Reviewing Movies

The movie is based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer which I have yet to read. The author adopts the conceit that this is an autobiographical tale in which he returns to the Odessa Region of the Ukraine to seek for information about his roots. Everything about this tale is eccentric. The stilted language derives from the author's own Yiddish Roots and the ideas about English supplied by his Russian Interpreter Alex--a tall awkward lad Jonathan's age. His driver, Alex' Grandfather, is blind employing a "seeing-eye" bitch, a small dog with attitude that ends up sharing the back seat with Jonathan and later his bed. Jonathan is a 'collector' who saves baggies of dirt, even that supplied him for his gramma's grave, her false teeth, photographs, a broach containing a grasshopper in amber, all of it pinned to the wall of his bedroom. The old two-cycle Russian Car they drive with a tour guide sign up top totters along always on the verge of failure but it somehow manages to negotiate superhighways, dirt roads, and paths with the grass growing between the ruts. At one point a young goatherd sticks a small pebble in the valve-stem of the back tire flattening it. There is disbelief all round when their guest announces he is vegetarian--what, no sausage? This movie did not do well at the box office, not ever the fact that it stars Lord of the Ring's Frodo, Elijah Wood, could save it.

This is one in any number of tales related by second and third generation American Jews seeking out their roots in communities purged of their ancestors by the Nazi Holocaust. What most find is either antagonism or guilt for the past amongst those that remain. If you like this movie may I recommend Shem, an independent film with a similar theme that got a cool reception in Art House Circles.

I've now read the entire Hunger Games Trilogy and just watched the movie once more. In the buildup to the movie much was made of Liam Hemsworth; imagine my surprise then when he gets less than 15 minutes of screen time in the entire show, far less than his character does in the book even. In this love-triangle he definitely comes out the loser. He has acquired a certain amount of notoriety by association with the Billy Ray Cyrus, Achy Breaky Heart, family; why he couldn't find a better Aussie sheila is beyond me. At 6'3' he towers 10 inches over the diminutive Josh Hutcherson who plays Katniss' partner Peeta in the games, even Jennifer Lawrence has 2 inches on him. One senses that in casting the reasoning was that Hemsworth's Gale could not be seen as subservient to Lawrence's Katniss. Hutcherson has much more acting experience.

Knowledge of books 2&3 of the series helps inform the movie plot, are we likely to see II & III? As usual the transition to screen does violence to the story as recorded on paper, or my tablet in this case. Neither, mind you, is great literature. The moral implications of placing children in gladiatorial combat are never far from the surface. In selecting Katniss the Capitol gets more than it bargained for and the riot that occurs in District 11 after their 12-year-old Tribute is killed proves that. The trip to and arrival at the Capitol are second only to the Arena and its buildup in screen time. The movie emphasizes the games themselves providing very little back-story. Haymitch is almost an afterthought. So many details such as Prim's cat are glossed over so quickly one wonders why the film-makers even bothered.

I just finished watching two gay bromances. What makes homosexual love stories unique is the fact that they involve two testosterone-driven aggressive male egos. Lovers tiffs can become truly rock em sock em brawls in which the combatants are quite capable of doing one another true harm--think Brokeback Mountain. At some point the genre has to get beyond the star-crossed lovers afraid to come out to one another, the theme has been worked and reworked from virtually every possible angle.

Regarding Billy is a three-hander involving three relatively unknown actors. Billy moves home to be with his mentally challenged younger brother after the death of his parents. His best bud Dean shows up at

his door after a near fatal air force injury and the relationship deepens. The military would seem to be an odd and dangerous choice for a gay male trying to find himself. The direction is lightly handled unfortunately the best acting job is turned in by the younger brother, the lovers seem wooden and awkward way beyond what their parts would seem to call for. The best scenes are of Billy walking the harbour fishing wharf and the three sporting on the beach where there are no lines.

Shelter is again shot in California among surfer dudes. Zack has sacrificed his art scholarship to support his older sister, the reluctant single-mother of 5-year-old Cody. He runs into his best bud Gabe's older brother Shaun, a starving writer rumoured to be nudge, nudge, wink, wink, gay. The two bond shredding the waves at theirfavourite break. The surfing scenes at Malibu Beach are gnarly, Zack's home in San Pedro rather a depressing looking slum. The acting here is good though the storyline seems rather shallow by comparison.

