Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Later tonight, NBC will be showing the second half of the two part "The Last Templar" mini-series. DO NOT WATCH THIS. It's rare that I feel tasked to present my opinion as a public warning, but it is entirely, absolutely necessary in this case.

I'm not proud of myself, but I fell for the "well, I should probably buy a book before I get on an airplane for thirteen hours" business model. That's right - I spent $10, the full retail price, based only on, "I liked The DaVinci Code well enough and that giant red cross on a white background on the cover of the book looks familiar. Ooh, it has 'templar' in the title, too." Not one of my finer moments. Not one of my finer moments.




Why the warning? People are quick to complain about The DaVinci Code for perfectly valid reasons; poor structure (action, explanation, action, explanation, ad nauseum...), clunky writing, the fact that it's more-or-less the product of generously editing Angels & Demons and using "find and replace" to swap "Catholicism" with "Christianity," and so on. BUT, The DaVinci Code worked well enough. I liked the book enough to also read Angels & Demons as well as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and most significantly, there are few people have haven't read The DaVinci Code, and I really don't know anyone that truly hated it. I stand by the complaints detailed above, yet I wouldn't tell someone not to read it if I were asked.

Of course, based on the overwhelming financial success of The DaVinci Code, a cottage industry sprang up around the Knights Templar and literary background checks of Jesus H. Christ ranging from the academic to the pulpy. Simply everyone who's remotely interested in such things has read at least The DaVinci Code and is acutely aware of the recently-renewed discussion on whether Jesus should be referred to as "Dude" or just "dude."

The Last Templar is the second worst kind of "DaVinci Code cottage industry" detritus. The single most damning error of the book is that the characters live in a vacuum where The DaVinci Code never existed. This is preposterous - as readers, we're no longer shocked that there are "major revelations" about Jesus' divinity and holding that like a carrot to keep the reader engaged just doesn't work. Within the world of the story, it's equally ludicrous that an archaeologist would be shocked (SHOCKED!) to hear that there are alternate theories of Jesus beyond those of the Gospels and Qur'an. It's just plain inexcusable.

The story itself is of the relic-hunting variety: beheadings, ancient mythology, suspect foreigners, the two lead characters getting it on, a encryption/decryption/codex device, and so on. Passable, but the obliviousness detailed above checked me out of the book almost immediately. Well, the obliviousness and the fact that the romantic thread in the story was written with the fluidity and grace matching that of a teen-aged love letter saying, "I want to do you."

I do have to comment on the selection of quotes on the front and back covers. On the front, we see "Like The DaVinci Code, Khoury's novel features age-old mysteries that play out in a modern setting." Let that sink in a bit. It's equivalent to the quote reading, "The DaVinci code is a book. This novel is also a book." There's not even an implicit recommendation; in fact, one can extract an almost negative tone from it, as if the quote continued as, "..., but this is not even The DaVinci Code." Imagine a Battlefield: Earth poster saying: "Star Wars was a movie in space. This one is, too." No, don't fall for it.

Moving to the back cover we see, "[will] satisfy your historical thriller craving." One could say the same thing about Stalingrad Vodka and alcoholism. Similarly, "For those who think Dan Brown doesn't write fast enough," doesn't actually provide a comment on the quality of the book. Think of a review of the Arena Football League: "Because the NFL off-season is February to August."



The Last Templar mini-series gets half of one star. Bad books make for bad movies. Sure, the guy who got dumped on Scrubs is perfectly likable and Mira Sorvino looks fancy, but you're better than this. If you feel the need to get your artifact-hunting itch scratched, re-read or watch The DaVinci Code, or, even better, read The Rule of Four.

Is it possible to make a movie that is at once pretentious, derivative, completely incomprehensible, insanely long, outrageous just for the sake of it, tonally off-balance, with tons of distractingly recognizeable actors, and somehow surprisingly engrossing? Honestly, Southland Tales lives up to its negative hype. It is a car wreck of epic proportions. You sit there completely sucked in, but with your jaw hanging open wondering how a movie this completely off-the-wall bad can take itself so seriously, or even how it got funding in the first place.

The movie, Richard Kelly's follow-up epic mess to cult hit Donnie Darko leaps from place to place like a kid on a playground after too much candy and juice, and usually leaves you wondering who these characters are and why are they doing whatever it is they're doing, that is, if you can figure out what they are doing.

Full disclosure: I like Donnie Darko. I'm a little bit bitter towards it, but I like it. I think it's a fantastic collection of scenes and ideas that fit together tonally, but don't really make a coherent story. And I've tried to figure out the story. I was on the Donnie Darko bandwagon before the movie had even come out. I found the website, which at the time was something to behold, via a small article in EW magazine. Watched a bootleg copy of it while it was still in theatres. Had no idea what I just saw. I watched it over and over again, showing new people every time. I couldn't figure out the master plan of what was going on. Things were so disjointed, and there was never any exposition to give any clue as to what happened at the end. I bought the DVD, and when I listened to the commentary track, I was surprised to find out that the director also seemed not to know. There was no explanation. He was just putting stuff in that he thought would be weird. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again... uhh.... you don't get fooled again.

