As I am writing this, it is unbelievably hot and there is nothing my roommates and I have been able to do but try and not melt to the couches, and even this seems dubious. We live in an architectural marvel: in the summertime, it creates an oven-type atmosphere that is compounded by the fact that there aren’t enough windows, or at least ones you can open. In the wintertime, it is an icebox where all the heat seems to escape through the windows that don’t open, a fact that is highlighted by the regular breaking down of the furnace.

So it has happened now that the news has ended and Entertainment Tonight has followed right on its heels, and none of us being inclined to get up (we don’t have a remote), this is what we’ve been watching. It is really a horrible show, there is so much slimy glitz and dramatic music. But, among the news of celebrities getting married and such, two items of interest: one, that they’ve begun shooting the next Indiana Jones and that is totally sweet. Two, they’re going to remake ‘Footloose.’ Say what?

Footloose is a movie lodged in my memory because the soundtrack was everywhere plus it was a movie of choice at sleepovers, and so I must have seen it countless times. Dirty Dancing was also a big deal in those days (nobody puts Baby in the corner!). Now, a while ago Hawkeye said something about not messing with the classics (albeit we’re dealing with starkly different kinds of ‘classics’ here) but that’s the same point I’m going to make. Why the heck would you make another Footloose? A movie so lodged in the 80s it doesn’t just exemplify the era, it is iconic of it? Footloose was made into a musical and that is what this movie might be based off of- the musical of the movie. I’ve seen the musical because my university’s drama program put it on one year. It’s totally retarded.

The Kevin Bacon role is going to be taken by a fellow named Zac Efron. I looked him up on youtube and found a bunch of video homages titled things like “Zac Efron from Boy.. to Man” set to O-Town music which leaves me to believe I don’t know who he is because I’m not a screaming 14 year old girl. So he’s starred in this thing called High School Musical and is also appearing in the other new movie-musical-remake-movie Hairspray. Is this guy doing karaoke, but with movies? In any case, Kevin Bacon could pull off the outsider who made dancing cool because he had an edge and nobody had seen him dance before. This new guy is better described as greasy and has all the edge of the Disney padded room from which he sprang.

The thing is, Footloose isn’t even great of a movie, the story is stupid and it got mixed reviews when it came out. But it has stood the test of time, and that is commendable. And people like it. So hopefully this movie, if anything, will remind people of that.

Anyway, I hope they do keep the tractor racing scene. Now here’s some dancing!

Release Date: 2004
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Writing credits: Kevin Smith

Weasel Rating: {>>>>} (Suprisingly Good)

Please note that this review is laden with spoilers, marked like this.

Body count: 1 (pretty high for a movie dubbed as a Romantic Comedy)

One-sentence plot summary: A borderline romantic comedy taking you on an emotional roller-coaster as the bachelor dad and his daughter try to figure out their futures.

Plot Outline: This movie is not to be confused with the movie of the same name, released in 1992. This would be the 2004 release directed by Kevin Smith.

Ollie and Gertrude (Bennifer, respectively) are a somewhat powerful couple living the high life in New York City, and we are treated to a few opening scenes of their lovey-dovey life in the Big Apple. When Gertrude gets pregnant, the movie really begins.

Sadly, Gertrude dies while giving birth to the their later-named-daughter “Gertie,” and after an emotional (and disgusting, at points) downward spiral, father and daughter end up living with Grandpa (Bart) in New Jersey.

The rest of the movie is a tale of the bachelor dad trying to raise his daughter, while trying to come to grips with his own life and how it is changing.

In the end, Ollie ends up getting a new girlfriend (the cute one that works at the video store) and settles down to live a “quiet life” in the suburbs, giving up his fame and power from the big city… All for the sake of his daughter.

What I Thought: Kevin Smith usually doesn’t make movies like this, and in fact he’s been the subject of some mockery for this film. But, for a brief moment, suspend the thought that Kevin was behind this movie. Don’t think “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” Don’t think campy comedy that relies on naught but one-line-jokes in rapid succession.

Think of Kevin Smith for what he truly is - an amazing writer who can take any subject in any context and write a script, well.