Funny what you can get into when faced with a couple days of poor weather and no crying need to go outside. Gave up on the Series Heroes after Season 2 because at the time I lacked the concentration to follow the plot intricacies. Decided to give Season 3 a try and now I'll probably pick up # 4 and last when the price is right. The storyline involves a large number of people who have differing special abilities who for most of the series are largely not connected. When you have people who can stop time, teleport in time and space and a storyline that jumps from the past to the future to the present it takes a great deal of concentration to keep track of what's going on. Especially with a pair who speak only Japanese. Perhaps sitting down and watching the 6 disks in a short period of time helped. By Season 3 the plot revolves around several agencies hunting down these Heroes because they are misunderstood and perceived as a threat to national security. Some truly are dangerous but in the main it's a matter of persecuting that which we fail to understand. This is not a show to amuse the casual watcher. It takes a great deal of concentration and effort to follow what is going on. Underlying the action and violence are serious moral issues of right and wrong, abuse of power, and civil rights.

I was amused to see Justin Baldoni show up in a couple episodes. Last saw him in Everwood as Amy's secret crush who turned out to be gay. If you're going to hire some beefcake you needs must find an excuse to expose the goods and what better means than a shower scene. Good to see he still hits the gym regularly.

Watching this series I am struck by how little has changed with regard to the protection of environmentally sensitive and significant lands in the century since the first parks were established. Every gain in protected status for parkland must run the gauntlet of economic and political self-interest. Almost no new park gets established without a hard-fought struggle on the part of environmental stakeholders. It makes no difference which side of the border we are talking, ever there seems to be some group or other that feels they should be compensated for the supposed economic loss they feel they will incur. Even native groups are prone to desire short-term jobs over the protection of virgin tracts. It seems to matter little to short-sighted individuals that once clear-cut that forest will yield no benefit to the local community for at least the next 60-100 years but that the tourism associated with a park will generate jobs and support industries in perpetuity. Nor do communities stop to think that the tailings pond a mine leaves behind will pollute heir drinking water long after the company that created it has extracted their profits and ceased to exist. For example, the Giant Gold Mine in Yellowknife contains sufficient arsenic to kill off every human on earth.

In most of Northern Ontario each new provincial park is looked at by most as another sop to rich, over-paid, self-indulgent Southern  city-slickers who want another opportunity to get away from it all. Parks are perceived as yet another tract of land where hunting will be banned, timber and mining will be excluded; and snowmobiling and off-roading will be restricted. The establishment of any new park entails a political battle that involves lobbying against commercial interests that have deeper pockets than the environmentalists. In fact it is often the case that the 'experts' hired to make the case for not protecting a certain area are the very consultants who initially wrote the reports that set out the properties' ecological values.

To date no legislation exists that sets out parameters that say that areas should be protected because of their intrinsic value. In fact vigilance is required to ensure even that protected parks stay protected. The criminal example set by Hech Hetchy stands as a stark reminder of this fact. Water hungry cities still look with avarice at pristine rivers as a source of drinking water and cheap hydro power generation. Mining interests complain at the loss of resources parks represent and lumber interests look with avarice at virgin timber tracts. There has been talk in recent years of oil exploration in arkland that represents the traditional calving grounds of reindeer herds. Migrating animals know no boundaries. Pipelines and highways present obstacles to migration and roads built with taxpayer money make wilderness accessible to yahoos with ATV's, snowmobiles, and off-road vehicles long after the resources they made available are gone. Every logging road extended into a wilderness area serves to bring litter and pollution to another formerly undisturbed habitat.

The concept that parks established for the protection of wildlife habitat are at their best if large tracts of land remain inaccessible to human interference is slow to take hold. Having invested in the procurement of this land it is felt that it should be made available for the public's enjoyment. In fact many of our most popular parks are getting loved to death. That park rangers in entrance kiosks need protection from the exhaust from cars waiting in line to enter parks

just seems wrong. Leasing out the management of parks to private enterprise to save money can be problematic. I bring to mind one such Ontario park where campsites were packed in so tightly I could stand in front of my tent and spit on at least three others beside my own. The fossils the park was established to protect were represented only by

samples on a shelf in the park store.

The fact that those entrusted with managing parks can be their worst enemies cannot be overstated. In an effort to prove through attendance figures that parks are worthwhile these human values can come to overshadow intrinsic values and the needs of wildlife for protection and habitat. Every time a road or trail is extended into an area a block of habitat is broken up. To preserve the safety of users every tree that might become a windfall hazard must be cut. I would cite the example of the elms of Ontario. Some years after Dutch Elm's Disease wiped out the local populations of these trees the Ontario Government and other jurisdictions created a program that paid landowners so much a tree to drop standing snags before they could become a hazard to hunters. Trees at the margins of forests were most accessible and no one verified species. As a result trees of interest to woodpeckers disappeared and with them the nesting possibilities of Eastern Bluebirds which rapidly became nearly extirpated. It was only a concerted effort to put up nest boxes along fence rows that brought them back from the brink.