I really can't imagine that there was any plan going into this movie. Something about an extremist future, with big-brother republicans selling out for some kind of perpetual motion machine, and "neo-Marxists" (his word, not mine) bent on destroying everything for some reason. The media is a hyper-conglomerate of entertainment, commercials (most notably a car commercial, featuring two Hummers [the car] having sex with each other), propaganda, and news. And for some reason, every show is taped on a beach. The guy who created this energy machine (which looks exactly like the gyroscope in Contact) is somehow trying to take over the world by cutting off people's hands or something. Some people are trying to blackmail The Rock, whose father-in-law is running for Vice President (i think?). Drugs are involved, needless to say. Whatever satire Kelly's attempting, it's either already been done, or it's too broad to be saying anything, really.

Justin Timberlake is a "Revelations"-reciting narrator who sits on a machine-gun pedestal on the beach, looking to shoot God knows what, and really serving no purpose other than lip-synching to a song by "The Killers" in some sort of arcade, about halfway through. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a porn-star/talk show host who is either trying to blackmail The Rock or wants to be with him. I couldn't tell. I don't think she could. Sean William Scott plays twins. Cheri Oteri and Nora Dunn are crazy "neo Marxists", as well as Amy Poehler. And if three SNL alumni aren't enough, Jon Lovitz plays a racist cop. And if "SNL" isn't the only Saturday late night sketch comedy show on your radar, "Mad TV"'s Will Sasso is also there. Thow in the motley crew of John Larroquette (who's actually pretty good), Mandy Moore, an unrecognizable Kevin Smith, the Highlander as an ice-cream-truck-driving arms rocket launcher salesman, Wallace Shawn in a dress and makeup, Bai Ling, and Janeane Garofalo in two seconds of screen time that amount to her being an extra (granted i think her part was entirely cut out), and you've got a cast that is seriously going to distract, even if you had the most engrossing material.



Not that the material couldn't be interesting. It's got all the elements that could make it completely engaging: blackmail, WW3, cutting off people's fingers, perpetual motion machines, The Rock, fake murder plots, a giant blimp, memory loss, drugs, public beach mounted gun stations, and, yes, time travel. The problem is that there's way too much of it, and a lot of it for no reason. That someone saw this script and said "let's fund that" is remarkable. I really can't understand how someone didn't tell this guy to pare the story down to something that had actual character motivations you could follow. You know when you start a movie and the first title says "Part 4" (the first three parts were released as comics and one wonders how much more coherent they were), that things are going to be confusing. Even more remarkable is the amount of on-camera talent in it. How any of the actors could play these scenes is baffling to me, because I was constantly asking "Who's that? Why is he doing that? What's his purpose in this movie? For what reason is he so important that he's the narrator?", and if I was while I was watching, I guarantee that the actors were asking ten times as many questions. I'd like to have heard Kelly's explanation as to why The Rock always put his fingertips together melodramatically when he was confused. EVERY TIME! And I wonder if The Rock could tell me that. Yes, there's something to be said of making the audience think and figure something out, but like I said before, "I'm not getting fooled again".

There is also something to be said for style over substance, but while it looks good (especially the blu-ray-quality version), and has some strangely unique things to it, most of it just felt like a rip-off of something else. There were multiple David Lynch moments, including a random group of recurring background little people; a strange old asian lady talking some kind of prophetic nonsense; and a recontextualized version of a highly-recognizable song, sung in a foreign language by a woman on a stage. The extremely ensemble and spread-out nature was taken right from P.T. Anderson's Magnolia (as, it seemed, was the strange pacing of a lot of it), which in turn (at least i hear) was supposed to be a Robert Altman homage. Lastly, and most importantly of all, he's completely ripped off of himself. Incomprehensible time travel/ Dimensional rifts; someone getting shot in the left eye; large aircraft falling out of the air; the end of the world; wormholes (the effects work even looks the same). It's all there. It's not that the style is bad; it's just incredibly unique while at the same time, paradoxically all been seen before. (figure that one out).

The theatrical cut is two and a half hours, one half-hour less than the widely-derided Cannes cut of the film, which you can see in parts, in low-quality video on the YouTubes, if you're a masochist. I'd like to think that the missing half-hour explained some of the things I didn't get, but judging from those reviews, I'd be wrong. (Though, from the few seconds of these clips I've seen, at least the narration is different and makes more sense). The movie cost between fifteen and sixteen million dollars to make, and was released in only 67 theatres (even limited releases usually get about 300), for a whopping $270,000 domestic gross. Yes, that's "thousand". After seeing it, one can easily see why. Not that I wouldn't watch it again, mind you, but only with people who have no reservations and are willing to sit through the whole thing. I'd like to see the confusion and anger on their faces, and at the same time their desire to keep going because it can't get any more outrageous. Oh yes. It can. Just for the sake of being outrageous.


Southland Tales takes all the faults of Donnie Darko and magnifies them tenfold. It's not a failure of style, as the film's got that in spades, but it is a complete failure of storytelling. Characters completely do major things for no reason, the order the scenes are in leaves you even more confused, and finally when a strange cabal of characters sits The Rock down to explain the whole story (for no other reason than to explain it to the audience), it makes no logical sense whatsoever. I guess there's at least an attempted explanation.

