Star Wars Episode VII: Shut up and take my money

As my faithful readers may already know, I am a big Star Wars fan. In fact, the name of this blog is a quote from Star Wars; as the X-Wing fighters are approaching the Death Star, Luke's friend Wedge (callsign: Red Two) says "Look at the size of that thing!" (meaning the Death Star) to which one of the leaders responds "Cut the chatter, red two!"

Given that, it may be surprising that it's taken me this long to post something on the recent big news of Disney's acquisition of LucasFilm, and the even bigger news of a new Star Wars movie on the horizon. No plot descriptions have been given, and I imagine the writing is still in its very early stages. But they do have a writer and producers, and now they're talking about who's going to direct it. While I don't have any suggestions on who should be in it, who should direct it, or what it should be about, I do have a few requests:

1. New main characters. If they want to bring Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and the gang back for the odd cameo or at the beginning to pass the torch, fine. But everyone is thirty years older than they were in Return of the Jedi. Hell, Mark Hamill was never that great an actor to begin with. I'm sure Harrison Ford could still pull it off, but do we really want a 70-year-old Han Solo as the star of the movie? So we need new characters. That said, making it about Luke's kids and Han and Leia's kids would be just too easy. If you want their kids in it as part of an ensemble cast, fine, but it can't be just them.
2. No Darth Vader. As awesome a character as he was, Vader died and was redeemed at the end of Return of the Jedi. His story is over. Move on.
3. Disney should hire a bunch of people over the next 6-12 months and then announce the director and major cast members at a single press conference. Then they should shut the hell up about the movie until it's close to ready. Don't scatter press conferences every few months for the next three years, and definitely not for the non-major players – we don't need a huge event to announce who the second unit assistant stunt coordinator will be. Don't have a production blog where notes and pictures from the filming and post-production are posted daily – save all stuff that for the Special Edition Blu-Ray release. Super-die-hard fans like myself may like stuff like that, but there's a limit to even the most ardent fan's interest level. And don't forget that for the majority of people, this will be just another movie. If there is constant news about this movie for two years before it's released, people will get sick of hearing about it. And if they're sick of hearing about it, they won't go see it.

A small part of me doesn't even want this movie made. The first six movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker (not Luke as we might have thought after the first three), and as I said that story line was concluded with Episode VI. So Episode VII will have to be an entirely new story line that happens to be set in the same galaxy far far away. I'm not sure that's necessary.

Of course, the rest of me is giddy with anticipation. Gail and I were both huge Star Wars fans as children, and we saw each of Episodes I, II, and III on their opening days. Gail was 5 months pregnant for Episode I and 9 months pregnant for Episode II (Nicky was born less than 2 weeks later). I can't guarantee we'll be there opening day in 2015, but it won't be long after – and assuming it's in mid-May like the other six movies, we'll likely have our fifteen-year-old and almost-thirteen-year-old Padawans with us.

You call him Doctah Jones

All movie series' have their strong episodes and their weak ones. Many times the first one is much better than the sequels (The Matrix, Back to the Future, Pirates of the Carribbean, Men In Black, Jurassic Park) but not always. Star Wars was great, but The Empire Strikes Back was better, and I thought Return of the King was the best of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Star Trek movies have the "every other one is great" reputation, and it's been surprisingly accurate so far (though I wasn't a huge fan of IV – The Voyage Home). I thought all of the Harry Potter movies were really good, but some are still better than others.

There are lots of series where there is a huge gap between the quality of the good ones and the bad ones (i.e. make a very good movie and then make "whatever 2" which sucks – Highlander comes to mind), but normally when there has been enough interest to make three or more movies, even the bad movies in the series aren't terrible. The odd-numbered Star Trek movies weren't as good as the even numbered ones, but they were still watchable. The Matrix, Pirates, and Men in Black sequels weren't as good as the first, but still not bad. But the Indiana Jones series is unique among movie series because it has more than one movie that's really good (Raiders, Last Crusade) and yet still has the huge gap in quality between the good ones and the bad ones (Temple of Doom, Crystal Skull). The good ones are really really good, while the bad ones are terrible.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

• OK, the ancient Aztecs build a crazy cave with huge stone doors and stuff to protect this gold idol thing. Not totally out of the realm of possibility. But how did they build a mechanical light sensor? And what happens when it's cloudy?
• Anyone who can have that many tarantulas on his back and casually brush them off is, well, not me.
• Indy jumps in his getaway plane and they fly off. Then he notices Reggie, the pilot's pet snake. Obviously Indy knew nothing about Reggie, so he didn't fly down to Peru in that plane. How did Indy get there and how did Reggie and the plane get there? Did Indy really hire an American to fly down to Peru separately to wait for him?
• When we first see Marion, she's in a drinking competition with someone in her bar. (To this day, I honestly don't know if her competitor is a man or a woman.) She takes a shot and almost passes out, but then recovers and finishes the shot. When her competitor passes out, Marion starts cleaning up and is completely sober.
• The DVD box set we have (of the first three movies) call this "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Great Line: "It's not the years sweetheart, it's the mileage." Sums up Indiana Jones perfectly.
Creepy Scene: I first saw this movie when I was 12, and there are three scenes that I remember creeping me out: the famous face-melting scene at the end (which did more than just creep me out – it scared the crap out of me), the guy getting chopped up by the propeller, and the one shot of a big snake coming out of a skull's mouth.
Overall: 5/5. Simply one of the best action-adventure movies ever.

Temple of Doom

• For years, I've thought that the only reason Kate Capshaw was in this film was because she was married to Steven Spielberg. But I was wrong – they met on this movie and didn't get married until later. This is actually worse than I thought, because it means that the casting people put her in the movie on purpose. They actually cast her based on her acting talent and not on nepotism, which calls into question their ability to judge talent. I didn't think she was great acting-wise, and I hated the character. She just screamed and whined far too much.
• Short Round was irritating and not funny in the slightest – the Jar Jar Binks of this series. There were parts where I wanted Indy to shoot him and Willie and let the bad guys live.
• There was one scene where an elephant keeps putting his trunk on Willie's shoulder and she keeps pushing it off. Then a huge snake slithers onto her shoulder and she grabs it and throws it away, the joke being that she thought it was the elephant again and didn't know it was a snake. But this makes no sense – if she thought it was the elephant's trunk, why would she grab it and throw it forward? Was she expecting to throw the entire elephant, or rip its trunk off?
• Willie doesn't want the live snakes for dinner, so she asks for "something simple, like soup?" Who asks for soup? Nobody, it's a contrived plot device so they can give her eyeball soup.
• They lower a metal cage with a person in it into molten lava and the person is burned away entirely, but the cage is neither damaged nor even hot when they pull it back up. What the heck is the cage made of?
• Even in this terrible movie, Harrison Ford is really good. The bit in the room with the spiky ceiling where he mashes his face into the little window and enunciates "WE ARE GOING TO DIE" was very funny.