Large carnivores such as timberwolves and grizzly bears require 100's of square miles of undisturbed wilderness to thrive especially if they are to survive without negative interactions with man and agricultural herds. That kind of pristine wilderness is in short supply anywhere on Earth. Anyone driving in Northern Ontario who stops and walks back among the trees beside the road will quickly discover the forest they thought they saw is a strip of trees left beside the highway for esthetics' sake.

All these issues and more are confronted in this series. Having to watch and rewatch the sponsor announcements can become tedious but what this series does best is put on show what magnificent grandeur would be lost

if we don't protect the National Parks we have and preserve Wilderness for posterity.

Xander has undergone a definite upgrade this season. He's project manager of the construction site that is rebuilding Sunnydale High, quite an elevation in pay grade. Alas, the producers did not get him a personal trainer or place him on a fitness and diet program and his figure suffers.

No mention is made of Buffy's resurrection after being shot dead last season. If like a cat she has nine lives that makes six to go if you're counting. I suppose it wouldn't be Buffy without Buffy. The new school is rebuilt on top of the Hell Mouth where the old school was located and things heat up when Buffy takes her sister to her first year at high school. The new, young, black principal hires Buffy as a special counselor in effect sending her back to school.

Spike still hovers around the dark edges. Willow, after her melt down last season has been taken by Giles to stay at a Wiccan Coven in England, a sort of retreat centre for witches. Her return to Sunnydale is marked by strange occurrences.

As potential slayers gather at Buffy's house for training the estrogen level builds and builds. Tensions mount as Sunnydale heads toward an apocalypse. With the place a ghost town the bad guys get defeated and the town disappears into a cavernous void.

Ho hum. Seems like we've seen it played and replayed a few time too often. And so ends Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It probably hung around a season or two too long.

Noah's Arc was a series about a group of upwardly mobile middle classgay black males from Hollywood who set out to prove that they could be as vapid, vacuous, and self-absorbed as their white counterparts. Thatthey succeeded says nothing positive about the quality of this series which plays up all the worst sorts of stereotypes about gay relationships. Season Two was followed by a wedding movie entitled Jumping the Broom. Had such a series been shot by whites I shudder to think of the reaction in the black community. That a group of blacks did it adds nothing to their sense of identity or pride.

Upon second watching on a larger screen with surround -sound system this series is as intimidating as the first time I watched it. In a big screen theatre setting it would feel like those Japanese Fighters were coming off the screen straight for one. The difference between Band of Brothers and The Pacific is the nature of the war that is being fought. In the Pacific the Marines are invading Islands that are either equatorial jungle or desert coral volcanic archipelagos, both are hot and wet, swamp or mud. And the enemy they confront knows no surrender fighting to the death even when mortally wounded with an intimidating ferocity.

The approach here is much more personal introducing us to the marines' families back home and showing us the home front, especially through John Basilone who is sent back to America as a war hero to help the War Bond Drive. In some ways his experience is not unlike that of the soldiers in Flags of Our Fathers. The personal touch is nowhere as evident as in series episode ten which shows the marines returning home. A distinguished officer is picked up at a small whistle stop by a baby brother he barely recognizes and his father in their beat-up farm truck. The assertive Robert Leckie walks into the editor's office at his old newspaper and demands his job back with a $10/week raise, he gets 7. When his mother catches him spying on the neighbour girl across the street at her prompting he dresses up in his never-worn dress blues and sweeps her off her feet in front of her newly-minted West Point Officer Boyfriend.

Joseph Mazello looks equally as vulnerable here as he did years earlier in The Cure but handles his demons well in his own self-contained way during the war. When he comes home he resolves never to don his uniform again at the price of being ignored by the gals who fawned all over his brothers-in-arms. His father, a doctor who served in WW#1, stands outside his bedroom door and then sits listening to his nightmares and cries knowing that to interfere would betray his son's manhood. When his son breaks down and cries when they set out on a Saturday Morning to go hunting his father comforts him quipping that the county's doves will be thankful. If only all sons had fathers as understanding and empathetic. This scene is more poignant and affecting than any battle aftermath we witness up to that point for it is every bit as much a battle aftermath.

The second tableau was played out when John Basilone's Widow, Lena, his wife of only 7 months who learned of his death on her birthday, visits his Italian family. HIs Brother George in uniform, his mother, and his father who speaks no English. The high emotional point is reached when she presents his father with John's Medal of honour. In typical fashion we learn that even after re-upping after 8 years John failed to sign the paperwork for his GI Insurance denying his family the $10,000--a fortune in 1946.