One star for allowing my friends and I to complain about how none of the story worked, and half a star for the cool scene where Sean William Scott was messing around with a mirror that took about half a second to mimic his action.

So back in 1998, I had an English oral presentation to do in which I'd be selling a made-up product. After racking my brain for hours, my thought process went as follows: "What do teenage girls want? Answer: Guys. Then what do teenage guys want? Answer: Meat. So the way for a girl to get a guy would be by smelling like meat." The presentation went fantasticly. I had charts and prototypes (sort of... bottles of cologne and body-wash with crudely designed logos). For the women who didn't want to have to smell the Bar-B-Fume, I invented the "Scent Remover 5000", which was just a clothespin to put on your nose. I demonstrated how to use the body wash (which for my purposes was just barbecue sauce in a soap dispenser) by smearing it all over my face. And I finished with the tagline, "Ladies, truly the way to a man's heart is now through his stomach."

Two years later, the product was revived as an info-mercial for a TV studio production class I was taking, but this time with way better logo design and a killer intro. I can't attest to the quality of the rest of it. I haven't watched it in years. You see, I can't find the tape with that semester's projects on it. To make matters worse, I can't even find the tape that has the original speech on it. I have most other semesters' projects, and I have the other speech we had to give that year in high school, but as it stands, right now the only tangible evidence of Bar-B-Fume existing is the logo I saved.

What makes this important is that Burger King just started marketing a meat-scented fragrance called "Flame". Here's the website. Granted, it smells like the Whopper and not like barbecue sauce, but it's still enough to have me shouting "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO". I guess I just need to follow through more.



I'm pretty angry.

Yet another Ben Folds-related review. I'm probably not going to write anything about his new album that's coming out this fall, and since this is much more interesting, I'd rather substitute it anyway.

I found this article on RollingStone.com that discusses how this fake album came about, with bits about each song. Basically, he and his bassist and drummer got some studio time in Dublin and wrote six fake tracks, added three songs that are going to be on the album, and gave it to some guys to leak.

Obviously the songs aren't all going to be great, but for a free download that's basically been sanctioned it's not a half bad idea. There's the free media attention that you get from the music magazine, and the rest of the internet music community (google search for "fake album leaks" and you'll almost exclusively get pages about this specific one), which is always good for someone who could possibly be deemed irrelevant and past his prime.

It gets his fan base excited and talking, though that could be a good thing or a bad thing. Not coming out immediately and saying that it's fake leads to discussion about the new sound (judging from the Rolling Stone samples, he's got yet another new sound he's going for. Kudos for changing it up, but like the last time, it's going to take some getting used to). The risk here is that while it does drum up interest in the new album, the fanbase is most unanimously going to be buying the new album anyway, and by putting out sub-par songs you can only hurt your chances that some of these people will be willing to pay for the album when they can just download it (of course, thereby missing the meaning of releasing a fake pirated version in the first place).

This isn't to say that this fake album is all that bad, it's just a little bit below full-album standards. It's about on-par with the EPs that he put out between "Rockin the Suburbs" and "Songs for Silverman". A few of these songs (Brainwascht, Dr. Yang) actually sound like they could be on that first Ben Folds Five album from way back when, which is probably the first time in ages that you could say something like that (whether it's a good thing or a bad thing depends on the person I think).


"Bitch Went Nuts" will probably be a concert staple in the future.



"Cologne" is great, though it's going to be on the album in a modified version.


"Way to Normal" is just strange, not that the bulk of it isn't a perfectly normal song, but it's three distinctly different sections. I especially love the "Flash Gordon"-inspired opening. The other ones besides "Hiroshima" are pretty much forgettable, but it was free so I'm not complaining.

Putting (at least similar versions of) three of the actual songs that are going to be on the album is a smart move as well, tempering the cries of "I downloaded this for nothing", and serving as an actual preview of what's coming. It's basically the same as releasing a free three-song single.... with six bonus tracks.


Releasing a fake version of your album on the internet (with actual fake songs) gets four stars, as it can get you free media attention, the fan base, and maybe even some others, talking about the upcoming album, and serve as a preview of what the album is actually going to be like. The only negative is that since he didn't come out right away and say it was fake, there may have been some negative early reviews. Providing full-disclosure, which he eventually did, mitigates this a bit though. In the end, I think that no matter how mediocre, fans appreciate what is basically a free EP.

Check out these two videos of "The Miz" interviewing the cast and director of "The Dark Knight." I realized that the hype machine for the movie was pretty crazy (even crazier now that it's obvious that the movie could have sold itself on its own merits), but I had no idea they were so desperate to allow a WWE "representative" to interview the stars.

The image of a ridiculous wrestler (title belt draped over his body) interviewing Maggie Gyllenhall is really one for the ages as is her confusion when he insists on playing with the action figures. Likewise his mustache discussion with Gary Oldman of all people hits "awkward" right on the head. (I guess Oldman insisted that he not be interviewed by someone wearing a championship belt from a fixed "sport.")

Also of note is Christian Bale's look over to his assistant as he has no idea how to react to "The Miz." You'd think they could've had an interesting comparison of the injuries accumulated in filming a fight scene (Bale seems intense enough to acquire injuries during filming - it looks like he has marks on his arms from filming Terminator 4 around the time of the interview) to the injuries in wrestling or stories about "working through pain in the name of entertainment" - who knows.