Great Line: When about to escape the clutches of the bad guy in a plane at the beginning, Indy says "Nice try, Lao Che!" right before closing the plane door. We then see that the door says "Lao Che Airways" on it.
Creepy Scene: Willie sticks her hand in a hole filled with every kind of bug imaginable. Bad dude sticks his hand inside the guy's chest and pulls his heart out. Also, "Ah, dessert. Chilled monkey brains."
Overall: 2/5. The story was lame, and all the characters except Indy were weak.

Last Crusade

• As my wife and I say every time we see the beginning of this movie: River Phoenix. (Sigh) Such a waste.
• Sean Connery was perfectly cast and he and Harrison Ford pulled off some great lines together. "I didn't know you could fly a plane!" "Fly, yes. Land, no." The bit where Indy asks him how he knew Elsa was a Nazi and he says "She talks in her sleep" and they look back and forth at each other is brilliant.
• So the third brother has been living in this cave in Egypt for hundreds of years, drinking from the Holy Grail to keep himself alive that long. But by this time, he's very frail. Has he stopped drinking from the Grail? Or do you still age and decline in health but never die? What kind of shape would he have been in if nobody had found the cave for another five hundred years? And never being able to leave the cave at all? Who would want to be immortal with those conditions?
• I always thought that the actor that played Donovan was just not very good; some of his lines sounded really fake. While researching this article, I found out that he is an English actor doing an American accent. And not very well. He should talk to the House guy, or Apollo from Battlestar Galactica.
• Speaking of fake accents, Indy's fake Scottish accent at the castle in Germany is terrible. He sounds as Scottish as Dick Van Dyck does English. This may have been intentional.
• Every time Sallah sees Indy, he tips his hat. Even when riding on a horse next to the tank trying to save his life.

Great Line: "He chose... poorly."
Creepy Scene: Donovan's death was a bit creepy, but not as bad as the other movies.
Overall: 4.5/5. Donovan should have been re-cast, but the rest of the film was great. I was glad that John Rhys-Davies returned as Sallah – he's a great character.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

• Aliens? Really?
• When they are in the storage warehouse looking for the ultra-magnetic thing, Indy drops little metal balls on the ground and they roll toward the magnetic thing. Later on, you notice the lights above all shifting towards it. Why haven't the lights been shifting towards this thing for however long it's been there? If they have, then every hanging light in the place should point directly at it so there's no need for the metal balls at all. And if it's that powerful, the bullets that he pulled the metal balls from should just roll towards it – no need to break them open. Plus once they recover the skull and carry it all over South America, it doesn't seem to be magnetic anymore.
• Indiana Jones says "nuclear" as "nucular".
• The whole "surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge" scene is silly and unnecessary.
• The Australian dude that was Indy's friend, then was working with the Russians, then said he was a double-agent, then was a bad guy again didn't seem to be necessary either.
• What  mother would sit back and watch her teenage son swordfight with a Russian spy while standing on a moving jeep?
• A Peruvian native is about to shoot a blow dart at Mutt when Indy jumps in front of him and blows in the pipe the other way. Wouldn't the guy get hit in the throat with the back of the dart and thus not be poisoned? It would still hurt, and might still kill him, but he wouldn't just immediately die.

Great Line: No great line for this one – I haven't seen the movie often enough to remember any.
Creepy Scene: Ants.
Overall: 3/5. Better than Temple of Doom, but not by much. All of the Indy stories strain credulity and there's a fair bit of suspension of disbelief, and I'm OK with that. This one, however, went way overboard – to the extent that "nuking the fridge" is a thing now, similar to "jumping the shark". I like Shia Labeouf, but I didn't think Cate Blanchett or Karen Allen were all that great.

 

And now they've announced Indiana Jones 5. I'm not sure whether I'm looking forward to it or not; seems like it will either be fantastic or terrible. Hopefully it follows the "odd-numbered Indy movies are great" rule.

Movie review: Crooked Arrows

There are lots of sports movies out there, and some are iconic for a particular sport: hockey has Slap Shot; baseball has Major League,The Natural or Field of Dreams; football has Any Given Sunday, Friday Night Lights, and Rudy; boxing has a ton including Raging Bull and the Rocky series; basketball has Hoosiers; and the list goes on. But lacrosse didn't really have anything; there hasn't really been a movie that included lacrosse as an integral part of the film. Any mention of lacrosse in movies such as American Pie was generally tangential, and usually involved US prep schools. And there has certainly been no film that looks at lacrosse from a Native American point of view. Until now.

The plot of Crooked Arrows isn't exactly groundbreaking. It follows a relatively tried-and-true formula that has worked in a number of other sports movies, that of the underperforming team that gets a new coach / owner / manager who turns things around and makes them champions. Think Major League with middies. The difference here is that at the beginning, the coach doesn't particularly want to be there either – so rather than Major League, perhaps A League of their Own might be a more apt comparison. Gradually the players start to adapt to their new playing style and gain confidence in their coach and themselves, and the coach realizes that he needs the team as much as the team needs him.

The coach in this case is Joe Logan (played by Brandon Routh, who has distant Native background), a half-Native whose father is on the tribal council. Logan is a former lacrosse star who is coerced by his father into finding his spirit by returning to his roots and coaching the reservation's hapless lacrosse team. As you would expect, he encounters resistance and is pessimistic about his chances of success but gradually wins the team over. After that, it's fairly predictable: most of what you might foresee happening does happen, and nothing really happens that you don't see coming.

That said, I didn't care how predictable it was. Even if you know the destination, how you get there can be entertaining and fun. There were a number of funny lines, particularly the stuffy rich mom of one of the prep school players who asked "when did the Indians start playing lacrosse anyway?" or the double-entendre "wisdom" of the coach – "if you don't go into the forest, you don't have any balls". The characters you're supposed to dislike (opposing team's coach and players, greedy developer) are sufficiently slimy, and you do like the characters you're supposed to like (coach's sister and father, love interest, team benchwarmer). The scenes of lacrosse practices and games are exciting, and though they don't go over the game in much detail (this is a film about the team and the community, not so much about the game itself), you do get a pretty good idea of how fast and exciting lacrosse can be. You find yourself cheering for the Crooked Arrows and are genuinely happy when they are successful.

When I saw the film, I was curious how accurately the Native issues in the film were portrayed. I have no Native blood in me, and I'm not even sure if I've ever set foot on a Native reserve, so I can't personally speak to that. But I did talk to someone who can, and was assured that the movie was accurate and realistic. The reservation in the film looks like any small town in rural America, so anyone looking for fields of tepees and wigwams may be disappointed, as they would be on a real reservation. But the fact that Natives are featured so prominently in a so-called "Hollywood" film is somewhat unusual in itself. Another recent movie that includes Native Americans in a prominent role is the popular Twilight series, and indeed the actor that plays Joe Logan's father in Crooked Arrows also plays Jacob Black's father in Twilight. I did notice that the Native characters in this film seemed a lot more upbeat and generally happy than the grumpy werewolves in Twilight, though I suppose if there were vampires living nearby I might be grumpy too.