This story is a funny, emotionally moving film, written in an excellent manner and it never slows down. You don’t have to deal with the long, drawn-out yawn-inducing scenes. Of course, “emotionally moving” seems to be a bit heavy now that movies like “The Passion” have come out. But you get what I’m trying to say, right?

I’m not a huge fan of this genre of movie, but I have to say that this is likely the best movie in the genre that I have seen. Of course, now it makes me want to have kids, but that’s besides the point.

This movie also has a good message. A moral, if you will… And the tagline says it all. “Forget who you thought you were, and just be who you are.” A lot of people today are striving to be something that they thought they’d like to be, and in the end, they’ll all end up unhappy. I’m a little sick of movies trying to push on us the same old values - “Be kind to your family.” “Respect your elders.” Can’t the moral be original for a change? Well, in this movie, yes.

All in all, the movie was wonderfully acted, had an excellent message that isn’t just another load of tripe, and the score, scenery, casting, and everything else is definitely worthy of the 4 out of 4 I’m giving this movie.

I wouldn’t say it’s so amazing and awesome that everyone must own it - but I did enjoy watching it, and wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

Critical Acclaim: Hoo-boy, I don’t think the critics agree with me. Ebert agrees with most of what I say, but Roeper and hundreds of other critics are all starting to say the same thing: tired, re-hashed, lame-old romantic comedy plot.

What gets me is that this is better than the other romantic comedies out there - it’s just that most people are just looking for Jay.

Interesting Notes:

• The movie’s advertising used to have Jennifer Lopez plastered all over it - I’ve seen posters, commercials, trailers, radio spots - everything had a line from J-Lo. Since the failure of Gigli, however, Kevin Smith had J-Lo removed from all advertising, and her name was even taken off of the “starring:” blurb on the bottom of posters. Kevin didn’t want the movie to be touted as “Just another Bennifer movie.”
• The movie was based off of Kevin Smith’s own experiences as a father.
• Due to Ben Affleck’s work on Daredevil at the same time, production was put on hold in mid-2002, delaying the movie several months.
• Several scenes were shot at Paulsboro High School, and as a “reward” for the excellent time he had filming there, Kevin Smith showed a special screening to the school. The school also enjoyed Kevin’s company, and named the street in front of the school after him - “Kevin Smith Way.”

Lead roles:

• Raquel Castro - Gertie Trinke
• Ben Affleck - Ollie Trinke
• Jennifer Schwalbach Smith - Susan (as Jennifer Schwalbach)
• Jennifer Lopez - Gertrude Steiney
• George Carlin - Bart Trinke
• Stephen Root - Greenie
• Mike Starr - Block
• Jason Biggs - Arthur Brickman

Tagline: Forget about who you thought you were, and just accept who you are.

“What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” - Not Just an R.E.M. song!

The Assualt: On the evening of October 4, 1986, Dan Rather (the famous news anchor) was attacked on the street by William Tager in a seemingly-random and highly publicized event. Contrary to popular belief, Tager had a very good reason for attacking Rather.

Bill Tager is from the future.

Born in the year 2265, Bill Tager is not from our planet - Well, technically it’s still from Earth, but it’s a paralell-dimension-style Earth. On Tagers Earth, the entire planet is under the control of one oppressive government. Dabbling with time travel for almost 150 years, Bill Tager would be the first volunteer to use the machine. Why would he do such a thing? Well, he’s a convicted felon and has been promised a full pardon if he returns safely. Felons in an oppressive world-society aren’t treated all that well.

On Tager’s Earth the Vice-President of the world is a man named Kenneth Burrows, who just happens to look exactly like Dan Rather (I should explain here that most everyone on our earth has a double on all of the other Earths in all of the parallel universes, according to Tager). Before Tager entered the time-travel chamber he was paid a visit by Burrows and was told that he had a transmitter implanted in his brain the night before; if he didn’t return to the present on schedule, he would be electronically reminded to do so.

