, but it is a movie after all. And in one sense, the movie validates their trustworthyness since you aren't expected to expect their betrayel. Yes, during the 9-11 hijackings the flight crews were heroes, and I'd love to see more movies about that, but does that mean we can't ever have movie where any flight attendent is less than perfect? I think the real test is how a particular group is routinely portrayed by the media, not on a one time basis.

How thrilling would a movies be if the only bad people in them were clearly criminals at the beginning of the movie? Frankly, on a moral basis I think The Italian Job is worse because your sympathies are with a criminal gang as opposed to Flightplan where you are rooting for a widow over a seriously evil criminal -- you just don't know who the bad guy is until near the end of the movie. And while I agree with David Ross at Libertas that there are real world consequences to media stereotypes, I don't think a single film rises to the level of stereotype.

Proper Villains

The funWife and I watched Sahara over the weekend. I enjoyed the breezy buddy action part, but it had a big problem. No, not the part where the helicopter had a limitless supply of ammo, but the the McGuffin in Hitchcockese. As Dirty Harry at the Liberty Film festival notes in a post about how Hollywood wouldn't be able to make Jaws again:

I don’t think so because the straight-forwardness of the script would be lost in today’s agenda-driven Hollywood.

I think a woman would be put on the boat. Probably in the Dreyfus role. Not because she would be better – who could possibly be better than Dreyfus? – but for politically correct reasons. And she’d of course be a liberal environmentalist feminist who would remind us ad nauseum sharks don’t normally do this. And finally we’d learn the shark attack is “our” fault. That man, specifically America - specifically corporate America - had committed some environmental crime that affected the shark’s natural habitat, and with no choice the shark came to Amity to feed. In other words, poetic justice liberal style.

So in Sahara we have Penelope Cruz as a WHO doctor who's character could have been male and it would have changed nothing. And the McGuffan is toxic waste that not only is poisoning the groundwater in the desert(!), but is about to reach the ocean, react with salt water, and destroy all marine life worldwide. The bad guy is a businessman who is incinerating hazardous waste but when there's a snag in the process carelessless stores the leaking drums in a cave. Miles and miles of concrete and steel, lavish spare no expense set up, high tech computer controled facility, but they store leaking toxic waste in a cave that apparently is just above an underground river. Why o why couldn't they have just had an evil African dictator who was trying to cover up an actual plague as the bad guy - or even a bunch of long lost Confederates (as in American Civil War) who were running the show in Mali and trying to cover up a plague so that nobody would investigate and discover their secret existance? Because then it wouldn't be about the evils of businessmen and pollution.

As Forrest Gump would say, stupid is as stupid does.

Failure

There are a lot of people who distrust markets, and who are pretty quick to invoke the concept of market failure. While I typically trust markets more than politicians, there are times when I do think markets fail. I'm not thinking the energy business because the biggest market failures I see are in the press and movie business.

Newspapers and network newscasts are shedding customers at a rate that a straight line extrapolation will put them out of business sooner rather than later. Their main asset, credibility, is eroding just as quickly. Bernard Goldberg was only partly right with his book "Bias" -- as "Lousy" would have been a better description. The bias has become so bad mainly because the whole system is rotten. Rather than listen to the market, i.e their customers, the press is in full defense mode and consumers continue to leave. The message from the press has become the only thing wrong with the news media is that people are stupid, don't like being told the truth, and just don't appreciate the news. My local paper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is somewhere between awful and terrible - with a few notable exceptions. They got rid of their ombudsman a few years ago, someone I came to respect, and now you have to contact people direct with any problems. And that's when you run into just how smug and arrogant journalists have become. We only get the paper for the coupons anymore - the overall news value is less than zero. But they were bought out by another chain and the look "updated" -- while my older eyes appreciate the increase in readability and whitespace (which I wonder is just a way to cut down on content), the rest of the changes are generally poor and seem to be driven not by usability but some designers color palate - where the colors used to provide information (like on the weather page or in the financial section) now they are just accents with no information content. Two aphorisms come to mind - they just put lipstick on a pig, and you can't polish a turd. But hey, why do the hard work of putting out a quality newspaper when you can do a redesign of the look instead. Fox News is killing the opposition because they put out a better (which doesn't necessarily mean good) product.