One thing I really liked was the juxtaposition of the scenes of Native warriors from 800 years ago playing lacrosse with scenes of the Crooked Arrows team playing now. This was a very effective way to remind the viewer about the history involved with the game and the fact that to the Native community, lacrosse is not just a fun game or a sport that they invented, but an integral and important part of their way of life, and has been for hundreds of years.

Those in the lacrosse community have known this movie was coming for a while now, and the @crookedarrows twitter account was quite active in keeping followers informed on the progress of writing, casting, filming, post-production, and when and where the movie was playing. The filmmakers even managed to squeeze in a few cameos including some of the biggest names in lacrosse: Zack Greer, Brodie Merrill, Paul Rabil, and Gary Gait (though Gait wasn't mentioned by name as the others were).

In a nutshell, I really enjoyed Crooked Arrows, as did my sons (12 and 10). Lacrosse fans will enjoy the action, but you don't have to be a lacrosse fan to enjoy the movie.

Mini movie reviews

We saw a few movies over the past week or two; here are some mini-reviews of each. Sorry, no haikus.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Pros:

• Special effects were excellent, but that's becoming less of a draw, since lots of movies have effects that are just as good
• Leonard Nimoy saying "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" was cool. A bit of a Star Trek II homage for those of us old enough to get it.
• John Malkovich is always good

Cons:

• The movie was far too long. The robot fight scenes over the last hour or so were long and drawn out and could easily have been cut down. It was amazing that with so much stuff happening on the screen, I was still bored.
• I find it odd that a movie that stems from a toy (I laughed at the "in association with Hasbro" during the credits) has so much violence, bad language, and even sexual content that I won't let my kids watch it.
• There were lots of scenes of robots fighting and transforming all at the same time. I found it overwhelming – I couldn't tell what was happening half the time.
• Several blatantly cheesy 3D effects. If you want to see a movie that gets 3D right, see Avatar.
• I found it hard to tell the bad robots from the good robots, other than Optimus and Bumblebee. And the two little annoying and pointless robots, Comic and Relief.
• The first Transformers movie was entertaining and while the plot wasn't brilliant, it was OK. I don't really remember the second movie. This one was somewhat entertaining at times but the plot was just dumb. Sentinal even says at one point "I created this technology that defies the laws of physics" so they didn't have to explain anything.
• WARNING: spoilers below
• Patrick Dempsey as the bad guy was not believable. At the beginning I could kind of understand it, but once it became obvious that the Decepticons were planning on enslaving the entire human race, why was he still trying to help them? It's not like they said they'd spare him or he had any reason to believe they might.
• Similarly, Sentinal's whole "the only way to save our planet is to join with the Decepticons" thing was not believable either.
• Optimus's execution of Sentinal (shooting him in the back of the head) was out of character.

 

Spy Kids: All The Time In The World

Pros:

• Jessica Alba! Quite possibly the most beautiful actress in Hollywood today. Can she actually act? Who cares?

Cons:

• I fully agree with the "family is the most important thing" theme, but they pushed it too hard and it ended up being corny.
• The time-travel stuff. I know that time travel is (very likely) impossible, but some movies that involve time travel at least try to make some sense of the whole paradox thing. Back to the Future did a great job, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure did some neat stuff with it as well. This one didn't even try, and as a result it made no sense.
• Too many poop jokes. Then again, it's possible that "males in their early 40's" is not the target demographic for this movie.
• The movie was presented in "Aroma-vision". When we got our tickets, we were given a card with 8 scratch-and-sniff circles on it, and when a number showed up on the screen, we were supposed to scratch the corresponding number on the card and be surrounded with the aroma of whatever was happening on the screen. This worked perfectly, assuming the aroma for each of the numbers was supposed to be "cardboard".
• The kids who starred in the original Spy Kids movies haven't had many significant acting roles since. Their performances in this movie help to explain why.

 

Knight And Day

Pros:

• Cameron Diaz in a bikini! She's no Jessica Alba, but still, wow.
• Sure he's a wacko, but I really like Tom Cruise.
• Lots of chemistry between Diaz and Cruise

Cons:

• During the movie, I couldn't help wondering about the movie's budget for Tom Cruise's platform shoes.
• The idea of a battery that never runs out of power is not possible. It sounded like the writers needed some small yet extremely valuable thing for the bad guys to chase after, and precious gems have been done to death, so they picked this without giving it much thought.

 

The Adjustment Bureau

Pros:

• I really enjoyed this movie. The concept was interesting and made you think – sort of Matrix-y that way.
• Matt Damon. I think I've enjoyed every movie I've seen him in.
• In a way, I wanted them to explain more about the Bureau and the Chairman and so on, but I'm sort of glad they didn't. The fact that they didn't is what makes you think.

Cons:

• Can't say I'm a fan of Emily Blunt. She was OK, but she just doesn't do it for me.  I'm not talking looks here, I just didn't connect with her character.

The Lord of the Rings / There's so much to talk about / Two haikus for each

I had enough fun writing the haikus for the Star Wars and Harry Potter movies that I decided to keep going. Presenting: The Lord of the Rings.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Aragorn, Gimli 
Legolas and the hobbits
Galdalf, Boromir

The fellowship is
taking the Ring to Mordor 
Chuck it in the fire 

The Two Towers

Gollum is creepy 
He wants his precious back from
Nasty hobbitses

Battle at Helm's Deep
Elves and Men fight together
Against Uruk-hai

The Return of the King

Despite Denethor,
Minas Tirith calls for help
Rohan will answer

Gollum and the Ring
Both are destroyed in Mount Doom
Two birds with one stone

More movie haikus / The Harry Potter series / But what will be next?

Continuing on from my recent Star Wars haiku posting, here are some for the Harry Potter series. I managed to come up with two different ones for the first movie. Not sure what to do next – Lord of the Rings? Star Trek? Indiana Jones? James Bond? No, that would take too long and most of the Bond movies blur together for me anyway. Toy Story? Shrek? Spy Kids? Ooooh, I know – High School Musical!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

He's the boy who lived 
And a thumpin' good wizard 
Wow, he can fly too

or

Fluffy guards the Stone 
You-know-who wants to steal it
We don't say his name

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Is Harry the heir? 
They both can speak parseltongue 
That's a big-ass snake

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

A powerful spell 
"Expecto Patronum" works
If you think happy 

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry's name comes out 
Cedric's, Fleur's, and Krum's do too 
They all fight dragons 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Occlumency fails
Voldemort plants a vision
Sirius is toast

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Thanks to his textbook 
Harry wins some liquid luck 
Who's the half-blood prince? 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The final battle 
Voldemort and Harry fight 
One of them will die 

Movie review: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

I am a huge Rush fan, and have been since the early '80s. I had heard some of their songs on the radio, but my real introduction was the first side of Moving Pictures, which someone copied onto a tape for me. Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ, and Limelight. Four unbelievably fantastic songs, which I played over and over again. Imagine my surprise when, at least a year or two later, I realized that there were more songs on that album! And they were really good too! I eventually got most of their older albums as well, and I remember Signals being one of the most popular albums when I was in grade nine. Hearing the opening of New World Man still reminds me of early high school. I started to lose interest with the Grace Under Pressure album, and wasn't too thrilled with the next couple of albums. It wasn't so much that they started using more keyboards (Signals had lots of keyboards and I love that album), for me it was more that the keyboards seemed to replace the guitar rather than complementing it. I didn't even buy Hold Your Fire (or Test for Echo) for many years, which meant that Rush had been removed from my list of auto-purchase bands - when a new album was released by bands on this list, I would immediately go and buy it, even if I hadn't heard anything from it. Dream Theater has been on this list for years, and Linkin Park was, up until the most recent album A Thousand Suns, and now I'm not so sure about the next one. But I digress. Presto was pretty good, and rekindled my interest in the band. For Christmas, Gail bought me the DVD of the new movie Beyond The Lighted Stage, a documentary about the history of Rush. I have heard (on the radio and twitter) that even people who aren't Rush fans are really liking this film, so I figured I would love it, since I am a Rush fan. I wasn't disappointed.

