Fantastic Four: The Complete 1994-1995 Animated Television Series – DVD

August 7, 2005Posted in1990s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Television

Image C- Sound C- Extras D
"The Origin of the Fantastic Four, Part One," "The Origin of the Fantastic Four, Part Two," "Now Comes the Sub-Mariner," "Incursion of the Skrulls," "The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus, Part One," "The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus, Part Two," "Superskrull," "The Mask of Doom, Part One," "The Mask of Doom, Part Two," "The Mask of Doom, Part Three," "Mole Man," "Behold the Negative Zone," "The Silver Surfer and the Return of Galactus," "And a Blind Man Shall Lead Them," "And the Wind Cries Medusa," "The Inhumans Among Us," "Beware the Hidden Land," "Worlds Within Worlds," "To Battle the Living Planet," "Prey of the Black Panther," "When Calls Galactus," "Nightmare in Green," "Behold, a Distant Star," "Hopelessly Impossible," "The Sentry Sinister," "Doomsday"

by Walter Chaw Watching the short-lived "Fantastic Four" animated series from the mid-'90s is a lot like sticking forks in your eyes. It's terribly animated, terribly written, and generally uninspired. The only thing more depressing than hunkering down for a prolonged exposure to this mess is the prospect of actually having to write about it. People who think that what we do isn't a job haven't had the experience of not only being forced to endure something they never would have thought to endure on their own, ever, but also of later having to find the will to write something like an analysis of said experience for the appreciation of the handful of people in the world lonely and pathological enough to start hateful correspondence in defense of it. Think about it: by agreeing to review "Fantastic Four", I'm all but consenting to a conversation with the small tribe of Morlocks who consider this shit gold, mainly because a nine-year-old version of themselves used to like it when they watched it in their footed pyjamas and helmets. So, as a pre-emptive strike (as if it matters): yes, I was a child once; no, I don't hate happiness; no, I don't think that everything has to be Citizen Kane; and, oddly, thinking is not something I believe to be mutually exclusive from pleasure.

Code 46 (2004) – DVD

August 7, 2005Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller

****/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B-
starring Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton, Om Puri, Emil Marwa
screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce
directed by Michael Winterbottom

Code46dvdcapby Walter Chaw Visually, Michael Winterbottom's Code 46 locates its textures somewhere between the supple romanticism of Wong Kar-wai and the grimy lyricism of Lynne Ramsay. (Indeed, one of the film's two cinematographers, Alwin H. Kuchler, is also Ramsay's DP.) It's a science-fiction film in J.G. Ballard's barest definition of the genre–an exploration of time, space, and identity set in the near future in a cloud of languages and ideas–that periodically soars like invention can when it's raised from a foundation of familiar catastrophe and intimate calamity. Flanked in theatres by Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Joseph Ruben's The Forgotten, Code 46 represents one of three 2004 releases to deal with memory-tampering. Curious zeitgeist we find ourselves in, this mad desire to erase the past (and note a recent run of disaster flicks as well) and start anew.

The X Files: Abduction (1993-1995) [Four-Disc Mythology Collection] – DVD

August 3, 2005Posted in1990s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

Image B Sound B Extras D
"Pilot," "Deep Throat," "Fallen Angel," "E.B.E.," "The Erlenmeyer Flask," "Little Green Men," "Duane Barry," "Ascension," "One Breath," "Red Museum," "Colony," "End Game," "Anasazi," "The Blessing Way," "Paper Clip"

Xfilesmyth1by Walter Chaw I used to, like every other dork I know, love "The X Files"–used to look forward to its mythology episodes as though series creator Chris Carter actually had something up his sleeve in terms of a long-term plan for his show, never suspecting until the middle seasons that the emperor was nude. (Desperate, too.) See, "The X Files" is guilty of giving the public what it wanted, forgetting that the public never really knows what it wants (would it have asked for a show about two platonic FBI agents investigating UFOs in the first place?) and that once it gets what it thinks it wants, it tends to stop waiting around for it. "The X Files"' slogan "The Truth is Out There" became something of an early-Nineties pop-cultural mantra akin to "Keep On Truckin'" of the mid-'60s to mid-'70s and "Shit Happens" of Reagan-era id suppression (the biggest surprise of "The X Files" may be how creaky and antiquated it is a mere twelve years out of the can)–and like other shorthands for real thinking, it has a bumper-sticker hookiness to it but not a lot of meat upon closer examination. That kind of lack of substance dooms it to cultural specificity, with camp immortality and flea-market coffee mugs its only eternal footmen. In retrospect, "The X Files" couldn't have had a better tagline.