And the movie business seems to be run not based on making money but on making films some good leftists think you ought to see and making films that only teenagers would watch to pay the bills. I like movies. I like going to movie theaters, I like renting them, I like buying really good ones because just owning a great movie makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. I am denied these simple pleasures because Hollywood insists on making crap unfit for human consumption. The hottest properties in Hollywood are either extensions of old work like LOTR and Star Wars or comic books. Comic Books! I happen to enjoy comic books, and still own quite a few (make me an offer and they can be yours) but I don't want a steady diet of comic book based movies. I want epics, I want small movies, I want family movies, I want grown up movies, I want movies with intellegent dialogue, and I would really like to see comedies that don't insult you. Is that really too much to ask for? Why did a movie like My Big Fat Greek Wedding have such difficulty in being made? Why are there so few movies like Sideways -- aimed at the above 35 crowd? Why, after the huge success of The Passion of the Christ were there no copycats. C'mon, copycatting successful movies has been a staple of Hollywood since D.W Griffith. Here's a movie that made like $400 million dollars and brought people to the theater who hadn't been in years, and what's the followup? Kingdom of Heaven. That thud was the sound of a turd hitting the screen, and by a great director too. How could they have botched Troy and Alexander so badly when the source material was so good? If you can make Les Miserables into a musical, how can you fail at making the Illiad into an epic?

Heres a case where there is a market clamoring for one thing, but suppliers not providing it, and leaving money on the table doing so. That to me is one huge market failure.

Worse Than Ed Wood?

David Weinberger at Joho The Blog wrote a post entitled "Worst (Major) Director in History about Oliver Stone in a review of Alexander. James Wolcott took exception in his blog so Mr. Weinberger pretty much levels both Stone and Wolcott in his updated post. To use an unnecessary cliche, it's a tour de force. I guess I won't be renting Alexander.

A Couple of Movies

Two nights ago we watched Finding Neverland. The pacing was leisurely, which suits the period and subject. The acting was first rate - I've never seen Johnny Depp as restrained yet still smoldering behind the eyes. I have to admit, I wasn't wild about it when the funWife picked this one out, but I thought it was thoroughly enjoyable, excellent family movie.

Last night it was The Aviator, which wasn't as good. Oh, it was a lavish production, but it's an odd movie. If Howard Hughes had any genius, it wasn't on display beyond his ability to spend all his money. The pacing in the beginning was especially off, with a very rushed feel yet later it settled down into a more sustainable pace. And the colors appeared to have been applied later and poorly - a fault I can't quite figure out (I'm hoping it's not my TV!). The best part was his confrontation with Senator Brewster, the kind you wish more such witnesses had. Overall, it was all surface and no depth, and made no emotional connection other than pity (and not much of that) as he descended into madness.

Now We're Alone At Last

The funWife and I went to Hollywood Video, rented 3 movies and bought Raiders of the Lost Ark (AKA Indiana Jones I) for $8.50 last night. Yes, that's the cost of one person seeing one movie, but there were coupons involved. Still, it does help explain why fewer people are seeing movies at the theater these days.

When we saw Revenge of the Sith, it was at a new theater which touts the largest screen in the midwest. And it was a large screen by today's standards, but as I informed the Fruit of the Murphy Loins, it would have been an average screen when I was even a teenager. Thankfully the shoe-box theaters that were built during my 20's and 30's are disappearing, replaced by the stadium seating theaters. I guess the owners realized that people weren't willing to pay a lot of money to see a movie on a screen only marginally larger than their TV at home and in the company of strangers. I'm also noticing that people are talking less during movies, maybe because they don't feel like they're in their living room anymore.

I do like movies, and the movies today are able to do things technically and thus make movies that are beyond what once could be done. Compare Master and Commander to Horatio Hornblower, and you'll see what I mean -- although I do have a soft spot in my heart for the scene in HH where the two ships are bearing down on each other with every sail unfurled and filled with the wind. Physically impossible, but it sure looks good as long as you don't think. But along the way Hollywood seems to have replaced dialogue and plot with action and CGI. Can't we have all four? Dialogue written today doesn't come close to what was routinely written well into the seventies.

And that brings us to Hitch, the movie we watched last night. It's a very pleasant movie, and Will Smith is quite believable as a smooth talking charmer and he does have some funny bits. The problem is not enough Kevin James. Kevin lights up the screen and provides lots of laughs, but Will Smith is the star, so we have to see lots of him and Eva Mendes even though we pretty much now how that story line is going to go. And there's your economics in a nutshell - I got a bargain at 99 cents for the funWife and I to rent the movie, and I'd have been unhappy to pay $17 for us to see it in a theater.

Not the Last 'Star Wars'!

I have news for everybody else on the planet: "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" is not supposed to be the last movie in the "Star Wars" collection. There are supposed to be three more!