Anyway, enjoy the awkwardness.

Superstar To Superstar: Miz interviews the stars of "The Dark Knight" - Part I.

Superstar To Superstar: Miz interviews the stars of "The Dark Knight" - Part II.



There's a reason that professional wrestling will never be considered a "mainstream" form of entertainment. This is it.

Quick TV Review...

If you don't watch "The Big Bang Theory," give it a chance. CBS Mondays at 8:00 and online. Sure, the premise is ridiculous (two super-nerds move next door to the proverbial sitcom "hot babe" and hilarious antics ensue -- See, they don't know how to relate! She likes shopping, they like Star Trek! Haha.) Well then, the show gets decent ratings (in the 8 million viewers range, compared to the Office's ~6 million), but it gets no respect. TV Squad doesn't provide weekly recaps (though they do write-up each episode of Big Brother). The stereotypical fan of The Office is too cool for "three camera sitcoms," and this one thrives on the "mismatched neighbors" and "nerd" constructs.



All that said, it's actually really funny, and one of the "support" geeks (meaning there are two physicist roommates and two equally geeky friends providing plot "support") is made fun of for being an engineer. I can't remember the joke exactly, but it involved something about calling engineers "the oompa-loompas of science." I haven't felt that way in a while, but in academic circles, I'll give them points for accuracy.

I have noticed that the show has actually moved away from the relationship the "babe" has with her neighbors. She has had little development - she basically sits there and makes simple jokes about her neighbors' lack of social skills or just how far over head their discussion is. I guess at some point the sort-of "head" geek needs to act on his crush he first showed in the pilot (but the show has left it sort of unaddressed since then), but I think that's the lazy way out for the writers. Family Matters did it years ago. I would guess that the writers felt like they needed a girl to be their "normal" foil for the four scientists, but as the show has gone on, they've realized the "geeks" personalities and competitiveness have been able to carry the show.

Now, the show takes an odd line between "same as every other sitcom" and "something new." If they ever fall back on "dorky nice guy chases after girl completely out of his league," we'll know that the writers have given up. The writers have stumbled onto four entertaining, dynamic characters who are unlike their TV geek forebears; they're the center of the show, not just one-note jokes on the periphery of a normal sitcom cast.



CBS has a good thing going. Unlike The Office, there's more potential upside for this show. The Office won't get significantly higher ratings - there's simply a finite number of people into sarcastic, dry humor (not that there's anything wrong with that). I've elaborated on The Office previously, and everything that was true then is still true now, the viewership numbers aren't improved, but they are more vocal (oddly enough, crossing into standard "geek" territory like having a convention). The Big Bang Theory is more straight-forward and, yes, "easier," but those aren't bad things. Tune In.

It's been a while since we've posted... I know.


To put it simply, Cloverfield is effin' scary. I would venture as far as to say that it was the most viscerally affecting movie I've seen since Children of Men. This isn't just a monster movie; it's a movie, that, like The Mist and I Am Legend before it, plays on our greatest unthought-of fear, that something so disastrous could happen that all manner of government protection would be rendered moot. Mass chaos with no way out, and nothing to keep you alive but your own strength of will in circumstances that you'd never imagine yourself in. Cloverfield is so effective at what it sets out to do, reminding us that our modern "civilized" society is one catastrophic event away from being reduced to nothing more than bickering people who've been taken over by primitive "fight or flight" survival instincts.

The way the reviewers have talked about it, I'm sure you've all heard complaints ad nauseum about the "lack of story", the "unlikeablility" of characters, the illogical choices made by certain people, and that it didn't make sense for someone to keep recording through the whole thing. Honestly, I didn't care about any of those things at all, and it's a testament to how involving the movie is that I only once stopped to think about the fact that a camera battery wouldn't last as long it does, and only one other time to think about how long it would take them to walk in a subway tunnel the distance that they said they did. Despite the rich, hipster vibe that the characters exuded, I didn't really find them all that grating, even though it was basically as if Godzilla interrupted an episode of Felicity (with good reason; both the executive producer and the director were co-creators of that show). If they indeed go ahead with a sequel to be shot in the same style, telling a different story from the same night, I would love to see people from the opposite end of the spectrum and how they managed, how different their priorities were, and just how they would differ in their actions in general.

More often than not though, I found myself sitting in my chair, with my mouth wide open, totally enraptured by what was going on. Would I too be able to climb across a roof of a forty-story building that was leaning at a sixty degree angle from the ground, only being held up by the building next to it? Would I have gone back to save someone from a giant killer spider-crab in a pitch black subway tunnel? Why was this monster movie the first one that ever made me question the lengths I would go to survive? As intense as it was, The Mist, never made me feel this way, despite the fact that the subject material was quite similar. In my opinion, it goes to media theorist Marshall McLuhan's statement from his book "Understanding Media:Extensions of Man", that "The Medium is the Message". To put a very long and convoluted series of the oftentimes contradictory thoughts by a raving Canadian lunatic into a simplistic summary, the method by which a message is sent from one person to another is oftentimes more important to the delivery than the message itself. The best example of this is the famed Nixon-Kennedy debate where the majority of radio listeners seemed to think that Nixon had won, while the television viewers, able to see Nixon's body language, sweating, and poor make-up job, were convinced that Kennedy won. On a side note, I always wondered if the people who did that study took into account the differences in politics between the people who listened and people who watched, and if that played into their answers to the question.