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) – DVD

July 24, 2005Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, DVD, Family, Musical, Sci-Fi

**/**** Image B+ Sound C
starring Anthony Newley, Mackenzie Astin, Katie Barbieri, "The Garbage Gang"
screenplay by Melinda Palmer & Rod Amateau
directed by Rod Amateau

by Alex Jackson I don't think that there is any getting around the fact that any true connoisseur of trash cinema has to see Rodney Amateau's The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. This was, after all, the feature film debut of Mackenzie Astin, a.k.a. the horny kid from "The Facts of Life", and of Spanish soap star Katie Barbieri. Just as the picture marked the start of a career for some, it marked the end of a career for others. The presence of child star, singer, and Joan Collins's bitchy ex-husband Anthony Newley is a chief selling point in the film's trailer, but he was on his way out. And The Garbage Pail Kids Movie was the last feature from television director Amateau, who seems to have viewed it as his own personal Fanny and Alexander, taking on writing and producing chores in addition to casting other Amateaus (J.P. and Chloe) in minor roles.

The Island (2005)

July 21, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Directors: Michael Bay, Scarlett Johansson, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

*/****
starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Sean Bean
screenplay by Caspian Tredwell-Owen and Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci
directed by Michael Bay

Islandby Walter Chaw What films often get wrong in depicting Satan is that Satan is beautiful. He tells intoxicating lies, was–at least according to Milton–the most stunning of the angels, and, if modern hackery is to be honoured, directs action movies that are kinetic and exciting. The problem of a guy like Michael Bay is that for as close to vermin as the man may be (and stories of his on-set behaviour, especially his treatment of women, are legion and ugly), his films are, at least on the surface, sleek, pulpy, thrill-ride fun. He's defined almost by himself a new way of seeing that has infected lesser technical talents with those same quick scissor-fingers and the attention spans of mayflies. Would that that were all, but this influence has secondary victims in a generation of young male moviegoers, bludgeoned with Bay's rubber mallet into a tacit acceptance of/complicity with Bay's opinion of women (strippers or bimbos or bimbo strippers), race, and how best to feed a movie into a Cuisinart. Still, his latest film, The Island, came with reasons to be hopeful: writers from sometimes-smart (as in not-always-stupid) show "Alias"; stars in Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson; and no Jerry Bruckheimer in sight. But the result isn't good so much as more of the same except without any excitement or novelty. His mask is slipping, and The Island is awkward, dated, and so fuddy-duddy (like in its retarded Logan's Run finale, shot on Bay's trademark Lazy Susan) that I actually caught myself feeling, just for an eye-blink, embarrassed for the guy. That Satan, he's a slippery puck, ain't he.

Steamboy (2004) [Collector’s Gift Set] – DVD

July 17, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Fantasy, Japan, Sci-Fi, Thriller

*/**** Image C+ Sound A Extras B+
screenplay by Sadayuki Murai and Katsuhiro Otomo
directed by Katsuhiro Otomo

Steamboycapby Walter Chaw Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is both the best and the worst thing ever to happen to anime in the United States. For the believer, its Blade Runner cyberpunk ultra-cool was an eye-opener, but to hold the film up as the standard for the medium means that a lot of people looking to it as their introduction believe that anime is a little excitement cordoned off by long stretches of confused, gravid exposition. It tries to condense hundreds of pages of metaphysical text into scientist characters delivering what seem like endless exchanges in high-minded gobbledygook. Akira's popularity obscures the finest examples of the medium, films that manage to balance serious metaphysical musing with actual forward momentum (the two Ghost in the Shell films, for instance); to tell adult tales in affecting ways (Grave of the Fireflies); to redefine genre thriller (Perfect Blue), action (Ninja Scroll), and fantasy (Princess Mononoke); and to present children's fables as artifacts that are as useful for adults as they are for kids (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro). Akira isn't the greatest anime film, just the most well-known, and it's worth speculating how its notoriety may have retarded the maturation of American animation.