Yes, I know that everybody is saying this is the last "Star Wars" movie. That's even what director George Lucas is saying:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/17/star.wars.overview/index.html

But here's how I figure it. Take out your Bullfinch, and look up the great epic poems by Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. If you don't have Bullfinch or can't find it up in your attic somewhere, just look on-line instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

The great epics of classic literature are supposed to:
1. start in the middle of the action,
2. have someone recap the earlier events,
3. drive toward the final gripping conclusion.

Okay, well the Iliad doesn't exactly work like this, but the Odyssey does pretty well:

1. starts in the middle (Books 1-7). Imagine all this in dactylic hexameter:

Sing, oh Muse, of brave Odysseus,
Beloved of Calypso, she who keeps him in chains of love,
Whilst Penelope, at home on Ithaca, tries her best
To fend off a bajillion suitors and pay the mortgage,
etc.


2. someone recounts earlier events (Books 8-13)


So tell me, mighty but forlorn Odysseus,
How came you to this benighted shore?, quoth some literary flunky,
And why backwards do your sentences run?
I'm glad you asked that question, replied the great mariner.
Achilles and I did upon the Trojan shore leap out,
And smote with all our strength the Achaean walls,
etc.


3. the gripping conclusion (Books 14-24)


At last! cried Odysseus, and drove with his mighty bow
the arrow through five suitors' bodies at once!
Nice shot, remarked Telemachus,
Can I have my turn now?
etc.


You get the idea. I figure that George Lucas, being fully aware of the great Homeric epics, back in 1977 decided to model his great "Star Wars" epic on the poems of Homer. I swear I thought of this in 1980, when "The Empire Strikes Back" came out and we all learned that it was episode V! Why else would George Lucas just make a set of movies backwards? He didn't - of course he was emulating the great sagas of ancient Greece. "Star Wars (4)" starts the action in the middle of the tale, "The Phantom Menace (1)" recounts earlier action, and future Episodes 7-9 are supposed to pick up where "Return of the Jedi (6)" left off.

Of course, we have an obvious problem: George Lucas was 32 when he made the first "Star Wars" movie, and he is 61 years old now. From various interviews I gather that Lucas does not have three more "Star Wars" movies left in him. He also doesn't have a story, having tied things up all-too-neatly at the end of Episode 6. Drat. No, make that, Double drat!

But that little difficulty should not stop some ambitious young movie director from picking up where George Lucas is leaving off. Come on, somebody out there! Get the gleam in your eye!!! Think great thoughts! Dream fantastic dreams! Finish the greatest epic story of the 20th century! I would do it myself, but I'm still face down in meteorology graduate school.

You can do it!

What's Playing

I like movies. The fruit of the Murphy Loins are old enough that I can go see movies without them. I don't see that many movies. What's wrong with this picture?

Hollywood.

Hollywood has real difficulty in making good movies. I don't expect lots of great movies to be made every year -- I'm happy with one or two. Of course, some years it's zero. But that's a reasonable expectation for greatness in film making. The trouble is all those other movies. Look what's playing now in box office order:
(1) The Amityville Horror. A remake of a poor horror film -- that's a prescription for a winner.
(2) Sahara -- Uh, is this something different than the remake of The Flight of the Phoenix?
(3) Fever Pitch -- The Farrelly Brothers, could be good, but Jimmy Fallon, not too likely.
(4) Sin City -- Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez! I'd love to go see this one, but I doubt I could ever get the wife to go. I'll have to see if guys night at the movies can be brought back.
(5) Guess Who -- A remake. The female half of the family saw this while the male half was doing chess. My daughter liked it but my wife thought it stunk.
(6) Beauty Shop -- A copy. I'm completely the wrong demographic for this one.
(7) Robots -- My brother saw this one and was not impressed. This is a common problem - a movie that promises a lot but only delivers a little. I much prefer the ones that promise a little but deliver a lot.
(8) Miss Congeniality 2 -- a sequal. Could be good, love Sandra, but realistically not a must see movie.
(9) The Pacifier -- I can't admit in public that I'd like to see this movie.
(10) The Upside of Anger -- This could be my kind of movie, but it has chick flick written all over it. That was the great thing about Tin Cup - it looked like a chick flick in the previews, but it was really a guy film when you saw it.

Is this really a lineup that inspires you to see more than 2 movies? 5 out of the top 10 is what they should be shooting for, but they can't get there.

And The Award Goes To ...