There was lot more footage and pictures from the very early years of the band than I would have expected, including video of early concerts at local high schools and such. There was even video of a teenage Alex Lifeson sitting at the dinner table at his house, arguing about why he should be going to school when music is what he really wanted to do. Why someone in his family was recording that conversation, I have no idea. I found it funny that to this day, Geddy and Alex still refer to Neil Peart (who joined Rush in 1974) as "the new guy" because he wasn't there for the beginning of the band and didn't appear on their first album. There was a fair bit of discussion on each album up to and including Signals. After that, they mentioned that Rush entered a period where they used lots of synths which nobody but Geddy seemed excited about, including many fans. They squashed the Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, and Presto albums into fairly one short segment, and I don't think they even mentioned the names Grace Under Pressure, Hold Your Fire, or Presto. Roll The Bones and Counterparts were touched on briefly and Test For Echo was almost ignored before a section focussed on Neil Peart and the tragedies that befell him in 1997 and 1998.

Within a year of each other, Peart's daughter and wife both passed away, and Peart took several years off from the band to ride his motorcycle around North and Central America. (He wrote a book about this trip called "Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road" which is now on my must-read list.) After returning, he had doubts as to whether he would be able to continue in Rush because he'd been away from the drum kit for so long. It seems amazing that someone as talented as Peart (widely regarded as one of the best rock drummers there is) could have such doubts about his own ability. A couple of people in the film described Peart as a perfectionist, so he'd likely be unhappy performing at 80% of what he used to be able to do – even though 80% of Neil Peart is still better than a large percentage of other drummers. They also talked about how private a man Peart is, and how he really doesn't like meeting with fans who gush or fawn over him, and is uncomfortable with his fame (for reference, see the lyrics of the aforementioned "Limelight"). Neil, if you happen to read this, just know that I think you are an extremely talented drummer and lyricist and your music has meant a lot to me over the last thirty years. And I promise that if I happen to see you at a restaurant or store or something, I will leave you the hell alone.

Funniest scene: Alex and Geddy are sitting in a diner (the scene looks pretty recent, i.e. 2005-2010 time frame), and the waitress recognizes Geddy. She said that her son or nephew or something is a big fan, and asks if he can give her an autograph. He says sure, and she basically elbows Alex (who she obviously does not recognize) out of the way to give Geddy something to sign. Geddy asks if she wants Alex to sign it as well, and she just says "Thanks a lot" and walks away. Alex is laughing the whole time.

A number of prominent musicians were interviewed throughout the movie, including members of Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, Metallica, and Kiss, as well as musician / actor Jack Black. Sometimes Jack Black can be really funny while other times a little goes a long way, and I kind of found that here. A few interviews with him were fine, but I almost wanted to fast-forward over a couple.

I guess it's not surprising that I really enjoyed this movie, since I am such a fan of the band. But as I said, I have heard a couple of different people talk about how much they enjoyed the movie despite not being Rush fans. At least, they weren't Rush fans when they started the movie.

Need a good blog post / Maybe some movie haikus? / I'll start with Star Wars

I hated English class in high school. And the part of English class that I hated the most was poetry. But I always liked doing haikus. Why? Because they didn't have to rhyme! The only real rule was the syllables, and I can count as well as anyone. Sure, you sometimes had to work a little to pack as much "information" into seventeen syllables as you could, but hey, I'm on twitter now – seventeen syllables, 140 characters, same idea.

I recently began posting Star Wars haikus to my facebook status as well as twitter. Both trilogies (in the order the movies were released) in a total of 102 syllables. They are summarized here. The Harry Potter saga is next.

Star Wars

Alderaan destroyed
Great disturbance in the Force
Death Star is no moon

The Empire Strikes Back

Yoda in a swamp
Trap is set on Cloud City
Vader is Luke's dad

Return of the Jedi

Yoda dies and fades
Vader has some good in him
Ewoks save the day

The Phantom Menace

Droid army invades
Ani and Obi-Wan meet
Jar Jar ruins it

Attack of the Clones

Grievous coughs a lot
Ani and Padme get hitched
But it's a secret

Revenge of the Sith

Dooku bites the dust
Anakin fights Obi-Wan
Darth Vader is born

Minority Report

Star Wars In Concert

I've been a Star Wars fan ever since I first saw the first movie during the summer of 1977. When Gail and I started dating in early 1992, I found that she too was a big Star Wars fan, and immediately decided to marry her. Well, maybe not that second, and that may not have been the primary reason, but it was a significant contributing factor. Consequently, our kids are now big Star Wars fans as well, so when my friend Lisa sent me a link to a stage show called Star Wars In Concert [warning: web site plays music with no warning], I was immediately interested. When I showed Gail and the boys the trailer on the web site, they were excited as well. The show was this past Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, and we were definitely not disappointed.

The show is a montage of clips from all six Star Wars films on a three-storey crystal clear hi-def screen, behind a full live orchestra performing the music from the films. For some of the music from The Phantom Menace, there was also a full choir behind the orchestra. What's more, Anthony Daniels, the actor who played C-3P0 in all six films, introduced each segment, and James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, provided some voice-overs. When I read that Anthony Daniels would be narrating, I expected that he had recorded some stuff that would be part of the show, but was surprised that he was actually there. He only broke into the C-3P0 voice once, though his natural voice is similar enough anyway.

The music of Star Wars is not just pleasant sounds in the background of the movie; it is an integral part of the whole experience. The "Imperial march", Luke staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine, the Jawa theme, the slow acoustic guitar when Vader/Anakin dies, Darth Maul's haunting choir, even the cantina band songs are all so powerful, so meaningful, as part of the film experience that Star Wars without the music would be just another pretty decent sci-fi movie. My whole review of this show can be summed up in one sentence: Watching the movies on that screen with the music being performed live, right in front of you, was just unbelievable. The orchestra was amazing, and there were a couple of cameras on them as well, so we got to see close-ups of some of the performers in between movie clips. As a music fan and a sort-of musician myself, I love watching world-class musicians play, and these are some of the best. Daniels was very good with his introductions as well, even coming out at the end in a Leafs jersey with his name on the back. I'm sure he wore a Habs jersey in Montreal and a Flyers jersey in Philadelphia, but the crowd still loved it.