How this idea of medium applies to Cloverfield is that we've been programmed with the language of film over the past one-hundred years. Even if we aren't aware of it, we've come to expect a certain syntax. We don't notice it though, until a reverse angle of a shot doesn't match, or an edit isn't smooth. The Mist lives by these rules, and the whole time it tries to invoke this question of "what happens when the world goes to hell?", while also playing it like a 1950s B-horror movie creature feature. Issues with the unfocused nature of the plot set aside, it's the fact that the movie's presented in the language of Film that makes you step back and realize how preposterous the story really is.

Ironically, it's the movie inspired by the crude and incredibly repetitive Godzilla series that has effectively transcended this medium and broken out of the box, leaving genuine lasting emotion. The same way that we've been trained to understand that movies aren't real and that we shouldn't feel anguish when Jason Vorhees, "an unstoppable killing machine", hacks someone up with a machete, we've been trained to recognize video as infallible. Which affects you more: watching an alien pop out of someone's chest killing them in a movie, or watching a video of a skateboarder falling fifty feet to a hard wooden surface and seeing his shoes explode, but then being able to walk off, relatively unharmed? We haven't yet learned to apply the same reality filters to video that we currently do to film, and this is what Cloverfield exploits.

No matter how many times you try to tell yourself this movie isn't real, the medium that the message is delivered in contradicts your thoughts and plays to your instincts. What would happen if you took this movie over to undeveloped parts of Africa (as McLuhan puts it, a place where people have not been "immunized" to this medium) or if someone years down the line saw this without the context to put it in? It's very likely that they might think it actually happened, especially if they've seen the 2001 attack footage. Critics (used literally, not film critics) of the movie have been saying that it exploits September 11th imagery, but I would argue that it successfully uses those scenes we have committed to memory to scare us in a very real way, much more than any slasher flick or monster movie has done before. Maybe it's the fact that I've been spending a large amount of time in the area that was directly affected in the movie. It's more likely that I was less able to discern the difference between the two because when the twin towers fell I was watching it on a movie screen in a film auditorium. Watching Cloverfield, it was hard not to think back to this moment and relate the two, drawing all that emotion out.

One of the most harrowing scenes in the whole thing is the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge, which I've walked over a few times. It may very well be the most frightening destruction of a major landmark ever to be created in a movie, far scarier than anything in the modern classic Independence Day or its red-headed step-brother The Day After Tomorrow, completely because of its realism and the point of view of the person delivering the message.

Here's where the debate rages though. Should a movie be judged on how effective it is at making you feel a certain way, or on the quality of story and characters? If it uses the story and characters as well as technically impressive work to achieve this emotional effect (such as in I Am Legend), then it's obvious that it's a good movie. What happens though, when the two aren't mutually exclusive, when character development and a tight story take second chair to exceptional method and incredibly well-realized scenes? Is it still a good movie? This isn't to say that Cloverfield offered no cohesive story or successful characterizations (the realism in the actors' portrayals " not so much film acting, but moreso being in the situation with a natural intensity that you would expect of someone living out this unthinkable scenario""certainly drives the moments and carries the film as much as the technique), but it's a chase movie in the most basic sense. Something's attacking, nobody knows what it is, but we're running from it. There's really nothing more to it than that, and I would be hard-pressed to say the movie had an effective story to tell, instead opting to give you a few character dynamics and letting them provide the motivation for an hour's worth of recorded events. I've heard completely mixed reviews from friends and film critics in regards to this movie, and it seems as though this question of how to judge is where the basic disagreement lies. For me, the movie was incredibly effective at what it set out to do, and was plenty enjoyable from start to finish (and I loved the epic "Cloverfield Theme" that scored the credits) and that's all I can ask for in a threatrical experience.

One last thing. If in my diatribe about the presentation of the movie I left out the success of The Blair Witch Project, which this movie couldn't have come about without, it was because that was not a successful movie. Where the difference between the two films lies is that while The Blair Witch created a very real found-footage aura, it was overly-long and for the most part, boring and whiny. Think about it. The bulk of the movie was about kids wandering around the woods and arguing with each other. It took on the found-footage medium and while it succeeded at creating a realistic portrayal of what one might look like (as in "normal people are generally boring and spend a lot of time fighting and talking about nothing at all"), it completely failed as entertainment for all but about 15 minutes. It had a few interesting story elements, but needed to pad out its runtime with lame characterizations and nothing really happening. It was also completely visually uninteresting, giving you nothing to fall back on when you got tired of all the complaining going on onscreen. Cloverfield takes a look at the mistakes of this film and basically imports action movie beats into the style in order to fix its problems, never stopping to let us take a breath or think about all the implausibilities. The people behind this movie have brilliantly created a hybrid "found-footage/blockbuster action movie" medium, and by doing this, it skews our perception of its events, leaving our common sense to duke it out with our basic media instincts, and that is why it truly succeeds.