Tager’s trip was successful; he landed in New York on September 1, 1986. All was going as planned and Tager was preparing to return to his own time when he was mistakenly arrested for putting coins in expired parking meters. After spending 30 days in jail (and staying in our time 14 days longer than he was supposed to) Tager started receiving extremely hostile messages from Vice-President Burrows telling him to return immediately. His first return window had passed and he would have to wait another week to try to return; but there was no possible way to let Burrows know this. The constant reminders from his implant, similar to voices in his head, were driving him insane. He wasn’t even able to sleep at night. If there was any way Tager could find out the precise frequency that was being broadcast to his brain he could possibly override the voices and be able to sleep at night until he was able to make his return trip.

As he walked the streets of New York late on the evening of October 4, 1986, Tager saw a man who he thought was Vice-President Kenneth Burrows. He quickly came to his senses and knew that Burrows would never make the risky trip himself, and instead wagered it must be Burrows’ double on our Earth. However, he thought, what were the chances that out of over 5 billion people on this planet, he would meet the twin of the man who had been sending hostile messages directly to his brain for over two weeks?

Tager called out to the man, “Kenneth! Kenneth Burrows!” To his surprise, the man, whom we know to be Dan Rather, turned to see who was yelling and was knocked to the ground. Tager repeatedly kicked Rather as he lay on the ground and yelled “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” hoping to learn the frequency of the signal being broadcast to his brain. When Rather didn’t respond, Tager realized he had made a terrible mistake and had indeed attacked Burrows’ double on our planet. He fled the scene and later missed his second, and last, chance to return to his home planet.

Years later, in 1994, in an attempt to get in contact with someone who might be able to identify the frequency and put an end to the voices that had haunted him for so many years, Tager shot and killed an NBC technician outside the “Today Show” studios. Today, William Tager sits in a prison in New York, the voices, now an automatic message that replays itself every 20 minutes, still play in his head.

While in prison, Tager wrote various stories and drew odd cartoons depicting his adventure.

The Film: After listening to Tager’s story, the film “12 Monkeys” was born. Written by Chris Marker and directed by Terry Gilliam, it was an excellent movie, IMHO. It also had an excellent cast (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, others). The story is that Futuristic mono-government Earth is suffering from a deadly Virus and convicted felon Bruce Willis “volunteers” to go back in time to prevent the catastrophe. (Sound familiar?)

The Song: WTF,K? is a song performed by R.E.M. on their album Monster. After seeing the assault in the news, Michael Stipe was moved enough by the oddity to write a song about it (”It remains the premier unsolved American surrealist act of the 20th century. It’s a misunderstanding that was scarily random, media hyped and just plain bizarre.” - MS). The lyrics are as follows:

“What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed
I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream
Tunnel vision from the outsider’s screen
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh

I’d studied your cartoons, radio, music, tv, movies, magazines
Richard says “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”
A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh

“What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
Butterfly decal, rearview mirror, dogging the scene
You smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
I never understood, don’t fuck with me, uh-huh

Half of the local Victoria contingent of The Daily Blitz is currently out romping around on Pagz’s birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAGZ), so I don’t think a Saturday article is too likely today.

So I guess that means I get to step in! I think my word of the day is going to be Crank.

Crank is the name of the movie I just saw. Yes, the one with Jason Statham in the thriller/action epic released late 2006.

The premise of the movie is simple: Guns, Explosions, and Action in a minimal plot environment, delivered for Prepubescent Teen Monthly. Yep, this movie has it all - sex in public, nipple shots, gratuitous violence… I’m almost ashamed to say I enjoyed it.

The basic plot is this: Chev (Jason Statham) is a hitman for hire. He is injected with a lethal poison! that will render him dead… within the hour! However, the poison is fended off via adrenaline. Hmmm, how can a physically fit action hero with several guns in his closet keep his steroid levels high?!?! I DON’T KNOW IF HE CAN DO IT!

OH WAIT

MAYBE HE CAN

YES YES HE CAN

THERE HE GOES

YEAAaaaah it actually turns out that an action hero with a ton of explosives and unlimited ammunition CAN keep his adrenaline levels up. Even if the boring parts of the movie (you know, where he stops to go pee and catch his breath, maybe grab some breakfast) are cut and all we see are the best bits, he still had a pretty damn good go at the last hour of his life.