Back in 1981 TV Shows still ran to twenty-some episodes a season, the audio was in mono, even if the picture was in colour. Hill Street Blues survived and ran for seven seasons because a TV Executive liked it and needed a one-hour show to fill his schedule and ran with it despite rock bottom ratings. Ground-breaking in the portrayal of real-life human beings who happened to be cops rather than bodies who wore uniforms, performed chase scenes and caught bad guys. The show has a large ensemble cast all of whom are fully developed characters. They have lives outside their work as police officers and they perform their duties despite their weaknesses and conflicts on and off the job. The people they deal with live in a disadvantaged neighbourhood and are not portrayed in black and white terms but as human beings faced with difficult circumstances who make bad choices. The actors were given latitude to improvise beyond the lines they were given and the opportunity to influence the arc of their character's storyline to fit their own personalities. The degree to which this show influenced the way later shows were written, shot, and edited for TV cannot be over-stated.

Alas only 2 seasons of the show have come to DVD to date but after marathon sessions glued to the show I discovered the fifty-minute retrospective on the back of disk 3 which shows surviving members of the cast decades later fondly discussing the show and the characters they portrayed intercut with snippets of the scenes they describe which among other things refreshes our memory so that we can match the mature individuals with the youthful actors on screen. This is a show that demands that its viewers pay attention and digest what they are watching. It is not like so many summer blockbusters that show endless actions sequences strung together by a weak plot; here the violence hits home because we get to see how it affects the people involved. Real men do break down and cry. It fully deserves the 10 out of 10 ratings it almost universally receives today.

The first thing I noticed was that in the opening dialogue Merlin is now a young man, not a young boy. When that change occurred I can't be certain. Not inappropriate considering Colin Morgan's 27 years old. He was a New Year's baby if you didn't know. Season 5 begins 3 years later. Uther is dead though his spirit is restless, and Arthur is King and married to Gweneviere. Morgana still haunts the shadows and Modred becomes a knight of Camelot. Arthur's Bane is Arthur himself sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Otherwise little seems to have changed. Merlin still lives in the room off Gaius' Lab, still wears the same clothes he was dressed in walking into Camelot, he's still Arthur's servant, and sorcery is still banned though with Modred on the scene more people are aware and able to practice it.

One of the strengths of the series and BBC Productions in general is the attention to detail as seen in the hazing that goes on when Modred sets out with the knights on his first mission--he is asked to ride seated backward on his saddle and subjected to other ignominities. Such extras add a sense of reality to a show that also features dragons and unicorns.

Morgana inhabits a dark tower not unlike those seen in Lord of the Rings though one suspects this one is CGI produced. This final season has a darker tone. Arthur is king so his carefree days are behind him though we see little of the tedious duties that must attend such a position. Plot-lines centre around attempts to cause the king harm and Morgana appears at the centre of most. The relationship between Merlin and Arthur is still the central theme of the series.

Arthurian Legend has been reworked and re-imagined countless times in the last millennial. This series is yet another in the long line. The mythic bits are all in place though the round table looks rather cramped in Pierrefonds Throne Room. And as Excalibur is cast into the lake at Avalon the Lady's arm rises from the lake to grasp it and we bid farewell to Arthur and Merlin. 

Having read the 6 volumes of the Earthsea Series written by Ursula K. Le Guin I was moved to rewatch the movie version. Just because you're young and foolish and rich, (or middle-age crazy), enough to own a car registered at 320 KM/Hr doesn't make it legal to cruise HWY 400 at 200 MPH. By the same token the fact that you can perform a certain task doesn't necessarily make it wise to do so. Wisdom defines the difference between can and may, what it is possible to do and what one should do. Many's the trial lawyer who has learned the hard way that he/she should never ask a question in open court to which he is not certain he knows the answer. When exercising the use of power one must always be mindful of the full consequences of that act. 

The above mini-sermon forms the basis for the first few books of Earthsea and the movie based upon them. Ged was raised without a mother by his Blacksmith father and has become an impatient, headstrong, impulsive but talented wizard. The movie does violence to the books' storyline; the principal characters are all there but the circumstances of most have been radically changed. Shot in the Gulf Islands of Vancouver's Inside Passage the music evokes a Celtic Background that is hauntingly beautiful. Why anyone would cast Shawn Ashmore in a part and then make him appear so dowdy is beyond me. The make-up department would seem to have been very busy, the gebbath appears to owe much to Munch's The Scream. Notwithstanding the fact that the setting for the story is an island archipelago Ged and Vetch spend an inordinate amount of time sailing, is it because these scenes were cheaper to stage? The scenery and backdrops are good, the acting perfectly serviceable but the screen adaptation eviscerates the very heart from the story leaving a hollow shell that drags on beautifully for nearly 4 hours. 

Once again, read the books; watch the movie if you need a foppish time-waster.