Gail is still kicking herself for not bringing our camera, but luckily Lisa brought hers so she and Gail took a bunch of pictures, one of which you can see above. Before the show, there were some memorabilia booths set up around the ACC, containing props from the films. We saw a Naboo backdrop next to a Queen Amidala costume, though the crowds around them were so thick that we couldn't get close enough to take a picture – and since we hadn't seen Lisa yet, all we had was my silly little camera phone. As expected, there were also little booths selling trinkets and shirts and stuff. I don't usually go for the souvenirs at these shows since they're way overpriced ($10 for a tiny little lightsaber thing that glows – you can probably also buy them at the dollar store), but we got the boys a $40 t-shirt each because we figured the show was so unique that they are unlikely to get the chance to see anything like it again. Plus the designs were cool – one is Darth Vader's head made out of musical instruments, the other is Boba Fett's head made out of musical notes and symbols.

Tickets were kind of expensive but it was a very unique show, and the boys loved it as much as we did. If you're a Star Wars fan, and you get the chance to see this, do it.

Star Trek on the BIG screen

We went to see Star Trek at the Omnimax theatre at the Ontario Science Centre last night. (Luckily there was no line-up at the box-office to pick up our tickets or I would be forced to complain again.) We figured it would be very cool on the big screen and it was – the sound was particularly amazing. If you're going to see this at the Science Centre, a piece of advice: however far back you are sitting, you're not far enough back, so move back a row. Another row. Keep goin'. Keep goin'. Another row. What's that? You're at the back of the theatre? OK, well I guess that's far enough.

We got there early to make sure we got a good seat (general admission dontcha know), but it wasn't as full as we expected, so only two people entered the theatre before us. We sat about 3/4 of the way back but the screen is so big that trying to see everything happening on the screen was like watching a tennis match. The first five minutes of the movie were all but unwatchable because of all the on-screen action – there was so much going on that I couldn't focus on anything. After that, the movie slowed down a touch and I got more used to the big screen and from then on it was fine. During some of the faster scenes things got a bit more difficult again, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

The movie itself: amazing. I have always been more of a Next Generation guy – I was never much into the original series, though I liked some of the movies. But the casting on this was really good – it seemed that everyone except Kirk tried to match the speech patterns or mannerisms of the original actors, and I thought they all did a really good job of presenting the characters we know but giving them a slightly different interpretation (Karl Urban as McCoy and Zachary Quinto as Spock are particularly good). Even if you're not a huge Star Trek fan, William Shatner's portrayal of Kirk is very familiar, so it would be hard to play him without just doing a Shatner impersonation, but Chris Pine nailed it. In the very last scene of the film, Pine does channel Shatner to some extent, and Kirk starts to sound similar to the Kirk we all know and make fun of.

Spoiler warning: If you haven't seen the movie, don't read any further.

If they've truly rebooted the series and intend on making more movies following this timeline (and they apparently are), they'll have to be careful, because with the destruction of Vulcan, they've started down a path where no Star Trek series or movie has gone before. There are a lot of situations in the subsequent shows that either take place on Vulcan or assume its existence, and they're all invalid in the new universe. Plus the whole Uhura/Spock relationship thing is new. I guess doing this allows the writers to go off in any direction they want, without having to worry about what happened before / later. The only thing I really hope they don't do is bring Shatner in for a cameo. Nimoy's appearance in this movie was fine, but that should be it. Let's be done with the whole time travel stuff now and just move on from here.

Star Trek – the acting career killer

I watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager a little while ago, and wondered what happened to the actors on that show. After some investigation on Wikipedia and IMDB, I found that other than Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine), none of them had had significant roles in anything after Voyager ended. I did some more searching and found that to be true of just about every actor in every Star Trek series.

Note that when I say "nothing" below, I mean nothing of significance in terms of movie or TV acting. Many of these actors have gone on to do other things (directing, stage acting, music, etc.), and some have appeared in single episodes of shows or bit parts in movies, but I'm looking for significant roles.

Star Trek

William Shatner went on to to do T.J. Hooker and Boston Legal and some movie roles, but is mostly famous for being William Shatner.

Walter Koenig was on Babylon 5 for a while.

Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei: nothing.

TNG

Patrick Stewart : X-Men, lots of voice acting

Brent Spiner: A small part in Independence Day

Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton: nothing.

Michael Dorn was on DS9 for a year or two.

DS9

Terry Farrell was on Becker for four years

Avery Brooks, Nana Visitor, Cirroc Lofton, Armin Shimerman, Colm Meaney: nothing.

Alexander Siddig was in a few episodes of 24

Rene Auberjonois was on Boston Legal for a couple of years

Voyager

Jeri Ryan – Boston Public, Shark

Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Robert Duncan McNeill, Garrett Wang, Robert Picardo, Ethan Philips, Jennifer Lien : Nothing

Enterprise

Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock, Linda Park, Anthony Montgomery, John Billingsley: nothing

Dominic Keating (Reed) was on Lost for four episodes and Connor Trinneer (Trip) was on Stargate Atlantis for 9 episodes.

---

So of all of the forty actors listed above, only Shatner and Stewart have had starring roles in anything else. Of the rest, only Jeri Ryan and Terry Farrell have had anything more than a recurring guest role on a TV show. That's four out of forty that have done anything significant since Star Trek. The other 90% have seen their acting careers wane or vanish completely.

Update: Just to be clear, I am not saying that these people are all washed-up has-beens, and I'm not suggesting that they are all sitting at home staring at the phone hoping someone will call them with a gig. Like I said, some are directing, some are acting on the stage, others may have moved on to other things. I know from reading his blog that Wil Wheaton is now a writer, blogger, and part-time actor, and is perfectly happy with that. I just figured that with the number of actors that had become successful through a Star Trek TV show, a greater percentage would stay with TV/movie acting and more would end up with starring or major supporting roles than actually did.

Recommendations for you

I've only bought a couple of things on amazon.com, since I mainly use amazon.ca. When it gives me recommendations, they're based only on a few things and are therefore rather diverse:

• A book called Understanding IPv6
• a couple of CCNA guides (I had to look up what CCNA meant – it's some kind of networking certification)
• 101 Dalmations DVD
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars DVD (which I have, though amazon.com doesn't know this)
• Tool's Ænima CD (which I also have)
• Slayer's Reign in Blood CD

I imagine that there aren't many lists of anything that both Reign in Blood and 101 Dalmations are a part of.

Movie Reviews: Inkheart and Hotel for Dogs

We saw a couple of movies in the last week with the boys. Last Friday we saw Inkheart, based on a very popular book series. Gail's read the first book of the series, but I knew nothing about it going in. We were a bit concerned about this one, since Ryan is pretty sensitive when it comes to movies — he doesn't like anything scary, and tends to really empathize with the characters, so if something bad happens to them, he gets pretty upset. Gail and I rented a movie called Bridge to Terabithia a little while ago to see if the boys would like it — we thought it was very good, and there were certainly parts that the boys would like, but one very sad thing happens in the film, and Ryan would have cried for a week. We won't be suggesting that movie to him anytime soon. Anyway, like I said, we were a little concerned that this one might be too scary, but they were fine.