The thing that really wanted to make me to write about this movie, though, was the drug-induced visual effects. I’m a lame ol’ momma’s-white-boy who hasn’t done any hard drugs, barely dabbles in alcohol, and who’s one draw on the mary-jane resulted in what I’ve dubbed the “lava lung.” But this movie really reflected one encounter I did have.

Way-back-when, when I had an emergency appendectomy, I was injected with some hospital-grade heroin. Sure, they don’t call it heroin when you are laying on the hospital bed. It’s just a intravenously injected highly concentrated opiate with an effectiveness and response time far greater than codeine. “You’ll smell gasoline, and a warming of your chest,” the doctor said as they wheeled in all the surgical equipment in a panic. Sure enough, I did - gasoline smell, warm chest, tingling extremities - but the whole worry and panic I was feeling at the time faded away as I became fascinated with the swirling effect that was being performed on the ceiling tiles. The visual escapades I was experiencing made me not give a damn about the foot long needle they were sticking in my abdomen.

I always struggled to describe the visual effect, but this movie nailed it. Throughout the movie, whenever you are shown the lead characters point of view, you experience the same room-throbbing tile-swirling effect. Hell, if you don’t want to sit through the movie, the opening scene contains the effect in it’s greatest potency. Just watch the first five minutes and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

But I digress. The movie? Meh.

A while ago a few of us went down to see the epic new movie, The Departed. Of those of us who went, we had an Action Movie fan, a Girlie Movie Fan, and Intellectual/Artsy Fan, and a Pop Culture fan. Quite the mix of moviegoers; usually one of us detests any given movie we see. This movie was the exception.

Yes, all four of us walked away from this movie with very happy thoughts and nothing but praise. I gave it a 9 out of 10. I heartily recommend everyone see this if they possibly can.

Why was this movie so good?

The Story (spoiler free): One dude joins the police force as a secret agent for the mob. Another guy joins the same police force, and gets assigned to work undercover at the same mob! Watch the action unfold as their worlds collide!

My description sounds cheesy, but the story is brilliant. I’ve never seen it executed before (well… more on that later), it was executed quite well, and the story had me at the edge of my seat the whole way through. I have nothing but praise for this storyline.

The characters were well thought out and designed to play well off of each other. There was even comic relief.

The Cast: The first thing that most people notice about this movie is the all-star cast. Now, I’ve said “all-star cast before” but this is ridiculous. We have Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin. Direction was by Martin Scorsese. On top of that, the movie was produced by Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s company, Plan B. Usually when I see a cast with this depth I get a little nervous, but they really pulled this one off.

I usually hate all the roles DiCaprio plays (though I do respect his acting), but this movie I actually liked both him and his character, the stressed-out undercover cop. Jack Nicholson acted a little goofy but still seemed to me to be a believable mob boss. Matt Damon did a brilliant job of playing the sleazy backstabbing corrupt cop (not a role I’m used to seeing him in), and Baldwin did a great job of playing the classic cop boss.

Wahlberg had a really interesting (and unintentionally funny) character. He was incredibly angry and spent the whole movie being an insult fountain. He played the role of underling-to-Baldwin but DiCaprio’s boss.

The only character that had me confused was Sheen. His character seemed a little … disjointed, almost like he was out of place. More on him later though.

The History: Some people know The Departed as a remake of the Hong Kong series, Infernal Affairs… And those that do, I applaud you. Warner Brothers bought the rights to this movie so goddamn hard, that not a single mention of any of the original trilogy was even mentioned. Hell, I don’t even think there was a single Hong Kongese name in the credits.

In Infernal Affairs, Wahlberg’s and Sheen’s character were rolled into one, which would explain why Sheen seems out of place. The explanation as for why is that Infernal Affairs was a trilogy and The Departed was never designed to be. After you’ve seen the movie you’ll see why the original trilogy-friendly character design was the way it was in the original.

To recap, go see this movie. In theatres if you still can. It has guns, explosions, love, comedy, and swear words. Who could ask for anything more?