Freaked (1993) – DVD

July 11, 2005Posted in1990s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Sci-Fi

**/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C-
starring Alex Winter, Randy Quaid, William Sadler, Megan Ward
screenplay by Tim Burns & Tom Stern & Alex Winter
directed by Tom Stern & Alex Winter

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I suppose it wouldn't take much to turn Freaked into a masterpiece–simply a viewer at the right age, watching it in the right dorm room, smoking the right amount of dope from the right Homer Simpson bong. Alas, those who watch the film straight and out of college are in for a rough ride. Despite the enthusiastic efforts of co-creators Tom Stern and Alex Winter (also the film's star), there's no denying that Freaked is a dog's breakfast of witless wit and sub-Fellini grotesquerie that's more assaulting than amusing. While I can give points for not being a character-building snooze like many a Hollywood comedy, there's simply too little intelligence here for it to become something substantial, leaving you stranded in a dated haze of DayGlo colours and the idea that walking Rastafarian eyeballs is the last word in hilarious.

Fantastic Four (2005)

July 7, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Germany, Sci-Fi, Superhero, Theatrical

½*/****
starring Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans
screenplay by Michael France and Mark Frost, based on the Marvel comic
directed by Tim Story

Fantasticfourby Walter Chaw Terrible. Tim Story's Fantastic Four is just terrible. It's not overly offensive, not sociologically damaging, and the only way it'll pervert your children is by making them stupider. But if you love and respect the cinema as a medium capable of giving life to fantasy and passion to the impossible, the picture's crimes are no less egregious. Fantastic Four is a prime example in every respect of how not to make a movie: it's badly cast, poorly written, clumsily-directed, respects no internal logic, and looks extremely ugly to boot–it resembles those '80s production-line comedies (Police Academy, Hot Dog: The Movie) populated by fashion-plate superheroes instead of fashion-plate stoners. The pacing is so mortally off that it feels like days have been slipped in there in place of minutes, and there's so little rapport among the cast that it often appears as though the actors were filmed separately and later composited in some dork's basement mainframe. You can feel your life being siphoned away by this thing. Did I fail to mention that the special effects are bad? It's a lot of things simultaneously: a nightmare; a joke; a disaster. I dropped my notebook at one point during the screening and spent the rest of the time wondering if I should just leave it there as Fantastic Four finally dribbled to a close. It's bad enough to put you off movies for good.

I, Robot (2004) [Widescreen + All-Access Collector’s Edition] – DVDs

July 3, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Germany, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Will Smith

*/****
DVD – Image A Sound A+ Extras C
DVD (CE) – Image A Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell
screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman
directed by Alex Proyas

by Walter Chaw Alex Proyas makes movies about men who don’t know who they are. The Crow, Dark City, and, to an extent, his underachieving small-band-doesn’t-make-good dramedy Garage Days, feature main characters forced to come to terms with their identities before becoming empowered by them. It would appear, then, that Proyas is the perfect fit for the faux-philosophical science-fiction epic I, Robot, wherein a Luddite detective, played by Will Smith, struggles with his stupid past while an Aryan robot, played by Alan Tudyk, wonders if it’s a person. But instead of the existential grief of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, or even A.I., I, Robot is a mess of spare parts cannibalized from superior models and victimized by bad wiring. Poor Isaac Asimov is sparking in his grave–good thing the movie was only “suggested by a book by,” which at some point simply means “has the same title as.”

George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead (2005)

June 24, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Directors: George A. Romero, France, Horror, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, Zombie

*/****
starring Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Robert Joy
written and directed by George A. Romero

Landofthedeadby Walter Chaw The weakest entry in George Romero's zombie quadrilogy by a long shot, the Toronto-lensed Land of the Dead loses the grit and familiarity of Romero's native Pittsburgh while managing to be every bit as awkward and allegorical as one of his trademark undead. The original concept for Day of the Dead was to have hundreds of trained zombies fighting one another in a post-apocalyptic landscape, a statement–and an eloquent one, as is, or was, Romero's practice–on war being an essential state of man that got scrapped due to budgetary concerns. With the success of films like Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later…, and the remake of Romero's own Dawn of the Dead, though, the primogenitor of the genre was given a respectable budget, the boon of CGI, and relatively free reign to continue a trio of films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead) that besides spawning a legion of Italian knock-offs, were themselves gory, scary, and razor sharp.