I watched the beginning and the end of the Oscars last night mainly because the funWife likes to watch. I found Chris Rock lame, although in his defense I have to say that he wasn't the right guy for the job. Oh, he got some mercy laughs, he got some political laughs, and he got some nervous shock laughs when he said a naughty word (it reminded me of watching Richard Pryor's Live on the Sunset Strip and hearing people laugh whenever Richard said F**K, which he said a lot). But as my wife said, why can't they keep Billy Crystal as host. I only enjoyed his bit about Russell Crowe and his short film interviewing movie goers (Albert Brooks was priceless). But the thought behind they should only make movies if a top star is in them -- has he lost his mind? Yeah, no Jude Law and people will flock back to movies.

The real problem though isn't the emcee, despite the best efforts of the producers to get people who shouldn't be. It's the whole concept and system. First off, there are only 6 awards people care about: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Other than that, who cares? So why take 3+ hours to hand out six awards.

We only care about them because of Hollywood's star system though, which was on clear display last night. Four castes were segregated last night -- the stars, who got to remain in their seats while the presenters read off the winner; the mere mortals, who had to stand on stage; the lesser mortals, who sat in their seats; and the untouchables, who were presented their awards at a completely different ceremony. I love how the technical people, the ones who are really responsible for the film going experience, are kept separate and how the academy always picks some young starlet to be the emcee for those awards.

The only point of the Oscars is marketing, yet they are wrapped in the mantle of Art. Who is a great actor? Well, guys like Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson have made very popular movies (and some unpopular and lousy ones) and can open a movie, yet how many times have you seen them at the Oscars? Hillary Swank now has two Oscars, and I have to honestly say I've never seen her in a movie. Sure, there are movies like Lord of the Rings which are both big money makers and Art in every sense of the word, but they don't come around often enough.

And that leads me to my last point -- Hollywood will make a glittering corpse, and soon. Here is an industry that has a hard time making a good product, and when they do, it often isn't recognized as such by the industry itself. No, this isn't an appeal for White Chicks to win an award. But it is an appeal for Hollywood to take itself less seriously and make better movies -- more like Sideways, fewer like Oceans 12. I like movies, but I don't see that many good ones anymore. The really disappointing thing is that the technology has really broadened the horizons of what's possible, but Hollywood seems capable of only turning out at most one superior movie a year -- mostly through sheer determination on the filmmakers part, which indicates it's despite the system, not because of it.

Hollywood - you're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Troy

I saw Troy for my Anniversary (16 years, thank you very much), and the rest of the celebration was better than the movie. It's an open debate whether O Brother Where Art Thou or Troy is most faithful to Homer, although Troy should get the nod because it is set in the same time and location with the same costumes as the original.

Actually, I'm being unfair to Troy which does a reasonable job of being faithful to Homer even though the screen credit notes it as only being "inspired" by The Iliad. I have to admit I didn't think it was as faithful until I got down my Bulfinch and read his synopsis -- I'd forgotten a lot. You cannot convert a novel to a movie and keep every character and plotline. And not everything works as well on the page as on the screen, and vice versa. So it was with sadness but understanding that Penthesilia and her Amazons, nor any of Troy's allies, did not make an appearance. And I appreciate that Troy begins before the war and lasts about 16 days while The Illiad begins in year 9 of a ten year war. The original Greek audience knew about the run up and initial part of the war; for us, most people know a few names and nothing more.

Continue at your own peril -- there be spoilers!

An odder decision was to eliminate the greek gods altogether except to mock them and their followers. In The Illiad, as in all classical Greek literature, the gods don't just take an interest, they take an active role. It was a welcome surprise to have Aeneas pop up at the end with an unidentified old man at his side whom I guessing is Anchises, but he was too young. It was almost like they were setting up The Aeneid as a sequel. Helen was appropriately gorgeous, and Hector was, if anything, even more sympathetic and heroic than in the original. Yes, I was annoyed with the way Achilles lived too long, Menelaus didn't live long enough, and Agamemnon got his the Hollywood way, not in the bath by his wife and her lover -- although to be fair that wasn't in Illiad.

But the movie is hard to enjoy because the people you most want to root for are the Trojans, and they lose. The way the movie is structured, it is a Greek Trajedy with Hector as the tragic hero, and his fault is his love for his brother Paris. It’s a modern twist on the form to not have a vice as the downfall, but a virtue. Twice Hector does what he knows to be wrong -- continue from Sparta with Helen and kill Menelaus -- and both times it is to save his brother. The other problem is that while structurally Hector is the hero, the movie is a star vehicle for Brad Pitt, and so he soaks up screen time. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but the truth is he can’t act. Women tell me he's attractive -- he's too girly for my tastes -- and he's buff enough, but he's a blank slate. His expression randomly varies from blank to a grimace of mild I don’t know what. Eric Bana as Hector - he can act. Achilles may kill Hector in the movie, but Eric kills Brad in acting. Peter O’Toole has his great scene as Priam where he begs Achilles for Hector’s body wasted because he’s playing against an inscrutable Pitt.