Cloverfield is not only a genre-redefining movie, but a medium redefining movie that uses the language of video and film together to confuse our perception of events. You know it isn't real, but once it wraps you up in its swift pace, that notion leaves your mind, making the horror of the scenario all the more genuine. The entire group of people involved were committed to making you believe that this had really happened, and they succeeded admirably at doing it. Now next time, give us some better characters and a more plausible story arc for them.

While I'm at it....

The Mist

I really wanted to love it, but it completely tears itself in two directions, trying to be a giant killer insect horror movie, and a bold statement on how far our civility falls when we're presented with dire circumstances. Not only that but characters are either underused (Andre Braugher) or completely over-the-top crazy (Marcia Gay Harden), and though Tom Jane gives a strong performance (before he brings it on a little too strong at the end) he can't keep down all my hatred for the main antagonist, the crazy religious nut-job who wants everyone to repent or die. If it's supposed to be allegory, it takes a very ham-fisted approach that really turned me off. Subtlety isn't this movie's strong point. Visually, it's spectacular, but unfortunately a great premise is undermined by story issues, probably stemming from the source material. Much like most of the movie, the end sort of rips off of "Night of the Living Dead" in its painful irony, though it may have one of the best "downer" endings I've seen in a long time.

I Am Legend

Visually, the most realistically drastic transformation of any actual location that I've ever seen put to film, I Am Legend decides to "show" us, and not "tell" us about the collapse of humanity, unlike The Mist . By that I mean that while the previous movie spends its time preaching to you about how everyone will turn on one another to survive, this movie shows the result of that, in a devastatingly real fashion. You are left to create your own account of how it all went down, only giving us brief glimpses into society's fall in flashbacks that serve more to develop Will Smith's character's personal story. It was completely refreshing to see a movie that doesn't give you every detail and leaves some things open to the imagination. Will Smith's character and portrayal are perfectly subtle in the ways that his past, his loneliness, and his obsession with curing the sick have taken its toll on his sanity, but the critics are correct that unfortunately all of this strong set-up seems to devolve with about twenty-five minutes left into some more action-oriented, less suspenseful version of Signs, right down to the "oh, it all makes sense now, God has a plan for me" revelation. I Am Legend is a completely haunting vision of what life would be like if you were the last person on earth, Zombie storylines aside.

Every Tuesday, I'll be blogging about the show "Heroes", for the TV site Magnetic Media Fed. Here's my review of last week's season premiere.



For as weak and underwhelming as last year's finale was, this episode was everything a season premiere should be. It took nearly all of the incredibly good-looking characters from last year and put them into new and intriguing storylines, with mostly success, and it introduced a bunch of new faces into the mix as well. It effectively created plenty of new mysteries and raised lots of questions, but as we've learned in the past, how well they pay off is anyone's guess.

The main problem with this show (besides cramming an insane amount of story into one season) is that it relies too much on setup. Everything is plot setup for a future payoff. Think back to last season. You had about a thousand characters, with the unspoken promise that all these characters would come together in some sort of pre-determined climax, and a battle of immense proportions would ensue. Interestingly enough, the real climax of the season didn't come in the season finale, but in an episode three weeks before it, with events that technically aren't even going to actually happen since the present was changed to fix the future (GREAT SCOTT!). This is not to say that tremendous amounts of setup aren't worth it. Personally, I don't have a problem with being strung along, even if the end is weak, because I enjoy the ride, the guessing at where the plot is going to go, or what the answers all are. You look at LOST, and even though they didn't really start giving much payoff to any storylines until halfway through this past season, I enjoy being thrown all these curveballs, all these mysteries to ponder.

That being said, I do and have always thought that this show throws way too many at one time, and therefore has a hard time hitting a home run with any of them (how's that for a baseball metaphor?). This episode alone had eight storylines running "" nine if you count the Dr. Manhattan-like reformation of previously exploded Peter Petrelli "" and we still haven't even seen the Sanderses, Sylar, and newbies Veronica Mars and Dana Davis yet, not to mention this Bogeyman guy. That's possibly fourteen different ongoing plots running at the same time. In addition, there were also a ton of small mysteries and such that were briefly touched upon that are presumably going to become bigger as they go along. Is it safe to assume that all of these mysteries will get solved in a neat and orderly fashion? Now that all the Heroes, at least the ones from season one, have each other on speed-dial, is it safe to assume that they'll all congregate at the Hall of Justice and figure it all out? As Kensei would probably say, "Not bloody likely". Does it mean that a bit of a letdown at the payoff isn't worth the months of awesome exposition? We'll have to wait and see how it plays out.

For now, I liked more about this episode than I disliked. To clarify, the only thing I didn't really care for at all was the Honduras duo, but I'll get to that later. Even with my criticisms, I think that overall, they've done a great job in moving the characters on from last season, and organically segued them into new storylines with some growth. The only one that didn't really feel natural was the Parkman divorce thing, because of where the two characters were at the end of last year, but I can see how his sense of duty to this girl might be more important. With that in mind, onto what I liked and didn't like.