The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D (2005)

June 9, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Family, Sci-Fi, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Taylor Lautner, Taylor Dooley, Cayden Boyd, David Arquette
screenplay by Robert Rodriguez and Racer Rodriguez
directed by Robert Rodriguez 

Adventuresofsharkboyby Walter Chaw So it was written by an eight-year-old and shot in the same horrific 3-D process as Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, meaning that if you go see The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D, you're an assclown and there's really no helping you. When he's not being an idiot, director Robert Rodriguez is capable of something as subversive–as arrestingly, magnificently inappropriate–as Sin City, but so much of his time is spent indulging his kids that history may come to see him as the last word on why children shouldn't be the arbiters of culture. Around the age of five, I once sat watching an anthill for eight hours straight, fully entertained; I have no doubt that it wouldn't make for a good movie. And so the legion of folks, critics included, prone to qualifying their takes on children's films by saying that kids will enjoy it are, in fact, not saying a damn thing. Of course your children will enjoy it–given enough flashing lights and farting noises, they'll like a George Lucas movie. For five dollars and a screaming headache less, you could entertain your precious tots with a box of matches and a can of beans.

The Dead Zone: The Complete Second Season (2003) – DVD

June 6, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Stephen King, Television

Image B+ Sound A- Extras A
“Valley of the Shadow,” “Descent,” “Ascent,” “The Outsider,” “Precipitate,” “Scars,” “Misbegotten,” “Cabin Pressure,” “The Man Who Never Was,” “Dead Men Tell Tales,” “Playing God,” “Zion,” “The Storm,” “Plague,” “Deja Voodoo,” “The Hunt,” “The Mountain,” “The Combination,” “Visions”

by Walter Chaw I’ll say this at the get-go, that “The Dead Zone”, the television series, will never completely escape the shadow of David Cronenberg’s enduring feature film adaptation of the Stephen King source novel, and that Anthony Michael Hall is a pale substitute for Christopher Walken, particularly for Walken at what might be the actor’s finest hour. Luckily, Hall has an easier time shedding his John Hughes days, having doubled in size (he’s still trim, just not Farmer Ted), donned a black leather pea coat (mine found the Salvation Army bin about five episodes in–I never, ever want to look like Hall in Vancouver playing Johnny Smith), and acquired a Vulcan arch to his brow that all but screams “serious actor.” Yet there’s something since “The X-Files” that rubs me wrong about most American shows shot north of the 49th Parallel: the genericness of the setting doesn’t scream Anytown, USA so much as “Canada: it’s cheaper and blander up here.” Lacking atmosphere and vibrancy, “The Dead Zone” is an extrapolation, especially in Season Two, of the further adventures of John Smith, a reluctant clairvoyant who can touch any person or thing (including air, which raises its own set of problems/questions) and summon up visions of past or future that inevitably put Johnny in the position of a powder-dipped saint in a Mexican parade.

Mac and Me (1988) – DVD

May 30, 2005Posted in1980s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Coming of Age, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Family, Satire, Sci-Fi, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image D Sound D
starring Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Ward, Katrina Caspary, Lauren Stanley
screenplay by Stewart Raffill and Steve Feke
directed by Stewart Raffill

by Walter Chaw One of the most woeful and dispiriting films ever made, Stewart Raffill's Mac and Me qualifies as a hate crime. It's a feature-length commercial for McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Skittles, and Sears masquerading as a rip-off of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ("MAC" = "Mysterious Alien Creature") that, what with Alan Silvestri's awful score, indicates that it's also ripping off Back to the Future during a key scene in which our wheelchair-bound hero, Eric (Jade Calegory), grabs the fender of a passing car and hitches his way to relative safety. Chips it might earn for casting an actual disabled kid in the role are cashed in when it's revealed that Eric's wrinkled-flesh puppet alien pal can only be sustained on this island earth by a combination of Coke and Skittles. It's enough to put you off not only junk food, but movies altogether. There's a place in Hell reserved for the clowns who peddle stuff like this (Ronald McDonald makes a cameo in the picture, and an even longer one in the trailer)–the movie is so venal and grasping in its conception, so astonishingly inept in its execution, that upon death, Raffill and writing partner Steve Feke should have this piece of crap projected onto their caskets to counter the pain of their passing. I'm serious. Mac and Me lowers the conversation for everyone, to the extent that it's almost a satire of greed and corporate malfeasance. Show it in a double-bill with Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for an example of what corporations think they can get away with–and what they do.

Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003-2004) [Volume One] – DVD

May 20, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, Family, Sci-Fi, Star Wars, Television

**½/**** Image A Sound B Extras C-

by Walter Chaw Something tickled the back of my brain as I was watching Genndy Tartakovsky's "Star Wars: Clone Wars", a series comprising twenty vignettes clocking in at roughly three-minutes apiece (save the last, which runs close to eight minutes) meant to bridge George Lucas's Episode II and Episode III: I realized that even though the action rises and falls twenty-three times, that no characters are developed beyond a sketch and a pose, and that the show is essentially the connective tissue between programs on the Cartoon Network, "Star Wars: Clone Wars" is every bit as good as–and sometimes better than–Lucas's current trilogy. (Lucas himself recently admitted that his prequels are approximately 40% substance and 60% filler. I think he was being generous–the first two films combined with the first half of the third film have enough substance for maybe one passable 90-minute feature.) But with most of the sport taken out of pounding on mad King George for twenty-some years now (starting with Ewoks and letting Lando live and ending with midichlorians and the Jedi turning out to be pantywaists and hypocritical assholes), all that's really left to say is that Tartakovsky's "Star Wars: Clone Wars" is what it is. And what is that, exactly? Twenty three-minute vignettes from the creator of "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack" that, set in the new Star Wars universe, come off a lot like a "Dexter's Laboratory" and "Samurai Jack" hybrid.

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

May 18, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Revenge, Sci-Fi, Star Wars, Theatrical

**/****
starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid
written and directed by George Lucas

Episodeiiiby Walter Chaw SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. It's not quite as bad as Episode I or Episode II, which is to say that it's not uniquely bad, just run-of-the-mill bad. The dialogue, ghost-written by Tom Stoppard, isn't always unspeakable, and the performances of Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman aren't nearly as wooden as they were the last time around. (Well, Christensen's isn't, anyway.) This lack of cheese presents its own set of problems, however, as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (hereafter Episode III) is a lot like watching paint dry, with the manic light shows coming off at best as some slack particulate hustle. The picture's action sequences are chaotic, for sure, but just because everything is moving doesn't mean it's exciting, too. Though George Lucas may be a pretty good technician, he's still not a good director, and the pacing of Episode III is mortally, if predictably, off. Perhaps there's comfort in consistency.

xXx: State of the Union (2005)

April 29, 2005Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Ice Cube, Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss
screenplay by Simon Kinberg
directed by Lee Tamahori

Xxxstateoftheunionby Walter Chaw Just a total waste of life no matter how you slice it, xXx: State of the Union is cinema as penance. Forget the rosary–watch this colossal turdbath a couple of times and short of actually being responsible for it, you're instantly absolved of most any sin. The screenplay, by the suddenly-ubiquitous Simon Kinberg (also the scribe behind the upcoming X-Men 3, Fantastic Four, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith–let me go on record first saying that this film does not bode well), is a foul compost of flaccid catchphrases and boggle-eyed declarations, squeezed like old cheese between action sequences so poorly conceptualized and executed that not only is it impossible to ever tell for a moment what the hell's going on, but the film also actually reminded me in its over-processed way of outtakes from Tron. Ice Cube is awful, Samuel L. Jackson (who used to claim he would never work with a rapper) is awful, Scott Speedman is awful, Sunny Mabrey is awful–everyone is awful. Everything about xXx: State of the Union is awful, from its stupid prologue on some dairy farm to its stupid epilogue, in which another sequel is set up in as many words. It's possible to see the entire exercise as a postmodern smirk, but being aware that you're stupid doesn't always make you meta–sometimes it just means you're tragically self-aware and no less stupid.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

April 28, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, UK

**/****
starring Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Martin Freeman
screenplay by Douglas Adams and Karey Kirkpatrick, based on the novel by Douglas Adams
directed by Garth Jennings

Hitchhikersguideby Walter Chaw Back in 1992, I saw Douglas Adams speak at the Boulder Bookstore. He was there to stump the fifth book in his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy," Mostly Harmless, and he read from it a passage involving Marvin the robot and an overzealous security droid. When the time came for him to sign things, I slid my first edition of the first book under his pen for his illegible scrawl and asked him what the status was of the (even then) long-awaited film version of one of the most beloved surrealist, deconstructionalist texts in modern science-fiction. "Soon, soon," he said. Now, a mere twenty-six years after the 1979 publication of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, video director Garth Jennings finds himself at the helm of what is, in some circles, a film more hotly anticipated than the upcoming conclusion to George Lucas' little space opera. And The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy takes elements of the late Adams' long-circulated screenplay (punched up in its third act–fatally, I think–by Karey Kirkpatrick), but coasts along for at least an hour on the irreverence, the flat brilliance, of its source material. It brings a tear to the eye and a flutter to the heart while it lasts.