The score was wretched as well - I noticed it, and everyone in the theatre did too.

Movie Madness

One of the joys of vacation for The Murphy Family is seeing movies. It is a long tradition for us, and we have improved on it in recent years by seeing two movies near simultaineously: a kids movie and a grown up movie. Our sojurn in Memphis was no different. So while the Fruit of the Murphy Loins enjoyed the latest Scoobie Doo movie, the Fearless Leaders watched Jersey Girl -- chosen mainly for scheduling reasons. The Fruit have seen very few kids movies they didn't like; I wish the Fearless Leaders could say the same about their movie choices. While Jersey Girl wasn't bad, ultimately, it wasn't good either.

Hollywood makes a lot of movies every year, yet only 4 or 5 are worth seeing. As we watched the trailers proceeding the movie, I was struck repeatedly by the thought "who in their right mind would think people would want to watch this hunk of junk?" A tidal wave of movie crap washes over us. There is a reason video games have passed up movies at mkaing money. I don't know if there ever was a true golden age of Hollywood movies, but it today it seems the industry is driven less by the desire to make a buck and more by the desire to pamper stars. How many lousy Kevin Costner pictures were made flattering his ego and confirming that he is completely out of touch? The star system in both movies and sports (another industry where stars are overpaid and overpraised) is worsening the product.

The Academy Awards

The lowpoint of the proceedings had to be Michael Moore winning the award for best documentary; the highpoint had to be Michael Moore being booed offstage and Steve Martin making a joke about him. Parade magazine reported that Richard Gere wasn't nominated for his role in Chicago because some members of the Academy didn't want to listen to his politics -- the problem is that Richard has been known to decry China's occupation of Tibet (Richard is a Buddhist). C'mon Richard, get with the program: America is the problem in the world today, and the Republicans are the problem with America.

Chicago won big. I managed to get a couple of spare minutes together the other week and saw it. Outstanding singing and dancing, but the movie is completely cynical and lacks even one character that provokes a reaction more friendly than disgust. The Pianist also won big, which goes to show that the academy doesn't hold drugging 13 years old and then having sex with them against you. They've moved on. I was disapointed that the Two Towers didn't garner more awards, but I really its better to make a ton of money and not win an award than to lose a ton and win big.

Big Year For Hollywood

2002 was a banner year for Hollywood, with the number of admissions rising to record levels and a gross take of 9.5 billion dollars (I have to stop using the 6 billion I used to quote). Spiderman, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were the top five grossers. Guess what, none of the top 20 films were rated R. I like a good grownup movie, but Hollywood has a hard time making good grownup movies.

The attendence figures don't add up for me -- 99 percent of the movie going public is over the age of 12. All those family movies and nobody under 12 -- are the Fruit of the Murphy Loins the only two kids under 12 going to movies? And the 17% who are 50 and over -- they all go to rush hour shows in St. Louis in my experience. Since half the audience is under 30, I don't feel so bad about all the movies I have no interest in seeing -- they weren't made for me.

It's A Wonderful Life

Read a wonderful review of a wonderful movie at a wonderful site.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Last night we saw the latest Harry Potter movie. I thought it was a very good movie, better than the first. I've enjoyed the books by JK Rowling, the kids have loved them -- for a while they were the only books my son would read until my wife took them away and hid them. I've read them all at least twice, but I have a hard time keeping straight which stuff is in which book, and I forget plenty of it -- I think because they are such fast reads. I think the movies are geared to the same audience as the books -- it's not really a little kid (6 and under) movie, although it seemed there were some pretty young ones in the theatre with us. If you have a spider phobia, you should be prepared to close your eyes a lot during the movie. Other than that, it's more exciting than scary, and while on the long side, doesn't seem long. With the exception of Harry Potter himself who seems a bit stiff, I'm impressed with the casting of the movies. I think they did a really good job, especially with the villains. Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy is perfect - the understated but clear menace, and both he and Alan Rickman as Severus Snape have deliciously oily sneers. The special effect standard of movies has gotten so good that great fantasy movies can be made now - like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.