Not enough details went into the opening scene and I think you assume too much about the communication protocol - the ships could communicate with each other digitally, confirm idents, then a light may have flashed on the dashboard that said “state intentions now.” Heck, that’s even conceivable in this day and age.

And the droids milling about? Easily explainable. They’re obviously understaffed on the ship and droids do double duty as floor sweepers/mice catchers as well as generic guard duty. I’m sure they have a cargo hold filled with even more droids properly packaged as per your request.

And the C3PO thing! Don’t they say in Episode IV, “Wow, I didn’t think they made you guys anymore”? or maybe that was in the sand crawler… I forget where, but C3PO is an old machine. Easily 20-50 years.

And finally, I’ll refute your car analogy. Cars are evolving pretty rapidly with newer technologies, and cars are relatively new - roundabout 100 years old. Given that units like C3PO might have perfected a few hundred years ago, and design advances would merely be aesthetic - it’s entirely conceivable that a unit would remain visually the same over the course of a thousand years. Given galactic trading and whatnot, I could see products easily sustaining hundreds of years of distribution. Hell, Kryten lasted 3 million years before his replacement showed up.

Maristar, some friends and I went out to the theatre the other night to catch the new M. Night Shama-llama-ding-dong movie, but it turned out we had just missed a showing and the next one was an unbearable number of hours away. Since Clerks II was playing, we decided to pop into that one instead.

This film stars all the familiars from the first Clerks - Randal and Dante, with brief scenes with Jay and Silent Bob thrown in - and my first thoughts were quite guarded. I was asking myself many questions waiting for the ads to end - “How can you make a clerks sequel?” “Is it in black and white too?” “How can you follow up the original awesomeness?”

After sitting through the movie, I have to say that I did laugh a few times and there were some quite awesome parts to it. However, it did not live up to the Clerks legacy. Kevin Smith often proclaims that dialogue is the essence of film, and it’s dialogue that largely made the original movie. This movie did have some funny, but uninspired (non-ground-breaking) talking bits, but it seemed to primarily focus on the plot of the movie itself - a little love triangle that’s going on in the background.

If one recalls the original Clerks movie, there was a series of awesome speaking scenes with no real plot direction. Just two guys working in a QuikStop. This time around there’s a whole touchy-feely warm-fuzzy love story happening, which detracts from valuable dialogue time. One of my favorite parts about the original Clerks was the way Randal rattled off arguments (about Death Stars or Porn Videos or whatever else) in his quick, monotone, unemotional way. In Clerks II, his performance is perpetually being dragged down by his emotional acting to fit with the backplot.

Now for the whole ViewAskewniverse problem. Kevin Smith wanted to write a final script to finish off the whole series (Clerks, MallRats, Chasing Amy, etc.) - which ended up being “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” At the time, I was happy that the universe had ended; there was closure. It upset me that they broke that closure and went and made yet another movie for the series.

Turns out that Kevin Smith decided to make one last movie for two honorable reasons. was doing a 10-year-anniversary commentary on the original Clerks movie, and it reminded him of how much he loved the characters and why he got into movies in the first place. Secondly, he promised Jason Mewes that if he stayed off drugs, he could act as the Jay character one more time. Making this movie was Kevin keeping that promise.

I’m happy I saw this movie; it whisked me back to the good ol’ days when I sat in dark basements watching a bootleg copy of Clerks and snickering at all the sexual jokes. It was a nice stroll through memory lane. I’m glad I saw this movie - I just wish I rented it instead of spending that money on the big screen. As I said in the car ride on the way home - ‘This isn’t the greatest movie in the world; it’s just a tribute.’

Highlight of the movie: When a mom escorted her 12-year-old-ish boy out of the theatre about 25 minutes in.

After the fact, I found some interesting websites about the movie. First up is sort of a running commentary on the making of the film including some troubles they had and people they laughed at in screenings. I found this commentary a whole lot more interesting than the movie itself!

Then there is Kevin Smith’s personal blog where he just rants about things weekly. Shooting down his critics and generally being funny. I suggest it.

Then there is a 10-episode behind-the-scenes making-of video blog! It sound exciting, but to tell the truth I’m so busy reading his blog that I haven’t actually watched it yet.