The Lone Gunmen: The Complete Series (2001) – DVD

April 19, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Canada, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, Thriller

Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
"Pilot," "Bond, Jimmy Bond," "Eine Kleine Frohike," "Like Water for Octane," "Three Men and a Smoking Diaper," "Madam, I'm Adam," "Planet of the Frohikes," "Maximum Byers," "Diagnosis: Jimmy," "Tango De Los Pistoleros," "The Lying Game," "The "Cap'n Toby" Show," "All About Yves"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover To paraphrase your high school guidance counsellor: respect for yourself is essential for respect from your audience. Let's say you have a show called "The Lone Gunmen". It's a spin-off from the successful (and successfully self-serious) "The X Files", which took somewhat far-fetched material and sold it, most of the time, with a straight face and a stern look. It deals with much the same subject matter but features nerdy misfits John Byers (Bruce Harwood), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood), and Richard Langly (Dean Haglund), to whom you're somehow unwilling to commit total sympathy. So you make excuses by mocking them, as if apologizing for their unworthiness of the attention–which raises the question of why you're bothering in the first place. Complete self-deprecation usually results in discomfort, shunning, and, in this case, premature cancellation.

Incident at Loch Ness (2004) – DVD

April 13, 2005Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Horror, Mystery, Pseudo-Documentary, Sci-Fi, Thriller

**½/**** Image A Sound B Extras A
directed by Zak Penn

by Walter Chaw You could say that Werner Herzog has been hunting monsters for the whole of his career. (Chasing demons: even better.) Find in that the reason the satirical Incident at Loch Ness works to the extent that it does. The picture locates the mad German on the Scottish loch, where he's ostensibly shooting a documentary on Nessie under the auspices of Hollywood wunderkind Zak Penn while a film crew, led by veteran cinematographer John Bailey, shoots Herzog for a piece on the director's method called "Herzog in Wonderland." It's a fake documentary about the making of a fake documentary, in other words, commenting at several points about authenticity in a way that pings off the whimsical existentialism of Being John Malkovich at its best–and off the sudden shift into darkness of the same at its worst. Mocking the capricious ignorance of Hollywood moneymen is always sporting, I guess, and as Penn simultaneously acts the monster (he insists on the crew wearing matching jumpsuits) and surreptitiously slips a plastic monster-bot into the wake, the picture can be satisfying in a familiar way. But by this point in our progressive cynicism, anyone watching the film–and, more particularly, anyone at all familiar with Herzog–could say the same things regarding the venality of the blockbuster mentality with less effort. This doesn't mean that the film's closing shot of a sunglasses-wearing Herzog walking in front of his team in a Michael Bay heroic slow-motion is any less funny, but it does add up to a generally empty, if fitfully amusing, experience.

What the Bleep Do We Know!? (2004) – DVD

March 30, 2005Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, Mystery, Sci-Fi

What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?
*/**** Image B+ Sound A Extras D
starring Marlee Matlin, Elaine Hendrix, Robert Bailey Jr., John Ross Bowie
screenplay by William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Matthew Hoffman
directed by William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Watching a bunch of young actresses knock themselves out with their Method masochism, Pauline Kael astutely noted how they “tried to find the motivation [where] actresses of an earlier generation would have merely provided it.” Little did she know that you could extend the exercise to philosophy: in its dogged attempt to confer genius on commonplace ideas, What the Bleep Do We Know!? proves that Method metaphysics is eminently possible. What the film doesn’t do is give us any point of view outside our own noggins, oversimplifying human experience as much as it mystifies it and dressing up self-involvement as enlightenment. It’s a movie that can’t let you see the man behind the curtain, lest you discover that he’s actually Dr. Phil.