I really enjoyed the Parkman/Molly stuff. The two are good together onscreen, and are given some of the best material from the episode to work with, especially their dinner scene. In a show as plot-driven as this is, it's good to see some character moments, and I could watch Greg Grunberg all day. His fellow Alias alum, and the second best part of that show, NPH-lookalike David Anders is going to be great in Hiro's "TMNT3"-meets-"The Last Samurai" storyline, even though it's very tough to tell why this story is even being told in the first place and why Hiro can use his powers in old Japan, but can't teleport out of there, or back to when he got in the middle of that fight. Maybe it was because of the eclipse, which lasted all of one minute and served no purpose besides looking cool. It's no big deal, though, because I think this dynamic between the characters/actors could work, and I'm willing to see where it goes, even if it's just some character growth for Hiro. The best "little thing" about the episode was when Hiro took his glasses off when Kensei asked if he was a scientist and then put them back on to make sure he wasn't seeing things when the mask came off. I think I might like the Mohinder storyline this year, as he's basically playing go-between for HRG and Stephen "Werner Brandis. My voice is my passport; verify me." Tobolowsky. It really is a perfect fit for where he should be, and a natural progression from what happened at the end of last season, not to mention that the two more interesting characters/actors will be driving the story. I liked the mystery of the deaths of the elder heroes, even though I question how George Takei knew who hoodie-guy was, even though we never saw who he was. Although, we never knew what Takei's superpower was anyway (seems like a waste), so maybe it was some sort of people identification power. It'll be interesting to see whether this plotline is a tie-in to the Bogeyman story, the Sylar story (probably not), or the "Company" story.

What didn't I like? Claire's re-introduction to high school/HRG's Office Depot job. I get that they're trying to start a new life and be boring and low-key, but could they do it with some more realistic characterizations? I understand that I'm saying this about a superhero show, but it always seems like the normal people who are always the side characters, are the most unrealistic, ironically. Take HRG's porn-star-mustachioed boss; I can't imagine a guy working at a place like that taking his job so seriously. Not only that, but the whole story was kinda a waste of time, really, other than to have something for HRG to do for the episode. There's no reason why it couldn't just be casually mentioned that he has a job somewhere, if that's even necessary. I didn't buy Claire at school either. Maybe it's just because I've always hated the completely unrealistic Hollywood portrayal of high school as this place where there's only 40 people, and the cheerleaders always wear their uniforms to school for some reason and have practice during their gym class that only has one guy in it. Actually, was there more than one guy at the school in total? The only one I saw was the ridiculously-named "West" whose superpowers seem to be showing up at exactly the most convenient time, plot-wise, and super-stalking. I liked the robot vs. alien convo the first time, but thought the call-back was unnecessary. Also, while I'm at it, my high school was on the state "empowerment" (read:worst of the worst, academically) list, and even we knew who Darwin was. The kids at this school must not have watched season one of Heroes, because that's all the narration ever talks about. Another issue about this show is that I can't remember one side character, who has been focused on, even minorly, and who doesn't have a power of some sort. It's getting incredibly easy to guess that someone is going to be superpowered, and that totally blows the reveal, in this case, when he flew at the end. Maybe the twist is that he actually is an alien, and those questions were totally literal. Lastly, that dinner scene was probably the most bizarre, out-of-place segment I've ever seen on the show. It was like someone hired Terry Gilliam to do it, what with the strange tension, weird close-ups, and the mom bringing the dog to the table and talking to it.

The Honduras story I found to be kinda boring and one-note, and considering I just saw that superpower on The 4400 last week, it didn't shock me as much as it was probably supposed to. This is another wait-and-see story.

Nathan's story wasn't really fleshed (HA! I KILL ME) out at all, but one presumes that his perpetual drunkenness, and playoff/get-over-my-breakup beard, along with the Man Without a Face vision will play into future episodes, so I don't really have any opinion on this.

Lastly, the little things that are going to be important in the future: I think they're overextending themselves with this symbology. That insignia is in every freaking shot now, it seems like. Even when Peter shows up at the end, he's wearing a necklace with it on for some reason. It's in Japan; it's on Molly's papers; it's on the pictures of the Elders. This is the sort of plot point (much like Hurley's numbers on LOST) which has never been given a specific meaning, and can just be thrown in in random places to make things seem mysterious, and in doing that, they run the risk never being able to answer it, leaving the audience completely unfulfilled. I already mentioned the Nathan's mirror/scarring shot. Obviously, they keep mentioning this Bogeyman, and it, along with Mohinder's taking down The Company, the Elders' murder mystery, and the Virus story seem to be what will comprise the main drive of the season, much like last year's was to stop someone setting us up the bomb. Hopefully, much like Teri Bauer, Peter's amnesia will go away after three hours time.



Despite all of these criticisms, the show is still easily one of the easiest to watch on TV, as it's generally well-shot, well-paced, well-acted, and has a host of diverse and mostly likeable characters. And thankfully, they gave time to the interesting ones this week and left Nikki and that "My Wife and Kids" kid off. We'll see how long they can walk the fourteen-plotline tightrope for.

Guest Review! Kyle from notthegame.com weighs in on Madden 2008.