The plot was interesting — there are people who have the ability to bring characters out of books by reading the books aloud. Unfortunately, when they bring someone out, someone from our world goes in. Brendan Fraser is one such person, but hasn't read anything aloud in nine years, after bringing characters out of a book called Inkheart and losing his wife into the book in the process. The character he brought out has been chasing him ever since, trying to get Fraser's character to read him back into the book. Gail said that a bunch of things were cut from the book or rewritten, as pretty much always happens when making a movie from a book. Since I hadn't read the book, I figure I shouldn't have been able to tell what had been changed, but there were a few instances where I could, usually because things that should be quite difficult and time-consuming happened quickly and easily - Elinor's change of heart for example, as well as convincing Fenoglio (who was very English for a guy with an Italian name living in Italy) that characters had been pulled out of his book into the real world.

ObNit: OK, this one is really pushing it. It's never revealed where Fraser's character and his daughter live, but considering they hop in the car and drive to Italy on a moment's notice, it's likely somewhere in continental Europe. (The book is German, so presumably the book's characters live in Germany.) After twelve years of living in Germany, wouldn't the father's American accent change somewhat? And why would his daughter have a British accent after living in Germany with her American father (her British mother has been gone since she was three)? I agree, in terms of plot holes, that's one pretty thin.

I thought the acting was very good, particularly Paul Bettany, who was excellent as Dustfinger (and completely unrecognizable from his Silas character from The Da Vinci Code). Fraser is no Dustin Hoffman, but he has become an actual actor, not just the doofus from George of the Jungle. Eliza Bennett (I got a kick out of the actress's name) was also very good, though she seemed older than the twelve her character is supposed to be. Andy Serkis was suitably slimy as the bad guy Capricorn, and Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren were also good in smaller roles.

For a while, whenever I heard the name Brendan Fraser, I thought of movies like Encino Man, Airheads, George of the Jungle, Blast from the Past, Dudley Do-Right (to be fair, none of which I have ever seen). I would see his name on a movie poster and immediately think "OK, there's a movie I can skip". I remember wondering if I could ever take him seriously as an actor. But after The Mummy series, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and now Inkheart, he seems to have done a pretty good job of reinventing himself as a real actor, not just a goofy guy that does physical comedy.

The other movie we saw was Hotel for Dogs, which we saw specifically because the kids wanted to see it. I had precisely zero interest in seeing this movie, but hey, when you're a dad, that's what you do. But it turned out to be a pretty decent movie. Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon (Matt's brother) are very funny as wanna-be hair-rocker foster parents, though how they would remain foster parents once any child care worker sees their apartment is beyond me. The movie did have its silly parts (which is why the kids liked it), but the poop humour was kept to a minimum, and thankfully, there wasn't a single scene where the dogs talked or winked or raised their eyebrows or otherwise had their faces digitally enhanced and anthropomorphized. I hate that. If you're want to have an animal with human characteristics in your movie, make it animated (Bolt, Finding Nemo, a zillion others).

I do wonder why more wasn't made of Bruce's ability to conjure up crazy devices for entertaining the dogs. Bernie really couldn't find foster parents to look after a sweet and caring girl and her genius brother? I also thought it was awfully nice of the unseen pet store owner to let his employees leave the store and use the van whenever they wanted. And where did the kids come up with the hundreds of dollars to buy all the required dog food? And who arranged (and paid) for the dumpster full of "doggy doo" to be picked up? Did none of the strays they found have fleas or any other condition that might require the services of a vet?

Near the end, when Bernie stood up and looked like he was going to make a speech, I was kind of hoping that he would explain some loophole in the law that got the kids off, or that he had purchased the hotel and so the dog catchers were on his property, or something like that rather than making a "Come on, everyone, just look at these adorable dogs! They're a family!" type speech, but no such luck. But overall, this was less of a kid movie and more of a family movie. Don't bother going without the kids — it ain't that good — but kids and parents alike will enjoy it. Not like Curious George, during which Gail and I both fell asleep.

I suppose I really should just shut up and enjoy movies, rather than continually pointing out flaws. But I can't.

The planet's really bad now because of the Dark Side

For any Star Wars fans out there, like me, this video really made me laugh. It's a video of someone who hasn't seen Star Wars ("I've seen bits of it") telling the story of Star Wars. Her retelling of it is very funny, but the animation is priceless.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Movie Review: Eagle Eye

We watched Eagle Eye the other night. I was looking forward to it since it looked like a pretty good action flick and from an action point of view it certainly fit the bill. From a plausibility standpoint, however, it was just way the hell out there. I understand about suspension of disbelief and all that, but holy crap.

Without giving away too much, some of the things the lady on the phone is able to do are just way beyond belief. She can control every cell phone and security camera in the country, not to mention street lights, construction cranes, subways, and even the demo TVs at Circuit City. At one point Jerry (Shia) turned his phone off, and within seconds, the phone of the guy sitting next to him on the train started to ring. To make that work, she'd have to:

• have a high-quality camera in the train car
• use it to take a picture of the guy's face
• use facial recognition software to figure out who the guy is, with an accuracy of one person out of 350 million
• find that person's cell phone number

Or maybe she could analyze the GPS coordinates of every cell phone in that area and figure out which one was physically closest to Jerry's. Which is off. On a moving train.

In another scene, she kills someone by somehow causing a power line to break. The broken wire falls and fries the guy. Even with complete control over the power grid, how could she cause a power line to break? And assuming she could do that, how could she do it in such a way that she knew that it would fall and hit the guy, who happened to be running at the time? Later she has Jerry and Rachel rob an armored car for a briefcase with a time-release lock that they risk their lives several times to try and protect. And when you think about where they are when it opens and what's in it, you realize that there were a thousand simpler ways to do it, all of which are less likely to fail that the one she chose.

One of the reasons she needed Jerry in the first place (to impersonate his twin brother) is moot, since the FBI would have revoked all of his security codes once he died. This part did make me wonder, however, if the real-life military (or CIA or FBI or whatever) would give top secret clearance to someone who had an identical twin, just for this reason. Their fingerprints and retinal scans would differ, but their DNA would be identical. Don't know about voice prints or even how accurate voice print identification is.

Anyway, LaBeouf was pretty good, though his character seemed unnecessarily abrasive at times. If someone put $750,000 in my bank account and filled my apartment with stolen military stuff and then I was arrested because of it, I might decide that being a dick to the FBI agent who's interrogating me would be a bad idea.

Having said all that, I have to say I did enjoy it. There were lots of car chases and explosions and overall, it was fun, if silly.

On a side note, I cannot watch a Shia LaBeouf movie without thinking he looks like Wil Wheaton:

Shia LaBeouf	Wil Wheaton

The Harry Potter-a-thon

On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, Gail and the boys and I had a Harry Potter marathon. We watched all five movies back to back, and Gail had fun making Harry Potter-themed snacks. We're all big fans of the Harry Potter series, but as with Star Wars, when you see a movie enough times and get to know the characters well enough, you start to notice little things that don't make sense. I have fun coming up with these things. These are not a knock on the movies — I know that they are fantasy and that they don't need to be 100% realistic to be enjoyable, in fact, any fantasy movie that's 100% realistic isn't really fantasy, now is it?

Philosopher's Stone

• Hagrid says about Gringotts "ain't no place safer! Not one! 'cept perhaps Hogwarts." Rrrrright. Hogwarts is guarding possibly the most important and valuable object in the wizarding world, and three eleven-year-olds — including one who's only known about the wizarding world for less than a year — are able to get by the traps. Not to mention the fact that when Harry finally does arrive at the end, Quirrell is already there, which means that he got by all the traps too — and Harry had help, while Quirrel did it by himself. Hey, bang-up job on those traps, Hogwarts professors.
• Nicolas Flamel has had the stone, presumably in Gringotts, for well over 600 years. Why did they decide to move it to Hogwarts? Ron makes a good point about keeping a creature like Fluffy in a school. Surely they suspected that Voldemort might try to steal the Stone, so why bring it to Hogwarts and put the students in danger?
• To get into the room where Fluffy is guarding the trap door, Hermione performs a simple "alohomora" spell. Shouldn't the teachers have magically locked that door so that simple spells wouldn't open it?
• Similarly, if the restricted section of the library is truly restricted, surely the gate should be magically locked.
• When Voldemort tells Quirrell to kill Harry, why does he attempt to choke him? Why not just use avada kedavra? And why is he able to touch Harry's throat, but turns to dust when Harry touches him? Quirrell says he tried to kill Harry a number of times previously as well — why use a complicated curse to make Harry's broom fly all over the place and not just use the killing curse? He had plenty of opportunities...

Chamber of Secrets

• If Hagrid was at Hogwarts when the Chamber was opened fifty years ago, that would make him between sixty-one and sixty-seven years old at the time of this film. Does Hagrid look that old to you?
• On a similar note, Professor Dumbledore had a fairly long grey beard in the fifty-year-old flashbacks. My beard has a fair bit of grey in it, and if I hadn't shaved in ten years, it could be that long, so it's possible that Dumbledore is as young as forty in the flashback, but likely older. That makes him at least ninety now.
• Gilderoy Lockhart is a fraud, and yet he takes a number of opportunities to perform spells in front of people, with disastrous results. If I were pretending to be awesome when I really wasn't, I'd try to avoid performing in front of people, lest my inadequacies be publicly displayed. Why would he choose to try to fix Harry's broken arm? Why would he choose to start the dueling club when he knows he can't fight? For that matter, why would he take this teaching job in the first place?
• Speaking of the dueling club, Snape says "perhaps it would be a good idea to teach them how to block unfriendly spells", to which Lockhart answers "An excellent suggestion!" and then doesn't do it. He picks two students and basically says "go!" without any advice on what to do.
• Why do some "expelliarmus" charms flick the victim's wand away harmlessly (Lupin on Snape) while others (Snape on Lockhart, Harry on Snape) knock the victim twenty feet back?
• When trying to stop the flying car, Ron pulls out his wand and taps the steering wheel saying "Stop! Stop! Stop!". He's been around magic all his life — does he really think this will work? I know it's a plot device to have him break his wand, but it could have been done better.
• Is "eat slugs!" really a spell, or did Ron just say that out loud and then do a non-vocal spell, something they don't learn until sixth year?

Prisoner of Azkaban

• Fred and George said they took the Maurauder's Map from Filch's office during their first year, which means that they've had it since before Ron arrived at Hogwarts. During that time, if they had looked up the Gryffindor dormatories, they'd have seen the name "Peter Pettigrew" on the map because Scabbers lived there. Either they never looked up the Gryffindor dorms in that time (which seems unlikely), or they never thought it weird that the name of a person who they didn't know kept showing up in the Gryffindor dorms.
• Sirius got past the dementors and into Hogwarts, presumably, because he was an animagus and turned into a dog. Are dementors really fooled by animagi? The Maurauder's Map isn't. Wouldn't this mean that any animagus sent to Azkaban could simply transform and walk out?
• Hermione says something like "Bad things happen to wizards who mess with time". If that's the case, why would a professor give a time-turner to a thirteen year old witch just so that she could take extra classes? Doesn't this seem dangerous?

Goblet of Fire

• Already done.

Order of the Phoenix

I've only seen this movie two or three times, so I don't really have any comments about this one. One thing I do want to mention is that the character of Luna Lovegood was perfectly cast. She is exactly how I pictured her when reading the books, seemingly kind of ditzy, but sweet and strangely wise. She's got the right dreamy sort of look and voice.

Movie review: The Clone Wars

We saw the new Star Wars movie The Clone Wars last night. Before I write about this movie, let me say that I loved the original trilogy. I have watched the movies countless times and can quote whole passages from all three. When The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, Gail and I were there on opening day, even though Gail was six months pregnant at the time. I remember not liking the movie as much as I hoped I would (curse yousa, Jar Jar Binks), but almost feeling like I was betraying George Lucas and the original trilogy if I stated my displeasure. Others were not so concerned, and felt that Lucas betrayed them with the prequel trilogy. I think that's a little strong, but either way, I liked the prequel trilogy less than the original one. The movies were good, but not up to the standard of the first three (though Revenge of the Sith was close).

Now, onto The Clone Wars. I knew that this was animated and that most of the voices were not done by the actors from the live action movies, so my expectations weren't all that high. But I do not feel the slightest bit like I'm betraying anyone by saying that this movie sucked. The animation of the space scenes and robots was good, but the animation of people was really bad. The movement was really jerky, the lip syncing was terrible, and it looked like the animation hadn't been finished yet — Obi-Wan's beard consisted of a series of rectangles. Given the level of human animation in Beowulf, the animation in this movie should have been a lot better.

Now, in all fairness, there is a reason that the animation was so bad. This movie is essentially a pilot for a new cartoon series that will be appearing on TV next year. I guess they can't spend zillions of dollars in animation for that, so they decided not to spend zillions on the pilot.

Anyway, back to the movie. The basic problem I had with it, aside from the animation, was that it was aimed at a younger crowd. Revenge of the Sith was violent, dark, and disturbing. It was so not aimed at kids that my kids have yet to see it, and I will not let them see it for a number of years. This one had lots of jokes, slapstick humour and even forgetful battle droids (though I never liked the battle droids in any of the prequel movies — either make them emotionless robots with no personality or don't, they seem to be a bit of both). In this movie, one forgets a series of numbers told to him by another one. When I was six I would have complained about that — these are robots, they don't forget stuff! There were too many attempts at humour, some funny, some not. I know that in a lot of action movies, people are making jokes while fighting for their lives, but it seemed like it was happening too often here.