Madden 2008 is a bit of an enigma. In the last few years, on the new systems, Madden has been a sub par football game. This is typical for sports games on a new system as it takes game developers a few years to revamp the game engine, as well as improve graphics and features. The third year is typically the year when progress starts to be made. Take the PS2 versions, for example, in 2002 and 2003 the game redefined the way football games look but they didn't play that well, in 2004 the game took on a life of its own, and by year four in 2005, Madden reached its pinnacle. That lines the 360 version up for 2009 as the pinnacle of its success on the new systems.

Madden 2008, however, is a serious step in the right direction. This year, Madden has perfected the game play, improved already stellar animations, and added the features and options we have come to expect from the Madden franchise. If by next year, EA Sports can improve the presentation, get rid of the god awful radio announcer, and add some innovation to franchise mode, the game will reach a level never before seen.

That being said, here is a break down of this years game.

Graphics:

Madden has never really been known for its graphics and animation, but this year that is starting to change. Animations are now much more natural, as players will reach for balls and drag their feet on the sideline. EA Sports uses what it calls a "branching" system. Essentially, this allows the movements to transfer from one to another seamlessly. In 60 frames per second, the game runs beautifully, but since everything is so smooth, the occasional jump in animation between say, standing and falling, seems very out of place. All in all the graphics are very good, next year EA Sports needs to add some more presentation elements.

Sound:

The radio announcer sucks. It sounded like a good idea, but really he is just annoying and makes the game feel outdated (think Joe Montana Sports Talk Football), there is no reason why the biggest selling sports game of all time shouldn't have real announcers. The hits and the players yelling make the on field experience great, but the crowd is just "ok".

Gameplay:

Extremely fun and fast. The game plays with a ferocity that Madden hasn't seen in years. The hits, running, and catches are truly fun to accomplish, and the realism is outstanding. It is one of the few games where neither the defense or the offense dominates. Some games are commanded by defense, while others are controlled by electric offensive players.

The new superstar abilities is well implemented and really gives stars individuality on the field. If you try to tackle Lindell White high, forget about it. For big backs, you need to hit them low utilizing the new Hit-Stick 2.0. It is these little idiosyncrasies that really make the game shine. The gameplay is tight, but it does feel a little tired, as the plays have been the same for years now.

Features:

Franchise mode has some added options, most specifically the ability to relocate your team. Superstar mode has playable camera angles, but during the season there is not much to do other than play games, practice, and bitch to your agent. Its fun, but its not a fulfilling experience as you only get to play the plays with your player, so you don't development an emotional connection to your team.

Overall:

Madden plays great, looks good, and sounds horrible. In all, it is a good game, but there are times where I feel like I'm left wanting more. This years game is shaping up to be the penultimate game, with a little tweaking, next years will reign supreme.

8 K's out of 10. A Brett Myers.

KKKKKKKK

Dan: Uh, 8 "K's" out of 10? A "Brett Myers?" These aren't star ratings! How are we supposed to make sense of this? Let me do some math...

A few weeks ago, I happened upon this article on EW, briefly discussing the merits of cookies designed with illustrations of the best actor and best actress nominees for this year's Academy Awards. I found it a little peculiar, but didn't really think too much about it, until the next day when I walked past the cupcake and cookies store on the main floor of the building I work at. In the window I happened to see the images of the actors, and remembered seeing them on the EW website. I went in to check out the cookies (they've done the same sugar screening thing on the top of the cupcake icing too, which i think is creepier), and found that you could buy them in a sixteen pack box set for a mere 56 dollars. For those of you who aren't hip to the mathematics, that's 3.50 a cookie. You can check out images of the packs here
Now I don't know about you all, but unless it's giant, or some combination of lobster, truffles, filet mignon, and gold, i'm not paying $3.50 for a single cookie. Especially one that's about the same size and type as the Girlscout shortbread cookies ("trefoils" for those of you pagans out there). But then again, I've never eaten cookies that taste like Will Smith.

I get that there are people out there who make a lot more money than I do (especially in NYC), and can afford to purchase extravagant items like this for their Oscar party. I would even argue collectibility, except for the fact that the cookies would totally deteriorate in a not-so-long amount of time. Here's what I don't get: At what point does somebody have so much money that his/her sense of worth gets skewed so that they don't have an issue with buying 16 small cookies for 56 dollars? What makes this whole thing all the more preposterous is that on the Saturday before the awards, they were being sold at half price. Of course, the people there were talking up the "You can buy both sets" deal, but that just goes to show how much the price was jacked up to begin with. And are people really THAT into the Academy Awards? Do people have parties for a five-hour-long, and not particularly entertaining show that lasts until 1 in the a.m? On a Sunday? Is there some prestige earned by purchasing these cookies for your elaborate party? Maybe, but I think that if you went and bought some cheap but vastly more delicious cookies and gift wrapped them yourself, that you'd probably have more. "Ah", you say. "But they wouldn't have Peter O'Toole's mouthwatering face on them". And to this I say, "I think I've just proven my point".



I'll give them one star for the work that went into creating images of people to put on their cookies, and the fact that anything cookie-related can't be all bad. Hey, if they were free, I'd totally eat them. But they wouldn't last long... especially 56 dollars worth of time. That and I don't find it particularly appetizing to eat a cookie with Helen Mirren on it. Now if they were Razzie awards cookies, filled with raspberry jam.... that might be different.