As for the plot, weak. In The Phantom Menace, they mentioned that Tatooine is way out on the outer rim — so far away that Qui-Gon cannot use Republic credits as currency. Now, the Hutts control the critical shipping lanes around Tatooine, and getting them on the side of the Republic is crucial. Where do these critical shipping lanes go if the planet is on the outer rim? Anakin takes a padawan who calls him Master, but he complains in Revenge of the Sith because they won't make him a master. And in Revenge of the Sith, he doesn't have a padawan. Where did she go?

Also, if Anakin was on Tatooine, why didn't he go and find his mother then, even for a visit? It would have been lovely — they could have barbecued up some womprat and had some blue milk. Ani, why don't you call your mother more often?

Finally, Frank Oz didn't voice Yoda. Nobody said "I have a bad feeling about this". John Williams didn't do the score. George Lucas didn't even write it. Given all that, can it really be called a Star Wars movie?

Less than five minutes into the movie, Gail asked me "George Lucas sanctioned this?" and I have to assume he did. Maybe he didn't actually watch it first. (Then again, this is the guy who created Jar Jar Binks.) My kids will love it, but we'll wait until it's out on video and then rent it for them. Neither of us can stand the thought of bringing them to the theatre to see it and having to sit through it again.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Everyone is talking about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and how fantastic it is and what a genius Joss Whedon is. I like a good funny as much as the next guy, so I checked it out last week and honestly, I just don't get it. It was pretty funny ("Wow, sarcasm! That's original!"), and Neil Patrick Harris was really good, but genius? I wouldn't go that far.

Maybe I need to see more of Whedon's stuff. I've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, or Firefly. We did rent the Firefly movie "Serenity" and it was OK, but I thought the same thing at the time: "It was OK, but what's the big deal?" I didn't worry too much about Serenity since I figured you had to know something about the TV show in order to fully appreciate the movie. But Dr. Horrible is a standalone thing and while I enjoyed it, I still didn't get the "genius".

Movie week 2008

Just like last year, the boys spent last week at their grandparents houses (Nicky at Gail's dad's place and Ryan with my parents), and Gail and I had the week to ourselves. One of the things Gail and I miss most about life pre-kids is going out to movies — we do get babysitters now and again so we can go, but it's a hassle and we just don't do it very often, so on our kid-free weeks, we tend to go to a bunch of movies. I think we saw three in the week last year, plus went to the CNE and went to see We Will Rock You as well. This past week, I think I set a personal record for a single week — we saw four movies in five days (plus we rented The Da Vinci Code, the first Hellboy (to prepare ourselves for Hellboy II which we didn't end up seeing anyway), and another movie called Untraceable, which was not bad. It had some techno-babble in it but it seemed like they actually talked to someone who knows technical stuff, since it at least approached making sense, unlike CSI: NY.

This year, we actually have two kid-free weeks, since the boys are doing the grandparents thing again the week after Fern, though they're swapping grandparents. We decided to go to a bunch of movies during the first week, and if we get nothing done around the house, so be it. Then we'll get more stuff done during the second week, though I'm sure a movie or two will still be involved. This past week, we've seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Monday, The X Files: I Want To Believe on Tuesday, The Dark Knight on Wednesday, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor on Friday (I had a baseball game on Thursday). We were going to see a double feature on Friday with The Mummy and Hellboy II, but many theatres stopped playing Hellboy II on Thursday and started playing The Mummy instead. At the one or two theatres still playing it, we couldn't get the showtimes to match up.

Here are some mini-reviews:

Indiana Jones: Entertaining and fun. Harrison Ford is great, and I liked the fact that they made him older (meaning they didn't try to ignore the fact that he's not 45 anymore) and a little more vulnerable. The story wasn't bad, but if you're expecting another Raiders or Last Crusade, you might be disappointed. The swordfight between the Russian soldier from hell and the teenager was a little silly, made even sillier by the fact that he was standing on a Jeep driven by his mother. She sees her son in a fight to the death and does not stop the Jeep. Still better than the awful Temple of Doom, though.

X Files: I liked it, Gail not so much. It was basically a long episode (which the first X Files movie was not) with a bit of a love story in there too. Billy Connolly was very good, though it's odd that a creepy pedophile turns out to be kind of a good guy. The climax of the film was a little weak, but overall it was pretty good. Gail was worried it would be too scary (a few X-Files episodes creeped her out a little much, and more than one did the same to me — more on this below), but it wasn't that scary. The trailer for the upcoming Mirrors — now that was scary.

The Dark Knight: Wow. Just, wow. I read Roger Ebert's review of this movie after I saw it, and I really shouldn't do that before writing my own review, since I frequently agree with him and now I just want to quote what he said. The acting was outstanding — Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart (who I don't usually like) and Michael Caine (I can't get used to the Cockney accent, though I believe that's his real accent) were all great, and Heath Ledger was amazing as the very creepy and psychotic Joker. I was wondering if Ledger could "out-Jack" Jack, but to his credit he didn't even try; his Joker was a different kind of crazy than Jack's. I'm surprised I haven't heard any outrage from women's groups over this one — there's all of one significant female character in this whole movie. The only other women who speak are the corrupt cop and a couple of crying wives. Anyway, Ebert's right — this and Batman Begins are a new kind of comic book movie, which is good because until they started over with Batman Begins, the Batman movies were getting steadily worse. Drawback: the Joker's "one of you will die, but you choose which one" schemes reminded me of the movie "Saw".

The Mummy: Another fun-but-silly one. I really liked the first one, though I don't remember the second one much. I do remember that The Rock played the evil Scorpion King, who subsequently got his own movie and somehow became the good guy in that. Anyway, the third one wasn't bad, it had some funny bits and lots of action. The one thing that annoyed me was that they kept saying that they had to prevent the Emperor from doing something as if failing to do that would mean instant doom for everyone. Then he did it anyway, and they decided that they now had to stop him from doing something else. "We have to stop the Emperor from getting the diamond! Oh, he got the diamond. OK, we have to stop the Emperor from putting it at the top of the magic tower! Oh, he did that too. OK, we have to stop the Emperor from getting to Shangri-La! Oh, he's there now. OK..." I guess it's important to set goals for yourself.

The X Files thing I mentioned before: after a particularly creepy X Files episode (no idea which one), Gail said that she couldn't possibly go to bed right away, so we needed to stay up a little later and watch something else to take her mind off of it. I said sure, so we chose something to watch. Gail then said she wanted a Coke, but we didn't have any upstairs, only in the cold room in the basement. Gail opened the door to the basement, looked down the dark staircase, and then turned to me and sweetly asked if I wouldn't mind going to get her one. I didn't quite puff out my chest and deepen my voice, but I gallantly told her that it would be no problem, and I really thought it wouldn't be. I stepped through the open door and flicked on the light switch. As I did, the light bulb in the fixture at the bottom of the basement stairs blew out with a bang. I quickly turned off the light, closed the basement door, and said "Sorry, no Coke tonight". Gail, who was standing next to me, agreed, and we went to get glasses of water.